The Stranger (21 page)

J
ohanna Griffin had two
Havanense dogs named Starsky and Hutch. At first she didn't want to get Havaneses. They were considered a toy breed, and Johanna had grown up with Great Danes and considered small dogs, please forgive her, semi-rodents. But Ricky had insisted and damned if he wasn't right. Johanna had owned dogs all her life, and these two were as lovable as all get-out.

Normally, Johanna liked taking Starsky and Hutch for a walk early in the morning. She prided herself on being a good sleeper. Whatever horror or issues might be plaguing her daily life, she never let them past her bedroom door. That was her rule. Worry it all to death in the kitchen or living room—but when you cross that portal, you flick a switch. That was it. The problems were gone.

But two things had been robbing her of sleep. One was Ricky. Maybe it was because he'd put on a few pounds or maybe it was just age, but his once tolerable snoring had become a constant, grating buzz saw. He had tried various remedies—a strip, a pillow, some over-the-counter medication—but none had worked. It had reached the stage where they'd been debating separate sleeping quarters, but that felt too much like a white flag to Johanna. She'd just have to plow through it until a solution popped up.

Second, of course, was Heidi.

Her friend visited Johanna in her sleep. It wasn't in a gory, bloody way. Heidi didn't turn into a ghostly figure or whisper, “Avenge me.” Nothing like that. Johanna really couldn't say what exactly occurred in her Heidi-centric dreams. The dreams felt normal, like real life, and Heidi was there and laughing and smiling and they were having a good time, and then at some point, Johanna remembered what had happened, that Heidi had, in fact, been murdered. Then panic would take hold of Johanna. The dream would start ending, and Johanna would reach out and desperately try to grab her friend, as though she could keep Heidi there, alive—as though Johanna, if she tried hard enough, could undo the murder and Heidi would be okay.

Johanna would wake up with cheeks wet from tears.

So lately, to change it up, she had taken Starsky and Hutch for late-night walks. Johanna tried to enjoy the solitude, but the roads were dark and, even with the streetlights, she always feared that she'd hit a patch of uneven sidewalk and fall. Her dad had taken a fall when he was seventy-four and never fully recovered. You hear that a lot. So as she walked, Johanna kept her eyes glued to the ground. Right now, as she hit a particularly dark patch, she took out her smartphone and used the flashlight app.

Her phone buzzed in her hand. At this late hour, it would have to be Ricky. He'd probably woken up and either wondered when she'd be getting back or decided that maybe with all that weight he was gaining, he could use a little exercise and would want to join the dog walk. That was okay by her. She had just started out, so circling back with Starsky and Hutch wouldn't be a problem.

She put both leashes in her left hand and put the phone to her ear. She didn't check the caller ID. She simply hit the answer button and said, “Hello?”

“Chief?”

She could tell from the voice that this wasn't a casual call. She stopped. Both dogs stopped too.

“Is that you, Norbert?”

“Yeah, sorry about the hour, but . . .”

“What's wrong?”

“I checked on that license plate for you. I had to do some digging, but it looks like it was a car rented to a woman whose real name is Ingrid Prisby.”

Silence.

“And?” she prompted.

“And it's bad,” Norbert said. “Really, really bad.”

A
dam called Andy Gribbel
early in the morning. Gribbel moaned out a “What?”

“Sorry, didn't mean to wake you up.”

“It's six in the morning,” Gribbel said.

“Sorry.”

“The band had a gig late last night. Then there were hot groupies at the after-party. You know how it is.”

“Yeah. Listen, do you know anything about Facebook?”

“You kidding? Of course I do. Band has a fan page. We have, like, almost eighty followers.”

“Great. I'm forwarding you a Facebook link. Four people are in it. See if you can get me addresses on any of them and find out
anything else you can about the picture—where it was taken, who else is in it, anything.”

“Priority?”

“Top. I need the info yesterday.”

“Got it. Hey, we did a killer version of ‘The Night Chicago Died' last night. Not a dry eye in the house.”

