Sunburn: A Novel

by Laura Lippman

  “Okay,” she says. Now she knows exactly what he wants. Wasn’t that Barry Forshaw’s advice? Trick Gregg into revealing what he wants, and then you’ll have true leverage. Gregg wants Jani. He’s probably bluffing, but maybe he thinks that’s the only way he gets the other stuff. He’s expecting her to counter. She wins by not doing what he expects.

  Still, she can’t help allowing herself one little zinger.

  “You can’t rely on your mother for child care forever, you know.”

  “Who said I was?”

  “I just assumed that’s what you were doing.”

  “Fact is, I found a really good day-care center near the office last week.”

  Interesting. Gregg always said day care wasn’t right, that it was for welfare mothers or people who didn’t really love their kids.

  “Are you dating?” she asks.

  “Pauline.” Kind, beseeching, as if he thinks the information could hurt her.

  “You’re entitled,” she adds.

  “There’s a woman at work. But she’s more of a friend. She has a little boy about Jani’s age.”

  Gregg has never had a female friend. Gregg doesn’t believe in female friends. They specifically had that argument after watching When Harry Met Sally on video one night, with him maintaining that “real” men didn’t have female friends.

  “That’s nice for you.” She tries to think of what a normal woman would say in this situation, a woman who’s not trying not to conceal how much she wants a man out of her life, how much she loathes him. “Do the kids like each other?”

  “Pretty well. Look, Pauline—”

  “Yes?”

  “Whatever happens, we’ll make it work,” Gregg says. She wonders who the “we” is—Gregg and her? Gregg and his mother? Gregg and Jani? Gregg and his friend? But that’s secondary. He has established his terms. She knows what he wants, what he’s willing to give.

  “Could I get this in writing?” she asks. “The financial stuff. Have your lawyer draw up something based on what we talked about today, about the property, and I’ll sign it. Have it notarized if that’s what it takes. But then we’ll be on our way. Just the financial stuff, though.”

  Polly also knows what she wants and what she’s willing to do to get it. She swallows hard, dials Barry Forshaw collect, and tells him what she needs. He asks a lot of pesky questions, complains that it’s not really his kind of thing, but in the end, he’s happy to do what she wants. For a price. When you help a man make more than a million dollars with very little effort, he tends to be kindly inclined toward you. Paper trail commenced, now she has to mark another kind of trail. Lead the horse to water. Make him drink.

  That night, when she goes to work, she checks to see if Mr. C really does keep a gun in his desk.

  43

  Adam’s possessions, the ones he plans to take with him to Belleville, require exactly eleven boxes, eight of them for books. He could probably live without the books if it comes to that. But they’re easy to box and they are the only objects, along with his mother’s paintings, about which he allows himself to be sentimental. Half the books belonged to his parents—his mother’s art and photography books, the old man’s biographies and histories. He will build a shelf for them in Polly’s place. Not some college-kid thing made out of plywood and cinder blocks, and not some prefab IKEA shelf. He will build a real one, borrowing tools from Mr. C or someone else in town.

  His life in Baltimore is almost as neatly packed away as his possessions. The lease on his apartment will end February 1, phone and utilities will be turned off then, too. On Christmas Eve, he’s going to drop to one knee and ask Polly to marry him. So why not cancel his apartment by December 31?

  Because I’m not sure what she’s going to say.

  When he’s in his soon-not-his apartment, he checks two, three times a day to make sure that the blue velvet box is safe in its hiding place. He goes to look at it again now, nestled inside a box of tampons that some woman left behind, he’s not even sure who. Someone gambling that she was going to be spending more time with him than she ever did, that’s for sure. Since Adam’s marriage ended, he’s never come close to living with anyone. A month, maybe two, was the most time he put in with a woman.

  Then Irving Lowenstein hires him to follow Pauline Hansen and the next thing he knows is that he’s in love with Polly Costello. A woman who killed one man, walked out on another. But he’s the one who almost got her killed. He can’t forget that.

