Shelby looked at the time on her phone. She could make it in plenty of time.
The Old City of Philadelphia was a neighborhood where one could see the layers of time written in bizarre architectural juxtapositions, the old jostling the new and nothing quite fitting together. Grimy industrial buildings coexisted on the same streets with discount stores and historical brick homes. Within a block, one could buy custom-made canvas awnings or an orange update of the zoot suit and matching shoes, or a tenderly buffed Noguchi wooden table, too beautiful to use.
Shelby had always liked the Old City. When she was a teenager, the Old City was a kind of bohemian mecca, dangerous and artistic. In recent years it had become chic, the result of having spacious lofts ripe for renovating, and an abundance of tin-ceilinged, tile-floored bars and restaurants. Shelby parked in front of one such bar, not yet open for the day, and walked back down the block to the Methodist church, a red-brick bastion of historic days in Old City. She pulled open the heavy, white wooden doors, and slipped inside.
The interior of the church was painted a soft tint of robin’s egg blue, the moldings eggshell white. There was no one visible in the nave as Shelby glanced inside. A makeshift sign in the lobby pointed to a stairwell and proclaimed that the AA meeting was being held in the basement. Shelby clutched to her chest a framed photo of Chloe, which she had taken from the house, and hurried down the stairs. The smell of fresh coffee wafted up the stairwell. At the bottom of the steps she rounded a corner and found herself in a large, open room filled with chairs and oblong tables. There was a stage at one end of the room that was flanked by desiccated velvet curtains and a window into a bright kitchen at the other end. About two dozen people were gathered there, talking in small groups. They were all adults, of varying ages. Several people were gathered around two brewed pots of coffee on a hot plate, carefully customizing their Styrofoam cups of steaming coffee with packets of sugar and a container of half and half. Halfway down the room an exit was propped open, letting in the spring sun, and the dissipating plumes of smoke from the cigarettes of those who were standing outside, having a few last drags before the meeting started.
Shelby felt conspicuous, standing on the periphery, clutching her photo. She was thinking of getting herself some coffee, just for something to do, although her stomach was far too knotted for her to have any hope of drinking it.
She edged toward the coffee drinkers. A tired-looking man in a tracksuit with a brown crew cut was talking to a tall, bony woman with a stringy gray braid, and a surgical gauze bandage over one eye. She had covered it with a silky black eyepatch. Her face was lined from too much sun, but her clothes were youthful. She wore jeans, a gray t-shirt and a black bomber jacket with paint-spattered sneakers. She was sporting about a dozen silver bracelets and large hoop earrings.
‘What happened to you there?’ the man was saying.
‘Scratched my cornea. I was helping the block association clean up a vacant lot. No good deed goes unpunished, right?’ She turned and smiled ruefully at Shelby.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘How are you doing?’
Shelby smiled. ‘Fine. Well, I’m a little nervous,’ she admitted.
‘You’re new here,’ the woman said.
‘I . . . haven’t been,’ Shelby said. She extended her hand. The woman shook it. ‘I’m Shelby,’ she said.
The woman nodded. ‘Barbara,’ she said. ‘This is Ted.’
The man in the tracksuit nodded a greeting.
‘You on your lunch break?’ the woman said.
Shelby frowned. ‘No. I’m off today.’
‘At least you’re working,’ said Barbara. ‘A lot of folks here have lost their jobs.’
‘Including yours truly,’ said Ted. ‘I used to teach gym at a junior high.’
Shelby could easily imagine this man with a whistle around his neck. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
Ted shrugged. ‘I’m doing some work as a personal trainer. The money’s pretty good. If I could just get benefits . . .’
‘No kidding,’ said Shelby. ‘It’s hard to manage without benefits these days.’
‘I’ve gone without benefits my whole life. I’m an artist,’ said Barbara.
‘What kind of art do you do?’ Shelby asked.
‘I paint.’
‘So, you gotta pay for that out of your pocket?’ asked Ted, pointing to Barbara’s injured eye.
