Look Closer

89 Vicky

Whoever first said “the waiting is the hardest part” didn’t know the half of it.

I’m at work, doing inventory in the kitchen for another grocery run. Usually I go on Monday, but Monday was Halloween, and I (obviously) didn’t work that day. And yesterday, Tuesday, was one of those days that all plans went awry and we had to put out small fires—the stove wasn’t working, one of the abusive husbands showed up demanding to speak to his wife, we had three new women come in with various bruises or welts or burns, one with an infant.

Even today, Wednesday, November 2, has been crazy. It’s already nearly four o’clock and it feels like my shift just began.

But that’s good. I’ve worked double shifts both days since Halloween. Focusing on these women and their children at the shelter has kept my mind off Gavin and the investigation.

I hear a car pulling up, tires crunching over gravel. Safe Haven’s been around thirty years, and we still don’t have a paved parking lot, could never spare the funds. But for me, it has the benefit that people can’t drive up without being heard.

I check. Every time I’ve heard a car arriving these last two days, I’ve checked. Is it Gavin? Is it the police?

I don’t know which would be worse. Gavin could only find this place by following me. He wouldn’t have known where I work from Christian—Nick. I told Nick I volunteered at a nonprofit shelter (only half true; I don’t get paid much, but I do get paid). But I never gave a name. I didn’t want him ever coming here.

If Gavin knows where I work, then he’ll also know my name, my real name, Vicky Townsend. We get half our money from state grants, so we are an open book. My name and prints are on file with the state, after the fingerprint-based background check they did on me.

I walk over to the window. A police squad car is parked in the lot. Two uniformed officers, with their swagger and gear, heading for our front door.

Go back to what you’re doing. Check the groceries. Clip out coupons. It’s an ordinary day. You don’t know anything. Christian Newsome? Never heard of him. Nick Caracci? Nope.

They can’t be here for me, can they? Did they find a stray fingerprint, which would have immediately matched for Vicky Townsend—

“Vicky.” Miriam, my boss, sticks her head into the kitchen.

I look over at her, raise my eyebrows, afraid my voice might shake. Just turning my head causes pain in my ribs, the spot where Gavin kicked me two nights ago.

“The heater’s not working upstairs,” she says. “Surprise, surprise.”

“It— Oh.” Relief floods through me. “Want me to take a look?”

“You’re the only one who has a prayer of fixing it.”

“Sure. Who— Was someone at the door?”

“Cops. They want to talk to the woman who came here two nights ago, Jamie. About pressing charges against her husband.”

I shake out my nerves and take several deep breaths. They’re not here for me.

I go to work on the radiator upstairs in Dorm A. Lacking air-conditioning is one thing, but we have to keep this place warm. Last winter, the heat went out in February. We scrambled for blankets and space heaters and prayed that we didn’t burn the place down.

It’s cold out, and we have an infant in here. And no funds for a repair call.

I manage to get the radiator working. The pin inside the valve head is stuck in the down position, so I wrench it free and put some lubricant on it to stop it from happening again. Not that hard to fix, but every move I make, I’m reminded of that kick to the ribs from Gavin.

Once the radiator is gurgling and hissing, my work is done.

I look out the window again. Will Gavin come tonight?

Or will he wait until tomorrow, November 3, D-Day?

Gavin is a problem. He was a mistake on my part. A loose end.

I hate loose ends.

90 Jane

“Mrs. Bilson, this is exactly why we called this emergency town hall meeting,” says Alex Galanis, Village president, sitting at the middle of a long table. “So we could be transparent. As transparent as the chief is able to be with an ongoing investigation.”

Jane smirks. They called the emergency board meeting at eight in the morning, hoping fewer people would attend. It didn’t work. The place is standing room only, with more than four hundred people crammed in there. She’s glad she isn’t there herself, instead sitting in the chief’s office, watching the whole thing through closed-circuit TV with her partner, Andy Tate.

“Well, it’s November third,” says Mrs. Bilson, standing at a podium. “You’ve had two whole days to investigate, and it feels like nobody knows anything. Or at least you won’t tell us anything. We don’t even know how she died. Is it true she was hung?”

“Hanged,” says Jane, ever the grammarian. Andy throws her an elbow.

“. . . not to compromise the investigation by releasing details,” says Chief Carlyle. “We can say it was a homicide. I’d rather not go further.”

“Well, do you have any leads? Is it true he was wearing a costume?”

“Again, ma’am . . .”

“God am I glad I’m not in there,” says Andy. “Remind me to never be chief of a police force.”

“My name is Donald Fairweather. We’re hearing that it was some gang initiation thing like we had a couple years ago with the carjackings. Is that true?”

Jane covers her eyes with her hand. Three summers ago, the Village did experience a rash of car thefts and carjackings tied to a west-side gang, an initiation ritual. It took coordination from four different western suburbs and Chicago P.D. to finally crack down on it.

“Well, I think we’d all like to know if some Chicago gang has decided to come into our town and start killing people!”

“Sir—Mr. Fairweather—we are confident, as we’ve said before, that this murder was a domestic issue. It was unique to the Betancourt family.”

“Does that mean you’re close to solving it?”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” says Jane. Shit, what do these people want? A sloppy rush to judgment or good, hard detective work?

“People are rattled,” says Andy. “They’re not used to this.”

“Are you increasing patrols around the Village?”

“We don’t believe that’s necessary,” says the chief. “We don’t believe there’s a continuing threat to the community.”

“But that”—President Galanis opens his hands, looks at the chief—“that’s something we could do, right, Chief?”

Oh, great. The chief’s gonna love that. Sure, Mr. President, give us the funds and we can do all the patrols you want.

She checks her watch. She and Andy are due downtown to meet with Sergeant Cheronis of Chicago P.D.

“Then why haven’t you made an arrest, if you’re so sure?”

“We moved here to get away from violence in Chicago,” says another woman, whose name Jane missed. “Is it coming here now? Is this a new normal?”

For at least the fourth time, the chief says, “We do not believe there is a further threat to the community. We believe this crime was personal to the Betancourt family.”

And then, decorum and protocol be damned, a number of residents shout at once, all variants of the same question:

“So when are you going to solve it?”

91 Simon

Thursday morning. Day three of the investigation, day three of November.

I was supposed to meet with Jane Burke last night. Got myself all steeled up, practiced and ready, and then she canceled on me.

Why, I don’t know. Did they find Christian’s body and the green phone? Pretty good chance of that. And maybe that will be that. It really should be. Christian has the phone that was texting back and forth with Lauren at regularly scheduled times. He has the Grim Reaper costume and the muddy boots in his apartment. It’s hard to see coming up with any different story: Christian was sleeping with Lauren, she dumped him, he couldn’t handle it, he came to her house and killed her.

At some point soon, if not already, they’ll have the CSLI from both phones. And if they’ve already found Christian, they’ll know that all the texts were sent from either his house in Wicker Park or his office downtown.

That’s gotta be game, set, match, right?

I’m home today, alone at my house. I could’ve gone into work, but Jane wasn’t sure what time she wanted to talk to me, and I didn’t want her coming to my law school for the interview. So I told her I’d work from home and she could come whenever. Felt like a casual, innocent-y way to handle it.

I leaf through the morning paper I fetched from a convenience store on Division. The Tribune story doesn’t say much new about Lauren’s murder. Too early, I presume. Nothing about Christian Newsome at all. One of many people who die in the city every day.

I still won’t go online. I’m left with the morning newspaper only, and thus little information. It’s unsettling, but I knew that going in. I knew the “days after” would be anxious and frustrating and scary. At this point, I just have to believe in my plan. Easier said than done—

My doorbell rings. I’m at my computer upstairs, answering a student’s email.

Jane had told me she’d call with a heads-up before coming by. I check my phone to see if I missed a call. I didn’t.

I go to the window and look down at the front porch.

A man, dressed in a suit, erect posture, short hair.

I head downstairs and open the door.

“Simon Dobias?” he says.

“Yes?”

He pulls credentials out of his pocket and flashes them.

“I’m Special Agent John Crane with the FBI,” he says. “I’d like to speak with you about Lauren Betancourt. And your wife, Vicky.”

“I— What did you say your name was?” I ask.

He opens his credentials again, a flip of the wallet. “I’m Special Agent John Crane.”

No, you’re not. You’re Gavin Finley, Christian’s buddy.

“Sure,” I say, “come on in.”

92 Jane

Jane Burke and Andy Tate sit inside an interview room adjoining the detectives’ squad room in the Fourteenth District of Chicago P.D. at ten in the morning.

“Nicholas Christopher Caracci,” Jane says, flipping through the pages. “Aka Collin Daniels, aka Richard Nantz, aka David Jenner . . .” She closes up the file.

“Aka Christian Newsome,” says Sergeant Don Cheronis. “A con artist. He targets wealthy married women. Seduces them, gets them to divorce their husbands, convinces them to take a lump-sum payment, then steals their divorce settlements. He moves around, switches up identities.”

“So . . . what,” says Andy. “He was targeting Lauren and ended up falling for her instead? When she dumped him, he snapped?”

Jane shrugs. “That could work. A lot of things could work. Doesn’t make them true.”

“Yeah but, Jane—”

“I said it’s possible, okay?” she says.

Sergeant Don Cheronis hits “play” on the computer.

Jane and Andy stand behind him and watch.

The video, grainy and black-and-white, shows a cab pulling alongside the three-way intersection of North, Milwaukee, and Damen Avenues in Chicago. From the right side of the cab, a figure emerges, wearing the Grim Reaper costume.

“That is it,” says Dembe Abimbola, a cabdriver who left a job as an accountant in Nigeria to move to the United States eighteen months ago. “That is my cab. That is the man.”

“It was a man,” says Jane.

“Yes, yes.”

“You talked to him?”

“He keep saying the same thing. ‘I fucked up. I fucked up.’”

“‘I fucked up’?” Jane confirms. The man speaks good English as a second language, but his accent is heavy. “That” is dat. “Fucked” is fooked.

“Yes. That was it. I ask, do you need med-sin, do you need doctor, you okay, friend? He did not say—he said no. ‘I fucked up’ is all he say.”

Jane plays the rest of the downloaded video. These stupid POD cameras the city of Chicago uses unfortunately don’t stay in one place. They rotate. So the camera doesn’t capture every movement of the Grim Reaper. By the time the camera has rotated back, the only image they have of the costumed figure is from behind, as he walks east on North Avenue toward Winchester, where Christian Newsome—well, Nicholas Caracci—lived.

“Did you get a look at his face?” Jane asks.

“I see what you see.” Abimbola points at the screen, at the hooded, costumed figure. “I don’t see his face, no. I drive.”

Cheronis glances back at Jane. “Anything else?” he says.

Jane turns that question on Abimbola. “Anything else you remember, sir?”

“He give me a nice tip,” he says.

“Oh?”

“He give me one hundred. The cab ride was maybe twenty-five. You remember the good tippers.”

Jane glances at Andy. “I’ll bet you do,” she says.

Jane and Andy, back in their war room at Grace Village P.D., eating microwaved sandwiches well past the lunch hour and reading through the file from the FBI on Nicholas Caracci. Jane’s phone rings. She recognizes the number and puts it on speakerphone.

“Tox screen came back,” Cheronis squawks. “Caracci had a few shots of alcohol and over forty milligrams of diazepam in his system. Normal dosage is more like ten milligrams.”

