I told myself the affair had been a huge mistake.
I told myself I wasn’t responsible.
I told myself I was tired of hearing shit from my inside voice.
All I had to do was show up and listen to what Kay knew about the investigation. Steve was already there when I arrived. Kay’s navy suit, although conservative, had an elegant twist with the addition of a muted pink-and-deep-mauve silk scarf placed under the jacket’s lapels and knotted loosely. The ends hung long below the third button. Her perfectly manicured nails reminded me of how mine used to look. When I gazed down at my fingers, I saw dried cuticles grown over small nail beds.
My mother’s hands.
My black cuffed trousers hung so loose, I had to roll the waistband twice. I kept the cream wool jacket buttoned to hide the bulkiness. I breezed into Kay’s office, nodded, and said a barely audible hi. This was the first time the three of us had been together in six years. I had thrown Steve out when he told me he had slept with Kay. He left without a hint of wasted energy. Falling out of love—for both of us—beat carrying around an oxygen tank.
“We made a mistake. It lasted only a month,” he said, before he closed the door on his way out.
THE PAPERWEIGHT SHIFTED as she pulled papers from a manila folder on top of a stack about to topple. “Let me tell you where things stand with the investigation. You probably have the same information, but I thought it would be good for us to review from the beginning.”
Steve cleared his throat. The tip of his nose looked red from a cold he had caught on the plane from San Francisco.
The French cuffs of Kay’s long-sleeved white shirt were held together by a pair of gold plated Herrerasaurus cuff links from the American Museum of Natural History. They had been a Christmas gift from Vinni.
“Maddy, what about the trip to Mueller’s Bakery in Brooklyn? Anything more we should all know?” Kay asked.
I said, “No.” The truth was that I had walked past the bakery three separate days since my first visit to Mueller’s. I didn’t tell anyone because there was nothing to say, other than that I sat at a table and ordered an apple turnover. I did not approach Hannah. I watched her. I watched and I watched, hoping to bore tiny holes into her chest. If she felt them at all, she never let on. Instead, she smiled when I walked in—the way she smiled at all the customers, including the man wearing a straw fedora and Harley tee. He sat inside, holding a hot cup of coffee in both hands. I had seen him before, on sunny days, when he sat at an outside table and drew on a tablet of unlined paper.
“Let me buy you a piece of chocolate cake,” he said one day when I sat alone at the café table outside Mueller’s. I agreed because I thought he might tell me something about the neighborhood. Before long, the sweetness of the cake wore me down.
“Have you ever seen this little girl?” I asked, as I pulled out the picture of Vinni in her yellow bathing suit from that summer day.
“No. Who is theeees?” His hat sat low over his eyebrows.
“This is my daughter. She was stolen from me two years ago.”
The man’s eyes went soft and sad. I detected compassion in his voice.
“I wish . . .” he began, and then cut short his thought. The pronunciation of his long i into a series of eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee’s disappeared but then crept up again.
“Why eeeeeeeeeees it that you look for her alone?”
“I’m not alone, really. The police . . . they, um . . . well, they’re helping. It’s just that it’s been a long time that she’s been missing.” The man’s half-open eyes irritated me.
“Why do you wear your hat so low?” I said.
The man slid his hat back over his head, exposing a mediocre forehead with the usual number of wrinkles. His brown eyes looked in at me.
“Is theeees better?” he said.
I excused myself to use the bathroom inside the bakery. Hannah looked up as I opened the door. I walked past the glass counters and down a dim hallway. Just as I was about to turn the handle on the bathroom door, a young girl, no more than sixteen, raced out and turned in the opposite direction of the street. “Excuse me,” I said, “you’re going the wrong way.” The girl ignored me, as if she didn’t hear. She lost herself in the dark at the end of the hallway. I heard a door open and close. Something made me follow her. I had taken only four or five steps, when the man in the straw fedora stepped out of the shadows. He surprised me. “You’re headed in the wrong direction, he said, as he grabbed my arm. “Come, follow me.”
