Sleepwalker

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “For us?”

  “Us? No! Why would we—we didn’t do anything.”

  “But you think . . .” She can’t bring herself to say it.

  “I don’t know what to think. I have a name—a defense attorney out of White Plains—but . . . it hasn’t come to that yet.”

  “You think it will?” she asks, thinking, Defense attorney. Good God.

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t look good, though, Randi. For Mack.”

  Ben tells her about the phone calls he allegedly made and received, and that according to Allison, he’s been sleepwalking lately.

  “She might have mentioned that to me, too,” she says, more to herself than to Ben, trying to remember exactly what Allison told her last night, when they were having that last drink.

  There was something . . .

  “I could tell it bothered her to talk about the sleepwalking,” Ben is saying. “And I keep thinking about the nanny cam, wondering . . .”

  “I haven’t used it in ages,” she tells him.

  Greta’s been here for so long, it’s no longer necessary. They trust her.

  But do they trust Mack?

  Randi feels sick inside. “Do you think, when he comes back, we should set it up?”

  “I think . . .” Ben takes a deep breath, lets it out, shakes his head. “I think we need to rethink having him spend another night in this house.”

  “Mack is your best friend.”

  “And you’re my wife, and two women are dead, and the police think there’s a chance he might have something to do with it. And so do I, maybe, and admit it, Randi, so do you.”

  She swallows hard. “I don’t know . . . when I think of Mack, I just can’t imagine how . . .”

  “I can’t, either, but we can’t take any chances.”

  “So what are we supposed to do? Kick them out?”

  “Not them.”

  “Just him?” She shakes her head. “Allison is never going to let that happen. She and the kids will go with him if we ask him to leave, and then what? What if—”

  No way. This is crazy. She just can’t fathom that Mack could hurt his wife or children . . .

  Or, for that matter, anyone else.

  She says that to Ben, and is troubled by his reply.

  “He’s been sleepwalking, Randi, remember? Maybe he’s not in his right mind when that happens, and . . . I don’t know. Right now, all I can do is protect you and the kids—and, if she’ll let me, Allison and their kids.”

  “From Mack,” she says flatly.

  “From Mack.” Ben turns away, picks up the shaving cream again, and his razor.

  Feeling dazed, Randi shakes her head and leaves the room.

  From the hall, she can hear the faint voices of Hudson and Madison, eating cereal down in the kitchen with Greta.

  I love those sweet little girls—and J.J., too—like my own. I’d never let anything happen to them, ever. If I really thought . . .

  Okay . . . does she really think it?

  Ben does. He was with Mack. He knows more than she does, has seen more than she did. And yet . . .

  How many times has he said that he loves Mack like a brother? They were best man at each other’s weddings—well, Mack’s second wedding, as he and Carrie had eloped; and they’re godfathers to each other’s sons . . .

  Which means . . . what?

  That Mack can’t possibly have a dark side neither of us has ever seen?

  Yes.

  No.

  But all those years of friendship sure as hell mean something.

  As if to punctuate that thought, the girls’ giggles float down the stairs. They’re up there in the playroom without a care in the world—daddy’s girls, Allison sometimes calls them.

  “In their eyes, Mack can do no wrong,” she said not long ago, with a wry laugh.

  Oh, Allison . . .

  What in the world is going on?

  “Mrs. MacKenna?”

  Sitting on the edge of her bed, she looks up to see the handsome police officer she first met a few days ago.

  “Captain Cleary. You remember—we talked down at the precinct on Wednesday?”

  She stands, nods.

  “This is Detective Patterson.” He gestures at the stout man who steps into the bedroom on his heels, also showing a badge. With him comes the unmistakable scent of stale cigarette smoke.

  Allison shakes both their hands.

  “Would you mind having a seat again, please? We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  She sits, sneaking a glance at the clock on the nightstand. Her girls will be awake soon, wondering where she and Mack are, and J.J.—for all she knows, he’s been up all night.

