The light of day was fading and Peter’s car was not in the driveway when Dena got home. Probably out with the girls, she thought. He was such a caring father. The kind of father any woman would want for her child. Dena put the thought out of her mind and popped the lid on the trunk of her car. She got out and went around to the back to collect her packages. She looked into the well of the trunk at her assortment of plastic shopping bags. She’d gotten a lot accomplished, considering how drained she felt and how little she had wanted to even leave the safety of her dreary rooms.
Her phone continued to ring and no one was there. Twice more she had answered it only to be met with silence, before she silenced the ringer. Let him call all day, she thought. But her defiance was shaky. The thought of him pursuing her on the phone made her feel lonely and vulnerable. She forced herself not to think about Brian. She tried to focus on the items she had crossed off her list. At least now she would have the basic necessities to make life livable in the apartment.
As she gathered the bags up in her arms, she wished that she could forget all this and just get on a plane to Chicago. Then, in spite of herself, she thought of Marcia’s warning about airplane trips. Why did people say things like that? Even when they were being alarmists, it had a tendency to stick in your mind. All right. The train then, she bargained with herself. Whatever it took to get away from this place. Why did the police insist she stay here? She didn’t know anything more about Jennifer’s death. But at the same time, she felt guilty, feeling sorry for herself when the person who was hurting the most was Ron. Losing his wife, and being a suspect at the same time. It was too much to bear. Especially when it was so obvious that he was not to blame. While the police were ignoring … No, she thought. No. It couldn’t be.
Laden with shopping bags, Dena walked up to the front door and reached down to open it. As her fingers touched the doorknob, the door swung open and she saw it. The pane of glass nearest the lock had been smashed out. Inside the dimly lit vestibule, she could see the shards of glass still glittering on the floor. She saw the little half-round table with mail on it, the closed door to Peter’s apartment, and the foot of the stairs. The inside of the house was quiet. She looked around in the street, but there was no one else in sight. There were cars in a few neighboring driveways, but no people, anywhere.
Dena’s heart started to race. She took a cautious step into the foyer. ‘Who is it?’ she demanded. ‘Anybody here?’ There was no answer.
She held the front door open with her foot and tried to look up the staircase to her own doorway. It got darker as the stairs went up, and she could not see her own landing for the gloom. She summoned her angriest voice. ‘Brian, is that you?’
Once again, there was no answer. He wouldn’t just stand there in the dark, not answering. Even Brian wouldn’t do that, she told herself. And then she thought about Jennifer. Who had been lying in wait for her? Someone was out there. Someone as yet unknown to the police. Dena hesitated, and looked back at her car. Maybe I should go out and get in my car and drive away. Someone had broken that window and unlocked the door. They might still be inside.
Her arms were trembling, and she felt as if she could not hold her bags a moment longer. She set them down, propping the door open, and then, remembering her trip to the hardware store, rummaged in the Truvalue bag and pulled out the hammer and set of screwdrivers she had bought on impulse, waiting in line. She weighed them in her hands, and tossed the screwdrivers back in the bag. Gripping the hammer, she felt instantly more in control. She hesitated at the propped-open door, trying to decide.
He was trying to scare her. To unnerve her and keep her off-balance. The thought of him coming after her, breaking into her building, did scare her. But, at the same time, the idea of him trying to intimidate her was infuriating. She’d been single for years, and never been afraid to walk into her apartment building, even in the dark. Now, because of her baby’s father, she was hesitating at her own doorstep, unable to go in to her own place and sit down, after a weary day. You bastard, she thought. I know it’s you. And I’m not going to let you ruin my life. She hefted the hammer, and thought, for a moment, that she hoped he was still there. The thought of whacking him with it was almost tempting. All right, get it together, girl, she chided herself. You can’t let him win. You have to be able to go into your apartment without someone holding your hand. There’s not going to be anyone to hold your hand.
She left her bags at the door and then, deliberately, Dena began to hum, and mount the stairs, her grip damp on the handle of the hammer. With every step she glanced up, and the landing became clearer and more visible. She frowned when she saw that, indeed, there was something at her door, but it wasn’t a person. It was some sort of squatty, oblong thing.
As she neared the landing, she recognized it. For a moment she felt weak with relief. And then, in the next instant, furious. Brian had been here all right. The object on the landing was her gym bag. Nothing else. No other suitcases. A white envelope that said ‘Dena’ rested between the straps. Dena exhaled a noisy sigh. She quickly unlocked her door and tossed the zippered bag inside. It was light, as if it had almost nothing in it. The thought of him choosing a few items to return to her was humiliating somehow. Oh well, at this point she’d take what she could get, she thought. She was grateful that Sergeant Watkins had had the presence of mind to pack up that one bag for her on the night she left Brian. Otherwise, she’d be shopping for underwear over at Goodwill.
