Following Polly

by Karen Bergreen

  Here I can sympathize. It sounds like Charlie’s dad has no way out. I suddenly realize that if Charlie’s dad, who has the lawyers and the connections, can’t get out of some sex scandal, how is a nobody like me going to escape a murder charge?

  After Charlie and I have exchanged our tales of woe, he sets me up in his apartment. He points to a big fluffy navy couch in his living room.

  “You’ll sleep there.”

  He clears a bookshelf and tells me I can put the extra stuff that Felisha gave me there. He refers to it as “luggage.”

  I give the living room another look. I look outside the arched windows onto Sixty-fifth Street. I am looking at the very spot I was inhabiting for the last five days. Of course Charlie had seen me there. I was impossible to miss. No wonder he’s so mistrustful of me. When I was staring up at the building from the street, I had envisioned him as being much farther away. I couldn’t even imagine what was behind the window. I pictured only Charlie and not his warm bookish environment. His living room, lit only by his halogen desk lamp and the natural light of the day’s conclusion, is a symphony in brick and books. The room is brightened to a small extent by a red Azerbaijani dragon rug. His old wooden coffee table, covered in books, looks like something his parents must have given him when he set out on his own. In the corner of the room is Charlie’s desk, covered in papers. The man was clearly not expecting company.

  “I really like your place.”

  “I like the neighborhood,” Charlie tells me, as he hands me a clean bisque-colored towel and matching washcloth, “but I guess you know it better than I do.”

  I laugh a little. “It is really safe.”

  “If you don’t count the wanted murderer taking residence in your apartment.”

  “Or living on the street.”

  “What was that like?” Charlie asks me. “Living on the street.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it, especially if you have an alternative that includes heat and a shower, but after I inured myself to the cold and dirt, I was okay with it.”

  “Really?”

  “Under normal circumstances, I probably wouldn’t have made it through a night, but because I have been so focused on fleeing the police, I didn’t focus on the cold, the dirt, or the hunger.” I don’t tell Charlie that the highlight of my day was using the public restroom on the theory that he might find me gross.

  “I’ll say.” Charlie is staring at me.

  Of course he’s staring at me. I’m still filthy.

  “Would you like a shower?” he asks.

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Charlie informs me that I can use the guest bathroom as if it is my very own, adding that he never uses it. I have to ask for soap, shampoo, toothbrush, and toothpaste.

  Boy, am I dying to brush my teeth. The Pringles were not a good idea.

  I am still wearing Felisha’s riding pants. They could use a wash, too.

  “You don’t by any chance have any clothes that I could wear?” I ask Charlie shyly.

  “Sure, I have some white capri pants and a pink eyelet top.”

  Wow. Charlie’s funny.

  “Do you have sandals that match?”

  “Nah, I think those riding boots finish the outfit.”

  “True, and they are more weather appropriate,” I add.

  Charlie heads into a closet and produces a pair of jeans and a black cotton turtleneck. He throws them to me.

  “I left this stuff in the dryer too long. They’re a little small on me. It’s the best I can do.”

  Just hearing the word “dryer” is exciting to me. I can’t wait to wash.

  “How was the shower?” Charlie asks me as I emerge in his still-too-big jeans and roomy turtleneck.

  “It was the best thing that ever happened to me,” I say. “I’m ready to get to work.” I’m referring to Charlie’s father’s dilemma.

  “How about we get a little food?” Charlie says. “You’re obviously famished. Those Pringles were twelve years old.”

  “Really?”

  “I have no idea. They were here when I moved in, and that was about eight years ago.”

  “You’re kidding me,” I say, starting to feel a little less good.

  “Of course I’m kidding you. You wolfed them down.” He’s smiling.

  I like the sight of him up close. His hair, in need of a good combing, is thick and full. His fair skin has been temporarily dimmed by what looks to be a day or two of dark brown stubble. His clear light brown eyes, slightly creased on top, maintain an air of sadness despite his genuine but possibly fleeting grin. It’s his first smile since I got here, but I guess having a stranger stalking you after months of family turmoil wouldn’t exactly be mirth-producing.

