After a morning spent wandering through downtown and collecting various treasures—a discarded copy of the Post, a Thermos with a cracked lid, a half-eaten Snickers bar—Helen was tired. Sitting felt good and so did reading. She had her huge canvas bag propped on the bench beside her and was turning to the Lifestyle section when she heard the woman say, “Would you like a sandwich?”
The question wasn’t directed at her. The woman in the yellow sundress was halfway down the row of benches that circled the outer edge of Northside Park. She offered a foil-wrapped square to a man in the shade of a tall oak tree. Despite the slightly sticky spring heat, he wore a trench coat, a pair of beige slacks, and dirty running shoes. Helen recognized him from waiting in line at various soup kitchens and shelters around town, but didn’t know his name.
“Go ahead,” the woman was saying, and the man closed his grubby fingers around the sandwich. “Do you like turkey?”
“My mom always made me turkey sandwiches.” He smiled as he leaned forward, the foil crinkling as he unwrapped it. “The best.”
“Well, I don’t know if it’ll be as good as hers, but I hope so.”
The man kept smiling, even as he chewed, which Helen thought was no easy feat. “It’s delicious.”
“It makes me so happy to hear that.”
Helen rolled her eyes. The woman was a do-gooder. Helen knew the type. They sometimes held her gaze when they dropped change into her cup or cornered her at the library, asking what they could do for her. Anything to help. Ugh.
Tuning out the conversation, Helen went back to her newspaper. She hadn’t been a teacher in years—more years than she wanted to admit—but she liked to keep her mind sharp, and reading was good for that. Unfortunately, the news could be grim. She finished a story about a mutual fund manager about to go on trial for defrauding his clients, most of whom had lost their life savings because of him, and started another about a new war brewing in the Middle East when she heard, “Excuse me, ma’am.”
It was the blonde with the sandwiches, her eyes glittering as brightly as the gold chain around her neck. She had a paper bag at her feet and on the front of it was written—in bold, curvy letters—LUNCH!
“Would you like a sandwich?”
“How much?” Helen asked warily. She had six dollars tucked into her shoe from panhandling last night, and another four dollars in change rattling around inside her bag. She hadn’t been counting on lunch today—after all, she had the leftover candy bar—but now she felt a low rumble in the pit of her belly.
“It’s no charge. I’m a volunteer at the St. Alban’s soup kitchen, up on Twentieth Street. We’re giving out free sandwiches to anyone who wants them.”
“Free?”
Don’t be fooled. Everything’s got a price.
“Yes, they’re free for anyone who needs them,” the woman said, lifting her brown bag. “We’re trying to help.”
Helen studied the woman more closely. She was maybe in her early forties, with faint lines pressed into her otherwise firm skin. Her hair was cut in a sleek bob that ended just above her shoulders, which looked slightly red from the sun.
“I’m Katie, by the way.”
“Hi, Katie. Nice to meet you.”
Katie seemed to be waiting for Helen to introduce herself in turn, but Helen didn’t volunteer her name to complete strangers. That was a luxury for people who wore cute little sundresses and had paper bags marked LUNCH!
“How come you’re giving out sandwiches?” Helen said.
“I’m so glad you asked. We’re starting a new dinner program at St. Alban’s and we want to let people know about it. Like you, in case you’re interested. There’s going to be a kick-off party on Monday night, and I hope you’ll come.”
Helen had been to St. Alban’s a handful of times the last couple years for the breakfast program. It was only a short walk from the park, and the food was reasonably good, and the social workers mostly left you alone unless you asked for help. But Helen generally preferred being outdoors over inside, even for an hour or two, and she could usually find a half-eaten bagel in a crumpled bag or a discarded muffin left on a bench somewhere.
Katie rummaged around in her bag. “Let’s see, I’ve got turkey or ham…”
“I’ll take ham.”
The plastic wrap was warm in Helen’s fingers as she tucked it against her thigh. There was no way she’d eat the sandwich while Katie was watching.
“Thanks a lot,” Helen said.
