The Perfect Stranger

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  Including me.

  There must be very few ­people on this earth who after taking someone’s life wouldn’t spend the immediate aftermath, at least, endlessly replaying the scenario.

  But even now, days later, the events of Saturday night are inescapable; a relentless mental movie set on a continuous play loop.

  Crickets chirping.

  Silver sliver of moon.

  Aching legs, after all this time crouched in the bushes clutching the cast iron pan wrapped in a towel. It’s a small pan, but it weighs enough, brought down with enough force, to crush a skull.

  A bag, stashed nearby, contains a ­couple of new pillows and an orange and yellow bedspread identical to the one Meredith wrote about on her blog, conveniently including a photo and mentioning that she’d bought it at Macy’s.

  All the lights in the house extinguish one by one until everything is dark except a pair of bedroom windows.

  It seems safe, after a reasonable wait, to make a move and slip into the kitchen. Safer than waiting outside, where someone from a neighboring house might spot the shadowy figure in the yard and call the police.

  Get inside. Go. It’s time.

  Open the folding knife, the one with the tortoiseshell handle.

  Slice through the screen.

  Crawl through the window.

  Tiptoe, tiptoe, across the linoleum, one measured step at a time.

  No turning back now.

  But wait!

  Footsteps overhead.

  Creaking stairs.

  Move back toward the window to escape.

  Don’t run. Slow and steady, slow and steady.

  The footsteps have stopped.

  Meredith has paused halfway down the stairs. Why? Does she sense something?

  Wait . . .

  Wait . . .

  Footsteps again, descending.

  Meredith comes into the kitchen, turns on the light above the sink, opens cupboards . . .

  Don’t move. Don’t breathe.

  Stay in the shadowy corner of the room, hiding in plain sight, a turtle lurking beneath its shell on a rocky landscape.

  Wait . . .

  Wait . . .

  Meredith turns.

  But she doesn’t see. She isn’t wearing her glasses.

  She goes back up the stairs.

  Wait . . .

  Wait . . .

  At last, there hasn’t been any movement overhead for at least an hour, probably longer.

  Only then is it safe to creep up the stairs clutching the towel-­wrapped cast iron pan, a weapon chosen after careful research because it would have been, should have been, merciful.

  Not as merciful, generally speaking, as an injection that would simply stop her heart from beating, but that would be needlessly cruel. Meredith hates needles.

  Not as merciful, either, as a simple gunshot to the head, but . . .

  I don’t have a gun. And I can’t get one—­legally or illegally—­without involving someone else.

  And so, in the grand scheme of things, this was the best choice. An everyday household object as a weapon.

  Flashlight beam swings across the shadowy bedroom.

  Meredith, lying in her bed with her eyes closed.

  She appears to be sleeping . . .

  I thought she was sleeping! Really, I did! But she surprised me—­again.

  Meredith’s eyes open.

  Only for a fleeting second, perhaps just long enough to see a human shadow standing over her, but . . .

  There’s a chance that she saw me. That she knew.

  Even if she saw, though, there would have been no time for her to comprehend.

  It’s over in the next second.

  The towel swishes over her head, her face . . .

  Not for the purpose of covering her eyes, but to contain the inevitable spatters caused by the pan crashing down on her skull.

  Blunt force trauma to the head.

  She isn’t dead yet. Just unconscious. She has a faint pulse when she’s moved to the floor.

  The towel comes off and the job is swiftly finished with another strategic blow.

  It had to happen, and yet . . .

  It’s hard to see her lying there like that when it was over. So hard . . .

  But there’s no time for remorse.

  The plan. Stick to the plan.

  It can’t appear as if she’d been attacked in her bed while she was sleeping. No ordinary robber would do something like that. That would be a red flag for the police that the motive for the break-­in had been murder.

  It has to look as though Meredith interrupted a robbery, provoked the intruder.

  The headboard is clean, thanks to the towel, but the bedding has to be changed.

  The sheets are replaced with a clean set from the cedar chest at the foot of the bed. A brand new pillow and identical bedspread—­purchased just yesterday at Macy’s—­are swapped for the slightly bloodied bedding. There’s a small spot of blood on the mattress, too, but bleach takes care of that.

  When they investigate, they’ll have no reason to strip off the spotless sheets and test the mattress for blood, will they?

  Will they?

  Too late to second-­guess now.

  The plan. Stick to the plan.

  The soiled bedding is hastily packed into a garbage bag, to be tossed into a Dumpster a hundred miles away.

  The final touch: a new necklace to replace the thin silver chain visible beneath the open placket of Meredith’s nightgown. That one had a heart-­shaped locket with a photo of her three children when they were young.

  It’s tempting to leave it on, but that might arouse suspicion. Meredith conveniently informed the blogosphere that she always sleeps in her jewelry, but two necklaces?

  No, she just needs one.

  For good luck.

  “It’s going to be okay. You’ll be at peace now, and someday we’ll see each other again . . .”

  Off comes the locket. It goes into a bag, along with the contents of the jewelry box on the bureau, and—­of course—­her laptop and phone.