  “All that running from the law can really build up a girl’s appetite.”

  Wow. Charlie and I are chatting as if we are friends. This is so weird. I want to call Jean and tell her all this.

  Charlie grabs his phone. He calls Eat Here Now. It’s on his speed dial. He orders two cheeseburgers deluxe, a chocolate milkshake for me, and four cups of coffee.

  “I don’t have a coffeemaker,” he explains. “This way we don’t have to go out later to get the coffee.”

  The cheeseburger is heaven. How could I never have eaten at this restaurant? The fries are perfect. Even the coffee, cold as it is, is rich, and heartwarming. I concentrate on Charlie as he tells me everything he can about his father’s case. Charlie thinks he’s being framed by Kelt’s new CEO, Remy Spencer. Of all of Kelt’s executives, Remy seemed most anxious to get William Redwin out of the company and he immediately took his job. Charlie has a file on Remy, which he hands over to me. As I scrutinize, I see that there is nothing incriminating about the guy. To be sure, there are many articles that profile him. They say little about his personality.

  “I want you to comb this for clues,” Charlie says. “I have found nothing.” I’m sliding my last french fry through the little mound of ketchup on my plate.

  This could be fun. I’m still hungry, though. Charlie stopped eating ten minutes ago. It would be a shame to let those fantastic fries go to waste.

  “Do you mind if I have some of your fries?” I ask Charlie. I don’t even wait for his response as I dig in.

  I’ve been staying in Charlie’s house for more than a week, and we are making small strides. I’ve tailed Remy, and I see nothing that could link him to a prostitution ring or to anything else incriminating. Frankly, the man is boring. He lives on Sutton Place, not too far from here. He has the same schedule every day. He leaves his house for work at eight-fifteen every morning. He’s easy to spot. He’s on a bicycle. Although I know his choice of transportation is both healthy and environmentally laudable, I still think he looks silly in a charcoal gray cashmere coat and men’s leather dress shoes for a third-of-a-mile ride on a pricey hybrid bike. I’m able to keep up with him if I walk quickly because the traffic is so terrible. If I ever meet Remy and strike up a close friendship with him, I will point out that he should consider walking. Kelt’s offices are located at Fifty-ninth and Park, just about six blocks from Charlie’s apartment.

  It was hard for me to leave Charlie’s house the morning after my first night with him. I had passed out on my couch bed right after dinner. I slept twelve hours. When I woke up, I knew I had work to do, but I was scared that once I set foot out the door, the entire New York City Police Department would be standing outside Charlie’s door, ready to fire.

  “For some reason, you’re off their radar,” Charlie assured me.

  “I know, but I want to stay off.” I wanted to luxuriate in the proximity to Charlie as well. I wasn’t able to fully internalize my recent rooming situation last night before I fell into a deep slumber.

  “Just don’t go killing anyone and you’ll be fine,” said Charlie, as he handed me a huge scarf to put over my face and a knapsack with a lot of Swedish writing on it, which a foreign-exchange law student had left in his home five years ago. I was
wearing Charlie’s weathered orange jacket, the baggy pants, and my now-dry sneakers. I looked like a student.

  Remy Spencer hasn’t noticed me. Frankly, I’ve hardly seen him. He hasn’t left his office, even for lunch, in the past three days. He goes home at seven-thirty, and, from what I can see, he stays there. I pulled an all-nighter on his street two nights ago to make sure he didn’t leave at an odd hour.

  “If Remy has done anything wrong,” I tell Charlie, “it’s in the past. He hasn’t had any outside human contact all week.”

  “I figured he would be a long shot. Now that he’s paid off the hookers, he probably wants to keep his distance so no one suspects.”

  I agree with Charlie, but I’m also determined to make sure Remy doesn’t slip up. From everything I’ve read, he’s a meticulous fellow. If he did frame William Redwin, he’s probably covered his tracks beautifully.

