Killing Kate (17 page)

I look at Justin for help.  He
stands up and says, “Here, I’ll show you,” to the officer.  He glances back at
me as he leads Officer Hardy in the direction of my room and I watch as he
walks away.  Then I hear laughing from the officer and I’m mortified.  They
have the decency to be quiet and straight faced when they come back in the
room.  I am not a religious person but begin to pray that the couch will turn
into some sort of sand worm and swallow me alive.

“Did you look inside of these DVD
cases as well?” the police officer asks us when they are back, indicating the
pile of spilled DVDs that were previously stored nicely on the bookshelf.  I’d
unpacked them only days before.  These were our assortment of movies and TV
shows that were okay to display to the public eye, like Devin’s Marx Brothers
movies and my Monty Python movies.  We were both always suckers for ridiculous
comedy.  My musicals had made it on the shelves as well and I could see them
all over the floor.  Officer Hardy bends down and opens a case and shows it to
us.  Nothing inside.  Then he opens several more and discovers the same thing. 
I feel chilly and shiver.  Justin puts his arm around me.  “Do either one of
you have any idea why someone might take all of your DVDs?”

I shake my head and shrug
simultaneously.  “To sell?”

Officer Hardy shakes his head.  “I
doubt it.  They’d take the cases too.”  He walks to the front door and looks at
it, and then inspects the broken window.  “Despite the broken glass, I don’t
think this was an outside job.  See how the glass is broken in the middle of
the window?”  I look to where he’s pointing and nod.  “I tested how far to
reach the lock on the inside from the break in the glass.  I can barely touch
the lock.  Someone broke the glass and used a key on your front door.”  I
shiver.  Who else would have a key to the house, besides Devin?  “And based on
what was taken,” Officer Hardy was saying, “this looks targeted to me.  You say
you don’t know anything about the DVDs?”  I shake my head.  “Where did you say
your brother was?  Is he the only other person living here?”

“He’s at work,” I say.  “He’s a
train engineer.  He started a twelve hour shift around four in the afternoon,
which means he’ll be home early morning unless he gets stuck in a cornfield
somewhere.”

“Okay,” Officer Hardy says.  “Have
him call me so I can verify that.”

I look up at him sharply.  “You
don’t think my brother did this?”

He looks directly at me.  “I don’t
know what to think.  But I do think this was an inside job and whoever did this
was looking for something specific.”

Justin stands up.  “Thank you
Officer.  Do you need anything else tonight?  Jenna is pretty tired and I’d
like to help her clean up before she gets to bed.”

Officer Hardy shakes his head. 
“That’s all for tonight.  I would also get the locks changed first thing
tomorrow.  I’ll have someone posted nearby to keep an eye out.”  He looks at
Justin and then at me and says, “You won’t be alone in the house tonight, will
you?”

Justin steps forward.  “I’ll stay
with her tonight.”  I look at him.  “Until her brother gets home.”

Officer Hardy nods.  “Good.  Here’s
my card.  Call me if anything happens.”

“Thank you,” I say, and walk him to
the door.  Justin and I watch him go back to his car and drive away.

“Where do you keep the trash bags?”
Justin turns to me and asks.  I lead him over to the kitchen and show him under
the sink where I keep all of the cleaning supplies.  I grab a few bags and we
go into the front room and get to work.

“I guess I’ll just dump all of the
DVD cases in an empty box since they’re useless,” I say as we’re cleaning.  Together
we manage to pick the bookshelf back up and lean it against the wall where
Devin and I had originally put it.  “On the plus side, I have a whole lot of new
shelf space.”

Justin pauses in his cleaning up
the broken glass from the window and looks at me.  “Jenna, you really don’t
know what the person was looking for?”  He sounds skeptical, and I’m taken
aback.  “Or who?”

“My only thought is maybe someone Jack
owed money to,” I say, but there’s doubt in my voice and in my mind.  “Maybe
they didn’t get the memo that he’s dead.”

“Oh, that’s actually not a bad
thought,” Justin says, looking relieved.  “But why didn’t you mention that to
Officer Hardy?”

I shrug and stoop to start picking
up the large pieces of a broken lamp and put them in the trash bag I’m holding. 
I wonder if we have a dustpan anywhere.  “I actually just came up with it.”

