Don't You Cry (24 page)

Or maybe I've just let Esther down. Right now, it's hard to say for sure.

“But what about the photograph,” I ask, “of me? The one Esther put in the paper shredder, my face with a slit across the throat. That was clearly a threat. She wants me dead.”

“Or...” suggests Detective Davies as I feel the bile rise up inside of me like an active volcano, threatening to erupt. “Maybe whoever sent Esther the letter took the photo of you, too. Maybe that's who wants you dead.”

Alex

The ground looks hard. Not frozen solid, but hard. The top layer, the sod, seems the hardest to get through as she begins digging into the cold morning earth with her gardening spade, pressing on the steel with the sole of a suede boot. The sod binds together, a million sheaths of grass, clinging together, refusing to let her through. It's hard work, but Pearl forces her way in, gouging out the land bit by bit. I watch in awe as she thrusts the cold, hard earth up in the blade of the shovel, tossing it into a pile behind her slender frame. As she does, she begins to sweat, a cold sweat that congeals on her skin and makes her shiver, and as I watch from a distance, she removes her coat first, followed by the hat, tossing them both onto the dew-covered lawn, and I'm reminded of the day at the lake, Pearl undressing bit by bit and then walking into the frigid water.

As the steel blade hits topsoil, the work gets easier; the earth puts up less of a fight and the pile of dirt begins to rise. She digs and digs, and, watching her, I lose all track of time. I'm hypnotized by her movements, but also more than a little terrified. Who is this woman and what is she doing? Why is she digging up the remains of the dead Genevieve? It feels suddenly moronic that I followed her here. Suddenly stupid. Anyone with half a mind would have immediately called the police or run in the other direction, not trailed her. But now here I am, hiding in the bushes of an all-but-abandoned cemetery while some wackadoodle unearths a corpse from the ground. I squat down to the hard, cold earth, making certain that as the fog rises I won't be seen. I don't want to even think what she'd do to me if she knew that I was here. For now, the bushes will keep my secret for me.

As I watch from a distance, I dredge up what knowledge I have of the little girl who's buried in that grave. I don't know much; she was gone before I was born. But what I've heard about Genevieve is that after her death the town's members lifted the rudimentary wooden casket from the trunk of her family's car and dropped it into this very trench in the cemetery, hastily, without the praxis of a visitation or a funeral or a procession. Instead, the body was ushered rather quickly from the car and to this ditch and nobody ever bothered to ask why. People were glad she was gone. Though she might have only been five years old, she was a delinquent, the kind of child that wreaked havoc on their own children and homes, tormenting kids, vandalizing property, chasing neighborhood dogs. That's what I've been told. It wasn't as though anybody wanted to see a little girl die, but still, they were glad she was gone. “Her mother had her hands full,” neighbors have said over the years, staring at that forsaken house, mumbling under their breaths something to the effect of,
What a
damn shame
.

As far as I know, no one comes to visit Genevieve's grave. I can only assume her family split as soon as they abandoned that old home and buried their child in the ground.

In time Pearl's shovel begins to fill with silt and sand, followed by clay, terra-cotta-colored clay soil, and then, later—in the moments before the steel blade hits hollow wood—bits of broken-up rock fragments, gray like stone. It comes up in chunks, rocks that appear hard to carry. They must be heavy and as I watch on she takes her time, losing speed.

But then I hear the sound of metal on wood, and know that she's arrived at her destination, the reason for which she'd come here.

The cemetery is quiet, short of silent save for the sound of Pearl gasping for air. She fights for oxygen in the still November air. I'm guessing her throat is as dry as the bedrock. Even I am thirsty and I'm not doing the work. She sweats in exertion, while the numb air freezes my lungs, making them ache and burn. It's cold, winter coming quickly. Too quickly. The grass around us is a faded green, a sage green, quickly losing color, becoming dormant for the winter season ahead. It's brittle to the touch and no longer burgeons out of the ground. Soon it will be covered with snow. The fog begins to rise, and as it does, the world materializes before me: granite and marble headstones, grotesque, ill-proportioned trees, and the church: a small, one-room rectangular Protestant church, white, with a stacked limestone base and clapboard sides. The windows are plain, no frills, as is the entire building, an 1800s structure that's been outdone by the more modern, hip churches popping up around town. I'm not even sure if anyone uses this place anymore or if it's just for show, a dead thing, a cadaver, hollowed out like all these bodies buried beneath the ground.