  As far as my own situation goes, my story’s not getting the coverage you might think. Charlie says that this is because the police are probably embarrassed. He has warned me, though, that this could turn. An ambitious reporter could do a huge story about me to highlight the inadequacies of New York’s finest.

  Don’t get me wrong. The story has been on the news every day, but it’s usually about eleven or twelve minutes into the program when the viewers are poised to hear the new guidelines for the food pyramid. It’s presented as a nonstory. A reporter announces that it has been this many days since Polly Dawson was murdered, and Alice Teakle is nowhere to be found. There are no quotes or video footage. Not even a picture of me! Just a wedding picture of Polly and Humphrey.

  ________

  We’ve given up on Remy for the time being, and Charlie is now handing over folders on each of the women who have given a statement to the police. There are Rosalie, LaDonna, Charisse, Doreen, Carly, Oxanna, Trini, and Justine. They have all told the police the same thing: that they had met with William Redwin, on a regular basis, in exchange for cash. In addition, William Redwin furnished lavish gifts upon them. Not of a romantic nature but rather items like high-end televisions and home appliances. Carly received a Sub-Zero refrigerator. The women all worked for an agency run by an older woman named Henrietta Murch. Charlie also keeps a file on Murch. She too has talked to the police and has admitted to taking twenty percent of the cash paid by Redwin to each of the girls, which she insisted was quite generous of her.

  Further, Murch told the police that she didn’t exact any payment from her girls with respect to gifts that Redwin had given them. “I don’t touch their tips.”

  I ask Charlie if he has spoken with Murch, and he says that she refuses to speak with him. She has threatened him with an order of protection if he goes near her. He wants me to see what I can do.

  “Work your magic,” he tells me.

  He’s referring to my following. I don’t remind him that following Remy Spencer produced nothing.

  Charlie and I have established a routine. He gets up every morning at six-fifteen and goes for a six-mile run. Then, he returns home and works at the computer. To relax, he reads World War I history. He’s currently obsessed with the Battle of Verdun and plans to visit there when this whole thing with his father is behind him. Like me, he’s not a big phone talker. He occasionally takes a call from his friend Mark, a professor of medieval studies at Haverford College. Their conversations usually involve a “What’s up” and a “Not much.”

  Flattering.

  I am typically gone all day. I have abandoned Remy, for the most part, and am now staking out Henrietta Murch’s Williamsburg apartment. She lives above a bar right next to the bridge. She doesn’t exactly fit my stereotype of a madam. She’s about four foot eight, eighty pounds, with a Dorothy Hamill haircut. She wears no makeup, and when she leaves her house, she wears a navy peacoat and mom jeans. From far away, she looks like she could be a twelve-year-old girl. She doesn’t look like a fifty-three-year-old curator of prostitutes.

  Murch stays close to home. We’ve never gotten on the subway together and she leaves her house only for light household errands. During the day, she spends about three hours cleaning a sparse no-nonsense bar called Basura on the bottom floor of her apartment building. Maybe that’s where she conducts her business.

  I wait for the bar to open. Murch doesn’t come down. The bar patrons are Williamsburg hipsters, men and women, clothed in expensive yet unpleasant attire. Even though it’s freezing, most of the clientele stays outside the bar, opting to smoke on the street.

  The bar is packed by midnight. Murch stays in her apartment. I can see her through her small, well-placed dormer window. She has been watching the Food Network all night.

  I stay until three A.M., when the bar finally closes.

  “Maybe she’s not even a pimp,” Charlie says the next morning. “She’s being paid to play one to frame my father.”

  And while it certainly looks that way, I can’t imagine anybody pretending to be a criminal even for money. But Charlie is the one with experience in law enforcement.

  “Did you see anything like that when you were a prosecutor? People saying they committed crimes even though they didn’t?”

  “Nothing like that. But I did see a lot of fraud.”

