Goodnight Nobody

by Jennifer Weiner

  So I said, "Do you honestly think I'd do anything--anything ever--that would hurt the children?"

  "Well, let's see," Ben said, with his voice getting louder and his lips getting pale. He raised one finger. "You've got a friend who crushes up illegal drugs in people's drinks--"

  "Oh, that is so unfair," I fumed.

  He raised another finger; a prosecutor giving a devastating summation. "You're running around town asking people questions about something that's none of your business."

  "A friend of mine was murdered," I said, pointing to a spot in front of my own refrigerator. "Stabbed to death, in her kitchen, in our town. Doesn't that make it my business?"

  "She wasn't your friend!" Ben yelled. "You barely even knew her! I don't know why you won't just stay out of it! Take care of the kids. Take care of yourself. Find a hobby if you need something to do with your time."

  A red fog descended in front of my eyes. "Something to do with my time?" I repeated. "Do you have any idea what I do all day? Do you have any idea what your kids do all day? Any idea at all?"

  He stuck out his jaw and glared at me. I pushed past him, pulled a frying pan out of the island in the center of the kitchen, flicked a blob of butter into its center, and turned the stove on high.

  "While you're thinking that over, here's another question," I said, cracking two eggs and sliding them onto the bubbling butter. "Why are you working for a rapist?"

  Ben's face twitched. "What are you talking about?"

  "You know what I'm talking about. And if you don't, take a look at those pages I printed out." I reached for a spatula. "They should refresh your memory."

  Ben went to the living room and came back with the pages in his hand. I slid my eggs on a plate and plopped down at the table. He sat down across from me and flipped through the sheets, then stared at me, shaking his head. I hadn't seen him look this outraged since the fourth night of our honeymoon, when I'd had six vodka and cranberry juices and taken his suggestion that we try something new in bed as an invitation to stick my pinkie up his ass. (As it turned out, he'd been thinking more along the lines of me on top.)

  "This is proprietary information," he finally said, with his thumb and index finger working at the bridge of his nose.

  "Ben. I always thought you were..." I groped for the right words. "I thought you had integrity."

  "He said it was consensual," Ben said wearily. When he shut his eyes, the skin of his eyelids looked bruised.

  "He choked her!" I said. "How consensual could that have been?"

  "That's her story, which was never corroborated. There was no police investigation. No doctor's report."

  "You think this woman"--I glanced at the name on the pages to make sure I got it right--"this Sandra Willis made it up? You think she was lying?"

  Ben tilted his face up and stared at the ceiling, as if the crown molding had suddenly developed the capacity for conversation. "I think that whatever happened, happened a long time ago. I think that there's such a thing as a youthful indiscretion."

  I stared at him, stunned. "Are you kidding me? A youthful indiscretion is when Sam leaves his Legos out. A youthful indiscretion is not raping a Vassar coed when you're twenty years old, then getting your father to pay everyone off so that it never hits the paper."

  "Stop!" he boomed. "Stop right now, Kate. You don't know the whole story."

  "What don't I know? What else is there? A sequel?"

  His lips had gone so white they were almost invisible, and his voice was clipped. "Edward Fitch is a war hero. His work as attorney general has been unimpeachable, and when he's elected senator, he's going to serve the people of New York with distinction."

  "Sure," I said, stabbing at my eggs. "Just keep him away from Poughkeepsie. Does his wife know about this?"

  "I have no idea. Why? Are you planning on calling to enlighten her?" He picked up the portable phone and tossed it into my lap. "Why not?" He raised his voice to a savage, lisping Valley Girlish uptalk. "Hi, you don't know me? But my name is Kate Klein, and my husband works for your husband? Anyhow, I was in the city shopping? And I happened to stop by my husband's office?" He lowered his voice. "Which, by the way, I'm amazed you managed to find."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  He raked his fingers through his hair. "Let's just say you haven't been the most attentive spouse when it comes to my professional life."

  "That is so not what this conversation is about."

  "The other wives stop by," Ben persisted. "They take an interest. Al's wife even brings him dinner when he's working late."

  "Al lives in TriBeCa. And his wife's had so many face-lifts that she's practically got eyes in the back of her head."