“Okay, great.” For a moment Katie stood there, as if expecting Helen to say more—offer up her name, maybe, or some details about how she’d ended up on the streets—and then she picked up her brown paper bag and smiled. “Got to deliver more sandwiches. But I hope I’ll see you at St. Alban’s on Monday.”
Helen shrugged. “Sure, maybe.”
She watched as Katie made her way to a couple of guys—one known as Einstein, not because of his great intelligence but because of the shock of white hair that stuck straight up from his head, the other called the Gardener, because he carried a small watering can with him everywhere—and started her spiel again. A moment later she was reaching into her bag and pulling out more sandwiches.
Helen waited until Katie drifted out of sight before taking a bite of her own. It was surprisingly good—moist but not soggy, the way ham sandwiches were sometimes—and she finished it in half a dozen bites. Washing it down with some water from the Thermos, she looked around. Maybe Katie would give her another sandwich if she asked nicely. But after scanning the park for a few minutes, she realized the do-gooder was gone.
Disappointed, Helen went back to her newspaper. She read a piece about the dramatic rise in home prices across the city, and was flipping back to the front page when a photo caught her eye. It went with the article about the disgraced mutual fund manager, Robert Goldfarb. The grainy black-and-white image showed a handsome man in a tailored suit posing with a woman in an evening gown. According to the caption, this was his wife of twenty years, Katherine Goldfarb. She had been the office manager at his financial firm and was herself under investigation for aiding in a Ponzi scheme totaling more than a hundred million dollars. So far, however, no charges had been brought against her.
Helen let her eyes linger on the photo for a minute, then two. She couldn’t look away. She might’ve stared at that page for hours except she heard a cry from across the park. It was Einstein, chasing pigeons along a small strip of grass. The Gardener just stood there, clutching his watering can.
Helen glanced back at the newspaper folded across her lap. The image was small and pixelated, but she felt sure of what she was seeing. Katherine Goldfarb, wife of the disgraced mutual fund manager and a potential criminal in her own right, was actually Katie, the kindly woman handing out ham and turkey sandwiches.
* * * *
On Monday evening, Helen found herself in a long line of people that snaked around to the side entrance of St. Alban’s. She kept telling herself she wasn’t going to follow up on this. What was the point? She’d gone to the library every day since last Wednesday, however, staying at the computer for as long as she could stand, before she felt the overstuffed shelves pressing in on her. After doing her research on the Goldfarbs, she now felt compelled to see if she was right about Katie/Katherine.
Unfortunately, she had only found a couple more photos of Katherine Goldfarb, as the woman had gone out of her way to avoid the spotlight. She hadn’t even been spotted in the courtroom as her husband’s case headed for trial, although various anonymous sources said that she continued to stand by him. “I love him and I know he’s a good man,” she herself said, in one of a handful of actual quotes. A good man. Even though he was alleged to have run a Ponzi scheme that defrauded hundreds of people out of their life savings, while he lived in a three-million-dollar house and owned three sportscars, a vacation home in Paris, and a small yacht.
Come on, it’s not her. How could it be?
Maybe the voice was right, but she couldn’t necessarily trust it. Wasn’t that what her last shrink had said?
Now Helen just wanted to know, one way or the other, if Katie was really Katherine Goldfarb.
Oh yeah? And why on earth would the wife of a millionaire scammer be volunteering at a soup kitchen?
Helen could think of a lot of reasons, starting with this: maybe she felt guilty for what she’d done, for being an accomplice in her husband’s financial fraud. Maybe handing out sandwiches and feeding dinner to homeless people was a way for her to feel better about herself.
Yeah, and maybe you’re going to teach fifth grade again this fall.
Helen didn’t like the tone the voice was taking, and promptly tuned it out. Besides, the line was moving ahead and she had to focus on keeping up.
Twenty minutes later she was in the basement of St. Alban’s, a tray of meatloaf and mashed potatoes in front of her. She chewed her food slowly, looking around. A couple of twenty-something social workers—both of them skinny with short hair and in almost-identical T-shirts, though one seemed to be a man and the other a woman—buzzed from table to table like eager hosts. But no sign of Katie/Katherine.
I’m telling you, it’s not her.
