The Second Stranger

by J P Tompkins

  The questions run through my mind as I get ready for bed. As I’m brushing my teeth, my eyes are drawn to the counter and the bottle of Ibuprofen where I stash my sleeping pills. I try to convince myself that I’m tired enough—physically and mentally—that I probably don’t need to take one.

  I get into bed with my laptop and pull up the crime message board. The hottest topic, the one pinned to the top of the list of discussions, is of course about the attack on Erin. I click to open the thread, more curious than ever about this site now because it directly involves me. I see the names of the usual frequent posters.

  The one who goes by “morningcoughy” wrote: UPDATE: There has been another attack in this case. This one took place in the home of the reporter whose articles we’ve been posting here. Kate Downey. But it wasn’t her, it was her roommate. She wrote an article about it.

  He or she has posted the link to my latest story.

  Someone who goes by the name “crimeallthetime” was the first to reply: This doesn’t add up. We know he has escalated to attacking homes with two people in it instead of just one but why didn’t he kill Downey? It says she was at home during the attack. How the hell do you sleep through something like that? I don’t get this at all.

  I’m tempted to post a reply, not using my real name or any indicator that it’s me, and offer up the explanation of the sleeping pill. But I don’t. It’s pointless. There’s no need to defend myself on this board. Someone else does it for me.

  “caseace22” writes: I’d say it’s possible to sleep through something like that. There are any number of reasons why but the two that come to mind are 1) the killer got the roommate silenced very quickly (gag, or something else) so there wasn’t much noise to begin with or 2) maybe she’s just a deep sleeper. We also don’t know the layout of the house. The bedrooms could be separated by a hallway and not share a common wall.

  This person gets it, I think, as I continue to read:

  But I agree the real question here is why didn’t he kill her too? I won’t be surprised if we find out he sends her something. Maybe a letter. He’s taunting her. Why else would he go into her house and not attack her as well? Serials usually love media attention. I think that was his motivation here.

  No one on the message board takes issue with that view. I tend to agree with it as well. For now, anyway.

  Another poster who goes by “Mitrax” writes: She obviously has the best inside source(s). Does anyone else think it’s the Detective in charge of the investigation? Hogle? He is awfully tight-lipped when talking to the press but maybe he’s feeding her info and trying to manipulate the coverage because every other reporter is basically just repeating what she reports. We’ve heard nothing about any investigation into the leaking and I would think there should be one because it could compromise the case. Maybe there’s nothing to investigate because the leaks are coming from the top?

  I get my first laugh of the day, courtesy of “Mitrax.” Not because it’s a terrible theory—it’s not, even though it is a little too Hollywood—but because I know how Hogle would respond to it and I know how Cole would respond to it, but I have no intention of telling either one of them that I read this forum.

  Another username catches my eye. This one goes by “deluxedo.” The first time I saw it, months ago, it made me wonder what it meant. “Deluxe do”? Or “deluxedo” like “tuxedo”? But any curiosity about the username vanished as soon as I saw their first message.

  The title was: Possible POI. I recognized the acronym: Person Of Interest. I opened the thread, curious about who this POI is, and how deluxedo identified him.

  It was disappointing to read the post. Nothing but vague references to certain occupations, finally settling on meter reader, one of the most common professions looked at when there’s a rash of crime in a residential neighborhood.

  Apparently, deluxedo somehow got his (her?) hands on a list of meter readers who worked in the areas where this killer’s first three crimes were committed. One of the readers serviced two of those neighborhoods. So who was it? Of course, deluxedo wouldn’t say, citing the message board rule that people, whether victims or suspects, were not to be named unless and until police released the identity.

  Deluxedo had moved on from that profession, never stating why, but tonight they’re posting about another POI, this one “an employee associated with the medical field.” It’s vague, baseless, and as I scroll through the thread, I see that it has become a long string of messages from people who have had enough of this poster and their POI posts.

