The first thing Rannie did upon waking was to check her suit. Unsurprisingly, the skirt had shmutz on it, shmutz that didn’t come off with a washcloth scrubbing. A trip to the dry cleaners, however, would have to wait until after Ellen’s gathering at S&S.
Except for the highest-level suits, who wore exactly that, and the publicity department fashionistas, who were always chicly clad in black, standard publishing company attire was pretty much casual Friday every day. Yet Rannie felt compelled to look presentable and grown up today at Simon & Schuster. She was paying respects.
It was only seven thirty, but the smell of coffee perking was unmistakable, and a real breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, prepared by Harriet, was waiting for Rannie, when she shambled into the kitchen.
“Grandma, I don’t get it; you’ll eat ham but you won’t cook bacon?” Nate was asking over his baconless plate.
“I don’t eat ham, darling. I said I eat prosciutto.”
“Your grandmother follows very strict dietary laws. They just happen to be her own and not the Bible’s. . . . Ummm, yum,” Rannie murmured as she tucked into the eggs, peppered to perfection, that Harriet had spooned out for her.
“Are you still seeing that policeman?” her mother asked once Nate had left for school.
Rannie scowled. So either Amy or Betsy—or both—had blabbed.
“Former policeman. He has a restaurant now in the brownstone that he owns.” Rannie stopped herself. Why did she feel compelled to make Tim sound more white-collar haute bourgeoisie than he was? “Actually it’s a bar, a cop hangout called the Offbeat. And, no, I’m not seeing him anymore. He broke up with me. Yesterday as a matter of fact.”
“I guess neither of us is doing so well in the romance department.” Harriet paused. “Nate was talking to me about college before. I told him to think twice about Wesleyan. My friend Lois Berman’s granddaughter goes there and evidently all the kids do there is smoke marijuana. I hope he ends up at Yale. Remember when Daddy, you, and I first visited?”
“I was thinking about that yesterday when I was in New Haven.”
“When you started college, suddenly we were empty nesters. Empty is the word, all right, and I had your father, remember.”
Rannie squirmed. Suddenly she had an uncomfortable feeling that she knew where this conversation was heading; however, she gave her mother the benefit of the doubt.
“Once Nate leaves for college, would you ever think about moving back to Shak—”
“Mother, don’t start! Please!”
“But you’re not working. You’ll be living alone. What would keep you here?”
“Nate won’t be leaving until September! And believe it or not, I do have marketable skills. I’m making do with freelancing right now.” Rannie left the word “barely” out of the sentence. “So it’s not entirely inconceivable that by fall I’ll have a full-time job!”
“Don’t get so huffy! Forget I said a word.” Harriet turned and began cleaning up plates, mugs. “I just want you to be happy. Is that so wrong?” she said from the sink, her back to Rannie.
“Mother, moving home is not the answer.” That was a diplomatic alternative to saying, “Go back to Cleveland? Over my dead body!”
While her mother went to bathe and get dressed, Rannie grabbed a yellow legal pad and tried to jot down things she might say about Ellen. Ret murdered. Ellen murdered. Who besides herself was as closely connected to both women? Only Larry.
She glanced at clock on her cell. What kind of hours did cops keep? Rannie didn’t know, but she called Grieg anyway. When he didn’t pick up, she left a message to call her and within a minute her cell rang.
“Listen, I’m probably not telling you anything you don’t already know,” Rannie began, “and maybe this means nothing, but I’m practically positive Larry Katz helped Ret Sullivan write the book on Charlotte Cummings.”
“Yes.”
Rannie couldn’t decide whether the yes was statement or question. In any case, she chose to interpret the answer as an invitation to continue. “In Portrait of a Lady there’s an acknowledgment to Audeo. Ret says that she could never have done the book without Audeo’s help. I think Larry Katz is Audeo.”
“Ms. Bookman, why wait till now to tell me this?”
So this wasn’t news to him?
“I—I just figured it out late last night,” Rannie stammered. “My mother is visiting. I saw the case for her hearing aids. The company is called Audeo. Larry Katz wears hearing aids, too. I bet anything his are the same brand.”
