The Best American Mystery Stories 2019

Suzanne Proulx If You Say So

from False Faces

She’s way out of your league, a classy New York woman who would be unapproachable. Yet, remarkably, she approaches you.

In the park, early spring. You’re out there with your DSLR and your tripod, concentrating on getting scenes with trees reflecting in the water, and the water reflecting the sky, so at first glance it’s a puzzle. The kind of thing someone would look at, and at first wouldn’t know what they were seeing. Maybe they had it upside down — then it would resolve and make sense.

It’s a tricky process, and you’re wrapped up in it, so you don’t even sense her presence until she speaks.

“Are you taking pictures of me?”

She’s the kind of woman people take pictures of. She’s perfect. She’s dressed probably fashionably, definitely expensively. She even smells expensive. She doesn’t exactly take your breath away, but for a moment she does take your words away.

After an awkward couple of seconds you manage to answer. “Sure,” you croak. “I mean, I’m not — wasn’t — but I’ll take your picture. If you want me to.”

“Yeah,” she says, and she smiles at you, a smile that makes you want to jump straight up, but you contain yourself. Then she says, “But you know what? I take better pictures when they’re candid.”

You stand there dumbly, as if you don’t know what that word means. How are you supposed to take a candid shot of someone who’d just asked for a picture and she’s standing right there?

“So I’ll just wander over there,” she says, indicating some trees in the opposite direction of the lake. “Do you have one of those big lenses? You look like you might have one of those big ones in your bag.” The way she says this, it sounds — well, provocative. A woman like this, anything could sound that way. But those specific words...

Yeah, in fact you have a couple of different lenses in your bag. You have a lens the size of an elephant’s trunk, but not in this bag. And while you’re standing there, with your elephant’s trunk in your other bag, she walks away. You grab the biggest lens you have and aim the camera at her. At her back. She seems to sense it and turns half around and holds up her hands in a way that says stop! Her sleeves fall back to reveal that her gloves go up at least as far as her elbows.

“Not yet,” she says. “Wait till I get over there.” She turns and keeps walking. The way a woman walks away from you when she knows you’re watching.

She goes toward the trees and twirls around once without looking back. Click. She looks into her bag. Click. She aims her face to the sky. Click. She takes the sunglasses off, sits on a bench, crosses her legs, pulls something out of her bag, looks at it. Click, click, click. She stands, picks a piece of trash off the ground, drops it in a trash can. Everything she does, every pose, looks exactly like a picture in a magazine. And then, without even waving at you, she melts away.

There was supposed to be more. Pictures, then phone numbers, perhaps some more flirting. Instead, it’s like the whole thing never happened. Like a magical interlude that took place only in your head.

But then, there are the pictures. You stick the camera in the bag and head for where you saw her last, but she’s gone.

After that you can’t go back to shooting landscapes. You head home, or what’s passing for home this week. As you walk, you think about how, in your mind, the situation had been so full of promise. You fantasized things, simple things to be sure (getting her number), more complex things (walking into a restaurant with her, nibbling on her neck), impossible things.

Why did she pick you? Of course, it isn’t immediately apparent that when you’re not house-sitting, you crash at your sister’s place in Queens, or that your current job, in addition to house-sitting, consists of walking people’s dogs. Maybe you looked prosperous. Maybe you didn’t look like a twenty-one-year-old with no niche in the world. A person who once wanted to be a tattoo artist, but then realized that would mean you’d have to get a tattoo and you didn’t want one. Or maybe a wedding photographer, only you didn’t think you had the temperament to put up with brides.

You don’t think of yourself as the type that even normal, ordinary, girl-next-door types would approach, because they never have.

And if you thought she was flirting with you, you were dead wrong. You’ll probably never see her again.

Of course you’re going to keep your eyes open. Walking the dogs in the park, you’re going to pass by that bench and look at it, and she won’t be there. Instead there’ll be an old woman, feeding the pigeons. You think you see her in a crowd, but by the time you get close enough to know for sure, either it’s not her, or the person you thought was her is gone.

When you head to your sister’s to check your mail, you show her the pictures, and you ask her, without going into a lot of detail, if maybe this is somebody famous, recognizable.

