The Book of James (20 page)

might not have heard her at all had I not been standing so close.

My whole body was shivering when I got into the hal way.

I sat on my bed with the Bible in my hand. I turned to the

Epistle of James and studied the doodles. They were drawn hap-

hazardly, in every direction. There were no words, just drawings, scribbles, and violent geometric patterns. Every page in the chapter was the same.

Nick had underlined four verses. It looked as if he had taken a

dull pencil in his fist and pressed it to the page over and over. The first passage, James 1:15, read:
Then, when desire has conceived, it
gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

I moved on to the next passage, James 2:15 and 2:16. Part of

it had been obliterated by his pencil. The rest of the passage read:

. . .
of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be
warmed and fil ed,” but you do not give them the things which are
needed for the body, what does it profit?

I scanned down the page.

James 5:2.
Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are

moth-eaten.
I laughed a little, remembering the closet last night and the stench of mothbal s.

The fourth passage was so violently attacked by his pencil it

had been eliminated from the page. The verse numbers around it

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were 5:5 and 5:7. I had to find a Bible and see what it was about passage 5:6 that had inspired Nick to destroy this page, this book.

I dropped the Bible onto the bed and went to the bathroom to

brush my teeth. I had the brush pushed all the way to the back of my mouth, minty gel ready to spill out over my bottom lip, when it hit me. The brush and froth dropped from my mouth into the sink.

I raced back to the Bible.

The Epistle of James.
Find James.
Nick had written
JAMES 5 6

on the paper in that envelope. This verse must be what he meant.

What’s the connection, Nick?

I left the Bible on my bedside table when I half ran, half walked to Dylan’s house the next evening. His house was dark, but the box

from Samantha was sitting on his front step. I pulled at the tape, but it was the kind with the string in it, and it didn’t tear easily. I was trying to rip it apart with my teeth when Dylan’s car pulled up.

“So hungry you’re eating boxes now? Don’t they feed you any-

thing in that house?” he said, getting out of his car.

I laughed. “Do you have scissors or a knife?” I followed behind

him as he went to the kitchen.

He handed me a steak knife. I cut the tape apart and lifted

the flaps. Dylan, still in his suit, watched over my shoulder. My hands shook a little as I pulled out a stack of letters bound with string, a yearbook, and a manila envelope, laying them all out on the counter in front of me. Dylan took off his suit jacket and threw it on the back of a chair.

“I’m going to change. I’ll be back,” he said.

I nodded after him and took everything to the coffee table in

the living room. I cut the string with the knife and opened the letters, spreading them before me. They were all from a Josef Heinz.

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He’d apparently sent the first letter with some money shortly after Nick left Philadelphia. I could gather from the rest of the note that Nick was staying at the home of one of Josef Heinz’s friends. In

Maine.

The letter went on to say that Cora’s lawyer had been around

the Heinz home looking for Nick. Cora was apparently irate and

was threatening to take some legal action. Nick was only sixteen.

She certainly could have called the police. She was his only surviving parent. She kept his room like a shrine, changing not even so much as the sheets on his bed after he left, yet she barely lifted a finger to get him back. And she didn’t even go to the house herself, but sent a lawyer instead. It made no sense.

Dylan passed by in sweatpants and a T-shirt emblazoned with

the logo of some Ivy League college. “Do you want something to

eat?” he asked. “I know I must have something here, but God only

knows what.” He kept going without waiting for an answer.

I opened the second letter. It was written two months after the

first one. Again, it had contained money. Heinz wrote of his con-

cern for Nick’s safety and well-being. He said he wouldn’t be able to write often, but that he was thinking about Nick all the time.

Cora was still demanding to know where Nick was living, making

idle threats. He’d refused to give her any information. Two months had gone by and all Cora did was ask where he was? No fits of

fury? No gnashing of teeth?

Three letters were written when Nick was in school at the

University of Southern Maine. Josef Heinz presented Nick with a

choice: live without money and do the best he could, or collect his inheritance and take the risk that Cora would find him. He was of age at that point and had obviously made his choice. I could testify to the number of student loans he took out to finish college and

graduate school.

The last of the letters was dated 1998. It came shortly after

Nick’s graduation from the University of Southern Maine. It was

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ELLEN J. GREEN

short and sweet and full of well-wishes. This was evidently the last letter Nick had ever received from this man.

“Dylan?” I called. He stuck his head out of the kitchen.

“Where’s East Gowen Avenue?”

“Mount Airy. Not too far from where I used to live. Why?”

“This friend of Nick’s father lives there, or did. I was thinking of going to see him. How’s the neighborhood there now?”

“That part of it’s real y nice.” He came out and handed me a

Coke. “I don’t have anything to feed you, but I ordered a pizza.

Plain. Is that okay?” He sat on the back of the couch, one leg swinging back and forth, watching me.

I opened the yearbook and sat back. I was flipping through the

pages, just trying to get a feel for what Chestnut Hill Academy was like. The classes looked smal , maybe fifteen kids. Shiny, well-bred white faces smiled at me from the pages. Rich, privileged kids.

When I found Nick’s picture, I had to look twice to make sure it

was real y him. It was a group shot, and he almost faded into the background. He sat unsmiling. He was pale and drawn, his hair fell forward in his face, and he’d apparently not cared enough to brush it back before the flash went off. Part of his face was obscured, and the rest was nondescript.

“Let me see that.” Dylan leaned forward and took it from my

hands. He turned the pages. “Did you notice that no one signed

this?” He handed it back to me. “Hold on, I’ll show you mine.” He disappeared upstairs and came back down a few minutes later. He

handed me a book identical to the one I was holding. I opened it.

