by Lisa Aurello
“Yeah, I hear you. I suppose it could be just one person planning it, though. No reason it had to be more.”
“You’re right. Then again, there could be three accomplices. Who knows? If we get one, we’re more likely to find the others, assuming there are any. I’m gunning for the husband.”
Rob laughed. “Why doesn’t that surprise me? It’s always the husband for you, Kelvin.”
Now she chuckled too. “Wonder why that is.” She pointed toward the right. “Turn down this street. It’s a shortcut to our first interview.”
“And who might that be?”
“We’ll start with a guy named…” She looked down at her notebook. “…Todd Tennant, an old football buddy of Mason’s. Tomorrow we have appointments with his cousin Jake Emerson and his parents. So today, maybe Mason’s old girlfriends? I talked to one of them yesterday. Tess Gardner. If we strike out there, let’s see if we can dredge up any friends of Jane Jensen’s. We’ll play it by ear.” Her head swiveled toward him in query. “Good by you?”
“Yep, let’s do it, sweetcheeks.”
He didn’t even have to check to know she was giving him a filthy look. “Say that again and lose your balls.”
Rob’s laugh came from his belly. He loved to poke at her. “You’re not gonna file a sexual harassment charge against me, right?”
Kelvin grimaced. “No way, I’ll handle it myself, so watch your six, buddy.”
“Will do. Now let’s go catch us a scummy murderer.”
“OK. First Tennant. Then Tess Gardner. Let’s go.”
*****
Tess Gardner was not what Rob was expecting in the least. He figured all of Mason’s exes would be blonde Barbie-doll types. Tess was very different. Thin, pale, redheaded with giant tits that made her look like she’d tip over at any minute. In high school, before she sprouted into her curves, she probably looked coltish—all legs and lanky frame. Lots of freckles. Not the kind of girl a guy like Mason would notice. Then again, she may have been an early bloomer—and she knew how to make the most of her assets. She’d dragged up the front zipper on her skintight green dress, stopping well short of decent. Looked like she had nothing on underneath but a skimpy shelf bra—that poor frail bra had to hold what looked like God-given double Ds.
It was close to dusk by the time they’d knocked on the door of the big white Colonial with black shutters and a tired looking young woman in blue jeans and a faded black Pearl Jam T-shirt had answered the door.
“Is Tess Gardner available?” Kelvin had inquired of her.
She angled her face to the side and raised her voice. “Tess? People here for you.”
Kelvin stepped closer to the threshold so that the door couldn’t close, an old cop trick. “Are you related to her?”
“She’s my sister.”
“Be right down,” they heard a voice call.
Rob flashed his badge at her. “Can we come in please?”
She took her time looking at it and then turned bloodshot eyes toward Kelvin and waited. Annoyed, Kelvin fished out her own badge and showed it to the woman. Only then did she back up and allow them entrance.
She led them into a living room. “Have a seat. My sister will be down soon. She’s getting ready for a date.”
Rob gave her a long look. “OK, thank you.” Before taking the proffered seat, he took stock of his surroundings.
The room was nice, kept well, but the furnishings look worn. There were a few good antique pieces mixed in with more modern stuff, but it all worked to make a comfortable room. A lived-in room. Rob approved and chose a wingback chair perpendicular to the sofa.
“Tess,” the woman yelled up again, her shrill voice making both Rob and Kelvin jolt. “Would you get your ass down here. People are waiting.”
“Joe?”
“No. Police officers.”
“Police officers?”
“Yeah. That’s what I said.”
A minute later they heard what sounded like high heels on the wood steps. Click, click, click. A minute later, there she was.
She strode gracefully into the room, extending her hand, first to Kelvin and then Rob. They stood and shook her hand. “Hello, I’m Tess Gardner. I’m sorry to keep you waiting.”
“No problem, Ms. Gardner,” Rob began, “we won’t take up too much of your time. We just need to ask you a few questions.”
“About?”
“Mason Caldwell.”
