The Stalked Girl

by Evan Ronan

“Can we talk in the living room?” she asks, barely looking at me.

  “You lead the way.”

  Lucy heads out through another threshold into the next room. I sit first on one corner of the sectional. Lucy takes the opposite corner.

  There is seven feet of space separating us.

  She sits on the edge of the couch, with her hands folded between her knees. Her shoulders hunched. She is sort of making eye contact now, but that’s only because, I suspect, she’s forced to. There’s nobody else in the room so there’s nowhere else for her eyes to go.

  “Lucy,” I say. “You and I going to spend a lot of time together, so I thought we should talk and get to know one another.”

  She shrugs, non-committal. “My dad told you everything already. There’s this boy bothering me. Adam. He’s obsessed.”

  Uh-uh, Lucy. This is not how things are going to work.

  “Your father told me everything he knew.” I lean forward, trying to match her posture. “But I’d like to know what you know too.”

  She sits back as if trying to distance herself. “What do you mean?”

  “Lucy,” I say, “I was a young man once too. Believe it or not.”

  I give her the easy smile and she kind of reciprocates. My humor has loosened her up a few times over dinner, so I remember to keep that in mind.

  “Long time ago, I was your age. And there were a lot of things I, shall we say, forgot to mention to mom and dad.”

  Another flickering smile.

  “Dad kind of gets on his high horse about God,” she says.

  “It’s important to him.”

  “It’s important to me too, but I don’t try to push it on anybody,” she says.

  “You’re a triathlete,” I say, just to change the subject and get her talking.

  “Yes.”

  And she lapses into another brooding silence.

  That worked so well.

  “I used to be a decent runner, but I was never a good swimmer,” I say. “I had two speeds in the water: treading or sprinting. I couldn’t ever find a good rhythm.”

  “That’s the hardest part. It took me a long time for things to click in the water, but when they did.” She smiles. “Now I can swim forever.”

  “You’ve been swimming for the college.”

  “Free, fly, and breast. I could never do back well. It’s felt right, you know, moving backwards.”

  “I know what you mean.” I shift on the couch, adopt a laid-back posture to see if that helps keep things smooth. “Must be a great runner and cyclist too.”

  “I’m only a so-so runner. I don’t know if I’d make the track team.”

  “You don’t have to be politely modest with me,” I try. “And I doubt you’re so-so, if you’re trying out for the Olympics as a triathlete.”

  She blushes a shade or two, but loosens up a bit.

  “You don’t have to be great at all three things,” she explains. “You just need to be great at one and good enough with the other two.”

  Good enough is all it takes.

  One day my daughter Tammy will understand this and not suffer shame, humiliation, and angst when she gets an A-minus in one of her classes.

  “Your training must take up a lot of time,” I say.

  “I love it,” she says. “I get into a zone and it’s like the rest of the world disappears.”

  “Even Adam?”

  “Sometimes.” She nods. “Sometimes I even forget about him.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “He’s … intense.”

  “In what way?”

  “In every way.”

  Her shoulders are hunching again, her posture is deteriorating, like she’s trying to roll herself into a defensive ball.

  “Lucy,” I say. “You’re my client. Not your mom, not your dad, not anybody else.”

  “But Dad is paying.”

  “Dad is paying, but you’re my client,” I say. “Just you and only you and nobody else. What you tell me stays between me and you.”

  “You mean like a lawyer?”

  “Kind of like that,” I say, glossing over the vast legal differences between my role and Leanne Justice’s. “If you tell me something and you don’t want anybody else knowing, your secret is safe with me.”

  She gets even smaller by pulling her knees up to her chin and hugging her shins. The gesture is age-inappropriate, it makes her seem like a young teen almost.

  “Okay,” she says.

  “The more you share, the more I can help you,” I say. “The more you tell me about Adam and whatever happened between you and him, the more I can find out about him.”

  She looks at me, a challenge in her eyes. “How?”

  “The more I know about Adam, the more pressure I can apply.”

  “Okay,” she says again in as neutral a way as she possibly can.

  “Tell me how you met.”

  “Swim team, sports science majors, and my friends and I partied a lot at his fraternity. We’ve known each other since freshman orientation.”

  “And did he always show an interest?”

  She shakes her head emphatically. “Not till this year. I was, like, shocked, when he started talking to me.”

  “And when was this?”

  “His sister was my …” She suddenly chokes up. “She was my best friend at college. She swam also.”

  “Swam?”

  “She quit the team.”

  “Quit or was—”

  “Quit.”

  There is an edge of bitterness lining her voice.

  “Sounds like you two aren’t friends anymore.”

  “Around the time she quit, we stopped being friends.”

  “What happened?”

  “It has nothing to do with Adam,” she says quickly.

  “You sure about that?” I push.

  And it’s just a little bit too much. Lucy turns even more away from me, knees still hiked to her chin.