“Enough to overdose?” Jane asks.

“Definitely possible. M.E. says for someone of his size, maybe yes, maybe no. But enough to make him very sleepy and very goofy in pretty short order.”

“Diazepam,” says Jane. “Meaning Valium.”

“Yeah, pretty standard tranquilizer.”

Jane looks at Andy. “Drugs in his system,” she says. “Heard that one before?”

“Here you go,” says the building manager of Grant Thornton Tower, an efficient man in a dark suit. “Would you like me to wait up here or do you want to just buzz me when you’re done?”

“We’ll let you know when we’re done,” says Andy.

Inside the office of Newsome Capital Growth, suite 1320. The place does not look as if it’s prepared to be receiving visitors.

“Looks like ol’ Nick had travel plans,” Andy summarizes.

The place has been cleaned out. On the reception desk, dust lines form a square shape, presumably where a computer once sat. A power cord juts out from beneath the desk. On the carpet underneath the desk, heavy indentations, a rectangular shape, presumably where the computer’s mainframe or hard drive once sat. The drawers behind the reception area have been rifled through and largely emptied out.

“Computer’s gone, files are gone,” says Andy. “He removed all trace of himself.”

“Or of someone else,” she says. “That sound like someone who’s about to commit suicide? I mean, what does he care what we find about his con artist career, or Lauren, for that matter, if he’s going to eat a bullet?”

“I hear you, but . . .” Andy closes the drawers, wearing gloves in case they want to check the place for prints. “Maybe he knew he was going to kill her, and he wanted to erase all evidence of her from this office. Maybe the suicide wasn’t planned, Jane. He has some belts of bourbon, some tranquilizers, he’s feeling remorseful and emotional, suddenly putting that gun under his chin sounds like a good idea. You can’t discount that possibility.”

“No, I can’t,” she concedes. Andy’s right. That’s all possible. “But I don’t like it.”

They check out the one major office, an impressive office at that—Nicholas Caracci’s attempt to be “Christian Newsome,” the wealthy, super-smart investor. A wet bar in the corner and cushy couch. Electronic banners scrolling indices from the Dow Jones, the Nasdaq, and the Nikkei. Flat-screen TVs on the wall. A massive, sleek metal desk. Expensive rugs. He definitely looked the part.

But nothing in the drawers. Nothing in the cabinets. No computer anywhere.

No signs of who was here or what they did.

They find the building manager down in the lobby.

“Anything else I can do for you, Sergeant Burke?” he says, on his best behavior. Most people are when the cops come a-calling.

“We appreciate your help,” says Jane. “We’re just going to need one more thing. You keep visitors’ logs?”

Jane and Andy walk through a low gate and pass through a small garden in front of the walk-up to the three-flat in Lincoln Park. Jane finds the button next to the name Fielding.

“You still don’t believe it,” Jane says to Andy.

“I’m not saying that. I’m keeping an open mind.”

“Okay, partner.” She pushes the button, a buzz following.

“Hello?” a voice squawks through the speaker.

“Emily Fielding?”

“Yes?”

“My name is Jane Burke. I am a police officer in Grace Village. You’re not in any trouble, don’t worry,” she quickly adds. “We’d like to ask you a few questions about the guy you work for, Christian Newsome.”

93 Simon

“Lead the way,” says Gavin, though I will need to remember not to call him that. “Special Agent John Crane” was the name he gave.

“We can sit right in here,” I say.

I show him into my living room, the first room you see when you enter the house, by my mother’s design. I wasn’t allowed in this room when I was a child. We hardly came in here. My parents would have dinner parties and would end up in this room for coffee and dessert. The furniture hasn’t changed since that time.

The couch is stiff, last I checked, so I direct him there and sit in one of the individual chairs, with its outdated velvet cushion. Or who knows, maybe fashion has come full circle, and this is the latest thing.

“So tell me how I can help,” I say.

Up close, Gavin is a little scarier than I remembered. I’d seen him on Christian’s balcony a couple of times, but I didn’t get a look at him up close. He’s thick in the neck, shoulders, and chest, and his eyes are set like a predator’s. He reminds me, more than anyone, of that wrestler, Mitchell Kitchens.

“Do you know a man named Christian Newsome, Mr. Dobias?”

I look up, like I’m pondering. “No, never heard the name.”

“What about Nick Caracci?”

I open my hands. “No.”

“Lauren Betancourt? You know her, don’t you, Mr. Dobias?”

That’s not very good procedure. A real FBI agent, not someone posing as one, would have asked that open-ended, innocently. Give me a chance to give the wrong answer, so they could slap me with a 1001 charge for lying to a federal agent.

“I would say I did know Lauren,” I answer.

“Why the past tense? Because she was recently murdered?”

Again, Gavin, bad form—don’t feed me that answer; give me some rope with which to hang myself. (Pardon the pun.)

“Past tense,” I say, “because I have not spoken to Lauren for nineteen years.”

Gavin, trying for the stone-faced, by-the-book special agent, jerks in his position, which is funny to see from someone sitting down. “You haven’t spoken to Lauren for nineteen years?”

“That’s right. Since 2003. She finally left town in 2004, but last time I spoke to her was 2003,” I say. “I heard she was back in town. And I heard about her recent death, obviously.”

He poises a finger in the air. It looks like he’s losing some color to his face. “Mr. Dobias, you know it’s a crime to lie to a federal agent.”

I do know that. And I’m not lying. Okay, maybe I spoke to Lauren after she was dead at her house, but I don’t consider that “speaking to” her. Otherwise, I’m telling the truth.

I have not said one word to Lauren in nineteen years, not since the day I confronted her at the law firm, the morning after I found her fucking my father.

“Mr. Dobias, we know you were having an affair with Lauren,” he says.

“A what? You think I had a relationship with Lauren, of all people? She’s the last person in the world I’d get near.”

That is all true.

“Agent Crane,” I say, “is there some reason you think I was sleeping with Lauren?”

Of course there is. What Gavin knows, he knows via Christian.

“We’ve read your diary, Mr. Dobias.”

Well, technically, Christian read the diary. I prefer the word journal, but this is not a time to quibble over terminology.

“What diary?” I say. “I don’t have a diary.”

That was some of my best work. Full of highs and lows and melodrama, like most passionate romances. And sure, I sprinkled in some truth—the best lies always have some truth, right? But by and large, yeah, the whole thing was a work of fiction. The whirlwind affair, my hemming and hawing, Lauren being pregnant—fake, fake, fake. Necessary for Christian, though, full of details to give the whole thing a real narrative form.

Gavin leans forward. “You’re denying that you kept a diary all about your affair with Lauren?”

“I’m denying every part of that sentence. I don’t have a diary, Agent Crane. And if you know anything about me at all, you’d know that I would sooner drink cyanide than have an affair with Lauren Lemoyne. Or Betancourt, whatever.”

“That’s . . .” Gavin shakes his head. “That’s impossible.”

“If I have a diary,” I say, “show it to me.”

“That’s not how this works, Mr. Dobias.”

“Okay, well, someone must have written a bunch of words on a page. I suppose anybody could say anything, right? It doesn’t have to be true.”

Gavin sits back. He’s playing catch-up. He only knows what Christian told him, and Christian bought the whole routine hook, line, and sinker.

It’s almost humorous. This guy’s a con artist himself, in cahoots with a fellow swindler. And yet the possibility that someone swindled them seems beyond his capacity at the moment.

Here’s the problem. It’s a lot easier to fool someone than to convince someone they’ve been fooled.

“You were about to divorce your wife and leave her for Lauren,” says Gavin, though with a bit less conviction. He’s starting to realize the ice under his feet is a little thinner than he thought.

I let out a harsh chuckle and stare at him. “Are you kidding me?”

“You weren’t about to leave your wife?”

“This is ridiculous.”

“You’re not estranged from your wife right now?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know where you get your infor—”

“Then where has she been?” he snaps. “Where has your wife, Vicky, been since Halloween? Because we’ve been watching your house, Mr. Dobias. And since Halloween night, when both Lauren Betancourt and Christian Newsome were murdered, your wife, Vicky, hasn’t come home.”

“There’s a good reason for that,” I say.

“Yeah? And what’s the reason?”

I cup my hands around my mouth, as if to shout: “I don’t have a wife! I’m not married, and I never have been!”

This meeting is not going as well as Gavin had hoped. He puts a hand on the arm of the couch, as if for support. “Vicky Lanier,” he says, grasping, flailing.

“Vicky who?”

“Vicky . . . Lanier,” he says, almost as a plea.

“Never heard the name.”

“The woman who’s been living with you,” he says.

“Nobody has been living with me. Not someone named Vicky or anyone else. I’m a bachelor. I’ve never been married. Hell, I don’t even have a girlfriend.”

I used to. I love Vicky Townsend. I asked her to marry me once. She said no. I asked her a second time. She said no again. She broke things off because she could see I wanted the whole thing—marriage, kids—and she couldn’t do it. Or at least not with me.

These last few months, stressful as they were plotting out all of this, were at least enjoyable in the sense that Vicky was staying with me. Always coming and going under darkness, using the rear alley garage and coming in under the shield of my privacy fence. But I loved having her here again. I wish she would stay forever. But what I was offering—commitment, love, devotion—was not enough for her.

“You’ve been married for ten years, Mr. Dobias. As of today, ten years.”

Poor Gavin. He’s still trying to keep his chin above water.

Ten years ago, I didn’t even know Vicky. I met her three years ago at Survivors of Suicide, not long after Vicky’s sister, Monica, overdosed on OxyContin. But yeah, Vicky told Christian about the ten-year anniversary. And I milked the hell out of it in the diary.

“We’ve seen a divorce petition,” he adds.

“Sounds like another fake, like the diary,” I say.

“We’ve seen a marriage certificate.”

“Probably another fake, Agent Crane. I mean, how hard would it be to fake a marriage certificate? Look me up, if you like. See if I’m registered with Cook County as married.”

“You don’t have to be registered with the county to be married,” he says. “Not if it’s a foreign marriage.” His eyes are beginning to water. Anger, probably.

“A foreign marriage certificate? Shit, that’d probably be even easier to fake.”

It was, actually. I just downloaded a blank form and edited it on PDF. Took me about half an hour. Vicky helped. She helped a lot with the diary, too, for that matter. Gave me some details from a woman’s perspective.

See, here’s the thing: If you’re a con artist like Christian, and someone like Vicky walks in with a wedding ring on her finger—my mother’s, by the way—and says she’s married to Simon Dobias, why on earth would Christian think she was lying? Who lies about something like that? He was spending so much time trying to con her, he didn’t realize he was the target all along.

“You have a . . . a trust,” Gavin stammers. “Over twenty million dollars.”

“That’s true,” I say, because it is.

The first time Gavin has found firm ground, gotten an answer he wanted and expected. But it’s a very small patch of ground.

“And it says that your spouse can’t touch the money until she’s been married for ten years.”

Also true. Thanks to my father. It’s what gave Vicky and me this idea. We had to give a sense of urgency to killing Lauren. So we worked backward. What would be a good date to commit murder? Halloween. Okay, so say our ten-year anniversary is just after Halloween.

And tell Christian just before Halloween, giving him only a few days to make his move, leaving him with no other choice, if he wanted the money, but to kill Lauren.

“You sure know a lot about my trust,” I say. “That’s pretty disturbing in itself.”

