Hannah
It had been almost a week, and there was no news. The police hadn’t been around to harass Hannah or Miles. There was no new evidence that pointed to Ben, at least not that either of them was aware of. The background checks weren’t back, and all Hannah had accomplished was compiling a broader list of all male neighbors in a two-mile radius, plus a map of registered sex offenders in their zip code (none of which overlapped). That the nearest sex offender was two and a half miles away, in Garrett Hill, should have made Hannah feel better, but all she could think of was the sweet little playground in Garrett Hill. How close it was. How small the neighborhood was. How awful it would be to live there, knowing the proximity, watching, worrying. But at least that was contained. How large, how impossibly enormous the world seemed, when you had no suspects. The man who killed Liza could be anywhere, not just in the neighborhood, as her mother continually pointed out. And there was no evidence the girl had been sexually assaulted, none that they knew of or had seen in the papers, so the sex registry might be of zero use anyway. Hannah was simply going off the numbers, the possibilities. But sometimes she felt like she’d have better luck at the casino roulette wheel.
Now it was poker night, and the sisters had concocted a loose plan to get inside and talk to the men. Ben wasn’t welcome; they’d made that clear. But would they turn away a woman who wanted to play in his place? Someone who looked like an easy mark, someone they could take some money off?
They had no suspects, didn’t even know some of the men’s last names. They just had their suspicions that someone might have seen something. Just a nagging feeling that a drunk person had forgotten something important that happened on the way home and might remember now. And an overarching belief that it was absolutely no coincidence that poker night, the night all the guys walked home, always, was the night everything had happened. The police had to see that, too. And who knew? Maybe it was poker night that had led them to Ben. Maybe they’d find out something about Ben, too, Hannah thought. All Ben had been able to tell them was that some guys walked home on the road, like him, and some took the path. He couldn’t even remember for certain everyone who had been there, just that two tables were set up. He’d had too much to drink and a wicked hangover the next day, as Hannah assumed most of them had. Was it even worth Hillary and Hannah showing up and preying on their sympathies, asking to play, if they didn’t know what to ask or who to focus on? Should they just wait till the following month, when they had the background information? She didn’t know. She was beginning to think her lawyer’s idea to hire a private investigator and just hand it all to him was smarter.
Hillary had a box of cheesesteak sliders from a local restaurant and a bottle of whiskey for bribery. She put them in a tote bag, and they walked up the street to the Barkers’ house. It was getting colder every night, Hannah thought as they approached the door and knocked. Just waiting the thirty seconds for the answer made her shiver.
Robert Barker was older—fifty-five, Ben had guessed—and the rest of the players were closer to Ben in age. When they’d started out, they’d rotated hosting duties, but over time, they’d settled in at Robert’s. He liked to cook and he had no kids at home, so there were no distractions. Now they just shared costs and let Robert figure it all out. There were twelve regulars, but not everyone showed up every time. Occasionally, somebody brought their brother or a friend who was staying at their house, but Ben said he was pretty sure that had not been the case last time. Pretty sure but not totally sure. They were totally sure of exactly nothing, Hannah thought with a sigh as she stood on the porch.
“Smile,” her sister said. “Stop sighing.”
“I’m breathing.”
“Well, then, stop breathing. Your hair smells like buttered popcorn.”
“Now you know my moisturizing secrets.”
The door opened, and Hillary’s tone shifted.
“Hi there!” Hillary said. “These are from Ben. An apology for taking your money last time.”
Robert laughed. “Ah, well, apology accepted. And if I might say so, we’re all sorry for the predicament he’s in. And we all believe in him of course.”
“Thank you,” Hillary said. “That means a lot to both of us.”
She introduced Hannah, and they shook hands.
“So I don’t know if you know this, but my sister and I are planning to do a ladies’ poker night.” She said ladies in a weird, lascivious voice that Hannah had never heard her use.
“Really? Great fun! Good for you.”
“So I was wondering if maybe I could sit in for a couple of hands? Just to see how the boys do it?”
He hesitated, precisely as they’d imagined he would. And Hillary responded exactly the way they’d planned.