Wearily, she went back down, gathered up her packages, slammed the door shut behind her and locked it. She remounted the stairs and went inside.
Humble as it was, Dena was glad to be back in the little apartment. She sat for a minute, collecting her thoughts, and then went into the kitchen and put on the kettle for a cup of tea. Slowly, deliberately, she went about opening and emptying the bags she had bought while she waited for the water to boil, ignoring the gym bag and the note which seemed to shout her name. She distributed the little comforts around the house – put up the new shower curtain and laid out the bathmat, hooked up the reading lamp and arranged the new toiletries she’d bought. At one point she thought she heard a faint, unfamiliar scratching sound, but when she stopped to listen, she didn’t hear it anymore. She went back to her housekeeping, throwing out the scraps of old soap, and wiping off the soap dishes for the fresh bars. She unwrapped the flawed, but perfectly serviceable new sheets she’d picked up at the linen outlet and went to the empty closet and hung up the black, knit dress she had managed to find at the Kmart. She left the hammer on the table.
The teakettle whistled and she went in and poured herself a cup. Then, she sat down at the dinette table and pulled the gym bag over to her. She smiled at her own naiveté, remembering, when she moved here, that she had vowed to work out right up until the day she gave birth. That resolve had faded as her girth expanded. Maybe I’ll start again, she thought. Go back to the gym. She tossed the envelope off the bag and opened the zipper.
At first, she thought it was empty. She could see nothing in the dark recesses of the bag except for something that looked like a hairbrush. You bastard, she thought. I want my stuff back. She started to reach inside, to lift out the brush, when all of a sudden, the hairbrush moved of its own volition. Something scrambled in the bag. Not a hairbrush. Fur. Coarse, bristly fur.
She screamed, and dropped the bag. The pointy snout, and agitated black eyes of a barn rat protruded between the zipper teeth.
‘Oh my God,’ she cried, ‘oh my God.’ She was covered with gooseflesh and her heart was beating wildly. She clapped her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming as the creature scrambled out of the bag and darted across the floor, its long tail vibrating. The rat scurried frantically along the molding, its clawed feet scrabbling against the floorboards, until it suddenly dove into a dark, narrow space in one corner and disappeared into the wall.
Dena’s stomach was turning over and, for a minute, she thought she was going to vomit. She hugged herself, and shuddered. It was in the wall. Her wall. She’d seen it go in there. Oh my God, she thought. For a second she huddled there, too terrified to move. Then, she realized she had to act quickly. You can’t let it come back in. Pull yourself together. Cover up that space. With what, she thought, looking around frantically? Under the sink. She went over and opened the cabinet door with trembling hands. There were some rags in a pile, next to the cleaning items. She picked up a handful of rags, went over and squatted down, stuffing the rags in the hole. Then she looked around the room, her eyes darting from one corner to the next. Anything that looked like a hole was stuffed with a rag.
She looked around and saw, with sense of revulsion, her gym bag, still gaping open on the floor. I will never use this again, she thought. I don’t even want it around me. She reached down and picked up the bag. With one swift motion she zippered it up, and quickly shoved it into one of her empty shopping bags, so that she would not even have to touch it. Holding the shopping bag at arm’s length, she opened the apartment door and looked around outside. The hall was quiet. She went downstairs, and took the bag out to the trash cans behind the house. She picked up a lid and dropped the whole thing inside, holding her breath against the smell of the garbage. She jammed the plastic lid back down and ran back into the house, shivering. She mounted the stairs, went back into the apartment, slammed the door and locked it.
The white envelope with her name on it was lying on the floor in front of her. She bent down, picked it up and tore it open, her hands trembling. There was one sheet in the envelope and, on it, he had written only one sentence. ‘You cannot do this to me,’ it said.
Dena crushed the paper in her fist and threw it across the room. The crinkled ball of paper landed only a few feet away from her. She sat back down in the chair, her eyes suddenly brimming with tears, staring at the piece of paper on the floor as if it were alive.
The phone rang, and she jumped, muffling a shriek. She stared at the ringing phone with hatred, as if the person at the other end could see the animosity in her gaze. After about ten rings, echoing in the silent apartment, it stopped. Dena looked again at the wadded up note on the floor. She could still picture the words on the page. You cannot do this to me. Oh Brian, she thought. How could I have been so wrong about you? And her next question, the one she didn’t even want to consider was, what are you capable of? Are you completely crazy? Was it you whom Jennifer found when she opened the door the other day? She realized that the possibility of it was paralyzing. She was afraid to even get up from her chair.
