July 3, 1986
Her room was as she had left it, a scant six years ago. It was not so much tribute as inertia. Her mother was fighting a running battle with Michelle, who wanted to claim one of her sisters’ rooms, then begin a costly redecoration. Easier to keep everything as it was.
The thing that bothered Rachel, however, was that she felt younger and stupider than the girl who had left this room to attend Brown. That girl had been skeptical of her high school classmate, Marc Singer. That girl had high intellectual standards. She read serious books and aspired to be a poet. The “woman” who had replaced her was now spending her afternoons watching All My Children, One Life to Live, and General Hospital. She hadn’t washed her hair or taken a shower since Monday. She knew she was being foolish, that she shouldn’t be depressed about the decisions she had made. She was right to give up on Marc, to erase everything of their life together. She deserved better. He was never going to be faithful to anyone. She couldn’t live her mother’s life.
But that thought, which occurred to her as she stared into the refrigerator, despite knowing its contents by heart by now, seemed treasonous. Her mother was such a good person. Who was Rachel to feel superior to her, to demand something better? It was her mother who deserved better, and now Rachel was going to give it to her. Wipe out her debt once and for all.
She found a jar of olives and took it back to the sofa. If she had gone to the shore with her mother and Michelle, there would be crabs and Silver Queen corn and gorgeous tomatoes, hothouse at this time of year, but still good. The Gelmans entertained so well. A little showily, but that was okay. Her father, too, had been extravagant when it came to parties. He believed there was no point in having money if people didn’t know you had it.
The corollary, as best Rachel could work out, was that people should never know that you didn’t have money. That was how her mother had lived for the past ten years, and that was what had brought her to near ruin this summer. But Rachel had saved her. At some cost to herself, but she believed it wouldn’t feel that way in one, two years. She would meet the right man, they would have a family. She was going to get a do-over. Marc was the wrong person for her. He wasn’t a good person. Her father broke the law, made his money from the poor and weak, cheated on her mother. Yet, somehow, he was a good person. Marc sold commercial real estate, was at his parents’ home every Friday for Shabbat dinner, cheated on his wife—then lied about it. Then acted as if she were the crazy one when she confronted him. That was evil. That was cowardice.
She remembered a year ago, going to see a film purportedly about a group of young friends not much different from herself. Recent grads of a good school, making their way in the world, anchored by a perfect-seeming couple, a pair of college sweethearts. But the man was cheating on the woman. “What about your extracurricular love life,” she snapped at him, at last, each syllable as sharp and hard as a little karate chop. A year ago, Rachel had found the whole thing hilarious. There were no such people. Now she was living it. She may have said those very words to Marc: What about your extracurricular love life?
Really, one could argue that watching soap operas was downright redundant at this point. But how could she live with a cheater and a liar?
Her parents—that had been different. Her mother never confronted her father, not to Rachel’s knowledge. But then, her mother was trapped. Three kids. No work experience, no college degree. She, at least, could have expected alimony. No prenups in her mother’s day; wives still got alimony. They didn’t have to negotiate for what they deserved—
The doorbell roused her from the couch, from the land of Luke and Laura. She couldn’t imagine who would be coming by. Almost everyone she knew was at the ocean, even Linda, with her sweet new baby boy, Noah. Rachel wasn’t ready to be a mom, not yet, not given her circumstances. But holding Noah, seeing Linda’s love for him—she hoped she wouldn’t have to wait too long.
“Hello,” said Julie Saxony. “Is your mother at home?”
She was perfectly dressed. At a time when hair was big and skirts voluminous, Julie wore a throwback of an outfit, a pink linen shift with a matching bolero-style jacket over it. The dress looked like one that was stowed in Rachel’s memory. My mother had a dress like that. Her going-away dress, the night of her wedding, purchased for the trip to Bermuda. There was a photograph of her in it, somewhere in this very house. And, possibly, in her father’s office, although her father had never allowed his wife or children into that part of his life.
The only false note was the overlarge purse, which looked cheap and plastic, a very bad imitation of an old-style cosmetic bag.
“She’s away,” Rachel said, aware of her baggy shorts and stained T-shirt. But at least her T-shirt said BROWN on it.
“Oh. Will she be back soon?”
“She won’t be back at all. And if you’re here to make good on what I asked last week, it’s too late. I took care of it. We don’t need your money. Our money, I guess I should say.”
Julie pushed past her, as if she didn’t take Rachel at her word. She took in the hallway, the living room beyond it. Out of date, but still pretty and comfortable. Bambi had longed for more modern furnishings, but Felix had argued that they wouldn’t work. He believed in comfort, anyway, found the seventies-style furniture too low-slung. The living room looked like a lounge in a country club, but an unstuffy one, a place to sit and smoke, although no one had smoked in this house for ten years.