“Ah. Yes. Thank you,” I said. As soft as the man’s voice was, his grip on me felt strong and protective, reassuring, like the familiar lines that ran across my father’s forehead from side to side.
YEAR THREE
EIGHTEEN
AFTER JOHN D’ORFINI RETURNED FROM QUANTICO, HE had an uneasiness about him. I sensed a distance on the phone when he called to check in. His three months away had left me feeling more alone, although my work on the canvas fed off my misery. I knew I was painting a series because whenever I put the brush down, I worried I might lose the continuity. When I painted, it was as if I had found an unknown source of oxygen. A sliver—not a crescent or a full moon, but a particle (I’m telling you this because I want you to know that it was so small as to defy measurement)—of longing lodged in my chest. But, like a shard of glass, it was there. Undeniably, it was there.
How long can you ignore a shard of glass?
My inside voice tried hushing the onslaught of questions. When the detective asked if he could stop by on a Sunday, as he was going to be in the city, I never questioned the reason. I confess to taking care in the shower, to shaving my legs, and to exfoliating my face with a lavender scrub. I brewed coffee for John D’Orfini, although I had switched to drinking tea. Was I so wrong to be ready?
When I opened the door, he stood with his hands in his pockets. A placement that made me smile.
“Welcome back,” I said. I think I took him by surprise until he realized that I was talking about his return from DC. His face was leaner, with an outdoor complexion of wind and sun. I had a chicken roasting in the oven—the one thing I could roast with pride. I hadn’t mentioned anything about an early dinner—it was only 4:45 p.m.—but as soon as John D’Orfini walked in, he smiled and said, “Chicken? I wasn’t expecting anything. I hope you didn’t go to much trouble.”
I offered white wine, but he declined.
At first.
He asked me about my painting. I asked him about the outreach program he had studied in Quantico. Vinni sat quietly in the background. The chicken, long done, rested on top of the stove. By the time we got around to eating it later that night, it had marinated beautifully in its own juices.
Only a fool passes on a home-cooked chicken.
RIGHT BEFORE MY climax with the detective, I shut my eyes tight and prayed with my inside voice. God, if this is wrong, then forgive me. If this makes me selfish, then send me to hell. And if you think I shouldn’t enjoy sex this once with the detective, then send an out-of-control bus down Fourteenth Street to run right over me. But, God, if you’re okay with John D’Orfini touching me, please send a sign, like . . . hell, I’m not going to tell you what kind of sign.
Sex had gotten mixed up with loneliness. When John D’Orfini rolled off me, I noticed the scar on his buttocks. A small, dimpled line about an inch long crept along his left cheek.
“What’s this?” I asked, as I tapped the spot.
“Nothing,” John D’Orfini mumbled, as his inner door closed shut.
“Oh, nothing—right. I forgot. I’m not supposed to be the one asking questions. Isn’t that right, Detective?” I let out one long sigh as my breasts spilled in front, splayed wide at the tip of my rib cage. I pulled up the sheet and folded my hands underneath my armpits in a masculine standoff.
“This shouldn’t have happened. It’s my fault,” the detective said, as he swung his legs over the side of the bed, showing an etched set of abdominal muscles. John D’Orfini stood up
and headed toward the bathroom.
My inside voice went nuts.
“Where are you going?” I called out before he shut the door. With just enough time to wrap a towel around his waist, he leaned out through the doorway.
“I’m sorry. I should leave. It’s late,” he said, without looking at me.
What did I tell you about that shard of glass?
I pulled the sheet up more tightly around my neck. A few minutes later, I heard the front door close. Something had gone terribly wrong . . . again.
An hour passed, the bell rang, and John D’Orfini spoke into the intercom.
“Please take a walk with me. I’ll wait downstairs.”
I met him outside, sitting on the steps.
We walked in silence for three long city blocks until he said, “We crossed the line tonight. I owe you an apology.” He kept both hands in his pockets even though it was a warmer-than-usual January. No sign of snow anywhere. No walking with our heads down to beat the wind.
“I’m an adult,” I said. “What are you apologizing for?”
