You Will Never Know

by You Will Never Know (retail) (epub)

  And she remembered her answer back then: “I won’t betray a friend.”

  And she hadn’t. Oh, she certainly hadn’t.

  Ellen folded her hands in front of her. “Jessica, I’m sorry, but there’s no way to make this sound better.”

  And she knew. Her chance for a better life was over.

  “Why?” Jessica asked.

  Ellen let out a small sigh. “The latest financials came in, and cutbacks are being made, no hesitation. The scholarship program was first on the list.”

  After her earlier visit with the police, Jessica had nothing much to say.

  “I’m quite sorry,” Ellen said. There seemed to be genuine feeling behind her words.

  “Thank you,” Jessica said. She started to get up and Ellen made a slight motion with a finger. Jessica sat back down.

  Ellen said, “The other matter I talked about on Tuesday.”

  She didn’t even want to think that far back.

  Ellen added, “About your performance.”

  “Oh.”

  Her manager sat back against her chair. “Jessica, with the cutbacks coming down from corporate, there’s also an emphasis on personal performance.”

  “I see.”

  “Before today I could let some things slide. But no longer.”

  It was hard to believe, but right now Jessica wished she was back at the police station. There, all she had had to defend was her daughter. Here, she had to defend herself and her job.

  Ellen said, “It’s like this, Jessica. Corporate now thinks, more than ever, that balancing one’s drawer and not taking sick time is just doing your job. The bank has other factors to consider. There’s an algorithm—pretty complicated—that takes into account each teller’s upsales. You know what I mean, right?”

  Jessica just nodded. She knew where this was going, like the time you go into the kitchen and smell something smoky and sharp, and right then there’s no excuse, there’s no hope, there’s no nothing except that the meal you’ve planned for and worked on is ruined.

  “Yes,” Jessica quietly said. “New credit cards. CDs. Home-equity loans. Other products. Just like you said on Tuesday.”

  “Jessica, those products are what makes a bank branch like this one profitable,” Ellen said. “Upselling to our customers is part of your job.”

  “But I know most of my customers,” Jessica said, realizing how sickly her voice had become. “They’re barely scraping by. They don’t have any spare funds to waste on—”

  Ellen’s eyes narrowed, and Jessica instantly knew she had made a big mistake. At Warner Savings, none of their products were a waste. Ellen was the branch manager but was also a company woman through and through.

  Ellen unclasped her hands and tapped a finger on the screen of her computer monitor. “Each month we track upselling for each teller. For the last three months you’ve been dead last, and by a wide margin.”

  Jessica kept quiet, not wanting to get deeper into the hole she had just fallen into.

  Ellen went on. “This branch is one of the least profitable in this region. That’s why I was brought in here, to turn it around. Now, with this new corporate directive, I have to put it plainly to you, Jessica. If we don’t see a significant and quick improvement in your upsales, we’ll have to ask you to leave. We’re bringing in a new girl next week who will be making a lot less money than you. And if we need to let somebody go in the near future, well, it won’t be a difficult choice.”

  Jessica flashed back to that depressing moment when she had tried to upsell to Gus Tremblay. Gus had been a longtime customer of hers, had plenty of disposable income, and yet she hadn’t been able to upsell to the tight bastard.

  “I understand,” she said. “All right if I get back to work?”

  “Yes.”

  She took down her sign and Rhonda said, “What’s up with the Ice Queen? Did she ask you to help her with the stick that’s up her ass?”

  Jessica looked out to the empty lobby. No upselling opportunities visible.

  “I wish,” she said. “That I wouldn’t mind.”

  Rhonda rearranged some of the stamps on her counter. “Oh, hon, was it that bad?”

  “Oh, yes, it was that bad,” she said. “The scholarship program—it’s gone.”

  “Damn, hon.”

  “And another thing,” Jessica said, face warm at the memory of what had just been told to her. “Ellen says if I don’t increase my upsales, I’m out. Just like that.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah,” Jessica said, nearly numb from her long day. “That about covers it.”

