by Mayer, Dale
He let himself drift off toward sleep.
A cool breeze flowed across the bedroom, and he wondered what still bothered him about this scenario? He’d caught a good look at the man who had delivered the pizza. But it was hard to imagine that same person having been involved in all the break-ins.
Just as Mac was about to go under, he wondered at the fresh air again. She had the window open obviously. But as he watched the long curtains blow in the wind, he realized it was a sliding glass door. And that meant it was open, hopefully just a little bit. But he couldn’t relax enough to let it go. He hopped up and walked over to the gauzy white curtains and looked closer. The door was locked open about four inches. Outside was one of those little tiny balconies, just big enough to stand and stare at the outside. He’d never really seen the purpose of them. He’d much rather have a balcony big enough to put a chair on. At least then you could sit outside and have coffee. If she wanted to sit anywhere, she’d have to sit half in and half out of the door.
As he checked the door, he saw a form sneaking across the grass. He flattened himself against the wall and waited. When he heard an odd scrabbling noise below, he went back to the bed, put on his boxers, and gave Alex a shake.
Her eyes opened instantly.
He placed a finger against her lips and whispered, “We are about to have company.”
Understanding slammed into her gaze. She bolted out of bed, took one look, realizing she was nude, and scrambled into her pajamas. He watched appreciatively. She was long and lean, small-breasted, extraordinarily fit. He never thought he’d go for the athletic type. But there was absolutely everything to go for with her. And dressed in what she would call pajamas was like teasing any male. The camisole hung just on the edge of her breasts. The shadow between her legs barely showed through the pale pink material of the boxers. As she walked, her rounded cheeks were enough to give any man wet dreams. But, when she pulled out her service pistol and slid to the other side of the glass door, he realized she was all business.
He had to appreciate that. He had no weapons with him but was a pro when it came to hand-to-hand combat. On either side of the glass door they waited. After a few minutes of silence, she looked over at him in question. He held up a finger as a signal to wait. And, sure enough, a hand appeared at the bottom of the deck. The little bastard found something to climb up on, and he was climbing up over the little balcony now.
Macklin considered the position of her apartment and realized her balcony faced the backyard. So, unless anybody else was standing outside, they wouldn’t have seen him. There were houses across the way, but this was a small green space for the apartment residents. Nobody could look directly into the apartment, so it was all too easy for this guy to access her place without being seen.
Within seconds the intruder had climbed up the railing and onto the small balcony.
The two of them watched and waited as he tried to open the glass door. Macklin understood the lock on the sliding door, and it wasn’t hard to disarm. Unfortunately anyone could research that information on the internet. He waited and watched.
The guy went to his knees, got out some tools, and silently popped the lock. He slid the glass door back and waited.
Macklin looked at the bed and realized they should have made up the bedding to look like Alex was sleeping. Because, as soon as the pizza guy stepped in, he would know she wasn’t there. Then again, he would have a hard time going anyplace. It was either straight into the bedroom or over the balcony. And it was a decent jump. He’d probably make it without any broken bones, particularly if he’d done it a time or two. But he wouldn’t get far with Macklin right behind him.
A hand reached out for the gauze curtain as if to pull it back and step in. But he froze. Macklin forced his breathing to stop, and he waited. Sirens sounded in the distance, coming closer. He could hear their uninvited guest whisper, “Shit.”
There was an odd tone to the voice. One he didn’t quite understand. And his mind, although cataloging the differences, didn’t see it immediately. The hand withdrew. And the intruder stepped back on the little balcony and leaned over, as if to see where the sirens were coming from. He couldn’t see if they pulled into the apartment complex lot because it was on the other side of the building. What he couldn’t know was if he’d been seen or if Alex knew she had a visitor.
The big question right now was whether he would slip away or enter the bedroom. Macklin didn’t want to take a chance of him escaping. Yet he couldn’t see the intruder well from his position.
Just then Macklin heard noises on the far side of the apartment. Likely on the next balcony or one or two over.
Macklin could hear laughing and talking. Their visitor was now flattened against the outside of the sliding glass door, his back to the gauzy curtain as if hiding from the neighbors. After a few moments, the neighbors went back inside, their laughter and hilarity going inside with them. Macklin could almost feel the tension ease off the intruder’s shoulders. Just then the gauzy curtain was flung back, and the intruder stepped in. It took a moment to assess the bedding. As soon as he took another step, Macklin was on him. The man turned, tried to fight him off, hands swinging, feet kicking, but in control.
“Oh, you might have some self-defense moves, asshole,” Macklin muttered, “but you’re a hell of a long way from being smart enough, big enough, or fast enough to beat me.” And he dropped the intruder and pounced on him. He could feel the slimmer form fighting beneath him in desperation.
He looked at Alex and said, “Hit the lights.”
She raced to the bedroom light switch, turned on the overhead light. The intruder was wearing a full-on mask. She bent down, pulled it off, and laughed. “Hello, Andy.”
Andy glared up at her. “Bitch.”
Macklin stared down at Andy and realized what was wrong with the voice. With Andy’s hands pinned, Macklin sat up for a closer look and said, “If she’s a bitch, then so are you.”
