The Stranger Behind You

by Carol Goodman

  The lights go back on and the hand is gone. The train judders to life. I look around at the blank faces for someone I could tell, but why would they believe me? Would they care? I stand up and hang on to the pole, trying not to think about all the germs on it and trying to pretend I am somewhere else and that I am someone else—the person I was four months ago to whom this would never, ever happen.

  As we pull into the next station, my phone chimes to life and I look down hoping that it’s a text from Emily or Whit. Instead it’s a landscape that might have been painted by a Hudson River School artist.

  Camp Bernadette, where dreams come true and lifetime memories are made.

  It looks like a good place to run to.

  It looks like a good place to hide.

  It looks like the place AJ might be.

  Joan must think so too. She’s looked up the Metro-North train schedule. But it appears she’s looked up the timetable for tomorrow. She probably doesn’t want to go in the storm. If I go now, I have a chance of getting to AJ first.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Joan

  I CAN SEE that Lillian expects me to go to the camp right away, but I told Simon I wouldn’t go searching for AJ myself.

  “I think I’d better wait until the storm is over,” I say. It’s a lame excuse—even I know that the real reason I’m not going is that I’m scared to leave the safety of the Refuge—and Lillian looks justifiably disappointed.

  “She must be so frightened,” she says, looking at the picture of AJ and Stacy. “Rose was . . . when I found her.”

  “So you did find her?”

  “Yes . . .” Lillian is trembling.

  I imagine she needs time to herself to regain her composure. She’s reliving the trauma of an attack that took place seventy-seven years ago. “Come away from the window,” I say, “and I’ll make us some more hot tea.”

  “I like looking out the window,” Lillian replies. “It makes me feel less shut-in. But I will take another cup of tea if you don’t mind my company for a little longer. This storm has . . . unsettled me.”

  I tell her of course I don’t mind, and go to make the tea. While I’m in the kitchen I email Simon from my phone to tell him what we found out. He replies right away, telling me to stay put and that he’ll check out the camp. As I stand waiting for the water to boil I wonder if I will be reliving that moment on the threshold of my apartment seventy-plus years from now. It doesn’t seem fair that we’re marked by our worst moments. Shouldn’t we get to choose what defines us?

  Lillian must be thinking the same thing. “My life feels like this river,” she says, not looking away from the window as I put her teacup on the desk. “I know it’s out there rolling to the sea, but I can only make out bits through the fog and sometimes, when the tide comes in and the river flows backward, the only parts I can see clearly are the ones that are farthest away: my mother falling that day in the kitchen, Tommy’s face when the police came for him, that cop’s hand over my face . . . the rest of it feels like a dream.”

  “But you found Rose,” I say, hoping to divert her from these painful moments with a positive accomplishment, “and had a picnic with Frank on the way?”

  She smiles, her eyes still on the window. “It was raining so we ate sandwiches on the train. That’s what I think about when I hear the train whistle—wax paper and pastrami and rye from Katz’s Deli on the Lower East Side. Frank bought them downtown on his way up from the courthouse before coming to get me. I remember he laughed when I told him I’d never had a pastrami sandwich and he called me his shayna maidelah. That means—”

  “Pretty girl,” I say. “My grandmother grew up in Brooklyn and she said the boys in the deli called her that.”

  Lillian smiles. “I bet your grandmother was a pretty girl if you take after her.”

  “She always said I looked like my grandfather, but he died in the war so my mother never saw him and all the family pictures were lost in a fire so . . . anyway, you ate sandwiches on the train . . . ?”

  “Yes, and cream sodas, which I’d never had either. It was all so delicious after the gruel and thin soup the nuns gave us here. Frank told me stories about the places we passed—Spuyten Duyvil Creek, which he said was named because of a Dutchman who swam across it to spite the devil. Henry Hudson anchored his ship, the Half Moon, there and people said you could sometimes see the ghost ship in the fog. When we passed Storm King Mountain he said that was where the ghosts of Henry Hudson’s crew played nine-pins, which made the thunder that rolled down from the mountain. He said he had a cousin who had a farm on the other side and that someday he’d like to have a place in the country. He even . . .” She falters, her eyes welling with tears. “He even joked about how people would think we were headed for Niagara Falls and I thought . . . well, never mind what I thought.” She wipes away a tear. “Frank got off in Poughkeepsie. The plan was for me to go on to Barrytown alone because we thought that Rose might be scared off if she saw me with a strange man. We agreed I’d come back on the first train after six P.M., whether Rose came with me or not. Frank would watch for us in Poughkeepsie, but he wouldn’t join us until we were closer to the city. He didn’t want her getting spooked and hopping off at an earlier stop. He told me he had undercover cops on the train to make sure I was safe.”

