The Shape of Night

by Tess Gerritsen

  Food is on my mind, as well.

  I turn back to the house. Only as I climb the stairs do I notice the FedEx package sitting on the porch swing. The driver must have left it yesterday afternoon, while I was busy inside preparing for Simon’s arrival. I pick it up and recognize my own handwriting on the address label. It’s the same FedEx package I sent to Charlotte Nielson last week and I stare at the reason it’s been returned to me.

  Three Delivery Attempts.

  I stand on the porch, ignoring Hannibal’s meows, as I consider this bounced-back package. Remembering what Donna Branca had told me: Charlotte hasn’t returned any of my emails and she hasn’t been answering her phone. I’m more than puzzled by this. I’m now thoroughly alarmed.

  There is so much I need to ask Charlotte, so much I need to know about her stay in this house. About why she left so abruptly. Was it the ghost who drove her away?

  Her address is on Commonwealth Avenue, not far from my own apartment in Boston. Surely there’s someone in her building who can tell me where she has gone, and how I can reach her.

  I glance at the kitchen clock: 7:47 A.M. If I leave now, I can be in Boston by one.

  Nineteen

  It’s a beautiful day for a drive, but I scarcely pay attention to the views of glittering water and tidy seaside cottages; my mind is scrolling back through the odd details that have added up over the weeks since I arrived in Tucker Cove. I think about the cookbook and the bottles of whiskey in the kitchen cabinet, the lone flip-flop under the bed, and the silk scarf bunched up on the floor of the bedroom closet. When Charlotte Nielson abruptly packed up and left, she still had two months on her lease, a detail that now takes on troubling significance. What made her leave Brodie’s Watch so abruptly?

  I think I already know the answer: She left because of him. What did Captain Brodie do to you, Charlotte? What finally sent you fleeing from the house? What should I be afraid of?

  Only last month I’d driven this same road north, fleeing Boston. Now I’m on my way back to ground zero where everything went wrong. I’m not coming to repair the damage, because it can never be repaired and I can never be absolved. No, this is a different mission entirely. I’m coming to meet the only other living woman who has lived in my house. If she too has seen him, then I’ll know he’s real. I’ll know I’m not going insane.

  But if she hasn’t seen him…

  One step at a time, Ava. First find Charlotte.

  By the time I cross the border into New Hampshire, traffic has thickened and I join the usual stream of tourists heading home after a vacation of boating and hiking and feasting on lobster. Through windows I glimpse sunburned faces and backseats piled high with suitcases and coolers. In my car there is only me, carrying no luggage except for the emotional baggage that will weigh me down for the rest of my life.

  I roll down my window and am startled by the heat that blows in. After a month in Tucker Cove, I’d forgotten how suffocatingly hot the city can be in early September, a concrete oven where tempers easily boil over. At a stoplight, when I pause just a millisecond too long after the traffic light turns green, the driver behind me leans on his horn. In Maine, almost no one honks, and I’m startled by the blare. Thanks for the welcome back to Boston, asshole.

  As I drive down Commonwealth Avenue, a knot tightens in my stomach. This is the way to Lucy’s apartment, the way to Christmas dinners and Thanksgiving turkey and Sunday brunches. The way to the person I love most, the person I never meant to hurt. The knot in my stomach turns to nausea as I drive past her building, past the apartment I helped her move into, past the olive-green drapes I helped her pick out. It’s one P.M. on a Saturday, so she’d be home from making her usual rounds in the hospital, alone in that spacious apartment. What would she say if I knocked at her door now and blurted out what really happened New Year’s Eve? But I don’t have the courage. In fact, I’m terrified that she’ll glance out the window, see me driving past, and wonder why I don’t drop in to visit the way I always used to. Just as she wonders why I fled Boston for the summer, why I avoid her phone calls, why I have all but excised her from my life.

  I’m too much of a fucking coward to tell her the truth, so I just keep driving, heading west toward the block where Charlotte Nielson lives.

