The Follower

by Jason Starr

  Still listening closely, she heard a sudden loud noise that shook the door. Assuming it was Peter banging, trying to get in, she screamed, and then a woman in the hallway said, “Are you okay in there?”

  It was one of her neighbors. She was on her way out and had slammed her door.

  Recovering from the near heart attack, Katie said, “Yeah…everything’s fine.”

  It was quiet for a few seconds—Katie imagined the neighbor staring, puzzled, at the door to Katie’s apartment—and then the footsteps headed downstairs.

  Katie continued to get hold of herself then realized the huge mistake she’d made. She shouldn’t have let her neighbor leave. She should’ve told her what was going on, that someone was trying to get into the building, someone who might want to kill her. The woman could’ve stayed with her until the police arrived. But now the woman was going to open the door to the vestibule and Peter could be down there, waiting for someone to leave so he could get in.

  Listening with her ear against the door again, Katie’s worst nightmare came true. She heard heavy footsteps on the stairs, and they were getting louder and louder.

  THIRY-TWO

  When John Himoto arrived in his office at the Nineteenth Precinct, he read the printouts Katie had left about the fire near Albany that had killed Peter Wells’s parents. There was a mention in the article of a Detective Sergeant Jeff Franklin from the Colonie Police Department. Although the fire had been six years ago, John called the department in Albany in the hope that Detective Franklin was still working there. It turned out he was—he’d been promoted to police chief—but unfortunately he was on vacation this week.

  “Is there anyone else I can talk to who has knowledge of the case?” John asked.

  John was put on hold for so long he thought he’d been forgotten, and then the woman came back on and said she wasn’t sure who John should speak to, but would have someone get in touch with him as soon as possible. About two hours later, a Detective Litsky called and said, “Jeff’s on vacation this week—Club Med, Cancún. Meanwhile, I can’t remember the last time I saw the ocean. But do I sound jealous?”

  Impatient with the small talk, John said, “Do you know anything about the fire in Colonie that killed Eleanor and Charles Wells?”

  “Oh, yeah. Actually, I was one of the first officers on the scene that day. I made detective since then.”

  “Do you remember Peter Wells?”

  “Yeah, I remember him. We thought he did it.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “There was just something off about the guy. He was too cool, you know what I mean?”

  “Could he have been in shock?”

  “Maybe…Maybe not. That was the thing about the guy—it was hard to tell. He was the type of guy you talked to and came away not knowing what the hell to think.”

  “But you never brought charges.”

  “We had no hard evidence and no witnesses—well, other than Peter Wells. The fire was ruled accidental, caused by a halogen lamp igniting curtains in the living room. The house was wood, went up like a matchbox.”

  “How was Wells able to escape?”

  “He wasn’t drunk, that’s how. The victims had been drinking and had passed out cold. Wells said he tried to get to them, but couldn’t. The big hero, or would-be hero. Yeah, he had all the bases covered, all right.”

  “And I understand they each had a one-million-dollar insurance policy, right?”

  “Yep, that was the suspected motive. But ‘suspected’ was the key word. I remember Jeff thought he did it, but Arson concluded it was an accident, and the insurance investigators must’ve felt the same way. So that was it—we had nothing to go on. Why? You think he has involvement in something downstate?”

  “It’s starting to look that way,” John said.

  He thanked Litsky for his time and immediately made another call—to Information in Massachusetts. He got the number for the Amherst Police Department, and after talking to several people there, he found out that a Detective Merker had handled the Heather Porter suicide investigation. John left a message for Merker, and about an hour later Merker, who sounded like he was in his fifties or sixties, returned the call.

  Merker remembered the case clearly, said it was a very sad day.

  “Any chance it wasn’t a suicide?” John asked.

  “No chance at all,” Merker said. “A few people saw her jump. They were sunbathing on the dorm roof.”

  “Do you remember something about a boyfriend of hers being killed?”

  “A boyfriend?”

  “Yeah. Maybe someone she was dating who had been killed, who she was distraught over.”

  Merker thought about it, then said, “Nope, don’t remember anything like—Wait a second now. Yep, yep, it’s starting to ring a bell. It was unclear if it was a boyfriend of hers, or just some guy she…what do they say? Oh, yeah, ‘hooked up with.’ I forget his name but, yeah, I remember her friends saying that was one of the things she was upset about, that could’ve caused her to jump.”

  “What about the friend? How did he die?”

  “Fell off a roof, if I remember correctly. He was drunk at the time, at a frat party. Believe it or not, that happens quite often at college campuses around here. Actually, that’s why we thought Heather Porter might’ve jumped, to check out the same way her boyfriend died. Seemed to make some sense anyway. Of course, we had no way of knowing—”

  “I’n sorry,” John said. “You said he was drunk?”

  John remembered what Detective Litsky had said, about how Peter Wells’s parents had been intoxicated.

  “Oh, yeah, he was drunk all right,” Merker said. “I think totally shitfaced is the term du jour. There was a frat party going on, and he’d been drinking all night.”

  “Any chance of foul play?”

