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| The Remarkable Intruder a novella by Peter Swanson Chapter 1 I hadn’t expected to hear from Caroline Slaughter again, but not expecting something and having it happen often go together, I’ve found. A few years ago I’d asked Caroline to marry me, at least twice, and she’d said no, at least as many times, and when that sort of thing happens, it’s sometimes hard to be friends. But it wasn’t really me she was looking for the night she phoned, even though she initially asked for me by name. “Tommy?” “Speaking.” “Tommy, it’s Caro--” “Hi Caroline,” I said. “I recognize your voice. How are you?” “Not so good, actually.” “Oh?” “I’m being stalked.” “Right now?” I said. In retrospect, kind of a dumb thing to say. “Not at this very moment, no. At least I hope not. No, but he’s been in my apartment.” “Where are you now? Where are you living?” “I’m in New York again. I’m sorry I didn’t call you earlier. It’s just that--” “Don’t worry about it. So tell me. Tell me about this stalker.” I leaned the length of the telephone cord to shut the apartment window. It was mid October and the nights were getting cold. “Are you still living with Miles?” she asked. Her voice, deep and accentless, had a little quiver to it. “Uh huh.” “I was hoping ... Not that I didn’t think you’d be able to help me ... But I was thinking that I should probably tell you and Miles at the same time, that way ...” “Right. That makes perfect sense. I’m not insulted at all. It won’t be the first time my intellect has been unfavorably compared to Miles--” “No, it’s just--” she interrupted. “I’m kidding. My brain’s the 98-pound weakling on the beach and Miles’ brain is Charles Atlas. I’m sure Miles would be happy to see you again. What time would work for you?” “As soon as possible. I’m scared and the police aren’t able to do anything.” “Okay,” I said and glanced across the living room just as Miles was entering it. He was wearing the green suit and holding a Gibson, neither of which surprised me. “It’s Friday,” I continued. “What about tomorrow morning? For brunch maybe?” “That would work,” she said, her voice pitched a little higher than usual. “But I don’t suppose tonight’s a possibility? I know it’s Friday and all, but I’d really appreciate it. If you can’t, I’d understand.” I looked across the room. Miles had settled into the high-backed upholstered chair. He had removed a George Bernard Shaw anthology from his jacket pocket and opened it with one hand. I noticed that his other jacket pocket also contained a book, unidentifiable, and I wondered if he planned on reading both that evening. I, on the other hand, had dinner plans with my current girlfriend, Sherry Hoyle. Truth be told, Sherry and I were about one cancelled date away from a break-up, but suddenly I didn’t care so much about that. As far as I was concerned, Caroline was Charles Atlas and Sherry was a 98-pound weakling. “Tonight’ll work,” I said into the phone. “You’re a lifesaver,” she said back, and I gave her our address. She said she’d be over in an hour. Chapter 2 Miles and I had met Caroline on an airplane from Hartford to London about three-and-a-half years ago, in March of 1988. The story of how we met sheds almost no light on the main plot of this story but it’s a tale I like and I’ll tell it anyway. It was the first time that Miles had helped Caroline, and it led directly to her wanting to bring her latest dilemma our way. Boarding the plane those three years ago, Miles and I had already decided who was to sit in which seat--Miles wanted the center--but as we made our way down the narrow aisle, I had gotten an eyeful of Caroline in the window seat of our row, and quickly whispered to Miles that there had been a change of plan. He glanced in the direction of row 33, seeing what I had seen, a pale-skinned brunette with a tortoiseshell pair of reading glasses perched on a ski-slope nose. Splayed open in her hands was a paperback edition of Exley’s A Fan’s Notes. “She has a boyfriend,” Miles whispered back. I didn’t know how he knew that but I was sure that he was correct. “So?” I responded, and there might have been some whininess in my tone. “Please,” I added. Miles conceded and we slid into our seats, me in the center, and Miles on the end. My shoulder lightly brushed against her and she glanced my way--her eyes a bright, watery blue. “Tommy Tisdale,” I said and held my hand out. She took it and gave me her name in her low humming voice. “So Caroline, I can’t promise to be as entertaining as Exley, but if you want a break--” “I’ll let you know,” she said and dismissively dipped her head back toward her book. I didn’t despair. It was a long flight and she would get bored of reading soon enough and I had faith in the Tisdale charm. In the meantime I had brought a travel-sized backgammon set and Miles had promised to play with me. Playing backgammon with Miles, as opposed to playing something like chess, meant that I had an occasional chance at winning. Just the other night, for instance, I had a string of doubles in the end game and nearly gammoned him. I had been savoring that victory ever since. I opened the board and we began to play, Miles keeping one eye on the game and one in his book, a translation of Dante’s Inferno. We played four games in all, and I won one of them, rolling an improbable set of double fives when what I needed, exactly, was just that. After we’d put the board away, and as I rummaged in my carryon for my paperback copy of Fletch and the Man Who, Caroline Slaughter put her own book away, stood, and squeezed by first mine and then Miles’ knees on the way to the lavatory. She had her back to us, so that we both got an eye-level view of her posterior, jiggling past in a pair of plaidish pants. “Tell me about her boyfriend,” I said to Miles when she was out of earshot. “How do you know she has one?” “She’s reading A Fan’s Note,” he replied. “No woman willingly reads that book of her own accord. It’s obvious that it’s her boyfriend’s favorite novel. He’s overseas on a semester abroad in London, and she’s coming to visit him. Before he left he gave her that copy of his book and she promised to read it. Now she’s cramming. If you want his name, it will be on the inside cover.” I glanced down the aisle of the jumbo jet. I could see her, waiting underneath a sign that indicated Occupied. I pulled the book from where she’d stowed it--the pocket on the back of the seat--and flipped the well-worn cover open. The name Mark Schnadig was scrawled in black ink in the upper right corner. I put the book back and turned to Miles. “You were right. Mark Schnadig. If she marries him she should keep her last name.” “I doubt she’ll marry him, but I also doubt she’ll marry you.” “I don’t want to marry her. I just want to talk with her. Got any suggestions?” I didn’t really know why I was asking Miles for advice on how to talk to a girl. Miles was a lot of things, including one of the smartest human beings on the planet--that I was sure of--but he was no ladies’ man. In the time I’d known him, since we had been roommates our freshman year at college, Miles had shown little interest in the female species. Occasionally a member of that fairer sex had shown interest in him--he was not unhandsome, Miles, with his long reddish hair and fox-like features, a slim build, and dapper clothes--but he was not interested. Nor was he interested in members of the same sex. Some might call such a condition being asexual, but I didn’t think that was the issue. I simply thought that Miles found the realm of sex and romance less interesting than the infinite realm of books, of movies, of history, of art. If one day he consumed it all--he was well on his way--then maybe his curiosity would turn to such subjects as Caroline Slaughter’s perfectly proportioned bottom. “Tell her she’s pretty,” Miles responded. “Then tell her that you’re rich. That combination usually works.” “Hmm,” I responded, as Caroline appeared at the end of our aisle. We moved our knees again to allow her access. After she’d settled back into her seat but before she had a chance to get her nose back into her book, I took the opportunity to speak. “Don’t you think it’s a strange coincidence that the prettiest girl on this plane wound up seated next to the best-looking man.” “Where?” she asked, swiveling her head to look around the cabin, then added, “I have a boyfriend.” “I’d been meaning to talk with you about that. I think if you really loved this boyfriend of yours, then you wouldn’t have waited till the last moment to read his all-time favorite book.” Her eyes widened slightly and she glanced toward her book in its pouch as though it might be emblazoned with neon telling the world its secrets. As usual, Miles had hit the nail on the head. “How did you--” I explained to her how Miles and I had arrived at our conclusions. I had her interest. Maybe not her admiration, and definitely not her trust, but having her interest was a good start. “You think you’re pretty clever,” she said. “Not me. But Miles is,” I said and Miles dipped his head and glanced over at our row-mate. “Nice to meet you,” he said and gave her his shy, whiskery smile. The drink cart came by and Miles eyed it with curiosity. He’d lately taken an interest in Grappa--the liqueur made from the leftover stems and peels of wine grapes--and I knew he was wondering if he’d be able to procure some from the red-white-and-blue stewardess. “Six whiskies,” I said, before he had a chance to embarrass himself. “Three cups with ice, and three ginger-ales. Please.” I thought I’d order for the row. If they didn’t want the whiskey-and-ginger-ales then more for me. Win-win. Miles accepted his two whiskies, and Caroline accepted the ginger-ale but not her two miniature bottles of Crown Royal. I placed them on the edge of my dinner tray that was closest to her. “In case you change your mind,” I said. “Probably not,” she replied. “So now that I know you have a boyfriend to whom you’re dedicated, we can get to know one another platonically. Been to London before?” “No.” “You’ll love it. Baked beans for breakfast. What’s your boyfriend doing there?” “He’s at the London School of Economics for the year.” “So you haven’t seen him for--” “I saw him at Christmas, but before that it was three months, and now it’s been two months.” “That’s a lot of away time,” I said and took a sip of my