Don't Be Afraid (26 page)

 

 

Amy pulled up in front of Minuteman Delivery Service, inconveniently hidden in a small storefront a block off main, a bare five minutes before they were set to close.

“You just made it!” the young woman behind the desk said with a level of enthusiasm that hardly seemed warranted by the job. “What do you need to send? A manuscript? Tax form? Love letter?” She began pulling padded mailers out from below the counter. “How big is it?”

Amy shook her head. “Actually, I’m looking for some information.”

The smile wavered on the woman’s face. “Oh. So you’ve got nothing to deliver?”

“I’m afraid not.”

The young woman gave a genuine sigh of disappointment. She slipped the mailers back under the counter and leaned on her elbows, playing with the multiple silver bangles dangling from one thin wrist. The small room smelled like patchouli and envelope paste. “What do you need to know?”

Amy explained about the delivery and the date. The young woman nodded in time. “Sure, we’ve got a record,” she said. “There wasn’t something wrong with the delivery, was there?”

“No, not at all.”

“Good.” She straightened up and went to the monitor at the end of the wooden counter. “We’re trying to compete with UPS and FedEx, you know,” she said, tapping rapidly on the keys. “Not to mention U.S. Mail. There’s a lot of competition in this business. And I mean a lot of competition.”

She scanned the screen intently, scrolling up and down with a mouse incongruously shaped like a cat. “Yep, here it is. Bob took it. Delivery of a bottle of wine.”

“That’s it. Who ordered the delivery?”

The woman looked puzzled. “You mean you don’t know?”

“No, it was an anonymous gift. And I wanted to thank them.”

“Okay, let’s see.” She tapped a few more keys and searched the screen. “Here you go. No first name, just the initials I.M. Last name is an odd one: Nemo.” She looked up at Amy. “Is that someone you know?”

“I.M. Nemo?” Amy clarified, feeling a creeping sensation along her spine.

“Yeah. Weird name. Only time I’ve heard of a Nemo, except for the movie, of course. I love that movie.”

“And Captain Nemo,” Amy said.

“Is that a sequel? I didn’t see that.”

She shook her head, aware of the prickling of the tiny hairs along the back of her scalp. “It’s a character in a Jules Verne novel.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
.”

“Never read it,” the woman said cheerfully. “Of course, I’m not much of a reader. I like TV better.”

When Amy left the business a few minutes later it was with very little additional information. I.M. Nemo was a man. He’d paid cash. She couldn’t remember what he looked like or anything at all about him other than the name.

Amy felt dazed. I.M. Nemo wasn’t real, that she knew. But why would the giver wish to remain anonymous? And why that particular pseudonym? She’d had a year of Latin in high school and recognized this word, if little else.
Nemo
meant “no one.”

The house where Patty Bulowski lived had seen better days. It was a small saltbox with white aluminun siding that had turned gray over the years from traffic and smog.

Mark had trouble finding her street, driving around Elizabeth and passing hundreds of other urban houses that looked similar to hers. Some were older, some bigger, all of them looking like the owners had stopped caring a long time ago about what their neighbors thought.

The house next to Bulowski’s was a large Victorian that had been split up into rentals. A hand-lettered sign advertising apartments for let was stuck crookedly in the crabgrass that passed for a front lawn.

There was a chain-link fence surrounding the Bulowski house that looked newer than the home itself and a large sign posted next to the gate that said BEWARE OF THE DOG.

A Ford Taurus with a dent in its right fender sat in the driveway. There was a plastic doghouse in the postage stamp back yard, with leaves from a maple tree spread around it, half burying the chain extending from it and the large dog dish sitting in front.

Juarez swung open the gate and started up the walk. He rang the bell and there was an immediate sound of loud barking. A constant bark and growl, bark and growl.

A woman’s voice said, “Quiet, Ranger, quiet, boy,” and then the barking abruptly ceased. “What do you want?”

“I’m Mark Juarez, Ms. Bulowski, I’m a homicide detective from Connecticut. I wanted to talk to you about what happened five years ago in the condo.” Mark held up his badge to the peephole. He could feel her looking at him. His skin was crawling.

“That happened around here, not Connecticut.”

“There have been some killings in Steerforth that look like the work of the same guy that killed here. That almost killed you. It would really help us if I could talk to you.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” the woman said, but this time her voice was so low he could barely hear it. “It was a long time ago.”

“We have some new evidence, Ms. Bulowski.”

“Go away!”

“I need your help. Please. At least two more women have been killed.”

“If you don’t leave, I’m going to sic my dog on you!”

“You don’t have a dog, Ms. Bulowski,” Mark said.

Immediate silence. Then the door cracked open with a security chain in place. A woman’s face appeared, white with frightened pale eyes and mousy brown hair pulled severely back.

