“Susan, please. Please.” Annie was folding over, bent at the waist, and Susan couldn’t tell what she would do next. “Please, I’m begging you. Please help me.”
With that, Annie wrapped both arms around Susan, in her white Lanz nightgown, and crumpled until she was sitting on the porch, crying onto Susan’s legs.
“Annie, get up.” Susan tried to move, to dislodge her legs, but Annie had her pinioned. “Come on. It’s going to be all right. You don’t need Frankie or his disco. You can go back to college.”
She couldn’t adequately bend down to comfort Annie, the way she was holding onto her legs and sobbing, so loudly she was in danger of waking the neighbors. Her father would hear nothing, but the neighbors might call the police.
“Come on, now. Get up. Stop crying.”
“I’ll stop.”
“Good.”
“I’ll do anything, if you’ll help me. If you’ll come with me, I’ll stop doing drugs.”
Susan was skeptical. At the same time, what if this was the scare that Annie needed to turn her life around. “Really?”
“I promise, Susan. I promise. Please. Please. Please.”
“Okay, I’ll go!” Susan said. “Just let me go back into the house and change.”
“No!” Annie was too smart for that. “I know you won’t come back! Just get in the car with me. Please, please, please, please, please.” She was like a four-year-old, Susan thought helplessly.
“Fiiiiine! Fine! I’ll go on another fool’s errand with you. I must be out of my fucking mind, but fine!”
“Susan, when did you start swearing so much?” Just like that, Annie was up and trotting to the car.
With no good response to that question, Susan walked silently, head held high, like the dancer she was, her hair blowing and her long white gown flapping in the breeze. She looked every bit like Mr. Rochester’s mad bride escaped from the attic, crossing the lawn to Annie’s Corvette.
30
Thursday, September 6, 1979
Annie sped east on Ten Mile Road toward Lake St. Clair.
“Where are we going?” Susan asked.
“Jefferson Beach Marina. You don’t think the Castigliones got into the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club, do you?”
Susan looked around at St. Clair Shores, a working-class town, comparable to Warren, but improved by a waterfront. “I hadn’t really given it much thought,” she answered, then silently leaned back in the Corvette’s deep seat. She wistfully pictured her own car, resting and ready to go. That was what she should be doing, too, since she planned to leave in a few hours. She had already said goodbye to her father. She did not want to disturb him when she tiptoed down the path to the garage at the back of their yard the next morning. He would not hear her start the car. The garage was too far from the house.
Annie pulled the Corvette into a parking lot and slammed the gearshift into park. She swiveled her head around scanning for Frankie’s car.
“Party on the boat. That’s what he always calls it,” Annie said. “Do you know what that means?”
“I can imagine.”
“That’s right, you’re so smart.” Annie was becoming snarly again. “Frankie always tells me how smart you are.”
“Annie…”
“Well, I didn’t know what it meant because I’m not as smart as you. It means he’s fucking someone.”
“Look, I think we should go home.”
“Did you know he was fucking Sherry?”
Now, this was a tricky question. Susan had never told Annie about her encounter with Sherry and Frankie in the storeroom. She had considered telling her, but, each time she’d thought to do so, Annie was unapproachable or churlish or wired to the rafters on cocaine. Shoot the messenger was what people were supposed to do when they received such news and Susan had come to the chilling conclusion that Annie was capable of shooting her at point blank range.
“No,” Susan lied through her teeth. “I didn’t know that.”
“Well, he is,” Annie turned to look more closely at Susan. “Maybe he’s fucking you!”
“Annie!” Susan could no longer remember why she had gotten into the car with Annie tonight.
A woman with a mission, Annie flung open her door and slid out of the Corvette, glasses rolling beneath her feet as she did so. “Are you coming?”
“I’m not dressed. Maybe I should wait in the car.”
“God, Susan, you are such a coward!” Annie bestowed a withering glance upon Susan then abruptly turned on her heel to march down the dock toward Frankie’s boat and the fate that awaited her there.
