Gone to Dust

by Matt Goldman

  “That’s a coincidence.”

  “Oh, no it’s not. Where are you, Shap?”

  “Let me do my job, Ellie.”

  “You’re working for Edina PD. Your job is to keep us informed.”

  “You’ll get what you’re paying for. Just give me some breathing room.”

  “Liquor Lyle’s at 9:00. Don’t be late.” Ellegaard hung up, and I took my fist sip of smooth Irish, courtesy of the Edina PD.

  Ansley Bell and the Tiny Woman drank red wine and ate something from a basket I couldn’t identify from the bar. They seemed to be having a good time. From where I sat, it appeared Ansley was either a cold-blooded killer or wasn’t aware of her friend’s death. Maggie Somerville had kept Ansley a secret. No one seemed to know about Ansley, so it made sense that no one would call her about the murder. If Ansley hadn’t paid attention to local news, a real possibility for a medical student, then she probably didn’t know. Unless she was a cold-blooded killer.

  I finished my whiskey and ate my steak and, when I thought of Chief McGinnis meeting with Andrew Fine in the Global Market parking lot, ordered a piece of flourless chocolate cake to pad my bill.

  On ridiculous television shows, I’ve seen it suggested that if a man wants to break up with a woman, he should take her to a nice restaurant so she won’t make a scene. I don’t know why anyone would want to drop a buck fifty on a woman who was about to hate his guts. And if she wants to make a scene, a nice restaurant provides an excellent stage. But nice restaurants do serve a purpose on the other end of the spectrum—they’re a good place to introduce yourself to someone without them making a scene. I closed my tab with the bartender and walked into the dining room.

  I look back on a handful of moments in my life as if they were traffic circles. I didn’t know I was driving into one, but once I realized I had, it was too late. Whichever direction I drove out would send me in a direction I hadn’t intended to go. Ansley Bell was one of those traffic circles.

  “Excuse me. I’m sorry to bother you. My name’s Nils Shapiro. I’m a private investigator.”

  Ansley Bell and the Tiny Woman looked at each other for a second too long, then burst into laughter. Big, loud, wine-fueled laughter. The kind that makes you feel like an outsider, like other people know something you don’t, like you want to ask what’s so funny or just walk away and leave those nuts to it.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” squeaked Ansley. “We were just talking about…”

  Another wave of laughter crashed onto shore and took them out to sea. When they washed back up, the Tiny Woman tried to talk. “We were just discussing the worst…” And out they went again.

  “Maybe I should come back in a few minutes.”

  “No, no,” said Ansley. “We were just telling…” She took a couple of deep breaths and wiped the tears from her eyes with the white hand towel the Monte Carlo thought made a cute napkin. “Okay…” A breath. “Sorry…” A giggle. “We were just telling each other the worst pickup lines we’ve ever heard. And then you walked up and … and … and said, ‘I’m a private investigator.’” Another wave swept them away.

  “Looks like this could take a while. Mind if I sit?”

  They shook their heads and laughed some more at what they obviously interpreted as another pickup line. When the laughter passed, I handed a business card to each, and the laughter drained out of them.

  “I truly am sorry to bother you,” I said. “I have a private matter I need to discuss with Ms. Bell.”

  “How do you know who I am?” said Ansley.

  I said nothing and let the silence hang over the table.

  The Tiny Woman looked to Ansley, who nodded. “Well,” said Tiny, “I got a bladder full of cabernet. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She slid out of the booth with her purse in tow, and I sat down.

  Ansley looked concerned. “What’s this about?”

  “Would you be more comfortable talking somewhere less public?”

  “I can’t do that. I don’t know you.”

  “I understand.”

  “Is this about Maggie Somerville?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  I saw fear in her caramel eyes. Her sculpted face tensed. Her full mouth shrank into something small and defensive. “I’ve called and texted her but she hasn’t responded. That’s never happened before.” The waitress approached, then saw Ansley’s face and backed off. Ansley said, “Is Maggie okay?”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Bell. She’s not. Maggie’s dead.” Ansley Bell hung her head and wept. “Have you seen the news in the past forty-eight hours?” She shook her head. “I’ve been hired to investigate Maggie’s death. It wasn’t an accident. She was murdered.”

  “Oh, God. Oh, God. No…”

  “You can verify the news on your phone if you want. And please check the State of Minnesota Board of Private Detectives Website so you know I’m legit.”

  Ansley Bell placed her hands over her face and lifted her head. When she took them away, her wet, dark eyes shined like polished tigereye glinting gold and brown. That’s when I knew I was in the traffic circle.

  10

  Ansley and the Tiny Woman paid their check, then I followed Ansley to her place. She parked in back, and I approached the Toyota Camry idling in front of her house. I rapped on the driver’s side window, and it went down.

  A pencil-thin man with a pencil mustache, who looked like he’d been rejected by every police department in the country, sat behind the wheel surfing porn on his Samsung tablet while sucking on a piece of hard candy that clicked around in his teeth. He made no effort to hide his tablet, as if he was proving how badass he was by looking at naked women in two dimensions. A bag of groceries sat on the passenger seat and a royal blue water container sat on the passenger-seat floor. It was, no doubt, full of piss.