“Today is your ten-year anniversary,” he says.

I just smile. “You know what it sounds like?” I say. “It sounds like someone was pulling a con job. This ‘Vicky Lanier’ you mentioned? I’ll bet that’s not even her real name.”

I couldn’t resist. Vicky told me Gavin was onto her. Gave her a pretty hard kick to the ribs, too, sounds like.

“What aren’t you telling me?” Gavin comes off the couch, towering over me on the chair.

“I’m telling you everything,” I say. “I have nothing to hide.”

My phone buzzes. Gavin hears it, too. I pick it up off the coffee table separating us and read it. It’s from Jane Burke.

“I have another appointment in . . . Sounds like they’ll be here in just a couple minutes.”

“You’ll need to cancel that,” he says, still standing over me.

“Cancel with the Grace Village Police?” I say.

“The—what?” He takes a step back.

“The Grace Village Police,” I repeat. “They want to talk to me about Lauren’s murder. You should stick around. You guys can compare notes. Kind of an interagency cooperation kinda thing, right?”

I manage to keep a straight face while he shuffles his feet, thinking quickly.

“Or you can leave a business card, and I’ll give it to them,” I add. “You have a business card, Agent Crane?”

“It’s a— We’d like to keep our investigation separate,” he says.

“Yeah? I could see that. In your case, I could definitely see that.”

“What does that mean?” he says.

I get up and walk over to the window. Look out over the street. They’re saying it could snow later.

“It means that Nick was obviously in way over his head,” I say. “Which means you are, too, Gavin.”

“What did you say?” His head jerks around. “What did you call me?”

“Gavin Finley,” I say. “Who thinks he’s getting ten million dollars from Vicky Lanier. But you’re not, Gavin. You’re not getting a dime. Oh, there they are, the detectives, pulling up right now.” I turn to Gavin. “I suppose you wanna go out the back way, right?”

“I don’t know—this isn’t—” His jaw juts out. “This isn’t over, asshole.”

“Sure it is. You wanna go tell the cops everything you know? Be my guest. They’ll never be able to pin a thing on me. Or this phantom ‘Vicky,’ who, gosh, was probably using an alias. Diaries and marriage certificates and divorce petitions? None of them exist—not anymore. But the cops will sure be interested in how you seem to know so much. They’ll take a hard look at you, Gavin. You up for that? A lot of police scrutiny into those petty little financial scams you’re pulling? I’m thinking no. I’m thinking, you took your best shot at Vicky and me, but you failed. And be lucky it doesn’t get any worse for you. You have no idea what contingency plans I have.”

“I will . . . fucking kill you, you say anything about me.” He shows me the gun at his hip, in case I didn’t know that guns can kill people.

“They’re getting out of the car, Gavin.”

“Not one word about me, or you’re dead.”

“Don’t you think I know that? I won’t tell them about you. That doesn’t help me. The best thing you can do, Gavin, from here on out, is play dumb. Your pal Nick’s social life—dating a married woman, falling in love with her, she breaks his heart—I’d probably say you don’t know, he didn’t talk much. But I’d help them with the suicide angle. Christian was depressed, had mood swings, could be very dramatic—stuff like that would help. It’s up to you. You’re a smart guy.”

He points his finger at me but doesn’t have the threat to back it up.

“They’re coming up the walk, Gavin. I’d get the hell out, if I were you. It’s just through the kitchen.”

Gavin storms off. He whips open the back door and disappears. He could have at least closed the door behind him.

94 Simon

“Jane Burke. Wow. Good to see you,” I say. She looks basically the same as high school, the messy, curly hair falling just above her shoulders, a small round face with a button nose, a shade of Irish rose to her cheeks. I always liked her. Didn’t know her well, but she was the kind of person everyone liked.

We sit in the same front living room where Gavin and I just talked.

“Nice house,” Jane says. “You live here all alone?”

“Just me.”

“You never married, huh?”

“Nope, never married,” I say, clapping my hands on my knees.

“No live-in girlfriend?” she asks. “Or girlfriend, anyway?”

“No, I’m not dating anyone.”

She nods, as if it’s just idle conversation. It’s not.

“So, let’s get started,” she says, though we already did. “Do you know why we’re here?”

I can’t help but grin. “Jane, you know when you get pulled over by a cop and the first thing they ask you is, ‘Do you know why I pulled you over?’ I always hated that. I always felt like that was a Miranda violation. It should be, if you think about it. You’re not free to leave, and the question is designed to elicit an incriminating response.”

“You were always a smart one, Simon,” she says. “You’re free to kick us out, obviously. But if you’d prefer, I can Mirandize you.”

“That’s okay.” I sit back in my chair. “I can only suppose that you’re here for background on Lauren Lemoyne. I read about her death.”

Here’s my thinking: If I play dumb, if I act like I had no idea, then I’d have to put on a show right now of surprise when she tells me Lauren’s dead, and I’m not that good of an actor. I’m a pretty darn good director, but not an actor.

“Yeah? Where did you read about it?”

“The Tribune.”

“And what was your reaction?”

“I didn’t cry myself to sleep,” I say. “Lauren and I do not share a friendly history. I’m sure you know that, or you wouldn’t be here.”

She says nothing but holds my stare.

“How did she die?” I ask. “The paper said suspicious circumstances.”

“I can’t really get into details. When did you first realize Lauren was back in town?”

“I thought I saw her once last spring,” I say. “April, May, something like that.”

“Where was this?”

“Michigan Avenue, downtown. She walked past me. It looked like her, but it had been almost twenty years.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“No. I just saw her. I did a double take, for sure. You haven’t seen a person for almost two decades, you’re not sure. But it looked like her.”

“So what did you do?”

Well, let’s see. Several things: (1) I ran to Vicky and told her; (2) I started plotting with Vicky about how to kill Lauren; (3) we figured if she was going to play my “wife” for Nick’s sake, he might surveil her, so she’d have to pretend to live with me; and (4) I put up a privacy fence so she could come and go privately through the back entry, and nobody would ever see her.

You mean stuff like that, Jane?

“Well, later that day after seeing Lauren on the street, I looked her up on Facebook,” I say. “And I found her. It said she was living in Grace Village.”

If things get far enough, the police could search my work computer, and if a forensics team dug through it, they’d see that I looked her up. It would look better if I voluntarily fronted that information.

That was a mistake, looking her up like that back in May. But back then, when I first saw her on the street, I was in shock, disbelief. I wasn’t thinking about killing her. It took me a while, and some conversations with Vicky.

“So you reached out to her?”

I cock my head. “What? To Lauren?”

“Yes, you—”

“No, I didn’t ‘reach out.’ Why would I do something like that? She’s the last person in the world I’d want to talk to.”

There is no reason for me to be coy about my hostility toward Lauren. An innocent person wouldn’t hide his disdain for her, under the circumstances.

And technically, my answer is truthful. I didn’t reach out, and she is the last person I’d want to talk to.

“Do you still belong to the Grace Country Club? ”

“Yes, I do. As a legacy.”

“When was the last time you were there?”

“It’s been years,” I say. “Many, many years.”

“Have you been back since Lauren joined?”

“I didn’t know Lauren was a member,” I say. “And I don’t know how long she’s been back in town.”

Nice try, Jane.

“Her friends tell us she went to the club almost every day,” says Jane. “Tennis, golf, lunch.”

“How nice for her,” I say.

“So you haven’t spoken to Lauren since she came back to Chicago, to Grace Village?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“You haven’t been inside her house?”

I laugh. “Give me a break.”

“Is that a ‘no,’ Simon?”

“That’s a ‘no.’”

“So you just let it go, her coming back? This woman stole all your family’s money and basically caused the death of your mother.”

“Yes, I am well aware of what Lauren did, believe me. It’s not the most enjoyable thing to revisit.”

She puts up her hands. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just have to cross every ‘t’ and dot every ‘i’ here, you understand.”

“Then cross whatever ‘t’ you need to cross, and dot whatever ‘i,’ and be done with it.”

“Got it. Will do. So just to be clear.” She puts her hands together, steers them toward me. “You have never set foot inside Lauren Betancourt’s house?”

“Correct.” My hands still. My knees still. My feet still. Arms not crossed.

“So there would be no reason for us to find your fingerprints inside that house.”

“I can’t imagine how my fingerprints would be inside that house.”

Also true. I wore gloves the whole time I was in there. So did Christian, I assume, at least from what I could see.

“But feel free to check,” I add. “If you’d like to print me, I’d be willing.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“I’m offering. Really. A DNA swab, too. The whole works. We can go down to the station right now—”

“We already have your fingerprints, Simon. And your DNA.”

Her partner, Andy Tate, looks up from notes he’s scribbling, as if surprised that Jane just revealed that to me.

“Oh. Oh, okay.” I sit back. “St. Louis P.D., right? Okay, now I’m getting the picture. Well, I guess you guys think you have this all figured out, then. I killed my father and then, all these years later, I killed Lauren. ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold,’ is that it?”

“I don’t suppose you made any phone calls to your therapist the morning after Halloween,” she says.

I clap my hands, mock applause. “So you actually think I did this?” I say. “You think I killed Lauren?”

“I think you’re a very smart guy who takes his time before he does anything,” she says.

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s a compliment.”

How far along are these cops, anyway? It’s Thursday. The third day of the investigation. Have they found Nick’s body yet?

“Do you know someone named Christian Newsome?” she asks.

That answers that question.

“No.”

“What about Nick Caracci?”

“No.”

“Can I ask what size shoe you wear, Simon?”

“My . . . shoe size?” I might as well act surprised by that question. “Uh, well—usually ten and a half or eleven.”

Not thirteen!

“You spend much time in the Bucktown/Wicker Park area?” she asks.

“Not so much these days, no. But I run all over the city. I definitely run through that area sometimes. I mix it up.”

“You been there recently? Like, y’know, the Milwaukee-Damen-North area. Right around there. When was the last time you were there?”

“I . . . I don’t remember.”

“Were you there within the last week? You’d remember that.”

“I don’t remember being there within the last week,” I say. “I suppose it’s possible. If I knew it would be important, I’d have kept a journal or something.”

(I like to amuse myself, even if it’s a private joke.)

“You run much, Jane?”

“Me? These days? Nah. The only exercise I get is when I jump to conclusions, right?”

I smile. “Then you must be getting some exercise right now.”

She bows her head a bit. “Touché. But, Simon, back to Wicker Park—you run through there, you said. You don’t stop there? Hang out? Grab a beer? Anything like that?”

“I run through there. I don’t stop and grab a beer.”

“Ever stop?” she says. “Like, say, around North and Winchester? Or maybe Wabansia and Winchester?”

“I don’t know Winchester,” I say. “I know North Avenue. Wabansia’s right around there, I know.”

“You don’t know Winchester?”

“No, I don’t. Is that one of those side streets?”

“You ever stop right around Winchester, between Wabansia and North, and send text messages from a burner phone?”

“Whoa,” I say. “That’s specific. Sounds like you’ve got a whole theory going. What’s the theory?”

“Just asking you a question, Simon.”

“No, you’re not. You want me to know you have a theory. So let’s hear it. What did I do, criminal mastermind that I am?” I scoot forward in my chair, lean toward her. “Did I spike my own Gatorade?”

She waits me out.

“You get together with those cops from St. Louis,” I say, “before long, you’ll accuse me of kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. Did I kill JFK, too, and pin it on Lee Harvey Oswald?”

