A Stranger on the Beach

by Michele Campbell

  A strange calm settled over the house. The wind died down completely, and the rain stopped with the suddenness of a faucet shutting off. Time seemed to stop, as I turned to see Aidan and Jason, struggling over the gun.

  In the eerie silence, a shot rang out, deafening and final. Jason grunted and crumpled to the floor. Thick crimson blood blossomed on his shirt and spread in a shiny pool out from his body. I saw the light fade from in his eyes, and in that moment, I realized how much I loved him, and how I would live the rest of my life in the horror of this moment. A scream that I couldn’t imagine was inside me rose into the air.

  “Shut up,” Aidan said. “This was your idea. You wanted it.”

  “No,” I whispered, and I was sobbing.

  I tried to kneel beside my husband, but Aidan shoved me away.

  “Yes, you did. You said you wanted him dead.”

  “I did not. I never said that.”

  “Try telling that to the cops. You’re in the middle of a divorce. You wanted all the money. You’re the one with the motive to shoot him, not me. I only did what you asked.”

  “It’s not true. And you shot him. It’s your gun.”

  “Nobody knows that. People will believe me. If you don’t want to fry for this crime, you better help me clean up the mess. Help me get him to my truck. We’ll dump him in the ocean. In this storm, he’ll get washed out to sea. They’ll never find him.”

  “No!”

  My face was wet, with rain, with tears. I started pummeling Aidan with my fists. He laughed and shoved me away again, but I came back at him. His face went dark.

  “Enough. Stop it.”

  “No!”

  He reeled back, raising his hand. I saw the silver flash of the gun coming toward me. Pain exploded in my head. The world went black, and I was in hell.

  after the storm

  45

  Aidan woke with the taste of metal in his mouth and the worst headache he’d had in his life. Flies buzzed around his face, and a bright light shone in his eyes. It was the beam of a flashlight, he realized, used purposely to blind him. What the hell? He squinted and saw that he was in the front seat of his truck. The light felt like it was splitting his head apart, and a bitch of a hangover was making him nauseous. The windows were rolled down, and rain was coming in, but it stank to high heaven in the truck, like something had died in here. The seat was wet and slick. Someone pounded on the driver’s-side door, and he winced at the sound as it reverberated inside his skull. But that made him look out the window, and he was astonished to see two guns pointed at his forehead.

  “Put your hands up and get out of the truck.”

  He couldn’t see their faces because of the blinding flashlight beam. But from the voice he knew Mike Castro was out there.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Both hands up or we shoot! Now!”

  He raised his other hand.

  “You open the door then,” he said.

  God, the smell. He looked down at himself, and he was covered in blood. That’s why the seat was wet, not from the rain. Blood, everywhere. What the hell was happening? He started to shake, and his breath came in shallow gasps. Mike popped the door, and Aidan fell over himself trying to get out, to get away from all the blood. Was it his own?

  “What happened?” he said, and his bowels felt liquid.

  So much blood. Was he shot? He went to touch his stomach to look for the wound, and Mike tackled him to the ground and cuffed his hands behind him.

  “Stop it! What the fuck, Mike. I’m hurt.”

  Mike patted him down roughly.

  “What did you reach for? Where’s the gun? Is it on you?”

  “I don’t have a gun. I saw the blood and freaked. Did I get shot?”

  There was sand under Aidan’s face and in his mouth. He spit it out. They were on a beach. But which beach, and how the hell did his truck get here? It was daylight, early morning. It rained steadily, and the sand was wet and soggy. The remnants of the hurricane. Was that last night? It felt like a hundred years ago. But what had happened between then and now?

  “The weapon isn’t on him. Wayne, search the truck,” Mike said.

  Mike’s knee was in Aidan’s back, unrelenting, like he wanted to cause pain.

  “Please, can you ease up?” Aidan said. “I think I might be cut or something.”

  But Mike pressed harder, which made Aidan panic for real. He couldn’t breathe and thought he might black out. He couldn’t believe this was actually happening. Was this real, or a nightmare?

