The Hand That Feeds You: A Novel Read online

  Had she changed her mind about meeting me? I concluded that she was brave by posting the letter in the first place, and by the fact that she was an officer. Maybe an emergency came up? We hadn’t exchanged phone numbers. I e-mailed her and then walked across Atlantic Avenue to a coffee shop to wait. I chose a booth with a view of the shuttered Clarke’s bar. After my third cup of coffee, I decided to go to the closest precinct, where I imagined she worked. In her posting on Lovefraud, she had said she was an incident-reports analyst. How many young, female incident-reports analysts could there be at a precinct? I had brought a picture of Bennett, or half a picture, the one I had found on my coffee table, left by the cleanup crew. I had cut my likeness out.

  The precinct was ten blocks away, a large brick building that might once have served as an orphanage or a library. It was statelier than the local 90, the Brooklyn precinct I passed by every day on my way to the J train. The local 90 could never have been anything but a police station.

  The officer at the front desk was being harassed by an older woman who demanded to know where they’d taken her son. I waited until the officer calmed the woman enough to get her to take a seat again.

  “I wonder if you could help me,” I said in an authoritative voice, one I’d mastered in order to speak to police officers and criminals alike in my professional capacity. “I’m from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. I have an appointment with your incident-reports analyst. Could you tell me where I might find her?”

  “Him, not her. Second floor. But I need to see some ID.”

  I showed my John Jay photo ID and told him I was looking for a woman.

  “Gerald Marks is our new guy. You’re not talking about Susan Rorke, are you?”

  “I might be. I know this sounds confusing, but I don’t know the name of the woman I’m meeting, just her job and that this is the closest precinct to where she suggested I meet her today. Do you know where I can find this Susan Rorke?”

  “Miss, I’m sorry to tell you, but Susan died six weeks ago.”

  “The woman I’m looking for quit her job, moved to New York, and then came back here sometime this summer.”

  “Susan did leave her job, but she came back just before she was killed.”

  “You said she died. She was killed?”

  “Miss, I can’t give you the details of an ongoing investigation.”

  I did a quick calculation. She must have died soon after she posted that letter on Lovefraud, if it was Susan Rorke. But if Susan Rorke had been dead for six weeks, who had responded to my e-mail? I asked the desk sergeant if I might speak with one of her colleagues.

  He picked up the phone and said, “Can you come to the front desk?”

  A young man who looked as though he had ridden to work on a skateboard appeared in a couple of minutes and introduced himself as Detective Homes.

  “She’s asking about Susan Rorke,” the desk sergeant said.

  “I might be,” I said again, and explained myself to Homes.

  “What do you know about this investigation?”

  “Nothing, unless Susan Rorke knew this man.” I handed him the photo of Bennett.

  “Where did you get this?”

  I sensed the detective had seen Bennett before. I sensed I was going to learn something I didn’t want to know. But I already knew it. “Was this man involved with Susan Rorke?”

  “This is my investigation. Please answer my question.”

  “He was my fiancé.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “You tell me.” I didn’t know Bennett in any sense—his history, his capabilities, his motivation. I felt dizzy with ignorance, nauseous.

  “Would you come upstairs and look at some photos?”

  I said nothing as we climbed the stairs. I needed the handrail. I cycled between confusion and shame at having so wildly misread a man I loved.

  The detective’s desk was surprisingly neat. All that was on it was a short stack of folders, one of which he opened after offering me a seat. A woman’s photograph was paper-clipped inside. She looked to be about my age, an attractive woman holding a one-eyed Jack Russell terrier in her lap.

  “Do you recognize this woman?”

  “I assume this is Susan Rorke. But, no, I don’t recognize her.”

  He showed me another picture. This time, Susan Rorke was smiling broadly in a sunny, mountainous landscape. Her head was resting on Bennett’s shoulder.

  “Is this the man you claim was your fiancé?”

  “How did she die?”

