by David Bell
After Emily and Jake were gone, I started looking again.
When Grendel came to live with me, I started taking him to the dog park specifically because it wasn’t the same as walking through a neighborhood. There were no houses to peek into. And there would be other people to talk to. Real people, not silhouettes through a lighted window.
But Grendel’s temperament and my own lack of interest in carrying out forced social interaction with strangers at the park drove me to walk through the subdivision where Sophia Greenfield lived as the sun went down and families and couples gathered at home for their evenings together. All over again I was that kid pedaling home from basketball practice, the one on the sidewalk but with his face pressed against the metaphoric glass, hoping some of the warmth and glow from inside the house would light a spark inside me.
I saw the blond woman the second time I walked Grendel through the neighborhood by the park.
It was a warm night in late June. Lightning bugs were just appearing. Everything blooming.
Grendel trudged along two steps ahead of me, the leash slack between us. He wasn’t in a hurry. He was just happy to be away from everything else—dogs and people alike. I watched the houses we passed on Iroquois Street. Some were open and lighted. Some were quiet and dark. The houses were smaller over here, boxier, but just like in my neighborhood, the residents maintained their yards well. They cut the grass, planted flowers, picked up the kids’ toys instead of leaving them scattered across the lawns.
Halfway up the block, a woman with blond hair, wearing a baseball cap pulled low, sat on her porch reading a book. She looked to be in her mid-twenties and wore denim shorts and white sneakers. A bottle of craft beer sat on the stoop next to her, and as I came closer, she sipped from the bottle and then turned a page. She looked up and caught my eye.
If we had lived in a big city, we would have been able to ignore each other. In Gatewood, strangers generally said hello to each other. Or at least waved. It wasn’t about whether you would have an interaction. The question was always how much of one you would have.
The woman on the porch waved.
And I waved back.
And that might have been that. But as I passed her house, a car came along and pulled into the driveway. A guy about the same age as the blond woman climbed out, and when he did, the woman on the porch jumped up and put her book aside. Neither of them seemed to care that Grendel and I were walking by.
The guy dashed up the sidewalk, and the blond woman bounded over to him. They kissed and hugged. I have no idea how long it had been since they’d seen each other. It was possible it had only been hours. But they acted like only the two of them existed in the entire world.
I took the scene in subtly, trying not to be noticed. But the truth was, they had no idea Grendel or I existed. I went on with my walk, and the couple receded behind me. Grendel and I looped through the neighborhood as darkness fell, and we finally made it back to the car and started for home.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about that couple.
How young they were. How attractive.
How joyous to see each other.
I knew—I knew—I’d be walking there again. Looking for them.
Seeing them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
For weeks and weeks, I watched for them. That whole summer.
Grendel and I walked up Iroquois Street almost every evening, rain or shine, hot or starting to get cool, and sometimes we saw one or both of the couple and many times we didn’t. When we saw them, they were working in the yard together, cutting the grass or raking leaves. We saw them sitting on the porch, having a drink or reading. We saw them entertaining friends, a group of young people gathered around the dining room table. And we saw them together or alone inside the house, watching TV, eating, painting the dining room.
They were constantly working on the house. Landscaping, carpeting, gutters. Something was always being removed or installed, replaced or painted over. I never spoke to them, only exchanged a wave that first time. But I assumed they were newlyweds living in their first house, and so they attacked the project of being homeowners with the gusto only the young could generate. I imagined the trajectory of their lives—upward. Once that house on Iroquois was whipped into shape and beautiful, they would sell it and move to a larger home. Maybe a child would be born while they still lived there. Maybe they’d put that off and have their children later. Promotions at work, money socked away in a retirement account.
I thought of those early days with Emily and Jake. The little apartment we lived in while I was in graduate school. When Jake used to wake us up during the night, crying, I used to drag myself across the room to comfort him. And I worried I wouldn’t be able to do it all—work, teach, write, provide. Be a parent. I thought of that time as a series of endless anxieties.
But I wish every day I could go back and live it all over.
I never once felt envy for that couple in the blue house. I never really wanted to be them.
But I did wonder what it was like to be them. To be at the start of it all, not to know what lies ahead. Not to carry the burden of knowing something precious had already been taken away. To see everything as possible.
To be so consumed by each other, to be so intensely possessed of love and desire that late nights and languid mornings were given over to fucking without the interruptions of children or exhaustion or aging. To be in every moment, physically and emotionally.
And maybe I looked too much. Maybe my gaze lingered too long on them. Maybe I seemed odd or off as I walked by. The lonely guy with his mutt.
On a dozen occasions, when loneliness and grief gripped me like a boa constrictor, I took Grendel for a walk in their neighborhood after midnight. Instead of going to the cemetery, I went over there, hoping for a glimpse of that couple. Usually their blinds were closed. Sometimes the house was already dark.
