“Who asked you that!” Ben was furious, without warning it seemed to me.
“Nobody,” she mumbled, head down, immediately intimidated.
“Mrs. Wylie?” That was her teacher.
“No! It was one of the kids.”
“Oh.” Ben relaxed. He sat back, put a hand on his bald forehead, and closed his eyes, sighing.
“Who said what?” I asked. “I didn’t hear.”
“Nothing!” Naomi reached over and, with her little fist, banged the top of my hand. Because of her sharp bony knuckles, the blow hurt. “I don’t wanna talk about it!”
“Ow!” I reacted to the punch, rubbing my hand.
“Sorry, sorry.” Naomi was frantic. She stroked my hand and repeated, “Sorry, sorry” with the nervous haste of a savage appeasing an impatient god.
“Some kid at school asked her who she would live with after I was put in jail for good.” Ben was disgusted. “Was it a boy?” he demanded of Naomi. “Doesn’t sound like a girl’s question.”
“Leave her alone about it,” I told him.
“Forgive me, Molly,” he said sharply, sarcastically. “But I’m her father. I decide what I ask her.”
“It’s more important to answer the question first!” I cursed myself after it slipped out, thinking, don’t get into unimportant fights, you’re only here to protect against the worst.
“What question?” He was genuinely confused.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore!” Naomi screamed, covering her ears.
“What’s going to happen if…” I trailed off meaningfully.
He understood. “I see what you mean,” he mumbled, sluggish. He was slow-tongued unless angry. When he raged at Naomi about who had asked her the question, his speech was rapid and articulate.
“I don’t want to talk about it!” Naomi shouted again, her hands still covering her ears. Her face was red.
“Okay!” I shouted to penetrate her muffled hearing. “We’re not talking about it!”
We sat there in silence: Naomi breathed hard, her mouth tight; Ben stared at the table, his shoulders sagged by defeat, his jaw slack; I felt dizzy from my odd sleep schedule. I had been up most of the night and then slept most of the day. I yawned and shivered in a spasm. My head was stuffed, I seemed to have caught cold. Naomi’s nose was red, she had been sniffling—no doubt she was the cause. Three days without exercise and vitamins, three days of being responsible for a child, and I was ill.
I thought, I can’t do this. I have to go home, forget all of them, just take care of me, the only person I can rely on, the only person I know how to please.
I roused myself and cleared the table. Ben spoke softly to Naomi. She climbed into his lap, rested her head on his shoulder, and they sat that way for a while, quiet.
The doorbell rang and violated the calm, the sad silence. We all looked at each other. I was amazed that the doorman had allowed someone up.
Ben, for all his size and bluster, was beat. He resembled a huddled refugee, waiting for charity to give him a home, reduced to sheltering his daughter with his arms. “I’ll get it,” I said.
“Thank you.” Ben was heartfelt, pathetic.
It was Stefan. Not, as I had feared, a reporter, a cop, a lawyer. It was Stefan, stern and unhappy. “Molly,” he said, and opened his hands, asking.
“What?”
“You said you would give them time together, remember?” He kept his head back, out of view of the apartment’s interior, obviously hoping to avoid the sight of Ben. I guess he couldn’t bear to look at him. What was wrong with me that I could?
“They don’t have anything to eat. I’ve got to make them something. Why don’t you come in?” If I could involve Stefan, I thought, it might be easier for me, even for them. He knew how to handle emotional trauma, that was his profession.
Stefan remained still: brown face, black beard, smooth brow, eyes a circle, regarding me dispassionately. His annoyance had sunk beneath a lifeless neutrality. “That would be inappropriate,” he said softly. “It implies approval.”
“What are you talking about?” I kept my voice to a whisper also, but my irritation was clear.
“Both to Naomi and to the world—a world in which I operate, in which I have a professional standing—for me to come in and help implies approval.”
“Bullshit,” I spoke so quickly, I wasn’t sure if it had come out or merely reverberated in my head.
