The Best Man on the Planet, page 19
She felt dragged down the hallway, his room drawing her like a beacon. She needed to be where the two of them had been, bodies meshing, wanted to inhale the scent of their combined selves clinging to the bedspread. She forgave her weakness. She didn’t know when she would smell him again, because she didn’t know when, or even if, she would return.
The prescription bottle on the bedside table caught her attention. His migraine medication. He’d forgotten it. She imagined him on a hotel bed somewhere, sweating, his eyes scrunched up in pain.
She couldn’t forget the look on his face as he’d stood waiting for his car—crushed in and decimated. How he’d begged to stay with her in case he died. Died.
At her parents’ house, she would do research on “pathological generosity.” Maybe she wouldn’t talk to him at all, ever again. Could she do that? Did she want to do that?
How well do you know your husband?
You’re a reporter. When are you going to start doing some reporting?
She had to do it now.
Was he really sick? Where would he keep medical information? Envelopes from hospitals, test results printouts, doctors’ business cards, even a notepad with something illuminating scribbled on it? Where was his laptop? Could she get into it and find the brain scan he’d shown her? She riffled through his drawers but only came across shirts, socks, and underwear.
At his closet, she swept her hands through the pockets of hanging jackets. She didn’t see the tweed blazer where she’d found his wallet last time. Not having a clue why she was doing this, she looked under the bed and saw nothing but a couple of lonesome dust bunnies.
She noticed the bedside table drawer, with the prescription bottle on top, was open a crack. She slid it open further. Inside were two keys on the same ring—one a large silver skeleton key, the other a small silver key.
Find the key.
Her stomach felt like it was going to disgorge up its contents, but there were no contents. When had she last eaten?
Find the key. Be more cautious.
Down the hallway she walked, hearing her breath in her ears. She put the key in the lock of his study and it clicked loudly, the sound seeming to ricochet. Ever since he’d returned from Geneva, he’d been keeping the door closed, and she’d never tried to get in. Now she realized he’d been keeping it locked as well.
The shades were drawn and the room was dim, trapping the glassy morning light slanting to the west. She didn’t want to open the shades, as if the splash of garish morning light would illuminate something she didn’t want to see.
Medical information. Yes, that’s what she was looking for. And yet, what she was looking for would be shapeless and indeterminate, because what she was looking for was nothing, to verify there was nothing that would inverse the reality she had constructed around him. If she found nothing, then she could focus on one thing—whether to forgive him for a tragic mistake he’d made ten years ago when he was a different person. Whether she could be with a man who was now a good man, but who used to be a terrible one.
She went to his desk, sliding forward the large and small drawers. There were pens, paper clips, a flashlight, a dictionary, and other household staples. She bent down to pull open a deep bottom drawer. Inside was a stack of ornate picture frames. The haphazard way they were shoved on top of each other told her he’d cleared them from the house and stashed them here.
One by one, she pulled the baroque frames onto her lap. The first encased a picture of a young man, in his late teens. His chin jutted forward, as if daring the shot to be taken. Behind him was some kind of glossy red sports car.
If she hadn’t known Mr. Foster was an only child, she would have thought this was his younger, haughty brother, because while the teen looked uncannily like him, the expression was foreign to her.
In another picture, a couple stood on the striated ridge of a howling gorge. The man was stocky, his scalp pale through thinning black hair, the woman with an ethereal but pinched face, her sandy hair jacked back in the wind.
Casey didn’t need to look too closely to see the echo of Mr. Foster’s nose and eyes in the man, and his cheekbones in the woman. This had to be the Grand Canyon, as his father’s obituary had said he used to write about it. Within how many years would the woman be dead due to an aneurysm and the man dead due to his son’s greed?
Then there was the photo that transfixed her. Mr. Foster had a scruff and was wearing aviator shades, and his hair, usually ornery with waves, was slicked back as if with gel. He had on white shorts and a white Guayabera shirt gaping open, legs and chest golden-brown and glistening.
He was splayed out on the deck of a white boat, behind him a mesmerizing sea of electric blue unfurled into a powdery aqua sky rimmed with bunny tails of cloud. Next to him was a bronzed woman with oval sunglasses and a white one-piece bathing suit cinched around melon breasts. One of her hands, fingernails painted grape, rested on his shoulder, the other clutched a glass of white wine.
His mouth hung slightly open—loose in the way she’d seen pictures of Prohibition-era mobsters hanging their mouths, the totality of him thrumming with insolence. The only thing confirming his identity was the familiar pattern of his chest hair.
It was hard to imagine him like this, before the aneurysm, the same man who would shift in bed if she shifted, asking her in an tender whisper if she was all right.
She propped the photos back in the drawer and opened the one on the opposite side. His laptop!
On his desk, she opened it. It was still on and there was no password protection message on the screen. She clicked into an open browser, and up came his email, the address she was accustomed to. Her first search was for “Sharon Luna.” A series of messages came up, dating back into last year. It looked like he hadn’t answered any of them.
Sam, we should talk in person. When can you meet there?
I understand what you’re trying to do, but I’m concerned and would like to speak with you, alone.
