She cleaned up and found herself looking in the mirror. “You look like shit,” she said. Her hair was dirty and stringy, and there were bags under eyes, not surprising, given how little sleep she’d had since Thursday night.
Melissa rested her hand on the top of her very pregnant belly, rubbed it, felt something move around beneath it. Then she felt her body begin to shake, her eyes moisten. All the crying she’d done in the last few days, she couldn’t believe she had any more tears in her, but they just kept on coming.
She wanted to crawl into bed and never wake up. Just get under the covers, pull them up over her head, and stay that way for ever. She didn’t want to ever have to face the world again.
It was all so terrible.
She couldn’t stop thinking about her mother, about her father, about Lester, about the baby, about how her life had spiraled totally out of control in the last year. How it didn’t look to her like it was going to get any better.
She thought about the press conference. About how strongly her father had felt she should not be a part of it.
“Don’t do this,” he’d told her. “Don’t put yourself through it. It’s not necessary. I can handle it.”
“No, I should do it.”
“Melissa, I’m telling you—”
“No, Dad, I have to do it. You can’t stop me.”
She recalled how he’d gripped her arm, how it almost hurt. How he’d looked into her eyes. “I’m telling you, it would be a mistake.”
“If I don’t do it,” she’d said, “people will think I don’t care.”
And so, reluctantly, he had relented. But he was very firm with her. “Let me do the talking. I don’t want you saying anything, you understand? You can cry all you want, but you’re not going to say one damn thing.”
So she hadn’t. She wasn’t sure she could have, anyway. Just as he’d guessed, she started bawling her eyes out. And those tears were the real deal. She hadn’t been able to stop. She was so incredibly sad. And not just sad.
She was scared.
She knew her father loved her very much. She believed that in her heart. But it didn’t give her comfort. Not now.
He’d told her what to say. He’d rehearsed it with her.
“Your mother went shopping and that’s all we know,” he’d said. “She went off like she always did. Anything could have happened. Maybe she ran off to be with another man, or—”
“Mom would never do that,” Melissa had said, sniffing. She wondered if she’d put a little too much emphasis on the word “Mom,” that maybe her father would pick something up in that. She’d seen him that one night, coming out of the Day’s Inn with some woman, getting into the car together. But she’d never said a thing to him, never let on that she knew what he’d been up to.
If he’d noticed anything in her tone, he didn’t show it. He was too preoccupied getting ready for the news conference. He kept drilling into her what her story was going to be when the police talked to her. Because the police were going to want to talk to her, she could be sure of that.
“—or maybe it’s that guy who’s been going around doing carjackings, maybe he did this. It could have been any number of things. The world is full of sick people. The police will have all sorts of theories, and if they never solve it, they never solve it.”
“Okay.”
“The main thing is, you just don’t know. You have no idea. You were home by yourself that night. That’s all you know. Are we clear on that?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
She crawled into the bed, lay on her side, rested her head on the pillow. She grabbed a couple of tissues from the box on her bedside table and dabbed her eyes.
The phone rang.
She thought it might be her father, so she reached for the receiver without looking at the call display.
“Hello?”
“Oh my God, Mel? Is that you?” Her roommate, Olivia.
“It’s me.”
“I just got this message on Facebook about your mom, oh my God what’s happened?”
“She’s gone,” Melissa said, and instantly realized it would have been better to have said she was missing.
“Gone where?” Olivia asked.
“Don’t know. She went shopping Thursday night and we haven’t seen her since. I was home by myself so I don’t know anything about it.”
Saying it just like her dad told her to.
“Like, what do they think happened?” Olivia persisted. “Did she have an accident? Did her car go down a hill or something and they haven’t found it yet?”
“I don’t know, okay? We just don’t know. We’re just, we just hope the police will find her.”
“What can I do? What I can do for you? I feel awful I’m not there. How’s your dad? How’s he coping?”
Oh, he’s fine, Melissa thought.
“I can’t talk any more,” she said. “I’ve got to go.”
“Yeah, but what about—”
Melissa hung up.
“I can’t do this,” she said to herself.
If she couldn’t handle a few questions from her roommate, how did she expect to hold up over the long term? How long could she keep this secret? How long could she hold back from telling what really happened?
What was it her mother used to tell her?
You have to live your life like someone’s watching you all the time. Behave in a way that you can never be ashamed of.
She rolled over onto her other side, then back. It was so hard to get comfortable because of the baby. Finally she threw back the covers and put her feet on the floor, sat there on the edge of the bed with her head in her hands.
“I can’t do this,” she said again. “I have to do what’s right. No matter who it hurts.”
She wondered whether should she call a lawyer, but she didn’t know any. She didn’t want to pick one at random out of the phone book. Maybe she should call Lester. A dentist probably knew a lawyer. Didn’t doctors and dentists get sued all the time? But then again, was there really any point? If her plan was to tell the truth, did she need anyone to represent her?
