Nine Lives, page 10
“There will be. We’ll find them.” Aaron put his can of beer on the floor in front of him. It looked as though it was empty. “Look, I know you’re avoiding this question, but I do think it would be better if you go someplace else while this case continues. Being here is not a good thing. Going to your local grocery store, going to the Club Room. Not a good idea. We can send you someplace, as you know, but if there’s somewhere you want to visit …”
“I can think of a place. Maybe.”
“Okay, good. Don’t tell me about it. I’m going to get one more beer before I hit the road, and then you should make arrangements.”
Aaron ducked into the bathroom first, before heading to the kitchen. Jessica thought of the place she had in mind. It was somewhere in mid-coast Maine, that was all she knew. Two years earlier she’d gone to her college friend Darlene’s wedding, and ended up hanging out the entire time with a woman named Gwen Murphy. She’d known Gwen in college as well, but they hadn’t been close. That weekend, however, they’d bonded, even fooling around a little after the reception, something Jessica hadn’t done since college—fool around with a girl—back when she’d considered herself a true-blue bisexual. And one of the things she remembered from that wedding was Gwen telling her about a house she’d inherited from her grandmother, a cottage on a peninsula in Maine, and how Jessica should use it for her next vacation. She hadn’t taken Gwen up on that offer, probably because she didn’t know if it was an offer for her to have a vacation alone or a vacation with Gwen, but she thought she’d get in touch now. If the cottage was available, it might be perfect. And there was very little, almost nothing, to connect her with Gwen. They hadn’t even texted or emailed since the wedding.
Aaron was pacing again, holding his second beer. He hadn’t asked Jessica if she wanted one, which probably wasn’t rudeness and had more to do with him knowing her well enough to know she wouldn’t.
“You should go to work,” she said.
“I should. Look, I have something for you.” He pulled a flip phone out of his pocket. “It’s a burner, in case you need to let me know where you are. I wouldn’t trust your own cell phone, or your landline.”
“I know.” She took the phone from him.
At the door she kissed him on the lips, and when she sensed that he was about to ask her if she wanted him to stay, she pushed him back out onto the front step. Before closing the door, she spotted the unmarked police vehicle about fifty yards away.
Alone in her townhouse, she went to her desk and pulled out the overfilled, cluttered drawer where she put all the crap she didn’t really need but didn’t want to throw away either. She walked the drawer into her bedroom and dumped the contents out on her bed. There were programs from funerals she’d attended, takeout menus, old receipts, Christmas cards, an expired passport. There were also several business cards, and it took her a while, but she found Gwen Murphy’s card. She was a real estate agent in Jamaica Plain, outside of Boston. Using the burner phone, she called the number listed.
“This is Gwen Murphy.”
“Hi, Gwen, it’s Jessica Winslow,” she said. Then added, “From college,” after noticing a slight pause.
“Yes, of course. Sorry, I’m driving.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yeah. Go ahead, I’ve got you on speaker.”
“I have a big favor to ask. Two big favors to ask. Do you remember at Darlene’s wedding you mentioned that you owned a cottage in Maine?”
“Of course I do. I still have it.”
“Is there someone there now?”
“No. It’s empty. Why? Did you want to use it?”
“Actually, I was hoping I could use it. I know it’s a lot to ask but I was thinking of heading up to Maine right away.”
“That’s fine with me,” Gwen said. “Everything okay?”
“Without going too much into it, I need to get away, and I need to do it anonymously.”
“Oh, okay,” Gwen said, and Jessica could hear the change of tone in her voice. She knew her friend probably thought she was on the run from an abusive situation.
“So I need to ask you to not mention my going to your cottage to anyone. To keep this conversation a complete secret.”
“Of course I can do that.”
“I’m serious, Gwen, you have to promise to absolutely forget that I’ll be there.”
“I’m serious, Jessica, I will,” Gwen said, her voice hushed, as though to prove how serious she was taking it. Then she provided Jessica with the address of the cottage on the St. George Peninsula, and where the extra key was kept. And she promised her that no one else would be showing up at the cottage.
After ending the call, Jessica thought for five minutes, convincing herself that hiding out in Maine was the best option, despite the fact that it felt like she was running away. She rinsed out her beer can and began to pack.
2
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 4:07 P.M.
It was late afternoon and Alison hadn’t left the apartment all weekend, not since she’d gotten back from her pedicure the morning before.
She’d told herself that it was a rare luxury, having a weekend all to herself, but now she was restless and bored. Ten years ago she could have called up any number of her friends who still lived in the city, but they had all left, except Doug, who was out of town, and Natalie, who, last time she checked, was still downtown, barely hanging on, a full-blown alcoholic living off a diminishing trust fund. When was the last time she and Natalie had hung out? Six months, at least, or maybe a year ago. She looked at her phone—she still had Natalie’s number—and decided on a whim to give her a call. Maybe they could go to the Swan down in the East Village, drink Bloody Marys for dinner, then hang around all night, see who came in. It would be like stepping back in time.
