by Jeff Miller
“Long Beach?”
“She was going to launch it at a writer’s conference in Long Beach, California, but they canceled the conference, so we moved it back here to DC. I guess you want to know when the Bubble Gum Thief might have planned the murder.”
The newspaper’s awful moniker seemed to be sticking. “Something like that.”
When Benton closed her calendar, the paper cut her index finger. “Dammit!” She dug through her purse and found a Band-Aid. “I cut myself all the time,” she said, wrapping it around her finger.
“Did Ms. Whitman have enemies?” Dagny continued.
Benton laughed in a loud, halting manner. “Have you ever read her work? Of course she had enemies.”
“Had she received death threats?”
“Hundreds of them. Thousands, probably. You should have them already.”
“Do you know why Michael Brodsky was with her when she was killed?” Nothing Dagny had asked before this had mattered much to her. This question was the reason she’d come to see Benton.
Benton tilted her head and flashed an anguished frown. “You loved him, I guess?”
“Why would you say that?” There was no way she could have known.
“Because you’re crying.” Benton handed her a box of tissues. Dagny took a few and wiped her eyes. When she looked down at the tissues, they were soaked with teardrops.
No use pretending. “I loved him very much.”
“Then you must be in awful pain right now.”
“You have no idea.”
“I think I do.” Benton opened another drawer and pulled out a photograph and handed it to Dagny. It showed a young Candice Whitman holding hands with a young Michael Brodsky. They stood to the side of a stage in a television studio. “Candice loved him, too.”
Dagny stared at the photograph. His hair was longer then. Stubble on the face. Eyes the same. “When—”
“It was her first time on television. She was nervous as could be. Could hardly speak a sentence. But he calmed her. He was always a rock, for her. Helped her gain confidence. She had been timid, fragile. But he gave her...” She didn’t complete the thought. “When they drifted apart, I told her it was a big mistake. That she was letting something wonderful slip away. She would nod in agreement, but she didn’t really hear me. Didn’t hear anybody. Everybody was telling her that it was a mistake. And yet I helped her do it.” Benton grabbed a tissue and dabbed her eyes. “I helped her climb further and further away. Got her jobs in New York, sent her all over the world, always traveling, always chasing something bigger. But that’s what she wanted. And it was my job to make it happen.”
“Why was he at the book signing with her?”
“We had dinner, the night before. Candice and I. I could tell she wasn’t happy, and I pressed her on it. She was almost always up, up, up, so it was strange to see her so down. I asked her what was wrong, and she looked at me and her face started to crinkle real tight, which isn’t easy to do with all that Botox, and I realized that she was holding in tears, forcing herself not to cry. And she said, ‘What have I been doing?’ It was the first time I heard her doubt herself. The first time ever. She shook her head, and just kept shaking it. I thought she was trying to shake herself out of it, shake off the pain. I don’t really know what she was trying to do. And then she said, ‘I miss him so much.’” Benton grabbed another tissue.
“And then?” Dagny whispered.
“The next morning, I called Michael. Asked him to meet her, talk to her, just to check up on her. He was as close as anyone had ever been to her. Wanted to see if I should really be worried for her, or if it was just a fleeting sadness. So it was my fault he was there. It was my fault he was killed. It was my fault she was killed, too, because I put her there as well.” Benton started to sob.
Dagny waited for Benton to regain her composure, and then grabbed a couple of tissues in case she lost hers. “What did Michael tell you when you talked to him? Did he say he was single? That he was still interested in Candice?”
“Oh, no, no, no. Honey, no. That wasn’t why he went. When I asked him to come, he said that he had fallen in love, that he’d found ‘the one,’ and that Candice was someone from his past. That he and Candice were over, but he still cared about her and that he would show up and check on her. But that was as far as it could go because...well, I guess, because of you.”
Dagny finally had an answer to the question that had troubled her most, and even though it was the answer she wanted, it left her feeling hollow, empty, and mostly, ashamed. Ashamed that she had doubted Mike, and ashamed that she had used the investigation to mollify her insecurities.