“Okay. Understood.”
Was that all Grieg was going to say?
“When I was copyediting the manuscript, I mistakenly corrected the acknowledgment and changed it to ‘Audio.’ ” “Mistakenly corrected”—did that count as an oxymoron like “jumbo shrimp”? Grieg, Rannie concluded, probably wasn’t interested in discussing that. . . . But Larry’s mud-stained raincoat, certainly that was pertinent. Squealing on anyone, but especially someone she’d always liked, felt übercreepy but in for a penny, in for a pound. So oink oink!
“There’s something else I think you should know. When I went to Larry Katz’s office on Monday, I arrived at Dusk before he did, Dusk meaning the publishing house, not the time of day,” Rannie clarified.
Silence.
“You there?” Rannie inquired.
“I’m here.”
“So as I was saying, I was waiting for him, and when he arrived, I noticed—”
“What time was that?”
“Um, elevenish. His raincoat was a mess. It had been raining hard that morning. But Larry looked like he’d stomped in every mud puddle on the way in. He said that it had been impossible to get a cab and of course a car speeding by could have splattered him but . . .”
“Hold on, Ms. Bookman, I want to make sure I’m understanding this. Are you saying that you think he might have killed Ellen Donahoe in Central Park and then continued on to his office to meet up with you?”
Yes, that was what had occurred to Rannie, although hearing Grieg’s paraphrasing, it sounded either totally absurd or somewhat conspiratorial. “Well, truthfully, I don’t know what I think.”
Maybe paranoia was setting in, but was Grieg considering the possibility that she and Larry were in cahoots—plotting and carrying out Ellen’s murder and Ret’s too? Only now Rannie was turning on Larry, to throw suspicion off herself. It was such a ridiculous 1950s noir reading—Larry in the Robert Mitchum role and herself standing in for Lana Turner—and yet actually no more ridiculous than Rannie suspecting Larry Katz of double homicide.
“Listen, Sergeant. The Larry Katz I knew wouldn’t murder anyone.” True, although now it sounded like unconvincing backpedaling. “I simply thought it was important to tell you what I saw.”
“Ms. Bookman, did you know Larry Katz was involved with Ms. Donahoe?”
“I had my suspicions. But I found out for sure just yesterday” . . . although if the sergeant questioned Dina on this point, Dina would say that Rannie was already aware of their relationship. Didn’t Mother Bookman always say lying got you in trouble?
Rannie could almost see another scenario playing out in Grieg’s head. This one starred Rannie as a psychopathically jealous ex-lover of Larry’s—Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction minus the boiled bunny—who murdered Ellen and, oh hell, might as well throw in Ret, too! Jilted and vengeful, Rannie was now scheming to frame poor Larry.
Whatever you do, don’t start proclaiming your own innocence now! Rannie commanded herself, so when Grieg asked if there was anything else to tell him, all Rannie said was no.
After they hung up, Rannie sat staring at her phone. Well, that certainly hadn’t gone well!
A moment later Harriet emerged, announcing that she was meeting Mary at the Metropolitan at ten on the dot, when the museum opened, in order to avoid the crowds.
“You’re welcome to join us, of course,” Harriet said stiffly, Rannie understanding that her mom was trying to put salve on the sore feelings from before.
“Thanks but I can’t.”
Instantly, Harriet looked aggrieved.
“I have work that has to get done this morning.” Namely the eulogistic paragraphs about Ellen. Harriet, however, seemed to construe the reply as both a convenient excuse as well as “see-I-told-you-so” proof of Rannie’s wage-earning prowess.
“Have fun!” Rannie said, handing her mother the spare set of keys. “Maybe we’ll go out for a bite tonight. There’s that Mexican place you like so much.”
“No. Tonight I’m making dinner—my special chicken dish—for you and Nate, and Mary, too, if she’s free. I insist.” With that, Harriet Polichek Bookman bustled out the door.
