by Erin Lanter
“Are you sure?” Drew asked. “I mean, you’re sure you saw this? It wouldn’t be the first time – ”
Clenching her jaw, Tessa said, “I saw it, Drew. And not just that. I think he saw me, too.”
Drew leaned back on the sofa. His eyebrows furrowed the way they always did that when he was thinking. “Are you telling me that you think this man murdered someone, and that he might have seen you?”
Tessa nodded. The shock was wearing off. Panic zipped through her stomach. Her heart hammered inside her chest. “Yes.” Glancing at her hand, still holding the empty mug, she noticed it was shaking.
A look that mirrored her own flitted across Drew’s face. “You have to go to the police, Tess.”
Her stomach sank. She’d been down this road before.
8
He ran his hand across his forehead as rain and sweat dripped into his eyes. The evening hadn’t gone as he’d planned.
He cursed himself for his carelessness. How could he have let himself be seen?
What were the odds that someone would look through his window at the exact moment he was moving her? Who would be outside in a torrential downpour? Who could see past the giant oak that blocked most of his house?
Apparently at least one person, who he would have to make sure he dealt with.
The wipers moved back and forth across the windshield in a futile attempt to clear the deluge coming from the sky. This rain was certainly causing problems. He’d known there was a chance, but even the meteorologists hadn’t seen this one coming. His plans would have to be adjusted, and he’d have to come up with another place to stash the body. Everything could have been perfect; he could have been in the clear and she would have never even been missed.
When someone is practically knocking on death’s door, no one asks questions. Family and friends are expecting it, so no one causes a fuss when they die. There are tears, a funeral, and finally, acceptance. Everyone moves on with only “what a shame” whenever the deceased’s name is mentioned.
After almost an hour of driving, he still didn’t know what to do. The woman who’d seen him would have probably already gone to the police. They’d come knocking on his door any minute.
He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. The glowing numbers told him he was running out of time. It was a quarter of eight. Night shift awaited, and he had to be calm enough not to raise any questions from his coworkers.
A smile played on his lips when he realized he had the perfect hiding place. No one would even think to question him if they found her.
For the first time in an hour, his heart rate slowed, and a sense of calm washed over him.
It would all be okay.
9
Lois Simmons placed a plate of sliced meatloaf on the kitchen table and settled her thick frame into the chair. Her husband, Walter, was already helping himself to generous portions of mashed potatoes and green beans.
“Did you work up an appetite today, honey?” she asked her husband from across the table.
“Yep,” Walter grunted as he shoveled food into his mouth. After working a twelve-hour shift as a hospital custodian, he was rarely in the mood for conversation until after dinner and a drink, usually bourbon.
Lois looked over her shoulder and out the window toward their neighbor’s house. “The woman next door had a visitor tonight. Twice in one night, actually.” Her eyes snapped with excitement.
“Is that so?”
“Yes! And what a nice-looking man he is! I’ve always thought she’s such a pretty girl, and it’s a shame she never has anyone over. Don’t you think she must have a very lonely life?” Lois asked, piling food onto her own plate. Lois never let her full figure keep her from enjoying a home-cooked meal.
“I wouldn’t know,” Walt said, noncommittal. “If she’s alone, it’s probably because she wants to be, dear. She has a right to her privacy.”
Lois scooped a generous bite of meatloaf and mashed potatoes onto her fork and relished the flavor. She’d decided years ago that since she was in her fifties, she was entitled to a few extra inches around her waist. She never understood women who watched every morsel they put in their mouths. Life was to be enjoyed, Lois reasoned, and how could they possibly enjoy life when they were nibbling on lettuce and sprouts all the time?
“Why would anyone choose to be alone?” Lois asked, incredulously, spearing a green bean and popping it into her mouth.
A shrug was Walt’s only response.
Lois leaned back in her chair. She knew what her husband thought of her: the neighborhood busybody who knew almost everything about their neighbors’ personal lives. She never considered herself nosy, only observant and well-informed. It wasn’t her fault she saw everything that happened on their street while she was in her kitchen running her home-based bakery.
When it came to this particular neighbor, though, she’d been miffed more than once when her friendly offerings of muffins or cookies went unacknowledged. It drove Lois crazy. After all, she’d fumed to her long-suffering husband many times, anyone with any kind of manners would have at least dropped a thank you note in the mailbox. The note never came, though, and Lois couldn’t let it go.
“Aren’t you even a little curious about what’s going on with her? She’s never outside, except when she’s mowing her grass, and she doesn’t make any effort to get to know us or any of the other neighbors. But having the same handsome man visit her twice in one night – don’t you think that means something?”
Walt dropped his napkin in his lap and rested a hand on the table. “Lois, whatever is going on with that woman is none of your business. You’ve got to pry yourself away from the windows and stop spying on her,” he chastised.
“Spy? I’m not spying, Walter,” she said as though she were addressing a child. “It just so happens that I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and the window over the sink gives me a perfect view of the front of her house. Lois’s Loaves is really starting to take off.” Lois paused and proudly patted her short, ash blond hair. “It’s not my fault if I’ve noticed over the past year that nobody but her ever seems to be coming or going.”
