by Saul Black
“Did you…?” Elspeth said.
Mild telepathy, always, between them.
“Yes. Tomorrow night he’s coming to the house to sign the papers. After that we’re gone.”
There were no papers. Papers weren’t part of the plan. She hoped the telepathy didn’t go that far.
“You’re going to Julia’s for a sleepover.”
Elspeth looked at her in disbelief. Dark eyes filling with injustice.
“I don’t want you in the house while we have to deal with it. I don’t want you anywhere near him.”
Elspeth subsided, kept her mouth shut. He. Him. The pronouns were contaminated for her now. Of course they were.
43
Valerie was in the Taurus, en route to the Mission to see Isabella Hernandez, when her phone rang. It was Dina Klein.
“We’ve had a bit of drama here,” Dina said.
“Yes?”
“Last night Julia was very upset. I’m afraid she thinks she’s in trouble. She wasn’t, apparently, entirely honest with you.”
“Oh?” Valerie spotted a gap, pulled over outside a Ben and Jerry’s. It was a golden late afternoon. The car’s interior was comfortingly sunlit.
“Yes,” Dina said. “Look, it’s probably nothing…”
“Go ahead?”
“It was what you said about Elspeth feeling somehow responsible for her father’s death.”
There was, of course, satisfaction. Seeing the full picture. But beneath the picture was a sprawling space, drearily and expansively occupied by her inability to prove the picture was genuine. For Valerie, closing a case was a mix of pleasure and emptiness. Pleasure because she’d penetrated the mystery, seen what there was to see, how it had happened, who had done it and why. Emptiness because all any case revealed was that there was really no such thing as a mystery. The reasons, the motives, the hows and whys—they were all drawn from the same small human pool: greed; anger; envy; lust; vengeance. Every murder sprang from ordinary sources.
Every marriage, too, she thought, now, with a feeling of melancholy.
“It was months back, according to Julia,” Dina said. “The girls were talking and Julia was bitching about her dad. Marty had nixed her going to some mini-festival without adult supervision—anyway it was minor, it was nothing. But in the middle of Julia’s nonsense, Elspeth blurted something out. She said she wished her father were dead.”
“I see,” Valerie said.
“Obviously kids say this sort of thing, but Julia … You know? It wasn’t said in the usual way.”
“I hear you.”
“I realize it’s irrelevant,” Dina continued. “To the investigation, I mean. I’m just worried Rachel doesn’t know how bad it is for her daughter. If Elspeth “does feel responsible, then someone professional needs to be addressing it.”
“You’re right,” Valerie said. “But I’m pretty sure Rachel has a very good idea of how serious it is. My understanding is Elspeth’s seeing a counselor. But let’s keep that between ourselves, okay?”
“Got it,” Dina said. “I just wanted to make sure she’s getting some help.”
“No problem.”
“Are you…? Are you making any progress? I know it’s none of my business.”
It would have been some relief to be able to tell Dina Klein the truth: Progress? Well, yeah, I pretty much know the whole story, which, by the way, your latest bulletin has just solidified. Problem is I can’t prove any of it.
“We’re still working,” was all she said. “Can’t really tell you any more than that.”
“I get it. Of course. Well, good luck…”
“Thanks for calling.”
They hung up.
* * *
Isabella Hernandez was a small, quick woman in her early sixties with a tight-skinned face and deep eye sockets, short curly hair dyed several shades of copper and gold. She lived in a two-bedroom ground-floor apartment on York Street with her youngest daughter, Felicia, and her grandson, Gabriel. Isabella’s husband had died of a heart attack three years ago, and the bereavement had coincided with the collapse of Felicia’s marriage. The girl had moved back home to raise her son, supported by her mother’s job (Señor Hernandez’s tiny life insurance payout was long gone) and the income from her own evening shifts at a local taqueria. There was durability here, Valerie thought, two harried women determined to keep life strong and bright for the kid. The apartment was flimsily furnished but spotlessly clean. Mother and daughter shared a vibe of hard work and willfully renewed energy.