I am wearing the pair of earrings that Ellen gave me as a farewell present when I left Simon & Schuster.” Rannie tucked her hair behind both ears to reveal them to the audience. “Ellen said, ‘They are silver commas,’ although I debated this, arguing in favor of single quote marks . . . whichever, I love them. I mean, what better gift for a copy editor? And along with the earrings was a note in Ellen’s inimitable jagged print.”
Several heads nodded. Everyone was gathered in the largest of S&S’s conference rooms, the gigantic eight-section burl-top table removed to accommodate rows of chairs. Rannie was facing the crowd of about a hundred people; surprisingly Larry Katz was not one of them.
For a second, Rannie turned to take another look at the photo of Ellen projected on a screen behind her. It had been taken at a sales conference somewhere tropical, Ellen lounging on a chaise poolside, smiling happily and lifting a tall glass with a paper umbrella toward the camera.
“Sadly, I no longer have the note and don’t remember it word for word. But its meaning has stayed with me. Ellen said that although we’d known each other for ten years and were privy to stuff that absolutely no one else knew about us, she was worried that we might drift apart. Often a work friendship seems deep and indestructible. Day-to-day proximity fosters a closeness that feels real and binding, and then once two people no longer collect paychecks from the same company, well—” Rannie shrugged. “I know I’ve experienced that and I imagine many of you have too. At the end of her note Ellen wrote ‘Please let’s stay friends. I’ll be so disappointed in both of us if we don’t.’
“That was four months ago. So far Ellen and I had been getting together about once a week. Even if it was just for coffee. She was a good friend; she had such a good heart.”
Suddenly the door to the conference room opened and in came Larry Katz, late as usual and in his signature trench coat. His entrance was enough of a distraction for Rannie to lose her train of thought. Larry remained standing at the back of the room, unable to find a seat. He was staring at her, but so of course were approximately a hundred other pairs of eyes. Flustered, Rannie shuffled through her scribbled notes and then opted for a speedy wrap-up. “All I want to say is that I won’t ever stop missing Ellen.”
Rannie returned to her seat and tried listening to the last speakers instead of fixating on Larry Katz.
At the end, as she made her way out of the conference room, past a shelf of bestsellers all acquired by Ellen, Larry waylaid her and, in a voice that Rannie wished wasn’t so loud or so angry, said, “We need to talk. Now.”
They settled on the Sixth Avenue Deli, just far enough from the Simon & Schuster offices that other attendees from Ellen’s gathering were unlikely to show up. Rannie was hungry. No, make that famished, so she ordered a Rodney Dangerfield—a triple-decker on rye with pastrami, corned beef, roast beef, tomato, and coleslaw. Larry made do with coffee and a Danish.
“Rannie, you honestly do think I murdered Ellen!” Larry was trying hard to keep his voice low. He sounded equal parts angry and mystified. No, actually much more angry than mystified. “I told that sergeant, ‘I’m happy to take a lie detector test, swab all the DNA you want from me. I’m innocent.’ ”
Well, Sergeant Grieg certainly didn’t dillydally. Instead of responding to that, Rannie said, “You’re Audeo.”
“If you say so.”
“Oh, come off it, Larry.”
He leaned back in his chair. “All right, for argument’s sake, what if you’re right. Without doubt Ret would have made damn sure I signed a very binding nondisclosure agreement.”
Rannie nodded in a “point taken” way. Their order arrived, and once the waiter was out of earshot, Larry continued. “Ret never shared a byline or author credit in her life. You know that. Once the new book was out she was going to make sure the publicity spotlight was on her and nobody else.”
Rannie prepared to take the first bite of her sandwich, no mean feat, as it was almost three inches thick. Instead she put it down. “Hold on. Didn’t you tell me Ret was really on the fence about doing personal appearances?”
“Yeah, I did. But my own guess is once the book came out, she would have jumped at any TV, Sesame Street included.” Larry took one bite of Danish and immediately put it back on the plate, which he pushed aside, muttering, “Stale.” Then glowering at Rannie, he spread out his hands. “Okay, who am I kidding? Yes, I’m Audeo.”
