Page 46 of Death in the Family
A lucky break, I thought.A sign. There was a theory going around the precinct that Bram lived in the neighborhood. Sooner or later someone would recognize him. His days of ensnaring victims through the dating app were over. The papers had reported on the murders, the women of the East Village were on high alert, and we were monitoring IP addresses associated with user bios on the site. Bram would be crazy to go that route again, but I wasn’t convinced that meant he was done. Call it intuition, but I knew he was still out there. I just didn’t know where to look.
The pub received a steady stream of off-duty office workers looking for shelter from the cold September drizzle and a well-deservedFriday drink. A group of women with flat-ironed hair came in and went straight to the bar. I heard them debating cocktail options to kick off their night.
“Fair warning,” the bartender said as they settled in a few seats down from me, “this lot’s going to keep me busy awhile.” I ordered an Irish cream ale and thanked her for her candor. I could have used something stronger, but I wanted to stay sharp. The bartender filled my glass and rolled her eyes while heading off to take a drink order she clearly thought belonged in a dance club in Bushwick.
The creamy froth atop my beer gave way to liquid the color of rust. The effect was like fast-moving storm clouds, and then the beer was empty and I could see straight through the glass. What did I know that could help me find Bram? His victims all met him at a bar, according to the friends they’d left behind, but never the same place twice. His dating-app profile painted the picture of a good guy from a small town—a safe choice for a city girl on the hunt for a husband. The more I thought about it, the surer I felt that Swanton was the key.
When I initially heard about Bram, the first thing I did was call my mother. Dad’s newer to Swanton, but Mom’s a born-and-raised townie who’d spent decades collecting local gossip. Like any small, working-class town, Swanton had a few shady characters and an underbelly smeared with dirt. Domestic disputes and drugs weren’t uncommon. Some of its troubles hit close to home. My mom’s family had its share of black sheep. When I was thirteen a cousin was missing for days until the cops found her by a creek in the woods with her head bashed in. She tested positive for meth and was never the same again. But the police didn’t manage to establish who hurt her, and Mom said she couldn’t think of a single person who couldpossibly grow up to be a serial killer, not even when, with a wiggle in her voice, she mentioned how I got my scar.
Again and again, the pub door swung open. Crammed with bodies, the place was starting to heat up. I took a swallow of beer and returned my attention to the case. We’d circulated Bram’s profile photo around the neighborhood but got nowhere with that. There were dozens of men like him roaming the streets—attractive enough, easy to forget. Often the nastiest people are the ones you’d never suspect, the sweet neighbors and pleasant coworkers. They put on a mask and move among us so we don’t notice when they start to circle their prey.
I heard an explosion of laughter nearby and took another sip of beer. The throng of bodies that had formed behind me shifted, and as the rim of the glass touched my bottom teeth a stray elbow made contact with my lower back. The shove pitched me forward against the bar. When I pulled myself up, all I was left with was a half-empty pint and a cold, wet sweater that clung uncomfortably to my skin.
A face appeared beside me. “Crap, I’m sorry, are you—”
“Drenched? Yes, I am.”
“That was a good beer you had, too.”
“It was.”
“That’s not right. That beer was just minding its own business. Christ, can’t a beer sit at a bar and be left alone?”
I was using stiff little napkins to draw the liquid from my top, and when I finally looked up at the guy who’d wasted my pint, I saw his face was crinkled with amusement. There was something familiar about that face, tenuous as a long-forgotten memory. He had an average build and bangs long enough to flip back the way men his age like to do. The color of his eyes was startling, likesnow in the moonlight or ice on a creek. I waited for the grimace I knew would come. Up close my scar looks like a long seam holding together my jaw and my cheek. It’s not especially gruesome, not anymore, but it sends a message—something awful happened here. People think my bad luck’s going to wear off on them. Most aren’t willing to take that chance.
The guy’s eyes met mine. Somehow in the midst of our banter he’d ordered me a fresh beer. He slid it toward me and smiled.
“God,” he said, “these places. Why do I come?”
“For the scenery?” I nodded at the bar babes.
Ignoring them, he held my gaze. “You might be right. I’m Seth, and I’m sorry.”
“I’m Shay, and it’s okay.”
It was easy for us from the start. We were actors in a play, effortlessly lobbing lines back and forth as if we’d rehearsed the moment for months. There were no awkward pauses, no discouraging lulls. I’ve done some research into mental manipulation, the kind of stuff psychics with their neon signs and crystal balls use to fool people into thinking they’re real. The man I met that night relied on a technique called the Barnum Statement. His insights were so surface level and vague they could have applied to anyone. He told me I seemed like the independent type and guessed I had a lot on my mind. Sitting alone at the bar, preoccupied with the case, I convinced myself he’d nailed it. The pub filled and emptied, patrons flowing in and out like water in a tide pool. We talked until closing time.
“Last call,” the bartender said. There was a chorus of groans from the end of the bar and one of the women drinking cocktails hiccuped loudly. Only then did I realized I, too, was drunk. When I pushed back my stool to stand, my head felt like an hourglass filling with sand. I made a sound of surprise and listed sideways.The edge of the bar felt slippery, like someone coated it with oil. My eyes rolled in their sockets, two greasy marbles in the palm of a hand. Including the one that got spilled, I’d had only three pints all night. I’d gotten up to use the bathroom just once, timing my departure with the bottom of my pint. I knew better than to trust a strange man around my drink. So why couldn’t my body connect with my brain?
“Let me call you an Uber, ’kay, love?”
The bartender’s voice sounded far away. My head swiveled toward it but I couldn’t find her.
“On it,” said my new friend, and took out his phone. I tried to focus on his thumb skating across the surface of the screen. That, too, was a blur.
“We have a protocol for this.” The bartender again. A phone rang somewhere in the pub, the landline kind. “I have to be the one to do it, nothing against you, yeah? It’s the rules.”
“Oh yeah, of course. What a sad thing, needing to have a rule like that. I’ll wait with her. Is that okay? If I just wait with her outside?”
“She’ll need to stay with me,” the bartender said, and I thought,They’re talking about melike I’m not even here. “I’m sorry, rules are rules—O’Dwyer’s, hello? Hello? Ah, shite.” She turned her attention from the phone behind the bar to the women she’d filled with cocktails. One of them was vomiting onto the floor.
“No worries, I see it, it’s here.” His voice was close to my ear. I tried to speak but my lips wouldn’t cooperate. Quickly, he steered me toward the door. The wet fall air was a smack in the face, but I still couldn’t get the words out. Sand filled every crevice of my brain. Then, suddenly, I wasn’t in the bar anymore. I was nowhere.
And I knew I’d found Bram.
TWENTY-ONE
Drinks in the parlor, everyone!”