“I always thought it would be . . . nicer,” Julie said. “I’m sorry,” she added, as if embarrassed by her own rudeness. “It’s just that I thought a lot. About where you lived. But I never got to see the inside.”
“That’s because there was no reason for you to.”
“Are you sure your mother won’t be back today? It’s very urgent that I speak to her.”
“No, she won’t be back today. And I can’t imagine you have anything urgent to discuss with her.”
Julie looked disappointed, almost the way a child would. She shifted on her feet, looked around. “I can’t stay. But I want her to know—Felix sent for me. For me.”
“You’re lying.”
“No. I’d tell you more—the arrangements made, where I’m going—but, of course, I’ve been asked not to. He sent for me. He loves me.”
“No, he doesn’t.” Rachel grasped for something to say, something hurtful and scarring. “You’re just a whore with no life. A thief, too. When my father finds that out, he won’t want anything to do with you.”
“You said he already knew. So I guess you’re the liar, after all.”
Julie lifted her chin, the proper lady, and began to walk out, making a grand gesture. A line from a movie, an old one, popped into Rachel’s head: You’re much too short for that gesture. But it wasn’t even true. Julie was tall and slim, five-eight or so, taller than their father. Rachel was the shorter of the two, a twenty-four-year-old woman who had just agreed to divorce a man she still loved because that was the only way to get the money she needed to save her mother. And for what? What had she done? Preserved this stupid life, this frozen life, like something out of a fairy tale, where everyone was suspended, waiting, waiting, waiting for the man who never came, never called, never did anything to prove he truly cared for them.
Rachel had been going into high school the year that Felix disappeared. As a cost-saving measure, her mother had petitioned to enter her in Western High School’s A-course that fall by using her parents’ city address, assuring Rachel it would be only for one semester, that the financial situation would work out and it wasn’t fair to pull out Linda, who was a senior. Rachel’s freshman year at Western had actually lasted less than a week. She had been jumped at the bus stop by another girl for reasons that she could never discern. Jumped from behind in a hair-pulling, kicking, scratching melee that had lasted all of a minute but that felt like an eternity. It was the only physical encounter of her life. Until now.
She sprang at Julie Saxony’s back as her onetime combatant had pounced on her, swinging wildly at the woman’s head, arms flailing, intent on bringing her to the ground. Rachel’s only thought was to make sure the other woman didn’t look so damn perfect when she got off the plane wherever she was going. To run her hose, to scuff her shoes.
She hadn’t planned to actually bloody her, but when that happened—well, it happened.
March 27, 2012
9:00 A.M.
Sandy actually felt bad locking Bambi Brewer up overnight. But what else could he do? She was lying her head off, and if he let her go home, she was going to brief whoever she was protecting. The only choice was to isolate her, lock her up too late to get before a judge—and get to the one daughter as quickly as possible.
And, yeah, he felt like a bum, going to see a woman whose daughter had surgery the day before. But it wasn’t life-threatening, according to her mom. The kid had already been discharged.
Rachel Brewer lived maybe a mile, as the crow flies, from where Bambi Brewer had grown up, but a crow would cover a lot of distance in that mile between the once-grand homes of Forest Park and these modest brick rowhouses on Purnell Drive. Sandy found it interesting that she was the kind of person who didn’t mind being in the minority. Hard to know, but he would guess that this stretch of houses was mostly African American. Middle-class, solid citizens, but it wasn’t a situation that most white people he knew sought out. Not that Sandy could ever decide if he was white. Sure, he looked white and Cubanos were technically Caucasian, but did that make him white? Coming up, before there were so many Latinos in Baltimore, the world had basically been black-white-Asian, and Sandy was white. But now, although he had not changed, he would be called “Latino,” a word that meant nothing to him.
It was the July fourth thing that had done it. Not impossible. But it made no sense. Where had Julie Saxony been for twenty-four hours in that case? Not driving, based on her car’s odometer. Not at home, not checked into any motel or hotel uncovered by detectives, or ferreted out by the reward money dangled by the Havre de Grace Merchants Association. So Bambi was lying about that. But why? And also lying about sending the daughter to do her bidding, based on what Susie recalled of the conversation. The daughter had said explicitly that her mother didn’t know she was there. Okay, Susie’s memory could be wrong on that point, or the daughter could have been lying to gain some perceived advantage. But the mother was definitely lying, and the daughter was the one person who could contradict her.
The woman who answered the door to Sandy and Nancy was not the beauty her mother was. It was only then, allowing himself that rather ungallant thought, that Sandy realized he did find Bambi Brewer very beautiful for a woman in her seventies. This one was pretty as middle-aged women go, her features roughened by whatever her father had contributed. But likable, younger looking than her age, even with no makeup and those deep circles under her eyes. She hadn’t slept last night. Well, she had a sick kid and a mother in lockup. Those dark circles were earned.
