The 22 Murders of Madison May

by Max Barry

  “I’ll put you through to Simon. One moment, please.”

  “Please don’t. I don’t want to talk to Simon.”

  “I’m not allowed to speak to the media.”

  She closed her eyes. “Alexandra, I know I’m not the first reporter to call. But Simon is giving us no comment, and what that means, Alexandra, is when this story goes up, Madison won’t have a face. She’ll be a name and an age, and that’s not enough for people to care. I want them to care, Alexandra. I want them to know who she was, so they can understand.” The line was silent. “I was at the house this afternoon. It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

  The receptionist exhaled. “Only clients called her Madison. She’s Maddie.”

  Felicity typed.

  “She was . . . She was going to be somebody one day. She was young and had a lot to learn, but she was learning it. She was on her way to something better.”

  “Thank you.”

  “She wanted to act,” the receptionist said suddenly. “She talked about taking acting classes once.”

  That was good detail. “Did she—”

  “Have the police arrested him?”

  Felicity hesitated. “They haven’t made any statement about a suspect.”

  “Clayton Hors,” the receptionist said, with venom. “We have his picture.”

  She hadn’t expected the receptionist to know that. “Did someone—”

  “Our system has their details. When they arrive on-site, the agent verifies them with the app.”

  “He left you his ID?”

  “His driver’s license. And when she met him on-site, Maddie took his picture. He let her take his picture and then he killed her.”

  Jesus Christ, she thought. She was momentarily unsure how to record that. She typed: MM pic of CH at house → app → office.

  Voices rose in the background. “I have to go. I hope you have what you need.”

  “Yes,” Felicity said. “Thank you.” The receptionist hung up without replying.

  * * *

  —

  She dutifully phoned Levi and filled him in. Then she set down her phone and got back to her real work, the kind that didn’t involve murdered real estate agents. No diary information yet from District Attorney Tom Daniels, the protector of well-heeled rich boys, so she typed out an email, just to let him know that she intended on making herself annoying. Her recycling story hadn’t been reassigned and hadn’t gone anywhere, she discovered, so she picked it back up. She worked for ninety minutes, and every five had to resist the temptation to check whether Levi had filed.

  He let her take his picture and then he killed her.

  That was really awful. All of a sudden, Felicity decided not to check the News. She was off the clock; her boyfriend would soon be home; she would do something wholesome. She went to the kitchen and searched the cupboards for something cookable.

  Gavin arrived at seven, as she was scraping green paste out of a pot. His face contorted in alarm. It had not been a happy cooking experience. “What’s wrong?”

  “This is disgusting,” she said.

  “What is?”

  “This,” she said, dumping the pot into the sink. “I wanted to cook, but the sauce is foul.” It stuck to the side of the pot. She had burned it. It was half leftovers to begin with. She hadn’t even made it from scratch.

  He came and put his arms around her. “What’s the matter?”

  She rested her head on him. He was tall and huggable. He was a lawyer; not the exciting kind, a lawyer for patents. A dependable lawyer. He worked for Heron Law Group, a medium-sized firm specializing in corporate telecommunications disputes. He had sandy hair and a nice smell. She enjoyed that for a few moments.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Just a rough day.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “No,” she said, deciding. She didn’t want to talk about murder anymore.

  “Are you sure?”

  She looked at her sad pot. On the stove, pasta was bubbling, useless without sauce. “We should order takeout.”

  “Well, wait,” Gavin said. “Let me try that.” There was some sauce left in the pot, and he spooned a sample into his mouth. She watched him roll it around and swallow. “Fuck,” he said. “This is disgusting.”

  “I know.”

  “Did you put something in that?”

  “Salt. Garlic. Some random spices.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I wanted to cook.”

  “Let’s get Thai,” he said, and she nodded.

