Twisted

by Steve Cavanagh

  And with that, the sheriff tipped his hat and Paul saw him to the door, which he closed and locked behind the sheriff. He let out his breath as soon as he heard the sheriff’s car pull out of the driveway. He turned around, saw Maria standing at the top of the stairs, watching him.

  ‘It’s okay, honey. I’m home now. You get some sleep. I’m going to stay up. This asshole won’t be stupid enough to come back. If he does, I’ll be waiting.’

  Maria said nothing. For the longest time she stood there looking down at Paul. Her hands by her sides, her body perfectly still. Unable to hold her gaze, Paul looked down at the floor, then turned and walked back into the study.

  He tried to think about what he’d left in that drawer. He closed his eyes, tried hard to remember if he’d brought anything else from his office to the house. He had brought home a bank statement or two, before he got the safe installed in the marina office. Did he bring the bank statements back to the office? He couldn’t remember, not for sure.

  For years, Paul had been careful. No outrageous spending. Well, at least nothing he couldn’t hide on a tax return. He bought the car through his dummy business account, and the boat he bought off the books. They were expensive, but not millionaire’s toys and nowhere near what the average Port Lonely inhabitant had in the garage or at the marina. He didn’t stand out. He’d kept his head down. He’d kept his mouth shut.

  And yet, he’d been found.

  An old familiar feeling clawed its way up from the earth. He could feel it crawling over him, seizing control. The sweat broke like a dam, his tongue dried up in his mouth, his shoulders hunched and he found his fingers had wound into trembling fists.

  The fear was back.

  He drew out his cell phone, began typing an email and then stopped. He deleted the draft. No need to involve her just yet. What if she was the one who’d betrayed him? No. He was panicking. Not thinking. There was nothing she could do at this hour, anyway. If he emailed her, she might call him, and Maria was upstairs. She might hear.

  Paul shook his head. He was letting fear rule him. His only choice was to wait and see how this played out. Whatever happened, he would be ready. Quietly, he made his way back into the study, removed a thick copy of the collected works of Dickens from the bookshelf and reached in behind it. It was still there. Untouched. Ready for when he needed it.

  A Smith and Wesson .38.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  As Sheriff Dole pulled out of the driveway of the Coopers’ house, he grabbed the radio mic and hit the transmit button twice.

  ‘Come on back, Abraham. You catch any prowlers?’ said the voice of the dispatcher.

  ‘They were long gone by the time I got there, Sue,’ he said.

  Sue, along with two full-time deputies, made up the Sheriff’s Department of Port Lonely. For a town with little crime it had a well-funded Sheriff’s Department. The rich folk who financed the town during tourist season cared about protection. They didn’t want the locals going rogue and scratching up their Ferraris or pissing on their roses. And so they contributed to the law enforcement budget through black-tie fundraisers with one hundred dollar plates, bake sales and barbeques. And the money piled up faster than the sheriff could spend it.

  Sue had worked with Dole for the best part of twenty years. She was sharp, took no bullshit and even though she was not a field officer, she was responsible for the majority of Port Lonely’s crime clean-up rate. This was in part due to her keen intelligence, and the fact that she knew almost every living soul in the town and never missed a piece of gossip.

  ‘How’s that nice lady doing? She sounded so scared on the phone,’ said Sue.

  ‘She’s got a mark on her face. She’ll bruise, but she’ll be fine,’ said Sheriff Dole.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Sue.

  ‘She said she heard a noise, like glass breaking, in the study. When she unlocked the door she found a masked intruder kneeling behind her husband’s desk. He leapt toward her, struck her once while he made for the front door.’

  ‘How’d he get into the study?’ said Sue.

  Dole’s mustache twitched.

  ‘You don’t miss a trick, do you?’ he said.

  ‘I can always tell when you’re squirly about something. Come on, better out than in.’

  ‘Well, there’s definitely something amiss in that house. Between Mrs. Cooper and Mr. Cooper. I’d say there’s an air of discord.’

  The radio stayed silent for a moment, before Sue barked back, ‘Come on now, there’s more than that.’

  ‘You should teach interrogation techniques, you know that? It’s probably nothing.’