“I’m flattered that you think I can recognize every midlevel celebrity or fashion icon,” Diane says, scrolling through the photos. “But, no.” Diane shakes her head. “But she’s too old for you anyway.” You didn’t even ask that, but she sensed it.

“I know that,” you say. “Also completely, just stratospherically out of my league. Wait, she’s not that old.”

“She’s rich,” Diane says. “Did you say she was tall?”

“Shorter than me.” This makes her not exceptionally tall.

“So probably not a model. And in those clothes, she’s either, hmm... married to an old rich guy, or maybe she has rich parents, but either way...”

“I know. Out of my league.”

“I was going to say, plenty able to pay for a photo session.”

You want to protest. But she was coming on to me.

“Maybe she’s just really good at shopping,” you say. “Like, at thrift stores. Getting things for free.”

“Sure,” Diane says. “Maybe she’s homeless. Maybe she could crash at your place. Oh wait, no. How were you supposed to get those pictures back to her anyway?”

“Yeah,” you say. “Good question.”

“What happens in the Forest of Arden, stays in the Forest of Arden,” Diane says, as if Central Park is a magical forest and the whole episode is only your fantasy.

Still you go on, looking for her, aware that she’s out there somewhere. She’s changed the way you look at things. Where once you looked for architectural incongruence, or ironic juxtapositions of cityscape and nature, now you look at people. Of course, you’re looking for her and not really at anyone else. Time passes, you lose hope.

And then, maybe three weeks later, you see her again. You’re just done with your late-morning dog walk. It’s raining buckets, cold drops finding their way under your poncho and sliding down your back. You’re dodging umbrellas and ducking under and then out of canopies, trying not to get too soaked, and she’s under one of the canopies.

You don’t even know what made you glance up at just the right time. The first thing you register is, she has on gloves again, red ones. You stop abruptly, someone runs into you, curses, apologizes. She looks straight at you. You look back. A moment of shock. And you go on. For half a block. Then, as if she mesmerized you to do it, you go into the drugstore, buy an umbrella — a day like this, they have them right up front — walk outside, and open it before you head back.

She’s waiting, as if she knew you were going to buy her an umbrella. You pass the umbrella to her under a waterfall of rain, and she takes it and gives you that smile. Which gives you courage to speak.

“I’ve got your pictures. How should I send them to you?”

“You have them here?”

“Not here.” In fact the camera is with you, the camera bag under your poncho making you look like a hunchback, but you don’t want it to get wet. “I could email them to you.”

“Can you text them to me? I don’t email.”

“Sure,” you say. “What’s your number?” You pull out your phone. Don’t care if it gets wet.

“Buy me a beer first.”

After a bright burst of hope and happiness, you take her to a place on Eighth where you can get a free hot dog with a beer, if you want. She only wants the beer.

“Took you long enough to find me,” she says, in that same tone she used when she asked if you were taking her picture.

“You just disappeared.”

She moves her hands around as if shaping the air. “Well, I figured you’d find me if you were interested, and you seemed interested.” She spirals her hand down and caresses her beer. You note that she hasn’t taken those gloves off, which seems odd.

What else is wrong with this picture? Guys like you don’t get to sit in bars with women who look like this. But you’re not going to question it.

“I didn’t picture you as a beer kind of girl,” you say.

“Woman,” she corrects.

“Sorry. I didn’t picture you as—”

“Oh, so you did picture me.” She gazes into your eyes. You sit up straighter and become aware of your breathing. “You thought about me.”

You nod.

“But you didn’t try to find me.”

“I thought I saw you everywhere,” you say. The words rush out. You didn’t mean to say them, but they keep coming until she stops you.

“You still haven’t given me your number.”

“Okay,” you say. “Here, it’s—”

“Write it down for me,” she says. “I don’t write things down.”

You pat your pockets, thinking you have a pen somewhere but no paper. In the end you borrow a pen from the bartender and write your number on a napkin. She takes it, stashes it somewhere, and takes a big swig of her beer. You love the way she drinks beer. It’s so unlike the rest of her image.

