The Follower (38 page)

“Who’s there?” she shouted.

No answer. Just footsteps, coming closer.

“I said who the fuck’s there?”

“Katie?”

Shit, it was Susan.

Katie opened the door and said angrily, “What the hell’s wrong with you? Why didn’t you answer me when I said who’s there?”

“I did. What’s wrong with you? Why’re you yelling at me?”

“You didn’t answer. You just barged in here, scaring the shit out of me.”

“I just walked into my own apartment. Why’re you acting this way?”

“I thought you were Peter.”

“Who?”

Katie was still delirious, confused, her heart beating madly.

“Peter Wells, that guy I grew up with in Massachusetts.”

“Why would you think I’m him?”

“This is getting out of control. I have to tell the police. I can at least tell them, right? Let them decide what to do, right?”

“You sure you don’t want to get back to sleep?”

Katie went to her room, found the business card Detective Barasco had given her, and got his voice mail. Not surprising, considering it was, what—she looked at her clock—seven thirty in the morning?

She started leaving a message, “Hi, this is Katie Port—” and then hung up, figuring it was stupid to call when there was no way they’d take her seriously. But she needed to tell someone, someone who’d at least listen to her.

She had Detective Himoto’s number programmed into her cell. She scrolled to the number and clicked send.

“John Himoto.”

She was surprised he’d picked up, especially at this time of day.

“This is Katie Porter.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“Look, I remembered something else about this guy Peter Wells. Well, I didn’t
remember
something, but it’s something I think you guys should know—”

“Did those detectives get in touch with you?”

“Yeah, I met with them yesterday—”

“Then you should really be in touch with them now. Did you tell them what you told me the other night?”

“Yeah, but—”

“And?”

“They said they’d look into it, but I don’t think they took me seriously.”

“Trust me, they took you seriously. If there was anything about that guy…Peter?”

“Yeah.”

“If there was anything there, they’d take care of it; trust me on that. Did they say they were gonna talk to him?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s taken care of.”

“But I think he might’ve killed my sister’s boyfriend, too.”

Himoto didn’t answer right away—Katie heard static. Then he said, “What makes you think that?”

“Because my sister committed suicide in college and Peter was stalking her, too, only I didn’t know he was stalking her until the other day when my mother told me he was. Then I got to thinking, last night when I couldn’t sleep, about when Heather, that’s my sister, killed herself and I remembered that a friend of hers had been killed, he fell off a roof, and she was extremely upset about it. It hit me that the guy wasn’t just a friend, he was a boyfriend, and Peter might’ve killed him, like he killed Andy. I mean, if he killed Andy. Does this make sense? D’you understand what I’m saying?”

Katie was aware of how she’d been talking a mile a minute, probably sounding like a nut.

“Yes, I understand what you’re saying, but you shouldn’t be telling me about this. You should be telling this to Detective Barasco.”

“But he doesn’t listen to me. You listen to me. Can’t you do something? Just check him out? Do some investigating or something?”

“Miss Porter, this is not my case anymore. I can’t be any clearer about that.”

“I understand that but—”

“Look, I’m driving into the city now. I can’t have this conversation.”

“You think I’m crazy, don’t you? You think I’m just making up stories?”

“I don’t think that at all,” Himoto said. “It sounds like this is something you should definitely run by Detective Barasco. Why don’t you throw him another call?”

Katie felt defeated, helpless.

“I did. I got his voice mail.”

“Leave him a message, he’ll get back to you.”

“But—”

“Look, I really have to go now. Relax. Everything’s going
to be okay. This is the NYPD, the greatest police force in the world. You don’t have to worry so much, okay?”

Starting to cry, Katie managed, “Okay.”

She ended the call, took a while to get hold of herself. Then she left a message for Barasco. She had no idea what she was supposed to do next. Just sit and wait for him to get around to calling her back? She didn’t feel like going in to work today and she didn’t see why she had to. Other people in the office called in sick when they had hangovers and PMS. Meanwhile, a guy she’d been dating had been killed and another guy she dated had been stalking her and her sister and might have killed their boyfriends and, oh yeah, set his house on fire and killed his parents. If this didn’t entitle her to one goddamn mental health day, what did?

