The person who is dearest to me just pulled the life rug, if you will, out from under me.
“I have to go,” Ellie says. “There’s an emergency at the center.”
“All these years,” I say. “You lied to me.”
“No.”
“But you never told me.”
“I made a promise.”
I try to keep the hurt out of my voice. “I thought you were my best friend.”
“I am. But being your friend doesn’t mean I betray everyone else.”
My mobile keeps buzzing. “How could you keep something like this from me?”
“We don’t tell each other everything,” she says.
“What are you talking about? I trust you with my life.”
“But you don’t tell me everything, do you, Nap?”
“Of course I do.”
“Bullshit.” Ellie’s voice comes out as a surprise whisper-scream, one of those things adults do when they’re angry but don’t want to wake the kids. “You keep plenty from me.”
“What are you talking about?”
Something flashes in her eyes. “You want to tell me about Trey?”
I am about to say Who? That’s how focused I am on this investigation, into the possibility of discovering the truth about that night and feeling betrayed by, of all people, the woman who is closest to me. But then, of course, I remember the baseball bat and the beating.
Ellie stares hard at me.
“I didn’t lie to you,” I say.
“You just didn’t tell me.”
I say nothing.
“You don’t think I know it was you who put Trey in the hospital?”
“It has nothing to do with you,” I say.
“I’m complicit.”
“No, you’re not. It’s on me.”
“Are you really that dense? There’s a line between wrong and right, Nap. You drag me across it. You break the law.”
“To punish slime,” I say. “To help a victim. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing?”
Ellie shakes her head, her anger flushing her cheeks. “You don’t get it, do you? When the police come around because they figure there might be a connection between an injured man and a battered woman, I have to lie to them. You know that, right? So like it or not, I’m complicit. You involve me, and you don’t have the decency to face me with the truth.”
“I don’t say anything to keep you safe.”
Ellie shakes her head. “Are you sure that’s it, Nap?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Maybe you don’t tell me because I’d stop you. Maybe you don’t tell me because what you do is wrong. I set up that shelter to help the abused, not to go vigilante on the abusers.”
“It’s not on you,” I say again. “I’m the one who makes that call.”
“We all make calls.” Her voice is quieter now. “You made the call that Trey deserved a beating. I made the call to keep my word to Maura.”
I shake my head as my phone starts up. It’s Augie again.
“You can’t keep this from me, Ellie.”
“Let it go,” she says.
“What?”
“You didn’t tell me about Trey to protect me.”
“So?”
“So maybe I’m doing the same for you.”
The phone still rings. I have to take it. As I put it to my ear, Ellie jumps into the car. I’m about to stop her, but then I notice that Bob is standing by the door, watching with a funny look on his face.
It’ll have to wait.
“What?” I shout into the phone.
“I finally got hold of Andy Reeves,” Augie tells me.
The “agriculture” commander at the military base. “And?”
“You know the Rusty Nail Tavern?”
“That’s a dive bar in Hackensack, right?”
“Used to be. Meet him there in an hour.”
Chapter Twenty
I copy the old videotape in the least-tech but fastest way possible. I simply play it on the little camera screen while recording it with my smartphone. The quality is not as terrible as I thought it would be, but I won’t be winning any cinematography awards either. I upload a copy of the video to my cloud, and then, to be on the safe side, I email it out to another one of my email addresses.
Should I send a copy to someone else for safekeeping?
Yes. The question is, who? I consider David Rainiv, but if it ever got traced back—and, yes, I’m being paranoid—I don’t want to put him in danger. I think about sending it to Ellie, but same issue. Plus I need to think it through. I need to really consider my next move with her.
The obvious answer is Augie, but again, do I want to just send this out to his computer without any kind of warning?
I call Augie on the phone.
“You at the Rusty Nail yet?” Augie asks.
“On my way. I’m emailing you a video.”
I fill him in on David Rainiv’s visit and the rest of it. He stays quiet. When I finish, I ask if he’s still on the line.
“Don’t send it to my work,” he says.
“Okay.”
“You got my personal email address?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, send it there.” There is a longer pause. Then Augie clears his throat and says, “Diana . . . you said she wasn’t on the tape?”
I can always hear it when he says Diana’s name. I lost you. A brother. A twin. Devastating, sure. But Augie lost his only child. Whenever he says Diana’s name, it comes out hoarse, pained, like someone is pummeling him as he speaks. Each syllable rains down new hurt.
“I didn’t see or hear Diana,” I tell him, “but the tape isn’t great quality. You might pick up something I didn’t.”
“I still think you’re heading down the wrong path.”
I think about that. “I do too.”
“So?”
“So it’s the only path I have right now. I might as well stay on it and see where it leads.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Though not a good one.”
“No, not a good one,” Augie agrees.
“What did you tell Andy Reeves?” I ask.
“About you?”
“About my reason for visiting, yeah.”
“Not a damn thing. What could I tell him? I don’t even know.”
“Part of my plan,” I say. “The not-good one.”
“Better than none at all, I guess. I’m going to watch the tape. I’ll call you if I see anything.”
—
The Rusty Nail is a converted house with cedar-shake vinyl siding and a red door. I park between a yellow Ford Mustang with the license plate EBNY-IVRY and a bus-van hybrid with the words “Bergen County Senior Center” painted on the side. I don’t know what Augie meant by saying it used to be a dive bar. From the outside it still looks like one to me. The only change I notice is the extensive wheelchair ramp. That didn’t used to be there. I head up the steps and open the heavy red door.
Initial observation: The crowd is old.
Very old. I’m guessing the median age is close to eighty. Probably came in from the senior center. Interesting. Seniors take field trips to supermarkets and racetracks and casinos.
Why not taverns?
The second thing I notice: There is an ostentatious white piano with silver trim, like something Liberace would have considered too garish, in the middle of the room, complete with a tip jar. Straight out of Billy Joel. I almost expect a real estate novelist and Davy from the navy to be nursing drinks. But I don’t see anyone fitting that description. I see a variety of walkers and canes and wheelchairs.
The piano player is pounding out “Sweet Caroline.” “Sweet Caroline” has become one of those songs, played at every wedding and sporting event, beloved by children and seniors alike. The old patrons sing along enthusiastically. They are off-key and have no pitch and don’t care. It’s a nice scene.
I’m not sure which one is Andy Reeves. In my head, I’m expecting someone in his midsixties with a crew cut and military bearing. A few of the older men fit the bill, I guess. I step into the room. I spot several strong young guys now, their eyes moving around like wary security guards, and I’m tagging them as bartenders or maybe orderlies for the seniors.
The piano player looks up and nods at me. He does not have a crew cut or military bearing. He has feathered blond hair and that kind of waxy complexion I associate with chemical peels. He beckons with a head gesture for me to take a seat at the piano as the older crowd builds to a giant “Bah-bah-bah, good times never seemed so good.”