The Craigslist Murders (10 page)

Sometimes, it was physical—the sensation. A split second fit of dizziness. A moment when she was unsure of her footing. How dare her mother attack her in such a private, vulnerable place? Somebody had once said that decorating was a form of dreaming out loud. Charlotte agreed. But it was only here, within the safety of her own home, that she had ever permitted herself to fully explore those dreams. Yet still she smiled at her mother. It hurt her face, the smiling.

“Smile! Charlotte! Smile!” her mother would snarl, tugging her by the hand when she was small and looking
straight into whatever lens seemed to be pointed in their direction. They were usually leaving Serendipity or Gino’s after an early Sunday night dinner. Only Charlotte seemed to understand that the papps had no interest in them. They were often just blocking the shot of some famous person behind them.

If she didn’t smile quickly enough, or the photographers ignored them, her mother would blame her. “No one likes a sourpuss,” she’d sneer, yanking her by the hair and dragging her towards a dingy maid’s room at home. It was off the kitchen. The bed had been removed and the only light came from a grated vent that overlooked an airshaft. “You can come out when you’ve learned to behave yourself,” she’d say, leaving Charlotte locked in the dark. How she’d dreaded the sound of her mother’s heels fading into the distance.

Any infraction of her mother’s rules, including touching her after she had finished dressing for her evenings out, and Charlotte was exiled to the room. It wasn’t easy, fighting the impulse to caress the yards of creamy silk or satin that her mother wore as lightly as she did the deliriously heavy scent of Joy. At first, the experience in the room was terrifying. But then, she’d close her eyes and begin to sing. Over the years, she’d also furnished the room with things that comforted her: a coarse blue blanket, a bottle of water, her Paddington Bear. She refused to bring in a flashlight or even a book of matches. Instead, Charlotte trained herself to embrace the fear; to become one with the darkness.

As she’d unwrapped her gift, a curious poster-like package, she’d wished that her mother could have read her mind.
Why am I always tongue-tied with you?
She was asking herself.
Why, at thirty-seven years old, haven’t I learned to strike back?
Just a glimpse of her gift—of the framed cartoon figure and Charlotte was shaking.

“I found this in the attic out in …”

Her mother was kneading her hands in her lap. “In,” she said again, while rubbing the fabric of the couch.

Charlotte looked at her, puzzled. “In Alpine, Mother?”

“Of course, dear. Where else?” Her mother snapped. “Remember how many of these you used to draw?”

The figure had black stick-like legs, a round, striped body, and a face shaped like the letter C. The inside of the C revealed row after row of sharp, pointed teeth—an open mouth, caught in an enraged, silent howl. Funny how her mother had detested the drawings back then. Now she was pulling them out from the attic and showing them off. But why had she drawn such a strange blank and fumbled for that one word? Alpine had been her home for over twenty years.

“Well, darling … what do you say?” her mother had asked, swinging her thick, chestnut-red hair, with its bold silver streaks, back from her face. “I thought you might be touched by the gesture.”

“I am. Thank you,” Charlotte replied as she tore her eyes away from the cartoon.

Disobeying her mother had never come easily to Charlotte. Her singing, for instance, had been reduced to a barely audible hum after her mother’s order to stop. But she did remember the forbidden trips to the attic that began after her sister died. The hours she’d spent idly talking to snapshots of relatives she’d never met. The one she liked best was of a
pudgy, overdressed woman standing on a boardwalk by the sea. There was a giant Ferris wheel behind her. “My sister, Dottie, Orchard Beach, 1952,” it said on the back. Charlotte slipped it into her pants one afternoon and hid it in the pages of a book in her bedroom. The photo now sat in a silver frame next to her bed. It was along with these surreptitious visits to the attic after her sister’s death that Charlotte had also begun drawing the “C men.” Deliberately pushing the memory of that recurring horror with her sister out of her mind, she had dutifully thanked her mother before escorting her to a taxi. “I have a headache,” her mother announced, wearily. “I need to go to sleep.”

