Lie Still

25

He didn’t want to drive anywhere. He wanted to suck down a Coke from the vending machine and sit in my station wagon in a dark garage parking lot where no one could hear us. Hopefully, he would leave me alive.

“We’ve got about twenty minutes,” he said. “It will take at least fifteen to get through that line at security. Should I start or you?”

My hand rested on the door handle while I reconsidered whether I should be in my car with a 200-pound, extremely fit man I didn’t know who could reach across and strangle me before making his connection. Then I remembered Lucy. Yes, she warned me about him. But she said he was decent. I would cling to that, because I needed Bradley Hellenberger to be who she said he was. Who he said he was.

I felt like I no longer had time to waste, and plunged in. “You know that Pierce Martin was a rapist.”

Silence. “Yes, I had that general idea.”

“A few days ago, somebody left a present for me on my doorstep. A copy of a campus police report taken the night Pierce raped me.” Amazing how much easier it was getting to say. I should have tried this long ago. Maybe I wouldn’t be such a wound-up, secretive, compulsive mess who never gave myself fully to anybody except when it came to sex. In bed, I had no trouble letting go entirely. I’d asked myself more than once why I was trying so hard to prove something to a dead man.

Brad’s scent was getting to me, lighting my nerves. In the bad old days, before Mike, I would have leaned over and brushed his lips with mine. Brad’s lips were currently curling into a frown. A tell. And it was telling me he didn’t know anything about the present on my doorstep.

“I was wondering if his other… dates… got similar gifts or if this nut job is just interested in me. I’ve received hate mail about the murder for years. I always figured it was from Pierce’s mother. More recently, there have been hang-ups.” Not to mention a congratulatory cigar, a message in a mirror, and a bloodred thumbprint obliterating my face, but we only had eighteen minutes and five seconds left.

“Do you have the letters with you?”

“No. I don’t have anything with me. My husband’s a cop. He’s… keeping them.”

Brad reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a reporter’s notebook.

“No writing,” I insisted. “This isn’t an on-the-record interview. This is me seeking information from you. Are you going to give me the full names of the other girls or not?”

Brad moved the passenger seat back to accommodate very long legs and supple Italian loafers splotched with a few dark spots. Too bad about that puddle.

He set the notebook on his lap. “Tell me a little more.”

“All of this is off the record, agreed?”

“The reporter’s notebook… it’s just an old-fashioned habit. I practically have to special-order these now.” Uh-huh.

“The day the police interviewed Pierce’s girlfriends about the murder, a guy posing as the renowned Bradley Hellenberger waited for me outside a history class.”

That got his attention.

“What? I’ve never met you until today.”

“He looked nothing like you. He threatened me.”

I fumbled with my wallet and handed him the dog-eared card. “He gave me this.”

“OK, this is my card.” His voice was stony. “Well, I guess that’s a good reason why you wouldn’t return my calls. What did he look like?”

“Skinny, splotchy face, glasses, weird nose.”

The lip curled up again. “Nose like a Keebler Elf?”

“You know him? He’s a friend?”

“No, not a friend. I can’t remember his name, but I’m sure I could find it. I interviewed him after the murder. He was in the house of assholes. One of Pierce Martin’s fraternity brothers. He stuck out. The rest of those preppy faces are a blur. But he was particularly helpful. And there was that puny nose. He gave me the names of several of the girls Pierce dated. Said he’d already given the names to the cops. What exactly did he say he wanted with you?”

“He demanded to know what I told the police. It was all in the guise of saving his-your-reputation as a journalist.”

Brad spoke thoughtfully. “I’m sure I gave him my card in case he remembered anything else. I do that with every interview.”

“So?”

“I’m obviously curious about his motive for impersonating me. I don’t mind giving you his name. I have to find it in my notes, though. In the meantime…” He pulled out his BlackBerry. “Here it is. Renata Tadynski.” He picked up the reporter’s notebook and scribbled in it, then ripped off the sheet.

Renata, I thought. Renata. Rosary Girl.

A crack of angry-God thunder resounded through the concrete ceiling and then hail, like a thousand tennis balls, pelted the roof. It was a little too much on cue.

“You’re giving me one of the names,” I said.

“Yep. And a phone number. She said it was OK. That at least gives you a start.”

“You talked to her? When?”

Sweat was rolling from my armpits down my sides. I notched the air conditioner up all the way. Even rain in this state didn’t bring relief from the heat. But, of course, that wasn’t why I was sweating.

“We still talk from time to time. She was the only one of you girls to return my phone call back then. She dropped out of school shortly afterward. Like you.”

“Why?” I asked. “I mean, why did she leave Windsor?”

“I presume for the same reason you did. She was… traumatized.”

“Still,” I said slowly, “I don’t understand why you’d keep in touch.”