  Maybe he shouldn’t ask her to marry him until he’s man enough to tell her that.

  Irving’s lawyer keeps calling Adam, asking him to come see him in the city lockup, where he’s being held without bail. The lawyer leaves a message every three days or so. “Irving Lowenstein would like to see you.” “Checking back to see if you’d like to visit Mr. Lowenstein.” “I’ve identified you as a contractor for my firm, so you don’t have to worry about filling out a visitor’s application. You’ll be treated as an employee of the firm.”

  Adam has nothing to say to that snake. He owes him nothing. Sure, he felt guilty last summer when he fell in love with Polly, but he still did right by Irving. Irving Lowenstein, teller of tall tales, pretending that a vulnerable woman ripped him off, preyed on kids, when he’s the one who was trying to kill her all along.

  It is December 21, a Thursday. That means Christmas falls on a Monday this year, a nice three-day weekend for regular folks who won’t even notice how many other people still have to work December 25. Cops, firefighters, waiters at Chinese restaurants. And there’s not even Chinese food in Belleville. Adam bets the only thing open December 25 will be the Royal Farms near the soon-to-be bypass. Belleville is beautiful at Christmas—and he has never found it more cloying. It has a real It’s a Wonderful Life vibe, and It’s a Wonderful Life is only the most depressing movie ever made. Work your whole life, be good, and maybe your friends will save you. Except they probably won’t, and every small town is Pottersville in the end.

  He decides he won’t take his books to Belleville on this trip, or his other boxes. It will look presumptuous, even if he and Polly did live together for part of the fall. Going forward, things between them will be stated, out in the open. He will tell her that he was hired as a private investigator to follow her, that he never knew Irving was trying to harm her. If she forgives him, he’ll ask her to marry him.

  That said, there’s no law he has to wait until Christmas Eve to propose. She’ll be looking for something then. Why not do it—tonight? No one expects a proposal on December 21. Polly doesn’t even expect him to be there. When he’d first told her he didn’t think he could get away until Saturday afternoon, at the earliest, they both agreed that it might be better for him to drive over Sunday morning as the roads would be wretched that afternoon. But he’s been to the bank, deposited his checks for his last two gigs and there’s not a lot of work this time of year. His last job, in fact, was so awful it made him want to quit PI work forever. Some poor woman with five kids, shopping at the Dollar Tree, was hit by a car, all her cheap little presents scattering in the wind. No one was at fault—it was dark, she stepped off a curb—and the tortured good citizen behind the wheel immediately established a fund in her name. But the sister who stepped up to take donations on the kids’ behalf turned out to be completely shifty. The driver called Adam, and Adam sussed it out in less than two days. The woman, under a slightly different name, had several penny-ante convictions—bad checks, stealing some stuff from a roommate. Real People’s Court shit. There was no way she should be overseeing that fund.

  But the part that soured Adam on his job was the happy client giving him a bonus for scaring the shit out of the shady sister. It was as if her misdeeds cleared the slate for the poor mope, made him feel less guilty about the accident. True, she’d probably skimmed some money off the donations that came in, but there was still almost $5,000 for the five kids, which will help. It won’t send them to college, but it will buy groceries, keep the heat o
n. Five thousand dollars is a lot of money.

  It’s almost enough to buy a canary yellow engagement ring.

  Shit, he’s approaching the bridge and he’s left the ring behind. Should he take that as a sign? Maybe he should wait until the new year. Maybe he should wait until she’s legally divorced. That letter—why didn’t she read it in front of him? He knows Maryland law and he realizes she can’t initiate the divorce, not for a while. If her husband doesn’t file, she has to wait two years for a no-fault.

  Two years. June 1997. Where will they be? Who will they be?

  He takes the last exit before the bridge and heads back. It will cost him almost ninety minutes, but he can’t stop thinking about it.

