Lying with Strangers

by James Grippando

The pizza arrived. Kevin paid the deliveryman and brought the steaming box to the kitchen table. It wasn’t what he’d ordered, and he made a mental note that, should he end up on death row, he’d order his last meal of pepperoni with extra cheese from someplace more reliable.

  He was reaching into the refrigerator for a cold beer when the phone rang. He grabbed it quickly, hoping it was Peyton.

  “Hello.”

  “Is this Kevin Stokes?” It was the voice of a woman, but not one he recognized.

  “Who is this?”

  “Someone who can help you.”

  Suspecting a crank, he was a half-second away from disconnecting, then reconsidered. “Who are you?”

  “I’m a cyber-detective.”

  “A what?”

  “A detective who specializes in online computer investigations.”

  “I never heard of it.”

  “That’s because you never needed one before. You need one now.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Basically I hang out in chat rooms and eavesdrop on people who think they’re having cybersex in private. I track down the screen names of the participants and, if they’re married, I contact the spouse and turn over all of my information. For a reasonable fee, like any detective.”

  “Are you saying…”

  “I’ve been following your case for about two months, ever since the prosecutor released those transcripts of the chat-room conversations between Gary Varne and your wife.”

  “Those weren’t between Gary and Peyton.”

  “I know. They were between someone else and your wife. They’re still going at it.”

  Kevin froze. “I don’t believe you.”

  “They chatted as recently as last week.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’m a cyber-detective.”

  “I still don’t believe you.”

  “Then let me prove it to you.”

  “I’m not interested.”

  “You’d better be. Because they have a date to talk again tonight at eleven o’clock.”

  “That can’t be.”

  “Believe it, friend. I told you, I eavesdrop.”

  Kevin was silent. “Why should I trust you?”

  “The real question is, why should you trust your wife?”

  “Who put you up to this? Are you some kind of swindler?”

  “Look, here’s the deal. No risk to you. You and I meet up at eleven o’clock. I know the screen name your wife uses, and I know the screen name of her lover. I have the technological ability to pose online as your wife’s lover. I’ll just use his screen name. You can watch the whole chat as it unfolds before your eyes on my computer screen. We can ask anything you want. If at the end of the chat you’re not convinced that we’re talking to Peyton Shields, you pay me nothing.”

  “And if it’s her?”

  “Fifty bucks.”

  “What?”

  “Cheap, huh? See, where these jobs get expensive is when you want me to find out who the lover is.”

  Kevin was suddenly struck with an idea. He didn’t want to believe it was Peyton online, but if someone in cyberspace was pretending to be her lover, it might unravel the kidnapping.

  “All right,” he said. “Where should we meet?”

  Peyton heard noises from the living room.

  Twenty minutes earlier, she’d gone straight from her car to the upstairs tub in her parents’ guest bathroom. Her father’s car was gone when she’d arrived, and she’d assumed that he and her mother had gone out to dinner. She was actually pleased to have been alone.

  She peered out the window, and the car still wasn’t in the driveway. Still alone, she thought, until she heard it again—that noise from the living room.

  She put on her bathrobe, opened the bathroom door, and stood at the top of the stairway, listening to the noises coming from below. It was a buzzing, rather constant but of varying volume. It was getting louder again, and she thought maybe it was a fan or appliance. The longer she listened, however, the more certain she was that it wasn’t mechanical. It sounded human. Like humming.

  She started down the stairs, then stopped about halfway. In the foyer she could see the glow of the lights from the living room. She had no recollection of having switched them on before heading upstairs. Instinct told her to run back upstairs, but on impulse she charged down the stairway another five steps, just far enough to peek below the ceiling line and see into the living room.

  “Who’s there!” she shouted.

  That drew a loud shriek, then a quick turn and an angry glare.

  Peyton sighed with relief at the sight of her mother.

  “Why do you do that to me?” her mother asked in an angry tone.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t see a car in the driveway when I got home, so I thought I was alone.”

  “Your father ran to the store.”

  Peyton slumped into the sitting position on the third step, leaning against the carved balustrades. “I’m sorry. I’m still pretty wired. Wasn’t one of my better days.”

  Her mother turned her attention back to the built-in shelves adjacent to the fireplace. Peyton rose and joined her in the living room. She noticed that several framed photographs were stacked on the couch. Her mother pulled another from the top shelf and placed it on the couch beside the others. It was Peyton’s wedding photograph.

  Peyton checked the stack. They were all photographs of her and Kevin—wedding, engagement, vacation.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just putting some things away.”

  “We aren’t divorced yet.”

  “After the things that were said in that courtroom this week, I thought having these things around the house might make you uncomfortable.”

  Peyton gave her a quizzical look. “Are you glad Kevin and I are split?”

  “Of course not,” Valerie said with an awkward chuckle. “I just want you to be happy, that’s all.”

  Peyton took a seat on the couch and examined one of the dethroned photographs. It was from one of their first vacations together in Martha’s Vineyard. The two of them were wrapped in each other’s arms on Menemsha Beach, just the two of them, a bottle of wine, a couple of boiled lobsters, and the blazing orange afterglow of an amazing sunset over Vineyard Sound. It was one of her favorite photographs of them for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was the memory of Kevin wading into the water up to his thighs and sprinting to the shore after she’d told him that this was where they’d filmed the movie Jaws.

