Nightlife: A Novel

42

Catherine Hobbes stood in the outer lobby of the airport, her hand on Joe Pitt’s arm. “I think this is as far as I go.”

He said, “You’re a cop. You could flash your badge at the security guys and they’d let you go to the gate with me.”

“How about if we put you in handcuffs, and I say I’m escorting you to trial in California?”

“I wish you would escort me to California.”

“Me too. But I can’t leave here now. I’ve got three cases that are heating up and one that’s getting cold, and that’s scary. It’s the one we’re both interested in.”

“The only thing about that case I’m interested in is you. My client let me go, remember? Then he replaced me with a professional psychotic.”

“I haven’t been replaced, and I’m going to do my job before I go anywhere with the likes of you. Stop stalling and go to your gate, or you’ll miss your plane.”

He held her and she put her arms around his neck and gave him a lingering kiss. “That’s not going to make things easier,” he said.

“Who said it was supposed to be easy?” she said. “Now move it.”

She watched him as he turned and hurried up the escalator, taking three steps at a time until he came up behind a lady who was stopped on a step above him, then turned and waved. A moment later, he was at the top and gone.

Catherine walked out of the terminal and headed across the street toward her car. She had delayed driving in to the police bureau on North Thompson Street by telling the captain she thought she ought to drive Joe Pitt to the airport. It had not aroused his suspicion, but it had not exactly been honest. She had not said that since their collaboration was over she had been dating him.

For the thousandth time she had the same thought, that the words for the dealings between people of the two sexes were always wrong. She wasn’t dating him. She had thought about him for a long time and then started sleeping in his hotel room with him and then rushing home every morning to get ready for work, or just spending the evening with him and driving home at one or two A.M. for three or four hours of unconsciousness. They didn’t have dates. When one of them was hungry the other would say, “Let’s go eat,” and she would drive them to a nice restaurant, because Portland was her city. On three rainy nights when the restaurants had been near her house, they had slept there instead of driving back to his hotel.

The words were always wrong. If they kept getting along, then there would be a time when he would be called her boyfriend, even though he was over forty and already much more intimate than any friend, and she would be his girlfriend, even though she was hardly a girl and had already been married and divorced. The only time the words were right was when people changed their behavior to fit the words. When people were married they tried to fill the space made by the word, behaved the way they had sworn they would—all of them except her ex-husband, Kevin, anyway.

Was she going to marry Joe Pitt? When she had met him she had experienced the standard reaction. She had wondered, “Is he the one?” but she had gone to the Internet to learn about him, asked the older male detectives if anybody knew him, listened to what they said, and decided that he almost certainly wasn’t husband material. But maybe that was just another case of the words setting up an expectation that wasn’t real. Right now he was the one. That was the only word she could think of that described the relationship: the one.

She got into her car and drove through the early-morning traffic to North Thompson Street to get to work. She still went in as early as she could every day to work at finding Tanya Starling while her mind was fresh and she had solitude and silence. Today she was starting late. She could spend only a half hour reviewing the information she had about Tanya Starling and searching bulletins and circulars for anything that might relate to the case before the other homicide detectives began to arrive. This morning her in-box was full, but there were no signs in it that Tanya Starling had been seen anywhere.

Catherine had a theory about what was going on. Tanya would be living in a very quiet way in an apartment in a distant city, working at developing a new identity. She would probably be dyeing her hair again, making herself fake identification, and constructing a reason for being where she was. She would try to wait long enough for all of the law enforcement agencies all over the country to be buried in circulars about other people.

Catherine knew her, and yet the feeling of knowing was like being gagged. The things she knew weren’t things that she could prove to anyone or translate into action. Tanya had been born with a reasonably agile mind, and whatever had made her into a killer—or maybe the actual experience of killing—had made her an avid learner. Tanya was learning at a phenomenal rate. Every day that went by while she was free seemed to make her better at staying free. Every time she killed someone she did it differently. The other detectives had all interpreted the range of methods she’d used as proof that someone else had been in charge all along, and Tanya was just the companion. Catherine had known since Los Angeles that it wasn’t true—no man had been in Mary Tilson’s apartment, and no man had been on the security tapes going into Brian Corey’s hotel room. Tanya had no companion. Tanya’s methods were new each time because she was learning.