She nodded and gingerly took a seat at the edge of the sofa. “Please sit.”
Rob assessed her while Kelvin started asking questions. She had swept up her glossy red hair into a bun just above the nape of her slender neck. A black-lacquered hair-stick held it in place. The dress she wore was a vivid emerald, which played off her fiery red hair. Her shoes were black leather with stiletto heels. She looked like hot sex on high heels.
Apparently, she was going out and Rob was eager to see who her date was, if they could stretch out the questions long enough. He refocused his attention on the interview just as Kelvin was asking her about Cate Caldwell.
“Had you ever met his wife?”
“No, I just knew the little bit that Mason told me about her.”
“So you were in contact with him recently?”
“Oh yes. Mason and I remained friends all throughout college and afterward.”
“Just friends?”
She licked her lips. “Good friends, yes.”
“Let me be clear. Did you have an intimate relationship with Mason Caldwell in recent years?”
She hesitated only slightly. “Yes.”
“When exactly?”
Brushing invisible lint off the skirt of her dress, she murmured, her voice so soft it was nearly inaudible. “On and off. Forever.”
“So after he was married too?”
She wrinkled her nose as if trying hard to remember, but Rob wasn’t buying it. “I think we may have spent one evening together after he married, but we talked on the phone quite a bit. We had some mutual business interests. I was married before he was, so we didn’t really have an opportunity where both of us were free agents at the same time. But we managed to keep our relationship going.”
“Do you know if Mrs. Caldwell knew about your relationship with her husband?”
“I don’t think she did. Mason wouldn’t have wanted the hassle.”
“I see. What are your present feelings about Mason Caldwell?”
The doorbell rang at that moment. “Cam,” she called out to the other room, “can you get it? It’s probably Joe.”
The sister muttered something and went to get the door, and Tess turned her piercing green eyes straight at Rob when she answered. “I love Mason, and I always will. He’s a good friend.”
The sister ushered her date into the living room. Dressed sharply in a charcoal suit with a black sweater under the jacket, he stood there for a moment, stupefied.
“Hi, Joe. These nice police officers were just leaving. They were here to talk about Mason Caldwell’s wife.”
“Oh, yeah, I heard about that. Tsk. Terrible thing.”
“Yes, it is,” Rob answered and stood up. He fished out his card from his wallet and handed it to Tess Gardner. “Here’s my card. If you think of anything that might be of assistance to us, please give me a call. For now, this interview is over. We may have need to speak to you again.”
She plucked the card from his hand. “Fine. We’ll walk you to the door, Officers, since we’re leaving too.”
Rob and Myla sat in their car and watched the couple get into a sleek black Mercedes sedan. “What did you think of Ms. Gardner?” Rob asked his partner.
She shrugged and looked at him. “I think she’s a filthy liar.”
Rob laughed. “I got that impression too. I think she not only knew a lot more about Cate Caldwell, I also think she was screwing Mason all along.”
Kelvin twisted her face as she tended to do when she was thinking. A moment later, she nodded her head. “Agreed. I sa
y we take a closer look at big-titty Tess.”
Shifting the car into first, Rob neatly pulled out of the tight parking spot as he chuckled at the nickname. The girl did have some impressive ta-tas.
Chapter 25
Janey’s Journal, late November
My photo?
Oh my God. I cannot believe he had a photo of me in his dresser drawer.
Me.
Plain Jane Jensen.
Who is this guy, Mason Caldwell? Did he really have his wife killed? If so, why? Mel tells me in the fast glimpse she had of the woman she looked young, blond, and pretty—all the requisites for a happy female life. And excellent wife material for a hottie like her husband.
To me, Mason Caldwell represented all that was right with America and its culture. Popular, athletic, kind, friendly, smart, and liked by everyone. He just had it all…
Ergo, he didn’t know that I—or people like me—existed.
