Possessed (18 page)

Gomez agreed, and as Stefan went inside to collect Ana, the driver pulled forward and turned the cab around, pointing the front toward the street for an easy exit. Then she and Cannon waited.

From where he sat, Cannon, who had the feisty manner of a man who didn't mind a good fight, and Gomez looked out at the double doors leading into the bar. Stefan disappeared inside, then walked back out to the cab. “I'm having a little problem with my friend,” he said. “Can you wait?”

“Okay,” Gomez said.

Again, Stefan walked toward the bar, this time stopping to talk to a woman who'd come out with a man and stood near the door. Gomez thought the woman at the door appeared agitated. “I said go get a fucking cab!” Gomez heard the woman shout.

“I have a cab. It's here,” Stefan replied.

With that, he approached the cab for the third time. “Can you wait one more minute? I'll pay you if you start the meter.”

Thinking the man looked embarrassed, Gomez agreed. Moments later, Stefan finally walked toward the cab with
Ana beside him. He opened the driver's-side back door, and she got in. Then he walked around, got in the cab, sitting behind Cannon, and gave The Parklane's address: 1701 Hermann Drive. Gomez started punching it into her navigation system, when Ana suddenly shouted out directions, attempting to tell the cabbie which way to turn and how to get to the condo.

“All I need is the address,” Gomez said. “I'll put it in my GPS.”

In the backseat, Stefan remained calm, and Gomez asked one more time for the address to put it in her system. He began to recite it, but was cut off by Ana shouting, “Shut the fuck up! You don't know where the fuck you're going. I'll tell you!”

When Gomez again asked for the address, Stefan patiently told her, while Ana mumbled and cursed under her breath at Gomez. “I told you which fucking way to go,” she said, then turned to Stefan. “Aren't you going to tell the fucking bitch anything?”

“What do you want me to tell her?” he asked. “She's not doing anything wrong. Let's just get home.”

At 1:53, eight minutes after the cab arrived at the club, Gomez pulled out of the bar's lot. For the next nine minutes, Stefan apologized as Ana continued to berate the cabbie and complain, charging that they were being taken on a circuitous route to run up the bill. “Please, just be quiet,” he asked her, but Ana, slurring her words and drunk, wouldn't stop.

At 2:02, the cab pulled under The Parklane's porte cochere, and Gomez barely had her brake on when Ana attempted to jump out of the cab. The door was locked, something Gomez habitually did until she'd been paid her fare.

It was then that Stefan announced, searching through his wallet and pockets, “I must have left my credit card at the bar. Ana, do you have any money?”

“I gave you my money,” she said.

“What, three dollars?” he responded.

“Let me out!” Ana shouted, yanking on the door handle. “Let me out of this car! Open this fucking door right now! Come back tomorrow, bitch, and he'll pay you. You can get the money then.”

Frustrated, Gomez turned to Stefan, and said, “Mr. Andersson, I'm sorry, but I'm calling the police.”

“Please don't,” he answered, pulling another credit card from his pocket and offering it to her. She took it and unlocked the doors.

“If my wife calls the police, your wife is going to jail,” Cannon said, fuming over the shouting woman in the backseat. At that, Cannon jumped out, walked around the taxi, and swung open the door for Ana, shouting, “You act like a damn slut! Get out!”

Ana did, but still angry, she kicked at one of the taxi's doors. Cannon looked, didn't see a dent, as she stalked off toward the condo lobby. As she passed him, Ana grinned at Cannon, as if to say, “I got my way.”

While his wife handled the bill, charging it to Stefan's card, an angry Cannon walked back around the cab and asked Stefan to get out. Once they stood face-to-face, Reagan asked, “Man, what are you? Are you a man or a mouse? Why do you let her treat you that way?”

“I can't do anything with her,” Stefan answered, apologizing.

“Then you need to get away from her. It shouldn't be this way. Get her out of your life.”

Stefan agreed. Gomez joined them and handed him his receipt. For the seven-dollar fare, he gave her twenty dollars. Irritated by the confrontation, Cannon paced, but Stefan and the cabbie stood together as he again apologized. “I don't know you, and you don't know me, but be careful,” Gomez warned. “Your friend is out of control. You could get in trouble, or something could happen.”

“I'll be all right,” Stefan said.

“Your friend is not in her right mind,” she said. “Be careful.”

Stefan held her hand and squeezed it, thanking her. But then she took both of his, and asked, “Can I pray for you?”

