A Stranger in the House

by Shari Lapena

  Rasbach wants to know who might have been in the house, too. He feels like he’s back at square one. He has a dead body, and a whole lot of questions with no answers.

  —

  Karen paces her cell, thinking about what’s going on at home. Calvin has asked the police in to find proof of Robert being in their house. She’s hoping that they find Robert’s prints there, because that will support her position that she was a battered wife, stalked by a violent husband, in fear for her life. If she has to, she’ll use this to reduce her time in prison. But now she’s hoping for something else, something that will earn her a get-out-of-jail-free card.

  Brigid. Brigid is going to be her ticket out of jail. Because Brigid might be crazy, she might be in love with her husband, but the most important thing about Brigid is that she is stupid. Brigid was so stupid she planted the murder weapon right in Karen’s garage.

  Karen could not have foreseen that Brigid would follow her that night. She could not have foreseen that Brigid would pick up the gun. Karen’s still shocked by all that. But every cloud has a silver lining, and while Brigid is an actual witness who probably could have—with the weight of all the other evidence—put her away, she went about it entirely the wrong way. So heavy handed. Planting the gun. Calling it in to the police. Pressuring Tom into sleeping with her.

  Karen thinks about Brigid in her bed, having sex with her husband, while she was curled up on a wretched cot, in a wretched cell, in the basement of the police station, the noise and stench all around her. She thinks about how all this time, the two of them conspired to keep the secret of their past affair from her.

  It infuriates her that Tom slept with Brigid again that night, but it’s also the best thing that could have happened. Because Tom can tell the police how Brigid blackmailed him into sleeping with her, how she’s in love with him and wants Karen out of the way. And to back him up, Brigid’s fingerprints will be in her house, in places where they shouldn’t be if she’s just a friend of Karen’s. They’ll be in the bedroom.

  It’s very lucky that Karen hasn’t told the police anything yet. Now she has a decision to make. Does she tell the truth—that she still can’t remember anything after reaching the door of the restaurant? Or should she lie and say that she now remembers everything? That she argued with Robert in the restaurant, and then fled for her life. That she didn’t shoot him—he was alive when she left. And then the implication is there—that Brigid followed her and heard it all, and then must have killed him herself, after Karen fled, and kept the gun, thinking she could set Karen up for murder.

  She doesn’t need to prove that Brigid killed Robert—although that would be sweet. She wonders now how Brigid called the police about the gun; surely she wouldn’t have called from her own phone? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she had? But it doesn’t really matter. All they have to do is raise enough doubt, sow enough confusion, to get the charges against Karen dropped.

  And Tom won’t be sleeping with Brigid anymore. She has nothing to hold over them now, because they are going to tell the police about Brigid being there that night. Karen knows that Tom has packed some things and is moving to his brother’s for the time being. How angry Brigid will be that he’s gone. How sad, how lonely, sitting at her window, looking across the street at their empty house.

  Serves you right, Karen thinks.

  —

  Rasbach has put a rush on the fingerprints. By early the next morning, he’s standing with the fingerprint expert looking at a full set of Robert Traynor’s prints, and various prints that were lifted the day before from the Krupp house, as well as the prints recovered from the scene of the crime.

  “There isn’t a single print of the murder victim anywhere on the premises,” the expert tells him now. “Nothing. He was never in that house. At least, not without gloves on. Traynor might have been in the house at some point, but they can’t say that he was for sure.”

  “That’s going to disappoint Jack Calvin,” Rasbach muses.

  “So was she imagining things,” Jennings asks, standing beside Rasbach, “when she says someone was going through the house?”

  The fingerprint expert shakes his head and says, “Like I said, he could have worn gloves. But we found loads of prints of an unidentified person all over the house,” the expert says.

  “Like where all over the house?” Rasbach asks.