“For acting unprofessional. I don’t want you to think that I’ve forgotten . . .”
“Forgotten? Forgotten what?” I stopped dead in the middle of the street. We had begun to cross Sixth Avenue in the direction of La Bandera, a Spanish restaurant down the block from Dance Theater Workshop, where Carmen de Lavallade was performing with other aging dancers who could still balance on one leg.
“Who. Don’t you mean who?” John D’Orfini had me by the shoulders. “Don’t make this harder than it is. We crossed the line tonight, and I’m trying to say I’m sorry. I don’t want anything or anyone—including the two of us—to get in the middle of the investigation. And I want you to know—”
“Shh . . .” I placed my hand over his mouth and hushed up the good detective. Our eyes held each other still as lake water on a summer’s eve. “You’re okay, Detective D’Orfini. No one standing here in the middle of Sixth Avenue has ‘forgotten’ about my girl.”
With my inside voice, I said, Isn’t that right, God? Of course, John D’Orfini couldn’t hear my inside voice. It dictated goodness when I needed a guide. My ranting at God cleared my head until the next time I lost my way. What was wild was that I was quicker at finding my way back than I used to be. Whatever I had learned in three years had something to do with fighting like a mother beast and refueling in the trenches to fight some more. One orgasmic roar was not going to deter me. And that’s all it was—just one. Not a double or a triple or a disjointed unraveling but one smooth-sailing ride into a place sweet like a trip to heaven. That’s all it was.
Dear, sweet John D’Orfini had no idea that I had my eye on Mueller’s Bakery. He stepped back—which didn’t surprise me— and I fell in line. If he felt it was the right thing to do—for him to withdraw and for me to follow like a well-rehearsed dance partner—I’d do it. What I didn’t know at the time was just how far back that was, although I noticed how he kept his hands in his pockets. How he drew his elbows closer to his ribs, and how when he looked at me I wanted to lay my cheek against his, the way I had that night when I had roasted him a chicken and we had made love.
IN A SMALL town like Spring Haven, secrets passed with ease from mouth to mouth.
“People keep to themselves what they don’t want anyone to know about,” John D’Orfini said. “The rest hangs out pretty much in the open.”
As time passed, I learned how he thought and worked and moved through one day to the next. His passion for getting the details right continued beyond securing his Eagle Scout badge on his seventeenth birthday. Hanging around Cryan’s Deli for his morning coffee, as well as ordering a homemade blueberry muffin—a Thursday special—worked well for the detective. He was a man who lived inside his habits. If he were to learn why a child got stolen on his watch, he knew Cryan’s was a good place to eavesdrop.
When Katherine Mulvey, the owner of the Spring Haven Religious Gift Shop, walked in one day, the left side of her neck twitched the way it had been twitching for the last twenty-two years, ever since she had lost her youngest child in a car accident, a senseless tragedy involving an out-of-towner speeding along Route 71 while ten-year-old Mary Mulvey rode her bike on her way to visit her best friend since Sister Anna’s first-grade class. The stretch was only five hundred yards on the highway before she turned down the cul-de-sac, but it was enough to snuff the life out of her.
Over the years, Katherine’s neck pulsed more viciously when she was upset. John D’Orfini had told me about the first time he had run into Katherine at Cryan’s after Vinni went missing. The more he talked to her, the more her neck twitched in tiny, jerky stabs, as if trying to shoo away a mosquito. When she was questioned by the FBI, along with the other shopkeepers in Spring Haven, her only revelation was that Hilda had gone to the Religious Gift Shop from time to time to browse.
“At least twice,” John D’Orfini said, “she crossed the street when she saw me walking in her direction. She ducked into the athletic store—the one with the tennis skirts in the window— even though she was scheduled for a hip replacement two days later and never played tennis a day in her life.”
He had teased her about the trinity rings for sale on a casual drop-in to her shop, just as he had teased me about how I added a half cup of cream to my tea.
“Trinity rings? Guess God’s pleased.”
(For sure, Katherine must have opened her eyes wider.)
