Authors: Alison Gaylin
“Nelson?”
She caught sight of the note first, face up on the sink. Black pen on pale blue stationery, its edges curling from steam. Brenna read.
“No,” she breathed.
The smell registered, gripped in the steam, flat and foul. Why was she noticing it only now, that smell? Brenna didn’t want to turn around, but she did. She turned, and she saw him there, the poor man, poor sad Nelson Wentz, hanging from a towel hook right next to the shower, his own belt around his neck. Brenna felt the ripping pain of her own scream, but all she could hear was running water.
I
t was the face that would stay with her—the pale skin, the two black eyes, the mouth wrenched open in a sick parody of a smile.
Halloween makeup
. That had been Brenna’s first, irrational thought, her mind trying to come up with excuses for what she was looking at—the lifeless body, hanging from the thick hook, one foot pushing against the faucet, the water running and running, hot and then cold for what must have been at least twelve hours.
The water bill
. That had been Brenna’s second irrational thought, which had lasted all of half a second before she’d started shrieking.
Nelson Wentz was dead—the apparent cause of death strangulation from hanging. And though Brenna still couldn’t wrap her mind around it—so much of it didn’t make sense—the police seemed ready to rule it a suicide from the moment they arrived at the house. There had been no outward signs of a struggle or a breakin. Nothing different about Nelson’s home at all, save for the slightly rearranged furniture, which had gotten Brenna nothing but blank stares when she’d brought it up.
And then, of course, there was the note.
I can no longer live with the guilt. I killed my wife, Carol. I beleived her to be having an affair. I let my anger get the best of me. I am so sorry. God have mercy on my soul.
Nelson Wentz
As you would expect, Nelson’s handwriting was meticulous. Perfectly formed block letters, evenly spaced. The note was now in a clear evidence bag on the coffee table, surrounded by Morasco, Pomroy, and two other detectives whom Brenna had never met—a thickly built, red-haired woman in a plain navy blue wrap dress, and an older guy in a tie with anchors all over it, neither one of whom had bothered introducing themselves. Brenna, who had been briefly questioned by the group, now leaned against the crafts closet, watching them wait for the chief to arrive.
The detectives said very little. Wrap Dress and Anchor Tie were sitting next to each other on the couch, their hands folded in their laps. They looked like a married couple being interviewed for a very boring documentary, with Pomroy, the meaty host, leaning against the window frame behind them. Morasco was at the edge of Nelson’s recliner, both feet on the floor. Throughout their sparse conversation, he kept glancing over at Brenna, which she found both a comfort and a distraction.
“ . . . should be here any minute,” Pomroy was saying, and then Hutchins strolled in, the cue so obvious-seeming, Brenna half-expected a laugh track. He’d changed out of his golf togs and into a three-button, pinstriped suit—cut to fit him maybe five pounds ago, the back of the jacket tight and shiny through the shoulders.
“How are we doing, men?” Hutchins said. “I hear we got a suicide note, no signs of a B&E, body discovered this morning . . .” Pomroy lumbered up to him and began rattling off specifics, and Brenna watched these two heavy men, her eyes dry and flat.
Odd the way death settled into your system. After that initial panic, you went a little dead yourself, your heartbeat slowing, your emotions going numb. It was a coping mechanism, but it was also, Brenna thought now, a form of empathy . . .
“Miss Bissel?”
It took Brenna a few seconds to realize Hutchins was addressing her. She swallowed hard. “Hello.”
He pointed to his forehead. “Like I said at the club, steel trap.” He gave her a tight, hard smile. “I never forget a name, even a fake one.”
“Oh, well, that was—”
“You know it’s against the law to misrepresent yourself to a police officer.”
Brenna said, “I was doing my job.”
Hutchins and Pomroy stared at her, that statement, in all its lameness, echoing in Brenna’s ears.
“You’ve got to understand—”
“Oh, I understand,” said Hutchins. “Just like you should understand that when I ran your plates after you accosted me in the parking lot, I was just
doing my job
as well.”
Brenna said nothing. She was clenching her teeth so tight her jaw hurt.
”You can leave, Ms. Spector. You’ve given us all the information we need.”