  By the time I pull up in front of her building, my hands are unsteady, my heart racing. I turn off the engine and sit still for a moment, taking deep breaths to calm myself. I notice two teenage boys loitering on the front steps of the building, watching me, no doubt wondering why I’ve been sitting so long in my car. I know they’re probably harmless, but the sheer size of teenage boys, with their giant shoes and hulking shoulders, is intimidating, and I hesitate before I finally step out and walk past them to the building’s entrance. I push the buzzer for Charlotte’s apartment. Once, twice, three times. There’s no response, and the front door is locked.

  The boys are still watching me.

  “Do either of you live here?” I ask them.

  They give simultaneous shrugs, which mean…what? Don’t they know where they live?

  “I live here sometimes,” says the bigger one. He has sun-bleached hair, and if he lived in California, he’d probably be hauling a surfboard. “Mostly in the summer, when I’m staying with my dad.”

  So it’s one of those families.

  “Do you know the other people who live in this building? Do you know Charlotte Nielson?”

  “The lady in 314? Yeah.” The boys exchange knowing smirks. “I’d sure like to know her better,” he adds, and they both laugh.

  “I really need to reach her. Can you give her this note? I’d like her to call me.” I pull a notepad from my purse and jot down my phone number.

  “She’s not here. She’s up in Maine.”

  “No, she’s not,” I tell him.

  “Yeah, she is.”

  “She was in Maine, but she left a month ago. Didn’t she come home?”

  The boy shakes his head. “I haven’t seen her since June. Just before she left for the summer.”

  I think about this for a moment, trying to reconcile it with what Donna Branca told me—that Charlotte left Brodie’s Watch because of a family emergency. If she hadn’t returned to Boston, where had she gone? Why wasn’t she answering her emails and phone calls?

  “So what’s up with Charlotte?” the teenager asks.

  “I don’t know.” I stare at the building. “Is your dad at home?”

  “He went for a run.”

  “Can you give him my phone number? Ask him to call me back. I really need to reach Charlotte.”

  “Yeah. Okay.” The boy stuffs the slip of paper with my phone number into the back pocket of his jeans, where I fear it will all too easily be forgotten, but there is nothing more I can do. My hunt for Charlotte all comes down to a teenage boy who will probably toss those jeans in the washing machine without ever remembering what’s in his pocket.

  I climb back into my car wondering if I should just spend the night in Boston rather than drive the four and a half hours back to Tucker Cove. My apartment has been sitting empty for weeks, and I should probably check on it anyway.

  This time I avoid Commonwealth Avenue and instead take an alternate route, so I won’t have to drive past Lucy’s apartment. My no-go area is expanding. In the days after Nick’s death, I forced myself to step through Lucy’s front door only because she so desperately needed my comfort. Then I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t tolerate her hugs, couldn’t look her in the eye, so I just stopped going to see her. Stopped calling her, stopped returning her voicemails.

  Now I can’t even drive past her building.

  My no-go areas keep expanding, like spreading blots of ink on the city map. The area around the hospital where Lucy works. Her favorite coffee shop and grocery store. All the places where I might run into her and be forced to explain the reas
on I’ve dropped out of her life. Just the thought of encountering her makes my heart pound, my hands sweat. I imagine those black blots enlarging, spreading on the map until the entire city of Boston is a no-go zone. Maybe I should move to Tucker Cove forever and lock myself away in Brodie’s Watch. Grow old and die there, far from this city where I see my guilt reflected back at me everywhere I look, especially on this road to my own apartment.

  This is the road where it happened. There is the intersection where the limousine slammed into Nick’s Prius, spinning it around on the ice-slicked street. And that lamppost is where the crumpled Prius ended up.

  Another black blot on the map. Another place to avoid. All the way to my apartment, I feel as if I’m driving an obstacle course where every corner, every street, is a bad memory, waiting like a bomb to explode.

  And in my own apartment is the most devastating memory of all.

  It doesn’t hit me, not at first. When I step inside, all I register is the stale air of a home where no window has been opened in weeks. Everything is as I left it, my spare keys in the bowl near the door, the last few issues of Bon Appétit stacked on the coffee table. Home sweet home is what I should be feeling, but I’m still agitated by the drive, still unsure if I really want to spend the night here. I set down my purse, drop the keys in the bowl. I haven’t eaten or drunk anything since this morning, so I walk into the kitchen for a glass of water.