“I’ll call you,” she says. As she talks she makes motions with her hands, as if she’s casting a spell. Or weaving a web to catch you in. “Just for what it’s worth, I am a romantic. I like it when people write poetry about me, if they’re so moved.”

“I... I’m a photographer.”

“You said you saw me everywhere. That’s the kind of thing I like to hear. It was almost a poem, the way you said that.” She takes another less-than-dainty gulp of her beer.

“Okay, I—”

“Should I happen to call you, you can’t call me back,” she says. “I don’t answer the phone. I do read texts. I don’t text back, but I might read them, if they’re worthy. If you sent a poem for each one of the photographs that you took.” She stands, drains her beer. You stand when she does.

“Oh, finish your drink,” she says. “And thank you for the umbrella.” She picks it up. “Red’s my favorite color. For an umbrella.” And she sweeps out. You start after her, but the bartender reminds you that you owe for the drinks.

She doesn’t do email, doesn’t text, doesn’t write, and doesn’t buy drinks, and you think, Fair enough.

The rain continues to fall, but at a much softer rate, as you dash out and scan the streets for the red umbrella. Oh, they’re out there, red umbrellas. You pick a likely looking one and head for it. After a couple of blocks, you still haven’t caught up. So many red umbrellas, you doubt you’re tracking the right one. You should have bought the one with black polka dots, only it didn’t seem dignified. Your phone rings.

“Are you following me?”

Definitely flirty. You stop. Again, someone runs into you. No apology this time.

“I don’t think I am,” you say. “But I tried.”

She laughs, a beautiful melodious laugh, because of course she would have that kind of laugh. “Well now you have my number.” You get the feeling that wherever she is, she can see you.

“I forgot to ask your name,” you say. “I’m Asher.”

“Name me,” she says. “Put my name as you think it is, in one of your poems.”

So you dub her Rosalind. It just comes to you.

Like anyone else you’ve gone through a phase of writing lousy poetry. You threw the poetry away of course, on pain of anyone ever seeing it. You sit there — in Casey Feinman’s place in Murray Hill this week, an actor with three very spoiled cats — and look at the pictures. Scroll past those first ones, the landscapes, which in truth don’t quite give the illusion you were after, but they’re not bad. Some of them you legit can’t tell what they are. They look more like some kind of Rorschach test than what you had in mind, but they might still work.

But forget that, focus on the woman. Write the best poem possible and send the best shot.

The end result is reminiscent of something you read, or heard, possibly some rock lyric. Maybe “Uptown Girl.” Well, apologies to Billy Joel, and off it goes, along with the picture, your favorite. The one where she was just sitting on the bench with her legs crossed and looking anywhere but at you. You send it off, go through the nightly cat-feeding ritual, and fall asleep on Casey Feinman’s lumpy couch.

You wake up and see, on the coffee table, your wallet spread open. Your cards, all of them — ID, credit card, library card, gym-membership card that was expired anyway — have been replaced with black valentines. The valentines have messages scrawled on them in metallic Sharpie, the usual messages in a girlish script. “Miss You!” “Kiss Me Quick!” “Bye-Bye!” Then you wake up for real.

Just a dream. A cautionary dream. Because even as you were writing the lousy poetry, part of your brain was thinking other thoughts. She’s too good to be true, therefore she is not true. She’s after something. She’s crazy. She’s a spy. She’s married. She’s actually a man.

No. You would know that. She’s not a man. Not with those hands. Maybe she’s crazy. You can’t refute that. You’ve heard the phrase don’t stick your dick in the crazy, and yet that’s just what you’re aching to do.

Married? Probably not. It’s not like you could see a ring with those gloves on, but if she’s married, why is she asking for romantic texts? So nope on that one.

Maybe she’s a spy. You can’t refute that either. Spying on... what? You? She’s just a very compelling woman, and you should probably text her all those photos and forget about her because then she’ll have what she wants and you’ll never see her again.

When you’re giving four dogs their afternoon walk, your phone rings and you give a little skip because it has to be her, nobody else ever calls you. And it’s your sister, saying you’ve got some mail that looks like a check. So at least some things are looking up.

