The Final Act

by Joy Fielding

“Mrs. Carver,” Detective Bartolli explained patiently, “you have to understand that we get missing persons reports like this every day, and half the time, the person in question turns out to be someone who was feeling a little down and just decided to take off for a few days.”

  “And the other half?”

  Detective Bartolli looked toward his partner. Detective Gill closed his notepad, leaned forward sympathetically. “To be frank, with people your daughter’s age, suicide is our biggest worry.”

  “Suicide,” Cindy repeated numbly.

  “Julia would never commit suicide,” Heather protested.

  “Suicide is not an option,” Cindy said, recalling her conversation with Faith Sellick. “What else do you worry about?”

  “Well, of course, there exists the possibility of foul play. . .”

  Cindy put her hand across her mouth, stifled the cry pushing against her lips.

  “But we’re getting way ahead of ourselves here, Mrs. Carver. There’s nothing to suggest any harm has come to your daughter.”

  “Except that nobody’s heard from her for five days,” Cindy reminded him.

  “And that’s unusual?”

  “Of course it’s unusual.”

  “Cindy,” Tom said, in the voice he used whenever he sensed she was about to lose control. She’d heard that voice often during their marriage. There was something perversely comforting in hearing it now.

  “Does she have any friends who live out-of-town?”

  “She has several acquaintances in New York,” Tom said.

  Cindy stared blankly out the back window. This whole conversation was ridiculous. “Don’t you think she would have told me if she were planning a trip to New York?”

  “Maybe she told you and you forgot,” the Cookie said.

  “Is it possible she told you and you forgot?” Tom repeated, as if the Cookie had never spoken.

  (Flashback: Julia, at thirteen, gets up from the kitchen table after dinner and walks out of the room. Her mother calls her back, reminds her to put her dishes in the dishwasher. Her father immediately echoes that request. “Julia, put your dishes in the dishwasher,” he repeats. Julia reluctantly saunters back to the table, does as her father says.

  “Why do you always do that?” Cindy demands after Julia has retreated to her room.

  “Do what?”

  “I tell her to do something, then you repeat it, as if my word doesn’t carry enough weight.”

  “I’m supporting you, damn it.”

  “No. You’re undermining me.”)

  Nice to see some things never change, even if wives do, Cindy thought now, smiling in spite of herself. “She didn’t tell me,” she told her ex-husband. “I didn’t forget.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “She didn’t,” Cindy repeated, biting off each word. “I didn’t.”

  “Fine. No need to get upset.”

  “No need to get upset?” Cindy countered. “Nobody has seen or heard from Julia since Thursday morning. I’d say there’s plenty of reason to get upset.”

  Tom glanced at the detectives, as if to say, you see what I have to deal with? You understand now why I left?

  “So you were of the understanding that Julia was coming home directly after her audition?” Detective Bartolli asked.

  “I wasn’t sure what her plans were, but she was supposed to be at a dress fitting at four o’clock.”

  “My granddaughter, Bianca, is getting married,” Norma Appleton interjected. “Julia and Heather are bridesmaids.”

  “So, she didn’t show up for her fitting.” Detective Gill scribbled this fact in his notepad. “Was it common for Julia not to show up for appointments?”

  “No,” Cindy said.

  “Yes,” Tom corrected. “Julia can be very wilful.”

  “In what way?”

  “In the way of most twenty-one-year-old women.” Tom smiled knowingly at the two detectives.

  “But you can’t think of any reason your daughter might take off for a few days without telling anyone?”

  “No,” Cindy said.

  “Yes,” the Cookie disagreed.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Why is that, Mrs. Carver?”

  “Because she’s a moron,” Cindy answered.

  “I believe Detective Gill was talking to me,” the Cookie said pointedly.

  “You think Julia might have taken off without telling anyone?”

  “I think it’s possible.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because she was always complaining that she didn’t have any privacy, that her mother was always on her case. . .”

  “You are so full of shit,” Cindy said.

  “Cindy, please,” Tom warned.

  “What exactly is this birdbrain trying to do here, Tom?”

  “What did you call me?”

