You hand me a legal pad with almost every page filled. I can tell from the different colored inks there were more than a few sit-downs between you and Hannah. I’m a bit concerned that I didn’t know about a single one of them.
“There’s too much here.” I don’t mean that there are too many notes, because I don’t feel such a thing is possible, but the scattered subject matter might well be at the heart of your manuscript’s problems. Reading what I have and knowing what I know, the only new information is that Marjorie made Hannah go. The reason is unclear. “Is there a section about the night Hannah left home?”
You flip several pages and point to a list of arguably leading questions. The stock answer from Hannah is either “I don’t know” or “I can’t remember.” It’s right out of Matthew’s playbook. “It’s like she’s shut down,” you say. “Completely blank.”
“Blanks can always be filled in.” I toss the pad on the desktop. This is not a winning manuscript, and it needs to be in order to bring everything I have planned to fruition. I try to think of who else we might speak with, but Peter’s in prison, and we’re the last people he’d put on a visitation list. That leaves one other option, and it’s someone you’ve already admitted hates you. I want to believe you’re wrong, but you’re an easy person to dislike. “Have you reached out to Marjorie?” Long shot, yes, and also our only shot.
“I have, but—”
I sense an excuse coming. With every major revision, you need to make at least some excuses before coming around to my way of thinking, but like with Deon, who always needs to say no before he says yes, I won’t indulge the delay, not with as much as is riding on this.
You’re going to tell me Marjorie won’t talk. That Claire’s dead. That Ansley doesn’t know, and that it’d take an act of Congress to get an audience with Peter. You’ll say those things, and they all lead to the same conclusion: the manuscript isn’t anywhere near ready.
“But nothing. You’re past deadline.” If it’s up to me, you’ll be headed to the city in the morning to throw yourself on your publisher’s mercy before they have a chance to file suit. “If you want the publisher to accept this, you’re going to have to give Tim something they can’t refuse.”
“Marjorie won’t talk.”
“Not to you, maybe.” I have to believe a woman with Marjorie’s secrets has a weakness. More than one, probably, and like you, she’ll talk when she’s cornered.
“What’s that look?” you ask.
I don’t like your tone. It’s accusing, suspicious, and a bit disgusted, all at the same time.
“There’s no look.” I don’t enjoy manipulating people. Deon. Ella. You. “All I’m thinking is that sometimes woman-to-woman is better. Do you have a number for her?” I know you do. You’ve admitted contact. This is my polite way of asking you to hand it over. I won’t ask again.
You shake your head. “I don’t think you should.”
“That’s fine, if you have another way to fix this problem.” I know publishing in general and Tim specifically well enough to know that your manuscript isn’t headed for a warm reception. “I’m trying to help you and us and Hannah, but I can’t do everything.” Though it seems lately that I have been.
“Which is why we should drop this altogether. I’ll apply for a loan. Pay back what I owe. I’ll go to the city tomorrow and tell them I couldn’t deliver, but that they don’t have to sue. I’ll agree to whatever terms they offer, and this will be behind us.”
If only any of that were as simple as you make it sound. You can’t get a loan. You even applying for one opens us up to conversations I’d rather not have with Vern sniffing around. We don’t need anything else further dividing us. “What about Hannah?” Whether because of Matthew’s influence or something deeper I’d rather not explore, I’m beginning to see your soft spot for her. “What will you tell her?”
“The same thing you told me, that the book is garbage.”
“I didn’t say anything like that.” But of course it’s what you’d hear. “I said it needs work, and if you didn’t agree, you’d be fighting me harder.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
LIKE THE WOMAN FROM my novel who is but isn’t me, I sense an impending cliff. You’ve reluctantly provided me Marjorie’s number, but four calls have gone unanswered. I’m not sure I blame her. I might have gotten carried away by the third message.
I sit on the edge of the bed in our freshly painted master suite and think how differently this all could have gone, how the new slate color on the wall reminds me of the prison cells in movies, and how close we are to seeing firsthand whether this is the state-chosen palette or if the use of flat gray is Hollywood’s attempt at being atmospheric.
Your suitcase sits open next to me, with nothing but two pair of socks and underwear inside. A half dozen pants and shirts are laid out, and you are beyond nervous. Antsy and incoherent. You fold and unfold. Pack and unpack. A half hour passes, and still you haven’t figured out two days’ worth of clothing.
“What if she doesn’t return your call?” you say. “What if this is all there is?” You shake your notebook, dozens of pages of rote speculation I still can’t believe you spun into a full-length manuscript, at me.
Your fear isn’t only how I might go about wresting information from Marjorie, but whether or not I can pull this off remains to be seen.
You’re headed to the city to make promises you’re not sure you can keep.
This book is our meal ticket. I guarantee it is. “You have to calm down.”
You deposit your research material into a zippered compartment with an air of measureable disappointment. You’ve come around to my way of thinking, seeing your work for the incomplete disaster it is, and this is not necessarily a good thing because you’re panicking.
