Perfect Lies

by Liza Bennett

  The waitress came by with their check, and Meg picked it up. “I can’t say I shared your enthusiasm for Ethan’s charms.”

  “Of course, you didn’t,” Hannah replied. “But then you never knew what it meant to love him, did you?”

  21

  “When did all this happen?” Meg asked Abe, as he showed her into a handsome wood-paneled conference room. The requisite shelves of legal tomes took up one long wall. A Rothko-like lithograph of richly hued rectangles hung on the far wall at the head of the long bird’s-eye maple table. The lighting was recessed and subtle. This room, the new reception area, and the row of offices leading down the hall from Abe’s corner suite had all been added and renovated since Meg’s last visit. Though she spoke to Abe on the phone about business matters at least once a week, it had been easily a year since she stopped by his offices in Rockefeller Center.

  It was nearly six o’clock on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, but it seemed to Meg that most of Abe’s staff was still working. Phones were ringing. The whine of a fax machine and the rhythmic swishing of a copier could be heard down the hall.

  “I’m sure I told you we were remodeling,” Abe said, pulling out a buttery soft leather-covered chair for Meg next to him at the table. He closed the glass door on the noise from outside.

  “And expanding? And adding staff? I saw the names of at least two new partners on your masthead.”

  “Well, yes.” Abe sighed, dropping a legal folder in front of him as he sat down at the head of the table. “It’s been one of the few beneficial side-effects of divorce. You get to devote all your energies to work. And, happily for me, we are living in highly litigious times. So it’s now Sabin, Reinhardt, Tuchman, and Herrington, and we’re all making money hand over fist.”

  “You don’t sound particularly happy about it,” Meg replied, trying to interpret Abe’s tone. He was often hard to read—his cynicism kept people off balance and slightly at a distance. He hadn’t always been so inscrutable. When both Meg and Abe were starting out in their different businesses, Abe has been far more open and affable. The day she’d first moved into the offices on Fortieth Street he’d sent her a huge bouquet of garishly colored helium balloons each carrying the preprinted message CONGRATULATIONS! It had been a long time, Meg guessed, since he’d done anything so spontaneous and whimsical. Sometimes when he smiled or laughed Meg could still see the boyish optimist she recalled from those years, but more often now, Meg saw only a serious, somewhat troubled man.

  “Happy?” Abe tipped back in his chair, his hands folded behind his head. “In college, I remember we used to have these long philosophical discussions about happiness. Aristotle versus Plato. You know the sort of thing—what is the ultimate end of mankind? That’s what happiness seems to me now—a concept, an argument, an abstraction. So what’s real? I suppose I’m able to feel proud of all this, Meg,” Abe said, nodding at the beautifully appointed room. “It gives me a sense of accomplishment. I’m moving forward. Moving on.”

  “From Becca?” Meg asked, without thinking.

  “Now, about Jarvis.” Abe sat forward abruptly.

  “Oh, Abe, I’m sorry.”

  “You’re on the clock here, and my rates have gone up. I hate to waste your money on personal chitchat.”

  The papers that Abe had prepared on the Jarvis lawsuit were incomprehensible to Meg, written in a legalese that made her want to nod off in the middle of each sentence. But she read through the twenty or so pages of complaint nevertheless and scanned the evidence sheets, mostly the approved schedules and consequent invoices that Jarvis hadn’t paid. The conference room phone rang several times while Meg was reading, and she listened with half an ear while Abe fielded the calls.

  “No, no, Jacob. This is just the moment to keep a cool head. They’re hoping you’re going to run scared. Just sit tight and don’t sign a damned thing until we have a face-to-face with them next week.”

  A few moments later the phone rang again.

  “It’s for you, Meg.”

  “I’m so sorry to track you down like this,” Lark said. “But Oliver told me you were at Abe’s, and I didn’t know exactly when you were coming up this weekend. Will you be here in time for dinner tomorrow?”

  “Sure. I already told you I plan to be there by mid-morning,” Meg glanced over at Abe, frowning. “That’s all you wanted to know? When I’d get up to Red River tomorrow?”