  * * *

  —

  They ate at the table: no Netflix, no phones. Gavin told her a story about work, some patent-related process of discovery, which involved filings, rulings, and a transmission protocol that was maybe one thing or maybe something else. He had an incredible ability to be absorbed by the mundane, Felicity had learned, during the three years they had been together since the Goofy-pen incident. He was easily content. Felicity had struggled with this for a while, because it was hard to believe him when he said that he didn’t care what they watched, or where they went. She used to peer at him and say things like, So I could put on Bridesmaids and you’d be totally fine with that, and he would nod, and she would glance at him throughout the movie, seeking any hint of deceit, but it was true: He could be happy almost anywhere, with anything, no matter what was happening. He was four years older than her, approaching thirty-seven, so maybe this was the kind of equanimity that came with age, and when Felicity was thirty-seven, she, too, would possess a quiet, mature big-picture perspective, a contentment with the world around her and with her place within it. As opposed to now, when it seemed like almost everything was either terrible or in the process of being made that way by entrenched assholes, while nobody gave a shit.

  Toward the end of the meal, her phone dinged. She glanced at it. An email notification, sender Levi Waskiewicz, subject crime scene pics.

  “What is it?” Gavin said.

  What would Levi want her to do with crime scene pics? Look them over? See if they triggered anything?

  She shook her head. She would not look at those tonight, she decided. “Nothing.”

  “Good.” He set down his fork. “Want to go to bed?”

  She raised her eyebrows. There were disemboweled tubs everywhere. It was barely eight-thirty. “Yes.”

  “Good,” he said again. He pushed back his chair and came to help her out of hers, like a gentleman. They kissed. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how much she needed it, and she kissed him back hungrily. He began to unbutton her blouse. She bit his lip, just hard enough to make it interesting. “Nmf,” he said, a sound she had always liked. She inhaled him and there was more after that.

  * * *

  —

  Afterward, she brushed her teeth. The whole time, her phone sat on the bedside table, dark and inert. She was very aware of it. But she didn’t look at it. She returned to bed and read a novel, a paper one, while Gavin lay beside her, scrolling work on a tablet. Then she turned off her lamp and rolled over. At some point, Gavin kissed her shoulder, and the room went dark.

  She lay awake for a long time. I saw the crime scene firsthand, she thought. Whatever Levi sent, it can’t be worse.

  But it could, of course. Would Levi send her corpse pictures?

  He might. He was a crime reporter. They had ghoulish senses of humor, like doctors.

  Just get a sense of what’s there. You don’t have to look right at it. Get a peek and stop wondering.

  She extracted herself from bed. Gavin was a deep sleeper; he didn’t move. She closed the bedroom door and padded into the living room. Percival was on the sofa, a vague white ball against dark fabric. The table was striped with slatted streetlight from the vertical blinds.

  She went
to the sink and poured herself a glass of water, to give herself time to make sure she really wanted to do this. Then she sat at the table and opened her phone. Levi’s email was second down, beneath a gym promotion. She held her phone at arm’s length and squinted so it was out of focus.

  The first pic was an exterior of the house; she could tell that. She scrolled. Another exterior shot, this time with more of the street. Next, a room. The room. Her sense was that it was geometrical: floor and walls; no desperate lump; no body. The next was similar. She worked her way through twelve photos this way, and none of them were of Maddie.

  She exhaled. She scrolled to the top and began to review the pictures properly. The only text was a brusque fyi, so presumably Levi merely wanted to know if anything jumped out at her, a detail they might include in a follow-up. Because there were sure to be follow-ups. If the clicks came through like she expected, there would be many.

  She spotted the detective, McHenry, in the second exterior shot, standing with his mouth open and his eyebrows raised, like he’d thought of something good to say to the other cops and was waiting for the chance to get it out. In the background, she spied herself, blurred but recognizable, behind the police tape. Waiting for McHenry. Beside her was the woman she’d spoken to, as well as the man Felicity had presumed was her husband, the woodsman in the cap.