  The pencil-thin man said, “You the cocksucker who let the air out of my tire?”

  “Can’t get anything by your eagle eye—as long as it knocks on your car window two hours after the fact.”

  “I’m going to fucking report you to the PI board.”

  “Well, you know I’ll get a copy of that complaint, and when I do I’ll send it straight to your employer. Then you’ll have to explain how you were unable to pursue Ansley Bell because, even though she was asleep at home the whole time you sat in front of her house padding your hours and expenses, when she tried to leave, a bad man let the air out of your tire while you were jacking off to Big Beautiful Women.”

  “What the fuck is your problem, pal?”

  “Why are you talking like that? What are you trying to do?”

  “I’m trying to ascertain why you’re muscling in on my subject.”

  “Ascertain?”

  “It means find out.”

  “Ah. Now I understand.”

  “I oughta get out of this car and kick your ass.”

  “Yeah, you ought to. But you can’t. For one, physically, and I’m sorry about that. I really am. And two, you’d lose your job. So listen. You’re going to see a light turn on in Ansley Bell’s apartment any minute. Then I’m going up to talk to her. Yep, there’s the light. And during that talk I’ll tell her that a skinny-ass fuck with a skinny-ass mustache will knock on her door at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. You’re not going to talk to her before then, so you might as well go home and get some sleep.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Guess you used up your big words. Sweet dreams.” I rapped the top of his car good-bye and walked toward Ansley’s duplex.

  There were two doorbell buttons, one labeled WILLIAMS and the other labeled BELL. I hate puns—they’re not the lowest form of humor because that would put them in the category of humor. This one, though, seemed unavoidable, so I did my best to get over it and pressed the doorbell. Ansley did not come to the door. A minute later, I pushed it again. The asshole in the Camry probably had a big smile on his face. I expected to hear a victory honk. I got out my phone, found Ansley’s number in my pic
tures, and called. Two rings in, she answered.

  “You running on me?” I said.

  “No. Sorry, I forgot to tell you the doorbell doesn’t work.” Her inflection went up at the end of the statement, and I knew she didn’t grow up here. “I had it disabled because med-school hours and Girl Scouts selling cookies don’t mix. I’ll be right down.”

  That explained why Ellegaard and skinny-ass struck out. The latter honked. Two bits and a haircut, no less. What a fucking hack. Fifteen seconds later, Ansley Bell came down and opened the door. I took off my mitten and gave skinny-ass the finger.

  I walked into Ansley’s apartment as if I were seeing it for the first time, complimenting her on the Wolf range and art deco chandelier. When I sat in the leather sectional, I realized why it felt familiar. Maggie Somerville had matching sectionals in her basement rec room. Robert Somerville never paid close attention. Maggie insisted on expensive furniture and clothing and everything else so she could skim the budget for Ansley Bell. How could Maggie be in love with Robert if she was in love with someone else?

  Ansley asked if she could get me a drink. I declined. She disappeared into the kitchen then reappeared with a tumbler of red wine. She curled up in the corner of the sectional and cried hard like a child who’d just seen her dog hit by a car. Five minutes later, I wished I hadn’t turned down that drink. She looked so alone in that corner. I wanted to put an arm around her. Instead, I went into the bathroom, did a little recon, and returned with a box of Kleenex. I gave her a few tissues and a cashmere throw that was draped on the back of the sectional.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Edina PD and another private detective have been trying to contact you all day, but were stymied by your broken doorbell and you not answering your phone.” I looked for a reaction—I only saw grief. “The reason that the police want to talk to you is because you’re the most frequently called contact in Maggie Somerville’s phone. I don’t know what the private detective wants, but I don’t like him. And if I were you, I’d do your best to avoid him. He’s going to knock on your door at 9:00 A.M. tomorrow. Don’t answer it.”

  Ansley Bell curled herself into the fetal position and leaned into the corner of the sectional as if it were her great love. Then a river of pain rushed out of her. It was too much for another human being to see. I walked over and sat next to her. She shifted her weight from the corner to my shoulder. I put an arm around her, held her tight, and said nothing.

  After ten minutes or maybe an hour, her breathing steadied into something near aerobic. “Why do the police want to talk to me about Maggie?”

  “They want to know why she called you so often. They want to know the nature of your relationship.”

  “How did she die?”

  “As far as we can tell, peacefully. It seems she was drugged and then smothered in her sleep.”

  “Oh, God…” said Ansley. She pushed her face into my shoulder. Her tangle of dark curls smelled like rosemary and mint, and I couldn’t help wondering if she ever found herself attracted to men. “Why would anyone want to hurt her? She was the most lovely human being I’ve ever known.”

  “Honestly, we have no idea why. Or who. When you’re feeling up to it, I was hoping you could shed some light on that. You’ll have to talk to the police tomorrow. They’ll want to know why no one else who knew Maggie knows who you are. You’ll have to answer some uncomfortable questions. About your personal life. About your love life.” She grew quiet and still. She sat up, and I retracted my arm. She took a new tissue and dried her eyes. “My advice is, be honest. Tell the police everything you know. Even if it seems small.” She nodded. “Her ex-husband is planning the funeral. He seems like a nice enough guy. And he’s progressive. If you want to be involved in any way, I bet he’d be open to it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Robert Somerville won’t care if his ex-wife was sleeping with a woman.”

