For the Best

by Vanessa Lillie

  I don’t know why, but it’s very easy to picture Terrance here.

  Standing near her canvases. Making coffee. Giving her a book to read.

  “Nice love nest,” I say. “Did he pay for it?”

  Her jaw falls open slightly, but she quickly recovers. It’s almost a gearshift when I push a person’s buttons and can see them go from nice enough to true-blue bitch. I don’t like being this way, but I’d like being in jail a whole lot less.

  “That’s hilarious coming from you,” Kara says. “The only reason Terrance ever took your calls was you were paying for his time. Otherwise, you weren’t worth it.”

  Oof, she’s good. I’d heard little snide remarks like that at fundraisers and cocktail parties. That I was paying for his company, and at the time, it didn’t bother me because it was partly true. But I can feel the sore spot where it rubbed, and now instead of an irritation, it’s become raw.

  Phillip steps between us. “Are you starting anything new, Ms. Nguyen?” He gestures toward the blank canvases in the corner.

  “I finished a series for a show that’s coming up but . . .” Her gaze trails the room, as if she’s remembering a moment passed and gone. “It’s been difficult since . . . he died.”

  “Were you at the funeral?” Phillip asks softly.

  The question catches me off guard and deflates my indignation. That was a hard day. I wanted to drive by but couldn’t bring myself to leave the house. I hid and got happy hour started early.

  “I saw you with your mom and . . . sister?” she says, and Phillip nods. “It was surreal. And terrible.”

  I hadn’t realized he’d taken them with him. It really would have been a roomful of people who hated my guts.

  “We don’t want to stay long,” Phillip continues with his soft tone. “We’re investigating Dr. Castle’s death.”

  “Murder,” she corrects and nods my way. “Right?”

  “I had nothing to do with it,” I say.

  She returns her focus to Phillip. “I read your book about that woman who was killed at Swan Point. Little Voices?” She pauses and Phillip nods. “It was pretty good. Sympathetic to the people involved but still realistic. We’re all a little right and wrong, usually.”

  “I appreciate that, Kara.”

  “Why are you working with her?” she continues. “Did she bribe you too?”

  “I did not bribe Terrance,” I say, my temper sparking, and it feels useful. “We came up with the Genius Grant idea together. We collaborated on everything. He wanted to work with me.”

  Phillip lets out a breath, with the look of being embarrassed by me. “I want to find out who killed Terry,” he says softly. “He deserves justice, at the very least. Is there anything you can tell me?”

  I see that she wants to say something. Her gaze shifts between us. “Terr wanted to make it right with you, Phillip,” she says. “He seemed sad when he talked about you. Not that it was a lot. But he did say . . . he regretted how distant you’d gotten.”

  Phillip swallows thickly, a sadness passing between them. “I should have reached out,” he says. “I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

  Kara steps forward, places a hand on his forearm. “We all have regrets,” she says, as if she understands exactly what he’s feeling.

  I’m angry suddenly, like it’s not fair that only the two of them should share this moment of caring for Terrance. He chose to spend time with me. I have stories too. “We were going to go on a national tour,” I pipe up. “His vision and his voice—I was bringing that to this country.”

  Kara shoots Phillip a look, as if she’s trying to win him over.

  “What the hell is your problem?” I spit the words at her, wanting to see her angry again.

  “I see you.” She takes a barefoot step toward me. “Terr said he was going to tell the truth about his life. Not only what people like you wanted him to say.” She pauses to look at Phillip. “For the first time, he was going to really be honest with everyone about what hard work was involved in healing communities. Not only what was easy to hear. He was a revolutionary at heart.”

  “In his Burberry coat while staying at the Ritz on his truth-to-power tour?” I say, knowing that Terrance wanted it both ways. Profit from his story of growing up poor and big ideas about restorative justice without any actual pain in his daily life.

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kara says. “I hope they still publish all of his words.”

