What You Don't Know

by JoAnn Chaney

  “Oh. Okay.”

  I’D REALLY LIKE TO MEET WITH YOU, she types. Hits Send.

  Alright, alright, alright.

  “I didn’t realize you had that ringtone,” she says slowly. It can’t be a coincidence, that she sends a text and Ethan’s phone immediately goes off. Can it? Oh, stranger things have happened, she’s crazy for even thinking it, but she still takes a shuffling step toward the front door.

  “I actually have two phones. I pay for one, my mom pays for the other.”

  “I’ve never heard of someone having two phones,” she says.

  Or maybe she was crazy for not thinking it sooner.

  “It helps me keep things separate,” he says. “Otherwise it gets confusing.”

  I HAVE A QUESTION.

  Send.

  Alright, alright, alright.

  Ethan. She never found out his last name, doesn’t know anything about him except that he made sandwiches for a living. But he’d known all about her, right from the very beginning, because he’d read all her articles in the Post, he’d especially enjoyed the ones about Jacky Seever. And she’d liked the attention, she’d told him things about the case, more than she should’ve, Ethan was good at listening, he was kind, and he’d been interested in her writing, and he had a crush on her, it felt good to have a man look at her like that, even if he was just a kid, he was harmless.

  Wasn’t he?

  “Maybe I should go over your writing some other time,” she says, still typing into her phone. She can’t stop, not now. She has to know.

  ARE YOU THE SECONDHAND KILLER?

  Send.

  Alright, alright, alright.

  She should run, but she can’t seem to move. If this were a movie, she thought, I’d be screaming at the dumb bitch not to stand there like an idiot but get moving. The killer’s in the next room, you’ve got to go. Good advice, but sometimes life is more like a movie than most people realize, and she’s frozen to the spot, watching her phone and waiting.

  Her phone vibrates in her hand and the screen lights up. She has her answer.

  YES. Then, a beat, and another message: I DID IT FOR YOU.

  Sammie barely has time to read the text before Ethan comes loping around the corner, and she finally tries to run for the front door but it’s too little too late, he’s fast and the hall is short and then he’s on her, dragging her deeper into the house, and she’s screaming, fighting, and it’s only then that she realizes why she’s been thinking of Seever. It’s the smell. This place smells like Seever’s did when they were digging up the crawl space.

  HOSKINS

  Piece together the victim’s timeline. That’s what Hoskins keeps telling himself as the minute hand on his watch ticks forward. Find out where Chris Weber had been in the hours before his death. The minutes. He repeats this to himself, mutters it under his breath until people are looking at him like he’s crazy.

  Sammie is still nowhere to be found.

  “Don’t think about her right now,” Loren says. “She’s probably out shopping. At the spa. Turned her phone off. You need to focus. Weber’s been dead less than twelve hours. He’s our best chance of finding the Secondhand Killer. Maybe someone saw them together before Weber was killed.”

  But Loren knew as well as he did—Sammie wasn’t at a spa, and she wasn’t shopping. Sammie was probably dead, her fingers cut off and her head smashed in. Seever might’ve loved Sammie, cared for her, he’d painted her picture and kept her name on his visitor’s list, and the Secondhand Killer had picked up on that, maybe he loved Sammie now too. Hate is a dangerous thing, Hoskins knew, but love can be even worse.

  * * *

  Chris Weber lived on his credit cards, used them for everything. Rent, food, his online shopping addiction. He was close to maxed out on several of them, barely keeping from drowning in debt. Not that Hoskins is judging—he’s toting around plenty of financial garbage himself, even ten years after his divorce.

  But one good thing about all that debt: it makes it easy to track Weber once the banks start cooperating and sending statements. According to his boss, Weber had spent most of the day before at the Post’s office downtown, then left late in the afternoon, without telling anyone where he was going. But they could see what he’d done by where he’d spent money—thirty-two on an early dinner at a Mexican restaurant, then seventy-five on gas.