  * * *

  It is almost nine Thursday night when Adam reaches the High-Ho, but the bar is packed. Business picks up during the holidays. People get giddy from all the socializing, want to keep going, and the High-Ho is one of the few places open after eight. Mr. C has put up decorations that appear to be fifty years old, right out of that Christmas Story movie. Strands of multicolored lights, an illuminated wreath in one window. The air inside the bar feels overheated and smoky after even a few seconds of the cold, crisp air in the parking lot. Adam’s eyes need a moment to adjust.

  Mr. C is tending bar.

  “Where’s Polly?”

  “She wasn’t expecting you tonight, Adam.”

  “I wanted to surprise her.”

  “Oh, I think we have a gift of the magic here,” says Mr. C, mangling the name of the old O. Henry story. “Polly asked for today off, for a mystery errand. I assume it’s for you. The—the thing she was making for you, it’s not coming out so good. She said there was something she needed to pick up in Baltimore and she took the bus. But you weren’t supposed to be here until early Sunday, I thought.”

  “I was trying to surprise her,” Adam mutters, taking a stool. Might as well have a beer or two.

  “Like I said, gift of the magic.”

  He doesn’t have the heart to correct Mr. C’s repeated malapropism, explain that the story is correctly called “The Gift of the Magi,” and that it’s more than two people trying to surprise each other. It’s the catch-22 of gift-giving. It’s also another one of those Christmas stories that everyone thinks is so nice when it’s depressing as hell. Two desperately poor people try to do something nice for each other as Christmas approaches, sacrificing their most cherished possessions. The woman’s hair may grow back, but it will never be quite the same. Women’s hair never is after they cut it. And what do you do with a watch fob when you don’t have a watch?

  What do you do with an engagement ring when you don’t have your girl?

  “When did she say she was coming back?” Adam asks.

  “She didn’t. Doesn’t matter, because she asked for today and tomorrow off and we’re closed Christmas Eve and Christmas.”

  “She didn’t tell me she was off.”

  Mr. C clapped a hand to his mouth. “Maybe that’s part of the secret.”

  Adam goes to her garage apartment, soon to be theirs. Senseless to expect her as no buses run this late, but he keeps hoping she’ll slide in next to him. But she doesn’t come home that night.

  Or the next day.

  Or that night.

  When Saturday, December 23, dawns, and there’s still no sign of her, Adam can’t stop lying to himself. Something is wrong, terribly wrong, and there’s only one person who can assure him that Polly is okay.

  44

  “Merry Christmas,” Irving says to Adam over the low partition at city jail.

  “Don’t be funny,” Adam says.

  “What a sad world this is when even a polite greeting is suspect. I’m glad to see you, if surprised by the timing. I guess it’s a good thing that my lawyer listed you as one of the firm’s employees. Can’t have been easy, getting in here on the Saturday before Christmas.”

  “A friendly judge made it happen. Your lawyer’s very well connected.”

  “I would hope so,” Irving says. “My legal affairs are not a place to cut corners. I always hire the best. Or try.”

  Lowenstein looks terrible, at least ten years older than he did when Adam last saw him face-to-face, which was in June. The orange jumpsuit is unkind to most complexions, but Irving looks particularly haggard. The blood vessels in his face are more prominent, his eyes rheumy like an old dog’s. He has a cold, but no handkerchief, and keeps honking into the crook of his elbow. His cough is syrupy, almost a gurgle.

  “You’ve been trying to talk to me since you were arrested. Why?”

  “I had information that I thought you should have.”

  “About Polly? Is someone still after Polly? Are you still trying to kill her?”

  Irving needs a beat. “It’s funny, I still think of her as Pauline. But then, in my head, she still has short blond hair and is a little overweight. Zaftig is the better word. It’s Yiddish, it means—”

  “I know what zaftig means.”

  “They say almost no one can maintain a significant weight loss. But she has, hasn’t she? Still skinny almost five years out. Maybe prison can be a kind of spa, if you treat it right. I can look forward to that at least. If I’m convicted.”

  “You’ll be convicted.”

  Adam waits for Irving to contradict him. Does the case against Irving rely on Polly’s testimony? It occurs to Adam that he hasn’t really thought too much about the evidence against Irving, what the cops have. If Polly is the key witness and Polly is missing—

  “Where is she?”