Tanya had learned some things between Portland and Flagstaff that made her much more dangerous. She had learned how to isolate victims, she had learned that there were lots of ways of denying blood to the heart and brain, and then she had learned that she could induce other people to do the killing for her. Now anything could happen.

At ten, a fresh homicide case arrived on Catherine’s desk. The previous night there had been a burglary in the house in Arlington Heights where Marjorie and Jack Hammond lived. When Catherine arrived at the house, Marjorie Hammond had been so carefully made up, coifed, and dressed that to Catherine she looked as though she had been sitting for a portrait. The responding officer’s report said Marjorie Hammond was forty-two years old, but like some beautiful women, she seemed to be without age.

She had been present when her husband had shot an intruder in the dark house in the night, and they had tried uselessly to stop the bleeding until the ambulance had arrived. The downstairs entrance and hallway were still blocked off with tape, so Mrs. Hammond met Catherine at the kitchen door. Catherine sat in a spotless, cheerful sunroom at the back of the house while Mrs. Hammond brought tea on a Chinese lacquerware tray.

Catherine said, “I know it’s hard to talk about what happened here last night, but you understand that we do have to be able to explain all of it.”

“I understand.”

“Do you mind if I record our conversation? It helps when I make out my report.”

“No.”

Catherine took the recorder out of her pocket so Mrs. Hammond could see it, turned it on, and said, “This is Detective Sergeant Catherine Hobbes. I am recording my interview with Mrs. Marjorie Hammond at . . . eleven-thirteen A.M. on October fifth.” She put the tape recorder back into her coat pocket. “Let’s see. You and your husband told the responding officers last night that you had never seen the intruder before. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“By the way, where is your husband right now?”

“Jack?” She looked shocked. “He’s at work. I thought it would help him get through the experience if he went back to his routines right away. Men are creatures of routine, aren’t they?”

“Are they?”

“Of course. Their work habits rely on it, and even the things they do for pleasure they do exactly the same each time. Once you’ve watched fifty football games, what can be new in the fifty-first, or the five thousandth? But it seems to give them some kind of reassurance.”

“What about you? Are you getting through the experience?”

“I’ll be okay.”

Looking at her, Catherine sensed that it wasn’t going to be that easy. She seemed too put together, too perfect. He should be here. “I guess I can interview him separately,” said Catherine. Alarm signals were everywhere, but Catherine wasn’t ready to decide exactly what they meant. “Tell me what happened.”

“Well, Jack was working late last night. He had been in Seattle at a trade show. He sells power tools, mostly for the construction industry, and they were showing off a new line. I was upstairs in bed, asleep. Jack arrived home around midnight, came upstairs, and started to get ready for bed.”

“Did he wake you up?”

“Yes. I heard him trying to undress in the bathroom, so I turned on a light by the bed and called out to him. That was when we realized that there was someone else in the house.”

Catherine’s eyes went to the doorway across the sunroom to the alarm keypad near the back door. “Was the alarm system turned on?”

“He turned it on when he came in. I should have done it before I went upstairs, but I forgot because Jack usually does it, and so I didn’t think of it.”

“Does he go away on business often?”

“Not really. There are conferences sometimes, or training sessions he has to go to so he can demonstrate new machines. Once in a while he goes somewhere to make a sale and stays over. It’s only a few nights a year.”

“What time did you expect him to come home last night?”

“Actually, I didn’t know he was coming home. I thought he’d be home tonight. But he got his meetings in early, and he caught a flight yesterday.”

“And when he goes away, do you usually forget the alarm?”

“I don’t usually forget. I guess I was sleepy last night. That’s all.”

“Okay. So you said you realized there was someone in the house. How?”

“Jack was the one who noticed. When I called to him that I was awake, he answered, then started down the stairs. He had left his suitcase in the entry because he didn’t want to wake me up clunking around with it, but since I was awake, he decided to go down to get it. When he reached the top of the stairs he heard something. He ran back to his dresser, where he keeps the gun. He told me to get ready to call nine-one-one, and went down to search the house.”