“Well maybe call him in the morning
and tell him about that,” Justin tells me.  “But for now, let’s clean up and
get some sleep.  You must be exhausted.”

“You probably are too,” I say to
him, pausing and reaching my hand out to touch his face.  It’s slightly
scratchy from his five o’clock in the morning shadow.  Actually, it’s just past
3:00 am.  Justin smiles at me and puts his hand over mine and leans in to kiss
me.  My heart flutters a little bit and when we pull away, I suddenly remember
something.  “I never called Devin.”

“I called him and got his
voicemail,” Justin says.  “I told him to stay for his shift and come home in
the morning.  We have it under control, right?”

“We do,” I agree.  I survey the
room and see we’ve made a ton of progress.  “Did you get a good look in Devin’s
room to assess the damage?”

“Actually,” Justin says.  “I
checked and besides the ruined paintings, it’s not that bad.”  We both give
each other a glance but don’t say anything, but something is weighing heavily
on our minds.  My mind in particular.  No one does damage like this in my life
except Kate, except when could she have gotten away.  And where was Devin
during all of this?

We had planned to have a
housewarming party but need to postpone it another two weeks so that we can
take care of cleaning up and replacing damaged items.  We change the locks
right away.  Devin is horrified about the entire ordeal, which draws my
suspicions away from him and back to someone who has been in the back of my
mind for a few weeks.  Drake.

Justin and I are what normal people
call “dating”.  I have no idea what to do with myself.  I’ve never had a man
who wanted to take me out and spend time with me outside of the bedroom.  In
two weeks we’ve gone to see an Improv show, horseback riding, kayaking along
the Chicago River, roller skating over by the place we used to go as kids and
to two movies.  I’m gaining weight from all of the places Justin takes me,
which he says is a good thing because apparently I could use a few extra
pounds, though I believe he’s plotting with Devin to make sure I can’t set foot
in a strip club and be hired.  We frequent “Sally’s” diner, which is a greasy
Chicago fast food place that’s walking distance from the house where they serve
greasy French fries coated in sugar in giant taco shell bowls.  I become
addicted to the “Confused Chicken”, which is a chicken Philly cheese “steak”
and chicken chili cheese fries.  It sounds disgusting and it tastes like
heaven.  Even though Justin is busy photographing summer weddings he makes sure
all of his free time is spent with me.  I have nothing but free time since I
have put off getting a job or enrolling in school.  Devin is becoming inpatient
with me but I claim that I am traumatized about the break in and want to spend
time watching the house.  The truth is that being at home alone scares the shit
out of me now.  But my limited time by myself is uneventful and I mostly spend
it sleeping since Justin and I don’t do much of it when we’re together.  Every
waking moment that we’re not in public is spent talking or making love.  I
can’t even begin to describe how amazing it feels to be with him, but it’s not
how I thought things would be with anyone before in my life.  We talk about
anything and everything and then he’ll kiss me in the middle of a sentence and
things always get carried away.  We spend some more time in his painting studio
together coming up with “projects”.  One involved rubbing paint on each other
with our hands and then making love on a giant canvas that he’d stretched out
on the floor.  It looked wild and insane when we were finished, which is pretty
much how he’s making me feel all of the time.

Since Devin is the cook, I leave
most of the food planning to him for the party.  I do manage to throw together
the ingredients for pulled pork in a slow cooker and buy Hawaiian rolls and
cole slaw as my contribution.  At the store I purchase some hot dogs and ground
beef for burgers and grab a few packs of buns.  We aren’t expecting too many
people so I try and keep it simple, but I’ve never had a party before so I go
all out, not knowing what people will expect when they show up.  Devin and
Justin make a very large beer run and have purchased charcoal for the grill. 
We are stocked with plastic silverware and paper plates and napkins.  It’s that
kind of crowd, and I don’t intend to wash any dishes.  We only have seven
plates and maybe three and a half place settings of silverware anyway, most of
which I’d stolen from Appleseed when I worked there and hit up the kitchen for
supplies.

