The kitchen was darkening. I needed to put a light on. My white enamel refrigerator and stove still faintly glimmered in the broadening shadows. I took a step back and switched on a floor lamp whose shade glowed with Parisian street scenes. It warmed Prozzo’s dismal face.
I resumed. “When you came here the day before yesterday to tell me about Matthew, why didn’t you mention your daughter knew him and that she dated him? Don’t you think that was a big omission?”
I watched him struggle for several moments before managing to reply, “Whether or not he knew her doesn’t affect what he did.”
“Agreed, but knowing he dated her and that he broke off the relationship has to affect your attitude toward him.”
Prozzo considered this for a moment and shook his head. “He hurt her,” he said with malice.
Curious reply. He’d been adept at concealing this volcanic resentment on previous visits to my house, as well as when I saw him at the prison and while the search-and-rescue teams were trolling the Connecticut River for the body of Elena Mayaguez. He’d maintained a tough exterior all along except for when we briefly spoke about our daughters or when he’d shown compassion toward Elena’s uncle. I’d found him touching in those moments. I’d believed him to be a rational being who’d made his career out of sifting carefully through evidence, making deductions, spurred on by a hunch or a divine insight. He was a different man now. He was a broken man, he was an enraged man.
I continued, “My understanding was they only went out on a few dates.”
“They slept together.”
“That’s what happens. In college, kids fall easily into bed. And relationships can be … flimsy. I can’t tell you how many of my students have cried in my office when their love affairs suddenly went south.”
“He made promises to her!”
“That’s what she tells you. But who knows what the truth really is?” I thought for a moment and then said, “When you drove up to the Northeast Kingdom to find Matthew, when you questioned him as thoroughly as you questioned me and everybody else around here, why didn’t you bring up the relationship? As a father concerned for his daughter’s well-being, you could’ve spoken to the man she’s been fixated on. And yet you said nothing.”
“How do you know what I said and didn’t say?”
“Obviously Matthew told me.”
Mrs. Billy and Virgil sauntered into the kitchen at this point, and I shooed them away. The spotlamps outside hadn’t gone off yet. Perhaps there were small animals moving around out there and reactivating them. I thought of Anthony, hoping he’d begun to worry, that he would drive down Cloudland Road to find out why I hadn’t arrived.
“Stephanie still loves him,” Prozzo capitulated at last with a note of ongoing surprise at his child’s obsession. His voice cracked. “She’s never been able to get over him. And then he left her for you—”
“He didn’t leave her for me, Marco. He was never really with her.”
“That’s what he tells you, but it’s not what happened. He loved her, too.”
Maybe Prozzo knew something about their relationship that I didn’t. I told him, “We may never know the real truth about them.”
“If you hadn’t been around, if you didn’t exist…” He left the sentence unfinished.
So he really was blaming me for his daughter’s breakdown. I had no choice but to try and reason with him. “Marco,” I said, “this is a romantic obsession. It can happen to all of us. Sometimes all we need is a face and then we fall victim to it.”
Prozzo began squirming in his chair. He held the sides of the table and began leaning perilously back. The chair was reacting to his weight, the wooden spindles creaking and straining. I felt a flash of terror; the room itself seemed to tilt with his movement. I heard myself say, “I’ve told you before to be careful. You’re not a welterweight.”
The detective grudgingly brought his chair forward. I had the impression that he had only partially listened to me, because he reverted back to his earlier argument. “You need to understand that you’re the final piece of this investigation. And that Matthew Blake has been copying what’s gone on in that book.”
“I don’t need to understand anything, Marco. I haven’t seen any evidence at all that backs up what you’re saying. But I did get a phone message from Matthew right before you got here. According to him, your daughter took the Wilkie Collins novel out of his apartment without permission. She took it, she brought it home, she looked at it, and then she returned it—all without asking his permission.”
“That’s a lie!” Prozzo said through clenched teeth.