  I spend very little time in Charlie’s apartment. Once I am confident that I won’t be recognized, I alternate my time between Murch’s place and Remy’s, hoping for contact between the two. There is none.

  I report my findings, or lack thereof, to Charlie.

  “I was hoping that since they are confident that no one is suspicious of them, they would continue to stay in contact,” he says, thinking aloud. “But then again, they were successful in their mission. My father is out. They have no need to talk to each other.”

  “True. But if I’ve learned one thing from Law and Order, it’s that criminals slip up even after they have completed their crime.”

  Charlie and I are not up late nights gabbing incessantly about philosophy and our childhoods. When I’m here, we spend most of the time talking about his father and, to some extent, my fugitive status. Sometimes we hang out together in the living room: He scours the Internet and I watch television. Charlie’s one of those people who owns a television set but doesn’t use it. When I got here, the television was in a corner behind a bookshelf. There was no place to sit comfortably and watch. I asked him if I could move it from the corner to a more suitable spot. There’s no seat in the living room that has been appointed for good viewing. The couch was certainly in the wrong place. Although he wasn’t too taken with the intrusion, he acceded.

  I still have a crush on Charlie. I’m less speechless around him these days but remain disquieted by his presence. I wish I could talk to Jean about it. For that matter, I wish I could talk to Jean about anything. It has been weeks since I have spoken to my best friend. I’d like to call Mother as well, but then she would tell Barnes, and Barnes, without a doubt, would call Kovitz.

  It’s not that Barnes would want me to go to jail. He just wouldn’t want his relationship to be inconvenienced by my disappearance. It would be better for him for me to be in Kovitz’s custody than to have to deal with Mother, who I can quite securely say is distracted by my circumstances. And Mother is much more likely to put him first if I’m locked up somewhere. I do without a call to Mother.

  For now, Charlie and his television will do.

  The most important thing is that Charlie believes me. I’m not sure why he does. I think it’s somehow tangled up with his belief in his father’s innocence. He’s channeling his ire with his father’s accusers into helping me with my case. He refers to the cops as “bastards.” Except Kovitz. He likes Kovitz even though I know he’s useless.

  “He’s a victim like we are,” Charlie reminds me.

  I can’t see how Kovitz could possibly be a victim, but I keep quiet on this. I need Charlie’s full support and if he wants me to sympathize with Kovitz, I will.

  I’ve been here for ten days and Charlie finally asks me why Mo
na Hawkins fired me.

  So I tell him my story.

  “Mona fired me because I told an actress who had auditioned for a role in the film that even though she had done a great job in her audition, the director had selected another woman for the role.”

  “Isn’t that what casting directors tell people?”

  “Yes, of course,” I tell him, “but I told Lissa—this actress—that the audition itself was a sham.”

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “Because it was true. Because I felt for her. Because I didn’t want her to think that she was untalented.”

  “Wait.” Charlie starts pacing his living room. “Why would a production company waste time and money on auditions if they already had an actress lined up for the part?”

  “It’s a publicity thing,” I tell him. “Jenna McNair is the actress who ultimately got the part. She had been demanding more than the producers would pay. So they did this whole public stunt with ‘auditions’ just to get her all fired up so she would agree to their offer.”

  “And you told this to Lissa?” Charlie asks me.

  “Yes.”

  Charlie starts pacing again. I don’t know if Charlie thinks I am a decent person or not, but I know that he is thinking less of me now.

  “Did you know Lissa?” He’s cross-examining me.

  “I got to know her because she came in so many times to audition and Mona always made her wait so long.”

  “Why would you risk your job for someone you didn’t know?”

  “I felt sorry for her. She needed to know she did a good job. I saw it all the time. These actresses, coming in day after day. So hopeful and so prepared. And Mona would tear them down. Actors too, but Mona is a misogynist. So she was generally harder on the women.”

  I recall the countless times Mona reprimanded these earnest young things in her office. She began every casting session with a negative assessment of their appearance. When I came in to interview with her, she thought I was coming in to audition for a sitcom she was casting.