Melissa decided to take a shower first, make herself presentable. Before she stepped under the water, she phoned for a taxi. Asked for it to be out front in an hour. She stood under the water until there was no hot left.
She dressed slowly. Wanted to look nice. She didn’t have all that many clothes that fit her these days, but she found something loose and billowy that would do the trick. She was standing on the curb when the yellow car came around the corner. When she got in, the driver asked where she’d like to go.
“The police station,” she said.
“Okey-doke,” he said, then laughed. “I was thinking maybe you were going to say the hospital.”
“I got another couple of months to go,” she said. “I’m not having a baby in your cab.”
“Good to know,” he said and put the vehicle in drive. “I’ve never had anyone drop a kid in my car, and if it never happens that’s fine by me.”
She didn’t say anything the rest of the way. She was too busy thinking.
Thinking about how angry her father was going to be with her.
Twelve
Garfield seemed to be taking his time in the kitchen, but when he returned, he had a stack of bills in his hand, as well as a check.
“Turns out I had four hundred and twenty in cash, so you can have that, and I made the check out for five hundred and eighty,” he said, handing her all the paper. “I left the part where your name goes blank. I wasn’t sure how to spell it. It is kind of a weird name you’ve got.”
He’d evidently forgotten that her business card was in his shirt pocket, but that was okay, she could make the check out to herself later. She took a quick look to make sure it was okay otherwise. It was amazing how often people made a deliberate mistake so it couldn’t go through. Got the date wrong, or didn’t sign it. Keisha knew all the tricks. She’d tried them herself with her landlord. But the check looked
fine. She fanned the bills to make sure the amount was right, slipped the check in with the bills, then tucked all the paper into a pouch in the lining of her purse, which she set back down next to her, open, on the carpet.
“Is everything all right?” she asked. “You were gone quite a while.” She had wondered, at one point, whether he might have been calling the police.
“Fine, fine,” he said. “I couldn’t find a pen.”
“You should have asked me. I have a couple in my purse here.”
“I found one in the drawer.”
“Well, shall we continue?”
“Would you like some coffee?” he asked.
“No, I’m fine, thank you.”
“I was actually just about to make a cup of tea when you knocked on the door. Tea?”
“No, I’m good.”
Garfield sat down on the couch. “So, do you live here? In Milford?”
What was going on? She’d brought Garfield right up to the edge of the cliff with that thing about his wife’s car not being on the road. She had him then. He was curious, no doubt about it.
It was the ideal moment to hit him up for the money.
So off he’d gone to the kitchen to find the cash and cut her a check. And now he was back, ready to continue, and he was asking her if she wanted coffee? Tea? Asking her where she lived?
Was he stalling? Maybe he really had called the police while out of her sight, told them there was a crazy lady here, trying to exploit his situation. But wouldn’t she have heard him if he’d done that? She could tell he was in the kitchen the whole time.
“I’m sorry, what was the question?” she asked.
“Do you live in Milford?”
“Yes, not far from here. Just before you cross the bridge into Stratford. We’ve lived there for a while.”
“Children?”
“I have a son. He’s ten.”
“A son,” he said, almost wistfully. “It would have been nice to have had a boy. Not that I’m sorry we had Melissa. But a boy, in addition to her, that would have been wonderful.” He smiled. “So, Keisha, do you spend the whole year in town? Or do you have a summer place?”
Keisha thought this was getting very strange.
“I’ve just got the one place, Mr. Garfield, and I live in it all year long. Do you want to hear what I have to say, or not? I mean, you’ve paid me. I’m guessing you’d like your money’s worth.”
He gave her a go-ahead wave. “By all means.”
“As I was saying, I’ve been seeing some kind of flashes of the car your wife was driving.” Keisha still had her hands on the robe, occasionally kneading the fabric between her fingers. “The silver Nissan.”
“You mentioned that the car wasn’t on the road,” Wendell Garfield said. “If it’s not on the road, where do you see it?”
Keisha closed her eyes again. “It’s not . . . a parking lot. I guess that would still count as being on the road, in a way. I’m not seeing it in a garage.”
“What about water?” Garfield asked. “Do you see any water?”
Curious, Keisha thought. He’d just asked if she had a summer place, and now he’d mentioned water. She’d been thinking about Florida earlier. Maybe Garfield knew more than he was letting on. Maybe his wife had taken off for Miami with another man but he was too ashamed to admit it. Then again, she’d already put it out there that Ellie Garfield was very cold, so if she raised Florida as a possibility, she was going to get caught in a contradiction.
Stick with cold. So if it’s cold, the water . . . could be frozen.
She closed her eyes a moment, then opened them. “It’s funny you should mention water. I was seeing something, something shimmery, that I thought might be water, but I was thinking maybe it was actually ice.”
“Ice,” Garfield said.
This time, she kept her eyes open. “Yes, ice. Ice in a glass? Ice at a skating rink? Very flat ice? Maybe black ice, on the road, that caused the car to skid? Does ice of any kind have any significance to you? Any significance where you wife is concerned?”