“The police know?”
He nodded sullenly and reached for one of Rannie’s pickle spears.
“And Ellen, she knew too?”
Another nod. “How’d you figure it out?”
“My mother has the same hearing aids. Audeos.”
Larry looked embarrassed. “So much for their bullshit claim to be invisible.” He grabbed another pickle off Rannie’s plate. “Look. All this stays between us, Rannie. Right? Nobody at Dusk can know about—about my arrangement with Ret. You understand how fucked I’d be.”
Indeed she did. Larry had been paid to help Ret write a bestseller for another publishing house. If his bosses knew, he’d be out on his ear faster than you could say “conflict of interest.” Had Ret ever held this over Larry’s head?
“I worked with her, on and off, for about six months. Took a few personal days. Used up some vacation time. It was fun. I interviewed a lot of people, even got inside the mansion on Fifth Avenue and got all the photos Ret wanted.” Larry laughed. “I had a phony ID saying I was an NYU art history professor. So I call and—easy peasy—in I go and get a private tour from the fancy-shmancy granddaughter. Buffy. Binky. Some shiksa name. But no matter what I did, it was never enough. Ret bitched how she was overpaying me, that I was cheating her, billing more hours than I worked. . . . The only person she ever trusted was the sister.”
“Sister? Ret had no immediate family.”
“Sister as in nun. Sister Dorothy Something.”
Of course. Ret’s book was dedicated to her. Sister Dorothy Cusack.
“Larry, do you happen to know who Gery Antioch is? Gery with a ‘g’ and just one ‘r.’ He’s in the acknowledgments, too.”
“Nope. She never mentioned that name. I know the nun is up in Westchester. Sisters of the Traveling Pants? Ret drove up regularly to see her. The funeral is tomorrow, by the way, at the nunnery—is that what you call it?
“Convent, more likely,” Rannie replied. She was attempting to work her way through the first quarter of the Rodney Dangerfield.
“They’re getting the entire estate. Every nickel. I said to Ret, ‘What on earth do nuns need with a Rolls? Leave it to me.’ Maybe if I’d shtooped her, she would have.”
A grim flashback—Ret, half naked and tied to her bed—suddenly assaulted Rannie. Ret’s tongue lolling from a hole that bore no resemblance to a mouth. Rannie put down her sandwich—suddenly the sight of all the sliced, fleshy-pink meat, not to mention the oozing coleslaw, was revolting. Larry, however, was eyeing the Rodney Dangerfield hungrily. She was not feeling generous toward him, yet there was no possible way to finish this behemoth, so she sighed with irritation and pushed the plate toward him.
Once he finished it, his expression turned contemplative. “Listen. I’m sorry I didn’t catch all of what you said about Ellen before. What I heard was nice, from the heart.”
“I came right after the CEO. All she talked about was the end-of-year forecast for Ellen’s books, how this was her best year ever for the company. She actually quoted gross versus net revenue.”
“I don’t understand why Ellen didn’t leave Simon. They never even made her a VP.”
“I know Penguin made her a good offer not long ago.” Then Rannie waited a beat and said, “I also know you two were seeing each other. You never said.”
“No, I didn’t.” Larry licked a shred of mustard-infused coleslaw off his pinkie finger. “And really, is it any of your business?”
“Fair enough, Larry, but then don’t act as though it’s crazy for me to be suspicious of you. You’ve been keeping a lot of secrets.”
“Okay. I’ll tell you this. It was Ellen who didn’t want to go public. Initially, we got back in touch because of Ret’s book . . . then, well, it kind of went from there. Ellen was up front about that dick Wall Street trader, how she wasn’t over him. So I guess you could say she was using me. Fine. I didn’t mind.”
Larry, arms crossed, gazed hard at Rannie and said, “You know what I always liked about you? You have a gleam in your eye as if you’re about to get in trouble. A born cutie pie.”
The compliment came out of left field and made her squirm. “I’m forty-three. Way too old for cute.”