They did the little dance of introductions, the pretense of hospitality. They were keen that she not lawyer up, but it was tricky, playing her this way. He hoped she would be looser at home, more relaxed. He hadn’t factored in the demands of a toddler.
“Your mother confessed last night to killing Julie Saxony.”
“She’s lying,” Rachel said.
“Why?”
“No idea. But I know it’s a lie.”
“How?”
“Because I saw Julie Saxony on July third. I was alone at the house. She came by, she wanted to speak to my mother, I sent her away.”
“Did she come by with the money? The money you asked her for a week earlier?”
A beat. “Yes, that’s exactly what happened. She came by with the money.”
“How much was it?”
“Three hundred and fifty thousand.”
“That’s more than your mother’s mortgage and debt. Based on the papers we’ve seen.”
“Really?” She was surprised they knew about the mortgage. “Well, maybe it was the exact amount she stole.”
“Have you ever seen three hundred fifty thousand dollars? It’s a lot of money to put in a suitcase. Julie Saxony’s sister has described the piece of luggage your father handed to Julie that night. She says there couldn’t have been that much in there. And no one saw Julie put anything in her car that day. Why are you so convinced that Julie stole it?”
“My mother said she did.”
“Your mother told us she killed Julie Saxony, and you have no problem saying that’s a lie.”
“I told you, I saw Julie on July third. I was at home. No one else was. She left, end of story. I thought—well, it doesn’t matter what I thought. She left and someone killed her.”
“She could have come back. The next day. I mean, if she really wanted to see your mother—”
“But she didn’t.”
“Again, how can you be sure?”
The child began chanting then: miljews, miljews, miljews. Sandy couldn’t begin to make it out, but it apparently referred to milk and juice, as the woman got up and fetched two cups, the kind with lids that don’t spill, whatever those are called. Sandy would probably know those kinds of things if he were a grandfather. He could tell the mother was happy for the distraction, because she made a big production out of it, probably using the time to think about what she wanted to say.
Only liars and very polite people need that much time to decide what to say.
“Do I have any—I don’t know—I mean, not confidentiality, but can I tell you things that you won’t tell my mother?”
“Maybe. It depends.”
She sighed. “Julie Saxony came to tell my mother that my father had sent for her. Of course, that wasn’t true.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she was found dead.”
“But that doesn’t mean she was lying. You’re working backward from a known fact. She might have been going to your father, wherever he was. And someone might have killed her to prevent that from happening. Maybe your dad wanted her dead.”
Rachel was clearly having trouble processing all this. Again, it might have been the fatigue, or it might have been that she had held back this piece of the story for so long that she hadn’t thought about how others might arrange the same facts. Felix had summoned Julie Saxony, but Julie was found dead. In this woman’s mind, those two things weren’t connected.
Sandy believed they were.
“But I didn’t—” She stopped.
“You didn’t kill her? I mean, you hit her hard enough to knock her earring out, the one that your mother found and sold a month later, but you didn’t kill her? Your mom thinks you did.”
“She didn’t tell you that.”
“No, she just confessed to a murder she probably didn’t commit. Possibly to protect the person who did.”
She wasn’t having problems focusing anymore.
“I need a lawyer.” It was a statement of fact, flat and plain-spoken. By force of habit, Sandy tried to forestall the inevitable.
“Look, we’re still just talking here. If you say you didn’t kill her, you didn’t kill her. Maybe you just, I don’t know, knocked her out, called one of your father’s old buddies, like Tubman, to help you? And you didn’t know what he did or how it ended. That’s okay. We’re just talking. You bring a lawyer in, we’ve got to go out to headquarters, you’ll want to find a babysitter and here’s your kid, just getting over something really major—”
“No, I need a lawyer. We can drop Tatiana at my sister’s house. Michelle, the younger one. And I’ll call Bert Gelman before we leave. Is that a problem, Bert representing my mother and me? Is he allowed to be my lawyer, too?”
“I have a hunch,” Sandy said, “it’s what your mother wanted when she fired him last night.”
Noon
Michelle had a nanny whom she called a babysitter. She wasn’t fooling anyone, including herself. The woman lived in a private apartment above the garage, worked almost sixty hours a week, with Tuesdays and Sundays off. Michelle felt guilty about this. But Hamish wanted her free to go out, to focus on him. She missed the children when she was out, yet she also dreaded Tuesdays and Sundays, which seemed to last forever. It never stopped. Two was so much harder than one, although thank God Hamish III was in school now. Still, that left her with Helena, who was more outrageous than most three-year-olds.