Notes went every which way, covering the pages. They were written in that cryptic language that high schoolers use when they write to one another. Dylan took his seat on the back of the couch again,

watching me. He had lettered in three sports: soccer, hockey, and cross-country. I picked up Nick’s book again.

I leaned my head back and looked up at Dylan. “It’s sad. He was

so isolated. Not even one teacher signed ‘good luck,’ or anything?”

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“He probably didn’t ask. So what else’s in that box?”

I picked up the manila envelope and reached inside. I pulled

out an old photograph of Ginny. She was sitting on the wraparound porch, smiling and waving. The photo had to be at least twenty

years old. The edges were curled and yellow. I handed it to Dylan.

When I pulled out the second photograph, I knew it even upside

down and sideways. The black-and-white shot of boys sprawled

across the grass was an exact duplicate of the one in Cora’s gallery.

The small child reaching for the camera, the other three seated in the background. They were dressed in long sleeves, no jackets. No leaves visible. Springtime.

Nick was staring straight into the camera, showing no sign

of distress. The boys to the side seemed comfortable in their surroundings. The toddler reaching for the camera was innocent and

unafraid. His face was turned sideways, part of a chubby arm visible. Cora had burned this photograph. Nick had kept it locked up

in a safe-deposit box. It had significance, connected to something important.

“Do you recognize any of these kids?” I handed it to Dylan.

He scrutinized it for a few minutes. “It’s hard to tel , it’s a terrible picture, but I think this one”—he pointed to the boy on the far right—“is Phillip Simmons. He went to school with us. His

father is a lawyer at the firm.” Dylan flipped his yearbook open and pointed to Phillip’s senior picture. I stared from one to the other.

“How about the others?”

“I don’t know the others offhand. Is it important?”

“It is to someone. This is the third time I’m seeing a photo of

this day. Cora had a similar one, Ginny too, and now Nick. Do you still know Phillip? Can you ask him?”

“I haven’t seen him since graduation. He went to Stanford and

never came back here.” He took the picture from me. “Let me make

a copy of this? Put it on the Internet? See if I can find anything out?”

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ELLEN J. GREEN

“Not a good idea. Cora burned it. Nick hid it. I don’t want it

out there—but maybe ask discreetly?”

He nodded.

The last thing in the envelope was a coin. Not exactly a coin. It was flat and round like a coin, but it was green. It had a horseshoe printed on it. The name
Nick Whitfield
was engraved in the metal.

It was heavy, not made of aluminum. I turned it over in my hand.

There was a horseshoe on the back; underneath, in small letters, it said
Reading Terminal
. A lucky piece. I turned the envelope upside down and shook it. That was it.

Dylan was doing something to my hair. I could feel it. My hair

was in a ponytail. He was pulling at a curl until it was straight and then he’d let it go. It was distracting. I put my hand up to the back of my head.

“Don’t mess up my hairdo. It took me hours to get it like this.”

While we ate, Dylan flipped through his yearbook, staring at

the pictures. I leaned back and watched him. He wasn’t the sort of person I would have ever been attracted to before.

“So, what now?” he asked.

“I’m going to add this to my growing list of things to do.” I

gestured to the items spread out on his coffee table. “Like finding Josef Heinz. And Ralph Simpson. Developing the film.”

“Why the gardener?”

I leaned forward. “I have this feeling about him. He worked for

Cora for sixteen years, and then he was just gone.”

“Have you heard of the word
retired
?”

I thought for a second. “The same gardener works for her for

years and years, and now, all of a sudden, the new company has

to rotate the crews? She doesn’t want the same person around

the property anymore. Why? Did Ralph Simpson get too close to

something?”

Dylan peered at me across the coffee table, his eyebrows raised,

so dark against his skin it looked like someone had taken a black THE BOOK
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169

magic marker and drawn them on. He didn’t answer but burst into

laughter.

“What’s so funny?” I was a little insulted.

He choked on a bite of pizza, and it took a few seconds for him

to swallow. “I just got this image of you as Nancy Drew. Are you

going to wear a poodle skirt and carry a magnifying glass?” For

some reason this amused him so much that he started laughing

again.

“If you’ll be a Hardy Boy. In fact, you got the preppy thing

down pat. All you have to do is slick your hair back a little and you’ll be all set.” He had gotten under my skin, and I was angry.

He was still laughing. “I’ll go with you if you want.”

My face flushed. I knew he was teasing me, but I could feel

the rage in my gut. I stood up and picked up my box. “I’m glad I

amuse you, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to take my clues home

and study them.” I walked to the door.

Dylan rushed to block my way. At full height, I came up to his

col arbone. “Don’t go.”

I adjusted the box in my arms. “I’m glad I could bring such

excitement and amusement to your otherwise very dull life.”

I knew why I was angry. I was angry with myself for being

attracted to him. I didn’t want to be. I’d just buried Nick—and

besides, Dylan was too upper-crust, too blue-blood, not spon-

taneous. A bland, boring lawyer like all those other lawyers at

his party. He would look good with one of those plastic society

women who go for facials and boob jobs at regular intervals, who

always have on makeup, each eyebrow shaped into the perfect

arch. A blonde with nice, straight, well-behaved hair that doesn’t stick up every which way, who has it cut every three weeks without fail. Someone who would enjoy the country club and watching a

polo or cricket match on Saturdays, sipping some kind of sweet

drink with an umbrel a in it. I put my hand on my hip and shifted 170

ELLEN J. GREEN

the box under my arm. “And what the fuck is cricket, anyway?” It

came out of my mouth forceful y before I had a chance to censor it.

He stared at me. “What?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.” I tried to walk out past him, but

he grabbed my arm. I could feel the pressure of his fingers on my skin. He was confused, and I guess rightly so.