“So,” Valerie said, “I gather you and Mr. Grant didn’t get along?”
She and Isabella were sitting at a small fold-out table under a plastic awning in the tiny backyard. A dusty lawn bordered by a little cactus garden with soil the color of paprika. A swing, a scatter of outdoor toys. Felicia was giving Gabriel his bath. The sounds of the kid’s splashing and chatter came out of the window a few feet away.
“No, that’s not right,” Isabella said. “We got along fine, at first.”
“I understood from Hester, his sister, that…?”
Isabella tightened her lips and shook her head, not in denial, but in irritation. At herself, Valerie decided.
“I can’t believe he’s dead,” Isabella said. “It’s incredible.”
Incredible, perhaps, Valerie thought, but not, to Isabella Hernandez, a great loss to the world.
“Could you tell me why you were dismissed?”
Isabella gave a slight snort. “You want the fake reason or the real one?”
“Both.”
“The fake reason was that I ‘stole’ his gold cuff links.”
“Which you did not.”
Isabella laughed. Contempt. “He makes a big fuss in front of Mrs. Grant one morning after I’ve been cleaning in the bedroom. Insists on me emptying my bag. And what do you know? Cuff links! Eight months I’m working there. It’s disgusting.”
“Mrs. Grant believed him?”
“What’s she going to believe? This is her husband. I’m the Mexican cleaner.”
“I see. And the real reason?”
Isabella stood up. “Momento,” she said. She went into the kitchen and returned bearing a red plastic tray. A pitcher of iced tea and two glasses. Poured. Valerie knew better than to refuse Hispanic hospitality.
“Muchas gracias,” she said. In fact she was glad of it. The yard was dry and still. Isabella Hernandez regarded her, obviously weighing up her chances of being believed.
“A person could say it was nothing,” she said. “A person could say this is a woman’s imagination.”
“I keep an open mind,” Valerie said. “Always.”
“Your job,” Isabella said, with a tired smile. “Yes.”
“Qué dice el pato?” Felicia said, in the bathroom.
“Quack quack!” Gabriel said.
“Sí, quack quack!”
Isabella laughed. Valerie smiled. Wondered about the household. Not easy, she decided, but there was warmth, determination, love. She spent her life so deep in horror sometimes these tiny reminders of people doing the right thing gave her a sad jolt. Isabella did what she had to do for her daughter. Felicia did what she had to do for her son. There was a liberation in this kind of motherhood along with all its constraints: Worrying about the kid meant you could stop worrying about yourself. Ask Rachel Grant.
“It was a few weeks before the cuff links,” Isabella said. “A Saturday. Mrs. Grant was out shopping. Elspeth was home with Mr. Grant. I finished for the day, Felicia came in the car with the little one to pick me up. But we went a short way and I realized I left my phone charger plugged in upstairs. So we went back for it.”
In spite of Valerie’s attempt at a neutral demeanor, she suspected a little of what she already thought was evident.
“I called out when I went back in, but I guess they didn’t hear. To be honest I thought they must be in the backyard.”
“Right,” Valerie said.
“Like I
say,” Isabella continued. “A person could say it was nothing. But when I was at the top of the stairs they came out of Elspeth’s room. He was holding her arm and she kind of snatched it away from him.”
No need, Isabella’s look said, to waste time on the niceties. Valerie knew why she was being told this. By a mother with a daughter.
“Was she dressed?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Were they arguing?”
Isabella shrugged. “She looked upset. Kind of angry. I only heard him say something like ‘That’s not going to get you anywhere.’ This is not exact words. It wasn’t … It was the way she looked. And then his face when he saw me. I know that look. Like I’d caught him doing something bad.”
“More than just embarrassment at being seen scolding his daughter?”
Isabella downturned her mouth and looked away. “All I can say is it didn’t look right to me. But later I asked Elspeth if everything’s okay and she says it’s nothing. Laughed about it, even.”
