The Second Stranger

by J P Tompkins

  I knew they searched the house, but my medicine?

  “I don’t see why my medication is any of your business.”

  “I didn’t, either, that morning. But now it’s become an issue.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Roark says, “Have you always been a sleepwalker, or is it just with the pills?”

  I look at him, my eyes wide but going full tunnel vision.

  “We spoke with your neighbor,” Hogle says. “Mr. Wilkes? Just wanted to find out if the neighbors heard anything strange that night. He says he found you in his backyard. You were asleep.”

  “That was a different night,” I say, growing more irritated by their presence. “Leave.”

  “Right, it was a different night. But he says you were disoriented.” Hogle leans against a wall, ignoring my demand that they leave. “He says you mentioned taking medicine to help you sleep. That’s when I knew what those pills were.”

  Roger. I can see him talking to them, chatty and helpful like always. But telling them about that night was not helpful to me.

  “We’ve had cases before,” Roark says, “where people take that kind of pill and do odd stuff without even knowing it. Some go to their kitchens and eat right out of their refrigerator. Sometimes people find out they ordered a bunch of stuff on the Internet. Some even get into their car and drive.”

  “And worse,” Hogle says. “There are cases of people committing violent crimes under the influence of medications like that. Husbands punching wives, girlfriends stabbing boyfriends in their sleep. It’s not unheard of.”

  “Happens all over the country,” Roark adds. “The world, actually.”

  “We’ve read up on it,” Hogle says. “Do you think maybe there’s a chance all of this evidence was in your mind and you did something you didn’t plan to do?”

  I’ve heard enough of this. “This is all about the leaks.”

  “You’ve done nothing but study this case for a year.” Hogle keeps talking, not making a move toward the door like I just told them to. “You have a closet full of evidence, you’ve got a mask and gloves, and I’m sure if we searched again we’d find some electrical cord. Now that we know to look for it.”

  I laugh at him. “This is bullshit. This is all about the leaks.”

  “We know you’re not a bad person.” The gentleness of Roark’s voice surprises me at first, but then it’s obvious what he’s doing. “We’re not saying you could have done this on purpose. It’s likely you wouldn’t recall it. That’s another thing the medicine does.”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head, which is starting to feel light, so I sit on the little bench that’s more for decoration than sitting. It holds a pile of junk mail that shifts underneath me as I sit.

  What they’re describing—accusing me of—is impossible. There’s no way I did that to Erin.

  “What do you remember about that morning, right after waking up?” Hogle asks.

  I remember the fog, the hangover, whatever it was.

  I take a moment before answering, staring down at the floor.

  “Leave. Get out of my house.”

  “Ms. Downey—”

  “You think I killed her? Arrest me.” I put my hands out in front of me, wrists close together. “Go ahead.”

  Anger and frustration boil inside me, and I’m gritting my teeth so hard it feels like I could break them.

  “We’re not here to arrest—”

  “I’m not asking you to leave. I’m telling you. Leave. Now.”

  I get up and take a step around them, pushing the glass door open so hard it bounces off the railing on the front porch. I expect it to shatter, but there’s not even a crack. The door comes back at me quickly, but I push it open again, this time holding it.

  Hogle steps past me, followed by Roark. Both eye me as they slide out through the door and onto the porch.

  I pull the glass door closed, lock it, then close the other door and lock it too.

  Chapter 38

  “It happens. Not always that extreme, but it happens.”

  Dr. Benson was the first person I called after Hogle and Roark left. He didn’t answer, but he returned my call within thirty minutes. In the meantime, I called Cole and left him a voicemail as well, a vague one, just telling him it was urgent.

  Dr. Benson called back first and now I’m lying down on my couch, listening to him confirm that people do bizarre things on the medication I was taking.

  “This is all about them being pissed about my source and the stuff I’ve published.”

  “Could be,” Dr. Benson says. “Why didn’t you tell me about the incident in your neighbor’s yard?”

  “I…I don’t know. I just didn’t.”

  “You told me about going into Erin’s room,” he says. “But not going into your neighbor’s yard. Why do you think you told me about going into Erin’s room?”

  “I don’t know. I guess…the yard thing was just weird. Going into her room scared me.”

  “Why did it scare you?”

  “Because I could see everything. I could hear it all. And I think I could feel it.”

  “But you know that was all in your mind, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t sound like you mean that.”

  I say nothing.

  “You’re not convinced you imagined it, being there in her room when it happened?”

  “I am,” I say.

  “Let’s do it this way.” Dr. Benson clears his throat. “Start with the first thing you remember when you woke up the morning you found her. Tell me what that was.”

  “The sun. I remember the sun coming through the window. And being glad that I didn’t wake up in the dark again.”

  “Okay, good. What else?”

  I think for a moment. “I probably checked my phone. Texts, emails, whatever. I’m pretty sure that’s what I did.”

  “Mind clear at that point or still groggy?”

  “Groggy. Foggy.”

  “Then what did you do? Get out of bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Remember anything about the floor?”

  “The floor?”

  “Yes,” he says. “Was it wet? Dry?”

