My finger froze over the phone screen.
OR MAYBE…
What?
KATY’S BLOOD.
The sight of Katy’s name broke the paralysis of fear that was gripping me and spurred me to action. I grabbed my briefcase and headed for the parking lot, ignoring Janie’s concerned questions as I hurried out of the front office.
As I jogged toward my car, I tapped HOME on the cellphone screen and listened to it ring. Once. Twice. Three times. “C’mon, pick up.” It rang two more times, and I hung up and called Katy’s cell phone.
She answered after the first ring. “Hey, baby, I was just thinking about you—”
“Where are you?”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Where are you?!” I started the car and peeled rubber out of the parking lot.
“I stopped at the grocery store on the way home from Kelly’s. I’m just now pulling into the neighborhood.”
“Listen to me very carefully. The first thing I want you to do is look around and make sure no one is following you.”
“Following me? What—”
“Do it, Katy!”
“Okay, okay!” A pause, and then: “There’s no one behind me at all. And I can see all the way to both ends of Bayberry.”
“You’re sure. No blue cars? Nothing at all?”
“I’m sure, baby. Now tell me what the fuck is going on.”
I hit the interstate and cranked my speed to ninety.
“I want you to stay on the line with me and stay in your car when you get home. Don’t pull into the garage. Park at the curb and wait for me there. I’ll be home in ten minutes…”
Detective Anderson sat across from Katy and me at the kitchen table and listened to someone talking on the other end of her cell phone. After a moment, she said, “I want it faster,” and hung up without saying goodbye.
She looked up at us, face grim, all business.
“We’re working with the phone company to trace the texts. Most likely it was a burner phone, but there are ways to track down where the phone was purchased and activated. It’s not foolproof, but it’s what we got.”
She pulled several sheets of paper from a file folder. “Sign these and we’ll put a trace on your phone. He calls or texts again, we’ll find him. We’ll also be able to record anything he says to you.”
I picked up a pen and signed the papers.
Friday, Dec 13
I heard Katy crying before I reached the bottom of the stairs. Panicked, I rushed into the kitchen and found her slumped against the dishwater, her face buried in her hands. Everything felt like a bad dream again.
I sat on the floor beside her and wrapped her in my arms. “It’ll be okay, I promise.”
She cried harder, trembling.
“That’s it, let it out.”
She looked up at me, her face smeared with tears and snot. She pointed a finger at the television on the kitchen counter. “It’s all over the fucking news. They even know what the texts said.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out.
“My mom called three times. She’s worried sick.”
“We’ll go over there later today and talk to her. We’ll make it okay.”
“And Heather called and said everyone in the neighborhood is talking about us…saying things.”
“What kind of things?” I asked.
She started crying again. “That…that we’re playing up to the press, trying to get attention. First being all mysterious and then accusing a reporter of being a stalker and now the texts.”
“That makes no Goddamn sense.”
“I knowwww.” Sobbing again. “She also said Ken Ellis was telling people you were a suspect, that you and Jimmy were thick as thieves.”
I remembered the curly-haired reporter using those exact same words. Ken, you lousy, big mouth son-of-a-bitch.
“I’m scared, Bobby.”
I brushed my wife’s hair out of her face and used my hand to wipe her cheeks, and then I sat there on the kitchen floor and rocked her in my arms until the tears stopped coming.
I called out of work for the day. Paced around the house. Checked on Katy to make sure she was resting. Looked out the bedroom window to make sure the patrol car assigned to guard our house was still parked at the curb. Talked to Detective Anderson on the telephone. She apologized for the leak to the press. She had no idea where it had come from, and I could tell she was as angry as we were.
After lunch, I went out to the garage and looked for something to do. I felt lost. I felt like my brain wasn’t working the way it was supposed to.
I straightened the tools on my work bench (the work bench Jimmy had helped me build). I moved cases of bottled water from one spot on the floor to another spot on the floor. I hung a snow shovel on the wall hook where it belonged. I swept the floor.
I noticed a couple boxes of Grant’s old school papers on the floor and cleared space on a shelf for them. I bent over to pick up the first box and on my way back up, I nailed my head on the blade of the snow shovel.
“Goddammit!”
I flung the box away, papers scattering everywhere, and swiped an angry hand at the wall, sending the shovel clattering to the ground. I lunged forward and kicked the cardboard box, sending it flying against the opposite wall of the garage. I spun around to look for something else to hit—
—and Detective Anderson was standing at the top of the driveway, staring into the garage at me.
“Everything okay, Mr. Howard?”
I touched a sore spot on the back of my head, checked my fingers for blood. “I’m fine,” I said, embarrassed. “Hit my head, lost my temper.”
She looked like she wanted to say something else, then changed her mind. Instead, she held out a file folder and said, “Do you mind if we go inside? Few things I want to talk about.”
I left Detective Anderson sitting in the den and went upstairs to get Katy. Once again, we sat together on the sofa across from the detective and waited for her to tell us why she’d come.
