She had hated her father.
I was not a big fan of his either, probably because I had met his type before. Edgar thinks himself a pull-up-by-the-bootstraps sort, but he himself earned his money the old-fashioned way: He inherited it. I don’t know many superwealthy people, but I noticed that the more things were handed to you on a silver platter, the more you complain about welfare mothers and government handouts. It is bizarre. Edgar belongs to that unique class of the entitled who have deluded themselves into believing that they somehow earned their status through hard work. We all live with self-justification, of course, and if you have never fended for yourself, if you live in luxury and have done nothing to deserve it, well, that is going to compound your insecurities, I guess. But it shouldn’t make you such a prig, to boot.
I sat. Edgar followed suit. Carson remained standing. I stared at Edgar. He had the plump of the well fed. His face was all soft edges. The normal ruddy on his cheeks, so far from anything rawbone, was gone now. He laced his fingers and rested them on his paunch. He looked, I was somewhat surprised to see, devastated, drawn, and sapless.
I saysurprised , because Edgar always struck me as pure id, a person whose own pain and pleasure trumped all others’, who believed those who inhabited the space around him were little more than window dressing for his own bemusement. Edgar had now lost two children. His son, Eddie the Fourth, had died while speeding under the influence ten years ago. According to Monica, Eddie veered across the double yellow line and plowed into the semi on purpose. For some reason, she blamed her father. She blamed him for a lot of things.
There is also Monica’s mother. She “rests” a lot. She takes “extended vacations.” In short, she is in and out of institutions. Both times we met, my mother-in-law was propped up for some social affair, well dressed and powdered, lovely and too pale, a vacancy in her eyes, a slur in her speech, a sway in her stance.
Except for Uncle Carson, Monica had been estranged from her family. As you might imagine, I hardly minded.
“You wanted to see me?” I said.
“Yes, Marc. Yes, I did.”
I waited.
Edgar put his hands on his desk. “Did you love my daughter?”
I was caught off guard, but I still said, “Very much,” with no hesitation.
He seemed to see the lie. I worked hard to keep my gaze steady. “She still wasn’t happy, you know.”
“I’m not sure you can blame me for that,” I said.
He nodded slowly. “Fair point.”
But my own pass-the-buck defense didn’t really work on me. Edgar’s words were a fresh body blow. The guilt came roaring back.
“Did you know that she was seeing a psychiatrist?” Edgar asked.
I turned toward Carson first, then back to Edgar. “No.”
“She didn’t want anyone to know.”
“How did you find out?”
Edgar did not reply. He stared down at his hands. Then he said: “I want to show you something.”
I sneaked another look at Uncle Carson. His jaw was set. I thought I saw a tremble. I turned back to Edgar. “Okay.”
Edgar opened his desk drawer, reached in, and pulled out a plastic bag. He raised it into view, gripping the bag at the corner between his forefinger and thumb. It took a moment, but when I realized what I was looking at, my eyes went wide.
Edgar saw my reaction. “You recognize it then?”
I couldn’t speak at first. I glanced over at Carson. His eyes were red. I looked back at Edgar and nodded numbly. Inside the plastic bag was a small swatch of clothing, maybe three inches by three inches. The pattern was one I had seen two weeks ago, moments before being shot.
Pink with black penguins.
My voice was barely a hush. “Where did you get this?”
Edgar handed me a large brown envelope, the kind with bubble wrap on the inside. This too, was protected in plastic. I turned it around. Edgar’s name and address had been printed on a white label. There was no return address. The postmark read New York City.
“It came in today’s mail,” Edgar said. He gestured to the swatch. “Is it Tara’s?”
I think I said yes.
“There’s more,” Edgar said. He reached into the drawer again. “I took the liberty of putting everything in plastic bags. In case the authorities need to test it.”
Again he handed me what looked like a Ziploc bag. Smaller this time. There were hairs inside. Little wisps of hair. With mounting dread, I realized what I was looking at. My breath stopped.
Baby hair.
From far away, I heard Edgar ask, “Are they hers?”
I closed my eyes and tried to picture Tara in the crib. The image of my daughter, I was horrified to realize, was already fading in the mind’s eye. How could that be? I could no longer tell if I was seeing memory or something I conjured up to replace what I was already forgetting. Damn it. Tears pressed against my eyelids. I tried to bring back the feel of my daughter’s soft scalp, the way my finger would trace the top.
“Marc?”
“They could be,” I said, opening my eyes. “There’s no way for me to know for sure.”
“Something else,” Edgar said. He handed me another plastic bag. Gingerly, I put down the bag with her hair on the desk. I took the new bag. There was a sheet of white paper in it. A note from some kind of laser printer.
If you contact the authorities, we disappear. You will never know what happened to her. We will be watching. We will know. We have a man on the inside. Your calls are being monitored. Do not discuss this over the phone. We know that you, Grandpa, are rich. We want two million dollars. We want you, Daddy, to deliver the ransom. You, Grandpa, will get the money ready. We are enclosing a cell phone. It is untraceable. But if you dial out or use it in any way, we will know. We will disappear and you will never see the child again. Get the money ready. Give it to Daddy. Daddy, keep the money and phone near you. Go home and wait. We will call and tell you what to do. Deviate from what we ask, and you will never see your daughter again. There will be no second chance.
The syntax was odd, to put it mildly. I read the note three times and then I looked up at Edgar and Carson. A funny calm spread over me. Yes, this was terrifying, but receiving this note . . . it was also a relief. Something had finally happened. We could act now. We could get Tara back. There was hope.
Edgar stood and headed toward the corner of the room. He opened a closet door and pulled out a gym bag with a Nike logo on it. Without preamble, he said, “It’s all here.”