  “No, Meggie. I just needed to hear your voice. I’m… I’m kind of shook up.”

  “What’s the matter, baby?” When Abe heard Meg’s tone, he got up from his chair and came around and leaned against the front of the desk. Meg looked up at him while Lark explained.

  “I’ve spent the whole afternoon down at the police station. This is the third time they called me in. Tom wasn’t even there this time, it was those damned state detectives. They kept asking me the same things. Over and over. They know all about Ethan….”

  “Calm down now,” Meg said soothingly. “It’s going to be all right. They’re just being thorough.”

  “Thorough! They’ve gathered every dirty piece of gossip about Ethan that they could find. Every ugly little thing that they could lay their hands on. And they have the nerve to play it all back to me, saying: ‘Now tell us, Mrs. McGowan, did you know that your husband came on to your own sister a month ago?

  “So they know about me?” Meg asked, as Abe shook his head in sympathy.

  “That little tramp must have told them,” Lark said and Meg could hear tears in her voice. “I’m so upset. I can’t believe they’re still asking questions. They want to talk to you, too, Meg. Next time you’re in town, they said. I didn’t tell them when you’d be coming.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll leave here first thing in the morning….”

  “I’m driving up tonight,” Abe cut in, and Meg was startled by the urgency of his tone. “Right after work. You’ll come with me.”

  There was hardly anyone on the road by nine-thirty when they finally left. Abe had been detained at the office and Meg had gone back to her apartment to pack a few things. She’d met him at his garage near Lincoln Center. The drove in companionable silence for the first half-hour, listening to Abe’s favorite jazz station from Newark.

  “Lark didn’t say anything to you about Lucinda’s hearing, did she?” Abe finally asked as the station’s frequency began to fade. He clicked off the radio.

  “No. Neither has Lucinda,” Meg said, turning to him in the dark.

  “So, you’ve been in touch with her?”

  “Yes. I stopped by to see her on my way back after Ethan’s funeral. And we talk on the phone.”

  “So she’s told you that she and Boardman are not exactly hitting it off.”

  “She calls him an old fart. I think that’s a pretty good indication of how she feels about him.”

  “He’s a very smart lawyer, Meg,” Abe told her. “She’s lucky to have him. But she’s giving him very little to go on. Can’t remember anything the day Ethan was murdered. Didn’t realize she was pregnant. Doesn’t have any idea who the father is. If you’re trying to help her, then give her some advice, tell her to work with Boardman.”

  “I don’t think she’s trying to be difficult. I think she really can’t remember. She blacked out. Either because she was so high or because she saw something that was so terrible her mind just couldn’t cope with it.”

  “You’ve been giving this a lot of thought,” Abe observed. He turned to look at her, then looked back to the road.

  “Enough to think that Lucinda didn’t kill Ethan.”

  Abe was silent for a moment. Then he asked, “And the argument for the defense is …”

  “What she told us that day we both visited her. She went down to confront him about me … and found him with the pontil already in his heart. Already dead. Her hands were burned pulling the pontil out.”

  “She could have gotten burned when she drove the pontil into him, you realize. He was a big man, you would
need a lot of force, plenty of momentum to puncture his clothes, skin, ribs. It could have slipped in her hands when she was killing him. Don’t let that one piece of this puzzle convince you of anything.”

  “It’s more than that,” Meg said. “It’s Lucinda herself. What’s her motive? She was going down to the studio simply to tell him to leave me alone. Yes, she was angry. Upset. But not homicidal.”

  “So she tells you,” Abe said. “There’s still the question of the pregnancy. There’s just no proof one way or the other that he didn’t rape her. And it was Lucinda, after all, who destroyed the evidence.”

  “I know. A case can be made both for and against her. But I happen to believe she’s innocent—viscerally, instinctively, that’s how I feel. Maybe I’m wrong, but the question I keep asking myself is why am I the only one who seems to be on her side?”

