by Nic Joseph
As I drove up, I spotted the man right away.
He was standing perfectly still in the street, right in front of the hotel, wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up around his face. I knew instinctively that it was him—that he was Lotti—but I was still hopeful that another grandmother would emerge from the shadows and ask to be taken to meet a newborn.
I could handle chatty.
I could not handle serial killer.
I pulled over, and the man strode quickly to the car, his head down as the rain pelted his body. As he opened the back door, my body tensed the way it did every time someone got into my car. With my left hand, I gripped the can of bug spray I held between my thighs every night, and I swung around to look at him.
He spoke quickly as he got inside. “Rideshare for Lotti?”
His voice was warm and deep, smooth like suede brushed the good way. That was the very first thing I felt, followed quickly by relief. The fact that he’d called the DAC—or knew the person who had—didn’t make him any less of a serial killer, but it certainly seemed like a start.
“Hey, yep,” I said, not letting go of the can but turning back and using my other hand to scroll through the app for his destination. “You’re going to 115 West Oak?” I asked, quickly dragging my finger across the map. Not on the way home, but not too much of a detour either. “Gold Coast?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
I snuck a peek in the rearview. He wasn’t looking at me. His head was turned to the side, and he stared out the window into the darkness.
“Cool,” I said and meant it. I liked the silence. I reached out and turned on the radio. A pop song filled the car, something bouncy and melodic, and I turned it down to a palatable level for the time of night. I pressed the gas and settled in. I could drop him off and make it home within thirty minutes. Maybe Keith would still be awake.
I didn’t notice that the first song had ended until the next one started, but suddenly, a man’s voice filled the car. It was whispery and seductive, and more than slightly off-key. I cringed, a soft “yuck” escaping my lips, before changing the station to a couple of disc jockeys trading jabs with each other.
I heard a noise from the back seat, something like a cough or a chuckle, and my gaze darted to the mirror. I could barely make out his features, but I could see the man had turned to look at me. As he caught my eye, he leaned forward.
“What happened?” he asked. “You didn’t like that song?”
“Ugh, no,” I said without thinking. “Did you hear him? He sounded like a pervert.”
The man laughed clearly this time. “I did hear him,” he said. “He must not be so bad though, right? He has a song on the radio.”
“Yeah, how hard is that these days? You don’t exactly have to be Luther Vandross to make it. This guy is probably good-looking enough to have hordes of prepubescent fans who couldn’t care less that he sounds like someone from the funny clips on American Idol.”
He laughed again, and I snuck another peek in the mirror.
I’d just braked at an intersection, and he was leaning forward even more. His hoodie had slipped back from his face, and the streetlight filtered in, allowing me to see him more clearly than before. His face was a canvas of hard lines and angles. The only softness was in his eyes, which were dark, attentive, and warm like his voice. He was attractive, sure, but it wasn’t just that. He stared at me inquisitively, as if he was waiting for me to say something. When I didn’t, he smiled softly and sat back. We maintained eye contact for a few moments, and then he spoke softly.
“Light’s green.”
I whipped my gaze away and drove off, embarrassed, my heart beating a million miles a minute.
What the hell was that?
“You know, you’re probably right,” he said after a few moments, and I hazarded another quick glance up. “About the prepubescent fans.”
I cleared my throat and looked back at the road. “Of course,” I said. “The entertainment industry these days is a popularity contest, not a talent show. At least, that’s what my husband likes to say.”
There.
Husband bomb dropped.
Cleared to proceed.
“Seems like you’ve thought about this a bit,” the man said, ignoring that last sentence. “So, what do you like to listen to?”
“Lots of stuff,” I said. “I’m not that picky. Jazz, funk, soul, pop…”
“Just as long as the singer doesn’t sound like a pervert.”
“Exactly,” I said. “I’m a simple girl.”
“I doubt that, Paula.”
I sucked in a breath and looked up into the mirror. He’d know my name from the DAC app, but it caught me off guard. He was still staring at me, this time with a small smile.
A small, flirtatious smile.
And maybe because I was tired and makeup-less, with my unwashed hair pulled into a messy ponytail on top of my head, or because I felt I’d done my part by telling him I was married, or because I’d spent the hour between my two jobs scrubbing vomit off the bathroom floor because Keith had missed again, or because I knew I would never, ever let it go an inch past this conversation in this car on this night—maybe for all those reasons, I held the eye contact for just a moment too long.
And then I smiled back.
“You don’t even know me, Lotti.”
Better people have done worse than that.
Much better people have done much worse than that.
• • •
“You’re telling us you didn’t recognize him at all?”
Detective Puhl asked the question as we sat across from each other. She was staring at me the way an adult stares at a misbehaving child.
“No, I didn’t,” I said. I thought back to the man’s expression as he’d leaned forward. “He seemed almost pleased when I didn’t react. I think he was amused that I didn’t know who he was.”