“How did you know that?” she said. The hand holding the door in place was shaking.

“There are leaves all over the chain and the bowl and the barking dog is a recording,” Mark said.

She looked even more frightened for a moment. “I can’t have a real dog, I’m allergic.”

He nodded. “They’re a good decoy. Most people are fooled.”

“I had to do something after—after what happened.”

He nodded again, feeling the panic emanating in waves off her. “I’ve got two sisters—I know what it’s like.”

“Have they been attacked?” she immediately demanded, the tremulous voice becoming rigid and hard and then just as quickly fading away.

“No,” he said. “No, they haven’t.”

“Then you can’t know.”

He nodded. It had been a misstep. “I just meant that I know women are vulnerable.”

“I never felt vulnerable before.” There was a hint of pride in her voice. He remembered the police report that Shuster had read to him. That she’d been strong enough to slip his grip and smash a window. His gaze fell involuntarily to the hands clutching the doorframe and he could see shiny white scars.

“I told everything I know to Detective Shuster. Talk to him.”

“I have,” Mark said, “but it’s better if we can hear it from you. I’m sorry, Ms. Bulowski, I’m not trying to bring you pain, but it’s really, really important.”

She stared at him for a long moment and Mark held his breath and met her gaze, hoping that he looked sincere, nonthreatening.

“Empty your pockets,” she said at last.

“What?”

“Empty your pockets. I want to see everything in your pockets.”

It was her version of a pat-down, Mark realized, and he readily removed his wallet and keys and pulled all of his pants pockets inside out, circling slowly so she could check him. He emptied his jacket pockets, too, and took it off, offering it to her to check, but she shook her head. He patted his own shirt down, showing her that nothing was hidden there or at the waistband of his pants and then he lifted the legs of his pants one at a time so that she could see that he didn’t have an ankle holster.

The door closed and then he heard the scrape of the chain being removed. When the door reopened it was only marginally wider. She waited for Mark to slip past and then carefully locked and bolted the door behind him.

“The living room’s on the right,” she said, being careful, Mark noticed, to stay behind him. Every hair on his body was alert and he remembered what Shuster had said about her mental state and tried to move sideways to keep her in his peripheral vision.

The house was small and immaculate. The carpet under their feet was pale, the couch and matching loveseat a watery shade of blue that matched her eyes. There were photos on an end table. A laughing young woman was in all of them: Hair highlighted blond, long strands blowing in the breeze while she held onto the mast of a sailboat and a handsome man held onto her; a white tennis outfit and a dark tan, clutching a racket; shorts and T-shirt revealing a toned, trim body while she clung to the side of a rock in a harness.

The woman sitting across from him had to be the same, but it was as if she’d had all the energy and vitality sucked out of her. Her face had lost its healthy glow. She looked sallow and her hair seemed to have thinned. A worry line creased the space between her eyes. Her body was thinner than it had been, but he could tell this only from the bones visible in her wrists and her neck for she was swaddled in a capacious tracksuit at least a size too large.

“What do you want to know?” she said, taking a seat across from him on the loveseat. Her hands were tightly clenched in her lap and she sat forward, posture rigid.

“Tell me about what happened that day.”

“I went to look at a condo. I thought it would be nice. Maintenance free.”

“How did you find out it was available?”

“An ad in the Sunday paper. A man said that if I came on a Thursday he could show me the place.”

“How did you get there?”

“Car.”

“So you parked outside the building . . .”

“Yes. I parked. I went in. He answered the door. He was smiling.”

She shivered and her hands moved to opposite elbows, clutching.

Mark glanced at his notebook, at the description she’d given Shuster. “You said he was tall, six-foot-something?”

“Yes.”

“Unusually tall? Six-four or above?”

She shook her head. “Just tall.”

“Hair color?”

“Brown. But I thought it might not have been his. I thought it was a toupee.” She rocked forward and back, a minute movement, but she kept at it.

“Why did you think that?”

“It sat too far forward.” She quickly tapped the center of her forehead and grabbed her elbow again. “He had glasses on, too. Thick ones in black frames.”

“You said he was smiling. Did you see his teeth?”

“I don’t know, I don’t remember.”

Mark heard the rise in her voice, so he pulled back. “So he let you in and then what happened?”

“He told me to go ahead and look around, so I did.” She met Mark’s eyes for a moment. “He seemed nice. That was my first impression. He seemed nice.”

“Where were you when he attacked you?”

Her eyes dropped. “In the bedroom.”

“Did he surprise you?”

“I was looking in the closet.” Her rocking intensified. “I heard his footsteps. I started to say something, just to make conversation. Something about the storage.”

“And that’s when he hit you?”

She nodded.

“From behind?”

She started to cry. One hand loosened its grip on her elbow and swiped at the tears rolling down her face. “It was so stupid. But he’d been so friendly. I didn’t get any creepy vibes, you know?”