  They were silent for a time as Abe concentrated on driving. A new moon cut a fragile scythe in the clear starlit sky above the gently rolling hills. The tires sang on the highway.

  “It’s not that I don’t share some of your concerns,” Abe said. “Or agree with some of your conclusions. But if I were you I’d be very careful about this business of taking sides.”

  “Meaning?”

  “There are really only two of them. The prosecution and the defense. And if you take Lucinda’s side, you’re going to be staring across the courtroom at your own sister. Is that something you’re prepared to do?”

  “Do you really think it’s going to come to that?”

  “It could. The hearing to set charges and bail is coming up soon. I just want you to know what you’re doing, Meg. Once the town knows your feelings about Lucinda, you’ll find yourself sitting on a powder keg.”

  Lark had left the front porch light on, but the rest of the house was dark. Abe pulled into the turnaround and let the car idle as Meg reached into the backseat for her overnight bag. She thanked him for the ride and was about to climb out of the car when she thought to ask him a question that had been troubling her.

  “Why did you hate him, Abe? Because he was a womanizer? Some might say that Ethan just did what every man secretly longs to do.”

  “Sleep with a lot of beautiful women—yes, plenty of guys would be made very happy by that. But manipulating them? Coercing them into believing that somehow love is involved? Sex, I can understand. Fucking around with someone’s mind? That’s despicable.”

  “I still can’t believe I was so wrong about Ethan. That I just didn’t see things.”

  “You know, I hear that sort of thing every working day of my life: ‘I can’t believe that I didn’t know my business partner was robbing me blind,’ or ‘Why didn’t I realize that my wife was having it on with my kid’s soccer coach?’ People see what they want to see, what they need to see. On a certain level you have to trust your fellow man—your best friend or your wife or, in this case, your brother-in-law—that the face he presents to you is the real one. You can’t live your life being suspicious of everyone. The thing to be aware of is this: every once in a while you’re going to come across someone like Ethan—someone very smart, very good at his game, very dangerous.”

  “But how will I know, Abe? That’s my problem—I feel that if this happened with Ethan again tomorrow, I’d react in just the same way.”

  “At some point with Ethan, didn’t a little bell go off inside you? Somewhere deep inside? I don’t mean all the moral considerations you must have been dealing with because of Lark and the kids. I mean, a warning about him. Didn’t something inside you whisper ‘beware’?”

  “Years ago, yes.”

  “Remember that next time. Trust that early warning signal. Listen to your instincts. After all my years as a lawyer and all the hard luck stories I’ve heard, I’ve come to believe that people always know when they’re being screwed, they just don’t want to believe it. They can say they didn’t know, but they knew. Your wife comes home late smelling like she’s just showered? And you think: isn’t it great that she always smells so clean. Isn’t it wonderful that she’d such a clean, hygienic person! I’ll tell you what. Even as you tell yourself all that, you know. She’s dirty as hell.”

  Later Meg would realize that Abe wasn’t just talking about his experiences as a lawyer. What he’d learned about betrayal, he’d learned a much harder way. But at that moment all her thoughts were stopped by the pressure of his hand on her shoulder as she started to climb out of the car.

  “What?” she turned back to him. He drew her closer. He reached over and touched her left cheek, the tip of her chin. Then in a swift, impulsive movement his arms were around her. They’d kissed before—quick hellos, pleasant thank yous—and this was not that. She hadn’t realized until that moment just how much she missed being held, feeling someone’s body against hers, knowing in an immediate and intimate way that she was wanted and desirable. It took her totally unawares, and yet, strangely enough, she wasn’t surprised. It almost felt as though she’d been waiting a long time for this. For the pressure of his lips … the taste of him on her tongue. A deeper, stronger need stirred beneath it all.

  “Nothing,” he said, sitting back finally, stroking her cheek. “Just be careful, okay? I don’t want anything but good happening to you from now on.”

