A Stranger in the House

by Shari Lapena

  “I think the key to this is the victim,” Rasbach says. “Unidentified woman possibly kills unidentified man. Who are these people?”

  “Organized crime? Witness protection?”

  “Could be. I don’t know. But if we can ID either one of them, I think we’ll be able to ID the other.” He’s quiet for a moment. “She knows,” Rasbach says thoughtfully. As they pull into the station, he adds, “Let’s ask her to come in. We’ll be low-key about it.”

  —

  Karen gets into the shower, allowing herself to cry while the water pours over her. She doesn’t want to flee—she doesn’t want to leave Tom—but that might be her only option if things go south really quickly.

  After a while she pulls herself together because she has to. She can’t just go to pieces. Even if it looks really bad right now, it doesn’t necessarily mean the police are going to be able to build a case. She needs to talk to Jack Calvin again, without her husband. She needs to know what her options are.

  Because as soon as they identify the victim—as soon as they realize the dead man is Robert Traynor—then they will look more deeply into his life.

  They will see that his wife died rather tragically almost three years ago.

  There are photos of Georgina Traynor. She knows that detective will recognize her. He’s going to put it together and realize that she’d faked her suicide to run away from her husband, that he found her, and that he called her on the burner phone that night. And he’s going to think she killed him.

  She feels sick with fear. It’s just a matter of time.

  And Tom—what will Tom think when he finds out that she’s a fraud, that when he wed her she was already legally married to someone else? What is he going to think when they try to tell him that she’s a murderer?

  She gets dressed quickly and retrieves Jack Calvin’s card from her wallet. She looks at the emergency number on the back. He said she could call him at this number, at any time. She sits down on the living room sofa and reaches for the phone, but before she can lift the receiver, it rings. Startled, she answers it. “Yes?”

  “It’s Detective Rasbach.”

  They know.

  “Yes, detective?” She manages to say, her chest tight.

  “We’d like you to come down to the station and answer some questions. Completely voluntarily, of course. You’re not obligated to do so.”

  For a moment, she freezes. What should she do? “Why?” she asks.

  “We have a few more questions,” he repeats.

  “Have you identified the man who died?” she asks.

  “Not yet,” the detective says.

  Her pulse races. She doesn’t believe him. “Fine. When would you like me to come?” She tries to keep her voice casual, so he won’t know how terribly frightened she is.

  “Anytime this afternoon would be fine. Do you know where the police station is?” He tells her where to find him, but she’s not listening.

  After she hangs up, she walks briskly to the bedroom and hurriedly starts packing a bag.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Tom grabs his cell phone off his desk and prepares to leave, although it’s only early afternoon. He gives the receptionist a terse, “I won’t be back for the rest of the day,” without looking at her, and makes his way out of the building to the parking lot.

  He drives down to the river and simply stares at the water flowing by for a while. It does nothing to soothe him.

  He doesn’t know who his wife is. Where did the lies begin and when will they stop? He feels tears burning his eyes and rubs them away.

  Suddenly he needs to confront her. He can’t stand the tension between them anymore, the stress of being under the scrutiny of the police, the needling from that horrible detective. Tom gets back into his car and drives home nursing his anger, so that he has the courage to confront her. When he pulls into the driveway he feels a little tug of fear at his heart. What will he find waiting for him this time?

  She won’t be expecting him now—it’s early afternoon. He lets himself in the house quietly. He wants to surprise her, see what she’s doing when she doesn’t know he’s home.

  He walks softly around the first floor; she’s not there. Then he walks up the carpeted stairs and down the hall to the bedroom. He stands at the open bedroom door, his heart breaking at what he sees.

  Her back is turned to him and she’s absorbed in the task of packing an overnight bag. Her movements are hurried. She’s running away. Was she even going to tell him?

  He opens his mouth to say her name, but no words come out. He stands there, stricken, watching the woman he loves preparing to leave him without even saying good-bye.

  She turns suddenly and sees him. She gives a little jump of surprise and fear. And then they stare at each other for a long moment, saying nothing.

  “Tom,” she says, and then falls silent. He sees the tears start in her eyes and spill down her face. She doesn’t move to embrace him; he doesn’t move toward her either.

  “Where are you going?” he asks brusquely, although he realizes it doesn’t matter. She’s leaving, and it doesn’t matter where she goes. She’s leaving him to avoid a murder charge. At this moment, he doesn’t even know for sure if he wants to stop her.

  “Detective Rasbach called a few minutes ago,” she says, her voice shaky. “He wants me to go down to the police station for questioning.”

  Tom stares at her, waiting for more. Tell me, he thinks. Tell me the fucking truth.

  “I don’t want to go,” she says, and looks away and down. “I don’t want to leave you.” Tears are streaming down her face now.

  “Did you kill that man?” Tom asks in a low, desperate voice. “Tell me.”

  She looks back at him with dread. “It’s not how it looks,” she says.

  “Then tell me how it is,” Tom says harshly, glancing for a moment at the overnight bag resting on the bed, contents half spilling out, and then fixing his eyes on hers. “I want to know what happened. I want to hear it from you, and I want it to be the truth.”