  “Everywhere. The living room, the kitchen, the bathrooms, the bedroom . . . I mean, it was like this person lived there. And whoever it was is very tactile, always touching and handling things. We even found this person’s prints on the inside of Karen Krupp’s underwear drawer. Inside the bathroom cupboards. On her perfume bottles. Inside the filing cabinets.”

  “What about the garage?” Rasbach asks.

  “No, nothing in the garage.”

  “That’s interesting,” Rasbach says.

  “No. What’s really interesting,” the technician says with a gleam in his eye, “is that they match prints we found at the murder scene, on the back door of the restaurant. Whoever was going through the Krupps’ house was also at the murder scene, at least at some point.”

  “That is interesting,” Rasbach says.

  “Nothing is showing up in the databanks. Whoever they belong to, they don’t have a record.”

  “I think we’ll be able to narrow it down. Excellent work. Thank you,” Rasbach says, and motions for Jennings to follow him.

  “She has a stalker, all right,” Rasbach says. “It’s just not who she thought it was.”

  “Life is full of surprises,” Jennings says. He’s oddly upbeat for a homicide detective.

  “We need to talk to Karen Krupp again,” Rasbach says, “and maybe this time she’ll talk.”

  Chapter Forty-three

  My client is ready to make a statement,” Calvin says.

  Karen’s seated with Calvin in an interview room at the jail. Tom isn’t there. Rasbach sits across the table from them, with Jennings beside him. There’s a video recorder in the room to capture her every word, her every movement, while she squirms under questioning.

  Karen knows she has to be good. Her life depends on it.

  After a few formalities, they begin.

  “My name was Georgina Traynor,” she says. “I was married to Robert Traynor, an antiques dealer in Las Vegas.” She tells them everything—about her life with him, how she escaped—all the ugly details. She tells them about thinking Robert had been in their house, how frightened she was. She tells them about the night she got the phone call.

  She drinks a sip of water because her voice is ragged. Reliving this is awful; she feels physically ill. “I agreed to meet with him. I was terrified that he might hurt Tom.” She falters, but then continues. “I had a gun that I’d bought when I left him, for protection in case he came after me. I kept it hidden in the furnace room. So when he called I got the gun and my rubber gloves from the kitchen, and went to meet him.”

  She looks steadily at Detective Rasbach. “For a long time, I couldn’t remember what happened that night, I think because it was so traumatic. But I—I remember it all now.” She steadies herself with a deep breath before continuing. “When I got there it was already dark. I went into the restaurant, and Robert was there, waiting for me. At first, he didn’t seem angry, which surprised me. Maybe because he saw that I had a gun, he was more careful with me. But then he began threatening me, like he always did. He told me that I’d put him through a lot of trouble and expense to find me and that if he couldn’t have me, nobody could. He said if I didn’t leave with him he would find a way to kill both me and my new husband, and no one would ever figure it out, because I was already officially dead, and he had no connection to Tom. He said they would be the perfect murders, and I believed him.” She pauses. “I was the one holding the gun, and he was threatening me. He knew I didn’t have the guts to shoot him. He laughed.”
>
  Rasbach is looking at her, expressionless. She can’t tell what he’s thinking; she can never tell what he’s thinking.

  “I didn’t know what to do. I knew I couldn’t shoot him. I panicked. I turned and ran. When I got to the car I dropped the gun and peeled off the gloves—I remember, I had the gun in my hand and the gloves on and I couldn’t get the keys out of my pocket. So I dropped the gun and ripped the gloves off. And then I got in the car and took off as fast as I could, and drove too fast and went into that pole.” She looks Rasbach directly in the eyes. “I swear to you, Robert was alive when I left him. He didn’t chase after me. I thought he would—I kept expecting to be yanked back by my hair—but he let me go.” She adds, “But he knew where Tom and I lived.” She shudders, as if reliving the fear.

  “So how do you think your husband was killed?” Rasbach asks.

  “I don’t know for sure.”

  “But you have an idea?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me.”

