by Ron Levitsky
“Vaya con Dios,” the woman replied—Go with God.
Rosen walked Sarah to the kitchen door.
“Go on home. I’ll be along in a few minutes.” When she hesitated, he said, “I promise not to ask any questions.”
Sarah nodded, then blurted, “What happened to Nina?”
“I don’t know, Shayna.”
“There’re all sorts of rumors at school, but nobody really knows, do they?”
“Not yet.”
“Last year when one of the seniors died from a drug overdose, there were all these counselors coming into our classes. They were so worried how the guy’s death would affect the other kids. But nobody’s saying anything about Nina—not Dr. Winslow, the teachers, or even the counselors. Only the kids whispering in the halls.”
“Whispering what?”
“That’s just it. They don’t know either. They only say ‘maybe’—maybe she got drunk and fell, maybe she was doing drugs and freaked, or maybe she committed suicide. All that talk’s crazy, Daddy. Nina wouldn’t have done any of those things.”
“What does your mother say about this?”
“She doesn’t tell me anything. She says the police are calling it an accident, but that’s not saying anything. I mean, why was Nina in the park that night? And who called her? I keep wondering—I can’t get it out of my head—what happened to her?” When he reached for her, she stepped back, shaking her head hard. “Since Nina died, I haven’t seen much of you.”
“I didn’t think you wanted to see me, and your mother said—”
“I know. I didn’t mind really, because Mrs. Melendez said you were investigating Nina’s death. I’m glad. I told her you’d find out what happened. I think that’s what keeps her going. If it weren’t for you . . .” Stopping suddenly, she bit her lower lip.
“What?” Rosen asked.
“Sometimes I’m afraid of the way she can get.”
“Because of Nina’s death?”
“No . . . yes. I mean even before, she could get kind of angry. If Nina didn’t do exactly what she said, she’d . . .” Again Sarah shook her head.
“She’d what?”
“Nothing. Just remember what I said about not getting Mrs. Melendez upset. I’ll see you back home.”
She let Rosen hug her for a long time, then walked toward the gate, while he turned, carrying the warmth of her embrace back into the dead girl’s bedroom. He stood beside the dresser, where the candle burned brightly.
Esther had remained sitting on the bed, but on her lap lay the spiral notebook—Nina’s diary. Opening the notebook, she read slowly. In the darkness she could barely see the words; still she read them slowly in her thick accent.
“‘After rehearsal, he picked me up on his way home. We went to the park overlooking the beach. His eyes, so stern with everybody else, looked so gentle tonight. We kissed.’” She handed Rosen the open diary. “You finish.”
He read silently the rest of the passage. “‘He says I’m not a girl to him but a woman. A woman! I think we might make love. Should I tell Sarah?’”
“Why don’t you say the words?” Esther asked.
“I know the words. I heard them last week in the principal’s office.” He handed back the notebook.
Her voice was soft, as if blanketed by the darkness. “It good you remember. I remember too. It hard for me to read English, but I practice. Every day I read over and over and now I know the words without reading them. Like the prayers they teach us in church when I was a little girl. No puedo olvidar—I can’t forget. ‘He says I’m not a girl to him but a woman. A woman. I think we might make love.’” She laid the diary on the bed. “Lucila said you saw the teacher yesterday. You know he a bad man.”
“That doesn’t mean he killed your daughter.”
“Lucila told me what you found in his apartment—what kind of man he is. Dirty things, and he a teacher. In my country, you know what they do to a man who . . .” She searched for the right words. “Molestador—a man who hurts children. You know what they do to such a man? Cut off his balls, then cut the rest of him into little pieces. That what they should do to this teacher. Don’t you think so?” When Rosen didn’t reply, she continued, “Look at that face. Una angelita.”
He stared at the photograph, but what interested him at that moment was the gold cross hanging over the picture. A small velvet case lay open near the candle. The name inside read “Brissard Jewelers” with a North Michigan Avenue address.
“That’s a beautiful necklace,” he said. “Was it Nina’s?”
