And She Was

by Alison Gaylin

  The man coughed deeply, then continued. “Mr. Wentz would like to thank you all for coming. As you know, he has been through a very difficult time, and would appreciate your cooperation as far as giving him the privacy he needs in order to grieve the death of his wife, Carol. Mr. Wentz will now read a brief statement, after which there will be no questions.”

  The crowd emitted a collective sigh. Brenna felt relief edging through her, her shoulders starting to settle. No questions. Thank you, Mr. Fischbein.

  Nelson caught Brenna’s eye and gave her a brief nod as he unfolded his own piece of paper. “Good morning everyone,” he said in a tremulous voice. Brenna couldn’t look at him. She was too nervous. For several seconds, it was June 10, 2005, and she could feel the cold metal chair pressing into her back as she sat in the front row of Maya’s first clarinet recital, sweat pooling at the backs of her knees. The Blue Danube. Why did she pick the Blue Danube when she can play Beethoven’s Ninth so perfectly?

  “ . . . a credit to her community and a wonderful wife. We had plans. We were going to retire to Provence. I loved Carol, and finding her the way I did was devastating . . .”

  Nelson didn’t seem to be doing that bad. Brenna checked out the reporters’ faces. They were all listening respectfully—some even appeared to be moved.

  Nelson said, “I understand your need to report the news, but I also ask for your consideration.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Brenna saw a tight, acid yellow muscle T. Sure enough, it was Trent standing next to her, folder in hand, gaze riveted to Faith’s cream-suited ass. Brenna gave Trent a swat on the arm, breaking the focus. “Oh, hey.” He gestured at Nelson. “What the hell?”

  Brenna shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine,” she whispered. “But at least he isn’t humiliating himself.”

  Nelson was saying, “Please try to put yourself in my position. I’ve lost everything I held dear. Allow the police to continue their investigation, and allow me to mourn in peace.” Nelson looked up from his paper. “That’s all,” he said quietly. Brenna glanced around. Respectful silence. No harm done. She wanted to kiss Nelson and his lawyer both.

  And then, Nelson smiled.

  Brenna was sure it was reflexive—a symptom of his nervousness—but for whatever reason, Nelson Wentz, who had remained composed and sober throughout his speech, broke out in a shit-eating grin that lasted long enough for every photographer in the tristate area to get a shot of it in glorious high def.

  “Uh . . .” Trent said.

  “Nicolai, you’re getting this, right?” Faith asked her cameraman.

  Go, Nelson. Go back inside.

  Nelson’s lawyer took him by the arm and led him back into the house, no doubt beating himself up inside for allowing a press conference. Brenna couldn’t stop shaking her head.

  Nicolai switched off his camera and began taking it apart. Faith turned to Brenna. “Well, I thought he did a very good job,” she said.

  Brenna rolled her eyes.

  “How you doin’, Faith?” Trent was trying what he must have thought was a seductive pout, with his arms crossed over his chest in a way that purposely accentuated his flexed biceps.

  “Fine . . . Brent, is it?”

  “Trent. But my special ladies call me TNT.”

  Faith just looked at him.

  “TNT,” he repeated. “It’s Trent but, uh, without a couple of letters. Follow me?”

  “As far as I’d like to. See you soon, Brenna.”

  After Faith and her cameraman left, Trent said, “Looks like the Pointer Sisters got a face lift.”

  “You’re saying you think she had a boob job.”

  “Yep.”

  “And I knew exactly what you meant. I didn’t need a translation.” Brenna sighed heavily. “Trent, you and I spend too much time together.”

  “Aw, you’d be lost without me.” He handed her the folder. “I’m thinking Faith needs glasses though.”

  “Because she wasn’t checking you out.”

  “Bingo!”

  “You see what I’m saying? You understand the problem here?” Brenna had the folder open now, and was staring at Trent’s age-enhanced photo of Iris Neff—a raven-haired teen, with prominent cheekbones and a mysterious little smile. It broke her heart a little. Trent’s photos always did. They were so real, all you could see in them was potential. “Wow,” Brenna said. “She looks a lot like her mom.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Huh?”

