The Stranger

Chapter 44

Adam and Johanna sat in the living room.

The boys were in the kitchen. Thomas had boiled up the water for pasta. Ryan microwaved a packet of frozen vegetables. It would hold them for now.

“So where did you find Corinne’s car?” Adam asked.

“First off, I have to come clean.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I meant what I said out there. I’m not a cop in New Jersey. Heck, I’m barely a cop back home. I don’t do homicides. The county does them. And even if I did, I’m way out of my jurisdiction here.”

“But they flew you out here to question me.”

“No, I came out on my own dime. I knew a guy from Bergen who called a guy from Essex, and they extended me a courtesy by picking you up and bringing you in.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because the county guys back home heard about it and they got pissed. So I’ve been officially taken off the case.”

“I’m not following. If this wasn’t your case, why did you come out here at all?”

“Because one of the victims was a friend of mine.”

Adam understood now. “That Heidi woman?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.”

“So where was Corinne’s car?”

“Nice change of subject,” she said.

“You came to tell me.”

“True.”

“So?”

“At an airport hotel in Newark.”

Adam made a face.

“What?”

“That makes no sense,” he said.

“Why not?”

Adam explained about the locator app on the iPhone showing Corinne in Pittsburgh.

“She could have flown somewhere and rented a car,” Johanna said.

“I’m not sure where you’d fly that you’d pick up a car and drive through Pittsburgh. And you said it was in a hotel parking lot?”

“Near the airport, right. We found it right before it got towed. I asked the tow company to deliver it back here, by the way. You should have it in an hour.”

“I don’t get something.”

“What?”

“If she was taking a flight, Corinne would have just parked in the airport lot. That’s what we always do.”

“Not if she didn’t want anyone to know where she was going. She might have figured that you’d look there.”

He shook his head. “I’d look for her car in an airport parking lot? That makes no sense.”

“Adam?”

“Yeah.”

“I know you have no reason to trust me. But let’s go off the record here for a second.”

“You’re a cop, not a reporter. You don’t go off the record.”

“Just listen to me, okay? Two women are dead. I won’t go into how special Heidi was but… look, you need to come clean now. You need to tell me everything you know.” She met his gaze and held it. “I promise you. I promise you on the soul of my dead friend that I won’t use anything you say against you or your wife. I want justice for Heidi. That’s all. Do you understand?”

Adam could feel himself squirming in his seat. “They can compel you to testify.”

“They can try.” She leaned forward. “Please help me.”

He thought about it but not for long. There was no choice now. She was right. Two women were dead, and Corinne could be in serious trouble. He had no solid leads anymore, just an uneasy feeling about Gabrielle Dunbar.

“First,” he said, “tell me what you know.”

“I told you most of it.”

“Tell me about how Ingrid Prisby is connected to your friend.”

“Simple,” Johanna said. “Ingrid and that guy showed up at a Red Lobster. They talked. The next day, Heidi was dead. A day after that, Ingrid was dead.”

“Do you suspect the guy Ingrid was with?”

“I certainly think he can help us figure this out,” Johanna said. “I assume they talked to you too, right? At that American Legion Hall.”

“The guy did, yes.”

“Did he tell you his name?”

Adam shook his head. “He just said he was the stranger.”

“And after they left, you tried to find him. Or them. You got that parking lot attendant to give you their license plate. You tracked her down.”

“I got her name,” Adam said. “That was all.”

“So what did the guy say to you at the American Legion Hall? This stranger?”

“He told me that my wife faked a pregnancy.”

Johanna blinked twice. “Come again?”

Adam told her the story. Once he opened his mouth, it all just spilled out of him. When he was finished, Johanna asked him a question that seemed both obvious and surprising.

“Do you think it’s true? Do you think she faked the pregnancy?”

“Yes.”

Just like that. No hesitation. Not anymore. He had probably known the truth from the start-right from the moment the stranger first told him-but he’d needed the pieces to come together before he could voice it.

“Why?” Johanna asked.

“Why do I think it’s true?”

“No, why do you think she’d do something like that?”

“Because I made her feel insecure.”

She nodded. “That Sally Perryman woman?”

“Mostly, I guess. Corinne and I had grown distant. She feared losing me, feared losing all this. It doesn’t matter.”

“Actually, it might.”

“How?”

“Humor me,” Johanna said. “What was going on in your life when she went to that pregnancy-faking website?”

Adam couldn’t see the point, but he also saw no reason not to tell her. “Like I said, we were growing apart. It’s an old story, isn’t it? We became all about the boys and the family logistics-who was going to do the food shopping, who was going to do the dishes, who was going to pay the bills. I mean, this is all such normal shit. Really. I was also going through a midlife crisis, I guess.”

“You felt unappreciated?”

