Gossip (22 page)

I went through her desk to be sure there were no letters, no diary, no keepsakes that would hurt or embarrass Avis if the press got hold of them. I found only a few things and destroyed them. I'd have taken her computer if it had been there, but it wasn't. The police must have it.

The next day I had to go down again with Dinah. She wanted to pack up some of Nicky's things to take to him at Riker's. She wasn't thinking very clearly; she'd been crying for several days. I can't imagine they'll let him have his own things at Riker's. We had to get the super to let us in. Avis had a key to the apartment but Dinah didn't. Interesting.

The yellow crime scene tape was already down. I guess since Nicky has confessed, and his account matches the evidence, there wasn't much point in treating it like a mystery. Dinah didn't know I'd already been here since the murder. The apartment seemed as dead as Grace, the air stale, the blinds drawn. Reflexively Dinah opened the refrigerator. She looked at Lindy's juice boxes and yogurts, at the open containers of milk in the shelf of the door, strawberries in a green plastic basket shriveling in the dehydrating air, and a package of chicken legs in the meat bin that smelled of rot. She closed the door again.

I followed her as she went into the master bedroom. She spent a little time opening drawers in Grace's desk while I watched and hoped she wouldn't find anything I'd missed. She packed up Nicky's wash kit and a small suitcase of socks and underwear, shirts and jeans, a sweater, and a pair of sneakers. Then Dinah went to the baby's room. She saw at once that the toys and clothes were gone. There was a stuffed yellow chicken with a squeaker in it lying on the floor. We hadn't done a very tidy job of closing drawers or the closet door after we'd cleaned them out; the place looked as if it had been ransacked.

A framed picture of Dinah with Lindy at the beach had been left on the painted dresser. Dinah took that.

A
vis's apartment is full of flowers and visitors, as you would expect after the death of a young person. Avis wanted to bring Grace home to lie in the living room, but she was persuaded that it would be very much the wrong thing for Lindy. The corpse that had been Grace stayed at Frank Campbell's. Her room there too was packed with flowers, and there was one long ghastly afternoon when Avis stood receiving Grace's friends, saying the same things over and over.
Yes. Thank you. She does, doesn't she? Thank you for coming. You were one of her favorite people.

I stood by the door and reminded people to sign the guest book. Avis had no idea whom she was talking to; her eyes were blank. Someday she'll want to know who came. The funeral home did a remarkable job of restoring Grace's face to a normal expression. I don't know what violence they may have done to her down in their horrible workroom to achieve their effects. She was coated in makeup, which made her look like a familiar but slightly wrong representation of herself. Her face seemed too big, and her hair was weirdly wiglike. I was no longer sure that the scarf had been a good idea, but it was too late to fix it. As with so many things.

On the sidewalk outside Campbell's the press was thronged six deep. They snapped and shouted when they recognized people going in or out; I can only suppose they had studied the photo vaults in their morgues for hours so they would recognize the people in Grace's life. They even called to
me
by name, trying to ask me questions, and outside a very small circle, I am nobody. You can imagine the hoopla when they caught sight of the famous actress from Grace's class at Nightingale, or the boldfaced names among Avis's social friends. Between that day and the funeral itself we went through two guest books and started on a third. You'd be amazed at the list.

The press gauntlet was the same outside Dinah's apartment. They harassed anyone coming out about Nicky and Dinah. At one point they caught the woman whose daughter Nicky had bitten when he was three. I saw this on the evening news; thank God all she said was that everyone in the building was terribly sorry for the family. A reporter then asked her if Alvin Grable was coming to the funeral.

They liked asking everyone if they were surprised. What the hell did they expect people to say?