Andy’s gaze pivoted to look at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
But this time Alex heard it too. She walked up to stand behind Macklin. “Well, well, well. Now that changes things entirely.”
She bent down to take a closer look at Andy’s face. “So, what’s Andy short for?”
But at this point Andy fell silent. She just glared up at the two of them.
Alex looked over at Macklin. “There’s no real doubt, is there?”
“She wears one of the best androgynous looks I’ve seen in a long time,” Macklin admitted. “But look at the clothing.”
And they both stared down at the T-shirt material twisted tight, showing a very soft faint female form.
He looked over at Alex. “Your Andy is definitely female.”
Chapter 14
Alex stared down at the woman struggling on the floor, spitting and hissing like a cat.
Finally she stopped struggling and glared up at the two of them. “You don’t know anything,” she said in a broken voice.
Alex squatted down beside her. She needed to call this in, but she wanted answers first.
“Then explain it to us. Right now, before we go to the station and you’re in a whole different environment. You explain it to us. I promise we’ll do our best to understand.”
“I’m Andi with an i, but prefer Andy with a y.” Andy stared up at the two of them. She looked over at Macklin and said, “She was obsessed with you. Had a bunch of pictures of you. At the coffee shop. At the gym. At a restaurant. Walking down the street. She had them hidden away. But I saw her once going through them, over and over again.”
Alex stared at Macklin, watched his body take the blow. And she realized maybe this wasn’t about Marsha as much as it was about where Marsha’s focus had been. The name Andi was the feminized version of Andy, and, with her looks, she could pull off the male persona. Not to mention any question on her name could be put down to a spelling error.
“And you loved Marsha, didn’t you?” Alex said.<
br />
Andi’s lower lip trembled. She nodded her head. “I’ve loved her since forever,” she admitted. “But, for the longest time, all she had was eyes for Macklin. She would tell me about him all the time. And I would listen and smile, and she would let me love her for a while. Then she’d get bad, and she’d forget about me, and she’d focus on him again.”
“But that changed, didn’t it?”
“Somewhat. She got better. The doctors changed her medications, and she didn’t see Macklin anymore. It seemed like maybe she would be okay,” Andi said. But the tears still ran down her eyes. “And I thought maybe it would be time for us then.”
Alex waited for the woman to collect her thoughts. She’d already sent a text to Lance, giving them a heads-up. They’d be here in about ten minutes. She didn’t want to push Andi, but Alex really wanted to get the story.
Finally Andi said, “And then she started to go out—with other men. Other women. It’s like she didn’t know who she was anymore, didn’t know what she wanted, didn’t know what she could have. She was like a child, sampling it all. At first, I was indulgent. It was fun to see her happier. It’s like she had a whole new lease on life. Then I realized it was the medications. And it wasn’t really her. She’d go from crazy, wild, energetic to mad and despondent. She became almost suicidal. I talked her into seeing her doctor. But she was on one of her upswings then, and she kept telling him everything was fine, and she was only there because I was worried.
“In reality, she only wanted me to be there when she wanted me there. I did all the cleaning. Kept everything nice and neat and perfect all the time so she’d be happy with me. But it was hard. And then we had a fight. She threw me out.” Andi started to bawl. “I didn’t want to leave. I’d loved her for so long I couldn’t imagine my life without her. But she told me that she didn’t love me. That she’d never loved me. I was just convenient—said she didn’t have to be alone. She didn’t have to look at herself and see her lonely life. If I was around, she was happier because, in her mind, she was better than me, so her life didn’t suck so bad.”
Alex winced at that. She could feel Macklin’s shock. But, at the same time, she sensed compassion in him.
“And then what happened?” Alex prodded gently.
“I packed up my stuff. It took a lot. I was moving it all to the door, then out to the car. And I came back to get the last load. She was sitting there, watching TV, drinking, eating, and I wanted to beg. I wanted to get down on my knees and beg her to keep me. To tell me not to go, to tell me that she loved me as much as I loved her. I stopped in front of her, and I went to open my mouth and say something, but she looked up at me and laughed and said, ‘You’re so pathetic.’
“I closed my mouth, walked to the bookshelf behind her, picked up the hammer she always kept there. I turned around, and I hit her. Just once but I hit her hard,” Andi said, her voice low, slowly calming. “I put everything I had into it. I could feel the bones fall away beneath the blow. And I knew she was done for. But I also knew it wasn’t enough. I knew she could survive. I wanted to keep hitting her. I wanted to keep pounding on her with the rage flowing through me, but I knew, I knew the cops would then think it was a crime of passion. And that I could get caught. So I laid her down, and I slit her throat.”
Macklin sat back ever-so-slightly. He was keeping an eye on the door to make sure Andi couldn’t run away. But it was as if he was distancing himself from the pain Marsha must have gone through. The pain Andi had gone through.
But finally they knew who had killed Marsha.
“And after that?” Alex asked. She kept her voice low, calm, quiet.
Andi sniffled several times and said, “And then I went out over the balcony. I walked around to my car and left.”