Catherine was having the experience again of listening to someone lie, but not being quite sure of what the lie was. The secret that all police officers knew but that other people seemed not to was that truth and lies were not mutually exclusive. They were always mixed together in a kind of stew and had to be separated. Every person who told a police officer a story was lying. Sometimes they were only making themselves look braver or more sensible than they really had been in a crisis, and sometimes they were fabricating whole incidents to hide the fact that they had committed a crime. But while they spoke, Catherine always detected the same signs of lying in their faces and bodies. “So he went downstairs alone?”

“Yes.”

“Where were you and what were you doing?”

“First I asked him not to do it, but he wouldn’t listen. Then I took the phone off its cradle and brought it with me to the top of the stairs.”

“Did you turn on the lights?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“We had heard someone making noises down here.”

“What kind?”

“Footsteps.”

“Walking or running?”

“Walking, at first, I guess. Then, when Jack came down, I think it was more like running. The man was trying to get into a good hiding place before Jack got there.”

“What then?”

“When Jack got there he started looking around. The man jumped out of the closet at him, and Jack fired.”

“How many times?”

“Once. No, twice. We called the police.”

“Who did?”

“I did.”

“And you told the responding officers that you didn’t know Samuel Daily.”

“Oh. That was his name, wasn’t it? I remember the police officer looked at his wallet and said it. No, we didn’t know him.”

Catherine said very carefully, “Before your husband arrived, did the intruder touch you?”

“No,” she said.

“Sometimes women don’t say anything when something like that happens. I don’t know if they’re too traumatized to remember it clearly, or they block it out entirely, or if they have some misguided feeling that it must have been their fault. Maybe they’re afraid their husbands will have the wrong idea. But nothing like that happened to you?”

“No. I already told you,” she said. “I was upstairs asleep. He was downstairs.”

“Do you have any idea what he might have been after?”

“I don’t know.”

Catherine was getting close to it, and she sensed that as Mrs. Hammond got more agitated, she was beginning to forget the tape recorder. “Sam Daily is the part of this that I can’t quite get to fit,” Catherine said. “He had no criminal record. He had a good job. He was a shift manager at a big supermarket. It’s the Mighty Food Mart down on Tillamook.” She paused. “Have you ever shopped there?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? It might explain a lot.”

“What would it explain?” She was confused, wary.

“Well, he doesn’t seem to have stolen anything in your house, or even tried to. And he came here on one of the few nights when your husband was away. If he had noticed you in the store, he might have been stalking you. If you pay with a check, they have your name and address. He might have begun to watch you, seen your husband leave with a suitcase or seen that his car was gone, and come for you.”

Mrs. Hammond’s mind seemed to be working hard to evaluate the suggestion. “You know, I may have been there once or twice. It’s not my regular store. But I’ll bet you’re right. I’m lucky my husband came home when he did.” She was grasping for the story, trying to make it her own.

“It’s a theory, anyway,” said Catherine. “It’s possible he wanted to incapacitate your husband or kill him, so he could sexually assault you. Some of them even like to make the husband watch.”

“That’s terrible,” said Mrs. Hammond.

“You’re right. We’ll just have to wait for the rest of the information to come in and tell us which speculations are right.”

“What do you mean?”

Catherine watched her face. “Don’t worry. We’ll try everything. We’ll be looking at your financial records—credit cards, canceled checks, and so on—to pinpoint exactly when you were in that store, and then check the store’s payroll to see if he was working those days. We’ll be interviewing your neighbors to learn whether they’ve seen him hanging around. We’ll ask his co-workers if he had any pictures of you, if he had any absences at odd times, like a few hours during the day when he might have been spying on you. We’ll look at his phone records to see which numbers he might have called to find out your husband’s travel schedule.”

Marjorie Hammond looked sick. “What—what can possibly be the point? We know he was here, and he’s dead. It’s over.”

Catherine was sure now what the lie was. She had to keep pushing. “Not for the police bureau. It’s an open case. The forensics people were already here from twelve-thirty A.M. until around nine this morning, right? I haven’t seen their report yet, of course. It will tell us a lot.”

Mrs. Hammond said, “I want my lawyer.”

“What?”

“Turn off the tape recorder. I won’t speak to you anymore without my lawyer.”

“Do you have a lawyer?”

“I’ll get one.”