Helena’s high-maintenance ways were thrown into sharp relief by Tatiana’s temperament. A by-product of being in an orphanage, Rachel had said once, and Michelle had said: “Do you think there’s an orphanage where I can drop my kids off for a week or so?” She thought it was funny. Rachel, not so much.
Today was a Tuesday, but she hadn’t mentioned that when Rachel had called. She had said, “Sure, bring her over.” And that had felt good. Until a few years ago, she had so little to offer her sisters. It was nice to be the generous one, the bountiful one. To have the biggest house, to hold the family gatherings, to be able to help out financially. She was especially keen to do anything she could for Rachel.
Rachel’s one was so dainty, alongside Helena. Of course, she was younger and, well, malnourished. But there was something in her movements, something delicate and fine. Michelle watched her examine Helena’s cache of toys in the den—and watched Helena become instantly passionate about any toy that Tatiana touched. “Mine.”
“Be nice,” she said. “Share.”
Tatiana didn’t seem to mind. She just moved on to the next toy, which Helena promptly took, saying: “Mine.”
She was her mother’s daughter all right.
Although the house was toasty warm, Michelle pulled her sweater tighter around her, took another sip from her homemade cappuccino. Why are you going to talk to the police now? she had asked her sister. What is going on?
It’s going to be okay. It’s just crazy. No one did anything.
Did Mom—
No, no.
Did you—
No, Michelle. I think Mom thinks she’s protecting me or something, but I didn’t do anything. Honest, I didn’t. I mean, I didn’t do anything really bad.
But Michelle had. Michelle had done something very bad. She had come so close to telling Rachel, the day of the shower, before Hamish III was born. But she had a moment of—what to call it? Clarity. She wanted to confess to Rachel because it would make her feel better. She wanted to tell her sister about the worst thing she had ever done, in hopes of forgiveness that she didn’t deserve. She still yearned to be forgiven—and still understood that she didn’t deserve it. That was the price she had to pay. For six, almost seven years now, she had tried to persuade herself that her life was proof that she had done the right thing. Hamish, the children—a bad person would not be given these things. And a remorseful person was not bad, right? She used to be bad, but she wasn’t anymore.
“Mine,” Helena said, snatching another toy from Tatiana’s hands. Tatiana never countered, never complained, just went searching for something else. Was Michelle supposed to check her bandage soon? She needed to read the sheet Rachel had left for her.
She sipped her cappuccino. She was really enjoying being nice, if not the Nice One, the role that still belonged to Rachel. It had been a revelation, learning that being nice wasn’t for suckers, that living a life in which one could like one’s self was akin to being softly massaged, all the time. Every “please,” every “thank you”—it was like a coin dropped into a bank. No—a coin tossed into a fountain, like the old wishing fountain at the Westview Cinemas. You gave the coin away. It was no longer yours. It had no currency. And yet you still felt rich somehow, in the moment you released it. I can afford to surrender this quarter. I can afford to say please and thank you and no, you were ahead of me, because I can afford to be nice now because someone finally loves me. Someone I don’t deserve. If Hamish knew—if Rachel knew—if her mother knew—
“Mine,” Helena said again. Tatiana moved on, unperturbed.
She probably should call Linda.
1:00 P.M.
Sandy felt as if he had been working with Nancy Porter forever. He had never been partnered with a woman before. There had only been two in homicide, and one of them was a head case. But Nancy Porter was the real deal. He had trouble remembering she was a woman, even though she was pretty girly. She was good police. Even had the old-school Baltimore accent, all those vowels.
Plus, she agreed with him, most of the time. That never hurt.
“How do you want to play this?” she asked now, very deferential, although it seemed increasingly evident that it would be a county case. Later, if it got written up in the papers—and this case was definitely going to get written up in the papers—his decision to execute the search warrant on Bambi Brewer’s apartment would be called a hunch. True, he hadn’t known what to expect. He just believed that Julie Saxony went to that house on July 3, 1986, and probably died there. He had thought he might find a gun among Bambi’s possessions, maybe even a casing in the old house. But it was the oddity of that one shoebox, in what was otherwise a very uncluttered, serene apartment. An accumulation of papers so meaningless that they had to be meaningful.
“She’s not an experienced liar, this one,” Sandy said. “Her mom’s not very good, either, but she’s even worse. She’s a nice lady, she’s used to doing and saying things that people want to hear. I think everything she’s told us is the truth. She stopped talking, though, when things got serious. She shut down fast.”
“Is it possible that she thinks her mom did it?”
“I think it’s more likely that she realizes her mother suspects her and is trying to save her. Mom probably thought it was slick, but it gives us more leverage. This isn’t a girl—”
“She’s a woman,” Nancy said, manner mild. “She’s fifty.”
Why had he said girl? “But she seems young, doesn’t she? Younger and older than she should be.”
