Look What You Made Me Do

by Elaine Murphy

  “Okay,” I say, because I have to. “Do you want coffee?”

  “No, I’m all right. Shall we talk in here?”

  I think of the kitchen, with its fluorescent lights and coffee smells, like a police interview room on an old television show. It’s not flattering at the best of times, which this is not. I wish desperately I was showered and dressed. I look like a car thief.

  I lead the way around the short wall and take a seat on the couch. Greaves sits on the matching love seat, kitty corner to me, our knees a couple of feet apart.

  “Lived here long?” he asks, taking out his notepad.

  “Three years.”

  “Nice neighborhood.”

  “I like it.”

  “Have you ever heard of Soda Jack?”

  I frown. “What? Like, Coke and Jack Daniel’s?”

  “No. Like Soda Jack.”

  I’m confused. “No.”

  “Never bought it?”

  “I don’t even know what it is.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ever shop online at Hartmann’s?”

  I’m already shaking my head. Hartmann’s is a specialty grocer in the center of town. I’ve visited but never bought anything. It’s all overpriced and unnecessary. “No,” I say. “It’s too expensive.”

  He smiles. “I agree.” Then the smile fades. “You know what they sell?”

  I don’t bother playing dumb. “Soda Jack?”

  “Soda Jack.”

  “Okay.” Because now I am dumb. I don’t see what this has to do with me.

  “Last Tuesday, your credit card was used to buy two twenty-four-can flats of Soda Jack.”

  “It’s a drink?”

  “Yeah. A specialty soft drink. Weird flavors, like elderflower and pine.”

  “I canceled my credit card.”

  He glances up. “When?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Why?”

  “I had to pay the locksmith, and I couldn’t find my card. I thought I’d lost it so I canceled it.” I freeze. “What does Hartmann’s show up as on a credit card statement?”

  Greaves frowns. “I don’t know. Hartmann’s, I’d assume.”

  “Before I canceled the card, I looked at the charges. A few days ago, there was a charge I didn’t make.”

  “You remember the amount?”

  “Almost forty dollars. Thirty-eight ninety-nine, I think.”

  He doesn’t need to say anything to confirm that’s the price of two flats of Soda Jack. And that’s when it finally clicks. The cans in my living room, the ones Becca left behind with her cereal. The ones I’d recycled.

  “Do you know who bought it?” Greaves asks.

  “Didn’t you say they were bought online? Why don’t you check to see where they were shipped?”

  “I did. They were delivered here.”

  I falter. “What?”

  “Two flats, delivered to this address on Wednesday. Signed for by Carrie.”

  “I-I didn’t sign for them. I didn’t order them. They’re not here.”

  “You mind if I look around?”

  I’ve seen enough television to know I should not let the police look around my home if I’m a suspect in thirteen deaths, one of which I actually had a hand in. But I also know I didn’t close the curtains or unlock the back door or move the painting or buy forty-eight cans of fucking Soda Jack, so this might actually be a good thing. If someone’s in here, messing with me, maybe Greaves can find them.

  “Sure,” I say.

  If Greaves is surprised, it doesn’t show. He stands, tucking away his notepad and pen, and gives the room a cursory once-over. After a moment, he walks to the television and peers behind it, opening the doors to the stand and taking in my small collection of dusty DVDs. He nudges the couch away from the wall and puts it back, and while he does it, I have a flashback of the night I fought with Becca and found the can under the couch. I assumed it had fallen, and she’d been too lazy to pick it up, but what if that wasn’t the case? What if it was put there on purpose, waiting for just this moment?

  And suddenly, belatedly, I don’t think it’s a good idea to let Greaves search my house. I thought he might find something I didn’t want to find myself, but it never occurred to me that he’d find something I didn’t want him to find. But now I’m following him down the hall to the kitchen, watching him open the fridge, the crisper drawer, the freezer. I was in here earlier to get milk for my coffee, but I’m suddenly paralyzed by the fear that he’ll find four dozen cans of Soda Jack.

  He doesn’t.