  “We looked into it, sure. I think there was a witness or two, I don’t really remember. But we concluded it was an accident—just another drunk kid taking the Budweiser dive. That’s what we call it up here.”

  John thanked Merker for his time, then called Barasco, mildly surprised that the schmuck bothered picking up.

  “What now?” Barasco asked.

  “You talk to Peter Wells yet?”

  “Hey, didn’t I tell you to stay out of my case?”

  “Cut the shit, all right? I just talked to a couple of cops upstate—this guy could be dangerous. Have you brought him in yet or what?”

  “Not yet,” Barasco said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because we can’t locate him, that’s why. He isn’t answering his cell phone and he hasn’t been home all day.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  The footsteps on the stairs were getting louder. Katie, listening at the door, was immobilized for a few moments, unable to think clearly or do anything, then she darted into the bathroom and locked herself in. She sat on the closed toilet and waited, praying.

  There were a couple of loud knocks on the front door.

  “Leave me the fuck alone!” she screamed, realizing a moment later that was the worst thing she could’ve done. It would’ve been better to stay silent, make him think she wasn’t home.

  “Hello? Are you able to come to the door?”

  It wasn’t Peter. The guy sounded official, like a cop.

  Katie left the bathroom, then said, “Who’s there?”

  “Police.”

  Relieved, muttering, “Thank God,” Katie looked through the peephole, then opened the door and saw two cops there—a black guy and a white woman.

  “Katie Porter?” the guy asked.

  “Yes,” Katie said. “Come in, please come in.”

  The cops entered the apartment, then Katie said, “Thanks so much for coming over. I was afraid it was him.”

  “Who’s him?” the woman asked.

  Katie explained what was going on with Peter, and how she’d spoken to the detectives about the two murders.

  “There was no one in the vestibule when we a
rrived,” the male cop said.

  “Well, he was there before you came,” Katie said. “He was ringing the bell for, like, fifteen minutes.”

  She knew she was exaggerating, but so what?

  “How do you know it was him?” the woman asked.

  “It had to be him. He was just calling me and then the bell started ringing.”

  “Maybe it was a delivery guy or something,” the man said.

  “I thought of that, but I’n not expecting any deliveries. I’n telling you, it was Peter.”

  “We’ll see if anyone’s down there when we leave,” the man said.

  “Can’t you stay here?” Katie said. “My parents are gonna be here soon, in like an hour or two, but can you stay till they get here?”

  “I’n afraid we can’t. If anyone starts ringing your bell again and you become alarmed, you can call us again and report it. We have officers in this area all the time and we can be here in five minutes.”

  “Or we can take you someplace if you like,” the woman said.

  Katie considered this, but she didn’t want to leave. She was afraid if she was out somewhere in public, Peter would come up to her and strangle her, or bash her head in.

  “I’n not going anywhere,” she said.

  The cops could probably tell how frightened she was because the guy said, “It seems like you have a very secure apartment here. I see you’ve got a Medeco lock. You can call the detectives you spoke to just to let them know you’re concerned but as of right now we don’t see anything that alarms us. The front door downstairs seems very functional and secure. I would just try to relax until your parents get here.”

  “Will you check to make sure he’s not in the building? Maybe he’s hiding in the stairwell or something.”

  “Yes, we’ll absolutely make sure he’s not on the premises,” the woman said.

  Katie waited with the door open while the cops checked the stairwell, including going all the way up to the roof. They returned and told Katie that everything looked good and that the roof entrance was locked so no one could’ve gotten in. They advised her to wait in her apartment with the door bolted and chained until her parents came, and then they left.

  It took Katie a while to get a grip again, but she eventually did. For all she knew, it had been a delivery person ringing the bell after all. She wasn’t convinced, but she felt more relaxed when she heard the construction resuming downstairs. At least there were people in the building nearby if she needed help.

  She connected the landline and called her parents. They said they were approaching Sheffield, Connecticut, which meant they wouldn’t be in the city for at least another hour and a half. She assured them that she was fine and to drive safely, that was the most important thing. After she hung up, she disconnected the phone again.

  She was going to turn the TV back on, but decided it would be best to keep the apartment silent, so if Peter somehow got into the building, he would think there was no one home and leave. She kept the lights off as well in case he bent down and tried to look through the crack under the door.

  Time crawled, but as a half hour, then an hour went by, and the doorbell didn’t ring, Katie started to wonder if she’d overreacted. Maybe she’d been jumping to a lot of conclusions and the murders had nothing to do with Peter. Like Himoto had said, two roommates had been killed—it made sense that one of the other roommates was somehow involved.

  Then, at around three-fifteen, she connected the phone again and called her parents to find out where they were. They were in the Bronx, about twenty minutes away, and said that when they arrived, they would double-park in front of the building and take turns coming up to use the bathroom. Katie asked them to call her landline from the vestibule rather than buzzing her apartment. Her mother asked why they needed to do this.

  Thinking fast, Katie said, “Oh, the buzzer just freaks out sometimes, that’s all.”

  The twenty minutes seemed to take about an hour, but then the landline finally rang and Katie saw her mom’s number flashing.

  Katie answered the phone and said, “Are you here?”