  “Pauline? I’m sure I don’t know.”

  “You tried to kill her before.”

  “Really? You may have noticed I’m not charged with that particular crime. They can’t even put me at the scene—I flew to Toledo that morning to visit my daughter. In fact, I’ve never been to Belleville, Delaware.”

  Adam had assumed that Delaware charges would follow after Maryland was through with Lowenstein. But of course Lowenstein has never been to Belleville.

  “You never do your own dirty work. You hired me to keep tabs on her, then you hired another guy to use the information I had gathered, tried to make the death look like an accident. When they find him, it will be a race to see who flips on who first.”

  “They’re never going to find him,” Irving says. “Because he doesn’t exist.”

  “You wanted her dead.”

  “I do now.”

  The simple words chill him. “What have you done, Irving? Where is she?”

  He shakes his head, his face serious but without malice. The graveness of his expression worries Adam even more. He would feel better if he sneered or laughed mirthlessly, like some cartoon villain.

  “I hold no brief for her. But I never tried to kill her. What, you think I’m some criminal mastermind, orchestrating things from city jail? I’m a grandfather, near retirement. The case against me is based on Pauline’s say-so and a collection of, let’s say, inconveniently coincidental policies I helped to broker, years ago. Yes, if she doesn’t testify, I have a better chance at acquittal. But I’ve never arranged a hit on anyone.” He seems to lose himself in a memory before he repeats, more firmly: “I never tried to kill anyone.”

  “And yet people ended up dead because of you. How many? And what would one more mean?”

  “I know you’re here as a contractual hire of my lawyer,” Lowenstein says. “But I’m not going to presume confidentiality. I put my trust in you once. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  “You put your trust in me? You lied to me, again and again. Claiming she had money, that she had ripped you off, that she had stolen from one kid and she would do it again. You were biding your time, waiting for the perfect moment to try to kill her.”

  “I knew where she was before I hired you, sonny. The point was to figure out if she had money, if she was spending it. Now it’s six months later, you’re just a poor schmendrick who fell in love with her. Is it possible you know even less about her tha
n you did when you started? Oh, you know the names, the sad history, her crime. You know she had a daughter with Ditmars. Do you know what happened to her?”

  “I assume some relative took her in.”

  “No one wanted that kid. Joy Ditmars has a severe form of cerebral palsy—can’t walk, can’t speak—and is institutionalized at Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital. It’s on Rogers Avenue. Sound familiar?”

  Two taxis on a hot summer day. One turns on Rogers Avenue. Adam made the decision not to follow, reasoning that she would spot him on that suburban road. But he told Irving what he saw, where they went. Turns out Irving knew all along what was on Rogers Avenue.

  “And here’s how canny she is. The life insurance from her first husband, the policy that almost ruined me, got me investigated—that was in her daughter’s name, in a trust administered by Pauline. Insurance company wouldn’t have to pay if it were for Pauline, but they couldn’t keep the money from the daughter. It pays for her care there. Pauline then surrendered her parental rights—voluntarily, she couldn’t get rid of that kid fast enough. But Pauline wasn’t done, oh no. She likes to play the innocent, but she picked up some tricks from that husband of hers. Last year, she settled out of court with the hospital where the kid was born, blaming them for her condition. Deprivation of oxygen at birth, probably. I’m not sure why the hospital didn’t do due diligence about custody—they were probably so excited to settle that they didn’t get very far into the investigation—but if the state has the kid, she’s not entitled to the damages. I figured she could cut me in for a share, or I’d tell the hospital they’d been taken. But I needed to figure out why she was keeping it a secret. Now I realize it’s an asset she’s hiding from her next ex-husband. She’s a shark, that one, always moving forward.”

  She’s the opposite, Adam wants to say. She’s been swimming lazy circles in Belleville all these months.

  “I’m telling you, she doesn’t have any money. She can barely make rent some months.”