  ‘It’s something. Don’t hold out on me no more, Sheriff.’

  ‘Alright. It just didn’t make any sense to me is all. Mrs. Cooper says she unlocks the study door and startles a burglar, catches him red-handed. The burglar just came through a big, open window. Why would he run toward Mrs. Cooper, hit her, and run out the front door when he could just turn around and escape the way he came in, quick as a flash?’

  ‘Burglars are pretty dumb. Could be she’s telling the truth.’

  ‘Could be. It still doesn’t explain why even a dumb burglar would bust open one drawer in an old desk when there’s two-grand’s worth of laptop just sitting there in front of him. Easy to move on the black market in Plainsfield. He could get a couple thou, easy.’

  ‘Easy,’ agreed Sue. ‘You gonna go back out tomorrow?’

  ‘Probably. I’ll take Bloch with me in the morning to get some statements and have a look around. Don’t tell her what I said, let her work it out for herself. She’s plenty smart and I want to make sure I’m not jumpin’ off the deep end. And by the way, don’t you go blabbermouthin’ none of this either.’

  ‘As if I would? The indignity,’ said Sue.

  ‘You would. You have. That time I caught old man Peterson in his car, buck-ass naked in a parking lot with an inflatable doll in the passenger seat. The whole town knew about it before I even got back to the station.’

  She didn’t argue with that one. She was too busy laughing at the memory.

  ‘I’m gonna take a drive around town, see what I can see. I’ll be back later,’ said the sheriff. Sue signed off, and the cruiser fell into silence.

  He reached for the radio, but hesitated when he saw the waterfall on his left.

  Ten years ago Dole pulled a body out of the spillway at the bottom of the falls. A young woman. Late twenties. Found at the end of a long, hot summer. Naked, her body swollen by the water. Her injuries were consistent with a fall from the peak. They were also consistent with a violent death. No one had come forward to claim her. No DNA match, not enough teeth left for a dental comparison, and far as he could tell she didn’t match the photos of recent missing persons.

  She had been buried in the municipal cemetery. Only Dole and Sue at the funeral.

  Whenever Dole came out this way, which wasn’t often, he took a moment in silence to remember the girl. Most law enforcement would have put the death down to misadventure. No clear evidence of a homicide. They would have moved on.

  The file on Jane Doe still sat in the bottom drawer of Dole’s desk. He took it out once in a while, checked the updated missing persons databases. The file remained open, and it would stay like that until Dole found out what had happened to the girl.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Rising at five a.m., Maria showered, dressed, and tip-toed through the living room, past her sleeping husband, out the front door, got into her car and drove away. The newborn sun hit the windshield as she passed through Port Lonely. The next town on the coast was a mere fifty miles away, but she didn’t need to go that far. Halfway between Port Lonely and Port Hope, she pulled in at the all-night diner. It was nothing more than a trailer that seated twenty, served coffee so hot it would take the enamel off your teeth and didn’t mind if you failed to tip your waitress.

  She pulled open the door to the diner, inhaled the smell of bacon and over-cooked eggs. There
were two men at the counter. Trawler-men from Port Hope. The diner’s profits lay in overpriced, bad food at any time of day. If you just happened to step off a boat at three a.m. and were in need of a beer and a sandwich, you came to the Lonely Hope Diner.

  The waitress, a blonde in her forties with a smile that looked in its fifties, stepped out from behind the counter and offered Maria a booth in the corner and a laminated menu which stuck to the table like it was coated in glue.

  ‘Just coffee is fine,’ said Maria.

  A nod from the waitress was all Maria got in return. Her nametag read, ‘Sandy,’ and she prised the menu off the table with some difficulty. Eventually it came away and made a sucking and ripping sound while it did so, like somebody tearing apart wet Velcro. A cup and saucer appeared on the table and it was quickly filled from a bun flask with steaming black coffee. Maria asked for cream and sugar, and it came a lot later than it should have. No tip for Sandy, thought Maria.

  Just after six a.m., Daryl walked into the diner and took a seat opposite Maria. He asked for a latte, and Maria resisted the urge to smile at the expression on Sandy’s face. It is white coffee, or black coffee, or sodas. Nothing else. Daryl settled for white coffee.

