Nemesister: The gripping women's psychological thriller from Sophie Jonas-Hill

by Sophie Jonas-Hill

  ‘Yeah,’ I muttered.

  ‘Guess his homecoming weren’t exactly what he’d planned,’ the Sheriff said, and then registered my expression. He coughed again. ‘According to Rooster, she admitted she’d had an affair, though he said he didn’t know with whom. They fought, she packed her case and left, with a quantity of jewellery and cash.’

  ‘Of course he’d say that,’ I said and my voice sounded petulant in his neat, well-starched office.

  ‘Ma’am, there ain’t much else in the way of evidence, and Mr Levine was … refreshingly honest with me.’

  ‘How the hell would you know he was honest?’

  ‘He admitted to me that they’d fought, and for some time,’ I gripped the arms of my chair. ‘He admitted the fights could get pretty physical, said as how she hit him ‘n all …’

  ‘Well, poor old him!’ I snorted.

  The Sheriff ignored me. ‘But without your sister’s testimony …’

  ‘What’s this?’ I flicked the papers in my bag.

  ‘This is upsetting to read, sure, but this ain’t gonna get Mr Levine arrested, certainly not convicted.’

  ‘But this is not just my word against his, or her word. Look, she talks about meeting this man Paris. He was involved. He must know that she was being hurt; she says he saw the bruises on her!’

  The Sheriff sat back and drummed his fingers on the edge of his desk. There were flecks of grey at his temples, and the top quadrant of his forehead was paler than the rest, presumably where his hat was habitually perched.

  ‘Well, I’ll be honest with you, though Paris ain’t all that uncommon a name round these parts, what with the French connection n’all, from them few lines I gotta pretty good idea who she was talkin’ about.’

  ‘So you could find him?’

  The Sheriff pulled his moustache back in an apologetic smile. ‘Now see, this young fella I think was mixed up with your sister, he’s …’ he decided on a smirk. ‘… he’s not exactly the biggest fan of my department. I’ve had cause aplenty to speak with him on all manner of occasions and he ain’t never been what you might call forthcoming.’

  ‘I guessed he was some sort of drifter?’ I said. ‘But he might still talk to me, right?’

  ‘Miss, I couldn’t advise that course of action. This man, Paris? I wouldn’t call him a drifter, though that suits him pretty good when he needs to look in want of a square meal.’ The Sheriff slipped his hands into his pants pockets. ‘He’s what I’d call a cheap con; he hustles people, mostly women with nice jewellery and men who like to gamble. I’ve had him in on a few counts of fraud and disturbing the peace. If I were you, I’d be as concerned for your sister’s choice of boyfriend as husband.’

  ‘But he didn’t hit her!’ I said.

  ‘That’s just what this says.’ The Sheriff nodded to the folder again. ‘Don’t mean it’s the truth. What I see here, is a bad marriage gone worse, then I see a woman plannin’ to take off with plenty of cash and jewellery, to meet with a known con-artist, who may well play the guitar, but who ain’t some happy drifter.’

  ‘So you think she’s lying too?’

  ‘No, I do not.’ Then came the pause I’d expected. ‘But she may not be tellin’ all the truth, or the truth she don’t want to acknowledge. If she were here, I’d have Mr Levine behind bars tonight I promise, I don’t believe in letting things slide no matter who I’m dealin’ with. Hell, I’m from an old army family, but I ain’t got no time for no one who breaks the law. Regiment or no regiment I’d see as he got what was coming to him, but while she’s not here, then …’ He exhaled deeply and his moustache quivered in the jet stream from his nose.

  ‘What if she’s dead?’ I asked, hoping that the words would have had more impact on him than they seemed to.

  ‘I hope she ain’t, really I do, and without a body in my book, she ain’t dead. Hell, you hold onto that miss, she’s probably out there, just got her reasons for not getting in touch. I had her logged as officially missing, and I don’t regard that as kicking this into the long grass. I don’t like leavin’ people on my missing persons list; I find they mess up the place. If we get hide or hair of her, then we’ll be right on it, you got my word on that, and I’ll let you know the second we got something.’

  I slumped back in my chair, unable to meet his eyes. ‘So, you don’t think it’s suspicious that in her last email she’s scared and alone and planning to run away, and then nothing?’

