He was Walking Alone

by P. D. Workman

  There were plenty of people who would never forget what had happened to Hope and that Harding and his friends had been responsible for her death.

  Chapter Seventeen

  N

  oelle and Luke had obviously been waiting for Zachary’s call.

  “Mom told us about you,” Luke told him. “And about that creep Powers being killed. Good riddance to him, I don’t know why you expect us to help you out. He deserved what he got.”

  “I understand you feeling that way. I’d really appreciate a chance to talk with you, even if it’s just for a few minutes. I’m just trying to tie up some loose ends, and then I’ll be able to report back to the police that there’s no connection between the two deaths. Just coincidence.”

  “Why should we waste our time?”

  “Maybe it will give you some closure on Hope’s death. But even if it doesn’t, I’d really appreciate your help. This is my job, you know, and if I go back to them saying that no one will talk to me…”

  Zachary had gathered from what his mother and Devon had said that Luke’s circumstances were not ideal, and he was hoping to trade on Luke having some empathy for someone else who could lose his job if Luke didn’t give him just a bit of his time.

  There was a moment of silence while Luke considered this. Zachary was afraid it was drawing out too long and Luke was going to come back with the fact that he couldn’t care less if Zachary got himself fired, so long as it didn’t inconvenience Luke.

  “Well, fine,” Luke grumped. “You can come see us at two o’clock. At Noelle’s apartment.” He gave Zachary the address.

  “Great, thank you for helping me out. I really appreciate it.”

  Luke muttered something and hung up.

  Zachary hadn’t really needed to convince anyone; they had clearly agreed ahead of time on where and when they would meet Zachary.

  Since he had a few hours to kill before he’d be able to see anyone else, Zachary decided to visit the scene of the crime. He had no illusions about finding evidence that would somehow shed light on the case. The MVC that had killed Hope had been years before. The police had fully investigated it at the time. Zachary wasn’t looking for evidence, he just wanted a feeling for the location. How it would have looked to the boys, to Hope walking home, to the police investigating it. He wanted to see the space himself rather than just relying on the descriptions and diagrams that he had seen and that would be in the court files.

  He drove the route that Harding had taken. They had flown along the empty streets, exceeding the speed limit, but Zachary took his time. There was traffic during the day and he wanted a chance to look around. As he approached the intersection where Hope had been killed, he slowed down, drawing irritated honks from the cars behind him. He scanned for a parking space, and pulled over.

  Getting out, he walked the intersection, circling through all four crosswalks and taking pictures of the road, the approaching cars, and the light standards. Harding had hit one of them after hitting Hope, perhaps making a last-second attempt to miss her. It was that collision that had thrown Kyle Browne from the car. The news articles reported that Brandon hadn’t even seen Kyle after the accident. He knew that his friend had been thrown from the car, yet when he got out of the car, he hadn’t seen or looked for him. He had gone to Hope, trying to rouse her, hoping beyond hope that he’d just clipped her. But she was dead, and there was nothing he could do about it. Brandon had done nothing to help his friends sitting unconscious in the back seat, or Kyle, lying broken on the pavement somewhere close by, and had just left the accident scene.

  The prosecution had said that Brandon didn’t care about anyone else, that he didn’t have any concern for anyone but himself, and had left to hide what he had done, to try to escape punishment. Brandon had explained that he was disoriented. He’d hit his head and hadn’t known where to go or what to do. He didn’t understand what he had done. It never occurred to him to call for help or to give some assistance to his friends. It was all just a blank.

  The truth probably lay somewhere in between. He’d been panicked. He was under the influence, had killed at least one person, and he’d hit his head. He wasn’t thinking rationally. If he had been, he would have known that the police could trace him from the car he had left behind. They knew exactly who they were looking for and that at some point, he would return home. Where else was he going to go? He was a stupid kid, not a master criminal who had carefully planned an escape route.

  “You lost?” demanded a homeless man sitting on a stack of flattened boxes to insulate him from the cold sidewalk. He had apparently been watching Zachary pace around the sides of the intersection.

  “Oh. No, I was just taking a look around.”

  “At what?”

  “Just at the intersection. How it’s laid out. What it feels like.”

  “You a surveyor? Planning on building something here?”

  “No. A private investigator. Looking into an accident that happened here years ago.”

  “How long ago? You weren’t here.”

  “No. I wasn’t here.”

  “She was a pretty girl.”

  “Did you see her? Hope Creedy?”

  “No, I never did. You think I was sleeping out here on the road where I could see anything? No one sleeps out here by the traffic.”

  “No, I guess not. But you might have seen something. Maybe the crash woke you up and you came out for a peek, to see what had happened. The police never identified any eye witnesses.”

  “That’s because there wasn’t none. No one saw what happened ’cept those kids in the car.”

  “So how do you know she was pretty?”

  “From her picture.”

  “In the paper?”

  “No!” The man shook his head at Zachary’s stupidity. “There!”