  ‘I haven’t slept all night,’ said Maria.

  ‘Me either. I felt sick. I’ve never hit a woman. How’s your …’ He couldn’t even say it. He let his sentence fall away and simply wiped a finger on his cheek. As he did so, he couldn’t hide the look of disgust on his face. He had crossed a line last night, and slapping Maria had left a mark on Daryl too.

  Maria reached out, squeezed his arm and forced a smile. ‘It’s fine. I asked you to do it. Remember? In fact, I had to beg you before you agreed. I’m sorry I made you do it, but I needed him to believe our story. There was no other way. It’s fine, just put it out of your mind.’

  ‘I can’t. I’ve never hurt a woman. God, I just paced the floor last night worrying about you. I felt like punching myself in the head, you know?’ said Daryl.

  ‘I think it’s kinda sweet you feel so bad. I’m sorry. I won’t ever make you hurt me again. I’ll make it up to you. I promise,’ said Maria.

  ‘Did you ask him about the drawer?’ asked Daryl.

  ‘He didn’t say anything, but I could tell he was rattled. He knows he left something secret in that drawer. The main thing is he doesn’t suspect me. The cops came out. They’re treating it as a burglary.’

  ‘So you went through all of that for nothing?’

  Without consciously registering the motion, Maria stroked the side of her face. The swelling had gone down, but the redness in her cheek remained. Ducking his head, avoiding her eyes, Daryl took a sip of coffee and stared at the table. Maria felt a stab of guilt at forcing him to strike her. For all his physical size and strength, Daryl really was a sweetheart – almost an innocent. Batting down that feeling of guilt, she replaced it with Daryl’s warm brown eyes and the knowledge that she was so lucky to have him.

  ‘It wasn’t for nothing,’ said Maria. ‘He doesn’t suspect me. He thinks someone broke in and busted the drawer. It was worth it for that alone, but …’

  She fell silent, shook her head. Her lips trembled and she stared out of the dirty window at the road. Finally, she took a breath, composed herself enough to continue.

  ‘I asked him why someone would break into his drawer. He didn’t tell me anything. I dropped enough hints, but he wouldn’t say. Damn it, I wanted him to tell me. It was the perfect opportunity to get it all out in the open. And he didn’t say shit.’

  Maria wrapped her hands around her mug, stared into it. There were no answers on the greasy film that had formed on the top of her coffee. She had loved Paul once. She had felt it early on in the relationship. The more time they spent together, the more Paul had grown. It was like a weight sat on his shoulders and every hour he spent with her it had lifted a little, letting him smile more, relax more, be himself. And yet that weight had never truly disappeared. She had imagined that it might, in time. That love would conquer all. That Paul would finally let her all the way into his life, his past, his dreams. And when that didn’t happen Maria stopped trying to shift more of that weight. Paul wasn’t around – he was off at marketing conferences, or seeing clients, or out on his goddamn boat. Daryl had nothing weighing him down, no secrets that he wouldn’t share. He was open, and honest and … free.

  Maria realized she could not free Paul. That he had to do it for himself. And when he’d freeze up, bringing those cold barriers front and center time and time again, eventually Maria had simply stopped trying.

  She’d realized on the drive over to the diner that morning that she no longer felt any guilt about her relationship with Daryl. It felt more right than it ever had before. Her husband was someone else, pretending to be married to Maria. That’s all it was, a charade. Now Maria didn’t have to pretend to be with him anymore. She’d decided that this bad play she’d found herself in had to end. The sight of Paul lying to her face had sickened her. She had no more will to take part in the performance of marriage.

  It had to end.

  Daryl shifted uncomfortably in his seat, said, ‘What are you going to do?’

