No One Tells Everything Read online

  The super and his wife are sitting on the stoop enjoying the sunny afternoon outside her apartment. Grace is hungry but she can’t face their questions, their neighborly chitchat, their optimism. She is trapped inside, behind her pulled curtains, with no means of escape. She has never cooked a real meal for herself and her empty refrigerator gapes back at her. She cuts the mold off a nub of old cheddar and scrounges for some stale saltines in the cupboard.

  She calls the jail and the clerk gives her Charles’s inmate number and cellblock. She turns on her laptop. Dear Charles. But she can’t type anything further. She doesn’t even know what she is asking for. Dear Charles, I would like to meet you, to hear your side. No, that’s not right. I don’t believe you were some type of predator. No. She tries again.

  Dear Charles,

  I have been following your case and I am very interested in learning about you. I live in Brooklyn but I grew up in Cuyahoga, Ohio, which kind of makes us from the same place. I imagine that because of the unsettled legal status of your situation there are events that you will be advised not to speak about. I understand this. However, it is the rest of your life that I am interested in. Maybe we can get to know each other.

  I hope you will write me back. I am enclosing a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

  Print. Fold. Seal. She double-checks the address. She bites her thumb. Her heart hammers in her chest and she feels slightly faint. It is quiet outside her door, and when she peeks through the blinds, the stoop is empty. She slips out to the corner and deposits the letter, checking twice that it has disappeared down the mail slot.

  ###

  On one of her many scattered pages Grace finds the number of Steve Daniels, a high school classmate of Charles’s, now finishing his freshman year at NYU. He responded immediately to her email—she pretended she was a reporter from the magazine—and said he knew Charles. When she calls him she guesses from his breathy, conspiratorial tone that he can’t wait to talk.

  They agree to meet at a new NoLita bar that’s all brushed steel and cement. He’s in a tight T-shirt, jeans, and black cowboy boots, and when Grace arrives he is flirting with the strapping, overly bronzed bartender. Steve’s hair is a lustrous black, closely cropped, and his long-lashed eyes sparkle with the newfound freedom of college. Unlike Charles, he is small and graceful, and she wonders what he’s hiding beneath the immaculate exterior construction.

  She holds out her hand and he kisses it like they are courting. She orders a club soda and he orders a Red Bull and vodka. His movements are mannered and theatrical. He plays his part with relish.

  “Oh. My. God. So crazy, right?” he says as he situates himself. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard.”

  “So you knew Charles?”

  “I knew who he was. We had a couple of the same classes.”

  “But you weren’t friends?”

  “Have you seen that thing he posted on our high school’s alumni page for our class? They must have taken it down already. Oh man.” He covers his mouth for a moment with his hands for emphasis. “He said something like ‘What’s up Hunter High School! When not hanging out with my girl, I’m hazing pledges. My life is dedicated to keeping my fraternity number one on campus, my girlfriend smiling, and my Land Rover clean. I don’t work but who the hell has time to when happy hour starts at 4?’ Did he really think people would be like, ‘That dude’s so cool now’?”

  Steve shakes his head and looks out into the bar. He catches the eye of someone at a table behind Grace and gives a barely perceptible head nod.

  “Was he picked on in high school?” she asks.

  “He was fat. A nerd. It was painful how he tried to get people to like him by paying for stuff. I mean, yeah, high school sucked. But lots of people get picked on. Lots of people don’t fit in. But murder? Jesus.”

  Steve’s mask has started to slip. He has not yet learned how to cement it fully in place. Time and practice will help. And denial is good. He sucks down his drink and touches his hair.

  “Did he have any friends?” she asks.

  He shrugs and gives her an empty look. His eyes flash and betray his affected distance.

  “I think he hung out at lunch in the drama department, probably so he wouldn’t get his ass kicked. There was this girl Kelly who ate there sometimes. She was kind of a punk chick. Or goth or whatever. She went to art school in California.”

  Steve pretends to search for an eyelash in his eye.

  “Where did you eat lunch?” Grace asks gently.

  Steve smiles but only with his mouth, then his eyes dip and he looks away. He looks chastised and his shoulders sag.

  “Okay, yeah. I ate with him sometimes,” he says.

  She waits.

  “We were friends by default, I guess. If you could call it that. It was better than being alone. I kind of hated him. I hated that he was in love with a cheerleader and thought that she could like him. I hated that he thought he could dye his hair blond and look better. I made fun of him.”

  Grace opens her eyes in surprise.

  “I know it sounds harsh,” Steve says. “But I didn’t want to see him make more of a fool of himself than he already did. And I didn’t want it to rub off on me. We didn’t talk about real stuff. We kind of didn’t want to know. Talking about it would make it more true or something.”

  “Did you ever talk to him after you left home?”

  “Nah. We had a fight toward the end of senior year. That was kind of it. I told him I didn’t want to be his friend. I had a plan, and he wasn’t part of it. It was every loser for himself.”

  Steve looks uncomfortable and unsmooth, still a teenager trying out a new part.

  “Why did he do it, anyway?” he asks, his voice now quiet and small.

  “I don’t know that he did,” she says.

