All That Is Mine I Carry With Me, page 13
Glover was not alone, thankfully. My daddy had a saying: Be bold, and mighty armies will rally to your side. Something like that happened for Glover. He had only to ask a local police department to run down a lead for him, and it would be done. Anywhere, anytime. Once he explained the situation, no local cop ever refused Glover’s request for help. Always a detective was willing to track down a “Jane Larkin,” ask her a battery of questions, even submit a written report and a fingerprint card. This included cops in far-flung, undermanned departments whom Glover could never repay, and even foreign police departments in Mexico City and Paris whom he could not speak to directly, but only through a translator. The vast majority of leads were eliminated this way.
The woman in Cleveland was one of the few would-be Janes that Glover wanted to question personally. She did look like me, though the resemblance was not as close as these men seemed to believe (which is probably a good argument for more female detectives). She acted suspiciously: paid for everything with cash including rent and utilities, refused to provide (or could not provide) any ID to her landlord. A Cleveland PD detective—a lumpy, acne-scarred, take-no-shit old guy named David Poirier—knocked on her door pretending to be a building inspector, to avoid spooking her. She refused to allow him in, but Poirier was able to glance around the apartment from the doorway. To him, it looked as if she had not unpacked. She told him her name was Jane Setera; there was no record of a Jane Setera registered to vote or drive at that address. She seemed skittish. He suggested Glover get his ass out there before she took off. If she bolted, Poirier would have no way to detain her; she had not committed any crime.
When she opened the door to Glover and Poirier, she froze.
Glover held his badge wallet up for her. He announced they were police and wanted to speak with her. He was already searching her face.
She blinked at him a moment, too, his marred handsome face, then past his shoulder at Poirier, whom she seemed to recognize. She winced, apparently chiding herself for not seeing through Poirier’s ruse earlier. When she came back to Glover, he was still gazing at her as if he recognized her, like an old friend or lover.
She had a thinner face than mine and good bones. She wore her hair short, like Mia Farrow, a style I would never have been able to pull off (I would have looked like a chipmunk with that hair). She did not look quite like me, but she did look—at least to their eyes—like a woman I might have become if I’d set my mind to it.
“May we come in?”
“No, you may not.”
“We just want to talk.’
“I said no.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong. We’re just trying to find someone.”
“Who?”
“Someone who’s lost.”
“I don’t know about anything like that.”
“Good. Then this won’t take long, and we’ll leave and you’ll never see us again. But if you won’t help us, then we can’t just leave you alone, you understand?”
She hesitated.
Glover stepped forward, into the doorway, gently forcing her to let go of the door and step back into the room. There was nothing aggressive in his action; it was more like a dance step than a forcible entry.
The room was grimy and small.
“You’re Jane.”
“Yes.”
Glover had never seen me in person, only my photograph. In this woman’s presence, he felt so close to me, so close.
“Is that your real name?”
“I don’t really want to answer any questions. I think I have a right—”
“Look, I’m not going to tell you— We’re not going to do this, okay? I came a long way to see you. You’re not in trouble, you’re not under investigation for any crimes, not by me. I don’t care what you’ve done or what was done to you, whatever the reason is you’re holed up here, I don’t care. You understand? I don’t care. I just need your help. I just need you to be straight with me for five minutes, and then I’m gone. I’m looking for someone. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’m looking for a woman named Jane. She disappeared. She lived near Boston. That’s where I’m from. This detective here thinks you might be her. He thinks you’re my Jane.”
“I’m not.”
“Then who are you? What’s your real name?”
“Jane Setera.”
“Your real name.”
“Jane Setera.”
“Why are you here?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Why? Did you do something? Did you hurt someone?”
“No! Of course not. Someone hurt me.”
“Who?”
“My husband.”
“And where is he?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. Prove to me that you’re being honest.”
“Make him go.” She nodded toward Poirier. “He lied. I don’t trust him.”
“Okay. Dave?”
Poirier left, tactfully clicking the door shut behind him.
“Who’s the woman you’re looking for?”
“Why does it matter?”
“I want to know.”
“Her name is Jane Larkin.”
“What did she do?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why are you looking for her?”
“Because she’s missing.”
“Someone hurt her?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you think I’m her.”
“I think she’s dead, actually. But you might be her, yes.”
“Why do you think she’s dead?”
“It’s just a feeling.”
“Who killed her?”
“Her husband.”
“If you think she’s dead, why are you here?”
“Because I have…doubt. I need to know.”
“Does she have kids?”
“Yes, three. Do you?”
“If I had kids, they’d be here with me.”
“Can you show me an ID?”
“No, I trashed it.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“What’s your real name?”
“Margaret.”
“Margaret what?”
“Margaret Ann Furman.”
“Is that your maiden name?”
“No. Daugherty.”
“Husband’s name?”
“Michael.”
“What’s his middle name?”
“He doesn’t have one.”
