Best Friends Forever

by Jennifer Weiner

  He stared down at Sasha, thinking that he was supposed to have his life by now: his wife, his family, the house they would live in together. Instead, he had nothing. Nothing at all.

  “Dan Swansea,” he began. His breath formed white clouds with every word. “We think the belt and the blood belong to a man named Dan Swansea.”

  Sasha sighed and nudged the door open with her hip. “C’mon.” She kept an office on the first floor, just off the kitchen, with a tiny antique desk and two upholstered armchairs, and it was there that she led him, sweeping a half-dozen stuffed bears and bunnies off one chair and sitting down in another.

  Jordan took a seat and made his case. “Fifteen years ago, when Dan Swansea was a senior at Pleasant Ridge High, he was accused of raping one of his classmates, a woman named Valerie Adler. He and some of his friends got in trouble for harassing the woman who’d accused them. Valerie denied anything had happened. The woman who accused Dan was Valerie’s best friend, Adelaide Downs.”

  “Go on,” said Sasha, pulling out a pen and a piece of paper.

  “Three of the boys who got in trouble were at the reunion last night. Swansea’s missing. He’s not answering his phone. Nobody’s seen or heard from him since the reunion.”

  Sasha regarded him with her fine brown eyes. “So what happened?”

  “We’re looking at the woman who made the accusation. Adelaide Downs.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Not the victim? The one he allegedly raped?”

  “We think that Ms. Adler and Ms. Downs are together,” Jordan said. “We think maybe whatever happened to Dan, the two of them are responsible.”

  The wheels of Sasha’s chair squeaked against the floor. “So what happened? The two of them waited fifteen years, then snuck up on Dan in the parking lot, took off his belt, and did what, exactly?”

  Stiffly Jordan said, “We’re working on that.”

  “Have you questioned them?”

  “I was at Ms. Downs’s house this morning,” he said. Never mind that he’d been there to ask about her brother. “She’s missing now. Her neighbor reported her missing. Her house is locked. Valerie Adler’s car is in the garage, and Ms. Adler has a permit to carry a weapon, concealed. I want permission to get a warrant to search their houses,” he said, leaving out the fact that he’d been through Addie’s house already, that he’d found a coat with blood that he thought would match what they’d found in the parking lot.

  But even before he’d finished pronouncing the word “warrant,” Sasha was shaking her head. “No can do, Chief. There’s no physical evidence connecting them to the crime, right?”

  “Right.” They looked at each other for a moment, Sasha with her eyes narrowed, Jordan with his hands on his thighs. He guessed that he could get her to authorize his request for a warrant if he could get her into bed again, but given his past behavior, that probably wouldn’t be happening.

  “I can’t let you go after a warrant based on circumstantial evidence,” Sasha finally said. Jordan nodded and got to his feet. This was the answer he’d expected, even though it had been worth a shot. Sasha’s expression softened. “You look awful. Go home. Get some sleep,” she said.

  Back in the car, Jordan called his team and sent them home, telling Holly and Gary to be back at the station at seven a.m. sharp (“I’ll bring you coffee,” Holly told him, and Jordan didn’t have the heart to tell her no). At home, there was a new episode of The Nighty-Night Show. Jordan showered, stuffed his clothes in the hamper, and pulled on pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. He cracked open a beer, shoved a frozen pizza in the toaster oven (he had to fold it in half to get it to fit), and settled into his camp chair. But he couldn’t relax. He kept thinking about Adelaide Downs, whom no one had believed, and Valerie Adler, the best friend who’d betrayed her and then come back. The ladies, he thought… and by the time the Nighty-Night Lady came on, with her V-neck exposing a wedge of creamy cleavage, Jordan was asleep.

  THIRTY-SIX

  The next morning, Jordan huddled with Holly and Gary as the two of them led him through the intricacies of Wikipedia and explained, in painstaking detail, what Twitter was. When he was up to speed on everything the Internet could tell him about Valerie Adler, Girl Reporter, from her feuds to her Facebook fan page, he took a pocketful of Holly’s frosted Christmas sugar cookies, cut in the shapes of bells and stars and candy canes and decorated with seasonal sprinkles, and drove to Chicago.

  There was no answer when he buzzed Val’s high-rise condo on Lakeshore Drive. The doorman out front was resplendent in a uniform of red wool and gold braid, like he was planning on marching off to fight for the British as soon as his shift ended. His name was Carl, and he hadn’t seen Ms. Adler since Thanksgiving Day. “Her mother was in town,” he said, and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial murmur. “You know the term ‘cougar’?”

  Jordan nodded. The other man’s teeth gleamed as he grinned. “Man, I’da hit that with stuffing!”

  “So you haven’t seen Valerie Adler?”

  “I’da hit that with candied yams on the side!”

  “Got it. Now, can you tell me—”

  “I’da hit that,” the man said, shoulders heaving with laughter, “and then three hours later, when the football game was over, I’da gone back to the kitchen for a hit-that sandwich with cranberry sauce!”

  “Okay,” said Jordan.

  “Funny?” asked the doorman, smoothing the braid on his shoulders. “I’m doing open-mic night at the Laugh Hut next week. Anyhow, the hot mama left Thursday night, and I haven’t seen Miss Valerie since then.”

