Innocent Monsters

by Doherty, Barbara

  It was nothing Roger couldn’t do himself.

  He started by taking off Kaitlyn’s clothes, leaving the t-shirt around her head so he didn’t have to look at her face. He rolled up her joggers and her underwear and threw them in a corner by the door, then picked her up and went looking for the bathroom where he laid her body down, blocked the plughole and started filling up the bath with water. Next he took a knife from the kitchen drawer, walked back into the bathroom, lifted both her arms over her head and slashed her wrists, just as the main character had done in the manuscript. The main thing, he remembered reading, was to make it look like a suicide, then he would get away with it.

  As Roger let go, one of Kaitlyn’s arms fell heavily back in her lap, the other one fell out of the edge of the bath, blood dripping on the floor.

  It was only as the blood started to come out of the wounds that Roger realised the seriousness of what had just happened. It wasn’t the life he had taken that disturbed him the most, but the possibility of the consequences. If he were to be found out he would lose everything, his job, his apartment, his car, his reputation. Because of a sexy little bitch Roger Wither was going to lose everything he had worked for.

  He had to make absolutely sure it did not happen.

  Roger stayed in the apartment for a while longer, washed the mugs wearing rubber gloves, put them back in their cupboard, picked up the phone, put it back in its cradle. He washed the kitchen knife carefully then dropped it in the bath, let it slide at the bottom, by her thigh. He walked around with a plastic bag in one gloved hand and an old rug he had found under the sink in the other, wiping any surface he remembered touching. When the tub was filled enough he closed the taps, then took a sponge and made sure he cleaned any traces of his own saliva from Kaitlyn’s body. He wiped her neck, her shoulders, her breasts, he pulled the t-shirt off her head and whiped her face, bloody water dripping from the sponge back into the bath. He even wiped the inside of her mouth, her tongue, trying to ignore her eyes staring at the ceiling, making sure he did not to step onto the puddle of blood forming underneath her hand, on the bathroom floor.

  He took the sponge with him, threw it in the plastic bag with her t-shirt, the old rag, the rest of the clothes she’d been wearing and the rubber gloves.

  By the time Roger closed the door behind him, making sure nobody saw him leave the house, it was as if he’d never been there.

  30 January 2001

  “IS THAT all?” He asked eyeing his secretary’s breasts.

  Nora was standing across the desk looking at her day-to-day diary, her shirt so tight Roger could see intermittent flashes of skin in between the buttons, where the fabric struggled to pull together.

  “Jessica Lynch called while you were out. She was returning your call. She said she’s ready to see you today.”

  “Halleluiah!”

  “So I arranged for her to come and see you later, she’s your last appointment of the day. I thought you would want to squeeze her in if possible.”

  “Thank you, Nora.”

  “No problem. Anything else I can get you?” She asked raising an eyebrow towards the coffee she had already brought him.

  “No. Think I’m all set. Thanks.”

  The rest of the afternoon went by fairly quickly. Roger only seemed to have time to stop the second run of Blaise’s books being printed and to organise a new biography to be written for the back jacket and flap before Nora called him to announce Jessica Lynch had arrived.

  Jessica walked in wearing a baseball cap and a ridiculously large pair of sunglasses, her long hair squashed over her face. Roger burst out laughing.

  “You ain’t that famous yet, sweetheart.”

  Jessica didn’t answer or said anything at all. She just sat herself in front of his desk and very slowly started taking off her disguise. Once both cap and sunglasses were resting on her lap she looked straight at him, purple eye, red and green cheekbone, cut lip.

  “What the fuck?”

  “Oh don’t worry about me, Roger. Just sit there and make fun of me, why don’t you?”

  “Christ, Jessica... I’m sorry. What the hell happened?”

  She wasn’t going to tell him the truth. Why should she? Nobody needed to know how disturbed William was.

  “I’ve been mugged.”