  “Frank was very protective of you,” I say.

  She nods but continues to look out the window as if she is trying to make out her past in the fog-and-rain-cloaked view. “I teased him about it. ‘You won’t be able to keep me locked up with the nuns forever,’ I told him. ‘I suppose not,’ he replied with a serious look on his face. ‘As soon as Rose tells us who was there with Eddie that night we’ll be able to arrest him and you’ll be safe and I can take you away from that place.’” Lillian smiles. “So you see, I had my own selfish reasons for wanting Rose to come back and give evidence.”

  “You didn’t want to spend the rest of your life in hiding,” I say, thinking that Lillian was far braver than me; she wouldn’t have hidden here while Simon went to look for AJ. “That’s only human.”

  “Yes, I suppose so . . . When Frank got off the train he kissed me. I watched him walk off onto the platform and vanish in a gust of steam from the engine. He looked like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. I sat gripping my handbag, perched on the edge of my seat until the next stop, afraid I’d miss it somehow. When I got off I thought there must be some mistake. There was nothing but the river on one side of the track and fields on the other. I heard a rooster crow! I’d never been in the country, and I didn’t much like the looks of it. I asked the stationmaster where the village of Barrytown was, and he said I was standing in it. Wasn’t there a post office where I could ask for my cousin’s address (I’d decided I’d call Rose my cousin). He pointed up a steep road and said the post office was up there aways. The road was unpaved and muddy. On either side was more mud and cows. I was sure I’d come for nothing. Rose wouldn’t last five minutes in a place like this.

  “At the top of the hill was a tiny clapboard building with a row of columns on the porch that looked funny in all that mud. It was no temple inside though, just a single room with a potbellied stove and a couple of men in overalls sitting around drinking coffee. They looked at me like I’d landed from the moon! I’d worn my best dress and coat and my last pair of silk stockings, which were so mud-speckled they might have been polka-dotted.

  “‘I’m looking for my cousin,’ I said. I didn’t say her name because I figured Rose might be going by a different one. One of the men said, ‘Pretty city girl like you?’ To which I replied, ‘Prettier,’ which made them all laugh. ‘That’ll be that gal staying out on Marge Mueller’s farm,’ one of the younger men said. ‘I’m going out that way if you want a lift.’

  “There was nothing to do but say yes, but when I got into the truck with him I was scared. He looked harmless enough, but so had Ernest. Ever since that night at the Half Moon I knew there was no judging which man might be harmless or
not.”

  She turns from the window and gives me an appraising look. Her gray-green eyes are shockingly vivid in the muted light. “I expect you’ve found that same problem with the work you do. You can begin to suspect every man of intending you harm.”

  I nod, thinking of how I’d stiffened when Simon touched me last night. “Yes, I suppose so . . . but you trusted Frank.”

  “Yes,” she says, looking back out the window. “And I got into that truck with that fellow and he drove me out to Marge Mueller’s farm without laying a hand on me. He even offered to come by later to give me a ride back to the train station after my visit with Mary, which is what he called the ‘city girl’ staying on the farm.

  “When I got down from the truck I hoped he’d leave before the girl came out, just in case it wasn’t Rose, but the door flew open and I was nearly knocked off my feet by a whirlwind in gingham. Despite the affectionate greeting I didn’t think this could be Rose. It had only been three weeks since I’d seen her last, but this girl had plain brown hair, was five pounds heavier than my Rose, and was wearing a dress Rose wouldn’t be caught dead in. But when she held me at arm’s length to look at me I saw it was her—a plumper, healthier, happier version of herself. It felt like it had been three years instead of three weeks we’d been apart.