  22

  When Meg looked out her guest bedroom window on Saturday morning, she saw a white Ford minivan parked in front of the house. JUDSON GALLERY was scripted in elegant teal letters across its side panel. Meg showered and dressed. The house had been busy and full of people since Thanksgiving, friends and neighbors stopping by to lend support and catch up on the latest gossip. Though Meg kept hoping to see Abe’s Saab among the cars pulling into the turnaround, she’d remained disappointed.

  It wasn’t yet nine-thirty by the time she followed the voices onto the porch, but the sunlit room was already filled with visitors: Hannah and Clint were sitting with Brook and Phoebe at the long farm table. Fern, smashing bananas with a plastic spoon, was perched kitty-corner to the foot of the table in a high chair. Lark came in from the kitchen with a platter of French toast, Janine right behind her with a pitcher of orange juice in one hand and a bottle of maple syrup in the other.

  “Meg, hey, I didn’t want to wake you,” Lark said as she handed Clint the platter. “Hannah’s here with some news about Ethan’s work.”

  “I thought it more fun to tell you all in person,” Hannah said, smiling around the table. Fun? Meg knew that Hannah was simply not the kind of woman who would travel two and a half hours first thing in the morning for such a lighthearted reason.

  “Come on, everybody dig in,” Lark said, as she sat down beside Fern, wrested the spoon from the infant, and attempted to actually deposit some of the mashed banana into her daughter’s mouth. Meg watched with amusement as Hannah tried not to look horrified when Phoebe, seated to Hannah’s left, picked up a piece of French toast with sticky fingers and plopped it down on Hannah’s plate.

  “For you,” Phoebe said, smiling proudly up at Hannah.

  “Why, thank you, darling,” Hannah replied. “But I’ve already had my breakfast. We’ll make this yours, and I’ll just have a little juice.”

  “We can’t wait a minute longer,” Janine said in her little-girl voice. She seemed to have put on much more weight since the last time Meg had seen her. Though her complexion remained luminous, with a peaches-and-cream richness, a roll of fat overflowed the collar of her shirtwaist, and gaps were visible around the buttons on her floral-printed dress where her breasts and stomach stretched the material. “What’s your news?”

  Hannah Judson was not a woman to be hurried. She reached for the juice, took a careful sip and put the glass down again. She dabbed her perfectly clean lips with a paper napkin. Clearing her throat, she looked across at Meg as she said, “The Guggenheim has decided to take one of Ethan’s pieces.”

  “The Guggenheim museum?” Lark mused. “How did this happen?”

  “They believe your late husband was a unique
innovator in his field,” Hannah replied, enunciating as though she were talking to someone hard of hearing. Meg could tell that Hannah had expected her news to be greeted with far greater enthusiasm.

  “That’s wonderful,” Meg said. “And it must mean that Ethan’s artistic stock goes up as well. Along with the prices for his work, I’d imagine?”

  “Of course,” Hannah said. “This is a pivotal moment in any artist’s career. The sad thing is that with Ethan … well, now that he’s gone … his work is even more valuable. The old question of supply and demand. I’ve had several buyers call already asking what else I might have by him.”

  “There’re at least twenty other pieces in the icehouse by the studio,” Clint said. “Taking up a lot of room we could use for the new store outlet.”

  “I’d love to see whatever’s left,” Hannah said, turning her perfectly groomed smile on Clint. Meg could feel how much she wanted to get her hands on the rest of Ethan’s work, and she doubted it was just for the money the sales would generate. Hannah, Meg knew, believed that she had discovered Ethan, had given him his big break, had helped to create him. There had been a tone of personal pride in her announcement about the Guggenheim sale. And, even more troubling, a sense of entitlement as she asked to see Ethan’s remaining glass sculptures.

  “I don’t think you’ve had the chance to inventory them yet, have you. Lark?” Meg asked, trying to divert Lark’s attention from feeding Fern to the more pressing subject at hand.

  “I’d be happy to help you,” Hannah put in smoothly, giving Meg a quick glance. “I brought a printout with me of Ethan’s recent sales. We should talk at some point about a new pricing strategy. I don’t want to be accused of gouging, but the five thousand dollars we were asking before is simply too low in light of the Guggenheim sale.”