  "That's beside the point," Ben snapped. "She brings him dinner."

  "Well, forgive me for not zipping into Manhattan to bring you a freakin' pot pie!" I stood up from the table, dumped my plate into the sink, and turned on the water.

  "So, assuming that you weren't bringing me that pot pie, what were you doing in my office? Why the sudden interest in Ted Fitch?" Ben asked.

  I set the frying pan, still unwashed, on the drying rack. "Ted Fitch and Kitty Cavanaugh knew each other."

  Ben pushed himself away from the table. "Oh, great," he said, his voice rich with contempt. "Just great. It's not bad enough that you're running around investigating our neighbors, but now you're harassing my clients too?"

  I felt like he'd punched me in the solar plexus, but my voice sounded steady. "Sukie Sutherland saw them talking in a bar before she was murdered. Kitty was crying." I waved the stack of papers in his face. "And I bet I know why."

  Ben's face was pale, and his voice was calm, but I saw his knuckles whiten as he gripped the edge of the counter. "Kate," he said, "you can't be serious."

  "Does he have an alibi?" I shot back.

  He lifted his chin. "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response."

  "Fine," I said, and kicked the dishwasher shut. "I'll find out for myself." I grabbed the phone and raised my voice to the mocking falsetto he'd deployed so effectively. "Hi, this is Kate Klein? And given your history of choking women who don't want to have sex with you? I was just wondering if you could tell me where you were the day Kitty Cavanaugh was killed?"

  His fingers dug into the flesh above my elbow. "If you say one word to my client," he snarled, "one word, other than 'Hello,' 'Goodbye,' and 'Congratulations, Senator--' "

  "You'll what?" I wrenched my arm away. "Rape me?"

  He let go of me, looking horrified. "Kate."

  I grabbed the papers and shoved them into my borrowed purse. "Sleep in the guest room," I said.

  Upstairs, I slammed our bedroom door, yanked off my clothes, pulled on my nightgown, and dove under the covers with my stack of printouts on the fascinating life and times of Edward Jeffords Fitch, fifty-seven-year-old graduate of Yale and Harvard Law School, winner of the Bronze Star in Vietnam, assistant district attorney, district attorney, state's attorney general, and, if my husband had his way, the next Democratic senator from the great state of New York. Had he done it? I wondered, staring at the camera-ready visage that accompanied the story the Times had run when he'd announced his candidacy. Had he been the one to bury that knife in Kitty Cavanaugh's back? Would Ben try to find out? Did Ben even care what the answer was, as long as it didn't impinge on Ted Fitch's electability?

  I pulled the covers up to my ears and listened as the car door and then the side door slammed and my husband and best friend fumbled through the kids' bedtime routine. "Mommy," Sophie kept saying. "I want the mommy."

  At nine o'clock, after the final request for a glass of water and another story was denied, Janie tapped gently at the door.

  "Everything okay?" she whispered.

  I opened the door and flopped back on the bed with my face in a pillow. "Yes. No. I don't know."

  "Okay," said Janie, flopping down beside me. Her streaky hair was gathered in a ponytail, and she'd borrowed a pair of my cargo
pants that hung loosely around her waist. "Glad we're clear on that."

  I handed her the Fitch file, then gave her the fifteen-second synopsis. Janie's eyes got wider and wider. "Wow," she said, and "Whoa," and, finally, an astonished and extremely gratifying "Oh...my...God."

  "So what now?"

  "We find out if Ted Fitch has an alibi." I flung myself onto my back, thinking, Then I figure out how I wound up married to someone who'd work for a man like that.

  Thirty-One

  When I dragged myself out of bed the next morning, there was no sign of Ben anywhere. His overcoat had vanished from its hanger, his briefcase had departed the closet floor, and his space in the garage was empty. There was, however, a note stuck to the refrigerator under a magnet reading "Number One Mommy." "Kate," it read, with an angry-looking slash after my name. "Don't do anything. Don't call anyone. I will try to answer your questions within the next week." No signature. No "love."

