Authors: Kimberly Belle
28
The vodka is slowing me down. It’s making my limbs heavy and useless, sticking my ass to the leather seat of my swivel chair with superglue. Even my jaw is malfunctioning, hanging from my head like a broken branch.
Close your mouth
, my mother would say.
You’ll catch flies.
I stare at the flickering images on my computer screen and try to make sense of what I’m seeing, but my normally sharp brain cells laze around in my skull. And every time I manage to corral them into a coherent thought, it’s this one: Maria and Chris. Maria and
Chris
! My married, father-of-two godfather-slash-honorary-uncle, the one who changed my diapers and bounced me on his knee, who taught me card tricks and introduced me to bluegrass music, who took me skydiving when I turned eighteen and bought me my first beer when I turned twenty-one, is a lying, cheating pervert.
And now I’ve seen him naked.
“What is going on here?” Mandy says. “Why did Maria send you all these videos? Does she know Chris is your uncle?”
“I don’t know.”
After everything I’ve learned these past few days, I suppose I shouldn’t be so confused, shouldn’t feel so shocked. I shouldn’t have to sit here in the glow of my computer screen, hearing their voices, seeing
both
their faces, watching their bodies twist and contort in order to believe. I shouldn’t, and probably it’s the vodka, but it takes watching the video three entire times, from beginning all the way to the end, before I do.
I freeze the video screen, switch over to Skype, click on the number for Floyd. He and I have never Skyped before, but his number comes up on my screen, and I don’t want to use my cell. I want to keep it free in case I need to play Maria’s voice mails for him.
The line connects, and a handsome-ish face fills my screen. “Floyd?”
“No offense, hon,” he says, and it’s Floyd, all right, “but I had higher hopes for you. You look like you just got home from a three-day bender.”
“And you look so much better than I expected.”
I was right about Floyd’s computer-geek look, wrong about pretty much everything else. His blond hair is neat and stylish, his jawline long and lean as a marathon runner’s. And judging from his clothes, a designer polo and horn-rimmed glasses just this side of ironic, he doesn’t live in anybody’s basement.
“Why does everyone assume that just because a guy’s a computer genius, he’s a fat slob, living in a filthy frat house with a bunch of other fat slobs, drinking beer and playing video games all day long?”
“Mostly because every time I talk to you, you’re drinking beer and playing video games. And I thought it was your mother’s basement.”
He presses a hand to his chest and winces dramatically. “Ouch.”
“I’m not alone. This is my friend Mandy.” I pull Mandy’s head closer to mine, and she waves into the camera. “She knows about Maria, too.”
Floyd gets a load of Mandy, and his brows slide up his forehead. “Well, hello there, Mandy.”
“She’s married,” I say, moving us right along to the point of this call. “In the interest of time, I should tell you I haven’t listened to any of your voice mails. Start at the beginning.”
His lips spread into an I’m-the-man grin. “Hon, all you need to know is Wesley Wainright IV.”
“The former senator?”
“The former senator’s
son
, and the sick-ass who was porking Maria. And when I say porking, I mean porking. The dude’s a total pig.”
It makes sense. The Wainrights hold the kind of prestige that wouldn’t do well with a scandalous sex tape floating around the internet, and they have enough money—the kind of wealth that goes back to the Gilded Age and includes textile and railroad empires if I’m not mistaken—that nobody would miss a briefcase or two full of cash. And lately, rumors have been swirling that the former senator is preparing for a bid for the White House. I imagine he’d pay just about anything to keep his son’s pornographic trysts off YouTube.
I turn to Mandy. “Did we see Wesley on the videos?”
“No, but there are at least three or four more to go.”
And that’s when Floyd’s message hits me. “Wait. How do you know it’s Wesley? I thought you said the transactions were all cash.”
“They were. Maria’s a smart cookie and she hid the cash well, which means unless one of her donors comes forward...” He lets the words trail off, but I don’t need to hear it. He’s telling me the cash is untraceable. “But I don’t like dead ends, so I followed her. I saw them.”
“Porking?” Mandy and I say in unison.
