“I think we all feel that way,” I said.
“Please dig in.”
I twirled some pasta onto my fork and took a bite. It was crunchy.
“Dammit,” Julie said. “This isn’t cooked.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Delicious.”
“No, no.” She stood up, grabbing her plate and the bowl. “I’m so embarrassed. Let me put it back on for a few minutes.”
“That’s really not . . .”
“I’ll help,” Hanna said, getting up as Julie approached her seat. Her shoulder caught the plate, which clattered to the floor. Julie lost her grip on the bowl, and its contents spilled over Hanna’s shoulder and down the front of her sweater. Her favorite sweater. Given to her by the kids last Christmas.
Hanna let out a yelp of pain.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Is it burning you?”
I rushed to Hanna’s side. She was pulling her sweater over her head.
“It’s hot!”
I helped her lift it off. There was an angry red mark blooming on her shoulder. Her bra was soaked in pasta sauce.
“Come upstairs with me,” Julie said. “You should step into a cold shower. Quickly.”
She pulled Hanna away from me and out of the room.
“That looks bad,” Daniel said. “I’m so sorry. Maybe we should call 9-1-1?”
“Let’s see what the cold water does. I don’t think the burns were that serious. At least, I hope not. Maybe I should go up there?”
He put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure she’ll call if she needs you.”
“Yeah. Dammit. This is not how this evening was supposed to go.”
“That could apply to a lot of things lately.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
“We should clean this up before it seeps into the rug.”
I looked down. The rug matched the one in the living room, in a slightly darker blue. The red sauce was spreading out in a rough circle. The seat of Hanna’s chair was also covered in it.
“Might be too late for that,” I said.
Daniel walked into the kitchen, returning with a bunch of towels, a bowl of soapy water, and a garbage can.
We both got down on our hands and knees. He scooped up the broken plate and bowl with a towel and put it in the garbage can. I soaked another towel and started blotting at the rug.
“I think you’re going to have to call in the professionals,” I said.
“I was afraid of that. This rug was a wedding present from my folks.”
“It’s worth saving, then.”
Daniel handed me a new soaked towel and we traded, the old one going into the trash.
“One more mess to clean up,” Daniel said.
“I tried to talk Hanna out of giving her that letter.”
“It’s fine. Maybe if I lived where you do, in the path of the cameras, I’d feel the same way. Hanna and Julie do seem to mix like . . .”
“Pasta and this carpet?”
“Precisely.” He sighed. “I tried to talk her out of it, too. The cameras, I mean. I even hired a PI.”
“A PI?”
“A private detective.”
“I know what a PI is. Why did you hire one?”
“To look into . . . everything.”
Daniel gave me a hard look, like he wanted to probe me for information. Was he expecting me to flinch? Confess?
“Did you find out who’s been harassing her?”
“Clearly not. He had a theory, though. One that might make sense. He thought that Julie was the one—”
“Do you have any soda water?” I blurted.
“What?”
“Soda water. I remember my mother always saying it got stains out.”
He shook his head. “I don’t—did you hear what I said?”
“I heard you. But should you really be telling me this?” I sat back on my heels, giving up on the rug.
“Probably not. I never even told Julie I’d hired him. It was going to be a surprise. Am I a total dick?”
Daniel looked ashamed.
“I’ve thought she might be behind it, too, to be honest,” I said. “Has she . . . done anything like that before?”
“I don’t . . . Heather was real. Is real.”
“I’m not saying she isn’t.”
“She’s just been so . . . lost since she got here.”
Daniel fell back on his rear and put his hands over his face. His breath had that smell beer makes when it’s fermenting inside someone. Like it’s almost turned to hard alcohol.
“Did he have any evidence?” I asked.
“There’s a few things . . . he’s still digging. What made you think . . . ?”
“She told me that’s what the police believed. I guess it planted a seed.”
“Is it possible to live with someone every day and not know them? At their core?”
The kiss flitted through my mind.
“I think that happens all the time.”
“What should I—”
“I told you to stop!” Hanna’s voice. Angry. Distressed.
I stood up quickly. The room tilted. I pushed against the wall and ran toward the stairs.
“Hanna?”
She was standing on the landing, a towel wrapped around her. Her clothes were clutched in her hand.
“Keep her away from me.”
She almost ran down the stairs and into me. Her hair was damp. Both her shoulders were red, the one where the pasta had fallen, especially. A small blister was forming on her collarbone.
“What happened?” Daniel and I spoke together.
Julie was standing at the top of the stairs. Her hair was down, disheveled. She looked like she’d been in a fight.
“Forget it; we’re leaving.”
Hanna marched out the front door. I looked at Julie for a moment, waiting for some explanation, then turned and hurried after Hanna, grabbing our raincoats off their hooks.
She crossed the street in her bare feet, walking through several puddles.
“Hanna, wait. Should we go to the hospital?”