  Does he have a rash from sleeping in that wet diaper? Did Randi find the special prescription ointment in the diaper bag?

  The female police officer who drove Allison back here and stayed with her until the detectives showed up wouldn’t even let her call to check on the kids. That infuriated her. But she knew better than to defy authority and make a big deal about it then—and now.

  These guys don’t care that she’s a worried mother. Things will move along faster if she just tells them whatever they want to know. She hopes Mack does the same thing when his turn comes—unless he’s already had his turn and is on his way back to the Webers’. She hopes so. Randi and Greta can probably use all the help they can get with J.J.

  Thinking of all the potential hazards her baby might encounter in that huge house that’s no longer child-proofed, Allison shudders inwardly.

  “Are you cold, Mrs. MacKenna?”

  “What? Oh—no. I’m just worried about my kids,” she hears herself admitting to Captain Cleary, despite her resolve not to go there.

  “I’m sure they’re in good hands.”

  How the hell would you know?

  She decides she doesn’t like him. It’s not just because he’s be so dismissive of her concern for her children, but . . .

  Okay, maybe it is just that.

  “Would you like a glass of water before we start?”

  “No, thank you. What I would like is to call and check on my children. If I know they’re okay, I’ll be able to focus on this.”

  “Go ahead and call,” Captain Cleary tells her with a note of resignation in his voice.

  Realizing they’re going to stand here and watch her do it, Allison reaches into her pocket for her cell phone.

  It isn’t there. She’s pretty sure it was in the pocket of her jeans when she’d taken them off; it must have fallen out, or maybe J.J. got to it.

  Her heart sinks. What if her son is chewing on the phone? That can’t be healthy, right? Don’t cell phones give off some kind of electromagnetic field?

  And just as disturbing—what if Randi’s been trying to reach her?

  She’d have tried the house if she needed me, she reminds herself. The phone hasn’t rung at all since they’ve been here.

  She picks up the receiver on the bedside table. About to punch in the Webers’ number, she realizes there’s no dial tone. Frowning, she presses the talk button a few times and listens again.

  “Is there a problem, Mrs. MacKenna?”

  “The phone is dead. It must not be charged,” she tells Captain Cleary.

  “Isn’t that the charging base?”

  “It is, but . . .” Simultaneously, she and the two men bend to see if the cord is plugged into the wall behind the table.

  It is.

  “I’ll take a look,” Captain Cleary says, holding his hand out for the receiver.

  Allison gives it to him and watches him press the talk button as if somehow she’d been doing it wrong.

  He listens, shakes his head, and hands it to Detective Patterson with a questioning look.

  “I’ll be right back.” He leaves the room, carrying the phone.

  Left alone with Captain Cleary, Allison is uncomfortable. She plays with the ruffle on the pillow sham, feeling his eyes on her. After a minute, she looks up
.

  “Where’s my husband?” she asks boldly.

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. MacKenna, he’s fine.”

  That doesn’t answer the question.

  Frustrated, she rolls and unrolls the ruffled hem of the sham, wishing they could get on with the questioning.

  But when Detective Patterson finally reappears in the doorway, he asks Captain Cleary to step out into the hall.

  Allison strains to hear what they’re saying out there, but can’t make out a word. After a few minutes, they reappear, obviously ready to get down to business.

  “Sorry about that,” Captain Cleary tells Allison. “It looks like there’s a problem with your telephone line. I’m sorry you won’t be able to make that call just yet. We’re having it checked out.”

  “A problem with the phone line? What kind of problem?”

  “Why don’t you tell us about Zoe Jennings?” Detective Patterson suggests.

  Zoe Jennings. Yes. That’s why they’re here.

  Until this moment, Allison has done her best not to dwell on the fresh horror—or her own role in any of this—but there’s no avoiding it now.

  She clears her throat. Her mouth is so dry. She’d thrown up earlier, she remembers, and now her head is pounding and she’s probably dehydrated. She should have accepted the glass of water.