Glover’s eyes narrowed.
“Really. It’s true.”
“Where were you born?”
“Long Branch, New Jersey.”
“What hospital?”
“Monmouth Medical Center.”
“Date of birth?”
“Five, eighteen, thirty-eight.”
“What’s your sign?”
“Taurus.”
Her answers were swift, pointed, specific.
“What’s the name of your grade school?”
“Garfield.”
“First grade teacher?”
“Miss Phillips.”
“Who was your best friend in first grade?”
“Sandra.”
“Sandra what?”
“She was Levine then.”
“Where does she live now?”
“Asbury Park.”
“What’s her name now?”
“Stancill. S-T-A-N-C-I-L-L.”
“What’s your birth date?”
“I already told you.”
“Tell me again.”
“Five, eighteen, thirty-eight.”
“What high school did you graduate from?”
“Long Branch High School.”
“Year?”
“Fifty-five.”
“Are you in the yearbook?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the date of your marriage?”
“June 12, 1960.”
“Where did the wedding take place?”
“Newark.”
“Where?”
“At the Essex Hotel.”
“Did you get a marriage license?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. It was the wrong Jane. He would check out her answers later—have someone look up her yearbook page, pull her birth certificate and marriage license—but it didn’t matter. He already knew. By then, she would have disappeared anyway.
“There’s one other thing. Jane Larkin has a scar, on her right shoulder, here.” He reached his left hand across his chest to point at the back side of his shoulder.
The woman stepped close to him, looked at him in a frank, unembarrassed way, and she unbuttoned her blouse enough to slip it off her shoulder and turn her shoulder so Glover could see her unmarked skin.
* * *
—
Miranda went on a Friday afternoon to Mrs. Bowers’s house where, with the two little Bowers daughters, they baked chocolate chip cookies, an activity Mrs. Bowers contrived as a test for Miranda, to see how she might work out as a babysitter. It was all so intoxicating for Miranda. The afternoon flew by. Miranda loved everything about the Bowerses, she decided. She loved the bright, clear light of their house, particularly the gleaming, modern kitchen with its brushed-steel appliances. She loved baking cookies, which was an activity I used to do with her. She felt an instant kinship with the two little girls, shining children of seven and nine who looked up to Miranda as an elder in a way she had never felt before. It was as if she had entered a mirror image of her own family, sunny and bright where hers felt secretive and clouded.
Most of all, she could not help loving Mrs. Bowers. To Miranda, she looked less and less like me physically as the afternoon wore on, but it did not matter. She reminded Miranda of her mother anyway, in some mysterious, inarticulable way. Miranda felt a daughterly devotion to this woman, which she knew was unreasonable, crazy, but which gave her such a delirious high that she had no wish to talk herself out of it. She watched Mrs. Bowers in a sly way, when she thought her spying would not be seen, and she noted every move: the way Mrs. Bowers tucked her hair behind her ear, the way her eyes squinted when she smiled. These were mannerisms Miranda would adopt herself.
When the cookies went into the oven and the bowls and dishes were all piled into the sink, the two girls pulled up kid-size chairs in front of the oven and sat down to watch them bake, as if the oven window were a TV.
Miranda bustled around the girls, a happy little hen, displaying the sort of motherly concern that she imagined babysitters ought to have, until Mrs. Bowers said, “Come, Miranda, I want to have a little talk with you.”
They went to the front of the house, to a living room that managed to be formal but not forbidding. They sat, Mrs. Bowers in a chair, Miranda on an adjacent couch, so that their knees nearly touched.
“Well,” Mrs. Bowers said, “the girls clearly adore you. You have two new friends.”
“I like them too.”
“If you’d like to sit for them sometime, of course we’d love to have you. I think you’re wonderful.”
Miranda beamed for her.
“There is one thing, though. I need to ask you, sweetheart— I know…what happened.”
“Oh.”
“So I need to ask you: Are you okay? I mean, are you able to do this?”
“Yes.”
“Does your father know about this? About us?”
“Not yet. I thought…” Her voice trailed off.
Mrs. Bowers looked down at the floor. She knitted her fingers together and squeezed them until the knuckles whitened a little.
“We’re going to have to make one rule. There’s always rules, aren’t there?” Phony grown-up smile. “Your father can never come here. Not to this house, not even to the driveway to pick you up. If you need a ride, we’ll pick you up and we’ll bring you back home.”
“I understand.”
“I don’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“It’s okay.”
“Is it, Miranda?”
“Yes. I don’t mind.”
“I’m sorry. But it’s a strange situation.”
“I know.”
“Of course you do. I’m sorry.” She took Miranda’s left hand in hers, raised it, and kissed it.
Miranda was quiet. She was aware of the stain on her and that she should be grateful when generous people like Mrs. Bowers accepted her anyway.
“It’s okay,” Miranda said. “My mother has a rule—had a rule—that my father’s clients weren’t allowed to come to our house. They were bad people sometimes.”