I held back for a moment, trying to gauge whether or not I should continue, but then heard myself blurting out, “You’ve known all along what was in that book. You’ve known all along because you read it yourself. You figured out who Wilkinson was. You figured out that he left the area. First you recognized the coincidence of fallen trees. Then you realized you could take the religious angle from Wilkie Collins and link it to Matthew’s background. And then you attacked Marjorie Poole. And then you attacked Angela Parker. You brought Angela Parker up here to Cloudland and you let her die. But then when Wilkinson came back and murdered Elena Mayaguez—that was something that you didn’t expect.”
There was a short explosion of silence as the accusation soaked into the old bones of my early-nineteenth-century house, becoming just one more ghostly ache in its long history going back to when trees were split and hewn to the original frame, going back to when the forest was filled with clusters of homesteads inhabited by toiling, reverent Seventh-Day Adventists. Then, making a fist, Prozzo pounded the kitchen table, startling me. “No! That fucking guy was supposed to be in Florida.” I looked at him, bewildered. “That’s what the FBI said. But he was in Massachusetts. That’s why he was able to come back so easily and do it again. And I just fucking figured he was two thousand miles away. That he was gone for good and that he was done. Angela would’ve been the last one.” Then he stopped himself.
“But with the DNA match to this other guy and no DNA match from Matthew, you really think an arrest is going to stick?”
“Matthew was coming for you next. That’s what you still can’t realize.”
I played along. “Coming for me because I jilted him the way he jilted your daughter?”
He shook his head, and now tearful, said, “She lives at home now. She’s never been the same. He made love to her and then broke up with her. He was the first man she ever loved.”
This was probably true, and I gave his statement a few moments of quiet dignity, of respectful silence. Finally, softly, I said, “I heard about her … illness. And I know … I can relate to that. My own daughter almost died of anorexia.”
This final comment was eclipsed by an explosive scrambling underneath the kitchen table as my hefty Henrietta surfaced. Jamming her flank against my leg, she was panting, and I could tell she was in a state of high agitation. Less domesticated than my dogs, she dreaded large strangers. She stood there, warily eyeing Prozzo, clearly attuned to something wrong.
“What does she want?” he demanded.
“She’s worrying … about me. She knows you’re not welcome here.”
The detective leapt out of his chair and nearly knocked it over. He hurried around the table, went and stood by the threshold to the kitchen. Patting the lump of a gun in his sweatshirt, he glared at Henrietta and said, “I want you to get this thing out of here.” Then he walked a few steps to one side, presumably so she could pass.
“Henrietta!” I could barely speak from fright, and slapped her taut rear end. She had gone stock-still now, her eyes riveted to the detective. I whacked her again, but she’d locked herself in place, on critical alert.
“She weighs two hundred and fifty pounds. I can’t budge her.”
“You’d better! Or I’ll put her away.”
Feeling breathless, I pushed her rump forward. She moved a few steps and then backed up again and anchored h
erself between me and the kitchen table. “Why don’t you forget about her. She’s not going to do anything to you.” Then, glancing at my watch, I tried one last time, “I really need to get on my way.”
Prozzo laughed. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Well, then Anthony—”
“Let him come here. I’ll get to present my evidence about Matthew Blake to him tonight instead of tomorrow.”
I placed my hands on the kitchen table and leaned toward him. “You have no evidence,” I insisted.
The detective shook his head. “You’re wrong. I have everything I need. Your boyfriend is on his way right now. He told the St. Johnsbury police he was planning on coming here. That’s why I had them release him.”
So even though his plan had been uncovered he was still going to try and execute it.
Prozzo resumed, “Don’t you want to stick around until he shows up? Don’t you want to be in on the final questioning? Because whether you like it or not your boyfriend is going to fry.”
And then came the breaker of rage that I couldn’t stop, even realizing it might bring me to harm. “No, Marco,” I snapped, “you’re the one who is going to fry!”
Prozzo forgot his fear of Henrietta and lunged at me, knocking me off balance. Grabbing me by both arms, he pinned me against the door that led from the kitchen to the back deck, pressing himself against me so it was impossible to move. I tried to wrench my way out of the wrangle but he held me like a vise. His eyes had a glint of extreme distance in them, almost vacancy, when he let go of my arms and grabbed my neck.
