“I’ll just cut to the chase, since I’m sure it’s not a surprise that I’m asking about Donny,” he says. “I’m not claiming Wilson’s death is a murder. But I am looking at all the possibilities. The Berkeley PD wants to call it an accidental poisoning, case closed. But your father is really clear that he wants me to continue gathering what info I can, to see if we can piece together with some reasonable certainty how your brother ended up with Amanita phalloides in his belly.”
Gordon? He needs to give it a goddamn rest. Why is he sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong? “You mean you think someone may have given him the mushrooms, to kill him on purpose?” I manage to say.
“It’s possible.”
I’m looking at his face, trying to see what else he thinks, but all I see are his green eyes looking back at me.
“It’s also possible that, say, he had a meal with some friends, one of whom picked the mushrooms not realizing what they were, and—”
“But then more than one person would have been poisoned,” I say, like I’m not even playing on my own team.
“Right. Most likely. I checked the hospitals and talked to the ME. No such reports.”
“Wilson was sort of a hapless lad.”
“Really? Hapless? Stealing your best friend’s fiancée doesn’t sound very hapless. More like an asshole, to be honest.”
“He wasn’t! Hardly perfect, but not that.”
“You’re a loyal sister.”
I shrug. What else can I do?
People are crowding us at the bar and we’re standing a little closer than I’d choose to. He has a nice build, this Amory Porter. You can tell he exercises and takes care of himself. Probably not a taker of drugs, either, is my judgment. The proximity is not good for me; I start thinking about putting my palm on his chest, then sliding my hand around his neck and into his hair…and the fear I’m feeling, it only makes me want him more.
“Well, I’ll talk to Donny, see what he has to say for himself. He seem like the kind of guy who would be into revenge?”
I take another sip of water. “Maybe,” I say finally. “It’s all just so horrible. It’s hard to imagine anyone we know being capable of something like that. Where does Donny live now, anyway?”
“New York.”
“Ah. Well, that’ll pretty much make it impossible then, huh? Unless maybe he mailed the mushrooms to Wilson?” Weak, I know. Go easy, I’m reacting on the fly here.
Amory nods slowly. Somehow you can tell by watching him think that he did all right when intelligence was handed out.
Just making some dispassionate observations.
“So, I’ve got a couple of other questions to ask. Understand, I’m just being thorough…they may sound accusatory but that’s not my intention.”
I shrug.
“You were seen on Madison Avenue on January 3rd, wearing some sort of disguise? You might look good with black hair, I’m sorry I missed that,” he adds, his eyes twinkling again just for an instant.
I don’t say anything, because I am not able to pick out anything coherent from the shrieking torrent sweeping through my head. Obviously I should have prepared an explanation for this, but I did not.
I will ruin Katie Luxton’s life if I ever get the chance.
“Your pal Natalie had a whole story about how you had some sort of work done? And used the disguise as a way to get in and out of the clinic without anyone knowing it was you. Said the last thing you’d ever want is some photographer getting a shot of you headed into a plastic surgery clinic. She told me that…um, Katie? Yes, Katie Luxton told her about seeing you on the street looking heavier and wearing a wig, and Natalie said I wouldn’t believe it but practically everyone has had liposuction once or twice, even at your age. She said sometimes the doughnuts get away from you.”
I laugh but it sounds like a croak. “That’s Natalie for you. She’s always been, how to put it, inventive?”
“So you deny going to the clinic?”
Before I can figure out how to answer, he continues. “I’ve gotta say, I’m curious about something, Caroline. I’ve been in and out of 744 Park several times since your father hired me, and never seen any photographers. Is your family really dogged by paparazzi still, this long after the…the scandal from a few years back? So much that you have to rely on disguises? I mean, no offense, but you’re no Beyoncé.”
Well, that stings. “I don’t believe I’ve ever claimed to be a superstar, Amory.”
“If you did go to a clinic, you wouldn’t mind showing me a bill, then, or something else from your visit, would you?”
Three minutes ago, that question would have had me quivering under the table, already planning how to get along with my bunkmates at Rikers. But ironically, Natalie has given me courage. She has already done the work of inventing a ridiculous story that’s going to save my sorry ass.
“Oh, Amory,” I say lightly. “Can’t we please just move on? It’s been a really terrible month. All I want to do now is move forward and let the grieving proceed the way it must. I don’t see how picking over these details of my life is going to help anything.”
“I’ve been hired to find out what happened. I would rather be talking to you about a hundred other things, but…this is my job.”
“Whatever. In any case, I have never worn a black wig in my life, have never had liposuction, and all I can say about the gossip you’ve managed to dredge up is that some people don’t have enough to do and waste their time trying to drag other people down with their crazy fantasies. Would you order me a cheeseburger? Excuse me just a moment.”
I slip away from the bar, not taking my eyes off his to show that I am not afraid. In the tiny bathroom I pull out the smoked glass vial and tap out a good-sized bump and stare at it. My nostrils are all aquiver, I want to snort it up almost more than anything I’ve ever wanted to do in my life, but somehow the little bean elbows her way into my head and I brush the powder into the toilet.