  Maria smiled. ‘For now I want him to believe he’s been discovered. Put him on edge. See what he does. He’s going to get a shock when he wakes up and steps outside. He drives around in that Italian sports car, and lets me drive a four-year-old Nissan with three hundred dollars a week to keep the house and myself. I used to think that it was fine – you know, it’s his money. But that’s not a marriage. He’s been keeping more than a ninety-thousand-dollar car to himself. Well, that has to change, Daryl. I left him something on that car, and I hope it scares the shit out of him.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Pain shot up the side of Paul’s neck, jolting him awake on the couch. The sun had warmed the living room and as soon as he opened his eyes, it instantly blinded him. Sitting up, he blinked away the sun spots and rubbed at the back of his neck. Some cushions were on the floor beside him. He must’ve disturbed them in the night, knocking them off the couch. That explained the crick in his neck.

  He had slept downstairs in case the intruder returned, but after a few hours he had put the gun back in the study and simply settled down on the couch, too tired to face the stairs.

  He still wore his jeans and T-shirt from the night before. They were wrinkled and smelled of his sweat. A bad taste filled his mouth. He hadn’t brushed his teeth the previous night. A shower and a change of clothes was in order. Not before he had coffee and a cigarette. He needed both.

  A zip compartment in his laptop bag held a soft pack of Camels and a lighter. He brewed an espresso from the machine and took it out onto the porch. It was real early. Maria didn’t usually get up till around ten. He had time for a secret cigarette outside. Although Maria already knew he still smoked the occasional cigarette. He always denied it, and she never bought his protestations. He liked it that way. If Maria felt she had outsmarted him about his secret smokes, it gave him more comfort that she would never even dream of discovering his other life. He wanted her to believe she had him all figured out.

  As he smoked, he thought over the events of last night. Maybe he had jumped to a conclusion too soon. Everything seemed less sinister in the sunlight. It could have just been a burglar. And if it was just a regular burglar, and even if they did get a bank statement, they couldn’t do that much to hurt him. Not yet. They certainly couldn’t take his money or do anything with the bank details. The account was in the Caymans, password protected. Safe and secure.

  He finished his coffee, went upstairs to see Maria and found their bed empty. He checked the bathroom, called her name and walked around the rest of the house. She was gone. It occurred to him that maybe she’d gone to the beach for an early morning swim. She did that very rarely, and only when she’d had a great night’s sleep. She enjoyed being on the beach alone. No one around at that time, she would have the place to herself. From the back porch
he looked out on the beach. Three hundred yards away. No towels in the sand. No one sunbathing and, as far as he could see, nobody in the water. Paul walked around the corner to the front of the house and saw her car had gone. He was about to turn and go back inside for a shower when something stopped him. Something in his subconscious. Something odd about the scene in front of him that his mind had taken in, but not definitively processed.

  Looking back at the driveway, he saw what had barely registered at first glance.

  A white envelope sat beneath the windshield wiper of his car. Paul didn’t move. Instead he looked around, examining the bushes and tall grass next to the driveway. Somebody had left the note there. It wasn’t Maria. She didn’t leave notes. Even if she’d stormed off in a rage, she wouldn’t put pen to paper and leave him a note. If she wanted to give him a message she would’ve texted or called and spelled out her rage in all caps. Strange place to leave an envelope. They could’ve snuck up to the house and pushed it under the door, or left it in the mailbox at the top of the drive. Instead, the messenger had placed it on his windshield. Paul’s mind made instant calculations, based on probability and experience, and then he dismissed most of them in seconds. There were only two reasons to leave the note under the windshield wiper. The first was that they wanted to make sure, as much as possible, that only he saw the note. Maybe they waited until after Maria had left before slipping it under the wiper. The second reason to place the envelope on his car was that they were waiting out there in the long grass and they wanted to watch him open it.

  The thought paralyzed him. Only his eyes moved. Slowly, he took in every inch of grass. Every small hill. Every boulder. Nothing. Then he focused on one point in the distance letting his peripheral vision pick up any movement. It didn’t work. The breeze that came off the ocean seemed to stir every blade of grass in a soft, gentle lull.

  Shaking his head, he moved toward the Maserati. The soles of his feet disturbed the rounded gravel and the sound seemed way louder than it should’ve been. Like an alarm bell. The grass swayed in the breeze, and no one stood or revealed themselves. He realized such feelings were foolish. His fear and anxiety were rattling his thoughts – sending panic and adrenaline charging after each neuron that fired inside his brain.