All of these thoughts and questions shuttling back and forth through my head have begun to itch at my peace of mind, and I desperately want the answers but my fickle brain is not cooperating. Sometimes I’m seriously tempted to bash my head against the wall in the hopes of jarring things back into place. The urge is strong and crazy, I know. Plus, with my luck, I’ll just get a huge hematoma and land myself right back into the hospital—that or drop dead on my way to work or something. Earn a one-line story in the news, maybe a funny epitaph. Here lies plain Jane, a head-banger, it turns out.
The memory I’m most afraid of recovering is of the car accident itself. It must have been unbearable, traumatic, a catalyst of nightmares, and I don’t want to ever remember it. Having giant gaps in my memory, however, is uncomfortable. Walking around, seeing people and wondering if I know them is bizarre and difficult. If someone’s eyes are on me too long, my cheeks burn, thinking I must know them and they’re waiting for me to say hello or acknowledge them in some way. Sometimes, I start to imagine they’re looking at me strangely, suspiciously even, and I think maybe I had some kind of… I don’t know…nefarious relationship with them. We robbed a bank together? Belonged to a sordid sex club? Were fellow inmates in a Turkish jail?
And those whom I know I know, still I wonder what the extent of our relationship was. Were they trustworthy or backstabbers?
I returned to work today, the first time in the persona of the new me. Janey. Everyone was kind but I could spot the stares, could feel the heat of them, especially from the men. One thing I’m sure of is that I never got this kind of attention before, and it feels weird. Good but weird. Somehow, I thought it would be more rewarding. In my better moments, though, I try to be grateful for this gift I’ve been given—liberation from my failed life. A rebirth. I feel beautiful for the first time in my wretched existence.
The mirror confirms it too. I’m as thin as Mel, and with my new and more perfect nose I’m pretty, truly pretty. Not pretty with a caveat—she’s pretty for a fill in the blank. Fat girl. Smart girl. Dull girl. Young, old, annoying, the potential qualifiers are many. My hair is past my shoulders, which Mel says is the longest she’s ever seen it—Mel’s stylist cut in long layers and left my bangs overgrown. He also gave me blond lowlights so my light brown hair—usually as drab as a dead mouse—has depth.
Watch out, world, here I come. Seriously. I know looks aren’t everything, but they definitely do smooth out life’s little bumps, the cellulite of the mind. I’ve suspected it for a long time, and now it’s my turn to prove it.
My clothes are different, too. I know my colleagues could probably easily attest to my regular type of business attire. It’s so consistent it might even be called a uniform—dark trousers, a light-colored silk or cotton shirt with either long or short sleeves, depending on the weather, a pair of sensible pumps, and if I’m feeling really festive, a strand of pearls. I don’t need to remember that—my closet told me all about it.
Not today.
Today I took a risk—it’s important to take risks every now and then. Borrowing it from Mel’s closet over the weekend, today I donned a tight-fitting electric-blue sweater with a white camisole underneath to tame the sweater’s plunging neckline, and with it I wore a short, flouncy, multi-colored skirt—pink, yellow, and blue on a black background, the blue perfectly matching the sweater. It’s something I would never have dared to wear ever before—not even long enough to try it on in a clothing store.
Just as that thought flutters through my mind, there’s a memory taunting me, just out of reach. The more I try to pin down the fugitive memory, the farther away it flees. And then the moment I give up trying, it slides right into the assembly line of my thoughts: I’m wearing a brown skirt and brushing crumbs off it… on the train to work, I think… sitting behind a man. Staring at him. I’m behind him but diagonally so I can watch him without being noticed. When he turns to speak to the person sitting across the aisle from him, I can see his face. He catches me staring, smiles at me. Winks. He was so handsome.
I wonder when this happened… or even if it ever did. Memory is elusive and my memories are slipperier than most. False memory is insidious and can hijack the real thing and become as entrenched and as real as the genuine memory. The psychologist I visited cautioned me about that possibility.
Still, I didn’t invoke the memory in any way, so I’ll consider it authentic. I’ve taken to listing my recaptured memories on a separate sheet from my journal. As the number rises, it gives me hope of a full recovery. Hope is a good thing.
