The Passenger

by Lisa Lutz

  “You need to stay away from this individual. He sounds dangerous to me.”

  “I know that. That’s why I called the police. But they just think I’m a bitter ex-girlfriend.”

  “Darling, tell me where you are and I promise I will help you.”

  “This is how you can help me. Tell me what I can do to stop him.”

  “What you need to do is keep your distance from that man.”

  “So you have no other suggestions for turning him in to the police?” I said.

  “You could go to the police. Identify yourself. I suppose you could tell them you were homeless. That you broke into the house for warmth and then inform them of what you saw.”

  “That’s all you’ve got?” I said.

  Twenty hours and $150 for nothing.

  “I’d like to help you. Let me help you.”

  “I have to go now, Domenic.”

  “Whatever you’re thinking about doing, sweetheart, please don’t.”

  “I’m not going to do anything.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Domenic said.

  “We never had a chance to build any trust,” I said.

  I was about to sever the phone call when he spoke again. “A body turned up at Dead Horse Lake about a week after you left. He hasn’t been identified yet, but it’s just a matter of time.”

  I could still hang up, I thought, but that might look even more suspicious. “How unfortunate.”

  “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  “No. But good luck with your investigation. Take care—”

  “Wait. Remember when you left me on the side of the road?”

  “I apologized for that already.”

  “I’m not asking for an apology,” he said. “It could have been worse.”

  “I could have done something with the peanuts,” I said. It had crossed my mind.

  “You left me a bottle of water,” Domenic said.

  “I did.”

  “That was thoughtful.”

  “I thought so,” I said.

  “I pulled your fingerprints off of it.”

  I couldn’t speak. I could barely breathe. The last thing I needed was Debra Maze linked to my first two past lives. She was the guiltiest of all.

  “Did you run them?” I said.

  “No,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “What if I got a hit? Then I’d be the cop who let some criminal mastermind get away.”

  “Mastermind. Now you flatter me. Is that the only reason?”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Good-bye, Domenic.”

  THE CONCIERGE at the Ritz started giving me the eye around two a.m. I took a taxi back to the train station and killed six hours contemplating my next move. By morning I was groggy and dazed and could barely keep my head upright as I waited in line for the Vermonter train. I didn’t even notice the police officers until they were right in front of me.

  “ID and ticket please,” a female officer said.

  I just stared blankly back at her.

  “ID and ticket,” she said again.

  I reached into my wallet and showed the officer Sonia Lubovich’s driver’s license.

  The officer looked at the photo of the vibrant and healthy Sonia in the photo and returned her gaze to me. He brow furrowed as she studied the photo again.

  “Are you aware that your license is expired?” the officer said.

  “It is?” I said. “No, I was not aware.”

  She looked at me for a moment with sympathy and then shifted back to professional.

  “Take care of that as soon as you get home,” she said.

  “I will,” I said.

  FOR THE first four hours of the train ride, I slept with my head rattling against the window. One could hardly describe it as a restful sleep, but it was enough shut-eye to get my wits about me. When I woke up, the train had just departed the New Haven station.

  It was time to start hunting for a new name. I traveled from car to car, shopping for a new identity, the way some women pick out shoes. I found a promising option in her early thirties with long brown hair. Her nose and jawline resembled mine, but her lips were pumped with fillers and her forehead was as frozen as a clay sculpture’s. I couldn’t predict whether the natural or fake version would be on her driver’s license photo, so I moved along to the next car, searching for a more viable option.

  It wasn’t until we passed the border into Connecticut that I found another person who might do. She was younger, maybe twenty-three, and she had at least fifty pounds on me. Our height and coloring, however, were about the same. As Blue once said, sometimes the best disguise is a thick layer of fat. At least this time I wouldn’t have to go on an all-doughnut diet. You never know what someone might look like if they drop fifty pounds.

  The plump woman, however, sat in a crowded car with her arm looped around her purse. I took a seat two rows away from her and waited for an opportunity. None arose. When the train conductor announced the next stop, Wallingford, my new name shrugged on her coat and shouldered her bag. She joined a knot of passengers by the exit door as I shoved my way into the fold. I took off my coat and threw it over my arm. My hand was grazing the plump woman’s bag. As the train jostled into the station, I rummaged through her purse. When my hands felt a fold of smooth leather, I clutched her wallet and hid it under my coat. I shoved my way past the departing passengers and moved to the next car. I stepped into the lavatory and locked the door.

  As I caught my breath, I opened the wallet and checked the ID. Her name was Linda Marks. A perfectly respectable name. I gazed at the photo and it’s quite possible I was being overly optimistic, but I thought I could pass as Linda Marks.

  The train came to a stop and the doors whined open. As I slid the restroom door into its pocket, a rough-looking middle-aged man blocked my passage out and shoved his way into the bathroom with me, locking the door behind him.

  “I saw you,” he said.

  “What did you see?” I said.

  “Hand it over,” he said.

  The thing about being a criminal is that it hinders your ability to call out other criminals, as I had just discovered with Reginald Lee. I took the wallet from my bag and handed it to him.

  “It’s yours,” I said.