I’d never known such frantic fear, fear that my life had just one short measure left to it. He was squeezing and strangling and I was desperately clawing at his hands and trying to breathe. Though my head was pounding, the thought trickled through that being choked like this was my destiny, this surreal panic, fighting to get air, the pair of hands around my neck resolute, not Matthew’s hands that once caressed and made love to me. These were angry, adrenalized hands that could kill me in a matter of moments. I was thinking that the whole world has to help me if I’m going to survive, something outside myself must make me strong enough to fight back, to resist. And then miraculously I managed to yank his hands away, just enough to suck in a few huffs of precious air. And then I heard Henrietta’s scream, agonizingly human, and Prozzo bellowing. And the dim thought, Surely he’s going to shoot her, as I felt his hands slacken and gasped the freedom of air.
Looking down, I saw her gaping mouth clamped onto his thigh and blood pouring from it. I knew how powerful and relentless her jaws were, that he’d have to kill her to make her let go. He moved back from me, scrambling to get his gun out from under his shirt, when I managed to knee him in the thigh. He pushed me away, bent over, and started banging both hands on Henrietta’s head. But it did no good. Her jaw wouldn’t release him.
By now I was feeling faint, fading, seeing explosions of color, only dimly aware the dogs were barking. I thought I was hearing the unearthly mournful sound the tied-down alpaca made—the last thing I actually remember before passing out.
I’d reached the dimension where souls appear to you, and you dream about all the things you wanted in your life but never got: elusive lovers, houses on the sea, unforeseen financial windfalls, forgiveness from alienated friends, forgiveness of late husbands, forgiveness of estranged children. And once you’ve greeted all of the beings you were meant to find, once you’re blessed with the love you’ve always yearned for, then you pass into the realm that, except for the lucky ones who’ve had a preternatural glimpse, for most of us remains a mystery.
* * *
Matthew was cradling me and I realized we were in my bedroom. My first thought: What a luxury to be breathing again, to be lying there with my chest rising and falling effortlessly.
“How did I get here?”
“I carried you.”
And then I remembered Prozzo had been strangling me. Matthew gently guided my hands to my throat, which I could tell was raw and inflamed. I looked at him, and he looked at me, and we both silently acknowledged the irony. And then he began, “When I got here somebody named Hiram had just arrived. He came back—”
“I know why.”
“Then I saw Mr. Prozzo’s car. Hiram was standing outside your door listening and telling me something was going on. I ran inside and he followed me. You were lying on the floor, you were moving but I had no idea what he’d done to you. Henrietta was mauling his leg and he was whaling on her. Hiram saw him reaching for a gun.”
There were noises of cars pulling into the driveway, the screech of brakes, and doors opening and slamming shut, the dogs barking. Matthew went to the window. He turned to me. “The police are here.”
“But where’s—”
“Mr. Prozzo?”
“Yes.”
“Downstairs. Listen to me, Catherine. Mr. Prozzo is dead.”
“What?”
“We thought he was going to shoot us. Hiram had a knife on him. He stabbed him. In the back.”
“But how will they know? How will they know that Hiram didn’t come here to kill me and found Prozzo instead?”
Matthew looked at me, perplexed. “Because I was here. I’m a witness. And Hiram is a witness, too.” Then his expression relaxed. “Look,” he said gently, “you’re not yourself yet.”
“I am myself!” I insisted.
“Don’t talk, just try to rest. How’s your neck feeling, anyway?”
“It hurts. But at least I can breathe.”
“Good, that’s good.”
There was banging on the downstairs door. “I have to go let them in,” Matthew said. “Be right back.” He started walking toward the hallway.
“But Hiram didn’t kill any of them.”
Turning around and looking puzzled again, Matthew said, “Of course he didn’t kill any of them.”
