Thursday evening
WHEN RANNIE RETURNED FROM MARY’S, SHE FOUND A NOTE FROM ALICE, saying, “Mom, I decided to take the five o’clock back to New Haven. Call Nate! Big news!”
“I found Grant Werner!” he said excitedly and gave a brief rundown of events. “I’ll tell you more later. I’m meeting someone for dinner.” And he cut her off before she could get in another word.
All the food she’d bought at Zabar’s so they could enjoy a nice meal together, the three of them, like they used to…. Rannie remained staring at the phone for a moment, then grabbed her jacket, the box of lemon tarts, and the threatening note.
“Hey bartender!” she said. “I’m early.”
Tim was behind the bar, holding down the tap, filling up a frothy glass of beer for a customer. He looked up, wiped his hands on a dishtowel and smiled. “So what’ll it be?”
“Diet Coke. Make it a double.”
“Tough day?”
“A weird one. You know, I wouldn’t mind a cheeseburger too. I brought dessert.”
After Tim hosed up two Cokes, he motioned to a waiter to take over at the bar. Flipping up the hatch, he picked up the glasses and ushered Rannie to a back table. As he sat across from her, Rannie recapped the day, omitting only what Daisy confirmed about Mr. Tut and Ms. Hollins. When she got to the Grant part, Tim, surprisingly, already knew from his own son more than Rannie did.
“Yeah, they were trading punches up around 114th Street and Broadway. A patrol car stopped them and ran a check on the Werner kid’s license; he’s at the precinct now.”
A fistfight? Because of Alice in all likelihood. Rannie’s cheeseburger arrived while she was telling Tim about the letter. She took out the envelope.
“You think Augusta Hollins sent this to you?”
“Yes. This is the second one. The first one came about a week ago. It said ‘Stop Snooping.’” Rannie steeled herself, then without any prelude or justification, out it all spilled, unedited and unvarnished. Tailing Ms. Hollins. Bribing her way into Tut’s apartment. Swiping files at school.
He handed back the letter, holding it carefully, just at the edges. “And you’re doing this because?” He eyed her in a way that left the distinct impression snooping was not a quality he looked for in a relationship. “It’s not just from worrying about your son, is it?”
“No. Not just that. It’s more complicated,” she admitted as she put away the letter. “My life’s kind of a mess right now.” Snooping was a distraction, time that could be better spent on any number of other worthier endeavors yet addictively involving, nonetheless. The same way playing computer Solitaire was or doing crosswords for hours. Finding Mr. Tut’s murderer, however—well, that would be altogether different, that would validate her in a way that escorting families around Chaps and depositing unemployment checks didn’t. It would right a wrong.
“Ms. Hollins didn’t kill Tut. I’m positive of that, Tim. Remember what you told me, about the glass on Tut’s desk? She knew him well enough to know he was left-handed; she would’ve made sure to put the correct fingerprints on the glass. I think she was murdered too.”
She waited for Tim to concur. Instead, he kept his eyes on her and rubbed his chin.
“You think it’s possible Grant Werner murdered them both?” she asked and saw he was teetering on the edge of exasperation.
“Rannie, I don’t know. I’m not a cop. I own a bar. You should be showing the police that letter. Not me.”
“I will. And okay…subject over.” For now, she added to herself. She poured on ketchup and mustard and dug into her cheeseburger. Then she told Tim all about touring Stanford, described the buildings to him, the kids, even the amazing cactus garden.
He nodded attentively, smiling now and then at things she said. It brought home just how satisfying it was to sit and talk to someone who, unlike her kids, seemed to enjoy listening.
“It’s a slow night,” he said when she was all done with her dinner. “Chris won’t be home for another couple of hours.”
Rannie reached for her purse and tarts.
Upstairs, they wasted no time undressing and the sex was as amazing as it had been the other night. Some men instinctively knew what to do in bed. Tim was one. From the moment he began kissing her, it was clear he sensed what she wanted. After Tim was inside her, he leaned back on his knees, holding both her wrists at her sides, looking down at her, moving slowly, purposefully, which made her clench her muscles even more tightly around him. Then he told her to touch herself. For a moment she wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. But he said it again. “I want to watch you, Rannie.” And he let go of one of her hands. So she did, thinking right at this moment she’d do anything, whatever he asked. She shut her eyes, and any embarrassment she first felt quickly became beside the point once pure sensation took over. He let go of her other hand and began caressing her breasts, cupping them while tracing a finger over her nipples, still moving slowly inside her then a little faster. It felt so good, almost too good, and at the exact instant when the connection forged between them seemed unbreakable, he dropped down on top of her and they both came.
They kissed and held onto each other, letting their breathing return to normal, Tim stroking her hair. Then she hopped out of bed to get the tarts. Tim’s bedroom, she now noticed, had the same impersonal air as the living room—the blond wood furniture could have come straight from the Marriott she’d just stayed in. It saddened her that his home didn’t feel more inhabited, more peculiarly his. Then her eye stopped at the diploma on the wall.
“You were a policeman! You never told me that.”
The framed certificate, issued by the Plymouth, Massachusetts, Municipal Police Academy, proclaimed that Timothy Edward Butler had completed training successfully.
He’d been lying on his back, the sheet up to his waist, his arms crossed behind his head. Now he sat up, his features suddenly guarded. All he said was, “That was a long time ago.” Rannie sat on the edge of the bed, the sight of her clothes and underwear strewn on the floor suddenly making her feel exposed, the “connectedness” of a moment ago gone. The fact was, she hardly knew this man. And wasn’t that how she wanted to keep it? Enjoy him. Enjoy the sex. But keep it light. If parts of his life pained him or were best forgotten, there was no reason on earth he should reveal why.
He reached for her, and she allowed him to wrap his arms around her one more time. They each polished off a tart and afterward she reached for her clothes, saying, “I should get going. I haven’t seen Nate since Tuesday.”
“Rannie, wait. You okay?”
Her chest was a mottled rosy color, and her skin still felt alive from the sex. “Fine!” she said brightly, but Tim was shaking his head.
“You are very hard to figure out, you know that? What do you want? A friend? Somebody to fuck you? A soul mate?” He ran a hand through his hair and exhaled heavily. “Look. I used to be a cop. I’m not now. It’s not part of my life anymore.” His eyes shifted to the certificate. “I keep it as a reminder. It’s not something I talk about much.”
“You don’t owe me any explanations. Really.”
For so long she’d been insisting that she didn’t want or need much from men. As she dressed, she remembered confessing to Joan, not long ago, about an S&S rep she’d been seeing, a guy barely over the threshold of thirty. Joan’s response was: “Nooners at a midtown hotel? That’s enough for you, Rannie?” At the time it had been.
Tim got dressed and put her in a cab. On the way home, holding the box with one remaining tart for Nate, she could almost hear her mother, “You overthink everything, Rannie.” Part of Peter’s appeal had been that he wasn’t a brooder, a worrier; it had taken years for her to admit that, in her husband’s case, “uncomplicated” was a synonym for “shallow.” Yes, she overthought everything, and yes, she wished she didn’t. Yet you were born with complex genetic wiring that was uniquely yours and you tackled everything in life accordingly. There really wasn’t a choice.