The Second Stranger

by J P Tompkins

  I reach up now, touching my face, knowing there are no scratches, no healing wounds.

  And now I wonder about the face of the man who killed the others. Was his ski mask on the whole time, or did he possibly remove it at some point, not caring whether the girls saw his face because they were going to die? Maybe he wanted them to see his face.

  Whose face did Erin see that night? Whose face did she see, knowing it would be the last one she would ever see?

  ◆◆◆

  I wake the next morning to a call from Neil.

  “Have I caught you packing? Heading out the door to leave for your vacation?” he asks.

  “Funny.”

  My voice comes out rough, like it always does when I’m just waking up. But Neil’s questions weren’t serious, they were sarcastic. He knows I haven’t gone anywhere.

  “I know you’re not going to take my advice and go anywhere. I’ve given up hope on that. But promise me you’re taking a break, doing something relaxing, something for yourself.”

  “I am.” I can say this truthfully because, for me, especially after the last year, anything I’m doing that doesn’t involve interviewing people, doing research, and writing articles counts as taking a break.

  And Neil catches on: “You’re not fooling me with that answer.” He pauses. “Listen, Kate, I mean it. If I find out you’re doing anything other than staying away from the news, I’m not going to be happy.”

  “I’ve been avoiding the news.”

  “Then you haven’t heard.”

  “Heard what?”

  “About Greer,” he says. “He hanged himself in jail last night.”

  Chapter 41

  I go online to see if there’s a story about Greer yet. When I open my laptop, I see an email from Cole. I click on it and see: “This is what I meant by things getting bad for him.”

  There’s a video attached. I open it and see an interrogation room. The timestamp in the upper left corner tells me this was recorded late last night.

  There are several minutes of nothing: just the empty room, a table, a few chairs, blank walls, and the faint hum from an air conditioning vent.

  Then the door opens and in walks Paul, followed by Hogle and Roark.

  The video isn’t high-quality, it never is, but Paul looks disheveled, nervous.

  One of the detectives pulls out a chair and motions for Paul to sit in it, then goes to the other side of the table.

  The other detective sits in a corner behind Paul. Paul looks over his shoulder for a few seconds, but says nothing.

  They begin by asking him how he’s been doing since Erin was killed. Having watched so many police interrogation videos as part of my job, I know they’re softening him up, pretending to be on his side. For now. The “good cop” phase.

  It’s not long before they turn the discussion to the night Erin was killed.

  Detective Hogle lays it all out for Paul, the details of Erin’s death. It’s not the first time he’s heard it. They’d already talked to him the morning I found her. But now all of this is as good as new information, now that Greer has been caught and couldn’t have killed Erin.

  A minute of silence passes. Hogle and Roark stare at Paul while he stares at the table. If this were a movie, some dramatic background music would be fading in at this point, as Paul raises his eyes from the table and looks directly at Hogle.

  “What do you want me to say?” he asks.

  Hogle shifts forward in his seat, clasping his hands and leaning on the table. Like a predator closing in on the prey, like he thinks he has Paul now.

  “I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill her,” Paul insists.

  “Why were you there?” Roark asks.

  He was there? Do they have evidence of this? My stomach sinks.

  Paul shakes his head. He puts his left hand on the table, fingers spread out, palm flat. He moves it in a little circle. Nervous. “I wasn’t.”

  “Tell me about your alibi again?” Roark asks. He knows Paul’s alibi. He’s just getting him to repeat it again.

  “I was at my house.”

  “Alone,” Roark interjects from behind Paul.

  Paul looks over his shoulder again. “Yes.” He turns back around and his eyes are focused back on the table now. His hand has stopped moving. “I was the only one there.”

  He pauses. The investigators don’t say anything, letting Paul take his time.

  “Can’t you check my phone or something? Can’t you see my location that way?”

  “Could have left your phone at home,” Hogle says, and shrugs, dismissing Paul’s suggestion.

  “Did you know she was sleeping with someone?” Roark asks.

  Paul doesn’t look at him this time. “Of course not. I really don’t care if she was.”

  “Like you didn’t care when she left you?” Hogle says, his voice low, eyes trained on Paul.

  “Obviously,” Paul says, “I fucked up, and I wasn’t happy that she left, but she did and I didn’t bother her after that.”

  That’s a lie. I know he called her numerous times and Erin told me about the other times when I wasn’t there. She never said he’d been to the house, but his claim that he didn’t bother her is a lie.

  “Never bothered her?” Hogle opens a folder, sifts through a few sheets of paper. He finds what he’s looking for and slides it across the table in front of Paul.

  Paul doesn’t pick it up, but he looks at it.

  “Highlighted calls,” Hogle prompts him. “Those are calls you made to Erin just one week before she was murdered.”

  Paul says nothing.

  “This is about to get to a point where I can no longer help you, Paul.” Hogle says, laying it on heavy. “What happened the night Erin was killed?” he adds, focusing back on the central question.

  “I’m telling you, I wasn’t there. I didn’t do it.”

  Hogle leans on the table, focusing on Paul’s face like a laser. “You went back there to talk to her, try to get her to change her mind, right? She turn you down again?” His tone is stern, his words coming out fast, clipped. He’s going after him.

