Mr peanut, p.6
Mr. Peanut, page 6
“I’m not saying we don’t, sweetie, I’m just saying we’ve had a fight or two, and just because we have doesn’t mean we’re on the verge of killing each other.”
“I certainly hope not,” Havis said.
Ha stroll looked up from his notes.
“Rand worked for Lehman,” she said.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“It’s caused some stress,” she said.
“I don’t think the detective cares about my job situation.”
“Well,” she said, “somebody has to.”
Hastroll flipped a page in his pad. “So you never heard anything out of the ordinary?” he said.
“No,” Rand said.
“Did you see either of them on the day of Alice’s death?”
“To be honest,” Havis said, “I rarely saw them together at all.”
“Can you clarify that?”
“For several months I never even saw her. I think they were separated for most of this year. I think she was gone.”
“There’s an ugly duckling story for you,” Rand said.
His wife smacked his arm.
“Well, it’s true. She used to be this obese … ” He turned to Hastroll. “She was fat, all right, and then—”
“What?” Havis said.
He looked at her and back at Hastroll.
“She got … attractive.”
His wife crossed her arms, then stood up and gathered the cups from the coffee table. “Do you need to ask me any more questions, Detective?”
“No,” Hastroll said.
“Excuse me then.” She went to the kitchen, dropped the cups in the sink, and slammed the bedroom door behind her.
Rand sighed. He checked over his shoulder and then leaned forward, lowering his voice. “It’s like she’s got a demon in her belly.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Rand checked again to see that her door was closed. “Look, Detective, I saw a couple of things I thought were strange. I didn’t want to say anything in front of Havis because if she thinks our next-door neighbor, you know, offed his wife, she’ll be even more of a basket case than she already is.”
“Go on.”
“There were several months there when we never saw Alice. I can’t tell you what was going on. They kept to themselves. But there was one time I came home late—it was while Alice was gone—and I saw this blonde I’d never seen before leaving their apartment.”
“When was this?”
“Months ago. Three, maybe. Four. I can’t be sure.”
“What else?”
“The night before Alice died, I saw David on the street, talking on his cell phone.”
“Why was that strange?”
“Because he was pacing in circles and really going berserk.”
“Did you hear what he said?”
“He said something like, ‘What do I need to do to end this?’ I couldn’t make everything out. But he sounded like he was at the end of his rope.”
The most highly anticipated moment of Hastroll’s day came right before he put the key into his front door, wondering what Hannah would say to him when he entered their apartment. He was as sensitive to her voice as a dog to a high-pitched whistle.
“I’m home,” Hastroll would say, and Hannah might say nothing. And his spirit, soaring with hope, would come crashing down. Perhaps the television was on. He’d walk into their bedroom and she’d look away from the screen for a moment and say, “Oh, I didn’t hear you come in,” and then go back to watching. He would wait to see if she had anything else to say—she never did—and then he would go into the living room to fix himself a drink.
“I’m home,” Hastroll would say, and Hannah might say, “I’m in here,” which meant come in if you want to, but nothing has changed.
“I’m home,” Hastroll would say, and Hannah might say, “Ward, is that you?” And in that emphasis was a scintilla of enthusiasm. Of love. His soul quickened every time. “It’s me,” he’d say, and hurry in to see her. Perhaps she might get up now and embrace him. Perhaps she might let him kiss her lips. Perhaps she might say, “Darling, I feel so much better today!” and stand up and stretch, then lasso his neck with her arms. If she did, Hastroll honestly believed he’d weep. He would rush into the bedroom and say, “Of course it’s me.” And Hannah, disappointed, might say, “Oh. I thought so.” And that was all.
“I’m home,” Hastroll would say, and every so often—this evening, in fact—Hannah might reply, “Could you come in here, please?” There was a distinct vulnerability in her voice. There was desire. She was on the edge of something; she had something more to tell him. Carefully, gingerly, he entered her room. She wore the same slip she was wearing the day she first lay down. He wondered how it stayed clean. Did she secretly wash it? Soak it in Woolite in the sink? But how did it dry in time? During the day, while he was gone, did she go out to the Laundromat? She did her hair and makeup, that much was clear, ate the food he left her—she wasn’t starving, after all—but whenever he came home, there she was in bed, not a dirty dish to be found, the milk the same level in the fridge, wearing the same damn thing every time.
“Yes, love,” he said, and stood by her bed.
“Ward,” she said. She held out her hand to him.
He took it. Her palm was clammy.
She rocked his hand from side to side, then closed her eyes and put it to her lips, teeth and wet gums rubbing against his skin as if she were a cat.
He kneeled down, never letting go of her hand, taking it in both of his. She looked at him carefully, her own hazel eyes darting back and forth across his own.
“What is it, Hannah? Tell me. Please.”
“No,” she said, and covered her mouth. “No, just go away.”