And then all of a sudden Pearl tosses the garden spade aside and stops digging. She's reached a box, a wooden box that itself is mostly decomposed. She can't lift the box—it's wedged too tightly into the earth, in the final stages of decay. It crumbles to bits in her hand, and so instead she pushes what's left of the lid aside and peers inside.

From this angle I can't see inside Genevieve's grave, but I watch for Pearl's reaction. What I see is a look of smug satisfaction as if she was hoping to prove something to the world, and that's exactly what she did. She puts her hands on her hips; she smiles.

She leaves the garden spade where it is, the mound of dirt piled sky-high, the gravesite exposed so that all of the world can see.

And then she wipes her sweaty brow with the back of a sleeve, picks up her coat and her hat to leave.

But she doesn't leave. Not yet, anyway. Before she goes, her eyes rove the cemetery, from the old church, to century-old headstones, to me. For a second, I'm half certain her eyes linger on my hiding place, there behind the evergreen trees and leafless bushes where I squirrel myself away and try desperately to hide. She shakes her head. She sneaks a sardonic smile. She sighs.

But if she sees me, she doesn't say a thing. And then she turns and goes.

I don't move right away. Instead, I wait. I wait for a long time, until the squeak of the cemetery's iron gate tells me that she's gone for good. And then I wait some more, just to be sure. And only then do I rise to my shaky feet to see what she's discovered inside that grave.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. That's what Pearl discovered.

The wooden box decomposing in the hard earth is completely empty.

Quinn

Before I climb into Detective Davies's car, I insist on seeing a driver's license plus one more photo ID. Vehicle registration and proof of insurance. You never can be too careful about these things. I've seen enough legal thrillers and murder mysteries to know the cop isn't always the good guy. But in this case, I think he is. And this is why: he's not that nice. He's not that friendly.

“Good enough?” Detective Robert Davies asks when he hands me the State Farm card, and I say, “Yeah. Good enough,” as I open the door and slide into an unmarked Crown Victoria that's parked in the public lot off Columbus. The car reeks of the fast-food bag that lies open on the passenger seat. He scoops it up before my rear end has a chance to squash it flat, and tosses it into a nearby garbage can. It's much warmer in the car without the cold and the wind, but the dreariness of the enclosed parking garage is still unsettling.

Detective Davies pulls out of the narrow parking spot too quickly and down the garage ramp so that my insides continue to turn. There's a blare of his horn—warning others that he's coming through at breakneck speed—as he guns the engine out onto Columbus and drives me home.

As he drives, the bile again rises up inside my chest until I feel that I could vomit. My head swims with dread. My hands shake, a tremor that makes the rest of me exhausted and dizzy. My heart, itself, has grown wings and can fly, and there it sits in my chest, flapping its birdlike wings, threatening to soar out of my body.

I think of Esther, sad and scared, and me not knowing. Was she really sad and scared, or were these things simply a charade? Who is Esther, really? Is she even Esther or is she Jane? The questions all but take over my mind until I can no longer see straight and I can scarcely think.

Detective Davies drops me off at the front door of my apartment building. Before I can turn around to say goodbye to the detective or thank him for the ride, he speeds away quickly, with Esther's cell phone and the letters to
My Dearest
now in his possession. He plans to see what his tech guys can extract from inside that phone—Esther's call activity and voice mails, her videos and photos.

In my hand, I carry his business card, and in my head, a directive: call if anything happens, if I find anything, if I hear from Esther, if Esther reappears. Just call.

