You Kill Me

by Alison Gaylin

  HE KILLED MARLA S. DON’T GET HIM ANGRY AGAIN.

  “The only him I got angry that night…was you!” How had he looked at me when I said that? What was that strange emotion sneaking into his eyes?

  “What would you do if you found out something about me? Something that…isn’t good?”

  “Sam?” said Yale. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah…I’m just…I’m exhausted….” If it’s the beginning of the end when you suspect your lover of cheating, what does it mean when you’re afraid he might have…

  “Touch anything?” said Billy.

  “Huh?”

  “I forgot to ask if you guys touched anything at the crime scene. CSU wants to know.”

  “Just the body,” I said.

  “What?!”

  “I only lifted his head for a couple of seconds. I just needed to see his face.”

  Fiona left the car. “Hey, Yale, is your man still busy puking?”

  While Yale went back to the phalanx of parked ambulances to check, she said, “The bad news is, we’re going to drive you guys to the precinct house for questioning.”

  “And the good news?”

  She smiled. “The good news is, you get to talk to John.”

  “You found him?” I said.

  “Sure. It’s not like I had to issue an all-points bulletin or anything.”

  “Not yet.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Yale, Peter and I climbed into the back of the squad car, and the choreography continued. In five or ten minutes, the medical examiner would make his grand entrance in that dark blue morgue van with the sad white letters stenciled on the side.

  But we wouldn’t be around for that. We wouldn’t be around to see this broken little man—the star of this show—carried out of the theater in a body bag.

  When we got to the squad room, Fiona and Billy took our driver’s licenses and led us into two separate interview rooms for questioning. Fiona stayed with me; Billy and another male uniform went with Yale and Peter. Same-sex chaperones, as if a strip search were involved in questioning.

  The interview room was small and shabby—they all were, which had always struck me as counterproductive. Honestly, who wants to answer questions in a place like that, with one metal table, folding chairs that hurt your ass to look at them—not to mention that big spy window, masquerading as a mirror but fooling no one?

  Besides, what was I supposed to say? “I’ve got a sneaking suspicion my boyfriend—that’s right, your medal-winning superhero detective—might have…”

  I couldn’t even think it all the way through, let alone say it out loud. You’re tense, you’re scared, you’re hungover, so cut it out, because he wouldn’t. John Krull would not.

  Then who would?

  “Hey, Fiona, do you know if they ever got a match on the fingerprints from Marla’s apartment?”

  “Which ones?”

  “The valentine.”

  “Oh, ewww, yeah…There aren’t any.”

  “But he finger painted that thing.”

  “Gloves. We’re talking very thin, plastic, sterile gloves. Like a surgeon would use.”

  My mind flashed to CSU. “Or like a cop might use? To collect evidence?”

  “Exactly.”

  I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands. Stop it.

  “You want to know the freakiest thing about that heart, though?”

  I nodded.

  “It wasn’t her blood.”

  “What?”

  “It’s not Marla’s DNA. Tests came up negative for both her and her fiancé. We’re running the sample through all the unsolved-crime databases, and the felon database too. So we’ll find out soon, I guess….”

  “That’s so…”

  “Isn’t it? Maybe we’ve got a cutter, but I don’t know…. All the cutters I’ve ever known have been girls. And this one definitely seems like a man.”

  “Why?”

  “The removal and posing of the body. And the overkill. Those are usually guy things. Fucked-up, angry guy things.”

  “Look at me, Sam. I’m a man. Do you think violence is a part of my DNA?”

  “Stop,” I whispered.

  “Stop what?”

  “Nothing, Fi. You got an aspirin, by any chance?”

  “I’ll get you one out of the first-aid box. Just a sec.” She opened the door. “Oh, hi, Detective Krull,” she said.

  He was clean-shaven, his hair damp from a recent shower, and he wore a dark blue suit I’d never seen before. “Where did you get those clothes?” I said.

  “I keep a spare suit in my locker.”

  “Well, that makes a million and one things you’ve never told me about.” Angry as I was, though, it was still so good to see him.

  My perspective came back, and those awful thoughts crumbled as I watched him, watched my sexy, flawed but incredibly sweet John Krull say, “I’m so sorry, Sam.”

  He was not, could never be, a killer.

  Fiona quietly placed two aspirins on the table, then mumbled something about the other witness interviews and crept back out of the room.

  I aimed my eyes at Krull and took a deep breath. “You left me in the restaurant without giving me a chance to explain, and that wasn’t fair.”

  “I know.”

  “You left me alone all night long, and it isn’t the first time.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re the one with the secrets—not me! You’re the one with the…the moods and the…who knows what the hell you’re thinking three-quarters of the time because—”

  “I know.”

  “You need to realize that I’m not an open book, and I yell because I want to be heard!”

  “I know, Sam, I know.”

  He put both arms around me and held me, and just like always, I felt so protected, so safe.

  I closed my eyes, inhaling the clean scent of his skin. My boyfriend, who had too many secrets but wasn’t a murderer. Who disappeared so much, but was here now. And that, I supposed, was better than nothing.

  I kissed his mouth. Cigarettes.