  The only thing that makes me feel the slightest bit of empathy for deluxedo, whoever he or she is, is that one night, a little more than two months ago, they created a post asking the message board members if anyone knew if any of the victims worked out at a gym. It was quickly dismissed by other members of the forum—probably because of the person who suggested it—and it hasn’t appeared on this site since.

  If only they knew how close they had almost come to landing on the only theory that makes any sense.

  I could let myself get lost in these forum messages, an hour (maybe two, more?) going by in what seems like just minutes. So I close my laptop and put it on my bedside table.

  The only issue now, having decided it’s time to wind down, is whether I should take the sleeping pill. I decide not to. My eyelids feel heavy. My eyes are strained. I’m yawning the deep, sucking yawn of a body that is ready for sleep.

  But it doesn’t happen. Thirty minutes later, I’m awake—thinking about Erin, wondering where her body is right now; thinking about Cole, wondering if he’ll have anything new for me in the morning; thinking about how many crime scenes I’d been to while covering this case and now I’m alone, late at night, in bed, and I’m just feet from the latest one.

  Thoughts compete for attention from my mind. The thoughts get louder. I turn over, moving from lying on my right side to my left. A new position, the cool of the pillow on my cheek. This should work.

  It doesn’t. Frustration sets in. I get up, walk to the bathroom, and pick up the pill bottle. I look at it for a few seconds and then decide I’m going to take one before I talk myself out of it. I twist the cap, tilt the bottle, and one white tablet rattles out, landing on my palm. Of the two hundred or so orange ibuprofen tablets, none come out. Just the white sleeping pill. I’m not a believer in signs from the universe, from God, or anything else, but if there is such a thing, maybe this is it.

  I toss the pill into my mouth and swallow before I second-guess myself. It goes down so quickly I don’t even wash it down with a sip of anything. I flip the light switch off and I’m back in bed seconds later.

  I don’t know how long it takes for me to fall asleep. I remember nothing after my head hits the pillow.

  And then I wake up, but I’m not in my bed. I’m not even in my house.

  Chapter 20

  I’m outside.

  Before my eyes can make out anything, I feel the breeze on my face. I hear a single bird chirp. I feel concrete beneath my bare feet.

  And I hear a voice: “Kate?”

  It’s an older voice. A male voice. But I don’t recognize it, not right away.

  Finally, my eyes are open enough to take in my surroundings. There’s light and then there’s darkness again. I shift forward in the chair and then I can see, as a light turns on again.

  I’m sitting in a patio chair. There’s a table. I hear a whirring and sloshing noise, which draws my attention across the patio. There’s a pool.

  “Kate, are you okay?” The male voice again.

  Now it’s making sense, absurd as it is.

  The voice belongs to Roger Wilkes, my next-door neighbor. The concrete I’m feeling on the soles of my feet, the chair I’m sitting in, the table in front of me, the pool…it all belongs to him. I’m in his backyard.

  I think Roger is in his early thirties. Looks to be, anyway. Which is way too young to be a recent widower, but that’s what he is. I haven’t interacted with him
much, but I know his wife died of cancer two years ago, and I know they didn’t have kids.

  He’s the neighborhood go-to guy if you need advice or assistance with anything related to your house or car. He helped the guy four doors down from us build a fence; I’ve seen him beneath the hood of at least three cars on our street; and he’s been known to offer to power-wash driveways.

  The week I moved in, he came over one afternoon, introduced himself, and told me the previous owner had told him about a leaky spigot on the back of the house, and he didn’t think they got it fixed. He checked. They hadn’t. Roger had it in working order that afternoon.

  I stand up from the chair now, feeling that hangover effect I get from the pill, but awake enough to be embarrassed.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you all right?” he asks. “Something wrong?”

  I bring my hands up and rub my face, concentrating on my eyes. “No, everything’s fine. It’s…” My voice trails off. Do I want to talk about this? I don’t, but I owe him an explanation. “I take a sleeping pill.”