“Ben said he was sure it would be okay with everyone. Especially if I came early before things got crazy. Ha-ha. I’ll sneak out and let you boys to it, okay?”
He smiled broadly. “Of course. Why not, right?”
Hillary flashed an equally wide grin as they swept inside. For a moment, Hannah looked at her in confusion and, frankly, admiration. What an actress she was. What a conniving liar she could be when she wanted to be.
The house was a sprawling split-level, redwood and glass, very unusual for this traditional neighborhood. From the outside, it looked right at home among the trees and winding paths, so it was easy to see why it had been chosen for the site. But inside, there were no curtains and blinds, and as they walked toward the lower level, Hannah wondered how a woman could feel comfortable living like this. Exposed. Vulnerable. Did his wife change clothes in her closet every night? Did she just turn out the lights and hope for the best?
They walked down cantilevered stairs to a room that overlooked a large stand of trees and a drop-off to the creek. There were a few subtle white lights nestled in the landscaping, illuminating aspens and lindens and maples, highlighting white bark and brown. It looked almost like an Ansel Adams photo. The pitch of the backyard was steep; the path was below them somewhere, but Hannah couldn’t see it. She thought of what Kendra had told her, about the lanterns that used to be hung there, and thought what a shame it was they were gone. How pretty it would look from this vantage point, in addition to being useful. How welcoming, like a camp.
Two circular tables stood near the windows. They looked like real poker tables, not toppers; the felt was thicker and the bases sturdier. Hannah wondered if the room’s sole use was for poker. Where could you store those tables when you wanted to have another, different kind of party? The men were congregated around the bar. A variety of beer bottles stood in ice in a copper tub. There were several bottles of whiskey, a lot of matching gold-rimmed glasses. And there was a lot of noise as they spoke and laughed and clinked ice, competing with the music in the wide-open floor plan. Nothing to absorb it.
So noisy it took them a few seconds to register that they had guests.
“Hey, guys,” Robert called out. “You know Ben’s wife and her sister?”
Everyone stopped talking at once. The Andy Grammer song in the background suddenly seemed too loud, too cheerful, childish. Like Robert’s granddaughter had chosen his playlist.
“Hi!” Hillary said brightly. Every molecule in her body seemed to scream, Don’t judge me by my husband. I am my own wonderful person! She’d taken care with her outfit, dressed casually in jeans and boots but with a cute, clingy green silk top underneath her suede jacket, and her hair in casual waves, the way Ben liked it, Hannah knew. He always touched her hair when it was like that, as if mesmerized. Hannah had witnessed that several times over the years, been jealous of it. Mike had never touched her as if she was a miracle.
Hannah stood by mutely, waving as Hillary explained her sister had just moved into the neighborhood and was next door, and wasn’t that cool?
Hannah unwrapped her plaid scarf from her throat, sensing the room would soon be too warm for her embarrassment and nerves. Already feeling like the plainer, tomboy sister with straighter hair and a boring beige cable-knit sweater. She’d pulled it out of the dry cleaning bag and wondered if it was hers or Miles’s. That was how not sexy it was.
She already knew there were only a couple of single men who came to poker night, a fact Hillary thought it was important to know, but she couldn’t tell which ones they were, since most of them weren’t wearing wedding rings. In Narberth, men wore their wedding rings.
Now she and Hillary stood before them, a group of men trying hard to look them in the eye and nowhere else. How long had it been since Hannah had been in a roomful of men? Years. Years and years. College probably.
“The girls are planning their own poker night. A little competition! So they’re going to play a few hands so we can show them how it’s done, whaddya say?”
Well, what could they say? Nothing, but their faces said it all. Their smiles fell, and the good cheer faded almost imperceptibly. They thought no one would notice, that they would get away with it, but of course the girls noticed. Of course. They’d also expected this reaction—No fun for a little while. Watch yourself. Be careful. They probably know your wives.
“Well,” one of them said, “let’s get started then.”
The sooner we do it, the sooner it’s over, his voice seemed to say.
