Authors: Lisa Lutz
I
was twenty minutes late for work because, well, David was late for work and I couldn’t leave until he left. Rick Harkey was not pleased. I supposed the actual excuse wouldn’t go over well, so I told him that my alarm didn’t go off. Turns out that’s not the best excuse, either. I’ve been late for work before, plenty of times. But I was always at ease disappointing my parents; having a mostly-stranger scowl at me was uncomfortable.
Harkey was also displeased with my wardrobe. He guided me in to a small nook with a Formica table, a couple of chairs, a paper shredder, and a bulletin board and asked me to quietly read from a yellowed and worn piece of paper pegged to the far right corner.
DRESS CODE
When I finished reading, I came to the unavoidable conclusion that I would have to keep this undercover investigation as brief as possible. I was
currently wearing blue jeans, boots, and a button-down shirt under a sweater with the tails hanging out. Harkey reminded me about the no-denim rule and then suggested I tuck in my shirt.
After my six-hour shift—filing via a numbered system that worked as security against my prying eye, and shredding an entire box of Harkey’s five-year-old financial statements—I was almost looking forward to my therapy session. Only I couldn’t tell Dr. Rush about my new job or my new home or anything, really.
[Partial transcript reads as follows:]
ISABEL:
My car keeps moving.
DR. RUSH:
That’s what they do, those cars.
ISABEL:
I mean, I park the car and the next time I go to drive it, it’s not where I remember it.
DR. RUSH:
Maybe you should write it down.
ISABEL:
I tried that.
DR. RUSH:
And what happened?
ISABEL:
I took a shower.
DR. RUSH:
Why don’t you try writing on a piece of paper next time?
ISABEL:
Okay. I guess that’s sound advice.
[Long pause.]
DR. RUSH:
Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?
ISABEL:
Not that I can think of.
DR. RUSH:
Think harder, then.
[Long pause.]
ISABEL:
You don’t have as much stuff as Dr. Ira.
DR. RUSH:
It’s been a while since I’ve been to his office, so I can’t comment.
ISABEL:
If you do go to his office, you might want to mention that he could
use a new bookshelf and maybe he should bolt both bookshelves to the wall. You have a nicer office than Dr. Ira. I like the fountain and the coffee station in the waiting room. I also like your carpet better.
DR. RUSH:
Stop stalling, Isabel.
ISABEL:
Excuse me?
DR. RUSH:
Did you forget what we talked about last week?
ISABEL:
No. But what exactly are you referring to?
DR. RUSH:
Therapy is not a place you go to kill time, especially if it’s court-ordered.
ISABEL:
I don’t think that’s what I was doing.
DR. RUSH:
It seems that way to me.
ISABEL:
How does that make you feel, Doctor?
DR. RUSH:
Isabel, according to the revised terms of your plea agreement, you have ten more sessions with me after today. If the rest of this session goes like the first part, you’ll have eleven sessions left. All I have to do is file some paperwork with the court.
ISABEL:
You must really like paperwork.
DR. RUSH:
You must really hate self-examination.
ISABEL:
Well, yeah. Who doesn’t?
DR. RUSH:
Most people aren’t as resistant as you are.
ISABEL:
Really? So, I’m, like, already your worst patient?
[Long pause.]
ISABEL:
Sorry. Refresh my memory. What am I supposed to do?
DR. RUSH:
Just talk about something that’s on your mind—but keep me and Dr. Ira out of it.
ISABEL:
[sigh] There are a lot of things on my mind. I wouldn’t know where to begin.
DR. RUSH:
Let’s start with your family.
A
fter therapy, I really needed a drink, so I took the Muni train to West Portal and stopped in at the Philosopher’s Club. Paddy O’Brien
1
was tending bar as usual, so I ordered a beer and sat down at a table so he wouldn’t think I was interested in having a conversation.
“How are ya today, orgeous?” Connor asked. Normally I wouldn’t assume he was talking to me, but since the only other person in the bar was Clarence, I answered.
“Fine,” I said, picking up a discarded newspaper to further discourage conversation.
“Eye ot ay etter or ya,” he said.
“Huh?” I replied.
