“Frank?” Dolores said now, as they sat on the couch together, listening to Christmas carols on the phonograph. “You look so far away. Are you thinking about the Gatsby case still? It’s Christmas,” she chided him.
He nodded, smiled sheepishly. Sure, better to let her think his mind was lost in the case than in imagining a bleak and terrible future without her. “Sorry,” he apologized and wrapped his arm around her. He pulled her closer, kissed the top of her head. Her hair smelled vaguely like the turkey she’d roasted in the oven for dinner and the cinnamon from the cake she’d made for dessert. Would this be their last year, their last Christmas? he wondered for the fourth year in a row. It felt impossible and also strangely inevitable.
Dolores shivered a little, and he pulled her tighter to him. It was chilly outside, drafty inside their small apartment. The fire glowed across the room, but it wasn’t enough to warm her. Dolores hated the cold.
He used his free arm to tap his cigarette in the ashtray on the end table, and then he thought about summer. About the vacation Dolores had always dreamed of, in East Egg. He’d love to give her one of those beautiful houses that backed straight up to the water, for just one summer. He’d been hoping this case would be wrapped up by Christmas, that he’d have collected his money from Wolfsheim by now and he could’ve given Dolores the summer of 1923 as a gift, a photograph of their rental house wrapped neatly in a box with a giant bow. Something to look forward to. Something to keep on living for.
But the case was far from being wrapped up, the money from Wolfsheim far from certain. Frank still had more questions than answers. Summer was months away, and Christmas was making him melancholy. Instead of the promise of summer, his Christmas gift to Dolores was a small square serving dish he’d been able to get from the sale table at Macy’s.
“Frank,” she’d said when she’d opened it earlier, clutching it to her chest. “This is beautiful.” And that was Dolores, always making the best of everything awful.
But instead, he wanted to give her the best. She deserved the best.
* * *
HE COULDN’T SLEEP that night, and after Dolores got into bed, he feverishly went through his notes again, lighting another cigarette. Then another. He poured himself a glass of the good bourbon that he’d been keeping for special occasions (there hadn’t been any of late). It was Christmas. That was enough. He took a large swig, and the bourbon burned his throat. After another, Lizzie’s laughter faded again; so did his worries about Dolores.
Here in front of him was the evidence, the interviews. The lies. If there was one thing he knew from his years as a detective it was that liars always made mistakes. He just had to figure that out in this case.
By 2 A.M., his thoughts had come down to this: If everyone had lied to him about the hairpin, except Jordan, why had Nick been so convinced that Jordan was an incurable liar? The two of them had been together for a time last summer, and he wasn’t sure how it ended. Still, Nick must know something about her.
By 6 A.M. Frank was convinced that the answer to everything was just a train ride away: Nick Carraway’s apartment on the Lower East Side. He walked into the bedroom, kissed Dolores on the forehead, and she rolled over and mumbled something incoherent.
“It’s early,” he whispered to her in response. “Go back to sleep, Dee. I have to go into work for a few hours, but I’ll be home for lunch.”
She mumbled something else, about Christmas, rolled over and fell back to sleep.
Now, he lit another cigarette as he got off the train a few blocks from Nick’s apartment. It was early still, just about eight. Frank hadn’t slept at all last night and had drunk too much bourbon. The early morning cold suddenly made him feel heavy with exhaustion. He really could use a cup of coffee.
What was he doing here? He felt like he was chasing a ghost, looking for answers that might not even exist. Chasing a goddamned paycheck that might not ever come.
But he was just two blocks from Nick’s place. He blew on his hands to warm them, and soldiered on.
* * *
“MERRY CHRISTMAS,” FRANK said when Nick opened the door. The cold and the walk had sobered him, and now he felt nearly lucid again.
“Christmas is over,” Nick said abruptly, frowning.
Frank nodded, pushing his way into Nick’s apartment without waiting for an invitation. It was small and dark inside, no Christmas tree. Just a bed and a desk and a tiny stove in the corner. It was quite a downgrade from his house out in West Egg. “Nice place,” Frank said, not really meaning it.
“I like it better here,” Nick said, somewhat defensively. “It’s close to work. A ten-minute walk.” He paused, and then he added, “And I already told you everything I know, Detective. Didn’t I tell you to go talk to Daisy?”
Frank nodded. “I did talk to Daisy. Went all the way out to Minnesota. Quite a place your cousin’s got there.”
“I wouldn’t know.” Nick frowned again. “I haven’t been.”
“Then I stopped to talk to Catherine McCoy—Myrtle’s sister—in Illinois.” Nick frowned, knowing perfectly well who Myrtle was even if he might not know Catherine. “And then, in October, I went down to New Jersey to talk to Jordan Baker.”
“You’ve been busy,” Nick said drily.
“Sure,” Frank said. “I suppose.”
“What do you want from me?” Nick asked, sighing. He looked exhausted, as if life in the city had really weighed on him these last few months. New York had worn on him, the way it always seemed to do on young people who didn’t have quite enough money to live the high life in the city.
“Jordan Baker,” Frank said now. “You were seeing her last summer.”
“Sure… But it wasn’t anything serious. We had dinner a few times, and then it sort of petered out.”
“You know, she’s playing on the golf tour this fall,” Frank said, watching Nick’s face closely.
Nick nodded, stone-faced. “I’d heard that.”
“But it doesn’t make sense. Why would they let her back at all after they threw her out once for cheating?”
Nick shrugged. “Who knows how she managed it. Jordan is…” He let his voice trail off for a moment as if looking for the right adjective. “Resourceful, to say the least.”
“But you told me the first time we spoke that Jordan is… What were your exact words, Nick?” Frank paused a moment for effect even though he already knew the words he was looking for. Nick frowned, deeper, maybe remembering them, too. “An incurable liar.”
Nick nodded. “A good liar generally is quite resourceful, Detective.”
Frank pulled the hairpin out of his jacket pocket and showed it to Nick. “But I asked all three of the women about this hairpin, Nick. And it seemed like the only one who told me the truth about it was Jordan. I need you to help me understand that.”
“Jordan? Told you the truth?” Nick choked on the words, a laugh sputtering out of him. He took the hairpin from Frank and examined it closely. “Jordan told you about this hairpin? What’d she tell you exactly?”