The Murderer Next Door

by Rafael Yglesias

  “Hello, Molly.” Ben sounded relaxed and warm. “I’m glad you’re there. How’s Naomi?”

  “Scared. She wants to see you.”

  “I’m gonna be out in a few hours. I’m arranging bail. Could you take her to school this morning? I think it’d be a good idea for her to be there, with her friends.”

  “Sure, I’ll be happy to.” My voice came out as gravel, in small rough pieces.

  “Also, I don’t feel like picking her up. I can’t face all the out-raged Riverside mothers.”

  “No problem. I’ll bring her home.”

  “Thanks. Is she up?”

  “I’ll get her.”

  Naomi showed little emotion at hearing her father’s voice, none of her middle-of-the-night longing. “You’re coming home tonight?” was her first remark. Then softly, “Yes. It was okay. I’m okay, Daddy.” Finally, almost a whisper: “I love you too.” She shoved the receiver at me. “He wants to talk to you.”

  Ben’s voice in my ear was again calm and heartfelt, confident that we were good, good friends. “Thanks, Molly, I really appreciate it.”

  “No problem,” I said. The temptation to add a soothing or encouraging remark, if only as a civility, was hard to resist: a willful pull against a natural tide. I had to remind myself that Ben was more than a man I disliked—he was evil. “Take—” I started to sign off, about to say, “Take care,” and then caught myself.

  He picked it up, however, saying, “Thanks. You too. See you at five.”

  I burned for hours. I told myself: No, no you are fooling him, don’t mind his little tricks. You are playing for something more important.

  I used the firm’s car service and took Naomi home to get her into fresh clothes for Riverside. If her school uniform (white blouse, navy blue jumper) could ever be considered to look fresh. Why do Episcopalians want girls to appear so formless and asexual? The boys in their blue corduroys and white turtlenecks had a devilish solidity, handsome and mischievous even with their shirttails flapped out, the wales on their knees worn flat, and their collars wilted and soiled. The poor girls looked so drab—blue teardrops with pale faces. The weather was cold enough to chill Naomi’s exposed legs; I should have insisted on tights when she declined them. She looked all the more pathetic in the institutional outfit, an orphaned child awaiting the state’s whimsy.

  While changing at home, obviously relieved to be back among her things, Naomi had been chatty. She told me that day’s schedule—Thursday—was her favorite because they had recess and gym and dance. “And then we have computer! We’ve been writing stories in computer,” she said happily. “I’m going to finish mine today.” But on her way to school she was silent. Was she worried about how she would be received? Or perhaps what she should say to her friends? I wondered myself. Should I advise her? And if I should, what?

  Her friend, the redheaded Sarah, saw us coming and ran to meet her. “Naomi, guess what! Guess what!”

  “What?”

  “Guess what!”

  “What, already! What is it?”

  “My grandma is gonna take me skiing in Europe!”

  “So what,” Naomi said with thorough disdain, no envy. “I don’t like to ski.”

  Sarah’s mother, a big friendly, ungainly woman—rather like a large cheerful dog—had reached us. “I’m so glad to see you”—she nodded at Naomi—“with her.” Her voice was deep and loud, a resonant bark.

  “I’m glad to be with Naomi,” I said casually, and tried to remember the woman’s name. We had been introduced a few times. Wendy often gossiped about her, and I should know it. I started up the stairs to the school doors, following the girls.

  Naomi stopped me with her hand. “Where are you going?”

  “Yeah,” Sarah shouted. “We go in ourselves.”

  “Very grown-up,” Sarah’s mother said. “Bye.” She bent down, her russet hair meshing briefly with Sarah’s scalding red. “Bye,” Naomi said to me, holding up her hand in a brief wave and going in. She seemed to have deliberately chosen to be so casual and unemotional. Wendy always knew why her daughter did what she did, or at least was convinced she understood. I should know—better than most—what a girl in Naomi’s circumstance might feel, but I was confused.

  As soon as the doors shut, Sarah’s mother turned to me and woofed in a rush: “Do you have her? I mean, we heard she was in some kind of child—”

  “A shelter. One night.”

