Take the credit cards and license and anything else that had Stefanie Knight’s name on it and chop them up, run them through the food processor, dump them in the sink and grind them up again in the garbage disposal. Take her house and car keys and drive downtown to the harbor district and throw them off the longest dock. I’d made a mistake, I’d done a stupid thing, but I hadn’t killed anyone. I’d never intended to hurt anyone, and I didn’t know, with any certainty, that I was in any way responsible for Stefanie Knight’s death. Maybe whoever killed her did so for reasons totally unrelated to her losing a purse filled with $20,000.
Sure. And the bombing of Pearl Harbor had nothing to do with America going to war with Japan.
I weighed the risks of coming forward, of calling the police, of turning this purse over to them. I had a wife, two children, a house, a so-so writing career. Wouldn’t doing the right thing-if it even was the right thing-put everything I’d worked for, our lives as we’d come to know them, in jeopardy? I couldn’t do anything now to save Stefanie Knight, but I could pull myself together, start thinking rationally, and at least save myself and my family from untold horrors and embarrassment.
Get a grip.
I had a book to finish. It was time to focus, to put these last couple of hours aside. Isn’t that what Clinton used to do? Hadn’t I read about how the former President compartmentalized his problems? How he could meet with the lawyers about the Monica Lewinsky problem, discuss testimony he’d have to give before the Starr inquiry that could potentially see him removed from office, then get up and walk down the hall and give his full attention to a discussion of the Mideast situation?
Sure. That was me. Clintonesque.
I took another deep breath. I shoveled everything of Stefanie Knight’s back into the purse, zipped it up, and put it back in the shoe bag. Maybe, with Angie gone to the mall, and Paul no doubt down in the basement with his friends playing video games, I would have a moment to start destroying evidence.
And maybe once I’d finished doing that, I could turn my attention to work.
Out of habit, I fired up the computer. Before I brought up the word-processing program where I stored the chapters of my novel, I thought I’d check and see whether I had any mail.
I clicked on the mailbox icon.
I had two messages. The first was from Tom Darling.
“Nd 2 tlk abt cvr art. Cll me tmrrw so we cn set up mtng wth art dpt.”
The business of books and editing and cover designs seemed awfully distant right about now. Like news from a past life. How long would it take to stop being haunted by what I’d seen tonight? Days? Weeks? Would I ever be able to forget the sight of Stefanie Knight’s head smashed in, a bloody shovel at her side?
I didn’t recognize the name of the sender of the second e-mail. It would have been pretty hard to. It was a string of numbers, followed by @hotmail.com. Every once in a while I got fan mail. Readers could find my address by doing an Internet search and linking up with the writers’ union website.
I opened it. It was a short note, with no name at the end, and it didn’t appear to be a fan letter. It read:
“Dear Mr. Walker: I’m looking for something I think you got. Don’t do something stupid and give it to some body else.”
15
I PROBABLY READ THE MESSAGE A dozen times. It didn’t become any less scary the more I became familiar with it.
There’s a funny thing about e-mail. Even though it and the rest of the Internet exist somewhere out there in the ether, when something ominous appears on your screen, addressed to you, it feels as though the writer’s there in the room with you. You’ve suffered a home invasion without the duct tape. You want to lock the door, but it’s too late. There’s no place to go.
So someone had been to visit Stefanie’s mother and learned my e-mail address. Someone who was clearly not with the police. And that was no cause for celebration.
It was time to stop kidding myself about whether Stefanie Knight’s death and the $20,000 in her purse were related. Here’s how I figured it played out: Someone had gone to her house expecting to get that money, and when she didn’t have it, she was murdered. Then her killer started looking elsewhere, and showed up on her mother’s doorstep. But she didn’t have it, either. But hey, she said, there was a guy here earlier, said he had her driver’s license, was acting kind of funny. Here’s his name and e-mail address.
I read the note one more time: “Dear Mr. Walker: I’m looking for something I think you got. Don’t do something stupid and give it to some body else.”
Hadn’t I done enough stupid things already tonight? I certainly had no interest in doing any more.
It was the absence of any specific threat that made the note all the more chilling. It was implied. I already knew what this guy would do to someone who didn’t hand over something he wanted. I’d been in that garage. But then again, he didn’t know that I knew Stefanie Knight was dead. Maybe he intended his note to be more matter-of-fact. Maybe I was reading too much into it.
Earth to Zack. Wake the fuck up.
I clicked on “Reply” and wrote: “To Whom It May Concern: Regarding your e-mail about my possessing something you’re looking for, I’m afraid I simply have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I read it over twice, thought it sounded about right. Didn’t protest too much, just stated plainly that he had made some sort of a mistake. An incorrect assumption. A case of mistaken identity, perhaps.
I hit “Send.”
My study door opened. God, did Angie want more money? How much do you need, honey? Ten thou, fifteen?
Paul said, “Are you ready?”
I looked at him blankly. “Ready for what?”
“Jesus, you forgot? We have to be there in ten minutes.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The interview. The parent-teacher thing. It’s been written on the fridge for weeks. At eight. I have to get my ass reamed out by the science teacher, and you’re supposed to be there for it. You and Mom said you were gonna go? And now she’s been called in to work and you have to do it solo.”
The air seemed to be thinning. “I can’t do it,” I said.
Paul did a combination rolling-of-the-eyes, sigh, and shoulder-rolling-head-slumping thing which, if it were an Olympic gymnastic move, would have earned him a 9.9. “You have to go. If you don’t show up for this, I’m dead. Ms. Wilton will kill me. She wants me dead already. She hates me. Maybe if she gets a chance to talk to you, she’ll let up on me a bit. You could tell her to stop giving me a hard time.”
“Maybe you need people giving you a hard time.”
Another eye-roll. “We have to be there in less than ten minutes.”
“Where are your friends?”
“They took off. We’re going to get together later at Andy’s house.”
“You don’t have any homework?”
“Nothing.”
“No science homework?”
“Look, are we going to go or what?”
I swallowed. “I’ll meet you at the front door in two minutes.” Paul vanished and I turned back to the computer. I was about to close the mail program, when the computer beeped.
“You have mail,” it said.
Shit. Was this guy sitting by his computer? The number guy from Hotmail was back. I opened the message. It read:
“Don’t jerk me around, asshole. There can’t be that many Z. Walkers in the phone book.”
And that was it.
“I’m ready!” Paul shouted from the front door. “Let’s roll!” I closed the letter, exited the mail program, and turned off the computer before grabbing my jacket and my cell. I flew past Paul on the way to the car, and he pulled the front door shut.
On the short drive over to the school, Paul said, “What’s with you tonight, anyway?”