Three crime techs walked out of the house with their metal briefcases, and then two more emerged from the bedroom, carrying Nelson’s bagged body downstairs on a stretcher. It looked so small, almost like the body of a child.
Brenna turned and followed, but she stopped when she got to where Morasco was sitting. He looked up at her.
“He spelled ‘believed’ wrong.”
“What?”
Wrap Dress said, “I think the chief just asked you to leave.”
Brenna ignored her. “Nelson Wentz,” she told Morasco. “He was one of the most anal people I ever met—a total perfectionist. And not only that, he edited encyclopedia articles for a living. Don’t you think it’s a little odd that a person like that would spell a word wrong in his own suicide note?”
Brenna felt five sets of eyes on her, but she looked only at Morasco. “Think about it,” she said quietly. And then she walked out the door, and to the sidewalk, where she waited.
A
cross the street, press cars and news vans kept arriving and parking until they formed a small herd. Cameramen were starting to unload their equipment, reporters checking their reflections in rearviews. Brenna watched them, flashing back for several seconds to Nelson’s press conference, until Hutchins strode out of the house and moved toward them, everything about him so broad—the smile, the wave, the body, doing battle with the expensive suit. He was the exact opposite of Nelson, and it brought Brenna back to the present. The other detectives followed—a Greek chorus with their smug expressions, all in perfect step except for Morasco, who headed straight for the sidewalk and up the street where his car was parked so quickly, he didn’t even seem to see Brenna as he passed.
Brenna tore off after him, reaching him just as he was about to get into his car. She tried to say his name, but at that point she was so winded that all she could do was slap him on the shoulder.
He spun around. “Brenna.” There was a flicker in his eyes—a warning.
“I know you told me to drop the case,” she breathed, “but seriously, Nick, how could I?”
She started to say more, but he cut her off. “When people are under stress,” he said, “they do things they normally wouldn’t.”
Brenna moved closer, her breathing slowing. “What do you mean?”
“Spelling words wrong.”
She exhaled. “Oh.”
“Normally, people aren’t stressed when they kill themselves. They’ve been through all of that already and the body creates a sense of calm.” He took a breath. “But as you and I both know, Nelson Wentz was not a normal man.” He sounded as if he were reading from a script.
“Listen. We have to talk. I have something important to show you.”
“I’m sorry. But we really can’t open an investigation based on one misspelling.”
“Nick, what the hell—”
“Sssh.”
He glanced both ways, then stared pointedly into her eyes. “Washington Playground,” he said between his teeth. “Parking lot. Ten minutes.”
T
he Washington Playground was clean, but surprisingly small and unassuming when compared to everything else Brenna had seen in Tarry Ridge—refreshing in a way, in its normalcy. There was a curving slide, a swing set, a dome-shaped jungle gym, and a huge sandbox, all of it perched on a neat green lawn surrounded by park benches, not a Teasdale plaque or statue in sight. The park was nearly empty. Two blond kindergarten-aged boys took turns on the slide, two middle-aged Hispanic women watching from one of the benches, chatting. That was it.
Yet when Morasco walked up to her window and said, “Car or playground?” Brenna opted for the car. Better to be safe.
Once inside, Morasco said, “Candy Bissel? From the
Sleepy Hollow Review
?”
“
Press
. Not
Review
.”
He gave her a look.
“I don’t have a badge to flash. I get my information any way I can.”
He sighed heavily. “What were you doing at Wentz’s, Brenna? I told you—”
Brenna put a hand up, cutting him off. She took the envelope out of her bag and handed it to him. “This,” she said, “is what Carol took out of the picture frame.”
Morasco looked at her. “How do you know?”
“Open it.”
Morasco slipped open the envelope, removed the crayon drawing of the stick-figure girl, trapped inside the flower. “Another picture by Iris?” he said. Then he saw the photographs and said nothing. He stared at each one, no sound in the car at all but his breathing, until finally, he spoke. “Wright and Lydia Neff.”
She nodded. “The Vivio Bistro was a company car back then. It didn’t transfer over to Meade until 1999.”
“A company car. Not easily traced.”
“That’s right. The perfect vehicle for secret meetings.”
