The Spellman Files

by Lisa Lutz

  Rae, now five, discovered me the next morning and shouted out my location to our mother. “Isabel’s sleeping outside.” I slowly came to as my mom stood over me. Her expression was a hybrid of confusion and annoyance.

  “You slept out here the whole night?” she asked.

  “Not the whole night,” I replied. “I didn’t get back until three.”

  I picked up my coat/pillow, casually walked inside the house, and climbed the two flights of stairs to my attic apartment. I slipped into bed and grabbed three more hours of sleep. Added to my porch rest, that was almost seven hours total, which was well above average for me at the time. I woke somewhat refreshed and worked my full shift.

  That same night, I arrived home just after 11:00. I had my keys this time and unlocked the front door. It opened just a crack. Apparently the security chain had been attached. I shook the door a couple of times, testing the strength of the chain, wondering if this was some kind of not-so-subtle hint from my parents. Then my mother came to the door, shushed me, shut the door in my face, released the chain, and let me in.

  “Be careful,” she said as she blocked the door and left only a small triangle for entry. I slipped inside and followed her gaze to the floor. There was Rae, bundled up in her sleeping bag, clutching her teddy bear, sound asleep.

  “Why is she sleeping there?” I asked.

  “Why do you think?” my mother snapped back.

  “I have no idea,” I said, trying to keep the brusqueness out of my voice.

  “Because she wants to be just like you,” my mother said, as if she had a bad taste in her mouth. “I found her on the porch two hours ago and after twenty minutes of coercion I managed to convince her to sleep in the foyer. You’re setting an example here, whether you like it or not. So don’t drive drunk, don’t smoke in the house, cut down on the swearing, and if you’re too wrecked to make it up the stairs to your bedroom at night, don’t bother coming home. Just do that for me. No, do it for Rae.”

  My mother, exhausted, turned around and walked up the stairs to her bedroom. I did change that night. I did what I had to do to keep Rae from becoming the mimic of a fuckup like me. But my mother set the bar too low; I was still me and I was still a problem.

  Phase #3: The Missing Shoe Episode

  Before I opened my eyes, I knew something was amiss. I could feel a breeze overhead and heard the hum of a ceiling fan, which led me to the logical conclusion that I was not in my own bed, since I don’t have a ceiling fan. I kept my eyes closed as I tried to piece together the night before. Then I heard ringing and quiet grumbling—the human kind—the male human kind. The ringing, or subtle chirping, was my cell phone. The moan was from a guy I must have met last night, although if pressed, I couldn’t tell you where. All I knew was that if I didn’t find my phone before it woke him up, awkward small talk would ensue. I knew I wasn’t in the mood for small talk, because when I opened my eyes and sat up in bed, my head began throbbing violently. Fighting back nausea, I staggered through the room, which was a dump and I’ll leave it at that. I found my phone under a pile of clothes and muted the sound. Then I noticed DAVID SPELLMAN on the screen and I clicked open the receiver and walked into the hallway.

  “Hello,” I whispered.

  “Where are you?” He didn’t whisper.

  “In a café,” I answered, thinking that would make him less suspicious of the whispering.

  “Interesting, since you were supposed to be in my office fifteen minutes ago,” he fumed. I knew I was forgetting something. Besides the last twelve hours, that is. I had a 9:00 A.M. meeting with Larry Mulberg, head of personnel for Zylor Corp., a drug company that was considering outsourcing their background checks. David occasionally throws business in our direction with clients of his firm. Although I was twenty-three at the time, I still would not have been charged with such a delicate responsibility, but Mulberg had called for the meeting at the last minute, offered no other scheduling option, and Mom and Dad were out of town on business. I suppose they could have asked Uncle Ray to handle it, but generally he refuses to get out of bed before 10:00, and Lost Weekends come on unexpectedly, just like the flu or a skin rash.

  While I was more than comfortable committing run-of-the-mill screwups, blowing the chance at bringing in another hundred thousand dollars a year to the family business was not a screwup I or my parents could afford. I tore through random male’s apartment, gathering my clothes and dressing as if it were an Olympic sport. I was already contemplating a professional career when I realized that I couldn’t find my other shoe—the match to the blue sneaker already on my right foot.

  I limped down Mission Street like Ratso Rizzo. As I staggered along, I tried to come up with a plan, one that involved me showing up at the meeting with two shoes and freshly showered. But it’s hard to find new footwear before 9:00 A.M. and I was running out of time. I checked my wallet and found a three-dollar BART ticket. I trod carefully down the piss-stained stairs of the Twenty-fourth and Mission station and began rehearsing my apologies to David.

  I arrived on the twelfth floor of 311 Sutter Street thirty minutes after my initial conversation with my brother and fifteen minutes late for my meeting with Mulberg. I should mention that David, at this point, was an associate at the law firm of Fincher, Grayson, Stillman & Morris. After high school, he attended Berkeley, graduated magna cum laude with a double major in business and English, and then went on to Stanford Law. I believe it was law school that destroyed David’s sympathetic patience. By the time he was recruited by Fincher, Grayson in his second year, David had learned that not all families were like ours and that being perfect was nothing to feel guilty about. In essence, David discovered that I was not his fault and abruptly ceased his habit of compensating for me.