  “These are the last places he went before he stopped at Gloria’s place,” Loren says. “Let’s meet at the gas station, we’ll work backwards from there.”

  It’s a kid named Davey working the front counter, who’d been the only employee around when Weber had come through. He’s pulling hot dogs off the rollers when Hoskins and Loren come in, dumping them right in the trash and putting new ones on.

  “Does anybody ever eat those things?” Hoskins asks, grimacing.

  “Oh, yeah. There’s this whole subset of people supporting the popularity of gas-station food. It’s an underground movement.” Davey eyes him, taking in his slacks and pressed white shirt, the gun holstered at his belt, then at Loren, who still hasn’t given up Seever’s suits. “I’m sure you guys aren’t familiar with it.”

  Hoskins grins. He likes smart-ass kids.

  “You remember seeing this guy yesterday?” Loren asks, holding out his phone. It’s a photo of Weber, snatched right off the Post’s website.

  “Most people pay at the pump, I never see them,” Davey says. “And I don’t remember that dude coming in.”

  “You got cameras?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Now Davey is excited, walking fast through the store toward the back room, his orange smock flapping out behind him. “State-of-the-art shit, man. The owner put it all in a few months ago. The best there is.”

  “I need to see footage of the pumps. See if this guy talked to anyone, if he was acting strangely.”

  “He dead?”

  “Why would you think that?” Hoskins asks.

  “Because the only time I ever see cops come around is if someone’s dead or getting high,” Davey says. He takes the bulky headphones from around his neck where they’d been hanging like a noose and spins them on his forearm. “This something to do with that Secondhand Killer?”

  “We can’t tell you that.”

  “Okay, okay. But I want you to know I have an alibi for the last twenty-four hours.”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything.”

  “No, sir. You’re not.”

  “You afraid of us, kid?” Loren asks.

  “Nah,” Davey says. “But my momma told me that if a cop ever comes around asking questions, I should keep my mouth shut and smile real pretty.”

  GLORIA

  She turns on the shower, waiting for the hot water to make it through the pipes, and looks at her naked body in the mirror. She’ll turn fifty-six next year—not bad, a goodish age. Not old enough to be out of her mind, but still old enough. Her breasts were the first to go—they went from high and firm to loose bags of flesh hanging from her chest, and she could’ve had plastic surgery, had them fixed for all eternity; they’d had plenty of money for that, but she didn’t. She didn’t like the idea of going under the knife, so instead she bought bras and creams and cure-alls, although nothing worked the way it was supposed to. And her stomach was always so flat, nearly concave, but is now a pooch that rounds out uncomfortably even though she’s never given birth to any babies, never been overweight. But that’s getting old, she thinks. Her eyes are bad, her lips lined. She’s spent thousands of dollars to make herself look better, but for what? None of that matters. She looks in the mirror and sees only herself.