We seem to be well past pretense. I can’t know everything she knows, but if she’s gotten as far as Nick, she has a pretty good theory of a case that keeps me in the clear. Presumably, they’ve found half of Nick’s toiletry kit at Lauren’s house, the other half at his place. And I know they’ve already pulled the historical cell-service data, hence the questions about text messages from a burner phone near Winchester, where Nick lived. The evidence is lining up away from me.

And yet, Jane is certain she is looking at a guilty man. I always remembered her as a smart one.

“Ever been to Lauren’s condo building downtown on Michigan Avenue?”

“No.”

“Corner of Superior and Michigan?”

“I have not been to her condo.” That’s true enough. Never inside her condo.

“You must know there are security cameras all inside that building.”

I do. And I went there once, just inside the lobby, when I first saw her in May. Stupid, but I did it. I didn’t mention that to Jane, but I did mention seeing her on Michigan Avenue, so even if the security cameras in her condo building are retained for that long, back to May, and they see me standing in the lobby for five seconds, I’ll just say it’s consistent with what I already told them.

“I have never been in Lauren’s condo,” I repeat.

She smiles. “And you’re certain that you’ve never been to her house in Grace Village? The one on Lathrow?”

“I have never been to her house. I think we already covered that.”

“What about Halloween night,” says Jane. “Where were you?”

“Right here. Handing out candy.”

“Until what time?”

“Until . . . whenever it ended,” I say. “Actually, I ran out of candy. It’s always a dilemma, how much candy to buy, right? You buy too little, you run out. You buy too much, then it sits in your pantry all winter and you eat it. It’s a real conundrum.”

I practiced that line. I’ve been rehearsing for this conversation since Halloween. I liked this little ditty, with a little nudge of sarcasm at the end. But hearing it now, under the circumstances, as the temperature has dropped in this room, it sounds forced.

I can end this at any time. I can terminate this conversation and call a lawyer. I just need to know everything they know. I need to know if they’re anywhere near Vicky.

“Were you alone?” Jane asks. “Or was your girlfriend with you?”

Yep, she’s still fishing.

“I was alone,” I say. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Or boyfriend,” she says. “Not trying to pry into your personal life, but you get my point. A special someone.”

“I don’t have anyone like that in my life. I was home all night on Halloween,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “I was binge-watching Netflix. I can prove that on my phone.”

Jane nods, like that all sounds great to her. “I would expect nothing less of you, Simon. I’ll bet you can tell me exactly what show you were watching and describe it for me, too.”

“House of Cards,” I say without enthusiasm.

Andy taps Jane on the arm. “Loved that show. It’s about a guy who manipulates everyone around him to get them to do things for him. Kills some people, too.”

“You know what I love about streaming shows on your phone?” Jane replies to Andy. “You hit ‘play,’ and once one episode ends, the next one begins automatically. You could let the phone just sit there all night, and it would play one show after another, as if you were binge-watching. And the cell phone, of course, will be pinging the local cell tower all the while.”

“Right, so if you’re a fan of CSLI,” says Andy, “y’know, like, if you’re a law professor who specializes in the Fourth Amendment and knows all about historical cell-site location information—it would seem like a pretty good cover. Like you were sitting home all night.”

Jane nods along. “Right. But in the end, what does it prove? It proves that your cell phone stayed home all night. It doesn’t tell us anything about where you were.”

She looks at me.

“Does it, Simon?”

“That’s quite a theory you have there,” I say. “My cell phone was home all night, therefore I wasn’t home. That should get you far.”

“Ah.” Jane waves a hand. “Just a stumbling block. We still have some more work to do. Well, Sergeant Tate, I guess we’re done here. Yeah?”

“I think so, yeah,” he says. “Just one more person to talk to.”

“Let’s do it,” says Jane. “Let’s go talk to Vicky.”

95 Simon

“What?” The word escapes my mouth before I can think. Vicky. They have Vicky’s name. It was one thing for Gavin to have it—another for the police to have it.

How?

Jane Burke, seemingly in the act of pushing herself off the couch, preparing to leave—though it’s obviously just that, an act, a bit of theater—sits back down again. “Vicky,” she says. “Vicky Lanier.”

They have her full name.

I shrug, but I’m sure the color has drained from my face, if it hadn’t already. “Don’t know the name.”

“’Course you don’t,” she says. “You don’t know Nick Caracci, you don’t know Christian Newsome—so I’m sure you don’t know Vicky Lanier, either.”

How? How do they have her name? The bogus “divorce petition” I wrote up for Vicky to show Christian? An entry from my bogus journal? Did Christian take photos of those on his phone? Vicky was sure he didn’t—but maybe she missed something—

“Something wrong, Simon?” Jane asks. “You seem a little . . . hot under the collar. Upset.”

“Are you upset, Simon?” says Andy Tate.

“No, I’m . . . curious, I guess. You’re throwing out all these names without telling me anything else.”

“That’s true.” Jane slaps her hands on her knees. “Okay, I guess I can fill in a few blanks.”

I sit like a casual listener, though I feel anything but casual right now.

“Nick is this real handsome guy,” says Jane. “And successful. A financial investor type of guy. He’s in a relationship with Vicky. We know they had sex in Nick’s office downtown. They all but kicked out the receptionist one afternoon, sent her home early. And before the receptionist was out the door, she was already hearing some interesting sounds coming from that office.”

“Okay,” I say, nodding along. “And what about this Vicky person?”

“Vicky wants Lauren Betancourt dead,” says Jane.

“Oh? Why is that?”

“Eh.” Jane lifts her shoulders. “One of two reasons. Not sure which. One is that Nick started up with Lauren, too. He cheated on Vicky. So she killed Lauren, framed Nick for it, then killed Nick. Made it look like Nick committed suicide out of remorse.”

“Pretty extreme,” I say.

“It does sound extreme, Simon, doesn’t it?” she says, a tone that borders on mocking. “Which is why I’m not a big fan of that theory. I like my other theory better.”

“Yeah? What’s your other theory, Jane?”

“That Vicky was teamed up with someone else who wanted Lauren dead,” she says, looking me square in the eye. “Maybe, for example, because Lauren wrecked his family and caused the death of his mother. Someone like that, Simon.”

“Wow.” I shake my head. “You have a vivid imagination.”

“Not that vivid. Just following the facts.”

“Oh, you have facts.” My turn to mock.

“Some pretty good ones, in fact. For one, Nick was murdered. He didn’t kill himself. It was staged as a suicide, but it was a homicide.”

Does she know that or just suspect it? What did Vicky screw up? I saw the scene myself, afterward. It looked pretty good to me. But what do I know about crime scenes?

He had drugs and booze in his system, a suicide note on his phone, a gunshot wound under his chin—that wasn’t enough? They found something that tells them Nick didn’t kill himself?

Or is she bluffing? Trying to prompt me?

“I think, one way or another,” she says, “that Vicky and her partner used Nick Caracci to kill Lauren. How they did it is unclear to me. But they needed to kill him afterward to tie up that loose end.”

“Nick was framed, you’re saying.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“Sounds like something in a movie.”

“You planted that pink phone at the crime scene, Simon.”

Wow, that’s direct. She’s done being cute.

“I— What? I did what now?”

“You planted that phone.”

“What phone, Jane?”

She shows me a wide grin. “The pink phone. It was obviously placed very carefully, moved more than once with precision, so that we’d find it pretty easily but it would look technically hidden. The blood smears show that clear as day.”

“I’m not following,” I say, though I am, and I’m cursing myself for getting too cute with that damn phone. I should have slid it harder the first time to make sure it went all the way under the table, or I should have left well enough alone when it didn’t. I moved the phone a second time and basically told them what I was doing.

“If Nick was the killer, he’d never have gently moved that phone where we found it. He’d have taken it with him. Instead, we find it at the scene.”

Too much. Overload. I can’t keep straight what I’m supposed to know and not know. I’m afraid to speak. I screwed up, and I’ve put Vicky in the crosshairs as a result—that much I know.

And here I thought I could outsmart everybody with some planning and deliberation.

Andy waves his hand at me. “Anyway, you obviously have no worries, Simon, since you don’t know any of these people. You have no reason to care about Vicky Lanier. Because you don’t know her. Isn’t that right, Simon?”

“Are you absolutely sure you don’t know Vicky Lanier?” Jane asks.

“I . . . don’t recognize that name.”

She smirks at me.

“Okay, Simon,” she says. “We’ll be in touch.”

96 Jane

Jane and Andy don’t say a word to each other until they’re back inside their car and have driven away from Simon’s house. Andy has the wheel.

“So what do you think?” she asks. “You saw the look on his face when we mentioned Vicky’s name. I was just trying to rattle his cage.”

“And it worked,” Andy says. “That’s your real theory, isn’t it? She’s the one who helped Simon pull this off? The one on the other end of the cell phone texts?”

“Somebody helped him, Andy. And he lit up like a firecracker when we mentioned her name.”

“So this receptionist, Emily Fielding, says this woman named Vicky Lanier and Nick were getting it on in his office,” says Andy. “And that was the last time she saw Vicky. So let’s say they’ve hooked up, they’re sleeping together. How does that fit in? If Simon’s behind all this, if he’s the puppet master, where does Vicky Lanier fit in? Why does she need to get close to Nick Caracci? How does that help Simon with his ultimate goal of killing Lauren Betancourt?”

“Well, Nick’s the patsy, right?”

“Sure, so the theory goes, but why does Vicky have to get close to him?”

“Well, to get inside his apartment to steal half his toiletry kit, if for no other reason. Maybe to get him to kill Lauren—maybe Nick did that. I don’t know all the details yet.” She wags her finger. “Yet. But you agree, we’re onto something here.”

“Oh, shit, I don’t know, Janey. I mean, Nick Caracci was probably a player, right? Good-looking guy. Rich, or at least pretending to be rich. The fact that he bangs some woman in his office? I mean, that would never happen to me, but it’s not a total shock he’d have success with the ladies. It could be that and nothing more.”

Jane looks at Andy. He’s being practical, reasonable. He might well be right. With all the evidence piled up against Nick, Jane won’t be able to hold off the chief and the Village president much longer. “If it’s that and nothing more,” she says, “why did Simon react like that in there when we mentioned the name Vicky Lanier?”

“No, you’re right about that. He did.” He groans. “This case is giving me a stomachache.”

“Why?”

“Because we have a slam dunk on Nick Caracci, Jane, that’s why.”

“Yeah, but what does your gut tell you?”

Andy makes a noise, taps his fingers on the steering wheel. He pulls their car into the parking lot outside the police station, kills the engine, and turns to her.

“My gut tells me he knows Vicky Lanier,” he says.

“For sure.”

“But we know nothing about her. I mean, if she’s in on this with Simon, if she was part of some plan to lure Nick Caracci into this plot, I highly doubt ‘Vicky Lanier’ is even her real name.”

“Probably not. The name itself is almost surely a dead end. We’ll run a background just in case, but you’re right—her name probably isn’t Vicky Lanier.”

“So we don’t know squat.”

“Not yet,” she says. “You processed all the prints from Lauren’s crime scene, right?”

“Yep. Sent them to AFIS yesterday. If there’s a hit on anything, we’ll know hopefully today or tomorrow at the latest.”