  I entered the Fincher offices through a back entrance to avoid detection. I was hoping David had kept Mulberg in the reception area, so I could have a chance to clean myself up before I was seen. I wove through the mazelike hallway, trying to remember precisely where David’s office was located. He spotted me first and yanked me into a conference room.

  “I can’t believe you go to cafés looking like that,” David said.

  I realized I probably looked worse than I thought and decided to come clean. “I wasn’t in a café.”

  “No kidding. What was his name?”

  “Don’t remember. Where’s Mulberg?”

  “He’s running late.”

  “Late enough for me to go home and take a shower?”

  “No,” David replied, looking down at my feet. He then stated the obvious with sullen disappointment. “You’re wearing only one shoe.”

  “I need a Coke” was my only response. The nausea was kicking in again.

  David was silent.

  “Or a Pepsi,” I offered.

  David grabbed me by the arm and led me down the hallway, through the main corridor, and into the men’s restroom.

  “I can’t go in there,” I protested.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m a girl, David.”

  “At the moment, it’s not even clear that you are human,” David smartly replied as he dragged me inside. A suited man was standing at the urinal, overhearing the last bit of our conversation as he finished up.

  David turned to the suited man, who was zipping his fly. “Excuse the interruption, Mark. I need to teach my twenty-three-year-old sister how to wash her face.”

  Mark smiled uncomfortably and exited the bathroom. David placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me squarely toward the mirror.

  “This is not how you show up for a business meeting.”

  Finding the courage to look at my reflection, I saw that my eye makeup had migrated halfway down my face and my hair, stringy and tangled, was bunched up on one side. The buttons on my shirt were askew and it looked like I had slept in it. Because I had. Then there was the problem with my wearing only one shoe.

  “Clean yourself up. I’ll be right back,” David said.


  Rather than request a transfer to the women’s restroom, I stayed put and did as I was told. Once I finished scrubbing the dirt and makeup off my face and gulped a pint of tap water directly from the spout, I retreated to a stall to avoid any further contact with my brother’s colleagues. At least two men entered and urinated while I was waiting for David to return. I began daydreaming that he’d find it in his heart to bring me a Coke on ice.

  “Open up,” David said, as he banged on my stall. I could tell by the tone of his voice and the timbre of the bang that he was Coke free. I opened the door and David handed me a newly starched men’s oxford shirt in a 38 regular, along with a stick of extra-strength deodorant.

  “Put these on,” he said. “Quickly. Mulberg is waiting in my office.”

  When I exited the stall, a pair of women’s sandals was waiting for me on the floor.

  “Size seven, right?” David asked.

  “No. Size nine.”

  “Close enough.”

  “Where did you get those?”

  “From my secretary.”

  “Since you’re so good at persuading women to remove their clothes, maybe you could get the rest of her outfit,” I suggested.

  “I could, but your ass wouldn’t fit in it.”

  We finished assembling my slapdash ensemble and concluded that while I looked remarkably unfashionable and unattractive, I no longer appeared hungover and irresponsible. David sprayed me with his cologne as we left the men’s restroom and ventured into our meeting.

  “Great. Now I smell like you.”

  “I wish.”

  Larry Mulberg was hardly a fashion plate himself and I suspected he would have no comment about my substandard attire. David’s secretary entered the office in stocking feet and asked if anyone would like a beverage, and I finally got my Coke. The meeting went well: I explained to Mulberg the financial benefits of outsourcing background checks and gave him a thorough overview of my family’s expertise in that area. I’m rather good at talking nonrelatives into things, so Mulberg bought it all, not once noticing the green tinge to my complexion or my bloodshot eyes.

  I detached the size-seven sandals and handed them back to David’s secretary, thanking her profusely. Returning to my brother’s office, I changed back into my wrinkled shirt and reluctantly tossed my abandoned sneaker in the trash.

  “David, can you loan me cab money?” I asked, gesturing at my bare feet, expecting some sympathy. David, already behind his desk hard at work, stared at me coldly. He reached into his back pocket, took out a twenty, and left it on the edge of the desk. He then returned to writing his brief.

  “Well, uh, thanks,” I said, after I took the bill. “I’ll pay you back,” I continued, heading for the door. I almost made it out of the office before David finished me off.

  “Make sure I never see you like that again,” he said slowly and deliberately. It was not a piece of advice.

  Then he ordered me to leave. And I did. In that moment I realized that the role of the raven-haired golden boy David played to my mousy-brown fuckup was not the plum part I had always imagined. It occurred to me that while I was egging the neighbor’s yard, David never had the chance to try it himself. Destruction and rebellion are a natural part of adolescence. But David, always cleaning up after me, compensating for me, lost that essential rite of passage. Instead, he became a textbook son. And his only flaw was that he didn’t know how to be imperfect.

  I believe that miraculous transformations, the kind that usually involve a preacher smacking you over the head, are rare, so rare that when they do occur, they often cause suspicion. While my change was hardly on the scale of a miracle, it was substantial. Yes, you could still find me in a wrinkled shirt, or downing a few too many, or uttering an inappropriate comment, but you wouldn’t find me leaving messes for other people to clean up. That part I stopped cold turkey.