  As she lied to him she searched her coat pocket for the folded pieces of paper she had brought along and once she found them she passed them over to him, her hand shaking in fear, pain, or because of the extra dose of painkillers she had taken before walking in the building. It was hard to tell for sure.

  “What’s this?” Roger looked at the white paper without unfolding it.

  “My outline. Well... Yes, my outline and I believe the start of the first chapter, but see what you think. I know I’ve cut it a bit fine, but the end of the month was the deadline, right?”

  Roger started at her for a long time waiting for her to volunteer a few more words, but when nothing else came he barked, “This is gotta be a fucking joke.”

  “You tell me. Am I making you laugh?”

  “No. You’re just about starting to piss me off. What makes you think I’m gonna accept anybody’s work like this?” He waved the folded paper in her direction, threw it across the desk.

  Jessica laughed, a quiet, evil laugh. Her jaw was hurting.

  “I thought you’d give me a break ‘cause you’re my friend. Isn’t that what you keep telling me? I’m your friend, you ought to be honest, blah blah blah. Well, to be honest Roger, I really didn’t feel like working on any kind of presentation folder, if that’s what you had in mind. It is a printout of goodness sake. I haven’t written it by hand. What’s the big difference? But don’t worry, I took a lot more care with the letter I wrote for Donald Jefferson.”

  Roger was starting to feel uncomfortable and she knew it, she could smell it.

  Jessica looked weird, a relic, the sad remains of a once beautiful and talented woman. She looked desperate, like she didn’t care about anything anymore. And he felt uncomfortable.

  “What letter?” He asked.

  “The one asking him to be assigned to someone else, because of the harassment.” She was sure she heard him growl then, but his lips didn’t really seem to move.

  “What fucking harassment?”

  “My harassment. From you. You groping me any chance you get. It’s over. I told you enough is enough. It’s preventing me from doing my job. I told him he might not believe me but if I don’t get reassigned I’m gonna go to the press. Someone will have me on a talk show discussing it. I was really good with alcoholism, but I could be even better with sexual harassment. I’m the voice of the abused.”

  Roger slammed both fists on his desk. Inside she jumped out of her skin, but on the outside she knew she had to remain calm, she knew he wouldn’t be afraid of her if she seemed afraid of him. And what was there to be afraid of anyway? She didn’t have anything else to lose. Not now. Nothing. It wasn’t her life that was at stake here, it wasn’t her job.

  “You stupid bitch. What the fuck is it you think you’re doing with this ridiculous bullshit? You think this is gonna buy you time? That what you think?”

  “Is that what you think? That I’m doing this to buy myself some time? You think this is about my new book? Still?” Jessica laughed her evil laughter again and again pain shot through her jaw all the way up to her left ear. “I’ve got my new novel. I told you,” she pointed at the folded pages on his desk. “If only you’d do me the honor. I don’t need to buy myself any time.”

  Roger silently, reluctantly, staring at her, lifted himself off the chair to grab the papers half folded in the middle of the desk. Then his eyes drifted from her face to the words on the pages he was holding in his hand, line after line, until about half way through the first page the sight of the
uneasiness on his face became so satisfying she couldn’t stop herself grinning.

  Jessica crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for him to look at her, to understand that she knew. She waited while he read through the plot of what was going to be her next novel, the story of a young woman who’s tricked into falling in love with someone she doesn’t really know, someone who will use her for sex and ultimately kill her. She’s a painter, he’s her younger sister’s editor. The book would open with their first meeting, when he lies about his identity.

  “This is a fucking joke.”

  “You keep saying that but you’re still not laughing. You can’t possibly think it’s that funny.”

  Roger stood up from his chair abruptly, throwing the pages in the air. He rushed over to Jessica, swiveled her chair around towards him and leaned against it, both hands on each of the armrests, his face inches away from hers.

  “What the fuck is it you want from me, you little cunt?”

  Jessica’s legs were shaking uncontrollably, but she held her head up determined to stare him down.