He may suspect all he want, but he has nothing but a lot of yakety-yak from people who don’t matter.
When I return, I barely take a breath before he’s right back at it. “One last thing. That brown leather backpack you were carrying on January 6th, the one with the star-shaped tag. Where is it?”
“Backpack?” I say, momentarily jarred. But I get my feet under me again. Best that I don’t respond except in the most general and bland sort of way. “I admit, I have had something of a bag problem,” I say confidentially, leaning forward. “I know, such a cliché, and in my defense I never went for the super expensive ones. With me it was never about wanting to show off how much money I could blow on a bag, just to make other women envious. No—it’s more about wanting to have just the right bag for every occasion. A way to carry exactly what I need, no more, no less.
“So—brown leather backpack? I probably have six or ten of them. I am very particular about the design on the inside. Pockets, but not too many. A place for my phone, a zippered compartment, maybe two. I would think in your line of work, the right backpack would be crucial. When you’re out on the streets chasing bad guys, don’t you need all kinds of equipment? Wire taps, guns, secret cameras?”
He looks at me. His expression is difficult to read but I think I may have hurt his feelings. Perhaps I have gone too far. It hardly matters now.
“Wait, sorry, one last question—when’s the last time you were in Berkeley? I think you told me already. Keeping notes isn’t my strong suit.”
He gives me a sweet smile but there is obviously nothing at all sweet about that question.
“Last spring. I think it was April?”
“Okay, thanks.”
We both take deep breaths. He’d be so adorable, this Amory Porter, if only he weren’t investigating a murder I committed, and a little too doggedly.
“Okay,” he says, his tone shifting to the friendly side of the spectrum. “Enough about all that. I know you’re in mourning, and I hope this doesn’t come off as assholic�
��but let’s try to put all of it away just for an hour or so. You game?”
I shrug and look away, unable to keep from smiling a little. Oh, I’m game all right. I would like to dance with him into the wee hours, go out on the sidewalk and smoke cigarettes with him, go to the beach and skinny-dip with him. I know, I sound like a teenager on a first date, but things have been exquisitely lonely of late, and Amory Porter…here’s the thing…I can imagine lying in his arms and actually sleeping.
He has a certain calm about him. Which from a person like me is a great compliment.
But you know perfectly well: I cannot. For fifty reasons I cannot, even though I am not wrong, he is interested and this dinner isn’t just about the investigation.
Law enforcement, Wilson said. That was the final straw, the not proverbial but literal nail in the coffin. It occurs to me that the threat of Sandie Shearer will forever hang over my head—there’s no way to know what she’s thinking, what Wilson told her, or what she may or may not decide to do about it.
Even if I can dodge the suspicions of Amory Porter, this is not quite over. Maybe it never will be.
I excuse myself, go back to the over-designed bathroom that has unflattering blue lights under the counter and around the stall doors. I’d splash water on my face if it wouldn’t ruin my makeup. I have to get my shit together. At least I have not indulged since seeing the blue line on that test. Surely that earns me a big fat check mark in the plus column for the good citizen report?
When I come out, careful not to stay a suspiciously long time even though I would’ve been happy to stay in that ugly bathroom for the rest of my life to avoid facing any more grilling—he waves from across the room, seated at a table next to the kitchen door.
“Sorry about the placement,” he says, using a wry French accent. “We PIs don’t have much juice when it comes to seating.”
“No problem,” I say, mustering something that I hope approximates a smile.
We make small talk. We order, we eat our food. We share a bottle of middling wine. He asks me to talk about books and I go on and on about Proust and the work I do for Professor Ticknor, and he listens. I am not used to having a man listen this way. He stays quiet, appears to consider my words, does not jump in to direct me this way or that.
All the while I am playing this character known as Caroline. She is friendly enough, though working mightily to stay resistant to the charms of the man playing opposite her. Eventually he goes back to the subject of Wilson and tells me about the fake emails Rebecca and Wilson got, and I shake my head at the crazy things people get up to these days.
I start thinking I am around the last corner and headed for the finish line. I can feel the horse pick up the pace on the way back to the barn, to pile on another metaphor. I feel so relieved that I’m almost fooled into thinking it would be all right to go back to his place, just this once.
I swallow hard and keep my mouth shut. He pays the bill and we get up to leave.
“Hey, did that woman over there go to Spence?” he says, pointing behind me.
I turn to look but see no one I know. When I turn back, I think I see…well, I’m not sure. I didn’t really see anything. But I am a thousand percent sure he made up that question to divert my attention while he did something.
But what?
64
Caroline
After I got home last night I combed every square inch of this apartment…and the bracelet is nowhere. It’s not here.
Did it go into the East River along with the backpack?
My cell chirps and I practically jump out of my skin. Natalie. So not in the mood for her. Or anyone.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“What’s up?”
“So, that Amory dude?”
“Yeah?”
“I just talked to him for a sec. About you. Thought you’d want to know.”
And just like that—there’s no explaining these things, and surely you’ve experienced something similar, at some point in your life?—just like that, I know he knows.
He knows.
He fucking knows.