  “Depends on his widow,” I say, and that gets Kara’s attention.

  “Why?”

  “Dez is handling his legacy,” I say. “He will be remembered as she wishes.”

  Kara nods, as if she understands this completely. I’m stunned at what she assumes, that some pillow talk means she’s privy to the big kids’ tables. My anger courses, and it’s delicious. “Lydia told us all about your affair. Showed us your art project and that a woman was murdered because of you.”

  “Lydia lives for drama,” she says. “She makes it up even if it’s not there.”

  “That’s not how she seemed to me and my viewers,” I say.

  “I just saw the video,” Kara says. “Lydia is too stupid to realize you’re using her. She doesn’t know anything about me or my relationships. That project was personal, and I won’t discuss it.”

  “Lydia knew you were having an affair with a married professor.” I fumble with my bag, then pull out my camera and hit record. I quickly zoom in on her lovely face, made so severe by her buzz cut. “Did you go back to the alley the night Dr. Castle was murdered?”

  Kara can’t keep the anger from her eyes, and I wonder if she uses it as fuel too. Or maybe she’s happy to feel an emotion other than sadness. “Turn. That. Off.”

  She could smash this camera, but she knows that might be worse for her than the video. “Kara,” I say in my singsong voice. “Where were you the night Dr. Castle was killed?”

  “I can’t tell you,” she says with such certainty.

  “Why?” I take a step toward her and zoom in so her face completely fills the frame.

  “It’s none of your business,” she says. I can almost see the anger roiling off her skin as her muscles tense and pulsate with fury.

  “Can anyone verify where you were?” Phillip sounds as if he’s trying to help her out, but when she shakes her head no, it looks much worse.

  “No one?” he says.

  Shakes her head again, with her lips drawn tight, as if she can’t say.

  “Who were you with?” I say. “If you can’t admit the truth, then we can make our own assumptions.”

  She half grins, as if she can’t believe she’s still talking to me. “I was with someone. I don’t owe you anything.”

  “Were you having an affair with Dr. Castle?” I ask in my CEO-to-subordinate voice.

  Her gaze follows the windows toward her blank canvases and then down at her bare feet. “It doesn’t really matter what we were.”

  “It might matter to his wife,” I say.

  Kara smiles at me, the first warmness I’ve seen from her. “Get the fuck out of my apartment.”

  Chapter 17

  I’m pretty sure Phillip is processing everything that happened while confronting Kara, because he actually agrees to go get a drink with me.

  We decide on a dive bar within walking distance of Kara’s apartment on South Main Street. Poorly lit but dark and cool—it feels like we’re drinking in an old stone wine cellar.

  Sitting among the happy hour crowd are people mostly in business casual. I text my mom I’m running late and then finally make eye contact with the bartender.

  “Yeah?” she says, swinging a pink-tipped braid over her shoulder.

  “Water for me,” Phillip says.

  “Shot of Jameo and a Narragansett tall boy, please,” I say.

  Phillip smirks. “You just survive the O.K. Corral?”

  “It’s actually Terrance’s order,” I say. “A tribute.”

 
; “Okay,” he says in that tone I suddenly remember. I forgot I hated that word when he said it. Okay, Jules.

  “I thought you were getting a beer?” I shoot him a look. “Lighten up.”

  He glances around at the scattered groups of people. “I only drink when I feel comfortable. And right now, I don’t.”

  I try to see it from his point of view, and it is a white crowd. Not that this has to be a race thing, but I remember he’d do this from time to time when we’d go out. He told me once that it was easier for me and my “white-girl drunk privilege.” That he couldn’t act like that because he’d seen friends after a beer or two not take an insult well. Or maybe even start something. And then security would get involved. Or the police would get called. He’d said, Jules, when you’re out of control, someone holds back your hair or makes excuses while handing you a coffee. When I’m out of control, I go to jail.

  I try to respect where he’s coming from, but I’m still annoyed. “Is it this crowd or me that makes you uncomfortable?”