  Ansley Bell’s fog of sorrow lifted just enough for me to see a gleam in her wet eyes. “Maggie Somerville was not my lover,” she said. “Maggie Somerville was my mother.”

  I kept my eyes fixed on Ansley’s—they looked straight at me and avoided nothing. “Maybe I will take that drink,” I said. “Stay put. I’ll see what you have.”

  I grabbed her empty tumbler and went into the kitchen and found wine, a few stray bottles of beer in the fridge, and a bottle of Grey Goose in the freezer. I grabbed a Summit Oatmeal Stout, refilled Ansley’s tumbler with Old Vine Zin, brought both back into the living room. She started talking before I sat down.

  “Maggie had me when she was fifteen. She grew up Catholic and knew it would be hell when her parents found out she was pregnant. She couldn’t hide it when she was throwing up all the time so she told them, and they sent her to live with an aunt in California where I could be born without disgracing anyone in Minnesota.”

  “Maggie just left Minnesota?”

  “She was a competitive figure skater so they told everyone she was going away to train for a shot at the 1992 Olympics. The Web hadn’t been invented yet. No one expected posts on Instagram. No one questioned it.”

  “I’m guessing the father wasn’t the boy next door.”

  “Maggie told me her family didn’t even know any black people. She only knew one—my father—but her family didn’t know he existed. But Maggie was in love with him and wanted to protect him, so she told them the father was a kid in school named Josh Edwards.”

  “I’m sure Josh Edwards loved that.”

  “Actually, he did. Josh was gay and kids were starting to figure it out. It was not a happy time for him. He was my mom’s best friend—they were the only people who knew each other’s secrets. If my mom’s secret somehow got out, Josh would’ve gladly assumed responsibility to appear heterosexual.”

  “But her secret didn’t get out?”

  “No, it didn’t. She came back a year later with a story about getting injured on the rink. The lie worked and that was that. She had a normal high school life and no one in Minnesota knew I existed except for her parents, her aunt, and Josh. And of those people, only Josh knew who my real father was.”

  “Maggie’s aunt knew you’re biracial.”

  “Actually, she didn’t. Maggie told her obstetrician in Los Angeles that if her family back in Minnesota found out she had had a black baby, it would make things extra difficult for her. So the doctor protected her by not letting my aunt in the delivery room. I was born then whisked away and taken to a couple that had arranged a private adoption.”

  “Did your father know about you?”

  Ansley sipped her wine then placed her tumbler on the coffee table. “Maggie didn’t tell him she was pregnant. He moved away while she was in California and never learned a thing.”

  “But you and Maggie found each other.”

  “Yes,” said Ansley. “We did. Actually, I found Maggie.”

  “Was it an open adoption?”

  “No. My adoptive parents had a safe. One day, when they had both left for work, I called my dad and told him I needed to bring my passport to school for International Day. It was total bullshit—there’s no such thing as International Day—but he didn’t question it. He wasn’t about to turn around and come back home, so he gave me the combination to the safe. I looked for and found my adoption papers inside. Maggie’s name was on them, but it was her maiden name, Sundt. Then I went online and searched for Margaret Sundts born fifteen to twenty-five years before me. I found the only one in the entire country in an Edina High School yearbook.” Ansley Bell took a sip of wine and stared at nothing. “After that it was easy to find her on Facebook as Maggie Somerville, still living in Edina, married with two kids.”

  Ansley Bell took another sip of wine and shut her eyes. She looked exhausted from telling a story she’d never told before. Or maybe it was just from grief.

  “It took me a while to get up the nerve, but eventually I called Maggie and said I wanted to meet her.” Ansley opened
her eyes. “She was apprehensive but agreed to the meeting. The first time I saw Maggie was surreal—a white woman with blue eyes and blonde hair—but her eyes were shaped like my eyes. And we have identical mouths with big, full sets of teeth in narrow faces. It felt so good to see myself in someone else. You know, all of a sudden, I was sure I didn’t come from another planet.

  “Maybe it wouldn’t have meant so much if I’d had a better relationship with my adoptive parents. But from the moment we met, we both knew … knew we’d be in each other’s lives … I was going to say forever. But … it won’t be forever now.”

  I asked if the fireplace worked. She nodded. Kindling and logs and a box of long matches lay on a brass rack near the hearth. I got on my hands and knees, opened the flue, lit a couple sticks of kindling, added a few more, let the flames build, then lay a birch log, bark-down, across the grate. The wood must have been sitting there over a year—the fire grew to a roar within minutes. I silently thanked the pops and hisses for filling the awkward silence and returned to the sectional.

  “Maggie paid my tuition at Carleton. Northfield is close—I saw her on weekends. I got into the University of Minnesota Medical School, and I’ve lived here the past four years. She’s paid my tuition and for this apartment and everything in it.”

  “So why now, after all this time, does no one know you exist?”

  Ansley took another sip of wine. “Because of my biological father.”