Then she set her jaw. No, she thought. Whatever you are, you cannot do this to me. She pushed herself out of the chair, picked up her phone and pressed a contact number.
A woman answered. ‘Monroe police department,’ she said.
‘I’d … I’d like to report a break-in,’ she said.
‘Is this an emergency?’ the dispatcher asked. ‘Do you have reason to believe that the intruder is still on the premises?’
Dena looked around the dreary little apartment. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No. He’s gone. It was my old … boyfriend, but he’s gone.’
‘Oh,’ said the dispatcher. ‘OK. Well, give me the information. I’ll send a car around. We’re shorthanded right now. They’re having a press conference.’
‘OK,’ said Dena, obediently supplying the information.
‘Will someone be there to let us in?’ asked the dispatcher.
Dena felt her heart sink, as she looked around the apartment. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘We’ll get somebody over there as soon as possible.’
‘Thank you,’ Dena whispered. She could not stop shivering. She put her coat back on. It made no difference. In the bedroom, on the sagging twin bed, she saw the blanket and an old quilt. She went in and crawled up on the bed, her back against the headboard, the blankets wrapped around her. Her teeth were chattering, and her fingers which clutched the blankets, were like ice.
The room in the Town Hall where the city council met every Tuesday was a modestly sized ochre-colored auditorium with a wall of windows that looked out on the gray beauty of the Delaware River rolling sluggishly by. The proscenium was outfitted with a horseshoe-shaped table with a microphone at each place, and the floor of the auditorium held rows of seats, supplemented today by folding metal chairs, which were normally set out only for meetings regarding the most controversial of local issues.
This evening, the room was crowded, and wires crisscrossed the worn wood floor like black snakes. Reporters and video-cam operators from Philadelphia, Trenton and even New York stations had converged for the police press conference regarding the brutal murder of Jennifer Hubbell. It wasn’t that murder itself was so unusual – these reporters had a murder or more a day to choose from in their home cities. No, it was the contrast between a savage murder and the idyllic environs of Monroe which made for compelling footage on the evening news. Monroe was the kind of town where people flocked on three-day weekends, filling up the quaint inns and bed and breakfasts, strolling by the river, antiquing in the shops. The image of a girl, battered and left for dead in the charming little cottage on these idyllic streets, was worth the trip out of town.
Chief Lou Potter, the mayor, Tyrell Watkins and two other city council members were conversing, sotto voce, in preparation to taking their seats. A young man who worked at the high-school audiovisual department was tapping on the live microphones in preparation for the briefing. Reporters for the local weekly newspaper and the radio station, long-haired and dressed in jeans, regarded the big city reporters, clad in expensive blazers and perfect hair, with a combination of contempt and excitement. It was undeniably heady to be in on a story that could summon this kind of firepower, and to have the inside track. On the other hand, it was embarrassing to be called on and have to announce the name of a paper or a station’s call letters with a zero recognition factor.
The high-school kid at the microphone said, ‘Testing,’ and the sound boomed out across the room. The middle-aged news director at the local radio station announced in a loud voice, ‘Well, if everybody would shut up, maybe we could get started. Some of us have a station to run. We can’t sit here all day.’
As if in answer to this complaint, Lou Potter took a seat at the center of the dais, and the others began to seat themselves on either side of him. ‘Good evening,’ said Lou into the microphone, and the volume made everybody jump. Lou frowned at the hapless technician from the high school, who quickly made some adjustments. Lou waited patiently and then, when the young man had withdrawn, Lou leaned over the mike again.
‘I have a brief statement to make and then I’ll take questions.’ He began, in a modulated voice, to recite the facts of the case as they were known to the police. Before he could even finish, questions were being shouted from the floor. Lou tried to answer them as they seemed relevant.
‘No, we don’t have a suspect in custody and yes, at the present time, the victim’s husband is cooperating fully with our investigation.’
‘Is it true that the victim was pregnant?’ asked a reporter.
‘Sadly, yes,’ said Lou.
‘What about the battered woman that was staying there?’ shouted a man in a trench coat whom Lou had never set eyes on before. Lou glanced over at Tyrell with an incredulous expression, as if to say, how do they get this information? Tyrell looked down at his folded hands and shook his head. Like Lou, he was amazed that strangers could descend on the town and seem to know more than they did, overnight.
