You Kill Me

by Alison Gaylin

  Just seven sets of eyes on me—the link between three brutal slayings that were so close to one another, it seemed not the work of a serial killer but of a mass murderer.

  “Please describe your last conversation with Nate Gundersen,” Boyle said.

  “He showed up at an Indian restaurant, where I was.”

  “Were you there alone?”

  I stared at Krull. “I was with John.”

  Boyle said, “Johnny, could you leave the room? I think what we’ll do is question you separately.”

  The minute Krull exited, I felt a loosening in my chest. And only then did I realize how nervous his presence had made me when it came to talking about Nate—especially Nate last night. “Nate showed up at the restaurant, uninvited.”

  “Was John friendly with him?”

  “Are you kidding? He hated him.” Should I have said that?

  Pierce said, “Is it true that Jenna Sargent told him you and the victim were having an affair?”

  “Yes…Wait a minute, how do you know about that?”

  Boyle said, “Let’s keep the questioning of the officers for outside the interview room.”

  Does Pierce know that Krull ran a DNA test on those hairs? Does everyone?

  “Go on, Samantha. In your opinion, was Nate cordial to John when he saw him?”

  I exhaled. “He said he needed to talk to me alone, and he promised he’d bring me back in one piece.”

  Patton said, “And John let you go.”

  “Right. Anyway, Nate told me that he…” It doesn’t matter now. He’s gone. “He…had sex with Marla Soble—”

  Pierce said, “What?”

  “He went to Marla’s apartment by chance. And they…Well, you’ve got to know Nate to understand. They talked about Greek tragedy for a few minutes, and then they fell into bed. He says he never even found out her last name.”

  “What was the date on this?” said Pierce.

  “I don’t know. He said last week.”

  “I’m gonna go look at the journal,” said Munro, and left the room.

  “Anyway, I said he had to tell the police.”

  “Good girl,” said Pierce.

  “He asked me for twenty-four hours, just so he could tell his fiancée, and get ready for the…you know…the fallout. I agreed. So I went back in the restaurant and fed John this awful lie about Nate wanting a Shakespearean Idol audition.”

  “How did Johnny react?”

  “He wasn’t buying it.”

  “Did he get mad?”

  I could feel movement, detectives leaning in closer, waiting to hear my answer. Do they actually think he could have done this? “Of course he got mad.”

  “Did he stay with you, or were you separated at all?” said Patton.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes—why do you care so much about where John was? Why are you treating him like a suspect?”

  Boyle said, “Sam—”

  “I know. Don’t question officers, but come on.”

  “We’re looking into anyone who had a motive,” said Patton gently. “John had a motive, but—”

  “John’s not a murderer!” I said it more to myself than to her.

  “I know that, Sam,” she said. “That’s exactly what I was going to say. But listen, the guy was found dead in your art-supplies closet. It obviously wasn’t a suicide. I’m just trying to rule out the jealous boyfriend.”

  I heard myself say, “You can’t.”

  “I can’t?”

  “Not based on what I can tell you about where he was last night. He disappeared. I have no idea where he went.”

  Boyle said, “What do you say we switch places, Sam. Hang out in the squad room for a little bit. And we’ll get Johnny back in for some private questioning.”

  Fiona stepped out, and returned moments later with Krull. Neither he, nor any of the other detectives, looked at me as I left the interview room.

  Whatever Krull’s alibi was, it didn’t take very long to talk about. I’d been sitting in one of the visitor’s chairs for ten minutes at the most when I was called back into the interview room. Krull was staring at the floor. Everyone else was listening to Boyle saying something about “following up on those leads”—and looking glum as he said it—but as soon as he noticed me opening the door, he shut up fast.

  I sensed a strange new tension in the air—directed at Krull, or me. Maybe both of us.

  Why wouldn’t any of these cops look me in the eye?