  The Sheriff got up slowly and tapped the edge of his desk before walking round behind me and tweaking the blind at his window open a little.

  ‘Honestly miss, I think it’s damn suspicious, but if you want my opinion, I’d say there’s a lot more that them emails ain’t tellin’ than what they is. I got a budget, I got crimes with bodies and shootings. I even got a missing kid, and that’s pretty much all we’re thinking about round these parts.’

  I closed my eyes and waited for him to say it like one waits for a door to close or the sound of footsteps leaving. I knew there was nothing else he could do, that he’d already done more for me and crossed more lines than others in his position might have, but hearing him say it was still dreadful.

  ‘Miss, if you don’t mind me sayin’, if I were you, I’d hold onto what you got and remember we’ll keep lookin’, however long it takes.’

  ‘Right,’ I muttered, gathering up my papers and shoving them back into my bag.

  ‘Miss …’ he said, a warning note creeping in his voice. ‘I don’t wanna hear you’ve gone near any of the other parties in this case.’ His avuncular air dissipated as he narrowed his eyes at me. ‘Neither Mr. Levine nor the other are what I’d call safe for a nice young lady such as yourself to go messin’ with. You might think as how you’ll make things happen faster, but trust me, all you’ll do is drive them further underground and get yourself slapped with a restraining order, if you’re lucky.’ He watched as my hand paused over the page of notes from his interview with Rooster Levine. ‘It’s me what’ll be enforcing the restraining order, and much as I like you, the law is the law.’

  I reluctantly withdrew my hand from his file.

  ‘Don’t worry sir,’ I sighed. ‘If you find anything, anything at all, you will tell me won’t you, please?’

  ‘Sure, got your details right here.’ He tapped his shirt pocket as if he wore them next to his heart like a bible. ‘You heading home now?’

  ‘My flight leaves in an hour,’ I said and stood up.

  ‘Then you best make sure you catch it.’ The Sheriff folded his hands together behind his back. ‘An’ if you have cause to find yourself this way again, make sure you stop by and say hello. Make yourself known to me.’ He smiled. ‘Save me worrying ‘bout you too.’

  Lisa would have liked the cookies. They were different shapes, a teapot, a coffee mug, each intricately frosted with crisp sugar shell. In the taxi to the airport I unwrapped the brown paper and bit into the first one.

  I saw Lisa, in her summer dress, running to the park we played in. I saw the castle she made us from air and imagination round the monkey bars; saw the treacherous sea studded with mermaids, in which we clung together. I saw the teeter-totter, red and bright in the sun, me high in the air with her facing me.

  ‘I don’t wanna do it.’ I clung to the metal handle. ‘Let me down, please don’t bump me.’

  ‘I won’t bump you.’ She got up slowly, lowering me down until she was on her tiptoes and I was safe.

  ‘See, you’ all safe down now.’

  ‘Do it again,’ I laughed. ‘Do it again!’

  I brushed the sugar crumbs from my shirt, and paid the taxi driver. Then my cell flashed with the word ‘Mom’.

  Chapter 15

  MOM’S LEFT HAND kneaded the tissue ball in her fist. Her right hand held mine, and when I tried to step back from her, she wouldn’t let me go.

  ‘Do you know?’ she said again. My heart began to beat tight in my chest, and I knew I was blushing, could feel the heat of it itching at
the roots of my hair.

  ‘No,’ I said, which wasn’t a lie, which wasn’t quite a lie, because I didn’t, I really didn’t, and the not-knowing burned in my stomach like it had been doing for weeks. Mom was looking at me and, under the beam of her gaze, her blue eyes peeled clear and clean with crying. I wanted to say something.

  Don’t, I thought, trying to swallow as the words crowded into my mouth, because you can’t. You can’t tell her what you think, what you’re terrified of, not now, not today. It wouldn’t be right, she couldn’t take it, not after all this time, not today of all fucking days, not—

  ‘What will I say?’ she said, and because all I was thinking about, was what I couldn’t tell her, I didn’t get what she meant. ‘When people ask today, ask where she is, what do I say?’