Floyd laughs at either our use of his word or the way we lean into the camera with identical, wide-eyed expressions. “No, not porking. Making the exchange. But I knew it was him because of the finger.”
“What are you talking about?” I shake my head, still not understanding. Mandy looks just as clueless as I am. “What finger?”
Floyd rolls his eyes. “Jesus, girl, it’s been all over the news. Where the hell have you been?”
“Virginia,” I say, knowing it’s not the answer he was looking for, not wanting to detract from the bigger question at hand. “What finger?”
He is silent for a moment or two, and I hear rapid-fire clicking of his keyboard and mouse, and suddenly I’m looking at a split screen—half Floyd, half his internet browser. He types a website address into his browser.
While the video is loading, Floyd tells us that sometime in the past week, while I was busy doing whatever I was doing in Virginia, a handful of new clips made their way onto the internet, all of them starring Maria and Wesley Wainright IV.
“How do you know it’s him?” I say. The man’s face is blurred beyond recognition.
“I already told you, hon. Because of the finger.”
I search out the man’s hands, but both of them are tucked behind Maria’s naked thigh.
But unfortunately for me and Mandy and everyone else with working eyeballs, everything else about him is in clear, sharp focus. Wesley’s sexual tastes are perverted and violent and dip way into repulsive territory, and though I’m not the squeamish type, there are more than a few parts Mandy and I cover our eyes for. Floyd is right; the dude’s a total pig.
And then Floyd holds up a long finger. “Wait for it. Wait for it...”
At just the right moment, he taps his mouse and the picture goes still. He instructs us to look at the lower left corner of the screen, where the man’s hand clamps onto Maria’s breast in a way that can’t be even remotely pleasurable. Less like a fondle, more like a five-fingered vise. Only, one of them, his right ring finger, is shorter than all the others, cut off at the second knuckle.
Floyd leans back in his chair. “Boating accident, the summer after his freshman year in college. He’s lucky he didn’t bleed out. His blood alcohol level was .21, and that’s not even taking into account the pot and cocaine.”
“Okay, so he’s a pervert with a drug and alcohol problem. So?”
“So one of his fraternity brothers drowned that day, but somehow, despite the alcohol and drugs, despite them all being underage, the police never pressed charges. Why do you think that is?”
“Because he’s a Wainright.”
“Ding, ding, ding.” He reaches for his mouse and hits Play, and the clip starts up again. “But not even a Wainright can get Wesley out of this one.”
At first I assume he means the awful images blowing up the internet and my computer screen and how Maria is using them to finance her ostentatious new lifestyle, but something about his expression grows spider legs that creep up my spine.
“Get Wesley out of what?”
“They arrested him this morning for murder.”
“Of?” I say, even though I already know. Even though I’m already reaching for the desk, bracing myself for his answer.
“Maria Duncan. Who else?”
* * *
Autumn returns that weekend for its final hurrah of the year. Crisp air, blue skies and sunshine light up the trees with leaves of red and orange. I stay inside every second of it, glued to my computer screen, watching for news of Maria.
Wesley confesses on a bright Saturday morning to a flurry of cameras and Google hits, all of which catalog a long line of evidence pulled from his basement. His
basement
. Poor Maria. Her tragedy began and ended in a dark, damp basement.
His lawyers schedule a press conference that nobody pays any attention to because eight hundred miles away, an explosion at a fireworks facility blows a crater into a residential neighborhood north of Milwaukee. An entire city block and all the people in it gone, blown to bits. A death toll in the hundreds and climbing amid allegations of bribery and misconduct and idiocy in the form of a lunatic with a cigarette.
And Chris’s name is never mentioned. Not any of the other names from the videos Maria sent me, either, which means Maria was too busy getting the life squeezed out of her by Wesley Wainright IV to alert the media to any of the other men financing her lifestyle.
But surely I’m not the only one who knows about the videos.