  Paul says nothing.

  “Rejected you,” Roark adds. “Maybe even told you she was having some other guy’s baby. That kinda thing can make a guy mad.”

  “You tried to make it look like it was the killer,” Hogle says. “And it was even better that she lived with Kate Downey. It would look like she was targeted because of Kate. Problem for you, though, was you didn’t know all the details of the previous murders.”

  “And,” Roark says, finishing off the theory, “you couldn’t exactly produce the killer’s DNA. Kind of a big snag in your plan, don’t you think?”

  Paul shakes his head, a little at first, then more emphatically. “Jesus,” he mutters, lifting a hand and touching the back of his head. “You’re wrong.”

  “I think we’ve got it right,” Hogle says. “You got upset with her, one way or another. She humiliated you. Maybe you didn’t go over there to talk. Maybe you wanted sex and that’s when things went wrong.”

  “Why should we believe you?” Roark says, before Paul can even respond. “Especially since you were violent with Erin.”

  “What?” Paul’s voice is raised, higher-pitched. It sounds like genuine shock, but who’s to say?

  Violent? That’s something I didn’t know about. Erin never even hinted at anything like it.

  I notice I’ve been holding my breath and my mouth is getting dry.

  I inhale deeply, not feeling any of the tension go away. Breathe, breathe…

  “We have the reports,” Hogle says. “The medical records.”

  “I never touched her. Not like that. And I didn’t even know she was pregnant. I swear.” His head moves from Hogle to Roark, over his shoulder, then back to Hogle, like he’s begging them with his facial expression, his eyes, to believe him.

  The detectives just watch him, saying nothing. Giving him enough time to start talking again, enough rope to wr
ap around his own neck.

  Paul’s voice starts out as a whisper. “I’m telling you both right now. I had nothing to do with Erin’s murder.” His face twists up and he slams his hand flat on the table. “Nothing! I did not do this.”

  The detectives look at each other. I know what they’re thinking. They’ve been in there less than ten minutes and they already have Paul so riled up he’s raising his voice and physically lashing out. This is what they were hoping to see. It didn’t take much. They’ll look at this as a sign of his volatility, confirmation that he’s easily set off.

  That’s something I’ve never seen in Paul before. But maybe it has always been there, just below the surface. The kind of thing someone might not even know about themselves, until they step across that line and into the darkness. The kind of thing you can’t see in a co-worker, someone you go to church with, a teacher, the guy at the grocery store.

  They’re just like everyone else. There is no such thing as evil. There are no such things as monsters.

  There are people who do horrific things and they’re all around us.

  My mind is racing. Can they be right? Had Paul snapped?

  There are no other suspects. Greer hadn’t done it.

  Paul lied. As much of a shock as it would be to find out he came to my house that night, I could see it happening.

  Paul is the only one that we know of who had the opportunity.

  And he certainly had the means.

  Paul had motive. More than enough motive.

  It’s all there, logically. I’m having a hard time adjusting to the idea, but in the few seconds I’m able to separate myself and tap into the part of me that is pure journalist—all about facts and logic and the pursuit of truth—I can see it now, coming into focus after being blurred for so long.

  Paul killed Erin.

  “I want a lawyer,” Paul says, leaning back in his chair. “I’m not saying anything else until I have a lawyer.”

  I close my laptop. Sit for a minute. Trying to process what I just saw.

  My doorbell rings.

  Chapter 42

  It’s Cole. He smiles when I open the door. He holds a white paper bag in one hand, a cup-holder in the other, two steaming coffees.

  This is the first time he’s been to my house and he comes unannounced.

  “You gonna invite me in?” He motions toward the coffee cups. “These are right on the verge of getting cold.”

  I mentally shake off the surprise of seeing him at my door and step to one side.

  He enters my home.

  I close the door behind him. “Why’d you come here?”

  “A simple thanks for the coffee and pastries would do.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant. Sorry. I mean, it’s risky for you to be here.”

  He shakes his head. “I’m not worried about that. They’re bluffing. And in case you forgot, I have ways of keeping my eye on what they’re doing. They’re not watching your house and they’re not watching me. Nice place,” he says, looking around. “I like it.”

  It’s not that nice. It’s not bad, but there’s nothing really nice about the place. Just a standard, small house. The way my life has been for the last year, it’s a miracle that the place isn’t a wreck.

  “Kitchen’s this way,” I say, moving ahead of him.

  We go to the table and he hands me one of the coffees. “I didn’t know how you take yours, so I grabbed a bunch of creamers and different kinds of sweeteners.” He pulls all of this out of the bag, almost triumphantly, proudly, as if he’s covered all of my potential coffee preferences.

  He takes a seat. I go to the cabinet and grab a few plates.

  “Just black’s fine,” I say.

  When I get back to the table, he’s reaching into the bag, sliding out the pastries. “Danishes. Cheese, blueberry, raspberry, take your pick.”

  I sit down and give us both a plate, one more in the middle of the table to hold the food.

  “What made you go into journalism?” Cole asks.