  “Check out the next photo.”

  Brenna flipped to a picture underneath—a heavyset woman with frizzy gray hair and a wan, sad mouth. Only the eyes were the same, glittering darkly out of that tired, unremarkable face, as if they were slumming it. “Where did you get this?”

  “I captured it off her Web site.”

  “Lydia Neff has a Web site?”

  “She did two years ago. I guess she was trying to be a life coach. She was all certified and everything. Nice Web site, too, but it hasn’t been touched since she left town.”

  “Lydia really changed.”

  “Well, if you ask me, she was eating her grief.”

  “Eating her grief? Where the hell did you get that? Oprah?”

  He shook his head. “Tyra Banks. She did a whole show on food and love a couple of weeks ago, and— Stop looking at me like that. It was very informative.”

  “Do we know where Lydia Neff is living now?”

  “Nope,” Trent said. “Do we need to?”

  Brenna thought back to the police report, the missing interview with John Doe . . . “We might.”

  “On it.”

  “Me too.”

  Trent stared out at the dispersing crowd. “What was up with Wentz’s smile? May as well gift wrap his ass and leave it on the DA’s doorstep with a nice box of chocolates.”

  Brenna winced. “I’m hoping maybe some bigger news will eclipse it. Maybe Brad and Angelina getting married, Mayor Bloomberg declaring a state of emergency . . .” She removed a printout from the folder—Carol’s credit card charges from the last three weeks before her disappearance. “There are no charges after the twenty-fourth.”

  “The lady wasn’t killed for her card. Look at September 22 though.”

  On September 22, Carol had eaten at the Blue Moon Diner in Mount Temple. Brenna recalled what Morasco had said. Carol was seen at a diner in Mount Temple, sitting close to another man.

  But it hadn’t been a very romantic meal, had it? Only ten dollars—and Carol had paid . . . A thought crept into Brenna’s mind. “You have a reverse directory app on your smart phone, right?”

  “Yep. Whatcha need?”

  “One sec.” Brenna thought back to the previous night—walking home from chorus with Maya and finding Nelson at Trent’s desk, handing her the files and spaghetti Bolognese and Dave Handly, the whole night, right up until she’d opened the file containing the Neff police report and the Post-it had sailed out . . . “Okay. Look this up for me.” Brenna rattled off Graeme Klavel’s number as Trent tapped it onto his screen and waited. “Klavel Investigations,” he said. “2920 Columbus Avenue . . . Mount Temple.” He looked at Brenna. “Guess maybe it was a business lunch?”

  “Uh-huh,” Brenna was reading the charge right after the one from the diner. “Forty-two dollars and eighty-nine cents. To where? Sammy’s?”

  “It’s a convenience store.”

  “Where?”

  “Buffalo.”

  Brenna frowned at him.

  “I know, right? I called, but they weren’t open. I’ll try again.” By now, the crowd of reporters had thinned out considerably. “We should go in.”

  Just as she and Trent headed up Nelson’s walkway, though, Brenna felt a tingling at the base of her neck, across her shoulders. Someone is watching me, she thought. And then . . . Iris.

  But when she spun around, the face Brenna saw, staring out at her from the group of reporters, was not that of a raven-haired teenage girl. It was a face she remembered. A f
ace she didn’t like.

  Brenna turned back around and grabbed Trent’s arm, leading him quickly up the walk. “So what about the chat room membership? Do we have an e-mail address for her yet?”

  “Yep,” Trent said. “I’m running it through this new hacking program I’ve come up with. It puts through all combinations of letters and numbers until the account recognizes the password. But it would help if Wentz could tell me some of her likes and dislikes, lucky numbers maybe . . . so I could narrow down the field. This way, it’s gonna take weeks.”

  “We’ll ask him. I doubt he’ll know anything, but we can ask.” Brenna ventured a glance at the street. Gone.