  “Dry,” I say.

  “And if you had done anything, if you had done what it would have taken to kill her, you’d have tracked some water back in your room. Probably quite a bit of it. Wouldn’t you think?”

  “Yes.”

  And then I begin to doubt myself and the answer I gave him about the floor that morning. Was it dry? Can I really say it was dry?

  And what about my bed? I’ve described the medicine hangover as a fog, but also once or twice as feeling like there’s a wet blanket draped over me. Was that just a feeling or did I wake up in wet clothing and sheets and not notice because I was still out of it?

  I know the floor was wet later, after I came home and found her, but that’s because I rushed back into my room. That’s how the water got there on the carpet, right? Isn’t it? I think.

  And the bed. It was damp. I remember that too, because it was like that when I went back inside to get some things before going to the hotel. Why was it wet? I dig through the memories, trying to recall if I sat down on the bed when I came back into my room after finding Erin. But no memory of that comes to mind.

  The floor. The bed. The water.

  I’m no longer sure how it all got there.

  “Kate, have you searched your memory for things you might have heard while you were in your bed that night?”

  “I was asleep.”

  “You were, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t hear something.” He pauses. “You know how the sounds of a television or radio or conversation, really anything, can find its way into your dreams? Even if you don’t recall dreaming, there may be something there.”

  I say nothing. I’ve never thought of that.

  “Any noises that sounded out of place,” he continues. “A door slamming? A voice? Maybe he
r fiancées voice. Or Erin’s voice, yelling, or anyone else at all speaking. You may have heard something and processed it in your sleep without even knowing it.”

  Did I? My memory of that night—while I was asleep, anyway—is totally blank. At least, I think it is.

  “Maybe you should give some thought to that, and we’ll discuss it next time I see you. Your editor is right. Take some time off from all of this. You’ve just gone through a very stressful year. You’re the only one who can give yourself a break. Maybe go to your parents’ house after all.”

  Chapter 39

  “They’re lying,” Cole says. It’s an hour after I got off the phone with Dr. Benson and I’ve just explained to him what happened earlier. “It’s all about the leaks. I’ve heard nothing about this around the station, if that makes any difference.”

  There’s silence on the line. I don’t know what else to say about what’s just happened. Cole, I hope, is thinking it through and not on the other end of the line wondering what he got himself into with me.

  I’ve been pacing throughout the house since I talked to Dr. Benson and now I’m walking down the hall, leaving my bedroom, back toward the front of the house. Something catches my eye as I move past a window. There’s a car parked across the street. Not directly across from my house, but two houses down.

  I know all the cars that belong to people who live on this cul-de-sac. This car isn’t one of them.

  It’s a dark sedan. Just like the one Hogle and Roark use. Theirs is black; this one is blue. I think. Isn’t it? Yes, blue. Dark blue. It’s not them. But is it some other detectives? Have they put me under surveillance?

  I try to see more clearly but without moving the curtain.

  “Kate?” It’s Cole’s voice coming through the phone, but I almost forgot I was holding it up to my ear and it startles me.

  “Yeah, sorry.”

  “Just making sure you’re still there,” he says. “You got quiet.”

  “I think they’re watching me.”

  “Who?”

  “Hogle. Well, not him, not Roark, but someone. There’s a car a couple of doors down. Someone is just sitting there. Think they’re watching me?”

  “Possible. Not likely, though.”

  A delivery truck turns onto the street, inches down closer to my house, parks along the sidewalk in front of the house next door. It’s blocking my view of the car.

  “Do you have a lawyer?” he asks.

  The delivery guy emerges from the truck. He’s holding a small box in one hand, a scanner in the other. I watch as he makes his way up the neighbor’s driveway.

  “Just the paper’s lawyer.”

  Cole sighs. “Maybe call him, see what he thinks.”

  “Yeah,” I say, and I hear my tone: distracted.

  “What, you don’t think so? You sound skeptical.”

  “I don’t know what I think.”

  The delivery guy hops back in the truck, it rumbles to a start and pulls down the street, bringing the surveillance car back into view.

  “I’m thinking,” Cole says, and I let him think.

  The delivery truck has turned around in the cul-de-sac and moves past my house again, stops at the end of the street, then turns right and drives out of sight.

  I keep my eyes on the car across the street. They’re watching me. They’re taking photos, video. I can’t see that, but I know it’s happening.

  Hogle has made me a suspect. Or, at least made my behavior suspect. And it’s not just him. The fact that another cop car is watching me, watching my house—and with what, at least two detectives?—means more people know about it.

  Someone will leak it.

  Is that why Hogle is doing this? So he can leak it to another reporter? An act of retribution? Live by the leak, die by the leak. Yes, he’s that angry about the leaks. And yes, he’s that petty.

  Movement now. Not from the car, but from the house it is parked in front of. The door opens. I expect to see Mrs. Hadrell, the widow, emerge. But instead, it’s a man. He steps out onto the porch and there, now I see Mrs. Hadrell. She’s smiling, nodding, as the man speaks to her. He looks about my father’s age, wearing slacks and a short-sleeve shirt with a tie. What is this?

