He was Walking Alone

by P. D. Workman

  Bridget?

  “Hey, how are you doing?”

  Kenzie. Zachary was still trying to catch up to the present. He lay still, feeling her breathing and trying to recall all that had happened. He’d been feeling dangerously low. He’d called Kenzie. She’d spent the night watching over him and making sure he slept.

  “Kenzie?”

  “Yes, Zachary?” her tone was slightly mocking, good-humored.

  “Nothing. Just… thanks.”

  “Of course.” Her hand left his shoulder and she turned and stretched. “You want coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  She got out of bed. He listened to the whisper of her bare feet over the floor. It was nice to have someone else there. It felt like she belonged there. She opened and closed cupboards in the kitchen. She knew where everything was and moved around confidently. Before long, he could smell coffee brewing. He rubbed his eyes. They didn’t ache as much as they had, and were not scratchy and gritty like they were after a long sleepless night. He knew he wouldn’t be caught up on sleep after just a few hours, but even just part of one night helped. His brain wasn’t chattering quite so frantically and the anxiety was a notch lower than it had been.

  Kenzie returned to the bedroom and handed him a cup of coffee. She sat on the edge of the bed. They both sipped, knowing the coffee was going to be too hot, but savoring the ritual anyway, each watching the other to make sure they were comfortable.

  “You think you can get in to see your doctor today?” Kenzie asked.

  Zachary hesitated. “I don’t really know if…”

  “You should talk to him about seasonal shifts. Have a plan for this. Take something stronger in anticipation to see if you can head it off. Have a safety plan. Maybe arrange for inpatient treatment ahead of time.” She raised her eyebrows at him. “For next year. It’s too late this year to bother raising your doses; by the time your blood levels are up, you’ll be past the crisis. But you need to see him, to make sure you’re safe for the next few days. I know you’d rather stay home, but if a professional says it’s not safe…”

  “He’ll say I’m the best judge.”

  “Fine. But I want him to know about this.”

  Zachary shrugged.

  “And your therapist? You’ve been seeing him? He knows about Christmas and then this email harassment?”

  Zachary took another sip of his coffee, hiding his face from her. “Um… I’ve been busy with this case… I haven’t seen him for a while.”

  She raised an eyebrow. Zachary cleared his throat and looked away uncomfortably.

  “You know that when you are having issues, you should be seeing him more often, not skipping sessions.”

  Zachary nodded.

  “So you need to see him too.”

  “I don’t know if I can get appointments for today. They’ll already be booked up or off for the holidays. I usually have to schedule at least a couple of weeks out…”

  “Call and see.”

  “I…”

  “You need to. I want to make sure you’re taken care of properly. I’m glad that you called me last night. I don’t want you stepping in front of a bus or something next time.”

  Zachary frowned.

  “Zachary…” Kenzie said insistently.

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “That’s what you say, but if you’re not well and you had the impulse…”

  Zachary didn’t say anything, his mind working through possibilities, fitting pieces of the puzzle together. Kenzie cocked her head to the side.

  “What’s going on in there?”

  “Richard Harding.”

  “Harding? What about him…?”

  “Ashley said it couldn’t be a coincidence that Harding was killed in a hit and run after what he had done. She was right. It wasn’t.”

  Kenzie’s eyes sparkled. “You figured it out?”

  “It wasn’t homicide. It was suicide.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  F

  or a minute, Kenzie was quiet, considering this. She nodded slowly.

  “He was depressed, he was being stalked and harassed. He felt guilty about what he had done.”

  “We kept wondering what he was doing out there on the road. If he had seen or heard something. The fact that it was a hit and run. Why he would be outside wearing dark clothing, no lights or anything reflective. Why he wasn’t walking on the left side of the road, where he’d be able to see oncoming vehicles. It explains all of that. It was suicide by truck. He was walking in the dark, waiting for a vehicle to come along. And then he stepped in front of it.”

  “And that’s why the driver didn’t see him ahead of time,” Kenzie agreed. “He didn’t want to be seen. It didn’t just happen to clip him. It didn’t steer into him. He waited until the last minute and jumped in front of it.”

  Zachary was sure they were right. Everything fit. There hadn’t been a note, but that wasn’t unusual. A lot of suicides never left notes. Richard Harding had wanted out. He’d tried changing his name and moving away, but his troubles followed him. He’d been stalked relentlessly, and Zachary knew what kind of feelings those poisonous words stirred up. The stalker piled on the guilt and suggested suicide as the way out. After enough repetition, Harding couldn’t get it out of his mind. It wormed its way down, burrowing into his brain, until he couldn’t think of any other way to relieve the guilt and pain.

  Kenzie touched his knee, but didn’t say anything. Zachary swallowed and nodded. He put his hand over hers briefly. He looked around for his phone. “I should call Campbell.”

  “I think it’s still out in the living room. Hang on.”

  When she came back and handed it to Zachary, she had a grin on her face. The phone was ringing, and Campbell’s name was on the screen. Zachary swiped it on.

  “Hey, I was just going to call you.”

  “You must be psychic.”