You write one last poem, saying that you would like to replace all her credit cards with valentines from you, and you send her the rest of the pictures. Immediately you wonder why the hell you did that. Then you realize. It’s like you couldn’t take the suspense of wondering if she’d call, so you made sure she wouldn’t. No worthy poem, no more suspense.

You’re done with her. End of story. Period. Instead of anticipation of seeing her, or getting her phone calls, you feel relaxed, relieved. You can look at it dispassionately. You did all the giving, she did all the taking, and you got nothing. But you didn’t lose much either.

Not two hours after you’ve sent this off, your phone rings. A blocked number, so you don’t answer, but even if it was her, you wouldn’t answer, because what’s the point? You grit your teeth and tell yourself you don’t need this. Chick wouldn’t even tell you her real name. You had to make one up. You don’t need her, she’s playing with you. Any connection would have been only temporary anyway, for immediate gratification of base desires. Replace those valentines with, say, a poker deck. Or Cards Against Humanity.

Then your phone beeps, once every three minutes or so, reminding you that you’ve got a new voicemail. An annoying chirp, like an electronic drip. So of course eventually you have to listen to it or delete it.

When you hear her breathless honey voice saying she loves the poem, you start thinking that maybe she, too, wants only immediate gratification of base desires, so yeah, this could work. As long as she knows you’re not after her trust fund, or whatever, and you know she’s not after — what? You can’t even think what she might get out of you, other than free photos, which she already got, and it’s not like that cost you anything. As long as you’re both completely honest about who you are and what you expect, what could go wrong?

Various things, as it turns out. First there is the dancing around of whether you’re going on a date, and what constitutes a date, what you would both like to do on a date, and all that. You end up going to another bar, having beers and bar food, and then heading out on the street and holding her hand.

Which is still gloved. Kinda weird. Again you think: What is she covering up? Bad tattoos? Pus-oozing eczema? Slash marks? It’s like you’re getting a fetish about them. Or not about them, about seeing her hands.

So. “How come you always wear gloves? It’s not that cold.”

“Oh,” she says. “I’m a hand model. I really have to do everything to protect my hands. I even wear them indoors.” Then she puts her hands up to your face and holds it while she stares into your eyes. “Does it bother you? Do you mind?” Then she kisses you. Or at any rate that’s what you remember. And the next thing you remember is her asking to go to your place. Or, technically, Casey Feinman’s place. You begin taking steps in that direction, and so does she.

“And you don’t have like a roommate or something?”

“Just three cats,” you say.

She stops dead. “Oh, that won’t work. I’m deathly allergic to cats.”

You stop, too. “How about your place?”

“That won’t work either,” she says. “You have to get rid of them.”

For one wild moment you think about it. You wouldn’t get rid of them permanently, of course. Put them in the carrier, put the carrier somewhere outside the apartment. Your head clears a little. Realistically, if she’s that allergic, that won’t do it. You’d have to vacuum the place for hours. But for a minute there, Casey’s cats were in jeopardy.

Probably you wouldn’t have done anything to them. You have less than a week left there, and then you’ll be at Sid Elam’s place. Sid has an aquarium.

But it’s a dicey moment. If you say things are moving too fast, that sounds like you have some long-term relationship in mind, rather than something quick and dirty, and — you don’t. You just can’t see it.

“Give me a week,” you say. “To get the place aired out and vacuumed and all. Not even a week. Six days.” It’s a test. If she’s gone in a week, if you never see her again, well, you tried, and you will come back in the night and sneak in and kill those cats. Just kidding.

She pouts a bit, predictably, then says she can’t wait, and you make out a little more and then reluctantly tear yourselves away from each other. And you’re floating. Bouncing around, literally hitting your head, as you go up Casey’s stairs, on a plank you’ve never hit your head on before. Six days.

Five days. You’re still floating, but you’ve sent her a couple of texts with no response. You defy her instructions and call her, which gets you nothing but a nice recording of her voice that somehow causes you to float again and makes you want to call the number about a hundred times.

Four days. She leaves you a voicemail. Curious how she manages that since the phone is always on your person, always on, and you’d answer any call on the off chance it might be her. Still, a voicemail telling you she will be coming out of a photo shoot at approximately three o’clock today. So if you want to see her, you should text her at two forty-five if you think you’ll be there. You do, and you’re there, and you don’t see her. You’re not floating quite as high. You text back that you missed her, where was she? You hear nothing. You text again. Nothing again.

