The Murderer Next Door

by Rafael Yglesias

  I was right not to become a mother, despite what everyone says or thinks.

  And I didn’t correct my mistake—even after I knew it was a mistake. I watched through the window (made oval by crescents of frost at the corners), saw that B.J. and she were preoccupied by shaping the snowwoman’s head, and decided I could risk a continuation of the error and make a quick call to Stefan.

  I was stunned: Stefan blew up at me.

  “Are you crazy! Listen to me: I won’t help you. And I’m not going to indulge this episode any longer.”

  “What episode? What do you mean by episode!”

  “You’re having a breakdown—”

  “Oh God, Stefan!”

  “Molly, this is a very objective judgment! I’ve consulted with Jim—”

  “What do you plan to do—have me committed because I don’t want to be married to you?”

  “You’re a kidnapper! I don’t have to do a thing!” He screamed this and then stopped. He panted, breathing more angry words, but (like always) he gave them no voice until their passion was exhaled. “I’ve tried to be patient, I’ve tried to be understanding. But I can’t anymore, not in good conscience. If you don’t return by morning, I’ll inform Ben and the police of this call.”

  “Thank you so much, Stefan.” I had known in my heart (always, even when I thought I was safe) that he would fail me if truly needed. Ours was a fair-weather marriage.

  “You’re angry with me now.” Stefan had rehearsed this part, it had no spark of feeling. “Maybe you’ll stay angry forever. But I have to prevent you from doing yourself harm.”

  “Stefan.” I should have pleaded with him, yet it came out irritated—impatient patron to incompetent waiter: “Don’t you understand? If I go back I have to do anything Ben wants. He can hold this over my head—”

  “You’re going to stop seeing Ben, Molly. I’ll give you no choice about that.” He was furious. He spoke in a slow cadence, but the rhythm was artificial. He was the one who was angry and might never forgive me.

  “That’s ridiculous,” I answered. They were done with the snowwoman. Naomi talked to B.J., her hands gesturing with animation, raised with excitement, sideways for doubt, up and down as she reasoned between the two. I leaned my head on the frozen glass. The top of my forehead melted an inner film of ice. I shut my eyes. “Just be straight with me, Stefan. Tell me you’re hurt, don’t threaten me.”

  “Molly, I am going to proceed with whatever I can to stop you. I won’t agree to a divorce—I’ll go for a competency hearing if I have to.”

  This made me crazy. I twisted in the booth, blindly staring at the Burger King neon: “How dare you threaten me! I’ll make you a laughingstock, Stefan! You won’t have a patient left!” Somewhere I heard a scream. Not a real scream. Very faint. Not from outside, but in me, from a buried soul. What was she screaming?

  “I don’t care about the damage to me!” Stefan squeaked. A lie—he did. I could hear the fear: he wasn’t that much in love with me. He wouldn’t really risk his professional standing. Even on his side, our marriage was no grand passion, not worth throwing everything away.

  Molly, she warned me, something is wrong! I was melting the frost; a cold drop ran down the side of my face. Where is Naomi? Wendy asked me in a panic.

  Stefan’s voice receded as I turned and looked out into the white-and-gray gloom of the Burger King parking lot. Larry’s odd position attracted my attention first: he was slumped against a van, one of his mittens clinging to its side mirror as he slid down to the ground. Maggie waddled at me, making horrible faces through the glass like a gigantic fish in a tank.

  You stupid bitch, I told myself, as I saw it—B.J. was kidnapping Naomi. He hustled her across the parking lot, carrying her sideways, thick arm across her middle, her feet and head flopping like a doll.

  I went through the booth and doors, invisible. I ran on the cold earth without feet, flying from fear.

  I shouted after him. Maggie wheezed at me.

  I heard Naomi shrieking: “Let me go!”

  I had a very clear, sickening image of B.J. raping her. B.J. stopped at a pickup, all black except for white bolts of lightning on the fenders. He went to the driver’s side, opened the door, and mounted, tossing little Naomi in. I got to the door as he made it inside.

  Then I was on the ground looking up at a black sky.