  “Richard Harding’s death wasn’t an accident. Ashley was right.”

  “Are you sure?” Campbell’s voice was surprised. “You found a connection?”

  “Not to Donaldson. It was suicide. He was depressed. He stepped in front of the truck on purpose.”

  Campbell hummed for a moment, thinking about it. “It fits, but there isn’t a way to prove it.”

  “It’s circumstantial,” Zachary agreed. “But…”

  “It’s not going anywhere. If it was suicide, there’s nothing more we can do on that front.”

  Zachary heard the implied “but.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “Looks like we—meaning the feds—have a lead on the stalker’s phone. It was a throwaway purchased at a shop in New Hampshire, like you figured. Near the university.”

  Jonathan Roper.

  “It’s her boyfriend. Hope Creedy’s secret boyfriend. Got to be.”

  “The distribution pattern is suggestive of a school schedule.”

  “He would have been meeting with students the rest of the time. He’s young, a technology native, probably knows his way around computers. I’m sure there are plenty of people at the university who could help him out if he needed any advice. Maybe even some of the kids he mentored.”

  “It will take a while for the feds to gather enough evidence to get a warrant on the guy for computer fraud and cyberstalking. They’ve got to have evidence that he was the one who bought the phone and sent the spyware, and that he was the one who sent the harassing messages.”

  “What if he happened to confess to a private citizen who happened to record him?”

  Campbell chuckled. “That might help law enforcement along a little, if it’s legally recorded. You don’t know any private citizens who might happen to have a chat with him, do you?”

  “I might.”

  Zachary and Kenzie made the trip back to New Hampshire together. Kenzie seemed to be concerned Zachary might do something impulsive if left to himself, and he couldn’t really argue her logic. As he got closer to D-day, he grew mo
re reckless, less likely to take precautions for his own safety. He might not intentionally step in front of a truck as Harding had done, but he might do something less overt, tempting fate, telling himself that if he was meant to die, it would happen anyway.

  Kenzie had called Dr. Wiltshire to tell him she was taking a couple of days extra for her holiday, not explaining that it was to babysit Zachary, and promised to be back to work after Christmas to help with the influx of holiday homicides.

  Though Kenzie loved to drive her car out on the highway, Zachary insisted on driving his own, needing to be the one in control of the ton of metal hurtling down that interstate.

  “We need something less identifiable,” he told her. “Yours stands out too much.”

  “You’re just going to go see this guy in his office, aren’t you? He’s never going to see what we’re driving.”

  “I can’t predict what is going to happen. We should take precautions. And yours is too cold. Mine holds the heat better.”

  Kenzie shrugged irritably and gave in. So Zachary drove, the stereo playing summer songs from his phone rather than the holiday songs on all the radio stations, Zachary pretending that it wasn’t snowy and almost Christmas outside the toasty-warm car. Kenzie kept him distracted with interesting stories from the morgue when he wasn’t too zoned out to hear them.

  They drove directly to the university. Zachary remembered where Roper’s office was. He tried out different scripts in his head, trying to determine what approach was most likely to get a confession out of Roper. He didn’t have much time to plan, but sometimes the unplanned, reaction-driven conversations were the most effective.

  “You really think he’ll confess to you?” Kenzie asked.

  “With a little nudging… I think so. I didn’t have anything to challenge him with before. This time, I have the phone that he bought and I can use the emails against him.”

  “You can’t prove he was the one who sent the emails or bought the phone.”

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t tell him I have proof.”

  They reached Roper’s office door.

  “You stay here,” Zachary advised. “I don’t know how long I’ll be… but I think he’s more likely to confess if it’s just me.”

  He rapped sharply on Roper’s door, reached for the handle, and stepped forward smack into the door when the handle didn’t turn.

  Kenzie snickered. Zachary tried the handle again, as if he might have been wrong the first time and just not turned it hard enough or in the right direction. He turned and looked at Kenzie.

  “Locked?” she inquired sweetly.

  Zachary knocked a few times on the door, loudly, hoping that Roper was just inside with a student and would open the door to see what the racket was. But everything was quiet. No one came to the door.

  “Maybe he’s gone for the holidays?” Kenzie suggested.

  “Maybe.”

  There was no schedule or sign up on Roper’s door to indicate where he had gone or when he would be back.

  With a sigh, Zachary headed back toward the car. Down the hall, a young woman was walking the other direction. She gave Zachary a warm smile.

  “Are you looking for Professor Devon?”

  Professor Devon. Zachary blinked at her, thrown for a loop. Professor Devon? He had done background on each of the people who he interviewed in connection with Hope’s death, but he hadn’t remembered Devon Masters being identified as a teacher.

  He remembered Devon’s words when he and Zachary had sat down at the coffee shop. “I like to watch my students.” Not the students, but my students. He was a university professor. But Zachary’s initial background had listed Devon as a lawyer. That was why it was important to verify everything.

  “I saw you at the coffee shop with him,” the young woman confessed. “I memorized your face.”

  Zachary forced his head to bob up and down in a nod. “Yes, that’s right. Could you show me where his office is?”

  “Sure. This way.”