  He shakes his head, but the bartender finally delivers our drinks, giving him a pass on answering the question.

  Another few minutes slip by, and I sip my beer. My mom texts and offers to have Fitz stay over at her house. It’s after six o’clock, and I picture Fitz in my ballerina footsie pajamas, seeing my dad stumbling around the house and trying to cook a steak drunk. I take the shot and sip the beer after. Then text Ethan to be sure he can get Fitz after his meeting.

  The drink is helping, and I’m less frazzled about being told to fuck off. It’s not the first time, that’s for sure, but Kara was really aggressive.

  “We have to film her art-confession-in-her-bedroom thing, right?” I say to Phillip.

  He swallows thickly and turns his water glass. “I’m worried we’re overstepping, Jules. Even if she did murder a girl when she was a teenager, which we don’t know, there’s no evidence connecting her to Terrance that night.”

  It’s easy for him to say that, since he’s not the one who all the evidence is pointing toward. “We have her tirade on camera. Acting that way. Telling me to fuck off. She looked mad. And violent.”

  “We were in her home,” he says in his kind way. “It’s understandable why she acted that way. Plus someone close to her died.”

  “He was close to all of us,” I snap and then take a sip. “Maybe I can edit her rant with my own analysis and theories. Get people thinking.”

  “Thinking what?” Phillip says. “You don’t have any evidence. She’s a young woman who possibly made a mistake in her past. Yes, she was with a married man, but we don’t know anything about their relationship. And none of it has to do with that night.”

  I suddenly want to get away from Phillip and his nay-saying. He’s a help until he’s a hindrance, and it feels like whiplash with the latest switch. I decide to go see Sean at the Sider. He’ll understand my point of view. He’ll help me show this side of Kara. I bet he has all kinds of editing tricks.

  Phillip seems annoyed, and I feel the same way. We scroll on our phones in silence for several minutes.

  He makes a surprised noise. “Kara published a few papers on the third generation of Vietnam War families,” he says. “She won awards. She also had an art exhibit that got lots of buzz last semester.”

  “Real renaissance woman,” I murmur.

  “Definitely a Terrance type,” Phillip says, as if he’s trying to make me feel better.

  Terrance did always like smart girls. His first wife, Tanya, was one of those athletic / academic / beauty queen triple threats. She was maybe Miss Rhode Island or whatever. Dez, his second wife, is smart in a different way, it seems. Cunning is an apt description of what it takes to swoop into the Poe Foundation’s board of directors hours after your husband is found dead to take over and start working on his “legacy.” Dez is pretty, too, in that rich-girl, artsy-waif way, I guess. “Maybe Terrance was ready for wife number three.”

  “Not with that prenup,” Phillip says under his breath.

  “Excuse me?”

  He scrolls on his phone and shows me a thread on Reddit. It’s my name. A thread all about this case. And they’re going into details. “This person posted they used to be friends with Dez,” he says. “That she had a great lawyer, and there’s no way Terrance would have left her.”

  I start to scroll around but think of Elle’s advice. There’s no good to be done finding out the awful things people are saying about me. “Maybe he was in love.” I waggle my eyebrows. “Maybe Kara thought they were, anyway.”

  Phillip takes a sip of water. “We need actual evidence.”

  “My viewers, and maybe these Reddit people, are digging into Kara’s life. Let’s keep going until we find out what’s really going on.”

  “Kara’s art project, though, it seemed to be . . .” He pauses and shifts in his chair toward me. I’m reminded of him in college, focused and caring, always listening to any opinion presented. “Well, if she was studying restorative justice with Terry, then it makes sense.”

  “How?” I think back to what Terrance would argue with me, but nothing comes to mind. “Like healing problems?”