  “Follow protocol,” Mike said, but he wasn’t talking to Aidan. “Wear your gloves. This is a crime scene. The gun could be loaded.”

  Crime scene. Weapon. What the fuck? What day was it? What had happened? His mind was a fog. He remembered being at Tommy’s house, boarding up windows, the storm closing in. Kelly making him soup, making up the couch. Then Caroline called. He went to her house, and she let him in. He held her in his arms. They danced to Sinatra, and it was beautiful.

  Was that real? Or did he dream it?

  “Shouldn’t we call the chief?”

  That was Wayne Johnson’s voice. Aidan tried to look up, but Mike shoved his head back down, and he took another mouthful of sand.

  “No. He’s not getting away with this, like he did with the Bostick kid.”

  Bostick. Matthew. Was Aidan being punished for what happened back then? Mike had always hated him over that. But to the point where he’d frame him? And frame him for what? What gun? Whose blood?

  “Not even a courtesy call?” Wayne said.

  “I’m the senior officer on the scene, and I say we handle this by the book. Look in the car, use the gloves. Once we know what we have, we’ll call the chief, and if it’s what I think, we’ll call in the staties, too. Chief’s gonna have to recuse himself.”

  “All right, but if the boss gets pissed, I’m blaming you. I’m not taking the heat for this.”

  “You’re a stand-up guy, Johnson.”

  “I’m loyal to the man who hired me. And I don’t have a chip on my shoulder about Junior here the way you do.”

  “Do what I say.”

  Listening to them talk, Aidan felt bile rise in his throat. He vomited a little into the sand under his face and lay there with his nose in it, his chest constricted with panic. His hands tingled and went numb from the cuffs. He tried desperately to remember how he got here. Bits and pieces came back to him. The pounding on the door as they danced in the storm. The look of fear on Caroline’s face. There was something important there. He followed the train of thought, and then he knew—the husband had shown up to interrupt their beautiful moment. Aidan saw the words scratched into her car. DIE BITCH. He remembered Stark meeting with that thug out in Queens. He’d vowed to protect Caroline from her husband. He remembered a flash of anger like a white heat, the overpowering urge to fight. He was going to come around from behind and jump the guy, beat him bloody. He remembered stumbling out into the storm, the wind and rain on his face. Then his mind went blank. Whose blood was on his hands? Was it Stark’s? What had he done?

  “What did I do?” he said aloud.

  Mike released the pressure on Aidan’s back. He felt stupidly grateful for the sensation of air in his lungs, like he loved Mike for not torturing him anymore. Mike knelt down beside him and spoke into Aidan’s ear in a calm, reasonable voice.

  “You want to tell me, kid? Confession is good for the soul. What did you do? Did you shoot someone? Kill somebody? You can tell me.”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure,” Aidan said, and then he squeezed his eyes shut. He was trying to see what happened after he went outside. But all he saw was the rain.

  “Think about it. Tell me what you remember.”

  “Can I talk to my brother?”

  “Talk to me, Aidan. We go back. I’ve known you since you were a kid.”

  This was a trick. Mike Castro was not his friend. Mike lived down the street from the Bosticks. The Bosticks bl
amed Aidan for Matthew’s death. Mike thought Tommy rigged the case, making it so Aidan barely did any time. But that wasn’t true. Aidan was blameless. He didn’t sleep with Matthew’s girlfriend. He didn’t pick a fight to impress Samantha. He didn’t throw the first punch. Matthew did that. Yet Aidan’s life got ruined. He got punished worse than he deserved. He went to jail. He missed out on going to college. He couldn’t get a decent job. All that suffering, and Mike still couldn’t forgive him. Mike resented Tommy, too, and coveted his job. He’d love to see Tommy fired and Aidan locked up for good, whether he deserved it or not. Maybe this was some kind of frame-up job. Then again, there was the real possibility that Aidan had murdered Jason Stark in cold blood and didn’t remember. Aidan was covered in blood. So much blood that someone must have died. If this was a frame job based on Mike Castro’s grudge against him, Mike would have actually had to kill somebody to make it look right. That made no sense. Aidan knew Mike, and he knew himself. Mike was a straight arrow, a rule-follower. If Aidan had to put money on one of them being a killer, he’d definitely pick himself.