“But you weren’t convinced?”
“He was different with me after that. Then this rubbish with the cuff links.”
“Did he … Did they accuse you officially? To the agency?”
“No. I reported it, myself.” A proud flaring of the Hernandez nostrils. “Twelve years I’ve been with this agency. They know me.”
“And you never spoke with Mrs. Grant about it?”
“No.”
“Nor about what you’d seen?”
“What did I see? How does it sound? He had ahold of her arm, that’s all.”
“Elspeth didn’t look frightened?”
“No, like I say, she looked angry. She’s not the type to be frightened.”
Valerie made a note in her book. “And apart from this incident, you never saw anything to make you think anything was wrong?”
“Nothing. They were just a normal rich family.”
Valerie nodded. “Everything seem all right to you between husband and wife?”
“Sure. I mean he was at work a lot of the time. They didn’t seem to talk much, but…” Isabella made a dismissive gesture. “What do I know? That’s what some people are like. I worked in a lot of fancy houses. Not much talking.”
Valerie closed her notebook. “Okay, Mrs. Hernandez, I guess that’s all. Thank you for your cooperation—”
“Is she okay? Elspeth?”
“She’s having a hard time, as you’d expect,” Valerie said, “but her mother’s taking care of her.” She got to her feet. “Thank you for the iced tea.”
44
August 4, 2017
Rachel got up at 7 A.M., showered, dressed, and went to look in on Elspeth. The girl was asleep in the fetal position, clutching a soft pillow. The fetal position. Memory of the womb’s security asserted itself when you needed it, when the world outside the womb did its thing, hurt you beyond bearing. The body wanted so desperately to go back. Rachel had had a long, painful labor for her daughter. Adam had been there. Through the heat and weight of the pain she’d been aware of him trying to reassure her: You’re doing great, honey … Breathe … Breathe. She’d felt the vast distance between his words and her agony. It had diminished him, made him genuinely pathetic. It was as if she’d become a god and was seeing the paltry dimensions of his humanity for the first time. She had always felt larger than him, but now his negligibility in the face of her pain made him tiny. They said they loved each other often enough, but the truth was her soul had always remained private. She knew him (she’d thought), but he didn’t know her. And in labor, courtesy of the pain, she was further away from him than ever. He’d kept saying: That’s it, baby, you’re doing it … Breathe … He might as well have been tossing pancakes or doing the crossword. Eventually she’d said quietly: Stop talking. When it was over and Rachel had come back by degrees to the strangely shrunken and humbly detailed world, the midwife had given Elspeth to her to hold, still slick with blood, a whorl of mucus on the delicate head. Rachel’s arms had been utterly without strength, but she’d held her, suffered a terrible mix of failure and fury when the doctor said: Careful, she’s going to drop it—and the midwife had had to help keep the baby in Rachel’s arms. Rachel had thought, through the blur and the dizzying warmth: I’m weak now, but I’ll never be weak again. Not for you. I promise.
Now she went softly into Elspeth’s room and sat on the edge of the bed, rested her hand on her daughter’s back, felt the warmth of her sleep. She wondered if she was dreaming. Her dreams would be a curse now. Either they would be good, and waking would be a betrayal, or they would be bad, and waking would be a relief. A temporary relief, since the world into which she woke had itself become a crawling nightmare, filled with ordinary things.
Elspeth opened her eyes.
“What time is it?” she said.
“It’s early. Go back to sleep. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
For a while Elspeth drifted, not quite yielding to sleep. For Rachel it was very peaceful in the room. The smell of patchouli and laundered denim and fabric-softened linen and the suede shoulder bag on the floor by the bed. Behind the drawn curtains was a soothing blue-opal light. She was tempted to lie down next to Elspeth. There was never enough holding her, now. She’d had to control herself. She was afraid she would destroy her with love, with her own failure to protect her.