It could be a soul-sucking thing as well.
So, yeah, I needed some air and decided to take a walk to Whole Foods when I got home from my half day of work today. The afternoon light was fading into dusk and it was not too chilly. I planned to start walking daily in an attempt to build up stamina to eventually take up running. My doctor advised me that physical exercise in moderation is important to the healing process.
As I walked home from the store, I’d just gotten to the house adjacent to mine when the front door opened and a man emerged. I sucked in my breath, instantly knowing two things: one, that it was Mason Caldwell, and two, that he was the man on the train in my recovered memory. How could I not have known? He looked like an older version of the boy I knew in high school. Our eyes connected and he waved to me. “Hey.”
I raised my arm in a halfhearted gesture but kept walking. It felt odd to be friendly with him. The cops believe, after all, that he contracted a hit on his wife. But as I strode closer to my house, he broke into a sprint to catch up with me.
“Jane?” He waited for my acknowledgment, looking at me earnestly.
As he got closer and I caught a really good look at him, I almost choked—no exaggeration. Coughing to stall, I allowed myself the luxury of admiring the man up close and personal. He’d been a beautiful boy, and now he was an incredibly handsome man. So handsome, in fact, that merely looking at him caused my body to have an instant all-systems go: my pulse roared in my ears, ovaries contracted, mouth dried, respiration sped up… All from a single close-up of my next-door neighbor.
“Um… hi. Mason, right?” My voice sounded high-pitched and tinny. I recognized the anxiety domino-effect thing—beginning with drenching perspiration—and tried to curtail it. Not giving in to panic was the key to managing it.
“I’d heard you had amnesia from your car accident,” he continued as if he were an ordinary mortal. “I hope you’re feeling better. Are you?” Picasso-blue eyes peered intently at me.
I pushed away the shyness I felt around him. “Much better, thanks. I don’t have all of my memory yet but it’s coming back, slowly but surely.”
“That’s good. You look great, if you don’t mind my saying so. Uh… I saw you with packages and thought you might need a hand.”
Did I need a hand? His hand? Here I was trying to carry on a coherent conversation with him while questions were roiling inside my brain. What is the etiquette? Should I mention his murdered wife or is that taboo since he’s the prime suspect? Can I have sex wi
th him right now or would that be in poor taste? How well do I actually know him? All I can remember is how I swooned over him in school. I find comfort in his voice, smooth and deep. I also remember how kind he always was to me—and to everyone for that matter.
Just as that thought flitted through my head, it’s countered by an instant image, front and center. He and I are sitting in a car. It’s what we’re doing that catches me off guard. I’m leaning back against the car window and he’s nearly on top of me… and we’re kissing.
Like crazy.
I swooned a bit… and not in a good way.
“Are you OK?” he was asking me. “You look pale.”
“Oh…I-I…uh,” I stammered, hot blood rushing to my face, now surely no longer pale. “I’m fine.”
“I hope you’re not afraid of me, Jane. I’m assuming the police told you that I’m a suspect in my wife’s murder?”
I couldn’t entirely prevent the smirk in response to his nonchalant comment about murdering his wife. In fact, I almost laughed. Which was crazy. I mean, wasn’t my reaction… unexpected? How would most people respond? Maybe it’s the shock? I collected myself quickly and nodded, a little bit ashamed of myself even though I didn’t do anything wrong. “I’m sorry. May I offer you my condolences?”
“Yes. Thank you. It’s hard enough…” his voice choked up, “…without being considered the main suspect. But I suppose the police are only doing their jobs—they even told me it’s nothing personal. We do need to find my poor Cate’s killer.”
Making sympathetic sounds of support didn’t seem adequate, so I asked, “Are they making any progress?”
“The only thing they’re fairly certain of is that it wasn’t random, which is even creepier to think that someone targeted her.”
“It does seem odd.”
“What does?”