  No thanks, I thought, crumpling the note and shoving it into the pocket of my bathrobe, remembering the little-girl lisp he'd used the night before. I'll get what I need myself. Then I dialed the Red Wheel Barrow to tell them the kids would be absent and called upstairs to Janie to tell her we were going on a field trip.

  It's amazing what happens to people's peripheral vision when confronted with two women and three kids on a crowded train. Suddenly, it's as if all those businessmen and women with briefcases and laptops can't see past their copies of the Wall Street Journal and volunteer to give up the empty seats beside them. Last summer, I'd taken the train to Boston with all three kids to meet my mother and drive up to Tanglewood. Sophie was walking, the boys were in a double stroller, and there was not a pair of empty seats to be found. After lurching through three cars, I ended up squatting with all three kids and their portable DVD player on the floor by the luggage bay. Once I'd gotten the boys out of their stroller and Elmo's World on the screen, the woman whose raincoat and attache case were sprawled over the empty seat beside her favored us with a bright smile. "What cuties!" she gushed. I returned her smile and bit back what I wanted to say, which was "You know what makes them even cuter? Somewhere to sit!"

  I've lived and learned. That morning Janie and I got the kids onto the southbound train to New York and were confronted with the customary sight of lots of busy businesspeople taking up two seats apiece.

  "Hmm," said Janie, scowling down the rows with her paper cup of coffee in her hands, teetering in three-inch-high heels (white kidskin, to match her utterly child-unfriendly coat and handbag). Her hair was in a chignon, and she was towing her little wheeled suitcase behind her. "Excuse me!" she said to the businessman on the BlackBerry to her left and the woman chattering on her cell phone in the seats across from him. "Hi. We're traveling with three small children, and I'm wearing really high heels. Would you two mind doubling up so we could sit down?"

  The two of them looked at her, then at each other. Then the man looked back down at his BlackBerry, and the woman resumed her conversation. "Hel-lo!" said Janie. "Do you not speak English? Women! Children! Very high heels!"

  "Not to worry," I whispered over my shoulder. "Follow my lead." I was dressed to impress, or at least, I was as impressive as I ever got. Janie had flat-ironed my hair into submission, and I was wearing my best black wool pants and a black sweater--size XL, so it fit.

  "Okay, Sophie!" I said brightly--and loudly--plopping my daughter down in the raincoat-draped seat next to a red-faced man in a navy blue suit. "You sit right here," I said, winking broadly. "Mommy's just going to walk for a little while and find a place for Jack and Sam!"

  Mr. Blue Suit was so startled that he actually hung up his phone. "Ma'am?" he said, with fear in his eyes. "You're not going to just leave her here by herself?"

  "Oh, not by herself!" I said, pulling a juice box out of my diaper bag with a flourish. "Now, Soph, this is for you. Try not to spill it everywhere like you did last time."

  With a noise that would be phonetically rendered as harrumph, Mr. Blue Suit gathered his newspapers, his briefcase, his raincoat, and his phone, and went to sit beside one of his fellow travelers. Janie caught on fast.

  "All right, Sam," she said, parking him next to a guy in gray flannel. She handed him markers and a coloring book and gave him a big wink. "I know you're excited about those brand-new big-boy underpants, so don't forgot to call me if you think you have to go. I'll be sitting back there...somewhere..."

  The gray flannel guy muttered, "Oh, Jesus," and practically ran to the club car. Janie grinned at me, and before we knew it, we had two entire rows of seats all to ourselves.

  "I can't believe that," Janie said, shaking her head. "What is wrong with these people?" She raised her voice and got to her feet. "Women and children, people! Women and children get seats first!"

  "Janie."

  "Didn't any of you see Titanic? Honest to God!" She sat down, took a deep breath, a sip of her double espresso, then got back to her feet. "Shame on all of you!" she yelled, as the car's passengers flinched and shoved their noses a few inches deeper into the morning papers. I tugged Janie back down beside me.

  "Okay, we appreciate that, but we have to concentrate now." I passed Sophie a compact, a blush brush, and my iPod, and pulled the Fitch file out of my purse.

  "So," said Janie, taking another sip of coffee. "We can skip that list of names, 'cause we think Ted Fitch did it."