Once or twice, the curtains would still be open, the lights on. And I’d see them inside, watching TV or talking. And I’d take Grendel up and down the street a few times, comforted just by being close to them. I never knew if they saw me. If they looked out and saw the guy walking his dog aimlessly up and down the street. I assumed they never noticed me because everything was so good inside that house. . . .
But maybe they saw me and thought I was a nut.
I should have known something wasn’t quite right with them. But I was so consumed by my assumptions about them, so taken by who and what I thought they were, I didn’t take serious notice of the subtle changes in that house.
I should have noticed that I saw them together less. That frequently when I walked by, one or the other of them would be home, but not both. I should have noticed that the household projects that were formerly performed together were suddenly being performed separately. If I’d been closer to the house—and I never went closer than the sidewalk and so didn’t see any real detail—I might have seen strained looks.
Instead the crack in their marriage shocked me.
On an early September night that was unseasonably hot, I walked Grendel up their street. The leaves hadn’t come close to turning, but the kids were back in school. Real autumn loomed on the horizon.
It had been a few days since I’d seen anything in the couple’s house. The blinds had been drawn, everything dark. I thought they might have gone away on a trip, and my mind conjured images of them in a tropical paradise, sipping drinks by the pool, snorkeling in blue water.
But the house was lit up. Every window glowed with bright light.
And the front door stood wide open. Not just the storm door, but the screen door as well.
As I approached, I heard them before I saw them. Voices raised, one male, one female. I thought someone had turned their TV up too loud. Or a car approached with the radio blasting. But the voices were not singing, the dialogue unscripted.
I s
aw them through the dining room window, facing each other. He spoke forcefully, poking his finger near her chest as he did. He moved closer and closer. And she refused to yield. She stood her ground, shaking her head. She gave it right back, poking with her own finger. He let her get it out, let her go on for a while.
I paused on the sidewalk directly in front of their front door. If they’d looked out the window, they would have seen me out there. The voices grew louder, and I felt like an intruder. A few words reached me, snatches of the fight. Her . . . Did you do that to her? . . . I didn’t . . . Not that . . . I resolved to go on, to let them have their privacy, even as the fight I watched seriously dented the notions I’d been carrying about them. I tore myself away. I took a step to the left, moving up the street.
That’s when he did it.
She continued to poke her finger at him, and he made a quick movement with his left arm, swiping it up and knocking her hand out of his face. He followed that up by taking a step forward. Threatening.
I decided. Almost before I knew what was happening, I was going up the steps, Grendel by my side. I reached the porch and went through the wide-open door and made a right turn toward the dining room. When I did, I saw the blond head disappearing into the kitchen, leaving her husband behind. He must have heard me because he spun around, his face still contorted by anger.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Is she okay? I heard the yelling. I saw you swing at her.”
“I didn’t swing at her.”
“Is she okay?” I asked again. “I’m calling the police. This isn’t right.”
Some of the anger drained from his face. He came back to himself. Tension went out of the muscles in his neck and shoulders. He straightened up, no longer in a defensive crouch that looked like a prelude to a fight.
He looked and sounded like a man trying to defuse.
“It’s okay,” he said. “We just had an argument, that’s all. A misunderstanding. It happens, and that’s all it was. Something between married people. Okay? Thank you for checking, but we’re okay.”
“I want to see her,” I said. “I really want to know she’s okay, or I’m calling the police.”
“You can’t just—” But he bit off his words, the muscles in his jaw clenching. “This is a matter between the two of us. My wife and me. And we’re handling it.”
“Hello?” I called out. “Hello? Are you okay back there? I need to know you’re not hurt and that you feel safe. Otherwise, I’m going to call the police.”
A long pause.
The guy stood before me, his breath coming in little huffs. His eyes looked like two dark pebbles. They were focused on me so hard, I thought they might give off heat.
“Honey?” he called. “Did you hear him?”
Another pause.
“I’m calling,” I said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t just walk away—”
“I’m okay.” The voice sounded faint and muffled, but I heard it. She spoke again a moment later with more volume. “I’m really fine. We just had a fight. And it’s okay. Really. You can leave. Thank you.”
I hesitated. I thought about calling anyway. I didn’t see the woman. I didn’t lay eyes on her and know she was okay.
Maybe my illusions about them influenced me. Maybe I just felt like I’d stepped into the home of a stranger, and it wasn’t my place to insert myself into their problems, even though adrenaline blasted through me, making my hands and legs shake.
Maybe I was just wrong.
But I gave Grendel’s leash a gentle tug, and the two of us turned around and walked out of the house.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CONNOR
PRESENT
“So you didn’t call the police?” Bowman asks.
I don’t say the words. I don’t want to admit it.
I’m embarrassed.
