The Pocket Wife

by Susan Crawford

  CHAPTER 40

  When Dana arrives at the restaurant downtown, Jack Moss is already waiting on the sidewalk outside E.Claire’s, an odd choice, she thinks again, watching him fidget as he glances up and down the street through glasses so dark they make her think of Ray Charles. She chose her outfit carefully—a flowing skirt and a fitted top with a flowered obi belt, strappy sandals with heels. Even though she’s apprehensive about why he’s asked to meet with her, she’s almost glad to be here. There’s something solid about Jack Moss, something portlike in the endless storm of Celia’s death. Dana’s hair is loose and curly with the cool of autumn, the dampness of impending, ubiquitous rain. A sudden gust of wind comes up from the water, and she ducks her head, grits her teeth against the cold.

  He stands outside the front door. It’s less crowded this morning than it often is at E.Claire’s. He stands awkwardly, checking his phone, amid thin, trim would-be nibblers, as Dana hesitates, catching her breath. She is invisible in the ocean of fluttery arms and scarves as she crosses the sidewalk.

  “Moss?”

  “Hi,” he says. “Wow! You look— I didn’t recognize you at first. Nice cummerbund.”

  “We women call them belts.” She smiles. “But thanks, Moss.”

  “Ready?”

  “Sure,” she says, “I’m ready if you are,” and together they pick their way through the trendy, flowery clientele of E.Claire’s.

  She orders more than she will ever eat. She orders Canadian bacon and scrambled eggs and an elaborate cinnamon roll. “Scram-Ham Shazam,” she announces to the waitress, “and a cup of green tea.” She notices that Jack Moss orders very quietly. He mumbles his order, and the waitress bends over slightly. “What?” she says. “Could you repeat that? It’s so noisy in—” And Jack barks out the silliness, the Jumpin’ Jack Black, the stack of Banan-Appeal pancakes.

  “So what do you think about the notes?”

  “I guess the question is whether you wrote them. I mean, do you think you wrote them?”

  “I guess I could have, but I don’t actually remember writing them. That’s why I wanted to see them again. To compare them to something else I wrote once when I was at NYU. When I had a sort of nervous brea— I was writing a lot then, a manuscript, very tiny writing all over the pages. I found some of them—some I didn’t throw out the window, actually—and I wanted to see if the writing was the same.”

  “Was it?”

  Dana leans back in her chair and crosses her arms. “Well,” she says, “it was hard to tell, but it didn’t really look the same to me. Except for the size.”

  “I’d like a sample of your writing, too, if you wouldn’t mind. I could send it to forensics to compare.”

  “Sure. Here.” She hands him one of the scraps of paper from the bottom of her bag, one of the many names she’s scrawled down.

  He takes a slug of coffee the moment it arrives—the Jumpin’ Jack Black—pockets the paper. “So who had access to your house?”

  “Everyone,” she says. “I had a brunch for the entire street.”

  “Wow!”

  “I was a little manic.” She shrugs. “I didn’t know half the people who showed up. And I was stuck in the kitchen most of the time, so really anyone could have—”

  “Any Scram-Ham Shazam involved?” he asks as their breakfast arrives with a loud clatter.

  “Nope. Badly scrambled eggs and cold fake sausage.”

  “Yum,” Jack says, starting in on his pancakes. “Maybe one of the neighbors was really pissed off about the food?”

  “Possibly. Except there’s the other note I found on the front seat of my car. I mean, the food wasn’t that bad!”

  “Right.”

  “But I don’t lock it.”

  “Your car? How come?”

  Dana shrugs. “I really love it here,” she says. “The ambience.”

  “Really?”

  “Well,” she says. “No. Actually it’s a bit fluffy. I have to say. It’s really not my cup of tea. I was surprised you like it so much.”

  “Me? I hate it! Thought you’d like it.”

  “Really?”

  “Well.” Jack wipes his mouth with a floral napkin. “No. I guess not. It was the first place that popped into my head.”

  “Which in itself says volumes about you.”

  “Right.”

  “Do you come here often with your . . . with your wife?”