As I step from the car, I peer to the window of our unit, of Esther's and my unit, and half expect to see her, standing there, staring down at me. But of course Esther isn't there. The cloudy window is bare, just the window coverings and the reflection of the other side of Farragut Avenue staring back at me.

But then I see a woman standing beside the locked door, pressing a button repeatedly on the intercom panel with a hand. She waits with a toe tap for a reply that doesn't come. She stands before the door, clutching what I know to be Esther's powder blue, quilted satchel in her leather-gloved hands. She's a small woman; she can't be taller than four foot ten with bulky hair that must weigh as much as the rest of her. I'd bet my life she weighs eighty-nine pounds. Everything she wears is tight: tight pants, tight coat, tight boots.

“Can I help you?” I ask precipitately, my eyes glued to that purse. I have a sudden, overwhelming desire to reach out and clutch that purse in my hands, to hold it.
That's Esther's
,
I want to bark out loud, and I stare at my hands, which, before me, continue to shake. I'm worried. Worried for Esther. The detective's story leaves me feeling panicked and utterly confused—even more so than I already was—this strange twist of events that takes me from mad to scared to worried. Instead of thinking that someone is after me—that
Esther
is after me—I'm worried for Esther.

But still, there are so many questions running in my mind: What about Kelsey Bellamy, and why did Esther change her name to Jane Girard, and seek out a roommate to replace me? Why did she take fifteen hundred dollars out of the ATM? This makes no sense to me, none at all.

“Are you Jane...” the woman at the intercom panel begins, followed by a pause while she peers at some card in her hand and finishes with, “Girard?”
Are you Jane Girard?

Who is Esther Vaughan anymore? I wonder. Do I even know Esther?

I shake my head quickly. I say no, that I'm not, but I'm Jane's roommate. Quinn. I say it, anyway, even though I'm guessing she doesn't care about my name. She's come for Jane.

“Oh, good,” she says, a great wave of relief washing over the inflated facial features—the big eyes, the big smile, the big hair. “I found this,” she says as she thrusts the powder blue satchel into my hands, “in a trash can of all places,” and I take it, grateful to have something, some part of Esther, to hold. I press it close to me; I breathe in the scent of Esther that's begun to wear away and be surpassed by a grungy city smell, mixed with this lady's forceful perfume, the heavy scent of jasmine and rose.

“You found her purse in a garbage can?” I repeat, just to be sure, and she nods and tells me how she was about to toss in her coffee cup when she saw it lying there on top of a jillion fast-food bags, the blue of the satchel catching her eye.

“It's a pretty purse,” she says. “Much too pretty to just throw in the trash. I figured it was an oversight,” and then she says how she didn't want my roommate to worry. “I know I'd be worried if I couldn't find my purse.”

“That's really kind of you,” I say, and it is. Of course it is, if she doesn't have some ulterior motive. Right now I'm not sure of anything, other than the fact that I'm tired and twitchy all at the same time. My head hurts; my hands shake. If any more questions fill my mind, it might just explode.

What was Esther's purse doing in a garbage can?

“What garbage can?” I ask, and she points in the direction of Clark Street and says aimlessly, “Over there.”

“You just found it today? Right now? Just a few minutes ago?”

But she shakes her head no. “It was a day or two ago,” and then she sighs and says, “It's been a long week. A really long week,” as if that should explain to me why it's taken her a day or two to return Esther's purse. “I live nearby,” she says. “It's on the way.” She tells me that
Jane
really should be more careful with her purse, “Carrying that much cash around,” and I know two things then: number one, this lady riffled through Esther's purse, and secondly, when I look inside, I'm going to find fifteen hundred dollars in there.

Esther took the money out of the ATM, but she never used it. She didn't hire some hit man to off me. She isn't vacationing in Punta Cana, sipping a strawberry daiquiri.

Where is Esther?

“How do you know where we live?” I ask suddenly as we stand there on the front stoop, being enveloped by the cold autumn air.

