The Final Act

by Joy Fielding

  “Was Martin Crawley so easily deterred?”

  Cindy smiled, waited until his car disappeared down the street before turning back to the house. The front door opened just as she was reaching for it, her mother and sister waiting on the other side, Elvis between them.

  “Sort of like old times,” her mother said with a smile.

  “I’ll make us some tea,” said Leigh.

  TWENTY-TWO

  HAVE you seen a copy of this morning’s Sun?” Meg asked Cindy, at barely seven o’clock Monday morning.

  It had been eleven days since Julia went missing.

  Cindy lowered the phone in her hand and stared at Elvis, who was waiting for her by the front door. “No. I haven’t been out yet. I was just about to take the dog for a walk when you called.”

  “Maybe you should let someone else take him,” Meg suggested.

  “Why? What are you getting at? What’s in the Sun that you don’t think I should see?”

  “I just think you should be prepared.”

  “For what? Has another girl disappeared?” There’d been nothing in the other papers about any more disappearances.

  “There’s a picture of Julia on the front page,” Meg said.

  “Again?”

  “It’s a different picture. She’s . . . well, it’s pretty suggestive. And there are more pictures inside. I don’t know where they got them. . .”

  Cindy dropped the receiver, ran for the door.

  “Cindy?” she heard Meg’s voice call after her. “Cindy, are you there?”

  Elvis barked in angry protest as Cindy slammed the door behind her and ran down the street. What was Meg talking about? What picture? She’d only given the police that one head shot of Julia. Where could they have gotten more? “What pictures, damn it?” she asked out loud, hurling herself at the newspaper box on the corner, recoiling in horror at the full-page photograph of her daughter that stared back at her with almost deliberate provocation.

  Julia was staring directly into the camera lens, her eyes challenging the viewer. She was wearing only the bottom half of a black string bikini, her hands cupped coyly over high, bare breasts. JULIA’S LOST JEWELS, the caption beside the picture read.

  Cindy stumbled back on her heels as if she’d been struck. It was one of the photographs she’d found in Sean’s apartment, photographs Tom had stuffed inside the pocket of his beige linen pants. How had the paper gotten its hands on it? And what of the other pictures inside? Were they part of the same collection?

  She reached into her pocket for some change, realized she’d forgotten to bring any, and slammed her fist on the top of the red metal box in frustration. She cast a wary glance over each shoulder to make sure no one was watching, then kicked at the side of the box, and jiggled its handle, trying to force it open. The damn thing refused to budge. “Shit!” she yelled, spinning around in helpless circles.

  A woman walking a small white dog rounded the corner at Lynwood. “Excuse me,” Cindy called to her. “I don’t suppose you have some spare change for the paper? I could pay you back later.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed, as if she’d just been approached by a foul-smelling panhandler, and she promptly picked up her dog and crossed to the other side of the street.

  “Great,” Cindy muttered, racing back down Balmoral toward her house, hearing Elvis barking all the way down the street. “Okay, okay,” she said, opening her door and trying to keep the dog from knocking her down as she rifled through her purse for some change. “Okay, you can come,” she told the dog, grabbing his leash, heading back out the door.

  “What’s all the commotion?” her mother called from the top of the stairs.

  “I’m just getting the paper,” Cindy said. “Go back to sleep.”

  She hurried down the steps and along Balmoral to Avenue Road. But Elvis refused to be rushed, stopping repeatedly to sniff at the grass and lift his leg. “Come on. Come on. We haven’t got all day.”

  Cindy stopped abruptly, the absurdity of what she’d just said hitting her square in the forehead, as if she’d just walked into a brick wall. We haven’t got all day? All day was exactly what she had. And the day after that. And the day after that. How many days? she wondered, importuning the cloudless sky. How many more awful, blank days waiting to be filled? How many more endless days spent in aimless, if frantic, pursuit of her daughter? How many more useless meetings with police, well-meaning conversations with friends, sadistic phone calls from strangers? How many more such days could she tolerate? How many more could she survive?

