A Dangerous Fiction

by Barbara Rogan

  “Once upon a time,” she said, in a singsongy voice, “there was a little princess who lived in a castle with her mother and father, the king and queen. The king and queen doted on the little princess and were kind to her, showering her with gifts and treats. One day, when the king was abroad, an evil enchantress cast a spell on him that turned his heart to stone. At her command, he banished the queen and the princess from the castle to make way for the witch.”

  “No,” I said, holding out a hand. “Wait.”

  She raised her voice. “When the queen fell ill with grief, the little princess sent many messages to the king. But the king never got those messages, because the evil witch intercepted them all. Fearing that in time the king would return to himself and remember his beloved queen and princess, the witch sent minions who captured the queen and threw her in a dungeon. They kept her in darkness; they tormented her until at last she took the only escape open to her: she hanged herself.”

  Mad, I told myself. Totally delusional. But there was an ache in the pit of my stomach, the kind you get when chickens come home to roost.

  “And the princess?” I asked.

  “Exiled to the wilderness, where she was raised by wolves.”

  “Not a very happy ending.”

  Lorna glowed from within, looking, strangely enough, like the woman I always thought she could be. “It hasn’t ended yet,” she said.

  “So you’re that girl. You were raised by wolves.”

  “Duh!”

  “And I’m the witch who destroyed your life?”

  “Finally!” She raised her arms in benediction. “It’s unbelievable how stupid smart people can be.”

  Indeed. Eighteen months working side by side and I never had a clue, although surely there were clues to be had. I thought about the gifts I’d given her: the clothes she never wore, the Coach bag she never used. Now it made perfect sense; who accepts gifts from someone they hate? I thought about her indifference to books, combined with her determination to work in publishing. Why had I never realized what a strange combination that was? All that behavior I’d attributed to protectiveness—the drinks she put in my hand, her vigilance in guarding my door and my phone, the many times she urged me to stay home or go away—I saw now as attempts to isolate and weaken me. Oh yes, there had been signs; but in my egotism, in my certainty that everyone loved me, I had misread them all. I’d seen everything and understood nothing.

  Even now I struggled. “You said your parents went back to Ireland.”

  “Leaving me all alone, boo-hoo.” She smirked. “You liked that one, didn’t you?”

  “Then who were they? And don’t tell me Hugo was your father. I know that’s not true.”

  “My mother’s name was Irina Kassofsky. She was a Russian immigrant, very beautiful, much more beautiful than you. We lived here together, the three of us. On Sundays we went to the park. Hugo loved us. He was my father, the only father I ever had.” She sounded rehearsed, like a child reciting her catechism.

  I wanted to deny it. Molly had said there was a live-in lover, but I never believed that. There was a housekeeper, though, and the doorman had said she had a child. A boy, I’m sure of it . . . or was it a girl? And suddenly it was clear.

  “Your mother was the maid!”

  Her brown eyes blazed. “How dare you call her that! She made his bed, yes, but she slept in it too. You destroyed our lives. You killed my mother. Everything I had, you stole from me. You’re a thief and a murderer.”

  “Lorna, I swear I never even knew you existed.”

  “I knew you’d say that. You can’t see me. You can’t hear me. You never could.” Once again she reached into her bag. This time I didn’t hesitate. I threw my coffee at her, mug and all. Lorna ducked and raised her arm, and the cup deflected off it and fell harmlessly to the floor.

  For a moment both of us remained as we were, frozen. Running wasn’t an option. Even if I made it out the door, she’d catch me in the hall or the stairwell. To have any chance at all, I had to get that bag away from her. I grabbed a crystal vase from the coffee table, but before I could throw it, the gun appeared.

  “Put it down,” Lorna said. “Gently.”

  I set the vase down within easy reach and sank back onto the couch, trying not to cringe. It was a smallish gun, with a long, tubular attachment on the barrel, and it was aimed at my heart. Beside me was a large throw pillow. I clutched it to me.

  She sniggered. “Yeah, that’ll help.”