  “Please answer my question.”

  I was, by turns, sick to my stomach and utterly composed. “May I have a glass of water?”

  When had this photograph been taken? Was it before I met Bennett? The detective came back from the watercooler and handed me an old-fashioned cone-shaped paper cup. “When was this taken?” I asked when I finished drinking.

  “When was your photograph of this man taken?”

  “Is he a suspect?”

  “Please, I need you to answer directly.”

  “Fine. Mine was taken in Maine about a month before he was killed.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “Maybe you read about it. He was killed by dogs. I’m the one who found the body.”

  “This was in New York.”

  “Brooklyn. September twentieth.”

  “I didn’t know that was who we were looking for.” He excused himself and picked up his phone. I assumed he was going to notify his captain. I felt weightless. Did he think Bennett was a murderer?

  When the detective hung up, he gave me his card and said he would be in touch. “How can I reach you?”

  I gave him my information and opened my purse. “I think you should see this.” I handed him the Lovefraud letters I had printed out.

  I waited until he had finished reading them, then asked him to tell me how she died.

  “She fell three stories to her death at the homeless shelter where she volunteered. We believe she was pushed.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “There were scratches on the window frame as she struggled.”

  “And you think it was Bennett who pushed her?”

  “We know him by another name.”

  “And you can’t tell me, right?”

  “Can I make a copy of that photograph?”

  I handed him the scissored half of the photo, and when he brought it back, I couldn’t look at it. I slipped it between the two pieces of cardboard I’d used to protect it in my backpack. But this time I didn’t even unzip the small compartment where I kept it separate from all the crap I’d thrown in—the makeup not used, the empty pens, a half-eaten energy bar with more calories than the Milky Way I’d wanted.

  Outside, I had the hackneyed feeling of surprise that the world continued as it had before what I had just learned. When everybody is in the same circumstances, say a community after a tornado has ripped through it, a careful camaraderie prevails. I was alone with my discovery and had never felt so isolated, or afraid.

  Another woman might have headed for a bar. But what occurred to me was not something I indulged—I just imagined it. I pictured myself wheeling a small cart with a laundry bag filled with sheets and towels, scented dryer sheets, and detergent. I wanted to wheel my laundry cart into a small neighborhood Laundromat and ask the proprietor simple questions about when to add softener. I wanted to sit in a plastic chair and watch my laundry spin, getting clean. I wanted to fold it, warm from the dryer, and retrace my steps, wheeling home the small proof that I could function in this world and make a small thing better.

  Had my dogs saved me?

  Where was the man I knew as Bennett six weeks ago when Susan Rorke was killed?

  I was on the train back to New York. I checked my phone calendar and saw that I was right—Bennett had met me that weekend at the Old Orchard Beach Inn, a yellow Victorian on a bluff overlooking the ocean, walking distance to the pier.

  Sus
an was killed that Friday. Boston to Old Orchard Beach, Maine, was a two-hour drive. Could Bennett have pushed her out the window in Boston and driven his rental the hundred miles to a resort village by the sea to spend a romantic weekend with me? Yes, there had been time for him to do that. I had already checked into the inn when he pulled up. When had he bought the white roses he gave me? He kissed me as usual and asked where we could get a drink. I said the inn was serving wine by the fireplace, and he said he wanted a real drink. I remember being surprised by that. He said he wanted to shower and change first. He said he left Montreal at nine that morning; that would have meant he’d been driving for six hours straight, so there was nothing unusual about his wanting to do that first. He seemed cheery enough and was certainly attentive to me. He had an appetite; we ate lobster for dinner, and of course we made love. Did he have any scratches? How hard had Susan fought? Afterward, he insisted we walk by the ocean in the moonlight even though it was chilly. We strolled the boardwalk, which was nearly empty given the hour and temperature. I heard a few snatches of Quebecois from passersby and asked what they were saying. He told me they were looking forward to tomorrow’s exhibition game between the Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens. I thought back to my fruitless search for his apartment in Montreal and wondered if he even spoke French. I googled the National Hockey League schedule and found the Montreal Canadiens had not been in an exhibition game.