  She took a breath. “So,” she said as they reached the door, her pulse finally slowing. “What was Carol Wentz’s account name?”

  Trent scrunched up his face. “It’s a weird one,” he said. “OrangePineapple98.”

  Brenna stole another glance up the block.

  “What do you keep looking for?”

  “Just someone I recognize from eleven years ago,” she said. “A cop.”

  “Must be a pain in the balls to never forget a face.”

  “Total pain in the balls.” Brenna scanned the sidewalk. She didn’t see the cop anymore, didn’t see that face. But still, she felt watched.

  Chapter 16

  He shouldn’t have watched her for that long. Humans are animals after all, equipped with thousands of sensors to protect that delicate, impractical flesh. Stare at anyone for an extended period and the tiny hairs stand up at the back of the neck, the stomach churns, the skin perks into goose bumps, the mind knows your intent.

  No one understood that as well as Adam Meade, yet even after she turned and spotted him, he felt compelled to stare. He knew her from somewhere, this woman who was working for Nelson Wentz. Brenna Spector, her name was. Meade had learned that from listening in on Mr. Wentz’s phone conversations. But it wasn’t the name that was familiar—it was the face. Meade found it so irritating, this gap in his memory, this Where do I know her from? He so rarely asked himself questions he couldn’t answer.

  Use your strengths, son, Meade’s father used to say. And Adam, the firstborn and only son Adam, who always took his father’s advice . . . Adam Meade possessed a battery of strengths, and used them well.

  He was observant. The moment he’d noticed the look Nelson Wentz had exchanged with the tall, thin woman at the front of the press group, Meade had set about working his way around all the mumbling bodies and bulky camera equipment and rigid microphones, until he’d gotten close enough to hear the woman’s assistant call her by name. Brenna. Bingo.

  He could blend in. Tall and striking as he was, Meade had been able to stand right behind Brenna Spector during and after the press conference, overhearing everything she said to her assistant—even taking notes on the steno pad he’d brought along to look like a typical earnest reporter.

  He was fast. Now, Meade left Brenna Spector’s line of vision, brushing quickly past the dispersing press. He headed down three blocks, then up the quiet side street where he had parked his car. He’d parked near a willow tree, browning in the fall chill, and in its shade he pulled the pad out of his pocket and went over his notes. Buffalo convenience store. He didn’t care much about that—he’d already taken care of Buffalo. What got his attention here was Klavel Investigations—a name he’d never heard Nelson Wentz mention over the phone.

  He ran his gaze over Klavel’s phone number, then the address. Another thing Meade’s father had taught him: When it comes to doing business, face-to-face meetings are always best. Meade pulled out his iPhone and transferred the address into his GPS. Only twenty minutes away. He could drive there now, start acclimating himself. On the street behind him, a squeaky bicycle passed. He glanced up and saw the rider—young girl in a yellow helmet. He paid her no notice. Another of Meade’s strengths was his ability to focus, exclusively, on the matter at hand. And today, the matter at hand was a face-to-face meeting—its planning, and execution.

  He was loyal. He was very loyal.

  Brenna and Trent were greeted at the door by Mr. Fischbein—though “greeted” was perhaps too generous a term. The old man pushed open the door and moved past them, muttering something in the process that might or might not have been “Hello.” Once inside, Brenna called out Nelson’s name but heard nothing in response. Eventually, they found him—a small beige lump on the living room couch, head in his hands as if his neck was on strike.

  “Nelson?” Brenna said. “How are you?”

  “My lawyer quit.”

  “Mr. Fischbein?”

  Nelson nodded into his hands.

  “ ’Cause you smiled?” Trent said. “What a pussy.”

  Brenna shot him a look.

  “What?” Trent said.

  She glanced around the room. Apparently, Nelson had done more than schedule the press conference last night, because the braided rug was once again flush with the fireplace, the couch was moved a few inches forward, the coffee table was back in its original position, the faint residue of fingerprint powder on the windowsills was wiped clean. Again, these changes were something only someone with perfect memory would notice, but still it was a significant amount of work. “I see you cleaned up,” she said.

