Trespass (17 page)

Chapter 39

I
awakened early, with the sun just starting to brighten the dim hospital room. I took a shower in the tiny bathroom off my room, then dressed quickly in an old set of scrubs a nurse had given me. The police had taken my bloodstained clothes away in evidence bags. I checked the hallway and saw a policeman stationed outside my room, but I didn’t see Taylor. Had I imagined him? No, TJ had been here and told me he was outside the door. The flowers he sent were still by the side of the bed, filling the room with a lovely scent, but they lacked the magic to mask the ugliness of the previous evening. Before I could buzz for a nurse to ask about Carter, a woman entered my room.

She acted like she was here in some official capacity. She wore a pair of neatly tapered slacks with a matching jacket over a pair of sensible black shoes. African American, her complexion was as dark as a moonless night. She wore her reddish hair in a smooth bob, no doubt the result of a lot of time spent with a flat iron. She flipped open her ID. “Ms. Rosenthal, I’m Detective Tasha Wade. I work with Detective Haymaker. Are you getting ready to go home?”

Haymaker’s partner. TJ had mentioned her and seemed to think she would be more forthcoming than Haymaker. “Yes. I’m going to leave as soon as I find out more about my ex-husband. Have you heard anything?”

“Yeah, they said he made it through the surgery. The knife missed his heart, but they said he has a collapsed lung. He’s in the ICU.”

A heavy weight left my stomach. Carter was alive. If it hadn’t been for me, he wouldn’t be fighting for his life in a hospital bed. I stopped myself; taking the blame resolved nothing. And I couldn’t credit the apparitions I had seen while in sleep paralysis for saving our lives—I knew what Lisa would have to say about that—it was the noises that had caused the visions. I had to get out of this hospital, talk to TJ, and help her to find a way to put these murderers behind bars.

“I want to show you something.” The detective took a phone out of her pocket, ran a finger over the screen until satisfied and then held it out to me. “Do you know this man?”

Why was she showing me a picture of Jorge? “Sure, I know him.”

“From where, and when did you see him last?”

“I know him from a support group I’m in for people who have sleep dysfunctions. His name is Jorge.”

“His full name is Jorge Paredes. We picked him up last night outside your house,” she said. “He claims he called 9-1-1 because he saw three people break into your house, but there’s no record of the call.”

Jorge, outside my house? I called him earlier in the day, but had never heard back from him. This made no sense. I had no idea how he even knew where I lived. But his call might explain how the police had gotten to my house so quickly.

“Wait,” I said, “you don’t think he was the one who stabbed Carter?”

“It looks like it, yeah.”

“But there was more than one person who broke in. I saw two of them for sure. At least I saw their silhouettes as they ran out.” A slight exaggeration since I had heard, rather than seen, more than one person exit through the patio doors. I didn’t dare tell her I had seen three of them coming in while in the throes of sleep paralysis.

“So? He’s one of them. The others got away.”

“He can’t be.” Jorge was an odd character, yes, but part of this? We had met
after
Norman’s death. Jorge had no control over meeting me; it was purely coincidental that we met in the sleep group. But the police didn’t believe the house explosion had anything to do with the other things that had happened.

Wade shrugged. “He’s in custody now, but he hasn’t been arrested yet.”

I tried to put the pieces together. They didn’t add up. “Was he covered in blood? The killer would have been; he stabbed Carter, then he used blood to write on the wall.”

She didn’t answer my question, but asked, “Were you expecting him to come to your house last night?”

I hadn’t been. “No, but I did try to call him yesterday afternoon. Can I go over to the police station and talk to him?”

She ignored my request. “Did you get a look at the person who stabbed your ex-husband?”

It took me a minute to reconstruct the events of last night in my mind and sort out what was real from what I’d seen in my sleep paralysis vision. “No. I heard noises from downstairs. One of them was loud.” I felt guilty again. I should have listened to all the advice I had gotten and checked into a hotel.

“I walked downstairs with my gun, and I heard them leaving through the patio door. Carter was bleeding and needed help. I didn’t see anyone still in the house. I closed the patio doors because the rain was coming in by the gallon. I started to put pressure on Carter’s wound when something hit me on the head and I blacked out. The next thing I remember was Detective Haymaker talking to me as he was taking care of Carter. I told him all this.”

“Just checking. You never know if you might remember something new.”

“Can we go to the police station? I’d like to talk to Jorge,” I repeated. Although I hadn’t liked Jorge when I first met him, I felt responsible for getting him involved in all this. The least I could do was go in and tell Haymaker what I knew—that Jorge hadn’t even known me when all this started.

She eyed my hospital scrubs. “Are you sure you’re ready to be released?

You don’t want to mess with a head injury. Believe me, I’ve had my share of them. You need to follow your doctor’s orders.”

“They can’t hold me here, can they?”

Detective Haymaker took a call from his partner warning him that Gemma Rosenthal was on her way to the station to talk to Paredes. They didn’t really have anything to hold the guy on: he had no weapon, no blood on his clothing, and a solid alibi for the night Sondra Jackson was killed. He would have to release him before long.