She made the call, but an automated voice told her the number had been disconnected. She checked to see if she had Natalie’s email address—she did—and wrote, “Hey Nat, Al here, wanted to see if you’d like to go on a Sunday evening bender for old times’ sake. The Swan’s still in business, isn’t it?” Then, after sending the message, and feeling strange about it, she decided to look up Natalie, find out if she still even lived in New York. It took her a moment to come up with her last name—on her phone’s contact list she was simply listed as Nat G—but it came to her. Gimbel, like the old department store. She punched in “Natalie Gimbel” and the first thing that came up was an obituary from two months ago. She clicked on it, and saw a picture of her old friend, smiling into the camera, sun-wrinkled and with streaks of gray in her hair. She’d actually left New York and had been living out in Sedona, Arizona. There was no cause of death, but the obituary stated that in lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Honeysuckle Treatment Center, and Alison connected the dots. How had she not heard? Had none of her old friends known, and if they had known, why hadn’t they let her know?
Alison took a deep breath, but her windpipe felt constricted, as though she couldn’t quite get enough oxygen. Her chest hurt, and her immaculate living room, and its objects, looked suddenly strange in her vision, unreal, as though she were seeing them for the first time. Her limbs felt hollow, and a voice in her head said, You’re dying, this is it. But another voice said, It’s a panic attack. You had one before, in college. It felt just like this. And the second voice won. She didn’t call 911, but slowly waited for the feeling to pass, and eventually it did.
By dinnertime she felt almost human again, exhausted, and hungry enough to eat a yogurt. While she ate, she flipped through the channels on the television, but couldn’t find anything to watch, so she logged onto Amazon Prime and binge-watched most of season two of Fleabag, a show she’d already watched a couple of times. In between the second and third episodes she opened a bottle of Vermentino and grabbed a single-serving packet of raw almonds. During the last episode she got a call from Jonathan, very surprising since it was late on Sunday evening. Pausing the television, she picked up and said, “Hi.”
“Al,” he said. He rarely called and when he did she always thought that his voice sounded so much older than he looked. A voice from an old movie, masculine and clipped.
She was about to make some quip about hearing from him on a Sunday, but said, instead, “Everything okay?”
“Yes and no,” he said. “Jane’s left me.” Jane was his wife, and based on what he’d told Alison about her, she was supposed to be the type of wife who would never leave a marriage.
“What do you mean? For good?”
He cleared his throat. “It’s a total shock, but she’s actually met someone else, and she up and left yesterday afternoon. They have an apartment together already.”
“Oh my God, Jonathan. How are you doing?”
“I’m dumbfounded, honestly, but I’m also … I’m also free now, I guess.”
“Sounds like it.”
“And the first person I thought of was you.”
“Sweetheart,” she said. It was her endearment for him, and she didn’t use it very often.
“Want to go away for a few days? I was thinking I could bring you to my place in Bermuda. The weather will be—”
“Yes. Yes,” she said, sitting up so fast that she kicked over the bottle of wine that was on the floor, spilling the small amount that was left.
“I have some things to do, but I thought that maybe we could leave toward the end of the week, be there by next weekend.”
“I’d love that.”
“Great. I’ll get back to you with arrangements. I can book a private flight out of Teterboro, and I can get a car to bring you out. Are you sure you’re up for spending all that time with an old man?”
“I’m thrilled. Really. I’m not just saying that, Jonathan.”
After ending the call, Alison played her “going out” Spotify mix as loud as she thought she could without getting a noise complaint, looked up the weather in Bermuda, then started laying out clothing possibilities on her bed, even though it would be several days before she was going.
After making a list of items she’d need to buy that week, she listened to a very strange message from a man identifying himself as Agent Berlin of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, wondering if she’d received a piece of mail with a list on it that included her name. He left her his number to call, plus the local number of the FBI office in Manhattan, where she could ask for an Agent Garrett. She’d known that list was bad news, and she deleted the voice mail without taking down any of the numbers. She’d already decided she’d be better off not knowing. Besides, in a week’s time she’d be in Bermuda.
3
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 5:31 P.M.
Jack had spent too much of the day indoors, clicking through news stories on Google, making phone calls to various people in his employ, and decided that before it got too dark, he’d make himself a drink and sit outside and enjoy it.
There was a built-in cabinet in the dining room and that was where he’d set up his bar.
He cracked open a fresh bottle of Plymouth, thinking he’d make himself a martini, then remembered that he didn’t have any olives. Never mind, he thought, and decided to make himself the drink he internally called “The Travis McGee,” named for the favorite drink of the main character in a slew of thrillers he used to devour back in the day. They all had colors in the title, the books did, and he remembered one he thought was called The Amber Place for Dying, or something like that. He couldn’t remember the author’s name, it was something MacDonald, maybe John or Gregory, but the hero was Travis McGee, and for whatever reason, probably because it was a damn fine drink, he remembered how to make Travis McGee’s favorite tipple.