  Fortunately it didn’t last. Munro knocked on the door, and entered with a thick, leather-bound book. “Ah, yes, the journal,” said Pierce, and everyone snapped back to normal.

  “So in case any of you were wondering,” Munro said, “Nate Gundersen wasn’t the father of Marla’s child.”

  I said, “Excuse me?”

  “Here’s an entry from about a week ago.” Munro read: “’Made love to a beautiful actor I’ve seen on TV. I’ll never see him again, I’m sure. But it was like living a dream—and being pregnant enhanced the experience.’”

  My eyes widened.

  “I told you she was cheating,” said Pierce.

  Boyle said, “With Lucas, of all people!”

  “But it was just a onetime thing,” I said. “She was a fan.”

  “It wasn’t just with Gundersen,” Pierce said. “She was jerkin’ Gil’s chain as long as she knew him.”

  Boyle said, “She was two months pregnant. And Professor Valdez knew it. We’re not releasing that to the press out of respect for her family. But it sure as shit makes him a person of interest.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t his baby?”

  “He had a vasectomy,” said Patton. “But he was going to marry her anyway.” She rubbed her eyes, then gazed up at the ceiling. “He thought the baby should have a father.”

  “Why is that relevant?” said Krull.

  “Huh?”

  “Are you trying to say he’s no longer a person of interest because he thought the baby should have a father?”

  “Of course not,” said Patton. “I was one of the people who thought we should question Valdez in the first place. I’m just saying—”

  “He said he’d stick around and help change diapers, so therefore he’d never kill anyone? He’s a fucking angel of a dad. Jesus, you sound just like Sam.”

  I stared at him.

  “Take it easy, John,” said Boyle. “It’s been a tough day, and I think we should all step back.”

  Krull’s eyes were hard as flint. “My mom died when I was a kid, and my dad didn’t go anywhere. He stuck around and raised my brother and me, and you know what, Sam? He was a hard-assed, withholding piece of shit, and I wished, every day, that he’d fucking do us a favor and leave.”

  Pierce said, “You know we’re getting this all on tape.”

  Krull yanked the tape recorder out of the wall and threw it across the room, narrowly missing Boyle’s head.

  For a dragging moment, the only sound in the world was that of metal and plastic bashing into the wall, then breaking apart as it hit the floor.

  Everything’s fixable, I wanted to say, to ease the tension. To stop this awful, vibrating silence. But I couldn’t get my mouth to open.

  Had the tape recorder landed inches to the left, it would’ve crushed his partner’s skull.

  “Sorry.” Krull looked at Boyle, then at me.

  All I could do was watch him—like Boyle, like everyone else in the room sat watching Krull, until finally he got up and left, closing the door softly behind him.

  Minutes later, the spell lifted a little, and we all started filing out of the interview room. “Guess we need a new tape recorder,” said Boyle.

  Nobody replied; nobody even smiled.

  I saw Krull sitting at his desk, his head in his hands, and thought, It’s just been a long day. He’s tired. He’s emotional. But he’s not violent. He’s not.

  I was considering walking over to him, asking what had h
appened, when Patton pulled me into the stairwell. “You okay?” she said.

  I looked at her. “That supposed to be a trick question?”

  “No, Sam, I—”

  “Because…from what I can tell, three people were murdered because of me, one of whom I used to love more than, I don’t know. Breathing. And…and…I’m having a few problems with my current relationship, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  Patton put both hands on my shoulders, looking into my eyes. “Krull didn’t kill those people,” she said softly.

  “I know that,” I said. “But…how do you know? Did he give you an alibi?”

  She hugged me, and I felt a twinge of hope, the way I had when Pierce had told me Krull hadn’t lied about the press conference. “Are you just trying to make me feel better?” I asked.

  “He’s my partner. I know him. I know what he’s capable of. He didn’t do it.”

  Why didn’t she answer my question about the alibi? And why does she sound like she’s praying too?

  I heard myself say, “Would you have thought he was capable of throwing that tape recorder at Boyle?”