  “Hello!” Another woman I had met before, this one also broad shouldered and tall, but topped with a petite head of blond curls, came up holding the hand of Naomi’s best best friend (Sarah was only a best friend, Naomi often explained), a haughty solemn-faced girl named Holly. “Is Naomi here today?” the mother asked me hopefully. I couldn’t remember her name, either, although I thought it might be Jane.

  I nodded.

  “Yay!” Holly’s mother said. She lifted Holly’s hand in the air, declaring her a champion in the ring.

  “Can she come to my house after school?” Holly asked me, not celebrating. “I have to talk to her privately,” she said gravely.

  The two mothers exchanged looks. Holly’s mom beamed proudly at her daughter’s precocious dignity; Sarah’s mom rolled her eyes mockingly. “I’m sorry,” I told her, “I promised Naomi’s father I’d take her home right after school.” I was going to add that we could arrange something for tomorrow, but because of the expression on the two mothers’ faces, I didn’t. Both women stared at me, parodies of shock: mouths open, eyes glazed, regarding me with horror.

  “What are you talking about?” little Holly said, breaking the silence. “Her daddy’s in jail.”

  Holly’s remark got Sarah’s mother unstuck from gazing at me with amazement. She glared at Holly and then at Holly’s mother. “You told her!” Sarah’s mom barked. “But we agreed at the meeting—”

  “She saw it on television!” Holly’s mom defended herself.

  “And I can read newspapers, you know,” Holly pointed out, her tone reeking with contempt.

  “Go on in, Holly,” her mother told her.

  I decided that fleeing was my best option and so I bluffed a cheerful good-bye, turned, and made for home. I had phoned Stefan from Queens and asked him to wait for me. I was functioning on less than four hours sleep out of the past forty-eight and the nights before that had not been ideally restful either. I was not equipped to handle precarious conversations.

  “Wait!” Holly’s mother pursued me. She was by my side in seconds. “He’s free? She’s going back to him?”

  “He’ll be getting out on bail today.” I kept on, but she maintained my pace, walking sideways. Sarah’s mother was on my other side, lumbering, but equally persistent.

  “You’re seeing him? You’re—”

  “I don’t have a choice. If I want to be with—” This was saying too much, relying on the discretion of people I hardly knew. There were no television crews and reporters at the school entrance (that surprised me), but there probably would be in the course of events. If I confided something to these mothers which they repeated and it reached print for Ben to see .…I simply could not take the risk of explaining my actions. I moved on.

  “Wait!” Holly’s mother grabbed hold of my elbow and I had to stop. We were only twenty steps beyond the school doors. All around there were mothers paused, watching. For a New York street, the quiet was extraordinary. I fancied they could all hear. “Wendy was a friend of mine,” this virtual stranger said, “and you were much closer to her—how could you even look at him! Don’t tell me you think he didn’t do it?”

  “I have to think of Naomi.” I rushed oft, in a trot. Her question and her tone infuriated me. She was hardly a real friend of Wendy’s. And I’ve never believed expressions of delicate sensibilities, or the ease with which people feel absolute moral revulsion. How does all the evil in the world happen if merely looking at a murderer is unthinkable? What was more important, my fine feelings or Naomi’s life?

  That’s
what I told Stefan, solemn chipmunk Stefan, seated in our bentwood kitchen chair, arms folded, bearded chin lowered gravely to his chest. I recounted my conversation with Holly’s mother and ranted about her question. That was my way of explaining to Stefan, preparing him.

  He knew it. “So what you’re saying is that you have to deal with Ben. That there’s no option.”

  “If I fight him, he’ll have Naomi until he’s found guilty and then he’ll give her to Harriet. If I play along, I can persuade him to give me custody. Once he’s in prison, I won’t have to deal with him.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. That won’t be the end of it.” Stefan didn’t smile, his tone was hard. “You’ll have to bring her for visits, you’ll have to help him petition for parole. It’ll never end. Are you prepared for that? I don’t think you are. I think you’re upset, I think you’re exhausted; I don’t think you know what you’re letting yourself in for. I don’t believe that you can hide your real feelings from him. Sooner or later, what he’s done to Wendy will hit you and you’ll feel compelled to call him to account. Otherwise you will hate yourself. And then the sham will have been for nothing.” Stefan waited. He let this depressing and reasonable vision of the future hover in my vision. He got up from the chair and embraced me. His thin arms squeezed me tight and he arched back to look me in the face, eyebrows up, bright teeth flashing in the curved frame of his black beard. “Fight him in the courts. You don’t know you’ll lose. And his cousin, Harriet, she may not be terrific, but she doesn’t sound abusive—”