  She peered at the screen. She spread her fingers, making the man’s face balloon on her screen.

  He was younger than she’d thought at the time. Late thirties. Dark eyes, partially hidden beneath his cap, which was pulled down hard. Above the brim was a logo, a fuzzy circle that struck her as vaguely familiar—

  No, she thought.

  She scrolled to the despoiled wall. The word, STOP, and the strange insignia.

  The woodsman’s cap was horribly out of focus. She couldn’t be sure. But they were similar. They were very, very similar.

  She dialed Levi. He answered on the fifth ring, right before she was sure she was headed to voicemail. “Hello?” His voice was thick with sleep.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “It’s after midnight.”

  “Sorry. I just saw something in the pictures you sent me. The crime scene photos.” She explained about the man and his cap.

  “Hold on,” Levi said. “I’m getting my laptop.”

  She waited.

  “Second pic? House, lawn, cops?”

  “Yes. We’re behind the tape. Right side.”

  There was a long silence.

  “The bearded guy,” she said. “Zoom in on his cap.”

  “I’m not even sure he has a beard. He’s fifty feet out of focus.”

  “He was right beside me.”

  “You remember what his cap looked like?”

  “No. I wasn’t paying attention to the guy in the cap.”

  He exhaled. “It’s late. You’re seeing things that aren’t there.”

  “Are there other photos? Maybe there’s a better shot.”

  “I’ll check tomorrow.”

  “Can you check now?”

  “Let’s say you’re right,” Levi said. “It’s the same logo. It doesn’t have to mean anything. It could be a baseball team our guy hates. It could be a burger chain. Life is full of coincidences.”

  She held the phone, unwilling to say: I guess.

  There was a rustle of bedding. Levi was divorced. She presumed he slept alone, dreaming of Annalise from Ad Sales. “Felicity, I get that you’re eager to see justice done. I was the same, before this job kicked all the humanity out of me. But the police will get there. They already know who did it.”

  “Have they made an arrest?”

  “I don’t know, because it’s one in the morning. We’ll pick this up tomorrow. Today.”

  She couldn’t argue any longer. “All right.”

  “I led with the quote you got from her office, did you see? It was good. But you don’t need to come at this at a hundred miles per hour.”

  “Okay. Thanks. Sorry for waking you.”

  “Forget it.” He snickered. “You’re getting a taste for it. For crime.”

  It was more that she was really disgusted by this particular case. “Maybe.”

  “Careful. It’s hard to get out of it, once you’re in. Good night, Felicity.”

  She stayed at the table for a minute. The Daily News app icon was on-screen and she eyed it. Then she tapped. And there it was: the photo of Maddie May, the one she’d seen on the Henshaw Realty website.

  WOMAN, 22, SLAIN IN “AMBUSH” WHILE SHOWING HOUSE

  She opened the story. Inside were words she’d collected from the receptionist. The article was last updated six hours earlier, which meant no one on the night crew had heard anything worth adding. No news of any arrest.

  Something brushed against her ankle. Percival, her brave cat, had grown tired of waiting for her to join him on the sofa. She lifted him onto her lap and stroked him, feeling him rumble. Outside, a car slewed through the rain-soaked street. She carried Percival back to the sofa and returned to her own bed. This time she slept.

  * * *

  —

  She woke too early and went for a run in Prospect Park. Her eyeballs felt gritty. She drank coffee before she left for the newsroom, then poured another in the break room when she arrived. She had a budget meeting at eight-thirty and spent it staring through the glass wall at Levi, wondering if he’d told the police about the man in the cap.

  “Felicity,” said Brandon, and she blinked. “Late night?”

  She frowned and tried to focus on the topic at hand, which was whether the Queens comptroller was actually going to run for mayor or just making a lot of noise about it like usual.

  “Have a coffee,” Brandon said.