  That’s where it hits me. New Year’s Eve.

  The memory is so vivid I can hear the pop of corks, can smell the rosemary and sizzling fat of the roasting porchetta. And I remember the happy, happy taste of champagne on my tongue. Too much champagne that night, but it was my party; I had spent all day in the kitchen shucking oysters and trimming artichokes and assembling mushroom tarts, and as my apartment filled up with my three dozen guests, I was ready to celebrate.

  So I drank.

  Everyone else did, too. Everyone except for Lucy, who had the bad luck of being on call for the hospital that night. She and Nick had driven separately, just in case Lucy had to leave the party for an emergency, and that night she sipped only sparkling water.

  Of course she was called in, because it was New Year’s Eve, the roads were icy, and there were bound to be accidents. I remember looking at her from across the room as she pulled on her coat to leave, and thinking: There goes my perfectly sober sister, off to save another life, while here I am, finishing off my sixth glass of champagne.

  Or was it my seventh?

  By the end of the evening, I had lost count, but what did it matter? I wasn’t driving anywhere. And neither was Nick, who’d agreed to sleep in my guestroom because he was too wasted to get behind the wheel of a car.

  I stare down at the kitchen floor and remember those cold, hard tiles against my back. I remember the nausea of all the champagne sloshing in my stomach. Suddenly the nausea is back, and I cannot stand being in this apartment a moment longer.

  I flee the apartment and climb back in my car.

  By this evening, I’ll be home again, in Brodie’s Watch. This is the first time I’ve actually thought of it as “home,” but now it seems like the one place in the world where I can hide from the memories of that night. I reach for the ignition.

  My cellphone rings. It’s a Boston area code, but I don’t recognize the number. I answer it anyway.

  “My son told me to call you.” It’s a man’s voice. “He says you came by my building a little while ago, asking about Charlotte.”

  “Yes, thank you for calling. I’ve been trying to reach her, but she hasn’t responded to any emails and she doesn’t answer her phone.”

  “Who are you, exactly?”

  “My name is Ava Collette. I’m living in the house in Tucker Cove that Charlotte used to rent. I have a few things that she left behind, and I’d like to send them to her.”

  “Wait. Isn’t she still staying there?”

  “No. She left town over a month ago and I assumed she went home to Boston. I mailed her package there and it bounced back to me.”

  “Well, she hasn’t been back in Boston. I haven’t seen her since June. Not since she left for Maine.”

  We’re both silent for a moment, pondering the mystery of where Charlotte Nielson might be.

  “Do you have any idea where she is now?” I ask.

  “When she left Boston, she gave me her forwarding address. It’s a PO box.”

  “Where?”

  “In Tucker Cove.”

  Twenty

  Donna Branca isn’t the least bit alarmed by what I’ve told her.

  “The man you spoke to is just her neighbor, so he might not know where she’s gone. Maybe she’s out of state visiting relatives. Or she’s traveling abroad. There’s any number of reasons why she didn’t go home to Boston.” Her phone rings and she swivels around to answer it. “Branca Property Sales and Management.”

  I stare across the desk at her, waiting for her to finish the call and continue our conversation, but I can already see she’s tuned me out and is fully focused instead on signing up a new rental property to manage: four bedrooms, view of the water, only a mile from the village. I’m just an annoying tenant, trying to play detective. This is Tucker Cove, not Cabot Cove, and only on Murder, She Wrote would a summer tourist investigate a woman’s disappearance.

  At last Donna hangs up and turns back to me with an expression of why are you still here? “Is there some reason you’re worried about Charlotte? You’ve never even met her.”

  “She doesn’t answer her cellphone. She hasn’t responded to emails in weeks.”

  “In the letter she sent me, she said she’d be out of touch for a while.”

  “Do you still have that letter?”

  With a sigh, Donna swivels around to a filing cabinet and pulls out the folder for Brodie’s Watch.