“It's on her driver's license,” she tells me. “I wasn't snooping,” she swears before I have a chance to ask, taking on a tone that is rueful and defensive all at the same time. She
was
snooping. “I was just trying to return the purse. You'll give it to her? To Jane?” this lady asks, and I say, “Oh, yes. Of course,” and then I say my goodbyes, let myself into the building and gently close the door.

* * *

Esther's and my apartment is empty when I step inside, but it smells like Esther: the scent of her cooking, the fragrance of her peony body mist. I'm struck with a wave of nostalgia.

I meander to her doorway and, as I cross the threshold into Esther's refrigerator-box room, I see the Dalmatian Molly floating dead at the bottom of the fish tank. I drift to the side of the tank, flipping off the tank light so that I can't see the poor dead fish on the hot-pink rocks, the swoosh of the filter making it look like she's breathing when I'm certain she's not. Her body lies flaccid, turning white—a sign of rot—and as I tap on the side of the glass, she doesn't move. She's dead. Esther's fish is dead. How long has she been dead?

I mouth the words,
Sorry, Fishy
. I'm not sure what I did, but I'm sure I did something wrong.

I kindle a third search of the apartment, retracing every step I've already made twice. I'm growing desperate. I
am
desperate. There must be something more here, something I've overlooked. I look through Esther's desk and dresser drawers again; I peer inside her closet. I grope at items at random and throw them to the floor, not worrying whether or not I make a mess. I crinkle her papers; I tug the drawers right off the IKEA desk, and search for a false bottom drawer. I breathe heavily, working hard.

There's nothing there.

I make a mess of Esther's room; I knock her pencil cup to the ground, angry and rash. I flip through the stack of textbooks and then toss them aside one by one, where they fall to the hardwood floors, making a clamorous noise. Down below, Mrs. Budny is likely two seconds away from reaching for her sponge mop, but I don't care.

My cell phone rings—Ben, I'm sure, finally returning my call—but I can't be slowed down. I need to find Esther. When I get to the bottom of the textbook pile, I rise to my feet and cross the room, stepping with dirty shoes on Esther's aqua throw and orange duvet, leaving dusty footprints on the fabric, though as I do, I'm reminded of Esther's words:
The dill weed goes here. And the peanut flour goes here.

She wouldn't like this one bit.

“There's nothing here,” I say to myself out loud, hands held up in defeat.

I attack the living room and the kitchen with a vengeance, canvassing every drawer, every piece of mismatched furniture, behind picture frames, under the rug. I slip a hand behind the sofa cushions and search there, too; I knock on the drywall and listen for somewhere hollow, a secret hiding spot. I check inside the air return for a stash of goodies, but still, there's nothing there. Just dust and dirt and dead air.

And then I have an idea, some place I haven't yet searched. I climb on top of the kitchen cabinets and search that half-inch gap between the cabinets for a hideaway, a last-ditch attempt at finding some clue, any kind of clue. Anything. I trek dirty footprints across the Formica countertop but I don't care.

But still, there's nothing there.

It's from up on top of the countertop that I see it, my face red and sweaty from romping around the apartment on another fruitless mission, my heart beating quickly, my breathing heavy and uncontrolled. I'm rolling my sweater sleeves to my elbows when I catch sight of the light blue item on the floor, sitting there behind the door, right where I left it.

Esther's purse.

I leap from the countertop—my knees unleashing a groan—and run to the purse. How is it possible that I didn't think to look inside her purse? Turning it upside down, I toss its contents out on the floor, shaking the purse to make sure I get everything out. I set it aside, but not before zipping and unzipping the pockets, feeling the lining for a secret compartment. But the only thing that's left behind is a stick of gum.

This is what I find spilled across the wooden floors of our apartment: a sewing kit, a headband, a little mirror, three tampons, some Altoids, Esther's light blue quilted wallet—to match the light blue quilted purse—tissues, a book and some keys. A key for the main walk-up door, a key for our apartment door, a padlock key for her storage unit.

And one more typed sheet of notebook paper, folded into thirds.

Addressed to
My Dearest
, and signed,
All my love, EV
.