Connor approached the table and said something else, but I didn’t pay attention. He placed a sealed business-sized envelope on the table, stamped and addressed to me care of the Philosopher’s Club. There was no return address. I broke the seal on the envelope and found a piece of paper with letters cut and glued from newspaper and magazine print that read:
I Know Your Little Secret
If You Want To Keep It
You Will Meet My Demands
Instructions To Follow
My first reaction was to mentally catalogue my many secrets. But I was tired and that was a lot of unnecessary work. Clearly my “secret” was my new living arrangement. My “blackmailer” was equally obvious. The note had Rae written all over it.
2
I finished my beer and headed over to my parents’ house.
Rae was in her room, supposedly studying for the PSAT retake on Friday to clear her name. I found my sister hanging upside down off her bed in the middle of what I can only assume was a fascinating phone call.
“No—it’s not possible. I don’t believe it. I’ll never believe it. Well, maybe under those exact sets of circumstances, I might believe it. But right now…I don’t…I better go. My sister is here and she’s showing no signs of leaving. See ya tomorrow. Bye.”
Rae sat up in bed, looked me over, and said, “You look unwell.”
“I’m tired,” I said, trying to muster a cold edge to my voice. Exhaustion slurred my words, so it didn’t come off as I had hoped.
“You should try sleeping,” Rae replied. “Or at least taking vitamins. There’s a box of Froot Loops downstairs. Help yourself.”
The non sequitur threw me and shifted the tone of the conversation in Rae’s favor.
“I don’t follow how Froot Loops relate to vitamins or sleep.”
“They’re vitamin-fortified,” Rae explained.
“Don’t push your drugs on me,” I replied, feeling a surprising surge of hostility.
“What do you want?” Rae asked, losing her patience.
“What do
you
want, I think is the point.”
“I want a new car.”
“Be reasonable.”
“A used car.”
“
That’s
what you want?” I asked, barely containing my outrage.
“And world peace,” Rae said, fishing for what I was looking for.
“Don’t play games with me, Rae.”
“Are you stoned?”
“I’m here about the note.”
“What note?”
“Your little blackmail letter.”
“I stopped blackmailing people years ago.”
“You’re denying you wrote—correction, cut and pasted—the note.”
“Izz, if you’re being blackmailed, it’s not me. If you want to provide me with the details, I can look into the matter for you.”
My phone rang just in time. I needed to convince Rae that my situation wasn’t urgent. Otherwise she’d have the leverage of having spotted a weakness.
“Hi, Morty,” I said into the receiver.
“Izzele. Get over to my house right now. I have an emergency.”
“Did you call 911?”
“Not that kind of emergency.”
“Then you shouldn’t call it an emergency. Where’s Ruth?” I asked.
“She left an hour ago for a bridge game. Are you coming over or what?” Morty asked.
“Yes.”
“Don’t tell anyone,” Morty said.
“Who am I going to tell?”
“Not one word!” Morty urged, and then hung up the phone.
“I have to go,” I said. “But this isn’t over, Rae. I’ll be in touch.”
“Get some beauty rest,” Rae said as I passed through her doorway. When I was almost out of earshot, she mumbled, “You need it.”
T
wo weeks after Morty’s return from the hospital, his health was mostly restored, although he didn’t own up to that fact. Still in his ensemble of striped pajamas, terry-cloth robe, and severely worn slippers, Morty met me at the door and directed me into the kitchen. A single piece of paper sat on the table next to a cup of coffee and a half-eaten sandwich.
“What am I going to do?” Morty asked, standing back from the page as if it were an explosive object.
I picked it up. It was a divorce petition, naming Ruth Schilling as the petitioner and Mortimer Schilling as the respondent. My guess was that the document had not yet been filed at the court, so it was still in the threat category, like a loaded gun in a holster.
“She’s bluffing, right?” Morty asked.
“I don’t think so. If she’s found an attorney, what would keep her from filing the paperwork?”
“I can’t believe she’d do this to me. While I’m at death’s door, no less.”
“Knock it off. No one’s buying the sick act anymore.”
“What should I do?” Morty asked, weaving his hands together like a villain in a silent film.
“What do you mean?” I replied.
“What’s my next move?” my old friend asked in all seriousness.
“Sit down,” I said authoritatively.
Morty didn’t budge, so I pulled a chair for him and repeated my demand. He sat.
“You’re moving to Florida, old man. And if you don’t, I can guarantee your children will toss you in a home and leave you there to rot. Ruthy has been with you for fifty-five years. You made a deal and you’re going to stick to it. Got it?”