cocktail. “Yeah, well. I think it’s worth it.” “You only think.” “No. I’m sure about him, about us. I said I think because I’m not sure he feels the same way about me.” “But you’re going to visit him.” “No, I know. He wants me to come, it’s just that I think he may be cheating on me.” “I knew it, the moment I met you.” “Thanks a lot.” “No. I meant, I thought to myself, there’s a girl who has a boyfriend who’s not worthy of her. She needs to aim higher. If he’s cheating on you then he’s not worth a trip to the wettest city in Europe. I could smuggle you to Italy in my carry-on if you want. That’s where Miles and I are going--Italy. Better food than England. Less rain. Less cheating.” Caroline, who had been studying her hands for the majority of our conversation, looked up and over at me for the first time. Her rigid mouth had curled at the edges a bit. “I didn’t say I knew he was cheating on me. It’s just that I think he may be cheating on me?” “Tell me why you think he is,” I said. She took a deep, chest-expanding breath. “It’s not one thing, really, it’s lots of little things. Maybe I’ll have some of that whiskey in my ginger-ale. Thanks, that’s enough. You want to hear this?” “Of course I do.” Caroline shifted in her seat so that she was partly facing me. The Tisdale charm had hit its target once again. “We dated all last year, our sophomore year, and things got very intense. Not at first, but by Christmas break. Our families met and liked each other. He told me he loved me. I told him I loved him. And we both started to refer to ourselves as a we.” “You’re confusing me with pronouns.” “I’ve been known to do that. What I mean is we started to talk about the future. I’ll give an example: he’d say something like, when we graduate, maybe we could move to New York. Stuff like that, enough to make a girl think that maybe she’s met the man of her dreams...” “And this was a good thing?” “It wasn’t a bad thing. I knew we were both young, but when you meet the right person, who knows...Anyhoo, the year goes great, the relationship is great. We see each other over the summer, not a lot but not a little--he was in New York, I was in Philadelphia, and then he moves to London for a full-year away, and I went on a semester-to-sea.” “How was that?” “If I never see a boat again...” “Let me ask you something. Before you parted ways, did you have a conversation, make a decision about fidelity? You must have had ground rules.” “Of course we did. We talked about it and both agreed to remain faithful, no matter what happened, that we would see each other over the holidays, and at least once more sometime in the spring, that it wasn’t a whole year apart. And I believed him, which was the stupid thing to do because, obviously, he never meant it.” “But you did?” “Yes.” “And you haven’t cheated on him?” “No, of course not. And I’ve had several chances.” “At sea?” “Mm hm. And other places.” Caroline took a large swallow of her drink. To my right I heard the familiar sound of Miles briskly turning a page of his book. I knew that even with the vacuum cleaner hum of the airplane, and Caroline’s low lilting voice, that Miles--while reading--had heard every word she’d said. He’s got ears like a jackrabbit. “So how can you be so sure that he’s cheated on you?” “I’m not sure, otherwise I wouldn’t be going. But I just know, like an instinct. He’s changed...His feelings toward me, they’ve changed. We’ve talked on the phone--not a lot--but in September of last year he sounded normal and in December he didn’t. And there was a girl--Aggie he called her--whom he’d met at college. He said how she was his first real friend and how much I would like her, etcetera. And then he stopped mentioning her. Then, over break we saw each other but it was at his parents’ house, and it was awkward anyway, and we barely got a chance to be alone, but he’d changed. He was guilty, I could tell, and he just wasn’t his normal self. And he did this thing that I’ve seen before: he pretended to be depressed. I’d ask him what was wrong, and he’d say how he just wasn’t feeling himself, how he was kind of down ever since the schoolyear had begun. I know exactly what he was doing--he was laying the groundwork so that when it came time to break up with me, he could say how it had to do with him, with this phase he was going through.” “It’s a tried and true method,” I conceded. “I could see right through it.” “But you didn’t bring any of this up over Christmas?” “No I didn’t, although it wasn’t as if I had a lot of chances. I don’t want to ask him over the phone, and I don’t--” The plane hit some turbulence and bucked upwards, then sank. Caroline made a sound like a hiccup, and my hand instinctively reached to steady my little plastic cup. Miles turned another page with the tip of his index finger, making a sound like--for lack of an actual word--flisk. I asked Caroline, “You okay?” “I hate flying.” “Me too. I recommend whiskey.” The plane did its dance move again, rising and sinking. The Captain’s voice came over the loudspeaker, making the sorry-folks-but-it-seems-we’ve-hit-a-rough-patch speech. I heard another of Miles’ pages turning. Flisk. Miles was what I liked to call a semi-agoraphobic, someone who preferred the solace of an armchair to the company of other living souls. I’d asked him once why he wasn’t scared of flying. “Safe,” he’d simply responded. “Planes don’t crash because of turbulence,” I said to Caroline but also to reassure myself. “They don’t?” “Think about it. You ever hear of a plane accident that was caused by strong wind? It would be ridiculous.” “I’ll take your word for it.” “Let’s talk some more about Mark Schnadig,” I said as the dinner service made its way to our row. Miles and Caroline opted for the beef bourguignon, while I went for the salmon en croute. In hindsight they had chosen correctly. “Wait a minute,” Caroline said, as she peeled away the foil that covered her oval plate of beef. “How do you know Mark’s name?” “You told me, didn’t you?” “I don’t think so.” “Really?” I watched her eyes dart from the food on her tray to the book in its magazine pocket. I watched the cogs in her pretty head turn. “You looked at my book,” she finally said. “Miles told me to,” I said. “He said your boyfriend’s name would be in it.” Miles glanced up at the two of us but said nothing. “That’s okay,” Caroline said. “I’m too upset at my boyfriend to also be upset at you two.” We ate our food and drank our drinks and the turbulence disappeared. I scolded Miles and he put his book away while we all ate. Caroline got the clean-tray award for finishing all her food, including the little pile of wet green beans. “I love airplane food,” she said. I offered her the rest of my fish but she wisely turned it down. The stewardess came around and offered tea or coffee. We all declined. “So what are you going to do?” I said. “About Mark Schnadig.” I gave the pronunciation of his name the contempt it deserved. “I don’t honestly know. I’d like to say that I’m going to confront him. That’s what I want to do. I want to know the truth, one way or another. But if he’s acting normal, I mean if things are suddenly good between us again, then I don’t know, I might not say anything at all.” “Do you want to know?” This question came from Miles, unexpectedly joining the conversation from Seat C. “Of course I do. If I could know without having to ask him directly...” “I have a suggestion.” Miles again, leaning forward slightly in his seat to directly address Caroline. “Listen to what he says,” I said. “He’s very smart.” “Suggestion one,” Miles said. “The first night you spend with him, you need to tell him that you don’t think you should have sex. You’ve had sex with him already, I’m guessing?” “It’s not your business, but yes we have.” “Right, perfect. Tell him that it’s been so long that you think you should take it slow, that it wouldn’t feel right to be intimate your first night back together.” “Okay.” “If he agrees then he’s cheating on you.” “Really? That’s it. That’s all I need to do.” “Well, it won’t be foolproof. I don’t know your boyfriend well enough so I’m guessing here. But if he’s been faithful, waiting for you to come visit him, then it’ll drive him crazy to wait. He won’t understand, and he’ll want to cut to the chase, so to speak. But if he’s cheated, then he’ll already be feeling guilty, maybe even be worrying about your first night together. He’ll be relieved when you tell him that sex is temporarily off-limits.” “That makes sense,” Caroline said, pensively drinking the last of her whiskey. “It does,” I said, throwing my two cents in. “But if you’re unconvinced,” Miles continued, “then I think you should bring up the woman you think he’s cheated on you with--Aggie. Has he only ever called her that before?” “What, Aggie? Yes.” “Then ask about her. But don’t refer to her as Aggie. Refer to her as Agatha. See if he corrects you, tells you her name is really a contraction of Agnes. Or see if he says nothing at all, which’ll mean that he knows her name is Agatha and he thinks he’s told you that. Because, and this is the point, if he’s sleeping with her, he’ll know what her birth name is--it’s standard bedroom talk--but if he’s not sleeping with her then he won’t know. No casual acquaintance cares whether their friend Aggie was christened Agatha or Agnes or just plain Aggie. It’s unimportant.” “Okay. Makes sense. What else?” “I can give you one more, and this one is foolproof. Ask him who he prefers, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. If he says the Stones then he’s cheating on you.” Caroline laughed, and looked at me. “Trust him,” I said, in response to her unasked question. “He’s never been wrong.” Chapter 3 The main cabin lights were dimmed and the plane droned on through the night, rapidly traversing the Atlantic. Miles went back to his book. Caroline dozed a while, her head falling to the side and resting softly on my shoulder. I thought to myself how it was a funny thing that we go through life generally only sleeping next to people we are intimate with, or married to. Maybe we slept in the same bed with some cousin when we were kids and on a family trip, but other than that, the person immediately next to you drooling and snoring is someone we know very very well. Except, of course, on airplanes. Maybe that’s why I always fall in love with any attractive girl sitting next to me on air transportation; it