  Roger nods knowingly and says the name of the drug. “I’ve taken it myself. But I stopped. I wasn’t myself when I was on it.”

  A “thank you” is all I can manage, along with a sigh of relief.

  Suddenly, we are in darkness again. And just as quickly, I can see everything, as Roger waves an arm, activating a motion-detector light. “That thing doesn’t stay on long enough.” He shakes his head. “I thought about checking on you last night. Just a knock on the door, see if you need anything, let you know I’m here if you did. But I figured you didn’t want to be bothered, what with…with all that’s happened in the last couple of days.”

  “I appreciate that.” I do. My words are sincere. But I just want to get out of his yard now, off this patio, back into my house. “This is so embarrassing. I’m sorry if I woke you.”

  He waves it off. “No need to apologize. I was worried, thought maybe something else had happened. And you didn’t wake me up. I don’t sleep much as it is.”

  “What time is it?”

  “About a quarter to six.”

  I take a step down the sidewalk.

  “I guess maybe I should get a better lock on that gate if you’re going to be sneaking around back here again,” he says, his tone indicating he’s trying to make me laugh.

  “It won’t happen again, I promise you that.”

  He walks with me to the gate, opens it, and lets me out of his back yard.

  “Good thing I don’t have a dog, huh?” he says.

  I give him a smile, but I don’t think he can see it. We’re at the side of his house now, several feet removed from the security light, which, just as I’m thinking about it, turns off.

  “Damn thing. Some security, huh?” Roger closes the gate.

  “Thanks for being so understanding,” I say, my back to him as my bare feet step through the dew-drenched grass.

  I’m around the corner quickly but I hear his voice, faint in the night: “Take care, and let me know if you need anything.”

  ◆◆◆

  I’m jolted awake by the sound of my phone ringing. When I pick it up off the bedside table, the screen shows 8:18 a.m.

  The events of a couple of hours ago come back to me quickly, though I don’t remember getting back in bed. I needed these two hours of sleep.

  The screen also shows that Neil is calling. I swipe to answer, my voice gravelly, weak.

  “Did I wake you?” he asks.

  “No. Yes. But it’s okay.”

  I sit up, a little light-headed for a couple of seconds, but I recover.

  “How was your night?”

  “Fine,” I say, my voice straining as I stretch my arms and neck, tight after sleeping.

  “Still at the hotel?”

  “No, I stayed here—home—last night.”

  “There wasn’t a limit on how many nights you could have stayed at the hotel and billed it to the paper.”

  “I know,” I say, “but I wanted to get back home. I probably should have stayed there one more night.”

  “Rough night?”

  “Just…I don’t know. I should have given myself some more space, time, whatever.” It’s just vague enough to seem like it means something, when it really doesn’t. It sounds like something people say when they don’t really know what to say. In my case, I’m avoiding giving him the real answer: Maybe one more night at the hotel would have spared me the embarrassment of waking up in my neighbor’s backyard. I’m not explaining that to Neil.

  A stab of doubt hits me. Did that really happen, or…did I dream it? It’s possible, I think, that I could have dreamed the whole thing, an anxiety dream—me leaving my house in the middle of the night, putting myself in danger, ultimately embarrassing myself by trespassing into a neighbor’s yard.

  “Maybe it wasn’t real,” I whisper aloud, but don’t mean to, and I cringe, hoping Neil didn’t hear it.

  But he did: “What?”

  “Nothing, sorry, I’m just not really awake yet.”

  “Understood.” He says it, but he doesn’t understand. He can’t understand. No one can. It’s just his way of moving on to the reason for his call. “Think Erin’s parents will want to talk today? I think you ought to have the first quote from them. Someone else, one of the other papers or TV, is gonna get to them sooner or later.”

  “I’ll ask them,” I say, standing up and making my way to the bathroom.

  “You know, I would give you as much time off as you need.”

  “No way.”

