Whisper to Me

by Nick Lake

  “She’d want you to help me,” I said.

  He flinched. “Low blow, Cassie,” he said. Then he put his hands on my shoulders. “Listen. You have to drop this. Promise me you’re going to drop this.”

  “I promise,” I lied.

  Dwight put his head in his hands. “****,” he said. “****.”

  I should probably send him an apology letter too.

  A picture, in my head:

  Paris enters a dark house by the ocean. She thinks she’s meeting some guys for a bachelor party.

  Then … what?

  Someone hits her over the back of the head? She falls, seeing stars, scuffs her hands on the linoleum floor. There is graffiti on the walls; she can smell the acrid scent of urine.

  She turns; it makes fireworks of pain go off in her head. She sees a cop standing by the door, in his uniform.

  Thank God, she thinks.

  But then he takes a step toward her. And he smiles. And he raises the hammer again.

  Why should it be a hammer? I don’t know. I just get these images. I wish I didn’t. I wish I could make them go away.

  But we can’t always make things go away.

  The voice has taught me that at least.

  Another picture in my head:

  I’m with you, in the glow of sunset, sitting squashed together in a lifeguard stand, close to Pier Two. The lifeguard is gone, and the beach is empty apart from a few stragglers, apart from couples like us in the other stands; we were lucky to get this one, though pulling up in the company pickup probably worked pretty well to reserve it for us.

  It was inevitable we’d end up here, sometime. We’re both Jersey, and we follow the old paths, the old patterns. It’s in our blood, like bees swarming to the same tree, year after year.

  We were a boy, and a girl, and we were at the shore in the summer, and the lifeguard stand was there. Like a beacon.

  The late-evening sun is hitting us horizontal, heat-lamp warm on my skin. You put your arm around me, and I feel your strength, the sheer life of it, buzzing, and we spark like a plug and a socket held close together, like an arc welder; the energy of it is a jolt to my heart, defib pads; ka-bam.

  A seagull drifts past, eye level, on dirty white wings. Waves break whitely.

  “We should do this more often,” you say.

  “Hmm,” I say. I am merging with the sun, with the ocean, with you. I look at the white-hot disk in the sky and then my eyes put stuttering circles of light on everything—the sand, the waves, your face.

  “And go on a date.”

  “Hmm.”

  “A real date, like, movie and dinner.”

  I frown. “I can’t do that.”

  “You can’t do a date?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “My dad,” I say. “I can’t go out at night.”

  Now it’s your turn to frown. “Your dad works late almost every night.”

  I shake my head. “Too risky. He knows everyone. Someone might see us.”

  “You go out,” you say. Accusation is a seam of freezing cold quartz in the rock of your voice.

  A moment passes; the sun lowers one more increment; the seagull dives, splashes.

  “I …”

  “I’ve seen you leave. Take the bus. Last Thursday, right? You didn’t get back till late.”

  “Um, yes,” I say. Group, I think. But of course I can’t risk you finding out about that part of me.

  “So how come you can do that and you can’t go on a date with me?”

  “I just can’t.”

  You shift in the seat so you’re looking at me. I am very conscious of the steps leading up, white peeling paint in the sideways sun. I can hear the gulls, the ocean, cars, even, on the roads close to the pier, music. It’s as if the volume has been turned up on the world. I have a brief urge to jump, to leap down to the sand below. I might break my leg. I might not. I half close my eyes instead, and the sun makes butterfly wings of my eyelashes; iridescent. Glow fills my vision like lens glare.

  But this is incapable of stopping time.

  I know the question that is coming.

  I know it like you know the vibration in the track is a train coming, when you put coins on the rails, as a kid.

  And I can’t stop it anymore than I could stop a train.

  “Where do you go?” you say. “Where did you go?”

  “Nowhere.”

  “Nowhere?”

  “Yes.” I pause. “You don’t need to worry. It’s nothing like that.” But in my head, I’m thinking: Is that true? Is that true that he doesn’t have to worry? This is a question I don’t even need the voice to ask me.

  “I wasn’t worried. I just don’t get why you won’t tell me.”

  “It’s … personal,” I say.

  “I thought we were in a personal zone,” you say. “Like … getting to know each other.”

  “We are,” I say.

  “Apart from your telling me about your life. About why you looked so gray when we first met. Why you go off mysteriously. Why your dad seems so concerned about you.”

  “Yes,” I say, trying to lighten the mood. “Yes, apart from all that stuff.”

  You sigh. “So what are we supposed to do now?”

  I look at the glowing ocean, the boats bobbing far out, the surf, hushing below us. “Traditionally I think the idea is to kiss.”

  You smile, slightly, at that at least.

  “Okay,” you say.

  And you kiss me, and just like before, everything disappears—flash—like a magician’s trick, the stand, the peeling steps, the susurration of the ocean, the town behind us, the calling of the gulls, everything.

  There is only you, and the blackness, and the fireworks behind my eyelids, exploding across an infinite sky.

