The Hand That Feeds You: A Novel Read online

  Billie explained that the first part of the test would measure the dog’s reaction to strangers. First we watched the “neutral” stranger approach Cloud, stop, and tell the handler to have a nice day. Cloud did not react. The “friendly” stranger approached happily and briskly, sweet-talked Cloud, and patted her head. Cloud wagged her tail and licked the stranger’s hand. The third stranger careened, swinging his arms and speaking in a loud, agitated voice.

  Billie leaned over. “They are going to judge her on provoked aggression, strong avoidance, or panic.”

  “If I were Cloud, I’d exhibit all three.”

  “After what you’ve been through, so would I.”

  But Cloud aced it. She didn’t take the bait.

  As the handler walked Cloud slowly around the ring, they passed small stations that looked like duck blinds. From behind each one came a variety of provocations: the jarring noise of coins being shaken in a metal box, the sudden opening of a large umbrella. Cloud startled and hid behind the handler.

  “The umbrella test cashiers more dogs than any other. The response they’re looking for is curiosity, then continuing past,” Billie said.

  “But she’s always been afraid of umbrellas. Will they take that into consideration?”

  “It’s not a deal-breaker if she passes everything else. And hiding is better than showing aggression.”

  After Cloud passed the gunshot test—a blank was fired near her—the judges gave her the thumbs-up. Vicki Hearne, the late philosopher and dog trainer, had written about “what the illusion of viciousness is obscuring.” Cloud was a huge dog with big jowls and, covered in blood, had appeared to be a vicious dog, but it was an illusion, and what it obscured was fear.

  I had been told that I would not be allowed to visit Cloud after the test, so I gathered my purse and coat, and as I turned to say good-bye to Billie, I saw the same handler walk George into the ring.

  I looked at Billie and she was smiling. “Surprise.”

  “Who gave you permission to have George tested?”

  “I just don’t think he’s a killer.”

  “This wasn’t your call.”

  In the ring, the handler put George into a sit-stay. He then aced every test that Cloud did—the normal, friendly, and crazy strangers, shaken coins, even the umbrella test. Nothing distracted him from obeying the handler. I remembered how eager he was to please. With that recollection, came another: that Bennett had pushed a woman out a window. What might he have done to this dog? George now looked ribby, the way he did when I first saw him—you are supposed to be able to feel a dog’s ribs, not see them. It was part of what prompted me to foster him. It is such a pleasure simply to feed a hungry dog.

  But the gunshot test terrified him.

  He rushed behind the handler and tried to keep going, but the handler pulled hard on the leash and brought him back to her side.

  “He heard Chester get shot,” I said. “Should I tell the judges?”

  “It’s not that uncommon a response,” Billie said. “More dogs run away during Fourth of July fireworks than any other time of year.”

  It took the handler a minute or two to reassure George. She finally got him into a sit and told him he was a good boy. Even from this distance, I saw him lick the handler’s hand. But after walking comfortably across the sheet of crinkling plastic, he balked at walking across the metal grate. He planted himself, deadweight, and went on strike. The handler pulled on his lead, and we could hear George growl.

  “Shit,” I said. “His paws are tender from years in a damp cage. Don’t these people understand there are contingencies?” Instantly I was in tears from the impossible situation—I was standing up for my dog, a dog that had killed. Did Bennett try to pull George over the heat grating in the floor of my apartment? I was looking for any way to account for what had happened.

  Billie responded to my distress by putting an arm around my shoulder for just a moment. “It’s not over till it’s over.”

  When it was over, the judges announced that they would be willing to retest George at a later date. The anxiety of watching the two tests left me exhausted and despairing. Billie asked if I’d eaten anything that morning, and when I told her I had not, she said a diner with lousy coffee and great pancakes was a couple of blocks from here. She offered to drive me.

  The leather seats of her Volvo were surprisingly free of dog hair given the time she spent with the shelter dogs—unlike the leather couch that Steven had given me, which I had to cover with a throw before Bennett came over.