  “Listen,” she said. “If John had really been throwing it at Art, he wouldn’t have missed.”

  Should I press her about the alibi—or leave it alone? Whatever Krull had said alone with the detectives in the interview room, she obviously thought it was best I didn’t hear about it.

  “Isn’t it always important to know the truth?” I’d asked Sydney last night.

  And she’d replied, “No.”

  Before Patton left the stairwell to join her partners in the squad room, I borrowed her cell phone and tapped in Sydney’s number.

  I expected her voice mail again, and when I got her actual voice instead, I wasn’t sure what to say to it.

  “Mom. I…hear you’re in New York.” That seemed as good a place to start as any.

  “Yes, Samantha. The Big Apple.”

  “Why didn’t you call me? Why haven’t I seen you?”

  “I wanted to get settled in first, honey. You know, unpack my things, learn my way around. That way, we could be on equal footing, and you wouldn’t be stuck with some needy old sympathy vulture.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I’m your daughter.”

  “By the way, Vito and I had another falling-out. He wanted me auburn, but I said, ‘Better dead than red.’” She laughed heartily. “Samantha? Are you there?”

  I gritted my teeth. She must know what happened to Nate at least. It has to be all over the local radio. “I’m very hurt you haven’t tried to get hold of me today.”

  “Why today?”

  “Are you not in New York City? Do you live in a cave or something?”

  She took a long pause. “I could do without the sarcasm.”

  “But—”

  Click. She hung up on me. And I thought, How could she be so warm to me when she has no idea who I am, and so cold to me when she does?

  When I walked into the squad room, Krull was at his desk, filling out paperwork, his two partners talking in the open area behind him. I watched Krull until he finally glanced up, and we held each other’s gaze for several seconds. I didn’t feel the need to move any closer, didn’t feel the need to ask him questions or talk at all.

  For one brief moment, his face from the interview room flashed in my mind—the hardness in his eyes, the twist of rage around his mouth, just before he threw the tape recorder. What had anyone done to make him act that way? What was it that he’d said to Patton? “You sound just like Sam.”

  He got up and joined his partners. But before he did, he nodded at me—as if he’d made some sort of decision.

  Having left Ezra with his nanny, Soccoro, Jenna showed up at the precinct house with that awful collage.

  The collage was admitted as evidence, and Jenna was questioned for around fifteen minutes. I took her to the break room afterward and bought her an orange soda from one of the vending machines, and we sat at the long table in front of a muted, wall-mounted TV turned to CNN.

  “Your boyfriend is very nice,” she said. “All the detectives are.”

  I took a sip of my orange soda. There was something comforting about the cold can, the bubbles, the vaguely pharmaceutical tang. Orange soda always tasted the way you expected it to taste—no surprises.

  “I’m so sorry, Jenna.”

  “I can’t believe he was put in Ezra’s classroom. I mean…what kind of psycho would—”

  “A psycho who had keys to my art-supplies closet,” I said, more to myself than to her.

  Jenna said, “Do they have any idea who did it?”

  “They have some leads,” I said. I swallowed hard. My face felt numb. He didn’t do it. He didn’t do it. He didn’t do it.

  Jenna was saying, “Why would anybody want to kill Nate? He could be really infuriating. But…he was so much fun.”

  “What did the cops ask you about?”

  “Oh, his sex problem, our fights…the usual. This probably sounds weird, but I kind of liked being jealous of every person he ever hung out with. It made me appreciate what I had.”

  “You know what, Jenna?”

  “What?”

  “You really were the perfect woman for him.”

  “Yeah, well…Hey, would you look at that? Nate made the crawl.”

  I turned toward the TV and saw the news of Nate’s death scrolling across the bottom of the screen, under the face of a smiling female anchor who was obviously discussing something different—sports scores, perhaps, or fall fashions. SOAP STAR STABBED TO DEATH, it said. Not much more than that, other than Nate’s name, and the fact that he was twenty-nine years old.