Sam, I’m tired of going through Max. We need to talk. I know you’re getting these.
All right, do this if you want. I wash my hands of it.
Please remember. You know what I mean. I have a feeling I know what is happening. Sam, please. We really need to talk.
Max has told me your new phone number. I tricked him into it by saying my phone had mysteriously gobbled it up so don’t be angry with him. I’ve called you, but you never pick up. I’m getting worried!
Do you think something has happened that hasn’t happened? Don’t reply here but pick up the phone!
Well, I am just going to have to go there and find you.
That last one was dated in early March, shortly before Sharon had come to the mansion. Was she worried he was giving away too much money? If so, why couldn’t she say so in the emails?
Please remember. You know what I mean.
Do you think something has happened that hasn’t happened?
Casey did a search on “GBrock,” the name on Miss Brock’s email account, which she knew from their first communication regarding the job. There were emails forwarding him resumes from late December; and one from Miss Brock to him in August, shortly after his marriage proposal.
Thank you for your call. Your news is a surprise. I’m glad at least there’s been a change of plans and your situation has improved. Of course, I’m trustworthy. You know my appreciation for all you’ve done for Adele and myself. My brother and his wife have been invaluable in helping me with her, but they are getting up there too.
Perhaps Casey and I should spend time together. I still regret she may have misunderstood my comment. I only suggested she should stay away from you because I was worried the stress you showed the morning she left would affect your health. There’s no reason to keep us apart, Samuel.
Why don’t I help her pick out a gown? Enough time so I can smooth things over, but not enough to make anyone uncomfortable.
So Miss Brock had devised the gown fitting session. Devised it not to smooth things over, but to issue cryptic admonishments. Just enough time to make Casey uncomfortable!
What change of plans Miss Brock was referring to, Casey didn’t know, as he’d only responded to her email with, That might be a good idea on the gown, I’ll be in touch.
The only other emails she saw were unrevealing. She looked in his browser history, but a scroll down into the previous few months was equally as tame. Not feeling she had time to go through everything with a fine-toothed comb, she clicked out of his search history and onto the desktop.
There was a folder labeled “MRA.” Inside was the image he’d shown her with its curvy white roots. And in the top right corner, mixed among codes of letters and numbers, was “FOSTER SAMUEL H.” Intense relief softened her tense posture, relaxed the jaw she hadn’t realized she was clenching. At least it appeared he wasn’t lying about his medical condition.
She closed the folder and put the laptop back in the drawer. Now she should leave. Abandon this excavation. Go home to her parents’ for a while and decide what she wanted to do.
But she couldn’t. There was a low vibration in the room, a subdued electrical charge. It held her hostage, prodded her to keep looking. Sunlight had reached around the drawn curtains, further illuminating the room. Her gaze fell on the large wardrobe.
It came to her. That time Miss Brock closed its panel, shutting the wardrobe off protectively, and told Casey a leak from above could collapse the ceiling, told her to stay out of the study when Mr. Foster wasn’t around. And the conversation she’d overheard between the two of them through the empty lath came to her again.
Find the key. Take a precaution.
A precaution. A precaution—to lock the study door! Miss Brock must have told him about finding Casey near the wardrobe, and instructed him to lock the door, but he hadn’t because, at the time, he couldn’t find the key.
I don’t understand letting her have the run of the house.
It was all so obvious now. There was something in this wardrobe neither Mr. Foster or Miss Brock had wanted her to see.
Opening the doors to the wardrobe, she bent down and peered into its darkened back. She spotted a small gray metal box inside one of the built-in shelves—a safe. It had a place for a small key. The safe pulled her in as powerfully as if an invisible hand had reached out and twined around her wrist.
She slid the little silver key in the lock and it easily turned. Inside of the safe were two large manila envelopes. The address of the mansion was written on both: Foster House, 555 Sterling Avenue, Brooklyn NY, 11217. His handwriting—yes, it was definitely his. There were no return addresses, but they each had a red stamp with “Presorted First Class” in the corner, as if they’d been sent.
She examined their backs. The envelopes were sealed and on top of the seal was a thick, clear tape. She couldn’t open them. He would see that. Why he’d sent envelopes to himself and kept them in a safe she didn’t know, but there could be a legitimate reason for it—estate or foundation documents requiring a date stamp, and he kept them here for safety.
She was starting to feel idiotic again. His conversation with Miss Brock couldn’t have been about keeping envelopes from her eyes.
She peeked deeper inside and noticed a flat, square shape and drew it out: a postcard. On the front was a slanting cliff of whitewashed buildings with blue domes overlooking teal blue water. The print over it read: “Greetings from Santorini.” And on the back: “Yiasou, Miss Brock. Add this to your collection, as I don’t think I’d sent you one from Oia before? Beautiful, isn’t it? Took the boat from Crete but its getting to be a pain. I might sell it. As always, best wishes to you and Adele. Your charge forever, Samuel.”
The postal stamp was from four years ago. Why, why would he have a postcard in a safe? No possible explanation came to her.
She was in the process of putting the postcard and the envelopes back inside the safe when something else, a dim hump in the back, snagged her eye. She placed the envelopes on the top of the safe and plucked out the object. It was shiny and gold colored, rectangle shaped, with curved sides, about four inches across. A belt buckle.
