Almost True Confessions

by Jane O'Connor

  “The body was found around ten thirty. On nonworkdays that’s when Ellen would be out for a run. The woman had dark hair. They said she was in her thirties.”

  “Look. I’ll call Ellen’s building. Maybe somebody has seen her since you called. If not, I’ll ask the doorman to ring her bell.”

  “Would you? Oh, Rannie, thanks! I know it’s probably nothing. But after Ret Sullivan . . .”

  “We’re absolutely not going there.” Rannie had to hand it to herself: she really could pull off sounding like a soothing voice of reason, and happily Dina couldn’t see how Rannie’s hand was sort of trembling as she took down her number.

  “What’s up?” Tim asked. She could see he’d started filling in the Monday crossword. After hearing the gist of the conversation, all he said was “Call her building.”

  Rannie did. The four-to-twelve P.M. guy hadn’t seen Ellen, and when he called back a few minutes later, the news was not what Rannie had hoped to hear. He’d checked the apartment. It was empty and he found a half-packed suitcase in her room. Even more upsetting, a neighbor had reported seeing Ellen that morning. She was heading out for a run.

  “What now?”

  Tim didn’t answer. He was at her laptop. He scribbled down something and handed it to her. “The hotline number. Look. In all likelihood your friend is okay. But call and put your mind at rest.” Rannie took the piece of paper. “Think of things that’ll disqualify her as the victim. A chipped tooth, an odd birthmark, scars, a tattoo, a piece of jewelry with initials. Anything like that.”

  Rannie nodded. Disqualify. Up until this very moment, the word had always carried a strictly pejorative meaning. Like “exile,” it seemed harsh, punitive. Now disqualification was the hoped-for goal, although Rannie found herself hard-pressed to list Ellen’s singular physical attributes: she was the sort of woman whose looks were pleasantly unremarkable. Okay, Ellen had brand-new boobs. But would they count? Who knew how many brunettes in their late thirties had the same silicone accessories. “She always wore one of those Irish rings with clasped hands,” she told Tim.

  “A claddagh; I gave one to all my high school girlfriends. You need to do better than that.”

  “Okay, she used to wear a nose ring. But she stopped when she turned thirty-five. You could still see a tiny hole. And she had a whitish scar over one eyebrow. She told me her brother bashed her with a badminton racket when they were kids.”

  Tim sat beside her on the couch while she dialed the hotline number.

  “My name is Miranda Bookman and I am calling about the murder in Central Park this morning. I’m hoping to rule out any possibility that the victim is a friend of mine.” Then she launched into a long-winded, roundabout, and overly detailed account of what prompted her worry, only to be interrupted and told, “Please hold while I transfer you to the hotline.”

  After robotically repeating everything to a cop, Rannie was comforted—somewhat—when told that calls to the hotline had been pouring in all evening. “It’s unlikely, ma’am, that your friend is the victim. So,” he said crisply, “what I need is for you to describe her as best you can, anything unusual about her, a scar, a birthmark, tattoo, things of that nature.”

  Rannie did. She completed her description of Ellen, adding one more detail that suddenly came to her: the nail on Ellen’s left thumb had a permanent split in it. There was a second of silence; the moment seemed to stand still and stretch out interminably, like the second before you heard the results of a scary medical test. Rannie’s throat began to close, almost in a gag reflex, as the cop in a much graver tone said, “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’ll need you to make an identification.”

  A street address was supplied, but Rannie didn’t fully register anything except that the word “morgue” was uttered. Tim must have taken her cell because he was speaking into it, saying, “Yeah, she’ll be down there as soon as possible. Yeah, I know where it is.”

  He got her coat and helped her into it; both her feet felt like they had fallen asleep and her arms didn’t seem to be working properly. “I don’t want to do this.”

  “Nobody does.”

  Tim’s Toyota was, true to his earlier claim, parked smack-dab in front of the Dolores Court. Rannie climbed in on rubbery legs and, as soon as the engine was running, turned on the heat full blast, which did nada to stop her teeth from chattering.

  Rannie didn’t say a word during the entire car ride. Instead she played pointless obsessive-compulsive games—Neurotics’ Solitaire—with herself. . . . If Tim could drive ten blocks before having to stop for a light, if she could hold her breath until he spoke to her, if her cell phone rang before they reached their destination—the NYU Hospital complex—well, then the body she was about to see would belong to somebody other than Ellen.