“And Cheronis sent prints from Nick Caracci’s apartment,” says Jane. “Maybe we’ll get lucky on a fingerprint. Forensics may be our only saving grace here. Simon can manipulate all he wants, but he can’t manipulate a fingerprint.”

97 Jane

In an interview room, one hour later. “Thanks for coming, Mr. Lemoyne,” says Jane. “I hope your flight was okay.”

Albert Lemoyne, age sixty-nine, is a big, weathered guy with a full, ruddy face and deep-set, bloodshot eyes. A union man, a Teamster, with rough hands to show for it. He is overweight and aging, but Jane sees a man inside there who would have caught a woman’s eye back in his day. His skin is bronzed from the sun; he now lives in Scottsdale. “I flew home to bury my daughter,” he says, “so no, it wasn’t that great.”

“Of course. That was—”

“Did you find him? Did you figure out who did it?”

“We think we may be close, Mr. Lemoyne.”

“Shit, call me Al, everyone else does.”

“Okay. I need to ask you some questions about your daughter, Al.”

“You didn’t ask me enough questions when you called me on Tuesday?”

“Just a few more, sir,” says Jane.

“I knew they were getting a divorce,” he says. “She kept telling me she was fine, she’d be okay. She didn’t—she didn’t share a lot with her old man. She was much closer to her mother.”

Her mother, Amy Lemoyne, died four years ago from cancer. Al has since lived alone in the house Lauren bought them in Arizona.

“Do you know, Al, if Lauren had begun another relationship?”

He shakes his head no. “But I doubt she’d mention it to me unless it was serious.”

“Do you recognize the name Christian Newsome?”

“No, uh-uh.”

“Nick Caracci? Vicky Lanier?”

Same answer for each one.

“What about Simon Dobias?”

His eyes flicker, like a flinch. “The boy,” he says. “The son. The one accused her a stealing.”

“Yes.”

“He still live around here?”

“Why do you ask?”

He makes a fist with his hand, gently thumps it on the table. “I told her, I said, ‘You sure you wanna move back close to where they live?’ She said it wouldn’t be an issue. I mean, when she moved back to Chicago, I said okay, it’s a big place. But then she meets Conrad and moves to Grace Village and I said to her, I said, ‘You sure, honey? Being just the town over?’ But she said it was the father who worried her, and he was dead. She didn’t worry about the boy.”

Jane puts up her hands. “I need to unpack that. When Lauren married Conrad and moved to Grace Village three years ago, you were worried, because she was moving so close to Grace Park, where the Dobias family lived?”

He nods. “She said, there’s so many people in these suburbs, odds were she’d never run into him even if he still lived here.”

“Simon, you mean.”

“Right. The father, Ted? He moved to St. Louis after. And then I guess he died.”

She raises her eyebrows. “The father moved to St. Louis ‘after.’ After what?”

His look turns severe, as if insulted. “After you know what.”

“Please, Al, I’m—”

“After the thing with the money. They said she stole their money. She didn’t. Ted gave it to her. I’m not saying it was the proudest moment of my daughter’s life, carrying on with a married man, but she was barely twenty, and he was a lot older. So who’s to blame, her or him?”

“You’re saying Ted Dobias gave her the money?”

“He was some rich ambulance-chaser lawyer. He had plenty to spare.”

No, he didn’t. But that seems to be what Lauren told her parents back then. Apparently in the version of the story that made its way to Al’s ears, Ted Dobias just pulled a good six million dollars out of his pocket and tossed it to her, mere chump change, just a fraction of the money he had. Al doesn’t seem to realize that Lauren cleaned out the Dobias family, took all the money they had at the time.

Maybe Al knew differently deep down and was just instinctively siding with his daughter. Or maybe he believed everything his daughter told him. Or maybe the passage of eighteen years has blended what he knew to be true into what he wanted to believe. Time and blood have a way of playing with the truth.

Either way, Jane isn’t going to burst that bubble right now, with Al mourning his daughter’s death.

“Hell, she had to leave the country to get away from him.”

“Where did she move?” Jane asks, though she already knows.

“Paris. She lived in Paris. She moved around a little bit, stayed other places in Europe, being young and with all that money. But Paris was her home.”

“Did she—”

“She thought he was watching her. Having her followed. Spied on. Stuff like that.”

“Who?”

“Who?” he says. “Dobias. Ted Dobias. She said sometimes she felt like she was being watched or tracked. He was still bitter about the money.”

“Ted Dobias, you’re saying. Not Simon.”

“The boy? She didn’t mention the boy. Only Ted. Hell, she stayed away in Europe for how many years? All because of that guy.”

“She never came back, huh?”

“No, she— Well, just the one time. When Amy and me were celebrating thirty-five years. She threw this party for us at the Drake downtown. She flies back to town for a couple weeks. She reserves a bunch of hotel rooms, and my brother, Joe, and my sister, Louise, and their kids and some of my friends from work—we all stay downtown at the Drake for the week. Really, it was like two weeks?”

Jane nods. “So Lauren was in Chicago for two weeks?”

“Right.”

“Any chance she ran into Simon Dobias then?”

“Not that I know of. She was in town for a while. I didn’t keep complete tabs on her or anything. But she didn’t mention seeing him. Or Ted, for that matter.”

“Okay. And when was this, Al? When did all this happen?”

“Oh, Christ.” He looks up at the ceiling, eyes narrowed. “Our anniversary was May the eighteenth. We got married on May 18, 1975. So . . .” He closes his eyes. “If I remember, the year she came into town for the big party she threw, our anniversary was in the middle of the week, so she had the party the following weekend at the Drake. And then everyone stayed the week after that, which included the long Memorial Day weekend.”

“Including Lauren?”

“Yeah. We loved it, having her in town for two weeks. Spent a lot of time with her.”

“And you never saw or heard from Simon Dobias during that time?”

He shrugs. “Never saw him. Never seen him ever, actually. Never had the pleasure. Never spoke to him.”

“Okay, well—”

“The boy did this, you think? You wouldn’t be asking otherwise. You think Simon Dobias killed my daughter?”

She raises a calming hand. “We have to follow everything up, Mr. Lemoyne. You understand.”

98 Vicky

After finishing my first shift with a break before my second, I drive home to my apartment in Delavan, a measly little studio apartment only ten minutes from Safe Haven in Elkhorn, Wisconsin. The place is barely large enough to swing your arms around, but it’s mine, and the stove and fridge and heater work.

I don’t miss the ninety-mile drives to and from Grace Park, when I “lived” with Simon, starting back in July, having to commute every day up here for work.

I will, however, miss Simon’s comfortable bed. I’ll miss that huge kitchen and the pot of coffee ready for me when I wake up. I’ll miss never having to think twice about a full refrigerator, a stocked pantry. I’ll miss that rooftop oasis he created.

I’ll miss Simon, too. His thoughtfulness and his quirks. His sense of humor. Most of all, the way he looks at me. I wish that had been enough for me. I wish I could have said yes when he proposed to me—both times he asked.

If I ever married anyone, it would be Simon. But I never will. I will never latch myself to another person. I learned how to live alone, and I guess I learned it too well.

We had a good run, starting three years ago, when I moved to Chicago after my sister’s suicide. I was a mess, and he wasn’t. He sobered me up. He pulled me out of my funk. I never took drugs again and I never sold my body again. He was the first man who ever treated me like I was worth anything. He put me on a pedestal. But I saw how much more he wanted from me—children, marriage—so I cut it off. That was never going to be me. And I don’t want him to settle any more than I want to settle for myself. I moved to Wisconsin and started working for Safe Haven.

And didn’t speak to Simon for months.

Until last May, when he saw Lauren on Michigan Avenue.

After finishing a microwave dinner at my apartment, I drive to the forest preserve in Burlington, thirty minutes away. I’ve been coming three times a day—first thing in the morning, at lunchtime, and after work. I take the hiking trail and follow it around a couple of bends to a vista point about a half-mile up with a large wooden plaque describing the history of the lake down below. I reach behind the plaque and peel off a container attached by Velcro. Inside the container is the burner phone Simon gave me for the post-Halloween fun.

I power it on and give it a moment for the messages to load. First, the message I sent Simon on Halloween night, after I drove up here to Wisconsin:

Mon, Oct 31, 11:09 PM

Gavin saw me. He knows about alias. He wants half the $$ on 11/3 or he exposes me to you. Gave me good kick in ribs too. Need my help??

And then the responses from Simon over the last few days, with a new message today:

Tues, Nov 1, 12:06 PM

No I will deal with him. Nothing much in papers today.

Wed, Nov 2, 11:39 AM

Newspapers but little detail. Working out time to talk to police don’t worry

Today 4:34 PM

Good news/bad. Gavin taken care of. Met with police, they know full alias name too (receptionist?) but otherwise flailing

“Shit.” They know the name Vicky Lanier. The cops know. He’s probably right—it was the receptionist. Emily, I think her name was. That’s the only thing I can think of, too.

But his text says “otherwise flailing.” Meaning they don’t know what to do with the name Vicky Lanier. That was the hope. There’s no trace of me otherwise. That name will take them nowhere.

And at least Gavin’s taken care of. What does he mean by that? What did Simon do? My guess, knowing Simon, he somehow talked Gavin down.

It all comes down to fingerprints for me. If I left a stray print anywhere in Nick’s apartment or at his office, I’m done. They’ll run it through the national database and find me in five seconds, registered with the state of Wisconsin.

Simon figured they’d process the fingerprints within a day or so after finding Lauren. Which means I could find out any second now.

Either I’m scot-free or I’m cooked.

99 Jane

“What? What?” Jane shouts into the phone.

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” says Sergeant Don Cheronis. “The coroner’s office, they march to their own beat. I told them to hold off. They don’t care what I fucking think.”

“They must care a little.”

“Not really.”

“Well, did you push back, Don?”

“I— Jane, you have to understand . . .”

“You agree with them, don’t you?”

“I . . . I think it’s probably the right call, yeah.”

Suicide. The Cook County medical examiner is calling Nicholas Caracci’s death a suicide. And Cheronis didn’t put up a fight because he doesn’t disagree.

Nice way to start a Friday morning.

Chief Carlyle sits stone-faced, hands laced together, behind his desk, while Jane gives him the latest update.

“What you’re telling me is interesting,” he says, “but it’s not evidence. Not proof. You keep pooh-poohing the strong evidence of guilt we have against Nick Caracci, basically by saying it’s all a frame-up, it’s too convenient—which you could say about most crimes solved by law enforcement in the history of the country. And then you wrap your arms around evidence against Simon Dobias that isn’t evidence at all. It’s just maybe, coulda, what about this, what about that. Now you bring me this ‘Vicky Lanier,’ but you don’t know anything about her except, number one, she screwed Nick in his office and, number two, Simon Dobias had a strong reaction to her name. And you don’t even think ‘Vicky Lanier’ is her real name. Hell, they just dug up a Vicky Lanier in—where was it?”

“West Virginia,” says Jane. “Chief, I understand we’re not there yet. Just—”

“Oh, a lot of people think we are there, and we’ve been there since we found Nick Caracci’s body. The guy’s a con artist who preys on rich, unhappily married women. Lauren Betancourt was a rich, unhappily married woman.”