  I pulled my hand free of hers. So that was it. Whatever will people say – all of the neighbours and all the other fusty old college professors from his work, and Dad’s family; his brother from upstate and his aged mother, Grandma Johnson. Oh, and thank you, by the way, to the whole fucking Johnson family, for saddling us with that one – thanks for the moment in grade school when that name was rendered forever snigger-worthy. That’s what she was worried about though, Mom, not where Lisa was, not what had happened to her, but what people might say because she wasn’t there. I knew she didn’t know, I knew she didn’t know any of it, but what the hell did she want? Me to tell her the truth now, today? That I thought Lisa might be dead?

  I wasn’t going to. I wasn’t going to tell her, not until I knew for sure. She could be angry as hell at me, but hey, so the fuck what? As long as the neighbours didn’t find out. Besides, so what if they did? She could have two terrible daughters to weep about and be sorry about, couldn’t she?

  ‘They won’t ask,’ I said. My bag slipped from my shoulder, so I lifted it up again, deciding that perhaps I would wear my shitty trainers after all, and why the fuck not? Why the fuck shouldn’t I be comfortable?

  Mom looked at me. ‘Of course they’ll ask,’ she said. ‘Besides, she ought to be here. He was her father too, even after everything, even—’ but even she hadn’t got the fucking nerve to finish that one.

  ‘Really?’ I said. ‘Look, Mom, the family won’t say shit, and everyone else? They won’t probably even remember he had another daughter, will they? They’re academics, they don’t notice anything not in a book or dug up from the ground. It’s not like she was ever around much, was she, what with all her schools, and everything?’ And that hurt her, and I saw it hurt her, saw the spots of red burn on her cheeks and her shoulders hunch, like she was flinching away from me. I should have been nice, but I couldn’t be, because, I realized as I looked at her, to do what I needed to do, I kind of couldn’t be around them, and I kind of needed them not to want me to be around, either. So I said, ‘Besides, I’m not going to be there either.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll go to the church, okay, to the service, and I’ll stand there and bite my tongue, and shake everyone’s hand outside. But I’m not coming back here after, okay?’

  ‘Why ever not?’ Mom said. ‘You can’t mean to—’

  ‘I’m not going to spend all day lying about everything,’ I snapped. ‘I just can’t.’

  I left without giving her a chance to answer, the shoes in my bag slapping against my back as I thumped heavy-footed downstairs.

  What the hell did she expect, me to tell her everything now? Christ, let her hate me, let Francis sneer all the fuck he liked at me, all big brother moral high ground if he wanted to, and Nana Johnson, and Uncle Gene, and all the fucking neighbours from their big fucking ‘oh, look at you now’ houses, all secretly glad that, hey, at least their family wasn’t our particular kind of cluster-fuck. If they talked about me, then perhaps they really wouldn’t ask Mom about Lisa, and I might have a chance to find her, so that when I told them about her, it wouldn’t be about her being dead.

  Not looking where I was going, I walked smack into a guy in a white smock, who was carrying an empty tray from the dining room back into the kitchen.

  ‘Whoa, hey, miss!’ he said as his tray hit the stone floor with an almighty crash, enough to bring Francis and Aunt Elsa to the parlour door.

  Francis barked out my name, but I ignored him. Catering guy put his hand on my arm to steady me.

  ‘Hey, no harm done, miss,’ he said, the words ‘Smarter Party’ bright in red stitching on his white lapel. It’s only when I saw him squint down at me, his saggy, grey stubbled face all crumpled-looking in concern, that I realized I was crying.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ he said, and I wondered how he knew about her, only of course he didn’t. He didn’t really know why I was crying.

  Chapter 16

  WHEN I FOUND PARIS, I told him my name was Margarita.

  ‘That ain’t your name,’ he said and he laughed.

  ‘Yeah it is, what’s so funny ‘bout that?’

  ‘It suit you too well; salty sweet and hits you right between the eyes. Nobody gets a name that right on the mark.’

  ‘Maybe I grew into it?’

  ‘Hell yeah, maybe you did too?’ His smile was warm and inviting and dangerous. ‘Guess I know what you want then?’

  ‘Sure you do,’ I said. ‘Make it a Tom Collins.’

  He was what I’d expected. He was nice. He was easy to be with, easy to slip in beside and feel like he’d been waiting just for you. A dog wagging his tail.

  ‘What you do then?’

  He shrugged. ‘You really wanna know?’