“Okay. I’ll read you your rights, and then I’ll turn it off.” She recited the warning, then took out the tape recorder, turned it off, and put it back into her pocket. She said, “And, of course, you’ll have to come with me to the police bureau and wait for your lawyer so we can have the rest of our conversation.” She stood up and took out her handcuffs. “Turn around, please.”

Marjorie Hammond was shocked. “I didn’t do anything.”

“I believe you didn’t shoot anyone,” said Catherine. “All you were doing was spending time with Sam Daily. Your husband came home early and caught you together.”

“No,” she said. “It’s not true. None of it is true. The whole thing is a lie.”

Catherine switched on the tape recorder in her pocket. “You said you wanted your lawyer. You know that when I read you your rights it meant that you don’t have to say anything to me at all, right? You’ll have an opportunity to say whatever you want after your attorney is present.”

“Yes. I know that. But I’m telling you the story you made up isn’t true. I didn’t do anything. There was nothing going on between me and Sam Daily.”

Catherine knew Mrs. Hammond was walking right along the edge, and in a moment she would topple over. “Don’t worry. If what you’re saying is true, the physical evidence will prove you’re right.”

“What physical evidence?”

“From the crime scene people. They search for blood, hair, fibers, fingerprints. If they haven’t found any DNA from Sam Daily in your room, your clothing or bedding, and they didn’t find any of yours on him—hairs, saliva, and so on—or any traces of your makeup, then probably the case will be closed just as you said.”

Catherine clicked the handcuffs shut on her wrists, and the voice came again, but it was changed. This time it was a whisper. “Sergeant. Please.”

“What?”

“Please don’t let them do that.”

“Why?”

“I told you the truth. It’s the truth.”

“Do you mean it’s what you want to have been true?”

“It’s what happened. My husband didn’t come in and catch us. He came home and started to get ready for bed. Sam really did hide in the downstairs coat closet, and when Jack opened the door, Sam did jump out at him. Jack’s gun went off. It was an accident. Just a horrible accident.”

“Do you mean that Jack didn’t intend to pull the trigger?”

“No. I mean yes, I suppose he did. But it was because he thought Sam was a burglar, trying to kill him. It was dark, and how could he know that Sam didn’t have a knife or a gun too? He thought he had to shoot—that he was protecting his life, and mine too. Neither of them had ever seen each other before, and neither wanted to hurt anyone. It was just a terrible misunderstanding. An accident.”

“So your husband, Jack, really thought he was being attacked, and Sam thought he was about to be murdered and jumped out to defend himself?”

“Yes.” Mrs. Hammond sat down on the couch, crying, her body bent over and shaking. “Yes. It was my fault.”

Catherine looked down at her. The woman was so wretched that for an instant Catherine’s strongest sensation was relief that she was not Marjorie Hammond. She was not this woman bent over and sobbing, crouching on the edge of the couch with her wrists cuffed behind her, unable even to wipe the tears that were streaking her face.

Catherine knew that she was about to do something foolish, and was violating department procedures. But she leaned down and used her key to unlock the handcuffs. She removed them, put them in her purse, and handed Mrs. Hammond a tissue. “Here.”

Mrs. Hammond was rocking back and forth, crying steadily and silently. Almost inaudibly, she said, “It’s so stupid. It’s just so stupid.”

“What is?”

“I always loved Jack. I love him so much. There was nothing wrong with us.”

“Then why?”

“I don’t know. It just happened. I used to see Sam at the store every week, and we said hello. Sometimes we talked for a minute if he was approving a check, or I was asking him where something was. It was nothing. Then one time when I was out in the afternoon, I stopped for coffee at a Starbucks downtown, near Pioneer Square, and he was in there. He came up to me while I was waiting at the counter, and we sat together. We were there for about two hours, and we talked in a way we never did in the store—about our lives, what we thought and felt. He said he always came there on his days off, Tuesday and Thursday, at one, right after lunch, when he’d finished his errands. About a week later, I was near there again, and I went in.”

“Was it because he was there?”