“Whatever you say, Lois,” Walt said, picking his fork back up and shoveling in a mouthful of mashed potatoes.
“Maybe she just needs a friend,” Lois commented, more to herself than to Walt, who seemed to be tuning her out. She snapped her fingers. “I’ll take her one of my cream cheese pound cakes. Nobody can resist those.”
Walt scraped up the last bite of food from his plate, then announced, “I’m going to watch TV.” He stood, the legs of the chair scraping the faded linoleum as he pushed it back.
Lois didn’t seem to notice.
She tapped a short pink fingernail on the scratched table and furrowed her brow. “Let’s see,” she mumbled. “I’ve got orders the next couple days, so I won’t have time to bake anything extra.” She placed her index finger on her lips, an unconscious gesture she made when she was deep in thought. “I can take it over Friday. If she’s lucky, she’ll have someone to share it with. “Now, what’s her name again?” Her finger went back to her lips. Lois thought several moments before it came to her. “Ah. I think it’s Tessa something.”
10
Drew sank onto the sofa and leaned his head back. Of all the ways he thought he might spend this evening, sitting in Tessa’s living room while she told him an almost unbelievable story about someone carrying a dead woman wrapped in plastic would never have crossed his mind.
It had been a struggle to keep his mind from wandering to the most logical place. It wouldn’t be the first time Tessa thought she saw something that didn’t really happen.
Ever since her mom died a couple years ago, Tessa hadn’t been the same. At first he just assumed it came from not knowing what to do without having to take care of her mom, but it seemed to go a little deeper. More than once, he’d been afraid the trauma of finding her body had pushed Tessa into some kind of psychological break. He was no expert on th
e subject, but he knew enough to be concerned.
Now, with the help of a sleeping pill, Tessa was asleep, leaving Drew to wonder if it was possible that her biggest fear was coming true – that the monsters that lived in her mother’s head had found their way into Tessa’s.
11
Light filtered through the bedroom window and lay in streaks across the bed. Tuesday morning. Tessa groaned and buried her face in the pillow. Drew had insisted she take a sleeping pill last night, and she’d been too upset and exhausted to argue. Now she felt foggy.
Bit by bit, images from the night before formed in her mind. Walking for what seemed like hours, rain, Drew’s concerned face.
Her gut clenched.
She’d seen a man carrying a woman who was wrapped in plastic. Their eyes had met.
Those eyes. Why were they bothering her?
Tessa’s pulse quickened and she sat straight up in bed. Suddenly restless, she got up, walked quickly to the bathroom, and leaned over the sink, clasping the edge to steady herself against the lingering drowsiness. She turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on her face. When she raised her head, she noticed a note taped to the mirror.
Tessa, I slept on the couch last night. You’ll find the blanket and pillow where I left them. I had an early meeting and had to go home before you woke up. A rental car has been delivered so you don’t have to take the bus. The key is on the kitchen table. Come straight home after work. I’ll be here with you.
Drew
P.S. I know you don’t feel like you can trust your own mind right now, but please go to the police station this morning to report what you saw. If you don’t, I will.
Leaning over the sink, Tessa examined her face in the mirror. Dark circles rested beneath each puffy eye. Lines creased her forehead. She looked about ten years older than she had at this time yesterday.
Yesterday. Looking back, things had been so simple a day ago. She got up, went to work, met with Dr. Raymond, and came home. To think, only twenty-four hours ago the worst thing she had to do was talk to a shrink.
She knew what she had to do now and dreaded it.
After a quick shower and a thick layer of concealer under her eyes, she got dressed, grabbed her purse, and headed out the door, grateful that Drew had gotten her a rental. The last thing she needed right now was to be crammed into public transportation with a bunch of people who may or may not be watching her, trying to figure out why she looked so spooked.
Once in the car, she dialed her boss’s number at the news station. No answer, as usual.
“Hey, Jack,” she told his answering machine. “I’ve got an errand to run this morning, so I’ll be in late. Call my cell if you need me.”
Now, as long as he didn’t pry into what errand she had to run, she might make it through the day without completely unraveling.
She’d tossed and turned until midnight, fighting the memories that swirled around in her head. Most of them included her mother, a sick woman who had taken Tessa down with her. Restless despite the sleeping pill, she’d finally drifted off to sleep to the image of the young woman she guessed met a tragic end last night.
Throughout the night, dreams of Mama interrupted her fitful sleep. The image she’d never been able to shake danced around in her unconscious mind: Mama, feet dangling over the second-floor banister with a cord twisted around her neck. Mama, whose monsters had gotten too big for her, had finally used her own hands to finish them off.
The dreams were nothing new. For months after Mama’s suicide, Tessa would wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat.
This time, though, the body of a young woman wrapped in plastic was on the floor under Mama’s feet.
12
Tessa’s hands shook as she guided the rental car into the parking spot at the police station. The only other time she’d ever been involved with the police was when she called 911 after she’d found her mom hanging from the stair railing.