“You thought you could trust him,” Mark said.

Patty Bulowski nodded, the tears still streaming down her face. Mark spotted a box of Kleenex on a nearby table and brought it to her. She smiled her thanks, blotting her face.

“What did he hit you with?”

“I don’t know. Something hard. On my neck. Maybe just his fist.”

“You fell to the floor?”

She nodded. The rocking had picked up a bit.

“And he landed on top of you?”

The woman covered her face with her hands and sobbed. Mark glanced away and then back. These were the moments he hated being a cop.

“What did he do next, Ms. Bulowski?”

“He tied my wrists. L-like this.” She raised shaking arms above her head. “Then he wrapped something around my neck. He pulled it tight. I was choking.” She put her hands to her throat. “I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was going to die.”

“But you fought back?”

She nodded, one hand straying to her mouth. She didn’t speak for a moment, just kept rocking, and Mark waited, careful not to push, trying to judge how much he could ask without her clamming up.

“He hadn’t tied my ankles,” she said at last. “I don’t think he thought I could do anything with my feet. Not like that. Not when I was lying on my stomach.”

“But you did?”

Another nod. “I kicked him. I could reach his back—I’m pretty flexible—and I had on high-heeled boots.”

“You cut him with the boot?”

“I must have, because he cried out and the rope—it was really a stocking—around my neck went slack.”

“How did you get to the window?” he asked, picturing the description that Shuster had supplied of the woman breaking free and kicking out the glass to scream for help. It was hard to reconcile that image with this defeated figure.

“I managed to get turned around and I grabbed him—down there,” she pointed to her crotch. “One hand on each and I twisted as hard as I could.”

Mark winced. “I’m betting that was successful.”

For a split second an actual smile blossomed on Patty Bulowski’s face, like sun appearing through gray clouds, and then it vanished. “I broke away and there was the glass. It was a big window. I didn’t know if it opened. I couldn’t have gotten it open anyway. I could hear him behind me and I knew he was going to kill me. I smashed the glass with my tied hands and then kicked the rest with my boots.”

“Did he leave then?” Mark asked.

“He couldn’t pull me away from the glass.” Her voice got higher. “He tried. His breath was on my neck, his arm was around my neck. But I kicked him again. He let go then and I screamed. I just kept screaming.”

“And someone heard the noise?”

“Yes. They called the police.”

She stood up abruptly, swiping at her eyes with jerky movements. “That’s all I know. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I’ve told you everything. Please leave.”

Mark scrambled to his feet.

“Please, Ms. Bulowski, just a few more questions.”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” she repeated, wringing her hands and stepping slowly toward the hall. “Please. Just go. Please.” She directed him with a shaking hand.

They moved into the hall and seeing the pictures on the wall prompted Juarez to ask, “Did you receive any photos before the attack? Naked photos of you?”

The woman’s already pale face turned chalky before suddenly flooding with color. She nodded.

“I gave them to the police,” she said. “I took them in right away, but they couldn’t do anything. There was no address on the mailer, no fingerprints on anything. They asked me if I had an ex-lover who might have taken them.”

The bitterness in her voice didn’t surprise Mark. She must have felt completely alone.

“How long after the photos were you attacked?”

“Two weeks.”

He pulled a card from his pocket and handed it to her. “If you think of anything else, anything at all, please call me. I want to catch this guy, Ms. Bulowski.”

She nodded and he heard the locks turning as the door closed behind him. He had his hand on the gate when he heard the door reopen.

He came back up the walk. “You thought of something else?”

“It’s probably nothing,” she said, holding on to the doorframe. “But it’s one of the reasons I wanted to move.”

He waited, wondering what Shuster could have missed.

“Someone had been in my house.”

 

 

After she’d been back to the hospital and had dinner with Emma and her mother, Amy read her daughter a bedtime story, kissed Dorothy Busby good-bye and returned home alone. This time the house was really and truly empty. No Chris lurking in the bedroom. So why was her fear greater than the night before? Because the night before she hadn’t realized that the gifts weren’t coming from her husband.

Flowers that seemingly just appeared, a bottle of wine sent by an anonymous stranger. The chocolates she’d tracked to a store in New York, which had no record of the purchaser beyond the fact that he’d paid in cash. Neither of the local florists had filled orders for a dozen white roses.

The first thing she did in the house was to check every door and window and make sure that all of them were locked. Then she drew the curtains, anxious to keep the darkness out. She noticed that the downstairs lights were on at Mrs. Deerborn’s across the street and just that glow in the darkness offered some reassurance that she wasn’t alone.

The words she’d said to Chris and her mother seemed foolish now. Maybe she was hanging on to stubborn pride in refusing to return to him. Certainly at this moment she desperately wanted the security of someone bigger and stronger.