The Serial Killer's Wife

by Robert Swartwood

  “Sheila gave up custody of the kids. She moved out and came to live with me. We ...” He paused. “You know I haven’t been with anyone since Janice’s death. I had promised myself I never would. Yes, I know some people think that’s foolish, but it was just something I had promised myself and something I intended to keep. But Sheila ... I was in love with her. There was something about her that I just couldn’t get out of my head. So she came to live with me and for several months we were very happy, even when the divorce went through and was finalized. We were together, and she was pregnant, and then ...”

  A breeze picked up, rustling the few leaves still in trees, the oak in the backyard suddenly reminding Elizabeth about Eddie, how he had said it would someday make a great tree in which to put a tree house for their son, didn’t she agree?

  “And then?” Elizabeth prompted.

  “Our baby died four months after being born. He was a boy. We named him Bruce, after my father. He died of SIDS.”

  Elizabeth’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh my God.”

  Foreman shrugged, now staring out at the backyard. “Do you remember the Greenwood Cemetery, the one along the highway toward that Walmart? There’s this section near the back, hidden by trees, they call it the Baby Lot. That’s where we buried him.”

  Elizabeth reached out and touched his arm. “Michael, I am so sorry.”

  He waved her off. “It’s not your fault.”

  No, she thought, maybe not, but in a way it was and she thought both Foreman and Sheila knew it.

  Foreman wiped at his eyes. “Anyway, afterward, Sheila and I, went our separate ways. In fact, we haven’t seen each other in over a year.”

  “She’s changed a lot.”

  “Has she? She won’t talk to me anymore.”

  “Is she still teaching?”

  “As far as I know she’s still at the middle school.”

  “What did Sheila think about living in this house?”

  “She got used to it. It was your brother who thought it was weird.”

  Hearing mention of her brother made Elizabeth’s body go tense. Besides her mother, Jim was the only family she had, and she had left him behind without even a goodbye.

  “He came here?”

  Foreman nodded. “He went through all the containers down in the basement piece by piece. He said he was just curious to see what was left of you.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “About a year after you had left. He had just come back from Africa. Well, officially.”

  “Officially?”

  “The Peace Corps had allowed him a week off after”—Foreman cleared his throat—“your mom died.”

  Elizabeth closed her eyes. She said softly, “When did she die?”

  Foreman didn’t answer.

  She opened her eyes, turned to him. “When?”

  “Less than four months after you left.”

  A tear fell down her face, followed by another, then another. Elizabeth went to wipe them away but stopped. If she owed her mother anything, it was to shed some tears.

  All this time she knew her mother had died—she had to have, the cancer was just too bad—but she had never learned the exact date. She had forced herself not to look online every day, searching for her mother’s obituary, for fear that her mother’s death would bring her back home. Elizabeth just prayed that when her mother went it would be quickly and without much pain, and that, when she eventually saw her mother again in whatever afterlife there was, her mother would understand and forgive her for abandoning her like she did.

  “Liz,” Foreman said, touching her arm.

  She pulled away, began wiping at her eyes. “Where is she buried?”

  “She wasn’t. Jim had her cremated.”

  “What? Why?”

  “That’s something you should ask him. In fact, he should know you’re here.”

  “No.”

  “Liz.”

  “I said, no. He doesn’t need to be involved in this.”

  Foreman said, “Your brother really needs to hear from you. For the first year or so he was going out of his mind with worry. I’m sure he still is worried. Just call him. Let him know you’re okay.”

  “No.”

  “He doesn’t live that far away, actually. He lives in Trenton, works in Manhattan.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Some non-profit work, I forget for what organization. Look, if I called him now, he could be here in three hours. I know he’d really like to see you.”

  “I think we’ll save the family reunion for another time. Right now I’m more concerned with saving my son’s life. So what I would really like you to do—please—is get me in contact with Mark Webster.”

  Foreman took another deep breath, opened his mouth, but before he could speak the sliding door opened and Todd said, “Elizabeth, you need to see this.”

  • • •

  THE WEBPAGE TODD showed them was from CNN. It was only a couple paragraphs, but it included a picture of Elizabeth, though the picture used was one she barely recognized. It took her a few seconds before she realized it had been in the middle school yearbook, taken last year, Sarah Walter having been there long enough that the staff and students began to treat her like one of their own and so she was invited to sit in for a picture. It wasn’t a very flattering picture, and for CNN’s purposes, it didn’t need to be. Not with those couple paragraphs explaining about Reginald Moore and his sudden and explosive (they actually used the word explosive) death and how Sarah Walter, a teacher’s assistant at a local middle school, was believed to be involved. How police had traced a bomb threat at the local elementary school back to Sarah Walter’s phone, and how she was now missing, as was her five-year-old son.

  Foreman shook his head and whispered, “My God.”

  She turned to him. “You said that FBI agent had already called you, said I might show up, right?”

  Staring at the screen, rereading the article, he nodded slowly.

  “What else did he say?”