  He shoved the entire billfold, ID and all, in his backpack.

  “Now your wallet,” he said, holding out his palm.

  I had eight hundred and eighty dollars in my wallet and my Western Union card that I was not inclined to hand over. I sized up my opponent and couldn’t see a promising end to any physical altercation. I pretended to be fishing around in my backpack as I freed the Western Union card from its pocket and let it fall to the bottom of my bag. Then I handed over the wallet, cash and all. The man whistled with pleasure when he saw the wad of cash. He plucked forty dollars from the stack and offered it to me.

  “Travel money.”

  “Fuck you,” I said, although I took it. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I don’t want people thinking we’re having a rendezvous in here.”

  “Next time wait until the conductor hits the brakes. Passengers are too busy getting their footing to notice a misplaced hand.”

  “Thanks for your advice,” I said as I shut the door behind me.

  I strolled to the end of the train and tucked myself into the last seat. I gave up on identity hunting for the day. I never saw the thief again. I arrived in Burlington at night. I drove to a motel, used my Western Union card, and checked in under Sonia Lubovich’s name. I was wide awake after my journey, and my conversation with Ryan was still fresh in my mind.

  The motel had a low-rent business center furnished with a photocopy machine and a computer. I logged on to the computer and created a profile under the name Amelia Lightfoot. I sent Laura Cartwright a single-word message.

  Blue?

  Five minutes later, Laura Cartwright wrote back.

  What took you so long?

  We
exchanged a few more messages before Blue sent me a phone number and wrote, We have some business to discuss.

  I performed a reverse lookup of the number she gave me. It was a prepaid phone, just like mine. I returned to room 209 and tried to figure out whether this was some kind of trap. Last I’d checked there was a thirty-thousand-dollar reward for information that led to my arrest, but I just couldn’t see Blue playing me like that, especially with all of the dirt I had on her. I tried to be rational about the whole endeavor, but frankly, curiosity got the best of me.

  I called.

  “Laura Cartwright,” she said, but it was most definitely Blue.

  I didn’t say anything at first. I listened for any background noise that might be suspicious.

  “Is that you?” she said.

  “Yes,” I eventually replied.

  “How has Debra Maze been treating you?”

  “Not so great.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “Would you like to talk about it?”

  “I wouldn’t mind discussing Jack Reed.”

  “Oh, him,” she said, sighing with boredom.

  “He came after me, Blue. With a gun.”

  “Shit. My apologies,” Blue said.

  “Did you plan it? Did you know it might happen?”

  “To be honest, I considered it a distinct possibility.”

  “What if he killed me?”

  “But he didn’t, did he?” Blue waited patiently, as if the question were worthy of a reply.

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Did you tell him anything?” she asked. I could sense she was nervous, and I wanted to keep her off balance just a moment longer.

  “I told him everything,” I said.

  She was quiet for a spell and then she spoke.

  “I understand. He can be very persuasive. But I’m not going by Amelia Keen anymore, so it seems unlikely he’ll be able to track me.”

  “I think it’s very unlikely,” I said.

  “And why is that?”

  “Because I killed him.”

  “How?” she asked. I’d never heard a single word loaded with so much delight.

  “With the gun you gave me.”

  “How magnificent. That was his gun, you know. Did you make it look like a suicide?”

  “Nope. I’m pretty sure it looked like plain old murder.”

  “Tell me everything, and please don’t spare me a single detail.”

  “I’ve said enough. You talk.”

  “What do you want to know?” Blue said.

  “For starters, who the hell was the guy we buried in that state park?”

  “You haven’t figured that out?” Blue said, disappointed.

  “No. Care to enlighten me?”

  “Lester Cartwright. Laura’s husband, the widower.”

  “Wait, you killed Laura Cartwright’s husband? The guy we met in the funeral home?”

  “ ‘He’s no longer with us’ is the phrasing I prefer.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you said he killed her. Don’t you remember talking about that?” Blue asked.

  “I don’t remember talking about killing him.”

  “Do I have to clear everything with you?” Blue said.

  “Not everything. But I would love it if you told me what you’re doing in my hometown.”

  “I’m writing a book about the murder of Melinda Lyons. She was quite a girl, wasn’t she?”

  “She was.”

  “I can see why you were jealous of her.”

  “I wasn’t that jealous.”

  “You were a little jealous. I better run. I’ve got an interview in fifteen minutes.”

  “No one is going to talk to you, Blue.”

  “Your mother already did. In fact, I have an almost-confession on tape. I doubt it would hold up in court, though. She was clearly drunk.”

  “I heard she got sober,” I said.

  “She did. But I had to get her un-sober to get her to talk.”

  “Blue, what is it that you’re doing?”

  “I’m trying to clear your name,” Blue said.

  “So far it looks a lot more like you’re trying to set me up.”

  “Then you are misunderstanding my motives. After what you’ve done for me, I owe you this. I’m going to fix everything. Trust me, Nora.”

  I felt a shiver so deep, it was like being frozen in an ice cube. It was the first time anyone had called me by my real name in ten years.

