Ivy awoke in the night, something hard against her face. She jerked her head away, snapped on the light. The hard object: a foil-wrapped Belgian chocolate that must have slid off Danny’s pillow.
After that, Ivy couldn’t get back to sleep. She rose, went to the desk and began writing on the thick hotel stationery.
Gold Dust
The official story: Three masked robbers—Lusk, Carter, Harrow. Lusk and Carter killed. Harrow takes $. Leaves Mandrell hanging by the dock. Mandrell implicates Harrow. Harrow arrested at his house. Betty Ann gets away with $.
The real story: Three masked robbers—Lusk, Carter, Mandrell. Lusk and Carter killed. Mandrell takes $. He’s arrested by the dock. Fingers Harrow. Harrow arrested at his house. Betty Ann and $ gone.
Therefore: ?
Therefore what? Ivy had no idea. So many questions, but they all derived from the collision of two irreconcilable facts: Harrow was innocent; he’d pleaded guilty.
Ivy showered, packed and checked out of the hotel at dawn, the bill all taken care of. But she didn’t go to the airport and catch her flight to JFK. Instead she rented a car and drove back across the border, entering Raquette before the sun—a pale, late-autumn disk that seemed smaller than usual—had risen above the trees.
Casino, boat ramp, Harrow’s house. They probably formed some sort of triangle. Was the problem mathematical? Ivy knew that wasn’t good. Her mind didn’t work that way. It wanted a story, and despite her MFA and all those workshops, still preferred a story of the traditional kind, with beginning, middle, end. She started at the casino.
Early morning, but the parking lot was already one-quarter full, or perhaps still one-quarter full from the night before. A crane stood in front of the entrance, removing the Gold Dust Casino sign; a new sign—twice as big, with showers of gold coins and a miner clicking his heels—lay on a flatbed truck.
She sat in the parking lot. Official story: Frank Mandrell waits by the boat ramp for Harrow, who never arrives. Real story: Mandrell comes out of the casino with the duffel bag full of cash. Supposing this was an outline: What came next? Mandrell gets in a car. Is someone waiting in it, at the wheel, or does he drive himself? Had Ferdie Gagnon said anything about a car being found at the ramp? Not that Ivy remembered.
Next question: How fast to drive the getaway car? On this, Ivy had no data at all. What would she herself do? Drive fast, yes, but not fast enough to attract attention from some random patrol car. Settling on ten miles an hour over the speed limit, Ivy clicked the odometer to zero and checked her watch: 7:58. She drove out of the Gold Dust parking lot.
Ivy followed the highway to a stoplight, turned down a street that led toward the river, then onto another one paralleling it, finally onto the bumpy dirt road where Leon Redfeather had taken her. A mile and a half later, the road dead-ended by the huge willow tree. A dirty froth, the color of roasted marshmallows, lapped at the foot of the boat ramp. Time: 8:14. Sixteen minutes.
Official story: Harrow, double-crossing Mandrell, is on his way home with the money while Mandrell waits at the boat ramp, about to be picked up by the Border Patrol.
Real story: Mandrell arrives at the boat ramp with the money.
A fact that Ivy believed totally, but it raised new questions. For example, there’d been no money when the Border Patrol arrested Mandrell. Where was the money? Missing, with Betty Ann. Did that mean Betty Ann had driven Mandrell from the casino, dropped him at the boat ramp, kept going to the house she shared with Harrow?
Ivy backed up, turned around, drove to the highway and into West Raquette. She passed the Main Street Diner—saw a patrol car outside, Ferdie Gagnon drinking coffee in the front seat—climbed the long hill that went by the high school, passed the Ransom Road sign. Exactly two-point-four miles later came that nameless track into the woods. Ivy followed it, around a bend and up a slope, stopping in front of the empty, numberless house with the faded For Sale sign. Time: 8:38. Time from the boat ramp: twenty-four minutes. Total elapsed time: forty minutes.
Ivy gazed at the house. Trees stood close around it, branches hanging over the roof. Moss grew on the shingles; paint was peeling off the door and the window frames. Harrow had been inside, vacuuming the living room, Betty Ann already gone. How long after the robbery had Ferdie driven up? Had he told her? Ivy thought so but she couldn’t remember.
She called the West Raquette police station, got transferred to Ferdie Gagnon.
“Sure I remember you,” he said. “How’s the mystery coming along?”
“Still in the planning stages,” Ivy said. “I’ve got a few—”
“Do you start with an outline, that kind of thing?” said Gagnon.
“That comes next,” Ivy said. “Right now I’m still trying to get the facts down.”
“Facts? But—”
“Facts like how much time went by between the robbery and Mandrell’s arrest,” Ivy said.
“Twenty, twenty-five minutes,” Gagnon said.
“And from then to when you picked up Harrow?”