  “This is what she mailed me from Boston, after she vacated. As you can see, there’s nothing alarming about it.” She hands me a typed letter which is, indeed, matter-of-fact.

  Donna, due to a family crisis, I had to leave Tucker Cove immediately. I won’t be returning to Maine. I know there’s still two months left on my lease, but I’m sure you’ll have no problem finding a new tenant. I hope my deposit will be enough to cover the early departure. I left the house in good condition.

  Cellphone coverage will be spotty where I’m going, so if you need to reach me, email is best.

  Charlotte

  I read the letter twice, my puzzlement deepening, and look at Donna. “Don’t you think this is strange?”

  “Her deposit covered everything. And she did leave the house in good shape.”

  “Why didn’t she mention where she’s going?”

  “Somewhere out of cellphone range.”

  “Out of the country? Into the wilderness? Where?”

  Donna shrugs. “All I know is, she was paid up.”

  “And now it’s weeks later and she’s still unreachable. Her neighbor in Boston has no idea where she is. He told me the number of her PO box in Tucker Cove is 137. For all we know, her mail is still sitting there, uncollected. Doesn’t any of this bother you?”

  For a moment she taps her fingers on the desk. At last she picks up the phone and dials. “Hello, Stuart? It’s Donna Branca. Could you do me a big favor and check on a PO box for me? The number is 137. It belonged to one of my tenants, Charlotte Nielson. No, Stuart, I’m not asking you to reveal anything you shouldn’t. It’s just that Charlotte left town weeks ago and I want to know if her mail’s being forwarded anywhere. Yes, I’ll stay on the line.” She glances at me. “He’s bending the rules a little, but this is a small town and we all know each other.”

  “Can he give us her forwarding address?” I ask.

  “I’m not going to push it, okay? He’s nice enough just to be doing this for us.” Her attention snaps back to th
e phone. “Yes, Stuart, I’m here. What?” She frowns. “It’s all still there? And she never gave you a forwarding address?”

  I lean forward, my gaze riveted to her face. Although I’m hearing only half the conversation, I know that something is very wrong and now even Donna is disturbed. Slowly she hangs up and looks at me.

  “She hasn’t picked up her mail in over a month. Her PO box is stuffed full and she never gave them a forwarding address.” Donna shakes her head. “This is so strange.”

  “It’s more than strange.”

  “Maybe she just forgot to fill out a change of address card.”

  “Or she couldn’t fill it out.”

  We stare at each other for a moment and the same possibility suddenly rears up in both our minds. Charlotte Nielson has dropped off the face of the earth. She doesn’t answer her phone or her emails and she has not picked up her mail in weeks.

  “You know that body they found floating in the water?” I say. “It was a woman’s. And she still hasn’t been identified.”

  “Do you think…”

  “I think we need to call the police.”

  * * *

  —

  Once again, the police are in my house, but this time they’re not here about a minor break-in by a burglar who’s tracked dirt across my kitchen floor. This time, they are Maine State Police detectives conducting a death investigation. Dental records have confirmed that the body found floating in the bay is indeed Charlotte Nielson, who has not collected the mail from her PO box in over a month. Whose last known communication was the typewritten letter sent to Donna Branca.

  Who two months ago was living in Brodie’s Watch and sleeping in my bed.

  I sit in the kitchen as the police tramp through the bedrooms upstairs. I don’t know what they think they’ll find. I’ve long since finished the last bottle of her whiskey. The only traces of Charlotte left in the house are her Hermès scarf, her copy of Joy of Cooking, and the spare flip-flop that I found under the bed. There is also her handwritten list of local phone numbers, which is still tacked to the kitchen corkboard. Numbers for the plumber, the electrician, the doctor She had the precise penmanship you’d expect of an elementary school teacher, and if it’s true you can judge a person by their handwriting, then Charlotte was a neat and careful woman who would not normally leave behind an expensive scarf or a well-thumbed cookbook. The fact she did makes me think she packed quickly, so anxious to flee this house that she didn’t bother to look under the bed or reach into the deepest corner of the closet. I think of my first night here, when I’d found that bottle and poured myself a glass. A dead woman’s whiskey.