“I don’t think so,” Stefan said in a whisper. “You’re not standing back from this situation. I understand that it’s hard to. But if you gave yourself some space—”
“You’re a doctor, you’d be helping them—”
“No, I wouldn’t. In this context I would be doing harm!” Stefan said sharply, his volume rising.
“Hey!” Ben’s voice came from right behind me and I jumped.
“God!” I exclaimed. “You scared me.”
“Sorry,” Ben said. Stefan reacted to Ben’s presence by becoming a statue again, still and lifeless, his eyes calm pools. Ben, though exhausted, had the energy of his anger: “I don’t want this discussion going on around Naomi. You guys have a disagreement, fine—keep it away from her. Thanks for helping out, Molly. You can go home now.” He took hold of the door, relieving me, and opened it wider. He pressed his body against the back of mine without backing away, and left no space for me to occupy. The action was typical of Ben, of his ability to polarize. If I broke the contact, that would put me in the hallway, and if I did not, I would be his appendage.
“Let me say good-bye to Naomi,” I asked permission testily.
“Sure,” Ben said. His tone implied that I didn’t have to ask.
Naomi clung to my neck, embracing me from the chair, pulling down when I tried to end our hug. I reminded her I was across the hall, that she could ring the bell anytime; I promised to come by after dinner, that we’d do something special on the weekend, see a movie, go shopping, whatever she wanted. She didn’t say any words. Quietly, she hummed, “Mmmmm,” to each of my assurances, commenting on their taste, a bit louder for some, perfunctory for others. She locked her fingers together and allowed her weight to drag me down. “Let go,” I asked her, first nicely, then sterner, until I had to pry her hands off my neck.
Stefan and Ben watched. They observed us, ignoring each other. “Hi, Naomi,” Stefan said to her after I was free. His casual manner seemed cold, even cruel to me.
“I’ll call you after dinner,” I told Ben, and didn’t wait for an answer. I walked past Stefan and into my own apartment, defeated.
“Jake Prosser phoned,” Stefan said, following me as I paced from the living room to the dining room and on into the kitchen. “So did Stoppard. They both want you to call them back.”
I didn’t know where to put myself while I waited. I didn’t want to think, I certainly didn’t want to feel. And I didn’t want to talk.
“Also, three reporters. I have their names written down—”
“I’m not calling them!” My vehemence surprised me.
“Molly,” Stefan implored, and said no more.
Now in the kitchen, I lit a burner to heat the coffee. I watched the pot. When Stefan didn’t add anything, I finally looked at him.
He seemed small. He stood with his hands folded in front of his groin, his arms forming a V. “What?” I asked him.
“I’m not suggesting you have to do anything,” he almost whispered. “I’m just giving you your phone messages.”
“Thank you.” I returned to my surveillance of the coffee.
“When you want to talk, I’m here,” he said, and left the room, which made his statement seem false. Was he here?
Stefan is good and Ben is bad—why was I equally angry at Stefan?
Because Stefan could help. He had no excuse for not helping. Ben did. He had a good excuse—he was the bad guy.
I MADE SO MANY MISTAKES DURING THE WEEK OF WENDY’S death, I’m embarrassed by the recounting. While waiting for eight o’clock to come—the t
ime I figured would be appropriate for me to resume contact with Ben and Naomi—I told Prosser and then Stoppard not to pursue any hostile legal action against Ben.
“Fine,” Prosser said coolly, and hung up.
Stoppard wasn’t so easily satisfied. I put him off the scent with pleas of emotional exhaustion, fear of reprisals against Naomi, and pretending to have some faith in Harriet’s competence. “Well, there’s one good thing about your decision,” he said. “You’ll be on the job tomorrow, right?”
“Right,” I said. For a moment I couldn’t remember the office, its look and feel. What was I working on—launching a telecommunications satellite into orbit? Laughable.
Stefan tried me again after an hour had passed from our previous conversation, pretending to want tea, hoping I might break the silence, finally asking, “Would you like to talk now?”
“No,” I said.
He went away. Stefan would have to choose without any babble. I would force his hand, just as Ben had forced mine.