  Today’s reflection is different from usual, though. The sensitive spot of flesh below her nose is swollen from where the Jacky-boy had clamped his hand over her mouth, and there’s a bruise rising on her left cheekbone, but it’s not much, nothing that couldn’t be covered with makeup. All it took was a dab of concealer and she was good; the detectives who’d had so many questions about Chris Weber for so
long had never even mentioned it. But that was men for you—they only saw what they wanted to see, they overlooked the little things. Like the bruises on her face, and the way she’d moved, slowly and carefully, favoring her right hip, because she was sore and tired—some of it was from what the boy had done to her, but most of it was because of the cleaning she’d done after he’d left. Oh, it would’ve been easy enough to leave Chris Weber on the floor where he’d fallen; she could’ve called the police and told them exactly what happened, they would’ve had to believe her, all they’d have to do is examine her and they’d know she was telling the truth. But she hates the police, hates the way they treat her when they realize who she is, so before she put much thought into it she was taking care of the problem herself, the way she always has. She dug Weber’s keys from his pocket and pulled his car into the garage, careful that the door had shut all the way before rolling him onto an old comforter and tugging it through the house. It took her three hours to move him thirty feet, she almost quit a dozen times, but the thought of having a corpse in the house with her was so revolting that she couldn’t bring herself to stop. Besides, it was too late to call the police—they’d want to know what she was doing with the body, why she was moving it. So she dragged him out, wadding the blanket up in her hands and pulling, wincing when the back of his skull cracked against the steps leading down into the garage, but she finally managed to bundle him into the backseat, and even though her back was twinging painfully and she’d never been more exhausted in her life, she cleaned up. Threw the comforter into the washing machine and got out her cleaning supplies and wiped up the blood—there wasn’t all that much of it, except in the spot where Weber had fallen to the ground, and she was still able to get most of it up off the hardwood, except the faintest maroon shadow, and that could’ve been mistaken for a red wine stain, but she still scooted the rug over it. Of course, if the police decided to run their tests on her floors they’d know the truth in a second—she was a good housekeeper, but not that good. Then she pulled Weber’s car out of the garage, planning to drive it across town and abandon it in some parking lot, or on an old dirt road, but instead left it out front, in the same place Weber had parked. She didn’t consider herself a lazy woman, just tired, and she didn’t think her brain was capable of carrying out any sort of plan, not in such an exhausted state. The last thought she had before collapsing onto her bed and falling to sleep was about Jacky, and wondering how he’d kept it up for so long.

  She’d called the police when she woke up, and covered the bloodstains left on the sofa with a big velvet throw. The two cops had sat on that couch, right on top of the evidence they needed, one of them even complimented how soft the blanket was and she’d had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing. What a joke it was—not necessarily a good one, but still. It might’ve been easier to skip calling the police, but the thought of someone discovering Chris Weber out there—a child, heaven forbid—forced her to pick up the phone and dial. And the police came, they poked around and seemed satisfied with her reasoning that she’d always been targeted because of Jacky—look at what someone spray-painted on my front door, officers—that maybe this Secondhand Killer was trying to send a message, she knew they’d be back sooner or later, but they would stay away for a while, because she’s not a suspect, not an old lady like her.

  She looks in the mirror, runs her fingers over her cheeks and pulls her skin taut. She’s aged, of course, but that doesn’t make the reflection any different from the day before, or the day before that. No, the real changes aren’t so obvious. It’s in the tightly drawn skin around her eyes, the valleys that’re suddenly bracketing her mouth. For the first time she looks old. She never looked like this before, even when Jacky was first arrested, those terrible months when he was on trial and she wasn’t sure what was going to happen to her.

  The bathroom is filled with steam now, billowing out over the top of the shower curtain, and she swipes her palm against the mirror, leaving behind a clear fan shape. The Jacky-boy had kissed her when it was over, gently, on her eyebrow, and absently patted the side of her face. I’ll be back soon, he’d said, and then he’d left. She stayed there on the couch for a while, holding her torn skirt against her chest and feeling the rush of warm air from the vents against her bare legs. It occurred to her then, looking at the popcorn-textured ceiling, that Jacky would always be a part of her life, in one way or another, and that’s how it would be, until the end of time.

  This is our little secret, the boy had said, and she’d always been good at keeping secrets, she’d kept all of Jacky’s for so long, she’d kept him safe, it might’ve been the only thing she was ever good at. She’d kept his secrets their entire marriage, until she saw the girl out in the garage, tied and blindfolded, and even then she’d been prepared to stay silent, to stand behind her husband till death do us part, until she dreamt that night of going into the garage again, of going to the girl and yanking off her blindfold, but then she saw it wasn’t a girl at all, she was staring into her own eyes.

