The Separatists

by Lis Wiehl

  “. . . Yes. Sure. It’s fine.”

  The call leaves Erica feeling even more lonely. She looks out at the parking lot and remembers the car that sped out of it. It was a sedan, dark, but that’s all she can bring up. She only saw the sides, not the front or rear, which would have given her a glimpse of its license plate or medallion. She picks up her phone and checks the picture she took of the little scrap of photograph. It’s a black-and-white picture that looks, from the thickness of the white border, like it was torn from the corner of an 8 x 10. The top of the scrap is dark and then below it, at the corner, there’s a diffuse gray light and what looks like the edge of . . . something. An object? A building? A vehicle? It’s so small, so indistinct, that it’s impossible to make any sort of supposition or even guess about what it depicts.

  Now that she’s turned her mind to concrete details, to questions that need to be answered, Erica feels on a somewhat more even keel. She takes a quick shower, slaps on a little makeup, and heads down to the lobby to get to work.

  When she steps off the elevator, she sees a woman across the lobby, hysterical, shaking, weeping, contorted with grief. A female police officer is holding her up, talking to her, trying to console the inconsolable.

  Erica turns to Gloria. “Is that . . .?”

  “Yes, it’s the victim’s daughter.”

  Her mother is dead. Killed in a brutal murder. Some lives end in the blink of an eye. Others are just irrevocably altered, into a before and an after. This woman has just entered after. Erica has an urge to go to her, offer condolences. But it would only make matters worse.

  “Erica?” Gloria says.

  Erica is pulled out of her reverie. “Yes, Gloria, I’m sorry, let’s go.” She picks up her mic and begins, “This is Erica Sparks reporting live from Bismarck, North Dakota, where a little over an hour ago I received a frantic call . . .”

  Erica continues her report, shocked that she manages to get the words out, words that don’t seem real—because all she can hear is the sobbing behind her.

  CHAPTER 24

  ERICA ARRIVES BACK AT LAGUARDIA on Sunday evening, and she and Gloria get into a waiting car. She’s still feeling shaky, she can’t get the image of Joan Marcus on the ladies’ room floor out of her mind—the tongue hanging out, the rolled-up eyes, the livid throat wound, the smeared blood on the wall, the blood, the blood.

  After dropping Gloria at her rental on Eighth Avenue and Fifty-Fourth Street, the driver takes Erica up to Central Park West. As they approach her graceful prewar building, lights glowing in the windows, she allows herself a moment of sentiment: There’s no place like home.

  And then she hears Susan’s bitter mocking laugh: Home? Ha! Home is where the crap is. Will it haunt her forever? Shouldn’t it stop, finally? After all, she bought her mother a townhouse outside Bangor in a spiffy new development, she pays the monthly fees, and her accountant sends Susan $2,500 a month. Yes, it’s all done out of guilt and shame and, yes, Erica resents the money. Why should she take care of a woman who never took care of her? Who left her to fend for herself all during her childhood, to scrounge meals, often subsisting on blocks of government cheese and food pantry peanut butter and Hamburger Helper without the hamburger? Who took her clothes shopping—to the Goodwill—once every two or three years? Who thought slapping your kid across the face—sometimes, most times, not for misbehavior, but because Susan was in a hungover raw-nerve state—was acceptable parenting?

  Still, Erica (through her lawyer) dutifully sends the checks—her only stipulation being that Susan go to NA meetings. On some level she enjoys the monthly reminder to Susan that her daughter got out, she made something of her life, she’s not a pathetic loser. But still the sad, sick bond remains, like invisible shackles around her heart and soul, the bond forged in a thousand nights in that cramped, filthy, moldy, drafty double-wide. And with it comes the tiny, faint flickering hope that somehow things could get better, that the sliver of affection—love even, maybe—that Erica felt from and toward her mother a couple of times during her childhood could be rekindled, that redemption is possible. Because when you’re a mother and daughter, there is no escape.

  Home, bitter home.

  Erica walks into the apartment. The front hall is dark and the place is eerily silent. “Greg?”