  I had trouble raising my head off the pavement. B.J. had knocked me down with the door. Maggie’s blue jeans appeared next to me. The back of my skull hurt. They were yelling, all of them, even Naomi. No one sounded frightened: only frustrated.

  Larry’s mittens rescued me from drowning on the concrete. As I surfaced I could breathe again.

  “We’ll take them to the shelter!” B.J. said.

  Naomi shouted at me: “Take me home, Molly!” No tears, just fury.

  “Who is she?” B.J. yelled down at me. He was immense, as tall as a building, a true giant. No—he was seated in the truck and I was still on the ground.

  “She says you’re not her mother,” Larry’s mincing woman’s voice scolded me.

  “B.J. just wants to make sure she’s safe,” Maggie croaked.

  “I was lying! She is my mother!” Naomi whacked B.J. with her hand. Although she struck him on the cheek, he didn’t blink. “Let me go!”

  “I’m taking her to the shelter. Pauline’ll figure it out.” B.J. reached for the driver’s door.

  Larry interposed himself so it couldn’t be shut. “Why did you hit me, B.J.?”

  “I just shoved you—”

  “No! You hit me.” Larry wagged his red mitten. “It really hurt.”

  “You tried to stop me. I had to hit you.” B.J. again reached to shut his door. Larry kept his bulk in the way. “It proves you had nothing to do with this. You tried to stop me.”

  “That’s crap, B.J. Don’t give me that. You really hit me. I know your daddy beat you, but that—”

  “Shut the fuck up!” B.J. screamed into the steering wheel and banged his head on it in frustration. “I’m tired of your sensitive bullshit!” The whole truck seemed to shake.

  I was on my feet now, wobbling like a first-time ice-skater. I touched the back of my skull expecting to discover blood. Only wet snow. I stumbled to the front of the truck and tried to shout, although I sounded feeble.

  “Over my dead body! You drive her out of here over my dead body! Over my dead body you fat disgusting pig! Over my dead body!” I went hoarse; my threats were pitifully weak. I felt sick and faint.

  The passenger door opened and Naomi dropped down in a hurry, falling to her knees, then scrambling toward me.

  “Can you drive, honey?” Maggie had me in her arms. I hung on to the wobbling underbelly of her triceps. Maybe I had a concussion.

  “I’m following you!” B.J. shouted from the truck. “All the way back to New York. She told me her address and phone number! She lives on Fifth Avenue! I’m following you there!”

  A knight in shining pickup truck. Naomi pulled on me. I slid down and felt her small sweet lips kiss me: “Let’s go home, Molly,” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry, honey.” I grabbed her, squeezed her against me, and wept with relief. What a fool I was. Poor Wendy, that you had an idiot like me to take your place.

  We got into the Volvo. Trembling, grateful, and terrified, I returned to the highway. The brilliant white lights of B.J.’s truck filled the back of our car, a demanding, scolding presence. I got out at the next exit, swung underneath the highway and reentered, heading back to New York.

  Poor Wendy. You were right not to trust anyone with your baby, not even me.

  AFTER AN HOUR OF DRIVING I HAD TO STOP FOR GAS. B.J. followed me into a highway station; he tanked up at the self-service pump parallel to my spot at the credit-card island. I wanted to phone Ben and tell him we were coming, hoping I could cover up my aborted flight with a story about getting lost in Jersey, but I was afraid to leave Naomi in the car. B.J. finished quickly; he returned to his tru
ck and peered at me, full of resentment. For what? What had I done to him? I returned his stare with equal hostility; bleached by the station’s neon lights, he looked like an unhealthy ghost. I wished I had a car phone.

  “Is he going to follow us the whole way?” Naomi asked as we pulled out and resumed driving. She had been quiet until then. I hadn’t made any conversational gambits either. What could I say—attack her for talking to strangers? She was right to seek help. I was the kidnapper.

  “He wants to make sure I take you home.”

  “That’s crazy,” she mumbled.

  “Well, you told him I wasn’t your mother.”

  “He asked me—”

  “That’s okay, honey. But he wondered if I’m not your mother, then who am I?”