“I felt, I don’t know, I felt like I wasn’t a real man anymore. I know how that sounds. I was a provider and a father…”

Johanna Griffin nodded. “And suddenly there’s this Sally Perryman paying you all kinds of attention.”

“Not suddenly, but yeah, I start working on this great case with Sally, and she’s beautiful and passionate and she looks at me the way Corinne used to look at me. I get how stupid it all sounds.”

“Normal,” Johanna said. “Not stupid.”

Adam wondered whether she meant that or whether she was humoring him. “Anyway, I think Corinne was worried I’d leave. I didn’t see it at the time, I guess, or maybe I didn’t care, I don’t know. But she had this tracker on my iPhone.”

“The one that showed you she was in Pittsburgh?”

“Right.”

“And you didn’t know about it?”

He shook his head. “Not until Thomas showed me.”

“Wow.” Johanna shook her head. “So your wife was spying on you?”

“I don’t know, maybe. That’s what I think happened. I told her I was working late a bunch of times. Maybe she checked that tracker app and saw I was at Sally’s more than I should have been.”

“You didn’t tell her where you were?”

He shook his head. “It was just work.”

“So why not tell her?”

“Because, ironically enough, I didn’t want her to worry. I knew how she’d react. Or maybe I knew on some level that it was wrong. We could have stayed in the office, but I liked being at her house.”

“And Corinne found out.”

“Yes.”

“But nothing happened between you and Sally Perryman?”

“Right.” Then thinking about it: “But maybe something was close to happening.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you get physical? Second base? Third base?”

“What? No.”

“You didn’t kiss her?”

“No.”

“So why the guilt?”

“Because I wanted to.”

“Hell, I want to give Hugh Jackman a sponge bath. So what? You can’t help what you want. You’re human. Let it go.”

He said nothing.

“So then your wife confronted Sally Perryman.”

“She called her. I don’t know if she confronted her.”

“And Corinne never told you?”

“Right.”

“She asked Sally what was going on, but she never did you that courtesy. That about right?”

“I guess.”

“So then what?”

“Then, well, then Corinne got pregnant,” Adam said.

“You mean, faked being pregnant.”

“Right, whatever.”

Johanna just shook her head and said, “Wow,” again.

“It’s not what you think.”

“No, it’s exactly what I think.”

“The pregnancy startled me, you know? But in a good way. It brought me back. It reminded me of what was important. That’s the other irony here. It worked. Corinne was right to do it.”

“No, Adam, she wasn’t right.”

“It brought me back to reality.”

“No, it didn’t. She manipulated you. You’d probably have gotten back to reality anyway. And if you didn’t, then maybe you weren’t meant to. Sorry, but what Corinne did was bad. Really bad.”

“I think maybe she felt desperate.”

“That’s not an excuse.”

“This is her world. Her family. Her entire life. She fought so hard to build it, and it was being threatened.”

Johanna shook her head. “You didn’t do what she did, Adam. You know that.”

“I’m guilty too.”

“It isn’t about guilt. You had a doubt. You had your head turned. You wondered about the what-if. You’re not the first person to feel these things. You either find your way through it or you don’t. But in the end, Corinne didn’t give you that chance. She chose to trick you and live a lie. I’m not defending or condemning you. Every marriage is its own story. But you didn’t see the light. You had someone shine a flashlight in your eyes.”

“Maybe I needed that.”

Johanna shook her head again. “Not like this. It was wrong. You have to see that.”

He thought about it. “I love Corinne. I don’t think the fake pregnancy really changed anything.”

“But you’ll never know.”

“Not true,” Adam said. “I’ve thought about this a lot.”

“And you’re certain you would have stayed?”

“Yes.”

“For the kids?”

“In part.”

“What else?”

Adam leaned forward and stared at the floor for a moment. It was a blue-and-yellow Oriental carpet he and Corinne had picked in an antiques store in Warwick. They’d gone up on an October day to pick apples, but they ended up just drinking some apple cider and buying McIntoshes and then they headed to an antiques store.

“Because whatever crap Corinne and I put each other through,” he began, “whatever dissatisfaction or disappointments or resentments surface, at the end of the day, I can’t imagine my life without her. I can’t imagine growing old without her. I can’t imagine not being part of her world.”

Johanna rubbed her chin, nodding. “I get that. I do. My husband, Ricky, snores so bad it’s like sleeping with a helicopter. But I feel the same.”

They sat there for a moment, letting the feelings settle.

Then Johanna asked, “Why do you think the stranger told you about the fake pregnancy?”

“No clue.”

“He didn’t extort money?”

“No. He said he was doing it for me. He acted as though he was on a holy crusade. How about your friend Heidi? Did she fake a pregnancy too?”

“No.”

“So I don’t get it. What did the stranger tell her?”

“I don’t know,” Johanna said. “But whatever it was, it got her killed.”

“You have any thoughts?”

“No,” Johanna said, “but now I think I might know someone who does.”