Barbara shrugged. ‘Emergency Room at Dillworth. Wasn’t too bad.’ She turned to Shelby. ‘Where do you work?’
‘I’m a buyer for . . . a department store. I’ve been there for years.’
‘I haven’t seen you here before,’ Barbara said.
Shelby suddenly felt uncomfortable and conscious that she was attending this meeting under false pretenses. She didn’t want to start explaining about Chloe just yet. She needed the attention of the whole group, although there was something non-judgmental about Barbara that made Shelby want to confide in her. She resisted the temptation. ‘It’s my day off. I was in the neighborhood,’ Shelby said.
Barbara clearly required no other explanation. ‘It’s nice out today. Good day to be off,’ Barbara said, sipping from her steaming cup. ‘Do you want some coffee?’
Shelby shook her head. ‘I’m fine. Yes. I guess spring is coming at last.’
‘Been a tough winter?’ Ted asked.
Shelby almost had to smile. She had been thinking how tired and worn out he looked. Apparently, she looked the same. ‘Yes, it has,’ she said.
‘Oh, we better sit,’ said Barbara. ‘Our fearless leader is calling the meeting to order.’
Shelby looked up and saw a red-faced middle-aged man with white hair, wearing a spiffy blue blazer, standing at the front of the room. ‘Everyone,’ he said. ‘Can you sit down? We’re going to get started.’
Barbara picked her way to a seat near the back. As Shelby watched her, she noticed that Barbara’s silky black jacket was a Christian Audigier creation with the distinctive Ed Hardy tattoo-like images of skulls and hearts that shouted goth teenager. Expensive, and inappropriate, she thought, automatically thinking like the fashion buyer that she was in her work life.
Shelby turned and looked around the room. She wanted everyone to be able to see the picture when she held it up. She needed to be sure that anyone who might remember Chloe would have an unimpeded view. ‘I’m going to sit up there,’ Shelby said, pointing to a seat on the side, halfway to the front. She did not wait for Barbara to agree. She edged up to that seat and sat down, smiling anxiously at the man beside her. He gave a curt nod, and directed his attention to the meeting leader who was making some announcements at the front of the room.
‘Now,’ said the leader, who had identified himself as Harry. ‘Would anyone like to share?’
The room was silent except for the sound of people clearing their throats. Finally, a man stood up and said, ‘My name’s Gene and I’m . . . uh . . . an alcoholic.’
‘Hi Gene,’ the crowd announced as one.
Gene, an overweight young man who was sweating profusely, began to tell about how many days he had been sober and working the program, and the difficulty he had encountered in the past week while looking for work. He admitted that he had nearly slipped, but that his sponsor had helped him through it. The people at the meeting listened with compassionate interest to what he said. Shelby was distracted and hardly heard him. She knew that she needed to stand up and speak. Normally, Shelby had little trouble with public speaking, but in this instance, she felt guilty, as if she were invading a secret society under false pretenses. The people here seemed to be eager to support one another, and she hoped that they would greet her question in that spirit, but she was not at all sure. Harry was thanking Gene, who sat down with visible relief.
‘Anyone else care to share?’ Harry asked.
Heart hammering, Shelby took a deep breath and stood up. Everybody swiveled in their chairs to look at her. ‘My name is Shelby,’ she said.
‘Hi Shelby,’
said the chorus of voices.
Shelby held out her framed photo of Chloe at arm’s length and made a slow arc so that all could see it. ‘This is my daughter, Chloe Kendricks. She was a wife, and a mother, and the best daughter you could ever . . .’ Shelby choked up, and had to stop for a moment. The room was completely silent. ‘Recently, while she was on a vacation, she . . . went missing. She was on a cruise and apparently she fell overboard.’
A shocked and sympathetic murmur ran through the group.
‘I have since been told that Chloe was an alcoholic. I have reason to think that she might have been coming to this meeting. I’m just wondering if anyone here recognizes my daughter and can tell me if that’s true. That she came here. That she belonged to AA,’ Shelby said in a rush.
A disapproving hum seemed to vibrate in the room.
