She Was the Quiet One

by Michele Campbell

  “Can I come in? Just five minutes. There are a few things I think you should know.”

  That sounded bad. Sarah didn’t think she could handle the truth right now, in her muddled state.

  “I need to get to bed.”

  “Five minutes of your time.”

  “No. Really—”

  “Look, Sarah, you’re worried about Rose Enright getting jammed up for a murder she didn’t commit, right? So am I, but the lieutenant, not so much. He’s an old-timer, and experienced cops love those obvious explanations. Can’t say I blame ’em. Nine times out of ten, they’re the right ones. If the victim’s been stabbed, then the girl with the bloody knife in her hand is the killer, right? Makes sense. Well, the lieutenant is working backward from that assumption. If Rose did it, then any evidence that doesn’t fit needs to be explained away.”

  “But Rose didn’t do it. It sounds like you know that. Why don’t you tell him?”

  “Because I don’t know that. What I do know is: There are problems with the evidence against Rose. But just because I can poke holes in it, doesn’t mean I have evidence against somebody else. And until I do, I can’t say for sure that Rose is innocent. If you and me join forces, pool our knowledge, maybe we could get somewhere.”

  “Okay, come in. But I’m warning you, five minutes is the most I’ve got in me.”

  “Understood.”

  Sarah led the detective into the apartment. She sat down hard on the sofa and put a hand to her forehead. Her skin was burning.

  “I’ll try to make this quick,” the detective said.

  “The best thing is if I just tell you what Rose said this morning. I know you’re not supposed to ask about it. But it’s the only thing I know. I have no other information.”

  Melissa jiggled her knee anxiously, which shook the couch, and made Sarah dizzy.

  “Are you nervous?” she asked, and the leg stopped jiggling.

  “This is a tough one, Sarah. See, I think you might know more than you think you know.”

  “Huh? Sorry, but I’m too exhausted to understand that.”

  “Maybe if I tell you what I know, it might shake something loose.”

  “Okay.”

  Melissa searched Sarah’s face, seemingly trying to decide whether to trust her. Her short hair and lack of makeup made her look girlish, like a friend Sarah might have had in high school. But she wasn’t a friend. Sarah worried that she’d let her guard down too far by allowing the detective in the apartment, by trusting her more than she should. Especially when she was in such a weakened state.

  “This could get me in trouble. You can’t tell anyone. Do you promise?” Melissa said.

  “Sure.”

  “All right. Down at Lost Lake where we recovered Bel Enright’s body, we found three sets of footprints.”

  Sarah breathed raggedly, her heart fluttering with fever—or was it fear. Three sets.

  “Whose footprints?” she asked.

  “To determine that, we need shoes to compare them to, right? So, one set was Bel’s. One was Rose’s. But there was a set of male footprints that we can’t identify. There was also male DNA, recovered from Bel’s body by our forensics team. Not just from outside her clothing, but from—well, inside. You get the picture?”

  The detective was telling her that Bel Enright had sex before she died. Why on earth would she tell Sarah such a thing?

  Anonymouse’s photo flashed before Sarah’s eyes.

  She’d been lying to herself. That was Heath’s body in the photo. She knew it as well as she knew her own. As to who the girl was, she had no way of knowing. And yet—

  A wave of nausea overpowered her. Sarah stood up, stumbled to the bathroom and vomited copiously. She lay on the floor afterward, weak and shivering. The detective knocked on the door.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. Just a minute.”

  Sarah used the side of the tub to haul herself to her feet. She washed out her mouth with Listerine and reached for the doorknob. She had to protect her husband. Not because he was guilty, but because she couldn’t risk being the one to implicate him. Not now, not when her brain was so foggy with fever that she couldn’t think straight, or know what various facts and pieces of evidence might add up to. She could tell Melissa what Rose said about Zach Cuddy. That, she knew was important. And she also knew it was true; or at least, that Rose claimed it was true. Let the police work on that lead, for now. Then, once Sarah’s mind cleared, she would comb through what she knew about Heath, and decide whether there was anything that needed telling.

  Melissa wasn’t in the living room. Sarah followed the sounds to the kitchen. She found the detective bent over, looking in the dishwasher.