Helen kept eating, though she didn’t have much of an appetite. The exposed brick walls were covered in red and yellow streamers, balloons taped up near the too-low ceiling. She wished she’d sat closer to the small narrow windows and the fading bands of orange light. The walls were too close in here, and her breathing was getting short, and she kept looking at the door leading out, thinking maybe she should just leave the mystery of Katherine Goldfarb and the rest of her meatloaf behind.
“Hey, you okay?”
It was the man in the suit and the sneakers, the one she’d seen getting a sandwich in the park.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Okay, good. ’Cause you look a little sick.”
“Do I?”
Look, you’re not trapped here. You can leave anytime you want. Just chill out.
The man in the suit plunked his tray down. “I’ve seen you around. I’m Clay.”
“I’ve seen you too.” Helen pushed the mashed potatoes into a small pile, then looked at Clay. He’d shaved since the day before, and there were fresh scabs along his dirty cheeks. “I’m Helen.”
“Don’t come here much, do you?”
Helen fought back a grunt. This reminded her of the pickup lines she’d heard from men in bars when she was a young teacher out in Woodbridge. But Clay didn’t seem like he was making a move on her, more like he was just curious.
“Not really, no.”
“Food’s pretty good. Especially on Thursday mornings—they got pancakes. You like pancakes?”
“Sure, I guess.”
She hadn’t had a pancake in years, and hadn’t thought she missed them until she felt her mouth watering. She stuffed a forkful of mashed potatoes between her teeth. They felt dry and chalky. Boxed, not homemade.
“Good eggs, too. Better than up at the Sixth Street mission, that’s for sure.” He went on about the food, sounding like a restaurant critic, but after a couple minutes Helen tuned him out. Her eyes had locked on the drinks station across the basement, where someone had carefully arranged plastic cups of lemonade.
“Excuse me,” she muttered, heading off. She made her way to the table full of lemonade and reached out, watching the woman’s gaze swing toward her. “Hi, Katie.”
“Hello.” It was clear Katie was searching for a name that wouldn’t come. She must’ve forgotten she’d never heard it.
“I’m Helen.”
“That’s right, from the park.” Katie poured another glass of lemonade to replace the one Helen had taken. There was no ring on her left hand, but Helen spotted the narrow white band of flesh where one had been. Were she and her husband separated? The papers hadn’t mentioned that. “Good to see you again.”
“You too.” Helen took a sip of the lemonade, which was too warm and too tart. “So how do you have so much time for volunteering? Don’t you have a job?”
Katie’s smile was forced. “I’m between jobs at the moment, but I wanted to stay busy. So I figured I’d help out here.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
“Oh, it’s a family business.” Katie reached past Helen and handed out a cup of lemonade to someone. “Nothing very interesting.”
A family business, her husband’s business. It was her, Katherine “Katie” Goldfarb, coming down to St. Alban’s hoping to wash away her sins.
“What about you? What kind of work do you do?”
Go ahead, tell her. Tell her how you can’t work anymore because you had your teaching license revoked. And the only reason you didn’t go to jail was because that boy’s mother decided that—
Stop it. Just stop it right now!
Helen looked down at her hand, which was wet from spilled lemonade. Had it been shaking?
“Are you okay, Helen?”
“Sure. I’m fine.”
“Well, I hope you have a great dinner.”
Katie turned away and reached for an empty pitcher, scooping in yellow powder. Helen stood there a moment because she had more questions. But when Katie finally looked back, Clay was there. He grabbed a cup of lemonade, held it up. His suitcoat had slipped down just enough to show faint blue ink on his wrist, beneath a layer of grime.
“Hey, this looks delicious,” he said. Not to Helen, to Katie.
“That’s what I’m hearing. Haven’t tried it yet myself.”
A couple of other people moved in for lemonade, forcing Helen out of the way. She stood there, trying to meet Katie’s gaze again, but the woman wouldn’t look at her. She knows that I know, Helen realized. And she’s afraid I’ll tell the others.
Helen walked over to the trash and pitched her mostly full cup in it. She looked back at Clay, saying something to Katie, who was laughing as if he was the funniest man she’d ever met.