Harry, the leader of the meeting, did not hesitate. ‘I’m sorry, Shelby, but the answer is no.’
Shelby looked up at him. ‘You don’t know her? You don’t recognize my daughter?’
Harry shook his head impatiently. ‘I mean, no. What you are asking is not possible. The anonymity of this group cannot be broken. Even if we did know your daughter, we wouldn’t be able to say so.’
‘Oh please,’ said Shelby. ‘All I need is a yes or no answer. I don’t want to know anything she said in a meeting or anything like that.’
Harry’s red face seemed to get a little bit redder. ‘You don’t seem to understand. We cannot give you that information. Not even a yes or no answer. The anonymity of this group is absolute.’
‘But my daughter is dead. You wouldn’t be betraying her,’ Shelby pleaded. ‘And it may have some bearing on how, or why, she died.’
‘Shelby,’ said Harry in a tone that brooked no contradiction. ‘I’m going to have to ask you to leave our meeting. I’m very sorry about your daughter, but these rules governing anonymity are the foundation of this organization. They still apply after death. There are no exceptions. Now please . . .’ He gestured toward the exit.
Shelby looked from face to face, trying to glean some hint of an answer. Some sign of recognition. There were such a variety of expressions in the room that she could not get any coherent sense of their reaction. Some people looked shocked, and others seemed angry. Others still were wide-eyed and puzzled. Shelby looked back at Barbara, who averted her gaze and lowered her head. Was that a yes, Shelby wondered? There was no time to decide. Harry was walking toward her, repeating that she needed to leave.
She wondered for a moment if he was going to physically hustle her outside.
He stopped short of that, but his unsmiling gaze left no room for doubt. She pressed her lips together, and, clutching her photo to her chest, she hurried out of the meeting room. One of the men in the back row followed her to the stairway exit and closed the door behind her. She heard it slam as she started up the stairs.
FIFTEEN
‘Shep?’
Shelby, who was making dinner while she mentally relived her failed visit to the AA meeting in the Old City, looked over at her grandson. ‘What is it, honey?’ she asked.
Jeremy was sitting at the kitchen table, laboring over a drawing of his favorite thing, a pirate ship. He did not look up at her. ‘You live here now, right?’ he said.
Shelby grimaced at the question. ‘Well, for right now,’ Shelby said. ‘One of these days I will have to go back to my own house.’
‘Why?’ said Jeremy.
‘Well, because that’s where I have all my things. You know my house. Mommy brought you there lots of times. With the big windows over the river. And you’ll come visit me there. And stay over.’
‘No, Shep. Bring your things here. You don’t leave,’ Jeremy insisted.
‘I’m not leaving now. I’m still right here, honey,’ Shelby said.
Jeremy glowered. ‘Not ever.’
‘Let’s not worry about it right now. There’s plenty of time,’ she said.
But it was too late. Jeremy pushed his markers off the table with an angry swipe of his arm and they clattered loudly to the floor. ‘No,’ he insisted. ‘No, no.’
Shelby tried to soothe him. ‘I can’t stay forever, sweetie.’
‘Why not?’ he demanded.
‘Well, Molly needs to get her room back, for one thing.’
Jeremy slid off the chair and stamped his foot. ‘I don’t want Molly. I want you.’
Rob had heard the racket and come into the kitchen. He scowled at Shelby as the boy burst into helpless tears. ‘What did you say that for?’ he demanded. He turned to the child. ‘This is not about Molly,’ Rob insisted as he tried to calm his furious son. ‘Shep has her own house. And she has to go back to work. She’ll be able to come and see you.’
Too late, Shelby realized that Rob was perfectly right. She should not have mentioned Molly. And she had miscalculated with Jeremy who, it had to be said, didn’t require much provocation to erupt these days.
‘Your dad’s right,’ said Shelby. ‘I do have to go back to my own house. But I’m not going right this minute.’
Rob shook his head, as if her second effort had been no better than her first.
‘I’ll always be here for you Jeremy.’ Shelby said. ‘Anytime you need me.’
