The Key

chapter twelve

I was off autopilot and completely appalled with myself by the time I hit the street.

My friends had been right. I was scared. The fear was so tangible I could practically taste it. And it was safer to feel angry than to feel vulnerable.

So I’d just picked a fight-a really big, potentially irreparable, and wholly unjustified fight-with my fiancé. I’d been horrible to him, all because our relationship and everything that came with it terrified me. Something inside me seemed determined to torpedo the entire thing, to preserve my single but stable independence rather than take the risk that things with Peter might not work out.

And unless I figured out a way to stop being scared, any attempt to patch things up with Peter would be nothing more than a temporary fix.

But I didn’t know how to stop being scared. And I definitely didn’t have time for extended psychotherapy, however much I might need it.

So I did what I usually did when I didn’t want to deal with uncomfortable emotions: I turned my thoughts to work and the day ahead. This would probably be hard for most people to do in a similar situation, but I’d had a lot of practice being dysfunctional.

There was no good way to get to the office when I left this late. The subway would be a crowded nightmare, it was still too cold and slushy to go by foot, and the odds of finding a taxi in my neighborhood at this time of the morning were pretty much nil. I spent the two-block walk to the subway entrance at 77th Street and Lexington scanning the streets for an unoccupied cab. But when one didn’t appear, I descended reluctantly down to the turnstiles for the 6 train.

I just missed a train leaving the station, which could only be expected given how my day was going so far. I joined the other commuters on the platform to wait for the next train to arrive. While people were generally relatively civilized on the subway, there seemed to be something in the air today, an unusual tension as people jockeyed for position. Rush hour always made me nervous-you had to be careful that an inadvertent shove didn’t send you flying into the path of an oncoming train. I just hoped nobody shoved me, because I didn’t trust myself not to shove back on this particular morning.

I should have called in sick, I thought to myself. I never did, even when I actually was sick. I’d earned more than an extra hour’s sleep-I’d earned a good sick day, what with never calling in sick and working late and on weekends and then having to watch people die hideous pencil-induced deaths. I briefly fantasized about going home, changing into pajamas, and catching up on my TiVo backlog. Of course, all of this assumed that the wreckage of a relationship wouldn’t be waiting for me in the apartment. I stayed where I was.

Ten minutes elapsed before the next train pulled in, and while it looked packed to capacity, the crowd at my back propelled me through the doors. I found myself in the middle of the car, unable to reach a pole or overhead grip, but it didn’t matter, as the people smushed up against me made it impossible to move in any direction, much less lose my balance. I shut my eyes-I didn’t want to be able to identify what might be pressing into me from every side.

It took only five or six minutes to get to the 51st Street stop, but it took me nearly as long again to emerge from the station, which served not only the 6 train but other lines from the various New York boroughs. By the disgruntled looks on the faces I passed and the Metropolitan Transit officials hurrying about, funneling people along, I guessed that maybe one of the lines was out of service, further exacerbating the everyday gridlock of the morning commute. Up on the street, I trudged the remaining blocks to my office, skirting piles of soot-darkened snow and murky puddles as best I could and wondering again why I hadn’t called in sick.

A half hour later, I was really wishing I had.

The floor was strangely deserted when I arrived. I checked my watch-it was well after nine, and the place should be humming with activity. Instead it was eerily quiet.

I started toward my office, but then I saw that all of the people who weren’t out on the floor were gathered in one of the glass-walled conference rooms. Had somebody called an impromptu staff meeting? Perhaps to discuss Gallagher’s murder? Why was it that the one day in the last year when I wasn’t the first to arrive in the office would be the one day that the partners decided it was time for an impromptu all-department chat?

But when I got to the conference room, the first thing I noticed was that none of the partners seemed to be there-in fact, it was mostly support staff and a handful of junior bankers. Since many of the partners did the bulk of their work while golfing in Palm Beach, skiing in Aspen, or steaming at the University Club, it was not unusual for our floor to be a partner-free zone in the mornings. At least their absence assured me I hadn’t missed an important meeting.

The second thing I noticed was that everyone’s attention was focused on the TV, which was tuned to New York 1, the local news cable channel.

“What’s going on?” I whispered to the guy on my left, rising on tiptoe to get a better look at the screen. He shushed me. He must have been new, because I didn’t know his name, but I glared at him-I was in no mood to be shushed-and turned my attention back to the TV.

A perky-looking reporter was holding forth, attempting gravitas. “-just a few minutes ago, at the scene of this shocking crime.”

“What crime?” I asked the guy on the other side of me. I didn’t know his name, either, but he wore the navy polo shirt and khakis that were the standard uniform of Winslow, Brown’s mail-room clerks.

“The dead dude’s assistant.”

“Dahlia?”

“Yeah. You know, the one with the-”

The guy on my left shushed us both, which was probably a good thing, given where the guy on my right seemed to be going and my likely reaction.

The camera switched from the perky reporter to a shot of her surroundings. “-Below Citicorp Center,” she was saying. I realized she was standing in front of the entrance to the subway station I’d just come from.

“Oh my God,” I said. “I was just there.” The guy on my left shushed me again, and I ignored him. “What happened?” I asked the other guy.

“Somebody pushed her in front of a subway car. But it didn’t run her over. It stopped in time.”

“Is she all right? And how do we know it’s her? Dahlia, I mean?”

“They found her Winslow, Brown security pass and called. And they’re not saying if she’s all right.”

“That’s why we’re trying to listen to the TV, here,” the guy on my left pointed out.

“Oh.”

The reporter was now interviewing a commuter, a witness, I guessed. Her microphone was pointed at his face, and he was speaking into it excitedly. “Like, I was waiting for the train, you know? And this one woman was talking to this other woman, and like I wasn’t paying attention, you know?”

The reporter started to give a perky nod, but remembering that she was supposed to be serious, raised her eyebrows instead.

“Anyhow,” the man continued,“The train was coming, and the next thing I know, it’s like everybody’s screaming, you know, and I guess the one woman fell onto the tracks, and then the other woman, she like ran past me? And somebody was yelling, ‘She pushed her, she pushed her?’”

“Can you describe this other woman? The alleged pusher?” I could tell that the reporter liked using the word “alleged.”

“She was pretty normal looking. Like, medium size and everything.”

“Did she have any distinguishing characteristics?” The reporter seemed to like saying “distinguishing characteristics,” too. “Unusual features or items of clothing that you noticed?”

“She had, like, long red hair? Sort of curly? And, like, a bright green hat and scarf?”

A silence fell over the room.

I turned toward the door, wondering if someone new had come in and if that was the reason for the sudden quiet.

Then I realized everyone was looking at me.

Or, more precisely, at my hair, which was long and red and sort of curly, and at the tail end of my scarf, which was trailing harmlessly from my shoulder bag.

It was bright green.