Laura Lippman - Hardly Knew Her

Or if it has simply whetted its appetite.

The pillow-the thought hits her again, and it’s like a nudge from a cattle prod this time, goosing her so hard that she lurches forward and one of her brothers has to steady her. She’s going to burn that fucking pillow when she gets home. But that would probably draw attention, earn her some sort of environmental citation from the county. She’ll just order new sheets instead. Porthault? No, better not. Too expensive, too impractical, especially given that Michael has been crawling in with her at night and-once, just once-wetting the bed. But something nice, something new, something in a purely feminine color and pattern to signal this new chapter in her life.

I LOVE YOU, THINKS A MAN in the back of the church. I love you, Meghan. I can’t wait to be with you. And he reaches for his wife’s hand.

The clichés about time, like the clichés about almost everything, happen to be true. It passes, it heals, it even flies. Especially, Heloise thinks, when the problem is not one’s own. Well, not strictly hers. In a legal sense, she is accountable. Her silence is a crime, a crime that protects her own crimes. She knows enough to realize that police might offer her immunity from prosecution if it ever came to that, but police cannot offer her immunity from the destruction of Scott’s life should the details of her business become public. Still, days go by when she doesn’t think about the compromising position in which Meghan holds her. Summer is an interesting time in Heloise’s line of work: while she loses many of her political regulars, the growing custom of summer shares, in which Daddy stays in the hot city while the family is at the Delaware shore, produces a nice, steady stream of income from nice, steady men. Oh, a few seem to think they should try to be more decadent than they really are, but they are clearly relieved to find out that not that much imagination is required. She puts the girls on a Monday-through-Thursday schedule, which everyone likes, and handles the few weekend kinkmeisters, as she thinks of them, longtime customers with specialized needs.

On this particular Saturday night, for example, she’s meeting a seventy-five-year-old man who really could be happy with the services of a good reflexologist, assuming he could find one who agreed to work naked. All he wants is for someone to squeeze his toes in a very particular pattern, almost as if they were bagpipes or a cow’s teats. Easy money, and his feet are beautifully kept, especially for a man his age-the toenails freshly cut and only faintly yellow-but tonight he takes longer than usual to complete, and when he pays Heloise, he shakes his head sadly.

“What happened to Veronica?” he asks. “The dark-haired one?” (And, yes, Heloise has a blond named Betty in her employ as well, and they often tag-team a man who insists on being called Archie. Unless he’s calling himself Gilligan, and then they’re Ginger and Mary Ann.)

“I try to give the girls weekends off in the summer.”

“The thing is-you look great, Heloise. Truly. For your age. But for me, it takes a younger girl…”

“I understand,” she says, patting his hand. He’s not the first one to say this to Heloise in the past two years or so. The fact is, another cliché applies: this hurts him more than it hurts her. He only thinks it’s youth he wants. It’s novelty he craves, and she’s been taking care of him for more than five years. Some men like that, actually, love the groove, the pattern, discover a way to be monogamous twice over, with their spouses and their whores. But, obviously, some are going to get bored, even a man such as Leo, who doesn’t even open his eyes while he’s being serviced and does most of the heavy lifting himself. At forty, Heloise plans to continue taking calls for at least five more years, tops, and she doesn’t think she’ll lose that many customers along the way. But when she stops, she will have to hire two girls to take her place, and the way she sees it, every employee elevates her exposure to risk. Plus, it’s a bitch, managing other people.

Still, she feels a little pang, leaving Leo that evening. For whatever reason, age or novelty, Heloise has been rejected, and she is unused to rejection, given that she eschews recreational sex, with all its irrationality and head games and confusion.

Her cell phone throbs in its dashboard-mounted holster. “Meghan.” Speaking of people who are a bitch to manage.

“You’re on Bluetooth,” she warns.

“Is there someone else in the car?”

“No, but-”

Meghan’s voice rushes ahead, heedless. “He’s been in touch.”

“Who?” Heloise is confused, and her mind rolls to Brian. Is Meghan having some sort of paranormal episode?

“Pillow man.”

“Humph,” she says. Then: “I’m on the way back. Why don’t I swing by?”

“Heloise…” Meghan’s voice is urgent, needy, whiny.

“I’m twenty minutes away.” More like thirty-five, but Meghan will keep talking if she tells her that. “No phones, Meghan.”

MEGHAN LOOKS AT THE PLAIN PIECE of paper, mailed in the area and postmarked two days ago. She almost didn’t open it-the fussy handwriting looked machine generated, junk mail attempting to masquerade-but she saw at the last moment, before pitching it into the recycling container, that it was, in fact, real handwriting, just enormously fussy.

Inside, a plain piece of paper, unsigned of course: “Remember the golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I did my part. Now it’s your turn.”

She tells herself that it’s not related, that it’s some sort of freak chain letter. There are some crazy Christians around here, although most of them home-school. It’s a coincidence, like that urban legend about the girls who prank-call various numbers-“I saw what you did!”-only to reach someone who’s just tidying up after a murder.

Murder: don’t go there.

Do unto others-what, exactly, has her correspondent done for her? Finished a job? Saved a man from suffering? Murder? Again, she tries to wall off that thought, but it’s awfully hard to avoid. She pours another glass of wine. She drinks less since Brian died, more proof that he was bad for her. But wine goes to her head faster as a result, and she worries that she’ll be a little tipsy by the time Heloise arrives. A car in the driveway-it’s her! A part of her mind detaches as it always does when Meghan sees Heloise, wonders at the sheer perfection of her sister’s appearance. Hair, perfect; nails, perfect; clothes, perfect. Heloise takes care of herself because it’s part of her livelihood. But might it not become Meghan’s livelihood, too, now that she plans to start hunting for a new husband? Can she afford to keep herself as Heloise maintains herself? Meghan has tried to work out the math, but it’s too discouraging. Sleeping with the same man, even a mere twice a week, over a couple of decades simply cannot produce as much income as Heloise’s thriving business does. Unless she lands a billionaire, and those aren’t found in Turner’s Grove. Equity millionaires, men with a lot of house under them, but no real money.

Heloise comes to the front door and knocks, then waits to be admitted. Very unlike Meghan’s female friends, who push open the door with a cheery “hello,” sure of their welcome. Since Brian’s death, Meghan has paid special attention to how people enter her home. Was the door unlocked that day? Did she leave the garage door up when she left, shaking with adrenaline? Heloise, of course, is the one person who could not have sneaked back to kill Brian. Or wait-why not? Meghan went back to band practice. Who knows what happened in those intervening hours?

But the fact is, she cannot imagine Heloise doing that for her, which makes her kind of sad. A real big sister would have done it, and Heloise is the older by six months. But then-a real big sister would have owned up to it, too.