Her mother’s psychiatric history had been more than enough to convince the police she’d committed suicide. No questions, just condolences.
But Tessa had had questions, and the police officer at the scene went out of his way to assure her he saw this kind of thing all the time. “No doubt about it,” he’d said, “this is a suicide.”
Even so…
Tessa shook her head fiercely. Now was not the time to wander down that path.
As she opened the door of the police station, a whoosh of artificially cooled air greeted her. Normally it would have been a relief from the already scorching heat, but this morning it just chilled her.
The smell of stale coffee hung in the air; the walls were a dingy white. It reminded her of the institution Mama had been in a few months before she died.
The desk sergeant, only a little smaller than a linebacker, looked up from her computer. Though her size was intimidating, her ready smile and warm brown eyes were instantly comforting. Tessa’s anxiety lessened a bit.
“What can I do for you?” she asked, her speech slightly accented.
Spanish, maybe? Or Portuguese? Tessa wondered.
Shifting her purse from one shoulder to the other, Tessa wrapped her arms around her waist. She didn’t know if she was shivering because she was cold or because she was nervous. “I need to report a crime,” she said. Her voice was tight.
The woman nodded and motioned toward a plastic chair on the wall opposite her desk.
Tessa sat, the cold plastic biting through her slacks. Goose bumps covered her arms. She rubbed them vigorously in a vain attempt to warm herself.
Glancing around the reception area, she noticed the name plate on the sergeant’s desk – Maria Ramirez. Probably Spanish after all.
On Sergeant Ramirez’s desk next to her name plate was a small potted plant, a lone bit of life standing out in the dreary space.
After fifteen minutes of listening to the tick of the clock and the clicking of Sergeant Ramirez’s keyboard, a broad-shouldered detective with a barrel chest appeared.
He extended his hand. “Detective Al Jefferson. Follow me.” The detective’s voice matched his size.
Tessa returned his handshake, then followed him between rows of desks until they reached one in the far left corner of the room. If she’d thought the front area of the police station was drab, it was nothing compared to what she was looking at now. Rows of desks that must have been at least thirty years old were covered in stacks of paper and occupied by underpaid and exhausted-looking public servants. Cracked vinyl chairs sat in front of each desk.
And I thought my cubicle was bad, Tessa thought, then immediately dismissed it. She was thankful for the police. Seeing their cars parked at houses near hers always gave her a sense of safety, knowing that if she needed them, they were only a few houses down.
Detective Jefferson motioned toward the chair in front of his desk as he lowered himself into his own chair. The vinyl squeaked as Tessa sat down.
“What can I do for you?” Detective Jefferson asked, making a futile attempt to shuffle the papers on his desk into a tidy pile.
She took a deep breath. Her mouth wouldn’t form the words.
What if he doesn’t take you seriously, like that other cop when you tried to tell him about Mama? her brained warned.
She clenched her jaw. Just spit it out.
“I was taking a walk last night when it started raining,” she began after she’d had a moment to gather her thoughts. “As I was about to turn around to go home, I saw movement through the window of one of the houses.”
The detective nodded in encouragement.
Tessa took another deep breath. This was the part that could make her look crazy if he didn’t believe her, but she forged on. “I saw someone carrying a heavy bundle over his shoulder. It was wrapped in plastic. Through the plastic I saw a face.”
Atta girl, she thought. You did it. It came out high-pitched and shaky, but you got the words out.
Now that the weight was off her, she really
looked at Detective Jefferson for the first time since she sat down. His raised eyebrows made his tanned forehead wrinkle.
He grabbed a notepad and pen from the top drawer of his desk and started jotting down notes. Finally, his pen went still, poised above the paper. He looked up at her. “Where did you see this?”
“The Estates.”
He whistled through the small gap between his front teeth. “We don’t get many reports about anything going on there. The occasional robbery, but that’s all. I don’t think we’ve ever gotten a report of a dead body before.”
“Sorry to be the one to break that streak,” Tessa said, attempting lighthearted banter, “but I saw someone carrying the body of a woman over his shoulder.”
“It was a woman?” Detective Jefferson asked as he scratched something onto the notepad.
Tessa sniffed. “Not it, Detective. She.”
“Yes, of course. She,” he repeated absently. “Can you describe her?”
“I think she had dark hair, and from what I could tell she looked fairly young. It looked like she had dark eyes, but I can’t be sure since it was raining so hard and her face was completely pale.” Tessa’s words were clipped. Something about this detective rubbed her the wrong way. Maybe it was that he’d referred to that poor woman as “it.” Maybe it was nothing and her nerves were just raw.
“Do you know the address?” Detective Jefferson asked, his voice softer as though he noticed her frustration.
The vinyl chair squeaked as Tessa shifted. “I didn’t see the house number, but it was at the end of the street, hidden by a big tree. The house wasn’t falling apart or anything, but it looked like it wasn’t as well-maintained as the other houses on the street.”
Detective Jefferson scratched more notes onto his pad, then without even looking up asked, “Did you get a good look at the man?”
Tessa shivered. “Yes, I did.”
“Describe him, please.” His pen still hovered just above the paper.