“I’m not saying your father is a bad person, Miranda.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, sweetie. It’s just complicated, isn’t it? Life is complicated sometimes.”
“Yeah.”
* * *
—
1958–1961
I was married! I was a wife! Of course, we were both so young—I was twenty-one on my wedding day, Dan was twenty-two—that it was a laugh to call ourselves these things, husband, wife, Mister, Missus. We were kids playing house, tourists in Marriageland. It was the happiest I’ve ever been. When I was a little girl, of course I imagined being married, but it was all so dreamy and vague. So much depends on the boy, doesn’t it? Now I had a boy—the best boy, the perfect boy for me—and the dream was real. I had a husband!
Our first home was a one-bedroom apartment in Brighton, which was tiny and gloomy and made us deliriously happy. We ate our meals in the kitchen. We played cards with a few other young couples, boozy games of gin rummy and canasta, always for money, that ran late into the night and left us all hungover and cigarette-smoky the next day. There was sex, too, fumbling, tentative, electric sex. In theory we were trying to get pregnant; the reality was that we were exploring the whole messy, mysterious business—the squelch and stink of it, the ravenous, jointed squirming—and it made us both go a little crazy. Danny could not get enough of me, could not keep his hands off. “You’re a greedy boy,” I used to tell him. We were not as expert as kids today or as brutal, but we had each other, we had such trust. Our bodies fit together, we were so perfectly paired mechanically, that I could not imagine ever being with another man or him with another woman.
We had been married less than a year when I got pregnant with Alex, and the whole euphoric interlude came to an end.
Still just kids ourselves, we moved to the suburbs to play at being parents. We bought an adorable little three-bedroom brick house in Newton. The down payment came from Dan’s parents. They called it a loan, but Dan assured me we would not have to pay it back, and he shooed away my objections. He was always able to finesse the money politics of his family, which I could never fathom. Anyway, the Larkins’ money was the Larkins’ problem. I had my own family to build. Once we moved in, I launched into getting my new house ready for my new baby—scrubbing, painting, decorating.
But things were different. The jump to the suburbs altered my marriage in some weird way. We had moved only a few miles, but we were never the same after settling in Newton. Maybe we were too settled, too content. Or maybe the fizzy first year of a marriage is meant to subside, like day-old champagne. Maybe that is the whole reason the newlywed period is so happy: it cannot last. In any case, we never got back the bliss of those first months when we were newlyweds. Danny did not like what pregnancy did to my body. Neither did I. The doctor told me the more weight I put on, the harder it would be to take off after I had the baby, so I starved myself to stay skinny. It did not work. I watched helplessly as my belly and butt expanded. Even my feet and ankles swelled up. I felt like a balloon. My new husband lost interest in sex pretty quickly, but he was attentive in every other way, maybe even more than before, doting on his pregnant wife in adorable, old-fashioned ways. He called me “little mother.”
It was around this time that Dan decided to go into law. It was what he wanted—Dan was no businessman—and his way was blocked at Coachman Shoe anyway. Dan’s father had walked away from the company, and now a crowd of uncles and cousins stood to inherit control.
As it turned out, Coachman was about to enter a long, steady decline. In the 1960s and ’70s, shoe manufacturing mostly moved overseas. Fashions drifted away from the formal styles that Coachman was known for. The company—led by all those uncles and cousins—could not adapt.
Of course, Coachman’s problems affected us too. The Larkins’ fortune was tied to the company’s stock. By 1975, when I vanished, my in-laws were well-off but no longer rich. There would be no pot of gold for Danny and me. That was fine, I thought. We could make our own way, and no one could accuse me of gold-digging now. Even Danny took morbid pleasure in watching the company struggle. He felt his father had been treated shabbily there, and Danny always liked a good grudge. He couldn’t help himself.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Back in ’58 when Danny and I were first married, all we knew was that Danny had no future in business. He was free to follow his heart. So he ran up the pirate’s flag and went into criminal law. He attended law school at BU at night. Days, he worked for a rascally lawyer named Ronnie Collins, which was Danny’s real legal education. Every night he came home with a new story. The one where Ronnie had his client’s hair dyed before trial to foil a cop who had described him as gray-haired. The one where Ronnie split the seam in the seat of his pants but gave a theatrical closing argument anyway, pacing back and forth to make sure the jury saw the flash of his underpants, like a bunny’s tail. Or the one where Ronnie picked his nose during the prosecutor’s closing argument to distract the jury. Danny always said that everything he knew about trying a case, he learned from Ronnie Collins. But there was a difference: Ronnie was vulgar and Danny was not. Danny had good manners and good breeding, and in his own practice he would snare the wealthy clients who would not have considered a low-rent hustler like Ronnie Collins. But that was only a question of style. Under the surface, they were both pirates. With Danny it was just a little harder to tell.