He turned to her. His face was pale. “Wright has worse secrets than that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I researched Meade a little. I spoke to the director of the Bronx VA Hospital. I read some of the complaints made against him, Brenna. Withholding food and pain medication, overloading them with laxatives, suspected cutting, burning. In one report, he denied any wrongdoing, but claimed the patient ‘deserved agony’ because he no longer wanted to fight in the army. He’s a sociopath. Inhuman.”
“Yes.”
“And yet Wright hired him, after that. He must have seen the records.”
“He did wind up firing him.”
“Did he?”
Brenna stared at him.
He stole a quick glance at the chatting nannies, then moved in closer, his gaze fixed on her face. “Chief Griffin retired five years ago. Moved into the Waterside Condos. No one ever asked how he could afford a place there. Just like no one asked how Hutchins can afford his 360i, his country club membership, those ridiculous shiny shoes . . .”
“Not to mention the police department building.”
“The Teasdale Station House,” he said. “Yes.”
“But what does that have to do with—”
“Chief Griffin was a widower. No kids. No one to talk to, really. Lydia Neff used to go to the condos pretty often.”
“To meditate.”
“Right. They already knew each other because of Iris, of course . . . But maybe three, three and a half years ago she and Chief Griffin struck up a friendship. Not like they were dating or anything, but you’d see them together, Lydia and the chief, out at a diner maybe, walking through the shopping center . . .”
“Someone to talk to.” Brenna looked at him. “A strong shoulder.”
“Chief Griffin was big into bike riding. He took the same route, around the reservoir, every morning at 7
A.M.
You could set your clock by him.” Morasco’s gaze darted to the rear window, and then it was back on Brenna’s face, burning. “No more than six months after he and Lydia started talking, Chief Griffin’s body was found, dead from a massive brain injury, the bike destroyed . . . Looked like he’d run into a tree, but there were no witnesses.”
Brenna’s eyes widened. “Was there any sort of investigation?”
“Are you
kidding
me?”
Brenna’s mind went to Hutchins, promoted to chief by an appreciative mayor, the mayor of a town built by Teasdale money. Wright and Hutchins, the world’s oddest pair, golfing every morning for years.
Not so odd.
The Lily Teasdale Police Station—elegant beyond reason. Named after the mother of Wright’s wife. Wright’s wife, who never knew a thing. Rachel Teasdale Wright, so patrician-calm at the Waterside Condos ribbon cutting, living in her glass bubble, smiling with her mouth closed, keeping all that happiness to herself . . . Happiness she
could
keep, always, as long as people like Hutchins accepted Wright’s money, Wright’s funding, as long as they did their jobs and kept his secrets and made sure that bubble never broke.
People like Hutchins. And the mayor. And Meade. “You think Meade is still working for Wright off the books,” Brenna said. “You think he’s still keeping Wright’s secrets.”
Morasco stared into her, through her, his jaw set. “I don’t want you working this case anymore.”
Brenna swallowed hard. She tried a pout, a squeaky Lucille Ball voice: “Waa, Ricky, I wanna be in the show!”
His face didn’t move.
“Oh, come on. Was that one too current for you?”
“I mean it.”
“I know you do, Nick,” she said softly. She disengaged her hands from his. “But really. Is that something you say to a grown-up?”
He sighed. Then shook his head.
She took back the envelope. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to put this somewhere that’s safer than the Tarry Ridge Police Department.”
“And that would be pretty much anywhere on the planet.”
She slipped her arms around his neck and gave him a hug, inhaling the Ivory Soap, feeling how close he held her for those few racing seconds, feeling safe. Brenna knew she would remember, and she was glad. She wanted to keep this.
Once she pulled away, Morasco said, “Promise me you’ll be careful.”
“I will.”
“And you’ll call. Often.”
“I will.”
“And you’ll tell me everything, keep nothing from me, let me help you, whether you think you need it or not.”
Brenna gave him a long, steady look. “Will you do the same?”
“Yes.”
“Then okay. I will.”
He opened the door and left the car, his gaze never leaving her face. “I’ll hold you to that,” he whispered. As Brenna pulled out of the space and drove away, Morasco sat in his own car, hands on the wheel, watching her go.