And She Was

by Alison Gaylin

  She saw Nelson Wentz in her mind, Nelson Wentz, lying in bed, fragile in his undershirt. Nelson, whom Lydia had clearly used as a smoke screen. Oldest trick in the book—spread rumors you’re screwing the unimportant little guy, it steers everyone away from the big guy you’re really screwing. During her tenure with Errol, she’d seen five different mistresses pull the exact same scam, yet still she’d assumed Lydia had been telling Gayle Chandler the truth.

  You’re honest. You expect other people to be the same.

  She stared out her window, recalling her conversation with Nelson. I’m not going to be in need of your services anymore, he’d said, without explanation, his voice so hollow and still. You hire a PI because you need answers, Nelson. Did you find the answers? Is that why you fired me?

  Brenna squeezed her eyes shut, focused on the road. She would leave Tarry Ridge. She would leave Nelson Wentz. She would leave Nick Morasco and all the ghosts that haunted Lydia Neff’s house. She would try to not think about the past three days. She would try to move on. She would fail miserably.

  It is July 29, 1985, 9 A.M., and Brenna is finishing a bowl of instant oatmeal she made for herself. Ricky D the deejay says, “Next up, Talking Heads!” and then the song. “And She Was.” About a girl slipping into thin air. Brenna’s friend Carly says it’s about an acid trip, but Brenna thinks it’s just about disappearing.

  In the garden outside, Mom is sitting cross-legged in the grass. She is staring up at the sculpture she made—an exact replica of Ammannati’s Neptune. Nude and burly and bearded, looking over his left shoulder like he just heard someone sneaking up on him. Neptune is embarrassing, but he’s been here so long he’s also sort of a comfort.

  Mom carved him out of a huge slab of expensive marble that arrived at their house one week after Dad left. Brenna had been just seven years old at the time—she can barely remember her dad’s face now—but she can remember that marble slab, five men unloading it from the back of a big truck.

  “What are you going to make with that, Mom?” Clea had asked.

  And Mom had replied, “Someone that won’t ever leave.”

  Now Clea’s gone. She’s been gone for almost four years. Brenna knows she’s alive because she has to be. Brenna wonders if Clea’s heard this song. “And She Was.” She pictures Clea, closing her eyes and listening to those words and singing along about a world of missing persons . . .

  Brenna wonders if Clea ever pictures her. She wonders if Clea ever pictures Mom, sitting cross-legged in her garden, not having spoken to Brenna in three days. She wonders if Clea has any idea how much it hurts to watch Mom out the window, staring up at Neptune’s face as if he can talk, as if he is telling her why everyone here seems to leave but him.

  “I’ll find her,” Brenna whispers. “I’ll find Clea for you, Mom.”

  Brenna put the car in park and turned off the ignition. She hadn’t crossed Muriel Court as she’d told herself she would. She had made a left, driven down four blocks, and pulled up in front of Nelson Wentz’s house—what she’d wanted to do all along. Fire me if you want, but I need the answers, too, Nelson. You don’t have to pay me. I just need to know.

  Brenna leaned on Nelson Wentz’s doorbell for a solid minute. No answer. Nelson was home, though. His car was in the driveway, so he was either (a) avoiding her or (b) zonked out on sleeping pills. Brenna wasn’t going to let him get away with either. She walked over to the plastic rock by the bay window, twisted it open, and took out the key.

  Once Brenna got inside the house and closed the door behind her, she called out Nelson’s name. No answer, but she did hear water running upstairs. “Nelson?” she yelled again. “It’s Brenna!” She took a few steps into the living room. “I need to talk to you!”

  No answer. He obviously couldn’t hear her down here. She’d wait in the living room until he finished his shower.

  She walked over to the couch. It had been moved a good foot back from its usual position. The throw rug, too, was against the window rather than in front of the fireplace, and the wooden bust of Don Quixote at the center of the coffee table rather than on the mantelpiece. Weird . . . for Nelson, anyway. Did he think he was turning over a new leaf? Was this barely noticeable redecoration part of that? She sat down on the hard wooden chair—her usual chair, she realized, and that’s when she noticed something under the easy chair, Nelson’s chair. A book. A book on the floor? In Nelson Wentz’s house? The water was still running, the pipes above her groaning. Brenna crouched down, peered under the chair, and slipped it out. Safekeeping: A Memoir. She flipped it open and started to read, sliding a fingertip under the dust jacket on the back cover . . .