  As many as it takes, Cindy understood, continuing toward the corner. What choice did she have? “No choice, no control,” she told the dog as he lifted his rump into the air and dropped several steaming turds into the middle of the sidewalk. “That’s just great,” she said, realizing she’d forgotten to bring a plastic bag. She looked helplessly up and down the street, wondering what to do. What could she do? She wasn’t about to pick it up with her hands. “I’ll come back later,” she apologized to the empty street, stepping around the unsightly pile, pulling Elvis after her before he could do more damage.

  She reached the newspaper box at the same time as an immaculately dressed, middle-aged man, who nodded hello as he dropped the appropriate coinage into the slot and pulled out a paper, his fingers unconsciously folding across her daughter’s partially exposed breasts. Cindy felt a scream rising in her throat, and turned away. “Have a nice day,” the man said in parting.

  Cindy’s eyes trailed after him. Did he know anything about her daughter’s disappearance? He obviously lived in the area, had probably seen Julia around. He was neatly dressed to the point of fastidiousness, nattily bland, unnecessarily polite. Middle-aged. Repressed. Probably lived alone, or with his mother. Exactly the type you always read about, the quiet ones, the ones with smiles on their lips and mayhem in their hearts.

  Men like him were everywhere, Cindy thought as she dropped her money in the slot and reached inside the box for the paper. She couldn’t look at a man anymore without wondering whether he knew something about Julia, whether he’d seen her, or talked to her, or plotted her harm. Every stranger was a possible fiend; every friend a possible foe. How well do we really know anybody?

  How well do we know ourselves?

  Cindy’s thoughts drifted to Neil, to the events of last Saturday night. Again she felt his arms around her, his lips on hers, his hands in her hair, on her breasts, between her legs. She felt him moving inside her, and even now, it felt wonderful. To lose herself so completely in the moment, to forget for a brief spasm of time what else she might have lost. Followed by the dog’s paws on her bare thighs, the priceless looks on the faces of her mother and sister, the reassuring smile in Neil’s eyes as he kissed her good night. The Lord giveth, she found herself thinking, as she stared at the picture of her daughter in the morning paper, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

  And the Lord taketh away.

  More pictures, page 3.

  Cindy flipped the page over, gasped when she saw two more familiar photos—one of Julia wearing a push-up bra and matching thong, the other of Julia in profile, her elbow pressing against the curve of her naked breast, the bare cheeks of her round bottom playing peekaboo with the camera.

  How did the Sun get these pictures? Was it possible Sean had duplicates, that he’d sold the negatives to the tabloid? She stuffed more coins into the box, pulling out the last remaining copies of the paper, and running with them along the street, feeling one of her sandals suddenly connect with something squishy. “Oh, shit!” she yelled, sliding to a stop, knowing exactly what she’d stepped in. “Serves me right,” she shouted. “Serves me goddamn right.” She ripped off her sandal, the bottom of which was covered in dog poop, and hurled it into the middle of the road.

  “Where’s your sandal?” her mother asked as Cindy limped into the kitchen several minutes later on only one shoe.

  Cindy waved the question aside as she spread the paper
s across the kitchen table, then walked to the phone, asked information for the number of the Toronto Sun.

  “Oh, my,” her mother whispered, staring at the pictures. Then again, “Oh, my.”

  “I need to speak to Frank Landau,” Cindy said, checking the name under the article that accompanied the racy pictures of her daughter.

  “This is Frank Landau,” a man answered seconds later.

  “Where did you get those pictures of my daughter?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The pictures of Julia Carver. Where did you get them?”

  “Mrs. Carver?”

  “I will sue your goddamn paper. I will sue you personally. . .”

  “Mrs. Carver, wait. Wait. Calm down. Please.”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down. Tell me how you got those pictures.”

  There was a long pause. By the time the reporter answered, Cindy knew what he was going to say. “I got them from your ex-husband,” he told her evenly. “Tom Carver hand-delivered them to me in person yesterday afternoon.”

  *

  “WHERE IS HE?” Cindy demanded as she pushed through the door to Tom’s office at just after one o’clock that afternoon.