  “Uh, can I help you?” Sarah asked, alarmed.

  Melissa jumped up. “Oh, uh, I was thinking of getting a new dishwasher. Do you like this model?”

  Even in her fevered state, Sarah recognized that as a lie. What the hell was Melissa Howard doing? Looking for evidence of some kind? In the dishwasher? It made no sense. But nothing made sense to Sarah’s flu-addled brain.

  “Look, I’m not feeling so great. You should go,” Sarah said.

  “You’re right. One last thing, though. About those card keys—”

  “What about them?”

  “They show us when Bel and Rose left Moreland last night. And Bel left more than an hour before Rose did. That’s what I wanted to ask you. Where was Bel? Who was she with? Is it possible that Bel went to the lake first, and then somehow told Rose where to find her?”

  “Well, I would say how should I know. But I do know. That’s what happened. Bel went to the lake first,” Sarah said.

  She was feeling dizzy again and had to sit down.

  Melissa’s eyes widened. “You do know. I thought so.”

  “Yes. Rose told me. She said that Bel texted her.”

  “Oh,” Melissa said, seeming disappointed. “Rose told you.”

  “She says, find her phone. It’ll prove what happened.”

  “We have Rose’s phone. Bel’s too. The texts show Rose texting Bel to meet her at the lake. But based on evidence from the card keys, the texts were sent nearly two hours after Bel left Moreland, and an hour after Rose did. It makes no sense. And there are weird time gaps in the texts on both phones, like stuff was erased. I sent the phones to the lab, to see if they were tampered with. Kriscunas thinks I’m crazy, but I think, whoever killed Bel rigged the phones to frame Rose for the murder.”

  There was a layer of gauze between Sarah and the world that the detective’s voice couldn’t penetrate. There was something important she was supposed to convey. Right—about Zach Cuddy. Sarah had better tell the detective that, right now. She couldn’t hold out against this fever much longer.

  “Zach Cuddy,” Sarah blurted.

  “Cuddy? What about him?”

  “Rose told me that—I think she said, he was in the woods that night. He chased her, and—and she cut him. Yes, definitely, now I remember. Zach was in the woods. Rose cut Zach with an X-Acto knife.”

  Melissa stared at her. “Well, that explains something. We did find an X-Acto knife with traces of blood, not far from the scene. The blood wasn’t Bel’s though, and the X-Acto knife wasn’t the murder weapon. Thank you for clearing that up.”

  “You see what it means, right? Rose is innocent. Zach’s the killer.”

  But Sarah was too muddled to explain why it meant that. And the detective looked unconvinced.

  “The murder weapon was a kitchen knife, with a ten-inch blade,” Melissa said. “Henckels, to be exact. I checked with the kitchen supply store in town. They don’t carry that brand. Hard to see how Rose gets her hands on it, living in the dorm. Zach either.”

  Through her feverish haze, Sarah sensed that Melissa was making an important point about the knife. It meant something, but she had no idea what.

  “You said Rose babysits for you, Sarah?”

  “What?”

  As she watched, th
e detective grew smaller and farther away.

  “I have to lie down.”

  Sarah staggered down the hall and collapsed onto the bed. Eventually, she heard Melissa Howard moving around in the front hall, then the sound of the door closing. The detective had left without asking a single question about Heath. That was good, right? If they suspected him, they would ask her about him. Heath was innocent. He had to be. It was Zach Cuddy in the woods that night.

  With the room spinning, Sarah couldn’t focus. The murder investigation was complicated. So many facts, floating in her addled mind. She closed her eyes, and let the fever sweep her away.

  54

  Rose opened her eyes. It was dark in the room, except for a small sliver of light filtering under the door to the hallway. The light wasn’t enough for her to see in the room, and she didn’t hear anything. And yet she lay there, certain that she wasn’t alone.

  “Is—is somebody there?” she called in a shaky voice, reaching out her hand.