  Later, in the room, when he took off his pants, I saw a large fresh bruise on his shin. When I asked how he got it, he said he banged it helping one of his bands move some equipment. One of those bands he didn’t represent.

  That night I moved to the right side of the bed as usual. The left side was against the wall, and Bennett knew my holdover childhood fear about sleeping next to a wall and slipping through it. Just as I was falling asleep in his arms, he whispered, “If you love me, you’ll sleep next to the wall.” What if I hadn’t obliged him? What might he have done to me? The next morning—oh, I didn’t want to remember our lovemaking. Seeing it through the lens of what I had learned in Boston, it was repulsive. Yet, that night it seemed he never let go of my hand. He was still holding it when I woke up.

  I got back to Penn Station a little after midnight. I was exhausted but not sleepy. As soon as I got home, I looked up every article about Susan Rorke’s death in the order the stories were filed.

  She was described as a thirty-five-year-old police incident-reports analyst who volunteered at the South Boston homeless shelter every week. Early on, her death was reported as an accident. She had not returned from a break after trying to fix a window shade on the third floor. Ms. Rorke’s body was found in the alley behind the shelter. Police said it appeared Ms. Rorke had fallen from an open window and died on impact. The next article reported that the police were investigating the death as a possible homicide. They were looking for a homeless man who had stayed at the shelter that night. Witnesses said he had argued with Ms. Rorke earlier that evening. The homeless man was found, questioned, and released. The police were still ruling the death a homicide, pending further investigation.

  I went on Facebook next. Her profile picture was the same one the detective had showed me, the one-eyed Jack Russell on her lap. I wondered what happened to the dog. I scrolled through the last few months of her postings and found the following: a picture of her left hand, fingers splayed, presenting a view of a diamond engagement ring. The old-fashioned, marquise-cut diamond was approximately one carat, set in either white gold or platinum. The comments below all said pretty much the same thing: When are we going to meet him?

  I went to my top drawer and took out the tiny leather box, lined in velvet, that housed the ring Bennett had given me, identical. I was tempted to throw it away but I realized it was evidence. It was proof that I belonged to this sorority of the duped. If Susan and I were sorority sisters, then so was the woman who had written me on Lovefraud and pretended to be Susan Rorke. Even she suspected others. If three, why not four? More?

  I went to Lovefraud and left a private message for number three.

  Who are you? Why did you pretend to be Susan Rorke? Why do you think the man you knew as “Peter” had deceived other women? I went to meet you in good faith and discovered that the woman you claimed to be was killed six weeks ago. I have information about the man I knew as “Bennett” that will interest you. I am not making anything up to try to lure you. I am entirely serious. I don’t know why you didn’t meet me, but if you are afraid of him, you need not be. I hope to hear from you.

  I was hungry, and for the first time in weeks, I wanted something healthy. I walked a few blocks to Champs. It opened at 8:00 a.m. As usual I was the only customer without tattooed arms and legs. The staff was reliably cheerful. I got a booth to myself and sat beneath a piece of fifties signage on the wall. I asked for a double order of the tofu scramble with its mysterious spices, and the sautéed plantains. I put real cane sugar in my coffee. When I looked for the transgender server to refill my cup, I saw the door open. It took me a moment to place him. He was unstrapping a bike helmet. When I saw his hair, I recognized him as McKenzie, my lawyer. He was wearing a sweat-dappled T-shirt and black Pursuit cycling shorts that did not look like a costume on him.

  He looked at my plate. “Those better not be the last of the plantains.”

  “Would you like one?” I indicated the empty seat across from me.

  He slid into the booth and, without glancing at the menu, ordered exactly what I had. He speared a slice of plantain off my plate. “I lived on these when I worked in Puerto Rico.”