Hillary pulled up to the table, selected her chips, and looked right at home. Someone brought her a beer. Hannah smiled and said she’d have a Coke. She sat in the back, said she was going to take notes.
“You’re not going to cheat, are you?” Robert laughed loudly, almost a guffaw. “Whenever someone has a Coke, they’re usually a cheater!”
Hillary laughed, too, brighter, more forceful, in a way Hannah hadn’t heard her laugh in years. It was a bar laugh, overly large, meant to carry. She was flirting, Hannah saw. She’d almost forgotten what that was, flirting. She was single now; she’d have to relearn. It hadn’t occurred to her that she’d learn from a married woman.
“Watch out. She’s actually not my sister. She’s from 60 Minutes, doing an investigative piece on suburban gambling,” Hillary said.
“I’m Lara Logan,” Robert said in falsetto, and the two of them laughed. The other men, younger, didn’t seem to get the joke at all.
“Clearly, she is your sister,” one of them said. Barrett? He was taller than the others, maybe six foot five or six. Handsome in that unapproachable way that you notice a statue, looming above you, was handsome. Barrett. Hannah thought that was his name. “There’s a huge resemblance.”
Hannah smiled and considered thanking him, then stopped herself. Would Hillary do the same? No, she would not.
Hannah sat in the corner, taking notes in a small notebook in shorthand, just in case. She was behind Barrett’s right shoulder, and she could tell he was uncomfortable with her being there. He kept stretching his neck, glancing slightly to the right, as if he didn’t trust that she wouldn’t look at his cards. She had the feeling he didn’t trust women. Or maybe just didn’t trust her. And who could blame him? They were on a very untrustworthy mission.
Hannah listed the names of everyone she’d met and their approximate ages and descriptions. Besides Barrett and Robert, there was Brian, who was married to Tara from book club. Sam, who was married to Susan from book club. Jason. Two Matts, one thin, one stocky. Will. And James, the only black man in the room. All of them well dressed with neatly trimmed hair, clean nails, and good manners. No floppy hair. No beards. Their hair colors ranging from dark blond to auburn to black streaked with gray. All of them on their best behavior, she supposed. But all of them drinking. She noticed that much. How many had they had before she arrived? One? Two? Impossible to tell, especially with whiskey. Some men savored it, and some were incapable of drinking slowly, of nursing anything. Those men should stick to beer.
The bar was stocked with two ice buckets, she noted. She also thought that was strange. Two ice buckets? Like they couldn’t be interrupted to refill? Nine players plus Hillary, but only eight spaces at the tables. James and Robert stood toward the back, watching intently, as if they might learn something. And who knows, they might. Hannah knew there was an enormous industry built around people watching other people play games of all kinds, even though she didn’t understand it.
Will, who had dark-brown hair and navy-blue eyes, was the first to get up and get a second drink. Hannah watched from the corner of her eye how he retrieved fresh ice for his glass. That struck her as odd, but she couldn’t say why. He also didn’t ask if anyone else wanted something while he was up. Was that just a girl thing? No, she’d seen both Ben and Mike do this. Common courtesy. Will refilled his own drink, grabbed a handful of peanuts from a bowl on the bar, returned to his seat.
The men were quiet. She’d imagined a raucous group, groaning at their mistakes, teasing each other, and she realized she was picturing, in her head, a group of adolescent boys playing video games. Not this measured, grown-up version where everyone was focused on the game. Was this how they normally behaved? Or were they just being good for her sake?
She watched their frown lines of concentration, their small, precise movements of cards to hand and table. Crisp, practiced. Her sister smiled and laughed, commented on her bad luck or another’s good move, but they were much quieter, more serious. Hillary was trying to lighten things up, but they didn’t rise to meet her.
Hannah realized suddenly what was actually going on. It was like watching people take the SAT. This was important. It was critically important to each man at the table that they beat her sister. That they not be bested by a woman! They were focused on her losing, not her learning.
Hannah spoke to the first player who folded: thin Matt. Dark-blond hair and brown eyes. Brown eyes with extremely long lashes, she noted, standing nearby.