The key turned. No one had changed the locks.
Dagny pushed open the door and stepped inside. She moved slowly along Mike’s Wall of Shame, lingering at the van Eyck. Rounding the corner, she entered the kitchen and fetched a glass of water.
She remembered visiting Thomas Edison’s Florida home when she was little. Even though it had been preserved to look exactly as it did when Edison was alive, it didn’t feel like a home. It felt like a museum. That’s what Mike’s house felt like now—a museum. Straight ahead, you’ll find the couch where Mr. Brodsky liked to read the newspaper. And here is the kitchen. Mr. Brodsky liked to cook. He wasn’t much for measuring things. A pinch here, a handful there...
She shook off a couple of tears, set her glass on the kitchen counter, and wandered upstairs to his studio and her beautiful bronze doppelgänger. This room, she thought, should feel like a museum, but instead, it felt like home. She ran her fingers along the arm of her twin, then closed her eyes and touched its face and hers. She compared cheek to cheek, nose to nose, mouth to mouth. It was her—Mike had gotten her completely.
“He was in love with you,” a woman’s voice rang out, startling Dagny. “More in love than he had ever been before.” Dagny opened her eyes. The woman before her wore a navy blazer and matching skirt. Her grey hair curled inward at her shoulders.
“Mrs. Brodsky?” Dagny asked.
The woman nodded, then approached the sculpture. She looked it up and down, and then did the same to Dagny. “You weren’t at the funeral.”
“I was—”
“You should have been at the funeral. I don’t care what you were doing.” Mrs. Brodsky circled around the sculpture, tracing a line around its waist. “You’ve lost weight since he made this.”
“Maybe,” Dagny muttered. She should have been at the funeral.
“It was a lovely service. No bland sermonizing or forgetful pastor. Just a lot of friends and family members sharing stories about Michael.” She spoke with a confidence and authority that made Dagny feel like a little girl.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Brodsky.”
“You could have shared some things about him, too, Ms. Gray. If you had come.”
“I’m sorry.”
Mrs. Brodsky touched the forehead of the sculpture, then touched Dagny’s forehead to compare. “You feel warm. I think you have a fever.”
“I’m okay.”
“I’m sure you’re not.” She started to walk toward the stairs, then looked back at Dagny. “Please come.”
Dagny followed her down to the first floor and took a seat on the couch in the living room while Mrs. Brodsky mixed herself a drink at the bar. “I’m not an alcoholic. I’m just in mourning. Would you like something?”
“No, thanks.”
Mike’s mother went to the kitchen and poured a glass of orange juice. “You need something,” she implored, handing the glass to Dagny before sitting in the chair across from her. “Now tell me why you weren’t at the funeral. Were you working on his case?”
“Yes.” Dagny sipped the orange juice. Aside from water, it was the first thing she’d put in her body in two days. “How did you know?”
Mrs. Brodsky pointed at Dagny’s glass. “Don’t just sip it. Drink the whole thing.” Mrs. Brodsky finished her drink and walked to the bar to pour herself another. “Do you have a
ny leads?”
“We’ve started down the right path, I think, but we’re still a long way from identifying a suspect.” One hundred thirty calories—a big glass of sugar. At least it was fat free. Dagny drank every drop, hoping to avoid another reprimand.
“Will you catch him?”
“I don’t know. Probably not.”
“But yet you chase him?”
“It’s the only thing I know how to do.”
“Mr. Fabee told me that you weren’t supposed to be working on Michael’s case, and that I should tell him if you approach me about it.”
“I’m not working Michael’s case, per se. I’m working on the predecessor crimes.”
“If you’re not working his case, per se, then why are you here?”
“Because I miss him. I miss him so much.”
Mrs. Brodsky sipped her drink more slowly this time. She leaned back in her chair and sighed. “My name is Marjorie. It’s nice to meet you. My son loved you very much.”