  “You got a key?”

  Carl shook his head. “I’m sorry, man, but Ms. Adler would kill me. She would literally end my life as I know it. So unless you got a warrant… look, fella, I’d help you out, but comedy’s not paying yet, and I got kids, you know?” Sure, Jordan thought, thanking the man. Didn’t everyone?

  Valerie’s parking spot underneath the building was empty. Her cell phone went straight to voice mail. That left work.

  Jordan pulled up in front of the Fox studios on North Michigan Avenue just after eight-thirty in the morning and consulted the printout in his lap. Ten minutes later, the man he was waiting for approached the building. Station manager Charles Carstairs was tall and rangy, with a tartan scarf around his neck and a tweed cap shading his eyes. He carried a slim leather attaché case in one hand and one of those brand-new smartphones in the other. Beneath his overcoat, he wore a navy-blue suit that appeared to be more expensive by a factor of five than the best thing Jordan owned.

  “Mr. Carstairs?” Jordan jumped out of the car and crossed the sidewalk fast, with his badge in his hand. “Jordan Novick from the Pleasant Ridge police department.”

  Carstairs scowled down at his telephone’s screen, then up at Jordan. “What can I do for you, sir?” Another glance at the screen. “Whatever it is, it’ll have to be quick. We’re on live at nine.”

  “This shouldn’t take long,” Jordan promised. Carstairs frowned and started tapping at his telephone again. Jordan gave him a minute and then, in a voice that was loud enough to carry, he said, “Mr. Carstairs, I need to speak to Valerie Adler, your employee, with regard to an ongoing investigation. I need your assistance, sir.”

  Carstairs put his telephone away. “Fine. C’mon up.”

  In his office on the thirty-seventh floor, Carstairs sprawled in his seat, legs spread, arms stretched above his head behind a desk filled with framed family pictures. Jordan checked out a handsome Irish setter, two little boys with their father’s sharp features, and a woman whose auburn hair was significantly less glossy and whose expression was marginally less intelligent than the dog’s. He wondered which one was better behaved. On a wall to the right of the desk, six flat-screen TVs broadcast local and national news; on a wall to the left, three clocks kept time in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. Through the windows that looked out on the mostly empty horseshoe-shaped newsroom, Jordan could see a few people tapping at compu
ter keyboards. At one desk, a man draped in a barber’s cape was getting his hair trimmed.

  “What is this about?” Charlie Carstairs asked, rocking forward and planting his forearms on the desk. “What do you want with Valerie?”

  “Right now,” said Jordan, “we just need to find her. She isn’t at her condo, she isn’t answering her cell phone.”

  Carstairs turned to his computer, tapped a few keys, and peered at the screen. “She worked Thanksgiving, and she’s scheduled off until Tuesday. Her high school reunion was Friday night, and she called in puffy.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Well, not called in. She asked for the time off weeks ago. She said she’d be drinking, and she didn’t want to be on the air with carb face.”

  “Carb face,” Jordan repeated.

  “Vanity.” Carstairs allowed himself a small smile. “Par for the course with on-air talent. Wish I could help, but I really couldn’t tell you where she is… and like I said, we’re live at nine.”

  I think you can tell me, thought Jordan. You can, but you don’t want to. He stood up and inspected the family pictures. One of Carstairs’s boys was missing his front teeth. “Did Valerie ever mention any places she liked? Vacations she’d taken? Any friends or relatives in other cities?”

  Carstairs twitched in his seat. “None that I recall.”

  “Okay,” said Jordan. He lifted a photograph of Charlie Carstairs in a Hawaiian shirt with a garish print, posing in front of a statue of a dolphin as big as a city bus. “Where is this, Florida?”

  The other man’s voice was waspish. “Why do you ask?”

  “Just wondering.” Jordan set the picture down. “Were you the one who hired Valerie?”

  Carstairs shoved his chair away from his desk. “Look, I’ve really got to get out there.”

  “What is she like?”

  The other man hesitated, his hand on the doorknob. “What do you mean?”

  “What’s she like?” Jordan said. “We’re trying to find her. We need to make sure she’s safe. The more we know about her, the better.”

  The appeal to Carstairs’s better nature, the mention of Val’s safety, seemed to work. He stepped away from the door and sat down behind his desk again. “Let’s see. She runs,” Carstairs said. “Or at least she dresses like she does. She likes sushi. And nice clothes. Her wardrobe budget…” His face softened as he remembered something… something personal, something tender, Jordan bet. He recognized the look. He was pretty sure he’d felt it on his own face when he’d told stories about Patti—how he’d proposed, for example, by hiding the ring in a box of chocolates, only Patti had been on a diet. She’d thanked him sweetly and set the box by the door to bring to school the next morning, and he’d had to tell her that she might want to take a cruise through the caramels before she dropped it off in the teachers’ lounge with a HELP YOURSELF sign on top.

  He pulled himself back to the present. “Did you ever see Ms. Adler lose her temper?”

  Carstairs shrugged. “She gets annoyed, just like the rest of us.”