“No, it wasn’t. I didn’t even remember it was Thursday. I happened to see the sign, and I remembered the place as pleasant. Then I got there and saw him, and I realized that the reason I thought it was pleasant was because of him. This time I went and sat with him.” She stopped and cried some more. “He was just so nice. He was good, and smart, and he’d had such a sad life. He and I talked about everything, and then the afternoon was gone.”

“How long did this go on?”

“For a couple of months. I would think to myself that having coffee with a man wasn’t a good idea, so I would miss Tuesday. Then Thursday came and I would ask what the harm was, and it didn’t seem like there was any. So I went, and he would look up from his paper and he’d say how pleased he was that I had come. He would notice things about me, and be able to tell how I was feeling. He was interested in everything I had to say. Pretty soon I would think about it ahead of time, look forward to going to meet him.”

“Was he married too?”

“No. He had been engaged a few years ago, and then she’d changed her mind, and he hadn’t been able to get over it for a long time.”

“But he knew you were married from the start, right?”

“Of course. Jack was the center of my life, and so a lot of the time what I talked about was Jack and me. Sometimes I would tell Sam about fights or hurt feelings I had. And then one day I realized that I’d fallen into the habit of telling him things that I had not even told Jack. If there were problems he didn’t always have answers, and that was a kind of wisdom, too, to know that if the answers were that easy, I would have found them myself. Or even if there was an answer, he knew that I knew it too, but that I wasn’t ready to admit it to myself yet. At those times he would just listen and let me work it out. I tried to do the same for him.”

“When did the relationship move out of Starbucks?”

“After a couple of months. That was my fault. I let that happen. I was feeling really good one day, and what was making me feel good was that Sam knew me so well and still liked me so much. When he saw how I was that day, I think the contrast may have been what struck him. He was kind of subdued and maybe depressed. I asked him what was wrong, and he told me. He said his life was empty and he needed more.”

“More?”

“A real relationship with a woman. He said he didn’t want me to ruin my marriage and break up with Jack. He knew that it was the most important thing in my life. He just wanted to be with me.” She sobbed for a minute or more, while Catherine waited patiently. Then she looked up, almost pleading. “You understand? Jack and I were happy, and that was what he wanted, and I wanted it for him too. I just sat there at the table looking at him, and the words ‘Why not?’ came into my mind. I couldn’t think of an answer that was real. The only answer was that I wasn’t supposed to. He wanted to so much, and I did too. Sam knew that I would never leave Jack. So when I said, ‘Why not?’ this time, it was out loud. We went right from there to a hotel across Pioneer Square.”

“That was the start. How long did it go on?”

“We still met on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, at one. Sometimes we would go to his apartment. Sometimes we would drive somewhere, and he would have reserved a room. It’s been about six months, from March until now. A couple of times, things just seemed wrong, and I would start to break it off. But then I couldn’t.”

“When was that?”

“A few times. I remember once, standing by the car outside a hotel in Fairview, and we were saying good-bye for the last time, and it was raining. I was crying because I cared so much about him, and we were both getting wet, and then I could see his face was wet too. It wasn’t just the rain. And I took it all back and we kissed and went back inside, even though we knew we could be late getting home and I would have to make up a lie for Jack’s sake. I knew I was using up one of my lies, because I knew I wouldn’t have many of them. You can’t lie to someone about why you’re late on Thursday afternoons more than about twice, or they’ll know. It would have hurt Jack so much.” Saying it seemed to remind her of what was about to happen. She began to cry again.

“I’m sorry,” said Catherine.

“Everything is ruined, and there’s nothing to make any of it better. Sam is dead. Jack’s life is ruined. My life is ruined.”

Catherine needed her to get the rest of the story out before she stopped talking. “Was last night the first time Sam stayed over at your house?”

“No. There were a few times before. I couldn’t go to his place at night, because Jack might call our house from his hotel. But this time Jack didn’t call. He just came home to be with me. When Sam and I heard the car pull into the driveway, I was terrified. I looked out the bedroom window and saw the headlights on the garage door, and then the door started to open. I made Sam grab his clothes and run downstairs to hide, so as soon as Jack came upstairs, Sam could slip out.”

“But Jack heard him?”