‘The Hubbells did have a houseguest at the time of the murder. The woman was at work when this happened. Naturally, we’re questioning everyone in the household.’
A loud buzz erupted in the room and Lou pointed to a female reporter from Philly who was standing near the back. Beside her, the back door opened, and Captain Van Brunt slipped into the auditorium. ‘Chief, what about reports that you are looking for a workman who might have been there on a job?’ the pretty, no-nonsense reporter asked in a loud voice.
Lou cleared his throat. ‘We are trying to locate anyone who might have information about Mrs Hubbell’s death. I have no other comment on that at this time,’ he said. ‘When we have any more information, we will pass it along to you. That’s all.’
Abruptly, Lou stood up. Tyrell, still seated, looked up and saw that Heath Van Brunt, dressed in a three-piece suit, was cruising in their direction. Lou, who was swarmed by reporters, did not see his captain approaching, so Tyrell came down off the dais to greet him.
‘Hello, Captain,’ he said. They shook hands perfunctorily. ‘Did you just get in?’
Heath looked around at the mob of newspeople and his eyes shone with excitement. ‘About ten minutes ago. Good to be back,’ he said.
Tyrell knew that he should say, Good to have you back, but he wasn’t that accomplished a liar. ‘How was your trip?’ he asked.
Heath tugged at the hem of his vest in a gesture Tyrell found irritating. ‘Interesting. The conference was extremely informative. My interviews in Boston didn’t prove especially illuminating, however. I guess you heard about my visit with the ex-wife.’
Tyrell nodded. ‘We already spoke to him about it.’
‘Everybody I talked to up there was knocking themselves out trying to tell me what a nice guy he was,’ Heath complained.
‘He still has no alibi,’ Tyrell said.
‘Well, that’s something,’ Heath said hopefully.
‘He seems genuinely broken up,’ Tyrell admitted.
‘What’s this bit about the workman?’ Heath asked. He leaned toward Tyrell and Tyrell could smell garlic on his breath. ‘I heard somebody asking about that when I came in.’
‘Something I got from a neighbor,’ said Tyrell. ‘She saw a green van parked outside there at the approximate time of death.’
‘Really?’ Heath considered this with interest.
‘We’re checking on the workmen who were involved in their renovation. I thought maybe the husband surprised her in a tryst when he came home early. You know, some guy that had been around, working on the house …’ Proud of his theory, Tyrell was quick to share it. ‘Even the nicest guy might flip out over that.’
‘Oh, when it comes to wives, it wouldn’t take all that much,’ said Van Brunt dismissively. Then he laughed. ‘That’s right. You’re not married. How would you know?’
His tone was insulting, but Tyrell refused to let his irritation show. ‘We’re going to try and locate the van.’
The captain did not seem enthusiastic. ‘Any luck so far?’
‘It looks like the only green van belonged to Ranger Electric. I’ll go over there and talk to them tomorrow. See who had it out.’
‘See who had keys,’ Heath corrected him importantly. ‘Ranger Electric. I know that outfit. They did some work for Bev and me. They’ve got a black kid working for them who has a juvvie record. I recognized him when he came to the house. I can tell you I kept my eye on him while he was working there.’
Tyrell stiffened. ‘Really,’ he said coldly.
Heath shrugged. ‘It could be important. It could have been a robbery that went south.’
‘There wasn’t any break-in. Nothing stolen.’
‘Maybe she let him in. Maybe she knew him from having been there before. Let him in, and then caught him trying to palm something. Check it out.’
Tyrell felt his temper rising, and reminded himself that he was outranked. ‘Yessir,’ he said. Yessir, you’d love that, wouldn’t you? That would fit right in with your preferred profile. A violent, senseless killing? All you had to say in this country was ‘black man’ and everybody nodded knowingly. The all-purpose villain.
Sometimes Tyrell wondered how he was ever going to work for Van Brunt when Lou retired. Tyrell had been a soldier, and he was used to answering to people he did not especially admire, but there was consolation in the fact that those people had to answer to others higher up than them. This was different. Chief of police in Monroe was the top of the food chain. A virtual dictatorship.
Van Brunt finally saw his chance to reach the chief and he sidled over, close to Lou’s ear. Tyrell looked at Lou’s tired face, the dark circles under his eyes, and, even more than usual, he worried about the chief’s health. Van Brunt, by contrast, after a long road trip, looked relaxed and healthy. As if he could go on forever. Apparently conscious of the sergeant’s eyes on him, Van Brunt turned and winked at Tyrell in a conspiratorial manner. Tyrell was unable to smile.