Morty’s face flushed with anger, which soon faded into acceptance. He nodded his head sullenly.
“Get out of your pajamas and start packing,” I said.
I
couldn’t risk being late two days in a row, so I phoned David when I was ready to leave and asked him if he could look for my watch in the guest bedroom—which is located in the back of the house, where he wouldn’t see me on my way out. However, David was still asleep (at 8:20 A.M.? The universe was turning upside down!), so I apologized for waking him and exited his residence with yet another David mystery to solve. Because of my own new work schedule, it was hard for me to keep track of David’s work habits, but as far as I could tell he hadn’t been at the office since his return.
I was having some trouble keeping track of the mess of mysteries in my head, so I tried mentally organizing them as I waited for the bus. Once the bus came, it was a different story. I grabbed the last open seat in the back by the window and took a quick nap, setting my phone to ring fifteen minutes later. Minimally refreshed but on time, I strolled into the offices of RH Investigations at 8:55 A.M., wearing a pencil skirt, boots, an oxford shirt buttoned to the top, and a cardigan sweater, with my hair in a severe bun. I would have looked really put together if all the clothes hadn’t been heavily wrinkled.
I shredded files and answered phones for the first two hours. Harkey was the kind of employer who could be sitting at his desk doing nothing but
drinking coffee and clipping his nails, and if the phone rang, I would have to walk from the back room to the reception desk and answer it. While I was out of Harkey’s view, I inspected the office systems as best I could. The key to finding the Truesdale/Black/Bancroft files would be cracking the numerical filing system. I also needed some alone time with the files.
Fortunately, Harkey had a business lunch that day. He showed me a stack of files, told me to answer the phones, and jotted down his cell number should any emergencies occur. I could tell he was uneasy leaving me alone in his office, but he had a system in place that would take some time to crack. Besides, Harkey was arrogant enough to assume I couldn’t decipher his simple code.
I figured I had ninety minutes tops before Harkey returned, so I got straight to work.
I picked up a file with the following number on the tab: 07.8547519.1. Inside was a file opened in 2007 that was clearly a background report on a man named Mark Hedges. The 07 surely referred to the year the file was opened. This simplifies purging files at a later date. Generally, a numeric filing system involves A) the date on which the file was opened, B) the name on the file, or C) on rare occasions, a random number (for security purposes) that must be cross-referenced against another list. I took a guess that the numbers after the year marker referred to the name on the file. So I looked back at the Hedges file. This was elementary-school code breaking. Allow me to explain Harkey’s simple code system.
Each letter in the alphabet has a numerical representative that is either one or two digits. Each number corresponds to the letter’s simple sequence in the alphabet. A is represented by 1 and Z is represented by 26.
To find the file on Black, Truesdale, or Bancroft (since I wasn’t sure who Harkey saw as the true subject of the investigation), I pulled out a pencil and paper and worked out each potential file number. Then I searched for a numbered file corresponding with Truesdale (nothing), then Black (nothing), and finally Bancroft—where there was indeed a file. I pulled the file, made copies of its contents, stuffed them in my purse, then returned
the file to the cabinet and checked the clock. I had fifteen minutes before I could expect Harkey to return from his lunch. I raced to file as many files as I could and then I misfiled a few, just in case I needed some fuel to get fired in the near future.
The investigation had Bancroft’s name on it, but the true subject was Linda Truesdale-not-Black. The file consisted of a surveillance log, a background report, and a list of attempts to access her financial data. At the bottom of the log sheet there were references to MP3 files, which I assumed meant Harkey had some audio recordings connected to the case.
According to the log, they were on the XYZ drive, but when I checked the computer there was no such drive. This led me to believe that the files were being hidden. I just had to figure out where.
One hour and thirty minutes after Harkey’s departure, I could hear his booming voice on his cell phone as he approached the office. I quickly escaped from the computer directory, returned to the file room, and made a show of dusting off the countertops.
T
his new bit of information left me puzzled about how to proceed. When my shift ended at Harkey’s, I decided to drop by my parents’ house to come clean about my undercover investigation—and solicit some advice. When I arrived, Rae was seated at the kitchen table, books and papers splayed in front of her, pencil in her mouth.
“What are you doing?” I asked, even though the answer was obvious.
“‘Studying,’” Rae said, using finger quotes.
“For what?”
“The Psssat.”