She heard him take a deep thoughtful breath through his nose. “Call it another twenty-five minutes, half an hour, tops.” Warp speed. “If you’re ever back this way, I can check through the logs, give you something more precise.”
“Thanks.”
“But what I don’t get,” Gagnon said, “is how come it matters.”
“Why wouldn’t it?”
“Because you can make up whatever you want, right?”
“Right,” said Ivy.
“Not telling you how to do your job, of course,” said Gagnon. A phone rang in the background.
“One more thing,” Ivy said. “Did Mandrell have a car down at the boat ramp?”
“Yeah,” said Gagnon. “A Beemer—still on the road.” He laughed. “Although not right now, come to think of it.”
“I don’t understand,” Ivy said.
“That Beemer belongs to Claudette Price,” Gagnon said, “and she’s under DUI suspension.”
“Claudette drives Mandrell’s old car?”
“Can’t remember the details of that,” Gagnon said. “He and Claudette had an off-again, on-again thing of some nature.”
“Where was Claudette the night of the robbery?” Ivy said.
“Don’t recall—her name never came up in the investigation.” Gagnon paused. When he spoke again, his tone wasn’t quite so friendly. “But you can make it however you want. Long as you change the names.”
Ivy got out of the car. She walked around Harrow and Betty Ann’s old house. A gust of wind stirred up some leaves, hard, dead leaves that clattered against the aluminum siding. Ivy peered through a grimy window into the kitchen. A rat squeezed out of a crack in the wall, ran across the floor and through the doorway that led down to the basement.
Real story: Mandrell arrives at the boat ramp with the money. Within a few minutes, the Border Patrol picks him up. No money.
Ivy stared into the kitchen, bare now, no table, chairs, appliances, but once the setting for little domestic scenes—Harrow, perhaps, coffee in hand, coming up behind Betty Ann at the stove and touching her hair. At that moment, Ivy remembered something Gagnon had told her: After the robbery, they were all supposed to meet at the boat ramp, Betty Ann included. The fact that she didn’t show is how Mandrell knew Harrow was double-crossing him.
But Harrow hadn’t double-crossed Mandrell: in fact, was serving real time on account of Mandrell’s made-up story. Yes, he’d pleaded guilty, but because he was protecting Betty Ann: Betty Ann, gone with the money. Therefore: Was it possible that Mandrell had lied about her, too, and she’d been at the boat ramp after all? Just for a minute or two, of course, before the Border Patrol, but enough time to get the money. And after that? Ivy had no clue. She thought of Professor Smallian. He didn’t like traditional stories, but to those who clung to beginnings, middles, and ends, he always had the same advice: Start with the ending.
Ivy got in the car. She took the dirt track out of the woods, bumped onto pavement, followed it back to Ransom Road. Then a left and down the long steep hill where it would be so easy to spin out in an ice storm. Ivy parked in front of Claudette’s house.
By day, she saw what she’d missed at night: a carport beside the house, sheltering an old, rusted-out Beemer of the smallest kind. Ivy went up on the porch, knocked on the front door. No answer. She knocked again, harder. The house was still. Was Claudette back on the day shift? Ivy really wanted another look at that photograph: Harrow, Betty Ann, Claudette, Mandrell. She tried the door. Locked. Was there a difference between entering an unlocked house without permission and breaking in? Yes. But how big when stacked up against the difference between an innocent man—maybe a great artist—being a prisoner or being free? Not so big.
Ivy walked to the carport, tried the side door. Also locked. Next to it was a small window. She glanced around: she was practically invisible from the street, and there were no other houses at the bottom of Ransom Road anyway. Ivy pressed her palms against the window, pushed up. It pushed up. She paused for a moment: this was so much like what had happened at Les Girls, except she was going the opposite way. From prey to predator overnight: had to be a move in the right direction. Ivy boosted herself up and climbed into Claudette’s house.
She was in a little hallway. Claudette’s Wal-Mart smock hung on a hook. Would Wal-Mart issue more than one? Ivy didn’t know. She walked through the kitchen and into the living room. Dark, the shades drawn. She took the photo off the mantel. In the gloomy light, they almost seemed like they could start moving—Harrow, Betty Ann, Claudette, Mandrell. That inward look in Betty Ann’s eyes: Had she been worried about something? Photo in hand, Ivy moved toward the window. She was raising the shade to let in more light when a faint groan came from close by.
Ivy let go of the cord. The shade fell with a sharp thwack, the sound like thunder in the house.
Then came a voice. “What the hell?”
A woman’s voice—thick with sleep, maybe hungover. On the couch, a heavy form changed shape.
“Claudette?” Ivy said.
“Yeah? Who’s here?”
“It’s me,” Ivy said, raising the shade. A beam of light poked in. “Ivy.”
“Huh?”