“Sam must have stumbled in the dark or dropped his shoe or something. I told Jack he was imagining things, but he wouldn’t listen. I went to the top of the stairs and yelled at him not to prowl around—not just to persuade him, but to warn Sam too—but nothing worked. He opened the closet and Sam jumped out at him.” She stared up at Catherine, her eyes red and swollen, her face a mask of anguish. “It’s really the same as I said at first. I told you.”

Catherine said, “I’m sorry. I’m really very sorry.” She gently took her to the car without taking out the handcuffs again, and drove her to the police bureau to get her statement on paper.

By the time Catherine was finished with the statement and her report and had signed the transcript of the tape recording, it was too late to answer any of the telephone messages that had piled up on her desk. She used her cell phone to call Joe Pitt while she drove toward Adair Hill.

He said, “You’re going home late. Solve another murder or something?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. Not a happy story, though.” She told him what had happened, then said, “Oops. Joe, I need both hands to drive now. Sleep tight.”

“Good night. Love you.”

Catherine had started closing her cell phone before she heard it, and now she cursed herself for ending the call. Had he really said that? If he had, what could it possibly have meant? It had sounded automatic, like a formula. She thought about it as she drove up the curving road. She decided to ignore it. If he really had intended to tell her he loved her, then he would do it again.

She stopped in front of her parents’ house and went inside. “Mom?” she called.

Her mother appeared from the kitchen. “Hi, honey. Just coming home from work?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I hadn’t seen you guys in a couple of days, so I thought I’d come and brighten your empty lives.”

“You mean you don’t feel like making your own dinner?”

“That’s right. Where’s Dad?”

“He’s upstairs. He’ll probably be down in a minute. Want some leftover turkey?”

“Sure. Let me get my own.” She walked into the kitchen and got herself a plate, then took the Tupperware container with the neatly sliced turkey breast in it, added some broccoli, and put it into the microwave.

Her mother watched her. “How is your new boyfriend working out?”

She turned her head in mock surprise. “How’s your crystal ball?”

“It’s not that hard. I called your house the last five evenings and you’ve been out late. So how much are you going to tell me?”

“I’ll spill my guts. His name is Joe Pitt, and he was just here for a few days. I have absolutely no business going out with him. He’s too old and too rich and has a bad boy reputation that I think he probably earned. Naturally I’m getting more interested by the day. I’ll let you know when I need to come over and cry about how it ended.”

“Well, that’s nice,” said her mother. “I’ll set aside some time.”

There was the sound of her father’s heavy footsteps on the stairway, and then her father appeared. “Ah, the princess has returned.”

“Hi, Dad.”

He sat down in the chair beside hers, smiling. “Working late, eh?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Anything interesting?”

“Nothing you haven’t seen a hundred times. Husband comes home early from a business trip. He trusts his wife, so he thinks the guy hiding in the closet is a burglar.”

“Bang bang,” said her father. “It’s a rotten job. I told you that from the time you were a child.”

“Practically from birth,” she agreed. “This is good,” she said to her mother. “It must have been nice to be one of the invited guests for its first appearance.”

“Then answer your damned phone,” said her father. “We tried.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I was busy trying to have a life.”

“Anybody we know?”

“No. He was a cop for a while, then an investigator for the Los Angeles D.A. He’s retired from that and working as a P.I. now.”

“Sounds too old for you.”

“He is.”

“Of course, you’re getting older by the day.”

“Thanks for noticing. I guess the bloom is off the rose.”

“The second bloom is more luxuriant than the first,” he said. “You seem kind of down. It was that case, wasn’t it?”

“You know how it is. Half the people you see are dead. The other half you’re seeing on the very worst day of their whole lives. It makes you tired.”

Her father stood up, kissed her on the forehead, and went out into the living room. In a moment, she heard the television.

She finished her dinner and rinsed the plate and silverware, then put them in the dishwasher with the ones from her parents’ dinner. She talked to her mother for a time about the things that had been going on in her parents’ lives. Then she and her mother both drifted into the living room and watched the meaningless activity on the screen with her father.

Suddenly she caught herself falling asleep. She stood up, kissed them both, and drove the rest of the way up the hill to her house. As she pulled into the garage, she thought she saw something move, just beyond the reach of the lights on the eaves of her house. But she knew that sometimes that happened when a person had not had enough sleep for a few days—the mind supplied the monster that it feared.