  Irena Ruskin jumped to her feet behind her appropriately cluttered desk. “He’s not here. Wait,” she called, scrambling after Cindy into Tom’s inner office. “Mrs. Carver! Cindy!”

  Cindy spun around, absorbing the faithful secretary in a single glance. Her hair was still the same unsubtle shade of blond, although a few inches longer than Cindy last remembered it, possibly to hide the scars of her most recent plastic surgery, Cindy thought unkindly, wondering whether the woman chose her wardrobe to coordinate with the dark blue of the two chairs in front of the massive oak desk. “Where is he?”

  “He’s in a meeting.”

  “He’s been in that meeting since nine o’clock this morning.”

  “I gave him all your messages.”

  “I need to speak to him, Irena. It’s pretty urgent or I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Cindy. . .”

  “Could you get him for me? Please?”

  “Was that Cindy Carver I just saw walk by?” a man’s voice asked from the doorway.

  Cindy took a deep breath, forced herself to smile as she extended her hand to one of her ex-husband’s law partners. “Hello, Alan. How are you?”

  “I’m well. How are you holding up?”

  “Today isn’t a great day.” Cindy marvelled at her use of understatement. She might even have laughed had Alan Reynolds not looked quite so earnest. “I’m sure you saw the pictures in the Sun.”

  Alan Reynolds nodded. “You’re waiting for Tom, I take it.”

  “Apparently he’s stuck in one of those all-day meetings.” Cindy glanced at Irena, who nodded uncomfortably.

  “Really? Well, they must be taking a break. I just saw him talking to Mitchell Pritchard. Let me see if I can get him for you.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  “Can I get you anything in the meantime? A cup of coffee? Some water, perhaps?”

  “Nothing, thank you.”

  “Has there been any news about Julia?” Irena asked when he was gone.

  “You didn’t see the spread in the Sun?”

  “I saw it.”

  “Quite impressive, don’t you think?”

  Irena shuffled from one foot to the other, looked as if she were seriously considering jumping out the twenty-fifth-floor window. “If there’s anything I can do for you during this difficult time. . .”

  You’re the first person I’ll call, Cindy thought. Aloud she said, “Thank you.” She turned toward the floor-to-ceiling window with its magnificent view of the water-front, saw her own pathetic image reflected back. She was wearing her standard uniform of blue jeans and faded T-shirt, and her hair was greasy from constantly tugging at it. Take your hands away from your hair, she could hear Tom scold. “How many partners are there in the firm now?” she asked Irena, in an effort to silence him.

  “Sixteen partners. Forty-eight associates.”

  “Wow,” Cindy said without enthusiasm.

  “Half a dozen students,” Irena continued.

  Cindy wondered if Irena was still sleeping with Tom. She folded her arms across her chest, as if to keep her heart from falling out.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cup of coffee?”

  “Quite sure, thank you.”

  “Well, I could certainly use one,” Tom said, sweeping into the room, resplendent in a gray suit and red print tie. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  “No problem.” Irena obediently slipped from the room, drawing the door closed behind her, then leaving it open a small crack.

  “So, what brings you all the way down here?” Tom asked, examining his ex-wife as if she were an unpleasant document.

  Cindy walked to the door, pushed it shut all the way, then turned back to her ex-husband. “You miserable son of a bitch,” she began.

  “Okay, ground rules,” Tom stated, retreating behind his heavy oak desk. “No swearing. No name calling. No yelling.”

  “No shit,” Cindy said.

  Tom shook his head. “You look like crap.”

  Tears stung Cindy’s eyes. Seven years after he’d left, and still, his words had the power to wound. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “What’s wrong with me?” he countered.

  “How could you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Don’t play games with me.”

  “I take it you’re upset about the pictures in the Sun.”

  “Pictures you hand-delivered yourself, you son of a bitch. Don’t try to deny it.”

  “Why would I deny it?”

  “Why would you do it?”

  “Think about it a minute.”

  “Think about what? What’s to think about?”