“Chief, if you were in that house yesterday with Simon Dob—”

“Jane, I hear you. You and Andy are good cops, and your antennae went up when you talked to him. He seems suspicious. He seemed defensive, like he was hiding something. But how would you expect him to react? He knows he’s going to be a suspect in Lauren’s death. And he’s already been accused of killing his own father—not formally accused, but you know what I mean. So yeah, you’re going to be defensive. You’re going to be hostile.”

“It was more than that.”

“Okay, but I know you understand what I’m saying. We are sitting on a solve, Jane. And there’s only so long I’m going to sit on it. I have six village trustees and one village president calling me or texting me almost on the hour. And you watched the emergency board meeting. This isn’t Chicago. This is a nice, quiet little village, where people get very upset over someone being murdered. It’s not supposed to happen here. That’s why they live here. So when it does happen, they need to know we’re going to solve the case quickly. Instead, I’m hearing phrases like ‘amateur hour’ and ‘keystone cops’ already. People think we’re in over our head. One of the trustees is talking about bringing in the FBI—”

“Oh my God, it’s fucking Friday morning,” Jane snaps. “We just found the body on Tuesday morning. What’s wrong with people?”

“Jane, I hear you, but think about it this way. With all the evidence lined up against Nick Caracci—and now we have a call of suicide as his cause of death, on top of everything else—what state’s attorney would approve charges against Simon Dobias? A good defense lawyer, which he could afford, would make mincemeat out of the case. Tell me I’m wrong. You couldn’t convict Simon Dobias in a million years.”

Jane puts her hands together and takes a breath. “At least wait for the prints. We should have them today. Whoever this ‘Vicky Lanier’ is, maybe her prints come up. At Nick Caracci’s murder scene. At Lauren’s murder scene. Hell, maybe at Ted Dobias’s murder scene.”

The chief falls back in his chair. “Now you have her killing Simon’s father?”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m being unreasonable, Chief. There were unidentified prints on the wine bottle used to hit Ted Dobias over the head. And they found a glass with female DNA on it. We think Simon killed his father, right? Well, maybe he had some help. Maybe it’s the same person who helped him this time. Maybe not. Let’s just wait for the prints. They won’t lie. And if we get a match, then maybe we’ll know who this woman is who calls herself ‘Vicky Lanier.’ And if not, so be it.”

“No reason we can’t wait for the prints, Chief,” Andy chimes in.

“Fine, wait for the prints,” says the chief, throwing up his hands. “And when you get them, come talk to me.”

Jane and Andy leave the office.

“He’s not wrong, Jane,” Andy says under his breath. “He may be feeling political pressure, but that doesn’t make him wrong. We’ll never get charges approved against Simon with all the evidence lined up against Nick Caracci.”

“Wait for the fucking fingerprints,” she says. “Give me— Wait.” She looks at her phone. “Brenda Tarkington just called from St. Louis P.D. I missed it.”

“Call her right now.”

“In the conference room,” says Jane. She shakes her phone like it holds the key to her fate.

“Brenda, it’s Jane Burke. I have Andy Tate with me on speaker.”

“You must have run the prints from the crime scene,” Sergeant Tarkington squawks through the speakerphone. “We just got word from AFIS.”

“You got a hit from your crime scene?”

“We did, indeed, Sergeant Burke.”

Jane pounds the table. “Tell me, Brenda, and please make me happy.”

100 Vicky

“That is so not true,” says Mariah.

“Yes, it is, I remember,” Macy spits back.

“Yeah. You remember. You were, like, six.” Mariah makes a face like her younger sister is the dumbest human being on the planet.

“Girls—”

“I was seven and you were crying and all nervous!”

“Girls, for heaven’s sake,” I say. “Both of you were nervous before you got your ears pierced. Both of you were brave.”

Friday night in Elm Grove. It’s less than an hour’s drive from my crappy little studio apartment in Delavan. With all the double shifts I’ve pulled, I was owed an early day on Friday. I thought about staying home, but Macy wanted to get her ears pierced and wanted me there.

I pull Adam’s car onto Sunflower Drive and head toward the house.

A car, a sedan, is parked in the driveway. I slow the car enough to get a look at the license plate. A state logo, half of the words circling the top, the other half circling the bottom:

I keep driving.

“Um, Vicky, this is our house?”

“Hey, y’know what, I forgot, your daddy had a meeting,” I say, driving away from the house. “Let’s just go get dinner on our own and bring something home for him.”

“You want me to text him?” Mariah asks.

“No, no. I just forgot. He has a meeting. Don’t bother him.”

I grip the steering wheel and count to five.

I could run. I could. Right now, I could run. Rambo could get me a new identity. But I have the girls with me.

This isn’t happening.

101 Simon

Friday night. I am trapped in my house. Waiting, in case they come with a search warrant. Afraid to make a false move. Wondering about Vicky. Waiting some more. Flinching at every sound, jumping at every shadow. Wandering around my house with little sleep, trying to occupy myself with a blog piece on a new exigent-circumstances decision from an appeals court in Texas.

A car door closes nearby. I sit still at my desk and listen.

Footsteps coming up my walk. The porch light goes on, activated by the motion sensor.

The doorbell doesn’t ring. No knock on the door.

Who’s out there?

I go downstairs to the front door and open it. Standing there is Sergeant Jane Burke, expressionless, a bag slung over her shoulder.

I open the screen door. “Little late for a search warrant, isn’t it?”

“I’m not here to search your place,” she says, angling past me, walking through the foyer.

“I don’t believe I invited you in, Jane.”

“I’m not a vampire.”

“No, you’re a cop. Who doesn’t have the right to enter my house without consent or a warrant.”

She walks past the living room into the family room. “Simon, you can take your Fourth Amendment and shove it up your ass.”

I join her in the family room but don’t sit down. “Can I quote you on that?”

She takes a load off and reaches into the bag she’s carrying. “I brought you something,” she says.

Out of her bag she pulls a bottle of champagne and two plastic champagne flutes, tinted red, and places them on the coffee table.

The champagne is Laurent-Perrier, “ultra brut.” I never knew what that meant. Is that different than kinda, sorta brut? Is that one step up from really brut?

“What are we celebrating?” I ask.

She makes a face. “A bottle of that exact brand of champagne, with two cheap red plastic flutes just like those, were found at your father’s crime scene.”

“I don’t have the exact brand committed to memory,” I say, “but yes, I remember that he was hit over the head with—”

“Oh, Simon, Simon, Simon.” She sighs. “Tell me. What kind of a person keeps an empty bottle of champagne for years upon years, waiting for the right moment to exact revenge?”

“I don’t know, Jane—”

“A champagne bottle that your father and Lauren shared. Probably pissed you off but good. And the champagne flutes, too. You kept them for years, Simon, waiting for the right moment to go down to St. Louis to hit your father over the head with it before stabbing him.”

“The right time?” I ask. “The week of my final exams was that ‘right time’ I’d been waiting for?”

She wags a finger at me. “Had a nice talk with Lauren’s father, Al Lemoyne,” she says. “Lauren did come back, once, while she was living in Paris. For two weeks, to celebrate her parents’ thirty-fifth anniversary.”

“How nice,” I say.

“Yeah, how nice. Lauren’s parents were married May 18, 1975. So their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary was May 18, 2010.”

I open my hands. “Okay . . . ?”

She fixes a stare on me. “Lauren stayed that week and through Memorial Day in Chicago. Memorial Day was May 31, Simon. May 31, 2010. You know what that means.”

“I don’t.”

“You’re gonna make me say it?”

“I’m afraid so, Jane. I’m not following.”

“Oh, you’re following just fine. Your father was murdered on May 27, 2010. Lauren was in Chicago at the time of his murder.”

“Wow,” I say.

“Yeah, wow. Try to sound a little more surprised.”

“Hey, Jane, y’know what you should do?”

She cocks her head in mock curiosity. “What should I do, Simon?”

“You should check Lauren’s fingerprints—I mean, I assume you took exclusion prints of her when you found her dead.”

“We sure did, Simon. We sure did.”

“You should run those prints and see if they’re a match on that champagne bottle used to incapacitate my father at his murder scene.”

Jane gets off the couch. “Should I do that, Simon? Should I?”

“Yeah, you should,” I say. “I mean, if I’m capable of driving down to St. Louis and killing Ted, I don’t see why Lauren wouldn’t be just as capable. And she didn’t have final exams to worry about. Right?”

“Right, Simon. Exactly right. And, in fact, we did run her prints. And surprise, surprise, that champagne bottle has Lauren’s prints on it.”

“That’s—that’s great. Case closed! The St. Louis murder has been solved!”

She likes that, a bitter smile. “Everyone asked, why wait so long to kill his father? Why wait until his final exam week to drive down to St. Louis and kill his father? Turns out, you didn’t pick it because it was final exams week. You picked it because Lauren Lemoyne had come back to the States.”

I shrug. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. I mean, how would I know that Lauren was coming back to town?”

“Facebook, that’s how.” She pulls a piece of paper out of her pocket and hands it to me. A printout from a Facebook page—Lauren’s, I assume—well, actually, I know, because I remember reading it back then—from May 12, 2010:

I hand the sheet back to her, keep a blank face. Jane Burke is a very good detective. But if she’s here, it means she’s lost the battle.

She walks up to me. “Just so you know—I know. I know you did all of this. Your father, Lauren, and Nick Caracci. And you’re gonna walk from the whole damn thing.”

She brushes past me and heads for the door.

“Hey, Jane?”

She turns at the door.

“Grace Village has one damn smart detective on the force,” I say.

She gives me a deadpan expression. “Coming from anyone else on the face of the earth,” she says, “I’d consider that a compliment.”

102 Vicky

I can only make dinner last so long. The girls and I order some food for Adam and drive back to the house. I’ve tried to stay engaged with the kids during dinner, Macy being so excited about her pierced ears, but all I can do is rehearse my lines.

Not that there’s much to rehearse. Deny everything, and if they back you into a corner, refuse to answer.

Where was I on Halloween, Officer? Why, I was at my apartment I’m renting in Delavan, Wisconsin, answering the door to trick-or-treaters. I left my cell phone there, per the plan. I didn’t stream a continuous series of episodes off Netflix like Simon did, but my phone was there, regardless. It would ping the nearest cell tower at least a few times, even if not doing much of anything besides refreshing.

Christian Newsome? Never heard of him. Nick Caracci? Nope, doesn’t ring a bell.

My car? I drive a beater 2007 Chevy Lumina. You want to check the plates to see if they were ever recorded by tollway cameras or local POD cameras in Chicago? Go ahead and check. They never were. That car hasn’t been over the Wisconsin border since I moved to Delavan almost a year ago.

Oh, I may have used a Jeep to travel back and forth to Chicago, but that vehicle’s long gone now, and the registration won’t come back to me or Simon, anyway.

Simon Dobias? Never met him, Officer. You mean the guy who let me talk to him for hours and hours after my first SOS meeting, who scraped me off the floor a week later, when I was about to follow my sister, Monica, into the world of overdosing—me on cocaine, not oxy?

You mean the guy who forced me into rehab, who paid for the whole thing, and who was waiting for me when I came out?

You mean the guy who convinced me to give life another shot?

No, I’ve never met that man. Never heard of him.

I drive back to the house, humoring the girls, laughing at their jokes, but inside, a dull ache fills me. I’m ready, though. I have no idea what you’re talking about, Officer. My answers will be confident but not too perfect.

When I turn onto the street, I see immediately that the police vehicle is gone. Relief floods through me. I park in the garage. The kids fly into the house.