Susan was in the shower. Katie went into the kitchen and made coffee—out of habit, not because she needed the caffeine. She was plenty edgy and wide awake without it.

Katie was on the couch, sipping a cup of Folgers Vanilla, when Susan came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel.

“You sure everything’s okay?” Susan asked.

“Yeah, fine,” Katie lied. “Sorry I freaked like that before.”

“I was worried about you.”

“You going in to work today?”

Katie was hoping she wasn’t.

“Yeah, I just didn’t have a change of clothes at Tom’s so I wanted to come back home to shower. Why? You’re not going?”

“No, I just need a day to unwind, you know?”

“Yeah, you should really do that. Go get a mani-pedi, go shopping. That’ll make you feel a lot better.”

Katie liked Susan, she was a good person, but her advice in a crisis situation was worthless. Did she really think that getting her toenails polished would solve anything?

But Katie still felt a lot more comfortable with Susan around. When Susan left for work, Katie started to become paranoid again. It wasn’t as bad as last night, but she kept checking the locks, imagining every noise she heard was Peter breaking in.

And what was taking Barasco so long? Why couldn’t he at least have the decency to get back to her?

At ten o’clock, Katie called him again and got his voice mail. Pissed off, she didn’t bother leaving a message. This was ridiculous. She felt like she had important information and no one from the police was even paying attention to her.

She heard drilling downstairs; the maintenance people were probably doing work in that vacant apartment on the second floor. That made Katie feel a little safer, for now anyway. Then she had an idea.

She dressed quickly, putting on some sweats, and then went to the front door. She heard the drilling, as well as some chatter from the workers, and figured they’d hear her if she screamed.
Might as well get it over with
, she decided, and opened the door quickly and went out into the hallway. She seriously expected Peter to be there, to grab her and try to force her into the apartment, but he wasn’t. She fumbled with the key, then locked the door and raced downstairs as if the building were on fire.

On Ninety-second Street, in broad daylight, she figured she was safe. He wasn’t just going to jump out and kill her anyway. Still, she jogged to the corner, not feeling truly safe until she reached very busy Second Avenue. She was able to hail a cab quickly and told the driver to take her to Sixty-seventh Street, between Third and Lex, the address of the Nineteenth Precinct on the business card Detective Himoto had given her.

When she arrived, she told the woman at reception that she needed to speak to Detective Himoto right away.

“Does he know what this is about?” the woman asked.

“Just tell him Katie Porter’s here.”

“Have a seat please,” the woman said, but Katie couldn’t sit. She started pacing.

After several minutes Himoto came out to the waiting area and Katie rushed over to meet him.

“I’m sorry I came here,” Katie said, “but I feel like that other guy, Detective Barasco’s totally blowing me off and—”

“There’s been a new development,” Himoto said.

“What development?”

“Come with me.”

Katie followed Himoto through the precinct. His expression had been poker-faced, hard to read, but she hoped that “a new development” meant good news. Maybe they had arrested Peter, or there had been some other break. Maybe that woman from the bar had been arrested.

They went into his office and he told her to sit down.

She sat, then said, “So what’s the development? Did you arrest somebody?”

“I’m afraid not,” Himoto said, sitting in his chair on the opposite side of the desk from her. “I’m afraid there’s been another murder.”

Katie was confused. Another murder? Someone else had been killed, so they weren’t even looking for Andy’s killer anymore?

“I don’t get it,” she said. “How is another murder a development? What does that have to do with Andy?”

“We think it’s related to Andy’s murder. Actually, we’re positive it is.”

Still not getting it, Katie said, “I really just need to sit down with somebody, somebody who’ll listen to me and let me tell him what’s going on. Because that Barasco guy won’t even return my calls. Can I just tell you about Peter Wells?”

“I’m trying to explain to you, Katie,” Himoto said, talking slowly, in a scolding principal-like way. “Detective Barasco is extremely busy this morning, though I’m sure he’ll be in touch with you as soon as possible. This other victim…he was one of Andrew Barnett’s roommates.”

It was starting to hit Katie now. It was hard to get the words out, but she managed, “W-w-wha…what…what do you mean?”