  Rhonda reached over, gently grasped her hand, gave it a squeeze. “If there’s anything I can do . . .”

  Jessica squeezed her friend’s hand back. “Well, you’ve got lots of relatives. Any chance you could convince them to line up in the lobby tomorrow so I can start selling them credit cards or home equity loans they don’t need?”

  And in a moment Rhonda was hugging her, and, embarrassed, Jessica squeezed her back and gently pulled away. “I’ll be fine, honest. I’ll be fine.”

  Rhonda dabbed at an eye. “You know, if you told me you were going home and were going to hide out in your bathroom for a day, I’d understand it.”

  That phrase jolted a memory for her, something Rhonda couldn’t have known, but Jessica had seen something like that before, when her drunk dad had cornered Mom in the bathroom for some vague insult and Mom had barricaded the door. Dad had smashed the door with a hammer before breaking in, and then he had screeched and stumbled back when Mom had sprayed his face with deodorant. “I’m tired of hiding!” Mom had shouted. “I’m not going to hide anymore!”

  And an uneasy truce had developed, one that had lasted until Dad had dropped dead in the backyard, tugging those snow-covered branches, the day she had stayed home from school and Mom had had to go to work. An odd, cold day, having a living dad in the morning and a dead one in the afternoon.

  “No,” she said, her voice sounding stronger than she could have hoped. “I’m not going to hide. Not at all.”

  “Good girl,” Rhonda said.

  More minutes slurred by, until her late-afternoon break came up and she stepped outside once again to the rear parking lot and made a quick phone call.

  “Mr. Talbot?” she asked when the phone was answered. “This is Jessica Thornton.”

  The private investigator from Maine said, “Yes, of course. Mrs. Thornton. How are you?”

  “Lousy,” she said, knowing she was speaking the truth. “Are you available to meet me tomorrow to go over what’s going on with my former sister-in-law?”

  “Hold on,” he said, and in a moment he came back and said, “Yes, my morning is free.”

  “I’ll see you, but only if you can drive down here. Perhaps we could get a cup of coffee or something, to talk. I want to find out what Grace’s problem is, take care of it straightaway.”

  “Do you have a place in mind?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Not fancy, but it’ll be easy for you to find. The Exit 5 Truck Stop on Route 128, in Avon.”

  “How does ten thirty tomorrow morning sound?”

  “Sounds fine. I’ll be there.”

  He attempted a laugh. “Do you have the day off tomorrow, then?”

  “No,” she said, disconnecting the call.

  At five P.M. there was one last surprise for the day, after she had cashed out, filed all the paperwork, and put her drawer back into the bank’s vault. She said so long to Rhonda and to Amber, who was also cashing out, and tried not to look at Ellen Nickerson’s office when she grabbed her purse and went out through the lobby, instead looking up at the framed photo of Larry Miles, who had wanted so much to get rid of Rhonda. And Rhonda was still here, and so was Jessica. And Larry Miles was not. So much for that.

  She stopped still in the glassed-in foyer, which had two ATMs that were available at all hours, holding the door open for Amber, who was following her and reading something from her iPad, her
thick purse over one shoulder.

  “Thanks, Jessica,” Amber said, pausing to tap on the iPad. “It’s taking forever to load something. Damn Safari.”

  Jessica said, “Have you cleared the cache lately?”

  “The what?”

  Jessica took the iPad from Amber and with practiced ease went into the Develop menu and said, “Watch. Pull this down, click on Empty Caches. It clears up a lot of old temporary files the browser holds on to. Voila. Your browser should zip right along now.”

  Amber smiled and took her iPad back. Jessica saw Percy Prescott standing on the sidewalk, being talked to by a uniformed Warner police officer while Detective Doug Rafferty stood by, watching.

  What the hell?

  A blue-and-white Warner police cruiser was double-parked on the street, lights flashing, while downtown traffic slowly eddied its way around.