  He shakes his head, chewing. “I was here once with someone from the prosecutor’s office, and I felt like I was trapped inside an off-off-Broadway play I didn’t quite get.” He leans over the table. “I thought the customers were from some dance company in the area.”

  Dana laughs. “I can see that.”

  “Actually, my wife left me,” Jack says, but just then there’s a flurry of activity behind him, a crowd coming in the door. He turns around to look; everyone turns around to look. The hostess strides across the lobby with menus, obsequious and apologetic. “Right this way, Your Honor. So sorry you had to wait,” even though he hadn’t. Or she—Dana can’t see who the hostess is talking to. She seats the party quickly at three or four tables pulled together, and they make quite a stir in the already noisy restaurant. Their raised voices, the rustling of garments, the clinking of water glasses being filled and dispensed, and occasional shrieks of laughter momentarily eclipse the clatter of the other diners.

  “Cotillion?” Dana takes another bite of her toast. “Prom? Or maybe they’re actual dancers from one of the—”

  “Naw,” Moss says. “They’re not skinny enough. I think that’s Judge Warner and his little flock of— Oh! There’s Lenora.”

  “Lenora?”

  “Lenora White. The first assistant prosecutor I told you about. The one who—”

  “Oh, yes. The one because of whom we sit here feeling dowdy and overweight.”

  Jack laughs. “Me, maybe. You, not so much.”

  “No. You’re wrong there. I think all non-anorexics might feel a little— Hey. Which one’s Lenora?”

  He turns around in his seat. “The second one from the far end. Left side of the table.”

  “You sure?”

  Positive,” he says. “Why?”

  “She’s not what I expected,” Dana says. Her heart flutters and pounds. “Here, I mean. This isn’t what I expected. It’s her! She’s Peter’s Ta— She’s the woman in Celia’s phone!”

  “You sure?” he says, but he doesn’t sound surprised, and Dana knows this is why she’s here, why he’s suggested this of all unlikely places.

  “Yes,” she says. “I mean, the picture was kind of not clear, and her hair was totally different. Blond. Longer. Same face, though. Yeah. I’m sure.”

  Dana stares across the room as Lenora bends forward, her eyes wide behind glasses she wasn’t wearing in the picture. She seems to be an all-business kind of person, so unlike what Dana had imagined, so unlike the depiction in the phone, with Peter drooling down her blouse. She looks professional this morning, here in E.Claire’s in her pricey faux-suede olive suit, the black blouse peeking out beneath it.

  They finish their breakfast, but it’s different after Lenora’s bustling entrance, less amusing now that Dana knows why they are here. It’s heavier between them. The lightness is gone, the banter a flash in the pan. Sizzled. Fried. She ponders what it means, this Lenora White, first assistant prosecutor being Peter’s Tart. She plays with the food still on her plate. “So, Moss. Am I under arrest or what?” Her mood has changed; the morning is suddenly drab and dull.

  He tosses some bills onto the table. “Just wanted to hit base with you—that whole thing last night with your car and the notes and all . . .”

  “That’s it?”

  “For now,” he says. “Oh, and it gave me an excuse to come back to E.Claire’s.”

  Dana stands up. “Let’s go over there.” She wants to see the woman up close. She wants to scrutinize the face that’s made a mess of her entire life, ended her marriage. She wants
to meet the Tart who slept with Peter, God knew how many times, who sniveled to him on the phone while he whispered in the bathroom, his voice bouncing off the tiled walls, who made him pull over to talk at rest stops all along the New England coast, his hand cupped around her stupid words, edging Dana into madness.

  “What? Now?”

  “Yeah. I can’t not meet her after all that’s happened,” Dana says, and she starts across the crowded, sunlit room with Moss beside her, his shoulders hunched as if there is no place on earth he’d less like to be than here in this flower-dappled tearoom, wending his way to the Tart’s table with her lover’s wife. The aisles are narrow and bustling with waitresses and gorgeous people, among whom Lenora is definitely at home. She sits with diffidence at the judge’s table. Her hands are folded on the tabletop, her attention riveted on whatever Judge Warner is saying, sputtering—shouting, nearly—at the other end of the table. Dana watches Jack reach out toward her, not without some trepidation.