  “When was that?”

  “I represented a horse in Vieques. A farmer near one of the Navy’s test-bombing ranges noticed his prize horse had stopped breeding. We won a judgment for the farmer and the stud.”

  I raised my coffee cup in a salute.

  “Have you scheduled the temperament test yet?” he asked.

  “Next Friday on Staten Island.”

  “Excellent. I wish you good luck.”

  When his food came, I wanted to change the subject so that he didn’t think I’d invited him to sit down with me in order to take advantage of his legal counsel. “The closest I’ve been to Vieques was looking at it across the water from St. Thomas.”

  “I love the islands. What were you there for?”

  “I always took diving vacations there so I could bring back a couple of patty-cakes.” When I saw the question in his face, I said, “They’re island strays that survive on cornmeal cakes they find in the garbage. I work with a nonprofit that places island dogs in mainland homes.”

  “What was the diving like there?”

  “The reefs are suffering. Every time a cruise ship dumps two thousand tourists wearing sunscreen into the ocean, the coral bleaches and dies. I feel lucky to have seen the reefs before they’re gone. Did you dive off Vieques?”

  “A little.”

  “Isn’t it amazing? Swimming through those canyons of coral. The colors. Have you ever dived at night when the soft corals come out? It’s like swimming through a rose garden with only a flashlight. And the fish. Have you ever been followed by those schools of blue Tang? The way they all turn at once and become iridescent.”

  He put his fork down though he had not finished his plantains. I felt I had somehow stepped wrong. “Let me take you to breakfast,” he said, and reached inside his zippered pocket for some cash.

  I thanked him and he told me he had to file some court papers downtown.

  “On a bike?”

  “That way the guards think I’m a messenger and I don’t have to go upstairs and schmooze.”

  I watched him through the window as he unlocked his bike and rode off toward the Williamsburg Bridge.

  I finished his plantains, thanked the server, and walked home. Even before I checked to see if I had received a reply to my last Lovefraud posting, I went on Google and looked up Laurence McKenzie. I scrolled past his professional achievements until I came to an article that made
me feel awful. Five years ago, I learned, he and his wife were diving off Vieques when his wife went missing. She got separated from the rest of the diving group during an ascent through unusually strong currents. They found her a few minutes later, floating facedown and unconscious with a partially inflated BCD and an empty tank.

  She could not be resuscitated.

  The odds of being struck by lightning in the United States are one in six hundred thousand. You are six times more likely to be struck by lightning than you are to be killed by a dog of any breed. And four times more likely to be killed by a cow than any dog.

  I stood outside what looked like a horse show ring on Staten Island. I was waiting for the handler to bring out Cloud for the first part of her temperament test when I saw Billie walking across the parking lot. I called her a couple of times to ask about my dogs.

  She waved to me.

  “Are you part of this?” I asked.

  “I couldn’t let these pups be tested without being here to root for them.”

  Something in me recoiled from her breezy greeting. Was she one of those people who fed on other people’s dramas?

  Having only seen her in the sensory-overloading shelter, I hadn’t realized how attractive and athletic she was. She wore pegged jeans and toffee-colored ankle boots. Despite the first chill of fall, her linen jacket was open over a tight-fitting T-shirt that I recognized from a rescue organization; it said SHOW ME YOUR PITS. I had one just like it, but never had the nerve to wear it.

  “I can’t believe you came,” I said.

  “I’ve watched a lot of these. I wish they had temperament tests for men.”

  She led me behind a small outcropping where we could watch without being seen. She said our presence would distract Cloud.

  “I have a surprise for you,” she whispered, as a female handler entered the ring with Cloud on a short lead. “You’ll see.”

  Cloud and her handler faced the four judges, three of whom were middle-aged women, and the fourth, a man who looked to be in his thirties. Cloud looked so happy to be outside, I feared the fresh air and sunlight would distract her!