  She wondered if the two of them would ever laugh that hard again.

  She looked up at her mother and said, “Dad told me about the problems you two had.”

  Her mother froze. “What do you mean, problems?”

  “The kind of problems that Kevin and I are going through right now. And I don’t mean a murder trial.”

  Her voice tightened. “He told you that, did he?”

  “Don’t get mad at him. I guessed it, actually.”

  Valerie dusted off an old framed photo, and put it back where Peyton and Kevin’s wedding shot used to stand. Ironic, in a way. It was one of those high school shots that Kevin used to tease her about, mother and daughter dressed in the same outfit like a couple of teenage girlfriends.

  “So, what brought this on?”

  “I guess I’m searching for answers.”

  “As in whether you should forgive him?”

  “Yes. Like Dad forgave you.”

  “He forgave me? Is that what he told you?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded slowly, but clearly wasn’t in agreement. “That’s interesting.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because what saved our marriage is the fact that we forgave each other.”

  “I don’t understand. What did you forgive him for?”

  She averted her eyes. “Peyton, why do you want to dredge this up?”

  “Because it’s important to me. I need to understan
d.”

  “It wasn’t about sex,” Valerie said, struggling to answer. “It was about adventure.”

  “There’s always mountain climbing.”

  “Don’t be smart.”

  “I’m sorry. Go ahead.”

  “I got married to your father way too young. I went through my twenties and early thirties thinking I’d missed out on all the fun. By the time I was thirty-five, I was…well, I’d say I was desperate.”

  “Is that when you strayed?”

  She didn’t answer, but it was a silence loaded with admission.

  “I still don’t understand. What was it that you forgave Daddy for?”

  Valerie’s look was incredulous, as if Peyton should have been smarter than that. “For nearly suffocating me. I was a twenty-year-old college girl with all kinds of dreams, dreams exactly like yours. I had so many opportunities. And then—bam. I’m dating your father, and I miss my period. You can imagine the reaction of my parents. But your father was right in the same camp. From that moment on, it was as if I had no more opportunities, no choices. We got married. My life was set. End of story.”

  Her voice trailed off, her eyes misty. Suddenly she came to Peyton, sat beside her on the couch, and gave her a tight embrace. She was sniffling, her head buried in Peyton’s shoulder.

  “That’s why I always told you, Peyton. Don’t make the mistake I did.”

  Peyton hugged back, but it wasn’t from the heart. It was what her mother had always told her—when she’d first started dating, when she’d gone away to college, when she’d fallen in love with Kevin as a college student. The memory of those mother-daughter talks and the same old warning made Peyton want to pull away, made her want to grab her mother and shake her. Instead, she just held her trembling mother in her arms, trying yet again to understand that Valerie’s insensitive message had been delivered in the twisted name of love.

  “It’ll be all right, Mom,” she said, still holding on. “Everything will be all right.”

  65

  THEY MET AT 10:45 P.M. IN A COFFEE SHOP ON NEWBURY STREET. THE cyber-detective had sounded nice enough on the telephone, but in today’s world of wackos it seemed prudent to meet in a public place, rather than just the two of them at his apartment or hers.

  The coffee bar was an old converted drugstore. The walls were unfinished red brick, and a well-preserved century-old soda fountain stood as the bar. Small round tables filled out the center of the room, and the back wall was lined with booths. A young woman in the corner strummed an acoustic guitar, the weekend entertainment. No one seemed to be listening to her. The place was about half full, a few people on dates, some college students, and a few loners with nothing to do on a Friday night but drink coffee and read a day-old newspaper.

  Kevin had no idea what the detective looked like, but he spotted her easily at the booth in the back. The giveaway was the notebook computer up and running on the table before her.

  “You’re Daisy?”

  “Yes,” she said, no handshake.

  She seemed slightly awkward in person, or at least not as smooth as she’d been on the telephone. She wore baggy jeans and an oversized sweatshirt. Her eyeglasses were black-framed and unflattering. Kevin figured it was par for the course for someone who virtually lived online as a cyber-detective, and he was actually relieved. Things the way they were with Peyton, the last thing he needed was to be spotted out on the town with a Beyoncé Knowles look-alike.

  Kevin took a seat opposite Daisy, who positioned the computer at the end of the table so that they could both see. The back of the computer faced the restaurant, so no one could steal a glance.

  “You nervous?” she asked.

  “Should I be?”

  She shrugged, then turned straight to business. “I’m going to use the screen name RG. That’s the name your wife’s cyber-lover travels under.”

  “Except that it’s not my wife.”

  “Sure. Whatever. Did you bring the fifty bucks?”

  The down payment was so low that Kevin had almost forgotten. He dug the bills from his wallet and handed them over. Then Daisy got started.

  Kevin watched as she logged on and moved straight to the chat rooms. “Sometimes they meet right in the private chat room, but last time Ladydoc asked to meet in the movie chat room, their usual place. So that’s where we’ll go.”