Nancy thought about this. It was another thing he liked about her, how she wasn’t a rat-a-tat, wisecrack person. He had never been good with those types.
“She takes care of others,” Nancy said. “Even more than an average mom would. I can see why she wanted to be a mother badly enough to do it so old. I’ve got two kids now and I can barely keep up with them and I’m only thirty-five. I had this aunt, whose father died when she was really young, eleven or so, and she had to become her mother’s mainstay. That was my mom’s word—poor Evie, she’s the ‘mainstay.’ If Rachel didn’t do this, she knows who did, or thinks she knows. She’s still in protection mode. She knows something and she’s desperate not to tell us.”
“Desperate enough to take a murder charge?”
Nancy smiled. Lenhardt had told Sandy that she particularly loved interrogations, especially with women. It was a specialty of sorts with her. “Let’s go find out.”
1:00 P.M.
Bert met Rachel at the Baltimore County police headquarters. He looked as exhausted as she felt. They were left alone in a room that was far more like the rooms she had seen on television than Rachel would have thought possible.
“Bert, why is Mother claiming she killed Julie? She couldn’t possibly have.”
“Of course she didn’t do it. But she was clever enough, if you want to call it that, to say she did it on July fourth, not third. She was at the beach until the evening of the third. She couldn’t have been home much before eight or nine.”
Rachel sighed. “I was there. On the third. Julie Saxony came by and said our father had sent for her. I hit her, Bert. I actually tore an earring out of her ear. I was so mad—first our money, now our father himself. I know it’s not her fault that Daddy got arrested, or even that he ran away. But everything else, all the hardships—that was because of her greed. And for Daddy to send for her—”
“She was probably lying, just to hurt you. Your father’s women—look, I can’t change the fact that they existed, but none were special. The girls were like Cadillacs to him.”
“You mean, he drove them for two to three years then traded them in.” She was trying to make a joke, but her mouth crumpled and it was all she could do not to cry.
“Yes, pretty much. But—it was changing, Rachel. He was changing. Do you want to know why? It was because of you and Linda. As he saw you come into womanhood—I mean, Julie was what, seven years older than Linda? I think, in some ways, running was part of changing for him. He saw a chance to start over, to be a better person.”
“Mother said he was a coward.”
“Well, he wasn’t brave. But he didn’t think he would survive prison. He had some blood pressure stuff, cholesterol. A family history of diabetes. He wasn’t built to serve time, Rachel. He knew that about himself. Your dad, whatever his faults—he never had any bullshit about who he was. Your mom is a thousand times braver than he is. That’s why she’s willing to go to prison for you.”
“But I didn’t do anything. I mean, okay, yes, I assaulted her. But you know what I did then? I apologized. Yes, I apologized to my father’s girlfriend for what I had done. Helped her clean up, offered to take her to an ER. And you know what she said? ‘That’s okay, I’m headed to Saks. I’ll buy something nicer. And I’ll be on the Pacific coast of Mexico before the day is through.’ ”
“She said that?”
“Yes. Uncle Bert—for years, for fifteen years, I assumed that she was with Daddy and it broke my heart. Then her body was found and I was, like, ‘Oh, so she was lying.’ I decided she must have ripped someone else off. I mean, if she stole from us, then she might have stolen from any number of people. I figured she burned someone and finally got what was coming to her. I didn’t see how it could be connected to Daddy. But the detective said, ‘Why not?’ and now I wonder: Why not? Did he set a trap for her? Did she have something on him? Maybe he found out what she did and arranged for her to be killed. He would have been angry, right, if he knew that she had stolen our money?”
“Yes—he would have been very angry about the money. But Rachel, baby, no one has heard from your father, ever. I can guarantee you that. Not me, not your mother. He’s gone. He was gone from our lives the day he left.”
Rachel allowed herself a smile at the way that Bert, after all these years, would not admit to having any knowledge of her father’s planned flight. God, Bert was loyal.
“Rachel, there is one thing I have to ask you. You told your mother and your mother told the police that Julie Saxony gave you money. Is that true?”
“I don’t want to tell you, Bert. I know you’re my lawyer and you’ll be bound by the usual rules, but you’re also a family friend. You’ll have trouble being just my lawyer. As my uncle, my mother’s friend, you’ll want to tell her. She must never know, Bert, how I got that money.”
“You can’t lie to the police.”
“Okay, so I’ll just tell them I made an arrangement that has nothing to do with this. That’s true.”
“I can keep secrets,” he said. “You’d be surprised at what I can compartmentalize.”
Rachel had an image of her younger sister, sitting on a gleaming white toilet, a glass of champagne in her hand, a napkin full of cookies spread on what little lap she had.
“Michelle’s problem. With the IRS agent. Did she tell you who her lover was?”
