Rules for Perfect Murders

by Peter Swanson

  I went to my door and opened it. Agent Berry was tall and stoop shouldered, dressed in a pin-striped suit. He showed his FBI identification, reintroduced himself, and said he had come up from the New Haven office and had a few questions. Behind him stood a much shorter woman, also in a suit. He introduced her as Agent Perez from the Boston office. I invited them both in, said that I was about to make coffee, and asked if they wanted some. Agent Berry said he wouldn’t mind. Agent Perez, who was now looking out the window, said nothing.

  I started the coffee and felt surprisingly calm. All the adrenaline that had flooded through me after the buzzer sounded had dissipated with their arrival. I was light, almost spacey, as I walked the short distance to the chair and directed them to the sofa.

  Agent Berry adjusted his suit pants above the knees before sitting down. He had enormous hands, spotted with age, and a large, elongated head with heavy jowls. He cleared his throat and said, “I was hoping you’d be able to shed some light on your relationship with Gwen Mulvey.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Can you tell us when you first met her?”

  “Sure,” I said. “She called me at the bookstore—at Old Devils, where I work—last Thursday and asked if she could come in and ask some questions. Is she all right?”

  “What were the questions she wanted to ask you?” he said. Agent Perez still hadn’t spoken, but she had pulled out a small spiral-bound notebook and had uncapped a pen.

  “She had questions about a list I’d made, a blog post from several years ago.”

  Berry pulled out his own notebook and peered down at it. “Called ‘Eight Perfect Murders’?” I could hear what sounded like disdain in his voice.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “And what were her questions related to?”

  I was under the impression that they already knew all about the conversation Gwen and I had had but decided to tell them anything they wanted to know. Well, anything that I’d already told Gwen. So, I began, explaining how Agent Mulvey had noticed a connection between the list I’d written in 2004 and several recent crimes. I mentioned how at first, I’d considered the connection to be dubious, probably coincidental, but how we’d found the eight books from my list at Elaine Johnson’s house in Rockland.

  “Did it strike you as odd that Agent Mulvey asked you to accompany her on official FBI business? To visit the scene of a possible crime?” This question came from Agent Perez, the first words I’d heard her speak. She leaned forward as she spoke them, the buttons of her suit jacket straining a little as though she’d recently gained weight. She couldn’t have been much older than thirty, with short black hair and a round face dominated by large eyes and thick brows.

  “I didn’t,” I said. “I think she honestly believed that since I’d written the list, since I’d read all the books on it, that I was the expert. She thought I might be able to notice something in Elaine Johnson’s house. Also, I knew her. I mean, I’d known Elaine Johnson.”

  “So what did you find out? From your visit to her house?”

  “What I found out—what we found out, Agent Mulvey and myself—was confirmation that someone really is using my list to commit murders, and that quite possibly it has something to do with me—”

  “Quite possibly?” Agent Berry said, his jowls quivering.

  “Elaine Johnson was someone I knew, someone who used to come into my bookstore all the time. It’s clear that her death signifies my involvement. Not my immediate involvement, but the fact that whoever is doing this either knows me, or wanted me to find out about this, or is somehow framing me.”

  “You discussed all this with Agent Mulvey?”

  “Yes, we talked about all the possibilities.”

  Agent Berry looked down at his notebook. “Just to confirm, you discussed the murders of Robin Callahan, Jay Bradshaw, and Ethan Byrd?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And you discussed the murder of Bill Manso?”

  “The man killed near the train tracks? … Yes, we did.”

  “What about Eric Atwell?” he said, looking up at me.

  “We talked about Eric Atwell a little bit, because of his relationship to me. But we didn’t discuss him as a victim in this particular series of crimes.”

  “And what was his relationship to you?”

  “Eric Atwell’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s clear that she wrote all this down,” I said. “I don’t know why you can’t just speak with her or consult her notes.”

