The culture at the auction house felt uncannily familiar. She was not the center of attention, but she was close enough to the spotlight to feel its warmth. Betsy was surrounded by women and a few conceited men destroying one another for sport, sort of like a redo of college with more expensive haircuts and proper handbags. The difference was that among the hallowed halls, important leather chairs, and gleaming overhead lights, there wasn’t a single shadow, no place to hide.
Mostly, Betsy smiled shyly, kept her head down, and tried to stay invisible. She was almost at the end of her third winter “up north” and spent most of the coldest nights on a bar stool, nursing a whiskey, reading a book. Gavin worked most evenings, and occasionally she would get bored and antsy. One of Gavin’s coworkers had given him the number of a nameless guy who would deliver weed, whatever you wanted, really, to your front door. She and Gavin were assigned a code, seventy-nine. They would dial the number to his pager, tap in seventy-nine when prompted, and he would arrive with a tackle box full of goods in about thirty minutes like a Domino’s pizza delivery man. She and Gavin liked to call him Ian after Ian MacKaye. He showed up one day, on a referral from one of Gavin’s late-night work buddies who managed his off-hours work schedule with a speed addiction, wearing a Minor Threat T-shirt. Gavin pointed out the brilliant irony of a drug dealer wearing the T-shirt of a band led by MacKaye, a well-known proponent of the straight-edge, sober lifestyle.
“You know, it’s a great decoy, the Minor Threat thing,” Gavin said, chuckling. “Though I’m not sure the NYPD would totally get the reference.”
Betsy scanned “Ian’s” face for a reaction, but he just stared at Gavin blankly, impatient for him to stop talking to him about this amusing paradox. Betsy had become his more frequent customer, and she could always sense a relief in the kid’s face when he saw that she was the one who answered the door. It was harmless, she would rationalize to herself, just a few pills and pot, and the only repercussion was that she was a little foggy at work the day after a “delivery.” Which is one of the reasons she was so startled when the phone rang at work one day, mid-daydream, and taken off guard when she answered it and heard her mother’s voice on the line.
“May I please speak to Betsy Young?” she asked, in her most efficient and professional voice.
“Mom?” Betsy asked, her eyes darting around her desk to see if anyone was around to hear. “It’s me.”
“Oh, hi, darling. Is this a good time?”
“Not really,” she said, clicking the top of her Tupperware over the rest of her uneaten lunch. “But I guess I have a minute.”
She covered her mouth with her hand and lowered her voice to a whisper.
“Also, I’m Elizabeth at work, remember?”
“Oh, darn it, hon. That’s right. I’ve got to remember to be more official.” Kathy giggled. She had had time to get used to the idea that her daughter was living in sin, and only asked when Betsy and Gavin planned to get married about once a quarter now.
“So what’s up?”
“Well, I don’t want to upset you, but I also didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else,” Kathy said.
“Hear what? What’s going on? Are you OK?”
“I’m fine, Betsy, it’s just that, there was a story in the paper today about Gainesville. They think they got him, the killer. And it’s not that Rhodes boy, either.”
The last Betsy had heard of the investigation, before she willed herself to stop obsessing over details and following it completely—not that it would have been easy in New York, where it wasn’t exactly headline news—they’d arrested Dwayne Rhodes, a violent twenty-year-old who attacked and robbed his disabled mother two days before the first body was found, and kept him in custody for longer than what was necessary. It was the only lead they had, even though it was clear to everyone that they had the wrong man. The police needed to save face with the university, which was answering to an understandably concerned student body and their anxious parents who demanded action, but it was a feeble effort. Betsy’s throat tightened. She leaned forward in her chair until her head was practically under the desk.