The Hand That Feeds You

10

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“When was that?”

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

I raised my coffee cup in a salute.

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

“Next Friday on Staten Island.”

“Excellent. I wish you good luck.”

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

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

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

“What was the diving like there?”

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

“A little.”

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

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

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

“On a bike?”

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

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

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

She could not be resuscitated.