Her mother had suffered from migraines all her life. When she’d received the perfunctory rejection letter from Shinnecock Golf Club and the Union League in New York, she’d gone to bed for three days. “She’s in mourning,” her father had said, sarcastically. “Don’t go near her.”

The replay of her mother’s visit during her bath had left her so irritated and impatient, Charlotte decided to walk a few blocks before bed. Lacing up her Nikes and grabbing a Burberry parka, she locked the door and headed for the elevator. A fierce wind was blowing in from the river as she hit the street and walked down to Duane and Washington.

“Hey, Charlotte! Charlotte!” It was John, the homeless man. “Got a dollar? Got a dollar?” Not only was John accustomed to people looking straight through him, nobody listened to him, either. Maybe this was why he always
repeated himself. Shuffling towards her with his shopping bag clutched against his chest, he was dressed in his usual uniform: khaki pants, a cloth coat, and a button-down Oxford shirt. When he put down his shopping bag, she smiled and passed him a ten. There was something positively patrician about John. Even the way he spoke, the way he said “Yah! Yah!” reminded her of George Plimpton.

Twenty-five minutes later, Charlotte snuggled in between her new Pratesi sheets and thought about John. Every day, rain or shine, he took the subway down from a shelter on 118
^th
Street and hung around on the same corner. Why had he chosen this corner? What made it feel like home? Was he simply a creature of habit? The whole neighborhood, everyone who fed him and paid for his coffee and winter boots, wondered what had made him snap and begin living on the streets.

Just before dawn, Charlotte sat bolt upright, shivering, her body slick with sweat. She hadn’t had this nightmare in years. She was leaping over rooftops, her mouth open in a rictus-like O of fear, too scared to even scream. Her mother, dressed to kill in a twin set and pearls, was chasing after her, holding a kitchen knife.

The question was right there under “Just Asking” on Page Six of the
Post
. “Just Asking” was the IQ test of gossip. Salacious snippets of info about the behavior of nameless celebutards, socialites, and players offered in the form of thinly
veiled questions. If you were connected, you guessed who among the high (like,
very high
) and mighty was off to rehab, sleeping around, losing their jobs, whatever. But today’s question deviated from the usual format:

Charlotte looked at her caller ID and picked up the phone. It was Anna’s usual Monday morning breakfast call. Ordinarily, after a mission, Charlotte would have been delighted to listen to Anna’s gossip about the murder. She imagined that it was like enjoying a cigarette after sex. But her mother’s Sunday visit and the nightmare had robbed her of even that tiny pleasure. So instead, Charlotte ranted on about her Sunday afternoon.

“Charlotte. Listen to me, please,” Anna said, cutting her off. “I know I sound like that guy with the ears in
Star Wars
. What was his name?”

Charlotte felt a tickle in the back of her throat. She giggled. There had been a particularly depressing night during the summer when Anna had showed up at her door with a bottle of Veuve and forced her to watch the entire Star Wars trilogy. “Yoda. His name was Yoda,” she replied, twisting a strand of hair around her pinkie finger.

“Yoda, si. But people only have as much power as you give them. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Of course, I understand, Anna. And that’s very wise. But I can’t help it. I feel sorry for her. And I hate her. It’s all mixed up.”

Anna laughed. “Do you know why your mother is so good at pushing your buttons, Charlotte?”

“I’m not in the mood for jokes, Anna.”

“Because she installed them. I read that in a book somewhere.”

The joke worked. Charlotte felt as if someone had let the air out of her. Her shoulders slumped with the release of tension as she walked over from the table to steam the milk for her cappuccino.

“There is one more step in my therapy session, Charlotte. You must tell me a funny story about your parents, please …”

Charlotte gazed, bleakly, at the pale aqua walls and delft blue trim in her kitchen. Humor was not something she associated with her parents. But Anna was one of the most persistent women Charlotte had ever known.