  Coffee was seeping into the ivory silk rug that Hugo and I bought on our trip to China. It is a testament to my grandmother’s hands-on training that, despite the situation, I had an overwhelming urge, as reflexive as a sneeze, to fetch a bottle of club soda and some rags. Maybe Lorna had the same sort of upbringing, for she, too, glanced at the spreading stain with distress.

  “Look what you did,” she said reproachfully.

  I thought of Mingus then with a regret and longing so intense that I almost expected him to materialize on the spot. He didn’t. But it occurred to me that I wasn’t entirely weaponless. There was an ice pick in the bar and a poker beside the fireplace.

  Lorna seemed to read my mind. “Move one inch and you’re dead.”

  I wondered why she hadn’t pulled the trigger already. What did she want from me? Using the pillow as a cover, I slipped my hand into my pants’ pocket, found the BlackBerry, and started easing it out.

  “I understand your anger toward me,” I said. “But why take it out on my clients? Why kill Rowena and poor Molly? What the fuck did they ever do to you?”

  “You destroyed my life. I wasn’t going to put you down till I’d destroyed yours.”

  “You organized Rowena’s memorial service.” Each new realization was hitting me as a distinct shock; I couldn’t get ahead of it. “You sat in that room and listened to the life she led, the kind of person she was. How could you, knowing what you’d done?”

  “It was tough,” Lorna said. “Tough to keep from laughing. Rowena was nothing like all that pious bullshit. She was a snotty bitch, so full of herself she never even bothered to learn my name.”

  “And for that she deserved to die?” The phone was out of my pocket. I ran my fingers over the keys, trying to visualize the keyboard. Tommy Cullen was number five on my speed dial. I pressed what I prayed was the right number.

  “If she hadn’t deserved it, she wouldn’t have made it so easy.” Lorna smiled in what looked like fond remembrance. “It was so perfect. She opened the door and said, ‘Laura, dear, what are you doing here?’ ‘Jo sent me,’ I said, and of course those were the magic words. She invited me in, and I didn’t waste any time. But here’s the kicker. After I shot her, she didn’t die right away. I leaned over her, so my face would be the last thing she saw, and I said, ‘Actually, dear, it’s Lorna.’” Lorna had been sniggering throughout this recital. Now she laughed so hard that she didn’t hear what I heard: a muffled voice between my stomach and the pillow saying, “Jo?”

  She wiped her eyes with the heel of her free hand. “You have no idea how badly I’ve wanted to tell that story. And you’re such a good listener now.”

  Was it Tommy? I couldn’t tell. It was someone, anyway. If this ended badly, someone would know.

  “And Molly?” I said loudly. “What did Molly ever do to you, Lorna?”

  “Nothing,” she said, turning truculent. “Molly was OK, except for thinking the sun shone out of your asshole. But she was your crutch. If you’d given up after Rowena, if you’d stayed down like a normal human being, there would have been no need for Molly to die. But no, you had to be better than anyone else, tougher than anyone else, the invincible Jo Donovan. Molly’s your fault. They both are.”

  Fear acted like Novocain on my emotions, but I felt the impact of those words. They would hurt later, if there was a later. “Lorna, I didn’t know about you and your mothe
r. Maybe I should have, but I didn’t. You were treated unfairly; you have a legitimate claim. We can resolve this to your advantage. Look at this apartment. You loved it as a child. It could be yours again. Killing me gains you nothing.”

  “Nothing but satisfaction,” she scoffed. “Nothing but achieving my life’s goal.”

  “People who’ve been damaged are entitled to compensation. Why don’t we settle this the American way?”

  She waved the gun. “This is the American way.”

  “I meant money.”

  “And I suppose Molly and Rowena will be our little secret? Damn, woman, you still think I’m stupid. Must be a hard habit to break.”

  “Of course I don’t think you’re stupid, how could I? You fooled everyone. No one looked twice at you.”

  “You never even looked once,” she said, with a lifetime’s worth of contempt. “Fooling you was easy. I knew you’d never suspect me. ‘Poor dumb Lorna, such a good little filer. Just don’t ask her to walk and chew gum at the same time.’”