  “I told him you’re Mommy’s best friend.”

  “Did you tell him your mommy is dead?” That blunt (and horrible) remark was a first for me. Since Wendy’s murder I had never acknowledged this fact to Naomi.

  She didn’t answer. I glanced at her: she was backlit by the interrogating glare of B.J.’s truck. He stayed on our heels, pushing me to drive faster, switching lanes when I did, attached to me no matter how empty the stretch of highway.

  “Well…?”

  Naomi hung her head.

  “Why not?” Again, no answer. “You see, he must have thought I had taken you away from your mommy and daddy. He didn’t know that I’m—” and I got stuck. How to describe my role? I’m not her mother, not her guardian, not her aunt, not even her friend. I’m the genius who let her play with abuse victims at Burger King. I was disgusted and repelled by everything I had done. I resolved to be direct: Naomi and I were heading back to the war; it was time for us to make a treaty and become allies. “How could he know that I’m taking care of you now?”

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, and she was crying.

  “Damn it,” I said to the road, and my eyes filled too. “I don’t mean it that way. Don’t cry. I’m not criticizing you. I’m only explaining…”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again, and put her face into my side, sobbing.

  “It’s okay, honey.” I stroked her amazing hair, smooth and rich, so incredibly alive and young. I ached for her—and to be her. What’s worse: never to have a loving mother or to have one torn away?

  B.J.’s lights were exhausting, a marathon for my eyes. Tears didn’t refresh them—they continued to sting from the glare. “Do you know what a will is, Nommy?” This was the first time I had used Ben and Wendy’s nickname for her.

  “Yes.” Her crying was over, but the answer had a solemn weepy tone.

  “You do?”

  “It’s how you leave things to people after you die.”

  “Every grown-up has a will. Your mommy’s asks that I take care of you. I would take care of you anyway, even if she had forgotten to make a will—I want to. But it’s also what she wanted.”

  Naomi sat up. I let go of the comfort of her hair. Her face was long and beautiful in the harsh white light. “What did she leave to me?” she asked of the road.

  “Well…when you’re older, you’ll get everything of hers.”

  “Didn’t she leave anything to Daddy?”

  “Your daddy has things they bought together.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like your apartment. Like your country house.”

  “Daddy says we’ll have to sell those things.” She spoke in an enervated monotone.

  “Maybe not. We’ll see.” I waited, to give her a chance.

  She broke the silence: “Why did Mommy have to say in her will that you would take care of me?”

  “I don’t understand. What do you mean ‘have to say’?”

  “Well, there’s Daddy. So why…?” She put out her hands, asking for help.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to confuse you. She doesn’t have to say unless both your daddy and mommy couldn’t take care of you. That’s what her will says. I’m your guardian if they can’t, if they—”

  “Die,” she said again in that lifeless, terrible voice.

  “Right.” What had I just resolved? To be open and direct. Wendy would; she churned emotions needlessly, I used to believe, but had I done better with all my goddamned restraint and control? No more easy lies. I would be Naomi’s companion in this horror. “And also if your daddy can’t for some other reason.”

  “Like what?” This brought her out of numbness. Her eyes glowed, the light cutting deep into them; like a prism, they made rainbows all the way to the back of her skull. “What other reason?”

  “Has anyone told you about the trial? Has your daddy told you?”

  She shouted: “He told me they think he did something bad to her!”

  “Did he say what might happen?”

  She continued in a loud angry tone: “He said no matter what I heard, he was going to take care of me forever. He told me if anybody says anything else it’s a lie.” She dared me to tell her otherwise. Her head was a periscope again, only this time she scanned me, not the blank concrete.

  “That’s not true, Nommy. Your daddy might have to go away for a while. If he does, I’ll take care of you.”

  “You’re lying!” She lifted a hand and swiped at me. I intercepted her little fist, steering with one hand. The car swerved halfway into the deserted lane beside mine; B.J.’s brakes squealed as he slowed.

  I shouted at her: “Don’t hit! People don’t hit each other! That’s not how you solve things!” I released her—she whimpered and turned toward her door. I got the car back in lane and speeded up, checking in the rearview, hoping I hadn’t alarmed B.J.