  "He's a definite possibility. He had a motive," I said. "Or at least we know that Kitty and Ted knew each other, which meant that he'd be familiar enough for her to open the door and let him in. He had opportunity," I continued. "I checked his schedule. The day Kitty died, all he had was a dinner event. Hundred-dollar-a-plate fund-raiser with the Kiwanis in Westchester."

  "A hop, skip, and a jump away from Upchurch," said Janie.

  "History of violence," I said. "That Sandra Willis he...um." I looked at my kids. The boys had their curly heads bent over a coloring book. Sophie had the earbuds stuffed in her ears and was brushing sparkly powder onto her cheeks. "Interfered with."

  "Charming fellow," Janie said. "I am so not voting for him." She pressed her freshly painted lips together as the train rattled along the tracks. "Motive," she said. "Say he was upset about something Laura Lynn had published and Kitty had written. No matter how angry he was..." She checked her reflection in the scuffed plastic of the window. "I mean, would he interfere with her, or just write an op-ed?"

  "He'd actually have one of his staffers write it," I said absently. "But maybe he wasn't about her writing."

  "Maybe it was a crime of passion!" Janie's eyes lit up. "Ooh, ooh, this is good!" She reached into her bag and removed a notebook--an official reporter's notebook, I saw with a pang--and started writing. "They were having an affair!"

  I lowered my voice, hoping Janie would follow suit. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves."

  "We know she liked older men, right? So they were having an affair," she continued, "and he told her he'd leave his wife, but then he changed his mind and Kitty wouldn't take no for an answer and that's why she was crying in the restaurant, and he said, Just lay low until the election is over, but she said, No, I can't lay low, I won't live a lie, I'm having our baby, Ted--"

  "Janie, the kids," I whispered, starting to laugh in spite of myself.

  "A little Fitch! A Fitchlette!"

  "I bet that's the kind of thing they would have noticed in the autopsy," I said. To no avail. Janie was on a roll.

  "I won't be ignored, Ted, she told him. You have to give our baby a name, she said, and when he realized that she wasn't kidding, that she was going to take her story to the tabloids--"

  "Or Content." I said, caught up in Janie's tawdry tale in spite of myself. "She wouldn't have to go to the tabloids. She could've just written her own story for Content."

  "Or maybe," Janie said, pausing dramatically, "she was going to tell you. That's why she called you that night! That's why she wanted to see you! She knew you were a writer and," Janie said, p
ausing at last for a breath, "she knew that you knew me."

  "How did she know that?"

  Janie wrinkled her nose. "You don't speak of me constantly?"

  "I do," piped Sophie.

  I stared at my daughter, suddenly realizing that she'd probably heard every word we'd said and understood most of them. I made a lip-zipping gesture to Janie, who nodded but kept scribbling notes.

  "He killed her," she whispered, once Sophie appeared to be engrossed in her makeup again. "And his unborn son--"

  "Or daughter," I chimed in.

  "And he thought," said Janie, "that the secret had died with her--"

  "Until Kate Klein, ace investigator, cracked the case and sent him to the electric chair!"

  Janie high-fived me, then wrinkled her nose. "Of course, if he goes to jail, Ben's going to lose his biggest client. But I'm going to get a great story."

  The public post-Election Day wound-licking known as the Rally for America was sponsored by two of New York City's biggest labor unions and the New York State Democratic Committee and was being held on the plaza across from City Hall. The five of us waited for a minivan taxi, which deposited us in a throng of bundled-up true believers, many of them toting red, white, and blue signs reading Voters for Change and presumably eager and willing to spend the next eleven months doing whatever it took to ensure that the Democrats wouldn't get their asses handed to them yet again.

  The day was cold but clear. The sky above us was a pale blue, and the streets were filled with workers on their lunch break and holiday shoppers bustling off to the pre-Christmas sales. The air smelled like honeyed peanuts and hot dogs. Janie inhaled blissfully, and the kids followed suit.

  I stared at the dais and picked out Ted Fitch immediately. He was nicely color-coordinated with the signs and the patriotic bunting: his nose was red, his hair was white, and his overcoat was a good, solid navy blue, a garment I'd bet that my husband had vetted with a focus group of female voters between the ages of thirty-four and fifty-four.