  “I never said anything like that!”

  “Thought it, though, didn’t you?”

  Odd, I thought, that the truest lines in this conversation were coming from the crazed murderer. “I think we’ve established that I had no idea who I was dealing with. The point is, you’d never get away with this one. The doorman saw you; Jean-Paul knows you came to my apartment. If you shoot me, you’ll be caught in two seconds and rot in prison for the rest of your life. Where’s the justice in that?”

  I was afraid, mentioning the apartment for the second time, that Lorna would catch on. But she was too busy gloating, proud of herself and eager to show off her cleverness. “No one saw me. I came in the basement door and I’ll leave the same way. Thanks for the keys, by the way; good of you to trust me with them. After I finish with you, I’ll go around front and deliver that manuscript to the doorman, just like your little boyfriend told me to. With you gone, the agency will fold; and I’ll drift away, the way little people like me do.”

  “They’ll find you, Lorna.” I hoped Tommy had gotten the message by now, because if I said her name once more, I thought she’d shoot me on general principle.

  She shrugged. “It’d be worth it if they did, but they won’t. It’s a big country, and I’ve got the perfect invisibility cloak: a few extra pounds and some dowdy clothes. Worked with you, didn’t it?”

  “I hope you don’t expect a reference.”

  “Good one, Jo. Too bad it’s just you and me here.”

  “Seriously, think it over. Everything else aside, it’s a hell of a time to be out of a job.”

  She flushed. “Everything’s a fucking joke to you, isn’t it? You should be on your knees, begging for your life.”

  “Like that’s gonna help.”

  “You never know. I might take pity, if you beg hard enough.”

  Finally I understood what she was waiting for. Humiliation, the final station of the cross. She must have pictured it for years, fantasized about it. The Lorna I’d thought I knew was rigid in her routines and expectations. I had a feeling this Lorna wasn’t so different.

  I didn’t budge. She raised the gun and took aim, left hand supporting her right. “Kneel before me, you evil witch!”

  Even though she held the gun and all the power, her voice was shrill, shaking like a child’s. And suddenly I knew that voice. I’d heard it before. The memory rushed over me.

  “Put him on, witch. Put Hugo on.” A young voice, high-pitched and agitated.

  I move the phone away from my ear. “Stop calling. Leave us alone.”

  “I need to talk to him right now!”

  Noises in the background: men shouting, a woman screaming. Some vile prank, I think.

  “I can’t hear you,” I say, and hang up the phone.

  Now I looked at Lorna, and I could see the young girl from the photo in her face. “You called the apartment.”

  “Oh, so now you remember. I called many times. I called the day they took my mother away. You hung up on me.”

  “I thought you were one of his girlfriends.”

  “No, you didn’t,” she said flatly. “On your knees!”

  I heard the elevator stop on my floor.

  If Lorna had any sense, I’d be dead already. But she must have envisioned this moment a thousand times, me on my knees, begging for mercy, and she didn’t want to settle for less. She’d heard the elevator, though, and it spooked her. As she threw a quick glance over her shoulder, I jumped up, raised the crystal vase above my head, and hurled it at her.

  I missed. The vase flew past her head, hit the wall, and shattered in a shower of glass shards, mums, and roses. Both of us were on our feet. There were footsteps in the hall. Someone banged on the door. “Help!” I screamed.

  Lorna raised her arm and sighted down the barrel. I grabbed the closest thing at hand, my wedding photo, and aimed for her chest. She ducked, but the heavy metal frame clipped her shoulder. As she staggered backward, the gun roared.

  I felt a searing pain on the side of my head and fell back onto the couch. Blood dripped past my eyes like a red bead curtain. Through it I saw uniformed policemen rush in, shouting, guns in hand. “Drop it. Drop the gun!”

  I heard a thump; then Lorna spoke with astonishing composure. “Don’t shoot. It’s not what it looks like. She attacked me.”

  I wanted to deny it, but my head was on fire. A large body knelt beside me. A man’s voice said, “She’s shot. Call a bus.”