I imagine by now the police have combed every inch of Maria’s apartment for evidence. They would have fired up her computer, found the video files and cataloged them as exhibit A. They would have sniffed out the money trails, followed them to expensive brownstones and penthouse condominiums all over the District. Maybe they’re keeping quiet on purpose, trying to build their case without media interference. Or maybe now that the attention has moved on to bigger, more explosive topics, the media has simply stopped caring.
Whatever the reason, I can’t stop thinking about her. I’ve played and replayed her messages a million times. I’ve taken notes, transcribed every word to paper, searched behind every letter for clues. Every time, every single time, I end up coming back to that one sentence:
I think I might be in trouble
. Did she call me looking for help? To keep her safe from harm? Why send me the videos, as collateral? For safekeeping? Did she want me to expose her partners, show the world whose faces were behind the blurred-out pixels, or did she want me to protect her from them? Now that she’s dead, I’ll probably never know the answers.
Or for that matter, where she stashed the money.
I took the key to one of my old detective contacts, who in an ironic twist traced it back to Handyman Market. How strange to think that Gabe could have been the one who sold it to her, could have been the one to tell her this particular lock, a commercial-grade shroud padlock, is practically indestructible, which is why every self-storage facility in town recommends it for theirs. I picture the pile of cash Maria must have amassed by now, gathering dust behind a roll door somewhere, and the look on the face of that particular
Storage Wars
winner. If only Maria had told me which storage facility, then maybe I could get to that money first and use it to help her brother, Matthew. He’s the real tragedy here. With Maria no longer paying his bills, he’s being transferred to a state facility for the indigent in early January.
But all my efforts have led to exactly nowhere, and in the end, I’m left holding the key—literally—to a mystery.
* * *
A few days later, on Veteran’s Day, I’m curled up on the couch, channel surfing, when Gabe’s clean-shaven face flashes across my television screen. Seeing him feels like a punch to the gut, especially when I see the rest. His banker’s suit and tie, his mother and Nick hovering at either elbow, their solemn expressions. I lurch to a sit and stab at the volume button until Gabe’s voice throbs in my ears.
“My brother Zach was the best man I ever knew,” he says to a million flashing bulbs and mugging microphones. “He was honest and loyal. He was compassionate and sincere. He was brilliant and brave and a hero long before he stepped onto the battlefield. He was the glue that held our family together, and without him, we are left with an ache in our hearts and a void in our souls that nothing will ever be able to fill.”
Nick drops his head and sobs into his chest, and Jean reaches around Gabe’s back for his hand.
“If Zach were here now,” Gabe says, and though his eyes are shiny, his voice never wavers, “he would hate everything about this investigation. He would tell us to get back to mourning our loss instead of pointing fingers and assigning responsibility for his death. He would tell us to look forward instead of back, to let go and forgive, to heal as a family and as a country. The best way for us to honor his memory is by honoring his wishes, which is why we’re dropping the charges against the US Army, effective immediately.”
And just like that, the Zach Armstrong case is closed.
* * *
I lie awake that night in my bed, alone and achy and confused. My ears strain in the dim light of my bedroom, listening for familiar old-house moans, but all I can hear are Mom’s words to me in the kitchen playing on a constant loop through my head.
There’s no rhyme or reason to a tragedy, only heartbreak.
Maybe Mom is right. Maybe there is no rhyme or reason to the string of disastrous events that ended in Zach’s death, but to Chelsea and Maria? I wrote a story that resulted in not one but two people’s deaths. I am that person. It will take some getting used to.
But what about all the others? The people in my wake, the survivors, those left standing in the wreckage and half buried under the rubble. Ben and his father. Gabe and Jean and Nick. Maybe now it should be about stitching and dressing their wounds, about finding some way to give them comfort while their bones and skin and hearts knit back together. I keep talking about rehabbing my karma, about repaying my debt to the universe. Maybe this is the way.
So for now, lying here in the light of a new day, I will stop asking the wrong questions—how did this happen, who seduced whom, who pulled the trigger? For now, the most important questions are these:
What now?
What’s next?
Where do we go from here?
29
The bell rings at Baltimore Montessori Public Charter School, and I push off the wall to the left of the double doors, watching for Ben. A familiar mop-headed, stick-figure kid emerges moments later, blinking into the bright November sunshine, searching me out of the bodies milling around on the stoop. I straighten, lifting an arm in a wave, and he pushes through the crowd.