As Annie’s footfall faded, the marina became very quiet. Water lapped against pilings, boats and bumpers rubbed, making soft, sad groans, but no other sounds were heard.
Large boats surrounded Susan. Some of them were Chris Craft Constellations—“Connies” to their owners. Most of those were fifty to sixty feet and gave the impression of great mass, to a girl sitting in a Corvette at the edge of the dock. They did, in fact, look like party boats to Susan.
An eternity passed as Susan waited for Annie. Without her watch, she noticed that Annie’s dashboard clock was broken. It figured.
At one point, Susan exited the Corvette and walked haltingly in the direction she’d seen her friend disappear. But she quickly reminded herself that she didn’t actually know which boat was Frankie’s and lost her nerve. Afraid of getting splinters from walking barefooted on a dock in the dark, Susan returned to the car and waited.
She may have dozed off—she couldn’t be sure. Suddenly, Annie was next to her, starting the engine.
“What happened? Are you all right?”
“That asshole wasn’t there.”
“Isn’t that good?” Susan was newly hopeful of a merciful end to this escapade. “Doesn’t that mean he’s not having a party on the boat?”
“Don’t be naïve.”
“You know, I have to admit I’m in uncharted territory here. Let’s go home now so you and Frankie can laugh about this tomorrow.”
“I really don’t see what’s funny here! I don’t!” And with that, Annie made one of her signature U-turns in the middle of the road and headed down Jefferson Avenue toward Grosse Pointe.
The distance Annie drove was short—about four miles—from Jefferson Beach Marina to Sunningdale Drive in Grosse Pointe Shores. Jefferson Avenue turned into Lake Shore Drive. The water opened up to the left and was brilliantly illuminated by the moon, which was still visible, albeit low, on the opposite end of the sky. She took a few turns—right, left, right—Vernier, Morningside, Sunningdale. But Susan barely paid attention to the route. She sat stock still, in her nightgown, staring straight ahead. Annie did the same, looking forward with fierce intensity.
“Where are we going now?” Susan broke her own silence.
“Here,” Annie answered. “Frankie’s.” She swung wide to the right into the driveway of a white brick Colonial of 1960s vintage—two stories, black shutters, attached garage, which opened to the right side of the house. Annie continued around to the garage to stop alongside Frankie’s Cadillac. No other cars were in the driveway.
Annie jumped out of the Corvette and darted around her car to slap her hands on the hood of the Cadillac.
“I knew it!” she cried. “Hot! This hood is hot! He just got here. He said he was having dinner with his mother. He’s with someone for sure.”
“Oh my God, Annie, this is out of control. He probably did have dinner with his mother and fell asleep on her sofa or something. Then he drove home.”
“You’re a cool liar, Susan.”
“I’m not lying! I’m guessing! I’m with you, remember? You plucked me out of bed! I have no idea where he was or what he did with whom.”
Annie, not deigning to answer, turned her back on Susan and strode around the front of the house, out of Susan’s eyesight. Once again, Susan was sitting alone in a car in the night. Once again, the night grew exceedingly quiet. And dark. And cold. As the minute
s passed, Susan became uncomfortably aware that her nightgown was insufficient cover for a September night in Michigan. As her adrenalin settled, a chill came over her. She crossed her arms, closed her eyes and drifted. Back to a night, three years before, with Todd, before she’d left him for college.
That evening had been cold too—unseasonably so. They were in the basement of Susan’s house; in front of the yellow brick fireplace that Susan’s father had installed when she was a little girl. This was their private spot, the place where they could be alone, where Elton wouldn’t surprise them as he shuffled around the house. He never came downstairs anymore to the pretty room he had built for his family—a rec room with paneling, the large gas fireplace, built-in bookshelves and benches. And filled with the 1940s maple furniture that reminded Susan of an I Love Lucy episode; furniture from an earlier life of Elton’s, before Maggie and before Susan.
That night, Susan and Todd had gazed at the fire and tried not to think about their future. They had seventeen days before she went away. Seventeen days to count before life shifted a few degrees in another direction. They did not know what that direction would be, but they knew that a change was coming.