  There was something taped back there. Brenna removed the dust jacket and saw it—a slim envelope, stuck to the inside of the back cover with what looked like an entire roll of Scotch tape, like Nelson was figuring on sending the thing off into space. No, not Nelson. Carol. This was Carol’s book club book. This was the book Carol had called Gayle about, the book Nelson had seen Carol reading on the last night of her life. Brenna’s mouth went dry. Her heart pounded. The envelope was slim enough to fit under the jacket of a book. Slim enough to fit behind a picture, in a frame.

  She pulled the tape off the envelope, freeing it. Then she held it in her hands for a few moments, debating the ethics of all of this before finally she succumbed. She had to open it. Of course she had to open it.

  In the envelope was a piece of paper, neatly folded. Brenna’s eyes went to the lines, drawn in red crayon. A stick-figure girl at the center of a giant flower, with squares drawn in the background, a sun poking out from the upper left corner . . . Another drawing of Iris’s . . . It was more detailed than the others yet it made less sense. Why was the girl trapped inside a flower? What were those squares supposed to be? Carefully, Brenna unfolded the drawing, wondering, Why was this hidden behind a picture frame?

  Three snapshots fell out, onto the floor.

  Brenna picked them up, turned them over . . . She gaped at them, these three happy vacation photos, all with a digital date of August 20, 1997. And then she took a breath and closed her eyes and looked at them again, one by one, staring hard into each, as if it might somehow turn to dust and poof away, as if she were stuck in some strange dream . . .

  The first was of Lydia Neff, tanned and young and smiling. She wore a white T-shirt and cutoffs, and leaned against the hood of a light blue Subaru Vivio Bistro. The second was of Lydia on what looked like a hotel bed, under the covers, an arm thrown over her eyes, sleeping. And the third . . . The third was of a naked man, on the same hotel bed. He was lying on his stomach and staring into the camera lens with an emotion so raw, so serious and true that Brenna herself could feel it, twelve years later and in the living room of a house where neither she nor the photo belonged. She could feel it, tightening in her chest until she could no longer look at him. It wasn’t her place to look. The emotion belonged to the man, and it was for the woman behind the camera, for her and her alone . . . The emotion was love. The man was Roger Wright.

  Not Meade. Wright. That was the affair Lydia Neff was trying to cover up by telling Gayle she was sleeping with Nelson. It was Roger Wright who’d been driving the company car before Meade had bought it. Lydia Neff hadn’t invited a gun-wielding psychopath into her house as her daughter slept. She’d invited a very rich, very powerful, very married man. A man who, at least for one moment in time, had looked at Lydia as though he would give it all up for her—his family, his fortune, all that and more. He loved her.

  Iris said that when Santa visits Tarry Ridge, he drives a blue car. It had been Wright leaving Lydia’s house when Nelson had gone to talk to her. Wright whose car Lydia told him to forget ever seeing, Wright whose car Iris had clearly seen as well. Brenna could imagine the conversation. She could practically hear it.

  Whose car was that at our house, Mommy?

  Nobody, honey.

  No, Mommy, no. I woke up in the middle of the night. I saw a blue car, leaving our
driveway.

  Oh. That was . . . It was Santa, sweetheart.

  Santa? Really?

  Yes. Sometimes he visits our house. But you mustn’t tell anyone or he will never come again.

  Brenna shoved the drawing and the pictures into her bag and ran upstairs. “Nelson!”

  No answer. Just the sound of running water.

  Brenna walked through Nelson’s bedroom to the bathroom and pounded on the door. “Nelson! It’s Brenna! I need to show you what Carol found.”

  Still no answer. She put her hand on the knob and the door drifted open. Steam poured out. The mirror was completely fogged. She stepped inside. It was like stepping into a rain cloud. How long had the water been running?

  “Nelson?”