  He wants her to exonerate herself in his eyes. That’s all he wants; and then he can take her in his arms and figure out what to do. He wants to stand by her if he can. He loves her, that hasn’t changed. He’s surprised that he can still love her, when he doesn’t trust her. He wants to trust her again. He wants her to be honest with him.

  “It’s too late,” Karen says, collapsing to the bed and covering her face with her hands. “They know. They must know!”

  “Know what? What do they know? Tell me!” Tom cries.

  “He was my husband,” she says, looking dully up at him.

  “Who?” Tom says, not understanding at first.

  “The dead man. He was my husband.”

  No, Tom thinks. No. This can’t be happening.

  She looks up at him, her eyes filled with tears. “I ran away from him. I was afraid of him,” she says. “He was abusive. He said if I left him, if I ever tried to leave him, he would kill me.”

  As Tom listens, he grows numb with horror. His fear is huge. But his heart also fills with a fierce desire to comfort and protect her.

  “His name was Robert Traynor,” she tells him in a monotone. “We were married six years ago, and lived in Las Vegas.”

  Las Vegas? He can’t imagine Karen in Las Vegas.

  “As soon as we were married, he changed. It was like he became someone else.” She looks down at the floor, shoulders slumping. Tom remains standing, looking down at her. After a pause, she continues. “I realized that I would never be able to get away from him—I couldn’t leave him or divorce him. I knew a restraining order wouldn’t help. I knew if I ran away he would follow me to the ends of the earth.” She says this bitterly, her voice ragged.

  She looks up at him, eyes filled with remorse. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers.
“I never meant to hurt you. I love you, Tom. I didn’t want any of this to touch you.” The tears flow down her face, her hair is tangled. “After I got away from him, I just wanted to pretend that part of my life had never happened.” She turns away hopelessly. “I wanted to erase the past.” Then she seems to stall.

  Tom looks at her, his heart breaking, but he’s also wary. He knows there’s more coming.

  She gathers her resolve and starts again. “I faked my death. It was the only way to be sure he wouldn’t come after me.”

  Tom stands utterly still and listens to her with growing despair. She tells him everything—how she got a new identity and faked her jump off the Hoover Dam Bridge. He’s certain now that she’s telling him the truth, but more appalled than ever at where this is leading.

  “Then, a few weeks ago I began to notice things, things that scared me.”

  “What kind of things?”

  She raises her head and looks at him. “Someone had been in the house. Remember when I called you at work that day and asked if you had come home in the middle of the day? I told you I must have left a window open. But that wasn’t true. Someone had been through my things, someone had gone through my drawers. I could tell. You know how tidy I am. I knew things had been moved. I was terrified. I thought it was him.”

  She looks at him with an expression of abject misery. “I think he was coming into our house for weeks, sneaking in when we weren’t home.” She shudders. “Once I could tell that someone had lain down on our bed. I started taking pictures on my phone in the morning before I left for work—I could tell that things had been moved sometimes. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t tell you.” She looks at him beseechingly.

  “Why couldn’t you tell me, Karen?” Tom asks desperately. “I would’ve understood. I would’ve helped you. We could have figured out what to do together.” Did she trust him so little? He would have stood by her, if only she’d been honest with him. “We could have gone to the police. I wouldn’t have let him hurt you.” He thinks, And then you wouldn’t be a murderer, and our lives wouldn’t be destroyed.

  “I’ve started to remember,” she confesses. “Last night—not when we were down there, where it happened, but later, when the phone rang—it started to come back.” She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. “He called me that night.” Her face takes on an additional pallor as she tells him the rest. “He said, ‘Hi, Georgina,’ and his voice was exactly the same—coaxing and threatening at the same time. It was as if I were right back there, with him.”

  Tom notices that her eyes have become glazed and her voice has gone flat.

  “I wanted to hang up, but I had to know what he was going to do. I knew he’d found me, that he’d been in our house. I was so scared.” She starts to shake.

  Tom sits down on the bed beside her and puts his arm around her shoulders. He can feel her body tremble. His own heart is beating wildly. He has to hear the rest of her story, all of it. He has to know where they stand before he can figure out what to do.

  “He said didn’t I think I was clever, fooling everybody. But I didn’t fool him, he said. He kept on looking for me. I don’t know how he found me. He said that if he couldn’t have me then nobody could. He told me to meet him at that restaurant.” She looks at Tom with terrible fear in her eyes. “He said if I didn’t come, he would kill you, Tom! He knew all about you! He knew where we lived!”

  He believes her now, every word. He folds her into his arms and lets her cry. Her sobs beat against his chest. He kisses the top of her head and thinks furiously about what they should do. Finally she pulls away from him and tells him the rest, staring at the floor.