“Daddy, I got my ears pierced!”

I walk in slowly, my pulse decelerating, the adrenaline draining from me. The M&Ms are bouncing around the house, heading upstairs to his bedroom and home office, opening the basement door.

“Where’s Daddy?”

I spot him outside, in the backyard, staring out. Something in his hand . . . a cigarette?

“Girls, put his dinner on the counter. He’s outside. I’m going to talk to him. Just me,” I say as Macy rushes for the door. “Give us a minute, please, Mace?”

“Hey.”

Adam is standing by a stone fountain in the backyard, empty this time of year. He is underdressed for the cold, just a light sweater on with blue jeans. A cigarette burns in his hand.

“Since when do you smoke?” I say.

“Since pretty much never.” He looks at the cigarette and tosses it in the grass, stamps it out with his foot. “Monica started smoking to get over the OxyContin. Always seemed dumb. But I’d have gone along with anything that made her stop those pills. I even smoked a few cigarettes with her. Now, every once in a while, when I think of her, I light one up. Isn’t that the dumbest thing?”

“You’re thinking about her,” I say.

He glances in my direction, stuffs his hands in his pockets. “The attorney general’s office was here. The people I complained to after Monica’s overdose? Remember I filed that complaint?”

“I remember.”

Adam looks at me, his jaw quivering, his eyes filling with tears. “He’s dead,” he says.

“He’s— Who’s dead?”

“David.”

“David?”

“David Jenner. The man who stole Monica from us and then stole her money and left her with a bottle of fucking pills to overdose on? The handsome, charismatic, glorified drug dealer?”

I try to act surprised. “Of course I remember. I’ve tried to put that name out of my head.”

He lets out a sigh. “Me, too. And that wasn’t his name, anyway. We figured he used a fake name.”

“Right.”

“His name was Nicholas Caracci,” says Adam. “He killed himself.”

“He killed himself, huh?”

Adam shakes his head. “Apparently he was trying the same thing with some lady in Chicago. It—it backfired or something. I don’t know.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “So how are you feeling?”

“How’m I feeling? I want my wife back, that’s how I’m—”

He breaks down, something he doesn’t do often, covers his face with his hands and lets out a good, blubbering cry. I rub his back and hope that the girls aren’t watching.

“The things I said to her,” he mumbles.

“Adam, please.”

“After she left. When she was full-on using again, shacked up with some pretty boy who was handing it out to her like candy. I told her to stay away from the kids.”

“You had to.”

“I told her I didn’t want them seeing their mother as a junkie whore—”

I grab and hold him tight while he sobs and moans.

“You had to protect the girls,” I whisper. “You tried to help her, and you would have. She would have made it. But he used the drugs to drag her over to the dark side. He turned her into somebody she wasn’t. You couldn’t let the girls see her like that.”

I remember that time, too. Talking to Monica every day, fielding the occasional frantic call from Adam. I should’ve done more. I was too caught up in my own addiction. And I was out of my element. I’d never had to dispense a single word of advice to my older sister, the successful one.

“I would’ve taken her back,” he says, his voice still shaking.

“I know.”

“After he robbed her clean and took off, and she was living in filth and waste and practically in the gutter. I would’ve brought her back and cleaned her up and we could’ve—I know we could’ve—”

“I know, Adam, I know. None of this was your fault.”

That seems to help. Adam doesn’t have anyone to talk to about these things, about his guilt. There was no Survivors of Suicide for Adam, no therapist. A guy like Adam would never go for that.

I had someone. I had Simon. Simon listened. He listened to everything I had to say. He listened to me talk about the sister that I loved more than I ever realized after her death, and how I loved those girls. He didn’t judge me when I told him why I moved to Chicago, how I had used a private investigator to find Nick, and I was waiting for him to return to Chicago so I could kill him.

He tried to talk me out of it. He told me it wouldn’t solve anything. He told me I’d cleaned myself up, I was sober now, and I should focus on starting a new life and spending time with the girls. He proposed marriage and talked about us having a family of our own. But even when I said no, he never left me. He said I should move on, move forward. He said that’s what he had done with Lauren. He’d put Lauren behind him. And I should do the same with Nick.

But he didn’t judge me when I told him I couldn’t let it go, I couldn’t let Nick get away with it. He helped me pack my stuff and move to Delavan, so I could have some distance from Chicago, so nobody could possibly connect me to Nick or Chicago when I killed him.

And I was ready to do it. I was waiting for the summer. In the summer, so my original plan went, I’d come down to Chicago, run into Nick in a bar, and hope he’d take me home with him. If that didn’t work, I’d find some other way.

And then Simon saw Lauren on the street in Chicago last May, and my simple little plan to slit that monster’s throat turned into a much more complicated plan for both of us to find peace.

Did we find peace? Did I?

“Adam,” I say softly. “Macy really wants to show you her pierced ears. You still have two beautiful daughters.”

“I know, I know,” he says, wiping at his face, composing himself. He takes some deep breaths and looks at me. “Okay. It just all kinda came flooding— I’m okay. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

“You wanna know something?” he says. “And I wouldn’t say this to anyone else.”

“Shoot.”

He takes another breath and looks at me. “I wish I could have killed him myself. I really do.”

I tuck my arm in his. We head back to the house, Macy waiting inside the door, jumping up and down.

“I know the feeling,” I say.

103 Simon

At ten-thirty the following Monday morning, it’s time for my call. I can’t remember if he was supposed to call me or the other way around, but he calls at the exact time.

“Dennis,” I say.

“Simon. How are you?”

“Any better and they’d have to arrest me,” I say.

“Well, I wish I could say the same. We’re going to miss you.”

“I appreciate that. And I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Dennis. I really do.”

“It’s been my pleasure. So, should we go over the allocations one more time?”

“Please.”

“Okay,” he says. “Five million to the American Stroke Association.”

“Right.”

“Five million to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.”

“Yes.”

“Five million to the National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma, and Mental Health.”

“Correct.”

“Five million to the National Runaway Safeline.”

“Yes.”

“Oh-kay,” he says. “And you took out that million a few months ago.”

Right. That’s for something else.

“So,” he continues, “that leaves only a couple hundred thousand left over. You could leave it with us, or I could transfer it to a money market.”

“Divide it up equally and add it to the five million we’re giving each of those groups,” I say.

“You don’t want to keep even a little for yourself, Simon?”

No. I don’t want one penny of that money.

104 Simon

“Thank you, Professor Southern. Professor Dobias, we’ll hear from you now.”

The law school faculty, nearly a hundred professors, sit in comfortable leather chairs in a roughly semicircular pattern in one of the many glorious spaces at our school, a room like most others bearing the name of a magnanimous benefactor.

I stand at the front of the room, my one opportunity to make my pitch orally. Yes, I’m wearing a suit and tie.

“I’ll be brief,” I say. “I want to talk about why I’m here. Not here, applying to be a full professor, but here, period. I initially thought I’d become a lawyer because my parents were lawyers. My mother, in particular, who some of you remember, inspired a love of the law. Its goals, its ideality, but its flaws and frailties as well. But the truth is, I was just a kid, a college kid who was taking the next step without being sure it was what I wanted.

“As many of you know, my mother died when I was starting college. I took a couple years off and struggled with her suicide. I was even institutionalized for a while. I blamed myself for her death. I blamed my father. I blamed a lot of people and things. I had a good therapist who taught me to look at things differently. I got better and started up college again.

“When I was finishing college, literally taking my last final exams up here at the U of C, my father was murdered in St. Louis, where he then lived. And as crazy as it seemed to me, the police suspected me in his murder. We were estranged. We didn’t speak. Our relationship had ended badly after my mother’s suicide. All of that was true. But as I explained to them, that was all in the past, six years in the past. And as I also explained to them, it would have been impossible for me to have committed the crime while I was in Chicago during finals week.”

(Well, almost impossible.)

“But that didn’t stop the police from pursuing me. They searched my home in Chicago, my family’s house. They tore it apart, frankly, left it in shambles. They tried to discover my communications with my therapist as well. They questioned my friends and my classmates. They invaded every aspect of my life. They turned my life upside down, inside out.

“I knew I was innocent, of course. But on just the tiniest of suspicions, the government was able to destroy my life. And when they realized that they had no case against me? When they realized I couldn’t have done it—did they say so publicly? No. They didn’t give out a clean bill of health. They just dropped a bomb on my life and left me to pick up the pieces.

“That’s when I knew I wanted to be a lawyer. When I realized, from experience, the importance of our constitutional protections. We read about them in books, debate them in classrooms, but I saw up close and personal their importance. I’ve devoted myself to that scholarship ever since. I’ve watched as our Fourth Amendment doctrines have become eroded, in my opinion, by the courts. I’ve argued for changes, wholesale changes in how we understand the privacy rights of our citizens. And I will never stop trying. I will never stop challenging and pushing and prodding. I’ll never stop writing about it. I will never stop teaching it. It’s all I’ll ever want to do.”

I didn’t rehearse this speech. I didn’t need to. This is what I think, what I feel. I didn’t, couldn’t tell them the truth about what I did in St. Louis. That’s the only part that bothers me. A lie sprinkled into an otherwise heartfelt statement.

But I’ve chosen to live with that lie. And now, after Lauren, with two lies. The brilliance of the law is that it’s not concerned with one person but with a system applicable to all. It protects the guilty so it can protect the innocent. It protected me, the guilty, from prosecution twice now.

“Professor?” From one of the back rows, a hand raises, a woman I don’t know well, to whom I’ve not said more than brief hellos in the hallway. I want to say her name is Amara Rodriguez, but I’m not a hundred percent, so I play it safe and stick with the title.

“Yes, Professor,” I say.

“You mentioned St. Louis. And you’re probably aware that these events in St. Louis have come to light during the committee’s candidate review process.”

I am, but only because Anshu told me.

“I’m happy to answer any questions about St. Louis,” I say.

“Is it true that only a few weeks ago, in November, the St. Louis police identified a suspect they believe was guilty of your father’s murder? Based on new forensic evidence?”

“Yes, that’s true,” I say.

I’m not privy to the inner workings of the St. Louis police, but I can only imagine that the people in charge have the same pressure to close cases as a tiny little hamlet like Grace Village. Whoever was in charge of the cold case got the new evidence of Lauren’s fingerprints on the bottle and eventually her DNA on the wineglass, too, along with the information that Lauren had briefly returned to the country during that time. The case was closed as solved. All the easier when the suspect is now dead, not subject to prosecution and unable to contest the determination in any way.

“That must feel like cold comfort,” she says, “being exonerated twelve years later.”

Something like that. They were never going to pin St. Louis on me, as long as they couldn’t talk to my shrink, to whom I spilled my guts the next morning. (A moment of weakness I will never forget or repeat.)

Comfort? I wouldn’t use that word. I wouldn’t even say I’m happy about what I did. Or unhappy. Virtually every moral code and penal code would condemn my actions. I analogize it to the law of war, instead. My father and Lauren declared war on my mother and me. They killed her, and I killed them back. Soldiers aren’t prosecuted for killing other soldiers. They’re prosecuted only for killing innocents. Lauren and my father were the furthest things from innocents. I don’t require approval, nor do I accept disapproval, for what I’ve done.