  He followed her through a few turns in the corridor, until they stood in front of a closed door.

  Professor Devon Masters, Criminal Investigation.

  Posted on his door below the name plate were the class marks for an exam or class. Cyber investigations.

  The girl pointed to one of the top marks. “That’s me,” she said proudly.

  She was a good student, bringing in a ninety-five percent.

  “Good job!” Zachary told her. He tried the door handle, but found it locked as well. “Has everyone gone for the holidays?”

  “Yeah, pretty much. Just a few of us floating around, getting the last few things done.”

  “I wonder if he left me a message,” Zachary bluffed, taking out his phone as if to check. “I thought he said he would be here.” He looked at the number on the door. “Room 232. That’s just what he said, isn’t it?” he asked Kenzie.

  She nodded helpfully. “Yes, 232.”

  “Huh.”

  The student hovered, wanting to help, but not sure what she could do.

  “He didn’t say where he was going, did he?” Zachary prompted. “He didn’t mention to you…?”

  “No. I saw him at his car. He was loading some boxes into it. But he didn’t say where he was off to.”

  Zachary tapped at his phone. Bluffing, he brought his email up and studied it as if looking for Devon’s name among the senders.

  His eyes were drawn to the subject of one of the bolded, unread messages.

  You’re too late, detective.

  The email address it had come from was a random string of alphanumeric characters like the ones he had been getting from the cyberstalker.

  Kenzie looked down at Zachary’s phone when she saw his expression. “Too late for what?”

  Zachary’s hands started to shake. The criminology student looked at him, concerned.

  “Is there something wrong? What is it?”

  “Do you have any idea how I can get in touch with Professor Devon?”

  “I have his phone number and email address…” she offered tentatively. Of course she would have. He would give all of his students his phone number and email so that they could get in contact with him when they had questions or concerns. When they needed to submit assignments.

  While she pulled out her phone to look up the information, Zachary tapped the email message to open it, dread forming a tight knot in his stomach. Kenzie peered over his shoulder.

  For the crime of accessory after the fact and harboring a fugitive.

  There was a picture below the words. It was a high-resolution image that took a minute to load, signals blocked by all of the brick and concrete in the university walls. Zachary saw a pixelated image to start with, a couple of faces close together, before they resolved into something recognizable. Lorne Peterson and Pat, with an X through Mr. Peterson’s face.

  Zachary swore. “Back to the car,” he told Kenzie urgently.

  “Wait,” the student stopped them as they turned to hurry back to the parking lot. “Don’t you want his number?”

  Zachary fumbled with his phone to open up the contact app to add the details. He had to erase and re-key the information again several times before getting it right.

  “Thank you. This is really helpful,” he told her quickly, and he and Kenzie raced to get back to the car.

  Zachary tried to dial and run at the same time. He was sure it would go through to voicemail, but in a moment, he heard a familiar voice.

  “Don’t tell me you got it already?” Campbell’s cheerful voice inquired.

  “No. It’s not Roper, it’s Devon Master. He’s in the wind. I have a phone number. You need to get the feds to find him. He’s… he’s threatened my family.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll get Kenzie to forward you the email. But here’s the number.” Zachary read it out. His voice was cracking. “You can’t let him hurt them.”

  They raced for the car. Zachary’s gait was awkward. His hear
t was pounding hard and he was out of breath. But he pushed through, made it back to the car and jumped in. Zachary passed the phone to Kenzie when they were both in. Kenzie said a few more words to Campbell and promised to send him the email, then hung up.

  “Seatbelt,” Zachary told her as he pulled his across his body and snapped the buckle into place, getting the car started out almost out of the stall by the time he was done.

  “I will,” Kenzie said irritably, “let me just forward this first.”

  “No. We’re going to be moving fast.”

  Kenzie looked at him, and seeing his face, didn’t argue any further but put the phone down for a second to get her seatbelt on. Zachary hit the gas. She hung on to the door for a moment as he accelerated and rocketed around a corner.

  “Sheesh! Where did you learn to drive like that?”

  “This is nothing. Wait until we get to the highway.”

  Kenzie shook her head. She tried to hold the phone steady in front of her face while she forwarded all of the pertinent information on to Campbell.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To make sure they’re safe.”

  “But Devon’s ahead of you. Maybe by an hour or two.”

  “Or maybe not. I don’t plan on him being ahead of me by the time we get there.”

  He made sure the Bluetooth was connected and told the in-car system to dial Lorne Peterson. It went to voicemail.

  “Lorne. It’s Zachary. Call me back right away. It’s urgent.”

  He tried calling Pat, but with the same results.

  “Give those numbers to Campbell. Have them located too. We need to know where they are. Devon might already have them.” His heart pounded so hard he felt like he was going to have a heart attack. Surely Devon wouldn’t hurt an innocent person. He pressed the gas pedal down farther, swerving around slower-moving vehicles and getting angry honks in response.

  “You don’t think they’re at home? They might just be occupied.”

  “They’d answer. Mr. Peterson knows… about Christmas. He wouldn’t ignore a call from me this time of year.”