  “I took my gun—I’ve kept a gun, hidden, in case he ever found me—and I drove there to meet him. I parked in that lot and I went to the back door of the restaurant.” She looks up at him urgently. “I swear, Tom, I didn’t plan to kill him. I took the gun for my own protection. I was going to tell him I would go to the police and tell them everything, that I wasn’t afraid of him anymore—I wasn’t thinking clearly, I should have gone to the police first, I know that now. When I got there, the back door was open. I remember putting my hand on it—but that’s all I remember. After that, everything is still just a blank.” She looks up at him. “I don’t know what happened after that, Tom, I swear.”

  He looks down at her traumatized face. Does she really not remember?

  She collapses exhausted into his arms. He holds her while she cries.

  So, now he knows. She had good reason for what she did. He can’t condemn her for it. Perhaps she really doesn’t remember. Perhaps it’s too difficult for her to face. She took the gun. He understands that. But she also took the gloves. It looks like she meant to do it. What the hell do they do now?

  She sits up straight again. Her face is blotchy from crying, her eyes swollen. “I must have panicked. And I drove too fast, and ran those red lights, and went into that pole.”

  “What happened to the gun?” Tom asks, thinking rapidly.

  “I don’t know. I must have left it there. It obviously wasn’t in the car. I suppose someone found it and took it.”

  Tom’s heart beats fast in fear at what she’s done, at the terrible uncertainty of their position. What if someone turns in the gun? What then? “Jesus,” Tom says.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, miserably. “I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want to lose you. And I don’t want to get you into trouble, too. This is my problem. I have to fix it. I can’t let it touch you.”

  “It has touched me, Karen.” He takes her by the arms and looks deeply into her tear-filled eyes and speaks urgently. “It’s your lawyer’s job to fix it. It’s going to be okay. You were afraid for your life. You had good reason for what you did.”

  “What are you saying?” she asks, drawing back. “I still don’t think I killed him, Tom. I don’t think I could do that.”

  He looks at her in disbelief. “Then who did?”

  “I don’t know.” She looks at him as if hurt that he doubts her. “I wasn’t the only one who hated him.”

  He hugs her close to him so he doesn’t have to look in her eyes, and whispers, “Don’t run. Stay and face this. Don’t leave me.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  An hour later, Karen and Tom present themselves once again at Jack Calvin’s office. Karen has washed her face and reapplied her makeup. She now feels calm and detached—almost stoic in the face of disaster. She takes comfort in Tom’s support. But she’s terrified of what happens next.

  “Come in,” Calvin says, brisk and professional. He’d rearranged his calendar for this meeting. There’s no chitchat today. “Have a seat.”

  As they sit, Karen thinks of how every time she’s in this office, things are worse.

  “What’s happened?” Calvin asks, studying each of them intently.

  She lifts her eyes to his and says, “Detective Rasbach has asked me to come down to the station this afternoon to answer some questions. I’d like you to be there with me.”

  Calvin looks carefully from her to Tom and back to her again. He says, “Why go at all? You’re not obligated to. You’re not under arrest.”

  “Maybe I will be, soon,” Karen says.

  Jack Calvin doesn’t look as surprised as he might have, she thinks. He picks up a yellow legal pad and that same, expensive pen she recognizes from her last visit, and waits.

  “Maybe I’d better start at the beginning,” she says, and takes a deep breath and exhales. “I staged my suicide and ran away to escape an abusive husband. I’ve been living under a new identity.”

  “Okay,” Calvin says slowly.

  “Is that a crime?”

  “That depends. It’s not a crime, per se, to fake your death, but you may have committed other crimes in doing so. And adopting a false identity is perpetrating a fraud. But let’s come back to that later.
What was your name before?”

  “Georgina Traynor. I was married to Robert Traynor. He’s the man they’re trying to identify, the one who was killed that night.” She glances at Tom for support, but he’s watching the lawyer, not looking at her.

  Now Calvin seems worried. She knows how bad it looks.

  Tom says, clearly agitated, “As soon as they identify him, they’re going to figure it out. They’ll see that his wife died. They already know that Karen took on a new identity, that Karen Fairfield isn’t who she really is. They’ve already been to my office to tell me,” Tom says.

  Karen looks at him in shock. Tom already knew. The detectives know. “You didn’t tell me that,” she says. But he turns away from her and looks at Calvin.

  “What matters is what they can prove,” Calvin says evenly. He leans forward over his desk. “So, tell me what happened that night,” he says. “And please remember, I have a duty not to lie to the court, so don’t tell me anything that will put me in a difficult position.”

  She hesitates. “I don’t remember everything, yet, but I can tell you what I do remember,” she says. She tells Calvin what she told Tom earlier—except she leaves out any mention of the gun. But she tells him everything else, up to when she opened the door of the restaurant.

  Calvin stares at her as if trying to decide whether to believe her. An ominous silence fills the office. “Might you have had a gun with you, hypothetically?”

  “There may have been a gun, hypothetically,” she answers carefully.

  “Is there any way that this hypothetical gun, should it be found, could be traced back to you?” He looks at her closely, concerned.

  The gun was purchased illegally, and not registered to her. They can’t trace it to her if it’s found. And there are no fingerprints on it, she’s sure of that. She never handled it without gloves. “No,” she says firmly.