  The medical examiner’s offices were housed in a building on First Avenue and Thirty-Third Street. The viewing room was on the second floor, which seemed odd to Rannie: Didn’t a subterranean tomblike location seemed more fitting for the activity at hand? A large picture window, with a shade-like contraption pulled across it, was cut into an interior wall. Rannie clutched Tim’s hand as a doctor, a light-skinned black woman with freckled cheeks and a space between her front teeth, came in to explain what Rannie would see—a body lying on a stretcher with a sheet draped over it to the neck—and emphasized that it was important for Rannie to take a careful look. “I understand why folks want to get this over with fast, but you want to be sure when you say yes or no. Okay?”

  Rannie nodded obediently. Tim told her to take a couple of deep breaths and then said, “She’s ready.”

  The doctor pressed what appeared to be a doorbell button by the window. The shade began to open. Involuntarily, Rannie’s eyelids snapped shut. But then she forced herself to look.

  Ellen. It was Ellen. Rannie was 110 percent, beyond-a-shred-of-doubt sure. Ellen had been an angsty, antsy person, her hands always in motion, her face continually changing expression, registering any slight degree of emotional change. Now, under pitiless fluorescent light, her features were arranged in an imperturbable, solemn expression, immobile in a wholly permanent way; there was no rise and fall of the sheet covering her body.

  “Yes,” Rannie managed. Her eyes fixed on the small beauty mark on Ellen’s upper lip, something that Rannie had forgotten in her list of possible “disqualifications.” “Yes. I’m sure.”

  Rannie sank into a chair. Tim, squatting down next to her, awkwardly wrapped an arm around her. Rannie shrugged him off. She didn’t want to be touched, comforted. She wanted to be left alone. A tall, pleasant-looking guy—someone her dad might have described as a “long drink of water”—entered the room, flashed a badge, and identified himself as Sergeant William Grieg. As he questioned her, carefully taking notes, Rannie realized that for all the years she and Ellen had worked together, for all the umpteen million hours they’d spent in each other’s offices or over sandwiches, dissecting and analyzing the smallest bit of drama at S&S, she could actually provide few facts about Ellen. Rannie had to take a pass on Ellen’s exact date of birth, middle name. Still, the effort to supply answers postponed thinking about the only question that really mattered. Why was Ellen dead?

  “I know Ellen grew up in Ann Arbor and has an older brother,” Rannie told Grieg. “As far as I know, both her parents are alive. I think they live in Connecticut now. Beyond that”—Rannie shrugged—“I’m sorry.”

  When he was done, he said, “I don’t want Ms. Donahoe’s identity released until we’ve notified the family, understood?”

  Rannie nodded obediently. “How did she die?” There were no bruises on Ellen’s face.

  “She was stabbed. Death occurred almost immediately.”

  Maybe she was supposed to say “Well, that’s a blessing.” All she did was nod again.

  “Ms. Bookman, I’m going to let you go home in just a minute. But first, can you tell me if your friend received threats of any kind recently? Any bad breakup? A jealous ex?
”

  “A long-term romance ended a few months ago. But the guy ended it, not Ellen.”

  Grieg asked for the name anyway. “Now take your time on this—is there any reason, no matter how far-fetched you think it might be—for Ms. Donahoe to be worrying about her own safety?”

  Ooh, that was tricky. “Well, she was the editor of a new book by Ret Sullivan that will be published very soon.”

  He kept on writing but cocked an eyebrow.

  “Ret’s murder really shook up Ellen. . . . Me, too,” Rannie added. First Ret. Now Ellen. Bad luck came in threes. How good were the odds that sometime in the near future she’d be lying in state on the other side of that fake window? “I was the one who discovered Ret Sullivan’s body on Saturday.”

  The writing stopped. “You?” Maybe it was all in her head, but suddenly he seemed to be giving her the hairy eyeball.

  “Yes. I was sent to Ms. Sullivan’s apartment to pick up a book manuscript. I’m a copy editor.” Rannie pressed her lips together, recalling Ellen’s frightened voice messages. “Ellen worried that Ret Sullivan was murdered because of something in the book. Ellen was scared that perhaps she was in danger too. But I don’t—”

  The cop cut her off. “What’s the book about?”