I’ve invited a few old friends from
Appleseed, including Alicia and Carlos, George the bouncer, DJ Long, who is
actually a very tall and skinny Korean boy named Alex.  I also asked two other cage
girls named Sarah and Yaara to come by.  I had an ulterior motive when inviting
Yaara, who is a shy Israeli girl working her way through college any way she
can.  Appleseed is one of three jobs she has.  She also works at the bookstore
at University of Chicago where she attends school and tutors other students in
math.  I asked Sarah to bring her along, since I don’t know Yaara all that
well.  Sarah and I were always pretty good friends, and I don’t make friends
easily.  I think Yaara and Devin might hit it off.  If Sarah didn’t have an on
again off again relationship going with the same guy for four years, I’d try
and fix her up with Devin, but it seems like her boyfriend is back in the
picture based on the last time I spoke with her.  Sarah is one of those people
who likes to be single, and then realizes that dating is a horrible process and
reconnects with Brandon, her boyfriend.  She has no trouble getting dates,
since she’s practically a Barbie doll and nearly six feet tall.  I’m pretty
sure most of the issues come from when she mentions her job to the guys she’s
dating, since she usually goes for geeky types with regular jobs.  If they are
from some place where corn grows, all the better.  Brandon is from Nebraska,
and she’s introduced me to guys from Idaho, Indiana and Wyoming.  I have no
idea how she finds these guys in Chicago, but we joke about how she has
“Farm-dar”, which is radar for farmers.  She secretly wants to be a farmer’s
wife and wear red gingham and pigtails.

Devin invited a few railroaders who
have a day off.  They’re a different breed altogether.  Most of them work
constantly and have no social skills at all.  I imagine there will be a lot of
train talk, some of which I follow from knowing Devin but most of which is
gibberish to me.  They’ll likely stay with each other, eat a lot, drink a lot
and take off to get some precious sleep before they’re called in to work.  I
also asked Justin to tell his mom and dad to stop by, and Louisa walks in a
half hour before the official start time carrying a huge tray of sausage and
peppers.  Joe Fiero trails behind her carrying a salad, a cake and meatballs. 
Louisa embraces and kisses me like family and immediately busies herself in our
kitchen, arranging, tasting, seasoning and cleaning.  I help her out for a bit,
though I am more nervous around her since the last time I saw her for dinner at
her house the night we moved in.  I’ve never officially been around the mother
of a man I’m sleeping with and wonder if there’s a pop quiz or anything I
should have prepared for.  Louisa is as warm and friendly as ever, though, and
doesn’t say anything that makes me uncomfortable.  She asks me about how
settled I am and I gratefully tell her about how Justin and Devin have redone
the downstairs bathroom and how we’ve painted the front room and kitchen.  The
kitchen is now a bright golden yellow and the front room is a soft sage color. 
I’m thinking about purple for my bedroom.  Devin will probably paint his black
to help him sleep during the day when he’s waiting to be called to work.

The doorbell starts ringing and I
leave the front door open with the storm door closed (another home improvement
feature) so people can just let themselves in as they arrive.  Alicia and
Carlos come first with sangria, which is Alicia’s specialty.  It comes in a big
cooler like they have sitting out on football fields full of Gatorade, but I
prefer the sangria.  It’s light and syrupy and sweet and Alicia even brings cut
up apples and grapes to float around in the cups.  Sarah, Alex and Yaara arrive
together, bringing hummus and pita and olives, which Yaara picked up before
they met up to come over.  I know Sarah can’t even make macaroni and cheese out
of the box, and Alex doesn’t seem like the domestic type, so I’m grateful that
Yaara took charge of the food.  Devin’s railroad friends come by, including a
skinny black guy named Steve who I’ve met several times and always enjoyed
because he tells really silly jokes that are a lot funnier with four cups of
sangria in me.  Most of the railroaders are older guys who are big and burly
and park themselves on the sofa after a generous helping of Louisa’s food.  George
the bouncer arrives an hour after most people are here, telling me that he has
been stuck in traffic the whole time.  Then there is another unexpected guest
who arrives when the housewarming party is in full swing.  Out of the corner of
my eye while I’m chatting with Justin, Sarah, Yaara and George I see Devin
light up and go to the front door.  I whirl around to find out who he is so
happy to see.  “Holy shit,” I say.  “It’s Holly.”