This Secret Thing

by Whalen, Marybeth Mayhew

  “So, Mr. Jones,” he said, addressing the man. Nico looked around the house they sat in, just a few streets away from where Norah Ramsey lived. It was a lovely home, decorated in grays and neutrals, the furniture new and tasteful, with clean lines and minimal frills. The overall effect was one of a very high-end doctor’s waiting room. You felt comfortable here, but not comfortable enough that you’d want to stay. “I’m sure you’ve heard about the arrest of your neighbor Norah Ramsey,” he continued.

  The man set down his coffee and grimaced. “I don’t have anything to do with prostitutes,” he said. “I’m a family man. You can ask anyone.”

  You might have more to do with prostitutes than you think. Nico kept his expression neutral. “I appreciate that, Mr. Jones. But I’m not here to ask about you.”

  Mr. Jones, whose first name was Dave, laughed nervously. “OK, good.” Nico waited a moment, not wanting to say what came next. Before he could speak, Mr. Jones spoke up. “Is this about my boss?”

  “Your boss?” Dave Jones’s boss wasn’t why he was here, but if someone had suspicions or information, he’d entertain it. You never knew where a lead could come from.

  “Yeah, Richard Mann. He’s my boss. I’m a VP, but he owns the company. He’s . . . well, I just thought maybe some of the stuff he’s into . . . maybe he was one of the men you’re looking for.”

  “We don’t know who we’re looking for,” Nico said, feeling the sting of failure all over again as he said it. He couldn’t figure this case out without knowing who Norah’s clients were. The truth was, it wasn’t the prostitution he really cared about. If some poor Joe wanted to pay for it, let him. But if that same poor Joe had links to the men his brother had been talking about on the day he disappeared, then, yeah, Nico wanted to know who he was. Because that person—that one magical lead—could help him find Matteo. He wrote down the name Richard Mann and thanked Mr. Jones for the tip.

  Dave Jones’s eyes widened. “Don’t tell him I said it.”

  Nico suppressed a smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

  Dave Jones scrunched up his face, his eyes becoming slits as he did. “So if you’re not here about me, or about Rich, then why are you here?”

  Nico took a sip of coffee as he collected himself. He heard his wife’s voice in his head urging him to be gentle. To be kind. This man was about to have the rug pulled out from under him; no sense making it harder with his gruffness, his tendency to be a little too “to the point.”

  “Does your wife have any . . . hobbies . . . that take her out of the house a lot?”

  Mr. Jones didn’t catch on. “Hobbies? Like golf?”

  “Well, sure. Like golf.”

  Dave Jones scrunched up his face again as he thought this over. “She takes this self-defense class once a week with some of the other ladies from the neighborhood. They all started taking it after that woman was attacked in that home invasion.” His eyes widened. “Hey—did you investigate that one? Heard she got beat up pretty bad.” His expression softened into concern. “I told Laura. I said, if anyone comes into this house, I want you to run, not try to fight ’em. You’d be better off going to a shooting range than a self-defense class. But you know women. They get a bee in their bonnet and there’s no talking ’em out of it.”

  Nico agreed, smiled, waited a moment. “Does Laura do any other sort of group activities?”

  Dave Jones smacked his hand down on the kitchen table. Nico half expected him to holler Eureka! “I forgot. You said group activities, and it jogged my memory. Laura goes to these parties a lot. Sells kitchen gadgets and whatnots.” He gestured behind them, in the direction of the kitchen cabinets. “She’s got a shit ton of that crap from selling it.”

  “So, she’s . . . successful at her business?”

  Dave nodded. “I mean, I guess. I don’t really know, to be honest. It’s her mad money, she says. She needed a fund for the spa. Likes to get massages and facials and crap. I don’t know.”

  “And does she have a favorite spa she goes to?” Nico asked, working hard to sound nonchalant, knowing what came next.

  “Yeah. She pretty much goes to the same one all the time. Over on Crossroads Boulevard?”

  Nico nodded encouragingly. Keep talking, he thought.