Bowman goes on when she sees I’m not saying anything. “When Sophia was murdered, we looked into everything about her marriage. I can answer my own question—no one ever called nine-one-one and reported anything. There were no charges of domestic violence or even a domestic disturbance. No assaults or fights.”
She pauses, studies me. Gives me a chance to say anything, which I don’t.
“And we talked to all the neighbors. Sophia and Zachary lived there for a couple of years before the murder, and in all that time, the neighbors never heard anything. No arguments even. And you know how volatile young relationships can be.”
“That doesn’t mean they didn’t happen,” I say. “It sounded like he cheated on Sophia. They seemed to be discussing another woman.”
“But you don’t know. And you didn’t call.”
“If you’re thinking of a way to make me feel worse, I’m not sure that’s possible. Is Zachary a suspect? Has he been cleared?”
“It’s an open case. Until we make an arrest, I consider everyone a possibility.”
“But he’s the husband. Isn’t he more of a possibility?”
Bowman doesn’t say anything else.
More than anyone, I know how things can change in a moment. I know how easy it is to start with a horrific event and then trace a chain of choices backward. If this didn’t happen . . . If I’d done this instead of that . . . If I could do everything all over again . . .
But the universe refuses to grant us do-overs. Those happen only in romantic comedies in which the main character gets hit on the head and wakes up back in the past and gets a second chance to win the heart of the girl he overlooked in high school.
They don’t happen in real life.
“Obviously, Detective, if I knew this woman was going to end up murdered, I would have done anything in my power to stop it. But she told me she was okay, and that’s all I could go on. I wasn’t at my best back then.”
“You’ve said that.”
“Are you telling me the husband is the prime suspect?” I ask. “If he was cheating and she caught him, maybe that led him to silence her. It’s been two and a half years, and you haven’t been able to make an arrest.”
“But she thought you were behaving inappropriately,” Bowman says. “She told her husband she saw the man with the dog lingering outside the house late at night. Sometimes after midnight. She thought that man was trying to look in the windows at them. At her, presumably. How is a woman supposed to feel about that? Do you see how this looks for you, Connor?”
“I told you I didn’t mean them any harm. I was . . . curious. I was . . . floundering.”
“Here’s what I’d like to do, Dr. Nye. Just in the interest of covering all my bases.” Bowman sounds reasonable and calm. We could be two coworkers shooting the breeze in the company break room, casually spinning out options for the project we’re about to launch. “We took quite a bit of forensic evidence at the scene of Sophia’s murder. Fingerprints. Hair samples. DNA. The whole nine yards, as my father used to say. If you’d just consent to some tests and provide some samples, then we could eliminate you from any further consideration in this matter.”
Eliminate you from further consideration.
Bowman doesn’t care about my not calling 911 when I saw Sophia and Zachary having a fight. She’s still fixated on the details in the book and my time in Sophia’s neighborhood.
She thought I was watching them, acting strangely.
And Bowman sure is hoping I was because she thinks she’s going to catch a murderer.
“I’m not staying for this.” I stand up. “You said I was free to go whenever I want, so I’d like to go.” I realize I don’t have a car. It would be much more dramatic if I could simply storm out of the police station and drive off. Less so if I need to call an Uber to take me away.
“That may have changed,” Bowman says.
“What changed?”
“My flexibility on letting you go,” she says. “As a matt
er of fact, I feel compelled to remind you of your Miranda rights before any further questioning occurs. I’d hate to have my investigation derailed because of a procedural error.”
And she proceeds to recite them with me standing there. When she gets to the part about having the right to representation by an attorney, it dawns on me that I don’t know an attorney. Certainly not one who could represent me in a criminal case. A moment of indecision paralyzes me. Then I know who I need to call, and I bring out my phone.
“Are you calling an attorney?” Bowman asks.
“Can I have some damn privacy? You can’t just sit there and watch and listen to everything I do.”
Bowman weighs her options for a moment while she looks at me like I’m a bug she wants to squash. Then she flips her manila folder shut and stands up with it in her left hand. “Are you saying you won’t submit to being fingerprinted?”
“Not without talking to a lawyer,” I say. “I want someone to talk to.”
At the door she stops and turns back. She speaks more harshly than at any other time all day. “Okay, go ahead and call a lawyer. Then we can continue our conversation.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Preston knows everyone in Gatewood.
Preston the Politician.
He’s the one I call from that conference room in the police station, asking for help with finding a lawyer. I give him a quick rundown of my situation, and he listens without losing his cool.
“I know just the person,” he says. “Sit tight.”
Bowman comes back once I’m off the phone, sticking her head in the open door.
“You decided to stick around? Does that mean you’re willing to be fingerprinted?”
“I have a lawyer coming.”
She clucks her tongue. “I told you you’re free to go. Bringing a lawyer into things just makes them messy. I can call a judge and get a court order for fingerprints and DNA.”