was simply a Pavlovian response. Caroline snorted a little, then woke up, glanced at me embarrassed. “Was I sleeping on you?” “I don’t know,” I said. “I was asleep too.” It was a lie but I didn’t want her to feel she’d compromised herself. We soared into the rising sun, a blinding yellow light that woke a plane-full of red-eyed passengers. Once we were over England we sank gradually toward Heathrow, acres and acres of farmed land and clustered villages passing hazily below us. Caroline and I looked out the oval window together. “Let me give you our address in Italy,” I said. “Just in case things don’t work out with you and Mark--” “Oh, I don’t--” “Just go to a travel agent in London and show your student ID and you’ll be able to get a cheap flight to Florence. Once you’re there it won’t cost you a thing.” “Okay,” she said, accepting the address, “but--” “Just in case,” I said. “I hope I never hear from you again.” We all disembarked together but parted ways as Miles and I made our way to our connecting flight and Caroline went to baggage claim. She shook both our hands and said she was glad to meet us. Before boarding our plane for the second leg, Miles and I had time for an abysmal coffee in a smoky lounge. I said to him: “I understood your first two test questions. But what was up with the Beatles and The Rolling Stones?” “Well, anyone who’s favorite book is A Fan’s Notes would be a Rolling Stones fan. Wouldn’t you agree?” “I don’t know. Would I?” “Of course you would. If you had any sense.” “So you set him up. She’ll ask him who he prefers and he’ll say The Stones and she’ll assume he’s cheating on her.” “More or less, I guess, but it’s not so sinister. You agree from her story that he probably is cheating on her.” “Yes.” “So I’m doing her a favor. Besides, anyone whose favorite book is A Fan’s Notes would naturally be a cheater. If he lied to her about his favorite book, however, and it really is Lucky Jim, say, or The House With a Clock in Its Walls, then, naturally, his favorite band would be the Beatles. He’ll tell her and that will be that. Simple logic. No harm done.” “I’ll take your word for it.” His early morning chipperness was starting to irk me. “Regardless, I did you a favor.” “Did you?” “Wait and see.” Four days later we received a postcard in the mail at our rented villa. The front of the card was one of those ubiquitous London images--a spiky-haired, safety-pin-pierced punk waiting in line at a red telephone booth--that had absolutely no basis in reality since about one month in London in the late seventies. The postcard read: Miles and Tommy, Guess what? Totally unfaithful. I hope there’s room in the villa. Caroline Slaughter So Caroline came to stay with us. The first night we drank too much of Miles’ awful grappa, then got tangled up in some vines on a midnight walk. While untangling ourselves we kissed. On her fourth night, the night before the day she was going to leave, I jokingly asked her to marry me. I say jokingly, meaning that if she had actually said yes, it wouldn’t have been a joke. Instead, she said no, causing me to simultaneously break inside while also breathing an enormous sigh of relief. It’s not that I really wanted to get married, it’s just that she was so damn pretty. Chapter 4 After Italy, Miles and I spent a summer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and then we moved to New York City, where we’ve been ever since. In case you’re wondering, I took a job managing 401K accounts for a living, and Miles, being the beneficiary of a trust fund that ensures that so long as he maintains a roommate and a limited wardrobe he won’t ever need to work, began his occupation as a completist--meaning that if he reads one book by Anthony Trollope, then he’ll read every book by Anthony Trollope, followed by every book about Anthony Trollope. Same goes for film directors, actors, lyricists, muralists, etcetera. When I first met him--our freshman year at college--he was reading all the journalism of A. J. Liebling. I would return to our dorm, blotto on cheap beer, and he would want to discuss techniques of French cooking. Caroline, after our time in Italy, went back to Hartford, then lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, then New York City for a while (my second proposal), then San Francisco, and now, apparently, she was back in New York, with a stalker close behind. Exactly fifty-seven minutes after our telephone call had ended, the door-buzzer sounded and Caroline came up to our apartment. I forced Miles to go to the door and answer it while I sat in one of our upholstered chairs, pretending to read that day’s Times. I sipped a whiskey. “Miles,” I heard her say. “It’s so good to see you.” I stood up at the last possible moment and Caroline and I did a little awkward dance of negotiation between a handshake and a hug. She was gorgeous as ever, but her skin had an unhealthy paleness and she looked like she’d lost a little too much weight. She accepted a glass of white wine and settled on one edge of our living room couch. “So tell us what’s happened?” I said. She ran her fingers, nails unpainted, through her hair, and sighed. “I don’t know where to start exactly. I can tell you the name of who’s stalking me--it’s Andrew Deacon. I went to college with him and he asked me out my sophomore year. I met him at a sorority party--mistake number one--and afterwards I stupidly let him walk me home. He tried to kiss me goodnight, I said no thanks, and that was that, or so I thought. “After that he started following me around campus and to my classes and he even started showing up at my field hockey practices to watch.” I took a moment, just for myself, to picture Caroline in a field hockey outfit, and then continued listening. She told us how she’d confronted him, how she had told him he was making her uncomfortable, told him he’d better stop it or she’d let campus security know. He’d said he wanted to take her out, on a proper date, and that was all he wanted, a chance like anyone else. Eventually she’d taken the issue to the Dean of Students but there was little they could do besides talk to him. The problem had resolved itself when he didn’t return to campus the following year. “And you never heard from him again?” I asked. She smoothed her hands down the tops of her thighs. She was wearing a pair of soft-looking jeans and a white cable-knit sweater the color of cream. “Twice. Once, after I graduated, I got a letter from him that came to my parents’ house. He said he was studying to be a boat-builder and if I was ever in Camden, Maine, maybe I’d visit him. Something like that. It was pretty innocuous. The second letter I got came a year ago, and it was about fifteen pages of how screwed up he was, and how it was all my fault. It was weird but I didn’t give it much thought. I tossed it. I had no idea it would lead to this.” And then she described the this. Caroline lived by herself in a small apartment in midtown. About two weeks ago she’d arrived home to find a note on her coffee-table. She produced it for Miles and I to read. It went: Caroline, I know it’s been a long time but I’ve been busy with my other girlfriend so I haven’t had time for you. But now that Anita and I are sadly no longer together, I can focus all my attention on you. Love, Andrew Deacon “Who’s Anita?” Miles asked. “I didn’t know. I’d never heard her name. At first I didn’t really care because I was too shocked by the note. My apartment was sealed shut, the windows were down, I live in a doorman building, and this note was sitting right on my coffee-table. I called the police, obviously, and they came and checked the place out, and looked at the locks and talked to the doorman, but they found nothing. They said that he probably got hold of a set of my keys somehow and let himself in. They told me to change my locks, and they said I could get a restraining order if I’d like, but they didn’t sound enthusiastic about it. But you wanted to hear about Anita. That’s the scary part. I have a friend that works for the Post and I asked him to see if there were any news stories involving a girl named Anita and a stalker. It was a long shot but still. He got a hit. Anita Blackburn. She was my age, she lived on Cape Cod, and she was murdered about three months ago. She’d been strangled and her house had been burned down.” “Jesus,” I said. “That’s what I thought too. I called her parents. Turns out that before she was killed she’d received several notes from Andrew Deacon. Apparently they went to high school together and he’d pestered her back then. It was the same thing with her. Notes in her place, no sign of break-in. She’d called the police but there was nothing they could do. She’d tried to take out a restraining order but there was no one to deliver it to. They couldn’t locate him. And they haven’t been able to locate him since the murder. Nothing. Not a sign.” “You must be terrified,” I said. “I am.” “I’m sure other friends have offered, but just so you know, our place here is always open to you, if you don’t want to--” “No, I refuse to be kicked out of my place. Besides, if he can get into one of my places, then he can get into another. I plan on staying there until he shows himself.” I glanced at Miles. He was giving Caroline his full attention, although I noticed his fingers ruffling the pages of one of his paperbacks that jutted from his suit-jacket pocket. When I have something deep to say to Miles, he often reads in the middle of our conversations. I was glad that he had refrained from that particular impulse during Caroline’s outpourings. “Do you know all your doormen?” Miles asked. “I do.” “Is it possible that Andrew Deacon is one of them? It’s been a few years since you’ve seen him.” “Not a chance,” she said. “I didn’t think so but it was a possibility. How many locks are on your door?” Miles asked. “Three outside, plus two chain locks inside.” “New locks?” “There used to be only two locks outside, a deadbolt and a doorknob lock, and then a chain inside. I changed one of the locks plus added a second. And I added the second chain inside.” “How long do you think it takes you to unlock all those locks?” “You mean if someone comes to the door?” “No, I mean when you come home. There are three locks, and three keys presumably. It must take you a while to open your door.” “I guess you’re right. It does take a little while. Maybe thirty