“Sorry,” I say, glancing over to where a couple of his classmates are clustered, their heads pressed together, watching us with open curiosity. “I should have suggested a better place to meet.”
“It’s all good.” Ben shoves at his bangs with a palm, but they fall right back over his eyes. “I think you’re upping my coolness quotient.”
I smile and steer us away from the crowd and along the street. Neither of us talks as we make the trek down a few blocks. He breathes hard and quick through his mouth, eyes fixed straight ahead, and his obvious discomfort makes me even more nervous about what I came here to say. I hope I don’t screw this up, screw this kid up forever.
We slow on a quieter, residential block of plain brick town houses with wide sidewalks and yawning sets of stairs. I point to the first ones we come to, suggest we take a seat.
“Is this about Maria getting killed?” Ben asks as we’re getting settled. “Because I watch the news. Some rich guy strangled her, and then he dumped her in the river.”
“This isn’t about Maria. Well, actually it is a little, but it’s more about your mom.” I wipe my palms down the thighs of my jeans, swallow a spiky lump in my throat. “I came here to apologize.”
Ben’s gaze hitches on my face. “How come?”
“Because a good journalist knows when there’s something wrong. Even if they can’t quite put their finger on it, they know. When Maria came to me with the story of her and your mom, I knew there was something she wasn’t telling me. I had a feeling her reasons for going public with the story had more to them than just charging your mother with sexual harassment, but I pushed my doubts aside. I was so focused on the byline, I didn’t pay attention to that squirming in my gut. I didn’t do my job, and your mom died because of it.”
Ben falls quiet for a long moment, chewing a raw spot on his bottom lip, his mouth twisting into a scrunch. He’s fidgety and nervous, and he seems as if he’s working through something momentous. I give him all the time he needs. A car whizzes past, sending a tornado of trash and leaves circling up into the air, then falling back to the ground.
“My shrink says it wasn’t anybody’s fault.” His voice is high and squeaky as if he’s about to cry, which makes me feel as if I’m about to cry, too. “He says Mom’s mind wasn’t healthy, and it clouded her thinking. He says what happened had nothing to do with anybody but her, because she couldn’t see any other way out of her situation than by killing herself.”
“That’s all true. But I’m the one who put her in a situation she couldn’t find her way out of.”
“I thought Maria did that.”
“Okay, then. I’m the one who told the world about it.”
He stares down at his denim Chucks, and I see tears snagging in his lashes. I wonder briefly if that’s his reason for wearing his hair so long, so that people don’t see him cry, and the possibility makes me incredibly sad.
He wipes his eyes on a sleeve. “I don’t know... I’m still mostly pissed at Mom for leaving the way she did. For not loving me enough to stay.”
“You just told me her death had nothing to do with you.”
He looks at me through a slit in his bangs. “I told you my
shrink
said that, not that I believed him.”
I give him a sad smile he doesn’t return.
“I hate Maria for what she did.
Hate
her. I’m
glad
she’s dead. I know it’s wrong to say that about another human being, especially one who was murdered, but my shrink says I’m allowed to feel rage.”
“I imagine most people would in your position.”
“So, why do you think she did it? Maria, I mean. Why do you think she went after my mom?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she liked her, or maybe she was looking for attention. Now that Maria’s dead, we might never know her reasons. But honestly, does it really matter why she did it? I mean, I get that you’re pissed and it probably feels good to have someone to blame, but I guess all I’m saying is, is your anger helping you or holding you back?”
The look he gives me is exasperated, and maybe a little annoyed. “It’s not like I have a choice or anything. I don’t want to feel so angry. I’m
sick
of feeling so angry. I just want to go to the movies and laugh and feel normal again. I want that more than anything.”
His words hit me at a cellular level. Switch out
angry
for
guilty
, and Ben’s words could have been mine. I don’t want to feel so guilty. I’m
sick
of feeling so guilty. It occurs to me that we’re not so different, Ben and I. We both have to find a way to live with what happened, a way to swim for shore.