Claudette sat up, shielding her eyes from the light. One of her breasts flopped out of her tattered robe. On the table beside her lay a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream and an ashtray with cigarette butts and a half-smoked joint. Ivy went closer.
“Remember?” she said. “We had dinner at the Tiki Boat.”
Claudette squinted at her. “Do me a favor?” she said.
“Sure.”
“Water.”
Ivy went into the kitchen, returned with a glass of water. Claudette tilted her head back and drank it down; her neck was lined and puffy, looked much older than the rest of her. Ivy slid the Bailey’s aside and sat on the table.
Claudette glanced at her and blinked. “Bit messy,” she said. “Party last night.”
“Big crowd?” said Ivy.
“Just yours truly,” Claudette said. “Very private.” She noticed her robe was open, pulled it together. “What are you doing here?” she said. “Hey! How the hell did you get in, anyway?”
“The door was open,” Ivy said.
“Yeah?” said Claudette.
Ivy nodded.
“Shit,” said Claudette, sinking back on the couch.
Ivy held up the photo. “I’d like to make a copy of this,” she said.
“How?” said Claudette.
“How?” Ivy said. “Take it to Kinko’s or someplace like that.”
“Oh,” said Claudette. “I was like—maybe you were going to draw it, you know?”
“Just make a photocopy,” Ivy said. “I’ll bring the original right back.”
“I guess so,” Claudette said, sitting up again. “How come you want it?”
“Remember the book I was telling you about?”
“Not really.” Claudette’s gaze went to the half joint in the ashtray.
Ivy started into her story about a book based on the Gold Dust case. She was only a minute or so in when Claudette held up her hand like a traffic cop and said, “Yeah, yeah, it’s coming back to me. Thing is, I’ve got this splitting headache. Maybe some other—”
“Aspirin?”
“Allergic,” Claudette said. “I’m allergic to all pain remedies.” Her eyes went again to the ashtray, as though drawn by a magnet. “Alls that actually does any good is—”
Ivy passed her the ashtray.
Claudette picked up the joint. “Matches around somewheres.”
Ivy found them on the floor. She struck one and held the flame for Claudette.
Claudette sucked on the joint till her cheeks went hollow. Then, eyes bugging out a little from breath holding, she passed the joint to Ivy. Ivy didn’t like pot, but she needed things from Claudette, and how would she get them without some sort of trust between them? She inhaled.
“Ah,” said Claudette. “I feel better already.” Her eyes met Ivy’s. “How do you feel?”
Ivy took another hit. “What a question!” she said.
“Like, um, how?” said Claudette.
Inside Ivy things were so complicated right now. She felt worried, anxious, scared, lonely—and maybe more than all those put together—she felt excited; big excitement, but tamped down, the way it would have to be if you were working on a long-term project with a potential jackpot at the end.
“Like an explorer,” Ivy said.
“You feel like an explorer?” Claudette said, taking the joint from Ivy’s hand, smoking a little more. “Cool.”
“Yeah,” said Ivy.
“Columbus,” Claudette said.
“What about him?”
“That kind of explorer?”
“More like Lewis and Clark,” Ivy said.
“What’s the difference?” said Claudette.
What remained of the joint was back in Ivy’s hand. She finished it and forgot the question. Then she gazed at the photo for a while and forgot that there’d been a question. “This picture is amazing,” she said.
“Yeah?” said Claudette. “I’m looking at it upside down.”
Ivy turned the frame so Claudette could see right-side up. “You’ve got a BMW,” she said.
“Piece of shit,” said Claudette. “Even if I could drive it, which I can’t for three more fuckin’ months.”
Ivy put her finger on the photo, right above Frank Mandrell’s head. “It used to be his.”
Claudette nodded. “Brand-new, back then,” she said. She gazed at Mandrell’s image. “Tell you a secret if you promise to keep it to yourself.”
“I promise,” Ivy said.
She turned to Ivy. “Got a boyfriend?” she said.
“No,” said Ivy.
“But you must be beating them off with a stick,” Claudette said. “Someone like you—educated, pretty.”
“Nope,” said Ivy. “What’s your secret?”
“Frank and I had sex in that car,” Claudette said. “The seat goes way back. Ever done that?”
“No,” said Ivy. A lie, but there was only so much she was willing to give.
“You should try it sometime,” Claudette said.
“I’ll let you know how it goes,” Ivy said.
Claudette started laughing, couldn’t stop. It went on and on—tears, mucus, breast falling out again. “You’re hilarious,” Claudette said, collecting herself at last.
“How did you end up with the car?” Ivy said.
“Asked for it,” Claudette said. “It was just sitting down at the station after Frank went into witness protection. I said could I have it and they got back to me a week or so later with the okay.”
“Meaning they talked to Frank.”
“Must of.”
“Didn’t the BMW get left by the boat ramp?” Ivy said.