  But they’re waiting for her reply, and she doesn’t want them to think she’s stalling.

  “There’s not much to tell. I’m so sorry for what happened to her”—sorry doesn’t begin to cover how she feels about what happened to that poor woman—“but I just met her last night.”

  “Tell us about that.”

  Allison quickly recounts the condolence call.

  In the aftermath of shocking, traumatic murder, she’s sick with guilt over her own alcohol-fueled reaction to Zoe and her brownies and, yes, her boobs. Not that that’s any of the cops’ business, and she doesn’t mention it, but still . . .

  “So you weren’t friends?” Patterson asks.

  “No. We’d just met,” she reiterates, anxiously twisting her wedding ring around and around her finger, wishing they’d just let her go.

  “And what was your husband’s relationship with her?”

  The way Captain Cleary speaks that word—“relationship”—causes Allison to look up sharply from her hands.

  She holds back her knee-jerk answer—which would be that Mack certainly didn’t have a relationship with Zoe Jennings—knowing it might come across as defensive.

  Defensive of Mack?

  Or of myself?

  Both. She resents the insinuation that her husband could possibly have been cheating on her with Zoe Jennings.

  Wait a minute, Allison—think about that. Is that really what they’re implying? Or are you reading it that way because . . .

  Because she herself suddenly doubts everything she once would have sworn was true about the man she married?

  Randi’s words on that long-ago afternoon, words that struck a chord even at the time, drift back to her: We can never really be sure what’s going on in someone else’s head, even someone we think we know well . . .

  “Mrs. MacKenna?”

  She blinks. “I’m sorry . . . my husband and Zoe were former colleagues. That was their relationship.”

  “So they were colleagues . . . friends?”

  “Maybe back then, but I don’t think Mack had seen her in years.”

  “You don’t think he had? You’re not sure?”

  “Yes. I’m sure. He hadn’t. They just moved up here—the Jenningses—and they were at a party we went to about a month ago. Mack talked to Zoe there.”

  “So he has seen her recently.”

  “Just there. I’m sorry, I didn’t pay much attention to it.”

  “He didn’t introduce you to her?”

  “No.” But it wasn’t like that, she wants to add.

  Like what, Mrs. MacKenna? Like your husband was trying to keep his mistress and his wife from getting to know each other?

  Disgusted with the track her own thoughts have taken, Allison rubs her throbbing temples, wishing Mack were here, or that she could be wherever he is, just so that she’d feel reassured about their marriage.

  His faithfulness has never been a question until now.

  It still isn’t, dammit. Not in her mind.

  She trusts her husband. She’s positive there was nothing going on between him and Zoe Jennings. He barely has time for her and the kids, let alone an affair.

  Then again . . .

  Isn’t that what cheating husbands do? Claim to be working late while they’re really—

  Stop it! Just stop, Allison!

  Mack isn’t capable of hurting her that way. Mack loves her and the kids and their lives together, and he would never jeopardize that. Whatever his faults are—hiding his feelings, not reaching out for help—he’s an honorable man incapable of telling a white lie. How can he possibly be living a huge one?

  He can’t.

  He isn’t.

  “What about Phyllis Lewis?”

  “What?” She frowns at Captain Cleary. “I have no idea if she knew Zoe Jennings.”

  “No, I meant—what was her relationship with your husband?”

  “Oh my God! This is nuts! They were neighbors! Friends! That’s all!”

  So much for her resolve to play it cool.

  “Why don’t you just come out and ask me if I think Mack had affairs with Phyllis and Zoe and killed them both?” she challenges. “Then I can tell you flat-out that that’s the craziest thing I ever heard.”

  Jack Cleary’s reply is maddeningly calm. “Mrs. MacKenna, you understand why we have to ask these questions. Your husband called Nathan Jennings in the middle of the night, told him his car had broken down, and said to meet him off the Saw Mill River Parkway. And while Nathan Jennings was out of the house, looking in vain for his friend in need, someone who opportunistically knew he was out of the house came in and killed Zoe Jennings.”