“I’ll rephrase—I still find you very appealing and I’d jump into bed with you again in a heartbeat. But I don’t need to prove my innocence to you. The only people who need convincing are the police.”
“When did you last see Ellen?”
“Sunday for a late lunch. She was freaked out about Ret and scared for herself. I thought she was being overly neurotic. I tried to talk her into staying at my place for a few nights, rather than running off to the Caribbean. If she’d listened to me, maybe she’d still be alive.”
The waiter passed by and Rannie asked for the check, waving away Larry’s offer to pay. She didn’t want to be indebted in any way, shape, or form. It was queasy-making to hear him talk about still being attracted to her, right after leaving a memorial get-together for Ellen. As she grabbed her coat from the wall rack, she turned businesslike, assuring him the freelance work he’d assigned would be done by Friday, Monday latest.
Larry squeezed out of the booth and glanced at his watch. “I didn’t realize how late it was. . . . I guess I should head back to the office. Or I suppose I could just go home.” He smiled a languid smile at Rannie, letting the last sentence hang.
Was this an indirect invitation to his apartment? If so, Rannie chose not to get the hint and instead suggested a different destination. “Maybe now’s the time, Larry, to pop by the Twenty-Fourth Precinct. Take the lie detector test or do whatever to clear your name once and for all.” Then with a “see ya” wave, Rannie strode to the corner of Fifty-Fifth Street in the direction of the Broadway subway entrance at Columbus Circle.
Rannie beat her mother home. She changed out of her suit and after dropping it off at the dry cleaners, picked up a bottle of the merlot that, in recent years, her once-abstemious mother had come to favor. Rannie put it in the fridge. “So what if it’s gauche,” Harriet would always declare. “I happen to like red wine cold.”
The message light, which had not been blinking on her earlier return to the apartment, now was.
It was Tim!
Rannie was initially thrilled and then not so thrilled. She listened to the message several times to parse its meaning.
“Rannie, listen, I need to talk. Don’t bother trying me. I’ll call again, probably sometime tonight.”
Needing to talk had to be construed as a good thing, right? It meant he wasn’t done with her completely. Yet there was a businesslike brusqueness to his words that didn’t sound like he wanted to kiss and make up. If Tim had kept lots of stuff at her house, she might have interpreted the call as figuring out when he could come by to retrieve it. However, except for a paperback thriller he’d finished on a recent Sunday and maybe a ratty running shirt or two, there was nada belonging to him.
Also, why call on her landline? His modus operandi was to call her cell, usually several times on the fly, until the game of phone tag ended and they’d finally connect in real time. This landline message seemed so purposeful, like setting up an appointment.
If only she could call Ellen to help dissect every single syllable of Tim’s message. This was exactly the kind of situation—romantic upheaval—that Ellen relished. She could almost hear Ellen giggling and saying how they were still seventh-grade girls at heart. At Simon this afternoon, Rannie had mentioned how much she would miss Ellen; yet right now was the first real instance of that. Up till this very moment, the horror of Ellen’s death had blotted out any normal feelings of loss.
By four thirty, Nate—along with Olivia—arrived. “She’s gonna stay for dinner,” he said.
“I better call Grandma. She’s going to cook—”
Nate cut Rannie off. “No need. We texted. She knows and it’s fine.”
Harriet texting. Okay, add texting to the “most unlikely to” list that already included JDating and ménage à trois.
Soon the intercom buzzer rang. It was Harriet.
“I’m downstairs and need help with the groceries.”
“Grandma, you way overtipped the cabdriver,” Nate was saying a moment later as he, Olivia, and Harriet, all toting bags from Fairway, came through the door and proceeded to the kitchen. Harriet also was holding a drum-shaped Saks hatbox, circa 1961, which she handed to Rannie. “From Mary,” she said. “You never mentioned you were going to Charlotte Cummings’s funeral Saturday. How la di da! Imagine who you’ll see.”