  She doesn’t look at Calvin. “My neighbor, across the street. Brigid Cruikshank. She told Tom that she followed me that night, that she heard Robert and me in the restaurant.” She sees Rasbach’s expression sharpen.

  “Why would she follow you?”

  “Because she’s in love with my husband.” She thinks she’s struck just the right note of indignation, bitterness, and hurt.

  “And what do you think happened?”

  “I think she picked up the gun where I dropped it in the parking lot and went into the building and shot Robert.” Her voice has lowered to a whisper.

  “Why would she do that?” Rasbach asks, clearly skeptical.

  “So that she could put me away for murder. She saw a perfect opportunity to get rid of me and take my husband away from me.” Rasbach looks unconvinced. His eyebrows have risen dramatically. She says, “She and Tom had an affair, just before he met me. She wants him back, and she wants to get rid of me. Tom told me that she blackmailed him into having sex with her again—she told him that if he slept with her she wouldn’t tell that she was there that night and that she saw me there, arguing with Robert. She must have heard everything we said.”

  She sees the look Rasbach gives Jennings, as if he’s finding all of this terribly far-fetched.

  Karen’s eyes dart from one detective to the other. “She must have planted the gun in our garage. I didn’t put it there. And if you look, you might find her fingerprints at the crime scene. Tom said she told him that she opened the door. You should check it.” Her voice is becoming a bit frantic. They don’t seem to believe her.

  “I see,” Rasbach says, as if he doesn’t believe a word of it.

  “She was there! You must be able to find witnesses who saw her drive down the street after me that night,” Karen says desperately. “She must have been seen by the same people who saw me leaving the house and driving away. Have you asked any of them?”

  “We’ll look into it,” Rasbach says. “Was Brigid a friend of yours?”

  “She was.”

  “Did you invite her over to your house, when you were friends?”

  “Yes. Sometimes.”

  “What would you do, when she was over?” Rasbach asks.

  “We’d have coffee, usually in the kitchen or in the living room, and talk.” Now Karen is tired and wants to go back to her cell.

  “Okay,” Rasbach says evenly. “Let’s go over it again.”

  —

  Rasbach sits back in his chair and regards Karen Krupp sitting across from him. She looks exhausted and a bit slovenly, but she meets his eyes readily enough, as if challenging him to find a hole in her story. He imagines that she’s crafted it all quite carefully, almost as carefully as she crafted her escape. And while he’s quite sympathetic about how she got away from her husband—he can understand why she did what she did—this story he’s not ready to credit. It’s the amnesia.

  “A little strange, don’t you think,” he says now, “that you suddenly got your memory back. Right before our interview.”

  Karen says, quite composed, “If you talk to my doctor, you’ll realize it’s not strange at all. That’s how it works. It comes back when it damn well pleases. Or not at all.”

  “I’ve spoken to an amnesia expert,” he tells her, and watches for her reaction. She has none. She’s quite good at this. “And I find it rather pat, that you remember it all now. I mean, today.” He smiles. “You couldn’t remember anything a couple of days ago. It’s a little convenient, that’s all.”

  She folds her arms across her chest and sits back in her chair. She says nothing.

  “You see, I’m having a little trouble believing your version of events,” Rasbach says pleasantly. He waits for a moment to let her stew. The silence stretches out for a long moment. “The part I’m having difficulty with is that you say you met with Robert Traynor that night, he’d hunted you down after three long years, you wave a gun at him—and he lets you go.”

  Karen stares stonily back at him.

  “In my experience, angry, violent men who have been deceived don’t exhibit such strong self-control,” Rasbach says. “In fact, I’m surprised you got out of there alive, if everything you say is true.”

  “I told you,” she says, her voice shaking slightly. “I think he let me go because he knew where I lived. He knew who my husband was. He was planning to kill us both if I didn’t do what he wanted—so he didn’t have to kill me right then and there.”