It was no use. The child was sobbing now, and not hearing a word she said.
Rob sat down beside him and pulled his son roughly on to his lap, rocking him despite his tearful, angry protests. ‘It’s all right, slugger,’ he said. ‘You’re just missing Mommy. I understand. We all miss her so much.’
Shelby watched Rob trying to soothe his son. Do you, she wondered? Do you miss her? Or was this your plan? It had always seemed that Rob and Chloe had been building the life they both wanted. But was that just another illusion? What if he had another plan, that she knew nothing about. Did you say that Chloe was an alcoholic so that the police would believe that she fell, she wondered? So that you could get away with murder? No. No. It wasn’t possible.
For a moment Shelby hated herself for even thinking such a thing. At that moment she wanted to confess to Rob that she had hired Perry to investigate Chloe’s death.
But her nagging doubts stopped her, and she held her tongue.
Two days later, as she returned from dropping Jeremy off at preschool, her cell phone rang.
‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Shelby, it’s Perry. I have some information for you.’
Shelby sank down on to one of the kitchen chairs. ‘Yes? What is it, Perry?’ she asked.
‘Well, as I predicted, Sunset Cruise Line refuses to give us the ship’s manifest.’
Shelby shook her head angrily. ‘I just don’t get that. How is that fair?’
Perry did not attempt to answer her question. ‘They were not completely oppositional. They sent me a record of the shipboard access cards that Rob and Chloe used. There’s no question that Chloe was, indeed, buying alcoholic beverages on the cruise. They have her signature on the bills.’
‘I see,’ said Shelby, deflated, thinking of Glen’s theory.
‘And, Rob’s card shows that he did not enter their state room until the hour he said. The security tapes confirm this. They were forwarded to my computer without delay. I looked at the tapes of the night in question. Rob can be seen leaving the salon where the sports trivia quiz was held. Not ten minutes later, he contacted a steward to ask for help.’
Shelby was silent, mulling this over, thinking that one could commit a deadly crime in ten minutes.
‘I spoke to Chief Giroux in St Thomas. They did give him a lie detector test. At his own request.’
‘I thought those weren’t reliable,’ Shelby said stubbornly.
‘It depends on a lot of factors. Let’s just say this: if he failed the test, we would certainly take it seriously.’
‘But he didn’t.’
‘No,’ said Perry. ‘He passed.’
Shelby chewed the inside of her mouth. ‘What else?’
‘Apparently, on boa
rd ship, they have roving photographers who snap pictures which they sell to the passengers as souvenirs. It gives us a photographic record of just about all the people on the ship. They emailed those photos to me and I just forwarded them to your computer. Of course, you will have to look individually at every picture to see if there was a familiar face. There’s really no other way.’
‘I’ll look at them,’ she said.
‘The reward has been posted. So far, no response.’
‘I keep wondering . . .’
‘What?’ Perry asked.
‘Do you think it’s possible that she might have survived?’ Shelby said. ‘I mean, people have jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and survived. I looked it up. Why not a cruise ship? It isn’t even as high . . .’
Perry was silent for a moment. ‘Is the search ongoing?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Shelby admitted. ‘I agreed to call it off. They said it was hopeless.’
‘I think that’s the logical conclusion,’ Perry said. ‘I’m afraid survival would be possible only if someone saw the fall. If they immediately began rescue operations.’
He did not need to remind her that Chloe had fallen, unseen, into the water. ‘You agree that there’s no chance,’ said Shelby.
‘I can’t say that. I’m not the Almighty. All I’m saying is that I don’t think her husband is lying about what happened. He clearly wasn’t lying about her drinking. I think he has told the truth about the situation as he knows it.’
Shelby’s eyes filled with tears of frustration. ‘I guess I should be glad for that. He’s my grandson’s father. I wouldn’t want to think that he was capable . . .’
‘You need to look through the photos taken on the ship and see if any familiar faces jump out at you. And we may still get some information after people read about the reward.’
Cast into Doubt Page 12