“Wish I could sneak you in,” Rannie replied. Harriet was a devotee of Vanity Fair and the upscale boldface names covered in its pages. “The only reason I’m—”
“Oh, I heard why you’re going and ‘what a darling you are,’ ‘what an absolute angel’ to take Mary’s friend.” Harriet had always been a pretty good mimic and now managed to capture the cadence of Mary’s speech, the way Mary underlined certain words. “The friend—Daisy, is it?—arrived for dinner just as I was leaving; it wasn’t even four thirty and she was half crocked!” Harriet harrumphed softly while unpacking grocery bags. “Maybe she’d be steadier on her feet if she drank less.”
As Rannie retrieved cutting boards, mixing bowls, and the spices needed for the chicken dish that Harriet was preparing—within the family known as “Poule à la Harriet”—Rannie wondered whether she hadn’t caught wind of something else, jealousy maybe over the relationship Rannie shared with her former mother-in-law.
“Nate and I try to have dinner with her once a week. Mary’s been so lonely since Walter died,” Rannie said, hoping to imply that duty trumped enjoyment. “It hasn’t even been a year and a half.”
Harriet nodded and seemed mollified. “I know. We had lunch in the museum cafeteria after the Degas exhibit and all we discussed was being widows. I said, ‘I wish I could tell you it gets better. It doesn’t, but it does get easier.’ She’s such a lovely woman. I mentioned that travel helps. Maybe if she learned mah-jongg, she’d like to come on a cruise with the girls and me.”
Rannie looked up from the garlic she was mincing. Yes. Her mother, although never known for a sense of humor, had been kidding.
All during dinner Rannie kept an ear cocked for Tim’s call. It didn’t come until an hour later when all the dishes were done, casserole dish soaking in the sink, and Harriet, Olivia, and Nate were deep into Settlers of Catan, a board game that had utterly confounded Rannie the couple of times she’d tried to play, but that Harriet seemed to pick up with no problem.
“Sweet move, Grandma!” she heard Nate cry.
Rannie was in her bedroom trying on the loaner funeral hats, trying to decide which of the three looked least ridiculous on her. Definitely not the teensy navy velvet beanie with a veil. Maybe a tall svelte type could pull it off. It made Rannie look eerily like Mamie Eisenhower.
The phone rang and Rannie lunged for it, then forced herself to wait until the middle of the second ring to pick up.
“Hello,” she said, her voice distinctly aquiver, but when Tim said, “It’s me, Rannie,” he sounded nervous too, so they were even.
“Now a good time?”
She really did love the sound of his voice, Boston Irish accent and all.
“Now’s fine. I’m glad you called. I’ve been wanting to call you. The only reason I didn’t . . . was, well, I was scared you didn’t want me to, after what you said in the car.”
“I appreciate that.” Tim cleared his throat. “Look, this is important. I wouldn’t have gotten in touch otherwise.”
Her stomach took a dive. He wasn’t calling because of a change of heart.
“Okay, there’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just gonna spit it out. For your own good, you should stay away from Larry Katz. Don’t get involved with him.”
Rannie’s brain went into hyperdrive. Was Larry under surveillance? Was she? Had a cop been watching them today? What about the other night at the Acropolis coffee shop? And Tim. His claims to being totally in the dark about the murders, was that bullshit? If so, why share now?
“I’m, I’m not involved with him!” Rannie finally said. “He used to work at S&S ages ago. I told you about him—I know I did. We had a brief—I don’t know what to call it! A brief fling. It was right after Peter and I split up. Larry made me feel like I wasn’t a total loser. I think the police have got it all wrong, suspecting him of anything.” That last sentence was spoken with more certainty than she felt.
“You know he was involved with your friend Ellen?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
“And his marriage? You know about that too?”
“I know it didn’t last long.”
“He married a woman with a seventeen-year-old daughter. His wife threw him out of the house and took out an order of protection. Rannie, she said he was hitting on the kid.”
Poule à la Harriet lurched in her stomach. “I don’t believe it.”
“It’s a matter of public record.” Tim paused. “Also, he was at Ret Sullivan’s apartment the day she was killed. That morning.”