“I loved him very much, too.” She started the sentence calmly, but was in tears before she finished. Marjorie walked over and embraced her. “I loved him so much, Mrs. Brodsky.”
“Please, dear. Call me Marjorie.”
CHAPTER 30
April 1—Salt Lake City, Utah
Rachel Silvers was thinking about Rolland Feller when she raised her hand and said, “Necesito ir al cuarto de baño.”
“Tome el pase y apresúrese.”
She didn’t really have to use the bathroom—she just wanted a five-minute reprieve from the pluperfect tense. She could stretch it to fifteen if she walked slowly. A hustle to the classroom door and then a leisurely stroll down the halls, counting floor tiles and reading the flyers on the bulletin board. Drummer wanted. Yearbook sales. Tickets to Prom.
Prom.
In some ways, Mount Tyler wasn’t much different from any other high school in America. The administration complained about the budget, and parents complained about the curriculum. Some of the teachers were good and some were bad. There were smart kids and dumb kids and kids in between, and most of them eventually found their place in standard-issue high school cliques, like the Jocks and the AP Geeks and the Vegans and the Boys Who Grew Beards at a Freakishly Young Age. But there was one clique at Mount Tyler that subsumed all the others. And because Rachel didn’t belong to this clique, she felt forever out of place at Mount Tyler High School, forever out of place in Salt Lake City, indeed, forever out of place in all of Utah. Because her parents didn’t believe that Joseph Smith discovered God’s message on golden plates buried in the ground of Hill Cumorah in Manchester, New York, she was a social outcast.
Something looked different in the bathroom mirror, and then she realized it was a smile. And not just a slight smile, but a big, dumb, goofy grin. A very cute boy had asked her out during lunch, and not just any very cute boy, but Rolland Feller. He was a junior—the starting tight end for the football team, a benchwarmer for the basketball team, and he could have played baseball, too, if he’d wanted, which he didn’t. It was just dinner and a movie—a simple little date, but maybe an audition for Prom. And since Rolland hung with the popular crowd, an invitation to Prom could be an entrée into a better life.
As long as she didn’t blow it with Rolland.
Back in Señora Bertlesman’s class, her eyes drifted out the window, watching her brother climb into his beat-up Camry. Early dismissal was the big perk for seniors at Mount Tyler, but Rachel was just a sophomore. She couldn’t leave early. She couldn’t even drive. Not yet, anyway. But next year Jack would be away at Stanford, and the Camry would be hers.
If the bell rang, Rachel didn’t hear it, but she noticed that students were gathering their books and leaving the classroom, so she did the same. She stopped at her locker to pick up some books. A picture of Grace Kelly hung on the inside of the locker door. She tore it down. It made her weird, and she had decided not to be weird anymore.
She felt silly riding the school bus. It made her feel young—like a kid—and she didn’t feel like a kid anymore. She couldn’t wait to drive—for Jack to leave, and for the stinking Camry to be hers. Maybe they could trade in the Camry for something nicer. It didn’t have to be expensive or fancy. Maybe a cute little Kia, even a Honda Civic.
“Heard about Rolland,” Penelope Morton sang in her ear from the seat behind. Penelope was on the cheerleader squad—not one of the most popular three members, but still a lot more important than Rachel. “That’s pretty cool.”
What’s pretty cool, Rachel thought, is that you’re talking to me. “Yeah. We should have a good time.” Was that stupid?
“He’s a good guy. Better than most boys.”
It suddenly occurred to Rachel that she hadn’t the slightest clue how to propel a conversation forward. Something—she had to say something. “Are you still dating Bobby?”
“Yeah.”
“How long have you guys been going out?”
“Two months and twelve days.”
“You guys going to Prom, I guess?”
“We are. I just picked out the dress.”
Somehow it worked. They were talking. “What’s it like?”
“It’s lavender, and it’s silky, and it has layers that sweep across like this.” Penelope made a diagonal line with her hand, cutting left to right across her chest. “But it’s not at all tacky. It looks nice.”