After throwing a handful of ice into a tumbler, he poured a little bit of dry sherry into the glass. Then he dumped out the sherry and filled it up with Plymouth Gin. He found a lemon in the refrigerator and added a few drops of lemon juice. He couldn’t remember if you added some lemon peel but decided to do it anyway. It looked nice, and Jack had always considered drinking an aesthetic activity, above all else. He was going to bring his drink out to the back patio, but changed his mind, and went out the front door of the house, taking a seat on the bench that sat to the right of the front door. It wasn’t comfortable, but it would be nice to watch the cars and the dogwalkers go by.
He balanced the drink on the metal seat of the bench and buttoned up his cardigan. Then he took a long sip of the delicious gin, and silently toasted whatever author it had been who had created Travis McGee.
Fewer cars were going by than he thought, then he realized it was a Sunday. But there were plenty of pedestrians, most of whom were walking with purpose, or at least seemed to be. There were several runners, mostly men. But even the walkers, especially the women, seemed to be walking with exaggerated strides, and they were all wearing exercise clothes, tight black leggings and brightly colored tops. And not only were they walking with grim determination, they were all talking at the same time, and it took Jack a moment to realize that they were on their phones, talking through the speakers that dangled from their headphones.
He finished his drink and was about to go inside for the evening when he spotted his neighbor—her name had already escaped him—walking along the sidewalk. Even if he hadn’t known her, she would have stood out to him. First off, she wasn’t wearing workout clothes. She was in jeans and a turtleneck sweater, and she was walking slowly, looking up at the leaves that still clung to the trees. She wasn’t even wearing headphones.
“Hello,” he said, and when she didn’t seem to hear him, he said it again, louder.
She jumped a little, then turned her head. “You scared me. I was totally lost in my thoughts.”
“Please go back to them. I’m sorry I interrupted.”
“God, no. If you knew my thoughts, you wouldn’t want to be lost in them. I didn’t see you there. You blend into the side of your house.”
Jack looked down at himself. He was wearing brown trousers, and a rust-red cardigan and he realized now that he probably was hidden against the brick exterior.
“I do,” he said. “I was just about to go inside and get myself another drink. Will you join me on my bench?”
His neighbor, who had stepped up onto his lawn, shrugged and said that she would.
“What can I get you?” he asked, still trying to come up with her name.
“What were you having?”
“Gin on the rocks, which sounds like very serious drinking for a Sunday night, I now realize.”
“It does. Although if you have some tonic, I’d drink a gin and tonic.”
“I think I might.”
When Jack had returned with two gin and tonics, she was sitting on the bench waiting for him. He handed her the glass, and she said, “I might have to suddenly leave you. My husband went into the office today, and he’s due back soon, so I hope you don’t mind …”
“I promise I won’t be insulted when you leave me. This is a good spot. You’ll be able to see him arrive from here.”
“I will,” she said, and took a sip of her drink.
“I’m embarrassed to admit this,” Jack said, “but I’ve forgotten your name already. I blame old age.”
“It’s Margaret,” she said. “And you hardly seem old at all.”
“Margaret. That’s right. And is that what people call you? Or do you have a nickname?”
“I think I’m the only Margaret left in the world. I’m not Maggie, or Megan, or Meg.”
“Or Peg,” Jack said.
“Right. Or Peg, although I don’t think anyone these days is called Peg. No, I’m just Margaret. In college I had a boyfriend who called me Maggie and I loved it at the time, but then we broke up …”
“And no more Maggie.”
“That’s right.”
They were quiet for a moment, both sipping at their drinks. Jack said, “Does your husband always work on Sundays?”
“He’s ambitious, and he says that if he goes in on Sundays, he can get more work done in eight hours than he gets done in the entire week. I don’t mind. I spent the day reading, then decided I needed to get some exercise. You should meet him. I told him about you, and he looked up your book and said that he definitely remembers it. Why don’t you come over for dinner?”
“Oh,” Jack said, taken aback a little by how fast she’d spoken. “I’d be happy to have dinner with you and your husband.”
“Okay. Let me think. What about this Thursday night? Do you think that would work?”
“I know that what I’m supposed to do right now is hem and haw and try to pretend that I’m mentally ticking through all of my upcoming social engagements, but I am pretty confident that I’m free on Thursday. I’d love to come.”
“Great. Come at six. I know that’s a little early, but we tend to eat early. And is there anything you don’t eat?”
“I eat everything except octopus, but somehow I doubt you were thinking of cooking octopus.”
“Why don’t you eat octopus?”
“It does taste quite good, but I saw a documentary about them, and I kind of fell in love. They’re very intelligent, and quite mysterious. I just can’t bear it. I mean, I know that pigs are intelligent, and that chickens can bond with people, and all that, but somehow, it’s different. Or I’m just a hypocrite.”
“Fair enough. No octopus. And no need for you to bring anything besides yourself. And, right on cue, there he is.”
She was looking down the street, where a black SUV was turning into her driveway. Out stepped a clean-cut man dressed in what looked like golf clothes to Jack. Slim-cut chinos and a tucked-in polo shirt. Margaret quickly finished her drink, handed the glass to Jack, and stood up. She took a couple of steps out onto Jack’s front lawn, then waved her husband over. He walked to them, and Jack thought that Margaret seemed tense.
“Jack, this is Eric. Eric, this is the neighbor I was telling you about. Who wrote the book.”