Everyone thought she was some kind of a do-gooder, but she wasn’t. Helen knew what she was and why she was there. And she wasn’t going to let her get away with it.
* * * *
That night, Helen was out walking in Northside Park, the same place where she’d first gotten the sandwich from Katie. She was too amped up to sleep but too tired to keep going. She stopped and plunked down on a bench, letting her big canvas bag down beside her. Staring off at the darkened trees, she noticed a shape cutting through the shadows a half a dozen benches down. She stood, fear closing around her throat, and then a figure stepped out into the light.
Clay.
He was in his usual suit, although he’d stripped off the jacket to reveal a blue shirt with the top two buttons undone, no tie. He blinked at her a couple of times and then moved closer.
“You don’t usually come round here at night,” he said.
“How do you know that?” she asked, though it was true. Her preferred sleeping spot was under an overpass on Canal Road, but she had to get there just before dark to stake out a spot, and rarely left until morning.
“’Cause I sleep here, ’cept on cold nights. Guess we won’t have any more of those for a while.”
She nodded, reaching for her bag. She’d come here to be alone, not to talk.
“You look like you got some kind of trouble,” he said, his eyes not unkind. “What is it?”
“We’ve all got our troubles, don’t we?”
He nodded, pushing up the sleeves on his shirt. In the faint glow of lamplight, Helen saw the blue ink again, and what might’ve been a woman’s leg etched there.
“I’ll let you go,” he said, turning back to his bench.
“She’s a criminal,” Helen said, just blurting it out.
Clay stopped and looked back and squinted his eyes a little. “Who?”
“Katie. At the soup kitchen. Her real name’s—”
Clay held up a hand. “What’s it matter? She treats us like people, not dogs. She shows up to do something most people can’t be bothered with and she does it with a smile.” He cocked his head, as if trying to think of other reasons, but all he could come up with was, “And she smells nice, too. What else is there?”
“She’s hurt a lot of people, Clay. Ruined their lives.”
Shrugging, he started back for his bench. “Join the club.”
* * * *
Three days later, Helen showed up at St. Alban’s again. She got there a full hour early so she could be near the front of the line, and when she got her tray full of food she picked a spot right near the drinks table. Sure enough, Katie was there, only she was serving fruit punch instead of lemonade. Katie noticed her and smiled. Helen didn’t smile back.
She thought about what Clay had said. He was right, everyone made mistakes. Were Katie Goldfarb’s worse than anyone else’s? Helen thought so. Because Mrs. Goldfarb hadn’t just drunk too much or neglected her kids once in a while. She had purposefully helped her husband cheat people out of their life savings and lied about it, using those stolen monies to support her lavish lifestyle. It was obscene. She had to pay. But Helen had just read in today’s paper that Robert Goldfarb’s attorney had filed a motion to drop all charges against him because of improperly obtained documents. She couldn’t believe it. After everything he’d done, he could just walk away—or drive away, in one of his fancy sportscars.
And Katie would go right with him.
Only Helen wouldn’t let that happen.
When she was a teacher, the kids had called her mean. But no, she was just firm. She believed in rules and strictly enforced them. No talking during lessons. No running in the halls. No looking at your neighbor’s paper during a test.
There were rules for teachers, too. Only you didn’t care much about those, did you?
She had to figure out how to enforce the rules against Katie Goldfarb. If the system wouldn’t do it, she was on her own. But what could she do? What power did she have?
Eating her fried chicken and cauliflower and green beans, she brooded. The food was tasteless, the buzz of people talking around her was like a needle jabbing in her ear. The room felt about as big as a shoebox, and she was starting to sweat. She had to get out of here, away from all this.
“Would you like a drink?”
Helen looked up at Katie, who held out a cup of pink liquid. “I guess so, thanks.”
“You didn’t come by the table. I thought you might be thirsty.”
Helen sipped. The punch was so sugary it hurt her teeth.
“If you’re having a tough time, I know the counselors here would be happy to—”
“I’m fine.”