  He finishes the rest of his drink and vigorously shakes his head to dislodge the mantle of bad memories. Perhaps by talking about Charles as a distant character Steve thought he was creating a new, less painful past for himself. It doesn’t seem to have worked.

  “I have to go,” he says, sliding off his stool and digging for money in his front pocket.

  “I’ve got it,” Grace says.

  “Okay,” he says. “Thanks.”

  He hugs her without pretense and she gets a final glimpse of the unsure kid he once was, the one he has decided to pack away for good.

  “Thanks for talking,” she says. “And if you think of anything else…” But she knows this is the last she will hear from him.

  “Promise I’ll get an autographed copy of the article?” he calls out in a singsong flourish over his shoulder, less to Grace than to the whole bar.

  Not waiting for a response, he rushes out into the stream of bodies and the forgiving darkness.

  ###

  “People are so sad, Jimmy,” Grace says, swirling the last sip of ginger ale around in her glass.

  “Not me,” he says, cracking his knuckles. “My life’s a laugh a minute.”

  She smiles. “Nice haircut.”

  “Thanks,” he says, turning his head both ways so she can see all angles.

  Chances is crowded and groups of young people press against the bar.

  “Are you checking IDs?” she asks.

  “Don’t hate them for their youth,” Jimmy says. “You were like them once.”

  “I was never that young,” she says.

  “You forget I was a witness to it,” he says. “To Grace, the early years.”

  A thin girl with a ginger mane knocks into Grace and apologizes with the gravitas of having accidentally cut off her arm. She has a genuine sweetness about her that Grace imagines Charles would have been a sucker for, while at the same time knowing that he couldn’t possibly be that lucky.

  “It’s okay,” Grace says to the girl, who gently touches her shoulder before going back to a conversation with others who look just like her.

  What hope Charles must have had to believe that the cheerleader liked h
im, even as his life played itself out against him over and over and over again.

  “Are you okay?” Jimmy asks, leaning forward to cut through the noise.

  That is a question, Grace thinks. Even back in kindergarten she refused to smile for the class picture, the photographer a greasy man with thin lips, because she wanted to look serious, because she didn’t think any of it was funny. She didn’t understand how everyone could just smile on cue.

  “You know, Grace, it’s okay to talk every once in a while. We humans are social animals.”

  Sometimes she’s not so sure.

  “So what about this kid they’ve got? Your kid.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the girl was at the wrong place at the wrong time. I think he was a troubled kid.”

  “I’ll say,” Jimmy says, pouring five tequila shots for the rowdy guys watching the Mets on TV.

  A man takes a seat next to Grace. He is in his forties, with silvering hair and a Roman nose. Behind round glasses, his eyes are close together and watery blue. Maybe it’s the fraying tweed jacket, but there is a slight air of gentility and defeat about him. He glances at her and catches her staring, then orders a scotch on the rocks.

  Sometimes Grace would dance with her father. Not like in one of those sentimental commercials, where a girl in a pink dress stands on her dad’s feet, but enthusiastically, with real spins and swing steps. The last time she can remember was when she was thirteen. And he was drunk. Drunk in the way that she was used to, louder, redder, wistful, his breath tinged with that warm antiseptic smell. Her mother wasn’t there but they were in the kitchen and spaghetti sauce was on the stove. There was a John Coltrane record playing, coming from the living room, and her father took her in his arm without a word and grasped her other hand and held it straight out, with mock seriousness, sweeping her through the room until they reached the refrigerator, where he spun her around and then headed in the other direction. She laughed. She laid her head on his chest and let him lead.

  But during the second pass, he tripped on the edge of a stepstool that she had left out, and he started to fall. She tried to hold him up, to hold him with all she had, to spare him the moment of his crash. But her will wasn’t strong enough to support his weight and he went down with an awkward thud onto the terra-cotta tile floor. When he got to his knees he swayed a little, confused. To lessen his embarrassment, she didn’t ask him if he was all right. He got to his feet without saying anything, and then retreated to his den.

  “Hello,” the man next to her says with clipped formality.

  Grace has been staring at his drink.

  “Hi,” she says.

  “Michael,” he says, extending his hand. Small fingers. Short, bitten nails.

  “Grace,” she says, taking his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “May I buy you another one of those?” He points to the watery remains of her ginger ale.

  “I think I’ll have what you’re having.”

  Jimmy looks hard at her but he doesn’t say anything, setting out a glass.

  Grace drinks it down fast and Michael orders them each another. She feels languid and warm, poured into her seat. He is a lawyer from Cincinnati. Visiting his mother. Or so he says. He doesn’t rush to fill the silences and he doesn’t seem to be trying too hard, which she appreciates. She downs two more.

  “What kind of law do you practice?” she asks.

  “I’m a defense attorney. White collar.”

  “Have you ever defended someone who’d signed a confession but didn’t do it?”

  Michael leans back a little to take her in.

  “Uh, no. Confessions aren’t really in my line of work. But I’d probably advise this person to plead it out and cut a deal. How come? Signed any confessions lately?”

  “Just curious.”

  “Do you live close by?”