The case had become top priority. Lukaszewski and his partner had rejoined them, much to Brian’s dismay. Uniforms had been assigned to do the legwork, canvassing the neighborhood, trying to turn up anyone who might have seen something the night before.

Tasha walked in carrying a bag of bagels from Panera’s. She plopped them on the desk. “Hope you made the coffee today and not that idiot at the desk.”

Brian peeked into the bag and pulled out a cinnamon bagel. “Thanks. I owe you a few. And, yeah, the coffee’s safe to drink. Is Rosenthal out of the hospital?”

“They wanted to keep her longer, but she refused. She had to sign some kind of waiver. Did you release Paredes yet?”

“No, but we’ll have to pretty soon. His alibi for Jackson checked out.” He paused to pour more coffee. “We’re missing something on this case. We need to go back to the beginning and look at it again with fresh eyes.”

“The beginning? You mean the cum case?”

Haymaker said, “When we were investigating the first break-ins, we bought into that whole creeper thing, but none of the kids we talked to gave it much credibility.”

“Yeah, I remember that one kid said, ‘creeping was so last year.’ And they were only trespassing cases because people left their doors unlocked. Guess you could stretch it and call it vandalism because of the dirty sheets.”

“While you were on maternity leave, Lukaszewski was with me for a couple weeks investigating the Madison Chapman death. We didn’t get anywhere with it, especially after it was ruled accidental. We still don’t have anything but conjecture to call it a homicide.” He waved his iPad. “I’ve been going through my notes.

“The Chapman girl and her friends spent time at a restaurant where a lot of other teenagers hung out. A guy we interviewed, one who the Chapman girl had a crush on, mentioned a weird guy that was there a lot. Said the guy always looked like he was keeping an eye on her. We should explore that, see if we can find him.”

Tasha’s eyes narrowed. “So now you’re thinking the girl had help falling down that staircase? If we’re going back to square one, how about Teschler? We gonna look at that, too?”

Haymaker put down the iPad and rubbed his face. “That one still feels accidental to me.”

“You sure?”

“No, but we’ll let Rosenthal’s PI figure that one out until we have more to go on. I talked to her yesterday. She’s still on it and convinced it’s related to the others.”

“And we’re ignoring it.”

“For now. At least until we get something that solidifies a connection.” He noticed Tasha’s gaze stray to a spot behind him, and he turned to see Gemma Rosenthal approaching his desk. She was dressed in a worn set of hospital scrubs with a khaki windbreaker over them that appeared to be five sizes too big for her. Behind her was a tall man in his thirties who looked like he could easily fill out the jacket.

“I need to get into my house to get some things,” she said.

“Wouldn’t the uniforms let you in?”

“They gave Jon a hard time when he picked up Clyde, so I thought I should clear it with you ahead of time. And I’d like to see Jorge.”

Haymaker stood. “I’ll let them know you’ll be at the house.”

“I want to talk to Jorge,” Gemma repeated.

“No problem. We’re releasing him. I’ll bring him into an interview room for you while we get his paperwork done.” He raised his eyebrows, his glance aimed at the man with her.

“This is Jon Engel. A friend.”

The guy’s hand was soft. He didn’t look like an executive, but didn’t look like a laborer either. Mainly, he didn’t look like he would be Rosenthal’s boyfriend. He had met her ex, and if Carter Roche were any indication of her taste in men, this one fell short of what Haymaker imagined would be her standard.

I saw a different person when they led Jorge into the interview room. One night in jail had brought about an amazing transformation. He looked younger, vulnerable even. He brightened when he saw me waiting for him. “Gemma, did you bail me out?”

Hadn’t they told him anything? “I’m pretty sure you only need bail if you’ve been arrested.”

Jorge’s usually polished hair hung in heavy clumps, and his cocky demeanor had been replaced by a look of depression, although he was rebounding quickly. He exhaled loudly as he sat back in the chair. “Thank God. I don’t think I could take another night in a cage.”

“What were you doing at my house? It was awfully late for a visit, wasn’t it?” I asked. His being at my house had come as an unwelcome surprise. I wasn’t sure why I felt like I had to stick up for him. My first impression of him hadn’t been a positive one, but I have learned that first impressions can sometimes be deceiving.

“I tried to call you first, honest. I really needed to talk to you.” He looked down at the tabletop. “See, I had this idea. After you told me what happened in your last OBE, that you traveled to your neighbor’s house, I remembered something I read in one of my books. It’s possible to share an experience so you both see the same thing, only clearer. I wanted to help you.”

If the whole OBE experience wasn’t weird enough, this suggestion sounded even crazier. My face must have displayed my skepticism.

He added quickly, “I know it sounds wild. You didn’t tell me why what you saw in your OBE was so important to you, but I could tell it was. I thought together we could have a more intense experience, see more. I was going to sleep in my car and try to join your experience that way.”

I didn’t know what to say. Joining forces in an out-of-body experience sounded like something out of a book about witches and other paranormal forces. Luckily, I didn’t have to respond. Detective Haymaker came in and announced Jorge was free to leave.