Katie nodded, backed away. Helen stared after her, watching as her collection of groupies gathered around the drinks table, including Einstein and the Gardener and of course Clay. He wore a bright-green tie that looked new, and he had shaved again. No noticeable nicks this time. He was looking straight at Katie, who drank from a cup of fruit punch.
Everyone thought she was so great, so selfless. A real do-gooder. Only Helen knew what she was. Who she was.
Lowering her gaze to her food, Helen tore at her chicken until there was nothing left but bones. When she was done, she headed down a short hallway that led to the ladies’ room. She locked herself in a stall and closed her eyes. She remembered doing this in her last days as a teacher, just going to the staff-only bathroom and wishing she could disappear. Of course, then she pulled herself together and did what needed to be done.
Yeah, and where’d that get you?
The door banged open and Helen hesitated, waiting for whoever had come in to leave. When they still hadn’t left a couple minutes later, Helen came out. Katie was at the mirror, staring, and in her reflection Helen saw eyes brimming with fear and regret. Then Katie turned and her mouth curled into a smile, her eyes just as bland as the cauliflower Helen had left untouched on her plate.
“You don’t like me much, I know,” Katie said, dabbing at her face with a paper towel.
Helen didn’t argue. What was the point?
“Well, I’m just doing my best here, same as you.”
Helen said nothing, heading for the door. Katie crumpled up the paper towel and hurled it at the trash can but missed. She shook her head, as if she would’ve expected nothing less.
“You probably think I’ve got some perfect life, and maybe I did once, or else just thought I did. But that seems like a long time ago now, and I’m not sure where I’m going from here, not really, not anymore.”
Helen stood there, leaning against the doorframe. An idea was starting to form in her mind. She let it simmer for a moment, feeling the electricity in her arms, her chest. Turning away from Katie, she angled her face down and then swung the door toward herself, hard, yelping from the pain, as the wood smacked against her cheek.
She turned to see herself in the mirror. A thin line of blood began to crawl across her chin.
From the sink Katie stared after her, unsure of what was going on, and then took a step forward.
“Stop. You’re hurting yourself.”
Ignoring her, Helen did it again, opened the door and then slammed it in against her face, harder this time, and Katie put one well-manicured hand to her mouth in shock.
“What’re you doing?” Katie asked. “Please, stop.”
At first Helen said nothing. Then she started to scream. “Hey! Leave me alone! You’re hurting me!”
Within moments, one of the social workers—the male one, he had a nametag that said HI, I’M TREVOR—came running. Trevor took one look at Helen, who could feel her jaw starting to swell already, the blood crawling down her neck, and then at Katie.
“What’s going on?” he asked, and Helen turned to him with tears in her eyes.
“She pushed me,” Helen said, looking down at the cheap linoleum. “She saw me in the bathroom and just went on about how I don’t like her, and I said that wasn’t true. But she called me a liar and said I must be jealous of her and her perfect life and she pushed me and I fell and hit my face on the edge of the sink.”
“That’s nonsense,” Katie said.
Trevor looked at Helen forcefully, as if she were a box his gaze could simply pry open. “What really happened in here?”
“That’s it, that’s the truth.”
“The truth is she did it to herself!” Katie looked aghast, flicking her gaze from Trevor to Helen and back again. “Go ahead, tell him.”
Helen said nothing. Trevor put a hand on her arm and started to lead her away, glancing back at Katie. “Stay here. Don’t move.”
“But—”
“I’m serious.” He touched Helen’s arm gently. “We’ll get you some ice, okay?”
Helen nodded. He started to lead her toward the kitchen. She glanced back over her shoulder as Trevor guided her down the hall, watching as Katie pulled nervously at the gold chain around her neck. Helen smiled.
* * * *
An hour later, Helen finally left St. Alban’s. Half a dozen employees had come to ask her about her story, which got more and more elaborate as she retold it again and again. Every version ended the same, however, with Katie shoving her ruthlessly and Helen smashing her face against the sink. Although they had offered to take her to the emergency room, Helen said no. The bleeding had stopped and besides, she hated hospitals, not only the smell but the tight, cramped spaces they jammed you into there. Trevor the social worker told her the police were coming to take her statement, but Helen knew she couldn’t stay any longer. The big basement room felt no bigger than a coffin, and her lungs felt so tight that it hurt to breathe.
