Her Every Fear

by Peter Swanson

  Rachael Chess had an active Facebook account, and when Henry learned that she was returning to New Essex over Columbus Day weekend, he flew back. Corbin was not around—surprising, but it made things easier. He managed to meet Rachael at a beachside bar called the Rusty Scupper. Not surprisingly, she was an uppity bitch who refused his offer to buy her a drink. He left the bar to wait in his car. She left at closing time. Some guy kept trying to kiss her in the parking lot, and she kept pushing him away until he stalked off, driving away in a pickup truck that needed a new muffler. She walked toward the beach. Henry removed his backpack from the trunk of his rental car. It contained the new filleting knife he’d bought at Walmart the day before, sharp enough not just to kill her, but to carve her body in a way that would leave no doubt in Corbin’s mind as to who had killed his girlfriend.

  A year later, more out of boredom than anything else, Henry moved to Boston, opening a walk-up office in Newtonville and renting a furnished apartment downtown. There was a coffee shop across the street from where Corbin worked, and sometimes Henry would wait for Corbin to appear, almost always at six thirty in the morning. Usually, he would go to the nearby gym after work; sometimes home. But he never met anyone, certainly not a woman. By now, he knew the consequences. He knew what had happened to Rachael Chess.

  Henry wondered what Corbin thought of him now. Was it pure hatred and fear, or was there some admiration, as well? Was there jealousy? Regret?

  When Corbin was at work, Henry would sometimes break into his apartment building, picking the lock at the rear entrance and going through the basement and up a back stairwell that led to Corbin’s massive apartment. He didn’t do it too often; he was scared of being spotted coming through the back entrance, although he never saw anyone in the basement at all. It contained storage space and not much else. Sometimes there was a cat down there that would follow Henry up the dark, narrow stairwell, meowing plaintively. He wondered if it was Corbin’s, but doubted it, since there was nothing in Corbin’s apartment—no litter box, no food bowl—that would indicate he had a cat. Sometimes Henry imagined how easy it would be to snap the cat’s neck, then spread its guts all over Corbin’s Oriental carpets. He didn’t do it, though. He wasn’t ready for him to know how close he was, and he enjoyed his time in Corbin’s apartment far too much.

  It was a Thursday afternoon when he discovered that Corbin was hiding a girlfriend. He’d been lounging on the sofa, drinking some of Corbin’s Belvedere vodka, when there was a knock on the door. Henry moved quickly and silently to the door, pressing his eye against the peephole. There was a blonde who looked somewhat familiar. He heard a key in the lock and fled toward the master bedroom, just entering the hallway as the door swung open. He didn’t panic; he’d had so much experience spending time with Kaylee in her house without her knowing he was there. He ducked into the kitchen and hid in the nook on the far side of the refrigerator, listening for any noise. Henry didn’t hear a thing till the front door opened and shut again. He slowly emerged back into the hallway, then back into the living room. There was a note on the coffee table, pinned under his glass of vodka. She had confident, looping script:

  Dear Cor,

  Used my key and broke into your apartment because I have a migraine coming on and that stuff you have is the best. Didn’t snoop, I promise. Don’t come by tonight because I might be under a sheet with my earplugs in, but maybe I’ll come over if the headache’s gone?? It’s been too long.

  Audrey

  Corbin had a girlfriend. A fuck buddy, anyway. And now Henry remembered where he’d seen this girl. She lived in the building, a cold-looking blonde with a man’s haircut, always carrying a bag that looked full of books. Always coming and going. She didn’t seem Corbin’s type. Both Claire and Rachael had been dark-haired girls with soft, curvy bodies. This one was hipless, all legs, looked like she’d be knocked over by a warm breeze. But still, they were involved. And it would be so easy to find out her name, what apartment she lived in, how seriously she and Corbin were involved.

  Henry felt a great unloosening in his chest, an anticipation of all that was to come. Corbin might be done sharing with him, but Henry wasn’t done sharing with Corbin.