“I’m not hanging up until you tell me, Charlotte.”

Racking her brain, Charlotte heaped two spoonfuls of sugar into her coffee. “Okay. I may have one story,” she conceded. “It didn’t seem funny at the time, but now …”

“Go ahead,” Anna coaxed. “I’m lighting a cigarette. I’m ready.”

Charlotte wiped the creamy froth from her upper lip with the back of her hand. “I was eight years old,” she said. “I woke up one night and my mother was yelling at my father. ‘Ben! Ben! Wake up!’ When I snuck out of bed, I
saw him swinging an invisible golf club at the top of the stairs. He was sleepwalking his way through eighteen holes, Anna.”

Anna giggled. “You see how it helps?”

“Sure,” Charlotte replied, burning her tongue on the hot coffee. What she didn’t tell Anna was that the golf incident happened three months after her little sister had died. All Charlotte remembered about that time in her life was her own feelings of rejection. It had hurt her, too. The loss of the baby. After all, she was the one who had gotten up that night to comfort her when she was crying. She’d even turned her over on her stomach and left with her own Paddington Bear for company.

Her cell phone trilled.

“I have to go, Anna,” she said, eager to avoid more questions. She loved Anna for asking questions. But she felt guilty about hiding things. Like the fact that she’d had to schedule a doctor’s appointment after the sonogram.

“Everything’s fine. Just a little indigestion,” she’d lied when her friend asked about the results. Anna had been elated.

“Don’t forget Max at 1!” she was saying. “I sold my soul to get you that meeting.”

“I won’t,” Charlotte replied. Max was the city’s most infamous Gothic and Renaissance furniture dealer. For twenty years, he’d refused to allow ‘drekerators’ into his store. Picking up her cell, she swore quietly to herself. It was Rita again.

“Charlotte? I’m worried about the pool. There’s not a lot of time between now and the beginning of the season.”

“It’ll be done, Rita. I promise.”

“Well, you should have called to let me know,” Rita snapped.

“I’m on my way right now to talk with the landscape architect,” Charlotte lied.

“I want you to have a chat with our new real estate manager,” Rita replied. Charlotte let out an audible sigh. “He can handle hiring the contractors. And I’ll expect to see the plans when we meet on Saturday.”

The phone went dead. Rita had fired two real estate managers in the past year. Responsible for maintaining the family yacht, the jet, and the eight homes the Brickmans owned, it was a job from hell, even with five assistants. Busying herself near the stove, Charlotte chopped up heirloom tomatoes and a bit of French gruyere for a breakfast omelet. When the butter sizzled in the pan, she threw in three whisked eggs and flashed backed to her last visit to the Vineyard. It was in the spring.

Rita had “imported” four “in-help” from the city, all Ecuadorian. They spoke very little English and Rita herself hadn’t yet spent enough time in Cabo to learn even the few words necessary to order them around. When Charlotte arrived from the airport, she’d stood unseen in the foyer while her client reamed out a terrified-looking twenty-year-old girl in the living room.

“You do not make de-ci-sions!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, pronouncing every syllable. “I make the de-ci-sions here! And we do not ever use
this
wax in our house!”

The girl timidly nodded her head up and down in a desperate attempt to appear as if she understood.

“Go, go!” Rita screamed. “Back to the kitchen. And don’t forget to fill the ice trays with FIJI water!”

Charlotte was so embarrassed that she was afraid to say hello. But Rita had seen her.

“Sorry, Charlotte,” she said with a laugh, as she walked over for a hug. “Help just isn’t what it used to be.”

Folding the tomatoes in with the eggs, that last bit still made Charlotte giggle.
How the hell would Rita know anything about what help used to be?
Charlotte wondered as she slid the omelet from her pan onto a white Wedgewood plate.
The woman had
no
help till twelve years ago
.