  “He always wanted to be on that damn CNN crawl,” Jenna said. Then she put her head down on the table, and finally, she started to cry.

  Jenna had taken her own car to the precinct house, parking it just up the street, so I told the detectives I’d be back in a minute, and walked her to her car.

  Word had apparently spread about Nate’s murder, because outside the door of the precinct house, reporters and photographers and, most of all, fans had suddenly cropped up like dandelions.

  “Jenna!” the photographers shouted. “Look over here, please, Jenna! We’re very sorry for your loss.”

  “Oh, my God, it’s Blythe!”

  “Who’s that she’s with?”

  “Nobody.”

  Some of the fans were thrill seekers, interested in nothing more than the next high-profile murder mystery; some were pasty-faced ghouls like the Marlamaniacs. But some seemed to genuinely grieve.

  There was one young girl dressed all in black who’d Scotch-taped Nate’s Soap Opera Digest cover to the front of her black T-shirt. She reminded me of Tabitha, only she was easily six years younger. An actual child.

  I caught the girl’s eye, and she spoke. She didn’t raise her voice enough for me to hear her over all the talking and the traffic sounds, but I could read her lips: Did you love him too?

  I nodded.

  Finally, I was able to pry Jenna away from everyone, down the stairs, and to her Volvo up the street. “You know how I first got Nate into bed?” she said, before she got in. “I told him that Lucas reminded me of Jim, the gentleman caller from Glass Menagerie.”

  “His favorite role.”

  “Then I took my shirt off.”

  “That’ll do it.”

  She gave me a huge, warm smile. “You know, if I didn’t have Ezra to take care of, I’d kill myself tonight.”

  Before I could think of how to respond, she got in her car and drove off.

  Without a soap star in tow, it took minimal effort to get past the phalanx of fans and through the heavy glass doors of the precinct house. Climbing the stairs, I started to frame the conversation I planned to have with Krull that night. John, we need to talk. No, he hated that. John, can we discuss a couple of matters? Better.

  What was I doing, though? Did he rehearse that outburst in the interview room? Did he worry about m
y feelings, think about what I hated to see and hear and discover before he…He didn’t do it. He didn’t do it. He didn’t do it.

  When I walked into the squad room, the only detectives around were Boyle and Patton.

  “Where’s John?” I asked them.

  They looked at each other.

  “What?”

  Boyle said, “It’s just a technicality. Everybody knows that Johnny’s as good a good guy as they come. The only reason why they’re doing it is to rule him out.”

  “So you’re trying to tell me that—”

  “John’s a person of interest,” Patton said “Very minor interest.”

  No…

  “Just trying to get all their ducks in a row,” said Boyle.

  “But they’re your ducks. It’s your case!”

  He seemed to force his face into a smile. “Detectives from the Tenth are questioning him. We’re too close.”

  “So…” I said. “The Tenth thinks he’s a person of interest. That’s Marla’s precinct. They’re probably focusing on that one, not Nate.” I looked at Patton. “They’re not just ruling out the jealous boyfriend.”

  “John Krull is not a murderer,” said Boyle.

  “What alibi did he give you guys?”

  “You really need to ask him that yourself,” Patton said.

  “He didn’t have one, did he?”

  “Sam, listen to yourself,” said Boyle. “This is John. He’d lay down his life for you.”

  “What would you do if you found out something about me? Something that…isn’t good.”

  “John and I,” I said quietly, “we just…need to talk.”

  “It’s been a rough day,” said Patton. “We’re all a little unhinged.”

  Boyle nodded. “Mercury’s in retrograde; whole world’s fucked up.”

  “Is that where he is now? At the Tenth?”

  Patton said she was pretty sure he was waiting for the squad car, but out back to avoid the crowd.

  I hurried outside, down the alleyway next to the precinct house, and into the back parking lot, where I saw Krull leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette. “Hi,” he said.