  He blinks slowly, as if he’s measuring his energy level. He’d do this with me often: almost seem pained to explain a point he likely thought I should already know. “Her art might be a way of processing what happened so she can make amends. That’s a key pillar of restorative justice. It flies in the face of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of years of how people are punished. Basically rewriting crime and punishment for everyone from murderers to sixth-grade bullies. It doesn’t seem right to place our judgments on Kara’s situation and her possible journey to reconciliation without knowing all the facts.”

  “That’s what’s being done to me.” I finish the beer and feel silly at how petty I sound. But it’s still how I feel. When he doesn’t respond, I scroll and read through comments on my vlog post from earlier. There are more than one thousand. There’s a thread called #stormingthecastle that’s getting a lot of people talking. And saying mean things about Terrance.

  I search for Kara’s name as a hashtag on Instagram. “This is interesting.” I show him the post from a gallery that’s actually owned by a woman I went to high school with. I’m pretty sure she’s a client of Elle’s, now that I’m thinking about it.

  He doesn’t seem as enthused. “Kara must be good to be booking so many shows,” I say, feeling like I need to be nice.

  “Oh wow.” He shakes his head, as if he can’t believe it. “Your vlog email account. I just checked it.”

  “What is it?” I’d sent him the passwords and was glad for the help. When he doesn’t respond, I lean over close to see the PDF he’s reading. “Is that about Terrance?”

  “Not exactly,” Phillip says. “It’s the police report from the incident Lydia described about Kara and her art project. Kara was suspended her senior year of high school after attacking another girl. In the police report, Kara said she was bullied and snapped.”

  “Attacked how?”

  “Like the art project portrayed.” He doesn’t look up and keeps zooming and reading. “She hit the girl in the back of the head with a metal bucket during art class.”

  “Whoa.”

  “The report says the girl followed Kara there.” He frowns. “Then Kara attacked her.”

  “Focus on the facts, Phillip. The back of the head,” I say. “That’s quite a coincidence. Plus her room is basically a confession.”

  “It only says the girl was taken to the hospital. No mention that she died. Her name is redacted. Let me google the dates and high school name.” He pauses and then shakes his head. “I don’t see anything online. I’ll check more at home later.” He shifts in his chair. “I can’t believe someone sent it so soon. We just posted her name and Lydia’s story.”

  That seems naive. “You’re a journalist. This is like our Deep Throat.”

  He sets his phone near his glass. “That was about the president. Kara is
a grad student. Those are not the same.”

  “People deserve to know what’s really happening,” I say, my palms almost itching to turn the spotlight more toward Kara, who has actually hurt a girl. Who clearly has aggression issues.

  Before I can discuss my plan, I feel the bartender’s stare. She has a strange look on her face. She’s busy with two customers who are glaring at us. A guy I think is her manager comes over to those customers. They keep frowning and talking and then frowning more.

  Phillip’s back goes straight, but he doesn’t look particularly surprised.

  “People are really staring,” I say. “Do you see?”

  “It happens,” he says.

  “Excuse me,” I say firmly to the bartender, my stomach twisting. “Excuse me.”

  As she gets closer, she hesitates, looking toward her manager as she chews on her lower lip like a schoolgirl cliché. Finally, she comes over. “Look, I’m . . . are you guys closing out?”

  I laugh, but it sounds angry. “Who has a problem with us sitting here? Is it a race thing?”

  “No.” She looks at Phillip, confused. “Of course not. It’s . . . you. People know you, um . . . attacked . . . Dr. Castle.” She leans closer, her edgy earring and matching nose ring suddenly seeming lame in this light. “People are uncomfortable.”

  Embarrassment and rage knead in my gut. “Is this a joke?”

  Phillip is already reaching for his wallet. “Come on, Jules. Let’s head out.”

  “You don’t have to pay.” Her bony tattoo-covered shoulders slump. “Just go. And don’t come back.”

  “We’ll pay.” Phillip puts cash on the bar. “Come on, Jules.”

  The shame is what brings the tears to my eyes. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” I say, not ready to accept that I’m this level of infamous.