“Okay.” I stood for a moment waiting for some explanation as to why she was in my house. None came. Finally I asked, “What’s in the box?”

  “Frank’s things. I thought you might want them. I thought we could go through them and maybe each pick out some mementos.” She knelt beside the box and pulled out his Bears cap. “I didn’t bring his clothes, but I figured we could decide what to do with those another day.”

  “Are you drunk?”

  She sat on the couch, making herself a little too comfortable for my taste. “Of course not.”

  “Then you must be crazy.”

  She got up and walked over to me. I was afraid she might hug me again, but thankfully she refrained. “You said you wanted to talk to me.”

  “I did.”

  “About Frank?”

  “Yes.”

  “So talk to me.”

  I was chickening out. I’d asked people if they’d killed someone many times, but only in interviews. The interview subjects were usually expecting me to ask it, and there was a crew a few feet away, ensuring that the whole reaction would be on camera. Lacking the context of a television interview, the question seemed, for lack of a better word, impolite. So I stood there silently.

  Vera seemed not to notice my awkwardness. “Do you have any wine?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re hurting and I’m hurting, and I think we could just hurt separately or we could help each other get past this. And either way, I think we both need a drink.”

  That was the first time she had said anything I could agree with, at least the part about needing a drink. I poured two glasses of pinot grigio and sat on my leather chair. Vera sat again on the couch she had admired, and we both drank.

  “The coroner listed his cause of death as undetermined,” I said.

  “Which means it could be natural causes.”

  “Or someone could have killed him.”

  She watched me for a moment, then turned her eyes to her wine. “Someone like me?” she asked quietly.

  “Or me.”

  “Well, you know you didn’t and I know I didn’t, so there must be another explanation.”

  “Like?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Has Detective Podeski called you?” I asked.

  “He’s a very unpleasant man.”

  I smiled. “He is. I feel like a criminal just being in the same room with him.”

  “Then you should avoid that.” She smiled. “It’s not like either of us has done anything wrong.”

  It was all I could do not to point out that she wasn’t being entirely accurate. One of us had done something wrong. Vera obviously reached the same conclusion. She brought her glass to her lips quickly and took a fast sip while I enjoyed watching her squirm.

  Twenty-one

  “I didn’t set out to have an affair with a married man, Kate. I’m really not that kind of person.”

  “Except you must be, or else you wouldn’t have.”

  “I just wanted to be with him so much.”

  “I assume you don’t walk into someone else’s house and take a painting off a wall, no matter how much you might want it. So why is it okay to take someone else’s husband?”

  Vera’s expression turned earnest and thoughtful. “A piece of art doesn’t consent, but a husband does,” she said as if we were debating ideas in ethics class. “Not only does he consent, he often instigates. If a painting flung itself out a window and into my arms, am I really stealing it?”

  Touché.

  Vera stared at the rug. “I was married a long time ago but it didn’t last long. I met a few men along the way. Nothing ever stuck. And then I was alone for so long, I didn’t even know how lonely I was until I met Frank.” She glanced my way, looking for my approval the way my interview subjects always do. Only this time I sat in expressionless silence. “I just fell for him so quickly that before I knew it, well, we had crossed a line. I feel so bad about it.”

  “Okay, stop right there,” I said. “If you’re hoping to be forgiven and turn this into some kumbaya moment, then you might as well leave now. In fact, you probably should leave now.”

  Vera didn’t move. “I’m not asking for forgiveness, Kate. I’m just explaining. I’m not the sort of person who sets out to hurt other people, but I did hurt you. The worst part is that for those months that Frank was still living here, I didn’t even feel bad about what I might be doing to you. I didn’t think about you as a real person until the night Frank died. Until I heard your voice on the phone.” She looked around the living room, as if she were studying it. “He had this whole life I never knew anything about. Those people at his funeral, who knew him and loved him. I didn’t know who any of them were.”

  “Did you expect to?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “You knew Neal. He was Frank’s best friend. I know you met.”

  “Only a couple of times. He seemed embarrassed around me.”

  “Did you double-date with Neal and his wife?”

  I don’t know why I was torturing myself, but I just had to know.

  “No, nothing like that.” She paused. “I met him a few times. And not that long ago we ran into him at a restaurant. He and Frank stepped outside, and they must have exchanged some words because Frank was in a foul mood the rest of the night.”

  “When was that?”

  “Two or three weeks ago. Why?”

  “No reason, I’ve just never known them to argue.”

  She put her wineglass on the coffee table. “Do you want to go through the stuff? I know that it’s probably, legally, yours, but I was hoping you might let me keep a few things.”

  “You brought it over here, hoping I’d give it back to you? If you wanted some of this stuff, why didn’t you just keep it?”

  “That wouldn’t be right.”

  “Now you want to do the right thing?”

  “Look, Kate. We can yell at each other. We can focus on the negative. Or we can just try to be the decent people I know we both are.” Vera’s voice was shaky, so I knew she was nervous, but her gaze was steady and determined. “Frank took a lot of his stuff, maybe things that meant something to you too. You’ll want those back. I was just hoping what you don’t want, I can keep.” She reached into the box and pulled out a decorated tin.