Chapter 40

T
J opened her eyes and looked around the room. Confused for a second, she remembered she had gone to her sister’s after she found out her basement was flooded. Whether TJ’s furnace would ever work again was questionable, and until the water drained and everything dried out, the electricity would be off. She and JR were meeting Richard later to pick up what they needed in order to stay at his place temporarily.

Refreshed after the few hours’ sleep she managed in her niece’s room, she spent some time playing with JR, talking to Janeen, and taking a quick shower.

Bill Denison hadn’t made it through the night; the surgery hadn’t saved him. Donna called to give her the news before TJ had driven all the way back to West Bend.

Before leaving Janeen’s, she called Roland’s friend Larry, hoping to pick up their conversation where it left off the night before when the power went out.

Larry answered on the first ring. “Yeah, TJ. You know that woman I told you about? I’m with her now.”

Crap. Everyone had to play detective. Just what she needed, an amateur questioning one of her sources before she could. “Where are you?” After finding out they were in the coffee shop across from Roland’s hairdressing studio, TJ rushed from the house to meet them. Maybe she could still salvage the interview.

Amanda Korby, in deference to the rain that still plagued the area, wore her dark blond hair pulled back into a tight braid coiled neatly on the back of her neck. An attractive woman dressed in black leggings covered by a long, cinnamon-colored sweater, she sat across from Larry at a table next to the window. TJ joined them and introduced herself.

Larry looked every bit the aging hairdresser. He had his hair dyed a deep brown with strategic silver strands at his temples and forehead. He pumped her hand eagerly. “Hi, TJ. It’s great to finally meet you.”

Not great for her if he had ruined everything by questioning Korby until she was ready to clam up. “Thanks, Larry. But could you give me a minute alone with Amanda?”

His brown eyes registered disappointment, but he looked to Amanda, who nodded her okay and then asked to be called “Mandy.” Larry rose from the table.

Mandy watched him leave. “He’s sensitive, you know.”

“I’ll explain it to him later.”

TJ ordered coffee and turned to Mandy. “Hope you don’t mind, but I have to ask you some questions that might be kinda personal.”

“Right. You want to know about the swingers’ group.”

“Larry said you never joined them.” TJ had a difficult time imagining a man married to this woman being bored enough to want to swing. Her smile revealed perfect white teeth and matching dimples below dramatically high cheekbones. She was nervously crumbling her napkin with fingers that ended in an elegant French manicure.

“Can we talk—you know—off the record?”

“Sure,” TJ said.

“It was my husband’s idea. Colin is. . . He’s an undertaker.” She paused, apparently waiting for a reaction to the macabre career chosen by her mate. TJ didn’t comment.

“Anyway, about sixteen years ago, he met a man who was interested in using his funeral home when members of their church needed help making arrangements for the death of a loved one. Colin was hungry for business back then because he was just getting started. They hit it off, and we had dinner with him and his wife one night. The restaurant had a piano player and a small dance floor. When the man asked me to dance, I didn’t think anything of it. When we danced I noticed Colin on the dance floor with his wife. She was openly rubbing up against him. It was disgusting.”

“Your husband was okay with it?” TJ had never heard of a church procuring business with a funeral home, although she imagined it happened. But that wasn’t why she was interviewing Amanda, so she didn’t question it.

Amanda huffed. “He was into her, I could tell. Right in front of me. Her husband asked if it bothered me. I told him of course it did and asked him why he didn’t get upset about it. That’s when he told me about their little group and said he would love to spend a night with me. Only he put it much more explicitly than that. I left him standing there on the dance floor, and I told Colin we had to leave. He refused and I called a cab. Colin came home later, furious with me. He said he was just trying to get the church’s business and I should have known he had no intention of joining their swingers’ group. But then, after he knew he had pacified me, he added, ‘Not unless you want to.’ Then I knew it was what he wanted all along.”

“Did you change your mind?”

“I told him I’d think about it.” The pile of napkin balls in front of her resembled a pyramid of spitballs. TJ could tell Amanda had slipped into the past as her fingers worked the napkin. “I knew my husband wasn’t always faithful to me. He’s very handsome and women are drawn to him. I guess I thought that swinging could be one way of controlling it, you know? At least then I would know what he was doing and who he was doing it with.”

“You tried it?”

“No. I considered it, but kept putting him off. Then a couple of weeks later, he told me it was a good thing we never joined them. Two of the spouses, one man’s wife and one of the husbands, fell in love and ended up killing each other in some kind of sick, suicidal pact.” She shuddered. “After that happened, the group disbanded.”

There it was, information that could be relevant to the present. “Do you know the names of the two who killed themselves?”

“No. I never heard the names, and they weren’t in the paper, either.”

“Do you know how many people were in the group?”

“I think Colin said there were four couples, but I’m not sure.”

“Were they all members of the same church?” TJ wondered if there was a chance it was The New Followers of Christ, which could be an important bit of information.

“I don’t think the swinging had anything to do with the church. My husband just said the couple that we met belonged to that church—the one that he hoped to get as a client.”

“Did he get the church’s business?”

“He did.”

“What’s the name of the church?” she asked, nearly certain what the answer would be.

“The New Followers of Christ.”