“So the low chip is what, a dollar?”
“Five. White is five, and the highest is green, forty. Robert handles the bank,” he added, as if that was her next question. “You should do that, too, put one person in charge of handling that.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Not everyone’s good with money, so you need the right person.”
“Right.”
“I personally have trouble calculating a tip,” he said and smiled. A nice smile.
“I’m guessing you’re not an engineer?”
“No, I teach math.”
His laugh was a welcome change in the atmosphere.
“Damn that long division,” she said. “You never recover, right?”
“Right.”
“So what do you really do?”
“I run a video and social media company. Which makes the no-cell-phone rule kinda hard for me.”
“Ah, no cell phones allowed?”
“Right,” he said. “And no sunglasses. No hiding your eyes.”
“The phones have to be kept in your pockets?”
“What? No, hell, no—they’re not even on this floor,” he laughed. “Otherwise, we’d all be totally distracted. Plus at some places, people cheat. Especially women who don’t know the game, they might be tempted to cheat.”
“Ah,” she said. “Those damned scheming women. We shall keep that in mind.”
But what she was thinking was eight men, all drunk, all unreachable by their wives. Fascinating, she thought.
“So how is the evening structured? Do you play for an hour then go upstairs and eat, or…?”
“Yeah, I guess it’s about an hour. Then Inge brings the food down.”
The other Matt sitting next to him shot him a quick glance.
“Inge?”
“Personal chef,” Other Matt declared.
Ben had overlooked this salient detail, that a woman might be present. She was about to say “I thought Robert loved to cook” but didn’t want to sound combative.
“Oh, that’s nice,” she said.
“So we can all concentrate on the game,” Other Matt added.
Clearly, this was regular procedure. They’d agreed? They’d voted? They’d chipped in?
“Yes, that makes total sense,” she said. Let them think I’m a logical thinker, she thought. Let them not see how appalling this news was, that men gathered to gamble and hired a woman to wait on them, every other week, for months, and none of their wives were aware. Did Susan and Tara know but not Hillary? Was Ben so worried about his own affair that he hadn’t dared to let on about this? Oh, well, she was probably an old maid in an apron, someone’s childhood nanny who was an awesome cook, and Hannah was overreacting.
Hillary’s brow was furrowed in concentration in a way that made Hannah believe she had a shitty hand. She didn’t know much about the game, but she’d seen that look on her sister’s face before, and it looked like she was trying to wrestle her way out of a corner. Finally, she folded, and the two of them were both free to observe the men. The men seemed to visibly relax after Hillary pushed away from the table, and the energy in the room lightened. At least they weren’t losing to a woman!
When they took a break to eat, Hannah thought, she’d find out what everyone did for a living and where they lived in the neighborhood and how often they attended and if they had been to the last poker night. Those were her goals. Last names, location, job, attendance. Basic things the police might already know or not know. Hannah had read enough true crime and watched enough television to know that the basics were important, that solutions were often close by, right under your nose. Robert struck her as friendly and a little too trusting; he would probably answer anything she asked if she asked it innocently enough.
Ben had been zero help with most of this stuff—didn’t even know most of their last names. She couldn’t even imagine this, being in a small club and not knowing anything about the members. She’d thought it surprising, but even more surprising was that her sister didn’t know. Hillary knew the book club husbands, of course, but she usually knew everything about where Ben went and what Ben did and who Ben associated with. Hannah had overheard some of those miniature interrogations. Hillary had known enough to sic Hannah on Cat after all.
She sat and made notes about the house and music out of boredom. She amused herself by trying to guess the names of songs that came on. The actual poker game, when everyone had a poker face on, was not exciting to watch at all. How did people find watching this interesting? She yawned and made a mental note to turn on poker tournaments the next time she had insomnia.
James won the hand, and almost instantly, there were footsteps on the stairs. Two sets, not one. In front, a woman around Hannah’s age but with a much better figure carried a tray of food.
And behind her, an even younger, prettier woman followed with a tray of cell phones.
Inge and her sister, Anya.