“It happened last night, on Ninety-seventh Street. He was on his way home from work at Mount Sinai Hospital when he was attacked.”

This isn’t happening
, Katie thought.

“Who w-w-was it?” Katie asked. “W-w-what was his name?”

“William Bahner,” Himoto said.

Katie lost it. Himoto tried to console her, but for a while, maybe five or ten minutes, she was a total mess. Gradually, she was able to calm down. Well, calm down enough to get out, “It was him. It had to’ve been him.”

“I take it you knew William Bahner very well,” Himoto said.

“He saw us. He must’ve seen us, right? It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Katie wasn’t really talking to Himoto. She was talking to no one, thinking out loud.

“Who saw you?”

“But he wasn’t there. That woman was there. Maybe the woman did it. Maybe it had nothing to do with him.”

“When was the last time you saw William Bahner?”

Now Katie looked at Himoto, as if she’d forgotten he was in the room. “I told you, I was with him the other night, the night that woman saw us at the bar.”

“I was unaware you were with William Bahner that night.”

“She saw us. The woman saw us, don’t you get it? It was her, or maybe she was working with Peter Wells. Maybe she’s, like, a friend of his or something.”

“Why would he have a friend follow you?”

“Because he’s obsessed with me! He was obsessed with my sister, too, and I think he might’ve killed her boyfriend. I’ve been trying to tell you guys this, but you won’t fucking listen to me.”

“I’m listening now, okay? So calm down, okay? You have to try to calm down. Getting hysterical right now won’t accomplish anything. Can you calm down? You think you can do that for me?”

“I’m calm,” Katie said. “I’m very fucking calm. Now what the fuck’re you gonna do?”

“I need you to explain to me, calmly, what happened at the bar the other night.”

“I was out with Will and I saw that woman with the short hair, the same one I’d seen outside my office building.”

“And you don’t think this could’ve been coincidental.”

“I work on Lexington, in the fifties. This was on, like,
Ninety-second Street, the same day, like an hour or two later. No, it was not coincidental.”

“Okay, so you saw the same woman. So what makes you think she has anything to do with William Bahner’s murder?”

“Because she saw us, don’t you get it? She saw us together.”

“Together?”

Katie realized it wouldn’t sound great, admitting she’d made out with Andy’s roommate less than a week after Andy had been killed, but she knew she had no choice but to fess up.

“We kissed, all right?” she said. “But it’s not what you think, okay? I had a couple of drinks and I was vulnerable or whatever and I kissed him. It was a stupid thing to do, I know, but I did it and the woman saw us. Then, when she saw me noticing her, she ran out of there.”

“So you think the woman was so upset that you kissed Bahner that she went ahead and killed him.”

“I still can’t believe he’s dead. I just can’t believe it.”

“You think jealousy could’ve been the motive?”

“I have no idea…Maybe.”

“You think she was an ex-girlfriend of his?”

Katie thought about it, then said, “No.”

“How can you be sure?”

“She was older. Like in her thirties.”

“Guys like older women.”

“No, there’s no way. He was facing her at the bar. He would’ve recognized her.”

“Okay, so let’s get back to this Peter Wells. What do you think he has to do with this woman?”

“I don’t know, okay?” The questioning was getting frustrating. “Maybe she knows him.”

“So he has a friend of his follow you, report back that you kissed some guy, and he gets so jealous he goes out and kills him.”

“I think Peter’s crazy. He doesn’t seem that way when you talk to him. I mean, he has a lot of charm and everything, always seems to say the right things. But the things he says and does—when you think about them, they all add up. I mean, he
asked me to marry him. He bought a fucking apartment for me. And this is a guy I’ve known, what, a week? I mean, I knew him before then, but he bought me a goddamn ring. Oh, and he said he got this job at the health club I work out at just so he can meet me. I think he was following me around places, to work and wherever, and then my mom told me he was stalking my sister. When I heard that, I freaked. I remembered that stuff I told you over the phone, about how a guy she knew—probably her boyfriend—died in college, and I wondered if he could’ve had something to do with it. I mean, our boyfriends, guys we’re with, keep getting killed. You can’t tell me this is all a fucking coincidence…Oh, and then there’s the stuff about the fire.”