“A very smart woman once told me that anger can feel like a life buoy, like it’s the only thing keeping you afloat. But that in order to heal, you have to let go.”
He looks up with a start, and I can tell Jean’s message has struck a chord with him, too. “Let go. That’s it? Just...let go?”
I nod. “Let go and swim for shore.”
He thinks about it for a long time, his brow scrunching in concentration. Then, finally, he says, “Okay.” That’s it. Just
okay
. I don’t ask whether his okay is an
I’ll try
okay, or a
Shut up and leave me alone
okay, or a
Whatever you say, lady
okay. This is a journey he’s going to have to make on his own. I can only pray that, sooner or later, he’ll get there.
Instead, I say, “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the answers you were looking for.”
He shrugs. “It was a long shot anyway. Even if Maria could still talk, she didn’t seem like the type to ever admit to anything.”
“You know your mom better than just about anyone. Why do
you
think she got involved with Maria?”
I’m probably overstepping every boundary imaginable by asking something so personal, and of a kid I really scarcely know, but who could have ever imagined such a situation? It’s not like either of us is working from a rule book here. Ben is not your average twelve-year-old kid, and I’ve never been an objective bystander. After everything that’s happened to bring me and Ben to this particular stoop, after all the sorry ways I was mixed up in his tragedy, I want him to be okay. I
need
him to be.
“Is this like one of those
the answer lies inside you
Jedi mind tricks? Because, believe me, it doesn’t. I’ve asked myself that question a million trillion times, and the only answer I can come up with is I don’t know.
I don’t fucking know.
”
He’s clearly miffed, so I let it go. We sit there for a moment in painful silence, and then I wipe my palms on my jeans, push to a stand. “I should go.”
Ben nods, but he doesn’t otherwise move. He looks up at me through his bangs. “She used to tell me she loved me to the moon and back, like, all the time. I’d like to think she wouldn’t leave me for anything less than that kind of love.” He shrugs, the gesture an apology. “Maybe if I say it enough, I’ll start believing it.”
I don’t say anything for a long moment, afraid it will come out all wrong or too pie-in-the-sky to be anywhere near right. Later, I know, I’ll come up with a million things I should have said, but for now the best I can think of is, “You seem awfully self-aware for a twelve-year-old.”
“Nah, I’m pretty fucked up.”
I laugh. “Join the club, kid.”
Ben ducks his head, but I catch a grin twitching at the corners of his lips. “I can get you the number for a pretty decent shrink if you want.”
* * *
Another cold afternoon, another crowded stoop. This time it’s the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
I don’t immediately pick Chris out of the throngs of tourists milling about in puffy winter gear, but I know he’s here somewhere, and I know this is part of his schtick. Making me wait gives him the appearance of the upper hand, and for now I let him have it. I select a spot on the freezing-cold steps, burrow down into my down-lined peacoat and wait.
Seven and a half minutes later, he sinks down onto the step beside me and gives me a one-armed hug. “Hey, cupcake.”
Uncle Chris is in his civilians, something that surprises me at the same time as it doesn’t. When he suggested we meet here, at such a public spot, I figured he suspected it was because of something having to do with the Armstrongs, and he wanted the anonymity of a crowd. A general’s uniform isn’t exactly designed to blend in. But Uncle Chris should have stuck to his service uniform. It does a better job at disguising his widening middle than his turtleneck and pleated slacks are doing.
“Thanks for meeting me.” By now I’m shivering, more from nerves than the icy wind blowing up from the Potomac. “I know you’re busy.”
“Never too busy for my goddaughter.” His smile is broad and white, and I don’t believe it for a second. “So, what’s this urgent matter you wanted to discuss?”
So far we’re both keeping our tones warm and pleasant, but I suspect neither of us are harboring any notions this meeting will be either. After slipping me a top secret document, after having me tailed and chased through a suburban neighborhood, Chris has to know whatever I brought him here to say can’t be good.
“My father seems to think the tail and the transcript were a message.”