“They make people feel holy when they purchase them. Stirs up the idea of hope, too. Hope is pretty powerful stuff. Hard to hang on to hope. Virtue . . . well, that’s even a tougher nut.”
He was careful not to tread on any personal space, but he knew how to lower his voice into a confidential tone. He did this with me on the night we shared the chicken. Low and soft, he said my name until I wanted to hear him say it all night.
John D’Orfini knew timing was everything and although Geronimo had warned him about approaching Katherine on the anniversary of her little girl’s senseless death, he showed up for the 8:00 a.m. memorial Mass at St. Anna’s Church. He followed Katherine up to communion, ignoring the raised eyebrow of Father Pat when the detective extended his tongue for the blessed host.
“I’m sorry for the woman’s loss, but she knows something,” he said when he had called me while driving from the church to the local coffee shop, where he had convinced Katherine to allow him to buy her breakfast.
“What are you looking for?” I asked. I was washing paintbrushes used the night before—evidence of a tired artist who needed sleep.
“A revelation, but I’d settle for solid information,” he said.
“Don’t be hard on her. God, today of all days,” I said.
“That’s exactly why she might be more inclined to say something. Look, I know it’s tough, but—”
“I know. You’ve got a hunch, Detective. I know.” I had never spoken the word aloud before I met John D’Orfini. Hunch. I didn’t even like the sound it made. Teeth clamped down, as if trapping the tail of a small animal.
Katherine’s neck twitched as she and John D’Orfini sat in a booth by the window. He believed a good detective acted on facts, intuition, and a dose of gold dust. Timing was everything. This was his personal assessment, not something he had studied at the police academy.
SOMETHING HAD BOUNCED across John D’Orfini’s desk from the FBI. Young girls—ages eight to ten—were being snatched up from Orthodox Jewish communities. The FBI dubbed the investigation “The Virgins.” It had been going on for years— young girls smuggled into Arabia for a band of princes whose taste for untouched skin traveled across the world.
John D’Orfini led the conversation with Katherine. “The Virgins” was a warm-up. Typical D’Orfini.
A mother and child had gone missing south of Spring Haven. Rumors of spousal abuse spread.
“The papers might have this one right,” John D’Orfini said. “Why wouldn’t a mother flee with her child if the father was a b
east?”
“A beast?” Katherine said.
“Beast,” John D’Orfini repeated, with a clarity that sent Katherine’s neck a-twitchin’ as she stood to leave.
Her rubber-soled Clark’s skimmed the linoleum as she muttered beast to herself on the way out. She turned back to look at him. He nodded, but he tucked away her reaction to the word beast. He sensed she didn’t like it one bit.
Later that day, I called John D’Orfini about the newspaper article. Lakeview was just three exits past Spring Haven on the parkway.
“What’s this about a child and her mother gone missing?” I asked.
“I’m looking into it,” the detective said. “I’m pretty sure there’s no connection.”
“Based on what?”
“The guy was beating on his wife and child.”
I HAPPENED TO be in Spring Haven when the town turned out for the opening of a new shop, called Whimsicality. I stood across the street and watched the owner cut the ribbon positioned across the double-front glass window. Katherine Mulvey stood two spaces from the owner. From across the street, I watched the steady motion of her twitch identifying her as the woman whose young daughter had died in a bicycle accident.
I should paint this, I thought. I should paint this piece of Americana stoked with madness. Was John D’Orfini’s scar on his buttocks the result from someone else’s insanity? And Katherine Mulvey? Was she to blame for withholding information while carrying around grief stored inside a muscle in her neck, making the rest of us uncomfortable because she couldn’t let it go?
NINETEEN
AS I CLIMBED THE STEPS OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC Library, I heard a tour guide outside explaining the architecture of the building to a group of out-of-towners. The guide told her group, “You can read between the lions,” referring to the lions in the front of the library. Polite giggles brought a smile to the tour guide’s face. I walked past them, turned off my phone, and opened my black tote bag for the security guard at the front door.
A Matter of Chance Page 11