  “Hi,” he says. He touches Lenora’s fake-suede-covered shoulder.

  “Jack!”

  “Back for more,” he says.

  “In the mood for Turnover Trios, eh?” She glances at Dana. “Hello,” she says, and she extends her hand. “I’m Lenora White.”

  “Yes. I know,” Dana says. “I’m Peter’s wife. I’ve heard so much about you.”

  Lenora doesn’t change her expression in the least, although her face goes ghostly white and pink blotches pop up on her neck. “Good things, I hope,” she says.

  “Let’s just say I’m delighted to finally put a face with the . . . well, with the . . . um, rest.” She sniffs. “Nice perfume.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your perfume,” Dana points out. “It’s nice. Peter wears it sometimes.”

  Jack clears his throat. “Enjoy your breakfast,” he says, nodding toward the judge. He lifts his hand in a little wave and backs away from the table. He steers Dana toward the door, his palm flat on her shoulder, where it remains until the hostess has nodded her good-bye and the heavy door has latched itself in place behind them.

  They stand together on the sidewalk in front of E.Claire’s. Dana pulls a Marlboro out of her bag and lights it.

  “I didn’t know you smoked.”

  “I don’t,” she says. “Not usually. I’m an emergency smoker.”

  “And this qualifies?”

  “Totally.”

  Jack glances at the sky. “Looks like rain,” he says, although for once it’s actually clear, with white clouds puffing across a sea of blue. Dana doesn’t contradict him; she doesn’t even look up.

  “You knew,” she says.

  “Knew what?”

  “Please,” she says. “I’m not having problems with that part of my brain. You knew she was Peter’s Tart. That’s why you brought me here.”

  “I thought she might be.”

  “Why? Why are you doing this?”

  “I’m sorry,” Jack says. He takes a step toward her, but Dana backs away.

  “You’re really screwing with my head. So what do you want me to say? She’s beautiful? And smart, I’m sure. And she can get through a meal at E.Claire’s without a Xanax? Of course Peter would prefer her to me. What more could a guy want?”

  “A lot more,” Jack says. “Believe me. Sorry if having you run into her seemed like an ambush. I didn’t want to mention it to you beforehand because I wanted your initial reaction. Didn’t want to muddy the waters.”

  She takes a final puff and stubs her cigarette out on the sidewalk with the heel of her sandal. “No worries.” She waves her hand in the air. “It added drama,” she says. “Like dinner theater. What’s E.Claire’s without a little black humor thrown in? Anyway, I’m glad to see she’s real. That she actually exists.”

  He laughs, but it sounds forced; it sounds like a cough. “Listen,” he says. “Can I drop you off at your house? I have the Crown Vic.”

  “No.” She looks somewhere past him, over his shoulder toward the sky. “Thanks, though. I think I’ll just—I don’t know—stroll around for a while. Buy a gun. Shoot Lenora. Catch the bus back home.” He doesn’t answer. He looks uncomfortable. She wonders if he might believe her. “Seriously, I’ve got some things to do while I’m here, but I’ll take a rain check on the ride.”

  “Rain check it is, then. And thanks, Dana. Thanks for meeting me. I’m sorry if I made you feel— I really didn’t want to upset you,” he says, and she waves her hand again in a nonsensical little motion. “I had a good time,” he says, “in spite of everything.”

  “Me, too.” Dana turns and walks down the sidewalk. She can feel him watching her until she disappears inside the crowds of people in suits and tweeds and heels and pantyhose and skinny jeans and all the squares of sidewalk separating them. When she reaches the corner, she turns around, and he’s still standing in the same spot on the sidewalk. He raises his hand in a wave and leaves it there until she turns and starts across the street.

  CHAPTER 41

  Jack is at work when he gets a call from the lab. The reports are back. Extremely interesting, according to George—can Jack come down that morning? He’ll be away from his office, he says, in the afternoon, but he’ll be there until twelve at least.