“You can't imagine how much this means to me right now,” Adam said.

“Wow, this is that important?”

“More.”

“On it.”

Adam hung up and got out of bed. He woke up the boys at seven and took a long, hot shower. It felt good. He got dressed and checked the time. The boys should be downstairs now.

“Ryan? Thomas?”

It was Thomas who replied. “Yeah, yeah, we're up.”

Adam's mobile phone buzzed. It was Gribbel. “Hello?”

“We got lucky.”

“How's that?”

“That link you sent. It came from the profile page of a woman named Gabrielle Dunbar.”

“Right, what about it?”

“She doesn't live in Revere anymore. She moved back home.”

“Fair Lawn?”

“You got it.”

Fair Lawn was only a half hour from Cedarfield.

“I just texted you her address.”

“Thanks, Andy.”

“No problem. You going to see her this morning?”

“Yes.”

“Let me know if you need me.”

“Thanks.”

Adam hung up. He started down the corridor when he heard a noise coming from Ryan's bedroom. Adam moved closer to the shut door and placed his ear against it. Through the wood, he could hear his son's muffled sobs. The sound was like shattered glass rolling across his heart. Adam rapped his knuckles on the door, braced himself, and turned the knob.

Ryan was sitting up in bed sobbing like a little boy, which, in a sense, he still was. Adam stayed in the doorway. The pain inside him, fueled by helplessness, grew.

“Ryan?”

Tears made everyone look smaller and frailer and so damn young. Ryan's chest hitched, but he still managed to say, “I miss Mommy.”

“I know you do, pal.”

For a second, a bolt of anger boomed through him—anger at Corinne for running away, for not staying in touch, for faking that damn pregnancy, for stealing the money, for all of it. Forget what she had done to Adam. That wasn't an issue. But hurting the boys like this . . . that would be far harder to forgive.

“Why isn't she answering my texts?” Ryan cried. “Why isn't she home with us?”

He was about to offer up more platitudes about her being busy and needing time and all that. But the platitudes were lies. The platitudes just made it worse. So this time, Adam settled for the truth.

“I don't know.”

That answer seemed oddly to soothe Ryan a little. The sobs didn't suddenly stop, but they did begin to decelerate toward
something more akin to sniffles. Adam came over and sat on the bed with Ryan. He was going to put his arm around his son, but somehow that felt like the wrong move. So he just sat beside him and let him know he was there. It seemed enough.

A moment later, Thomas came to the doorway. All three of them were together now—“my boys,” as Corinne always called them, joking that Adam was just her biggest child. They stayed in the room, unmoving, and Adam realized something simple but somehow profound: Corinne loved her life. She loved her family. She loved the world she had fought so hard to create. She loved living in this town where she'd started out, in this neighborhood she cherished, in this home she shared with her boys.

So what had gone wrong?

All three of them heard the car door slam. Ryan's head snapped toward the window. Adam instinctively went into protective mode, getting to the window fast and positioning his body in such a way as to block his boys' view. The block didn't last long. The two boys came up to him, each on one side, and looked down. No one cried out. No one gasped. No one said a word.

It was a police car.

One of the officers was Len Gilman, which made no sense because the side of the vehicle read
ESSEX COUNTY POLICE
. Len worked for the town of Cedarfield.

Coming out of the driver's side was a county officer in full uniform.

Ryan said, “Dad?”

Corinne is dead
.

It was a flash, no more than that. But wasn't that the obvious answer here? Your wife goes missing. She doesn't communicate with you or even her children. Now two cops, one a family friend,
one from the county, show up at his doorstep with grim faces. And really, wasn't that the logical assumption all along—that Corinne was dead and lying in a ditch somewhere and these grim-faced men were there to deliver that news and then he'd have to pick up the pieces and carry on and grieve and be brave for the boys?

He turned and started down the stairs. The boys fell in line behind him, Thomas first, then Ryan. It was almost as though there had been an unspoken adhesion, a bond formed by the three survivors to stand together and take the oncoming blow. By the time Len Gilman rang the bell, Adam was already turning the knob to open the door.