She hesitated before answering. “No. A Christmas present last year. For me from the Ellsworths.”
“Very expensive. Doesn’t Kate Ellsworth have a necklace with the same kind of chain?”
“Yes.”
“And isn’t the chain like the one found in your daughter’s hand?”
“Nina always like my necklace. Sometimes I let her wear it. When the police show me the chain, I thought it was my necklace, but no. Mine was in my room.”
“How do you think she got the chain?”
Esther said, “Ask the teacher. Maybe he got it for her.”
She leaned forward. Candlelight softened her round face, except where the shadows deepened under her eyes. Her eyes were alive, glowing like embers, and something about them seemed familiar.
He asked, “What about the rose petals found by the cliff? Who do you think gave your daughter roses?”
“The teacher.”
“Could she have taken them from the house?”
“I told you—the teacher. I told, I told you. The teacher!”
Her eyes widened, as if some hateful secret stoked the fire behind them. Rosen should’ve stopped; he’d promised Sarah no questions. But he’d promised something more important—to discover the truth.
“Did Nina have many friends?”
“Sarah was her friend.”
“Besides Sarah. Did she have any boyfriends?”
“She was a young girl, too young to think about boys. I don’t let her date.”
“But the diary . . .” Her eyes made him pause. “I mean, it’s natural for any high school girl to think about boys. Chip Ellsworth, for example. He seems like a nice boy, and with you and Nina living on the estate—”
“What are you saying?” She rose to her feet. “What are you saying about my Nina?”
“The necklace and the flowers had to come from somewhere. Then there’s the telephone call that night. Who made that call?”
Nostrils flaring, she said, “So you think my daughter was bad? You think she run around chasing men?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I told you what happened. The teacher, he trick her with his lies. The teacher! Lucila tell me you a good lawyer. Why he not in jail?”
“I told you, there’s not enough evidence—”
“Maldito!”
Trembling, Esther continued to curse him in Spanish, then stopped abruptly in midsentence. From deep inside a whimper grew steadily into a moan so primal, as if the earth itself were wrenching apart. She sank back onto the bed, but her eyes never left his. Eyes big and dark and burning. Rosen suddenly realized where he’d seen those eyes before—in the painting at Kate Ellsworth’s gallery, Lucila’s Flowers of Madness.
He took a step back into the dark corner, still not able to look away. Then a shadow passed between him and Esther, breaking her spell. He blinked and saw Byron Ellsworth sitting on the bed, his arm around the woman.
“No llores,” he whispered to her, gently brushing the hair from her face. “No, no, don’t cry.”
He held her in a tight embrace, and they rocked together. He kissed her and kept whispering, “No llores. Don’t cry.”
Gradually Esther quieted. When Ellsworth’s hand moved inside the woman’s robe to caress her breast, she stiffened and nodded toward the corner. Rosen stepped from the shadows. Ellsworth froze. He started to speak, then checked himself.
Leaving the bedr
oom, Rosen heard footsteps hurrying after and, as he reached the door, felt a hand on his arm.
Ellsworth was no longer the confident financier sipping a drink and spinning big deals in his office. He seemed older, tired, and his eyes shifted from Rosen’s stare.
“I . . . uh. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.” When Rosen didn’t reply, the other man sighed. “You know how it is. Sometimes things just happen. Kate and I never seemed to be at home together. Esther was always here. She’s a beautiful woman.”
“Sure. Not like the ones at the country club.”
“No, not at all. I know what you’re thinking. She’s the housekeeper and I’m the boss, and so I took advantage of her. But it’s not like that.”
“You really care about her.”
“Yes, I do.”
“And you plan on divorcing your wife, marrying Esther in the Episcopal Church downtown, and living happily ever after, sipping martinis and eating sancocho by the fireplace.”
Ellsworth reddened. “You don’t understand. Look, all I’m asking is that you don’t make things worse. There’s no need for anybody else knowing.”
“You think no one else knows about your affair?”