  There’s no answer. Erica tenses. She switches on the hall light and walks down into the living room, which is also dark. “Greg?”

  Still things are silent—and then, “I’m in here, honey.”

  Why didn’t he answer her first call? And take so long on her second? Erica walks down to the guest room, one corner of which Greg has turned into his home office. He’s sitting at his computer in the dark, his face looks ghostly bathed in the gray light from the screen. He makes no move to stand up and greet her.

  Erica stands behind him, rubs his shoulders, leans down, and kisses him.

  “I’m just finishing up this proposal,” he says, not turning to her kiss.

  Erica takes a step back. “Sorry to interrupt.”

  “I just want to get this nailed. We’re having horseradish-encrusted salmon for dinner.”

  He cooked! “Yummy.”

  “With asparagus and baby potatoes.”

  “I’m starving.” They’ll sit down to a nice dinner and catch up, she wants to hear all about last night’s party and to fill him in on the Bellamys and on the murder. She wants to feel supported and engaged and . . . loved. She needs it right now.

  He finally turns to her and takes her hand. “Are you okay? You had a pretty eventful little trip.” Before waiting for an answer, he turns back to his computer, saying, “Just give me ten minutes.”

  “I’ll go unpack. Meet you in the kitchen.”

  “If I’m not there, just take the containers out of the fridge and nuke ’em for a minute. Everything is from Whole Foods.”

  Down in their bedroom, Erica fights to control her disappointment and hurt. She gathers her dirty clothes and then heads down to the washer/dryer closet. As she’s about to put her stuff in the washer, she notices a shirt in there. One of Greg’s. A cool black-and-white striped one, Marc Jacobs. He must have worn it to the party last night. Maybe it got a little stain on it and he zapped it with Shout and then stuck it in the machine. Erica lifts it out and holds it to her nose. The smell of bergamot is unmistakable.

  CHAPTER 25

  IT’S MONDAY, AND ERICA IS back in her office. She hasn’t heard a peep from Jenny. So be it. Is she being a little stubborn? Maybe. But tenacity has been a big part of her career, and it might be time to apply it to her parenting. As for the Doubt Demon that likes to perch on her shoulder and whisper nasty nothings in her ear about what a crummy mom she is—Get lost, you slimy little creep!

  Gary Halpert was able to get both YouTube and Beth London to pull the video, and Mark Benton has pretty much scrubbed it off the Internet.

  But of course, Erica thinks ruefully, the video is only a symptom of a relationship that’s at a low point. Hardly its first dip, but Erica is afraid puberty and adolescence—all that intensity and hormones and sarcasm and anger and rush toward independence—will only further rend their bond. She folds her arms on her desk and rests her head for a moment, closing her eyes as sadness washes over her.

  Oh, Jenny, my baby girl, I love you so much, just know that, please. And I feel as lost as you do.

  There’s a gentle knock on her open door.

  “Is this a bad time?” Gloria asks softly.

  Erica sits up, shakes her head. “No, no, of course not.”

  Gloria walks over to Erica’s desk. “You’ve been working like a dog on a triple-espresso IV. Are you sure you don’t need a little break?”

  “You’ve been working just as hard as I have.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not the majordomo, public face, anchorwoman, et cetera.”

  “We don’t have time to take a break.” GNN agreed to push the first episode of Spotlight up two weeks. Their hand was forced by Take Back Ou
r Homeland’s still-undisclosed invitation for “twenty-first-century pioneers” to move to North Dakota and join them. It’s a hot story and they want to break it. But it does mean twenty-hour days for everyone connected with the show.

  “The promo is up,” Gloria says.

  “Let’s take a look.”

  Gloria clicks on Erica’s office television and then sends the video from her phone to the set. It opens with a quick shot of Steve Watson blowing up his supporters and himself, cuts to Mary Bellamy talking about the Homeland, and ends with a crowd of Alabama white-supremacist secessionists holding a protest outside the statehouse.

  “It’s scary. And the Bellamys aren’t going to like it. It makes secessionist movements seem militant and dangerous,” Erica says.

  “Actually I think they come across as the soul of reason in a sea of hate.”