  “I just want this to stop. I want Adam to stop. I want him to leave me alone, you know? It’s all I think about now. I can’t stop my mind from … just circling. I wonder if he’s going to show up at the door, or break into the house, or climb through my window. Everything was going so well, and now my whole life has … things are different. I used to enjoy going to class and going to practice and going out with my friends. But now I’m just, like, waiting. I’m waiting for him to do something to me. This isn’t going to stop. Even if we get the court order, this isn’t going to stop. Adam won’t care. He won’t leave me alone. Sometimes I just wish he’d die.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I say, lamely. “One thing I learned in the Marines is to always take the fight to the enemy. I think you’ve been playing defense for a while and it’s starting to wear you out. But now I’m going to help you take the fight to Adam.”

  She nods but her heart isn’t in the gesture.

  “He’s fucked up,” she says, the curse word jarring coming from her. “There’s something seriously wrong with him. He blames me for what happened to his sister.”

  I’m not following. “You mean her quitting the swim team?”

  “Yeah,” she says, but it’s such a vague, convictionless yeah I don’t believe it. “He thinks I ruined her life and part of him hates me for that, but then five minutes later he’s telling me we’re going to be together and he’ll keep me safe.”

  “Keep you safe from what?”

  “I don’t know,” she says, very, very quickly.

  “Even if it’s crazy and makes no sense to you, you must have some idea what he means.”

  “I really don’t,” she answers. “Like I said, he’s just messed up. He gets ideas. Most of the time you don’t know what he’s thinking.”

  I wonder how a guy like this got this far in life. He’s a good student and gifted athlete from what little I know about him. But the way Lucy is talking, though, you’d think he was cutting up old newspapers and looking for hidden codes.

  T
hen again, the kid I helped on the last case was cast from the same mold. Great student, great athlete, lots of friends.

  People much smarter than me will one day figure out why middle-class, otherwise well-adjusted kids with decent upbringings go crazy. It makes a compelling case for nature over nurture.

  Or perhaps our nurturing sucks.

  Lucy says, “He’s just wrong. He thinks we’re in love. He thinks we’re going to get married and spend the rest of our lives together.”

  There is a lot she’s not telling me.

  I don’t like that.

  “What happened between you and his sister?” I nudge.

  “Lori changed. We just grew apart. You know?”

  “How did she change?”

  Lucy lets out an exasperated sigh. “This has nothing to do with Adam.”

  “But you said he blames you for whatever happened between you and Lori.”

  “Because he’s crazy.”

  “Okay.” I will get it out of her eventually. Just not right now. “So tell me when Adam started taking an interest in you.”

  Another big sigh.

  “The beginning of this year,” she says.

  Eight

  It’s a bright, blue day, full of summer, as I drive to Monroe University. The students are out in t-shirts and shorts and even though it’s undeniably nine-thirty AM on a school day, I drive past:

  Two barbecues.

  A competitive game of beach volleyball.

  A competitive game of ultimate Frisbee.

  Two live bands.

  And several food trucks.

  There are a few students hustling to class with their backpacks drooping off shoulders and their cell phones out in front of them. I drive past the student center, where young women and young men filter in and out like ants marching, most of the guys emerging with half-eaten food crammed into their mouth.

  College wasn’t like this for me.

  I drive past the athletic center, which is bigger than a shopping mall and looks state-of-the-art. It looks like Olympians train there.

  And, I guess, they do.

  It’s a private school, with obviously a ton of money pouring into the place. I park near the athletic center, eyeing the maniacs who are sprinting on the treadmills on the second floor. The machines are pressed up against the window, giving the students a clear view of half the campus as they try to murder themselves.

  I used to run like that.

  Long time ago.

  Now the only thing I run is my refrigerator.

  Inside the athletic center it’s cool. A student dressed in a polo shirt with the word STAFF stitched in cursive on the chest looks up from a desk, where she’s been reading Flaubert.

  In French.

  Mon dieu, as they would say.

  “Hi, can I help you?” she says, in a way that I roughly translate to: how quickly can I point you in the opposite direction?

  “Bonjour,” I try, and she wrinkles her nose in confusion at my poor French.

  I point to the book.

  “Flaubert.”

  “Oh.” She offers a small, pitying smile. I can read her mind: the old guy is trying to be clever.

  “That’s about the extent of my French,” I admit. “Can you point me in Lori’s direction?”

  She puts her book facedown and folds her hands. “I’m sorry, you seem nice, but—”

  I badge her.

  “I’m a private investigator and I need to speak with her.”

  Her eyes pop. “She’s guarding at the pool. It’s on the first floor, down this hallway, all the way back, to the right.”

  “Merci.”

  Each kid I pass on the way to the natatorium could be a fitness model. Not a single one carries more than ten percent body fat. I remember those days.

  Really, I do.

  Before I get to the end of the hallway, the smell of chlorine hits me and the air warms up. I slip inside and find not one, but two pools. The first is Olympic-sized with twelve lanes. The second is much deeper and has three high diving boards.

  Lot of money pouring into this campus.

  Lot of money pouring into the swim program.

  The cynic in me can see why the Dean doesn’t want there to be any trouble, especially with one of their top swimmers.