  “I’m not supposed to say.”

  The idiocy of her reply struck Rannie even before Tim said, “Rannie. Come on.” Homicide, after all, trumped a confidentiality agreement, so she divulged the subject of the book. “But believe me, the—the book is quite flattering. Nothing like Ret Sullivan’s other books. A lot about Charlotte Cummings’s social life and her jewelry and her dogs.” Suddenly a passage from the book describing Charlotte’s beloved doxies, Himsy and Hersy, at their weekly beauty parlor appointment caused a loony giggle to erupt from Rannie. All she could picture were the dogs under tiny metallic helmet-shaped hair dryers. She clapped a hand over her mouth and bit down on her lower lip, but that only made things worse. More convulsive tittering. Oh, God!

  Tim placed both hands firmly on her shoulders. “It’s okay. You’re in shock. It’s natural. Can I take her home now?” he asked the cop.

  The cop nodded. He gave them each a card. “We’re going to want to question you again, Ms. Bookman. But it can wait.”

  “You don’t think that the two murders are linked?” The childish plaintiveness in her voice embarrassed Rannie. But she wanted to be offered some kind of escape hatch.

  “They are being treated as separate investigations.”

  Would what Rannie had just told him change that?

  “Come on. Let’s get out of here.” Tim maneuvered her into her coat and steered her to the elevators.

  “Ellen, poor Ellen. She just got new boobs. They were still under warranty.” Rannie started sobbing loudly in the elevator. Why remembering this set off a crying jag, Rannie couldn’t fathom, except that people like Ellen didn’t get murdered.

  After her first visit to the plastic surgeon, Ellen had called Rannie. “I can’t believe I’m doing this! But I’ve always hated my body and I’m going for it, Rannie.” Before hanging up, Ellen had giggled and then warbled off-key, “BORN TO BE W-I-I-I-LD!”

  Back in the car, his eyes on the traffic, Tim said, “I want to stay over tonight.”

  It would be a first. In all the years since her divorce, no man had ever spent the night.

  “Chris is staying at a friend’s tonight, working on some physics project.”

  Rannie remained silent. After their linguine dinner, she’d wanted nothing more than to see who could get naked the fastest. Now all she wanted was to swallow an Ativan and see how quickly it knocked her out. Of course she understood that Tim wasn’t looking for a night of go-for-broke fucking, but—perversely—knowing that his intentions were selfless made her defensive, contrary, and irritable. On the other hand, what if Nate was still out? Did she really want to go back to an empty apartment?

  “So?” They had reached 107th and Amsterdam. “Do I drop you off or look for a spot.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Look for a spot, I guess,” she muttered ungraciously.

  Chapter 12

  As they entered the apartment, Rannie composed herself. No way in hell was she letting Nate know where she’d been. And what would she say anyway? “Where was I? Oh, just had to dash down to the morgue to identify a murder victim. No, sweetie, not the woman I found the other day. Someone else.”

  Fortunately, Nate had the typical teenager’s interest in her work life—zilch. He’d never met Ellen. So even if Nate heard about a murder in Central Park, he’d remain ignorant of any link it had to Rannie as long as she kept her trap shut.

  “Honey, I’m home,” Rannie said plastering on a smile that felt like a cross between June Cleaver’s and the Joker’s. It was all for naught. No Nate, only a note, a scolding one at that: “No food here so I went out.”

  “What’s he talking about?” Rannie said to Tim as she pointed to the dining room table, where the serving bowl with linguine remained half full. Ditto for the salad bowl. And Nate knew there was always a ready supply of Skippy’s superchunk peanut butter, Smucker’s raspberry jam, and Wonder bread, which together provided nourishment as well as comfort any time of day.

  “Know what? I’m desperate for a PB&J.”

  “Make it two.” Tim followed her into the kitchen.

  Rannie slung her bag and coat on a counter and began constructing two perfect sandwiches with exactly the correct ratio of peanut butter to jam. Focusing on mundane tasks, getting out plates, pouring glasses of milk, pushed away, at least for the moment, where she’d been and what she’d seen. But she hadn’t even taken bite one when her cell started trilling inside her bag. She fished it out. The number wasn’t instantly familiar.