“I suppose Kate has her suspicions.”
“Suppose?”
“We’ve never discussed it, but the way she’s acted these past few months—I think she suspects something.”
“Did Nina know?”
“I’m sure she didn’t. We were very discreet. If the girl had found out, Esther would have . . .” Ellsworth shuddered. “No, Nina couldn’t have known.”
“What about your son?”
For a moment Ellsworth’s jaw tightened. “Leave Chip out of this.”
“If your wife suspects, then certainly your son—”
“I said, leave him out of this! It’s none of your business anyway. You’re looking into Nina’s death. That has no bearing on my private life.”
Rosen stared hard at the other man. “I don’t know if your housekeeper would agree.”
“Of course. I didn’t mean the girl’s death was unimportant.”
“Why are you so worried about your son? Did he know about your affair with Esther? Did he think, like father like son? Was he the one who called Nina that night. Met her with flowers and—”
Ellsworth pushed him against the door.
“Shut up,” he hissed, his hands balled into fists.
Rosen kept his hands at his sides. He said very slowly, “Go ahead—hit me. Then I’ll hit you back, and Esther will walk in on us fighting, and you can explain the reason for the fight.”
The color drained from his face. “No, she’s suffered enough. She couldn’t stand anything else. It’s just, why involve the boy? I give you my word he had nothing to do with it. I thought you were looking into that teacher, Martin Bixby. Esther’s certain he’s the man responsible.”
“I thought you believed Nina’s death was an accident.”
“An accident? Yes, possibly.” Ellsworth ran a hand through his hair. “Girl wandering out at night. It’s possible.”
“Sure,” Rosen said, looking past the other man into the darkened house. “Sometimes things just happen.”
Chapter Fifteen
Rosen sat with Sarah around the large beige “island” in the middle of the kitchen. Bess took her place between them, setting the brewing teapot on a ceramic hot plate. He followed her gaze to the digital clock on the wall—5:58. When the last number changed to a nine, she poured the tea. Exactly one minute later a car entered the garage, and a door closed loudly.
Shelly walked into the kitchen, juggling four carryout orders, which Bess helped to place on the table.
“Four?” she said.
“We do have a guest. Hi, Nate.”
“Hi. I didn’t want you going to any trouble.”
“No trouble at all.”
“Quite a feast. Where’d it come from?”
Staring at each other, Bess and Sarah burst out laughing.
“Well,” Shelly said, placing his tea cup at the center of the table, “here’s our house in Arbor Shore.” He distributed the carryout bags geographically around the cup. “First, on my way home, I stopped at Mah Din—it’s a Thai place—for their pad thai. Then Bob Po’s, on Green Bay Road, for wonton soup, egg rolls, and sweet sauce. You know, it’s a common failure of takeout restaurants not to pay attention to their sweet sauce. Bob Po’s is excellent.”
“Enough with the dissertation,” Bess said, “we’re starving.”
“Then up to Chin Ho’s in Highland Park for shrimp egg foo yung, lo mein noodle combo and combination fried rice. In Nate’s honor, I stopped in downtown Arbor Shore at the Lotus Palace. Its only really excellent dish is moo shu, although the plum sauce is a little on the sweet side.”
As he finished, Bess and Sarah opened the cartons with assembly-line precision.
“First the soup,” Bess said, ladling it into four bowls.
“Then the egg rolls and pad thai,” Sarah added, placing them onto four plates.
The next ten minutes were spent enjoying the appetizers; Rosen murmured his approval between bites. Then Shelly carefully served the main courses. Not a noodle fell onto the table.
After sampling each dish, Rosen leaned back in his chair and sipped his tea. “This is really some meal.”
Shelly concentrated on rolling his moo shu into a perfect dumpling. Only after folding both ends with his chopsticks did he acknowledge Rosen’s compliment.
“Thanks. Guess I’ve always liked Chinese food.”
Bess put a hand on Shelly’s arm and smiled. “Next to feet, it’s his great passion.”