  If he killed Jason Stark, he was in deep shit.

  “I need to talk to Tommy,” Aidan said.

  “He’s not here.”

  “Then I want a lawyer,” Aidan said.

  “If that’s how you’re gonna play it, shithead,” Mike said, and put his knee on Aidan’s back again.

  A pair of boots marched over to them.

  “The inside of the truck is covered in blood,” Wayne said. “Like, drenched. I don’t see a weapon from a visual inspection. You want me to start ripping the truck apart?”

  The wind was picking up, and the rain coming down harder. Aidan shivered on the wet ground.

  “No. Secure the vehicle and get it towed right away. We don’t want to risk losing evidence to the elements out here. The forensics team can finish the search.”

  “What do we do with Junior?”

  “We bring him in.”

  “On what charge?”

  “Murder. What do you think?” Mike said, and then he hauled Aidan to his feet. “You have the right to remain silent.…”

  46

  Aidan shivered in the holding cell. They’d brought him in and fingerprinted him and made him recite his information. Name, address, date of birth, et cetera, even though every person in that station knew him for years. None of them would meet his eyes. They took his mug shot and photographed every square inch of him, so they’d have proof that he was drenched in blood when he was found. His hands, his face, his clothes, even his boots were full of it, and the stench was in his nostrils. They took samples of his own blood, swabbed DNA from his cheek, scraped under his fingernails. Everything was carefully sealed and catalogued. They took his clothes for evidence, folding them away in brown paper bags because that preserved the bodily fluids best. An officer he poured drinks for on Friday nights took him in a back room and made him squat for a body cavity search, then handed him a set of thin, scratchy prison blues that did nothing to keep out the cold.

  And now he was alone in this cell, drained and shaky and confused about his own guilt. He’d washed up at a sink after the processing, but the smell of the blood was still on him. Jason Stark’s blood? He honestly didn’t remember shooting Caroline’s husband. But he remembered wanting to kill him. And he remembered waking up covered in blood. You do the math. If he wasn’t a killer, where did all the blood come from?

  This was as bad as anything that had ever happened to him, and a lot of bad things had happened in his life. But Tommy had never abandoned him before, no matter how much trouble he’d been in. Ever since their father died, Tommy was there, the one constant in Aidan’s life, the guiding light. But not now. Aidan had been at his brother’s station house for hours, repeatedly asked to see him, and Tommy had not appeared. Aidan couldn’t blame him. He deserved to be abandoned. He hadn’t appreciated his brother’s support when he had it. Whining, complaining, rejecting help, resisting advice. Well, now he’d gotten his wish. Tommy was off his back. And he’d never felt so alone. He reached up to touch the St. Christopher medal his brother had given him, but it was gone—confiscated, sealed in a plastic bag, to be returned when he got out. If he got out.

  He wondered where Caroline was right now. She must know what happened last night. She was there. That much he remembered. Their beautiful dance, he’d never forget. How much had she seen, and how did she feel about him now—after that? Whatever he’d done was done out of love for her. But she wouldn’t understand. She’d be too horrified. The crime must have been brutal to spill so much blood. Mike Castro thought so. Tommy probably did, too, or else he’d be here now. Caroline would curse his name. She’d asked him to kill her husband. He’d been shocked. He’d refused. But after all that, had he done it anyway? And if he had, would she hate him, rather than thanking him? Would she tell? Turn state’s evidence against him? He wouldn’t blame her if she did.

  An alert sounded, and the door between the cellblock and the rest of the station swung open. Wayne Johnson stepped into the hallway, holding a pair of manacles. He opened the cell door and came toward Aidan.