“Just that he was married.”
Rachel smiled. “Ah, but, see, you’ve already told more than you should. You should have said, ‘What problem with the IRS?’ You should have feigned shock. Married lover? Michelle had a married lover? And you’ve probably told Mother everything, long ago. I can’t afford to tell you this, Bert. I can’t. Because if my mother knew how I got that money, the decision I made—she would blame herself. And she shouldn’t, she mustn’t. It was absolutely the right thing to do and I’ve never regretted it.”
“Rachel, we’re talking about murder.”
“Yes, but I didn’t kill anyone. So I hit her. So what? You think they would go to trial with so little evidence?”
“Yes, they might go to trial. Especially if you don’t tell them where you got the money to pay your mother’s mortgage. It will be expensive, a trial. And what if they petitioned to lock you up without bond? You’ll miss work, too, and I know your household can’t afford that. You don’t have to tell them everything, but I need you to tell me everything. It’s the only way I can represent you effectively. Today, they are going to run back and forth between us and your mother, comparing notes, looking for every discrepancy. What if they decide it was a conspiracy, or that your mother is an accessory? She did find the earring, apparently, and she did pawn it. She assumed you had done something to Julie. And when Julie’s body was found—that’s why it hit her so hard. Not because of the publicity, but because she had worried, all those years, that you had done something awful, and here was the proof.”
“Look, Uncle Bert, I’m not scared. I didn’t kill anyone. And the money I gave my mom all those years ago—it was legal. Perfectly legitimate. I even paid income tax and gift tax on it, made sure everything was on the up and up. That’s why I said a different amount.”
“Really, that’s interesting because—” Bert stopped himself.
“Because it didn’t come up? When that IRS agent decided to go through Michelle’s filings, then Mother’s? He had the fact that Mother paid it off, but as the recipient, she wasn’t obligated to report anything and he probably didn’t think to pull my file, or Linda’s. Because he was just some stupid guy, in a snit over being rejected by Michelle. His own bosses saw that much, right?”
“Your sister got lucky. The agent’s misuse of his position was more of a problem than some married ku fartzer who, unlike you, didn’t follow the letter of the law and report a car, a watch, and a fur coat as gifts.”
“Ku fartzer.” Rachel laughed. “You never speak Yiddish, Uncle Bert, unless you really dislike someone.”
The detectives knocked, entered without being asked. It was their room, after all.
“Are we ready to talk?”
“Yes,” Rachel said.
They did their stage business with their tape recorder, got out their pads.
“Late in the morning of July 3, 1986, Julie Saxony came to my mother’s home, where I was staying alone. She told me she had been summoned by my father and that she was going to him. I got angry, I hit her, I knocked a pierced earring from her lobe—the right, I think.” She mimed the fight for herself, the leap from the back, the ineffectual punch, the grab—yes, it had been the right. “I was shocked at myself. I had never drawn blood on another person in my life. The sight of the blood—I went to get a towel. I even offered to try to wash her dress, or pay for the dry cleaning, but—” She stopped. “Am I allowed to ask you questions?”
“You’re allowed to ask,” the male detective said.
“What was she wearing? When she was found? I mean, the clothes were there, right? Even after fifteen years, there would be some trace of the fabric?”
The detectives didn’t answer.
“Okay, I’ll tell you then. If Julie Saxony was not found in a two-piece pink linen dress, a sheath with a matching bolero-style jacket, then she changed clothes after I saw her. She said my father would buy her a new dress. She probably bought something herself. She wouldn’t want to go see him looking less than her best. That’s the last thing she said to me. ‘I’m headed to Saks. I’ll find something nicer.’ I’m right, aren’t I? She wasn’t wearing a pink outfit when she was found.”
The detectives looked unimpressed. Then Bert said: “They would rot, Rachel. After all that time. Her clothes would rot.”
“But we’ll try to match your description against the statements taken at the time,” said the male detective. “I think she was wearing a pink outfit, according to her chef.”
“What about the purse? I remember—she was all matchy-matchy. Really, a little tacky, like someone’s idea of what a lady should look like. I know you found the purse because it was reported, her ID was in it. It was more of a makeup bag, the old-fashioned kind, for traveling. Pink, to match the dress. If she bought a new outfit, she might have bought a new purse, too.”
The detective flipped a Polaroid at her. “It was the same purse.”
“Well—maybe she just bought a dress, but found one to match the shoes and purse. Maybe—”
“Maybe,” the female detective said, “maybe, we should stop playing the home version of What Not to Wear and go over this once again. Because the only thing you’ve managed to get right, for sure, is your description of this purse. That’s dead-on perfect. So, congratulations, we’re convinced: You saw Julie Saxony the day she was killed. What are you not telling us, Ms. Brewer?”