  Chapter 31

  Her name was Audrey Marshall. She worked in publishing. She’d moved to Boston from New York City. And she lived in the apartment right next to Corbin Dell’s.

  Henry got all this information off a simple Google search, preceded by one trip to the lobby of the apartment building with a fistful of leaflets advertising handyman services. The doorman took the leaflets, promising to add them to the residents’ mail, although Henry doubted it. “You don’t need to add one to Audrey . . . Audrey . . .” He snapped his fingers rapidly, as though trying to remember.

  “Audrey Marshall,” the sleepy-eyed doorman said.

  “That’s her. She has my info. I painted her walls a little while ago.”

  The doorman looked a little confused. “When was that?”

  “Few months ago, I think,” Henry said as he ducked out the door.

  He began to follow Audrey on occasion. She worked strange hours, sometimes not going into the office until midmorning, often not coming back till nearly midnight. And occasionally, on a weekday, she’d stay home. Because of her erratic schedule, it made Henry nervous about breaking into her apartment, something he very badly wanted to do. It wasn’t until he saw her leave one morning with a large piece of hand luggage, a taxi idling at the side of the curb, that Henry felt like the opportunity had arisen. He broke in that night, moving through the empty basement and up a different stairwell. Her back-door lock was a five-pin tumbler, and it took him a while to pick it, but eventually he got in. He kept the lights off, letting his eyes adjust to the dark, then moved through the sparsely furnished space, a lot smaller than Corbin’s but still big for city living. There were books everywhere in the living room, stacks on the floor that formed a cityscape. The living room curtains were open, so Henry moved into the bedroom, where the curtains were drawn. He brought out his penlight and searched through her things. In the drawer next to her bed, he found what he was looking for, a red leather notebook with a rubber band around its middle. He removed the band and opened the book; it was a diary, page after page of the cursive that Henry had seen on the note she’d left for Corbin. He sat on the edge of the bed and began to read; she dated the entries, which were rarely longer than two or three sentences. It was boring mostly—books she’d read, phone calls with a needy sister—but then the mentions of Corbin began and it got a little more interesting. The first mention he found was from a few months earlier, in January:

  Hot Neighbor came for dinner. I can’t read him at all. It’s like staring at a blank page, a very hot blank page. We drank two bottles of wine and I thought he was going to make a move but then he was out the door like I’d hit him with a cattle prod.

  After that the mentions were more frequent, every few days:

  Spent the night with Hot Neighbor in his ginormous place. Slightly weird, but nice. Gave me the Not Looking For Relationship speech.

  Finally told Kerry about Hot Neighbor. She asked a ton of questions, natch, and I didn’t have answers. I said I thought he just wanted to be with someone but didn’t want a girlfriend. Because he already has one, Kerry said. I laughed, but it’s not as though I haven’t thought that a hundred times. Thing is, I don’t think he does. I think it’s more complicated than that.

  For better or worse, HN and I are now definitely a thing. I just don’t know what that thing is. The sex is nice, and I have feelings for him and he has feelings for me, or pretends to, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why we’re not even allowed to take a walk around the block together.

  Need to break up with HN, sooner rather than later. If I thought we were just sex buddies, then that would be one thing, but I know that we are more and he still won’t tell me what is happening inside of that big, thick skull. I need to get out before I get hurt. We exchanged keys th
e other day, more of a neighborly thing, but still, it seemed like something. Corbin, if you’re in my apartment and reading this, then fuck you, and stop doing that thing with your tongue in my ear. It’s gross.

  HN is broken. Something is seriously wrong with him. If he won’t talk to me, then it needs to end.

  It’s over. He came over and accused me of—I don’t actually know what he accused me of. Telling someone about us. One of our neighbors! I’m beginning to think there is something really wrong with him, and now I want out.

  Cor is moving to London for six months, and his cousin is moving into his place. I’m happy. Why wouldn’t I be? If only he hadn’t looked so sad when he told me.