  “She says you wouldn’t believe how often you have to go to keep it all up.” Dave Jones shook his head. “You couldn’t pay me to be a woman.”

  “Me either,” Nico said. He did not say, In your wife’s case, it actually pays to be a woman. He cleared his throat, the universal signal that the conversation was about to change direction. “Actually, Mr. Jones, the spa your wife frequents has been linked to Norah Ramsey’s, um, business.” He sat, quiet for a moment, and watched Dave Jones’s face as he worked to remain impassive even as his eyes revealed the wheels turning inside his head.

  “What’s that got to do with Laura?” the other man said. He didn’t bother to keep the defensiveness out of his voice.

  “Well, that’s what we’ve brought her into the station to talk about. She’s with a female detective right now.”

  “Laura’s . . . in custody?” The man looked like he was growing short of breath. “On what grounds?”

  “I’m not at liberty to go into details about that, Mr. Jones. And she’s not in custody as of yet. We’re just . . . information-gathering at this point. But please know we don’t go around hauling housewives into interviews without grounds to do so.”

  He wondered if the female officer he’d left Laura with would bear down on her the way he wanted her to. He wanted to use any means possible to get one of these women to crack. He needed that client list so he could find out more about what Matteo had been talking about the last day Nico saw him. On that client list was the name of the man Matteo had seen. If he had the list, he could start narrowing it down. And then he could find his brother.

  He looked at Jones, who nodded his understanding, looking meek as he absorbed the gravity of what was happening. Nico continued, “I came here just to inform you of what was happening and thought maybe we could chat about any, um, questions or concerns you may have been having.”

  “Questions or concerns about what?”

  “Well, just maybe you’ve seen some things, heard some things, wondered about whether your wife has been, well, honest with you about her activities.”

  Dave Jones didn’t hesitate. “Never. Not once. Laura is—well, she’s not the kind of person who would do what you’re insinuating. I can’t—” The man looked down at the floor, clasping the edge of the table like he was on a cliff and the table was a branch, the only thing between him and the abyss. Nico listened as he breathed in and out, in and out, loudly. He sounded like a bull about to charge.

  Dave Jones looked up again. “I think you should leave.”

  Nico nodded and stood. “Of course,” he said.

  The other man rose as well. He did not extend his hand for Nico to shake, and Nico didn’t blame him. He felt for the guy. He turned as if to go. As much as this case was tied to his own heartbreak, he wasn’t going to allow it into this room at this moment. He had a job to do. He took a few steps toward the door, then stopped short, pretending he’d forgotten something. This was how he always did this part, using the element of surprise, borrowing a page from Columbo’s book. And it always worked, like it did for Columbo.

  Nico might not’ve been smart enough to come up with this stuff on his own, but he was smart enough to borrow the things other smart people had come up with. His years in front of the TV as a kid had served him well. His dad had always liked watching Columbo reruns. He was glad his dad had passed away before Matteo’s disappearance. The worry would’ve killed him.

  Nico dug in his interior coat pocket as he turned back to Dave Jones, who was watching him warily. “Almost forgot,” Nico said, making his voice sound apologetic.

  He handed the man the search warrant he’d really come there to serve. He’d never expected the guy to give up his wife. After talking
to him, Nico believed the poor schmuck truly didn’t know a thing. Of course Nico had to probe a bit, get a feel for the situation. And the guy had put his wife at the very spa where they suspected she was servicing men. So, there was that. Once Dave Jones accepted that his wife had been prostituting herself under his nose—and doing God knows what with the profits—he’d divorce her, and they could call him as a witness if it came to a trial.

  Sometimes he hated how jaded his job had made him. But sometimes he appreciated the hard shell it had afforded him. He’d learned to feel less with each injustice he’d witnessed, each violation he’d investigated, each cold case that had no hope of ever being solved. Growing numb made it harder to be human—to interact with his kids, to feel his wife’s embrace, to accept happiness in the moments when it lighted on him—but it also made it easier when happiness did what it always did: flitted away again.