  “Is she trying to sabotage this investigation? Is she trying to make it seem less urgent than it is?”

  “Excuse me, but I’m right here,” the Cookie said, waving her hand in the air, the huge diamond sparkler on her ring finger flashing like a strobe light in Cindy’s eyes.

  “Maybe it is less urgent than it seems,” Tom said.

  “Very clever,” Cindy admitted, despising his easy glibness. “Our daughter has been missing for five days.”

  “I know that.”

  “Then what’s the matter with you? Why aren’t you more concerned? Why aren’t you tearing your hair out?”

  “Because you won’t let me.” Tom jumped to his feet, began pacing back and forth, Elvis barking beside him. “Because you’re frantic enough for everybody. Somebody has to stay calm. Somebody has to behave like a rational human being. Shut up, Elvis.”

  “Oh God.”

  “Are you going to faint again?” Cindy’s mother demanded, rushing to her daughter’s side.

  “You fainted?” Heather asked. “When?”

  “The other day,” her grandmother said. “Good thing her sister was here to catch her.”

  “I’m fine,” Cindy assured everyone. “I’m not going to faint.”

  “I’ll make some coffee,” Norma Appleton offered, heading for the kitchen. “You sit down.”

  “I don’t want to sit down.”

  “Don’t be so stubborn,” Tom said.

  “Don’t tell me what to do.”

  Again Tom looked at the detectives, as if to say, you see what I have put up with? You see why I had to leave?

  “Mrs. Carver,” Detective Bartolli said.

  “Yes?” said Cindy.

  “Yes?” said the Cookie.

  Cindy gritted her teeth, took a deep breath, grabbed one hand with the other to keep from wrapping them around the Cookie’s neck.

  “Can we go over the events of last Thursday morning one more time?” Detective Bartolli asked.

  “There’s nothing to go over,” Cindy insisted. “Julia was getting ready for her audition. She was excited, nervous. I went out about ten-fifteen to buy some wine. Apparently she was running late, so she asked Duncan to give her a lift. They had a fight,” Cindy said. A fight so intense it spilled out into the street, so loud it attracted the attention of the neighbors.

  “What was the fight about?”

  “Julia got angry when Duncan said he didn’t have time to take her to her audition,” Heather explained patiently, “and she threw her usual tantrum. She was fighting with everyone that morning.” She looked guiltily toward her mother.

  “You had a fight with your daughter, Mrs. Carver?” Detective Gill asked.

  “It was hardly a fight.”

  “What were you fighting about?” Tom asked.

  “It was nothing.” Cindy motioned toward the dog. “I wanted her to take Elvis for a walk. She said she had to take a shower. She was banging on the bathroom door, trying to get Duncan to hurry up. I told her to stop. Stuff like that. Nothing important.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “She didn’t want to go to the fitting,” He
ather said.

  “She would have gone,” Cindy insisted. “She wouldn’t just not show up. She wouldn’t not come home for five days. She wouldn’t not call.”

  “Take it easy,” Tom cautioned.

  “I don’t want to take it easy. I want these policemen to stop asking questions and go out and find my daughter. Have you talked to Sean Banack?”

  “What’s Sean got to do with this?” Norma Appleton asked, coming back into the living room. “Coffee’ll be ready in just a minute.”

  “We talked to him briefly on Friday. And we’ll be talking to him again this morning.”

  “What about?” Cindy’s mother asked.

  “Mom, please. I’ll tell you later.”

  “I understand this is a very difficult time for you, Mrs. Carver,” Detective Gill said, staring directly at Cindy, leaving no doubt whom he was talking to, “but the more we know about Julia, the better our chances are of finding her. Can you tell me anything else about her? Her hobbies, what she likes to do, places she frequents. . .”

  “She likes the Rivoli,” the Cookie answered before Cindy had a chance to formulate a response.

  “The Rivoli?”

  “Comedy club on Queen Street,” Heather said.

  I didn’t know that, Cindy thought. Why didn’t I know that?

  “What about the dance clubs?”

  Tom smiled. “She gave that scene up years ago.”

