All the Broken People

by Leah Konen

  “Have you gone to the police?” Rachel asked.

  “Not yet,” I said. “I only just figured all this out. They’re all over me, the police, and I worried if I told them a knife was missing . . .”

  “You’re afraid it will only make them suspect you.”

  “Yes.”

  Rachel shook her head slowly, wheels turning.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Of course Sam would be angry, after everything.”

  I held her gaze. “You still never told me what changed your mind about John and Claire.”

  She looped one finger through a hole in her pashmina. “I shouldn’t speak ill of the—”

  “Dead. I know. But if it’s something that could help the investigation, that could help me make sense of what’s happening, you have to tell me. Please.”

  Rachel’s eyes caught mine. Don’t make me say it, she seemed to beg.

  “Tell me the truth,” I pleaded. “I need to hear it.”

  “You’ll hate John if I do.”

  “I don’t care,” I said. “I have to know.”

  She swallowed, pressing her hands to her thighs. Then she opened her mouth, shut it again. She took another sip, and I did, too, and I had a feeling, clear as day, that it was the last sip I’d take when the world was a certain way, a way I very much wanted it to be.

  I had a feeling that everything I believed in was about to change, that my reality was about to be ripped from beneath me—again.

  Rachel cleared her throat and looked, once more, to the photo of Vera, before turning her gaze on me.

  “Claire was pregnant.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  No,” I said, her words crashing into me, smashing me to pieces. “No,” I said it again, as if the word could undo it all. “No.”

  Rachel licked a bit of wine off her lips. “She was. And she and John took care of it. I had heard some of the art students saying things about Claire and John, but I’d always chalked it up to teenage gossip—a stupid crush. The classes ended, and I stood by John, but then, one day, something he said about Claire, about the way he missed her, what a great student she was, it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up. When he was out getting supplies one afternoon—we were working on a project together, like I said, and I was in his cabin a lot—I checked his search history. He’d been too stupid to delete it. It was from about a month before, right when the talk about the two of them had really kicked into gear. John had searched for Planned Parenthoods in the area. Then he’d looked up one nearby on Google Maps. That’s when I knew.”

  I shook my head, not able to process this. “Maybe he was searching for Vera.”

  Rachel took another sip of wine. “Believe me. He wasn’t.”

  I swallowed back the acid in my throat. “You told her?”

  “Vera? God, no. I couldn’t do that to her. I don’t know if she told you, but she’d had a miscarriage herself, before she and John moved here. I couldn’t tell her that a kid, a child, had been carrying John’s baby. But I did tell her that I had reasons to think the rumors were true. I didn’t tell her exactly why—I couldn’t bear to—but I tried to convince her that John wasn’t as honest as she thought he was.”

  “And that’s what tore you guys apart?”

  Rachel raised her eyebrows. “I can’t blame her. It breaks my heart, but I can’t.”

  I shook my head, trying to wrap my mind around all that Rachel had said. It couldn’t be true. I pictured John loading canvas and two-by-fours into his pickup, chopping wood in the backyard. He was good. He had to be. Apart from that one stupid night with me, he was.

  “You should have told her,” I said finally. “If you actually thought it was true. Wouldn’t she deserve to know?”

  “No,” Rachel said. “I love her too much to do that to her.”

  I loved Vera, too. Only this, if this was true, it was huge. This was life-altering. Awful. This changed everything. If Sam had known—or even suspected—of course he’d be angry. Irate. He’d want to kill the guy. Who wouldn’t?

  “Have you told this to the police?”

  Rachel hesitated.

  “You have to,” I said.

  She nodded. “I know, I know I have to. I didn’t want to start anything, bring even more attention to Claire. She’s been through enough, and if it was her dad that killed John. God, I can’t even think about it.”

  “You need to tell them. Even if you’re wrong, and there was some sort of explanation, if Sam got the same idea you did, they have to know.”

  “There’s not another explanation, Lucy.” She lowered her eyes before meeting mine again. “But I will. I’ll call McKnight tomorrow.” She drained her wine. “Do you want another?”

  All I wanted was to be home with Dusty, to have a moment to process what she’d told me: Could it really be true? Could John have been that far from the person I thought he was? Could everything I’d believed about him be a lie?

  “I should get home,” I said, standing up. “While I can still drive.”

  “Okay,” Rachel said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all of this.”

  “Promise me you’ll tell the police, though,” I said.

  “I swear.”

  I shrugged into my coat and grabbed my car keys.

  She stood, too, and followed me to the door.

  “Lucy,” she said, once I was outside.

  “Yeah?”

  “Be careful, okay?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She leaned against the doorjamb. “If you’re right about all of this—and the more you tell me, the more it sounds like you are—Sam can be a very angry guy. You called his wife asking about keys. You followed his daughter out of John’s memorial.” Her eyes caught mine. “Yes, I saw. Just, be as safe as you can. Stay the night with Vera, if you have to.”

  I paused. “With Vera?”

  “She has a guest bedroom, doesn’t she?”

  “Yeah,” I said slowly. “It’s full of John’s things, but yeah.”