“Did he call you?” I ask, brilliantly nonchalant. Of course I already know they talked, I just want to hear Natalie’s version of events.
“Yeah. We just…it was only, we walked a few blocks, nothing really.”
Natalie’s loving this, I can tell. She wants me to beg. Okay, I’m not proud. Well, I am, but sometimes other things are more important. “So what did he want to know?”
“How you felt about Wilson.”
I’m nodding. The jeerlings are silent, their eyes wide, waiting.
“Anything else?”
“I’ll be honest, it felt sort of creepy, talking to him like that behind your back. I hope you’re not mad.”
“Anything else, Gnat?”
“I know you loved Wilson, and it’s ridiculous to even think—and plus, look, I know it’s personal and you’re probably going to be mad that I told him. But it just seemed like he should know you’ve been under some heavy stress lately, from stuff that had nothing to do with Wilson.
“So…I told him about the clinic thing. I know you didn’t even tell me, and it’s a huge violation for me to have blabbed about it to him. I’m really sorry, Caro. I didn’t even mean to tell him. He’s sort of clever that way, you know? You’re talking about something else altogether and then, I don’t know, he snakes around and gets you talking about—”
“It’s okay, Natalie, really. Don’t sweat it.”
“Sure you’re not mad?”
“Nah. Want to meet at the diner?”
“I’m fasting.”
“You do not need to lose any weight.”
“Whatever.”
“Okay, later in the week, then. Call me.”
Natalie makes a kissy sound into the phone and hangs up. I sit down on the slipper chair and look out at the street. So Katie Luxton reported I was running around in a disguise looking fat, and Natalie jumps to the conclusion that I was sneaking into a clinic for lipo. Brilliant.
I can’t tell whether I dodged a bullet or the real threat is somewhere out of sight, and I’ve failed to sense its presence. There’s this awful feeling of being sneaked up on that I can’t shake, like big hungry cats are creeping in the grass toward me, unseen and unheard.
The Black Forest clock chimes two. I imagine the glasses are clinking away in the living room by now. Gordon has been drinking early, and with Mummy, something he hasn’t done for years. It’s almost as if Wilson’s death has healed something in their marriage, which makes no sense whatsoever. Not that I have any interest in mulling that over.
65
Franks settles in, grumbling about the size of the seat. “Hey, beautiful,” he says to the airline hostess, “when did they shrink the seats like this?”
She smiles a practiced smile. “Would you like something to drink, sir?”
“How about a Sprite?”
She hands him the cup along with a tiny bag of pretzels. He starts to say something to his seatmate, a long-legged young man in a hoodie, but sees the earphones and shrugs to himself.
After doing as much legwork as he could locally and online, Franks is using his vacation time to go to New York and see what else he can find out about the Crowes. Dog with a bone, Oates said, rolling his eyes. A dog with the best clearance rate in the department, Franks answered, grinning.
He talked a beat cop into covering Wilson Crowe’s neighborhood, asking neighbors if they’d seen anyone they didn’t recognize in the couple of days before his death. That effort came up empty, but two neighbors reported a lanky man who arrived in a taxi and spent a number of hours with Rebecca; it took a little sweet-talking, but Franks was able to get Rebecca to identify him as Amory Porter, private investigator in the employ of Gordon Crowe, along with his cell number.
So far, Porter’s not answering.
His friend at AT&T has a record of a ping in Oakland on Caroline Crowe’s cellp
hone. The date’s a little early, but nevertheless, it puts her in California, near Berkeley, about a week before the poisoning took place. Franks knows this kind of cellphone-tower evidence isn’t as definitive as it could be—the system’s glitchy and the data’s not a hundred percent reliable—but hey, Rome wasn’t built in a fucking day.
Once the plane is up in the air, he pushes his seat back as far as it will go, closes his eyes, and thinks about how he’s going to nail Caroline Crowe.
66
“I know my collection technique was shit, but it was the best I could manage,” says Amory to his friend Sam, who works in a forensics lab at the FBI. He hands Sam a paper bag.
“This is really shady,” Sam says nervously, glancing around before taking the bag. They’re standing on the street around the block from the lab. “I’ll see what I can do. You know if you try to use this in court, you’ll get thrown out on your ass and I’ll get shit-canned in two seconds?”
“Sure, it’s just for my own understanding. Won’t be used in any court, I promise you.”
Sam peeks into the bag. “Looking for saliva?”
“Hopefully. Maybe some skin, if I’m lucky? She picked up the glass and drank from it about ten times.”
“That should do it.”
“I owe you.”
“You got that right.”
67
Caroline
I go through the kitchen on my way out, giving Marecita a hug and telling her I’ll be sure to bundle up. I guess with everything that’s happened, Gordon’s decided not to fire her after all. It’s just one of those threats he makes to keep everyone on their toes.
I’ve got to get outside, breathe some nice city air. Wilson’s memorial is in two days and I need to start stockpiling some serenity so I can make it through.
Gordon and Mummy are having drinks in the living room, and when I reach the foyer and press the button for the elevator, they pay me no attention at all. The Leslie Dahlquist is gone, and nothing has been hung in its place.
You Made Your Bed: A Novel Page 24