“Do you hate me?” Elspeth asked quietly.
Rachel brushed the dark hair away from her daughter’s face. Her heart hurt from the question. The irreversibility of what had happened. No matter what she did for Elspeth now it wouldn’t erase the damage. Who knew that better than her? Here she was, all these years later, Larry’s touch as close as if it had happened only moments ago. And though she understood her daughter’s question she said: “Don’t be insane. Why would you even ask that?”
“You were happy,” Elspeth said. “If I hadn’t…”
Of course she could think this way, Rachel knew. Now that Elspeth had been forced into knowledge, all the ugly logics were available to her.
“Don’t waste a single second thinking that way,” she said.
“But you’re disappointed in me. For not … For not wanting to—”
“I told you: We do this whichever way you want. The only person who gets to decide what we do is you.”
“But you think I should’ve told the police.”
I don’t believe in the police. Larry was police. The law is nothing more than the people who get to enforce it.
“I think you’re the smartest, toughest person I know,” Rachel said. “That’s why you get to decide. And whatever you decide is right. That’s all. I love you. I’ll always love you. You know that, don’t you?”
Elspeth nodded, closed her eyes. The little interlude of wakefulness had burgeoned, strangely. Now it was closing again.
“You haven’t told anyone, have you, that he hasn’t been living here?” Rachel asked.
“No.”
“Good.”
Rachel bent and kissed her. The softness of her skin, her hair smelling of sleep.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you, I love you.”
She waited until she was sure Elspeth was sleeping again, then went downstairs. Her hands were sweating. She tried to calm herself by going from room to room opening the curtains and blinds. In fact it did help, slightly, letting the big house fill with the early sunlight.
Still, it was procrastination. She took her phone and went into the study. It seemed right to make the call in here, in his room.
It rang four times. She pictured him seeing her name on the phone’s screen: Rachel calling. Imagined the way his heart would race, wondering what new contortion her voice would demand. For a moment she thought—against all her expectations—that he might let it go to voice mail. That wouldn’t work. There could be no record of what she was about to say.
“Hello?” he said. It really was a question. Either because he couldn’t believe it was her—or because he dreaded that it
was.
“Hey,” she said. Gently. The way she would have before everything had changed. In the silence that followed she could sense him utterly incapable of guessing what would come next. He had long since passed the point of thinking anything he could say would make things better. Now he merely waited for the next infliction. A chained prisoner waiting for the next stroke of the lash.
“Listen to me,” she said. “I need to see you.” She left a pause. Softened and lowered her voice. “I’ve been so wrong. Adam, I was wrong. I’m so sorry.”
His silence was a struggle between joy and suspicion. He was being faced with something so good it couldn’t possibly be true. She imagined him seeing the gates of Hell opening: Light. Freedom. The impossible return. The miracle.
“I don’t … What?”
“Don’t say anything,” she said. “Just listen. Come home. Tonight, after work. I know what happened. I know you were telling the truth. I don’t expect you to forgive me.”
More silence. She could all but hear his brain working. The impossibility of what she’d just said.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“She told me the truth. I’m sorry. You can’t imagine how sorry.”
“She told you…?”
“Oh, God, Adam…” She sighed. “I just … I just don’t know why she did it.”
And still he couldn’t find the words. Of course he couldn’t—since he knew the truth. She could feel him gearing up to clarify, to make sure he’d understood, the lawyer brain demanding no chink in the armor.
“Please,” she said. “Don’t let’s do this on the phone.”
“Jesus,” he said.
“Just come home tonight. Please. We’ll talk then.”
“I’ll come now.”
“No”—(careful, Rachel)—“Don’t come now. She’s here. She can’t be here. You can see that.”
A much longer pause. All his calculations. Regardless of the truth—the truth he knew—he perceived righteousness making itself available to him. Naturally. Righteousness would be required if he was going to accept the role in the script she was offering. He would be unconvincing without it. He was working all this out at high speed, in shock.