  “She’s a nut! She’ll make the whole thing into a circus, with Naomi as the main attraction.” His arms around me were bothersome. I pushed out of them. He was going to be a problem. He was part of the past, of the lost dream—an easy life.

  “I want you to get some rest,” Stefan said. He wagged a finger at me. “That is my professional opinion: you need sleep.” He glanced at his watch. “The memorial is at one-thirty. So there’s plenty of time for a nap.”

  I agreed to rest, if only to avoid a discussion of whether I would go. Stefan preceded me into the bedroom, pulled down the blackout shades, and drew the curtains. We were in our cave, our safe place. He asked if I wanted him to lie with me until I fell asleep. “Yes,” I said, regretting that I had pulled away in the kitchen. While my burning eyes cooled on the pillow, I clutched him, my transitional object, my comforting animal, and cried, not for Wendy, or Naomi, or even myself, but for Stefan and me.

  “WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” HE DEMANDED.

  I had tried to sneak out of the apartment, tiptoeing past his study after taking my shower and dressing quietly. I thought I’d take a drive (the armor of a car and the anonymity of the road has always soothed me), but Stefan caught me in the foyer.

  “I can’t go.”

  “Molly.” Stefan pressed his hands together and brought them to his lips, solemn, almost a priest. “You have to say good-bye to Wendy. You have to acknowledge the passing of people you love.”

  “It’s too soon,” I pleaded.

  “I’ll be with you.”

  I let him coax me down into a taxi. I was ashamed of my fear, too cowardly to say no and yet too frightened to be glad that I was being dragged to it.

  At the sight of the chapel’s dark awning, and the mob of familiar faces, most of them alert to my arrival, eager to talk to me, I felt sick.

  I was only two steps out of the cab when a man hugged me and said, “What a terrible loss.” I hadn’t seen him in years. He was a sociologist Wendy had met in school; she had gone out with him a few times. He wasn’t ready for commitment, he told Wendy after their first date. Wendy had reported he was lousy in bed.…Why am I poking fun at their mourning? It’s just that I hate false sentimentality. He, and the other awkward mumbling sentinels who stood behind him, all claimed to be shattered, to have loved and cherished her. I couldn’t help thinking that if Wendy had lived another five years she would have discarded them, as she had discarded the set of people she knew in her twenties. I was the one who had suffered a loss that could never be regained.

  Amelia Waxman was next: she came running with her arms up, arched in the air, grappling hooks out to capture me. Her mass of blond hair, permed to within a follicle of its life, covered my face. Her perfume made me sneeze on her shoulder. She didn’t notice, she was talking the whole time.

  “I can’t bear this, Molly. I can’t believe it’s happening. Poor Wendy. I can’t think about it. I don’t know how to go on! I can’t believe it’s happening!”

  I pushed out of her arms, not shoving, but hard enough for Amelia’s eyes to widen and stare at me, fearful and apologetic.

  “It’s happened!” I insisted at her.

  “Molly…,” Stefan commented, a gentle rebuke.

  Amelia nodded at me and her face wrinkled up. “I know,” she gasped the words just ahead of a convulsion of sobs. She bowed her fuzzy head of blond hair and her arms hung loosely. They patted her, the other women from Wendy’s office, and the sociologist, and probably everyone else wanted to; they formed a chain of mourning and the more Amelia cried and they stroked her, the less I felt like joining them.

  “Let’s go in,” I said to Stefan. He put his arm around my shoulder as we entered. I shook him off.

  So many people die in a city that there is more than one farewell being said in each funeral home. A soft-spoken young man directed us to the Sonnenfeld memorial, one of three currently showing. The room was painted brown, all the way up to its double-height tin ceiling, and very large, so big I wondered if it would be filled. To my shock, it was jammed, some even had to stand at the back. Who were they? Had the old SoHo crowd, now unrecognizably middle-aged, come? Were they from her college life, another lapsed past of hers? Was it morbid New Yorkers, murder victim groupies?