seconds?” Miles sipped his drink. “I see. I wonder if you could do something for me. If I got you some paper and a pen do you think you could draw the layout of your apartment for me?” “I suppose so.” Miles retreated to his room. I smiled at Caroline who smiled back, a forced grin that barely altered the contours of her face. Miles returned with a pad of sketch paper, a charcoal pencil, and a ceramic ashtray with a green glaze. “I made this ashtray at summer camp,” he said. “You can smoke if you like, while you draw your apartment.” “Thank you,” Caroline said and took her cigarettes from her bag. “Do I smell like smoke?” she asked. “You do,” Miles answered. “Don’t worry about it. I have a good nose.” “He does,” I agreed. It was true. Freshman year Miles knew that I had fooled around with Gretchen McKee because I came home smelling of clove cigarettes and Liz Claiborne perfume. I pulled matches from my coat pocket and lit her Parliament Light for her. All three of us were quiet while she drew. When she was finished she turned the picture around so that Miles and I could see it. It looked like this:  “It’s not exact,” she said. “But you get the idea.” “Where do these windows go?” Miles asked. “Nowhere really. There’s no deck or anything.” “But what do they look out onto?” “The building next door. That’s the extent of my view.” “So the windows are above an alleyway, and I imagine there’s a fire escape that leads down?” “Yes, there’s a fire escape from the bedroom window, and the police thought he might’ve come up that way, but the windows were locked. I just don’t see...” The set of Caroline’s jaw seemed almost locked in place with the stress. “That’s okay,” Miles said. “I was really more interested in what was below your windows. I think we need to talk with Anita Blackburn’s parents, maybe in person.” “So you’ll help me?” Caroline asked, straightening her spine a little, like a theatre-goer anticipating a satisfying second act. “He’ll help you,” I said in response. “Thank you. Thank you both so much.” Chapter 5 The following day, Caroline and I took the commuter rail to Summit, New Jersey, where we borrowed her sister’s car. From there we drove the four hours to Eastham, Massachusetts for a pre-arranged meeting with the Blackburns. Miles declined to join us. He doesn’t do particularly well in cars, and the theatre nearest to our apartment was showing Paulette Goddard movies that weekend, and he assured us that getting a second-hand report would be sufficient. We stuttered through the knotted highways of New Jersey and southern Connecticut, then up and across the radio-less barrens of northern Connecticut and into Massachusetts. It was early afternoon by the time we hit the Sagamore Bridge and coasted over the dazzle of the canal onto the Cape. Eastham was just past the elbow; the Blackburns lived in a small, gray-shingled bungalow dropped down on a tiny square of sand and scrubby pine. They stood waiting for us on their deck, as though they’d each been there for hours, two bowling pins in matching Ragg wool sweaters, each with the same peppery gray hair, cut short and parted on the side. We emerged, with stiff legs and empty stomachs, and Mr. Blackburn came down to greet us, a smile on his face as though we were his own children returning for the holidays. Let me tell you, that brave smile was like a sabre-thrust to the heart; I had prepared myself mentally for grief-stricken parents and all their tears and despair, but I hadn’t prepared myself for dignity and charity in the face of grief. It was almost too much to bear. Mr. Blackburn--Norman he asked us to call him--led us into their comfortable house, and offered us drinks while Mrs. Blackburn--Maria--assembled a platter of little sandwiches. Caroline asked for a large ice-water and I accepted a can of Narragansett beer. We settled in their living room, underneath a pair of watercolors framed in driftwood. Maria and Norman were one of those older couples that had grown soft and indistinct from many, happily-married years, but if you squinted at them you could see the hot young couple they once were. Maria had aqua eyes and a long neck. Her husband was lantern-jawed and wide-shouldered. He reminded me of someone but I couldn’t figure out who. Caroline thanked them for agreeing to meet us and then they thanked us for driving all that way, and then we told them how terrible it was what had happened to their daughter and then they told Caroline how terrible it was that it was happening to her. “You need to let the police know what happened to Anita,” Maria said. “What you need to do is get the hell out of that apartment and get yourself somewhere safe,” Norman said. “We told Anita I don’t know how many times, but she said she wanted to stay in her own place ...” “I know how she felt,” Caroline said. “I don’t want to be scared away from my place. I don’t want him to have that power over me.” “That’s just what our Anita used to say,” Maria said, a furrow deep as a coin-slot forming between her eyes. “We couldn’t change her mind, and look what happened. It’s not worth it. It’s not worth your life to stay in that place. You have to listen to us, honey, we know what we’re talking about. You must have a family?” Caroline nodded. “For them, then, if not for you.” “I agree,” I said, turning to Caroline to add: “But, obviously I understand how you feel as well.” Then I turned back to the Blackburns. “What we really want to do is find a way to catch this bastard, excuse my language. I agree that Caroline should temporarily move out of her apartment but it’s really just a band-aid. He’ll keep stalking her, or if not her, someone else. We need to catch him, and one of the ways of doing that is figuring out how he got into your daughter’s place. We need to know where she was living. Was it an apartment, a house?” “It was a rented house,” Maria said. “In Chatham, about the size of this place, I guess, a little smaller. Anita had a job at a real estate agent’s.” “How long had she had that job?” I asked. “A year. Before that she was living in Boston, where she’d gone to school. We bought this place and she’d come to visit almost every weekend. I don’t think city life agreed with her, so she got the job in Chatham. She moved in with us at first, and then she found her own place. The rent was relatively good because she was a year-round tenant, and not just summer, otherwise she’dve never been able to afford anything in Chatham. “And then the troubles started, sometime in June. She got the first note from Andrew Deacon. We remembered him, of course, because he’d pestered Anita a little in high school. It didn’t seem like too much to worry about at the time.” “Were you here on the Cape when Anita was in high school?” “Oh no. Not back then. Norman was still working so we were in Braintree.” “And what did you know about Andrew Deacon?” “Not much. Like I said, he didn’t seem too much to worry about at the time. He was just a shy, awkward kid with a crush. So we thought.” “What about his family?” “He was an only kid and his parents moved to town around Anita’s sophomore year and then moved out again right after graduation, and as far as I know, they didn’t make much of an impression either way while they were there, wouldn’t you say, hon?” “I guess so,” her husband said. “Where are they now? What do they say about Andrew?” Caroline answered that one. “The police told me they say they haven’t heard from him for years. I guess they live somewhere in Montana now.” “That’s what we heard too,” Maria Blackburn said. I noticed that at some point during our conversation she had slid a hand behind her husband’s elbow and was touching his arm. “What did you think when the first note arrived?” I said. Maria looked at her husband, to see if he wanted to speak. Her quick glance at the thin line of his mouth told her that he didn’t. “Well, we were worried, of course, and Norman wanted--we both wanted--her to come back in with us. But we understood her arguments at the time. Didn’t agree with them, but we know she didn’t want to be scared out of her own place.” Maria flicked her eyes at Caroline as she said this. “I do understand but if she’d been a little more scared she wouldn’t be dead now.” Maria’s composure cracked a little and she squeezed her eyes shut, pressed her fingers to them. “How did the police think he got into her place the first time?” “Windows were left open,” Norman said. “Screens were down but still, it wouldn’t have been very hard. This was June and it was starting to get warm, and so I helped Anita put a couple of air-conditioning units in, one downstairs, and one up in her bedroom. I put in some brackets first and screwed the units into the windowframes, and then she shut and latched the rest of the windows. I figured it was pretty safe. He could get in if he really wanted, but not without making a helluva racket.” “But he got in again,” Maria said, her composure back. “We don’t know how but a couple of weeks later Anita got back from work and there was another note, sitting on the coffee-table. It was a little more threatening, I think, than the first note, although Anita never told us what it said or let us see it. She didn’t want to worry us too much. She called the police again and they searched the place, checked for fingerprints, and nothing. They were baffled. Two weeks later she was dead.” She pressed her fingers to her eyes again. I had more questions to ask, both my own and some that Miles had given to me, but I thought I’d wait a moment. The bright afternoon light inside the room darkened as a cloud outside passed over the sun. Norman spoke first. “We appreciate you two coming here, and we appreciate anything you’re doing in order to catch this monster, but nothing could make us feel worse than if it happened again. That’s why we agreed to talk with you two. Still ...” he said and his eyes skidded around the room, searching for more words. “I have just a few more questions, if you don’t mind,” I said. “Some are from my friend Miles, who’s very good at figuring things out.” Neither of Anita’s parents said anything to stop me from continuing so I went on. “He wanted to know if Anita had any pets?” They shook their heads. “Okay. He also wanted to know if there had been anything out of the ordinary in Anita’s life right before she died. Anything besides the obvious, besides Andrew leaving notes.” “I don’t think so,” Norman