She rang our doorbell as I reached her. Chris opened the door a moment later.
“Mom! What happened to you?”
She fell against Chris, resting her head on his shoulder.
“She did,” she said.
And I knew we were broken.
Today
John
3:00 p.m.
Chris is in the grand jury room for almost an hour. The witnesses for the other grand jury shuttle in and out of the waiting room with quiet efficiency. I ask Alicia again why our case is so different. She repeats the words I already know by heart: we chose to testify, which the accused almost never does. By doing so, we forced the prosecution to present a fuller case. To respond to what we’re going to say. And that’s how we’re going to win, Alicia says. Because when they hear the whole story, rather than only the prosecutor’s side, they won’t be able to indict.
I think about what I’m going to say as I watch the doors for any sign of Chris. A few minutes after three, they open, and there he is again. He looks thin and pale. There are marks on his face that show he’s been crying. But something has shifted. He went in there still mostly a boy. Now I can see the man he is. The man he will become regardless of the outcome.
The clerk announces a fifteen-minute break as Chris walks to us in a daze. Hanna gathers him close, leading him away from me. I want to ask him how things went. But he’s not allowed to tell me anything. Besides, it’s written on his face. The moments he was forced to remember, reconstruct. The emotions he’s been tamping down for two months bubbling up and over. The hurt, the horror, the heartbreak. Our eyes meet. He nods once, quickly. Our secrets are safe, I think. I’m not sure whether to be sick or relieved. Perhaps I am both.
Then the force of what I’ve done hits me. I feel as if my knees might buckle. Alicia puts her hand on my elbow.
“You look pale.”
“I’m not
feeling very well.”
“Why don’t we go outside and get some air?”
“Aren’t I up next?”
“I think there’s someone before you.”
“Who?”
She shakes her head. After a moment, I nod and follow her to the elevators.
“Let’s walk around the block,” she says when we get outside. “I find that helps.”
I follow her lead. The sky has cleared. It feels like it’s going to warm up overnight. I breathe in and out slowly. The city air. The familiar combination of exhaust and people. I feel some of my self-control returning. The edge of my panic blurred by being removed from the imminent sense of danger the room upstairs holds.
“Have you ever testified at one of these things?” I say to Alicia.
“I have, actually.”
“How come?”
“Soon after I started working at the firm, one of our clients shot one of the associates. Right there in the office.”
“My God, that’s terrible.”
“It was. Especially since I think he was looking for me. We’d switched offices.”
“Why would he be looking for you?”
“He lost his case. I was the junior on the file, but he blamed me, I guess.”
“That must be hard to get over.”
She gives me a weak smile. “I don’t think you ever really recover from something like that, do you? But we moved offices, a whole different building, and I had counseling. It was a long time ago.”
“I’d shut down, I think.”
“But you haven’t . . . oh, goodness.”
She’s looking across the street. There’s a heavyset woman standing near the parking lot where my car is parked. She looks like one of the many lawyers who’ve waltzed in and out of the waiting room this afternoon. Her dark-brown hair’s cut short, almost boyishly. She’s talking emphatically to a man who’s standing in front of her.
I guess it’s the hair and the suit, but it takes me a second to place her.
The first time I saw Heather Stanhope, she was wearing a tracksuit, and her hair was long and shaggy.
“You can’t speak to her,” Alicia says.
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
“They didn’t call her this morning.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure. She’s with her lawyer. You stay here, I’m going to find out.”
I watch Alicia cross the street, trying to slow my heart.
Heather Stanhope. In the flesh.
For so long she felt like a made-up person. Snuffleupagus.
I looked her up online months ago. Julie had shown me some of her posts when we were still talking. I used those as a starting point. It was easy, really, when you knew where to look.
I knew, for instance, that she was in Julie’s law-school class at McGill. A few searches showed me she made law review, something I understood was prestigious without understanding why. Then I tracked down their yearbook. The only pictures of Heather were the formal shots everyone took, and one of the law-review group. Julie was in that photo, too, dressed in clothes that looked like they came from the men’s department. There was another picture of Julie, a few pages later, her arms slung over the shoulders of a very pretty girl and a nondescript guy. Another guy had his arms around Julie’s waist, his face half-hidden.
At the back, there was a big in-memoriam spread for Kathryn Simpson—the pretty girl from the earlier picture. She died from drinking too much at a party. Julie and the guys from the earlier picture were scattered throughout the collage. In one photo, I thought I saw the corner of Heather’s face, scowling as she watched them laugh.
I did other things, too. Not all at once, but over the following weeks. I read through the condolence book for Kathryn that was still online. Everyone in the class had left a heartfelt message, as had the faculty. Julie wrote: You took me in when I was friendless and helped me find my way. You were the most generous person I knew. There will be a hole in my heart—my life—forever. Life is not fair, but nothing has taught me that more than your passing. I love you always. Booth and Kevin—the boys in their group photos, I figured out through more digging—wrote similar things. Everyone becomes perfect when they die, I’ve noticed. But these sentiments seemed genuine.