“Did you ever go back inside?”
She shook her head. “No. I didn’t. I wanted to, but I didn’t.”
“How is it you knew she was going out with all those other people?” Macklin asked. “Did you keep track of her or watch her?”
Almost shamefaced, Andi nodded. “I did, but, more than that, I went to some of the same parties where she hooked up with these other people.”
“And was it you who broke into the other houses?”
Andi nodded.
“Why those people?” Macklin asked. “Why those women?”
“Because Marsha talked about them. She talked about how pretty they were, and how she would take them too bed and show them what it meant to have a real lover,” she said on a sob. “She was crazy with it. We would go to a party, and she’d point out all these people. Sometimes we just walked past a house, and she’d point them out.”
“But you believed her?”
“Of course she believed her. There was no other reason to go to such lengths,” Alex said sadly.
“And, if that’s true,” Macklin added, “why the break-ins? You never assaulted the women. Even when you had a chance. The last one was out cold in front of you.”
Andi opened her tear-drenched eyes to stare up at the two of them. Her gaze was both pathetic and hopeless. And yet pleading for understanding. “They weren’t attractive to me. I couldn’t touch them. I wanted to hit them and hurt them. But I knew they were just people. They weren’t anybody I should be angry at. But I couldn’t forget Marsha’s mocking words. I broke into their houses, thinking maybe I’d find proof Marsha had been there. Instead I found myself wandering through their houses, jealous, wondering what it was like to be there with Marsha. Our perfect little family that I kept hoping and dreaming would happen. I kept going back. I went back to all the houses,” she admitted. “I don’t even know if Marsha slept with any of those women who lived there. She said she did, but she said anything and everything to get the attention she wanted.”
“But, even after she was dead, you went into more houses.” Alex sat back and watched Andi’s face splinter its features right in front of her. As if watching a mask disintegrate, a personality break into many pieces. “And left photos at one house?”
Andi nodded and choked out the words. “I couldn’t stop. It seemed to be the only connection I had left to Marsha. If I could just keep touching those houses, touching the people, be in their spaces, be close to them, that meant I was close to Marsha because she’d been there too.” She sniffled. “So I left pieces of Marsha, photos in one house, a little kitty knickknack in another—even though I took a beating at that house the one time. It made me feel closer to her… more connected.”
Alex winced at that. There’d been no word on any knickknacks found that shouldn’t have been there. Still, it could have been well-hidden. She’d have to talk to the owners in the morning. See if they could find it.
“You miss her, don’t you?” Macklin’s voice was so deep and so soft.
Alex smiled inside. He was such a good man, even when he was face-to-face with a woman who had murdered somebody he knew. He was just making the process easier for Andi.
Andi started to bawl uncontrollably. She curled into a fetal position and cried, “I loved her. I loved her. I loved her.”
Alex sat back and looked up at Macklin. There was such sadness and grief in his eyes. She gently stroked Andi’s hair. “Why Betty’s house? Why did you go to her house?”
“After Marsha kicked me out, and I had killed her, I had no place to go,” Andi admitted between choking tears. “I knew that house was empty. I’d been in there to look. It just seemed so much like a home that I stayed there. I fixed the camera feed so no one would know. I got the instructions off the internet. Sorry …” She hiccupped. “I needed to stay there. I needed a place that felt right. I didn’t have any money. I had been living with Marsha for most of the last year. But it wasn’t so good with us together. We were always broke, always high, always partying too much, and crying too much.” She lay there, taking great big gasping breaths. “I didn’t want to kill her. It hurts so much.”
In the distance Alex could hear sirens.
Andi shook visibly now.
“I’m going to jail, aren’t I?”
“Yes. Yes, you are. And there’ll be lots of questions and lots of interviews. But you’ll get through it.”
Andi stared at Alex through her tears. “I didn’t think you’d catch me. I figured, as long as I didn’t hurt anybody too bad, you wouldn’t care.”
“But you hurt Marsha,” Alex said quietly. “And you terrorized those other people.”
She started to bawl again. “I’m sorry.”
“When we get you to the police station, we’ll make sure to get you a lawyer, okay? And a doctor to examine you.”
“I think I need help.” Andi sobbed. “I just really want Marsha back.”
Alex nodded. She understood. For that was the one thing Andi would never get again.
*
Macklin, now fully dressed, watched as the police came in and escorted Andi out. Alex was busy talking with the officers. When she finally separated herself from the chaos, she came to him and said, “I have to go down to the station.”
He nodded. “And I’m going home and getting some sleep.”
She gently stroked his arm. “Thank you,” she said. “You were very good with her.”
His gaze followed the police car that left with Andi in the back. “The world is a safer place with her behind bars. But I think, in her own way, she is just as sick as Marsha.”
“I’m sure she was. But that’s for the lawyers and the doctors to sort out. My job was to take her off the streets and to let everybody know they are okay now. I’ve done that.”
He looked down at her and smiled, flicked a few strands of loose hair off her forehead, and said, “You’re very good at your job.”
She shook her head. “No. But I am learning.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Lunch tomorrow?”