  She sat up. A dark shadow fell across the sliver of light, and Rose watched it move. It was a man. He was coming toward her. She screamed at the top of her lungs, and the next second he was on her, pushing her down, pressing something soft—a pillow?—over her face. She fought as hard as she could. Lashing out, hitting at him, kicking, screaming. The lamp toppled over with a loud crash. But the more she struggled, the harder he pushed down, till she felt the fight going out of her.

  The world was hot and airless. She kicked one last time, and connected. He stepped sideways, and his hand was right next to her face. She bit down, tasting blood. He gasped, and let up for a split second. She tried to break free. Then he punched her, hard in the head, and she went down.

  “Stop it,” he said, and she knew who he was.

  The pillow was on her face again. This time, he wouldn’t let go. Red dots danced before her eyes. She blacked out.

  55

  There were two men in the woods.

  Sarah woke from a fevered sleep, knowing that fact with terrible certainty. How did she know? Simple math. One plus one equals two. Numbers. Time. The problem existed on an axis. She could graph it, if only she had paper and pencil.

  She staggered out of bed, heading toward the kitchen. A long time later, she arrived there, having forgotten why she came. She went to the sink and filled a glass with water, taking tiny sips. Keep hydrated. That was important with this flu. She remembered that from when the babies were sick.

  The children. They were at day care. But no, they couldn’t be. It was dark beyond the kitchen window, and the Quad was as empty as midnight. Sarah needed to call Heath, to tell him to pick the children up. But where was her phone?

  Her eye fell on the knife block, beside the sink. Something was off about it. It registered just enough to seem significant, but she couldn’t make sense of why. She remembered the detective, here in the kitchen, looking inside the dishwasher. It was a puzzle.

  Oh, right—paper and pencil. Pencil and paper. She rummaged in a drawer, found the pad she used to write the occasional grocery list. Groceries. When had she last eaten? Not for a long time, but the thought of food made her want to—

  She was in the bathroom, on her knees in front of the toilet.

  “Mommy?” Harper said from the doorway.

  The kids were home. Where was Heath?

  “Go back to bed, sweetheart. Mommy’s sick.”

  “I take care of you now,” Harper said, coming to stroke Sarah’s hair.

  “Stop it. You’ll catch my germs. Is Daddy home?”

  “No. But Max is.”

  “Max is a dog. He can’t help me. Close the door and go back to bed, Harps. Do it for Mommy. Please. Mommy needs to throw up now.”

  “Yuck,” Harper said, and left.

  Sarah threw up for what seemed like a very long time, her body wracked and heaving, then crumpled sideways to the floor. Her eyes were wide-open, staring, unfocused; her breathing was shallow. Her clothes smelled, and her mouth tasted sour, but the tile of the floor felt clean and cool against her cheek.

  She would rest there for a bit, before making the herculean effort to get back to her bed.

  Sarah closed her eyes for a minute. When she opened them again, she was staring right at the smudges.

  On the bottom of the bathtub, just above the point where it met the floor, far enough back to be hidden from view by the toilet, there were three large smudges of what looked like blood. The only way you would see them was by getting down and putting your face in exactly this spot. Her head was hot and her eyes were burning, but she didn’t think she was hallucinating. She crawled closer, her limbs aching with fever, and stared at them. The smudges were an inch or two long, and feathery, as if blood-soaked fabric had brushed up against the smooth porcelain of the tub. She put a fingertip to one. It was crusty, just like you’d expect from dried blood.

  Those smudges are real.

  This was not a dream, and it wasn’t her imagination. As far away as Sarah’s mind had traveled in the grip of her fever, it came rushing back, clear as day and full of terror. She’d seen the pieces of this puzzle, and allowed herself to dismiss them. Heath came home late on the night of Bel Enright’s murder. The dog went crazy, and Heath put him out. Heath did laundry, which he never did, and came to bed smelling of bleach. There had even been the smell of fire. She should check the fireplace for signs that he’d burned his clothes.

  What else did Sarah know? She wanted paper. Why? Because she knew about the sounds, in the woods. Rose had told her about them in great detail. She needed to graph the sounds. But where was the paper? She’d forgotten it, in the kitchen.