  “Yes, but it does lump them all together. There’s definitely some guilt by association.”

  “Well, that will draw people to watch her interview, which gives her a huge platform to demonstrate how different Take Back Our Homeland is from these fringe groups.”

  “Good point. And good job.”

  “We’re running this on GNN and eight other cable channels. A week from Thursday is our big night. We want to come out of the gate with a bang.”

  “Exciting. Listen, I’m going to head out to North Dakota again on Saturday.”

  Gloria looks momentarily taken aback. Then quizzical.

  “I want to do a little digging on Joan Marcus.”

  She takes this in and then nods. “Okay. Would you, um, like me to come?”

  “I want to keep a low profile.”

  “Okay. Okay.” Gloria steps closer to the desk and her face fills with concern. “I want you to be careful out there. Stay in close radio contact.”

  “I will. And thank you.”

  Gloria leaves and Erica feels a wave of affection. Gloria has her back.

  CHAPTER 26

  GLORIA HEADS OUT OF THE GNN building and merges with the sea of pedestrians heading south. She walks down two blocks and turns west on Fiftieth Street before taking out her prepaid and dialing.

  “Yes,” comes the taut baritone. And with it, that jolt of desire and longing.

  “She’s going out to North Dakota this weekend.”

  “I thought the filming was done.”

  “It is. She’s going alone. To look into the Marcus murder.”

  He curses in Russian—he loves to show off his fluency. “That was grossly mishandled. Marcus was supposed to be dealt with before she reached the hotel. The deliveryman was incompetent. Well, he won’t be incompetent for long.”

  “I offered to accompany her, but she wants to go alone.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll keep a close eye.”

  Gloria comes to a pocket park and walks in. She goes to a wall and huddles facing it, lowering her voice. “I miss you. When will I see you?”

  “You know I never mix business with pleasure.”

  “I thought I was both.”

  His voice softens. “Of course you are. Good work. Keep it up.”

  And then he hangs up and he’s gone and Gloria is overcome by a wave of loneliness. Well, it will all be over in due time and then . . . then she will be rewarded with James’s love—oh, James, my James—and all those years of being the Good Little Girl, the best in class, hand up at every question, polite and discreet and dull . . . those days will be over and she will verily play in the fields of plenty with the man she lives for.

  Gloria smiles to herself and then heads over to the food kiosk, where she orders a double bacon cheeseburger and onion rings. She’s always had a fierce appetite.

  CHAPTER 27

  ERICA SPENDS THE NEXT SEVERAL hours working on tonight’s show, but she’s haunted by the murder of Joan Marcus and the disappearance of that torn corner of a photograph. She supposes it could have simply been overlooked in the initial response to the crime, maybe stepped on and kicked aside—it was so small—but if that’s the case, it’s sloppy police work. If that’s not the case, what happened to it? And the police have made no progress with identifying the car Erica saw speeding out of the parking lot. And who was Joan Marcus? What did she so desperately want to tell Erica? And, of course, who slit her throat?

  Erica calls Detective Hoaglund. “Any progress?”

  “Not much. The parking lot surveillance camera was shot out. Her car was in the lot, so she drove herself to the hotel. Her killer or killers were following her. They waited outside in the shadows while she called you on the house phone, then they walked into the hotel and either forced or lured her into the bathroom and killed her.”

  “And nobody in the lobby saw anyone?”

  “No. As you know, it was pretty deserted at the time.”

  “No fingerprints?”

  “None.”

  “No one saw Marcus earlier in the day?”

  “We’re still looking. There’s a lot of country out here, and Marcus lived in an isolated house. You can go weeks without seeing another person.”

  “And the search of her house?”

  “A lot of vodka bottles, a lot of pills. No evidence.”

  “Listen, I’d like to fly out there this weekend and poke around.”

  There’s a pause and then, “We’re in the middle of a police investigation here. Your presence might be disruptive.”

  “No cameras. Nothing. Just me.” There’s another pause. “Listen, Detective, Joan Marcus wanted to see me, to talk to me, she had something to tell me. I was the last person to speak with her. I’m coming out there.”