“Come back in the morning,” Trevor said, as she bolted for the door leading out. “We want to make sure you’re okay!”
Clutching a handful of the extra pain pills he’d given her, she made her way along the streets. Her face was sore, but the Advil had worn the shriek of her nerves down to a dull ache. She felt a twinge of guilt about what she’d done, but mostly she was satisfied. Katie was a bad person and deserved punishment, and no amount of good deeds could change that.
Tired from her long day, Helen headed to Northside Park. The walk was long and she quickly grew hot, rolling up her sleeves to cool off along the way. She sat on a bench and drank from her Thermos and closed her eyes to let the evening air wash over her. For a moment it was so quiet she could hear the faint murmur of the creek that ran out behind the trees at the edge of the park. Then she heard the squeak of sneakers and looked up to see the loose-fitting trousers of an old worn suit.
“I heard you ran into some trouble,” Clay said.
Helen nodded, expecting sympathy. But Clay’s gaze was cool.
“I just never expected that from her.” Helen shook her head. “She seemed so nice.”
“She is nice. She’s in there all day, helping people like us, and she doesn’t run away like we’re lepers or something. And she listens, really listens, when we got something to say.”
“Yeah, well, I guess she doesn’t like me very much.”
“I guess so. Or maybe it’s the other way around.”
Clay’s eyes bore into hers so fiercely that Helen had to turn away.
“A shot like that, you must’ve really hit the sink hard, huh?”
“When she pushed me down, yeah.”
“Right, I heard she shoved you, and you went down hard.” He moved in, pantomiming the scene, whipping his hands out suddenly and with such force that she felt the air move between them. “Something like that, maybe?”
“Exactly.” Helen crossed her arms over herself, shivering. “It was awful.”
“I’m sure it was. And I hope your arm’s okay.”
“Excuse me?”
He moved in close, studying her bare arms. “I been in a fight or two in my time, and if you fell the way you say you did, ’specially on that hard bathroom tile, you ought to have some bruises on your arms, too. At least one of them.”
She pulled her sleeves down and turned away. A chill moved up her spine, and it had nothing to do with the breeze. Clay spit into the grass and turned away.
“You have a good night, Helen. Hope you can get some sleep.”
* * * *
Helen didn’t sleep, not a wink. She walked from place to place, dragging her big canvas bag with her, and finally found a spot near the river where she curled up on a grassy ledge and closed her eyes. But she didn’t drift off. Her jaw throbbed, even after swallowing three of the pills, and her thoughts kept lurching back to what happened in the park. What if Clay told the people at the shelter what he’d just told her? Didn’t matter. Sure, he could cast doubt on her, but he couldn’t prove her story was a lie.
When the sun finally came up, Helen was finally close to dozing. She blinked against the orange light and rolled over. The sound of traffic stirring on a nearby parkway on-ramp was too loud for her to ignore. Finally she sat up. She started walking, found the time displayed on a big bank sign—7:24 a.m.—and started toward St. Alban’s.
As soon as she got there, she saw Einstein and the Gardener sitting on the concrete ledge out front. Starting toward the men, she felt the hardness of their eyes. The Gardener moved his watering can just a little closer to his thigh.
“What’re you doing here?” Einstein asked.
“Just come for some breakfast. It’s pancake day, right?”
“You got some nerve showing your face here.” This from the Gardener, who clutched the handle of his watering can tight.
Helen’s heart sank. Clay must’ve beaten her here this morning, told everyone the truth.
“Is this because of Clay? He’s a liar.”
“Haven’t even seen Clay,” Einstein said, leaning in so close Helen could smell the stink wash off of him. “Turns out they got a surveillance camera in the main room, checked it out. Said when they blowed it up they could see a little bit down that hallway near the bathroom.”
“Said you done it to yourself,” the Gardener said. “Wasn’t that pretty lady at all.”
“They’re all liars. You believe them?”
The two men exchanged a look. They didn’t reply but their silence said plenty.