  Zachary followed his finger and realized that in trying to get a big picture view of the intersection, he had missed the little things. A little homemade wreath strapped to one of the traffic light posts. Inside the circle, a picture of Hope Creedy protected by a plastic bag, the same picture as Zachary had seen in a number of the news stories. A beautiful young lady, struck down in her prime. So full of promise, wiped out by one person’s carelessness and disregard.

  Looking at the little memorial, Zachary felt anger rise up inside him at Harding. He had been feeling sorry for the man, killed after being stalked relentlessly. A life that had been destroyed by a mistake, by years in prison, and by the person or people who just wouldn’t let him carry on. In Zachary’s mind, Harding had been the victim. But he had killed Hope. Just as certainly as if he’d pulled a gun and shot her. Mike Creedy was right; eight years in prison wasn’t nearly long enough for killing both her and Kyle Browne.

  “Did you live here then?” he asked the homeless man. “Were you around when it happened? I understand you didn’t see it, I’m just wondering if you lived here when it happened.”

  “I don’t know nothing,” the man asserted. He spat on the sidewalk. “I ain’t the one who put the wreath there. I never knew the girl.”

  “Who did put the wreath there?”

  “A young man.”

  “So you were here. You saw that.”

  “I see him when he takes it down and puts a new one up. That one hasn’t been around for so many years.”

  Zachary looked at it again. Of course not. It had been over ten years since the accident, and the wreath was not tattered and stained by the weather. It had been there for a while, but not ten years.

  “What does this young man look like?”

  “I don’t know.” The homeless man didn’t like being pinned down with more detailed questions and was clamming up. “Young.”

  “How young? Thirty? Older? Younger?”

  “I never asked him how old he was,” the man said saucily. “How would I know?”

  “Younger than me?”

  The man studied him. “You’re not so young.”

  “No, I’m not. So, you
nger?”

  “Yes. Maybe.”

  “Twenty?”

  “No. He wouldn’t be old enough to have known her.”

  Hope would have been thirty-two if she had lived. Her younger siblings in their mid to late twenties. So someone Hope’s age. Zachary got close to the wreath and tried to see the back of the photo to see if there was a date or inscription.

  “You leave that alone. That’s desecration. You can’t take it!”

  “I’m not taking it. I just wanted to see if it had anything written on it.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “No,” Zachary agreed, having gotten a good look at it. “It doesn’t.”

  Eventually, it was time to move on. He needed to get back to Noelle’s apartment to see her and Luke.

  He assumed that they had picked Noelle’s apartment because it was nicer, and that made Zachary wonder just how miserable the place that Luke was living must have been. While he didn’t see any evidence of rats, it was small, and it was obvious that Noelle split the rent with other people. There was a communal living room to sit and visit in, but the place smelled like reheated dinners and sweat and uncleaned toilets.

  The twins favored their father more than Mrs. Creedy, dark-haired with narrow faces, both of them tall. They looked remarkably alike, more so than most siblings. Zachary knew that fraternal twins didn’t share any more genetic material than the average sibling pair, but Noelle and Luke looked like male and female versions of the same person.

  When Zachary sat down on the saggy couch, he had the uncomfortable feeling that someone had been sleeping there. His skin crawled as he thought of lice and bedbugs. He wanted to get up and brush off his clothes and wash his hands. Instead, he concentrated hard on giving the twins a pleasant smile, and not being obvious about evaluating and judging the kind of place where Noelle lived.

  “Thank you again for agreeing to meet me. I know that you aren’t really getting anything out of this, though I hope maybe it helps you to know that your sister’s killer isn’t out there roaming the streets anymore.”

  “You think it helps us to know that he’s been put out of his misery?” Luke demanded. “He should have had to suffer longer. Just like we have.”

  Luke’s words didn’t fit with the stalker’s, “Why don’t you just die?”

  “I’m sorry for what you’ve had to go through. It couldn’t be easy growing up in the shadow of Hope’s death and the trial.”

  “Everything was about her,” Noelle agreed. “Not just in the news and every time at school or on the street that someone stopped to talk to us. And not just Mom and Dad being sad and mad about the trial. Everything was about her.” Noelle brushed her dark hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “Curfews because we couldn’t be out on the street after dark like she had been. Not knowing who really wanted to be our friends and who just wanted to get to know the sister of the dead girl. People watching the news and wanting to talk about it. We didn’t just mourn Hope, we had to relive her death. Constantly.”

  Zachary remembered how it had been for him in the years after the fire. People who were morbidly interested in his burn scars and who wanted to hear his story. Parents and social workers who thought that, given a chance, he would burn another house down, when nothing could be further from the truth. People were fascinated by death and grief. It had kept the pain raw and fresh when he should have been able to put it behind himself long before.

  “That must have been very difficult. The two of you were how old when she was killed?”

  “Fifteen.” It was Luke who answered, his tone still aggrieved.

  “And you knew when Brandon got out of prison?”

  “Sure everybody knew when he got out. All of the reporters were hounding us again, wanting to get our reactions to his release. What did they think our reactions would be? Overjoyed?”

  “There was quite a media circus over it?”