  He closed up the gap, searchlights on my back, accusatory and unforgiving. Why not slam on the brakes and end it? Let the stupid Beast crush his Beauty.

  “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to scare you. But hitting is wrong.”

  “I wasn’t going to hit you.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “I wasn’t!”

  “Okay…forget it.” It took a while before I could organize myself. I was in pieces: rage, fear, guilt—a kaleidoscope of feelings, merging and twisting one into another. I wanted to feel nothing—is that so wrong?

  We passed a sign that said it was seventy-five miles to New York. “Is it much longer?” Naomi asked, forlorn, wanting to be there.

  “A little more than an hour. I’m going to tell your father we got a little lost driving around and that’s why we’re so late. He might get angry, but don’t worry about it.”

  “Okay,” she said. I had no idea whether she knew I was lying.

  After that I tried to ask the next logical question, something I had wanted to know for a long time. But it stuck in my throat. Literally, I could feel it there; I couldn’t swallow or speak it. We drove in silence for miles. B.J.’s moronic lights harassed me. They allowed no rest or calm. At last, despite the great risk, I unblocked my throat: “What did your daddy tell you happened to your mommy?”

  No answer. The silence and lack of movement made me think she had gone to sleep.

  “Nommy?” I prompted.

  “What…?” She crouched below the line of B.J.’s headlights.

  “What did your daddy tell you happened to your mommy?”

  “He said she had an accident.” She spoke with heavy irritation, repeating an answer to a dim-witted bureaucrat.

  I glanced at her huddled figure. A slant of light caught one eye: the blue gleam was hostile. “Has anyone said anything else to you about it?”

  “Yes.” That came out as a moan.

  “Who?” No answer. “What did they say?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” She turned her face into the seat’s leather. Her hair was bleached by the truck’s angry glare.

  “The police think your daddy hurt your mommy,” I said. My hands were shaking; I felt I was killing her. For one second I died. My heart fluttered, skipped a whole beat. I considered pulling over in case I passed out.

  Go on, Molly,
Wendy encouraged.

  You don’t believe me, but it was Wendy, egging me on tell the truth: “They say—”

  “I know!” Naomi cut me off, screaming into the dashboard. “Shut up! I don’t want to talk!” She covered her ears and shut her eyes.

  Did she know?

  I hated myself. I don’t mean self-disgust. I mean despair: What was the point of my life? What was I doing? What had I ever done that was worthwhile? Not so long ago I was stuffed with me—my grand job, my wonderful brain, my taut body, my successful husband. But they were accidents: Naomi Perlman’s impulse to do good, genetics, our society’s structure. This was my real achievement, my personal choice: to break an innocent heart.

  Let me go, Wendy.

  No, she answered.

  “I’d like us to live somewhere else. Start new. Maybe go somewhere warm.”

  “I want to go home.” Monotone, dead. “I want to see my daddy.” My, she called him with special emphasis. She had that too, a father who loved her. I was sorry for her; and I wanted to be her.

  “I’m going to do exactly what you want. Okay? Don’t worry about that. I know you love your daddy.”

  “I love Mommy too.” Said resentfully, an argument.

  “And your mommy too.”

  “I can’t go away.”

  “You can’t?”

  “No! I can’t!” she screamed.

  “Okay.” B.J.’s lights burned on my neck, my shoulders. I was enraged by his intrusion. On the Volvo there are rear fog lamps that brighten the back lights. Flip them on and it appears as if the driver has hit the brakes. Stefan had used this feature on tailgaters to give them a scare, a taste of what a sudden stop might do to them. While we continued on safely they would skid, almost losing control. The lesson always worked; after that they would keep their distance. But Stefan had never played that trick at this speed. We were doing eighty on the empty highway; if B.J. slammed on the brakes going this fast he might really lose control and crash.

  I wanted to punish him, to be rid of him. Maybe he wouldn’t crash, maybe he would get the message and give me some room. I concentrated on this plan for a while, searching for flat stretches of road with even shoulders. But when we were joined by some traffic, I decided it was too dangerous.