  “Does your daughter drink?”

  “No,” Cindy said.

  “Occasionally,” Tom corrected.

  “What about drugs?”

  “What about them?” Cindy asked.

  “She went through the usual phase all young people do,” Tom said.

  She did? Cindy wondered. Why wasn’t I told? Why didn’t I know?

  “But I sat her down,” Tom continued, “had a long talk with her, told her that if she wanted to be a successful actress, she had to get serious, that I’d help her as much as I could, but only if she stopped goofing around and started focusing. Luckily, she listened.”

  You sat her down, Cindy thought. You talked to her. You told her she had to get serious, that you’d help her as much as you could. You pompous ass. Cindy rubbed her forehead. “What happens now?” she asked.

  “We go back to the station, file a missing person’s report.”

  “The reporters’ll be all over this one.” Detective Gill held up Julia’s picture. “A pretty girl like this. Actress. Daughter of a prominent attorney. It’ll be front page news.”

  “Is that good or bad?” Cindy asked.

  “A bit of both. The public can be very helpful, but don’t be surprised if once this news gets out, you start getting a lot of crank calls. If necessary, we’ll put a tap on your phone, try weeding out the crazies.”

  “Try not to worry, Mrs. Carver,” Detective Bartolli said. “She’ll turn up.”

  Cindy stared at the detectives through eyes rapidly filling with tears. “Thank you,” she said.

  “In the meantime, if you think of anything else . . .”

  “There is something,” Cindy said, seeing Ryan’s face in the blur of her tears, wondering again if he was really as innocent as he claimed.

  “What’s that?”

  “My neighbor, Ryan Sellick. You might want to have a talk with him.”

  SIXTEEN

  OKAY, Cindy, what’s going on? Why haven’t you returned any of our messages?” Meg was asking. “Cindy? Cindy, are you there?”

  Cindy brushed her lips against the receiver, pictured Meg and Trish huddled together on the other end of the line. “Julia’s missing,” she whispered.

  “What? I didn’t hear you.”

  “Julia’s missing,” Cindy repeated, louder this time.

  “What do you mean, she’s missing?”

  Cindy said nothing. What more was there to say?

  “We’ll be right over.”

  Cindy replaced the receiver, shifted her gaze to the floor. She didn’t look up. If she did, she knew she’d see her mother and daughter watching her from their seats at the kitchen table, and she’d have to contend with the worry in their eyes, and she didn’t want to have to deal with their worry, she didn’t want to have to deal with their fears, she didn’t want to have to deal with anybody else’s problems, damn it, she just wanted Julia to come home.

  Wasn’t that all she’d ever wanted?

  “Who was that?” her mother asked.

  “Meg. She and Trish are coming over.” Cindy’s voice wobbled, like a tire running out of air.

  “I better make some more coffee.”

  Cindy continued staring at the floor.

  “Mom?” Heather asked. “Are you okay?”

  I can’t move, Cindy thought. I can’t think. I can’t breathe. “I’m okay,” she said.

  “You’re not going to faint again, are you?” her mother asked.

  “I’m not going to faint.”

  “Is there anything you want me to do?” Heather asked.

  “You can take the dog for a walk.”

  “Sure. Come on, Elvis. Let’s go to the park.”

  Elvis was immediately up and at the front door, his tail wagging in blissful abandon.

  I saw her yesterday, Cindy heard a man say. She was sitting right over there. He pointed at the park bench. She was crying her heart out.

  “Heather, wait.”

  “What?”

  Cindy watched her daughter’s feet cut across her line of vision. She needs new sneakers, Cindy thought idly. And some new clothes for school. Didn’t classes start this week? Cindy shook her head. She couldn’t remember. “Why were you crying in the park?”

  “What?”

  “A man saw you there last week. Crying your eyes out, he said.”

  Heather shrugged, shook her head. “Wasn’t me.”

  “Heather. . .”

  “Be back soon.” She headed for the front door.

  “Why don’t you sit down,” Cindy’s mother advised after Heather was gone.

  “I don’t want to sit down.”

  “You’ll make yourself sick.”