  As she follows this man out the door, Jimmy catches her eye. He mouths, “Goodnight Gracie,” and she turns away.

  ###

  Michael’s body is pale-skinned with sparse dark hair. A slight paunch is all the rest Grace can make out in the low light. They don’t talk. It is a relief to go through the motions.

  The professor rarely spent time in her bed. He preferred they had sex in his office, amidst his books and dying spider plants and the dated photos from when he had a full head of hair.

  Grace takes off her clothes, not looking to be seduced, not looking for romantic gestures. His mouth has already turned acrid from the alcohol but she imagines hers isn’t much better. He moves to her neck.

  “What do you want?” Michael asks. “How do you like it?”

  As if sex is a steak, she thinks.

  She keeps her eyes open in the dark to minimize the spinning, and she doesn’t answer. She encircles his back with her arms and hopes this is enough encouragement. She doesn’t know why she bothered. It’s not entirely unpleasant, but she’ll be left a little more depleted than when she started.

  Michael’s breath quickens. Grace doesn’t feel much but she helps him along.

  He finishes and pulls away. He has one leg in his pants before she even realizes what’s going on. She appreciates his economical performance.

  Was it as good for you? she wants to ask.

  “Thanks,” he says, zipping up.

  “Have a good visit,” she says. “With your mom.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”

  She rolls over to her side, her head perched on her hand, watching him maneuver his extrication.

  He mistakenly opens a closet before he finds the door.

  “Well, good night,” he says.

  He has already forgotten her name.

  She barely makes it to the bathroom before she throws up. She slides over into the bathtub and feels the cool, smooth enamel against her body. She wonders if Charles lies awake at night in his cell or if he sleeps like the dead.

  ———

  Nassau County Police believe a kidnapping and sexual advance led to a struggle, which ultimately claimed the life of 20-year-old Emeryville College freshman Sarah Shafer.

  “He had this party for graduation and everyone from the class was invited. They rented one of those blow-up bouncy things. We all went as a joke.”

  “His sister was super-cute and totally normal. We couldn’t believe she was related to him.”

  ———

  CHAPTER 9

  Brian picks up the phone when Grace calls in to play hooky.

  “Hey,” she says, her voice gravelly, weak. “It’s Grace.”

  He sighs. She’s lost track of how many times she’s been a no-show in the last month.

  “Don’t tell me,” he says bitterly.

  “I’m feeling under the weather,” she says.

  She sees something on the floor and inches over to the side of the bed. It’s a watch, a man’s watch with a black leather band, unfamiliar. Funny, she thinks, that he bothered to take it off.

  “Grace, you have to at least show up,” Brian says. “I can’t keep covering for you.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  She rests her leaden head back on the pillow and hooks her elbow over her eyes. He has some kind of techno music on in his office and even at this remove, it makes her feel a little sick.

  “What’s going on with you?” he asks, quieter.

  “Nothing. Really. I’m fine.”

  “Grace, you can talk to me. I’m your boss but I’m your friend, too.”

  What could she possibly say? You like me because I don’t make sense, remember?

  “Maybe we can talk tomorrow,” she says.

  “Yeah,” he says. “I think we need to talk.”

  She feels bad for making his life more difficult when all he has ever been is nice. She wants him to throw her another life preserver that she can let float by.

  “What about tonight, after work? We could meet for a drink,” she says, wanting to appease him.

  “Yeah?” he says. “Okay. Great. You think you’ll
be feeling better by then?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” she says.

  She reaches from the bed for the watch on the floor, barely keeping herself from falling on her face. It’s a Piaget with a square face and roman numerals. Thank you Michael from Cincinnati. She slides back under the covers and tries the watch around her wrist, which looks bonier than usual, breakable in one snap. On its smallest setting, the watch spins around like a bangle.

  ###

  She finally hears back from Kelly, Charles’s other high school lunch mate.

  “I don’t have anything to tell,” she writes. “But I guess it doesn’t surprise me that Raggatt could be one of those whack jobs that goes postal.”

  Grace drives out to Long Island, the day humid and gray, the sky like rough cement. First stop, the donut shop where Charles made his daily morning excursions. The woman behind the counter, auburn-haired and white-skinned, is as soft and abundant as an overstuffed chair. Her nametag says Charmane and her eyes are pleated with crows’ feet, warm and inviting. Grace imagines she gives a great hug.

  “Hi, I’m Grace,” she says. “You responded to my campus posting a while back about Charles Raggatt?”

  Charmane’s green eyes fall.

  “Oh,” she says. “Yes. Everyone was saying such mean things about him and I just thought…Well, I don’t know. I thought he was a lovely customer.”

  A man comes in and orders a dozen assorted while yakking into a cell phone. Grace steps to the side as Charmane serves him with a smile. He pays and leaves, still on the phone.

  “You know,” Charmane says, “it’s rare that people interact with me as a person and not just the donut lady.”

  She smiles and wipes the counter.

  “You said he was always alone.”

  “Always. Charles sat there,” she says, pointing to a small plastic table near the counter. “He put more sugar in his coffee than anyone I’ve ever seen. I just don’t see how he could be the same person that killed that girl.”