  Only …

  Is it just my imagination? Is it just retrospect, is it just what I know now that makes me think there’s a hesitation, a slight pulling away? A chink of light, in the darkness, flatter and harsher than the bursting rockets of my blood vessels, something bright and cold, a lamp for examining the cracks of things, for tilting them over, and revealing their flaws.

  My flaws.

  But it’s okay, I tell myself. It’s okay, because he’s still kissing you.

  But the magic is broken. And of course, it’s not like you’re kissing me now.

  I wish you were. I am looking at a stick insect instead. It does not seem like it wants to kiss me. And I wouldn’t want it to.

  I’m not that desperate.

  Yet.

  The next day, Julie called me. It was kind of out of the blue.

  “Um … hi,” I said.

  “Hi, Cass.”

  Silence.

  “Listen,” said Julie. “You want to come over later, maybe? Just … I don’t know. Just to talk.”

  I nodded, like an idiot, as if Julie could see that through the phone. “Uh, yeah, that sounds good,” I said. It did actually. “What time?”

  A couple of hours later I arrived at the condo. There was a police car outside, parked. Empty. I noticed it because I always noticed police cars, those days. I figured it couldn’t be anything to do with Julie, I mean she couldn’t be in trouble, but I quickened my pace anyway.

  I rode up in the elevator and went down the corridor, then knocked on Julie and Paris’s door. Julie’s door, I guess I should say. Julie opened it and the first thing she said was “Sorry.”

  “Sorry what?” I said.

  She inclined her head toward the living room. “There’s a cop here,” she said. “He just showed up.”

  “More questions?”

  “No. No … he’s the one who came. That night. When I called 911. He says he just wants to talk about Paris. He seems … upset almost.”

  “Weird,” I said. Thinking: The killer? “Do you think he … I mean … could he be …?”

  Julie shook her head. “No way.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’ll see
.”

  I followed Julie into the living area. A guy in cop uniform stood up and blinked at me, as if I were brightly lit.

  “Brian,” he said, holding out a limp hand to shake.

  “Cassie,” I said.

  Julie made coffee. The three of us sat there in the living area, drinking it. The others ate cookies, but I didn’t of course.

  “Paris made these,” said Julie. “They’re kind of stale.”

  Brian didn’t complain.

  For a while no one spoke. I was thinking: Julie was right. Because Brian did not seem like a killer. I mean, he had a little goatee and he kind of sniffled when he cried. He was weedy too—I couldn’t see him hoisting a body over the side of a boat. Or overpowering a prostitute, for that matter.

  “So, Brian,” said Julie after a while, after it became clear that Brian wasn’t going to break the ice. “What did you want to talk about?”

  “I don’t know,” said Brian.

  “Um. Right.”

  “I just … I wanted to talk to someone who knew her,” he said.

  A pause. Brian looked at me as if for help, but I didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to help him because I didn’t understand what he wanted.

  “Why?” said Julie. “Why do you want to talk to someone who knew her?”

  Brian looked down at the carpet between his feet. “Because I … I liked her. Loved her, I guess.”

  He looked up, then down again.

  “Oh,” said Julie.

  She met my eyes, and mouthed: What the ****?

  “I was … I was following you that night, you know,” said Brian, looking at Julie now.

  “You were following us?” said Julie.

  “Yeah. I mean, following Paris. But it was usually you who drove her, right?”

  “Yes,” said Julie.

  “Why?”

  “Because of the killer! Because I was worried about her. I kept telling her, she had to be careful. But she didn’t listen to me. She just laughed. She thought she was invincible.” Julie turned to me. “Immortal, you know?”

  “Yes,” I said. I did know. I could picture her laughing.

  “Well, I was the same,” said Brian. “That’s why I followed your car. I just … I just wanted to protect her.”

  “Yeah,” said Julie. “You didn’t do such a good job of that, did you?”

  Brian started crying. There was no warning: tears just started leaking out of his eyes abruptly.

  “Jesus ******** Christ, Brian, pull yourself together,” said Julie. I was starting to see why Paris had liked her. She was tough.

  “Sorry,” said Brian.

  Julie flinched. “No. I apologize. There was no need to snap at you.” I could hear her mom in her voice; it’s weird how people can do that, kind of scold themselves—it’s wired into them from childhood, I think. “It’s just … everyone was in love with Paris.”

  It was my turn to flinch. That was me, wasn’t it? I was just like everyone else. I didn’t mean anything to Paris. I was just one of the people, the little people who—

  “So,” said Julie, interrupting my thoughts. “You were there, already, when I dialed 911. Right?”

  “Uh-huh,” said Brian. “When dispatch put the call through, I was already on the scene. I just had to drive up. That’s how come I was so fast.”

  “You were there already,” I said. “So you could have killed her.” It was such a lame thing to say. So direct and unsubtle. But this is real life, where you don’t have time to think through everything you say before you say it. This isn’t some Nancy Drew story. That much is going to become rapidly obvious.

  “I loved her!” said Brian. “She was everything to me. And what are you thinking anyway? That I, like, murdered her in the house and then somehow hid her body and got back to my police car, and then drove up?”

  Put like that, it did sound kind of dumb.

  “I mean, how does that even work?” he continued. “We searched that house. What would I have done with the body?”

