“Thank you for reaching out,” I say. “I’m going to call the Roseville police as soon as I get to the office.”
“I will be interested to hear what they have to say.”
“One last thing,” I say. “Do you happen to have a photograph of Pessie?”
“A photograph?”
“Yes, just a snapshot. You could e-mail or text it to me.”
“Yes,” he says, to my enormous relief. I’ve been at the Trib long enough to know that they won’t even consider running a story about Pessie’s death unless we have a photo of her. But no one teaches you how to ask people for photographs of their dead loved ones. It’s so outrageously invasive, especially when you have to ask just days, or even hours, after a death. The only way to do it is to step out of your human ideas about decency and become a reporter-bot.
Before Levi leaves, I double-check the spelling of his name and his age, and the same for Pessie. I ask for their wedding date, and Chaim’s birthday. The first six months I worked for the Trib I made a lot of mistakes. I trusted people I shouldn’t have and avoided asking questions I should have. Because my job was basically to run from place to place gathering information, and then call it back to someone in the office who wrote it into an article, I felt little ownership over the stories I worked on. If I didn’t catch a last name, I figured someone else would be able to find it. If I forgot to ask an age, or an exact date, oh well. But that carelessness, I think now, is corrosive. And as I have lain in bed, night after night, trying to find the courage to call my mother back, one of the things I have asked myself is, what will she think of me? Which meant I had to ask, what do I think of me? I’ve always considered myself ballsy, an essential ingredient for a reporter. But no one has ever accused me of being careful, and I know now that I can’t be a good reporter-I can’t really be good at anything-if I don’t get serious. In college, journalism was my major, but now it’s my life. It’s the only thing I’m certain of: I am a reporter. One day, perhaps, I will be a journalist.
After Levi leaves, the waiter brings the check and I pull it toward me; it’s barely six dollars. Saul is looking out the window.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes,” he says. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, that thing Levi said about suicide…” I trail off.
“Being shameful?”
I nod.
“I think about my son every day,” he says. “In some ways, suicide is a perfectly rational response to great pain. If you do not believe in God and you feel that the people in your life will be more hurt by your continued presence…” He looks back toward the river. “I think a person can come to a place in his mind where he thinks he is doing something positive. Something almost kind.”
“I wonder if that’s what Pessie did?”
“Anything is possible,” he says. “And of course her husband would probably feel a great deal of guilt.”
“He could be in denial.”
“Yes.”
I wait for Saul to say more, but he is finished with this topic. “I think it’s worth asking about at least,” I say.
“I agree.”
I slip a ten-dollar bill into the black pouch and motion for the waiter.
“I called Aviva yesterday,” I say while we wait for change.
“That’s wonderful” says Saul, unable to suppress a slight smile. “What made you decide to call?”
I shrug. “I guess I was thinking about Pessie. I don’t know. Now that I know she’s alive I don’t want her to, like, die in a bathtub before I get to meet her.”
“What did she have to say?”
“It went straight to voice mail.”
“Oh,” he says. “I’m sure she’ll call you back.”
“I didn’t leave a message,” I say. “I might try her again tonight.”
When I get in to the newsroom, I ask the library to do a backgrounder on Pessie Goldin, and then I look up the Roseville Police Department. The Web site is a single page located inside the larger Town of Roseville site. There is a portrait of Chief John Gregory-a white man with a ruddy red face and graying hair who looks fifty-ish-and a short statement about the department’s commitment to preserving public safety. I call the phone number and ask for the chief.
“May I say who’s calling?” asks the woman who answers the phone.
“My name is Rebekah Roberts,” I say. “I’m a reporter for the New York Tribune.”
She puts me on hold, and after about a minute of soprano sax, Chief Gregory comes on the line.
“Chief Gregory,” he says.
“Hi, Chief Gregory,” I say. “My name is Rebekah Roberts and I’m a reporter for the New York Tribune.”
“What can I do for you, Rebekah?”
“I’m working on an article about a woman who was found dead in Roseville last month. Pessie Goldin?” I wait. He says nothing. “Are you familiar with this case?”
“What can I help you with?”
“Well,” I say, “I’m wondering if there has been any investigation into her death. Her husband believes she may have been murdered.”
“Does he, now?”
“He does,” I say. “He told me that he found her in her bathtub, and that her son was left alone in his car seat. I know she was buried without an autopsy but…”
“Did he tell you she had been taking antidepressants?”
I shouldn’t be surprised that he asks this, but it pisses me off nonetheless. I remember that right after I started taking pills for my anxiety, Iris and I happened to be up late watching Law & Order: SVU-as college girls will do-and the episode centered around a woman who was raped, and who had been undergoing treatment for depression. The defense attorney was like, she takes antidepressants, clearly, she’s unstable. The jury didn’t convict. I was like, shit, if I’m ever the victim of a crime they could use the fact that I take pills to completely undermine my credibility. We both agreed this was total bullshit.
“He did,” I say.
“Well, then.”
“Are you saying that you didn’t investigate her death because she was taking a kind of medication about thirty million Americans take?”
“Now you’re putting words in my mouth.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Are you looking into her death?”
“I’m not going to comment on that.”
Well, then.
“Okay,” I say. “Thank you for your time.”
I slap down the phone and let out a groan. I suppose I should be happy that I at least got a “no comment” for the story; getting anyone on the record at the New York City Police Department is practically impossible. At least in a small town like Roseville the chief picks up the phone when you call. Even if he is a douche bag.
I put Pessie’s story aside for the time it takes to pound out the articles the city desk wants for tomorrow: a rewrite of a British tabloid story about Jude Law; a fire at a pizzeria on the Coney Island boardwalk; baby gorillas at the Bronx Zoo. At three thirty, I get a text from Levi with a photograph of him and Pessie, presumably on their wedding day. The text that follows says: pessie and levi, 2/3/10. Levi is standing and Pessie is sitting. He wears a double-breasted black coat and an enormous fur hat shaped like a cake box. Pessie is in white, lace collar to her chin, puffy shoulders. Neither is smiling, although they don’t look unhappy, exactly. Pessie has light hair, not blond, but not quite brown, either. Her eyes are gray-blue and she appears very young. A few months ago, I would have laughed at this portrait. I would have joked that it looked like it was taken in 1910-even 1810-not 2010. I would have made fun of Levi’s “ringlets,” as I derisively called sidecurls. Ringlets like Shirley Temple had. Ha! Did he sleep in curlers? Did he hold them steady with hairspray? I would have rolled my eyes and felt a mix of pity and scorn for Pessie and Levi in their stupid costumes. Now I still feel pity-for the dead woman, her grieving husband, her motherless child-but the scorn is gone. Inside those outfits, I know now, are human beings, just like me.