  Those are key. The files need to be purged of any damaging evidence, communication that might prove incriminating down the road, if things don’t go according to plan.

  The plan.

  Jewelry . . . electronics . . .

  What else might a burglar want to steal?

  There aren’t many valuables in this modest household.

  Slowly, steadily, the crime scene is staged.

  Slow . . .

  Steady . . .

  At last, it’s over.

  Only now are nagging details popping up, triggering second thoughts.

  Only now does the necklace left around Meredith’s neck, with its small cameo made of delicate tortoiseshell, seem like a bad idea.

  It was a vintage piece. Rare. Valued by collectors.

  Only the most discerning eye would know that, but still . . .

  It was a risk, leaving that final gift behind with Meredith.

  Looking back, perhaps it was a foolish one.

  But it was a risk I had to take. I had to protect her.

  And now . . .

  Now I have to protect myself.

  “We Need to Go Beyond a Cure. We Need to Stop ­People from Ever Getting Breast ­Cancer in the First Place.”

  The title of this post is a quote from Dr. Susan Love. Fitting, because today, October 1, the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation is launching HOW, the Health of Women Study. A worldwide, long-­term online study open to women and men eighteen years and older with or without breast cancer. By compiling and studying answers to questions about one’s health, family, job, and other topics, researchers will gain a better understanding of breast cancer and its
possible causes.

  By registering online at HOW you can help put awareness into action. There is no cost or permanent obligation. Once registered, you’ll receive periodic questionnaires that you can fill out at your convenience. If you’d rather not participate at any point, you can opt out of further communication. There’s no down side. Your privacy is protected and your answers may contribute to the future prevention of breast cancer.

  For the most part, breast cancer takes us by the hand and leads us down a path of its own choosing. We stare it down with treatment and surgery, hoping for many more years, but by participating in HOW, we’re doing something more than waiting.

  We’re actively helping researchers figure out a way to stop breast cancer once and for all.

  So no one need look over their shoulder ever again.

  —­Excerpt from Jaycee’s blog, PC BC

  Chapter 5

  It’s been a long day and a longer night, with Rob golfing after work and the kids out of the house. They both left right after gobbling down the pizza Landry ordered for dinner. She herself couldn’t eat a thing. Her stomach has been churning all day.

  After rattling around the place alone for a few hours, unable to lose herself in mindless housework, magazines, or TV, she decides to see if a good book might make her forget about Meredith for a little while.

  Curled up in the corner of the living room, in a lamplit overstuffed reading chair, she picks up the e-­reader Rob and the kids bought her for her birthday in March.

  Until then she’d resisted digital books, insisting that she preferred to hold good old-­fashioned bound paper pages in her hands.

  “Come on, Mom, get with it. You’ve learned how to do everything else electronically. You’re even blogging!” Addison pointed out. “You’ve come a long way from the person who couldn’t figure out how to check our elementary school homework assignments online.”

  That was true. And while she continues to buy print books as well, she’s been surprised to find that the electronic device has come in handy for reading in bed on restless nights or when Rob turns out the light earlier than she’d like. Even better, it allowed her to pack a pile of beach reads into her carry-­on for Easter week in Playa Del Carmen.

  The thought of that trip brings to mind, yet again, the prospect of traveling up to Cincinnati for Meredith’s funeral.

  She manages to resist the urge to check the Web for updated information about the arrangements, or updates on the investigation. She’s been looking every so often—­more often, perhaps, than is healthy—­and so far there’s been nothing.

  This afternoon she had a brief e-­mail from Elena, who thanked her for sharing the grim news. She said she has to work straight through until tonight and will call if it isn’t too late when she gets home.

  There’s been nothing more from Jaycee. She’d tried calling A-­Okay again right before she ordered the pizza. Once again the line went into voice mail.

  Forget it. Stop thinking about it for a few minutes, will you?

  She focuses on the e-­reader. Last night she’d left off in the middle of a trashy celebrity tell-­all she’d been too self-­conscious to buy in Page & Palette, her favorite bookstore in Fairhope, where everyone on the staff knows her name and probably expects her to purchase more highbrow literature. She’s been fascinated by Hollywood gossip from the time she was a little girl playing Movie Star dress-­up games in her mother’s closet.

  But tonight, distracted, all she can think about is Meredith. Meredith frightened, Meredith hurt, Meredith dying.

  It’s so wrong, so unfair.

  Come on. Who are you kidding?

  Violent death at the hands of someone else is always, always wrong and unfair. But for it to happen to someone who’s been through cancer—­someone who already stared the prospect of terminal illness in the face, not once, but twice, and won—­it seems even more cruel.

  On the table beside her chair, her cell phone rings.

  Landry pounces on it, hoping it’s one of her blogger friends at last.

  But the number in the caller ID window belongs to her cousin Barbie June.