Len startled back and blinked.

“Adam?”

Adam stood there, the door half-opened. Len looked behind him and spotted the boys.

“I thought they'd be at practice by now.”

“They were just about to leave,” Adam said.

“Okay, maybe you could let them go and then we could—”

“What's going on?”

“It's better if we talk at the precinct.” Then, clearly for the benefit of the boys, Len added, “Everything is fine, boys. We just have some questions.”

Len met Adam's eye. Adam was having none of it. If the news was bad—if it was going to devastate them—it would be just as devastating if they heard now or after practice.

“Does this have something to do with Corinne?” Adam asked.

“No, I don't think so.”

“Don't think?”

“Please, Adam.” He could hear the plea in Len's voice now. “Get the boys off to practice and come with us.”

K
untz spent the night
in his son's hospital room, semi-sleeping on a chair that half folded out into what no one would really call a bed. When the nurse saw him trying to stretch his stiff back in the morning, she said, “Not very comfortable, is it?”

“Did you guys order these from Guantánamo?”

The nurse smiled at him and took Robby's vital signs—temperature, heart rate, blood pressure. They did that every four hours, awake or asleep. His little boy was so used to it, he barely stirred. A little boy should never get used to something like that. Never.

Kuntz sat by his son's bedside and let the familiar horror of helplessness wash over him. The nurse saw the distress on his face.
They all did, but they were wise enough not to patronize or soothe with comforting lies. She merely said, “I'll be back in a bit.” He appreciated that.

Kuntz checked his texts. There were several urgent ones from Larry. Kuntz had expected as much. He waited for Barb to arrive. He kissed her on the forehead and said, “Gotta go for a bit. Business.”

Barb nodded, not asking or needing details.

Kuntz grabbed a taxi and headed to the apartment on Park Avenue. Larry Powers's pretty wife, Laurie, answered the door. Kuntz never understood cheating on your wife. Your wife was the woman you loved more than anything in the world, your only true companion, a part of you. You either love her with all your heart or you don't—and if you don't, it was time to move along, little doggie.

Laurie Powers always had a ready smile. She wore a pearl strand necklace and a simple black dress that looked expensive—or maybe it was Laurie who looked expensive. Laurie Powers had come from old-world money, and even if she wore a muumuu, you'd probably be able to see that.

“He's expecting you,” she said. “He's in the study.”

“Thanks.”

“John?”

Kuntz turned toward her.

“Is something wrong?”

“I don't think so, Mrs. Powers.”

“Laurie.”

“Okay,” he said. “And how about you, Laurie?”

“What about me?”

“Are you okay?”

She tucked her hair behind her ear. “I'm fine. But Larry . . . he hasn't been himself. I know it's your job to protect him.”

“And I will. Don't give it another thought, Laurie.”

“Thank you, John.”

Here is one of life's little shortcuts: If someone is meeting you in their “study,” they have money. Normal people have a home office or a family room or maybe a man cave. Rich people have studies. This one was particularly opulent, loaded up with leather-bound books and wooden globes and Oriental rugs. It looked like someplace Bruce Wayne would hang out before heading down to the Batcave.

Larry Powers sat in a burgundy leather wing chair. He held a glass filled with what looked like cognac. He'd been crying.

“John?”

Kuntz came over and took the glass from his hand. He checked the bottle and saw that too much of it was gone. “You can't be drinking like this.”

“Where have you been?”

“I've been taking care of our problem.”

The problem was both devastating and simple. Because of the somewhat religious connection to their product, the bank issuing the IPO had insisted on moral clauses, including one involving adultery. In short, if it got out that Larry Powers frequented a sugar babies website and had, in fact, used it to secure the sexual services of college students, bye-bye, IPO. Bye-bye, seventeen million dollars. Bye-bye, best health care for Robby. Bye-bye, trip to the Bahamas with Barb.

Bye-bye to it all.

“I got an e-mail from Kimberly,” Larry said.

He started crying again.