  Sarah grabbed the side of the tub and pulled herself to sitting. That minimal effort drained her, and she had to stop and rest her face against the cool porcelain. When she’d caught her breath, she levered herself to standing. Her legs were like rubber, and the room swayed, but she managed not to topple over. In the hallway, she steadied herself against the wall to keep her balance, and stumbled to the kitchen, where she grabbed some paper and a pencil and sat down at the table. Strange lights danced before her eyes.

  Sarah drew horizontal and vertical axes, then sat and stared at her handiwork. In her befuddled state, it took several minutes to realize that what she wanted was not so much a graph, as a timeline. Her fevered epiphany was all about timing: the timing of the sounds that Rose heard in the woods, when Bel was murdered.

  What did Rose say? She heard footsteps behind her, crunching on snow, as she walked toward the lake. Somebody was following Rose through the woods. Sarah made a mark on the X-axis, close in to the Y-axis, and labeled it “Footsteps Behind Rose.”

  Next, Rose heard a scream that she recognized as Bel’s. It came from the direction of Lost Lake. Sarah made a second mark, farther out along the X-axis, and labeled it “Scream from Bel—at Lost Lake.”

  Then what? Right after the scream, Zach Cuddy grabbed Rose from behind, and Rose cut him with the X-Acto knife to get away. Sarah made a third mark, and labeled it “Zach Grabs Rose/Gets Cut.”

  Well, there it was, in black and white. Zach was behind Rose at the moment Bel screamed. Sarah went back to the mark labeled “Footsteps Behind Rose.” and added “Zach.” Zach had been behind Rose the whole time. Zach was still behind Rose, on the path in the woods, when Bel screamed. But Bel was already down at the lake. And she screamed at just that moment—presumably in terror, or in pain.

  What next? Rose ran toward Bel’s scream. But Zach didn’t follow or Rose would have mentioned hearing his footsteps behind her, which she didn’t. Wherever Zach went next, it wasn’t to the lake. Rose got there in a mere minute or two, and saw a bouncing light, which then disappeared. Someone else—not Zach—had been down at the lake at the moment Bel screamed. Someone who was alive, moving, using a flashlight, at the moment Rose arrived. But it couldn’t’ve been Bel because the next moment, Rose found her sister—already dead. Sarah made another mark and wrote, “Rose Finds Bel Dead at Lake (Zach Not Pr
esent).” Then she went back to the mark for Bel’s scream, added, “Second Man at Lake?” and underscored it three times.

  Bel died at Lost Lake, while Rose and Zach were still in the woods. Rose found the body. She found the murder weapon, picked it up, held it in her hand. And then somebody hit her in the head.

  Zach was gone at that point.

  There was a second man.

  Heath.

  Sarah wrote her husband’s name. Then she crawled back to bed and sank down into fevered dreams, filled with blood.

  56

  Sarah tossed in a haze of delirium. The kids were here somewhere; she heard their piping voices, and was glad they were far away from her, healthy and safe.

  It was bright in the room. Daytime. At some point, her vision cleared, and Heath stood over her, holding a piece of paper. He was asking her something she didn’t understand, lips moving, face screwed up in a fury she’d rarely seen from him. Was this real? Sarah cried, and begged him not to talk so loud, because her head was about to explode.

  She woke up some later. There were strange men in the room, carrying a stretcher.

  “We’re moving you to the hospital, babe. I’m worried about you,” Heath said, in such a loving tone that she knew she’d imagined those awful things before.

  “What? No. I’m fine.”

  “Sarah, you need an IV. You’re terribly dehydrated.”

  They told her to cross her arms across her chest, but her body wouldn’t listen to her mind. They took her under the arms and thighs and lifted her. She floated in midair, then she was on the stretcher with Heath looking down at her.

  “We’re moving to the headmaster’s house,” he said. “I’ll see you there.”

  Sarah didn’t even try to understand. She just gave in to darkness.

  57

  Transcript of Witness Interview conducted by Detective Melissa Howard, Odell NH, PD, with Mr. Zachary Cuddy. [NOTE: Interview conducted at Odell Infirmary; DNA sample taken and transmitted to lab per chain-of-custody form.]

  Howard: FYI, I’m recording this on my phone. Thanks for meeting with me, Zach.