“Why should it mean something to me?” he said, a defensive tone creeping into his voice.
“You were the one who mentioned water.”
“And then you mentioned ice. I didn’t mention ice.”
“But it seems to have some meaning for you,” Keisha said. “I could see it, in your expression.”
“Why would you say flat ice? You mean, like on a lake?”
“That was just one of the kinds of ice I mentioned. But I can tell there seems to be a connection there. Why don’t you tell me what that might be?”
Garfield stood up. He took a few steps to the right of the couch, then turned and paced in the other direction. He was stroking the end of his chin, pondering something.
“What is it?” Keisha asked.
He paced a few more seconds, then stopped. He looked at Keisha, studied her a moment, then pointed an accusing finger in her direction. “Maybe it’s time you just leveled with me.”
“Leveled with you about what?”
“About what’s really going on here.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Garfield, but I’m not sure I understand.”
“This whole psychic mumbo-jumbo act you’ve got going on, that’s a load of bullshit, isn’t it?”
Keisha sighed. “I told you, if you want to call Nina’s father for a reference, I have no problem with that. I’m happy to give you the number.”
“Have you got someone all set up to take the call? Someone who’ll tell me what I want to hear?”
Keisha shook her head and gave him a bruised look. Trying to make him think her feelings were hurt. What she was actually thinking was, good thing he paid almost half in cash, and that she had the check. She’d hit his bank on the way home, get it cashed before he decided to call and stop payment on it.
“I’m very sorry you’d think that of me, Mr. Garfield. Just when I thought we were making some real progress here. I have much more to tell you.”
“I’ll just bet you do. And whatever you know, whatever you think you know, it’s got nothing to do with visions or communicating with the dead or goddamn tea leaves for that matter. Whatever you know, you found out some other way.”
“I assure you, I—”
“Give me my wife’s robe. I don’t want you touching it any more.”
Keisha handed it to him. It certainly appeared she was done here.
“Thank you,” he said, gathering it up into a ball.
Keisha reached down for her purse, set it into her lap, made sure it was zipped tight at the top, and started to stand.
Garfield said, “No, don’t go yet.”
“I can’t see what possible point there would be in staying any longer, Mr. Garfield. I can tell that you view me as some kind of con artist. I’ve been at this long enough to know when my talents are being mocked. That’s how some people react, that what I do is a sham, and if that’s your conclusion, then I’m happy to be on my way.” Thinking, Don’t ask for the check back, you son of a bitch. You’ll have to dig into my purse to get it.
“Did I offend you? Oh, I’m very sorry if I did that.”
“You just accused me of having someone standing by to—to lie to you about my successes. Wouldn’t you expect me to take offense at that?”
He was still pacing, still fondling the robe, doing something with it, like it was a mound of clay he was shaping into something. Keisha watched as he took a few steps one way, then the other. It struck her that this was how he formed his thoughts, by making these little journeys around the room.
“You are very clever, I have to give you that,” he said.
Keisha said nothing. She was starting to get an inkling of what was going on. She should have caught on a little sooner.
“Very, very clever,” he said, stepping over to one of the living room windows, peering through the slats of the blinds to get a look at the street. This put him off to one side and slightly behind Keisha, and she had
to twist around in her chair to see him. “I’d like to apologize. Forget what I just said. Why don’t you carry on, let me hear some more about your vision.”
“Mr. Garfield, I’m not sure—”
“No, no, please, go on.”
Keisha put her purse back down on the carpet and rested her hands by her thighs on the seat cushion. “Would you like me start again with the ice, or move on to something else?”
“Why don’t you just say whatever comes into your head.”
Keisha had a bad feeling. She’d never dealt with anyone like this before. Garfield was all over the map. At one point, he’d lost interest in what she had to say, then wanted her to leave, and now he seemed to be having a change of heart, asking her to tell him more.
He didn’t care what she had to say, but he didn’t want her to leave.
Something was very wrong here. She thought she had it figured out.
It’s him. He did it.
It explained everything. Keisha wanted to kick herself for not realizing it sooner. She’d been at this long enough, of course, to know that when a wife was murdered—or went missing—the husband was always a prime suspect. It wasn’t very often people were killed by strangers. They were killed by people they knew. Wives were killed by husbands. Husbands were killed by wives.
The man had moved away from the window, and was taking a route behind Keisha’s chair. She was going to have to turn around to keep her eye on him.
“On second thought, sure, tell me about the ice.”
What threw her off was the televised news conference. She’d figured, first of all, that if the police strongly suspected that Garfield had offed his wife, they’d never have let him go before the cameras. Would they? She had to admit, he was good. Those tears looked real. The way he took his pregnant daughter into his arms to comfort her, that was pretty darn convincing, too.
Not that it had never occurred to Keisha that the people she preyed upon could be something other than innocent. Guilty people often made the best targets. They could be so eager to prove they were as much in the dark as everyone else that they leapt at the chance to pay to hear what she had to say.
Telling themselves, I look so innocent. A real murderer would never pay a psychic for help, right?