“Don’t laugh. You could say it caused my divorce. For me, Thursday’s always been Chinese night. Eileen and the boys knew that. So one night, I come home with the goodies, and she says we’re going to some ‘farchadat’ bridge game with her friends. ‘No time for Chinese food,’ she says, ‘we’re having finger sandwiches there.’ What kind of food is that for a man to eat?”
Rosen said, “I take it you didn’t go.”
“I told her where she could put her finger sandwiches. She didn’t like that. I guess things hadn’t been going so good for a long time.”
“Sort of the chopstick that broke the camel’s back.”
Shelly laughed, and so did Sarah. It was the first time since Nina’s death that Rosen had seen his daughter happy. Once again he was grateful to Shelly.
“Yeah,” Shelly said, “we got a divorce. It’s kinda strange at first—you know what I mean. Being on your own.”
Rosen nodded.
“At first I threw myself into my work. That’s when my podiatric clinics really took off. Within a year I had eight going.”
“Nine,” Bess said.
“Huh? Oh yeah, the one in Buffalo Grove. Was it like that for you?”
Again Rosen nodded. It was the sort of question he’d always tried to avoid, but coming from Shelly, it didn’t sound threatening or even unpleasant. It was the kind of question one friend might ask another. How long had it been since he just kibitzed with a friend?
“Yeah, but . . .” Shelly paused to take a bite of moo shu. “But after awhile a guy gets lonely, so he starts to date.”
“Did you go out with many women?”
“Not at first. There was always something wrong with whomever I’d meet. Like this one woman whose car had a bumper sticker, ‘I love Baby Shamu.’ For Chrissakes, how can you take a person like that seriously?”
Bess wiped his chin with a napkin. “Some playboy.”
“Eventually I got the hang of it, once I learned the strategy. You know—never date a widow, because you’ll always look bad in comparison to her dead husband. Now, a divorcee’s different. You always look better than her ex-husband. Jeez, Nate, I didn’t mean—”
Rosen smiled. “That’s all right.”
“I really didn’t mean anything.”
“It’s all right. So, how did you and Bess meet?”
“It was a professional visit—at my office in Highland Park. She came in one day after school with a student—some dancer in a show.”
Bess said, “The girl was in tears complaining about her foot. I called her mother, who met us at Shelly’s office. The girl had quite a bunion.”
“Yeah. Besides the fact that she had a congenital predisposition for bunions, she didn’t have enough ligamentous stability. That’s a common problem for women athletes. But the girl eventually healed, though not in time for the show.”
“No. That caused us quite a time, trying to find a replacement. Eventually Bix convinced one of the senior—”
Bess stopped suddenly, her face reddening as if she’d told a dirty joke. Sarah’s face grew as flushed as her mother’s, and she looked down at her plate. Shelly made small talk, which Rosen didn’t bother to follow. He kept glancing at Sarah, who sat so still she might’ve been at prayer. Bess got up, returning a minute later with a tray of cookies, which no one touched. No one wanted to stay, yet no one left the table, not even when the doorbell rang. Only when it rang again did Shelly get up.
It was a long time before he returned, and then he said with a sheepish grin, “Look who’s here.”
“Hello, Nate.”
It was his brother.
“Sit down,” Shelly said, offering his own chair.
“No, no, I didn’t mean to interrupt your supper. Looks like quite a celebration.”
“Not at all. Just Chinese night. Here, let me take your coat.”
Aaron removed his topcoat with great deliberation. The same way he did everything, as if the most mundane task were a ritual. He wore a gray suit with a red splash of a tie. No matter how expensively tailored, suits never seemed to fit Aaron. Unlike Rosen and their brother David, Aaron had taken after their mother. He had the same stocky build and strong hands—hands that seemed made for laying bricks rather than performing heart surgery. His face was broad like their mother’s, eyes set wide apart like an owl’s. He had her owlish patience too. What had Shelly once said about him? “. . . like Moses coming down from Sinai.”
Sarah walked to him. “Hello, Uncle Aaron.”