  “Thank you for bringing George,” I said.

  The diner was nothing like Champs. The tattoos we saw on the patrons of this diner were standard-issue armed services and MOM-in-a-heart tats. The pancakes here were not gluten-free. I ordered a stack of chocolate chip with whipped cream, and Billie had the lousy coffee.

  I had not confided in a girlfriend since Kathy’s death. Though I barely knew this Billie, I found myself telling her about Bennett and his deception. The more I talked, the more I talked. In a headlong rush, I told her the crazy-making story, with its blind spots and question marks, how we met online while I was conducting research on sociopaths and victims, clear on up to the fake address in Montreal and the key to it he had given me. Billie said he reminded her of a guy she used to see, a guy who had lied to her continuously and said, when she confronted him about the lying, that he was just trying to entertain her.

  “ ‘I lie to myself all the time,’ ” Billie quoted.

  “ ‘But I never believe me,’ ” I finished.

  “The Outsiders,” we said together. “S. E. Hinton.”

  Turned out we had both seen the film of this novel many times, about greasers in Tulsa, Johnny and Ponyboy, one of whom kills a member of a rival gang. Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, and Tom Cruise were in it before they were stars.

  “Bennett’s story also has a murder.” I told her about Susan Rorke.

  “Do you think Bennett killed her?”

  “The police do.”

  “Why do the police think he did it?” Billie asked.

  “They always suspect the husband or fiancé.”

  “Bennett was engaged to her, too?”

  “He gave her the same ring he gave me.”

  “That would be the suffer-ring? I hope it was expensive.”

  “I thought it was.” God, I had missed this. “Can I ask you something personal? You’re always at the shelter, you take a day off for this—how do you support yourself?”

  “I’m a trustafarian. Under close supervision. My grandmother doesn’t trust me.”

  The waitress finally set down the pancakes in front of me.

  “So what do the police do when their prime suspect is dead? They can’t exactly try him,” Billie said.

  “I don’t think Susan Rorke and I were the only women Bennett deceived. I think I’ve heard from a third.”

  “Reportyourex.com?”

  “Lovefraud.com. She said she wanted to meet me in person but she didn’t show up.”

  “There are many reasons why she might not have shown up.”

  “She pretended to be Susan Rorke. Maybe she didn’t know Susan Rorke was dead.”

  “Maybe she did.”

  When the check came, Billie reached for it even though she had only ordered coffee.

  In the car heading back to the city, I said, “He used a different name with her. He called himself Peter. But it was him. I showed the detective a picture and he confirmed it.”

  “So who is the third woman?”

  “Maybe she’s the tenth.”

  “Maybe the dogs did you a favor.”

  “Nothing I didn’t already think.”

  “I mean, he pushed her out a window.”

  “He was never violent with me. But how could I not know?”

  “The dogs knew.”

  • • •

  I asked Billie to drop me off on Delancey Street so I could walk across the Williamsburg Br
idge. I needed to do something physical and mindless. The view was of downtown Manhattan, with the two stately bridges—the Manhattan and the Brooklyn—spanning the lower East River. The Brooklyn Bridge was the first to be built—the longest suspension bridge of its time, and one of the most beautiful. The Manhattan was third, a gridwork of metal struts. In between came the Williamsburg, said to be the ugliest design on the river. But it’s not what you see when you’re walking across it. The view trumps the noise of trucks, cars, and subways flanking the hardy pedestrians and cyclists. Even Edward Hopper painted a view titled From Williamsburg Bridge. The walkway ends in the Hasidic neighborhood where women still wear wigs and the men grow side-curls and beards. Even in the heat of summer, come the Sabbath, the men wear the large fur hats known as shtreimel. Within the space of ten blocks, you hear conversations in Yiddish, then Spanish, then Chinese, then Italian. It’s part of why I moved here.

  I climbed the five flights to my apartment and found a phone message from the Boston detective. It wasn’t yet five so I called him right away.