  Rasbach looks back at her doubtfully. “But surely he wouldn’t think that you’d just go home and wait for him to slaughter the two of you and get away with it. You’re a clever woman. If he was going to kill you and Tom, wouldn’t you have gone to the police?”

  “I panicked. I told you. I just ran out of there, I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “But my point is,” Rasbach says, leaning forward slightly, “that Robert Traynor would expect you to go to the police. Or to disappear again. So why on earth would he let you go?”

  Karen looks paler now, more nervous. “I don’t know. I don’t know what he was thinking.”

  “I don’t think he would have let you go. I think he was dead when you ran out of there.” She meets his eyes steadily and doesn’t waver. He changes tack. “How long have you known about your husband’s affair with your neighbor Brigid Cruikshank?”

  “He just told me.”

  Rasbach nods. “Yes, he kept it a secret from you, didn’t he? Why do you suppose he did that, if the affair was already over, as he said, when the two of you met?”

  “Why don’t you ask him?” she says, obviously stung by the question.

  “I have. I want to hear what you think.”

  She eyes him angrily. “She told him that she and her husband were separating. He believed her. He wouldn’t have slept with her otherwise.”

  “So, why didn’t he tell you early on? Do you think it might be because he was afraid you might not believe such a self-serving explanation?”

  Karen gives him a sour look and he lets it go. “Your marriage isn’t exactly built on a foundation of total honesty,” Rasbach points out, “but never mind.”

  “You don’t know anything about my marriage,” she says harshly.

  She’s getting a little rattled, he thinks. “One more thing,” Rasbach says. “I’m also having trouble imagining Brigid spontaneously picking up the gun you dropped in the parking lot, and then going into the restaurant and shooting Robert Traynor dead.”

  “Why?” Karen counters. “I don’t have any trouble imagining it at all. She’s off her head. She’s obsessed with my husband. She wants me to go to jail. Talk to Tom. She’s completely mad.”

  “I will,” Rasbach says. “And I’ll talk to her, too.”

  —

  Rasbach and Jennings head back to the station from the county jail. The case, wh
ich had once seemed so straightforward, is now anything but. Rasbach no longer knows what to believe.

  “Just playing devil’s advocate here. What if she’s right?” Jennings says. “What if we get this woman Brigid’s prints and they match the ones all over the Krupps’ house and the ones at the crime scene? Maybe we’ve got the wrong one in jail.”

  “Maybe. Whoever put the gun in the garage must have been at the murder scene. Maybe it was Brigid. Maybe it was someone else. Maybe Tom was at the murder scene. Maybe he’s been having an affair with this woman across the street all along and that’s why there are fingerprints all over the house.” Rasbach gazes contemplatively out the car window at the passing scenery.

  Finally, he says, “We should have the tests back on the weapon by now. Maybe it’s not even the murder weapon, in which case, any crackpot in the city might have put it there and is trying to have some fun with us. Let’s talk to the firearms examiner, and get this Brigid woman fingerprinted and see what we actually have, in terms of evidence.”

  When they get back to the station, Rasbach calls the firearms examiner, who confirms that the gun found in Karen Krupp’s garage is definitely the gun that shot Robert Traynor.

  “Well, that’s one thing we know for sure,” Rasbach says. “Let’s go talk to Brigid Cruikshank.”

  Chapter Forty-four

  Brigid glowers at the house across the street as if that will bring him back.

  Tom’s car is gone. She hasn’t seen it since yesterday. She watched the police arrive and go through the house a second time, the day before, and was puzzled. Hadn’t they found the murder weapon? She was pretty sure they had. She’d watched them go through the garage from this very chair, and they couldn’t have missed it.

  Finally they left, and soon after that she saw Tom leave. Earlier that day, she’d seen him throw an overnight bag in his car. Then he stood by the car and glared at her from across the street. Her heart had shriveled up inside her. Why was he leaving? Didn’t they have an understanding? Didn’t he feel the way she did, now that they are lovers again?