  Their mothers are sisters and they’d grown up like sisters themselves, born just ten months apart and raised right across the road from each other. They looked so much alike they were often mistaken for twins. They ran with the same crowd in high school, became roommates in their college sorority house, maid of honor at each other’s weddings and godmother to each other’s firstborns.

  Ordinarily, Landry would pick up her cousin’s call, but not tonight. She just isn’t in the mood to try to explain about Meredith to someone who won’t understand—­and there’s no way Barbie June will understand.

  Her cousin has lots of great qualities.

  Subtlety and empathy aren’t among them.

  “I know you’re scared,” Barbie June told Landry when she opted for a preventative mastectomy over a lumpectomy, “but why put yourself through major surgery? Why disfigure yourself when you don’t have to? How are you going to wear that darling strapless dress you bought last month at Dillard’s?”

  Landry bit back her anger and frustration, explaining why it was the right choice for her, despite the fact that her cancer was stage one—­microscopic cells limited to one breast, with relatively low odds for a relapse.

  There were no guarantees even with the surgery, but she had a husband and two young kids who needed her, and she intended to do everything within her power to take control and perhaps further reduce her chances of a recurrence.

  Barbie June just didn’t get it.

  “But look at Grammy,” Barbie June said. “She didn’t do anything so drastic, and she was just fine.”

  Their maternal grandmother had been diagnosed with breast cancer a good forty years ago. She’d survived it with just a lumpectomy, minor treatment, and faith that God would let her live to a ripe old age. He did.

  Unfortunately, she passed away just a year before Landry’s diagnosis. The quintessential steel magnolia, she’d have been a godsend: a fellow wife and mother who knew what it was like to face your mortality one day out of the clear blue sky.

  That was why it was such a relief to her when she found Meredith and the others.

  Naturally, Barbie June had since made her share of comments about her blog and social networking in general, hinting that it was for ­people who don’t have anything else to do.

  Landry had always thought pretty much the same thing—­until the day she went searching online for information about reconstructive surgery and stumbled across an irreverent breast cancer blog on the subject.

  Back then, she barely knew what a blog was.

  “I think it’s a sort of online daily journal,” she explained to Barbie June when she made the initial mistake of telling her about it.

  When she described the post—­an account of nipple reconstruction that managed to be simultaneously poignant and hilarious—­her cousin reacted with an incredulous, “Why on God’s green earth would any halfway decent person put something like that out there in public for just anyone to read?”

  “I don’t know,” she’d said. “I guess for the same reasons ­people keep diaries. Because sometimes it’s cathartic to write about things you can’t find the nerve to talk about. It’s an outlet.”

  “Yes, but you write a diary for yourself. Not for perfect strangers to read.”

  “Well, then, maybe they do it to help other ­people cope. Or maybe because they’re shy, and they can hide behind anonymity online, or because they’re lonely and socially isolated . . . who knows?”

  Undaunted by her cousin’s disdain, Landry began to follow the cancer blogs daily, along with the usual barrage of comments from other readers.

  Like a would-­be pledge wistfully eavesdropping on a chatty cluster of sorority sisters, she noted not just the easygoing banter am
ong the regulars on Meredith’s blog, but also their genuine compassion for each other. Nearly all were fellow breast cancer patients or survivors, and many were bloggers themselves. Landry clicked their links and began to follow their posts as well, on blogs that had clever titles like Yes, Ma’am(ogram) or Making the Breast of It.

  Finally, she worked up her nerve to post a comment somewhere—­was it on one of Meredith’s entries? Or Whoa Nellie’s?

  She no longer remembers the details, only that she was welcomed so warmly that her shyness evaporated—­kind of like the first time she stepped over the threshold of her college sorority house.

  Barbie June didn’t understand that reference either. She knew her cousin would never understand why she was initially drawn to the online community, or why she was still there. Barbie June has asked, time and again, why she “still bothers” with her cancer blog now that she’s “cured.”

  “Don’t you want to put the whole nasty thing behind you and move on?”

  Landry sighs. How do you answer a question like that?

  “I think she’s in denial,” she confided in her friend Everly. “She’s afraid that if it happened to me, and to our grandmother, then it could happen to her, too, and she doesn’t want to face—­”

  “Oh, please, she’s just jealous,” Everly cut in, “same as she always was back in high school whenever you got invited to a party without her. She wants to be front and center in your life, just like the old days. I’ve always thought it’s a wonder she doesn’t resent me—­or resent Rob, even, for taking you away from her.”

  “Don’t be silly,” was Landry’s response, though Everly had a point.

  Barbie June’s possessiveness had occasionally reared its head during their formative years whenever Landry spent time with other friends, or when she had a boyfriend and her cousin didn’t. But by the time Rob came along, Barbie June was already engaged.

  Now, she and her husband live in a waterfront home less than a mile away with their two children, a son and daughter born in reverse order of Addison and Tucker but almost exactly the same ages. The new generation of cousins isn’t nearly as close as their mothers and grandmothers had been, and their husbands aren’t particularly fond of each other, but despite traveling in different social circles with disparate lifestyles, Landry and Barbie June have maintained a connection over the years.