Pepin’s other neighbor was an elderly man whose doorbell read BAGDASARIAN. He greeted Hastroll distractedly, wearing nothing but a pair of briefs. “If you don’t mind,” Hastroll said, showing him his badge, “I’d like to ask you some questions.” But Bagdasarian had already turned to leave him standing in the hallway. Hastroll stuck his foot in the jamb and followed him inside. The living room was taken up by a large piano, the instrument so ship-in-a-bottle big that Hastroll was tempted to ask how he got it in here. Bagdasarian stood with his back to him, facing a mirror and a mantel lined with pictures. When Hastroll tapped him on the shoulder, Bagdasarian turned and looked at him like he’d never seen him before. Then he pointed at a photograph of a woman thirty years his junior. She wore a green dress and a small black toque. She had candy-apple red hair. The picture, Hastroll could tell by the cars in the street and the skyline behind her, was decades old.
“Das Judif,” he said, his speech mauled, the syllables blunted and deformed.
“Judith?”
The man gave him a crooked smile. “Das my wife.” He looked at the picture and pointed again, then touched the same finger to his lips. “Das Judif?” he asked.
Hastroll left, closing the door behind him quietly, reminding himself that no matter how much pain he felt, he must be careful what he wished for. Hannah let Hastroll feed her. It wasn’t like she was on a hunger strike. In fact, when he brought her dinner in on a tray she became as chatty as she ever was. “How are things at the station?” she’d say, or “It sure looks hot out there,” or “You’ve seemed pretty busy lately.” In fact, it was almost galling, because for those brief moments before she tucked her napkin in her slip, she was acting like a woman who hadn’t been in bed for five months but instead was on the upswing after an illness, the flu, say, was a lot better, thanks, just a day away from feeling strong enough to go back to work.
Hastroll stood there, amazed and obliterated. But he said nothing. He asked if she needed anything else—“I’m great,” she said—and went back into the kitchen, since eating in bed was one of his pet peeves; and then he cleaned up, since another bugbear was waking up to a mess. Though now, standing over the full sink, Hastroll thought about how what he’d cooked her tonight—butterflied chicken over couscous with lemon butter sauce and Italian parsley—had become his favorite dish to make of late; and as he thought over their years together, he realized their relationship could be described as an ever-changing menu, or a sort of bistro à deux, Hastroll the chef and Hannah his only customer. And if he were asked to make a final tasting menu, one that charted significant dates in their history course by course, from the beginning to now, they’d end with that dish after working through Tuscan ribollita with kale, carrots, and cannellini beans, filling and blessedly cheap; cold sesame noodles with grilled pork belly (this during Hastroll’s Chinese phase) and delicious morning, noon, or night, but especially after sex; shrimp and black bean enchiladas, a Friday evening tradition ever since traditions had suddenly started to occupy Hastroll; salmon steaks poached with lemon and black peppercorns finished with a cucumber yogurt sauce (they began eating more fish once they had some dough); and finally his fettuccine with spinach in a cream sauce with mascarpone and a dash of nutmeg, a fistful of parmesan added at the end, because it was easy to make and stuffed his empty belly, and since it was just him and Hannah, after all, did it really matter anymore if either of them got fat?
He returned to their bedroom to collect her plate.
“Do we have anything sweet?” she asked.
Hastroll blinked twice. “You’re kidding,” he said.
“Kidding how?”
“You mean like blueberry pie?”
“That’s right.”
“Pineapple upside-down cake?”
“That sounds delicious, though just some ice cream will do.”
Hastroll pointed at his chest and jabbed himself. “I don’t do dessert!” Then he pointed at her. “You do dessert!”
Hannah smoothed the blankets over her legs and sighed. “You still haven’t figured it out.”
“David and I are business partners,” said Frank Cady. “We started this company together. What’s all this about?”
“Do you know if he and his wife had any marital problems?” Hastroll asked.
“We didn’t have the kind of relationship where he’d tell me.”
Hastroll looked around his office. The walls were covered with posters of Marvel Comics superheroes, some of which even he recognized (though he imagined he’d know them all if he and Hannah had any kids): Spider-Man, Silver Surfer, the Hulk. Action figurines lined shelves along with Dungeons & Dragons books, the Dune series and Lord of the Rings, a Wolverine phone in a glass case. A light saber, framed with an autographed photo of Cady and George Lucas; a road sign reading YOU SHALL NOT PASS, with a symbol that looked like a wizard. The credenza had four computer screens mounted on a bracket, YouTube and a video game running on two, one filled with lines of code like an endless blank-verse poem, the other a screen-saver slide show of children—Cady’s, he guessed; the boy who’d just faded in and out looked exactly like him. A flat-screen television on the far wall showed five commentators above a ticker silently streaming news, everyone in the world living life through avatars, in simulacra, in worlds within worlds …
“For what it’s worth,” Cady said, “they didn’t seem like they had problems. At least none beyond Alice’s health.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Alice struggled with her weight for years. And then she finally got it under control. But none of this matters,” Cady said. “There’s no way David killed his wife.”
“Was there anyone here Pepin was close with?”
“Look, Detective, a guy’s wife kills herself. He sees the whole thing. Why drag him through the mud?”
“I can ask around if you prefer.”