  He watched as the guy opened the folded paper and gave it the cursory read that everyone did. Reading the words didn’t change what they said; you had to get out of your house so strangers could turn it upside down, rifle through your personal things, look for incriminating items that would later be used against you or a loved one. He wondered what Laura Jones had hidden, what they would find.

  “Do you have anywhere you can go?” Nico asked. This part wasn’t his responsibility, but he asked anyway.

  “My kids—they’ll be home from school soon.” Dave Jones started to argue, as if this were something that could be rescheduled. Nico wanted to reach out and give the man a sympathetic pat, but his arms stayed by his side. Dave Jones didn’t want his sympathy.

  “You’ll need to make arrangements for your children,” was all Nico said. He stood, motionless for a moment, thinking Dave Jones might say more. But instead he just turned and walked away, leaving Nico to open the door for the officers waiting to come inside the Jones house and do their job.

  Casey

  Casey got ready to leave, rationalizing as she did. She hadn’t gone looking for him. He had found her. And besides, this was just lunch. Not a date. Not even close. She wasn’t so weak that she had reached out to the one constant in her life since she had been a sophomore in high school. She hadn’t caved and done that. Since she had come home she’d been a strong, independent woman, handling her problems by herself. Until there he was, behind her in line to pick up a pizza, calling her name.

  He’d pointed at the pizza as they handed it to her over the counter, closed his eyes, and said, “Black olives and mushrooms, extra sauce.” But he might as well have said I know the way you like your pizza. I know everything there is to know about your family. I know your worst fears and private dreams. I know you. Only he didn’t know her, not anymore. Things had happened to her, things that had changed her that he didn’t know about.

  They stepped off to the side. He took the pizza from her hands, set it on a table nearby so they could chat. “Don’t you need to get your pizza?” she asked, and pointed back at the line.

  He waved away her suggestion. “I’ll get it after you leave.” He gestured at the pizza. “Bess doing some volunteer thing, too busy to cook?” He always thought it was ironic how her mother would cook a meal for another family, then order a pizza for her own.

  Casey shrugged. “She’s all freaked out about this woman who got arrested in our neighborhood. We had her kid staying with us, but then the kid left because Nicole has turned into a little beyotch. Anyway, she sent me out for pizza because she hadn’t ‘had time to even think about dinner.’” This was said in her best Bess imitation. Foolishly she’d thought that upon her arrival, her mother would cook all her favorite meals, welcome her home with maternal love and care. Instead Bess hadn’t seemed to notice she was there.

  He crossed his arms. “You home for a break already?”

  She looked down at the tile floor made to look like red bricks lined up in a pattern, two up, two down. “Kind of just . . . taking a break,” she mumbled.

  “You’re not dropping out?” he asked. She heard the concern in his voice. But also, just under it, hope.

  “No,” she said, and as she said it, she meant it. She was down, but she wasn’t out. Not yet. But she couldn’t keep missing classes. The dean had said she could take some time, that the profs would be notified, and she could stay abreast of her classwork from home. But that her absence couldn’t drag on. She would have to take a withdrawal or come back. Soon. Meanwhile, the great love of her life—the boy she’d broken up with before leaving for school—stood right in front of her. And all she could think was, Maybe this changes everything.

  Thankfully he didn’t push her for more details on her homecoming. Instead he said, “Got time for lunch before you go back?” He’d made it sound so nonchalant that she almost believed he didn’t care whether she said yes.

  The first few weeks after they’d broken up had been grueling—the texts, the calls, the tearful “Whys?” that she could not answer except to say “It’s for the best.” He’d stopped calling eventually, and she’d thrown herself into the parties, the new friends, the late nights in the dorm. She’d worked to find her niche at school, forced herself to enter fully into this new life, one that hadn’t involved him. When he crept into her mind, she would focus on something else. But now, here he was. That had to mean something, didn’t it?

  “I could do lunch,” she said, and made her voice sound as cavalier as his did.