  “We just want to hear it from you,” said Agent Perez. I’d noticed that any time she spoke Agent Berry would shift on my sofa, uncomfortably, as though he had an itch he was too embarrassed to scratch.

  “Eric Atwell had been involved with my wife at the time of her death. He’d gotten her hooked on drugs, and the night she died in a car accident she’d been driving back from his house.”

  “And Eric Atwell was murdered, correct?”

  “He was shot, yes. It was my understanding that the police thought it was a robbery. And it was pretty clear that Agent Mulvey didn’t think it had anything to do with the ‘Perfect Murders’ list.”

  “Okay, one more,” Agent Berry said. “Did you two discuss the death of Steven Clifton?”

  I paused, stunned for a moment. Steven Clifton was the name of the science teacher who had molested Claire Mallory back when she was in middle school. I had never heard Gwen mention him. I shook my head and said, “No, I don’t know that name.”

  “No?”

  “It’s not familiar,” I said.

  “Okay,” Agent Berry said and flipped a page in his notebook. He didn’t seem concerned that I hadn’t heard of Steven Clifton. He asked, “Did Agent Mulvey ever confide in you her suspicions about who might be responsible for these murders?”

  “No,” I said. “I mean, that was why she had come to me. She was trying to find out if there was anyone in my life—any customers, any ex-employees—whom I might suspect.”

  “And was there anyone?”

  “There wasn’t,” I said. “Isn’t. At least not that I could think of. Elaine Johnson was probably the oddest customer who used to come into the store, but she’s obviously not guilty.”

  “You told Agent Mulvey that you currently have two employees working for you?”

  “That’s right. Brandon Weeks and Emily Barsamian. The only other person who occasionally works in the store is my co-owner, Brian Murray.”

  Both agents wrote in their notebook. Wind buffeted the window of my apartment. “Is she okay?” I asked, the words coming out spontaneously.

  Agent Berry looked up, his lower lip between his teeth. He said, “Agent Mulvey has been suspended from the agency. I need to let you know that she has been informed that she can no longer make any contact with you.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Why?”

  The agents glanced at each other, then Agent Perez said, “I’m afraid we can’t talk about that. And any information you can provide from here on in should be provided only to me or to Agent Berry.”

  I nodded. They looked at each other again, and Perez said, “Would you be willing to come back with me to the office and give a full statement?”

  *

  I FOLLOWED AGENT PEREZ to Chelsea in her car, and she was the one who questioned me, in a plush, small room with a recording device plus two cameras mounted high in the ceiling. We started at the beginning: the origin of the list, the books I’d chosen, Gwen Mulvey and the questions that she’d asked. She wanted to know everything about our interaction, all the details we’d talked about. Agent Perez didn’t ask about Eric Atwell again, or about Steven Clifton, and I was relieved, although it had occurred to me that she was maybe holding some cards close to her chest. The interview took the entire morning, and I felt strangely guilty, as though I were cheating on Gwen Mulvey with this new agent, telling her everything that we had talked about. I kept wondering why she’d been suspended from the agency, and what it had to
do with my list, and what was happening. Toward the end of the interview I did ask Agent Perez one last time if she could tell me anything more about Agent Mulvey.

  “There are procedures that we have to follow in the course of an investigation, and Agent Mulvey didn’t comply with those procedures. That’s all I can really say.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Before you go, I should ask you if you feel the need for police protection for yourself?” She twisted what looked like a wedding band.

  “No, I guess I don’t,” I said, pretending like I was thinking about it. “But I will be careful.”

  “One last thing before I let you go,” she said. “I know that you provided an alibi to Gwen Mulvey for the date of the death of Elaine Johnson, but I was hoping you could do the same, or attempt to do the same, for the other murders.”

  “I can try,” I said.