  She didn’t need a third, but made it anyway. When the meeting broke up, she wended through the desks to Levi, who was on the phone, his feet up, his laptop open. “I have a call in to DeLuca about your cap theory,” he said, hanging up and swinging his shoes to the carpet. “Should hear back this morning.”

  “Can you let me know when you do?”

  “Sure.”

  “Still no arrest?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  Levi shrugged slightly. “Their suspect has gone to ground. Shouldn’t take long with someone like him, though. They’ll nab him later today, most likely.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said. She returned to her desk, from where she could see him typing, staring at the window, and making calls. Twice he got up and moved around the office: once to talk to Melinda Gaines; once to stand in the corner with his phone for no apparent reason.

  She had to go to the bathroom, because of the coffee. Each time, she worried she’d return to Levi’s empty desk, his jacket missing from the hook. Finally, as the terrible clock hammered out twelve-thirty, Annalise from Ad Sales bounced into the newsroom, which meant Levi was about to disappear. Felicity rolled her chair across before Annalise could get there.

  They smiled wanly at each other. There was a blob of mascara on Annalise’s eyelashes, but Felicity didn’t say anything. “So true,” Levi said to his phone. “You get no argument from me there.”

  “Felicity, isn’t it?” Annalise said.

  “Yes,” she said. “Annalise.”

  Levi was looking at her significantly. This was the call, she realized: He had Deputy Inspector DeLuca on the other end. “One more thing. One of the girls in our office was looking through the photos and thought she saw your murder-wall logo on a cap worn by one of your looky-loos.” A pause. “Ahh . . . it’s thirty-eight. The wide shot. Yeah. Right at the back.” More silence. Levi laughed. “Hey, I passed it along. I’m being a good citizen.” DeLuca said something else and Levi laughed again. “I’ll hold you to that,�
� Levi said, and hung up.

  Felicity stared at him.

  “Levi, can I borrow you for a minute?” Annalise said.

  But Levi was looking at Felicity. “What?”

  She was so furious she could hardly speak. There were so many things wrong with what had just happened. “What was that?”

  “I passed along your tip.”

  “You didn’t say I was there. That I saw the cap myself. Not just in the photo.”

  “You weren’t supposed to be there. I don’t want DeLuca knowing his office is leaking. And you didn’t see it. You only think you did.”

  “You said it like it was a joke.”

  “Felicity, that’s how these guys are. I tell them how to do their jobs, they get their backs up. This way, they can pick it up like it’s their own idea.”

  This didn’t make her feel any better. She turned and walked away in disgust. Then she came back. “I’m not a girl in your office. I’m a reporter.”

  “I know that. I was playing to the cheap seats.”

  “All of that was bullshit,” she said, and walked away for real. She had attracted attention from Todd the intern and Melinda Gaines the future social media manager and all the other hacks scratching away at their keyboards like it ever made a difference. Levi’s chair creaked, which probably meant he was preparing to leave for his lunchtime rogering. Annalise murmured feisty, or something like that, maybe it wasn’t that at all, but the tone was condescending and set Felicity’s blood to bursting in her brain. She felt like going back and shouting that someone had died, a woman had gone to show a house and been stabbed to death, but people died all the time and no one really cared. So she made herself keep walking all the way out the door.

  * * *

  —

  There was a deli two blocks away run by a Turkish family who served amazing pide bread and occasionally screamed at one another across the counter. Today was Tuesday, which meant the tables were dominated by arts college students, filling the air with insistent, laugh-punctuated chatter, making Felicity feel a hundred years old. She had been like them, not too long ago. Young and dumb and thrusting herself into the world in bright, optimistic forays. Now she was stuck under a clock in an industry that was starving to death, writing stories about people who did bad things yet rarely suffered consequences. Sometimes she wondered if she’d taken a wrong turn somewhere, because this wasn’t the life she’d imagined for herself, but then again, maybe not, because it wasn’t so terrible, what she had here, with her semi-respected job and her ability to lunch alone at a Manhattan deli in the middle of the day.