  Jack drives in with more than a little apprehension. He wonders why George said what he did, presented the thing the way he did. He thinks he knows; he’s nearly positive his hunch will pay off, but there’s still the nagging doubt he’s wrong that makes him take his time driving down to the lab. If the bit of nail is Kyle’s, he’ll have no choice but to arrest his own son. The thought makes him physically ill; his reaction is visceral. The baby—Joey, they named him—is still in the neonatal ICU, but thank God he’s getting better every day, Kyle says, stronger. In fact, he told Jack the doctors think they can take him home today. Kyle has been there, camped out in the hospital every minute he isn’t at his new job at the lumberyard. He can’t go to jail. Jack can’t separate him from his son, but it’s too late now. He put things in motion when he dumped his little pile of DNA at George’s door, and now he’ll just have to wait and see what’s turned up, deal with things one step at a time.

  He locks the Crown Vic and stretches, takes a deep breath before he walks inside, where he asks the gum-chewing temp to let George know he’s here. His initial reaction to the early-morning phone call was to wait until after noon, when George would be out of the office. He would have preferred discovering for himself what it was that George found so interesting, digesting the lab results in a private corner somewhere on his own. No matter how it turns out the case is complicated—has been ever since he found Kyle’s prints in Celia’s car, ever since the morning Dana marched into his office and perched like a trapped bird at the edge of a wooden chair.

  He hasn’t phoned Lenora on the labs. Not yet. He wonders if George has called her. She has more clout. Certainly her orders trump Jack’s lame request for secrecy. And anyway, she’s gorgeous. In fact, he half expects to see her when he opens the door to the lab, but the lobby is dark and cramped and empty as usual.

  “Thanks,” he says when George comes out and hands him the manila envelope, sealed and neat, devoid of writing. “I appreciate this.”

  “It wasn’t all that complicated,” George says. “We already had the Steinhauser body and the labs on it. There were scratches on Celia Steinhauser’s arm.”

  “Yeah?” Jack is already edging toward the door. He wants to pull out the labs in the privacy of the Crown Vic, with his radio off, his A/C blowing cold air in the parking lot. He wants to take his time unraveling what happened that mysterious evening on Ashby Lane, and he’s certain the labs will fill in the blank spaces, answer most if not all his questions. “Well,” he says. His hand is on the doorknob. The temp smacks her gum loudly from behind the desk. George steps forward. His eyes gleam with intrigue.

  “Yeah,” he says. “So what we—actually they—ran was the fingernail you brought in. The tissue underneath it was Steinh
auser’s. Celia’s. The vic’s. You were right about that—I’m assuming that was what you thought when you brought it in.”

  Jack nods.

  “Plus, Steinhauser actually had some skin tissue under three of her nails that matched the DNA on the nail you brought in.”

  “No shit.” Jack pauses. His hand is still on the knob, but George is pressing in closer.

  “Yeah,” he says. “But listen. Here’s the kicker.”

  Jack is a rabbit caught in a snare. George is almost touching him. He’s so close that Jack can smell his breath. His eyes are wide and bright. “You want to sit down?” He waves in the general direction of the hard plastic McDonald’s-restaurant chair.

  “Naw,” Jack says. “Naw, I’m—”

  “Okay, then.” George turns and drumrolls soundlessly on his Formica countertop. “Both the skin tissue under Steinhauser’s nails and the fingernail you brought in were a match with the DNA from the napkin. Sooooooooooo, unless this was a random napkin pickup, it looks like you’ve got your killer. It was a napkin, right?”

  “Yep. And it wasn’t random at all,” Jack says. “Thanks again, George. Do you need these labs back after I have a chance to . . . ?”

  “Copies,” George says. “Keep ’em,” and he turns back toward the inner half door, toward the temp who taps her own long purple fingernails against her desktop, who watches Jack through thickly lined eyes, studying him there in the doorway as he stands with one hand frozen on the knob, the other gripping the unopened envelope. A large pink bubble emerges from between her lips, nearly hiding her face for a second before bursting with a resounding pop, breaking the spell, breaking the hold this moment, this news, this office, has on Jack. He turns and heads up the hall, not stopping until he’s through the outside door and trudging toward his car. Above him a cloud tears open, spilling rain down on the, pure, unblemished orange of the manila folder, dotting it with dark spots.