  “I’n downstairs.”

  “Come on up,” Katie practically screamed because she was so excited.

  She buzzed her mom in, and when she saw her, she felt like it was that time at sleepaway camp when she was ten years old and very homesick. When her parents came to pick her up, she felt like her misery had finally ended.

  Hugging her mom so tight she was probably hurting her, she said, “God, you have no idea how good it is to see you.”

  Katie was starting to cry and her mother said, “You have to tell me what’s going on.”

  “I will in the car,” Katie said. “I just want to go home.”

  After her mom used the bathroom, her father came up to use it. Katie didn’t usually express a lot of emotion with her father, but she gave him a long hug and she could tell her father was very worried about her. She realized that, in some way, this whole situation must’ve been digging up awful memories for her parents. They’d already lost one daughter and they didn’t want to lose another.

  Her father went to the bathroom and then picked up Katie’s suitcase and said, “Let’s get a move on. I don’t want to have to drive in the dark.”

  Katie had no idea how long she would stay in Massachusetts, but as she left, she felt like she was going on a long trip, that she wouldn’t be seeing her apartment again for a very long time.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Peter was buzzing Katie’s apartment, wondering what the hell her problem was. He knew she was home because when he’d called her office, the receptionist told him she’d called in sick today. He doubted she was actually sick. He figured she was just upset about Scrub Boy and was taking a personal day. Figuring it would be rude to just show up, he’d called her cell a few times, left a couple of messages, but then she’d turned it off. He knew she’d turned it off because at first her voice mail was picking up after six rings, and then it started picking up without ringing at all. He started calling her home phone and it kept ringing and ringing, meaning she’d either disconnected it or was screening calls. Now, to add insult to injury, she wasn’t answering her buzzer, trying to make him think she wasn’t home. Peter had no idea what he’d done to make her so upset but he knew he had to talk to her immediately, to straighten things out.

  He rang the buzzer again, then he went outside, trying to decide what to do next. His timing turned out to be perfect because when he noticed the police car coming slowly down the block, he had a chance to slip away casually. When he got close to the corner of First Avenue, he ducked between two parked cars and then snuck a peek and saw the two cops getting out of the car and heading into Katie’s building.

  Was it possible that Katie had actually called the cops on him? He had to give her the benefit of the doubt—maybe the police were going to another apartment. But it was hard to convince himself of that one. It was like Katie to panic because of a couple of harmless phone calls. She obviously had gotten it into her head, for whatever reason, that he was a bad person. How or why she’d gotten this idea into her head completely baffled him, but just because she was a little unstable right now, he wasn’t going to hold it against her. Maybe she had some kind of anxiety disorder. When he had a chance to talk to her, and she was in a different mind-set, he would do his best to get her the help she needed.

  After about twenty minutes or so, the cops finally left the building. Peter remained out of view between the cars until the cops drove away. He desperately wanted to go back to the building and start ringing Katie’s buzzer again, to try to convince her to let him up or figure out some way to get into the building. He knew if she heard his voice and understood how sincere and harmless he was, she would let him up and they’d kiss, long and romantically, and everything would be okay. But he was afraid that, in her present state, he wouldn’t have a chance to get through to her. She’d panic again and call the cops and that was the last thing Peter needed—having
to answer more ridiculous questions from incompetent detectives.

  So Peter decided the best thing to do was wait. She would have to leave her apartment at some point, even if it was just to go to the grocery store, or for a slice of pizza, or to Starbucks. When she saw Peter, she would realize instantly how much he meant to her. Seeing him was the key. He wouldn’t have to say anything. She would just know.

  Waiting was getting easy for Peter; he had gotten used to it. He stayed where he was, toward the end of the block, but continued watching Katie’s building. A couple of times the doors opened, and Peter’s heart started pounding as he expected to see Katie’s beautiful face, but each time he was disappointed when someone else appeared. Then, at around three thirty, a blue Volvo pulled in front of the building and double-parked. An older woman got out of the car. At first, she looked like no one, a stranger, then Peter realized it was Katie’s mother.

  He hadn’t seen Mrs. Porter in about nine years, and she’d changed a lot. Her hair looked much grayer, and she’d put on some weight. But she still had that Porter look. It reminded Peter of Heather Porter, and of why he was so attracted to Katie.

  Several minutes later Mrs. Porter returned to the car. Then Mr. Porter got out and headed up the stoop. He’d aged well, looked almost exactly the same. Peter had never liked him, though. He knew Mr. Porter was the reason Heather used to always hit him with that “I just want to be friends” crap. Mr. Porter was putting ideas into his daughters’ heads.

  Mr. Porter left the apartment, carrying a suitcase, and Katie followed. She looked around in every direction and Peter ducked out of view. When he looked again, he saw them driving away. He was positive they were going home to Lenox. Where else would they be going?

  This was like a total fucking nightmare. He was furious with himself for not going up to her apartment to persuade her to take him back while he had the chance. He was also angry at Katie—this running-away bullshit was insulting as hell. It was getting harder and harder to cut her slack, to believe that she actually cared about him and wanted a future with him. He could have been misjudging everything.