  He opens the cupboards, struggles to close them, and gives me an apologetic look.

  “Old house,” I say, like that’s totally fine. I’m totally fine.

  He checks the door beneath the sink, where I keep the recycling. I’ve taken it out since the night I found the cans, but now I know there will be more in there, alongside the empty jar of pasta sauce, the wine bottle, the flattened cereal box. Greaves is blocking the view, but he crouches and uses his pen to sift through the contents. Slowly, he straightens. I wait for him to arrest me, but he just goes to the back door, noting the shiny new knob, and glances at me.

  “Why’d you change the locks?” he asks again.

  “They were old,” I say, my voice wavering. Then I force a tiny smile. “And I’m afraid, with everything going on. My boyfriend thought it was a good idea.”

  “It is. What’s his name?”

  “Um. Graham.”

  “Does he work at Weston Stationery?”

  “No. He used to.”

  “Did he know Angelica?”

  “He left before she started.”

  Greaves nods and watches me. “Well, thank you for your time.”

  “You’re welcome.” The words sound hollow, which I suppose they are. In all the times I imagined being arrested for helping Becca, it somehow never occurred to me that I might be implicated in a dozen other murders in which I had no role.

  I trail Greaves to the front door and say goodbye, watching as he slowly makes his way down the drive, past my car, and into the black SUV parked at the curb. He sees me watching and lifts a hand so I do the same. I close and lock the door, peering through the peephole as he sits in the car, talking on his phone. My heart hammers in my chest, but I’m not looking at Greaves anymore. I’m looking at my car.

  I pull on my winter coat and boots, hovering behind the door until Greaves finally drives away. Then I slip outside. I’ve driven my car a dozen times since the day I found it with the door open, the day I convinced myself I’d simply been careless. But now I don’t think I was.

  There’s nothing in the front seat or the back, I know. And as I slide the key into the lock for the trunk and pop it open, I know what I’ll find here, too.

  And I do.

  A shiny new case of Soda Jack, twenty-four cans. It’s a variety pack, a rainbow of incriminating colors. Someone stole my credit card, ordered the drinks, had them delivered to my house, signed for them, and put a case in the trunk of my car. I don’t know what Soda Jack has to do with the investigation, but I know it can’t be good, and if there’s one criminal enterprise I’m skilled at, it’s hiding things.

  I get in the car and drive a few blocks to the nearby high school. It’s deserted on a Sunday, the back parking lot cold and empty. I stop in front of the dumpsters and grit my teeth as I lift out twenty dollars’ worth of soda and heave it above my head. I shove it over the lip of the dumpster, and after a second, I hear it land with a muffled thump. I close the trunk, and the slam echoes in the quiet, setting my ears ringing.

  I drive home quickly and spend the rest of the day in the house, anxious and paranoid. Despite having had ten years to prepare for my first-ever police interview, I was completely unprepared, mostly because the things I was questioned about are things about which I knew nothing. Becca has always threatened to frame me, but a small, desperate part of me simply chose to believe the bodies would neve
r come to light, and whatever seeds she’d planted would never manage to grow. And now something is growing, and I don’t know how to stop it.

  I take my laptop into the living room and sit on the couch, feet propped on the ottoman as I start to search online. I check for any updates on the Kilduff bodies, learning that two more have been identified. But beyond a few family members venturing into the public eye to say belatedly kind words about the loved ones they hadn’t really cared were missing, there’s nothing new. Forums are teeming with questions and theories, all of which prompt more questions and theories, but none of which generate any real answers. All we know for certain about the serial killer is that the park is their burial ground, and all the victims had a foot missing. If the police have any other information, they’re not sharing.

  I read a couple of stories from the family members of the identified victims, saying how their loved ones had led hard lives or fallen on troubled times and generally making excuses about why they never realized they were gone. But beyond that, there’s no common thread to their story. No place the victims hung out, no mysterious new friends. Just one day there, the next day…not.

  My eyelids start to droop, the caffeine and adrenaline draining away as quickly as they’d kicked in. With the doors locked, the curtains wide open, and the sun shining, I finally allow myself to close my eyes.