I worked out. I had trouble matching my usual repetitions. The scale showed my weight to be up by four pounds. I seemed to be able to feel them all—two on my thighs, one on my belly, and one in my brain. Fat cells blocked my linear thinking; everything detoured back to the beginning. I found circuitous ways to believe that Ben was a better choice for Naomi than Harriet—at least Ben loved her, my cellulite head argued, at least he was a real parent, even if he was a killer.
The really nonlinear idea announced itself when I was done with all the machines, my body limp, the muscles unstrung, damp with exhaustion. My head was finally clear of musty daytime sleeping, pounding alive in my overcooked body.
I could kill him.
I peeled my skin from the leather and checked in again: What did you think?
I could kill him.
What for? That stumped my brain. The thought had seemed to answer everything. I was giddy with the notion. It lit a neon sign in my head, flashing bright: Kill him. Blink. You could kill him.
But then Naomi would have no parents, and no me, to take care of her.
Silence came for an answer. The neon shut off: the brilliant light of a certain final action went out.
I showered, dressed, and watched the clock progress from 7:53 to 8:00 exactly. I had said I would phone first. Instead I crossed the hall without a warning. Hoping to catch him at something?
“Who the fuck do you think you are!” Ben greeted me. His small mouth pursed as he spit the words; his glasses jiggled, rising off his nose and bumping into his brow. “Harriet told me what you’re trying to do! How dare you come here!” He reached out, put his hand between my breasts, and shoved me. A two-year-old fighting in the sandbox wouldn’t have done it any differently.
I fell on my behind. The bone at the base of my spine landed on the hard tile hallway floor. Two paralyzing bolts of pain sizzled down my legs. The pain was brief, but overwhelming. He slammed the door.
In moments I realized my legs were all right. I rang the doorbell again.
“Go away!” he shouted from the other side. Again he sounded like a child. Is that how he killed Wendy? I wondered. Striking with the stupidity of a toddler, ignorant that his blows have consequences?
What difference does that make?
I rang again. This time there was nothing, no sound, no answer.
I was frantic. I returned to my apartment and called. An instant deafening busy signal seemed to say fuck you, fuck you. Obviously Ben had the phone off the hook. I was shut out. I tried Harriet. Her line also buzzed frantically.
I banged the receiver against the base. Over and over I smashed it against the cradle. A recording lectured me: “There appears to be a receiver off the hook.” A section of plastic splintered off, Stefan appeared and watched, the mechanical voice shut up, the phone base trembled and fell.
I pulled on the curly cord, ironing out its wiggles, dangling the base as if hanging Ben, and kicked, dully ringing the bell inside. I said nothing, although I screamed in my head. I pressed my lips together and concentrated on the destruction. Although I could batter the telephone, I couldn’t smash it. I had made a mess. “Throw it out,” I told Stefan, dropping the corpse on the floor.
His hands were at his mouth, prayerful, although he probably had placed them there to stop himself from speaking.
“Throw it out!” I screamed after a moment of his silence.
“Okay.” He moved in a rush, scurrying, disconnected the wire from the base, and dumped the instrument in our kitchen garbage can.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I was crying again, only this was frustration and defeat as much as it was missing Wendy. “It’s my fault,” I tried to explain to Stefan. “If I hadn’t stuck my nose in—” I couldn’t complete the confession.
“You didn’t do all this. You’re not responsible, Ben is. He killed her. Don’t ignore the obvious.”
Stefan’s words were no consolation. I couldn’t accept his view, his love. His poem was tinny, its meaning too clear and simple, sentiments on a Hallmark card, their truth anonymous, and therefore hardly better than a lie.
After a while, Stefan gave me something more effective than his point of view—two Valium.
They pulled the rug out. I collapsed into a stupor, watching television, unable to follow a story, finally stunned by the rapidly changing images and meaningless crushed sounds on one of the music video channels. They were pretty silly, all those kids dressed up in fierce costumes, children for whom evil still meant naughtiness and fun.