  “Maybe you hid her in the trunk,” I said, without much conviction.

  “Of my squad car? Yeah.”

  We sat there in silence for a moment.

  “How did you meet her anyway?” I asked.

  Brian blushed.

  “Oh,” I said, figuring out right away what the blush meant.

  “Yeah,” said Brian. “It was a party. She … did her thing.”

  “She took her clothes off,” said Julie, with a little acid in her voice.

  “But … it was more than that,” said Brian. “I mean, for me. She was … she was an incredible person. That sounds cheesy. But … she was, like, lit up, you know? Like neon.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Julie.

  There was another long moment where no one said anything. I got the sense Julie would very much have liked Brian to leave the apartment but was too polite to say so.

  “Okay,” I said finally. “So assuming you’re telling the truth, Brian, who do you think did kill Paris?”

  “Why?” he said. “Because you’re going to solve the case? Like some Nancy Drew ****?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  He stared at me for a moment, the smile slowly dying from his lips. “You’re serious?”

  “What are we going to do? Just forget about her?” I said.

  Brian turned to Julie. “You’re involved in this?”

  Julie shook her head.

  Oh great, thanks, Julie.

  “You should leave it to the agents,” said Brian to me. “That guy Horowitz is good. He blew my timeline in, like, a day. Confronted me about it. I mean, he knew I got there too fast. I had to tell him … what I just told you.”

  “But he doesn’t know who the killer is,” I said.

  “He doesn’t talk much. But I think he has a theory. I think he maybe has a suspect.”

  “You think?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No.”

  “And you don’t know who this suspect might be?”

  The most fractional hesitation. “No.”

  “Then we’ll keep looking,” I said.

  “I would say that it’s dangerous and that you totally should not do that,” said Brian. “But I don’t think it would make much difference, would it?”

  “No.”

  He sighed. “Okay. What’s your next move?”

  I shook my head. I had no clue. “You have any ideas?” I said.

  “You’re … what? You’re recruiting me to your little Nancy Drew gang?”

  “Will you stop talking about Nancy Drew?” I said.

  “And it’s not a gang,” said Julie. She cut me a look, a sort of angry look. Like she didn’t like me wanting to find the killer.

  “Anyway,” said Brian to me. “You want me to help you? This is crazy. I’m a cop.”

  “Exactly.”

  He sighed again. “I’m not going to help you get yourself killed.”

  Another awkward, quiet moment.

  “Hey, Cass,” said the voice.

  Oh, yes. Just what I needed. Come back after— I started saying, silently, inside my head.

  “No, wait,” said the voice. “Ask him why he thinks Horowitz has a theory.”

  “What?” I said. I realized I had said this out loud when I saw the others looking at me. “I mean … ,” I said to them, “… what am I supposed to do, abandon my friend?”

  Brian shrugged.

  “He hesitated,” continued the voice. “He hesitated when you asked if he knew who the suspect was.”

  I rewound my mental tape. The voice was right.

  You’re helping me now? I asked, silently this time.

  “I’m not allowed to help you?” said the voice.

  No, of course. Of course you can.

  “Good. So ask him.”

  “Why do you think Horowitz has a theory?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, he doesn’t tal
k much, he just—”

  “No. I don’t mean, what makes him have this theory? I mean, what makes you think that he has a theory?”

  “Oh.” Brian thought for a moment. I could see that he was weighing up the risks of talking to me. He seemed uncomfortable with the whole situation actually, and I figured that was good for me. It might make him talk, just to get out of there. “It was something he said about an alibi.”

  “Which was?”

  Brian looked at Julie for help, but she wouldn’t meet his eye. He looked back at me. “The dad, okay? Horowitz doesn’t like his alibi. Plus … the phone call. To Julie. Paris’s phone call, after she disappeared.”

  I thought for a second. “Because she told Julie not to call the cops?”

  “Yeah. Why do that? Unless maybe you know the person who has grabbed you.”

  Julie was frowning. “So, what, her dad who lives in New York just happens to come down to Oakwood and orders a stripper and thinks, ****, it’s my daughter, so he kills her?”

  Brian shrugged. “I guess not. But maybe the dad knows she’s a stripper. Comes down and hires her, to confront her about it. And things go wrong. Get violent.”

  A pause.

  It seemed plausible, I had to admit.

  “But his work colleague said he was with her that night.”

  Brian’s mouth was open. “You know about that? How?”

  I shrugged. “I know a lot of things.” This was basically straight fronting—there was a lot I didn’t know—but Brian looked impressed, and that was enough for me.

  “Yeah, well, Horowitz said anyone could say that. No real way to verify, unless they went to a restaurant or something, which they didn’t.”

  I stood up, my head spinning.

  Paris’s dad.

  Maybe not the Houdini Killer at all.

  Maybe her own dad.

  “See?” said the voice. “Now you’re getting somewhere.”

  Say you’re a father, and you abused your daughter in some way when she was growing up.

  You’re not a nice man.

  Then one day you hear that she’s doing sex stuff for money, down in New Jersey, where you pay for her to attend college.

  Say you’re a psychopath, maybe.