The dogs continued baying and Matthew left me alone. As I listened to him running down the stairs, I couldn’t help thinking there was a certain spring to his step, his youth and his determination. I even allowed myself to wonder what it might be like if he stayed on with me for a while at least, and that I wouldn’t care if either Breck or his parents objected.
It seemed quite a long time before I heard somebody climbing the stairs: Anthony, looking pale and unsteady, appeared in the doorway. “How are you?” He sounded out of breath.
“Neck hurts like hell. But at least I’m breathing. How are you?”
“Still getting these splitting headaches.” He plopped down next to me and exhaled heavily.
“You look terrible,” I said.
“So do you,” he said with a grim smile. “Look, Catherine, I’m sorry about all this. I’m sorry I couldn’t unravel it earlier.”
“He wouldn’t let you. But he’s dead now … isn’t he? That’s what Matthew said.”
Anthony nodded. “Yes, he’s dead. I told the police to give me a little while with you. Do you think you need to go to the hospital?”
“No. And please don’t call an ambulance. I’m going to be all right.”
“You’re going to have to get checked out. But it doesn’t have to be right away.”
“That’s what I told you when you fell and got hurt. But did you listen to me?”
Anthony scowled and didn’t respond. I heard people filing into the house downstairs. I heard their voices beginning to thrum. The dogs had stopped barking. I realized it was probably because of Matthew; he always did have a way with them.
Anthony rested his hand on my arm. “How much do you think you can hear now?”
“I don’t know. Try me.”
“Okay.”
* * *
Prozzo’s supervisor in Springfield had just contacted Anthony. The IT staffer at the police department had been instructed to comb through the detective’s files and his computer, and confirmed that there were detailed entries indicating he’d been tracking Wilkinson well before Marjorie Poole was attacked, notes confir
ming he strongly suspected Wilkinson was the murderer. “But then Prozzo misread some data. He assumed the killer had moved a thousand miles away to Florida, rather than to Florida, Massachusetts.”
“Ah. The town of Florida, Massachusetts. That’s what he meant.”
Anthony paused for a moment. “My theory: he figured he could copy the crime, using strangulation and the same kind of knife Wilkinson used, and strew the bodies with religious pamphlets the way they were done in the Wilkie Collins novel.”
But Prozzo never reckoned that Wilkinson would come back. That he’d cross the state line from Massachusetts into Vermont, that he’d drive up the Connecticut River Valley, stop at a gas station/mini-mart in Charlestown, New Hampshire, and pick out Elena Mayaguez. That he’d wait until she climbed back in her car and then follow her down the road, flashing his lights until she pulled over. That he’d drag her out of the car and chase her into the Connecticut River.
Anthony went on. “Luckily Wilkinson left behind the DNA sample. My hunch is that as soon as there was a DNA match, Prozzo probably figured he had only one chance to nail Matthew Blake as the copycat killer. And so in the end, when he told the St. Johnsbury police to release him, Prozzo counted on him arriving just after Prozzo murdered you. He probably planned to hide somewhere and just wait for Matthew to show up, and then arrest him.”
“But I guess my Henrietta wouldn’t let him.”
Anthony turned his head toward the window and was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “I just went into the kitchen to see the body. Prozzo brought one of those Seventh-Day Adventist pamphlets with him; it was lying on the floor. He had a long filleting knife in his pocket.”
“I guess we’re lucky Matthew and Hiram were here together. To be witnesses … that it was Prozzo all along, Prozzo waiting for his opportunity to kill me.”
Anthony nodded. “I’m pretty sure his tires will match the tire tracks we found up Cloudland, the ones that got frozen before the blizzard.”
Lying there, I thought of the detective who tried to strangle me now lying dead in my kitchen. I thought of his poor daughter, whom he’d been tragically trying to avenge, a daughter whose insanity made her unable to live in the everyday world, a daughter whose life became undone for the love of a young man who never loved her in return. Or at least Matthew claimed he never loved her. I wondered how true this was. I wondered about Prozzo’s belief: had I never entered Matthew’s life, might he have been able to love this girl?
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