  Jessica supposed she should go find out what was going on, maybe intervene on Percy’s behalf. Her hand was on the door handle when she stopped herself. Why should she get involved?

  Jessica had been feeling some regret and guilt over what she had told Detective Rafferty earlier, about Ted’s absence and his gun ownership. But she also remembered how Percy hadn’t cared much about the news of Sam Warner’s death and how he had appeared at last night’s memorial, drunk and apparently happy.

  Was Percy being questioned, then? Or even arrested?

  Maybe Detective Rafferty had already given up on interrogating Ted or doing anything else with Ted. Maybe the investigation had switched to looking at old high school acquaintances of Sam’s, ones who still carried a grudge.

  “Hey,” Amber said, putting her iPad back into her purse. “What’s going on?”

  Jessica just pointed and didn’t say a word. Amber looked past Jessica and said, “Well, shit. There you go. Glad to see him getting rousted.”

  “Amber, c’mon.”

  Amber slung her large brown purse over a shoulder, her earrings jingling. “Okay, so Sam and his buds gave Percy a hard time when he was in school. But that was a couple of years ago. Sam was a good guy. Spent some time at our house with my brother, Jack. Percy should have manned up, gotten over it. Instead he brooded and bitched about it, and when Sam got killed, did he say he was sorry? Did he?”

  Jessica said, “No, he didn’t.”

  “And you saw him at the memorial service, right? Half in the bag and making jokes, and—oh, Jess, look, they’re arresting him!”

  Jessica turned her head, saw the police officer put his hand on Percy’s shoulder, and then Detective Rafferty came up, took one arm and then another, and just like that, Percy was handcuffed.

  Rafferty took Percy’s right arm and went over to the parked cruiser and opened a rear door while the uniformed officer stopped traffic, allowing the detective to put Percy into the rear seat. The door was slammed shut. Rafferty and the officer briefly talked, and then the officer got into the cruiser. It sped off, heading to the police station where Jessica had been just a few hours ago.

  Amber said, “Under arrest. Wow. Do you think he did it? Do you think he killed Sam?”

  Jessica didn’t say anything, just stepped over to where her coworker had just disappeared into police custody. And she hated herself for thinking this, but if Percy was in serious trouble, then the bank would cut him free, and Jessica would be safe here for some time to come.

  A hateful thought, but a true one.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  In a pleasant surprise, Ted brought dinner home that night, and even though it was take-out pizza from Toni’s—half plain cheese, half mushroom—the small part of her that refused to believe he was cheating on her appreciated the gesture. Earlier Emma and Craig had come home together, sharing a ride from Craig’s friend Randy McMahon, who was dating Heather, a friend of Emma’s. Randy’s car was an old Volkswagen Jetta that belched smoke and nearly stalled out while pulling away, but it was nice to see Emma and Craig together.

  Now the four of them were sitting around the kitchen table, sharing dinner. Seeing Ted laugh and joke with his son and Emma, Jessica couldn’t believe the mixed feelings that were coursing through her. After all the nonsense of the past few days, it was a nice change of pace to have the four of them together, having dinner like a family should, especially a blended one like theirs.

  But those feelings were poisoned by the two streams also flowing through her: Ted’s betrayal and what she had said at the interview with Rafferty today. What had that been all about? Did she really want Ted to be a suspect in Sam Warner’s murder, or was she just giving in to her anger by putting his name out there?

  God, she wanted to stop thinking about it all. She wanted it to be a month from now, with all these problems and challenges in the rearview mirror.

  Ted caught her eye. “Nice pizza, isn’t it?”

  “Delicious,” Jessica said.

  “It should be,” he said, “I made it in an oven in my office basement.”

  Craig said, “As if, Dad.”

  “What, you don’t believe me?” he asked, pretending to be shocked, and as he ate a slice, a blob of tomato sauce plopped right onto his dress shirt, which made Emma burst out laughing. When Ted tried to scoop up the tomato sauce, Jessica laughed as well.

  Had she gone too far?

  She took a bite of her own plain cheese slice.