  That was the last entry that mentioned him. It was dated a week before. Henry was shocked. Corbin was moving to London. When was that happening? Something about it pissed him off. London was their place, and now he was returning as though nothing of importance had happened there. As though it were just another city.

  The next day, Henry broke into Corbin’s apartment and found a folder on his desk that contained travel documents and copies of the work visa for his time in London. He was leaving in a week, a Thursday night flight. Henry made an easy decision—that same Thursday night he would break into Audrey’s apartment again, and if she was there, he’d kill her.

  It was time to fuck over Corbin for real, and let him know who had done it to him.

  Henry stayed away from Beacon Hill and Bury Street for the next week. He knew he’d been pushing his luck by spending so much time in that neighborhood. Someone was going to notice. That week, he finished a job at a Cambridge nonprofit in which one of its internal groups was considering becoming its own nonprofit entity. He also booked a new client, a small law firm in Waltham with a personnel dispute, and over the weekend took the executive assistant from the nonprofit out to dinner. It was a boring date, and an awful restaurant, so Henry amused himself by telling her a long, improvised story about an affair he’d had with a famous television star. Watching the woman’s eyes light up with utter belief as he made up stories of the actress’s pathetic behavior almost salvaged the evening.

  When Thursday night arrived he filled his backpack with his favorite tools, pulled a tight synthetic ski hat over his hair, donned gloves, and walked all the way to Bury Street. It was a beautiful spring night, the air rain-washed and smelling of crushed blossoms, and Henry felt as if the muscles of his body were singing in unison. He felt as though he could kill Audrey Marshall and tear her in two with just his hands.

  It hadn’t worked that way.

  After he entered through the kitchen, Audrey must have heard him.

  “Corbin?” she said nervously as she stepped into the kitchen. Henry grabbed her from behind and stuck the knife in her neck before she could say another word. The spray from the artery went from the counter across the cabinets to the ceiling as she crumpled to the floor.

  It was early morning before he left her apartment the same way he had entered it. He left her body arranged the way he’d wanted it. Split down the middle. Half of her for Corbin, and half of her for me. But it had been messy, hard work, and midway through the job, Henry had been stung with a surge of loneliness that almost took his breath away.

  He felt better when the job was done, when he was walking home in the early hours. There was no doubt that Corbin would become a suspect, and if they pinned it on him, well, they wouldn’t be wrong, would they? Corbin was as guilty of Audrey Marshall’s death as Henry was. Just as he’d been guilty of what happened to Rachael Chess. It was half and half. Always and forever.

  Henry got home just as the emerging sun was beginning to lighten the sky. There were fragments of mist on the roads and sidewalks. It would be light in London by now, midday. How long would it be before Corbin heard what had happened with Audrey, before he knew that Henry was still in his life, that Henry would always be in his life?

  It wasn’t until Saturday afternoon that Henry first read about the murder, an item appearing on the Globe’s Web site.

  He’d done some thinking since then. Even though he was pretty sure that Corbin would become a suspect—the police would read Audrey’s diary, for one thing—Henry wanted to make sure that it happened. He wanted Corbin’s name dragged into it, and, ideally, he wanted him arrested. Corbin’s pretty face would be splashed across the Internet; preppy, blond killer of innocent young girls.

  The question was: Would the diary be enough to land Corbin squarely on the suspect list? It would, of course, but there needed to be more. And if Henry was going to play this game, he really wanted to play it. He needed to plant the idea that there was something suspicious about Corbin Dell, and he thought of a way he could do that.

  The next day at noon he went to 101 Bury Street, waiting around outside on the street to see if anyone might come out of the building. It felt good being there and being untouchable. In his mind, he was a friend of Audrey’s who had come to grieve. Maybe he was a friend who was secretly in love with her, although he couldn’t admit it to himself. A man came out of the building in a fleece jacket and poorly fitting jeans. He stopped in the courtyard to find the song he wanted to hear through his headphones, then double-knotted both shoelaces before setting off on what looked like a habitual walk. He didn’t glance in Henry’s direction.