  “Ms. Prager, I have a few questions for you in the investigation of Susan Rorke’s murder. Is this a good time to talk?”

  “As good as any.”

  “I’d like to ask you about the weekend she was killed when you met the man you knew as Bennett in Maine.”

  “What can I tell you?”

  “You said he drove from Montreal to Old Orchard Beach. What time did he arrive?”

  “He arrived an hour after I did, around four, but I don’t know if he drove from Montreal.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual about his behavior or appearance?”

  “He was his usual self, but later I saw a large bruise on his shin. He said he got it moving one of his bands’ equipment, but that was a lie. He didn’t represent any bands.”

  “And when did you find out that he lied about his job?”

  “And everything else. A few weeks after he died. Have you had any luck finding out who he is?”

  “We have a protocol to follow in a murder investigation. Have you been contacted again by the woman posing as Susan Rorke?”

  “No, but who was she? That’s my question for you. And how did she know about Bennett and Susan and me?”

  “We’re trying to find out.”

  “What have you found out? Do you know who Bennett was?”

  “I’ll tell you when I know.”

  “But you think he’s guilty?”

  “Only a judge and jury can find him guilty,” the detective said, “and the dead can’t be tried.”

  That night I went to the Turkey’s Nest on Bedford, picked up a guy, and went home with him. This wasn’t a plan, it’s just what I did. The Turkey’s Nest has the least hip jukebox in Williamsburg and caters to the last of the blue-collar crowd. In a moment of splendid irony I put my quarters in the jukebox and selected Patsy Cline singing “Crazy.” As the song ended, a good-looking guy asked me why I’d chosen that song. I had two whiskeys in me already and said, “See who’s crazy enough to ask me to dance to it.”

  He reached into the pocket of his tight jeans and produced several quarters, which he fed to the jukebox. “Crazy” started up again and he pulled me to him. “Are you crazy?”

  “You don’t want to know,” I said.

  “Try me.” He guided me onto the dance floor, a narrow space between the bar and the pool table.

  “It’s hard to know where to begin.”

  “I always start with my ex-wife,” he said.

  “What about her?”

  “She cut the right sleeve off all of my shirts.”

  “What did your right arm do?”

  “Nothing my left arm didn’t. Your turn.”

  “My fiancé was engaged to two women at the same time. He gave us each an identical ring.”

  “I see your fiancé and I raise you my ex-wife: she painted the word asshole across the firehouse doors. I’m a firefighter.”

  “I see your ex-wife and I raise you my fiancé: he murdered the other fiancée.”

  “Whoa.” The guy stopped dancing. “For real?”

  “Looks that way. But I came here to not think about that.”

  “Is he in jail?”

  “He’s dead.”

  The guy took my hand and pulled me back to the bar. “What are you drinking?”

  I had two more of what I was drinking, and he kept up with me. He lived in Greenpoint near Transmitter Park with two roommates, both firefighters. Neither was home when we got there. His room was a mess and it suited me. So did his kisses. I hadn’t kissed anyone since Bennett. And that thought wouldn’t leave me alone.

  Would I rather have been kissing Bennett?

  I knew him as well as I knew this firefighter.

  I was stuck in my head again and my body just went through the motions. He stopped while we were both still dressed and said, “You’re not here, are you?” He wasn’t angry.

  “I wish I were.”

  “Why don’t I get you a cab,” he said, no trace of irritation in his voice.

  He put me in the cab and gave the driver a twenty.

  “Your ex-wife is wrong about you,” I said.

  • • •

  I was back in the dreaded apartment. Maybe Cilla was right and I should consider moving, but I wasn’t ready, nor could I afford to. She’d had her walk on the wild side, but what steadiness I had now I owed to her. I sat by the living-room window, which looked out onto my neighbors’ backyards—the one with topiary, the one strewn with drying laundry, the one with stones arranged in a Zen garden. There was a half moon and I sat with my untouched cup of tea until dawn.