  “What does she do when she gets angry?” Jordan asked. “Does she throw stuff? Curse? Sulk?”

  “She… plots, I guess,” Carstairs said, surprising Jordan, who’d been expecting more typically diva-esque behavior—cursing, or ranting, or throwing cell phones and wire hangers at an assistant. “She doesn’t raise her voice or curse, but the thing about Val, if you cross her once, she never forgets it.”

  Cross her once, Jordan wrote. “Did she ever get in any trouble?”

  Carstairs sighed and looked longingly out his office window. Through the studio’s open double doors, Jordan could see men pushing cameras on wheeled dollies, quick-stepping over the cables that trailed behind. The anchor desk sat empty, looking smaller and somehow less solid than it did on TV. “Well, there was that thing in the dog park.”

  “What was that?” Jordan asked.

  “A few years back. What Val said was that she was walking her dog and some lady with a German shepherd came along and let her dog off the leash, and the German shepherd attacked Val’s dog. This little yappy thing. Val was screaming at the woman, and the woman was yelling back, and they were both trying to pull the German shepherd off of Val’s dog, and then Val…”

  Jordan continued to stare at Charlie Carstairs, remembering the headline in the Tribune: THE SH*T HIT THE FAN. As it turned out, the German shepherd’s owner, a lady of seventy-eight, had been a longtime Fox Chicago viewer, and she was none too pleased when its star meteorologist had beaned her with a plastic bag full of dog poop. She’d filed assault charges. The papers and blogs had feasted on the mess for weeks; Val had taken what the station insisted was two weeks’ worth of previously scheduled vacation, and then the whole thing had blown over, with the only lasting consequence being that Val never reported on stories involving dogs for that channel again.

  “And the peanuts,” said Carstairs. Jordan remembered that one: how, at the very end of a sweeps week story about area schools going nut-free to accommodate the increasing number of children suffering from allergies, Valerie, apparently not realizing that her microphone was on, had referred to the afflicted kids as “God’s mistakes.” She’d delivered an apology at the top of the next night’s five o’clock newscast (“I was inappropriately flippant about what I realize is a most serious subject, particularly to the families living with nut allergies and nut sensitivities”), but that hadn’t kept pissed-off allergy-awareness activists from pelting her with Styrofoam packing peanuts when she’d shown up at a White Sox game that weekend… a move, of course, that had enraged the green freaks, who’d spent the next two weeks waving recycled-paper signs outside the station’s windows.

  “Do you like her?”

  Carstairs paused before giving a stiff, grudging nod. “We had a good working relationship.”

  Jordan looked at the man innocently. When Carstairs didn’t blink, Jordan pulled a frosted Christmas cookie out of his pocket and started to eat it.

  The news director’s jaw tightened. “Are you implying something?”

  “Nothing.” Jordan wiped his mouth and returned his gaze to the photographs: husband and wife and kids and Irish setter. “Nice dog. Did you ever hear Valerie mention Dan Swansea?”

  Carstairs shook his head no.

  “Adelaide Downs? Ever hear that name?”

  Another headshake.

  “But you knew Val was going to her reunion Friday night.”

  “Oh, I knew all about that.” Charlie Carstairs gave him a humorless smile. “She did the Master Cleanse. Cayenne pepper and maple syrup for a week. Good times.” He narrowed his eyes at Jordan. “What’s this about? What happened?”

  “At this point, we just need to find Ms. Adler.”

  Jordan noticed Carstairs’s right hand creeping toward the pocket where he’d stashed his fancy phone. “Valerie’s due in Tuesday afternoon. I can have her call you when she gets here. But until then…” He opened the door. “I’ve got a show,” he muttered, and hurried out of his office across the newsroom and through the swinging doors. As Jordan watched, a sign above the door lit up. on the air, it read. Jordan stared at it, marveling. It was just like on TV.

  He ambled out of Carstairs’s office and took a tour of the newsroom. It didn’t take him long to locate Valerie Adler’s desk, which had photographs of its tenant thumbtacked all over its particleboard walls and a sliver of a view of the lake.

  Jordan sat in Valerie’s seat, took a deep breath of what he guessed was Valerie’s scent, and tapped the touch pad of the computer. The screen bloomed to life. The in-box was closed and password-coded. Jordan didn’t even try. Instead, he sat at her chair, inhaled hairspray and perfume, and inspected her desk. There was a blue glass cup filled with pens, a calendar filled with cursive notations for Hair and Facial and Trainer and News meeting. Beside the computer was a makeup mirror surrounded by miniature lightbulbs and a rolling caddy filled with more photographs, each one sheathed in plastic. Jo
rdan twirled the wheel slowly. There were pictures of Val shaking hands with the mayor and Val dancing with the governor, before he’d been removed from office, at what looked like a black-tie fund-raiser (the governor wore a tuxedo, Val wore a dress that seemed to be missing its back). Finally, there was a shot of Valerie in shorts and a bikini top, posed in front of the very same dolphin sculpture from the snapshot on her boss’s shelf. On the back of the picture was written Key West/Valentine’s Day/2007. Sometimes, Jordan thought, slipping the picture in his pocket, being a detective didn’t require much actual detection at all.