  * * *

  When I wake up, the room is dark and cold, my neck is sore from resting at a weird angle, and my feet have fallen asleep, pins and needles spiking my skin as I wiggle my toes, trying to get the blood moving. I look around slowly, orienting myself. Outside is the dull roar of wind, an unexpected storm.

  I reach for the switch on the lamp and stop, my eyes locking on the dark window overlooking the street. The glow of a streetlamp casts shadows on the pavement, and if I turn on the light, anyone outside will be able to see in. Instead, I open the laptop and wait for it to wake up, peering at the time through bleary eyes. Just after five o’clock. Too early to be afraid of things that go bump in the night.

  Still, I get up and wind my way around the ottoman, tugging the curtains closed. Doing so cuts out what little light was left in the room, and the piercing cry of a fresh gust of wind outside makes me yelp. Cold radiates from the window, and through it I can hear the rattle of bare branches as they clap together, reminding me too much of the night we buried Angelica.

  I shudder as the memory washes over me, but I’ve had plenty of practice banishing those thoughts, and now I shake my head, jarring them loose. I switch on both lamps and turn up the heat five degrees higher than the preset, even though I know it won’t work. I can already hear the furnace protesting through the floorboards.

  The wind picks up outside, or maybe it’s been that way for a while and I slept through it, I don’t know. I can hear it hissing past, more thunks and thuds outside, and then a familiar clatter as one of the lids on my garbage cans is pried free and starts careening around the concrete slab, bouncing off the side of the house, being a general nuisance. I give it a minute to wedge itself into the spot between the deck and the house or blow onto the grass, but it seems content to cause as much hassle as possible.

  If my back door opened, it would be less of a headache, but when I check it now, the new lock is still locked, and the wood is still warped. Even if I were inclined to fight to get it open, I know I’d lose the battle to get it closed again, and only compound my troubles. I sigh tiredly. The thing about old neighborhoods is that they play host to two kinds of people: old people and young people with young kids. The kind of people who complain if your car spits too much exhaust or your Christmas lights are too bright—or not bright enough—or your trash cans bang too loudly during a storm. If I’d paid attention to the forecast, I could have brought them inside or maybe braved the shed out back, but I hadn’t, and now I’m stuffing my feet into boots and yanking on my parka, just in time for fat drops of rain to start pelting the house. Each sound is stark and accusing, intensifying as the storm gains strength. There’s a mournful creak overhead, like the floorboards are crying, and I jerk around to look up the stairs out of habit, but they’re dark and empty. It’s going to be another long night.

  I pull open the front door, holding it tight against the wind that tries to drag it outside against its will and its hinges. I win the brief struggle, angling myself through the gap and onto the steps, tugging the door closed solidly behind me. I pull up my hood, rain smacking my face. My eyes water from the sting and the cold, and I swipe at my skin, my fingers immediately frozen.

  I hurry around the front of the house, sparing a quick glance for my car—it’s as I left it—before darting around the side. It’s pitch black in the space between my house and the neighbor’s fence, and I trail my hand along the wood siding, feet slipping on the mossy paving stones. I reach the cans in a few seconds, the new floodlight doing its job too well. It senses my movement and flips on, blinding me, and for a second I’m helpless, eyes aching from the sudden brightness.

  I mutter a curse and turn my back, blinking spots from my vision, and when I can see again, I locate the delinquent trash cans. One’s on its side, lid intact; the other is standing upright, collecting rain as its lid continues to rattle. I grit my teeth against the grating slide of metal on concrete and scoop it up, jamming it back on the can. I double-check the other one, but it’s secure. Already my thighs are wet from the rain, my teeth chattering, and strands of hair escape my hood and plaster themselves to my cheeks. I glance at the shed I’ve ignored since I moved in. I checked it once before buying the place, but it was just a cheap and empty structure, hiding no secrets. A rusted lock hangs on the door, open. It’s just ten feet from here to the shed, the yard now well lit.