I bolted awake. Into a gray-blue, silent New York. No cars, no lights in the buildings, the city at five A.M., a tomb. I must have frightened Stefan pretty badly; he had slept in his study on the fold-out couch and left the bed to me. I touched myself, probed every muscle, and felt nothing, my skin was foreign, numbed. I showered and the water rolled off me, unabsorbed, as though I had been Scotchgarded. Underneath the drops my skin stayed dry. I rubbed hard with the towel and made patches of myself blotchy and red. But it didn’t hurt. I felt neither pleasure nor pain—I was dead.
I peered across the courtyard. Their laundry room and kitchen were dark.
Then I remembered: I had keys to Ben’s apartment.
I was alive after all. A thrill shivered through me, rippling my skin. I found the keys in the file cabinet, tucked away from the last time I had used them, when Wendy was missing.
At six A.M. I opened our door, excited, silently goading myself to be bold, extending a silver-colored key toward the bottom lock, ready to insert it, wishing my hand had a will of its own that could conquer my doubts.
I held my breath, listening, about to put it in, and then—
Ben opened the door.
I hid the key in my fist as I jumped back. Ben appeared, half bent over, ready to pick up his copies of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, delivered askew on his black rubber doormat. He got stuck in midmotion, peering up at me, confused.
“Let me in, Ben. I’m sorry about the thing with Harriet. I promised Naomi I would—”
Ben resumed his stalled action, gathering the newspapers. He listened for a moment and then calmly stepped back inside and shut the door in my face.
I had apologized to him. Without thinking I had pleaded—no, begged.
I had to quit trying.
I retreated to my apartment with my own delivered copy of the Times. I was living a fun-house-mirror life—I read in my morning paper the fruits of the interview I had overheard Harriet give two nights earlier, followed by an account of Wendy’s memorial, quoting Amelia and the sociologist at length on Wendy’s goodness. What Harriet said was presented at face value, on a par with the others—Harriet sounded loony anyway, or at least full of herself. There was also a quote from the Riverside headmaster that the school was concerned about Naomi’s well-being and would welcome her return. It was a mystery how the Times missed that she had already gone back—presumably that was old reporting.
I heard Stefan stirring, running a
shower.
I didn’t want to talk to him. Nor did I want to make the effort not to talk.
I went outside. Fifth Avenue was lovely, swept by a cold fall breeze, its low downtown buildings gradually rising toward the Empire State’s spire to the north. Its slice of sky was a clear blue section, cloudless and vivid. Washington Square Park to the south might even be mistaken for a bucolic setting—the few remaining leaves were bright red and yellow, the Christmas tree was up under the arch, a jogger or two bobbed around its perimeter, a bicycler bisected its center. There didn’t seem to be a single crack dealer. The park appeared quiet and civilized. On Twelfth Street a homeless man was spilled on the church steps. From several feet away I looked to see if he was breathing. I knew him. Those steps were located on a side street, protected from the wind by a low wall. This particular man had made it his sleeping alcove since September and had seemed in pretty good shape so far, although the really cold weather was ahead. But that day his feet were in an odd, worrisome position. It took some squinting until I saw his chest rise and fall.
Wendy, who was a do-gooder, had suggested we help out on the weekends at the soup kitchens in the Bowery. I mused about her instinct for good, whether she really meant her acts of charity, or if she thought she was obliged to make the effort. Was it guilt or true giving?
What’s the difference? Wendy would argue.
But to me there’s all the difference: guilt tires, guilt gets angry, guilt abandons. That’s why liberals had failed—because they wanted social justice only in order to feel good about themselves: it was emotional self-improvement for them, not righting wrongs for the poor. When it got hard, got inconvenient, got scary—they gave up.
Why are you so bitter? I demanded of myself. The world has been kind to you, opened its grand doors, and let you in out of the cold.
But it wasn’t bitterness. It was self-criticism. I knew I would quit doing good works as soon as the giving was costly. Look at my actions so far—I helped Naomi until I had to accept the penalty, namely, dealing with her father.
But I couldn’t deal with Ben. Already I had apologized to him! I had yet to accuse him with a single word about the killing. Instead, I had asked forgiveness for suggesting that he might not be a fit parent.
The Murderer Next Door Page 13