“Okay,” Detective Puhl said slowly. “So, when did you find out?”
“The next day while I was out at a bar.” I waited for them to say something, but they didn’t, so I kept going. “I’m an artist. I draw portraits for a living… Well, I used to, and—”
The detective held up her hand, and I paused before clearing my throat.
“Anyway, I never forget a face. I saw him on one of the TVs, and that’s when I realized who he was. Funny thing is, one of his songs came on the radio while he was in my car. We actually talked about it—”
“And you still didn’t know—”
“No.”
“So, you’ve never heard of Ryan Hooks?” she asked.
Detective Greg snorted, the first noise he had made all day, and I could’ve kicked him for having nothing more to contribute than that.
“Of course I’ve heard of him,” I said. “I just didn’t make the connection that he was the man I picked up that night.”
Puhl let out a long sigh and leaned forward, placing both elbows on the table. She used two fingers from each hand to rub her temples.
“Okay, so let me get this straight,” she said. “You pick up one of the biggest pop stars in the country and drop him off at an address in the Gold Coast. That was on…”
“August 1,” I said. “The Saturday before last.”
“Then you just go home. You don’t call anyone, don’t snap any pictures. Nothing.”
“Yes,” I said, working hard to keep my composure. “Because I didn’t know—”
“Right, right,” she said. “We get it. So fast-forward to this past weekend. You see the news about the murder at 115 West Oak, and you think, for some reason, that since you dropped him off there last week, Ryan Hooks could’ve been involved.”
I swallowed.
I’d known that this was where things would get dicey, since I couldn’t tell them everything. I bit my lip
and nodded. “It seemed like somebody should know that he’d been there just a week earlier, so—”
“Yeah, maybe TMZ,” Detective Greg muttered.
“—so, I texted your tip line,” I said, ignoring him.
Detective Puhl nodded. “Yes, we got that tip,” she said, looking down at a sheet of paper in front of her. “We got a lot of leads about that case, but I have to say, yours was the most”—she raised an eyebrow and looked at the other detective—“entertaining?”
Detective Greg smiled but didn’t respond.
“That should have been the end of it,” Detective Puhl continued, and there was almost something like exhaustion in her tone. “But instead, you’re saying that the same man—the same pop star—broke into your home earlier today and attacked you for no reason at all.”
I squared my shoulders. “The police were at my house this morning. You can ask them—”
“No,” she said. “I’m not doubting you had an intruder, Mrs. Wilson, and I’m sure that was very scary. But I’m asking why you think it might have been Mr. Hooks.”
I bit my lip.
Careful…
I’d drifted in and out of a wine-soaked sleep for hours after the police left, staring at our belongings tossed so carelessly around the living room and asking myself the very same question.
As I’d replayed the events of the past week over and over in my mind, I’d become more and more convinced: it had to be Hooks.
It simply had to be.
I’d finally jumped up, my entire body still shaking, and called a cab to the station.
The thing is, Detective Claire Puhl had looked a lot nicer on TV.
As the wine began to wear off, I realized I didn’t have a good answer, at least not one I could tell them, so I fumbled to make something up.
“I don’t know,” I said, swallowing. “He must have figured out that I was the one who texted your tip line and told you that I’d dropped him off. Was he ever contacted by the police? That’s the only thing I can think of.”
Detective Puhl sighed. “We follow up on all leads as appropriate,” she said dismissively. She wrote something down and then looked up. “The night you dropped him off… Did you see him with the deceased?”
She asked it so casually, and my stomach flipped over at the phrase. Since I’d arrived, she’d been tossing around phrases like the body, the deceased, and the victim, and I wanted to scream at her that she was talking about a real person.
“No,” I said slowly. I took a deep breath. “But I did see him with someone.”
“Did you?” she asked. “And how did you happen to see that?”
“Well, he got out of the car, and I was still there for a little bit, you know, wrapping up the ride.”
“Okay…”
“He was walking across the street, and I saw a woman watching him out a window.”
“You saw someone watching him?” Detective Puhl asked, raising an eyebrow. “Not with him?”
“Well, she was on the second floor of the apartment, and she was sort of…pressed against the window,” I said. “I could tell that she wanted him to see her. You know what I mean?”
Both detectives stared at me, and I swallowed. The words felt silly on my lips, but I pushed on anyway.
“She wasn’t…” I cleared my throat. “She wasn’t wearing much.”
It was an understatement, but it didn’t seem like the time or place to go into detail. The woman had been framed clearly in the light of the window, her chin-length blond hair grazing her collarbone. She was wearing a red lace bra beneath a sheer, black nightdress, the windowsill cutting her off right at the top of her hip bone.
And she’d just stood there, peering down into the darkness. Even from the distance, I could see the smile that tugged at the corners of her lips.
“Okay, Mrs. Wilson,” Detective Puhl said, jolting me from the memory. She tossed another glance at her partner and then stood up. “Is it all right if I call you Paula?”