  Rachel nodded. “All I mean is, you don’t want that man trying to take anything into his own hands, especially if you haven’t reported this to the cops. Keep yourself safe, above everything else.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  I woke to Dusty barking.

  My heart raced as my eyes struggled to adjust to the dark. The drapes were drawn tight, and my mouth was sticky with the wine I’d had at Rachel’s—plus the two glasses I’d had upon returning home, too shaken from what she’d told me to do much more than drink.

  Dusty’s bark turned to a growl, and I flinched, muscles tensing, then tapped at my broken phone. It was just after three a.m. He growled again, then jumped off the bed, barking viciously at my shut bedroom door.

  Between the punctuation of Dusty’s defensive howls, I strained to hear a muffled noise coming from the other room, a shuffling, almost like footsteps.

  My throat seemed to close as my hands grasped at the crumpled sheets, desperate to hold on to anything for protection. There was someone in my house.

  The shuffling stopped, and so did Dusty’s barks, as if we were both listening for what would happen next. I still couldn’t see a thing, and as I gasped for breath, I felt for the hammer on the nightstand, only it wasn’t there. My hand swept into a water glass instead, knocking it off the table.

  The glass landed on the hardwood floor with an awful clatter.

  Before I could even think of moving, there was a creak and then a thunk. The sound of the front door shutting. Blood rushed to my head, sloshing around my brain. This was real. This was happening. Right now. I knew it was him, but I needed proof, I needed, for once, to see it for myself. Instinct taking over, I jumped out of bed and ran to the window.

  I couldn’t make out a thing. Th
e front lights had been turned off. I ran out of my bedroom and into the living room, toward the front door. It was unlocked, the dead bolt turned so I didn’t even have to twist it to know. I hadn’t imagined it. I hadn’t dreamed it.

  Dusty whimpered as my heart beat mercilessly. I reached for the door. I knew what I needed to do, but as my hand touched the doorknob, I couldn’t do it.

  Locking the door, I checked the dead bolt multiple times. Then I made sure every drape was shut, and I flicked on the lights. At first, I didn’t see anything, and I grabbed Dusty, pulling him to my body, trying to calm his little heartbeats—and my big ones.

  Then there it was, as if waiting for me. A blight in the middle of the coffee table. A single sheet of paper, printed with that awful font.

  The proof I craved and feared at the same time.

  STOP DIGGING AND GO BACK TO BROOKLYN

  It was thirty minutes between calling 911 and an officer arriving. Thirty minutes in which I sat in my bedroom closet with Dusty, back against the door, blocking anyone who dared try to come in.

  Finally, the sound of a car pulling up, of wheels on gravel. A swift banging on the door. After peeking through the drapes to confirm, I let in the officer, a baby-faced guy in a uniform who didn’t look older than twenty-two. He tried unsuccessfully to calm me down as I talked him through what had happened.

  McKnight got there fifteen minutes later, just after four a.m. He was bleary-eyed, his hair rumpled; I’d never seen him so off-kilter. “I’m sorry for waking you up,” I said.

  “It’s my job,” he said groggily. “Now, show me this threat you’ve received.”

  I pointed at the coffee table, where it still sat, black-and-white—proof, finally, solid and tangible, that someone else was running the show, someone who wasn’t me. McKnight would have to believe me now.

  “And you heard someone?” he asked.

  I nodded, chin quivering as I thought, again, of him here inside. “Dusty was barking, and that’s what woke me up. He doesn’t just bark at anything, okay? I heard the door shut, and when I looked out the window, the porch light had been turned off. I wanted to run after him, but—” I paused. “I couldn’t.”

  For once, McKnight looked at me like I wasn’t the enemy. “You should never chase after an intruder,” he said. “You did the right thing. Did you touch it?”

  I shook my head.

  He fished an evidence bag from inside his jacket and, with tweezers, he picked up the letter and dropped it in.

  “It was Sam Alby,” I said.

  McKnight’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you said you didn’t see the intruder.”

  “You don’t understand,” I said, my words tumbling out. “This is exactly like the letters he used to send Vera and John. I called his wife yesterday, asking about the spare keys to this place. He must have found out, and—”

  McKnight cut me off. “Slow down, Miss King. What keys?”

  I forced myself to take a breath. “Sam has a key here.”

  McKnight narrowed his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

  I explained my call to Jennifer Moon, how she’d said she kept the keys to all her properties in her home, how I’d discovered that her husband was Sam Alby, that she was far more tied up in this than I had ever expected. When I was done, McKnight nodded, slowly, then pointed toward the kitchen. “If Mr. Alby had a key, why are there signs of a break-in?”

  I shook my head. “He didn’t do that.”

  His eyebrows furrowed. “Who did?”

  I fought to hold back tears. I wanted Vera. No, I wanted my mother, for this to all go away. I hadn’t wanted to tell them about Davis, to open that can of worms, but now I had no choice. “It was my ex-boyfriend.”

  “When did your ex break into your home, Miss King?”

  “Saturday night.”

  McKnight scratched beneath his lip. “You’re sure of this?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, he confronted me.”