“You don’t believe me. Even though I’m sitting in your damn car about to miss my plane.” He glanced at his watch. “You know, there’s still no good reason I should believe you. Did you kill Pierce Martin thirteen years ago? Shoot twice in the chest, five times in the balls, and run like hell?”

My left hand squeezed into a tight fist.

“Yeah, you should probably punch me. And since you were going to do that with your left hand, you’re officially eliminated.” Sarcastic. “The killer was right-handed. Everything I just told you-these weren’t details released to the press. I found out with an FOI request three years ago. It made the crime look very personal to the cops.”

“Why were you filing FOI requests three years ago? Why didn’t you tell me that from the start? I don’t understand why you’re still close to this. You can find your old notes even though you probably live in a New York City apartment with storage the size of a cereal box. You have Rosary Gi-Renata’s number in your BlackBerry.”

He turned purposefully toward me. My hand groped again for the door handle.

“Emily, relax. I’m just reaching for my briefcase in the backseat. See? As for your questions… what can I say? It’s personal. I don’t like to let a story go until I’m sure.”

“Sure about what?”

“That it’s finished.”

The air-conditioning in my Volvo breathed such a deep sigh of relief when Brad took off through the parking lot to catch his plane that it stopped breathing entirely. I turned the keys in the ignition. Not a pretty sound.

I’d overheated the stupid car by sitting here with the air-conditioning on frigid for fifteen minutes. The garage was like a sauna set up inside a gas stove. I repeatedly punched the button to roll down the window. Nope.

I opened the door, got out, slammed it, and propped myself against the car. What was I going to do now? How would I explain this to Mike? My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I looked at the screen.

Mike. Of course.

“Hey, babe, I hear Luke Cummings is a free man.” His voice sounded strained.

“Yes. In a week.”

“That’s a huge relief, right? A door closed.” He didn’t reprimand me for not calling and telling him right away, which was odd. I was busy manufacturing an excuse in my head about why not when he spoke again.

“We found Caroline.” It was like Mike to be abrupt, for so few words to say so much. “I hate telling you on the phone. But I wanted to hear your voice, to know you’re safe at home.”

Home. He thinks I’m home.

A car’s brakes screeched on the ramp above me, and I jerked my neck around. I was grasping that the situation on the other end of the line wasn’t good. I reminded myself that I had to work harder in this stifling garage to breathe.

“Emily, she’s dead. It’s ugly. I’ve got every cop on this. Otherwise, I’d send a car over to the house right now.”

My gut clenched. Caroline, dead. Ugly. I didn’t want to know. Not now, not in this shadowy garage with hail pounding so violently on the roof that I could barely hear Mike, much less think.

“It’s OK. I understand.” It was a ridiculous thing to say. I fought off terror and every question banging in my head. I needed to get the hell out of there, on my own. To make sure that my husband never knew I was dumb enough to meet a stranger, to risk my life and our baby’s while a freak was roaming free. I yanked open the car door to grab my purse and was slapped in the face with the musky smell Brad left behind. It almost made me lose my breakfast. I stepped back out quickly, bending over to recover.

“You don’t sound right,” Mike said. “You’ve got the security system turned on, right? All the doors locked?”

“Yes.” The truth.

“Em, I want you to understand that this is serious. Caroline’s body was discovered buried at the far end of her property, around eleven this morning. The FBI is calling in a forensic specialist from Dallas. My guys had been back over that area yesterday and swear they saw nothing. A neighbor found her when her Doberman broke away on their morning walk and set off across Caroline’s yard. She found the dog whining under a tree.” He hesitated. “So the guy might still be nearby.”

The baby kicked, hard. “Don’t worry,” I forced out. “I’ll keep the doors locked.”

I imagined my Facebook profile picture flashed across a TV screen. The one in the borderline tank top. Stupid choice, but a happy day.

He was here, somewhere in the angled shadows of this garage. My stalker. Caroline’s. It didn’t matter. I’d be another cliché. A pretty girl gone missing in a dark airport garage. I only say pretty because all missing girls are pretty, right? I started walking shakily toward a group of travelers who appeared as if summoned by my prayers, dragging bags and a few errant children.

I can handle this.

Safety in numbers. Now, there was a cliché.

Mike wouldn’t stop talking.

“Emily, whoever did this… Caroline was pretty messed up. It was personal. The killer stuck a cross in the ground. Two sticks. The neighbor figured it was a bad job of burying a pet. She called animal control first. By the time they arrived, her dog had done a little digging.”

Elegant, bewitching Caroline, dug up by a dog.

“Let me check the security system again to be sure,” I said. “I’ll call you back.”

Such a good little liar.

I walked out into the hail. It felt like God was shooting bullets from the sky.