You have to answer for the delay, make a meeting with Tim and the publisher in order to get the critical extension you—we—so desperately need, and honestly, your self-centered alter ego is more suited for that than whatever version of you this is. “I can’t,” you say.
“You have to.” I speak in a calm, flat tone meant to draw you back from the ledge. “Marjorie will call back after she has time to digest.” It can’t be easy for a woman with so many things to answer for to be called out on any of them.
“What exactly did you say on the message? Because if she thinks you’re going to blame her for anything, anything, she won’t answer.”
I don’t know what I said verbatim, but it wasn’t flattering. It might have even become intimidating, but you don’t need to hear this. “Blaming anyone is rarely the best answer.”
You shake your head. “Tell that to Vern, to the people I have to stand up in front of, pretending they don’t know that my son is dead and I’m the prime suspect.”
And you say I’m the paranoid one. “No one knows anything like that.” I get that you’re worried, but the last thing we need is you melting down in front of the suits who control whether Hannah’s story makes it to market or you get permanently blackballed. I can’t think of another agent who is going to want you as a client if you flake. If you go to prison, there may be a market for an ex crime-writer-turned-killer, but you won’t make a dime from telling that story. The presumed guilty rarely do.
I hold you squarely by the shoulders and issue the kind of tough love you apparently need right now. “You have to focus, Bert, not on Vern or Hannah or Matthew, but on selling this goddamned book.” And on remedying our diminishing finances, which you are only tangentially aware of. “You won’t get another extension.” I remind you you’re beyond the last stand. This is an encore, one that without Tim’s personal financial stake you’d probably have never been granted. I let you go, and select from the assortment of clothing four pieces to get you through the next forty-eight hours. “Tell me you can do this.”
“I—”
“Tell me.” I’m like a coach psyching you up for a big game. You have to find your strength, and if it takes a slap on the ass
to get you to, I’ll do it.
“Are you sure you can’t go with me?”
For every hundred reasons I shouldn’t, keeping you level is the one reason I should. “I’m positive.” Not only because I haven’t been to the loft in years and can’t stomach the idea of sleeping in a bed where you’ve laid so many other women, but if I leave now, I risk the single lead to make this story great. I will track Marjorie down, and when I do, she will talk. “Tell me you have this handled, Bert.”
You fold the shirts and pants I’ve picked out for you. “I do. No one wants to cancel the deal, or they wouldn’t have accepted the meeting.” Finally, level-headed Bert makes an appearance. I feared he might have been gone for good. “They’re going to want to know where I’m at in writing this thing, how much longer I need. What am I supposed to say?”
“You’ll think of something, but whatever you do, don’t show Tim the rough draft.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
WITHIN HOURS OF YOU leaving, the phone rings, and I can’t believe my luck. I fumble to answer what can only be the return call from Marjorie, who maybe doesn’t need to be shaken down after all.
“Hello?” I try and sound cheerful when I answer. As someone with her fair share of recent impolite conversations, I value the importance of a warm reception.
“You went to Ella?” a decidedly unfriendly male barks at me, and it takes me a minute to process who is speaking.
“Deon?” I recognize the voice but not the tone. This isn’t the lovesick man whose aid I’ve come to appreciate, but a bitter version I would rather never have known existed.
“We need to meet,” he says.
I take a sip from my third glass of Chardonnay and shake my head. Sorry buddy, no can do.
“I’m in no shape to drive.”
Nor am I inclined to.
“Of course you’re not.” Deon’s frustrated perhaps because when I’m the one calling, he answers in record time, whereas when it’s me being called I’ve either had too much to drink or am afraid I’ll be caught. Honestly, sometimes I just don’t want to answer.
“Where’s Bert?” he asks.
As much as I’d rather not, I say, “He went to the city.”
“Then open your garage door.”
It isn’t a request so much as it is an order, and for a fleeting moment, I worry this isn’t a social call but that we’re under police surveillance. Why the hell else would Deon be looking to duck out of plain view? Probably because he knows, as I do, that confirmation of our affair would ruin his career if he’s found out both helping me with an ongoing investigation and sleeping with me. Under other circumstances I might be more sensitive to this, but Deon has some explaining to do.
I let him inside and stand with my hands on my hips, about to give him hell, when I realize how angry he is. I knew either of you might have something to say about me going to Ella, but I never imagined this strong a reaction from him.
“Why would you do such a stupid thing?” Deon has one foot out of the car, and he’s yelling at me. This is unprecedented. I’m about to tell him to get lost, to cool off, but he has something to get off his mind and won’t leave until he does. Chimes warn of keys still in the ignition, which he promptly retrieves, only to hit the switch for the interior lights. He curses under his breath.
“Deon, what’s the problem?” Yes, I had a conversation he’d probably I’d rather not have had, but he takes confrontation worse than you do.
“People are watching, and you turning up at Ella’s—a woman you admit to hating—raises red flags.”
“Which people?” Deon has made a critical slip, and damn it we are being surveilled. “Who, Deon? And where are they?”
“I don’t mean now, but in general. Anyone could have shown up at Ella’s while you were there, and I told you she didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“That might have been an oversimplification. She isn’t a murderess, but she knows plenty.”
