Ghosts of Bergen County Read Free Page B

Ferko. He’s the man.”
    â€œThe skinny kid is the man?”
    â€œWell, his boss is the man. William Prauer. Have you heard of him?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œRead the paper. The dude’s acquisitive .”
    â€œThat’s a good thing?”
    â€œWhich makes the skinny kid the man by association,” Greg said, then paused. “I used to call him Gaylord . I came up with that nickname. Do you remember that? It stuck, at least for a while.”
    Jen didn’t remember the skinny kid having a nickname.
    â€œI need to make up for that,” Greg said, his voice infused, to Jen’s ear, with genuine remorse.
    Still, she couldn’t help herself. “To do more deals?” she asked.
    â€œWell, I feel bad about all that stuff, but, yes, to do more deals.”
    Jen sighed. “I get off at two. Send me a text where you want to meet. Just make sure there’s a bar.”
    â€œA bar.”
    â€œIt’s Friday.”
    â€œOf course.”
    They said their goodbyes, and she held her phone and regarded the numbers on the scrap of paper, then keyed them and put the earpiece to her ear. The phone on the other end rang until voice mail picked up. There was nothing in the message about auditions—just a woman with a Brooklyn accent repeating the numbers Jen had dialed and inviting her to leave a message, which she did:
    â€œHello,” she said, conscious of her cadence, of slowing down her delivery and using her best stage voice. The audition started with this message, she told herself. “My name is Jennifer Yoder.” (She’d used her full name—Jennifer Yoder—when she’d performed in Tri . That was the name listed on the playbill.) “I saw your flyer in Chelsea and I’m calling about the auditions. Please call me. I’d love to hear about your production.” She left her phone number.
    It was a simple thing—leaving a phone message. People did it all the time. Yet she felt especially good about this message, with no um s or uh s, no awkward pauses. She used a clear voice, a smooth stream of words in the correct order. She closed her phone and zippered the bag, then chanced a last look at Felix DeGrass’s rooftop, allowing the image of the falling man to plunge toward her once more before she pushed her bicycle into the street and mounted it and continued west, down the hill, toward the Hudson and the bike path that followed the river south.

CHAPTER THREE
    It was still light when Ferko arrived home. The house was quiet, the mail strewn on the dining table. “Hello,” he said, under his breath, to no one. There were catalogs and cheap envelopes with cheap printing, windows through which his name was misspelled, glossy postcards from realtors and remodeling contractors. He placed it all in the recycling bin that held paper. The bin was full, so he took it out the front door to the barrel beside the porch, half hidden by the hemlock.
    The house was new, a Cape, wood-framed, with cement siding and a porch with gray planks and white columns and a wood swing that hung from chains, affixed to the beadboard ceiling with hooks like small anchors. Mary Beth had loved the porch the moment they’d first parked at the curb on a May afternoon, in front of the lone remaining tall oak from the woods Woodberry Road had replaced. She’d wanted an older house—pre–World War II—but this one did the trick. She sat on the swing and made room for him, and he joined her and swung, their feet drawn up off the floor, while their agent fiddled with the lockbox and then with the key.
    Now the bench was empty. He sat on it, then regretted doing so. He should be inside, saying a proper hello. The porch was his after dark, after Mary Beth had gone to sleep. He’d sit in the shadows, with the porch lights out and two bottles of beer in a bucket of ice. He’d sip the beers over the course of an hour, while the evening bugs