A buffalo was engraved on the front, with a swirling, mollusk-like design surrounding it. Yet another mystifying thing to have in a safe. Even if the buckle was solid gold, he had so many other valuable items out in the open, or at least used to before most everything had been packed or sold. She also couldn’t imagine him wearing this Old West type design. Could it have belonged to his father?
Something tugged at her, yoking insistently, but then was blocked out. It was like looking at an eclipsed moon, the ragged light at the edges visible, but not the object, the memory, itself.
Belt buckle. Who said something about a belt buckle? Someone.
Had he once mentioned a belt buckle? What did he say about it? It was missing?
Missing.
Her thoughts lurched around, struggling towards the light, then dragged back into the shadows.
How could it be missing? Here it is. Had he found it? Was this the same belt buckle? Why would he mention a belt buckle? Does he even wear belt buckles?
Her thoughts were yanked, pulled up short.
Their wedding rings and his belt buckle were missing. Most likely a robbery. A robbery that went very wrong.
Wedding rings. Belt buckle.
She remembered now. The card. The letter. The picture, tipping into her hands. Radiant, smiling, arms around one another.
She was tearing out of the room, mad-dashing down the hallway, adrenaline flash-flooding her blood, making it thin, rushing. She ran into the spare room where she kept most of her things, her eyes frantically searching her boxes, eyeballs vibrating, vision blearing.
She pushed the cardboard boxes around, where was it, where had she put it? She saw a box with “Miscellaneous” written on the top. She clawed at the flaps, shearing off a fingernail, wrenching the stubborn packing tape until it thinned into a sharp strand, leaving a fissure on her fingers.
A rip started in one flap and zigzagged, a gasping sound, a gap opening. She plunged her hands into the box and piled out papers, magazines, notebooks, old purses, a few pairs of old shoes.
She found the card. Was her heart beating? Had it stopped?
Tell them they are angles. Love, Jennifer
Hands trembling, so much trembling, hard to open the card. Fingers shaking, something bright and cold in her stomach, she opened the envelope and the card and took out the picture, and stared at it, hard, hard, hard.
The buffalo. In the picture. On his belt buckle.
She dumbly looked at the belt buckle in her hand, didn’t remember taking it with her.
The buffalo. On the belt buckle.
The wedding rings. In his wallet.
Their wedding rings and his belt buckle were missing. Missing. It was a robbery. A robbery that went very wrong.
I did some bad things before my aneurysm.
She was somehow at her laptop. Natalie. Natalie. She pulled up their long IM exchanges.
I want women to take self-defense. I had a handgun, but kept it locked up. I have nieces and nephews. I couldn’t have that lying around. But I wanted to be prepared all of the time. So I took Jiu-Jitsu. In some ways, the maniac in the school saved me from the maniac in my house.
She did a search on the IM exchange for “face.”
When he was on top of me, I saw some of his face. His eyes. I’ll never forget them. Cold, dark, unseeing like a shark’s eyes. Nothing inside of them.
Hands shaking like spasming things that didn’t belong to her body, Casey tried to bring up a search engine, but her fingertips would graze the keys then bounce away. She drew in a violent breath, and cast her soul up to an omniscient being, whatever force pulled the ropes of the universe. Please help me. Control my fingers. And they were steady.
Natalie Marshall Sandy Hook teacher attacked suspect
Natalie Marshall Sandy Hook teacher attacked suspect sketch
Natalie Marshall Sandy Hook teacher attacked suspect sketch police composite
Up it came on the original police press release.
She was looking at him.
37
The grocery store line was long and her patience was short. Why were there so many people here at nine in the morning?
She checked her basket: Mangoes, bananas, blueberries, honey and yogurt. That should do it—a gooey concoction of tastes, acidic and full of flavor. Her feet danced anxiously as the line inched forward.
Fruit safely in her knapsack, she ran for her next stop: the hardware store. She entered panting, and couldn’t find what she needed. Up and down the claustrophobic aisles. Finally, she saw a man shoving paint cans into a lower shelf.
“Painter’s drop cloth!” she almost shouted.
The man looked misunderstanding for a moment, then pointed up.
“A large one,” she ordered.
He retrieved a ladder in the back of the store while her legs jazzed around as if filled with bumblebees.
Running again, and this time almost hit by a car coming around the crosswalk. Calculating the time risks of a car service versus the subway, she went with the subway, never the safest bet. But today it was on her side, and a train was waiting as she ran down the stairs to the platform, a second or two to spare as she leapt inside of the doors.
The only place she knew sold pepper spray was two stops away; she didn’t have time to go pharmacy to pharmacy in the immediate neighborhood. Hopefully pepper spray was still sold there, as she’d bought one a couple of years ago, but had lost it.
She ran to the back pharmacy counter, where for some reason the pepper sprays were kept. Seeing them hanging on the wall mountings, she almost cried out in relief. But there was an old lady in line before her, carping about why her prescription wasn’t covered by insurance. On and on this went. Casey began to grind her teeth; she almost pushed the woman and leaped over the pharmacy counter.