said, while Maria cast her eyes at the coffee table and thought. “I don’t think so either,” she finally said. “You sure?” “Well, she’d missed some work. She caught a pretty bad summer cold, and that was unusual for her.” “Okay, one more. Miles wanted to know if Anita was a good cook. I don’t know why but he asked me to ask you.” “She was a very good cook,” Maria said. “She loved to cook.” “Thanks,” I said. “I know this has been hard for you two but we appreciate it. And we”--I turned to look at Caroline, still gripping her unsipped glass of water--"should probably think about going.” My can of Narragansett had been sitting emptily on the coffee table for quite some time. Caroline looked a little pale, her eyes a little damp. She caught me looking at her out of her peripheral vision and looked back. “Oh,” she said. “We should get going. Thank you two so much.” She stood and the rest of us followed suit. “You look a little like our Anita,” Maria said to Caroline. “Different features but the same coloring. Would you like to see a picture?” “Of course,” Caroline said, and Maria picked up a framed picture off the top of a bureau and handed it to Caroline. We both looked at the photograph. It was taken at the beach; Anita wore a pair of shorts and a light blue sweatshirt, and although it was sunny, you could tell that it wasn’t a typically warm beach day. Anita’s dark hair was blown back off of her face by a strong wind. She did look like Caroline. Not quite as pretty but not far behind. She had shoulder length hair, alabaster skin and rosy cheeks. Her eyes were as blue as the cloudless sky behind her. It was clear why Andrew Deacon had become obsessed with both Anita Blackburn and Caroline Slaughter. Caroline handed the photograph back. “She looked like a very nice girl,” she said. “She was. She was.” Chapter 6 Norman walked us to the car, held the passenger side door for Caroline, then said to me, before I got in the car myself: “Get her out of that apartment, son.” “I will,” I said. I shakily navigated the sandy driveway, driving in reverse while Norman watched. I suddenly remembered who Norman reminded me of--it was the driver education teacher at my high school, Mr. Rayburn. Before getting back on route six, I pulled the car to the side of the road and turned to Caroline, who was still looking a little stricken from our visit to the Blackburns. I said: “We can (a) drive straight back to New York City and listen to music on the way and not talk about this or (b) we can go to a bar and have a drink and talk, or (c) either combination of those things. We can drive and talk, or drink and not talk. Whatever you want to do.” There was another suggestion I had, one that involved a fully-licensed inn, several bottles of wine, and some life-affirming hanky panky, but I kept it to myself. “A drink sounds nice,” she said and I put the car in gear. I drove us to a place in Chatham called The Squire. We sat at the U-shaped hardwood bar toward the front and ordered drinks; Caroline got a vodka tonic and I ordered a Jack and ginger. It wasn’t quite five, but The Squire was more than halfway full; there were even a few early diners eating fried seafood at the back tables by the jukebox. Whoever was picking the tunes was prejudiced in favor of Jimmy Buffet. After the drinks arrived I excused myself to use the restroom. Before going back to the bar I went to the payphone and called Miles, gave him a brief rundown on the afternoon, and ended by telling him I was in Chatham. I asked him if he thought there was anything else I should check out before we headed back to the New York. “Go see the house, if you can. Anita’s house.” “Well, that I can’t do. It burned down, remember?” “Right. I meant for you to go see what remains of the house. And where it’s located in relation to other houses. Where it was located, that is.” “Okay,” I replied. “If you think it’ll help I can go do that. You don’t happen to have the address, do you?” “Call me back before you leave and I’ll give it to you.” I went back to the bar. Half of Caroline’s drink was gone and she had regained a little color in her cheeks. As I positioned myself on my stool she lit a cigarette, and finally spoke. “Sorry about my composure back there. I got a little more spooked than I thought I would.” “Understandable.” “It just suddenly hit home. I was scared before, and upset, and all those other things, but talking with Anita’s parents made me finally realize what he is capable of. It’s so awful what happened to her, so unfair.” She paused for a moment. I was studying her profile; her skin was as white and smooth as a brand new pillowcase, but there were two bright smudges of red at her cheekbones. As I watched her, she protruded the pink tip of her tongue and touched her upper lip with it. “I’ve made a decision,” she said. “You’re moving out of your place,” I posited. “No. The opposite. I’m staying there and waiting for that rat to show his face.” “Look--” I started. “I know what you’re going to say. It’s not worth it. Look what happened to Anita. I don’t care. Right now I’d be happy to have him try to sneak through my window in the middle of the night. The way I’m feeling, I could rip his throat out. Besides, Miles will flush him out, don’t you think?” “I do think, but until then--” “I’m not budging, Tommy. I’m not going to let him win.” We’d stayed at The Squire for two more drinks and a heaping mound of fried clams but I couldn’t talk her into an overnight on the Cape. “You sure,” I said. “It’s a long drive back.” “I’m sure. If I don’t go back tonight, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go back.” “Fair enough,” I said. “But before we leave there’s one thing I’d like do.” And I told her about going to check out where Anita had lived. “It won’t take long. You don’t have to get out of the car or anything.” “I don’t mind,” she said, and I went to call Miles again. He had the address. “Your girlfriend?” I asked. “Yes, it was from Maggie,” he said. “And no, she’s not my girlfriend.” I refrained from singing the song about Miles and Maggie sitting in a tree. Maggie was a librarian in the reference section of the New York Public Library. Miles and her were on first name basis, although as far as I knew, they had never actually met. He called her frequently, and I had guessed correctly that she was the one who had provided the address. Anita had lived at 199 White Lane, which, according to Miles, ran off of Oyster Pond Road. Before leaving the Squire I got directions to Oyster Pond Road, and figured I could find it from there. It was dusk outside and the world seemed bleached of color, the sky the color of bone. We passed Oyster Pond, a still circle of chalky gray, its only sign of life several gulls clustered on a wooden float. We drove the length of Oyster Pond Road, then turned around and drove it again, finally locating White Lane, its green sign obscured by a pine tree that looked blue in the dusk. 199 was easy to spot. Even though its dirt driveway was long, about fifty yards from the road, we could still make out one charred wall that had been left standing. “I can park on the road if you’d like. Walk down there myself.” “That’s okay,” Caroline said. “I don’t mind. Drive down.” The driveway was rutted, and long weeds scraped at the undercarriage of our car. I wasn’t exactly sure why I was going for a closer look at a decimated house, but I knew that Miles had asked me to do it, and he would have his reasons. I trained the headlights on the property and stepped out into the cold air. It was darker in the woods, and some kind of animal rustled in the bushes. I walked the ten steps to the edge of where the house had been. All that was left was a couple of walls, completely blackened by the fire, and the charred remains of what looked like a stove, and an old water tank. Everything else had either burned or been hauled away. There were several broken beer bottles and empty cans scattered around the property; probably teenagers who had found a place to hang out at night and party. Through the brush and trees I could make out a few lighted windows, but there were no houses closer than a hundred yards away. I got back into the car, turned it around, and drove towards the street. Before I got there, a giant yellow box of a car turned into the driveway and blocked my way. “What the ...” I said, as Caroline lifted a hand to her chest. The driver’s side door of the vehicle opened up, and a tiny man stepped out of the car and held a hand, palm forward, to block my high-beams. I switched the high-beams to low and he shuffled toward us. By the time he was five feet or less away, it was pretty clear that the man’s short stature had more to do with the hundred years he’d spent on planet earth and less to do with dwarfism. I rolled down my window, and he came up and stuck his head halfway into the car without having to bend down. “Help you folks?” he asked. He had red-rimmed eyes magnified by glasses the thickness of a 2nd Avenue Deli sandwich. He also wore a bolo tie. “You could move your car,” I said. “I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s blocking our way.” “You realize this is private property you’re on?” “I do,” I said. “That’s why I was just leaving. Is this your property?” “No, it’s not but I’m a neighbor, and we like to look out for one another around here. You mind me asking what you’re doing here?” I was about to tell him that I did mind, and then see if a three-cylinder Volkswagen could forcibly move a Caprice Classic, but Caroline spoke up before I had a chance to. “We were friends with Anita, and the Blackburns. We came here to take a look, just to pay our respects. I’m sorry if it looked like something more sinister.” “Well, no, it didn’t really, but I don’t like to see strangers poking around on land that’s private property.” “We understand. We really do. I’m Caroline. And this is Tommy.” “Well, it’s nice to meet you two. My name’s Bill Atwell. I’m sorry for your friend. I didn’t know her very well but saw her come and go a lot. She was a pretty girl. It was terrible what happened to her.” “What did people around here think about what had happened?” I asked. I’d decided Bill Atwell, despite being a meddling busybody, was probably worth talking to. “Oh, they thought it was terrible, of course.” “What did they think had happened to her. Were there differences of opinion. They never