“It sounds nice. Where did you get it?”
“Nordstrom. But it was on sale. It’s not like it cost that much or anything. You should look there. The sale ends next week.”
“I haven’t been asked to Prom.”
“I’m sure you will be. Just don’t blow it.”
Yikes!—what did that mean? “Yeah, I know,” Rachel said. But she didn’t know.
“Just remember that if you need to do something, you can always just use your hands.”
Was Penelope kidding? Rachel hoped she was kidding. The bus stopped in front of Rachel’s house. “Gotta go.”
As she walked up the driveway, she noticed that the house looked strange. It took a second to realize that the blinds were down and the house was dark. Maybe no one was home, she thought. But Jack’s car was in the drive. Weird. She heard a loud whir overhead. Just the KSL traffic copter, flying low. She watched it pass. The Crane boys were shooting baskets in their driveway, and the smaller one waved to her. She waved back and fished through her backpack for her keys. They must have fallen to the bottom, buried beneath the books. She knocked on the door, but there was no answer. She fished some more, found her keys, pushed the house key into the lock, and turned the knob.
“I’m home!” she yelled, tossing her backpack next to the door. She walked through the foyer to the living room. The bodies—her mother, father, and brother—were tossed in a pile on the floor, blood still flowing from their wounds. She took one step toward them, and then a hand reached around from behind and covered her mouth. Another reached around from the other side and held a card in front of her eyes.
THIS IS MY SEVENTH CRIME.
MY NEXT WILL BE BIGGER.
The assailant tossed the card to the ground and brought a gun to her head. She wanted to die with a happy thought, so she was thinking about Rolland Feller when the bullet tore through her skull.
CHAPTER 31
April 2—Salt Lake City, Utah
The Silverses’ house was in a treelined subdivision, nestled in the woods at the base of the mountains, set back on a yard now cordoned off by yellow tape. Neighbors gathered in their driveways, wearing their robes and pajamas, sipping coffee and sharing gossip. About twenty cars, most rentals, lined the streets. At least thirty agents stood outside the house, waiting for something to do. Only a handful had been allowed inside. Each additional person represented another contaminant.
Dagny grabbed her backpack as she and Victor hopped out of the car. An old woman in a bathrobe and slippers approached from the side and tugged at her elbow. “Are they okay?” she asked,
but Dagny just ignored her and kept walking toward the house.
She and Victor held open their credentials as they pushed through Fabee’s Fabulous toward the front door. A tall man with a severe buzz cut blocked their entry. “Sorry, but we’re full.”
“Is Fabee here?” Dagny asked.
“Assistant Director Fabee is here,” he said sternly.
“Tell him Dagny Gray would like to come in.”
Buzz Cut leaned over to another agent and whispered something in his ear. A minute later, Fabee appeared at the door. “Sorry, Dag, but we’re a little full right now.” His Texas twang was in full force. “If you let us finish up, we’ll get the scene in presentable order for you.”
“With all due respect, Justin, I need to see the scene before it’s picked apart. I’ll leave Agent Walton outside.” Dagny worried that this might hurt Victor’s feelings, but he actually looked relieved.
“We’ve got eight in here right now, and that’s a heavy load.”
“I’m small,” Dagny said. She needed a fresh scene, so it was time to press the issue. “I don’t want to have to tell the Professor we weren’t allowed in.”
Fabee laughed. “Like he’s going to call his buddy over this.”
Dagny just held his gaze.
“Yeah, well, fuck you, too,” he said, handing her plastic bags to wear over her shoes.
“Over here is where he stacked them,” Fabee said, pointing to the living room. A pool of mostly dried blood had stained the carpet a deep red, but there were no bodies to be seen. Two trails of blood led to the large pool in the center of the carpet; one from the left rear opening of the room to the kitchen, the other from the right rear entrance to a hallway. A technician was gathering blood samples. Another was lifting fibers from the living-room carpet.