“Fuck off then. Both of you.”
Slinging her canvas bag over her shoulder, Helen hurried off. She walked and walked until her feet were sore and then she walked some more. She used what little money she had to buy herself some tacos for lunch and she filled her Thermos from a fountain on the edge of a soccer field. Her jaw hurt as she chewed and that made her cry, and when she was done with the food and the tears, she started walking some more.
Finally, without quite knowing she meant to, she found herself back at St. Alban’s. Instead of approaching, this time she hid behind the bushes of the tall building across the street. The sky was slowly shifting from a pale blue to a darker one, and soon it was black. Helen watched as people she knew—including Einstein and the Gardener—shuffled in through the door leading to the basement, and then about an hour later, filed back out. A short while after that she saw four other people leave, including the social worker, Trevor. He was talking to someone, shaking his head sadly, and when he moved out of the way Helen could see who it was.
Katie Goldfarb.
Even though Helen wasn’t welcome here anymore, that thief was. Unbelievable.
Helen watched as the small group lingered at the corner and then Katie broke off, heading across Commonwealth Avenue. She wore a pair of form-fitting pants and a bright-pink T-shirt, a backpack slung across her shoulder, her long blond hair swishing in a ponytail. Probably headed for the gym.
Helen followed.
Katie walked quickly, and Helen had trouble keeping up, her sore legs squealing in discomfort. After a couple of blocks, Helen noticed she was falling behind. She looked down at her big canvas bag and realized she had to make a choice: keep going and risk losing Katie or leave her stuff behind. She glanced around at the streets full of people, everyone focused on their phones, their lives.
She left her bag behind. As soon as she kept going, she felt lighter, faster, sharpened by her sense of purpose.
A brisk wind rose, and Katie crossed her arms, rubbing them, as she waited to cross the next intersection. The next block was mostly commercial, car repair shops and an empty lot, and there weren’t any other people heading up this way. Helen was only a block behind Katie again and could catch up quickly if she wanted to. And once she did, then what?
Leave her alone. This is a bad idea. Even worse than what you did to—
Helen shut out the voice and picked up her pace. She expected the other woman to hear the heavy clomp of her shoes, but the rush of traffic on the parkway below must’ve drowned it out. Up ahead a bridge yawned, a span of trees etching dark shadows on pavement. Helen began to go even faster. She knew that if she could catch up before the end of the bridge, Katie would be trapped, a captive audience. Helen ran, her heart pounding. She was only ten feet away when Katie turned.
Don’t do it, I’m telling you, just don’t—
Helen had her arms spread out like some kind of superhero as she flung herself at the other woman, and though the ground was hard, Katie broke her fall. When Katie tried to raise her thin, gym-toned arms, they were pinned beneath Helen’s weight. Helen studied her in the too-white glow of a nearby streetlamp. The expression on Katie’s face showed surprise and terror, then confusion.
“You. If you don’t get off me right now, I’ll scream.”
“Go ahead.”
A bluff. Katie nodded at the backpack. “Look there’s money in the side pocket. Just take it.”
That made Helen mad. Was Katie accusing her of being a thief?
“I know what you’ve done,” Helen said, standing up, staring down at Katie. This was just like training children in the classroom. The punishment wouldn’t mean anything unless you pointed out their mistake first.
“But I haven’t done anything.”
Katie got to her feet slowly, and something shifted in her eyes. A moment ago she’d been ready to deal. Now her gaze was hard and fierce, showing the kind of steely resolve she must’ve displayed when the government lawyers tried to pry away her husband’s stolen money.
“What’re you…what’re you going to do now?” Katie sounded scared but determined. A woman who knew what it was like to be backed into a corner and have to fight her way out. Despite herself, Helen admired that. She’d been in a few corners herself.
“That depends. On whether or not you apologize.”
“Like I said, I haven’t done anything.”
“Not to me. But you’ve hurt plenty of other people.”
“What’re you talking about?”
Helen shook her head. These constant denials made her weary. “You know what you’ve done, and it’s time to admit it. All the money your husband stole. All the innocent victims you two left penniless.”
“You’re crazy.”
