The Hand That Feeds You

9

Clarke’s bar was closed. Not for the day, forever. A FOR RENT sign was in the window. I couldn’t remember if she had said to meet her inside or outside, but when I saw the sign, my memory settled on outside. I stood there for thirty minutes. Why? The same reason I walked up and down the rue Saint-Urbain looking for Bennett’s omelet place. I noticed a policeman on the corner and started toward him, then realized that I wouldn’t know what to ask him. I had no name for her, only knew that she worked for the police department and that she had fallen for the same man.

Had she changed her mind about meeting me? I concluded that she was brave by posting the letter in the first place, and by the fact that she was an officer. Maybe an emergency came up? We hadn’t exchanged phone numbers. I e-mailed her and then walked across Atlantic Avenue to a coffee shop to wait. I chose a booth with a view of the shuttered Clarke’s bar. After my third cup of coffee, I decided to go to the closest precinct, where I imagined she worked. In her posting on Lovefraud, she had said she was an incident-reports analyst. How many young, female incident-reports analysts could there be at a precinct? I had brought a picture of Bennett, or half a picture, the one I had found on my coffee table, left by the cleanup crew. I had cut my likeness out.

The precinct was ten blocks away, a large brick building that might once have served as an orphanage or a library. It was statelier than the local 90, the Brooklyn precinct I passed by every day on my way to the J train. The local 90 could never have been anything but a police station.

The officer at the front desk was being harassed by an older woman who demanded to know where they’d taken her son. I waited until the officer calmed the woman enough to get her to take a seat again.

“I wonder if you could help me,” I said in an authoritative voice, one I’d mastered in order to speak to police officers and criminals alike in my professional capacity. “I’m from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. I have an appointment with your incident-reports analyst. Could you tell me where I might find her?”

“Him, not her. Second floor. But I need to see some ID.”

I showed my John Jay photo ID and told him I was looking for a woman.

“Gerald Marks is our new guy. You’re not talking about Susan Rorke, are you?”

“I might be. I know this sounds confusing, but I don’t know the name of the woman I’m meeting, just her job and that this is the closest precinct to where she suggested I meet her today. Do you know where I can find this Susan Rorke?”

“Miss, I’m sorry to tell you, but Susan died six weeks ago.”

“The woman I’m looking for quit her job, moved to New York, and then came back here sometime this summer.”

“Susan did leave her job, but she came back just before she was killed.”

“You said she died. She was killed?”

“Miss, I can’t give you the details of an ongoing investigation.”

I did a quick calculation. She must have died soon after she posted that letter on Lovefraud, if it was Susan Rorke. But if Susan Rorke had been dead for six weeks, who had responded to my e-mail? I asked the desk sergeant if I might speak with one of her colleagues.

He picked up the phone and said, “Can you come to the front desk?”

A young man who looked as though he had ridden to work on a skateboard appeared in a couple of minutes and introduced himself as Detective Homes.

“She’s asking about Susan Rorke,” the desk sergeant said.

“I might be,” I said again, and explained myself to Homes.

“What do you know about this investigation?”

“Nothing, unless Susan Rorke knew this man.” I handed him the photo of Bennett.

“Where did you get this?”

I sensed the detective had seen Bennett before. I sensed I was going to learn something I didn’t want to know. But I already knew it. “Was this man involved with Susan Rorke?”

“This is my investigation. Please answer my question.”

“He was my fiancé.”

“What’s his name?”

“You tell me.” I didn’t know Bennett in any sense — his history, his capabilities, his motivation. I felt dizzy with ignorance, nauseous.

“Would you come upstairs and look at some photos?”

I said nothing as we climbed the stairs. I needed the handrail. I cycled between confusion and shame at having so wildly misread a man I loved.

The detective’s desk was surprisingly neat. All that was on it was a short stack of folders, one of which he opened after offering me a seat. A woman’s photograph was paper-clipped inside. She looked to be about my age, an attractive woman holding a one-eyed Jack Russell terrier in her lap.

“Do you recognize this woman?”

“I assume this is Susan Rorke. But, no, I don’t recognize her.”

He showed me another picture. This time, Susan Rorke was smiling broadly in a sunny, mountainous landscape. Her head was resting on Bennett’s shoulder.

“Is this the man you claim was your fiancé?”

“How did she die?”

“Please answer my question.”

I was, by turns, sick to my stomach and utterly composed. “May I have a glass of water?”

When had this photograph been taken? Was it before I met Bennett? The detective came back from the watercooler and handed me an old-fashioned cone-shaped paper cup. “When was this taken?” I asked when I finished drinking.

“When was your photograph of this man taken?”

“Is he a suspect?”

“Please, I need you to answer directly.”

“Fine. Mine was taken in Maine about a month before he was killed.”

“He’s dead?”

“Maybe you read about it. He was killed by dogs. I’m the one who found the body.”

“This was in New York.”

“Brooklyn. September twentieth.”

“I didn’t know that was who we were looking for.” He excused himself and picked up his phone. I assumed he was going to notify his captain. I felt weightless. Did he think Bennett was a murderer?

When the detective hung up, he gave me his card and said he would be in touch. “How can I reach you?”

I gave him my information and opened my purse. “I think you should see this.” I handed him the Lovefraud letters I had printed out.

I waited until he had finished reading them, then asked him to tell me how she died.

“She fell three stories to her death at the homeless shelter where she volunteered. We believe she was pushed.”

“What makes you think that?”

“There were scratches on the window frame as she struggled.”

“And you think it was Bennett who pushed her?”

“We know him by another name.”

“And you can’t tell me, right?”

“Can I make a copy of that photograph?”

I handed him the scissored half of the photo, and when he brought it back, I couldn’t look at it. I slipped it between the two pieces of cardboard I’d used to protect it in my backpack. But this time I didn’t even unzip the small compartment where I kept it separate from all the crap I’d thrown in — the makeup not used, the empty pens, a half-eaten energy bar with more calories than the Milky Way I’d wanted.

Outside, I had the hackneyed feeling of surprise that the world continued as it had before what I had just learned. When everybody is in the same circumstances, say a community after a tornado has ripped through it, a careful camaraderie prevails. I was alone with my discovery and had never felt so isolated, or afraid.

Another woman might have headed for a bar. But what occurred to me was not something I indulged — I just imagined it. I pictured myself wheeling a small cart with a laundry bag filled with sheets and towels, scented dryer sheets, and detergent. I wanted to wheel my laundry cart into a small neighborhood Laundromat and ask the proprietor simple questions about when to add softener. I wanted to sit in a plastic chair and watch my laundry spin, getting clean. I wanted to fold it, warm from the dryer, and retrace my steps, wheeling home the small proof that I could function in this world and make a small thing better.

Had my dogs saved me?