“First thing, I have some good news. The texts were a prank.”
Katy sat up straight beside me. “A prank?”
“That’s right. College kid over at Morgan State. Wannebe film director. Making a slasher film for his senior project. Thought it would be ‘cool’ to try to scare you.”
“It worked,” Katy said.
“He paid for the phone with his parents’ American Express card. Was easy enough to track. The kid’s remorseful, and stupid. Up to you if you want to press charges.”
I looked at Katy, but she didn’t say anything. I could tell she was relieved. I just felt angry.
“I also came to show you these,” the detective said, spreading four glossy photos across the coffee table.
The photos were of three young women and a man who looked in his late 20’s. Based on the clothing and hairstyles, the pictures looked at least five or ten years old.
“Recognize any of these people? Ever seen any of them next door at the Wilkinson’s?”
I studied the photos and shook my head. “Not me.”
“Me either,” Katy said.
“You’re positive?”
We both nodded. “Yes.”
Detective Anderson collected the photographs and returned them to the folder. Looked at me. “The real James Wilkinson hasn’t tried to contact you, has he, Mr. Howard?”
“What? No.” I could feel Katy staring at me.
“If he does, you would never try to help him, right?”
It felt like the temperature in the room had gone up ten degrees. I didn’t trust my voice to answer, but I knew I had to. “Of course not.”
“That’s good to hear.”
The detective got to her feet. I thanked her for bringing us good news and walked her to the front door, anxious for her to leave. She walked out onto the porch, stopped and turned around. “By the way, what was your brother’s name, Mr. Howard?”
“My brother?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Her face remained blank. “Just doing my job, Mr. Howard.”
I glanced back at Katy sitting on the sofa. She was watching us. “My brother’s name was James.”
Saturday, Dec 14
Adhering to the kind of unspoken agreement that only decades-long married couples can employ, Katy and I never discussed the people in the photographs, and the next time we saw their faces, we were in bed watching the news—and a fifth face had joined them. Another young woman, pretty, with glasses and a scattering of pale freckles across her nose and cheeks.
The headline above the faces read:
POLICE NOW IDENTITY FIVE VICTIMS
Francis Lund, Teresa Thompkins, and Susanne Worthy were from Pennsylvania, Karen Hunter was from Delaware, and Frank Hubbard was from western Maryland. They had been identified from DNA remains found at both Wilkinson’s home and a storage unit he’d rented in nearby Fallston. The oldest victim, Lund, had been killed approximately nine years ago, and the most recent victim, Hunter, just over two years ago. An unnamed police source indicated that several additional victims could soon be identified.
The telephone on the nightstand rang, and we both ignored it. After four rings, it stopped.
Katy turned off the television, and we laid in silence for a long time. I listened to the rhythm of her breathing soften and thought she was asleep—but then she surprised me and spoke in a whisper, “Shouldn’t we tell the police about the hang ups?”
I pretended to be asleep—and didn’t answer.
Sunday, Dec 15
The temperature was in the mid-30’s, and a sheen of ice glittered in the bird bath at the corner of the back yard, but the morning sun felt good on my face. I was supposed to be repairing one of Katy’s rose trellises out by the shed, but I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about the five faces I’d seen last night on television (something about those freckles had really stuck with me), and my eyes kept wandering past the fence to Jimmy’s back yard.
Streamers of police tape fluttered in the breeze. His shed was wrapped in the bright yellow tape and padlocked. I had helped him build that shed five summers ago, and he had recently helped me pick out mine from Home Depot.
My cell phone rang in my coat pocket. I considered letting it go, then thought better of it: what if it was Katy calling from inside?
I put down the hammer and took out my phone. Looked at the caller ID: Unknown Caller. I hit the ACCEPT button, ready for another hang up.
“Hello?”
Nothing. Of course.
“Hello.”
I started to hang up and heard: “I’m sorry.”
Startled, I almost dropped the phone.
“What? What did you say?”
“I’m sorry, Bob. You have no idea how sorry I am.”
This wasn’t a prank: I knew Jimmy’s voice.
“Then…why?”
“I couldn’t help it. I wish I had a better answer, but I don’t. I owe you the truth at least.”
“You have to turn yourself in, Jimmy.”
“Believe me, I’ve thought about it.”
“All the calls and hang ups…it’s been you?”
“I missed hearing your voices.”
“I have to tell the police you called.”
“Hell, they probably already know after that texting fiasco. I was sorry you had to go through that.”
“Where are you?”
Jimmy laughed. “Do you remember that day we went fishing out by the dam? Caught all those fat channel cats and you fell in trying to unsnag your line? And on the way home you almost ran over that baby deer and we ended up chasing it into the woods so it would be safe, laughing and yelling and acting like a couple of idiot kids?”
“Yeah, I remember.”
Deep breath. “That was a really good day, Bobby. I almost felt okay that day.”