  “Okay,” he says. “I just wanted to make that clear again. If you change your mind—”

  “Neil, I’m not changing my mind. I’m working this.”

  I hear two quick beeps. Another call is coming in. I look at the screen and recognize the number.

  “I have to take this. Call you later.”

  I tap the screen and take the call just as Neil is saying, “Okay,” and then another word I can’t make out.

  “Kate, it’s Ellen Thorpe. We’d like to talk.”

  Chapter 21

  I shower quickly. When I get out, I see a few blades of grass on the floor. They must have stuck to my feet after my walk back from Roger Wilkes’s backyard, clinging on even when I got back in bed and went back to sleep, confirming that I had actually been in his backyard during the night.

  When I arrive at the hotel, the lobby is filled with the Little Leaguers, all swarming around the table that holds the donuts and cereal, the coaches and chaperones trying to maintain as much civility as they can.

  I make my way quickly through the lobby, to the elevator, and ride up to the third floor.

  Mr. Thorpe answers the door when I knock. “The police are on their way over.”

  “Now? For what?”

  “They have the autopsy results,” he says.

  “I can come back,” I say, hoping he invites me in, but even if he doesn’t, if he tells me they’ll talk with me later, I’ll get the autopsy report from Cole in the meantime.

  “No, no, come in. Please.” He opens the door wider, steps aside, and I enter the room.

  Mrs. Thorpe emerges from the bathroom, patting her hair, like she was in there trying to straighten herself up for visitors. She looks terrible. Her face is almost gray and today there are bags, puffy and red, under her eyes.

  Their hotel room smells of soap, shampoo and coffee. I see two cups sitting on the table, one with a wooden stirrer sticking out of it, steam rising out of both. There’s a paper plate with a couple of donuts on it.

  There’s a knock at the door.

  Mr. Thorpe opens it and I see Hogle and Roark standing there, looking fresh, alert, ready for the day, everything the three of us aren’t. Hogle holds a folio, his jacket slung over one arm. Roark sips from a Styrofoam coffee cup.

  Hogle extends his hand to Mr. Thorpe. “Thank you for letting us come over.”

  “Of course,” Mr. Thorpe says.

  Morni
ng greetings are exchanged between the Thorpes and the detectives, before Hogle turns to me and says: “Mind giving us some privacy?”

  “It’s okay,” Mrs. Thorpe says. “We asked her to come over so we can talk on the record for the paper. I don’t mind if she stays. Do you, Jack?” She looks at her husband.

  “Fine by me.”

  Roark and Hogle sit down in the two chairs in the room. The Thorpes sit on the edge of the bed, holding hands, the hotel mattress sagging beneath them.

  I stand against the wall, removed from them, standing still, trying not to move at all, trying to make my breathing as quiet as possible. I just want to fade into the wall here and gather as much information as I can.

  Hogle begins, his voice low, soft. “Some things came up in Erin’s autopsy that you should know about. First, there’s no sign of sexual assault of any kind.” He looks from Mr. Thorpe to Mrs. Thorpe, a satisfied look on his face, delivering some good news in all of this. And it is good news—Erin didn’t have to experience that kind of attack—but I stand there thinking this information is just going to complicate things. So I wait for it to happen.

  “Oh, thank God,” her mother says, a level of relief in her voice that I don’t think I’ve ever heard from any other person before.

  My eyes move to her face, but I look away quickly. I don’t think she realizes where he could be going with this. Mr. Thorpe doesn’t either, judging by his expression—his eyes closed, mouth closed, lips pressed together in a tight line. I imagine him silently thanking someone in his mind.

  Detective Roark runs through the basic elements of the previous crimes committed in this case. “There’s something else that stands out about what happened to Erin, something different from the other victims. None of her hair was missing. It’s this offender’s signature.” He lowers his voice, needing to explain, but regretting the fact that he has to. “He cuts some of their hair off. It’s something we’ve kept from the public.” He looks at me.