Did I know that the Grace Village P.D. would fingerprint Lauren and take a DNA sample? Sure, they always do that, if for no other reason than exclusion, differentiation from other prints and DNA found at the scene. Did I know that they’d enter this information into FBI databases? Of course—standard protocol. Did I know that this newly submitted information would find a match in the databases for the champagne bottle and plastic flute found at my father’s crime scene? I hoped so. I couldn’t be sure Lauren’s prints or DNA would be on that bottle or those champagne flutes. But a guy can hope.

And did I time this entire thing so that St. Louis would be in a position to declare its investigation solved and closed only weeks before I had to stand here before this committee and answer questions?

Well, let’s just say the timing worked out okay.

“I’m just glad to put it behind me,” I say, looking squarely at Dean Comstock as I do.

105 Simon

The forest preserve outside Burlington, Wisconsin, where Vicky stashed her post-Halloween burner phone to communicate with me, seems as good as any place to meet. I get there early, having the longer drive and not wanting to be late. The habit of timing things perfectly with Vicky, so critical over the summer and fall, is hard to scrub from my DNA.

I assume there isn’t much of a need to be careful anymore. The day after Jane Burke visited me with the news about Lauren’s fingerprint on the champagne bottle, Grace Village P.D. announced a solve in the murder of Lauren Betancourt. Nicholas Caracci, aka Christian Newsome, killed her in a jealous rage after she rejected his advances and then took his own life out of remorse. I watched the press conference, which featured Jane Burke standing behind the chief, looking as happy as someone with hemorrhoids.

Through the light snowfall, Vicky walks up the trail in a new, long wool coat and matching hat.

I wonder how she’ll approach, arms out for an embrace or hands tucked in her pockets and keeping a distance. It’s no secret that we have very different feelings about our relationship, that I want far more than she does. That made it awkward on occasion over the months that we plotted our scheme. It wasn’t easy executing this plan. It was scary and stressful. At times, we clung to each other for comfort—a hug, a peck on the cheek, a quick rub of the back.

But there was an undeniable intimacy to sharing secrets like we did, to knowing that it was us against the world, that we could trust no one but each other. We’d lie together, up on the roof in lounge chairs, on the couch in the living room, working through everything. We argued about some things, mostly about Vicky sleeping with Nick, an unbearable thought to me and the last thing on earth Vicky wanted to do, but she insisted (“It’s his routine, his scam, it will make him comfortable that his scam is working like it always has.” “How else will he and I ever be close enough to make this work?” “I can handle it. I know how to shut off and just perform the act without it meaning anything. I have years of experience”).

I quizzed her to keep her sharp (What was my mother’s middle name? What day were we married? Where did I go to high school?). We’d go over the next day’s text-message exchange (“Be playful, you’re still in the honeymoon phase.” “Maybe be a little cranky tomorrow; everyone’s cranky sometimes, right?” “Tomorrow, you start showing signs of hesitation, second thoughts”). She’d read the journal I was writing and offer critiques and suggestions (“Mention I’m from West Virginia, but do it like a throwaway comment.” “You need to be freaking out a little—you’re falling in love with Lauren and you’re married to me!” “You have to show a little self-doubt, like this is too good to be true”).

I admit, it felt like some kind of bizarre, rekindled courtship. But I always noted caution in Vicky, a fear of encouraging me, of giving me the wrong idea. All her talk about what would come afterward, for example, how much she looked forward to living in Wisconsin with her nieces, was her way of reminding me, in her subtle way, that nothing was going to change between us.

No, I had to keep reminding myself. Vicky’s not falling in love with me. She’s just being affectionate. She just likes me a lot.

That, and we’re plotting a double murder together.

Her smile breaks wide as she approaches. Something inside me breaks as well. I’ve never seen her like this. And I thought I’d seen every version of Vicky. I’ve seen her bitter and full of venom. I’ve seen her despondent and lifeless. I’ve seen her focused and determined, channeling that rage. And yes, for a while—before I screwed up everything by falling so hard for her, proposing marriage, pushing her—I’ve seen her content, what I thought was Vicky being happy.

But that wasn’t happy. This, Vicky today, is Vicky happy. A glow to her face, a bounce in her walk. As beautiful as any woman I’ve ever seen.

I put out my arms and she sails into them, holding me for a long time, moaning with pleasure. I close my eyes and drink it all in, the smell of her, the feel of her, the warmth of her, quite possibly the last time I will hold her like this.

“Ooooh, I’ve missed you, fella,” she whispers.

Not as much as I’ve missed her. But I don’t say that. I won’t make this hard for her.

“Merry Christmas,” I say when we pull back from each other, enough to see each other’s faces. She takes my hands in hers.

“Merry Christmas, indeed,” she says. “Santa was very generous. Very. You should’ve seen the look on Miriam’s face, Simon. She was crying. She was screaming. She counted the money like ten times. She just kept shouting, ‘A million dollars! A million dollars! Who would give us a million dollars in cash?’ I didn’t say anything, of course. Though I wanted to.”

I seesaw my head. “Better it stay anonymous. Just in case anyone’s still watching me and sees that I gave some random domestic-violence shelter in Wisconsin a bunch of cash. It could lead to you.”

She nods. “You don’t really think anyone’s still watching, do you?”

“I don’t. But I was always more paranoid than you.”

“Good thing you were.” She searches my face. “You didn’t have to do that, you know. Give us that money.”

“Hey, what am I gonna do with a million dollars? I already have heat and A/C.”

She rolls her eyes. “You could’ve kept a little of the money Ted left you.”

“You could’ve taken some of it, lady.”

I offered it to her. All of it. She said no. It’s one of the reasons I love her so much. She’s been poor her whole life, she scrapped and pinched and sold her body to support herself, and here a guy is willing to fork over twenty-one million dollars to her, gratis, and she turns it down. The shelter, okay, but she wouldn’t take a dime personally.

She’s in rebuilding mode, and she wants to rebuild on her own terms.

“Oh, speaking of loads of money,” she says. “I’ve been meaning to ask—did you get the full professorship?”

Her eyes go wide. It gives me a lift, that she cares enough to remember, how much she wanted it for me, the ends to which she was willing to go to get it for me.

“I did not,” I say. “Reid got it. I heard the vote was close.”

“Ugh. I’m sorry.” She drills a finger lightly against my chest, juts her chin. “Should’ve used that information I got you, dummy.”

I shrug it off. “The good news is, the St. Louis cops have cleared my name. They closed the case as resolved. So Dean Cumstain can’t hold it over me. There’s always next time.”

She thinks about that. “You did it your way. As you should.”

A lull falls over us, and she reverts to small talk. How’s work, etc. I join in, too. She tells me about the girls—lights up, in fact, when she talks about those girls.

But our time is coming to an end. I feel it. I feel it and there’s nothing I can do.

“You probably need to get back,” I say.

“Yeah. Walk with me.” She loops her arm in mine, and we take the path down toward the parking lot, my chest full, my heart pounding, as I count the seconds.

I have to tell her. I have to tell her one more time how I feel. I have to make one more pitch for us. What do I have to lose?

“Listen—”

“We’re not normal people, are we?” she says.

I decelerate, breathe out. Then I think about her question and chuckle. “Let me know when you can define ‘normal’ for me.”

“Yeah, but you know what I mean.”

“Not really,” I say. “Is it normal to screw people out of money and ruin their lives?”

“Some people would let that go. Even if they couldn’t forgive it, they’d forget it. Or just live with it.”

“Nick didn’t just steal Monica’s money, Vicky. He destroyed her. He took advantage of her addiction. He lured her away from her family, kept her drugged up, then took all her money, leaving her basically for dead. You know that better than anyone.”

“I know—”

“And Lauren? She knew my family’s situation. If she’d stolen some of the money, like a million bucks or something, and left the rest, everything would’ve been fine. It would’ve been a shitty thing to do, no question, but we could have moved on. But no. Lauren had to sweep every nickel out of that account, take everything we had. The money we needed to care for my mother at home. She laid waste to us and never looked back. That’s pretty fucking far from normal. So I don’t see why my response had to be normal, either.”

She squeezes my arm, sensing that I’m getting worked up. I am. But sometimes I need to remind myself why I did what I did.

I stop and turn to her. “Do you have regrets?”

“Do you?”

“I asked first,” I note.

“Yeah, but I’m the girl.”

Yes, she is that.

“My therapist from back in the day would have said that I was giving power to people who did bad things,” I say. “She’s not wrong about that. That, I regret. I regret that I gave them that power. I regret that I let Lauren and my father dominate my thoughts.”

“But that’s not really my question.”

I blow out cold air, lingering before me. “Sometimes I would think of my dad as part bad guy, part victim. Lauren played him from the start. She never cared about him. So I was tempted to give him a pass. But . . . Lauren never should’ve gotten in the door. He let her in. And then he made the conscious decision to stay with her. I can’t . . . no, I can’t forgive what he did to my mother.” I nod to her. “Your turn.”

“I dream about it a lot,” she says.

“You have nightmares?”

“I don’t know if I’d call them nightmares. Monica’s in them. Nick, too. Funny, because in real life, I never actually saw them together. Anyway, they’re together, usually in that apartment they had, or maybe some other random place—an airport or restaurant. It’s a dream, right? But the thing that’s always the same—she’s struggling, and I know it. I know he’s taking advantage of her, but I don’t do anything about it. I just sit there and watch it.”

“Well, I—”

“Sometimes I think what I did to Nick was all about me. A way of soothing my own guilt. I didn’t bring Monica back, did I? I didn’t give those girls their mother back. What other purpose did it serve?”

“You rid the world of a bad person,” I say. “A bad person who would have done the same thing to other women.”

“True,” she says. “But that’s not why I did it. That’s just a by-product.”

“Well, jeez, Vick, I guess you’re just not a normal person, then.”

It doesn’t come off as humorous as I’d intended it.

“Hey.” I cup her chin with my hand. “You survived a shitty childhood and managed to make it through a real rough patch that would have broken most people. You fought off a drug addiction and got back on your feet, clean and sober. Now you’re spending your life trying to help people in abusive relationships. And whether it’s the reason you did it or not, you put a really bad guy out of business for good. So on balance, Ms. Vicky Townsend, I’d say you’re doing okay karma-wise. And for what it’s worth, I’m as cynical as they come, and you make me weak in the knees. You must have something going for you.”

She goes quiet, looking at me. Then she puts her hands on my face and presses her lips against mine, the softest, warmest, sexiest kiss I’ve ever had.

Then she smiles at me and backpedals away. She holds up a hand and wiggles her fingers.

I try to think of something pithy for a parting remark, but I’m choked up after that kiss. I can hardly breathe after that kiss. I might have a coronary after that kiss.

She drives away, of all things, in a minivan, about the last vehicle I’d ever expect to see Vicky Townsend driving. But she has a different life now, different priorities.

I stand where I am for a while, waiting for the heaviness in my chest to subside, choking back emotion, until hypothermia becomes a real possibility. I finally manage to smile.

What does the word “pithy” mean, anyway?

I thought it meant clever, but turns out, from a quick search on my phone, it’s defined in two ways. One: “consisting of or abounding in pith,” which is a big help. Two: “concise and forcefully expressive.” Nothing about being witty or humorous or sardonic? If I were mad and said, “Shit!” that would be concise and forcefully expressive. So that would qualify as a pithy comment?

That doesn’t seem right. Not at all. I might need to add “pithy” to my list. This is going to require extensive thought . . .