  She sent me home with a list of exact dates for the murders of Robin Callahan, Jay Bradshaw, Ethan Byrd, and Bill Manso. I went onto my computer to look at my calendar but was suddenly exhausted, unable to deal with it at that moment. I stood up, was instantly light-headed, and realized that the only thing I’d eaten all day had been a plastic-wrapped raspberry Danish during my morning interview. I went to my kitchen and made myself two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, ate them both with two large glasses of milk. It was one thirty. The good news was that I was getting a drink with Marty Kingship at Jack Crow’s Tavern at six that evening. I knew he’d have more information for me on Norman Chaney’s death, probably more information on Nicholas Pruitt. In the meantime, I needed to figure out what to do between now and that meeting at six. It wasn’t worth contacting Pruitt myself. Not yet, anyway. Then I remembered the dedication in his book of short stories: To Jillian. I got online and looked some more at Jillian Nguyen, the possible dedicatee. She’d been an adjunct professor at New Essex, primarily teaching survey courses for incoming freshmen; at Emerson College, where she was now, she was teaching some literature classes, but was also teaching poetry in the creative writing department. I googled some of her poetry. As was often the case with contemporary poets, I barely understood what I was reading, although there was one poem, published in a journal called Undivider, titled “Sunday Afternoon at the PEM.” The PEM was the Peabody Essex Museum, located in Salem, Massachusetts, a town adjacent to New Essex. The poem itself was largely about an exhibit related to Vietnamese folk art, although there was a “he” in the poem, a companion of the speaker, who “only saw the negative space, the bent flesh.” I wondered if the companion was Nicholas Pruitt, and if he was, then I doubted Pruitt and Jillian Nguyen were still together. Even I could decipher the line from the poem as being critical.

  There was a phone number listed for Professor Nguyen on the Emerson faculty page, and I called it, not really expecting her to pick up, but she did, after two rings.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Professor Nguyen?” I asked, hoping I was pronouncing it correctly.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Hi, this is John Haley,” I said, spontaneously using the name of the previous owner of Old Devils. “I was wondering if I could speak with you about Nicholas Pruitt.”

  There was a pause, and for a moment I thought she might have hung up the phone, but then she said, “How’d you get my name?”

  “I’m afraid that I can’t be overly specific about my reasons for wanting to speak with you, except to say that Mr. Pruitt is being considered for a prestigious job, and it’s very important that we fully vet him.” Even as I said the words, I knew they weren’t entirely convincing.

  “Fully vet him for what?”

  “Look, I’m right here in Boston, and time is of the essence. Is there any possible way that I could meet with you this afternoon? Either in your office or maybe we could meet for coffee.”

  “Did Nick list me as a reference?” she said.

  “I believe he mentioned you, but you wouldn’t be giving an official reference. Anything you told me about him would be in total confidence.”

  She laughed a little. “I’d be very surprised if I were asked to give some kind of reference. Well, you’ve piqued my interest.”

  “You’d be doing me a huge favor if you’d meet with me.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I can meet you this afternoon if you don’t mind coming to me.”

  “Not at all,” I said.

  “There’s a coffee shop in Downtown Crossing. Ladder Café. Do you know it?”

  “No, but I’ll find it.”

  “I have office hours until three. Will three thirty work?”

  CHAPTER 19

  The section of Boston known as Downtown Crossing is on the other side of the Boston Common. It used to be anchored by the large department stores, notably Filene’s and Macy’s, although both those buildings are currently empty. What remains is a mishmash of sneaker stores and hot dog vendors, plus a few hip bars and restaurants hoping that the city will successfully be able to rebrand the area as the Ladder District, something they’d been trying to do for a few years now.

  Clearly, the Ladder Café was on board with the rebranding. Sandwiched between a fabric shop and a sports bar, the Ladder was a narrow, high-ceilinged room with tattooed baristas and minimalist art on the walls. I got there early, procured a large café au lait, and sat with a view toward the front doors. I suspected that Jillian Nguyen, when she arrived, would have many questions about why I was asking her about her former boyfriend. I decided that I would tell her as little as possible, except that he was being considered as the editor for a forthcoming anthology from a major publisher, and that there’d been some questions about his personal life. If pressed, I’d tell her I was working for a private detective firm doing a background check. I was hoping she wouldn’t ask me for my card.