  When I had told Steven that Bennett was suspected of murder, he said, “Those dogs are heroes.” When I told Cilla, she asked if this knowledge helped me forgive myself for what happened. When I told McKenzie, he said, “Now that I can work with.”

  We were back at Champs. I had asked him to meet me there. I now wanted him to defend George, too.

  “Who is Bennett alleged to have killed?”

  I had passed beyond my initial shame at having been duped. “His other fiancée.” I watched this information register with McKenzie. He was studying me to gauge how I was doing. It felt dishonest not to tell him, though I didn’t want to come across as a victim. Ha!

  “How did she die?”

  I told him what I knew, and he said he’d send for the police report.

  “You’ll see in the report that he used a different name with the woman the police think he killed.”

  I gave him the name of the Boston detective to contact. I gave him the name of the victim. I could give him no name for my former fiancé.

  When I asked if he could defend George, too, he refused to sugarcoat George’s chances, but said he would do what I wanted. This interrupted my despair. I was aware of a kind of intimacy that comes from two people aligned with each other fixing their gaze on something outside themselves. We wanted the same thing.

  He walked me outside, and before I headed down Lorimer Street, I offered my hand to shake. But he gave me a hug. That it lasted a couple of beats longer than expected was something that I would think back on in the months to come.

  • • •

  Usually I walk off bad news, and after leaving McKenzie, the feeling of his arms around me propelled me through the neighborhood. I needed to restock my kitchen; I wanted staples, even though I never cooked. I headed for C-Town on Graham and passed the diner where the old couple sat out front every afternoon. The bench was for customers only, but no one at the diner was willing to send them on their way. A fixture, they had a kind greeting for people who walked by. They were kind to each other, too—every time I saw them I had the same thought: they still love each other. They were the type of old couple meant to elicit just such feelings, and I pushed back against having the response I was meant to have.

  A guy with a tattooed spiderweb covering half his face came out the diner door. The old woman said to her husband
, “He certainly has made a commitment to his lifestyle.”

  • • •

  I checked Lovefraud when I got home and found this e-mail:

  I have been following your postings about the man you call “Bennett” and I am begging you to stop. Whatever information you think you have about him will not interest me. This man is the last person I would be afraid of, and your implying that he deceives women is a lie. I am engaged to him. I did not pretend to be Susan Rorke, but if you continue to seek her out, you might do better to quiz her crazy friends. I will, however, be willing to talk with you but only because I owe it to him.

  I felt as though I were living on the other side of the wall, that I had slept too close to it and, during the night, had passed through into the other world.

  I met Samantha the next day at one of the Pain Quotidiens on the Upper East Side. I could never read the sign with its French pronunciation; to me it signified pain, and thus I found it fitting that she had chosen it as our meeting place.

  Because we met on a weekend morning, the small, private tables were all taken. We would have to sit at the long communal table. I scanned the patrons for a woman with an empty seat beside her. Three women fit that description. One had her purse carelessly open on the table beside her; one was on a cell phone texting, her nails painted black; one was rearranging a sweater on the back of her chair. The one with the open purse was conventionally beautiful, her features played up by carefully applied makeup. She looked to be about my age, but she also looked too high maintenance for “Bennett.” The one with the black manicure was too Goth for him. That left the nervous woman who, having rearranged her sweater, was now rearranging her silverware. As the knife and fork gleamed, so did the stone in her engagement ring. I watched her until she looked up and met my eyes. She flushed and looked away for a moment—a flush of anger, not embarrassment.

  I walked toward the empty chair. “Samantha?”

  “I only have fifteen minutes.”

  When I agreed to meet Samantha, I wanted to see who else had captured his heart. I wanted to see who else had been taken in by him. I wanted to compare the damage we had suffered at his hands. I wanted to release these women from the illusion of Bennett’s devotion to them. I wanted them to know they were safe. And an ugly part of me wanted to be the one to tell his other women that he was dead.