caught a killer, did they?” “Some stalker, they said. High school boyfriend who’d been leaving her notes. That’s the word that went around. I heard they knew who he was, this boy, but that they still haven’t found him. Halfway across the country, I’d guess.” “Probably,” I said. “You ever see anything odd happening here? Cars that didn’t belong? Seems like the type of thing you might notice.” “Didn’t notice much of that. She’d come and go, that girl, lights on, lights off. She’d park out front so I knew when she was in, and when she wasn’t. Most weekends she’d be gone. I don’t know where, boyfriend’s place, I suppose.” “Where’s your place?” “179 White Lane. Two houses down. If I could see any better in the nighttime, I’d be able to point it out for you. Here’s something interesting I bet you two didn’t know. This is the only White Lane in the country. Lots of White Streets, and White Roads, and White Avenues, but no White Lanes except this one.” “Huh,” I said. “I didn’t know that. Caroline, you know that?” “No, I didn’t.” “Mister Atwell, we’ve got a long drive ahead of us, all the way back to New York, so if you don’t mind ...” “No, I don’t mind. I’ll go move my car. She was a pretty girl, the one who lived here. It’s a real shame what happened to her.” With that, and an extra long look at Caroline, he shuffled back to move his car. Chapter 7 It was past midnight by the time Caroline and I got back to Manhattan. She’d agreed to let me escort her to her apartment. We took a creaking elevator to her floor and as I was waiting for Caroline to unbolt a complicated series of locks, the door immediately across the hallway opened up and a masculine voice uttered a surprised “Oh.” I turned and faced a broad-shouldered man-child in a terrycloth robe, who looked more perplexed by my presence than I was by his. “Hi Brian,” Caroline said. “This is my friend Tommy. He’s the one who knows that guy I was telling you about.” There were several points of that introduction that displeased me, not least of which was the emphasis on the word friend. “Oh right,” Brian said, and held out a hand for me to shake. I took it, detecting a thick mat of hair on the back of his hand. I pictured a similar distasteful situation on his chest and back. “Brian knows all about what’s been happening to me. He’s been incredibly helpful. I don’t know what I’d have done without him.” Brian gave an aw shucks smile, his green eyes glued on Caroline. I suppose, to be fair, that I should say that some readers might consider Brian, despite the lack of height and pelt of fur, to be conventionally handsome in a rugby-player sort of way. However, and maybe my own personal prejudices were coming into play, next to Caroline he looked more like a pet than a potential boyfriend. “How’d it go today?” he asked. “It went,” Caroline said. “I’ll tell you about it in the morning but I’m exhausted right now. Tommy’s just going to show me into my apartment.” “Okay,” Brian said but lingered in his doorframe. Caroline got the last of her locks sprung and opened the door. It was a normal Manhattan apartment, big for the city but small for the rest of the apartment-dwelling world. Sparsely decorated, just one or two art prints hung on the largest wall. A large corduroy couch was in the middle of the living room and faced a small television and a window with its shade drawn. On the other side of the couch was the coffee-table. Squarely in the middle was a white piece of paper. “Jesus,” Caroline said and gripped my arm. “What is it?” Brian had taken the two steps to cross the hall and when he spoke I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. “Another note,” I said, and made my way across the room. Caroline and Brian followed me. The paper had been folded once. “Should I touch it?” I asked Caroline, thinking that maybe we should call the police first. Caroline answered me by picking up the note, reading it, then passing it to me. Brian read it over my shoulder. It said: Caroline, What made you think that adding locks and shutting the windows would keep me out of your life? It won’t. We belong together. And don’t worry--we’ll be meeting face to face sooner than you think. Love, Andrew “Unbelievable,” I uttered, and cast a glance at Caroline. She clenched her teeth and I could detect a combination of rage and panic in her widened eyes. Brian and I searched the entire apartment, looking everywhere. We found nothing. No signs of forced entry, nothing out of place, no sign of Andrew Deacon. He had somehow gotten in, left a note, and then gotten out again. Despite our protests, Caroline didn’t want to call the police again. She said they wouldn’t find anything, that somehow Andrew Deacon had simply found a way to get in and then out of her apartment. Brian and I both insisted that she should spend the night somewhere else. She finally agreed that she would sleep on Brian’s couch. I wasn’t happy about it but had no decent argument, seeing as my own couch was fourteen blocks away. I cabbed it home, knowing that Miles would, in all probability be awake, and that he would attentively listen as I told him the events of the day. That, and a couple of Gibsons, was exactly what happened. Chapter 8 The following morning, one cup of coffee in me and a second on its way, I called Caroline. There was no answer, and my mind leaped to all sorts of horrifying possibilities. She had decided to stay in her apartment after all, and Andrew Deacon had gotten in. Or, almost as bad, Brian had comforted Caroline all the way from the couch to his bed, and they were still there, wrapped up like a couple of pretzels. The eighth time I called she picked up. “Hi,” I said. “You’re there?” “I just got back. I couldn’t sleep until about dawn and then I was out like a light.” I heard a man’s voice in the background, something about orange juice. “Brian with you?” I asked. “He came across as protection. He insisted.” “Chauvinist,” I said. “I don’t really mind. I’m not feeling as tough today as I was feeling last night. That second note really threw me. I don’t know how he gets into my place, and if I don’t know, then I can’t stop him. It’s that simple. Did you talk with Miles at all?” “I did. I told him everything. He even stopped reading his book to listen. He said he thought he had some ideas but he had a few more questions for you. Any chance you can come by today?” “Not today, but tonight. My mom and sister are coming into Manhattan to take me to lunch, and then we’re going to see a movie.” “That sounds nice. Do they know what’s been happening?” “Sister, yes. Mother, no. And I think today I don’t want to talk about it. So why don’t I plan on coming to your place around seven tonight.” I agreed and hung up the phone. Miles had entered our living room and was shuffling through the Sunday Times. “Did she survive the night?” he asked me. “She did. She’s coming over here tonight at about seven.” “That’s good. Did you know that Herbert Marshall had only one leg?” “Who’s Herbert Marshall?” “He was the villain in Foreign Correspondent. We watched it last week.” “I remember.” “He lost it in the war. I knew there was something about the way he moved in that film.” The day stretched out before me. I had brought some pretty unexciting paperwork home with me, so there was always that. Plus, there were always Miles’ interests. At that particular moment, that cold Sunday in October, Miles was interested in films with Herbert Marshall, in the plays of George Bernard Shaw, the poetry of E. A. Robinson, cocktail onions, and mastering Donkey Kong on his Nintendo. And that was how we spent our late morning and afternoon. We watched a very bad print of a very good film called Trouble in Paradise, that starred Marshall as a jewel thief, then watched a Doris Day thriller called Midnight Lace, in which Marshall had a brief part. We ordered Chinese and played Donkey Kong. During my turns Miles read. Wind rattled our windows, and the darkening sky made it feel that dusk had arrived by three o’clock. The drinks came out early, whiskey for me, and a Gibson for Miles, one with three cocktail onions and a little bit of the onion juice. It was fully, blackly dark by the time the buzzer sounded and Caroline came up the three stories to our apartment. “How was your day?” I asked and took her coat. “It was alright, but I’m scared to go back to my place. I’m realizing that now.” “Don’t go back. You can stay here.” “We can all go back to your place,” Miles surprisingly offered, stepping forward to greet Caroline. He was wearing a black silk tie that evening with a pattern of clocks on it, and he had gone to retrieve the ceramic ashtray. “At least I think we can. I might have the solution to your problem but I need to ask some more questions.” Caroline accepted a glass of white wine and we all sat in the living room. “Did you go out on a lot of dates in college?” Miles asked her. She looked a little surprised by his question. “Um, my fair share. Not a lot, not a little.” “But guys asked you out, and you went out with them?” “Yes.” “So why didn’t you want to go out with Andrew Deacon?” “Because I discovered he was a creep. Because he started to stalk me.” “Right, but he stalked you because you wouldn’t go out with him. Or he stalked you because you wouldn’t kiss him after the party. Why didn’t you want to kiss him?” “I wasn’t interested.” “Was he unattractive?” “No, not unattractive. He wasn’t incredibly handsome either. Run-of-the-mill.” “Was he overweight?” “No, he was skinny, but that wasn’t really--” “He was in good shape?” “He was ROTC, so yeah, he was in very good shape.” “Was he tall enough for you? You’re fairly tall, I see.” “He was only about my height, so not that tall, for a guy.” “Did he smell bad?” Caroline emitted a monosyllabic laugh. “Not that I remember.” “So he didn’t smell so bad that you didn’t want to go out with him?” “No. I mean I didn’t want to go out with him, but it wasn’t because of the way he smelled.” “Did he smoke?” “I can’t remember. But I smoke, so I’m not sure that would have been a problem.” “How long was it exactly between the first note and the second note?” he asked. Caroline took a moment to think about this. While she thought she pushed a fallen lock of dark hair behind her pink ear with the tip of her index finger. “Two weeks and a day,” she said at last. “The first note came on a Friday.” “That was at the end of September?” “That’s right.” Miles adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose. “What do you do at night?” he asked. “What do you mean exactly?” “I’m sorry. That was an unclear question. What I’m interested in is what you do at night when you are in your apartment by yourself. Do you read? Watch television? Practice a musical instrument?” “I guess I watch television or read. I talk on the phone. I don’t play a musical instrument.” “When you read do you also listen to music?” “Usually.” “What was Andrew Deacon’s major in college?” Caroline paused and thought for a moment. “I think it was political science. I’m not positive though.” Miles stood up. I assumed it was because his drink was close to empty. Instead, he said: “Shall we all go then?” I looked at him. “Go where?” “Caroline’s apartment. No promises yet but I’d like to at least see it.” Caroline’s eyes lit up and she looked at Miles the way a genuflecting priest might gaze at the image of the Virgin Mary. Miles peered back at her with his peculiar fox-like gaze. I recognized it--he had figured something out. Caroline extinguished her cigarette in Miles’ homemade ashtray and we made our way back out into the night. Chapter 9 We took a taxi to Caroline’s building, and the doorman, pear-shaped and with slicked-back hair, stepped away from his post to welcome us. We elevatored it to the sixth floor, then waited in the hall while Caroline fiddled with her locks. “It takes a little longer than thirty seconds, I guess,” she said to Miles. “Only about forty-five,” he said as she took a fortifying breath and swung the door open. As she did this, the door behind us opened up, and out stepped Brian again, perfectly on cue. “Déjà vu,” I said, which wasn’t entirely fair because he wasn’t wearing the terrycloth robe. Instead, he was wearing a denim shirt tucked into a pair of khakis. Caroline introduced Miles to Brian and then all four of us entered the apartment. We stood looking around while Caroline switched on her lights and offered us a drink. We all surreptitiously glanced at the coffee table; there was no note. Miles circumnavigated the couch and asked Caroline if he could open the shade. She agreed and he pulled it up, then slid open the window and put his head out. After pulling his head back in, he asked Caroline if she minded if he took a look around the rest of place. “You won’t find anything,” Brian said. “We’ve looked everywhere.” “Miles is very smart,” Caroline said defensively. While Miles looked around the place, the three of us stood awkwardly in a semicircle. Brian’s role of protector was clearly being threatened by our appearance and he hardly contained his bristling. Miles swept back through the living room area, carefully eyeing each piece of furniture. He looked out the window again. “Has that dumpster always been down there?” Caroline took a look and shrugged. “I suppose so,” she said. “I’d never noticed it.” “Do you mind if I take a look in your refrigerator?” “No, of course not. And help yourself to anything that you want.” The three of us watched Miles open and inspect Caroline’s fridge. I could see it from where I was standing, and noticed how full it was. Most New York refrigerators contained beer and take-out containers. “You cook a lot?” I asked her. “Of course she does,” Brian said, as though I’d questioned her membership in the female species. I was beginning to really dislike this Brian character for actual reasons, and not just because he wanted to put his hairy paws all over Caroline. Miles left the kitchen area and walked back over to us. “You said he was ROTC?” he asked. Caroline nodded. “Did he have any intention of continuing a military career?” “He did, actually. I remembered that he was planning on going into water rescue for the Coast Guard.” “High attrition rate,” Miles said. “Yes, it is,” Brian hastily added. “Only about ten percent ever make it.” “Do you mind if I make a telephone call?” Miles asked. “I think I can solve your problem tonight.” Caroline shook her head, a look of surprise and incredulity on her face. She pointed Miles to the telephone. It was cordless, with a long radio-style antenna. He dialed, three numbers, then gave the address of our location. “There’s an intruder,” he said. “He’s dangerous. Please come right away.” After he hung up there was a moment of amazed silence as the three of us stared at Miles for further elucidation. “Who is this guy?” Brian asked Caroline, then turned to Miles himself. “We’ve searched this place. Thoroughly. I hope you realize that. If that was 911 you just called then you’re wasting everyone’s time.” I turned toward Brian and, with a flash of realization, I knew that Brian was the intruder, that somehow Andrew Deacon had transformed his appearance and fooled everyone into thinking he was someone else. Or maybe it was possible Brian had been bought off by Andrew Deacon, paid to leave the notes. It would be so much easier for Brian to break into Caroline’s apartment since he was living right across from it. “Yes, that was 911,” Miles said. “The intruder’s not here right now but by the time the police arrive, he will be, that much I’m sure of.” I understood what Miles was doing, trying to put Brian at ease, not immediately letting on to the fact that we were on to him. “I don’t suppose you have any cocktail onions?” Miles asked Caroline. “Or gin?” About twelve minutes later the buzzer sounded and the doorman reported that there were two policemen downstairs. Caroline said to send them up. The tension in the room was unbearable; it wasn’t so much tension you could cut with a knife as tension you could smear with a knife onto a piece of toast. We all waited; only Miles seemed relaxed. From inside the apartment we could all hear the elevator doors in the outer hall. Caroline swung her front door open and ushered the policemen in. Neither looked particularly alert; they both had sleepy eyes and a slow-moving swagger that comes, I suppose, from being city cops immune to any situation. “Which one’s the intruder?” asked the shorter of the two cops, taking a look around the room. Miles stepped forward and instead of pointing to Brian, for I was still convinced that Brian was somehow the culprit behind the notes, he pointed to the couch in the center of the room. “He’s under there,” he said. The cop ambled over, dropped to his knees, and peered into the eight-inch gap at the bottom of the couch. “I don’t see nothing,” he reported. I heard Brian mutter something under his breath. Miles looked at me, and gestured with his head that I should get on one side of the couch. “Give me a hand, please. We need to tip this over.” We both bent, placing one hand under the firm wooden frame at the bottom of the couch and lifted. It was extremely heavy but we managed to tip the thing far enough over so that it fell forward onto its front. When we all saw what was there Caroline screamed, and the two policemen jumped a little, clearly not completely immune to astonishment. Brian, who was standing next to me, crumpled like a card castle, and hit the ground with a sound like Rocky Balboa punching a side of beef. I knelt beside him, saw that he was still breathing, saw that he had the complexion of a bright white golf ball, and announced to the crowd that he had merely fainted. Andrew Deacon was not so much under the couch, as up inside of it. The fabric underneath had been cut away, along with some of the wooden slats. This left just enough space for the rail-thin intruder to squeeze between the floor and the springs. He could even pull himself up off the floor with the two remaining wooden slats. It was the position he was currently in, backed into the underside of the sofa, staring out at his audience with a pair of flicking eyes. He coughed twice, then released the slats he was holding and dropped to the floor. There was a surprising lack of dust, but I suppose that was because he had kept it clean, this crawlspace that had been his temporary home for at least a couple of weeks. “This man’s a murderer,” Miles said to the police officers. “You’ll find evidence that he killed Anita Blackburn in Chatham, Massachusetts about three months ago. He strangled her and burnt her house down.” The policemen took hold of Deacon by either arm and hoisted him to his feet. He looked grim but resigned. His head was completely shaved and he wore a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt emblazoned with the name of his, and Caroline’s, alma mater. He was bland-looking with small features that crowded the center of his ruddy face. I expected him to say something but he didn’t, just stared blankly in the direction of Caroline. I turned to her. She held a hand over her mouth and was taking small shaky steps backwards. I registered the complicated emotions in her eyes as it dawned on her that Andrew Deacon had not been intruding her house, so much as living in it. Miles peered into the vacated area under the couch, then looked around. “Remarkable,” he said. Chapter 10 “But how were you so sure he was under the couch?” I asked. Miles and I were in the cocktail bar of a boutique hotel around the corner from our apartment. After the excitement of the arrest, and the exhaustion of trying to calm Caroline down, we had decided to spend a few calming moments in a neutral environment before returning to our own home. “He had to be under the couch,” Miles said. “There was nowhere else in that apartment where he could have hidden. I made sure of that.” “But how could you be so sure that he was even in there at all.” “Logic,” Miles said. “Think about it, Tommy. Caroline was so sure that he could not have broken in. At that point, it was only logical that he was living in the apartment. If he hadn’t broken in, then the only way he could be in there was if he had been in there all along, or at least since before the first note. There are physical limits to breaking into a place. At some point it just can’t be done without leaving a trace. So I eliminated the impossible.” “How long do you think he had been there before he left that first note.” “Probably not long,” Miles said, and as he spoke he watched the bartender, Jules, measure out his Gibson, and rinse two cocktail onions before dropping them into the glass. “However long it took him to restructure the couch so that he could fit under there, and then be relatively sure that he could remain quiet enough to be undetected. He had