  “Why didn’t you report it?”

  Because you never help women like us.

  As if on cue, the baby-faced officer walked out my front door, waiting outside.

  “Miss King,” McKnight said, his voice quieter than I’d ever heard it. “Did your ex give you those marks on your neck?”

  “You don’t understand—”

  “Did he threaten to hurt you if you talked to the police?”

  “It’s not about him!” I cried. It was so strange. It felt, in that moment, as if it had always always always been about Davis. And yet this was bigger, even, than Davis or me. This was something altogether out of our wheelhouse. “Please,” I said. “You have to believe me. It was Sam.”

  “Are you able to file a report?” McKnight asked. “About your ex?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I argued. “Sam killed John, and he wants you to think it was me.”

  “But why do you think he’s trying to frame you, Miss King? From the looks of this note, whoever wrote it is trying to get you to leave town.”

  My breath caught in my throat, because in a way, McKnight was right. Of course that’s how it would appear, but he didn’t get it—he didn’t have all the information.

  Could I tell him about the knife? What if, somehow, I was wrong? It would only make me look more suspicious. Standing here, waving my hand back and forth—Hey, one of my knives is gone, in case you didn’t notice!—I had to stay in control of this. I had to think.

  I took a deep breath. “I think Sam wanted to frame me, and I think he had the ability to because he had access to my house, but after I called his wife and talked to his daughter at the memorial, I think he knows I’m getting too close to the truth of what actually happened, and so now he’s trying to scare me away from looking into anything further. In case I figure it all out and tell you.”

  McKnight’s eyes narrowed—disbelief.

  “You think I’m paranoid,” I said. “I know it’s sounds wild, but—”

  “Look, Miss King,” he said, interrupting me. “I want to protect you, but here’s what I know: You have an ex-boyfriend, and it looks like he’s been violent. You have a broken window and a threatening note. Now, I understand, given the notes Mr. Nolan and Ms. Abernathy received that they alleged came from Mr. Alby, why you would see this language and believe it was tied to him—and trust me, I will absolutely run forensics on this and log it into evidence for our investigation. However, and this is a big one, I’m going to have a hard time convincing anyone on my team of this theory when we can’t rule out your ex-boyfriend, who you said yourself has broken in very recently. Until you tell us who this man is, this man who’s been hurting you, it’s very hard for us to move forward here. Now, would you like to file a report about the break-in?”

  “You don’t get it,” I said. “You never do.”

  McKnight waited a moment longer for me to change my mind, then sighed. “I can see you’re quite shaken up, Miss King. It’s only natural to be scared and try to make sense of things when something like this happens. Just try and get some rest. We can have an officer drive by and check on you once an hour for the next twenty-four hours. We’ll make sure you’re safe.”

  But he wouldn’t, I knew that.

  Guys like him, they never did.

  FORTY

  It was impossible to rest, of course it was.

  My thoughts spun. It wasn’t just the break-in, the note; it was more than that.

  What if what Rachel had told me really was true?

  Last night, in the shock of it all, it had been hard to believe, but in the cold light of morning, it was becoming more and more difficult to defend John. McKnight was right, in a way—stories didn’t just bloom out of nowhere.

  Had I let my feelings get in the way of seeing John for who he really was? Had my relationship with Davis fucked up my judgment even worse than I’d thought?


  John was wonderful, he was kind—he was a man’s man in a way that Davis never was. He had seemed to love Vera, but at the same time, he had kissed me. He’d inexplicably taken that photo of me in bed. He’d lied to Vera, making our night together sound far more innocent than it had been. He had protested his innocence about Claire, and yet rumors seemed to follow him wherever he went, even after his death.

  Perhaps my crush, my love—for him, for them, for the safety I thought they provided—had gotten in the way of seeing it all.

  It broke my heart, but it was impossible to get past: John wasn’t who I thought he was. He never had been.

  * * *

  • • •

  I didn’t remember drifting off, but when I woke again, it was early evening, half past five. I pulled the drapes back, looking for any sign of a police car. After fifteen minutes or so, I saw one drive by, just as McKnight had said it would. Watching me or protecting me? At this point, it was hard to know.

  I texted Vera.

  Sam broke into my house last night

  She started typing immediately.

  Oh my god, did you tell the cops? I’m coming over.

  She was there in minutes, a black wool poncho tossed over a long black dress, a drawn look to her face, like she hadn’t slept in ages. She opened her arms, quickly pulling me in for a hug. “My god, what is going on, Lucy? Did you actually— Jesus. Did you see him?”

  “No,” I said, ushering her in. “But he left a note inside. I know it’s hard for you to talk about this, and I know you want me to focus on what happened between Davis and me, but—”

  Vera shook her head almost viciously. “No,” she said. “No, I wanted to apologize about that. You were in shock, and I’m coming undone, and I just want to forget it, everything I said. It was awful. It’s like part of me wanted to hurt you, so you could feel as much pain as I do.” She paused, swallowing. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said. “None of this is your fault.”

  “How do you know it’s Sam, though,” she asked, gaze darting around the room, “and not Davis? Since he was just here.”