Three days. A black mood descends. Why is she playing these games?

Your phone rings, and it’s her.

“Sorry,” she says. “Things took a little longer than I thought, and I guess you didn’t wait?”

You pull out of your black mood. “How long was I supposed to wait, anyway? I hung around for like an hour.”

“I looked out the window when I took a break and I didn’t see you,” she says. “I’ve got another one tomorrow. Earlier, at nine. Text me if you want to see me then, and—”

“Why text you? Why can’t I tell you right now that I want to see you then?”

She’s silent.

“Okay,” you say. “You mean you’ll be coming out at nine or going there at nine?”

“Going there,” she says. “It should take about an hour.” She gives you an address in the warehouse district, then adds, “Text me when you get there.”

“If you say so.” But a bit of annoyance creeps into your previously buoyant mood.

And then it turns out you can’t make it because, of all things, you have a job interview, something your sister set up at her colleague’s husband’s law firm. So you text that to her: I have a job interview at nine, other side of the city. Don’t know how long it’s going to take. Will text you when I know.

You come out of your job interview, turn on your phone, and there’s a voicemail. “Oh, dear,” the voicemail says. “That is not the kind of text I want to get. I want to get texts that say how much you want to see me, not that you don’t want to see me at all. What is your problem anyway? Do you want to make this happen, or what?”

You do want to make this happen. Obediently, you text her right away: you really, really want to see her, and you’re sorry you missed her. And your phone rings moments later. You answer it with a little shudder of anticipation.

“That’s better,” she says. “Okay. I was very lonely when I came out of my photo shoot, but I’m better now, and I’m hungry.”

“Come over now,” you say, being ensconced in your new cat-free establishment. “I’ll make you lunch. I’ll cook.” Sid has a great kitchen with all the stuff. Stuff you don’t even know what it does.

“Just give me the address,” she says. “I’ll be there in about an hour.”

You half-believe she won’t show up. You race around getting items for a simple kind of lunch you think she’ll like. Heirloom tomatoes, French bread, mozzarella cheese, fresh basil. You’re almost in a frenzy.

Of course she’s late, but she does appear at the door, dolled up as usual. “I already ate,” she says (and what did you expect?). “But here,” she adds, “you can undress me.”

The shock nearly stops your heart. She doesn’t want to eat, but she wants you to undress her?

“I don’t really use my hands,” she says. “Because of my job, you know?”

You wonder who dressed her, then. Because buttons that are being undone — and yes, you’re doing it — had to first be done. So who did that? Then you don’t think of that, you’re removing all of her clothes, except the gloves, and all of yours as well. And you’re making love to her, and she’s lovely, soft in all the right places, creamy, fragrant, noisy, perfect. She doesn’t use her hands much, mainly just to position your head where she wants it, but it doesn’t matter. She uses everything else.

Afterward you lie there thinking that you still don’t know her name. You think of how strippers always take the gloves off first, not that you know this firsthand. You’ve seen damn few strip shows and none that featured gloves.

In afterglow, you wonder if it would be this good if she hadn’t played all those games. Then she tells you that she’s now hungry again. You have the first semblance of normalcy as you make the best tomato mozzarella sandwich in the history of the world while she talks to you, telling you about her job. And while she manages to get her clothes back on while wearing those gloves.

When she tastes what you made, she tells you you ought to be a chef.

Then she apologizes for not being able to help clean up and asks to borrow your phone. She doesn’t make any calls though, just presses some buttons. You see her, out of the corner of your eye, as you wash the dishes (you were going to wait until she was gone, but then you think it might be good if she sees how expert you are at keeping a kitchen clean; she might want to keep you around). And then she’s gone.

After the spell wears off you still feel pretty lighthearted. Okay, you’ve just had sex with a woman whose real name you don’t know, and whose hands you’ve never seen, and now you’re thinking, wondering if you can straighten it out. Learn her name, tell her who you really are and that this sleek, modern apartment is Sid’s, not yours. Maybe make something out of this after all. After more sexual encounters, obviously.