“What did it say?”

“Her mother was murdered.”

“She told you that?”

“Of course, she told me. Jesus, John, I know you—”

“Quiet.”

The tone in his voice stopped Larry like a slap across the face.

“Just listen to me.”

“It didn't have to be this way, John. We could have started again. There might have been other opportunities. We would have been okay.”

Kuntz just stared at him. Right, sure. Other opportunities. Easy for him to say. Larry's father had been a bond trader, made nice cash his whole life, sent his kid to an Ivy League school. Laurie came from huge money. Neither of them had a friggin' clue.

“We could have—”

“Stop talking, Larry.”

He did so.

“What exactly did Kimberly say to you?”

“Not say. It was by e-mail. I told you. We never talk on the phone. And it's not my real e-mail. It's via my sugar babies account.”

“Okay, good. What did her e-mail say?”

“That her mother had been killed. She thought it was some kind of breaking and entering.”

“Probably was,” Kuntz said.

Silence.

Then Larry sat up and said, “Kimberly isn't a threat. She doesn't even know my name.”

Kuntz had already gone through the pros and cons of silencing Heidi's daughter, Kimberly, but in the end, he decided it would be more dangerous to kill her. Right now, the police would have absolutely no need to connect Heidi Dann's murder to Ingrid Prisby's. They were separated by more than four hundred miles. He had even used two different guns. But if suddenly something also happened to Heidi's daughter, that would draw too much attention.

Larry claimed that he did not use his real name with Kimberly. The site did a fairly good job of keeping the men's identities a secret. Sure, Kimberly might recognize him if his picture ended up in the paper, but they'd already decided to now make Larry the shy CEO and let the president do all the press when the IPO officially came out. And if she did make trouble later on, well, Kuntz would figure a way to handle it then.

Larry stood and started doing a drunk-stagger pace. “How did these people know about me?” he whined. “The site is anonymous.”

“You had to pay for the services, right?”

“Yes, sure, with a credit card.”

“Someone has to run the card, Larry. That's how they knew.”

“And someone told Kimberly's mom about this?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think, Larry?”

“Blackmail?”

“Bingo.”

“So let's just pay them.”

Kuntz had considered that, but one, they hadn't yet approached them for anything, and two, it left too many loose ends.
Blackmailers, especially ones who had a certain brand of fanaticism, were not reliable or trustworthy. He hadn't known enough about the threat when he first arrived in Ohio. What he did know was that Heidi Dann had been devastated by the news that her daughter had taken up something akin to prostitution. She knew the aliases of the johns, but luckily, she hadn't discussed that with her daughter. After some persuasion, Heidi had told Kuntz about the young couple approaching her outside Red Lobster. Kuntz had flashed his credentials at some kid who worked in the restaurant's security office, gotten the video of the young couple talking to Heidi, written down the license plate.

From there, it'd been easy. He got the name Lauren Barna from the rental car agency and connected it to Ingrid Prisby. Then he ran a trace on her credit card and found her staying at a motel near the Delaware Water Gap.

“So is that it?” Larry asked. “It's over, right?”

“Not yet.”

“No more bloodshed. Please? I don't care if we lose the IPO. You can't hurt anyone else.”

“You hurt your wife.”

“What?”

“Cheating on her. You hurt her, right?”

Larry opened his mouth, closed it, tried again. “But . . . I mean, she's not dead. You can't compare the two.”

“Sure I can. You hurt someone you love, yet you worry about strangers who are out to harm you.”

“You're talking murder, John.”

“I'm not talking anything, Larry. You are. I heard that Kimberly's mom died from a breaking and entering. That's a good thing,
because if someone did her harm—say, someone who worked for you—that person could easily cut a deal and say he was just a hired hand. Are you following me?”

Larry said nothing.

“You got any other messes I need to clean up, Larry?”

“No,” he said softly. “Nothing.”

“Good. Because nothing is going to stop this IPO from coming together. You understand that?”

He nodded.

“Now stop drinking, Larry. Pull yourself together.”