  “I tell you what I want. I want everyone to know that you are nothing but a worthless piece of shit. It’s over Roger. I figured it out. Your secret is not safe anymore. I know you killed Kaitlyn, you fucking murdering bastard.” The blood drained from Roger’s face, but he remained motionless, his fingers now digging into the armrests. “This is where you’re supposed to say, I don’t know what you’re talking about, I didn’t kill any...” Then his hands were around her throat, so tight she couldn’t swallow. “Go on... do it...” She choked, “right here... in your office...”

  Roger lifted her off the chair, his hands still around her neck and threw her towards the closed office door where she stumbled, bounced back on her feet.

  “Get out of my office. Get the fuck out!”

  But she didn’t go. She didn’t move, she just stood there nursing her throat, coughing.

  “I know you met her at the Gironda restaurant a few times. Kaitlyn wrote it down on her diary.” He was the +R of GIRONDA+R in her Filofax. “I know you came to see her the day I found her dead. I know you pushed a pillow over her face until she suffocated. I know you wiped away your fingerprints. You even washed the inside of her mouth, for Christ sake.” She coughed again, cleared her throat. She could see sweat starting to appear on Roger’s forehead, his fists tight by the side of his body. Was he afraid? Was he finally scared?

  Jessica didn’t have the smallest piece of evidence on which to base all these accusations, of course. Nobody had seen Roger entering or leaving the house on that fatal October morning, the only certain details were about the way Kaitlyn had died, not who had killed her. But Charles Brown knew, he was certain about what had happened, how things had happened.

  After linking Roger’s name to the credit card slips from the Gironda and meeting him in his office, Brown had decided to follow him for a few days and Roger had led him straight to the Phoenix, where he’d witnessed him arguing with William. Brown had also stopped at the bar the following day to find out that Roger Wither had been a regular customer at the Phoenix for the past three years —a couple of barmen were prepared to testify seeing him there with Kaitlyn Lynch. Staff at the Windsor Hotel had also confirmed that Roger had been there the evening of the Sarah Tyler’s show, not alone but with someone else, a second man who had been recognised as William Blaise. Brown did not believe William’s involvement to be anything more than coincidental, but he had scheduled an appointment anyway, just to find out if William could offer any helpful details about that evening. However, that was supposed to be on the morning he had been found dead and now there was no way of knowing for sure whether William’s presence at the hotel was crucial or not. Jessica suspected it had something to do with work, probably a meeting over his upcoming book, like one of the many meetings she herself had attended with Roger in bars downtown.

  Brown had been honest with her, told her the evidence he had gathered would not be enough to have him convicted, not without a confession or any real proof that placed him in that house on that day, and Roger had been very good at eliminating all of them. But making him think a pile of circumstantial evidence could be used against him might make him slip.

  “I know you went to see her at the Windsor Hotel the night I was at the ABC studios,” she continued. “And here’s the best bit: turns out the staff working that night remembers you and is ready to testify you asked to see Kaitlyn. Fancy that.”

  “I was not alone.” He tried, desperate.

  “Yes, I know William was with you. But the same witness told the police it was you who spoke to her, not him. Seems like he was in a rush to leave actually. Didn’t enjoy your company that much, I guess.” Roger looked pale, like a corpse. “So why did you do it, Roger? Did she find out who you really are? Cause you must have lied to her. There’s no way Kaitlyn wouldn’t have told me she was going out with my editor. Did she break it off? Did she hurt your pride? Did it feel good, you pathetic little shit?”

  Roger started walking towards her, slowly as if giving himself time to think of ways to get rid of her, until they were face to face again. “You ain’t got any proof to back up this pathetic load of bullshit.”