Helen was tired of being pushed around, and she was ready to do something, for herself and all the other victims out there. But then Katie’s eyes went wide.
“You’re the one that hurt Clay, aren’t you?” she said.
Helen’s confusion must’ve showed.
“They found him in the woods out behind Northside Park late this morning. He was beaten so badly he was unconscious. When they got him to Mason Hospital, they weren’t even sure if he would make it. What’d you do, beat him to a pulp?” Her eyes narrowed with a flash of comprehension. “Was it because of me?”
Helen started to tell her again that she didn’t know what she was talking about, but then flashes of it started to come. Being in the park last night, chasing after Clay as he walked away. Picking up a heavy rock, aiming it at his head. Studying the blue ink on his forearm—it was indeed a tattoo of a woman, homemade and crude—as she began to drag his body down the steep hillside to the creek, hiding him in the bushes so he wouldn’t be found right away.
You killed him! You’re the real monster, not her!
“You won’t get away with this,” Katie said.
Helen scowled. “I think that’s my line.”
Katie turned, trying to run, but Helen was too fast, pushing her back against the bridge’s low stone wall.
“Please, no…”
Katie struggled. She was stronger than she looked but then so was Helen, dragging that heavy bag around like some kind of workout, and she shoved Katie so hard that her back arched over the ledge and then gravity took over, her body tilting to the point of no return. Katie’s scream was so sharp it stabbed at Helen’s temple, going on and on for what felt like minutes. Helen closed her eyes against it. After a few moments, the screaming finally stopped, and she heard only the shriek of traffic, the crumpling of metal, the wet smash of flesh against pavement.
Oh God, what’ve you done? You’re crazy, do you know that? You’re completely nuts!
Helen let the voice spew its venom at her but tuned it out, just the way her shrink had taught her, and hurried back to the corner where she’d left her bags. Everything was there, just as she had left it. She took a deep breath, calm washing through her, the kind she’d only ever gotten from knowing she’d done the right thing.
* * * *
Just after nine the next morning, Helen went to the library. She’d found a chunk of blueberry muffin in a nearby trash can and eaten that for breakfast, along with some half-finished coffee. The taste was too strong but she drank it anyway. Then she perched herself at one of the computers and went to the Post website.
She found a small article about Clay, but it was already a day old and said little more than that a homeless man had been found beaten out by the creek behind Northside Park. Then she opened up the other article she’d come for. It said that Katherine Goldfarb, the wife of alleged con artist Robert Goldfarb, had committed suicide by jumping off the Willard Street Bridge. Although police said the motive was unclear, sources reported that her husband had recently left her for another woman. This combined with the legal proceedings against his firm had left her distraught. “She’d just started trying to volunteer and give back to help feel better about herself,” said an anonymous friend. “But I guess it wasn’t enough.”
Helen felt faintly disappointed that no one knew what she’d done, but she knew that even when you did the right thing, you could still end up in trouble. After all, that was what happened when she punished that little boy for acting out in class. She’d had no choice. She had to show him that she was in charge. She’d never meant to break his arm, of course, and yet the way the principal and other teachers treated her…well, it was like she’d done something unforgiveable.
Logging off the computer, she left the library and started walking. This time, she headed for George Mason Hospital. She didn’t know if the nurses would let her in to see Clay, but she could at least leave a get-well card. As for how to pay for it, well, that was easy. She’d just stand out on the street and ask for change. Stay out there long enough and she’d surely find someone eager to give a kind word and a handful of coins, some do-gooder who just wanted to help.
Adam Meyer has published many short stories, most recently in the anthologies Crime Travel and Seascape: Best New England Crime Stories 2019, as well as in Chesapeake Crimes: Storm Warning. He has upcoming stories in the Malice Domestic anthology Murder Most Theatrical, the Joni Mitchell-inspired anthology The Beat of Black Wings, and Mystery Weekly. His TV credits include Deadly Ransom for Lifetime, premiering in 2020, and several true-crime series for Investigation Discovery. He’s also the author of the YA novel The Last Domino and recently finished a new novel. Please visit his website at adammeyerwriter.com.