Inside Dinah's apartment, the atmosphere was far stranger than at Avis's. A young life had ended there too, but neither Miss Manners nor Emily Post had covered the situation. Richard and Charlotte came in from Ardsley to sit with Dinah the first day. Richard is devastated. If he blames Dinah at all, he didn't show it. People telephoned but didn't know what to say. Charlotte and I took turns answering. Nicky's friends arrived wanting to help, wanting to offer condolences, but then didn't know how. Two of them fell to reminiscing about funny moments they had shared with Nick in happier times, but instead of eliciting smiles from the mourners, they found the family staring at them in confusion. Dinah moved through minutes that took forever to build into hours, as if she were underwater. More than anything, she seemed bewildered.

Her sisters from Canaan Hamlet went to Avis's first, to pay their respects, and then came to sit with Dinah. Treena seemed aphasic, she was so distraught. She said that Avis had been very gracious to them and seemed to be holding up. Dinah just stared at her. I could see her framing the question in her head:
You went to Avis's? You went to Avis's first?
But in the end she said nothing. They had loved Grace. Avis had been nothing but kind to them. What were they to do?

In the evening, when most people had left, Dinah asked me if I thought
she
should go to see Avis. She was completely unmoored. I said no, the funeral would be circus enough for both of them to get through. I led her sideways into a talk about what she would wear.

Y
ou've seen the tape of Nicky walking into the courthouse for his arraignment. The perp walk. Everyone's seen it, the local news shows ran it over and over that day and evening while repeating what they considered his vital statistics. Out-of-work actor, former star of
The Marriage Bureau,
fired for punching Alvin Grable at a bar in a quarrel over a girl. Now being arraigned for the murder of his socialite wife, Grace Metcalf. On the screen you see Nicky walking quickly but with none of the ducking and squirming of the typical accused. He holds his handsome head up and looks calmly ahead of him into his ruined life as the cameras flash. His hands are cuffed behind him, and police hold both his elbows. On sound, you hear the 911 call. He says, “I need to report a murder.” The operator asks for his name and address. He gives them. The operator asks, “Do you need an ambulance?”

He says, “No, she's dead.”

“Who is dead, sir?”

“My wife. I killed her.”

You can hear the operator talking excitedly to a dispatcher; then: “Can you stay on the line, sir? Can you tell me what happened?”

He says, “I killed my wife.”

“Yes, sir. Can you stay right there, sir? Help is on the way.”

“Yes, I'll stay with her.”

Help wasn't what was on the way. But whatever he had called for, he sat quietly until it came for him.

I
nsomnia. Do you have that? It's like a nasty light you can't put out no matter what you pour on it.

Is this a very American story? Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy kills girl? If yes, I don't see why. People who go unhinged belong to some separate country with no history or culture. Though your country and mine is already getting its hands all over it. Indictments will be brought. For manslaughter or first degree? Does taking the child to his mother's house prove Nick had decided in advance to kill? Does keeping the dog at home prove he had not?

Will they understand it any better when it's over? I doubt it. Murder is always bound to be more than the sum of its parts.

The funeral. It was at St. Thomas, where they had been married. Officially married. Two hundred or so of us had cards of invitation, which in theory entitled us to seating in the reserved pews in front, but the place was packed to the rafters, and even with cards you were out of luck if you hadn't arrived at least three-quarters of an hour before time. The church staff as well as some private security—I assume that's who those men in black suits with the earpieces were—did their best to keep out the press, but plenty of them found their way in, and with little digital cameras they got enough pictures to feed the gossip sites and tabloid columns for days. Avis had hired an event planner to handle the details; she was in no shape to do it herself. But it was still she who had to decide about sending reserved seating cards to Dinah and the rest of Nick's family.

Of course she sent them.

A
t Dinah's house, once the first gruesome shock had been survived, the axis began to move off center, first a degree or two, then more and more until Dinah's universe was at right angles to Avis's. Grief for Grace faded back a little as feelings, complex though they were, for Nicky, who was still alive, moved to the fore. He had snapped; he had fallen very far and hard. But did he jump or was he pushed?

There is even a soundtrack for this question. There was a long conversation in the family about choosing a defense lawyer and how to pay him. About an insanity defense. The case for manslaughter. The fact that Nicky has so far showed no wish to do anything except plead guilty. Which is not exactly the same thing as showing remorse. He seems to think it's as if he'd fought a duel, done something illegal but quixotically manly.