  “‘Well, Mary,’ I said, ‘the country certainly has agreed with you. Next you’ll be telling me you’ve married a farmer.’

  “She turned bright pink and cut her eyes over to the fellow who had driven me there and I saw in an instant that they were sweet on each other. Rose a farmer’s wife! Or almost. There was no ring on her finger and she told the fellow—Joe, she called him—that she’d have those pies for him if he came back at four.

  “‘Pies?’ I asked when he had gone. ‘When did you learn how to make pies?’

  “She rolled her eyes and cocked her head toward the house. ‘Aunt Marge put me right to work. Come on, I’ve got to get them in the oven or she’ll have my head.’

  “She took me into a tidy, well-scrubbed kitchen, where a dozen pie tins lay on a floured butcher-block table waiting to be filled. It looked like a cover of the Saturday Evening Post.

  “‘I’m glad to see you, Lil,’ she said as she rolled dough out on the butcher block. ‘I was worried sick after we split up under the boardwalk, afraid Eddie Silver’s boys had found you.’

  “‘The cops found me first. They’ve been keeping me safe.’

  “She looked up from her work. ‘Oh, Lil, but it was the cops who looked the other way when Eddie’s boys pushed Abe Reles out the window. You can’t trust them.’

  “Frank had told me that this was why Rose would be wary of the police. ‘That was just a few bad cops,’ I said. ‘The DA’s Office has taken care of them. The assistant DA himself has guaranteed my safety. Remember I told you about him—Frank Maloney?—he’s the one who helped Tommy. We can trust him, Rose.’

  “‘I go by Mary, now,’ she said, laying the dough into the pie tins. ‘It was my grandmother’s name. Aunt Marge says I look just like her. She says she’ll give me a piece of land for my dowry and Joe is saving up to buy the neighbor’s orchard. I think he’s going to ask me to marry him.’

  “‘That’s wonderful, Ro—Mary. I’d never thought you’d want that kind of life, but if you do, I’m happy for you. Only . . .’ I paused, thinking of how to say what I had to say without scaring her, but then, I thought, maybe she should be afraid. ‘If you don’t identify the fellow who was with Eddie, then we’ll both always be in danger. If you could just look through some pictures and pick out the guy—’

  “‘Did you bring them with you?’ she asked, crossing the kitchen to pick up a bushel of apples.

  “‘No,’ I said, wondering why Frank hadn’t thought of that. ‘You’d have to come back to the city and look through all their books of suspects. But it would be safe. Frank’s got a dozen undercover cops on the train—’

  “‘He’s here now?’ Rose looked up from the bushel of apples she’d brought back to the table.

  “‘No,’ I said, taking a knife and picking up an apple. ‘He got off the train in Poughkeepsie and let me come on ahead alone.’

  “‘And what if one of Eddie’s men followed you off the train?’

  “‘I got on the train at Marble Hill. No one could have followed me. I’m staying at the Refuge.’

  “‘You mean the Magdalen laundry?’ she asked. ‘Oh, Lily! That’s a terrible place! How’d you end up there? You never . . . you’re not . . .’

  “‘I’m just hiding there. Frank said no one would ever think to look for me there. But you’re right—it’s not a very nice place but it’s the only place I’m safe until Eddie—and that other man you saw on the stairs—are behind bars.’

  “Rose picked up an apple and speared it on a contraption that cored and peeled it in one-quarter of the time it had taken me to peel one. She peeled and cored three more before answering. ‘You could leave the city,’ she said. ‘You could come up here.’

  “‘Do you really think this is far enough, Rose? Do you want to spend your whole life peeping out from behind the kitchen curtain? And do you really want to be peeling apples and making pies for the rest of your life?’

  “‘I don’t mind the apples,’ she told me, attaching another one to the corer. ‘But you’re right about this not being far enough. Do you trust this Frank?’ She speared me with a look as sharp as the knife I’d used to pare the apples. I told her I did. She nodded once and then cranked the handle. ‘You always did have a good sense for people,’ she said, then she smiled. ‘After all, you picked me to be your best friend. I don’t suppose it would be fair to leave you in the lurch, always having to hide. I’ll come with you. . . . but you’d better help me get these pies done if I’m going with you tonight.’