Then my dad entered the kitchen. I said, “Dad, I need to talk to you for a minute.”
My father sat down at the table across from Rae and began eating some yogurt. I pulled a chair next to his and repeated my previous request. Dad ate his yogurt as if I were invisible.
Had my faculties been in normal operating condition, I would have recognized the unique stance of my father when he’s giving me his finest bit of attitude. Instead, I stared at my dad as if he were some alien life form and then turned to my sister for a consultation.
“Something’s not right about Dad. What is it?” I asked.
Rae briefly studied Dad’s body language and said, “It would appear that he’s not speaking to you.”
“Dad, are you talking to me?”
No response.
“That’s a dumb question,” Rae said. “I mean, if he’s not talking to you he’s not going to answer the question, is he?”
“You ask him,” I said.
“Dad, are you not talking to Isabel?” Rae asked.
“Isabel?” Dad replied. “Who is Isabel?”
Rae turned to me. “It’s worse than I thought,” she said.
Then my mother entered the room.
“Mom, Dad’s not talking to me,” I said. “Why?”
“I’m not talking to you, either,” my mom said, except that she sort of was.
Since Rae was the only one fully recognizing my presence in the room, I decided to turn to her for an explanation.
“Why aren’t they talking to me?” I asked.
“If I overheard things correctly, I think it’s because you went to work for Rick Harkey. Why would you do that? That guy is such a tool.”
Dad cleared his throat, cuing Rae to elaborate.
“And Dad’s mortal enemy,” Rae continued.
“Thank you,” Dad said to Rae.
“I have an explanation,” I said to anyone who was listening. “Is anyone interested in it?”
Dad finished his yogurt, got up from the table, and headed into the Spellman offices. Mom said, “You really screwed up this time, Isabel,” and left the room.
“I have an explanation!” I said. “Does anyone want to hear it?”
“I do,” Rae said, but I was already out the door.
The mile-long walk back to David’s and my house seemed to take forever. My feet felt like lead and I wanted to punch the wind that was slowing me down. I longed for a three-hour bus ride, but I was going to settle for a bed.
I was going to learn how to sleep in David’s place one way or another. I dropped into a drugstore and purchased some nighttime cold medicine.
1
I slipped into my apartment unnoticed, got into my pajamas, and took the medicine.
An hour later, I was still staring at the ceiling—sleepy, but not asleep, bored and miserable because my mind couldn’t focus on anything but the fact that I might spend yet another night conscious and useless. My phone buzzed and I was relieved for the break from my own thoughts.
It was Charlie. I mean Ernie. My client, remember? Well, I barely did, so I figured I should remind you.
“I’m just checking in,” he said.
“Oh, good,” I replied, trying to figure out whether I had any information for him.
“Any new leads?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied. I was working the case, so there had to be a few new leads. Right?
“I’m all ears,” Ernie said.
“Yes. That’s true. You do have big ears,” I said (yep, out loud).
Ernie laughed. Thank god. I recovered and told Ernie I was working on a lead, but I had nothing I was ready to tell him. There was another long pause. I can’t tell you whether anything was said during that time, but I do think I got in a very brief catnap. Then Ernie woke me.
“I bought
Cosmopolitan
the other day. You know, the magazine.”
“Oh, good,” I replied, and then I tried to say “cosmopolitan,” but I couldn’t.
“You okay, Izzy?” Ernie asked.
“I just took some cold medicine. That’s all.”
“Do you have a cold?”
“No. What were you saying?”
“My wife reads
Cosmo
—that’s what they call it—so I thought that maybe it would give me some insight.”
“Did it?” I asked.
“I read an article about things men do that make women mad.”
“So, what are you going to do, Charlie?”
“Who’s Charlie?”
“Ernie. I meant Ernie. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to try to stop doing those things,” he said.
“Good,” I replied.
“I love my wife,” Ernie then said.
“I know.”
“I don’t want her to leave me.”
When I got off the phone with Ernie, it occurred to me that sleep deprivation was eroding my detective skills. I looked at the Bancroft file one more time and tried to envision what my next step in the investigation would be. No information that could explain why Linda was being investigated could be gleaned from the contents of the file. But that audio recording was suspicious; I knew I had to get my hands on it. I wrote myself a note on my arm: “MP3?” Then I took another dose of cold medicine and finally drifted off to sleep.