the skills, of course, having trained to be a rescue swimmer, and he knew carpentry from being a boat-builder. This would have been middle to late September which, if I recall, was quite hot. The window would have been open and he could have come and gone, up and down the fire-escape, at will, so long as he was careful not to be spotted.” “What about at Anita’s?” “He would have done the exact same thing. He broke in when it was springtime and her windows were open. By the time she had the air-conditioners going and the place was locked, he was already there, but probably squeezed up inside some other piece of furniture.” “That must’ve been why he torched the place.” “Exactly. He had altered something. Probably her couch as well, or a bureau, and he knew that after he killed her, he needed to get rid of the evidence. Not the evidence of who he was, but the evidence of how he was able to break in and out of locked houses.” “You think it was his plan all along?” “What? To cohabitate? I doubt it. It must have been something that occurred as a possibility to him after he had broken into Anita’s house in Chatham. There was a place to hide, of course, once he’d done a little work on it. There was a fridge full of food from which he could poach. Anita was probably similar to Caroline and she either played music at night and had the television on, both of which would mask any sounds he might accidentally make. And when she was out of the house he had the run of the place to himself. He would have to shower, of course, to keep himself from smelling, but so long as he did a good job of cleaning up after himself, she would never notice. And, as you found out, Anita lived in a place with a long driveway. He’d have had to keep an eye out, but he would’ve had time to get into his cubbyhole before she entered the house. It was the same with Caroline’s--he could hear the elevator doors from inside of the apartment. That, and the fact of there being several locks, gave him enough time to get under the couch when she came home.” “But how did he clean up messes? Altering the couch, for instance--he couldn’t exactly throw all that stuff away in Caroline’s wastepaper basket.” “He would have thrown it out the window, into the convenient dumpster below. For all we know, he could’ve ordered a pizza one afternoon, had it delivered, and thrown the box out of the window.” “Amazing,” I said and took a sip of my beer. “Can you imagine the power he must have felt as he laid under that couch while she was in the apartment? Or what he felt like walking around her place when she wasn’t there? Not to mention the free rent.” “He would’ve enjoyed it immensely but I think, eventually, it would not have been enough. He wanted Anita to know and that was why he left her notes. It was the same with Caroline eventually. He wanted credit. So when she shut and locked the windows--which would’ve been the second week in September, when it got cold--he decided to leave the first of his threatening notes. It was a risk, but so long as no one actually tipped the couch over, he’d be safe. And no one would know how he had done it. Just like what had happened with Anita in Chatham.” “But then you came along.” “Well, someone would have figured it out eventually. He would’ve made a mistake. Sneezed, or something.” “He didn’t in Chatham.” “He probably did. You said Anita had a cold before she died. He probably caught it from her. It’s not so easy to stay quiet when you have a cold, what with coughing and sneezing. My guess is he blew his cover, but unfortunately it was Anita who discovered him. And he killed her before she could tell anyone. It wasn’t his intention, just like moving in with her wasn’t his intention, but once he did, once he killed her, he probably found it was satisfying. It’s what he was working toward with Caroline.” Miles had finished his drink and Jules drifted over, smooth as always. “Another?” he asked. “I don’t think so,” Miles said. “That last one was perfect, and I would hate to ruin the memory with anything less.” I knew that Miles would probably never drink another Gibson again. “I got these,” I said and dug for my wallet. “Ready to go home, Miles?” “I am,” he said, and we took the short walk together to the apartment we shared. Chapter 11 I suppose you will want to know what happened between Caroline and me, and whether I asked her to marry me again, and whether she decided to stay in New York. The short answers to those questions are: nothing much, yes, and no. The longer answer is that after Andrew Deacon’s arrest and conviction, life got pretty hard for Caroline. The New York tabloids got hold of the story, and she became front page fodder for the better part of two months. A young pretty woman in Manhattan unknowingly sharing an eight hundred foot apartment with her very own stalker made good copy. She had vowed to stay in her apartment, to not let the memories of Andrew Deacon chase her away, but in the end it was the New York press that hounded her across state lines to New Jersey, where she moved in with her sister. Before relocating to Jersey, Caroline called me up one early Saturday morning and asked if I wanted to drive her to Cape Cod again. She’d been in contact with the Blackburns and had decided to pay another visit. I agreed and we borrowed her sister’s car and repeated our previous trip. I dropped her off at the Blackburns and she visited alone, while I drove to the empty parking lot at the start of the National Seashore. It was December and cold as Siberia already in New England; I walked about one hundred yards down the beach, then turned around and walked back. It was overcast and the ocean was the color of roofing slate. I picked Caroline up at dusk, stopping in to say hello to Norman and Maria, both of whom looked less morose and old than the last time I had seen them. They still looked morose and old, just less so. Caroline, whose relationship with her own parents was strained at best, seemed to have found a pair of surrogates. Not only that, but a pair of surrogates that needed her as much as any natural parent would ever need a child. Unlike our first visit, I talked Caroline into a night on the Cape; she seemed more than happy to avoid going back to New York. We stayed at a place in Chatham called The Dolphin, walking distance to The Squire, where we had a long boozy dinner of fried cod cheeks and Chardonnay. Walking back it started to snow, diamond-sized flakes that drifted in the icy air, refusing to touch ground. Back at our room I gallantly offered her first choice of where she wanted to sleep (our room had two double beds). She chose the one closest to the bay windows and offered--Thank you, second bottle of wine!--to share it. The following morning, before we’d left the room, but after we’d packed, I asked Caroline Slaughter to marry me again. She turned the full effect of her piercing eyes onto me. “Goddamnit Tommy, do you have any idea how insulting it is that you keep asking me to marry you?” “What do you mean?” I said. “I mean it. It’s a compliment.” “No, you don’t, and it isn’t a compliment. You don’t want to get married to me any more than I want to get married to you, and you ask me only so you can feel like some sort of spurned romantic. I happen to know for a fact that if you actually wanted to get married to me, or actually believed that I might accept your proposal, there’d be no way in hell that you would ask. In fact, my guess is that if you thought there was any chance we’d settle down, you’d lose my phone number so fast it would make my head spin.” I didn’t have anything to say, mainly because she had a point. I decided the best course of action was to clench my teeth and look hurt. “Don’t stand there looking hurt. You know I’m right.” “It’s just that it’s a little early in the morning to be psychoanalyzed.” “It’s also a little early in the morning to be proposed to.” We drove back, in near-silence for most of the trip, but as we crossed the George Washington, I said, “I’m sorry. You’re right. I do propose to you because I know you won’t consider it seriously, and that you don’t consider me seriously, but it’s like one of those jokes you make because it’s the truth.” Then I added some romantic stuff, about how I felt when I first saw her, all of which was pretty terrible spoken aloud and would be much worse written down. I’ll spare you the details. “I like you too,” Caroline said, “but you already have Miles, and you two have much more in common than we’ll ever have. Plus, I’m moving away.” “I thought you might.” “I’m not going far. I have some friends in Boston and they have a spare room in their apartment. I was thinking of trying to find a job in publishing, and there are lots of publishing houses in Boston.” “There’s a few in New York too.” “Yeah,” she said. “But I thought I’d try Boston.” Caroline and I saw each other a few more times before she moved away but there were no more proposals and no promises made. One night she came over for drinks and to say goodbye to Miles. “I’ll call you both if I get in trouble, although hopefully I won’t be calling. Thank you again, Miles. You’re the smartest person I know.” Miles turned red, especially when she kissed him on the cheek. After she left, Miles crossed the room to one of our floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and began to peruse the shelves. He’d recently read all of G. K. Chesterton, and he was in one of those rare periods between fixations. I watched him pull out a large hardcover edition of Spenser’s The Faerie Queen. “Haven’t you read that?” I asked. “Years ago,” he said, returning to his seat. “It’s worth re-reading. By the way, did you try this sherry?” He held up a miniscule tulip-shaped glass with a quarter-teaspoon of honey-colored liquid in it. “I don’t know if I can go down that particular road with you,” I said. “What road?” “The sherry-drinking road. I realize the two of us are prematurely aged, but it doesn’t help to advertise it.” “I’ve discovered it’s all about the glass,” Miles said, ignoring me. “That Manzanilla you tried the other night, you should try it again out of this type of glass.” “You think the glass makes the difference?” “Definitely. Let’s do some taste-testing.” He stood up, smoothing out his green tweed blazer. “Okay,” I said, and that is how we spent the rest of the evening. |
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