Promise Me

Only fools and children believe that covering your eyes makes the monsters go away.

Beth Cardall’s Diary

It snowed through the night, enough to bring out the snowplows, and I woke to the sound of a plow’s metal blade scraping down our street. As much as I wanted to sleep in, I got up and dressed. Then I got Charlotte dressed and ready for the day.

In light of my financial crisis I had asked Roxanne to schedule me on Saturdays to bring in a little extra cash. My neighbor, Margaret, offered to save me child-care expenses by inviting Charlotte over to play with Katie for the day.

Even though Prompt didn’t clean or press clothing on weekends, Saturday mornings were still the busiest day of the week with pickups and drop-offs. Predictably we were swamped, and our small lobby was crowded to capacity, with more customers waiting outside the doors, their arms full of clothing. I was busy ringing up an order when Roxanne answered the phone. She shouted to me over the din. “Beth, it’s your neighbor.”

“She’s got Charlotte. Tell her I’ll be right there.” I hurriedly finished the transaction I was working on, then grabbed the phone from the counter. “Margaret?”

“Hi, Beth. I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.” Her voice was tense.

“Is Charlotte all right?”

“She’s fine. She and Katie are in the backyard making a snowman. I called for another reason. My husband George just called from work. Did you know he works at Zions Bank?”

I wondered what this could possibly have to do with me and if it could wait. “No, I didn’t.”

“He’s the manager at the Holladay Branch. A transaction came across his desk yesterday afternoon that he’s a little concerned about.”

“A transaction?”

“It’s in your name. How well do you know Matthew Principato?”

The way she asked made me nervous. “Pretty well. Why?”

“I don’t mean to alarm you, I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation, I just felt I should check with you to be sure. Did you know that Matthew took a loan out against your house?”

I breathed out in relief. “Oh, yes. I know. He’s helping me make some home improvements, so I put him on the account so he could take money out when he needed it.”

“That’s what George said. I know this is very personal, but do you mind me asking how much he was supposed to take out?”

“Well, I think he said it would be about three or four thousand dollars. And we took some out at the bank as well. But he wasn’t going to take it all at once.”

“Oh, no,” Margaret said.

“Is there a problem?”

“Beth, he’s taken a lot more than that.”

“How much more?”

“He took more than sixty thousand.”

My chest constricted. “What?”

“George said he maxed out the home-equity loan.”

“Why didn’t he stop him?”

“I’m sorry. George didn’t handle the transaction, but he said it was perfectly legal, Matthew was on the account.”

I felt as if someone had just slugged me in the gut. “I’ve got to go.”

Margaret sensed my panic. “I’m sorry. Maybe there’s an explanation.”

“I’m sure there is,” I said angrily. “He wanted my money. Thank you for calling.”

As I hung up the phone, Roxanne stared at me. “Hey, what’s wrong, hon? What happened?”

I just looked at her, breathless.

“Teresa,” Roxanne said. “Cover for us.”

Teresa looked at her incredulously. “There’s like, a million people.”

“Deal with it.” Roxanne walked me back to the break room. She pulled a chair out at the table and sat me in it. That’s when I completely melted down.

“Honey, tell me what happened. Is it Matthew?”

“What have I done?”

“He broke up with you?”

I wiped my face. “He stole my home.”

“What?”

“It was a setup. He never loved me. He was playing me all along.”

“I don’t believe that. Tell me what happened.”

“He offered to remodel my basement, so yesterday we set up a loan and I gave him access to my account so he could take money out for materials. He took every penny. Sixty-three thousand dollars.” I almost hyperventilated saying it.

Roxanne gasped. “Oh, honey.”

“I’m such an idiot. He’s one of those guys you read about who preys on desperate, gullible women. He steals their life savings, then disappears. How could I have been so stupid?”

“How could you know? We were all enchanted by him. Anyone could have made that mistake. Can you find him?”

“I know where he lives.”

“Go. Teresa and I will cover for you. I’ll call Jan and have her pick up Charlotte. She can spend the night at our place.”

“Thank you.” I leaned into Roxanne and broke down again. She patted my back. “There, there, honey. Maybe it’s not what it seems.”

“What else could it be?”

She groaned. “Oh, baby.”

“I wanted it to be good. I wanted to be loved by someone.”

“It’s my fault,” Roxanne said, “I wanted it for you. I pushed you into it.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s what I really wanted. I wanted it so bad I closed my eyes.”

I was nearly hysterical and blind with tears as I drove from the cleaners to his apartment. I was fortunate that chance had taken me there just a few days earlier, as up to that point I had no way to contact him. My mind replayed our last conversation. Is this what he meant by the “big deal—sure thing” he was about to close? He had played me like a Stradivarius.

