Don't You Cry(72)

I’m nervous. Petrified, in fact. I can’t help but wonder what he wants with me. Is this standard protocol in the case of a missing person? I don’t know. I’m wishing that Ben would have returned my call, that he were here beside me right now, a half step ahead as we reach out our hands and make introductions with the grisly detective.

But he’s not. Ben isn’t here and so I have to make do. While a knight in shining armor is great, this time I might have to save my own day.

I sit beside the detective on the cold, wooden bench. I tell him my name and he tells me his, though of course I already know. The space is not entirely vacant; there are other people here. It is, after all, Chicago. But the people are few, and they’re all caught up in their own thing, taking photos of the big buildings, feeding the pigeons French fries, arguing with children. No one looks at the detective and me.

Detective Robert Davies is losing his hair. Male pattern baldness, I believe they call it. He’s got a receding hairline. But his hair is brown—no gray anywhere—so I bet he’s happy about that. Must be hard to get old.

He takes out a tiny notebook. “How long has Esther been missing?” he asks, and I tell him, “Since Sunday.” But then I amend, feeling somehow more guilty for this admission, for the fact that it’s now been five days since I’ve seen Esther with my own two eyes, “maybe Saturday night,” and at that my gaze falls to my hands, to a blue chalcedony ring on my right hand, an oval stone on a sterling silver band. I can’t bring myself to look the detective in the eye.

Her words return to me, Esther’s words: I’d be a killjoy, Quinn. Go without me. You’ll have more fun. The martini bar on Balmoral, its grand opening. That’s what I remember. I also remember Esther sitting alone on the apartment sofa, wrapped up in pajamas and a comfy plissé blanket in a sea-foam green. The last time I laid eyes on my friend.

“We’ve spoken before,” he tells me knowingly when I hesitate for a split second, not quite sure I want to admit to Esther’s disappearance out the fire escape. His eyes are sharp, like an eagle or a hawk. There are lines on his forehead, a prominent schnoz. I’d bet my life he doesn’t smile, not once, not ever. “You and I,” he says again, “we’ve spoken before,” and I say I know. Of course I know; it was just this morning, and I remind him of our phone call a sole two hours ago as I stood in my apartment making arrangements for this little tête-à-tête in the park. I’m pretty sure a small huff emerges from me, or at the very least an eye roll—certainly he can’t be that incompetent that he doesn’t remember our conversation this morning—and at that—great Scott!—he smiles.

I pray this isn’t a harbinger of what’s to come.

“We’ve spoken before today, Quinn,” he tells me derisively, and it’s then that I remember the first thought I had when I pressed End on my cell phone following our call: I’ve heard that voice before.

But when?

I try to connect the dots, to place his voice somewhere else, to match this voice to another voice, and it’s then that it comes to me, these words: It’s a confidential matter. We had an appointment this afternoon. She didn’t show.

The man on Esther’s phone Sunday afternoon when I found it forgotten in the pocket of that red hoodie. Detective Robert Davies was the man on the other end of the line, the one who refused to leave a message. I’ll call back, he’d said. But he didn’t call back. Not then, anyway. Not until today, on account of my missing-persons report. But he didn’t call Esther; this time he called me.

“You called Esther the other day,” I say. “You were supposed to meet. You had an appointment.”

The detective nods his head. “She didn’t show,” he says, and I solemnly admit, “By then she was already gone.

“Why were you planning to meet?” I ask, but I’m guessing he won’t tell me this on account of its confidentiality. It’s a confidential matter. But to my surprise he does, but only after I tell him what I know. I lay it all on the line this time; I tell him everything. The disappearance out the fire escape, the strange notes, the death of Kelsey Bellamy. And then I show Esther’s phone to the detective, the threatening message still here on the display screen: Payback’s a bitch. He seems rapt by this, for a fleeting bit. He holds it up close to his eyes so he can see the words more clearly. Seems he’s losing his vision, too. Presbyopia, it’s called—I’ve seen the commercials for progressive lenses—and again I’m stricken by the fact that aging must stink, not that I would know.

“Esther sent that to me,” I say.

He looks at me questionably. “What would make you say that? Why do you think Esther sent this text to her own phone?”

This is something I never paused to consider. Why would Esther send this text to her own phone? Why not mine?

“I’m not sure,” I say. “Maybe she knows I have her phone. Or,” I begin, but then stop quickly and shrug it off. I don’t know why Esther would have sent that text to her own phone. “She killed her last roommate,” I reveal quietly instead, the words themselves a betrayal to Esther. I whisper the words so that Esther can’t hear. “Kelsey Bellamy,” I say, and then, “She’s trying to kill me, too.” I tell him about the shredded photograph, the candid shot of me walking down the street in my plum sweater, the mark of a red pen slicing my throat in two. A threat.