  “Think about the best way to keep Julia front and center on everyone’s minds,” Tom said evenly, sitting down and leaning forward, elbows on his desk. “She’s been missing for eleven days.”

  “I know exactly how long she’s been missing.”

  “Then you also know her disappearance is old news. Another girl’s already taken her place. Not to mention, the city is filled with visiting celebrities and movie stars, eager for a good photo-op. I had to do something to make sure Julia wouldn’t be forgotten. Those pictures will more than accomplish that.”

  “So the end still justifies the means,” Cindy said, aware there was a grain of truth to what Tom was saying, not wanting to acknowledge it.

  “Cindy, be reasonable. How long do you think the police are going to keep Julia’s case a priority?”

  “How seriously do you think they’re going to treat her disappearance after seeing these pictures? They’ll dismiss her as flighty and foolish, maybe even flighty and foolish enough to take off without telling anyone. Or worse—they’ll think she’s a little tramp who got what she deserved.”

  “They’ll think they better get off their asses and solve this case before it gets international exposure,” Tom snapped. “I’m already fielding calls from Associated Press and People magazine.”

  “Oh God.” Cindy felt her body crumpling like tissue paper, and collapsed into one of the two blue chairs in front of Tom’s desk.

  Tom stood up, warily approached his former wife. “Cindy, you have to calm down. You can’t keep flying off half-cocked. It’s not good for you.”

  “You mean it’s not good for you,” she said, refusing to look at him.

  “Look at you.” He smoothed some hairs away from her face.

  Cindy slapped his hand aside. “I know. I look like crap. You already told me.”

  “I’m just worried about you.”

  Cindy pushed herself out of the chair, and walked to the window, stared toward Lake Ontario. “If you’re so damn worried about me, why didn’t you tell me what you were planning to do with the pictures? Why didn’t you warn me?”

  “Bec
ause I knew you wouldn’t approve. And I didn’t feel like going through . . .”

  “This?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Coward.”

  Tom shook his head. “Okay, look. I think we’ve said all we have to say.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Of course,” he said with an audible sigh. “Okay, I’m ready. Give it your best shot.”

  Cindy looked at her former husband, his feet spread shoulder-distance apart, his arms hanging limply at his sides, handsome face void of all expression. She’d once loved this man, she found herself thinking. Loved him from the time she was seventeen. Loved him so much she’d eloped with him at eighteen, had two children with him. Two children, she reminded herself, her lower lip quivering as once again, tears clouded her eyes. “How’s Heather?” she asked, realizing she’d barely thought about Heather since she left.

  “She’s fine.”

  “Did she tell you what happened?”

  “Just that the house was getting a little crowded.” Tom paused. “You know I’m right about the pictures, don’t you?”

  Cindy pushed her hair impatiently behind her ears. “I hate it when you’re right.”

  “You hate everything about me,” he said softly, going to her side.

  “Pretty much,” Cindy acknowledged, allowing him to gather her into his arms and pull her toward him. She cried softly against his chest, his silk tie serving as a blotter for her tears. How had she ever allowed herself to fall in love with someone she’d never really liked?

  “Cindy . . .”

  “What?”

  “Everything will be all right,” he said, as the door to his office opened, and Irena stepped inside, a coffee mug shaking in her hands, the color drained from her face. “Something the matter?” Tom asked as Detectives Bartolli and Gill strode into the room. “What is it? Has something happened?”

  Detective Bartolli stepped forward, his gaze shifting uneasily from Tom to Cindy. “We’ve found a body,” he said slowly. “We’d like you to come with us.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  THE regional office of the Chief Coroner for the Province of Ontario is located at 26 Grenville Street, at the corner of Yonge, next to the large Credit Union Bank, in the heart of downtown Toronto. It is a squat, two-story structure fashioned in brown stucco and glass that manages to be both bland and ominous. A giant, government-operated funeral parlour, Cindy found herself thinking as the police car pulled to a stop in the adjacent parking lot. Which is exactly what the damn thing is, she thought, suppressing the panic that was bubbling inside her body, like water boiling in a pot.