  “I almost forgot. I brought you a present.”

  I was half expecting it to be one of those old-fashioned joke tins, where a fabric snake pops out, but when I opened the tin it was full of candies wrapped in gold cellophane. “It’s butterscotch,” I said. “I love butterscotch.”

  She looked pleased. “I know. These are imported from Scotland. They’re heavenly.”

  She turned back to the box, started removing items and spreading them on the floor, like some preauction display. She hummed as she did it. She was an odd duck. So nonantagonistic, so not sarcastic, so unnegative. So unlike me. She reminded me of someone. When I realized who, I laughed. She reminded me of Frank.

  She saw me laugh. “I know how nuts this looks, my coming here. I know it is nuts, but I can’t help myself. I miss him. I miss the way he used to draw little pictures on everything, and the way he would shout at the TV during a Bulls game. I miss the way he laughed and the way he smiled and his voice. I even miss the way he tied his shoes.”

  “Bunny ears,” I said.

  She smiled. “And no one understands. But you.”

  “Vera, I was with him for twenty-one years. We dated for almost six and were married for more than fifteen. You were with him for, what, three months before he left and four months after.”

  “Seven months before he left,” she corrected me.

  Frank had told me three. Another lie. I should be used to it by now.

  “Whatever,” I said. “We’re not in comparable situations.”

  “I know that,” she said. “And I know you think I have no right to any claim on him.”

  “I didn’t say that.” I thought it, but I didn’t say it. “That’s why you went to the wake.” It had suddenly dawned on me. “If you didn’t go, it would be like saying you were his mistress, some secret, unimportant tryst. But if you went, if you stood with his friends and family and publicly mourned him, then you weren’t his mistress, you were his girlfriend.”

  She nodded. “Frank said you could read people well and were impossible to fool.”

  “Not always, obviously.”

  As I spoke, something on the floor caught my eye. It was a book with a familiar cover, but the title was covered by a Cubs banner.

  “What’s that?” I pointed toward it.

  Vera grabbed the book, and I saw that it was a copy of Travels with Charley.

  “That must have gotten in there by mistake,” I said.

  “No. It was Frank’s. He was reading it. He said someone he knew really loved it and he wanted to understand why. He was only about halfway through, but I think he was really enjoying it.” She handed me the book. “You keep it.”

  I held the book in my hands and stared at it. My hands were shaking, and I felt flushed and woozy. It was the same way I’d felt when Frank kissed me for the first time.

  Twenty-two

  After Vera left, I went to bed with Frank’s copy of Travels with Charley and, without really meaning to, I ended up sleeping with it wrapped in my arms. And even though, as I’ve said before, I don’t think there are ghosts, I kept picturing Frank hovering above me, a huge smile on his face. Frank was always so pleased with himself whenever he did anything I liked, and I knew he would love the image of me clinging to a reminder of him. Which, of course, I wouldn’t want him to see.

  Thinking that made me feel slightly ashamed of myself. What was wrong, exactly, with Frank doing something that made me happy? When we were first married everything he did made me feel good; even taking out the garbage was, to me, a sign of his love. Toward the end it was rare for Frank to do anything to please me. Was it because he stopped trying or because at some point I just refused to find happiness in him?

  I was glad the next morning to be back to the relative safety of a television show and the case of a missing twenty-two-year-old woman. We had two interviews, which would make it a very busy day, and one where I could put my personal life completely out of my mind. The first interview was with Grayson Meyer, an ex–assistant state’s attorney and friend of the family. The second was with Jason, Theresa’s ex-boyfriend. I didn’t care about Meyer’s interview, since it would be more of the same “Theresa was a saint” stuff. It was Jason’s interview that would really make or break the story.

  “Have you met this guy before?” Andres asked as we pulled into a parking spot of the building where Meyer had his office. It was a beautiful high-rise on Wacker Drive, a place for some of the wealthiest and most politically connected Chicagoans to do business.

  “Never met him,” I told Andres, as he loaded the equipment cart. “I just know he used to be a prosecutor. Now he’s doing some pro bono defense work and using an office in a fancy law firm to do it.”

  “He’s dreamy,” Victor said, offering up an theatrical swoon.

  Victor had the sort of skinny, nonmuscular body that often begged the question, does he do coke? He heightened the effect with black jeans, black T-shirts, a spiked, sometimes dyed haircut, a nose ring, and several very colorful tattoos. He despised any male who might be considered more traditionally attractive.

  “I don’t care what he looks like,” I told him. “I just want to get in, get a few sound bites, and get out. We’re just using him to give us some family information, plus a little legal info on missing persons.”

  Andres grabbed his camera. “I shot an interview with the guy about six months ago. It was for some congressman’s campaign. And Victor’s right, he is kind of dreamy. We’ll understand if you want to extend the interview and just enjoy the view for a while.”

  “Are you going over to the other side, Andres?” I teased.

  “See how they are?” he said to Victor. “I can’t notice another man is attractive without her turning it into some sexual thing.”