Dinah assumed I would sit with her at the funeral. Nicky's godmother, after all. Dinah, who had positioned herself as an outsider all her life, now found herself with the Establishment ranks arrayed against her, with their silken tents and banners flying, armor in place and parade weapons at the ready. She sees, at last, what a formidable force it is.

Avis invited me to join her in the rector's study and walk into the sanctuary with them after the mourners and others were seated. Dinah and her family would have to fight their way down the aisles, clutching their tickets like everyone else. Instead I managed to arrive late and alone and slip up a side aisle. Casey Leisure saw me and signaled to me; she made room for me in her pew by squeezing her daughters aside and putting all their coats on the floor, which was kind of her.

Avis walked down the center aisle, supported by her stepdaughters and their families. Her head was high, and she looked like a carved ivory icon, dignified and drained of blood. She must have taken something. In the center of the aisle she bowed to the cross, then turned directly to enter her pew, completely avoiding looking to the right, where Dinah and her family were sitting. Then the casket was carried down the aisle on the shoulders of eight pallbearers, four weeping friends of Grace's and four stout men from the funeral home. We all stood as it passed, and I caught sight of Mike Allison and his new wife on the other side of the aisle. She was not the one from the doctor's office, not a trophy wife at all, but a friendly-looking Town Club dowager with gray hair and a pleasant face.

The music and flowers were magnificent. The rector, who had barely known her, gave a rote eulogy, referring to Grace as Gracie. A long—too long—parade of Grace's friends came forward and spoke; it was touching, moving, a cause for laughter and for tears, as well as of frustration at the sloppy diction of the young, which caused many of us to miss the point of the stories. Finally, a piano played the adagio from Beethoven's
Pathétique
sonata as the pallbearers carried Grace back out into the winter sun, followed by Avis, head down, face raddled with weeping and looking twenty years older than when she had come in, and the stepsisters and their families, all also in tears. I'd be pleased if I never had to hear that piece of music again. When I finally saw myself in a mirror an hour later, there were black smears of eye makeup down my cheeks. I should have known better than to wear mascara.

Dinah stayed in her pew for a long while. I got up with the bulk of the crowd and made my way slowly along with the current, surrounded by people greeting friends, putting away their hankies, beginning to make their plans for the afternoon.

Across the church, in a similar sea of people, I saw Peter Varnum. He was alone. He was freshly barbered and wearing a clean shirt but looked as if he'd been crying for a week. When he finally got up he put on mirrored sunglasses that hid his eyes before he left his pew. He stood up straight and tapped the side of the funeral program against his wrist in a vacant tattoo as he slowly moved toward the sunlight along with the distant acquaintances and the sightseers. What will his life be like now? What will he tell his children about this day?

Outside, I waited to see Dinah make her exit. I could have ridden to the reception in one of the family limousines, but the weather was mild for winter, and one could easily walk from the church to the Colony Club.

Dinah finally appeared under the Gothic arch of the door. The dress we had chosen draped well, and she too was wearing large dark glasses. The press surged toward her, cameras clicking and flashing, and began shouting questions. Richard and Richard Jr. with their children formed a flying wedge in front of Dinah. With Charlotte and Laura at her sides, they muscled her through the crush and into a car that quickly left the scene.

I saw a tall woman with auburn hair moving toward me as we descended the dark stone steps in the sunlight. She reached me and said, “Loviah, it's Meredith Flood,” at the same time as I said, “Meredith. Hello.” I didn't offer my hand.

“I'm so sorry,” she said, touching my arm.

You should be, I did not say out loud, wishing she meant sorry about my garden.

“I know how close you are to Avis and Grace. It's so, so sad.”

“Thank you.”

A pause. I didn't help her. “Well. I just wanted to say that, to say how sorry I am. We all are.” She moved on past me.