Heather also left a message. It sent a chill down my spine. You were my only friend in the world. What will I do without you? I’m not sure what it was about, precisely, but in a long line of earnest messages, it felt false.
I kept reading and came across a series of more recent posts from Heather. She wrote something every year on the anniversary of Kathryn’s death. How she missed her, still thought of her, wished she was there to confide in. It was as if she knew no one was reading them anymore, five, ten years later. A couple of years ago, the entries picked up the pace.
Did you know that Julie wrote a book? I think it’s about you.
Julie says she made it up, but I don’t think that’s true.
Those guys were always hanging out, playing that stupid game. They thought I didn’t know because no one really pays attention to me, but you did. And I heard them. Planning. Plotting. Deciding who the perfect victim would be. You were always better than them.
The entries went on for several pages. As Heather’s theories got wilder, she stopped using names. But she kept on asking Kathryn questions, as if she could answer. Asking her to tell Heather how she’d died, what had really happened.
It took me more than an hour to read them all. I felt dirty at the end. Sullied. I closed the browser and tried to pretend they didn’t exist.
But after the disastrous dinner party, after what Daniel had told me about the private investigator, I went back to the site. Then I started matching up Heather’s entries with the suggestions in blog posts that Julie’s book wasn’t entirely fiction. The first couple were made by different screen names commenting on high-profile reviews of her book. But then a more serious blogger picked up on the story and wrote a “What if” kind of piece. Not accusing Julie of anything, simply piecing together snippets here and there that made it seem as if The Murder Game were more In Cold Blood than Gone Girl.
I don’t know if anyone ever took the time to look properly before, but it became pretty clear to me that Heather was the source of those rumors. Heather posing as several different people online, including the blogger who’d put it all together.
But why would she accuse Julie of doing such a thing? Why would she claim she and Kathryn were close friends when there didn’t seem to be any evidence of it? What was her end game? Was she simply off balance, mentally ill, or was there a kernel of truth she’d stumbled across? A thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters . . .
Alicia crosses the street and comes back to me. Heather and I make eye contact. She recognizes me. Grimaces. Turns away.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“They asked her to be on call this afternoon. Just in case.”
“In case what?”
“In case they need her as a rebuttal witness, I think.”
“You mean, to contradict something we might say?”
“Yes.”
“But that, that . . . she . . .”
“I need you to tell me what happened that morning again. From the beginning.”
“What would you consider the beginning?”
“It’s your story, John. You decide.”
Reinforcements
Julie
Three months ago
Leah arrived in the middle of a heat wave.
The Monday after the disastrous dinner party, I was served with legal papers. Hanna and John were suing me for the dog bite and the cameras and the “possibly permanent burns incurred at the dinner party.” The potential liability written down in those papers would wipe us out financially.
Even the money generated by The Book wasn’t enough to overcome the price of Hanna’s anger.
When I’d recovered from the shock, I called Leah, and as
ked if she and her family could come visit as soon as possible. I would pay for everything, and we could do . . . whatever.
Leah consulted with her husband, Rick, and called me back within the hour. Everything was all set. They’d arrive in two weeks, she’d rented a cabin near Lake Cumberland, a “lakeside delight,” she said, a twenty-five-hundred-square-foot rental property with a view, a pool table in the basement, and a perfect deck for stargazing. The kids would have fun swimming and riding the WaveRunners that came with the rental. We could drink wine all day and slosh around the deck. It sounded perfect.
When Daniel calmed down from wanting to cross the road and knock some sense into John and Hanna, he was game. Anything to distract us from the upcoming months of stress and expense and hostility.
So, when we met Leah, Rick, and their two kids—Liam, five, and Owen, seven—at the airport, we piled them into a rented Suburban and drove directly there.
The two weeks between that call and their arrival had been, frankly, awful. I couldn’t sleep. I felt like I spent all day on the phone with my lawyer. I couldn’t write, literally could not put a word down on the page. The worst of it was when I caught Daniel, who was doing his best to be supportive, looking at me when he thought I was doing something else with a puzzled expression on his face. I’d seen that look before, but I couldn’t ask him about it. I had enough doubt to deal with on my own.
The last two days, I was back to putting vodka in my morning orange juice.
Not good, as Sam would say, not good.
“So, wait,” Leah said, when we finally got onto the I-75. “We were never in Ohio?”
We were seated on the middle bench. The three boys were in the back row, their heads bowed over the two iPads we had to share between them. Melly sat next to me, watching something on my phone.
“Look out the window, kids!” Daniel cried. “You’re going to see horses.”
I don’t think they even heard him.
“The airport is in Kentucky,” Rick said from the front seat. He had a large map spread out over his lap, even though the car was equipped with GPS, because GPS—and all technology, really—was for losers, apparently. “I told you that a zillion times already.”
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