  He blinked at her. “Nothing, really. He just gave me his number and asked me to have you call him if I spoke with you.”

  She frowned at Todd. “That doesn’t sound right, does it?”

  He only looked at her, helpless.

  “I think the FBI is already one step ahead of the media. The media is placing me there at Reginald Moore’s death, almost making it sound like I was responsible, but they don’t know about what happened at Riley’s Pub. Not yet.”

  Todd said, “We really need to get out of here.”

  Elizabeth nodded. She said to Foreman, “Where do you think we should go while we wait?”

  He blinked at her again. “Wait for what?”

  “For you to get me in contact with Mark Webster.”

  “Liz, I told you, there’s no guarantee—”

  “My face is now online in connection with a child molester being killed and a bomb threat and an abduction of my own son. Once someone in the media recognizes Sarah Walter as Elizabeth Piccioni, my face will be plastered everywhere. We don’t have time to screw around. I’m not asking for your help anymore, Michael. I’m demanding it.”

  His gaze had gone back to the computer screen. He glanced at her, sighed, and nodded. “I can think of a place for you to stay while I get things sorted out.”

  “Perfect,” Elizabeth said. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 36

  THEY ENDED UP at a Holiday Inn Express two miles outside of Lanton, a slim and nondescript two-floor building that hosted maybe eighty rooms total. Judging by the vast emptiness of the parking lot, finding lodging—and being left alone—would not be a problem.

  Elizabeth asked Foreman to pay for their room on the off chance the FBI was now looking for Todd, too. They ended up with room 42, located at the other end of the motel, past the lobby and the gift shop and just a few doors away from the vending and ice machines. The room could also be accessed from the outside, a door opening up to the parking lot
like it was a patio, and as they entered Elizabeth felt a strange sense of relief to note that the room held two beds.

  Todd walked the room, checking the bathroom and closet and flipping through the cable list propped up on the TV, while Foreman sank into one of the chairs by the window, seemed to deflate right before Elizabeth’s eyes like he had been nothing this entire time but an elaborate circus balloon.

  “How long?” she asked him, standing in the middle of the room, her arms once again crossed cupping her elbows.

  Foreman frowned. “How long for what?”

  “Before you can get me in contact with Mark Webster.”

  He sighed, which seemed to have the effect of filling his balloon-like body with air. Leaning forward, he said, “Trust me, Liz, he is not your best bet right now. Your best bet is taking this to the police. Or that FBI agent.” He suddenly patted his chest, like there were invisible pockets there. “Shoot, I wrote down his name and number but must have left it at the house.”

  “I don’t want to talk to the FBI. I want to talk to Mark Webster.”

  Foreman sighed again, this time releasing the sigh of a man who knows he has no choice in the matter. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  • • •

  LATER, AFTER FOREMAN had left, promising to call once he found something worthwhile to call her about, Todd said, “I don’t know about you, but I could use a shower.”

  The truth was she could use a shower, too, the past twenty-four hours having drained her of something that could easily be restored by standing underneath the smooth and steady hiss of water.

  Todd volunteered to wait but Elizabeth told him to go first. She claimed the bed by the outside door and clicked through the channels on the TV. She stayed primarily on the news channels, dreading to see her picture flash across the screen.

  At some point the BlackBerry dinged. She glanced at the picture, at the time (59:00:00), and set it aside.

  The bathroom door opened and Todd came out, dressed and drying his hair off with one of the towels.

  “You look exhausted,” he said.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You only slept, what, three or four hours in the past two days?”

  “I said I’m fine.”

  Todd sat down on the end of his bed facing the TV. “Anything worthwhile happen in the past ten minutes?”

  Elizabeth swung her feet off the bed and stood up. She tossed the remote on Todd’s bed and headed for the bathroom, saying, “If either Cain or Foreman calls, let me know immediately.”

  • • •

  SHE HADN’T THOUGHT it possible, but the shower felt amazing, and she let herself relax, if only for a few moments, let herself ignore everything else—Cain and what he had done and what he wanted and what he would do if he didn’t get what he wanted—and she closed her eyes and became entranced by the soothing rhythm of the water.

  Elizabeth took a much longer shower than was needed, almost falling asleep under the showerhead—she hadn’t realized just how exhausted she really was until now—and then she turned the water off, stood still for a moment, just dripping, then reached for a towel as she stepped out of the tub.

  The towel Todd had placed on the floor was wet, and as her foot came down on it the fabric somehow shifted, just a bit, hardly an inch, but it was enough to send her reeling. In the instant she fell—her arms pinwheeling, her eyes going wide—she understood that everything in her life had led up to this moment. That, in the next few seconds, she would knock her head in that special place that would cause all life to escape her body, as if it were trapped and had always been looking for a way out.