  There are pills in the medicine cabinet, some of them were prescriptions filled in Jacky’s name that she’d never bothered to throw out, she’d toted them all over, one home to another. Pills are funny in that way, you save them, hoard them, even when you no longer remember what they’re for, even when the expiration date has gone by, just in case. And she needs them now, takes all the orange prescription bottles out, lines them up on the top of the toilet. She fills the cup she uses to rinse after brushing her teeth and starts, shaking a few pills from one bottle into her palm and then swallowing, drinking the water so fast a spike of pain settles into the center of her forehead, until her belly feels bloated and full, swishing with liquid. She thinks of the garage as she swallows the bitterness down, the boom-boom room, and of the girl with the ropes around her wrists and ankles, the blindfold over her eyes. She’d known Gloria was there, and she’d asked for help, and Gloria had left, she’d made dinner and then went to bed and the next morning she’d gone straight to the public library and asked to use the phone, because she couldn’t think of anywhere else to go—she hadn’t seen a pay phone in years, didn’t have a clue where to find one, and she didn’t want to do it from home, not for this. The woman behind the counter was more than happy to let her make a call, because the Seevers made generous donations, and Gloria smiled and waited for the librarian to wander away before she dialed.

  “I have information on a case you’re investigating,” she’d said quietly. Pleasantly, so no one would think anything was wrong and come over to eavesdrop. A little boy ran by and smiled at her and she returned it, twiddled her fingers, like everything was normal, just another day, but she’d never felt quite so cold inside, so empty. “Those missing people, the ones the police are looking for? I’ve seen them, going into a house, and they never come out again. Yes, I know the address. And also, I’d like to remain anonymous.”

  Gloria opens another bottle, shakes out more pills. More and more, until the cup of her palm can’t hold any more.

  “You love him, don’t you?” the boy had asked, as he’d been buttoning his pants. He’d shaken his head—in awe, or admiration. “Everything you did for him. You’re the perfect wife.”

  That girl in the garage—she’d been cold. There were goose bumps on her bare skin. She’d been wearing nothing but panties and a T-shirt, and her lips were purple.

  Gloria presses her face into the towel hanging from the rod. It’s one of the rough ones, and the fibers scratch at her face—she usually saves those for mopping up spills and isn’t sure how it ended up here, but it doesn’t matter this time. She goes over to the shower and turns on the faucet.

  The girl, she’d begged for help. And Gloria had gone back inside the house, snapped the padlock back in place. And then she’d made dinner. And now that girl is dead. Finally dead. Gloria saw it on the news, not too long before.

  She pulls back the shower curtain, carefully steps into the tub. The water is turned up as hot as
she can stand, and she lets it run over her shoulders, burning down her body.

  SAMMIE

  She’s kneeling beside a steaming pile of her own vomit.

  “What the hell am I supposed to do now?” Ethan demands, pacing in front of her, three steps to the left, and then back again. They’re in the living room, where just a while ago they’d been ready to do the dirty, but now it couldn’t have gone further in the opposite direction. The coffee table is pushed out of the way, and Sammie is kneeling where it had stood, one of her knees sunk into the divot left in the rug. Her thighs are spread painfully wide, and her wrists are tied behind her back and to her ankles with a length of twine that Ethan had pulled from his pocket. He was prepared. “Why’d you have to be poking around in things that aren’t your business?”

  “I was chasing a story,” she says simply. She’s not crying, her eyes are hot and dry in their sockets, more like loose marbles than what she uses to see. “Besides, the police will catch up with you sooner or later.”

  “The police?” Ethan laughs wildly. “Those idiots can’t find their own assholes. I’m not worried about them.”

  She’s never seen this side of Ethan. With her, he’s always been kind and sweet, soft-spoken. Not like this. But maybe he’s right. Hoskins and Loren might never catch him. He might go on operating for a long time, the way Seever did.

  “Why’re you doing this?” she asks. “You’re a good guy.”

  He stops his frantic pacing and stares at her like she’s an idiot. Like the answer should be obvious.

  “I started all this for you.”

  “What?”

  Ethan drops down to his knees on the rug so they are face-to-face, only inches from each other. From this close she can see the blackheads scattered across his nose, the one hair in his eyebrow that’s so much longer than the others. It’s funny, she hadn’t noticed any of that before, when she was ready to sleep with him, but now she’s repulsed. She tries to shift back, to put some space between them, but he has her locked down tight.