  Another gust of wind and the cans clash together like cymbals. I grip each handle, wincing against the cold as I drag them across the slippery grass. At first, I think it’s a blessing that they’re empty, but the wind has other ideas, using them like sails, lifting and smashing them into my calves and ankles. The cold makes it extra painful, and I slam them into the side of the shed when I arrive, holding one in place with my knee while I fumble to remove the lock. My numb fingers scrape over the rust, but I finally get it off and kick open the flimsy door.

  For a long second I just stare at the empty mouth of the door, gaping at me like it can’t believe my nerve. But the floodlight illuminates the tiny space, dry and musty and blessedly empty. I shove the cans inside, not caring when one falls, and close the door, replacing the lock and picking my way back over the wet grass. I nod in approval at the floodlight. I’d put off having one installed because I didn’t want to deal with it, but facing my fears is empowering. Far better than cowering on the couch all night, flinching from the shadows and my sister.

  Back inside, I’m wet and shivering, but somewhat revitalized after my errand, though that could be due to my five-hour nap. I hang my wet coat on the banister and kick off my boots. My jeans are stiff with rain and cold, and I peel them off where I stand, tugging down my sweater to cover my ass as I jog up the stairs to grab a warm change of clothes. I flick on the light in my room, the low hum of the radiator beneath the window warring with the rain and wind outside, and open the closet door.

  There’s a man in my closet.

  He’s dressed in black, a ski mask covering his face, revealing only pale circles of skin around his eyes and mouth. The same shock I’m feeling is reflected in his eyes, a murky gray-green. He was not expecting to be found. Not yet.

  He backhands me before I can react. There’s the sharp, painful clang of metal hitting my teeth and then the burning tang of blood. I glimpse something shiny on his finger as his hand flies away. A ring. He shoves me, and I stumble a few feet, the back of my knees meeting the edge of the mattress. I sprawl gracelessly, ears ringing from the blow to my face, shock and adrenaline flooding my system. I’ve never been hit before. Not even by Becca.

  And then, while I lie prone and helpless, he runs. He bolts out of the r
oom, and I hear his feet pounding down the steps, the solemn cry of the creaky third stair, the wind rushing in as he wrenches open the door and flees into the street.

  For long seconds I lie there, staring at the ceiling light, my mouth throbbing. I touch my tongue to the split in my lip and wince. I trail it over my teeth, stopping when I feel a jagged point where there shouldn’t be one. I do it again, then again, and again with my finger, poking at a sore spot to confirm it’s still sore.

  My tooth is broken. My front tooth. Even more upsetting than finding a strange man hiding in my bedroom closet—the one in which I’d been expecting to find someone—is discovering my broken tooth. It doesn’t even hurt, it just feels wrong. It feels unfair and brutal. I curl up my knees to my chest as hot tears start to fall, trickling into my ears and making them itch. I want to roll onto my side and sob until I can’t breathe, but the sound of the wind and rain filters back in, and I remember the front door is still open.

  I get to my feet, expecting to feel more unsteady than I actually am. Everything is too clear, too believable. It’s surreal. I know it’s shock morphing the lights and the walls, making everything sway and swell, a millimeter this way, a millimeter that way. But I’m still aware enough to skip the third stair as I descend the steps and use my shoulder to force the door closed against the wind, shaking fingers twisting the lock. I glance at the hall table to confirm my purse and keys and laptop are still there.

  They are.

  He’s been here before, I know. Unlocked the back door, opened the curtains, planted the Soda Jack, stolen my credit card. He’s had ample opportunity to do far worse, and he hasn’t. Not yet anyway.

  My phone sits next to my purse. Becca always complains that I leave it there to charge instead of keeping it with me, because sometimes it takes me twenty minutes to notice her text and she doesn’t like to be kept waiting.

  It’s the last thing I want to do, but it’s also my only choice. I pick up the phone and call my sister. Either she’ll answer and immediately take a superior tone, expecting me to apologize since I broke down and called first, or she won’t answer at all, playing the part of the wounded warrior.