  “Step all the way to the back, please.”

  Wayne cuffed Aidan’s hands in front of him, then led him through two sets of locked doors and down a hallway to a brightly lit interview room. It was cramped, with dingy beige carpeting, and smelled of disinfectant. Aidan sat down, and Wayne attached his manacles to a hook on the metal desk. The desk was bolted to the floor.

  “Wait here,” he said, as if Aidan had any choice in the matter. Then he stepped out, and the key turned in the lock.

  Aidan heard voices in the hall. One of them was Tommy’s, and his stomach flipped. He longed to see his brother yet dreaded facing him. But when the door opened, the person who walked in was a woman he’d never seen before. Tall and regal, with dark hair, dramatically cut, wearing a sharp black business suit and sky-high heels. She shook Aidan’s manacled hand vigorously.

  “I’m Lisa Walters. I’m here to represent you.”

  “You’re the public defender?”

  “No. Your family hired me.”

  “My family?”

  “Your brother.”

  Aidan huffed out a shocked breath, then pressed his knuckles to his eyes, which were strangely wet all of a sudden. He couldn’t believe Tommy would pony up for this sharp defense lawyer, after everything. He still thought Aidan was worth saving. Too bad Aidan didn’t believe that himself.

  “You can go with the PD if you prefer,” she said. “But I’ll tell you straight up, you’d be making a mistake. I’m better. Chief Callahan knows me from prior cases and has enough confidence in me to pay my not insubstantial fee.”

  “Whatever Tommy thinks is good enough for me, ma’am,” Aidan said. “I’m surprised, though. I figured he washed his hands of me.”

  “I can’t speak for your brother, but if he’s paying my bill, he must care. You should know, he’s in a delicate position. His own brother is accused of a brutal murder in his jurisdiction. That’s a conflict of interest if ever I saw one. The state police are stepping in, with an assist from the arresting officer, who was…” She perched ruby-red reading glasses on her nose and flipped open a notebook. “Deputy Michael Castro. They’ll be watching Castro like a hawk to make sure he doesn’t cut you any breaks.”

  “No worries there. Mike hates my guts.”

  “Hmm, that’s not good, but I’ll make a note of it. Personal grudge. We can use it to undermine his credibility when he testifies against you. Okay, now. I’m going to ask you not to say anything about guilt or innocence until I explain the process, okay?”

  Aidan nodded. “You’re the expert.”

  “Good. I like a client who listens. The state has forty-eight hours from the time of arrest to bring you before a judge and charge you. If they don’t charge you in that time, they have to cut you loose. Right now, as I understand it, this case is based on a single witness. A woman named Caroline Stark claims
that she witnessed you kill her husband last night. Do you know her?”

  Aidan gasped. “Caroline says I did it? Shit. Maybe I did. See—”

  The lawyer held up her hand.

  “Stop right there. I’ll take that as yes, you know her, then you close your mouth. Only speak in response to specific questions. I’m going to give you a big, important rule here. Do. Not. Confess. Got that? There’s plenty of time for confession later. It’s early days of the case right now, and I’d like to keep your options open. If you confess to me, I won’t tell anyone, because it’s covered by attorney-client privilege. But ethics rules would prevent me from continuing to represent you if you later decide to take the stand and testify that you’re innocent. Got it? I don’t have to tell on you, but I can’t help you lie. And that would be a problem for you, because I’m the lawyer you want in your corner. So, keep your guilt or innocence to yourself until I get a handle on this case, okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good. Now. Based on the bare-bones information given to me by Deputy Castro, Mrs. Stark claims—and this is only what she claims, doesn’t make it true—that you broke into her mansion on the bluff last night and shot her husband in the stomach. She claims you told her you planned to dump his body in the ocean. You pistol-whipped her. She lost consciousness. When she woke up—”

  “Whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. There’s a couple problems with that. One, I don’t own a gun. And two, I would never hurt Caroline. Never in a million years.”