  She caught sight of the note first, face up on the sink. Black pen on pale blue stationery, its edges curling from steam. Brenna read.

  “No,” she breathed.

  The smell registered, gripped in the steam, flat and foul. Why was she noticing it only now, that smell? Brenna didn’t want to turn around, but she did. She turned, and she saw him there, the poor man, poor sad Nelson Wentz, hanging from a towel hook right next to the shower, his own belt around his neck. Brenna felt the ripping pain of her own scream, but all she could hear was running water.

  Chapter 26

  It was the face that would stay with her—the pale skin, the two black eyes, the mouth wrenched open in a sick parody of a smile. Halloween makeup. That had been Brenna’s first, irrational thought, her mind trying to come up with excuses for what she was looking at—the lifeless body, hanging from the thick hook, one foot pushing against the faucet, the water running and running, hot and then cold for what must have been at least twelve hours. The water bill. That had been Brenna’s second irrational thought, which had lasted all of half a second before she’d started shrieking.

  Nelson Wentz was dead—the apparent cause of death strangulation from hanging. And though Brenna still couldn’t wrap her mind around it—so much of it didn’t make sense—the police seemed ready to rule it a suicide from the moment they arrived at the house. There had been no outward signs of a struggle or a break-in. Nothing different about Nelson’s home at all, save for the slightly rearranged furniture, which had gotten Brenna nothing but blank stares when she’d brought it up.

  And then, of course, there was the note.

  I can no longer live with the guilt. I killed my wife, Carol. I beleived her to be having an affair. I let my anger get the best of me. I am so sorry. God have mercy on my soul.

  Nelson Wentz

  As you would expect, Nelson’s handwriting was meticulous. Perfectly formed block letters, evenly spaced. The note was now in a clear evidence bag on the coffee table, surrounded by Morasco, Pomroy, and two other detectives whom Brenna had never met—a thickly built, red-haired woman in a plain navy blue wrap dress, and an older guy in a tie with anchors all over it, neither one of whom had bothered introducing themselves. Brenna, who had been briefly questioned by the group, now leaned against the crafts closet, watching them wait for the chief to arrive.

  The detectives said very little. Wrap Dress and Anchor Tie were sitting next to each other on the couch, their hands folded in their laps. They looked like a married couple being interviewed for a very boring documentary, with Pomroy, the meaty host, leaning against the window frame behind them. Morasco was at the edge of Nelson’s recliner, both feet on the floor. Throughout their sparse conversation, he kept glancing over at Brenna, which she found both a comfort and a distraction.

  “ . . . should be here any minute,” Pomroy was saying, and then Hutchins strolled in, the cue so obvious-seeming, Brenna half-expected a laugh track. He’d changed out of his golf togs and into a three-button, pinstriped suit—cut to fit him maybe five pounds ago, the back of the jacket tight and shiny through the shoulders.

  “How are we doing, men?” Hutchins said. “I hear we got a suicide note, no signs of a B&E, body discovered this morning . . .” Pomroy lumbered up to him and began rattling off specifics, and Brenna watched these two heavy men, her eyes dry and flat.

  Odd the way death settled into your system. After that initial panic, you went a little dead yourself, your heartbeat slowing, your emotions going numb. It was a coping mechanism, but it was also, Brenna thought now, a form of empathy . . .

  “Miss Bissel?”

  It took Brenna a few seconds to realize Hutchins was addressing her. She swallowed hard. “Hello.”

  He pointed to his forehead. “Like I said at the club, steel trap.” He gave her a tight, hard smile. “I never forget a name, even a fake one.”

  “Oh, well, that was—”

  “You know it’s against the law to misrepresent yourself to a police officer.”

  Brenna said, “I was doing my job.”

  Hutchins and Pomroy stared at her, that statement, in all its lameness, echoing in Brenna’s ears.

  “You’ve got to understand—”

  “Oh, I understand,” said Hutchins. “Just like you should understand that when I ran your plates after you accosted me in the parking lot, I was just doing my job as well.”

  Brenna said nothing. She was clenching her teeth so tight her jaw hurt.

  ”You can leave, Ms. Spector. You’ve given us all the information we need.”