“I’ve told you everything I know. Julie Saxony came to my mother’s house. We had a fight. I never saw her again.”
“And a week later”—the male detective consulted his notes—“your mother paid off her mortgage. With money Julie Saxony provided you, before or after you tore out her earring.”
“Okay, that was a lie. The money wasn’t from Julie. It was mine, but I prefer not to talk about it.”
“You taking the Fifth?” Detective Sanchez smiled as if that were hilarious.
“No, not exactly. Exercising my rights to privacy, I guess.”
Two pairs of eyebrows shot up at that, almost comically in unison.
“Maybe she did have your father’s money,” said the woman, Nancy Porter. “Maybe she shows up and she has your father’s money and she tells you that she’s going to him with his money. Now that’s a reason to hit someone, pull out an earring. You were trying to stop her.”
“I was very emotional.” Rachel paused. “I mean, more than you might realize. I was just . . . emotional.”
“Sure.” Detective Sanchez jumping in. “Because here’s this woman and she’s got your family’s money and she’s come to rub it in your mom’s face. Your mom. I mean, I don’t know how you grew up, but where I grew up, someone said shit about your mom—tu madre—kaboom!” He banged his fist into his palm.
The woman detective nodded. “I know. Same with the Polacks, my people. I mean, it’s universal, as far as I know. People can say anything to me they want. But my mom? My mom or my kids. I bet you feel the same way. I mean, you were the one trying to take care of your mom. You put yourself on the line for her, right, going to see Julie Saxony the week before? Bad enough to have this woman say No, I’m keeping your daddy’s cash—”
“To be fair,” Rachel said, “she said she never had it.”
“And you care about fairness, don’t you, Rachel?” Sanchez now. Rachel felt as if she were in some dizzying dance, an Apache, being tossed back and forth between two partners. “It matters to you. You’re a very principled person. Here was this woman who, even if she didn’t have your father’s money, she slept with him. A married man, with three daughters.”
“He didn’t have three daughters when it started.”
“See, there you go again, being fair. People think empathy is a good thing and it is. But, sometimes, when you’re feeling what everyone is feeling—being fair—you lose yourself a little. There you were, in your mom’s house—why were you in your mom’s house?”
“I had left my husband and lost my job. I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“So that’s why you were emotional. I mean, no wonder.”
Rachel paused. “Sure,” she said. “That’s why I was emotional.”
“You say ‘sure’ like you’re being polite. Like that’s not it, but you just want to make this conversation go away.”
“No, you’re reading too much into it. Yes, I was emotional. Marc—I had been in love with him since I was sixteen.” Rachel had never admitted this to anyone. But here, in this room designed to elicit confessions, it made sense to say the things she had never said to anyone. She had been in love with Marc from the moment she had first seen him. She had not thought herself worthy. Then one day, five years later, he deigned to notice her, to ask her out, even though he was superior in every way. Handsome, the better student, the better poet, from the better family. Marc’s only flaw was that he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. Then, faster than seemed possible, she was twenty-four and she had given up the love of her life, and all the dreams that went with it. From a distance of twenty-five years plus, on the other side of what she now knew was her right life, her correct life, she could see the folly of it. But at twenty-four, she was raw and crazy and shortsighted and she jumped on the back of her father’s girlfriend and tore an earring from her ear.
Later, in the bathroom, there had been spotting. On her T-shirt, but in her underwear, too, and that had perplexed her. How could there be blood in her underwear? And then she remembered—oh, yeah, they said there could be spotting. They also had recommended against vigorous exercise. Did jumping on your father’s girlfriend count as vigorous exercise?
“I left my husband because he was unfaithful to me. He wanted me to stay. But his mother was delighted. She had hated me, hated being associated with my family. When I learned of my mother’s financial problems, I went to his mother and said I would leave him, if she would tear up the prenup and give me three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Most of the money went to my mother, the rest to taxes. I needed some, to tide me over until I found a job. And for other things.”
“Other things.”
Rachel looked at Bert: “You can’t tell.” But she didn’t wait for him to agree. She took a deep breath and said out loud the thing that no one knew about her. Not her mother, not her sisters, not Joshua. “I was thirteen weeks pregnant. My mother-in-law didn’t know. But my husband did. I had an abortion, and I told him. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to make things final between us, over forever and ever, with no hope of reconciliation. And I did. I had an abortion on July first, then went to my mother’s house to recuperate.”
She became aware of a strange sound in the room. It was Bert, weeping.