  The next person to exit the building was a woman in a stylish black-and-white jacket, walking anxiously as though she were trying to escape from someone. As she neared, Henry felt a click in his chest. She looked like Corbin, not a lot, but enough to make him think she might be the cousin. At the street crossing, she instinctively looked right instead of left, then corrected herself. It had to be the English cousin. He stopped her, told her the story about being a friend and trying to get information. She kept trying to end the conversation, but he wasn’t going to let that happen. For one, she had nervous, haunted eyes. Something had happened to her. She was damaged goods, and that was more beautiful to Henry than her lovely bone structure and her plump mouth.

  He walked with her to Charles Street, telling lies. It was gratifying playing the bereaved friend. He wore his reading glasses, the ones that made him look sensitive and vulnerable, and even managed to squeeze out some tears. Before they parted ways, he made sure to tell Kate that Audrey had told him how weird Corbin had been. He then purposefully asked Kate exactly what time Corbin’s flight to London had been. He’d done enough, he knew. He caught her tapping the fingertips of her right hand against her thumb, back and forth in succession. Kate would probably do one of two things. She’d either contact the police and tell them what she’d heard, or she would contact Corbin and tell him about the visit. Either way, Henry had alerted her that something was amiss. She was just an ordinary prey animal and she’d start to get nervous.

  He returned to his apartment. He kept thinking of Kate, and how much he’d enjoyed talking with her, and how much he’d like to spend time in the apartment with her, especially if she didn’t know he was there. He retrieved the hollowed-out copy of The Monetary History of the United States from the bedroom bookshelf. It contained his birth certificate, his certificate of name change when he legally became Henry Torrance, a lock of hair from Jenny Gulli, the first girl to really disappoint him, all the way back in high school, and the Polaroid he had of Corbin standing over the corpse of Claire Brennan. It was their insurance, of course, since Corbin owned a similar photograph of Henry, but Henry had always thought it was something more. A pact. A promise. He wondered where Corbin kept his Polaroid. Probably in a safe-deposit box somewhere. Henry knew that he should do the same, but he liked looking at it too much; he liked to have it close.

  He paced the apartment with the photo in his hand. He hated being alone in his place; he’d hated it ever since his exciting visit with Audrey Marshall. Knowing suddenly what he was going to do, he logged onto his business e-mail account and canceled his meetings for the following day with the family law firm in Waltham. He packed his backpack with everything he nee
ded. He was going to move in with Kate.

  Chapter 32

  Henry walked across the park in the dusk light. It had rained earlier, and there were puddles on the walkways and rain dripping from the trees. He crossed Beacon Street and then walked the one block of Charles that took him to Bury. He turned, and there was Kate, coming directly toward him. He lowered his head and kept walking. She never looked at him. Her eyes had that glazed emptiness of someone deep in thought. He almost followed her, just out of curiosity, but decided instead to take the perfect opportunity that had been given to him. He continued to walk toward the apartment, nearly bumping into a man about his age, hurrying along as though he was late for something. They each apologized at the same time, Henry catching a glimpse of a gaunt face, dark eyes.

  He walked past the apartment building and through the two alleys that brought him to the back entrance. No one was in the basement, as usual. Henry’s feet were wet and muddy, and left tracks on the floor. He found an old stiffened rag behind one of the water tanks and cleaned his shoes off, then wiped away the tracks. He took his time, confident at this point that the residents in this building rarely visited their storage units. Why did they need these units when their apartments were so massive? Some didn’t even have locks on them since they were probably unused. Corbin’s unit—the door stenciled with 3d—had a stainless steel padlock on its flimsy door. Could that possibly be where Corbin kept the photograph of Henry with the body of Claire? He decided to visit the unit when he got a chance. The lock would be easy to pick.