  Daisy sounded so sure of herself, he was beginning to have doubts. Could this really be Peyton?

  “How will you know when she checks in?” he asked.

  “She’s already here.” Daisy pointed to the box in the upper-right-hand part of the screen, which listed a series of screen names.

  “Ladydoc,” she said, reading the fourth name from the top. “That’s Peyton.”

  Kevin checked his watch. It was two minutes past eleven. “Right on time,” he said, remembering that Daisy had said eleven o’clock.

  “How do we know Ladydoc is Peyton?”

  “Just watch.”

  On the screen, typed messages were being traded back and forth among other chat-room visitors. Daisy typed in her own message, which appeared on-screen after her assumed screen name, RG.

  “private chat, ladydoc?” it read.

  A few irrelevant lines of script from other chatters followed, the cyberspace equivalent of everyone talking at once. But finally the response came from Ladydoc.

  “ok.”

  Kevin had an uneasy feeling as he watched Daisy maneuver from the public to the private chat room. In a just a few seconds, he was staring at a white screen with just two names, RG and Ladydoc.

  Daisy looked at Kevin and said, “Now, the show’s about to begin.”

  “I’m not here for titillation. I want you to show me who Ladydoc is.”

  “She’ll never come out and say she’s Peyton. But watch the dialogue carefully. You’ll see it’s her.”

  Daisy typed the first line. “not very nice the way u left me last time.”

  “i wasn’t trying to tease. my husband was coming. almost caught me. had 2 log off immediately.”

  “he’s always in the way, isn’t he?”

  “nothing i can’t work around.”

  “maybe. but i think u been holding back with us because of kevin.”

  Kevin started at the sight of his name. Daisy was getting right down to it.

  “what makes u think that?” came the reply.

  “i know everything.”

  “what r u, a detective or something?”

  Off-line, Kevin and his detective exchanged glances. Daisy returned to the online chat. “i don’t understand why u ever married that dweeb.”

  Kevin shot her a cross look. “Bear with me,” Daisy told him.

  The chat response came back from Ladydoc: “it’s complicated.”

  “he’s the problem, isn’t he?”

  Off-line, Kevin watched as his detective seemed absorbed by the chat, as if enjoying her role as Peyton’s online lover.

  “what do u think?” wrote Ladydoc.

  “if it weren’t for him, this whole mess never would have started. we would have been 2gether a year ago.”

  “sad but true.”

  Kevin interjected. “Why are you making her say those things?”

  “I’m not making her do anything,” she snapped.

  “I don’t like this.”

  “Deal with it.” The detective typed another line to Ladydoc:

  “don’t u wish sometimes that he would just go away?”

  Kevin scoffed. “You’re a troublemaker.”

  The detective didn’t answer. She just stared intently at the screen, waiting for an answer. When it didn’t come, she typed again: “don’t u wish kevin would just go away?”

  There was a few seconds’ delay, then finally the typed response built across the screen. “don’t u know it.”

  The detective looked up from the screen, looked straight into Kevin’s eyes. A verbal response to Kevin came simultaneously with the typed response to Ladydoc.
/>
  “Consider it done.”

  Kevin froze. The woman’s voice was suddenly deeper, and instantly Kevin knew from the evil look in those eyes that this woman was a man and this man was no detective.

  Before Kevin could react, the man in the disguise lunged forward, reaching across the table, leading with an eight-inch blade. Kevin let out a loud cry as the metal pierced his skin, broke through a rib, and ripped through his chest. He locked eyes for an instant with his attacker, long enough to see the utter excitement in his face. The blade twisted, then exited as the man pulled away. A hot gush of red blood soaked through Kevin’s shirt. He tried to reach for his attacker, but he slumped in the booth and fell to the floor.

  “She’s got a knife!” someone shouted.

  Kevin could hear people screaming and running in every direction. He reached for his chest and felt the bloody hole between his ribs, and knew he was badly hurt. He tried to cry for help, but no words came. He raised his head a few inches from the floor and saw his attacker flee out the door with the computer under his arm.

  “Stop her!” he said, trying to shout but it was little more than a whisper. The room was suddenly a blur. He rolled on his side and could feel the blood pumping from his body, feel his life oozing into the puddle beside him.

  “Stop him!” he said weakly.

  It was his last conscious thought before his head hit the floor.

  Peyton rushed to the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in response to the phone call. It took her only minutes to get there from her parents’ house in Brookline, and she arrived not long after the ambulance.

  “Where’s Kevin Stokes?” she shouted to the ER nurse.

  “Trauma One, but you can’t go in—”

  Peyton flew past her before she could finish the sentence. She turned the corner and entered the trauma room.

  Inside was a flurry of activity. Two ER physicians and four nurses, all working furiously over the man on the table. Forceps, sponges, and bandages rested on trays all around them. Blood was everywhere, on the table, on the floor, and the physicians’ gloved hands. Fresh blood was being transfused. One physician was checking Kevin’s throat for blood and possible intubation. Another was checking his breathing with a stethoscope.

  “My God, Kevin,” she said, nearly in shock.