Larry had told her he hadn’t seen Ret in a month. Another lie.
“Everything I’m telling you I heard just this afternoon. No more than a few hours ago.”
“Someone saw me with Larry today, right? Someone who knows me from the bar.”
“Yeah. The cops are keeping an eye on him.”
After they hung up, Rannie went straight to the bathroom and threw up every bit of poule.
“Rannie, are you sick?” Harriet was suddenly shouting from the other side of the door.
Jesus Christ! With her mother here, it was impossible even to vomit in peace. “I’ll be all right. Just give me a minute.”
“Can I get you some ginger ale, some tea maybe? I’m sure it wasn’t the chicken. Everybody else is fine. Listen, let me check my purse. I always carry Alka-Seltzer.”
Rannie splashed water on her face and sat on the rim of the tub, taking deep slow breaths to calm herself while trying to block out everything Tim had told her. “Take care.” Those had been his parting words on the phone. He might as well have said, “Have a nice life.” But that was Tim. Once he made a decision, he stuck with it. Like quitting drinking or training for a marathon. His inflexibility often worked in his favor; in this particular situation, it worked against hers. Tim would not see her again. Of that she was sure.
A moment later Rannie forced down the glass of Alka-Seltzer that Harriet appeared with. Easier than arguing with her mother, and oddly enough it did help settle her stomach.
Ushered into bed, Rannie allowed her mother to feel her forehead with the back of her hand. “Cool as a cucumber,” pronounced Harriet. “Probably one of those twenty-four-hour things. Get a good night’s sleep. You know where to find me, if you need anything.”
Harriet blew Rannie a kiss and turned off the overhead light as she left. Then, just as she’d done on umpteen million nights as a kid when she wanted to stay up late reading, Rannie counted to fifty, turned on her bedside lamp, and reached for her copy of Tattletale. She remembered a long chapter on the convent where Ret had grown up and where now she would be buried. Rannie was interested in the convent’s exact location.
Previously Rannie had skimmed the chapters on Ret’s childhood; now she read them with greater attention. It was a dispiriting story. Ret had never known her father. She was an infant when he went out to buy the proverbial pack of cigarettes and split for good. At age five, upon the death of her mother, Ret was sent to live at the Sisters of Mercy orphanage in Pound Ridge, New York, which was only about an hour or so from Manhattan.
By Lina/Ret’s account, the orphanage was a caring place, a safe haven with bucolic grounds. And yes indeed, Sister Dorothy Cusack had played a major role in young Ret’s life. Rannie immediately grasped what had first drawn Ret to her. Sister Dorothy was a celebrity nun. Before taking vows, she’d enjoyed a brief career as a movie star, costarring in two Elvis movies. The nun came across as smart, warm, and energetic. Ret saw her first Broadway musical courtesy of Sister Dorothy; Sister Dorothy encouraged Ret’s interest in writing; Sister Dorothy told the children, “This world is yours. Get involved!,” and proudly wore JFK buttons on her habit throughout the 1960 campaign. And far from doing a hard sell on the joys of becoming a nun, Sister Dorothy had convinced Ret that “a different path awaited her.”
As Lina Struvel, Ret quoted herself as saying, “Sister Dorothy is a beautiful human being. No one knows me better than she does. No one. She is the only person who truly loves me and though that may sound sad, I feel incredibly fortunate. Her love is so great that it equals the love of hundreds of lesser people.”
In spite of herself, Rannie started wondering exactly when tomorrow Ret’s funeral was, whether it was open to outsiders, and how long it took to get to the convent by train. Was there even a remote possibility that Sister Dorothy would speak to her afterward?
Of course, there was Harriet to take into consideration. That stopped Rannie cold. Maybe she wasn’t the world’s most dutiful daughter. Still, in good conscience she couldn’t see herself ditching her mother to go on some cockamamy sleuthing expedition. Tomorrow they’d spend time together, whatever Harriet wanted to do.
With that she turned off the light, and when sleep refused to come, an Ativan did the trick. . . . Out went the lights.