  I had been too horrified to go to my mother’s funeral and I had to leave Naomi Perlman’s memorial after taking only one step inside, but Amelia’s histrionics and the mass of strangers made this event seem silly and weird. I twisted on the bench and watched the door, studying the strange faces. Most appeared excited, talking in fast whispers, thrilled to be present. An occasional silent pale mourner went by, usually female, always (in the instances I knew them) a do-gooder like Wendy, thoughtful and empathetic. But their hollow-cheeked looks might be narcissistic fear as much as they were grief. I wasn’t moved by them—only the sight of little Naomi suffering an inconsolable loss could touch me. Wendy’s body was absent. Without the presence of living grief and physical death, I felt nothing. None of the pangs I was scared of.

  Stefan cried during the service and although I didn’t, I could tell he was pleased with me, satisfied by my attendance. He held my hand while Amelia talked, and while the sociologist talked, and while a rabbi who knew nothing about Wendy, hadn’t even met her, talked. No one said anything real. They listed her good deeds and they sounded banal. They told of how valuable Wendy’s friendship was and made themselves sound self-important: “Without dear Wendy I never could have won the Nobel prize.” And most of all they enjoyed themselves. They were sad, but they were in public.

  Outside, in order for Stefan to help me find a cab to get downtown, we had to elbow past two television camera crews. From the other side of Columbus Avenue, just as I got into a taxi, I noticed that Amelia and the sociologist had stopped in order to be interviewed.

  I PICKED UP NAOMI FROM THE RIVERSIDE SCHOOL AT three, ignoring the curious looks and hellos, and took her home.

  Ben greeted us in a bathrobe, still wet from a shower. “Honey,” he said to Naomi, embracing her. His long, floppy terry cloth arms completely cloaked her head. After a moment he whispered, “Thank you, Molly. I’ll never forget your kindness.”

  Naomi’s face was pressed into his groin area. I couldn’t help thinking about the fact that he was naked under the robe, that Naomi shouldn’t have only fabric between her face and his private parts. But the contact seemed obscene because of the killing, I reasoned. He was still her father, not a strang
e man. I followed Naomi into the apartment and thus broke the promise I had made to Stefan before going to pick up Naomi, namely, that I would leave them alone together for the evening.

  Ben moved back as I entered. Naomi clung to him. “Honey,” he murmured to his daughter, rubbing her hair with his long delicate fingers.

  “My daddy,” she said, her voice sweet from her open trust and absolute love. It was shattering to witness.

  “Did you try to call?” Ben asked. “I’ve kept the phone off the hook. Been in the shower for hours. Trying to get the smell out. I can’t.”

  “Smell?”

  “Of being in…there. Not the smell, the feeling. I don’t know how I can take this.” His small red lips trembled and his nude eyes glistened. He wasn’t wearing his glasses. Without them he looked bewildered.

  I indicated Naomi with my eyes, signaling him to calm down in front of her. “Why don’t you get dressed,” I offered. “I’ll make us some tea.”

  I turned on all the lights, opened the windows a crack, and brewed tea while Ben dressed and Naomi completed her two sheets of homework. She accomplished that in minutes. Of course her speed reminded me of Wendy’s pride in her, the countless times she…well, I’ve told you before.

  Ben talked avidly to Naomi, asking detailed questions about her school day. He knew the routine, that on Thursday she had computer class and that she was due to finish her story. At his urging she took a printout from her backpack and read it to us. I’m not sure what I expected, but I was surprised there was no reference to her mother or to recent events.

  Ben and Naomi chatted happily after that, sipping tea, munching on Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies, Naomi filling him in about the shelter and Harriet and her day at school without emotion, as if it were all part of some camp experience or a special day trip. After a while I tuned out Naomi’s talk, sadder by the minute, missing Wendy more and more, angry at Naomi for being pleasant to Ben, dismayed she wasn’t demanding explanations. Preoccupied by my disapproval, I missed it when she did get around to questioning him.