  He walks down the driveway, gets in the car, drives to the cul-de-sac to turn around. As he passes my house, there’s something on the driver’s door. One of those logo magnets. Insurance. The guy’s a fucking insurance salesman.

  I feel tension leaving my body that I wasn’t aware of.

  “So, that car across the street…it was an insurance guy,” I tell him, a little embarrassed by my paranoia.

  “Maybe you should get out of that house for a while. Or even just a night.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Want to come here?” he asks. “We don’t even have to talk about the case if you don’t want to. Consider it an escape. You can rest, sleep all you want.”

  I don’t say anything.

  He lowers his voice. “I’m worried about you.”

  “Really, I’m fine—”

  “I’m talking about your safety,” he says. “I know you don’t want a gun, we’ve been over that, but whoever did this to Erin is still out there and we don’t know why they did it. I think you should consider getting out of that house. At least for a couple of days. And I know you don’t want to leave town, go to your parents’ place, or anywhere else.”

  The fact that he’s worried worries me. I’m still standing near the front door, so I make sure it’s locked—the doorknob and the deadbolt. And I think about locks again, that thought that occurred to me months ago about locks and how we only need them to keep us safe from each other.

  “I’ll think about it,” I tell him, but I won’t. I don’t need to leave. I don’t want to leave.

  “Or I can come there. I’ve never been to your house before. Maybe I need to get out of here.” He laughs. Trying to be the easy-going guy.

  I force a soft laugh, playing along, but wanting this topic to go away, wanting his persistence to go away.

  “I’ll let you know. Not tonight, though.” A totally non-committal position, but as close to an honest one as I can give him.

  Chapter 40

  There’s little talk of Nathan Greer on the crime message board tonight. In fact, one of the longest threads is a debate about whether there’s really anything more to talk about.

  Some forum members say there is—there will be a trial, they argue, or a potential plea, and with the way Greer is talking he just might confess to more details, maybe even more murders, though there’s no evidence any exist. Others argue there’s nothing left, at least for them, that once he was caught it was all over. The mystery is solved, give us the next one.

  There is one discussion thread on Erin and nearly everyone agrees: the fiancée did it. They point to his infidelity, his need to control. Obvious narcissist, some argue.

  I scroll through the thread faster as I get closer to the end, as people are just repeating what’s already been said. And then I come upon this: How did this reporter she was living with not hear anything?

  It’s a good question. Nobody on this site knows why I didn’t hear anything because they don’t know that I was taking a sleeping pill and likely would have slept through a tornado tearing the roof off my house.

  Another person replies: Anyone know for sure that she was there?

  There’s a short back-and-forth, where someone cites an article stating that, yes, I was indeed there, but asleep.

  I wonder what these amateur online sleuths would say if they knew what happened in my house today, if they knew the lead investigators stood in my house and questioned me like a suspect in Erin’s murder.

  I wonder what they’d think about the fact that, after I spoke with Dr. Benson and Cole, I called Neil, told him what was happening, and he conferenced in Ken Ingram. “I think it’s bullshit,” Ingram said, “it’s about the leaks, just like you say. I’ll make a couple of calls. But, you know, it wouldn�
��t hurt to have someone else ready in case you need to talk to them. I’m going to reach out to a colleague of mine who does criminal defense. She’s good, really good. I think you’ll like her, but hopefully you won’t have to talk to her at all. I’m not worried about anything coming of this, but we should kill it early, get them off your back at least.”

  When Ingram disconnected, Neil said: “This isn’t what I had in mind when I told you to take some time off.”

  “I know.”

  “And had you followed my advice, gone down to the beach or wherever, anywhere, you wouldn’t have been home when those assholes stopped by.”

  I told him I would go somewhere in the next day or so.

  “I don’t believe that anymore than you do,” he said.

  That was hours ago. And, of course, he was right: I’m not going anywhere.

  ◆◆◆

  I stand outside the empty bedroom. Erin’s old room. The door is open about halfway and it’s dark in there, except for a narrow rectangle of light coming from my room across the hall, illuminating a small section of the carpet.

  Did I stand here that night? Just outside her room? The door closed but not locked, just a turn of the knob away from entering and…then what?

  Could I have done something so violent, so extreme, so brutal and vicious?

  It happens. Not always that extreme, but it happens. That’s what Dr. Benson said.

  They’re lying. It’s all about the leaks. That’s what Cole said.

  I have never had any kind of dream when I was on the medication, at least that I can recall. And I’ve never had a dream about the murders taking place, never even a snippet of a scene where I watched them get murdered, much less by my hands.

  But now I remember something. The first time I set foot in Erin’s room the night the crime scene cleaners were here. Standing in the doorway to the bathroom. My mind watching this:

  A series of images, rapidly flashing in my mind. Hands around her neck. Her arms and legs flailing, sloshing water out of the tub. Shampoo and conditioner bottles knocked off the little shelf. Erin trying to grab something, anything, the faucet, the side of the tub, reaching up and clawing at the face of the person squeezing the life out of her.