  Chapter 26

  * * *

  WHATEVER moral compass Blue abided by eluded me. So far as I knew, she was living this life by choice; it wasn’t thrust upon her. I had witnessed her heartlessness, but there was some part of me that also believed in her loyalty, believed she really was trying to clear my name.

  When we parted ways in Austin, with her gun in my glove compartment and her ID in my purse, she had already calculated the most likely course of events that my life as Debra Maze would take. She knew Jack would track me down. She might have even clued him in to my whereabouts. She knew that Jack would be thrown off his game when he saw me and not her. She took a gamble on whether I’d shoot him or not. She probably figured her odds were fifty-fifty on me or Jack. She was willing to risk my life, but now she owed me a debt. And Blue’s debt might be the one thing that could save me.

  I wondered what Blue was like before all of this happened. Was her trigger finger as quick at the beginning of her run as it later became? I didn’t want to end up like her, but I could see how my situation was like an ax, chopping away at the decent, upstanding citizen I used to be. I was now capable of doing things I would never have considered when I was young. I had my own debt, a debt to the world I felt I had to pay before I could justify any attempt at starting my life over again. Because my crimes prevented me from going through the proper channels to apprehend Reginald Lee, I had to adopt a different tack.

  I checked out of the motel late the next morning. I drove back to Saranac Lake and picked up a bottle of bourbon and lighter fluid along the way. I checked the mailbox to 333 Church Lane: still untouched. As I drove up the driveway, I saw no sign that Reginald or anyone else had visited his property since my departure.

  I had my Thanksgiving feast in Reginald Lee’s home. It was turkey-and-rice soup and pumpkin pie filling out of a can. I had a couple shots of bourbon to clear away the cobwebs. It was one of my saddest days on record, but I just reminded myself that I was in transition. I didn’t think Reggie could stay away too long, but I decided he needed an incentive to come home.

  I wasn’t sure if Reggie knew any of his neighbors, but if he did, I’d make it known that someone was making use of his home. I lit a fire in the wood-burning stove and waited. Three hours later there was a knock at the door. I didn’t answer. There was another knock and then the sound of a man’s voice.

  “Reggie! Reggie, you in there?”

  The man kept knocking for maybe five or ten minutes. I was worried he might have a key, but he eventually departed. I looked at the clock. It was 3:34 p.m. I figured Reggie wouldn’t live more than a few hours’ drive from his arsenal. I got to work. I crawled down to the basement and moved several bags of fertilizer out of the refrigerator. I took the propane tank from his backyard grill and lugged it down the steps. I returned to the main floor and fed a few more logs onto the fire. I put on three sweaters, one of Reggie’s winter coats, a skullcap, and mittens over gloves. I stole one of his guns from his arsenal—I didn’t think he’d miss it—and shoved it in his coat pocket. I hunkered down under the porch, as if it were a bunker.

  One hour and forty-five minutes later, I heard a pickup truck barrel up the snow-covered driveway. He parked right next to my Jeep and searched the perimeter of his property. I had extinguished all of the lights inside his house, minus the fire. He treaded cautiously up the steps. The door was slightly ajar. It squeaked on its hinges as he slowly swung it open. I took off my gloves, curled my hand around the gun, and crawled onto the
porch as he stepped inside.

  He turned on the light and saw the hatch door to his cellar wide open and on display.

  “Fuck,” he said.

  “Take a seat,” I said with the gun aimed at his back. “We need to talk.”

  Reggie turned around and saw me. He had a full beard and long brown hair. I guessed his age was around forty-five. He wore a flannel shirt, a hunting jacket, and a skullcap. The gun didn’t seem to scare him. It just made him angrier.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Sit down,” I repeated.

  He took a seat on his scratchy plaid couch. He couldn’t take his eyes off the hatch door.

  “Who are you with?” he said. “FBI? Nah, you look too fucked for that. DEA?”

  I thought it best not to answer.

  “Reggie, why don’t you tell me what you were planning on doing with all of that combustible material in your cellar.”

  “What combustible material?”

  “Those fifteen bags of fertilizer containing ammonium nitrate that you keep in a temperature-controlled vault.”

  “I like to garden, come spring.”

  “And all of those guns?”

  “Deer hunting.”

  “You don’t need a semiautomatic weapon for deer hunting,” I said.

  “Sometimes you do,” Reggie said.

  “Tell me what you were going to do.”

  “I ain’t telling you shit,” Reggie said.

  I could almost feel the heat of his anger. He looked me dead in the eye, challenging me. It was as if he couldn’t even see the gun I had trained on him. I took a cell phone from my pocket and tossed it on the couch next to Reggie.

  “I want you to call 911 and tell them you have dangerous chemicals in your house that you wish to dispose of.”

  Reggie gave me a scrutinizing gaze. He glanced over at the phone but didn’t pick it up.

  “Why haven’t you called for backup yet?” Reggie asked.

  “I thought we could work this out on our own.”

  Reggie looked puzzled. He scanned his house, noticed a bag of trash in the corner, piled high with spent canned goods.

  “You been staying here?”

  “Pick up the phone, Reggie.”

  He didn’t.

  “You’re no one, aren’t you?” he said.