In the driveway in front of the condo, under the overhead lights, Rosemary Gomez prayed for a stranger, asking God to protect him. Stefan, although an atheist, respected her beliefs and appeared grateful for her compassion. When she finished, he hugged her.

“You're a very kind lady,” he said. “Thank you.”

I
nside The Parklane, Florence McClean sat behind the concierge desk watching the drama unfold outside. She saw the cab pull up, then heard the loud voices as Ana exited the cab. While not able to make out what was being said, McClean sensed the tension.

Working the night shift at the condos, McClean monitored the security cameras and oversaw the front door and the valets. She'd picked up the night job to make some extra money, to augment her earnings from her day job with the county education department. During her time at The Parklane, she'd grown used to seeing the quiet professor with the talkative girlfriend. Ana often stopped at the front desk to tell McClean about her art projects. One day, she brought in a small stick she said she planned to use to make an art installation on Stefan's coffee table. When they came and went, McClean had noticed how patiently Stefan held the doors for Ana, and how he waited while Ana talked to others in the lobby.

On this night, the valet, Roland Ouedraogo, opened the door for Ana as she stalked inside from the cab, and once in the lobby, Ana made a beeline for the concierge desk, visibly agitated. “What's wrong?” McClean asked. Outside, she saw Reagan Cannon pacing, back and forth, as if fuming about whatever had happened in the cab.

“We're having a rough night. The cab driver is trying to rip us off, driving us all over town!” Ana responded, standing at the desk. Although he couldn't have possibly heard
her through the glass, she then turned, and shouted, “Stefan, come inside!”

For the next few minutes, Ana walked back and forth between the desk and the door, opening it and shouting again, “Stefan, come inside!” Watching her, McClean thought Ana looked jumpy, aggressive, and irritated at Mr. Andersson. The concierge wondered why Ana was at The Parklane. McClean knew that Stefan had filed a request to have Ana banned from the property. But he was with her, so that must have been rescinded. Something must have changed.

“Stefan, come here, now!” Ana shouted.

Outside, the cab driver talked to Stefan, holding his hands, praying for him. “Ana, go upstairs,” Stefan shouted back. She shouted at him again, and this time Stefan waved at her, indicating that he wanted her to go upstairs. Ana turned and walked away, disappearing into the hallway where she got onto the elevator to the eighteenth floor.

“Hi, Mr. Andersson. How are you doing tonight?” McClean asked Stefan when he walked into the lobby just
moments later. Usually he would have smiled and said hello, but tonight Stefan didn't answer. Instead, he walked slowly past the concierge desk, his eyes cast down, appearing overwhelmed and defeated.

A surveillance-camera image of Stefan, on the left, walking toward the elevator

Moments later, the elevator door opened, he got inside, and the door closed behind him.

I
n apartment 18D, Karlye Jones roused from her sleep. A bang on the wall above her head woke her, and she immediately looked over at the clock: 2:13
A.M.
She glanced at her husband who slept peacefully beside her, apparently undisturbed by the racket. To her, it sounded like someone moving furniture, a couch or a bed. The noise was so loud the wall and the pictures hanging on it shook.
At this time of night?
she thought.
What are they doing?

Just home that day from their Caribbean honeymoon, Jones had lived in 18D for three years. A grad student who worked on muscular dystrophy research, she liked The Parklane. One reason: The thick walls between the units meant Jones rarely heard anything from any of her neighbors, except in the hallways. Jones had seen the older man who lived in 18B sometimes, nodded hello as she passed, said good morning, and walked on. A quiet man, he kept to himself. Then the Latino woman began showing up. At times Jones saw the man and the woman argue as they got on or off the elevator. Jones didn't know their names, only that they lived in the apartment next to hers, 18B. Her bedroom backed up to their living room, but she'd never heard anything from inside their apartment until the
boom
that night.

Beside her, Jones's husband continued to sleep soundly. Getting out of bed, she threw on a robe, then walked through the living room toward the apartment door, intent on asking them to quiet down. But then she heard shouting, yelling, a man's voice. At the front door, Jones paused and waited, wondering whether or not to pound on her neighbor's door
in the middle of the night, interrupting what sounded like an argument. The voices grew softer, muffled, and she waited. The patter quieted and stopped. She heard something shuffle, then slamming doors. Again, she waited. Nothing more.

The apartment next door went quiet. Total stillness. Jones waited briefly, then turned and went back to bed.

O
n the way home from their night's work, driving to their house outside the city, Rosemary Gomez and Reagan Cannon heard a phone ring in the backseat. Someone had left a cell phone in the cab, not an unusual occurrence. In the passenger seat, Reagan reached back and searched, finding a small flip phone tucked into a crevice in the seat. A minute later, the phone rang again. “Ana?” someone said when he answered. It was a woman, and Cannon hung up.