  “But Mack wasn’t even the one who made that call.”

  “It came from this house,” Patterson points out, “and he was here at the time.”

  “Do you know that for sure? What time it was? Because he got a bogus call on his own phone telling him to come over here.”

  “And did you witness that call your husband received?”

  She hesitates before admitting, “No. I was sleeping.”

  “In the same room? The same bed? And you didn’t hear the phone ringing, or your husband talking on it?”

  No, because I was passed out from drinking too much.

  “I’ve always been a sound sleeper.” Even as the words come out of her mouth, she knows they sound lame, and she can tell by the looks on their faces that they agree. They think I’m covering for Mack. I’m making things worse for him. But if I admit that I was drunk, I’ll lose every last bit of credibility.

  “So you don’t know for sure when the call came in,” Cleary asks, “or what was said?”

  “No, but I’m sure if you check Mack’s phone, you’ll find it.”

  Even as she says it—even if Cleary checks Mack’s phone—she knows it won’t prove anything. They’ll say he could have placed that call himself, to his own phone, to set up an alibi.

  “How do you know that your husband didn’t call Nathan Jennings, Mrs. MacKenna?”

  She clenches her jaw, not wanting to answer Patterson’s question, well aware that it won’t help matters.

  “Mrs. MacKenna?”

  “Because he told me.”

  “You’re not a hundred percent sure of it.”

  “I’m sure of it because Mack wouldn’t lie to me.”

  “All right. But let’s say that he himself isn’t sure of it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Has your husband ever exhibited any unusual behavior in the middle of the night?”

  Her heart sinks. Do they know? Or are they guessing?

  She told Ben about the sleepwalkin
g on the way over to find Mack. Did Ben tell the detectives when they talked to him?

  If he did, and she denies it now, they’ll know she’s lying about that, at least, and they’ll likely wonder what else she’s lying about. They’ll probably assume she’s trying to cover for Mack.

  Am I?

  She pictures him with the knife in his hand, and the vacant look in his eyes, and she remembers what Lynn said about sleepwalkers becoming aggressive and violent if startled awake.

  Mack ate while he was asleep—if the missing food wasn’t evidence enough, his visible weight gain certainly was—and he didn’t remember a thing about it the next morning.

  Is it so hard to believe that his nocturnal activities could have included other things—darker, uglier things—and Mack would have no memory of that, either?

  Suddenly enveloped in a cold sweat, bile rising in her throat once again, Allison forces herself to think it through.

  Do you honestly believe Mack mutilated and killed two women in his sleep?

  “Your husband’s nocturnal behavior . . . ?” Patterson prompts.

  With resignation, Allison admits, “He takes sleep medication. Dormipram, it’s called. One of the side effects is sleepwalking.”

  “Does he talk in his sleep?”

  She remembers the crazy gibberish he spoke in the kitchen that night. “Sometimes, but—”

  Cleary cuts her off, asking, “Does he remember these episodes later?”

  “No.” She’s not about to elaborate unless they force her.

  “So it’s conceivable that your husband might have left the house in his sleep and made a phone call in his sleep? One he didn’t remember when he woke up?”

  “I don’t think that’s what happened.”

  “I didn’t ask you that. I asked if it’s conceivable. That’s the question you need to answer.”

  “I guess so,” she says reluctantly. “But—”

  “Thank you, Mrs. MacKenna.”

  Jamie’s lips curve into a smile as she stares at the computer monitor.

  Things couldn’t be better.

  The live-action image from one of her surveillance cameras shows Mack sitting on the couch in his living room, nervously tapping his BlackBerry against his knee as a police officer stands guard in the doorway.

  In another screen, Allison MacKenna is putting some things into an overnight bag as a female officer waits in the doorway.