  She couldn’t remember later, but she may have cried out, may have even screamed, but as she fell back toward the tub her other foot found traction and she managed to stay balanced, just for an moment or so, before colliding with the back of the shower and then sliding down the tiles toward the tub itself. She bruised her ass, the back of her head, even her elbow, but it was nothing compared to what it might have been, and for an instant she considered herself lucky, fortunate, blessed, until behind the door Todd called her name, his voice nervous and hurried, and then the door opened and in he stepped, his face filled with concern until after a moment he saw she was okay and after another moment he saw the scars ravaging her body, the patchwork of a quilt that was her skin, and in that moment she had never felt more naked, more exposed, and she snapped, “Get out!” and that was just what he did, turning at once, closing the door behind him, the suddenness of his departure creating enough disturbance in the air that it formed a swirl of steam in its wake.

  CHAPTER 37

  FOREMAN CALLED JUST after ten o’clock that night.

  Elizabeth was sitting on the bed, her back against the headboard. The TV was on but she wasn’t watching it. She was lost in her thoughts, running through everything that had happened in the past two days, when the room phone went off and startled her.

  Todd, sitting on his own bed, grabbed for the phone first. He answered it, listened a moment, then held it out to her.

  “It’s Michael.”

  She took the phone from him. “Mike, I hope you’re calling with good news.”

  “That depends,” he said, and with only those two words Elizabeth could tell just how exhausted Foreman was, and she knew he had been on the phone and computer ever since the moment he got home, doing whatever he could to find her the information she needed.

  “You found him?”

  “Yes and no.”

  Elizabeth said nothing, waiting, watching Todd who sat watching her. The TV was on and the light from the screen bounced around the room, illuminated almost faintly on the corner of his left eye.

  “He lives in Queens, that’s all I was able to get. His address is, as you would expect, unlisted, and every contact I have, and even their contacts, doesn’t have a home address for him. But”—and here the exhaustion disappeared from Foreman’s voice, replaced with a kind of renewed energy—“I know where you can find him tomorrow.”

  “Where?”

  “The law firm he works for, the head partner is a staunch Catholic, and our Mark Webster will do whatever it takes to suck up to him. So every Sunday our man takes his wife and kids into Manhattan to have morning mass at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. Always the 10:15 mass, because that’s the one with a choir. From what I hear, he never sits with his boss, but always a couple rows behind him. Just, you know, wanting to make sure his boss knows he’s committed.”

  She was already picturing the high-vaulted ceiling, the meticulously crafted stone pillars, the wooden pews and the votive candles and the stained-glass windows. In high school she had taken a field trip to the city for a day, had gone to see a Broadway show—Les Misérables—and after the performance they had had two hours to kill before the large coach bus picked them up so different groups went off to different tourist attractions. Her group had gone to Saint Patrick’s, had walked up the steps and entered the church, and though Elizabeth had never been very religious she had felt something stir inside of her, as if God or the Holy Spirit or whatever was there actually existed and wanted to get her attention.

  “How do you know this for certain?”

  Foreman said, “One of my contacts attends the same service. He always sees Webster. Says that he and his family are there every Sunday like clockwork. If you want to speak to him, that’s going to be your only chance.”

  It wasn’t quite the news she had wanted, but it would have to do. “Thank you,” she said, “thank you so much,” and she told him she’d call if she needed anything else and wished him a good night and then hung up the phone.

  Todd sat on the edge of his bed, staring at her, expectant, and she told him exactly what Foreman had just told her. A frown creased his brow, and he looked away, stared at the television for a long moment before speaking.

  “So then we’re going to New York.”

  He said it not as a question but as a statement, and in those seven words—those seven v
ery simple words—Elizabeth realized she loved him.

  For a while neither one of them spoke. Todd had muted the TV when Foreman called so there was complete silence in the room. Earlier, after he had walked in on her and quickly shut the door, she had stayed in the bathroom for nearly an hour. She hadn’t wanted to come out. But eventually she did, dressed once again in her clothes, as if they would somehow erase the image that had no doubt been seared into Todd’s brain. He didn’t bring it up, hardly even spoke, and she had climbed onto her bed, lay her head down on the pillow, closed her eyes and opened them four hours later.

  “So,” Todd said, his tone amicable enough, though she still couldn’t find herself ready to speak.

  The truth was, her mouth tasted awful. She couldn’t remember the last time she had brushed her teeth. Yesterday morning, she guessed, and since then she hadn’t had any gum, not even an Altoid or LifeSaver.

  “I need to brush my teeth,” she said. “I’m assuming you don’t have a toothbrush on you.”

  “Sorry. I left them in my other pants.” And he smiled, wanting her to smile too, though she couldn’t bring herself to, at least not yet.

  “This place has a gift shop, doesn’t it? They should have a toothbrush and some toothpaste. At the very least, some mouthwash or gum.” She realized she was rambling and quickly stood up, dug into her pockets even though she knew they would be empty. “Do you have any cash?”

  • • •

  SHE DECIDED NOT to wear shoes. Not for the quick jaunt down the hallway to the lobby, and besides, she had been wearing her shoes for the past twenty-four hours, even more than that, and sure they were sneakers but still, sometimes your feet just needed room to breathe, to stretch, to do whatever it was feet did when they weren’t pressured into the restricting confines of footwear.