My heart felt like it was breaking. “We can get you help, Jimmy.”
“Nah, there’s no help for me, old friend. There never was. Nothing left now but my penance.”
“But if you turn yourself in, if you cooperate, maybe there’s a chance—”
“My chances were all used up a long, long time ago, Bobby.” Deep sigh. “It’s such a beautiful day outside. I’m glad you’re spending it in the yard.”
“How did you know I was—”
The phone went dead in my hand.
I didn’t tell Katy about the phone call. I didn’t want to worry her, and I guess if I was being honest with myself, I didn’t tell her for other reasons, too; I just couldn’t quite figure out what those other reasons were.
I made an excuse to leave the house for a short time, and arranged to meet Detective Anderson at the diner down the street. She was waiting for me when I got there.
“And how can you be so sure it wasn’t meant as a threat?”
“I just don’t think it was,” I said, sipping my coffee.
“He was obviously close by. Either watching you while you talked or he’d seen you in the yard a short time earlier.”
“Right.” I shrugged. “And if he’d wanted to do something to me, he would have had ample opportunity.”
Detective Anderson’s face hardened. “I know this is still difficult for you to process, Mr. Howard, but this man is not your friend. He is not the man you believed him to be.”
I didn’t say anything.
“He is the subject of a multiple jurisdiction manhunt, and he risked capture to see and talk to you. That fact speaks pretty loudly to me.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said, trying to make my voice not sound defensive.
“I want you to look at something.”
She slid a stack of glossy photographs across the table. I picked them up and flipped through them.
They were murder scene photos: numerous angles of a young girl laying naked on the ground, her face hidden beneath long, blonde hair, her body and the floor around her smeared with blood. She almost looked like a Barbie Doll. Like she wasn’t real. The last photograph took care of that: a close up of her face, probably a school picture, smiling and happy, looking very real, indeed.
“Lisa James. Seventeen-years-old. From Leesburg, Virginia. A straight ‘A’ student headed to Dartmouth later in the fall. She was killed eight years ago in a utility shed outside the community pool she lifeguarded at.”
I swallowed and slid the photographs back to her.
“Her case had been unsolved until yesterday, when forensic evidence linked James Wilkinson as her killer.”
She gathered the photos and got up from the table.
“You remember that next time Wilkinson calls you…or you start thinking of him as your old fishing buddy.”
Monday, Dec 16
An unmarked police car followed me to work this morning, and then followed me home again just over an hour later, after a brief meeting with my boss.
“You hit it out of the park, Bob. Charlie Kennedy couldn’t stop singing your praises, and trust me, that old bastard doesn’t even like his own kids.”
“Then why not let me work straight through Christmas Eve, like everyone else?”
“Everyone else isn’t dealing with the mess you’re dealing with. Besides, you deserve the time off after this sale.”
I knew better than to argue with him. I was becoming a distraction. It was easier to give me an extended, paid vacation than deal with tapped telephone lines and undercover cops roaming around. Not to mention my panicked exit from the office the other day. Janie said I’d nearly given her a heart attack running out the way I did.
“So I’m not back until January 6?”
“That’s right,” he said, slapping me on the shoulder. “New year, new quarter, new time to kick some ass!”
Sometimes, I hated my boss.
The house was too quiet. I couldn’t stand it.
Katy was spend
ing the day with her mother, and I didn’t want to interrupt their time together just to whine about my job. I figured I could whine plenty to her tonight when she got home.
I tried to watch one of the afternoon soaps I always heard Janie raving about at the office, but gave up by the second commercial break. I got up and poured myself a drink. Katy would’ve been shocked—hell, I was pretty surprised myself—but I thought I deserved a drink after the past couple weeks. Maybe I would even take a nap.
I carried my drink back into the den and stopped in front of the fireplace. Took down one of the photos from the mantle. I could hear the ticking of the miniature grandfather clock behind me in the foyer.
“The brother you lost when you were young. What was his name?”
I heard the detective’s voice in my head as I stared at the old photograph. My brother and me at the lake on a hot summer day. Bronzed by the sun. Crooked, trying-to-look-tough smiles. His arm around my shoulders. Wearing his favorite Baltimore Orioles floppy hat and his good luck lightning bolt pendant around his neck.
We looked like young gods. We looked like we would live forever.
Tuesday, Dec 17
Bagels and coffee at the breakfast bar—and admission time. I would’ve rather swallowed shards of broken glass.
“He called you?” Katy’s voice shrill; the expression on her face incredulous. “When? What did he say?”
I started to answer, but she interrupted. “And why in the hell didn’t you tell me?”
I put my hands up. “Calm—”
“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down.”
I slid off the stool and started pacing. Like a twelve-year-old boy, which is exactly what I felt like.
“I didn’t tell you right away because I didn’t want you to worry. I knew how stressed you were.”
“When?”
“Sunday morning. When I was working out back on your trellis.”
Shaking her head. “Oh my God.”
A Long December Page 44