  “By standing?”

  Her mother approached, put gentle arms around Cindy’s shoulders, led her to the nearest chair, sat her down. “You’ve done everything you can, sweetheart. Now you have to let the police handle things.”

  “What if they can’t? What if they never find her?”

  “They’ll find her.”

  “Young women disappear all the time. Sometimes they never come home.”

  “She’ll come home,” her mother insisted as Cindy sucked the words into her lungs, as if she were running out of air.

  Suddenly she was back on her feet. “I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

  “You have to stay calm. You have to stay hopeful. The police will call as soon as they have any information.”

  “I can’t wait. I have to do something.” Cindy ran to the front door and opened it.

  “Wait! Cindy! What are you doing? Where are you going?”

  “I have to get out of here.” Cindy ran down the steps to her driveway, climbed inside her car.

  “Darling, please. Your friends will be here any minute. Where are you . . .?”

  Cindy backed her car onto the street, shot toward Avenue Road.

  Less than five minutes later, she was running along Yorkville, almost colliding with several camera-toting tourists on the popular, boutique-lined street. “I’m sorry,” she shouted as she ran, her eyes scanning the numbers of the tony, two-story buildings until she found Number 320. She pulled open the front door, took a deep breath, then waited until she was confident she’d regained her composure before slowly walking up the stairs to Suite 204. Seconds later, she was standing in a small waiting area, in front of a pencil-thin young man with pointy black hair. “I’m here to see Michael Kinsolving,” she told him with a confidence that surprised her.

  The young man raised his fingers to his face, the back of his le
ft hand resting against the tip of his long nose, then leaned across his desk to check his datebook. “And you are?”

  “Cindy Appleton,” she replied, her maiden name feeling clumsy on her tongue, like a once-stylish suit that no longer fit. “I’m with the film festival.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Of course.” Cindy checked her watch. “Eleven-thirty. Right on time.”

  The young man rifled through the pages of his appointment calendar. “I’m sorry. There’s obviously been some mistake. I don’t seem to have you down. . .”

  “It’s very important. I’m afraid there’s a scheduling problem with regard to Mr. Kinsolving’s new film . . .”

  “A scheduling problem? Oh dear. Well, hold on. I’ll see if Mr. Kinsolving can spare a few minutes. Your name again?”

  “Cindy Appleton,” Cindy repeated, the name a more comfortable fit the second time. Why had she never thought to reclaim it?

  The skinny young man disappeared into the inner office, popped his head out seconds later. “Mr. Kinsolving will see you now.”

  “Thank you.” Cindy slowly crossed the sparsely furnished waiting room, its walls lined with posters from past Toronto film festivals, thinking, what now?

  *

  AT FIRST SHE saw no one, just the back of a tall black leather chair, a large desk, and the grainy image of a beautiful young woman filling a large-screen TV on the opposite wall of the small room. “Well, well, look who’s here,” the young woman said, as if speaking directly to Cindy. Cindy froze, her eyes glued to the young woman’s face, a face that was similar to Julia’s in certain respects, but fuller, slightly coarser. “What happened? Forget your cigarettes?”

  A click of a button and the image suddenly halted, reversed, stopped, started up again. “Well, well, look who’s here,” the woman repeated. “What happened? Forget your cigarettes?”

  Another click. This time the image froze, vibrating slightly in its enforced stillness.

  “Well, what do you think?” a deep voice asked from behind the high-backed leather chair. “Would you like to fuck her?”

  “What?” Cindy took a step back, felt the crunch of the assistant’s toes beneath her feet as he tried in vain to get out of her way.

  The chair swivelled around abruptly, revealing a gnome-like man with a handsomely craggy face. Cindy recognized the famous director immediately from his rumpled hair and trademark black T-shirt. “I’m sorry,” he said, not bothering to get to his feet, a slow smile spreading across his cherubic face. Magazine profiles always mentioned his roguish green eyes and acne-scarred skin. Both were more pronounced in person than in photographs. “I thought you were a man. I should have realized ‘Sydney’ could be a woman’s name as well.”