“Yeah,” said Claudette. “Harrow double-crossed him.”
“Did that surprise you?” Ivy said.
“Nothing men do surprises me,” said Claudette. She took the picture from Ivy, held it close, a foot from her face, her eyes locked on the image of her sister. “Or women either, for that matter,” she said. The look in her eyes suddenly turned hard. So hard and sudden it stunned Ivy for a moment. She double-checked to make sure.
“Was there some problem between you and Betty Ann?” Ivy said. At that moment, she remembered what Claudette had said to her the last time: Just write that I forgive her. Ivy lowered her voice. “What did Betty Ann do to you?”
The hard look began to fade from Claudette’s eyes. She said nothing. Neither did Ivy. The look faded, faded, finally went soft. “It’s just human nature,” Claudette said. “We’re animals, everything said and done. There’s nothing to forgive.”
“I don’t understand,” Ivy said. But she was getting the first glimmer: anything that moves. She rose from the table, sat on the couch. Claudette shifted slightly so they were sitting side by side, arms touching, the photo in front of them.
“He was very good-looking,” Ivy said.
“Like a Hollywood star—didn’t I tell you?” said Claudette. “Plus being ambitious—he was headed for big things, you could just see it. And of course she was ambitious, too, wanted to get out of here like she could taste it.”
Ivy took in Mandrell’s flashing smile, Betty Ann’s inward look, Harrow’s happiness. “And so?” she said.
“So?” said Claudette, all at once tossing the picture onto the table; it slid off and fell to the floor. “What do you think?”
“Frank and Betty Ann had an affair?” Ivy said.
“Known only to me.” Claudette pointed down the hallway that led to her bedroom. “I caught them at it right here.”
“How long was this before the robbery?” Ivy said.
“She was always the pretty one, you know?” Claudette said. “Why couldn’t that be enough? Why did she have to take him away from me?”
“He’s not worth bothering about,” Ivy said.
Claudette faced her. “What do you know about him?” she said.
“Just what I’ve heard,” Ivy said. “An ex-con and a thief, plus that big ambition of his was to own strip clubs.” She got up, moved a few steps away.
“What are you—a snob?” Claudette said. “There’s money in strip clubs.”
“Jerry Redfeather died,” Ivy said.
“Frank had nothing to do with that,” said Claudette. “He wasn’t even there. Harrow and the others fucked it up.” She noticed that her robe was open, this time did nothing about it.
Ivy knew she’d asked Claudette an important question, still unanswered, but couldn’t remember what it was.
“Clean out of dope,” Claudette said. “Wish to God I had more.”
“That was more than enough for me,” Ivy said.
Claudette started laughing again. “Are all writers funny like you?”
“No,” Ivy said. “I’m the funniest writer that ever hit a delete key.”
More laughter. “You’re wearing me out,” Claudette said. “My middle part of my lungs.”
“I’ll tone it down,” Ivy said.
Claudette giggled. The important question popped back up in Ivy’s mind. She grabbed it while it was still available.
“Between, um, when you caught Frank and Betty Ann and the robbery,” she said.
“Huh?”
“How much time went by?”
“Two or three days,” Claudette said.
“That’s all?”
“Or maybe one.”
“One?” said Ivy. “You don’t mean the same day?”
Claudette shrugged.
“Who else knows?” Ivy said.
“Knows what?”
“About Frank and Betty Ann.”
“Nobody I know,” said Claudette. “Didn’t I say that? Or was it you?”
“You didn’t tell anyone?” Ivy said.
“Like who?”
“Harrow.”
“Why would I do that?” She closed her robe.
“He had a right to know.”
“Not from me,” Claudette said. “Betty Ann was my sister.” Her voice broke. She took a deep breath. “Is. Not saying I wasn’t upset—in fact I left town for a couple weeks, stayed with a girlfriend in Massena.”
“Meaning you weren’t even here the night of the robbery?” Ivy said.
“Heard about it on the news,” Claudette said. “But you know what kept coming into my mind?”
“What?”
“That the whole time Frank and Harrow must of been planning the robbery together, all this, you know, sneaking around was going on. Isn’t that weird?”
“Yeah,” said Ivy. Details were missing all over the place, but she was starting to see the core of it, how Betty Ann got away with the money and Frank Mandrell got away with Betty Ann. And Harrow: still in the dark, still protecting her. “Frank was the brainy one,” she said, “like everyone says.”
“Tell me about it,” said Claudette.
Ivy picked up the photograph, tried to read something in Betty Ann’s eyes, got blocked by that inward look. “What else did you say about forgiveness?” she said.
“Huh?” said Claudette.
“The night we went to the Tiki Boat.”
“Search me,” Claudette said. She glanced at the photo. “And forget about making a copy. You can keep the fucking thing.”