  Perhaps. Perhaps she had done that, in talking to the detective.

  But Percy Prescott had been arrested. Maybe that meant that what she had said would be ignored. Jessica hoped so.

  There was so much going on. So very much.

  And Emma. The police thought she had been at a party at Sam Warner’s Saturday night, not studying with her friend Bertie as she had told her mother. Jessica would have to talk to her about that. But not now. This brief moment of family peace was too precious to shatter.

  Later that night, Craig Donovan was in bed, sheet and blanket pulled up to his waist, holding his iPhone in his hands, the glow of the screen illuminating the little tent he had made. It was late but he was texting with Mark Borman, one of the few friends he had at Warner High School.

  Craig: sup?

  Mark: not much

  Mark: but P Prescott is in trouble

  Craig: who?

  Mark: jeez—Percy Prescott—works with your mom

  Craig: not my mom

  Mark: lighten up bro she’s a real MILF

  Craig: oh plz

  Mark: oh yeah, real MILF with big tits. bet u like seeing em

  Craig: FU what happened w/ Percy?

  Mark: got arrested

  Craig: ???

  Mark: don’t know. but we can figure, eh.

  Mark: u there?

  Mark: u there?

  Craig: yeah

  Mark: also heard cops r looking into last Sat party at Sam’s

  Craig: rly?

  Mark: guess its a shit show now

  Mark: cops digging into who went

  Craig: huh

  Mark: didn’t u go?

  Craig: where?

  Mark: didn’t u go to party?

  Mark: u there?

  Mark: u there?

  Craig: gotta go

  He disconnected from his chat program, flopped back in bed, rubbed his face. God, this was getting so out of control.

  He lifted his T-shirt up over his belly and chest. There wasn’t a single hair there, but there was something else, a three-letter word that someone had scrawled there with a laundry marker last Saturday night, meaning it would stay there for a long, long time, enough for the rumors to start, the jokes in the classroom, the laughs as he walked by in the hallway.

  FAG.

  And he remembered Emma’s promise, and he sat in his dark room and thought about his stepsister.

  When Ted went into the bedroom that night, he was feeling all right, though knowing the guilt could come up at any moment and darken his spirit. And the truth was, the night had been going pretty well. Earlier today his partner, Ben Powell, had said
that sometime soon Ted would be getting a nice brown paper grocery bag stuffed with hundred-dollar bills from Gus Spinelli, and that had put him in a good mood for the rest of the afternoon.

  Okay, the story about him and Ben sharing burgers and beers had been so much bullshit—the truth was, he had been at Paula Fawkes’s home, doing her on the living room couch, keeping his eyes closed so he didn’t have to look at the framed photos of her husband in military gear on the wall—but Ben had reached out to Spinelli for financing and it was coming through.

  Excellent.

  Next up, get a rehearing at the zoning board in Concord, show them that he and Ben had the funds, get ground broken, start selling the lots, and pay back Spinelli quickly so the interest didn’t start mounting.

  “Hey,” he whispered. “You awake, Jessica?”

  No reply.

  He stripped off his clothes in the dark—he always slept in his boxers—and slid into bed, and then the guilt came to him.

  It had been a good day. He had been successful in supporting his family, he had brought home dinner, the kids and even Jessica had laughed and talked, and they were all here, under the roof of a home that had been in the Donovan family for more than a century and had belonged to his Uncle Don before his death.

  That should have been enough. But no, he had to spoil it with the oldest story in business, humping the help. God, Paula was something else when they fucked, but, he hated to admit, the flirting, the heavy perfume, the teasing . . . today he realized it was all getting to be too much. It was like being hungry for a meal and only being offered cake, in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Too much sweetness, too much richness.

  He lay there in bed, on his right side, thinking things through. He had met Paula’s husband a couple of times at Chamber of Commerce functions. He was tall, well-built, with a shaved head and biceps that looked like he could crush walnuts with them, and a self-assured and nearly arrogant way about him, pronouncing to anyone near and far that he was a killer.