  “Yeah. It was a circus, alright.”

  “Did Brandon contact either of you?” Zachary switched his gaze between the twins, looking for any changes in their expressions. They were mirror images, pouting over injustices done years ago.

  “Why would he contact us? We didn’t want anything to do with him.”

  “But he might have wanted to make an apology to you, ask for your forgiveness.”

  “No,” Noelle shook her head. “He never contacted us. Or Mom and Dad.”

  “Did you have any contact with any of the passengers who were in the car?”

  There was a quick glance between Noelle and Luke.

  “None of them ever contacted us,” Luke said.

  “And you didn’t ever run into any of them and have a conversation?”

  Luke stared at Zachary, suspicious. “Why would you ask if you already know the answer?”

  “I like to see how people react. Whether they tell the truth.”

  Noelle was looking at her brother. A warning, telling him to shut up.

  “Sure, I ran into that one guy, Devon. Would have beat the hell out of him, too, if it hadn’t been for a couple of bouncers. I would have wiped that look right off his face.”

  “What look?”

  “That fake concern. The pity. He helped ruin our family and he thought he could be all sympathetic and I’d think he was a good guy? I would have wiped that smug look right off of his face!”

  Zachary nodded. “It bothered you that he never had to serve any time?”

  “Well, he wasn’t the driver,” Noelle put in, before Luke could answer.

  Luke looked at her.

  “It wasn’t his fault,” Noelle pointed out. “The only person they could blame for the accident was the person behind the wheel. It wasn’t the fault of the passengers.”

  “They were all out drinking together. If they hadn’t been drinking, it wouldn’t have happened.”

  “You don’t drink?” Zachary asked. “What were you doing at the club when you met up with Devon?”

  “I don’t drink and drive,” Luke shot back, “and I don’t get in the car with a drunk driver. Anyone who let him have his keys and get into that car should have been punished. The bartender, whoever was serving him drinks, all of his friends. They should all have to be punished for letting him drive drunk!”

  Noelle gave Zachary a little shrug. “We have issues,” she said with a little laugh.

  Luke glared at her.

  Noelle raised her eyebrows dramatically. “Well, what do you want me to say? That you’re a miserable jerk all of the time?”

  “I’m glad you know better than to drink and drive,” Zachary inserted, trying not to let the conversation degenerate further. “Devon says he doesn’t remember Brandon having anything alcoholic that night. His memory of the events of that night seem to be pretty clouded.”

  “He’s lying.”

  “Maybe he is. Most people will lie to protect themselves even if they consider themselves honest people.”

  “I’m not sure how any of this is helpful,” Noelle said.

  “No,” Zachary agreed. “Can you tell me whether you know of anyone else who had a grudge against Brandon? Someone who might have stalked and threatened him, even though he had changed his name?”

  They looked at each other, but not a covert look this time. Blank faces. Nobody who jumped immediately to mind.

  “Anyone who knew Hope,” Noelle said. “Who could not be outraged by what happened? We didn’t know her friends from school. We got to know some people during the trial, but I don’t think Mom and Dad have kept in touch with anyone, do you?”

  Luke shook his head in response. “Hope wasn’t the only one killed, either. It could have been someone who was related to the other victim. His family or friends. His girlfriend.”

  “Did you meet his girlfriend?”

  “No, not that I remember.” Another look between the twins, checking in with each other. “No.”

  “And Hope didn’t have a boyfriend?”

  Just a fraction of a se
cond too long before Luke and Noelle shook their heads in unison.

  “No.”

  Zachary gave them a few beats to think about it, not jumping in with any accusations, but waiting for them to grow uncomfortable with the lie and either say more to cover it up or to back off.

  “No? No boyfriend?”

  They didn’t admit it.

  “Girlfriend?”

  Again, a negative response, Luke giving a little grin of amusement at that. Not a girlfriend, then.

  “Was she seeing someone your parents didn’t like?” ‘Seeing someone’ instead of ‘dating,’ to give them a little more wiggle room. ‘Seeing someone’ could be more casual. Boyfriend made it sound serious, more committed.

  Noelle looked at Luke, asking for permission. He shrugged like he didn’t care if she spilled it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  S

  he was seeing someone,” Noelle admitted. “Mom and Dad didn’t disapprove, but only because they didn’t know.”

  “She was afraid to tell them about him? What was wrong with him?”

  He was expecting her to say that he was black, or Muslim, or maybe he was unemployed or had been in trouble in the past. People had frequently judged Zachary by his class or social standing, his prospects, or other things he had no control over. Zachary wasn’t responsible for his parents’ poverty, his learning disabilities, or that there had been no pathway to higher education for him. He was a foster kid, and he’d had to support himself once he’d aged out of foster care, or end up homeless.

  “It was… their age difference,” Noelle said hesitantly.

  Maybe she had gotten together with one of her professors. A May-December romance that she knew her parents would not approve of.

  “An older man?” Zachary prompted her for more details.

  Luke snorted. “A younger one!”

  Zachary was surprised by that. He blinked at them. “Younger?”