  ‘Sure. What, you gonna tell me you’s a tax inspector?’

  ‘I ain’t that bad, Shoog!’ He laughed. ‘Naw, I’m a convicted fraudster.’

  ‘What?’ I had to admire his honesty.

  ‘Straight up, done time for it too. You still want that drink?’

  ‘Hell yeah, I wanna hear all about it!’

  Who wouldn’t, sitting there in the small friendly bar, with the street hot and the day lazy outside? Nothing else to do but lounge in the warm air and listen to the lilting, rolling swell of voices and laughter, and let the cocktails work right down to your toes. Nothing to do but have this man – this handsome, dark skinned man – turn the power of his wide, white smile on you. Listen to him tell you about all the bad things he’d done, and make it sound easy, like a schoolyard skipping rhyme.

  ‘So what, you gonna con me then?’

  ‘Naw.’ His smile warmed his cheeks. ‘I ain’t gonna con you.’

  ‘Why not? Maybe you are already, how’d I know?’ I twisted my ankles together, leaning back in my chair.

  ‘Hell’s teeth, girl, I can’t see as you got nothin’ I want that bad.’ He grinned. ‘Well, not money, anyhow.’

  ‘I might be some sort of lost princess!’ I said, hitting his arm. We were drinking long, pink drinks, something sweet we sucked through striped straws.

  ‘You ain’t lost, even if you is a princess. Anyhow, you can only make the con work if you knows what drives the mark, and right now with you? I ain’t so sure I’ve worked you out yet.’

  ‘Yeah? You work people out easy, do you?’

  ‘Sure thing.’ He leant back in his chair, stretching his long legs out under the table between us and folding his hands behind his head. The day had darkened his t-shirt against his skin, brushed his upper lip with beads of moisture.

  ‘That’s what you gotta do, read people. You can con anyone. Hell, you can con a man outta his last dollar when he’s starvin’, easy as shake his hand. But what’s the point of that? All you got then is one dollar. Same amount of work goes into liftin’ a million dollars, so if you’re gonna work, might as well make it pay. It’s all ‘bout knowin’ what the other man wants, and makin’ him think as how he’s gonna get it. You can con the starvin’, but it’s a whole heap better to con the greedy.’

  ‘Is that what you look for, greedy men?’

  Paris took a toothpick from the small wooden jar the waitress left, after we’d eaten our catc
h of the day, and fitted it between his teeth.

  ‘Sometimes, depends on what they hanker after though.’ He settled his hands back behind his head, pulling his body taut as he did so. ‘Some men, all they want is money, for no good reason other than they do. Some want pride, some have pride and then you gotta make them think as how you got more pride, and they can take it from you. Some, they got the lust in them, I can’t do nothin’ with but you … you know more ‘bout that than I do.’

  ‘Yeah? You think I could con someone?’ I asked, biting into the cherry from my glass. He flicked his arms from behind his head with laughter, and slapped his knee with his wide, flat hand.

  ‘You? Why, you’s been doin’ it since you was born.’ He dropped the toothpick on the floor, and drank his ridiculous pink drink.

  ‘You think I’m pretty then?’ I asked, a child begging for a sweet.

  ‘Sure, you’s the prettiest thing in this place; though mind, that ain’t sayin’ all that seein’ as where we’s at. But, you’d be the prettiest thing in most places, but that ain’t it.’ He leant his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his hands. ‘You’re gonna have to forgive me when I say this, but what you got it ain’t ‘bout pretty. You’re lookin’ like a cool drink on a hot day right now, but you ain’t, like, magazine pretty.’

  ‘Cute! You think you’re gonna pull with that line?’

  ‘Yeah, but that’s my point,’ he said, tapping the table with his finger. ‘You take them women from the magazines, with all their … their clothes and hair ‘n’ all. You get them and you in a bar like this, anywhere in the world, wiv’ sweat drippin’ down the walls and beat pumpin’ and hell, they’re gonna go home alone, ‘cause they look like you’d break ‘em just shaking their hand. But you … you ain’t that sort of pretty.’ He shook his head. ‘Naw, you’re what a man want, he don’t want no china doll, he want a woman makes him think how good she’d be to get with. That’s what you got, you got something worth your weight in gold.’