  “Where were you?” I said. “I drank all this Scotch, and I yelled at the neighbors. I even called my mother.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “And then…then this…”

  “I know. I should have been there for you.”

  “And…what was this evidence you were talking about?”

  “Oh, that woman, Jenna Sargent.”

  I looked up at him. “What about her?”

  “She came over here two days ago, told me you were screwing Nate. She said she found these straight brown hairs on his shirt and I could run DNA tests on them.”

  “Man, she has been on that soap too long.”

  “Anyway, it’s bullshit, because I remembered—you said he visited you at school. So of course your hair could’ve gotten on him, even if he leaned against a wall or brushed against your chair.”

  “It wasn’t even my hair, John. It was—”

  “Yes, it was.”

  I pulled away from him. “You ran the test?”

  “Well…yeah. Of course.”

  I backed up, stared at his face.

  “What difference does a test make if you’ve got nothing to hide? You flunked it, and I still trust you. What does that say?”

  “It says we don’t know each other as well as I thought.”

  “Oh, come on,” he said. It wasn’t until he moved farther away that I noticed the deep, red cuts on both his hands.

  We sat at the metal table in silence. “Where the hell is everybody else?” I said.

  Krull pulled a pack of Marlboro Reds out of his coat pocket. “Do you mind?”

  “No. Just give me the butt afterward so I can take a saliva sample.”

  “Sam.”

  “Maybe there isn’t some stalker out there. Maybe it’s just been you…staking me out.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Tel
l me something. How come it’s not okay for me to ask what you happen to be thinking about but it’s fine for you to run secret forensic tests on me?”

  He lit his cigarette. “I’m sorry. I…we were going through a rough patch, and Jenna Sargent tells me this crazy story. I just wanted to make sure.” He looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds. “Maybe I was being such a jerk, I figured it would be a miracle if you weren’t cheating on me.”

  I shook my head, but still, I felt my reserve softening a little. “Can I have a cigarette?”

  As he gave me one, I couldn’t take my eyes off those shimmering wounds.

  “What happened to your hands?”

  “Bar fight.”

  “Bar fight?”

  But before either of us could say another word, the door opened “…Peter Steele is USDA Prime,” Fiona was saying, as Patton and Boyle entered behind her.

  “Yeah, well, put your tongue back in your mouth,” Patton said. “He grazes on the other pasture.” She spotted Krull. “Hi, John.”

  “Mandy.”

  “So long as we’re in the interview room, you mind telling me where the fuck you were for three hours yesterday? I was actually worried about you.”

  He’s heard that one before.

  “Kids,” said Boyle, “we’ve got a case here to discuss.”

  “I had some personal issues,” said Krull. “I know it was irresponsible and I’ll make it up to you, but I’d rather talk about this…body…if you don’t mind.”

  Fiona flipped on the tape recorder. “Please state your full name and date of birth.”

  “Samantha Elizabeth Leiffer. January seventh, 1973.” I smiled at Boyle. “Capricorn.”

  “Best of the best. Hardest-working sign in the zodiac.”

  Fiona asked if I recognized the man’s body immediately upon seeing it in the theater.

  “I had to look at his face first,” I said. “But then I did. Immediately.” It was hard to explain the complex relationship I’d managed to form with this man I’d known for only two days, whom I’d spoken to twice, whom I’d seen alive once, and whose name I never knew. But I tried. “I don’t think there’s been a minute since I met him that he hasn’t at least been in the back of my mind,” I said.

  After I was finished, I took a drag off the cigarette. It felt like someone stuffing burning cotton down my throat; never could get used to smoking, much as I tried sometimes.

  “We can tell you his name now,” Boyle said. “Nikolas Stavros, DOB seven/five/seventy-eight Brussels, Belgium. Father, deceased, owned a gas station, and his mother is—”

  “Katia Stavros,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  Krull said, “Who is that?”

  “She is the super of a walk-up right across from Sunny Side,” I said.

  “If it was her son watching Sam with the binoculars,” Boyle said, “it would explain why she didn’t say anything to us about—”

  Krull said, “He was watching you—”

  I rolled the dead cigarette butt between my fingers. “Maybe he was trying to keep me safe.”

  There was a knock on the door. Fiona opened it for Pierce. “Hi, Detective.”

  Patton said, “There’s not a bomb in the squad room, is there?”

  Boyle guffawed, while Fiona stifled a giggle.

  Pierce’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not funny, Patton.”

  “Ah, lighten up,” said Krull. “I was there too, remember?”

  Pierce cracked a smile. “Sure, John.” He winked at Boyle. “Guy buys me a twelve-pack, he can ask to diddle my dead mom and I’ll say sure. Oops. Sorry, ladies.”

  Boyle rubbed his temples. “You got some questions for Sam?”

  “Just one,” Pierce said. “How you holding up?”

  I smiled. “Not bad, considering.”

  Pierce smiled back. He had a kind smile. If it wasn’t for that gleaming head of his, I imagined he could be a very comforting presence during difficult interrogations.

  Boyle said, “Only one more from me, Sam. This series of messages you received…‘You are in danger. Don’t show this to him, you got him angry, he’s always watching you…’ Do you have any idea who this him might be?”