  I’m reaching for one of the Danishes when he asks. I wasn’t expecting the question. I pick a cheese Danish and put it on my plate, then pick up a napkin and wipe my fingers as I decide how much of this story I want to tell Cole.

  “You want the long version or the short version?”

  He’s chewing, his mouth is full, and he holds up a single finger. He takes a sip from his coffee. This delay gives me a few more seconds to decide how I’m going to answer the question. It will be much easier if he chooses the short one, or just leaves it up to me.

  “The long version.”

  Great.

  I tell him everything—the attack, the aftermath, the stealing of true crime books from the library (which puts a rather exaggerated look of surprise on his face), my prison interview of Kevin Lee Harper and how all of that led me to where I am today.

  Cole has stopped eating. He’s sitting up straight in the chair, hands resting on his thighs, as he listens to me wrap up the answer.

  He takes a deep breath. “I had no idea you’d been through anything like that.”

  I’m reminded that when I interviewed him for the feature article that never ran, I didn’t ask what led him to a career in law enforcement. So I ask now, and before he can give me options, I say, “The long version.”

  “Our house was broken into when I was a kid.” He sips his coffee, balling up the napkin in his hand and putting it on the plate in front of him, then pushes the plate aside. “It happened in the morning. My dad had left for work, so it was just my mom and me. The guy got in through the garage door. I guess my dad didn’t lock it, but who knows. It was never spoken about in our house. Anyway, the guy wasn’t there to steal anything. He went after my mom. Right there in the kitchen. It happened so fast. We had this walk-in pantry and that’s where I was when it happened. My mom was at the sink, washing dishes. I heard my mom scream and then the sound of a dish breaking.” He stops.

  I’m watching his face as he tells me the story. There’s no expression there, no sign of sadness or anger or anything. He’s like a stone.

  “But it didn’t last long. She had grabbed a knife. Keep in mind, I didn’t know that at the time. I couldn’t see much. I stayed in the pantry—I guess the guy didn’t know I was there or didn’t care—so I was looking through the opening where the door hinges were. I saw her body jerking and flailing and later found out that was her stabbing him in the leg. He had her from behind. She had dropped her hand to her side and was just swinging for anything she could hit. The assailant leaves, runs out the door.”

  “Did they catch him?”

  Cole shakes his head. “Never did. Even with the blood on the floor and all these years later, nothing.”

  “Wow.”

  He nods. “Yeah.”

  “How old were you?”

  “I had just turned five.”

  I wasn’t expecting him to say he’d been that young when it happened. I try to picture a young Cole, scared, confused, hiding in the pantry and watching his mother being attacked by an intruder. He was eight years younger than I was when I watched Amanda being kidnapped, but I imagine we share some of the same baggage.

  I can tell he’s done and doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.

  “Tell me about Greer,” I say. “How did it happen?”

  Cole takes a small bite of his second Danish. Still chewing, he lifts the paper towel to his mouth before he speaks. “He used his pants. And no, I’m not sending you the video.”

  I sip the coffee. “I don’t want to see it. He wasn’t on suicide watch?”

  “No reason for it.” He looks around, gets up, and walks over to the counter. Like he’s making himself at home. He tears off a few paper towels and returns to the table. “He didn’t show any signs of being suicidal. Just the opposite, actually. He seemed to be enjoying the attention, getting credit for what he did.”

  That’s exactly what I was thinking just before Cole showed up. It’s what makes it
so puzzling.

  He motions toward the plate in the middle of the table. “Not having one?”

  “Sure,” I say, and I reach for one, the smallest of the bunch.

  We eat in silence for a short time. I don’t know what Cole’s thinking—he seems to be focused on his second Danish—but I’m trying to work out why it is that I’m feeling nothing.

  I don’t care that Greer is dead.

  I don’t regret that he’s gone and will take unanswered questions with him to the grave.

  Before we knew who he was, I spent a lot of time thinking about him facing justice. Many nights, alone in the dark, I thought of him being walked into the cell where he would spend the rest of his life.

  Sometimes I thought of him being strapped to a gurney, IV tubes attached to his arms, his body preparing to be flooded with the poisons that will make him unconscious and then stop his heart. But not before he looks at the large pane of glass, knowing there are people there, maybe even family members of his victims—an audience, witnesses, spectators there for one reason: to watch him take his last breath and leave the world forever.

  But now I’m interested in none of it, not one bit, and the stark contrast between this and my nearly yearlong obsession with the case is odd. I’m not sure what it means. I make a mental note to mention it to Dr. Benson.

  “The Paul video,” I say, changing the topic from Greer because there’s nothing Cole could tell me about him that would mean anything to me at this point. Now, it’s all about Paul and the investigation into Erin’s murder.

  Cole takes a long sip of coffee. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that he did it. I mean in terms of common sense. Legally, yes, for now, there’s enough doubt to prevent him from being charged or even held.”

  I was about to take a bite, but my hand drops to the table. I feel my mouth open, slack-jawed. “So he’s out?”

  Cole nods. “For now. Right after he said he wanted a lawyer, where that video ends, he made a call to Henry Caswell.”

  “Really.” Caswell is the last name I was expecting to hear.