  At exactly three thirty a woman I recognized as Jillian came through the doors. She was small, enveloped in a puffy jacket with a hood. She must have caught me looking at her because she immediately came over, and I introduced myself.

  “I only have about twenty minutes,” she said, and I wondered if she’d gotten more wary since our phone call.

  I offered to buy her a coffee and she asked for an herbal tea. I stood in line again and got her one. It was impossible for me not to think of Claire, who always used to get herbal tea at coffee shops, and how it used to drive me crazy to pay three dollars or more for what amounted to a tea bag and some hot water.

  Back at the table I said, “Thanks so much again for meeting with me. I know this must seem very strange, but I’ve been asked to do a background check and it has to happen very quickly because the publishers want to make a decision right away.”

  She perked up at the word publishers, which I knew she would. “Oh,” she said. “What’s the …”

  “I can’t actually tell you the publishing house but he’s being considered as an editor for a big anthology, and, apparently, someone somewhere expressed concern about his personal life, that it might inhibit him from doing the work.”

  Jillian was about to take a sip of her tea but set the mug back down on its saucer. “You said that this conversation would be entirely confidential.”

  “Oh, absolutely,” I said. “One hundred percent. I’ll never even file a written report.”

  “I haven’t seen or spoken to Nick for over three years, not since I left New Essex. Clearly, you already know I filed a restraining order against him, otherwise why would you be talking with me, right?”

  “Right,” I said, then added, “How long were you involved with him?”

  She looked toward the ceiling. “Less than a year. I mean, less than a year that we were actually involved. I knew him for a year before we started going out, and after I finally broke it off, I was still in New Essex for another six months or so.”

  “And can you tell me what prompted you to file the restraining order?”

  She sighed. “He never actually hurt me, or threatened me with physical violence, but after we brok
e up, he called me all the time, showed up wherever I was going to be, and once—it was only the once, but it was what caused me to get the restraining order—he got very drunk and broke into my house.”

  “Jeez,” I said.

  “The thing is … I do think he’s actually a decent man, but he’s a drunk. Do you know … is he still drinking? The last time I spoke with him he told me he’d been sober for over a month.”

  “I’ll be sure to find out. So he was never actually violent with you?”

  “No. Definitely no. Just persistent, really. He considered me the love of his life.”

  “He dedicated his book to you,” I said.

  “Oh, God.” She covered her face as though she was embarrassed. “I know. And it was after we’d broken up. Look, I don’t want to stop Nick from getting a job that he probably needs. I had a bad experience with him, but if he’s stopped drinking, then maybe he’ll be a good fit. He’s very well read.”

  “So, from your time knowing him, you don’t think he’d be capable of any kind of violence? You never felt as though he’d be vengeful after you broke up?”

  She looked a little confused at the question, and I wondered if I’d taken it too far. She started to speak, stopped, then said, “I never saw a violent side of him, but he did … he was very interested in violence from a literary point of view. He was attracted to stories of revenge. But that … that was just professional interest, as far as I knew. He’s a pretty typical English professor, really. Bookish.”

  I wanted to ask her if she knew anything about what had happened to his sister, or subsequently, his sister’s ex-husband, Norman Chaney. But I already felt like I was treading on thin ice. Jillian Nguyen was studying me the way someone studies a person they might have to describe at a later time. “I know these questions sound odd,” I said. “Apparently, and this is just between you and me, someone came forward to the publishing house and accused Nicholas Pruitt of a violent act.”

  “Oh,” Jillian said and took a sip from her tea.

  “The publishers did not believe the accusation, or the accuser, was trustworthy, but just to make sure—”