  They’d agreed on a date and time. She’d told him she’d meet him—not to pick her up—her mom would freak if she saw him picking her up, but she didn’t say so. He’d seize on that if she did. He’d known that her mother was behind their breakup, that it wasn’t really what she, Casey, had wanted. Being independent was doing what you wanted, not what your parents told you. But her mother had been so insistent that she break it off, so certain in a way that Casey had not been. So she’d listened, never putting much thought as to why her mother had been so adamant that they cut ties before Casey went off to school.

  Now she wondered if breaking up had been truly what was best for her, if her mother was capable of even knowing what that was. If she hadn’t broken up with him, none of what had happened would’ve happened. This she knows for sure. Standing there, she regretted having listened to her mother. She’d placed a lot of confidence in someone who didn’t seem to be happy with her own life decisions.

  “So I’ll see you Wednesday?” he’d asked, and smiled at her. She thought of what had happened back at the university the night she fled, the faces leering at her. Those faces hadn’t looked anything like his did. She told herself that what she saw on his face was love, plain and simple. That he was something to grab on to in the midst of her freefall. She felt her hand reach out as if she might literally take hold of him, the impulse overcoming her rational mind. She hoped he thought that she was just reaching out to shake his hand, to behave with the formality of someone who was now just an acquaintance.

  Instead his smile widened. He reached out his own hand and took hers, then pulled her to him, erasing the space between them. In his arms she felt a flicker of peace she hadn’t felt since everything had happened, a sense of being home in the way that she hadn’t felt upon actually arriving home. She inhaled and exhaled, smelling the familiar scent of him, feeling the warmth of his body. He’d been her everything until he’d become her nothing. And, just like that, here he was being something again. She made herself let go, step out of the embrace, creating a distance between them again.

  “See you Wednesday,” she said.

  And then Wednesday was there. It would be a fresh start, a new thing. But what kind of thing, she could not say. She wasn’t sure she wanted to think that far ahead. She wasn’t sure she was capable of thinking beyond this moment, here, putting on the shoes she would wear to walk out the door, climb into her car, and go meet Eli, who was waiting for her on the other side of town.

  Bess

  October 7

  She did not hide after class that week. She did n
ot have to. One of their own was conspicuously absent, causing a somber silence to fall over the gossipers. Laura Jones’s arrest, it seemed, had caused everyone to retreat to a place inside themselves, a guarded place, a place no one wanted anyone else to see. In that place were the kinds of questions one would never give voice to, the ones that unearthed and unsettled. How well do we know each other? How well do we know ourselves? Could I? Would I?

  In the bathroom, Bess noticed that no one lingered at the mirror. After everyone was gone, she stood in front of it, the only one who dared to take in her own image. She left the studio feeling unburdened, a lightness in her step. Steve had left for a business trip that morning, his absence a gift, freedom stretching out in front of her. No stilted conversation. No tension in the air. No wondering where things stood or where things would end up. He was out of sight, out of mind for a few blessed days.

  She got out of the car and rounded the corner to her back door, keys in hand, to let herself into the house, which was, thankfully, empty. Casey was gone, off to have lunch with a friend, she had said. But Bess suspected it was her ex-boyfriend. Casey had never been a very good liar, and Bess could always tell when she was outright lying or just omitting a key truth. She needed to pin Casey down about it, but she didn’t want to. She wanted to remain blissfully ignorant. About whether Casey was seeing her ex, and about why she was home. The Strickland household specialized in unasked questions and unrocked boats. Bess didn’t know when it had become that way, and she didn’t like that it had. She resolved that today was the day she would insist on knowing what was going on. Bess would ask Casey nicely, tell her she was concerned about her missing so many classes, offer to help sort out whatever it was that had brought her home.

  Movement in her peripheral vision interrupted her rapid-fire thoughts, stopping her short. Her eyes darted in the direction of the movement, her heart rate picking up speed as her mind shifted into alert mode. Fresh from self-defense class, she was aware of danger lurking in every corner.