“Florence Singer, my mother-in-law. I’m sure she’ll verify my account. About the money. And if you must, ask Marc if I told him I had an abortion, that I wouldn’t carry his child. I wonder if he even remembers. He was remarried within six months, a father the year after that. But I saved my mom from losing the house. And if I had to do it all over again, I would, no regrets. But she can’t know. She must never know. She carried us for so long. You know what? I almost wish I had killed Julie Saxony. But my mother wouldn’t have wanted that. She wanted my dad, and that was the one thing I could never give her. Please—whatever happens, could we not tell her about the abortion or where I got the money? Or that Julie said those things about my dad sending for her? Can’t we just leave things as they are? I didn’t kill Julie. My mom didn’t kill Julie. Can’t you just leave my family alone?”
The detectives left, making no promises. Bert, the kind of man to have a silk handkerchief, took it out and wiped his eyes, but otherwise made no acknowledgment of his own tears. Time slowed, but it felt comforting. Rachel thought about her attempts over the years, all failed, at serious yoga practice, at meditation. For the first time in her life, she was living in the moment, but oh, what a moment. She didn’t want to leave this room. As long as she was here, none of this had happened. Bert would tell her mother. She knew he would. Bert could never keep anything from Bambi. Or he told Lorraine, who told Bambi. Same difference.
The detectives returned. “We’re going to check out what you’ve told us,” the man said. “And, for now, we have no interest in sharing it. But if it comes to a court case, we can’t control information. Things will get out. That’s not on us. You control what people find out—if you confess.”
“Why are we talking about court or confessions?” Bert asked. “Everything Rachel has said has been consistent.”
“This final story has been consistent. She changed up several times getting there, didn’t she?”
“Are you going to charge her or not?”
“She’s free to go. But her mom, down the hall? She’s still adamant that she did it. And at this point, we’re going to let her have her way and be arrested for it. Nothing this one says negates the possibility that Julie Saxony came back the next day. Hey, maybe she sat in an ER for the next twenty-four hours, got treated under an assumed name.” Sandy pushed a piece of paper toward Rachel. “This is the press release we plan to issue later this afternoon. Feel free to scan it for any possible factual errors.”
4:30 P.M.
When Linda learned what was up, she couldn’t believe she was the last person in the family to know. And she wouldn’t even have found out if she hadn’t called Michelle to ask if she had heard from Rachel about how Tatiana was doing. Linda had been calling Rachel’s cell, going straight to voice mail, and sending e-mails that went unanswered, unusual for Rachel. She wasn’t the quickest person to respond to things, but she would want her sister to know that Tatiana was okay. Plus, they had to talk about their mother, this insanity. Linda thought Bambi might be exhibiting some kind of dementia. Bert was great, no worries as long as Bert was in charge, but what if they had to pay bail? With Uncle Tubby long out of the business and certain legends still vivid in people’s minds, local bail bondsmen might not be inclined to write a bond for the wife of the man famous for skipping. Or the judge might deny bond altogether. But they clearly hadn’t charged her yet, which was interesting. There wasn’t a whisper of it on television or the Beacon-Light’s Twitter account. Of course, the police reporter was, like, twelve, but 2011 had been the thirty-fifth anniversary of Felix’s disappearance, so it wasn’t that long ago that the paper had run something. It had been almost snarky in tone, ho-ho-ho, whatever happened to Felix Brewer?
“Oh, Tatiana’s great,” Michelle assured Linda when she called her. “Rachel dropped her off this morning. But she had to go out to Baltimore County because of this whole thing with Mom.”
“What’s she doing that Bert can’t do?”
“She said the cops want to talk to her, too.”
“What? And you didn’t call me?”
“Rachel said it was no big deal, that she was just being supercautious, making sure she had a lawyer with her, that Dad always said that, never talk to the cops without a lawyer.” A pause. “Did he really say that, Linda? It seems like such an odd thing to say to your teenage daughters—”
“Jesus, Michelle, I don’t know. I mean—what the f*ck? You just sat there and didn’t even think to call me?”
“I,” Michelle said with wounded grandeur, “have been watching Tatiana and Helena all morning. Have you ever tried to get two wound-up little girls down for a nap?”
Linda hung up and dialed the public information officer at Baltimore County police. They were friendlyish, usually playing on the same team more or less, even now that she was working for the governor. Oh God, the governor—that was going to be fun, explaining to him why her family was in the news.
“Linda Sutton!” the PIO said. “Damnedest thing to hear from you because I was wondering what you would do in my situation.”
“Don’t be cruel, Bill. Just tell me what’s going on.”
“Detectives have given me two sets of facts to work with and asked me to write two press releases. In one, I’m to say your sister killed Julie Saxony. In the other, it’s your mother. Any idea which one is true? You could save me some work here.”
“F*ck you, Bill.” Maybe they weren’t as friendly as she had thought. She called her boss, pleaded a family emergency, a gutsy thing to do when the legislature was in its final weeks, then called Michelle and told her to find someone, anyone, to take the kids. But she and Michelle needed to go to their mother and sister.