After 3
A.M.
at the house, Cannon searched the phone, looking at recent calls, trying to figure out whose phone it was and how to return it. Glancing down the contact list, he spotted a listing for Stefan Andersson, recognizing the name of the man who had been their final fare of the night. At 3:37
A.M.
, Cannon used the found cell phone to call Stefan's cell. A woman answered, sobbing, her words slurred.

“You're going to have to quit bawling and squalling if you want me to understand,” Cannon growled, recognizing Ana's voice.

Instantly, she stopped crying. “Call 9-1-1,” she said. “I've been assaulted.”

Cannon didn't believe her, assuming it was a ruse. “Call yourself,” he said. “If you can talk to me on the phone, you can call 9-1-1.”

Judging it was all some kind of a sick game, Cannon hung up, wondering if the woman was trying to convince him to make a false 9-1-1 call, to get him in trouble and get even.

M
iles away in her bed in her east Houston home, Christi Suarez slept. Since she'd known Ana Fox, the woman had
been invading Suarez's dreams. On this night, Suarez saw Ana from the back, just her hair. They were talking, like they used to when they were good friends, before the big falling-out, before an angry Ana slapped her, twice.

In Suarez's dream, a burst of wind blew away Ana's hair, exposing her skull, covered with hideous, bleeding wounds.

T
he call logged in at 3:41, to a 9-1-1 dispatcher. “What's your emergency?”

“I need help,” Ana said, her voice garbled.

“Where are you, ma'am?” the dispatcher asked. Ana gave the address to The Parklane on Hermann Drive. Only instead of 18B, she identified the apartment as 1801. Slurred with intermittent sobs and moans, at times Ana verged toward incoherent. Struggling to understand, the dispatcher interrupted, asking her to stop crying, so she could comprehend what Ana said.

“What did your boyfriend do?” the woman asked.

“He was punching me . . . he tried to . . .” Ana said, but then her words dissolved into another moan. When the dispatcher asked if the boyfriend Ana spoke of was with her, she said that he was, but she added, “He's not breathing. I need you right now.”

“I'm getting someone out to you. Are there any weapons involved?”

“No, ma'am. It's just me and him. He drinks a lot,” she said, then more sobbing and unclear words. The dispatcher asked what the man was wearing, as a method for police to identify him on the scene. “No, he's in the apartment. He's about to die . . . I couldn't find the phone. Someone called me.”

“So is he beating you up, or is he about to die? . . .
So what do you mean he's about to die? What's going on with him?”

Ana's voice again lapsed into undecipherable wails. “Ma'am, would you stop crying and talk to me? What is going on with him?” the dispatcher asked.

“Be quiet!” Ana ordered, but who was she talking to? Stefan? It sounded like someone on the scene with her, in the apartment.

“Hello?” the confused dispatcher responded. On the phone, Ana's voice faded away as the dispatcher heard slurping, a sucking of air, and a blowing.

“Breathe. Breathe. Breathe, Stefan,” Ana said, followed by more noises. “He's bleeding all over the place. He's bleeding. He's about to die.”

Unable to understand what Ana said but realizing someone on the scene was injured, the police dispatcher transferred the call to a fire and medical emergency operator, who again asked for the address. Ana answered, then pleaded, “Please, hurry!”

“Ma'am, try to calm down and speak clearly. I can't understand what you need the ambulance for. What happened? Are you reporting an assault, ma'am?”

“He assaulted me,” she said. “I'm going to need an ambulance. Listen, he's about to die.”

“What happened to him?”

“I told him to let me go, but he wouldn't,” Ana said.

“What happened? Are you calling for yourself or are you calling for him?”

“I hit him in the head,” Ana said, followed by moans and unrecognizable words. “I hit him with my shoe. I didn't know what else to do.”

“You hit him with your shoe? Is he awake now?”

“No,” Ana said. “He was drinking a lot also.”

“Is he breathing normally now?”

“No. I don't think so. I've been giving him CPR. I couldn't find the phone, then somebody called me.”

“. . . Ma'am, if he's not awake and he's not breathing, we need to start CPR.”

“That's what I've been doing.”

The operator offered to give Ana directions, and began to do just that, but Ana talked instead, saying that she'd been administering CPR, and that Stefan was on the floor, and there was blood. Lots of blood.

“They're here,” Ana finally said, and the call ended.