I do, too, and it’s my turn to be the secretive one. To only tell people what I think they need to hear. I’m not as mad as I probably should be at Deon, who gets a pass this once because an illegal firearm is reason enough to lie to anyone.
There are fewer than forty-eight hours on the clock until you return home. Not nearly as much time as I need to handle all that has to be done, and whether he likes it or not, Deon is going to make his omission up to me. He just doesn’t know it yet.
“You should have told me the truth,” I say, “and I don’t hate Ella. Not anymore.”
It’s hard to believe and harder to imagine me—the petty, jealous one—overcoming the barriers of the past decade, but people can change. I can change.
“You’re friends all of a sudden?” Deon asks.
“At least she tells me the truth.”
“Ella and I agreed no one else would know I was there, that she would leave me and the pistol out of her statement because it was best for everyone.”
“You mean it was best for you. What else did you leave out?” No one admits everything. I have to be sure all details are accounted for before we next speak to Vern. Contractual secrecy can only cover for so much.
“I doubt there’s anything you don’t already know.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Deon’s story lines up with Ella’s to the point that it almost feels rehearsed, with the exception of Hannah. Deon doesn’t know the reason for the fight between you and Matthew, and this is a good thing. It keeps me from having to lie to him, at least about that.
He details the struggle to recover the weapon and Matthew fleeing on foot. He insists Matthew was headed here, and I wonder why the hell he didn’t call and warn me other than he figured, as I would have, that there was no way Matthew would run this far. “I tried to stop him, but the woods were dark, barely even moonlit and—”
“And?” I get the feeling that Deon and Ella concocted the story they did not only to protect themselves, but to shield Deon from suspicion. He would never have been questioned in Matthew’s murder but for this one interaction, fleeing into the wooded area near Ella’s house late on the night of Matthew’s death. “And what, Deon?”
“And nothing, I didn’t lay a hand on him, I swear. I never even caught up to him. But as far as I know, I’m the last person to see Matthew alive.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
I SHOULD CALL THIS “even.”
I asked Deon to suppress the tollbooth video, and he’s asking me to keep him out of any conversation about the night Matthew was killed, but this is bigger than him being the last person to see Matthew alive. This is him being found out as the last person to see Matthew alive after Ella’s statement to Vern specifically left him and a weapon out.
“Tell me you won’t say anything.”
I nod. “Vern knows too much already.”
Too much, and damning for us both, though I’m not sure Vern appreciates how far ingrained I am in all of this. I’m not sure anyone does or can—not even Deon, who finds himself in our same predicament, at risk for being called out on what he should have admitted to up front.
I imagine we omitted things for the same reason. None of us believed we would be found out. We aren’t the first or last to make that mistake. “But,” I say.
Deon raises an eyebrow. “But?”
“I need your help, too.”
“Help with what?” Deon’s neither negotiating nor hesitating, which is a welcome change of pace. I like having the upper hand, with him needing something from me for a change.
“Marjorie Harman.” All I want is to talk to her, to get her to admit to the critical details missing from your book, fine points the publisher will insist upon if it’s ever going to press. I acknowledge the reasons she would have to hide these things, but she gave up the privilege of blamelessness the minute she sent Hannah away. Whatever reason she had to do so, the trauma Matthew—and we—suffered is a direct result.
“What about her?” Deon asks. He doesn’t like w
here this is headed, but I never said mine was a small ask.
“I need you to look into her financial history. I need to know how she paid Claire enough money to put Ansley through Briarwood.” I already told him about Vern’s blackmail theory, and while I know why Marjorie might have been paying Claire, I need Deon to find out where the money to do so came from, if she might have come into money by illegal means. I’m not above using proof of that to coerce her cooperation with your book.
“Why does it matter?” Deon asks, rightfully suspicious.
“Because Vern thinks it does, and this might be what lands Bert behind bars. I need your help if I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen. Please?” I feign desperation because Deon prefers this needy and incompetent version of me. You do, too. Patriarchy isn’t some feminist myth.
“You should leave this alone.”
“I would, but you know why I can’t. What this all means to me. To Bert.”
“You’ll get answers. It takes time,” says a man who has been looking for a girl not even missing. He believes, to this day, that she has been dead for twelve years. I don’t have Deon’s faith in law enforcement, and worse, I don’t enjoy being at Vern’s mercy.
“You’re asking me to let my husband take the blame for a murder he didn’t commit, when he—when we—should be grieving, and when Vern assumes the worst of us as people or parents.”
“You did what you could for Matthew.”
“Did I?”
Me who relentlessly pursued psychiatric medication Matthew didn’t need, demanding testing and re-testing for diagnoses he didn’t necessarily have but was treated for anyway. Maybe it was selfish of me to want him to get better, to act normal, even if the behavior was pharmaceutically induced. Maybe, had I not intervened, things would have been even worse. Second-guessing oneself is integral to parenting, and I wonder in hindsight if Matthew’s uneven temperament wasn’t brought on by medications now labeled by the FDA as unsafe for children.
Where We Went Wrong Page 13