  “I can’t spare anyone to escort you around. We’re dealing with a murder here. And I certainly can’t guarantee your safety.”

  CHAPTER 28

  NEAL CLARK IS ON HIS Harley 750 speeding along Route 7, heading north, past the Winnipeg suburbs. Is there anything more exhilarating than being on a bike, going eighty miles an hour, whipped by the wind, feeling the power of the machine between your legs merging with your own power, your own strength? It’s pure freedom.

  He’s on his way to visit Prairie Health, his vitamin and supplement operation (not to mention the unmentionable). It’s a surprise visit. The best kind. Catch everyone unaware. See what’s really going on. Of course, production has been running smoothly, the numbers are great, he has built Prairie Health into the largest vitamin and supplement manufacturer in Canada. Neal believes that the body is a temple and that supplements are an offering. They keep us rockin’ and rollin’—young and vital and virile. He’s a running, swimming, motorcycle-riding, lovemaking testament to his ethos.

  The only thing missing is the woman he loves. If only Mary were on the back of the bike, her hands around his torso, moving with him like his shadow.

  Patience, Neal, patience.

  He exits the highway and heads east for eight miles on Route 17 before reaching the vast Prairie Health complex, which is set back from 17 and reached by an access road. He pulls into the parking lot, dismounts, takes off his helmet, and surveys the property. His property. With graceful landscaping, immaculate buildings, lots of glass and steel, it projects health and serenity and strength. And it’s safe—there are a half dozen Province Security cars parked strategically around the campus. His own private police force. All of them trained, armed, and ready. Nobody messes with Neal Clark.

  Set about a quarter of a mile past the main building is the laboratory, a sprawling low-slung, single-story building. The lab is top secret—the supplement industry is famously cutthroat and competitive—and set behind a high fence, reached through a manned gatehouse. It’s where his scientists are inventing new tools for better, healthier, longer living.

  Neal laughs out loud at the beauty of it all.

  Tools for better, healthier, longer living.

  Well, I suppose you could say that. Depends whose living you’re talking about. He keeps laughing. It’s so funny. And so beautiful. And so powerful. And so close. So tantaliz
ingly close.

  He’ll visit the lab second—save the best for last. As he walks toward the main building he feels like the Master of the Universe. And why shouldn’t he? Wherever he goes in the province he sees land, businesses, and buildings that he owns. And he built the empire himself; he’s not one of those coddled types (like Sturges) who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. And after Mary wins the election, his empire is going to have a new crown jewel—he’s going to tap into the mother lode. Let it flow, let it flow, let it flow—he’s going to ride that inky tide right into the Buffett/Gates/Koch league.

  Once inside headquarters, Neal is greeted by the usual obsequious array of middle managers. Such a sad lot, like little lapdogs, so eager to please, so transparent, so easy to manipulate that there’s no challenge really. They bore him. But he feigns interest—because it’s in his own interest. He visits various departments—operations, quality control, IT, public relations, the assembly line—nodding his head, asking the occasional question and offering praise when earned. Praise is a wonderful tool of manipulation. If he’s the Master of the Universe—and he is—they’re his slaves. Working their tragic little butts off to pay the mortgage, get the kids through school, take a little vacay in August. It’s poignant really. Almost touching. But ultimately pathetic.

  When he’s done talking about calcium and melatonin and some new study on the benefits of milk thistle and whether the Newfoundland market is big enough to warrant investment, he takes his leave.

  That chore out of the way, he walks back toward the laboratory building, his excitement growing with every step. He passes through the gatehouse, where another slave waves him through. Inside the building, Anton Vershinin is waiting to greet him. Anton isn’t a slave, he’s an equal, a better even, one of the most brilliant scientists on the planet. And he works for Neal. And for the Homeland, of course. Luring him over from Russia took some doing, but James—amazing James—handled it so beautifully, doing his research on Anton, finding out he felt unappreciated and unpaid by the Kremlin. Then making the connection, the clandestine meetings, slowly seducing Anton with visions of glory and freedom. And, of course, it’s amazing what a suitcase filled with five million dollars in cash can accomplish.