Why had that moment stood out? Why did she only remember that night, not any others, in the lead-up to her departure? She had no recollection of the twenty-day mark, or the fifteen or the two. Just seventeen. That moment was crystallized in her mind and conjured with ease, even now, three years later.
Did we only remember the moments when we truly paid attention? Would she remember this night, sitting in this driveway, years from now? She certainly felt she was focused, excessively so, but perhaps that was illusory. What happened in the mind to shine a spotlight on a particular moment, often the least consequential, to allow us to remember it, years later, with such clarity?
Such were the thoughts that occupied Susan Bentley in the night, in the car, in Grosse Pointe. She thought about Todd and she thought about Sammy; she thought about memory and she tried to keep warm. She glanced at the cars parked on the street, but she did not connect them to Frankie’s.
She was not paying attention at all.
31
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Boston
Special Agent Provenzano nods his head, granting permission for Susan and Jack Jr. to go. He adds a postscript and asks her to remain available for further questioning.
“We’re meeting some others on this case. We’ll want to talk with you again.” He walks Susan and Jack back down the short corridor to the door to the reception area.
Jack follows Susan into the waiting room where they see Special Agent DelVecchio, crisply suited as ever, talking to a middle-aged woman, both of them standing.
The woman’s attire might have come from a donation bin. She wears stretch pants that are purple and an oversized T-shirt announcing her affinity for the Red Sox. The background color of that shirt was probably white at some point but currently falls into the general category of gray. Her hair color has grown out at the roots and flip-flops complete her ensemble.
In simple curiosity, Susan finds herself staring.
DelVecchio and the woman are talking, chuckling about something that Jack and Susan haven’t heard. The woman’s laugh is a smoker’s chortle, with a phlegm-y cough to punctuate it. DelVecchio takes the woman by the arm and starts to lead her in Susan and Jack’s direction, presumably to guide her in through the door they just exited.
As the woman turns, she looks at Susan and Jack with coolness and a little contempt. She wears an expression of defiance in the face of two strangers who indisputably have had more advantages in life than she has. She makes eye contact with Jack first, gives him a little once-over. Then she allows her eyes to travel to Susan.
All of this happens quickly, but the point is made: “I won’t be cowed by you rich folks.” As the woman looks at Susan, Susan cannot help looking back. The two of them hold each other’s gaze for a moment—and then a moment longer. The woman’s smile has frozen and is drooping a bit at the sides. She is no longer actually smiling, but she hasn’t quite released all of the muscles yet, so her expression is an odd, blank grimace. Like a Halloween pumpkin.
“Jesus H. Christ,” she blurts, to no one in particular, but staring directly at Susan. “I don’t fucking believe my eyes.”
Everyone is looking at everyone else at this moment, when Susan says, almost inaudibly, even to Jack who is standing right next to
her, “Sherry?”
No one else, least of all Sherry, hears her say it.
32
Time isn’t fixed. No matter that sixty seconds make a minute, sixty minutes make an hour and twenty-four of those make a day; time is malleable. Like putty, it stretches and contracts in the hand. For Susan, standing in the waiting room of the FBI office in Boston, time begins to telescope. Looking at Sherry, standing so near, looking so old and worn, Susan leaps back to Frankie’s Disco in the summer of 1979.
The telescope morphs into a kaleidoscope in the hands of a small child, turning it this way and that, as Susan sees Sherry moving toward her and away from her at the same time. The room alters. The chairs and tables, the receptionist’s desk, the clock on the wall, all shift in her peripheral vision.
Sherry says something, which causes everyone else to look at Susan. Susan cannot quite make out what Sherry is saying as she keeps walking toward her. The room appears to grow longer, and Sherry does not seem to advance.
At the end of a tunnel she hears what Sherry says next, “Annie? Jesus Christ, Annie? You’re supposed to be dead!”
Through spots and shadows, she sees the blanched alarm on Jack’s face. “Look!” he says. “Who are you? This is my stepmother, Susan Ford.”