  I closed my eyes and waited to die.

  Chapter 29

  After the sentencing, Max and I left the courthouse together. The Criminal Court building was an imposing white edifice on Centre Street, whose carved portico and columns made the perfect backdrop for the attorneys who were already outside talking to the press. We skirted the knot of reporters, our faces averted, and crossed the street to the little park on Foley Square, where we sat on a bench facing the courthouse. A year had passed since Lorna’s arrest; winter had come again, but the weather this week had been unseasonably warm, almost sultry.

  “Well,” Max said, wiping his brow and the dome of his head with a red handkerchief, “that’s that.”

  “Thanks for coming, Max.”

  “No thanks necessary. It was worth it just to hear the words ‘consecutive sentences.’ She’ll never get out. That’s something to celebrate.”

  “Yes,” I said, but I didn’t feel like celebrating, and I didn’t believe he did, either. Lorna hadn’t testified during the trial, but a great deal about her early life had come out in the sentencing phase. She was not, as she had claimed, Hugo’s daughter. Lorna was four years old when her mother, a Russian immigrant named Irina Kassofsky, quit her job with Jolly Maids and moved into Hugo’s apartment; she was seven when they left it.

  Nor had Hugo thrown them out on the street. He’d rented them an apartment in Brooklyn, paid the rent for six months—those receipts I’d found in his study—and turned over to Irina a bank account with $20,000 in it. It was a perfunctory, businesslike dismissal, particularly cruel to the child, though I doubt Hugo ever considered that. Nevertheless, it was a loss Lorna could have overcome if her mother had moved on with her life. Irina did not. Her ascent had been too steep and her descent too precipitous. She obsessed endlessly over Hugo and especially over me, and she made her daughter into her confidante. Growing depressed, she began to use and eventually sell drugs. Child services got involved. For the next five years, until she hanged herself at Rikers, Irina shuttled in and out of prisons and hospitals. Each time she got out, she regained custody of her daughter; and the cycle began again. For Lorna, the intervals with her mother were devoted to retelling the story of their betrayal and plotting elaborate schemes of revenge, while the stints in foster care were spent waiting and planning.

  Which, I supposed, was how she got so good at it. It took
Lorna years to carry out her revenge: to acquire skills that would be useful to me, to insinuate herself into the agency, and to learn what she needed to know to strip me of my life before taking it.

  The judge wasn’t impressed by Lorna’s miserable childhood; perhaps he was inured to hard-luck stories. In his sentencing statement, he spoke about the astonishing degree of premeditation that went into her crimes, as well as their cold-blooded cruelty. My feelings were more conflicted. The jury had found her guilty on all counts, as did I. Rowena and Molly could finally rest easy; their murderer would never again walk free. And yet I remembered, as the court could not, desperate phone calls from a voice I chose to hear as a woman’s; and I knew there was guilt enough to go around.

  “The worst part,” I said to Max, “is that none of it had to happen. If I’d known back then, if I’d allowed myself to know—”

  “Hugo knew,” Max said firmly. “They weren’t your responsibility. Nor his either, really. You ask me, he treated that woman more than decently. She got three good years and a windfall in the end. There was no need to make a soap opera out of it, much less drag the kid into it.”

  “Haven’t you noticed? Everyone’s life is a soap opera.”

  “Nuh-uh. Mine’s a Broadway musical.”

  I laughed, thinking of his books. “But a dark one, like Sweeney Todd.”

  “Not at all. Something frothy, with Julie Andrews in it.”

  “Somebody’s happy.”

  “It’s called marital bliss. Highly recommended, Madame Workhorse.”

  “Been there, done that.”

  “Done what?” said another voice.

  We turned. Tommy Cullen was approaching, looking cool and businesslike in a charcoal suit. I should have been prepared; I’d glimpsed him in the courtroom and lost track of the proceedings for five full minutes. But I was unexpectedly struck dumb, and Max, for the second time, stepped into the breach.

  “Detective Cullen, our savior!” He stood and shook Tommy’s hand warmly. “Which, you should know, is not something a Jew says lightly.”