  “I can’t stand things out of order.” Nelson glanced up at Trent. A look of horror crossed his face, as if he’d just found a man-sized dust bunny under his couch that happened to be wearing the Ed Hardy catalog, but if this registered with Trent at all, it wasn’t showing.

  “You’ve met my assistant, Trent, right?” Brenna said. “At my office.”

  “Oh, right. Yes. Hello.”

  “Hey, Nelson. If you could show me where your computer is, I’m gonna do a bit by bit transferal of your hard drive.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, I’m just gonna copy the shit off your computer, see if we can find anything your wife may have downloaded and deleted.”

  Nelson stared at him, anxiety building in his eyes.

  “Don’t worry, man. I’m like a doctor. You got porn on there, I’m not gonna say nothin’.”

  Nelson’s gaze shifted to Brenna. “How do you think I did out there?”

  “I’m the wrong person to ask. I warned you against talking to the press in the first place.”

  “I know, but . . .”

  “It isn’t important what we think. And the sooner we figure out what really happened to Carol, the sooner your name will be cleared.”

  “I laughed at my grandma’s funeral,” said Trent.

  “Nelson’s office is upstairs. First room on your right.”

  “Okay. Fine. Jeez.”

  Once her assistant had left, Nelson looked at Brenna. “I was hoping she might be there,” he said under his breath.

  “Who?”

  “You know . . . Iris.”

  “That reminds me.” Brenna opened the folder, removed the photo, and handed it to Nelson. His eyes widened.

  “It’s the age-enhanced photograph of Iris Neff. Remember? I told you Trent was making one?”

  Nelson exhaled. “She looks so . . .”

  “Like her mother.”

  “Yes.” His voice was choked.

  She stared at him. “Nelson?”

  “Yes?”

  “Is there anything you haven’t told me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Brenna took a step closer. “About you and Lydia,” she said quietly. “About Carol, and any fights you may have had. About any tools you noticed were gone from your garage . . .” She took a breath. “But especially, Nelson, about you and Lydia.”

  “No.”

  “Trent is upstairs. Whatever you tell me will be just between you and me. I promise.”

  His gaze dropped to the floor. “I’ve told you everything.”

  “All right.” The words sighed out of her.

  Nelson was looking at the picture. “You know, I haven’t seen this girl,” he said. “But that doesn�
�t necessarily mean anything. I haven’t been out much. I think Iris is alive, Miss Spector. I think Carol was trying to save Iris, and that’s why she had all those files. I think maybe she found Iris, and was trying to track down . . . Iris’s mother, so she could . . .”

  Nelson kept talking, about how possible it all was, how it would all make so much sense. After all, no one had ever found Iris’s body, and what if she was like that girl, you know, the little blonde girl in California who had been held captive for eighteen years . . . But all Brenna could do was recall the phone conversation she’d had with Morasco the previous day.

  “During the Iris Neff case, we never questioned Carol Wentz.”

  “Yeah. You told me that.”

  “But we did question Nelson Wentz.”

  Nelson had not told her everything. She wondered if he ever would. Nelson was saying, “. . . and that young girl sounded so upset about Carol. What other young girl would be that upset about—”

  “Did Carol have any connection to Buffalo?”

  His smile dissolved. “What?”

  “We have her credit card bill,” Brenna said. “It looks like she spent $42.89 at a Buffalo convenience store.”

  “She has an aunt in Buffalo.” The spark faded from his eyes. “Carol never spent that kind of money.”

  “You didn’t know everything about her,” she said. “So what?”

  Nelson’s gaze dropped to the floor.

  “What you didn’t know about her isn’t important, Nelson,” she said. “What you did know. What you do know. That’s what I need.”

  Above them, Trent’s heavy footsteps moved toward the stairs.

  “It’s not that I didn’t know everything about Carol,” Nelson said. “I knew nothing about her.” And Brenna knew her words had been lost.

  “And Carol knew . . . she knew very little about me.”

  Brenna stared at him.