She is unable to respond to what Sherry says next.
“I don’t know who you are, but you sure as hell don’t know who this is! And, she’s not fit to be anybody’s mother! This is Annie Nelson! I’d stake my life on it! Hey, I was interviewed for the newspaper when Annie died! When they all died! I was part of it all!”
A creeping fog encroaches, obscuring light and sound. It takes the ground out from under her and she crumples to the floor. Neither Jack Jr., who is closest to her, nor Agent DelVecchio, farther away, and certainly not Agent Provenzano, farther still, is able to mitigate her fall.
Distantly, she hears Sherry feigning, “I think I’m gonna faint too!”
She hears the three men scurry around the room to cope with the two inert women. She wonders where the receptionist is. That nice girl, who may have been able to add some order, had she been present, is missing. Maybe she is in the ladies’ room, maybe getting coffee. Her mind starts to travel with the receptionist.
Finally, blackness comes. For this moment, she is granted a reprieve, mercifully allowed a brief respite from the vise that is closing in on her.
33
Thursday, September 6, 1979
Suburban Detroit
“Susan!” Sammy leaned into Annie’s Corvette parked in the driveway of Frankie’s house where Susan sat with her eyes closed. She hadn’t seen him approach and gave a squeal at the close proximity of his voice. “What are you doing here?”
“Sammy? What are you doing here?”
“I asked you the same question.”
“I’m with Annie! She’s crazy. She came to my house hysterical. We went to Frankie’s boat and now we’re here. She thinks he’s with a woman in there.” Susan paused. “But why are you here? Are you and Frankie friends?”
“She is crazy. Crazy and stupid. Why would you follow Annie here on a night like tonight?”
“I don’t know what a night like tonight means and I don’t really know why I came. She was so wound up, carrying on like a madwoman. I thought my neighbors would call the police.” Susan eyed him. “But you’re not answering me. Why are you in Frankie’s driveway?”
“Susan, it would have been so much better if the police had come and kept you home.”
“You’re kind
of freaking me out, Sammy. What’s going on here?”
“Susan, get in the driver’s seat. Turn the car around and get ready to drive out of here. I was leaving but I will go back in and get your foolish friend out of the house. Just do what I say. I’ll explain later.”
“Geez,” Susan said as she exited the car to follow Sammy’s instructions.
“What are you wearing?” Sammy asked.
“I wish everyone would stop asking me that! I’m wearing a nightgown! It’s the middle of the night!”
“All right, I’m sorry.” Sammy took her arm to move her a bit faster around the car and into the starting position of what was clearly going to be some sort of race. “It just seems unusual, is all.”
“Really, Sammy?” Susan stopped walking and spun to face him. “You think my nightgown is unusual? I can’t even begin to tell you how unusual I find this night. I just don’t even know where to start.”
“Susan, please hurry. There is no time for sarcasm now.” Unceremoniously, he hustled her toward the driver’s seat.
“Oh God, Sammy! What do you mean, now? What’s happening?”
“Now is the time to go. Get behind the wheel. Turn the car around. Wait for Annie. Be a good girl.”
Susan looked at Sammy, moonlight hitting his shiny black hair, and, good girl that she was, obeyed him. Sammy saw her settled into the driver’s seat and hesitated. For a second, Susan thought—hoped—he would bend and kiss her. Just one kiss more—here, now, on this night that she should not be here and did not know why. But he just looked at her, took his long finger, touched it to his own lips and then touched it to hers. Then he turned and walked back around the garage to the rear of the house.
Susan was alone again.
Slowly, as quietly as possible, with hands shaking, she started the car, and did the drive/reverse dance required to position it, facing down the driveway. The cranberry juice glasses rolled in time to her shifts and made the tinkling noises that were now so familiar to her as to almost go unnoticed. She fumbled around for a seatbelt and found it wedged between the cracks of the seat. She adjusted the rearview mirror to better see the house behind her. She shifted into drive and kept her foot on the brake. She placed her hands at ten and two on the steering wheel.
Finding Mrs. Ford Page 14