  “No, you’re right. I don’t have any proof, but remember that nice man who came to see you a few weeks ago? Charles Brown? He’s got it all covered. But just in case you got away with it again, I’m going to write the whole sad story down and then I’m going to talk about it to everyone who cares to listen. And hopefully you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering how many people have read my book, how many of your friends, how many women will never even look at you, let alone fuck you, how long it’s going to be before you lose your job. I’ll talk about it until people start ringing Donald Jefferson himself asking him to throw your ass out of the company. That’s if you don’t end up in jail. But seems to me, jail is not the only way to ruin someone’s life.”

  Roger’s blood rushed back to his face turning his skin bright pink, like a pressure cooker ready to explode. He squinted. “I told you to get the fuck out.”

  He was not going to admit it. He was not going to confess. He was smarter than this. Brown had warned her it was a long shot, but she had to try. There was nothing else she could do now but leave him simmering in the pot of shit she had dropped him in.

  “Ok, I’m going. I’m going.” Jessica half turned her back to him as she grabbed the doorknob. “Oh and, just in case you were thinking of coming to visit me, my good friend Charlie is keeping an eye on me. It would not look good if I suddenly disappeared.”

  Then she was out of the door, shaking. She didn’t wait for the elevator but ran down the fourteen flights of stairs as fast as she could. It was only once she stood on the pavement outside the door, feeling the wind on her face, that she realised she had left her hat and sunglasses in Roger’s office.

  People walked past and stared at her bruised face as she started to cry, relieved, angry, terrified.

  17 February 2001

  JESSICA MET Brown for the last time at the department, in the same dark and stuffy room they had met the first time, the barred windows still dirty, the scribbled wooden table a bridge between them once again.

  Brown was shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Jessica. I wish I could have done more.” “You did everything you could. It’s not your fault.” She was trying to sound upbeat but he could hear a trace of disappointment in her voice. Brown looked down, almost embarrassed. He had been able to prove Roger and Kaitlyn knew each other, but without DNA, without fingerprints, without a motive, without anything other than circumstantial evidence, the case would not move any further. Kaitlyn Lynch would become just another name on the long list of cold cases in the San Francisco Police Department’s archives. Not exactly the way he was hoping to retire; it made the prospect of moving to Florida without Chiara even harder to lo
ok forward to, somehow.

  “I would have liked to see Roger Wither behind bars.”

  “Me too, Brown. Me too. But it doesn’t matter.” She tried to smile at him. It didn’t matter, it really didn’t. Roger had left the company anyway, they had at least managed to ruin his career and there was still her new novel to work on. As she had told Roger a few weeks ago, jail was not the only way to ruin someone’s life.

  “There’s something I need ask you, Jessica.” Brown shifted on his chair, his hands now reaching out across the desk. “That morning, when I found Blaise... I don’t know for sure, but I had a suspicion, I thought you and him might have been seeing each other. Were you?”

  Jessica nodded, imperceptibly, almost invisibly. She could not admit of being there that night. She could not talk about him, about what had happened, not yet. It was too horrifying.

  “Look, it’s none of my business anyway. I just wanted to tell you that I am sorry for what’s happened to him. It must have been a shock for you.” A second shock she didn’t seem to deserve. “And I don’t know if you were aware of the fact that I was meant to meet him... I wanted to tell you but you made it very clear you didn’t want to be involved in the investigation anymore, so... I just hope I didn’t ruin the last moments you had with him. That’s all.”

  Had he? Had he ruined everything? Would she have ever rummaged in that trunk if the name Brown had not come up in conversation at the Aquatic Park that afternoon? If the only person placing him at the Windsor Hotel had been Lisa? Jessica was still trying to decide. She was still trying to come to terms with everything that had happened, the abuse in William’s past, her part in his death. Everything.

  Jessica had learned about his so-called funeral by pure chance, a week after his death. She had bought the San Francisco Post to find out whether Elysa’s comic strip had already been replaced on page twelve; an article in its place told her and the rest of San Francisco that it had been William’s wish to be cremated privately, without a ceremony. In the same article, the funeral home’s director explained it had also been his wish to have his ashes scattered over the falls in Rumford, in Maine.