  “Women. It’s all about sex with them,” Victor agreed.

  I laughed. “I love my boys,” I said and slapped them both on their butts.

  There are two parts of field producing I love: learning about things I would never have otherwise learned and hanging out with the crew. Though spending the morning in a beautiful building interviewing a “dreamy” man didn’t exactly suck either. It was exactly what I needed to put Vera completely out of my mind.

  On the twenty-eighth floor of the building, in the offices of one of Chicago’s most prestigious law firms, we were led to the law library and offered coffee, which we accepted. The guys started to set up and I watched the clock. Twenty minutes went by, and then forty. Andres was almost ready, and we still hadn’t met the man we were here to interview.

  “This asshole is going to put us behind schedule,” I said, just as the door was opening.

  “I’m so sorry I’m late. I got a phone call. I’m Gray Meyer.”

  He was, as promised, dreamy. Early forties, about six foot one, dark brown hair and green eyes, with the slim but muscular build I would associate with a tennis player, not an attorney. Though judging by the Italian shoes, I’d guess he was a very successful attorney.

  “No problem,” I said. “We’re just finishing with the lights.”

  He introduced himself to me, then Victor, and he remembered Andres from the previous shoot. He even asked how Andres’s mom was. Apparently she had been in the hospital when they’d met six months before.

  “You’re going into politics,” I said once we sat opposite each other. Andres and Victor were making final adjustments, so I would have little time to bond with Meyer, but he didn’t seem to need it.

  He smiled. Perfect white teeth. “Why would you ask that?”

  “You have a politician’s memory for people.”

  He laughed. “You have a journalist’s knack for finding the story.”

  “You are going into politics?”

  “I already am, in a way. I helped get Bobby Rosenello elected to Congress. You know Bobby.”

  “No. Should I?”

  “He’s your congressman, isn’t he? Don’t you live in Bucktown?”

  I blushed. First there was the embarrassment that I didn’t know my own congressman, and then the shock that he knew where I lived. My interview subjects never know anything about me. “How would you know that?”

  He shrugged. “I guess I like to know who I’m talking to. Bucktown’s a great neighborhood. Great restaurants. Very artsy. Are you an artist in your spare time?”

  “My husband was an artist.” I glanced down at my wedding ring, which had not left my finger since the day of the funeral.

  He leaned a little toward me. “I’m sorry about your husband. I heard he just passed away.”

  Who the hell was this guy?

  “Where do you live?” I asked, just trying to think of something to get him off the topic.

  “Lincoln Park. My wife is a lifelong resident.”

  “That’s a nice neighborhood too.”

  Lincoln Park is about a mile away from Bucktown, but in a whole different tax bracket. Higher. Much higher.

  “We’re ready,” Andres said, and I practically jumped up and thanked him. Restraining myself, I took a moment to study my notes and then told Grayson Meyer to keep his eyes on me the whole time and answer as completely as he could. No yes or no answers, since they wouldn’t play well on camera. He nodded.

  Now the conversation would be back on my terms.

  Twenty-three

  “Grayson,” I started. “Can I call you that?”

  He made a face. “No, I hate that name. It’s a horribly pretentious name. Call me Gray, which is better, if only slightly.”

  I took a breath and relaxed a little. “Gray, let’s start with how you knew Theresa.”

  He nodded, straightened himself in the chair, and looked at me. “I know Theresa through the Kenny family. Her closest friend, Julia, is the daughter of a friend of mine. I’ve met Theresa a number of times through the years. She’s a lovely young woman, very close to her family, very proud of being from Chicago. And if I remember correctly she had just finished her nursing studies. I think that shows she’s a giving person.”

  “How much time did you spend with her?”

  “Not much. We were only linked through the Kennys, but she did come to a Halloween party my wife and I threw a few years ago. We got into a conversation about politics. She thought there ought to be a law making community service mandatory. Something like the draft, but for helping people, not for war.” He smiled warmly, and a little sadly. “She’s probably right, though I doubt we could get it through Springfield, let alone Washington.”

  “She seemed very keen on the idea of helping in the community. She even won an award . . .”

  “Yes, I know about that. Theresa is the sort of person who gives you hope for the next generation. She really wanted to make a difference and she was willing to do more than sign up for a cause on Facebook; she was willing to actually go out there and create a better world. I really admire that kind of passion.”

  “So you spoke about that with her?”

  “Not in depth. As I said, I knew her mainly through the Kenny family.”

  “If you didn’t know her that well, why am I talking to you?” I said it in a casual way, but I meant it.

  “I think because I organized the search party and helped with the media. Julia’s dad called me the day after Theresa went missing. It was one of those things where everybody wants to help, so they reach out to people who might be able to do something. I did what I could.”

  “Which was what?”

  “I called the people I know at the Tribune and Sun-Times, the local news stations. I kept in touch with Detective Rosenthal, so I could help her and the family with the distribution of flyers. I just helped get the word out.”

  “There was a large color poster of Theresa on the Morettis’ door. Are you talking about things like that?”

 

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