I parked my car in front of his house, sliding the front of my car into a bank of snow, and climbed out. I looked for his car but, not surprisingly, it wasn’t there. It had snowed through the night and the cement walkway to his apartment had not been shoveled. I could see footprints coming out of it.

I followed them down the stairs to his apartment. There was no doorbell so I pounded on the door. “Matthew! Open up.” I pounded again, then checked the doorknob and found it was unlocked. I pushed open the door. Through the dim light from the window wells I couldn’t believe what I saw.

The room was empty. The only furniture was a twin mattress on the floor in the corner of the room with a sofa pillow and a wool blanket.

“Matthew!” I screamed. I turned on the light, a single, naked globe above the kitchen sink, and walked through the house.

In the bathroom there was a can of cheap shaving cream and a disposable razor on the tile counter, next to a bottle of Old Spice, a bar of soap and a tube of Prell shampoo. I went into his bedroom. There was no furniture, just two cardboard boxes—one was empty and the other had some white briefs and two pairs of socks. I opened the closet. Inside, on a hanger, was only one shirt, the red flannel shirt he had worn on our date to the ranch and likely abandoned. I went back out to the kitchen. The fridge held a nearly empty plastic gallon jug of milk, two cans of Coke and a salami sandwich that had mold growing on one side. The cupboards were bare except for a box of Grape-Nuts and Cap’n Crunch cereal.

There was a full plastic garbage can next to the stove. I dumped it out on the kitchen floor. The contents were mostly fast-food wrappers and empty soda cans. I combed through it hoping to find something that might give me a clue to where he’d gone. I came across a folded scrap of paper, scrawled in ink were the words “U of U, Beta. Todd Fey, 292-9145. Fake I.D.”

I gasped. I didn’t even know his real name. I shoved the note into my pants pocket and kicked the wall on the way out of his apartment.

I went upstairs to the house’s front door and rang the bell. It was a couple of minutes before the door opened to an old man. He was short, with a ragged gray beard, and he looked at me with an expression of annoyance. “No solicitors,” he growled.

“I’m looking for the man who rents from you downstairs.”

“I don’t know anything about him.” He started to close the door.

“Wait,” I said, pushing against the door. “He stole from me. You can tell me or I’ll call the police and you can talk to them.”

He scowled but seemed frightened by my threat. “What do you want?”

“Did you see him leave this morning?”

“Didn’t see nothing.”

“Do you have an address for him?”

He looked at me as if I was stupid. “This is his address.”

“I mean, maybe there was a different one on a check, when he paid his rent.”

“He always paid in cash. That’s all I know. He stole from you? You call the police. He always paid his rent, that’s all I know.” He shut the door and locked it.

I stepped down from the porch as tears welled up in my eyes. I drove to the Conoco gas station on the corner across from the soup restaurant where we’d eaten a few days earlier. I foraged through my car for a quarter, then went to the pay phone. I took the note I’d found out of my pocket and dialed the number.

A young voice answered. “Beta Sigma Pi, Delta Eta chapter, this is Pledge David speaking.”

“I’m looking for Todd Fey.”

“Just a moment.” I heard him shout, “Is Todd here?” I heard a few grunts, then after what seemed an eternity a different voice answered.

“This is Todd.”

“My name is Beth Cardall. I found your name on a paper. You made a fake I.D. for Matthew Principato.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said nervously.

“I’m not trying to get you in trouble or anything. I’m looking for this man. He stole from me.”

“You got the wrong guy.” He hung up.

Smart, I thought. Real smart.

I got back in my car and drove the gray, slushy streets around Holladay, Cottonwood Heights, and Murray for nearly five hours looking for his car. At one point I followed a navy BMW for nearly ten minutes until the driver pulled into a gas station and I saw that the driver was an elderly woman. I finally went home around nine. I called and checked on Charlotte.

“What did you find?” Roxanne asked.

“His apartment was abandoned,” I said. “And I found a phone number where he got his fake I.D.”

“Holy mother-of-pearl,” she said. “Have you called the police?”

“What could they do? Everything he did was legal.”

“Oh, baby. What are you going to do?”

“I’m going out looking again in the morning. Is Charlotte okay?”

“Yes. She’s asleep. Don’t worry about a thing, we’ll take care of her.”

“Thank you.” I started to cry. “I can’t believe this is happening. What did I do to deserve all this?”

“You don’t deserve any of this. I don’t know why bad things happen to good people, but don’t you believe for a second you did anything to bring this on yourself.”

“But I did, Rox. I totally brought this on myself.”

“Don’t say that. What did you do to bring this on yourself?”

“I trusted.”