  I shot a quick look at Krull, and his gaze went down to the wounds on his hands. Is that a bite mark?

  “Yes,” I said. “I do have an idea.”

  Patton said, “Who?”

  Funny what love does. Your boyfriend gets in some so-called bar fight and winds up with bite marks on his hands. And strange as you think that sounds, much as you try to plaster warning signs all over your brain, all you really want to do is put Band-Aids on those wounds—make him feel better.

  “I think,” I said, “it’s an obsessed fan—someone who got interested in me when I was in the news.”

  “Someone you don’t know.”

  I glanced at Krull again. “Someone I’ve never met.”

  Nothing stirs up claustrophobia more than a half hour in an interview room. So when Boyle declared the questioning session over, it wasn’t a second too soon. On my way out, as Fiona brushed by to reconnect with her partner, I took a huge, gulping breath of the air her movement created, then exhaled shakily.

  Patton said, “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. I just…I want to get out of this place.” I looked from her face, to Krull’s, to Boyle’s, to Pierce’s. “Can I?”

  “You’re late for your class, huh?” said Krull.

  I nodded.

  “I don’t see why she can’t go to work,” said Boyle. “So long as we put her under surveillance.”

  I glared at Krull. “That wouldn’t be anything new.”

  “I promise I’ll never do that again.”

  “Do what again?” said Pierce.

  However Krull might have replied, he was interrupted by a group of three uniforms escorting a woman into the squad room. She was smaller than me, with short silver hair, powder-blue sweatpants, and an oversize T-shirt that read, in childlike letters, #1 GRANDMA.

  She looked as if she’d been crying for a very long time.

  The cops were taking her into an interview room, but in the seconds before she entered, she turned toward our group. Her expression was flat, numb—but then something happened.

  The woman’s bloodshot eyes widened, and her face began to twitch, as if she were trying to breathe, but had suddenly forgotten how.

  “You…” she whispered. Then she collapsed into sobs. A female officer put her arms around the tiny woman, nearly lifting her away, out of our sight, into the safety of the interview room.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “Katia,” Patton said quietly. “Katia Stavros.”

  10

  Monsters and Superheroes

  Had he not been found in my theater with a Sterling rose in his hand, there could easily have been another explanation for Nikolas Stavros’s murder, as it turned out. He was a crack dealer who had spent eight months on Riker’s Island back in 2000 and “may have fallen back into crime” from time to time, his mother claimed.

  He was also Mrs. Stavros’s youngest son—a smart, kindhearted boy who had simply gotten involved with the wrong crowd after his family moved to America and his father had died, unexpectedly, of a heart attack.

  “Another screwed-up kid with a missing dad,” I said, after the sector cops who’d picked her up told us her story.

  Krull just looked at me.

  “Yeah, well, Mrs. Stavros’s other three sons are in Greece, and she says she’s gonna move there ASAP,” said a mustachioed sector cop, Brandyberry. “She says America is bad luck, and who can blame her?”

  “Why did she…react that way when she saw us?” I asked.

  “I think it was Art and me,” Patton said. “You know what she told us yesterday? She said she had no children. I’m sure she thought we were at her apartment to arrest Nikolas again, and that’s why she said it. But…”

  Boyle said, “I hear ya.”

  “What?”
Pierce said.

  “We’re the ones she thinks are bad luck,” said Boyle. “Not America.”

  I stared down at my feet, at the bright purple flip-flops I’d shoved on this morning when Yale had called, begging me to come to the theater. They looked stupid to me, needlessly festive against the stained gray linoleum of the squad room floor. “I’m bad luck,” I said quietly. “He was killed for trying to warn me about…” My voice trailed off.

  Krull said, “Warn you about what?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “That’s what scares me so much. I don’t know.”

  To the detectives who had briefly questioned her in the interview room before letting her go home to grieve, Katia Stavros claimed to have no idea who I was, or why Nikolas would have left me those notes.

  But as we left the precinct house and stepped into the hot sun, Boyle said, “I still think she’s hiding something.”

  “Might be,” said Krull. “But who the hell wants to drag it out of her now?”

  “Maybe once her son is buried and she gets a little closure, she’ll come to us.” Pierce looked at me. “So you’re really gonna go teach a bunch of four-year-olds now?”

  “I think I need to,” I said.

  Patton nodded. “I’m jealous.”

  Fiona and Billy gave me a ride to Sunny Side in their sector car, explaining on the way over that they’d be surveying the area for suspicious activity while I taught. At twelve o’clock, they’d bring me home—since the Space was now a crime scene and therefore dark. I pictured Tabitha arriving at the theater at the usual time, expecting only her regular place at the front of the line, her daily forty-dollar transaction—and seeing yellow crime-scene tape instead. The best night of her life was the last night of someone else’s. “We are going to have some very unhappy Idol fans on our hands,” I said.

  “Hey, speaking of fans,” said Fiona. “I just love your mother’s radio show.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “This one girl called in last night? She had problems with her boyfriend, and I swear she reached such a breakthrough. Your mom cured her!”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. Just…they edit things for radio.”