  Three crime techs walked out of the house with their metal briefcases, and then two more emerged from the bedroom, carrying Nelson’s bagged body downstairs on a stretcher. It looked so small, almost like the body of a child.

  Brenna turned and followed, but she stopped when she got to where Morasco was sitting. He looked up at her.

  “He spelled ‘believed’ wrong.”

  “What?”

  Wrap Dress said, “I think the chief just asked you to leave.”

  Brenna ignored her. “Nelson Wentz,” she told Morasco. “He was one of the most anal people I ever met—a total perfectionist. And not only that, he edited encyclopedia articles for a living. Don’t you think it’s a little odd that a person like that would spell a word wrong in his own suicide note?”

  Brenna felt five sets of eyes on her, but she looked only at Morasco. “Think about it,” she said quietly. And then she walked out the door, and to the sidewalk, where she waited.

  Across the street, press cars and news vans kept arriving and parking until they formed a small herd. Cameramen were starting to unload their equipment, reporters checking their reflections in rearviews. Brenna watched them, flashing back for several seconds to Nelson’s press conference, until Hutchins strode out of the house and moved toward them, everything about him so broad—the smile, the wave, the body, doing battle with the expensive suit. He was the exact opposite of Nelson, and it brought Brenna back to the present. The other detectives followed—a Greek chorus with their smug expressions, all in perfect step except for Morasco, who headed straight for the sidewalk and up the street where his car was parked so quickly, he didn’t even seem to see Brenna as he passed.

  Brenna tore off after him, reaching him just as he was about to get into his car. She tried to say his name, but at that point she was so winded that all she could do was slap him on the shoulder.

  He spun around. “Brenna.” There was a flicker in his eyes—a warning.

  “I know you told me to drop the case,” she breathed, “but seriously, Nick, how could I?”

  She started to say more, but he cut her off. “When people are under stress,” he said, “they do things they normally wouldn’t.”

  Brenna moved closer, her breathing slowing. “What do you mean?”

  “Spelling words wrong.”

  She exhaled. “Oh.”

  “Normally, people aren’t stressed when they kill themselves. They’ve been through all of that already and the body creates a sense of calm.” He took a breath. “But as you and I both know, Nelson Wentz was not a normal man.” He sounded as if he were reading from a script.

  “Listen. We have to talk. I have something important t
o show you.”

  “I’m sorry. But we really can’t open an investigation based on one misspelling.”

  “Nick, what the hell—”

  “Sssh.”

  He glanced both ways, then stared pointedly into her eyes. “Washington Playground,” he said between his teeth. “Parking lot. Ten minutes.”

  The Washington Playground was clean, but surprisingly small and unassuming when compared to everything else Brenna had seen in Tarry Ridge—refreshing in a way, in its normalcy. There was a curving slide, a swing set, a dome-shaped jungle gym, and a huge sandbox, all of it perched on a neat green lawn surrounded by park benches, not a Teasdale plaque or statue in sight. The park was nearly empty. Two blond kindergarten-aged boys took turns on the slide, two middle-aged Hispanic women watching from one of the benches, chatting. That was it.

  Yet when Morasco walked up to her window and said, “Car or playground?” Brenna opted for the car. Better to be safe.

  Once inside, Morasco said, “Candy Bissel? From the Sleepy Hollow Review?”

  “Press. Not Review.”

  He gave her a look.

  “I don’t have a badge to flash. I get my information any way I can.”

  He sighed heavily. “What were you doing at Wentz’s, Brenna? I told you—”

  Brenna put a hand up, cutting him off. She took the envelope out of her bag and handed it to him. “This,” she said, “is what Carol took out of the picture frame.”

  Morasco looked at her. “How do you know?”

  “Open it.”

  Morasco slipped open the envelope, removed the crayon drawing of the stick-figure girl, trapped inside the flower. “Another picture by Iris?” he said. Then he saw the photographs and said nothing. He stared at each one, no sound in the car at all but his breathing, until finally, he spoke. “Wright and Lydia Neff.”

  She nodded. “The Vivio Bistro was a company car back then. It didn’t transfer over to Meade until 1999.”