Surprise flashes across his expression before he wipes it clean. “Oh? And you don’t?”
I shake my head. “I think they were a mission. I think you wanted me to find Ricky.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, but in an overly patient voice. Uncle Chris knows
exactly
what I’m talking about, and he knows I’m onto him. He looks out over the sea of tourists and the reflecting pond beyond. On the opposite end, the Washington Monument reaches tall and majestic up from the ground, like a giant finger poking at low-hanging clouds.
“It must be so hard,” I say, following his gaze, “being surrounded by all those heroes, watching them come home to parades and ceremonies. Meanwhile, nobody’s waving a flag for you. Nobody’s giving you a medal. They’re just screaming at you to get them out. To bring our soldiers home.”
He turns to me with a tight-lipped smile. “You’re playing with fire here, cupcake. Say what you mean to say.”
“Okay. What I mean to say is, when word of who shot Zach Armstrong gets out, when somebody leaks that little news flash to the world, if you play your cards right, you could look like the hero for keeping the shooter’s identity a secret all this time. You could be all like,
we sure made a mess of things, but those poor Armstrongs, we did it for their own good
. Just think how noble you’d look. How heroic.”
And this is what has kept me awake for much of the past week, my stomach twisted in knots. Because if Uncle Chris gave me a copy of that transcript, what’s to stop him from slipping it to someone else now that I haven’t taken the bait? Maybe he already has. After all, now that my father’s retired, who’s there to stop him?
“You think I made a mess of things on purpose?”
“No. I think you made a mess of things because you were using Zach Armstrong’s death as the army’s personal PR campaign. If you hadn’t, Jean never would have raised such a fuss, and my father wouldn’t have been forced to retire from a job he loved, because he hated everything about how you were handling a family’s tragedy more.”
His brows slam together, and his mouth twists. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, little girl. The US military is one of the strongest, most respected brands in the world. Our soldiers appear in ads for everything from the NFL and NBA to beers and cars and nonprofits. They don’t get paid for their participation. They don’t get a lick of credit, other than maybe fifteen minutes of fame. Corporal Armstrong is no different. He knew what he was getting into when he enlisted.”
My father’s words roll right off my tongue. “Just because something’s the truth, Uncle Chris, that doesn’t make it right.”
He heaves a disgusted sigh and starts to push to his feet. “We’re done here. You’re wasting my time.”
“Wait.” I latch on to his sleeve, pulling him back down to the cold steps, and hand him my phone. “You haven’t seen the best part.”
He frowns down at my phone, looking at it as if he’s suddenly discovered a turd resting on his palm. “What the hell’s this?”
I lean in, unlock the screen and push Play. “This is tomorrow’s front-page news.”
Within seconds, Chris’s loud “Suck it, baby” slices through the tourists’ chatter. Shocked faces swing our way, and I can’t deny a stab of glee at the look of utter panic that swallows his expression, the way he startles so hard the phone almost pops out of his fumbling fingers. “Jesus! Turn this goddamn thing down, would you?”
I reach over and calmly lower the volume until it’s not quite so booming but still loud enough for everyone within a five-foot radius to hear. His moans, the smacks of his palm against Maria’s bare skin, his many enthusiastic compliments, over and over and over, of how “nasty” she likes it. At the twenty-third second, their bodies shift, and the camera focuses on an image so crisp you can count the stubble hairs on Uncle Chris’s face.
He flings the phone at me. “Turn it off. You’ve made your point.”
“I have so many questions, not the least of which is Maria Duncan.
Really?
Surely you have better intel than that, or were you so hot to get her out of her clothes that you skipped the background check? Did you not recognize her? How much did you have to pay—”
His words come out in a spray of furious spittle. “Turn it off!”
I fiddle with the screen until it goes dark and quiet, and then I slip the phone back in my coat pocket. Granted, I’ve had more time than Chris to get used to the video, the fact that for whatever reason, Maria sent me an unedited copy, the idea I can use it as leverage. Poor Chris is still trying to get a handle on the situation, still trying to figure out how to shut it down before his career implodes on an even more spectacular note than my father’s.