  “Oh, God, what if it’s Dina. Ellen’s assistant. What’ll I say?”

  “Don’t answer,” he said and took the phone from her. “You’ve been through enough tonight. Besides, the cops have to notify the family first.”

  Rannie nodded. They sat at the counter, eating in silence. According to the clock it was only ten after ten. Exhaustion made it feel hours later. Tim was yawning.

  Rannie looked at him. “I better leave Nate a note.” Then she made a face. “How do I put it—about you staying?”

  “Keep it simple, Rannie. Say ‘Tim’s here.’ Nate’ll get it.”

  So she said exactly that on a Post-it that she stuck on top of Nate’s note. Tim was right, of course. Keep it simple: Don’t answer Dina’s phone call. Don’t overexplain to Nate. Tim did his best to live by the touchstones of AA. The problem was that, for Rannie, nothing, with the possible exception of making a peanut butter sandwich, ever seemed simple.

  When she returned to the kitchen, Tim’s plate was clean. “Come on, kiddo. Finish up. I’m beat.”

  “Okay, but I want to turn on the news. Maybe there’s an update. Or something on Ret.”

  She saw Tim’s face grow red.

  “Never mind! Forget I said it! Bad idea!” she said.

  Too late.

  Tim’s fist came pounding down on the counter. “I don’t get you, Rannie! I really don’t!” he erupted. “We just came from the fucking morgue. Can’t you give it a rest?”

  This wasn’t the first time he’d blown up at her; nevertheless, it always caught her off guard. Tim angry was scary. And he was incapable of being merely a little pissed off or somewhat irritated; he always went straight from zero to enraged.

  “Ellen was my friend! I want to know why she’s dead. Why is that so crazy?”

  “Oh, no! I know you! There’s more to it than that! You remember the last time you decided to do a little investigating? Huh? Do you? You nearly got tossed off your roof.”

  Rannie didn’t reply. Tim continued to stare at her, shaking his head, but already she could see the fury had subsided. He looked repentant. “You make me nuts. You really do,” he finally said, rubbing his forehead and raking a hand through his hair. “I just don’t want anything happening to y
ou.”

  “I know.” Then suddenly Rannie grew alarmed. “Hold on. Is there stuff you’re not telling me that you’ve heard? ’Cause if there is—”

  He cut her off. “No. I’m just trying to explain how I feel and doing a shit job of it.” Then with her napkin, he came over and wiped peanut butter off the corner of her mouth.

  Right then the front door opened.

  “Ma?”

  “In the kitchen,” she called with false cheer.

  A second later Nate appeared. “Hey,” he said to Tim. He took in the open jars of peanut butter and jam. “So Ma has you hooked?”

  Had he seen the note? Maybe so because Nate avoided eye contact with Rannie and beat a hasty retreat to his room.

  “Come on. No more dawdling,” Tim said a moment later. Rannie took the hand he extended and followed him to her bedroom. They took turns brushing their teeth and flossing. Then they undressed, Tim stripping down to boxers.

  “I’m warning you. I’m a covers hog,” Rannie said as she pulled back the quilt. “And I feel about as sexy as I look.” She was wearing a Chapel School T-shirt, XX-Large, which came down to her knees. That and a pair of white cotton socks.

  “Understood.”

  In a minute they were both settled in bed, Tim behind her with an arm cradled around her shoulder. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck.

  “Sorry I lost it before. Didn’t your mama warn you about the Irish?”

  “Lucky for you, I never listened to anything she said.”

  He held her closer and kissed her hair.

  Rannie let out a long, slow sigh and in a little while her eyelids grew heavy and her body began to relax, her muscles unknotting one by one. Here in the darkness with Tim beside her, she could almost trick herself into believing that the world outside the bedroom, where such horrible things happened, didn’t exist. There was nobody else she wanted to be with.

  Then—was it five minutes or five hours later?—she awoke. Her mouth was dry and she was shivering; somehow the quilt had migrated to the other side of the bed and morphed into a cocoon with Tim inside it, in an annoyingly peaceful sleep. Rannie fumbled for her glasses and peered at the clock. Almost three. She drank a glass of water in the bathroom and padded back to bed, where first she gave Tim a gentle tap, and when that didn’t work, poked him hard in the back.