You text her right away saying that she’s wonderful, and you had a really good time, an understatement, and you hope she did too, and you can’t wait to see her again.

And from her? Nothing. Nothing for hours. Nothing for a whole day.

You send her a couple more texts, the kind she likes, about how you are dreaming of her creamy skin, and longing to see her, and in fact looking for her everywhere again.

Nothing.

You call her phone and get her voicemail, as she said you would, because she never answers the phone, but listening to her voice is enough. You leave a couple of tender messages. You try to make them full of innuendo and subtext without being actually dirty. Or sometimes you just listen to her voice.

Nothing from her. Nothing for two days.

You can feel your body language showing defeat as you walk through the city accompanied by four dogs. Your shoulders slump. You try to pump yourself up. You remember everything she said. None of it tells you why she isn’t calling you back.

And then, after two days of despair, she does call. It’s 11:32 on Saturday morning just as you’re dropping dog number four off with his doorman. She sounds slightly breathless, but warm. “So, hi there.”

You realize you ought to play it cool but there’s no way. “Hello!”

You can almost hear the smile in her voice (she knows she’s got you).

“Yeah, hello, you! Listen, sorry I’ve been so out of touch. I did get your messages.”

Before you can answer she goes on.

“I’m reciprocating, that is, can you come over for lunch? I know it’s short notice. My place. Well, actually, my parents’ place. They’re out of town this weekend.”

You’re shot in the head with glee. “Sure,” you say. Anything she wants, at this point, and she knows it.

She gives you an address on Riverside Drive and tells you to come right now, and text when you’re like a block away and she’ll leave the door open.

Riverside Drive and she doesn’t have a doorman? You ask about this.

“No, no, it’s a townhome,” she says. “A row house. Just come on in, when you get here, I mean, after you’ve texted me. I’ll be busy in the kitchen but I’ll come open the door, when you text.”

Hey, you’re on your way. With a couple of questions.

She said she didn’t cook, didn’t clean, didn’t type, didn’t text, and now she’s making lunch?

It’s not her place but her parents’?

But whatever. You get to her block. You’re impressed. You knew she was out of your league. This whole part of town is out of your league. You take a deep breath and text, I’m a block away, see you soon. Your heart hammers. She could probably hear it from where she is, if she opened the door. This is some expensive real estate. Sure, row houses, but these are practically historic landmarks. In fact some of them are historic landmarks. Narrow but tall. Another deep breath as you stand outside. Do you look presentable? The stairs look endless. The door is open a few inches, as she said it would be, and from your vantage point you can see part of a large entryway, with a chandelier.

You hear a scream. Definitely coming from inside.

You bolt up the stairs, following the scream, as another scream rends the air. You don’t have time to admire the entry, the oak staircase, the stained glass, because you’re following the sound of her voice. You burst into a room off the hallway and there she is, kneeling on the floor beside an old man who’s sprawled out flat. Old enough to be her father.

You recognize him immediately. Almost anyone would. He’s a rich and influential old man, prominent, socially and politically connected. Another minute and you’ll think of his name, or maybe not. Blood streams out of him, and his face is pale. His lips move. Her father?

Rosalind turns from him to you. Almost as if she just saw you. Almost as if she’s surprised. Beside her is a gun.

“Someone shot him,” she says clearly. “A man came in with a gun, and shot my husband! Did you see him? He left right before you got here. I’ll bet you can catch him. Help me! Go catch him! Take this! Then run!”

Everything moves very slowly. With an easy movement (she’s still wearing gloves) she swoops up the gun and tosses it your way in a slow, gentle arc.

And reflexively—

(At the same time things are moving very fast in your head, as it suddenly resolves, every incident with Rosalind playing like a movie on fast rewind. Your texts to her, your phone calls, her borrowing your phone, your encounters, more texts, strange requests, photos of her fairly close, hands up, telling you not to take her picture, more pictures of her taken at a distance, doing ordinary things. The Rorschach has been made very clear. You had been looking at it one way, but you had it upside down. It was all there but you didn’t make sense of it in time. It’s a different picture now. You don’t know everything, but you know exactly how screwed you are.)

— you catch it.