Cady shook his head. His e-mail pinged. “There’s Georgine,” he said, “Georgine Darcy. She’s a junior designer. She and David were working on some major projects together.”
Hastroll could tell at first glance that Darcy had been a ballet dancer simply by how she walked with her feet turned out. She was blond, full-lipped, a poor man’s Scarlett Johansson, although there was a bubble of loneliness around her, a remoteness that preceded her as she approached. He made a mental to note to get the neighbor, Rand Harper, to ID her.
“Miss Darcy?”
When Hastroll showed her his badge, all the color left her face.
“Let me see if there’s a conference room available,” she said, then led him down the hallway with her eyes to the ground. “We’ll be private here.” She turned on the light and closed the door behind her, sat down, crossed her arms over her chest, and watched as Hastroll pulled up a chair. He placed his notepad on the table and stared at her until she lowered her eyes.
“This is about David, isn’t it?”
“Mr. Cady tells me that you and Mr. Pepin worked together regularly.”
“We were developing several games together.”
“Would you say that the two of you were close?”
Georgine put a fist to her mouth and cleared her throat. “We were.”
Hastroll waited. “Did the relationship—”
“Yes.”
“How long did you and Pepin have an affair?”
“About a year,” she said. “We broke it off a couple of months ago.”
“You both agreed to?”
She looked at Hastroll impassively. “He broke it off.”
“Why?”
“He said it confused him.”
“How?”
Darcy had to blink once. It was the shock, Hastroll always noticed, of pure honesty. “He was trying to get clear on his feelings for his wife. She left him for a while and then came back, but right before she did he said that so long as the two of us were spending time together, he wouldn’t know if it was because of his problems with Alice or because there was really something between us.”
“And you agreed with that?”
At this, two discrete tears formed at Georgine’s eyes and fell. “I never seem to have a choice in these matters.” She pressed her index fingers to the bridge of her nose and wiped her eyes. Then she cleared her throat, the crying over with.
“Did he talk about Alice much?”
“No.”
“But he talked about her?”
“Very rarely.”
“You said he mentioned ‘problems.’ How would you characterize their relationship?”
“Honestly?” she asked.
“A woman is dead.”
“I think he felt abandoned. It wasn’t hard to understand. She changed on him. She’d lost weight, something they’d gone through a million times. She’d lose weight, gain it back, and then feel like shit about herself. And he was always there for her, every time, over and over, but this time she does something radical. She loses weight for good, becomes this completely different person, and what? I think he was worried she was dispensing with him in the process.”
“Did he tell you his wife was leaving him?”
“No.”
“Did he tell you he thought his wife was going to leave him?”
“No. But I knew she was.”
“How’s that?”
“You’d have to be a woman to understand.”
“Educate me.”
“We decide things long before we know we’ve decided. She’d decided, all right, she just hadn’t acted.”
“That sounds like something all people do.”
“Women need to feel safe before they make a move. She sounded to me like someone looking for a place to jump off.”
“I must not understand women very well.”
“I could’ve told you that just by looking at you.”
Hastroll nodded. On the pad, he wrote, Hannah. “Did you tell Pepin this?”
“Did I tell him what?”
“That you thought his wife was leaving him.”
“Yes.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said I didn’t know what I was talking about.”
“Did he ever indicate that you two might have a future?”
“He never talked about divorcing Alice, no.”
“Did you talk about a future with him?”
“Sometimes.”
“Was he receptive?”
She shrugged.
“When Pepin broke things off, how did you take it?”
“I didn’t take it well at first.”
“Did you try to keep the relationship going?”
“For a short time. But I got the message pretty quick.”
“You never harassed him? Never threatened him professionally or personally?”
“No.”
“Do you remember the last time you made a private call to Mr. Pepin?”
“I haven’t called David in months.”
Hastroll got up. “Here’s my card. Call me if you think of anything else.” He turned to leave.
“Detective,” she said.
“Yes?”
“I don’t believe he killed her.”
“Why is that?”
“Because he loved her,” she said. “At least, he loved her more than me.”
Hastroll decided he’d been too passive with Hannah. He had to force her hand. He needed a new strategy. He decided to stop feeding her.
“Ward,” she said from the bedroom, “what’s for dinner?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his face hidden behind the paper. “I already ate.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, that’s all right. I’m not really hungry.”
Hastroll snapped the paper away from his face, chuckled to himself, and went back to reading.
Later that night, when he got into his bed, he could hear Hannah’s stomach rumbling. “You sound hungry,” he said.
But she didn’t answer.
He made her no breakfast the next morning. He poured the milk down the drain, bagged up the eggs, bread, the canned soups and beans and vegetables from the pantry, the crackers, pasta, tomato sauce, and chicken broth—in short, everything they had—and left the garbage bags by the front door to take with him when he left for work. To make sure she couldn’t order in, he took all the credit cards and cash from her purse—even her checkbook—and stuffed them in his jacket pocket. When he came to their bedroom to kiss Hannah good-bye, she was frowning, a little perturbed, like someone who couldn’t place where she’d left her keys.