  Initially, the wave of distrust precipitated by quasi-responsible Isabel was profound enough to almost cause a relapse. My mother was convinced it was some kind of sinister trick and questioned my motives with the skepticism of a research scientist. For at least two weeks straight, my father said around the clock, “All right, Isabel, what gives?” Uncle Ray, on the other hand, appeared genuinely concerned and suggested that vitamins might help. In fact, for the first few weeks, New Isabel prompted more hostility than Old Isabel. But I knew it was only a matter of time before I would build the trust, and when it finally happened, I could almost feel the breeze from the collective sigh of relief.

  THE INTERVIEW

  CHAPTER 2

  The mythology that surrounds my work is impossible to shake. The lore of the gumshoe has had decades to flourish in our culture, but not all myth is based in fact. The truth about the PI is that we don’t solve cases. We explore them. We tie up loose threads, perhaps uncover a few surprises. We provide proof of a question for which the answer is already known.

  Inspector Stone, on the other hand, does solve mysteries. Not the tidy ones from crime novels, but mysteries nonetheless.

  Stone consults his notes in an effort to avoid eye contact. I wonder if it is me or if it’s what he does with everyone, in order to shield himself from their pain.

  “When was the last time you saw your sister?” Stone asks.

  “It was four days ago.”

  “Can you describe her mood for me? The details of your interaction?”

  I remember everything, but it doesn’t seem relevant. Stone is asking all the wrong questions.

  “Do you have any leads?” I ask.

  “We’re looking into everything,” Stone replies, the standard police response.

  “Have you talked to the Snow family?”

  “We don’t believe they were involved.”

  “Isn’t it worth checking into?”

  “Please answer my question, Isabel.”

  “Why don’t you answer mine? My sister has been missing for three days now and you’ve got nothing.”

  “We’re doing everything we can. But you need to cooperate. You need to answer my questions. Do you understand me, Isabel?”

  “Yes.”

  “We have to talk about Rae,” Stone says in an almost hushed tone.

  I suppose it is time. I’ve been postponing it long enough.

  RAE SPELLMAN

  Born six weeks premature, Rae weighed exactly four pounds when she was brought home from the hospital. Unlike many preemies who grow into normal-size children, Rae would always remain small for her age. I was fourteen at the time of her birth and determined to ignore the fact that a newborn baby was sharing my home. I referred to her as “it” for the first year, pretending that she was a recently acquired object, like a lamp or an alarm clock. Any acknowledgment I made of her presence was along the lines of “Can you move it outside? I’m trying to study,” or “Where’s the mute button on this thing?” No one found my objectifying remarks amusing, let alone me. I was not amused at all. I was terrified that this child would grow up to be another symbol of perfection like David. I soon discovered that Rae was no David, although she was extraordinary nonetheless.

  Rae, Age 4

  I told her she was an accident. It was over dinner, after she bombarded me for twenty minutes with questions about my day. I was tired, probably hungover, and in no mood to be interrogated by a four-year-old.

  “Rae, did you know you were an accident?”

  And Rae started laughing. “I was?” It was her habit back then to laugh whenever she didn’t understand something.

  My mother gave me her usual cold stare and began damage control, explaining that some children were planned and some were not, et cetera. Rae seemed far more baffled by the concept of planning a child than not planning one and grew bored with my mother’s unnecessary discourse.

  Rae, Age 6

  Rae begged for three days straight to be allowed on a surveillance job. The begging was relentless and inconsolable. It was the on-her-knees, clasped-handed, insistent-whine-of-pleeeeease kind of
begging that continued for most of her waking hours. Eventually my parents gave in.

  She was six. Six, I repeat. When my parents told me that Rae would be joining us the next day on the Peter Youngstrom surveillance, I suggested that they’d lost their fucking minds. My mother apparently had, shouting, “You try! You try listening to that begging all day long! I’d rather have a toenail slowly removed than go through that again.” My father seconded that with, “Two toenails.”

  That night I showed Rae how to use a radio. My father hadn’t updated the equipment for a few years. While the radios were perfectly utilitarian, they were also the size of Rae’s entire arm. I stuck the five-pound electronic device into her Snoopy backpack, along with some fruit roll-ups, packaged cheese and crackers, and a couple of Highlights magazines. The mouthpiece I slipped through the opening of the backpack and clipped to the collar of her coat. I showed her how to reach through the zipper opening and adjust the volume on the radio. Then all she had to do was press down the button on the mouthpiece when she wanted to talk.

  We began the detail outside the subject’s home at approximately six o’clock in the morning. Rae awoke at 5:00 A.M., brushed her teeth, washed her face, and dressed. She sat by the door from 5:15 to 5:45 A.M., until the rest of us were ready to leave. My father told me I could take a lesson. As we waited in the surveillance van three doors down from the subject’s residence, Rae and I once again tested and reviewed radio procedures. I reminded her that crossing a street without being given the okay from Mom or Dad would result in a punishment so awful, her young mind could not envision it. Then my mom reiterated the street-crossing rule.