  “I got up and threw my arms around her. She wiped her face with her apron when I let her go. ‘We’ll tell Joe I’m going down to the city for a few days to help you pick out a wedding dress. Maybe it’ll give him the idea to ask me.’

  “We spent the rest of the afternoon peeling, coring, slicing, and arranging apples inside the pie tins, then rolling out more dough and crimping the top crusts. While the pies baked we took a walk through a pretty orchard.

  “Have you been in an apple orchard?” Lillian asked suddenly.

  “I grew up in one,” I told her. Not far from Barrytown, in fact.”

  “Did you now?” she asked, her eyes brightening. “So you know how pretty they are. Rose showed me all the different types of apples—winesap, Macoun, and one with the fancy name Belle de Boskoop. I teased her about turning out a farmer’s wife and she teased me about being sweet on a copper.”

  I make a mental note to get some apples for Lillian when I go next to visit my mother upstate. She’s given up asking me to come. Maybe I’ll surprise her. I’d forgotten that you could get Metro-North at Marble Hill. I wouldn’t even have to go down to Grand Central.

  “Anyhow, when Joe came for us Rose was all ready. The pies were packed in cardboard boxes and she had a carpetbag. When Joe saw the bag his face fell. ‘I’m only going for a few days to help Lillian pick out her trousseau.’ She was so convincing I almost believed it myself. She jollied Joe along all the way to the station, teasing him not to eat all those pies himself and not to sign up for the army while she was gone. He went along with it all but when he handed me up to the train he looked me in the eye and said, ‘You watch after Mary. She’s too trusting.’ Which made me wonder how well he really knew Rose.

  “We sat on the right side of the train so we could see the river and I gave Rose the window seat since I had had the river view coming up. Also I wanted to keep an eye on the aisle for Frank. In Poughkeepsie the train doors opened on the left so I had the better view of the platform. I saw Frank get on one car back and I remembered what he’d said about not approaching us until we were closer to the city. I wanted to tell him it was all right; Rose was ready to talk to him. I told Rose I was g
oing to walk back to find the ladies’ room. When I came through the doors of the next car I saw Frank right away but he gave his head a tight, small shake and looked away. I saw that he didn’t want me to approach him so I walked through the car, used the restroom at the end, and then walked back without looking at him. But I looked at everyone else on that car. If Frank didn’t want me to talk to him he must be afraid one of Eddie’s men was on the train. Was it the bald man reading the racing forms? Or the mustachioed gentleman in the tweed overcoat carrying a Gladstone case? There were half a dozen men it could have been. By the time I got back to Rose my heart was pounding.

  “‘Everything okay?’ she asked.

  “‘Sure,’ I lied, “I think I just ate too many of your apples.’

  “‘Maybe they’ve got some bromide in the café car.’ She started to get up, but I pulled her down.’

  “‘Don’t bother,” I said, but now she was looking at me funny.

  “‘You never were a good liar,’ she said. ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’

  “So I told her about Frank warning me off. ‘Maybe he’s just being extra careful,’ I said.

  “‘Or maybe Eddie’s got an eye on this train. I’m getting off at the next stop.’

  “I told her I thought that could be more dangerous if one of Eddie’s guys followed her off. ‘We just have to sit tight. Frank will figure it out.’

  “Rose nodded but I could tell she was scared. I was too. But I trusted Frank to figure something out—and he did. When the conductor took our tickets he handed me a note.

  “‘Get off at Marble Hill,’ it said. ‘An officer will meet you and take you to the nearest police station. I’ll meet you there.’

  “I showed it to Rose, but she didn’t like it. She wanted to get off at an earlier station—Ossining or Tarrytown—but I said no, we should do it the way Frank wanted us to and eventually she gave in even though I could tell she was upset about it. We didn’t talk the rest of the way. Every time someone passed in the aisle I felt Rose tense up next to me, even if it was just an old lady or a nun. ‘Do you think Murder Inc. is hiring nun assassins now?’ I asked her. Which made Rose laugh. ‘Sister Dolores would be up for it,’ she said. ‘She was one tough cookie.’