  Lori isn’t hard to find. There are only two lifeguards on duty, and one of them is a male who looks like he just dropped the mic for a boy band. Lori’s dirty blonde hair is a little off-color from all the chlorine, and though we’re inside and the light isn’t glaring, she’s sporting dark sunglasses.

  She pretends like she isn’t watching me walk the length of the pool as I saunter over, but I stick out like a wad of cash on the sidewalk.

  “Hi, Lori,” I open.

  Her face is angled away from me and she doesn’t move her head an inch. Just behind the darkness of those sunglasses, though, I can see her eyes on me.

  “I can’t talk.” She motions toward the pool. “I’m on duty.”

  There is only one kid swimming right now, and he looks more buoyant than air.

  “What time can you talk?”

  “What is this about?”

  “It’s about your friend, Lucy.”

  The corner of her mouth twists. “What’s the problem now?”

  “Now?”

  She finally, with great effect, fully turns her head to look at me directly. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Greg Owen, and I’m a private investigator.” I badge her. “I know you two are friends—”

  “We’re not friends,” Lori spits out, the words dripping like venom.

  “Okay. You’re not friends anymore. Why is that?”

  “Surprise, surprise. She didn’t tell you?”

  “I’m asking you.”

  She leans forward on the lifeguard chair and looks down at me like the queen about to pass judgment on one of the unruly serfs. From this angle, I can just see her eyes over the top of her shades. They’re bloodshot. She hasn’t slept much.

  My diagnosis?

  A monstrous hangover.

  “You’re not a cop. I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “You don’t,” I say. “But I’ll find out anyway.”

  She laughs and sits back. “Good luck with that. She’s a coward and a liar.”

  “Is she lying to me about your brother?”

  Lori stiffens. “Leave my brother alone.”

  “Is he going to leave her alone?”

  She looks away. “I can’t talk right now. I’m on duty.”

  “I know about the other girl,” I say, just testing the waters.

  Her jaw clenches and she whips her head back around. “You mean Casey Bennin? God, that was like four years ago and nothing ever came of it. It was a high school crush, no big deal.”

  Oh, Lori.

  Lori, Lori, Lori.

  I wish I could thank you.

  Because you just handed me something I really needed.

  “Casey asked your brother to leave her alone too.”

  “I can’t talk now,” she repeats robotically. “I’m on duty.”

  “Okay, Lori.” I give her one last look. “We’ll talk later then.”

  “No, we won’t.”

  Nine

  According to Casey Bennin’s very active Facebook page, she’s a student at another university all the way across the country. I can’t find a phone number online, but I drop her a message through Facebook, letting her know who I am and who I’m looking into.

  I wander across campus, getting the occasional odd stare from the students. I’m old enough to be a professor, but I’m not dressed for the part, nor do I possess the stereotypical aloof air. There’s too much Marine still in me.

  Fraternity row is very active. There’s a hotly-contested game of Baggo underway, with spectators lined up. One of the brothers deadeyes a throw and sinks a bag to thunderous applause.

  Adam’s fraternity, the one for swimmers, is the last in the row. A coup
le of bros are literally sunbathing in Speedos on the front lawn. I want to stop and ask if they’re doing this ironically, if they’re consciously playing to their stereotypes, but reaching out with the Force, I sense a profound lack of self-awareness in either of them.

  They purposely ignore me as I follow the concrete walk to the porch, where one of the brothers is passed out on a sofa that looks like interior furniture.

  “Top of the morning to you,” I say.

  The guy lifts his head more slowly than a sloth and squints at me. “Who are you?”

  “Publisher’s Clearing House,” I say.

  The guy shrugs. It means nothing to him, nor does he much care if I walk right into his fraternity house. Last night must have been a good time. He reverses the movement, slowly letting his head drop back onto a worn pillow.

  I take this as my invitation to proceed inside.

  I open the door. In a large living room, several dudes have their noses in books while SportsCenter airs on a widescreen TV significantly larger than the one I’ve got at home.

  “Adam around?” I try them.

  One of them peels himself off the couch and sizes me up. He’s wearing one of those Ocean City New Jersey Life Guard tank tops over red shorts. He has that swimmer’s body: big, wide shoulders and narrow, almost pinched, hips.

  As he struts over: “Who are you?”

  “Oh, you must be the alpha of the pack,” I say. I’ve seen a picture of Adam, so I know this isn’t him.

  The guy actually smiles. “I’ll ask again. Who are you?”

  It gets old, having to introduce yourself every five seconds and badge people. But I soldier on. First world problems, as they say.

  “Greg Owen. Private Eye. Here’s my badge. You’re in college, so I hope you can read it. Where’s Adam?”

  The other two guys not watching the TV get up and come over to flank Alpha. He takes the time to read the badge.

  “What do you want to talk to Adam for?”

  “Nunya,” I say.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Nunya business.”

  Alpha Male does not like this. “He’s not here.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I’m not his mother.”

  “No, you’re his brother.” I’m so good with the quips. They should hire me to write for one of the sitcoms. “I was a Marine, which is like a fraternity, only better. So I know what it’s like to be part of a brotherhood and be on a tightly-knit team. I’m willing to bet my car you know where he is.”