“Yes,” I said.
She nodded. “Is there anything else you want to tell us, Paula?”
I blinked before shaking my head and leaning down to pick up my purse from the floor.
“No, that’s all,” I said. “I just thought you should know that he was there a week before the murder, and that I’m almost positive he’s the one who broke into my apartment.”
“Okay,” Detective Puhl said again. “Thanks for coming in. We’ll definitely look into it, and we’ll be in touch if we have any more questions for you. You won’t be hard to get ahold of, will you?”
I frowned. “No,” I said. “Of course not.”
I was turning toward the door when Detective Greg spoke up.
“I have a question for you,” he said.
I stopped and turned back to face him.
“Did you ever go back?”
I froze, and we watched each other for a long moment before I could come up with a response. “Sorry?”
The detective shrugged and placed both hands on the desk in front of him. “It’s been almost two weeks since you dropped him off, and now with the murder, 115 West Oak is all over the news,” he said. “I’m just wondering, since August 1, have you had any reason to go back to that apartment?”
I blinked.
“Mrs. Wilson?”
They needed to know the critical facts.
“Mrs. Wilson?” he said. “Did you ever go back after that night?”
Not the tiny, unimportant things.
“No,” I said, maintaining eye contact. “I never went back.”
PART 1
the week before the night in question
Chapter 1
Paula
Seven days before
Keith was asleep when I got home after dropping off Lotti. He’s always asleep, his body folded up in the sheets like piles of extra laundry. During bad weeks, he can sleep for ten, twelve, fourteen hours at a time. I never know when to wake him, so I don’t.
There’s always a brown-tinted glass on the nightstand. It wasn’t there before, not for the first thirteen years of our life together, but now it’s always there, whiskey-stained decor in our small, two-bedroom home on Chicago’s northwest side. Empty except for the last amber drop of evidence. It’s rare that I actually see Keith drinking it, though the smell of liquor is always there.
I lay on the bed beside him for about an hour every night, the scent tickling the back of my nose, making me just the slightest bit queasy. Those sixty minutes hurt like hell. My doctor, Marilyn Keyes, said it’s normal, even though she seemed surprised when I told her how much it hurt.
“What does it feel like, Paula?” she had asked a few months back.
“An epidural,” I had said, and her eyes widened. “Or at least what I imagine an epidural feels like. I’ve never had a baby. Is that normal?”
“That you’ve never had a baby?”
“No. That it hurts to stay in bed when I can’t sleep.”
“Well…” I could almost see her brain working. “It’s a pretty strong emotional response. But there’s plenty of evidence that links psychological state to physical symptoms. Caregivers have a wide range of emotional responses, so the insomnia is not unusual. I’d say what you’re experiencing is normal…but we should monitor it for a few weeks.”
I’d been seeing Dr. Keyes for a couple of years, and though she tended to speak in Google search results, I liked her. So I did what she said, and we monitored it. For months, not just weeks, since nothing had changed, and I wasn’t ready to graduate from monitoring it to trying to fix it. On the night I dropped the man off in the Gold Coast, I went home and did what I always did: I lay in the bed next to my husband, hoping for sleep I knew would not come. After sixty minutes, I rolled over and let my feet drop to the floor, shifting my weight slowly so as not
to shake the bed.
It wouldn’t have mattered if I did.
Keith wouldn’t be waking up until morning.
• • •
I walked around the bed and picked up the glass from the nightstand. Keith’s wheelchair was propped up against the window ledge. The shadowy image of our bedroom danced in front of my eyes—the antique oak dresser we’d gotten from Keith’s grandmother, the silhouette of his body underneath the covers—and it occurred to me that if I could just edit out that chair, everything would go back to normal.
With the drag of a mouse, I’d blur out the wheelchair and replace it with something like an exercise bike or a nice indoor plant. Better yet, I’d back up and erase the car that had sped out of the alley on the west side of Ashland Avenue on that balmy Thursday afternoon eleven months ago. Or maybe I’d crop out the moment, just an hour or so before that, when I had asked Keith to go to Trader Joe’s in the first place. I’d just made Ina Garten’s beef short ribs, and we only had white wine, and that simply wouldn’t do.
Keith had been tired and a little annoyed, but then I’d said something funny or cute, and the thing about Keith was that I could always get him with funny or cute, at least back then.
So he grabbed his keys and left.
Maybe instead of editing something out, I would have Photoshopped something in—for instance, the name of a different road on the street signs. We sometimes took Western Avenue instead of Ashland to avoid the traffic from Lake View High. If he’d gone that way, Keith would have avoided the speeding SUV altogether. In the grand scheme of things, the teen driving it hadn’t been going that fast. I always thought major crashes, the ones that defined people’s lives, happened on the highway at speeds at or above seventy miles an hour. The black SUV had barely broken thirty, but at the perfect angle, it was more than enough to spin Keith into the path of a bus that was in the middle of changing lanes.
