Megan MIRANDA - The Perfect Stranger

Who was this woman whom nobody seemed to know? Where were her friends or colleagues? Her out-of-town relatives?

“I will,” I said.

I peered through her window once more. A massive hematoma, Kyle had told me. I pictured the scene from the tall weeds, the gnats in the moonlight – the scene Theo had drawn. A woman walking alone in the middle of the night. A man’s voice rising in anger. Something swung into the side of her head that left her bloodied, left her for dead. I could picture this same scene on any street, on any night, in any city.

I wished someone had told her: Stick to the roads, to the lights; call a cab or a friend; scream, scream louder, until someone hears.

Seeing her with a tube down her throat, prone on the bed, I knew: Unless she woke up, unless she spoke up, nothing would happen. There would be no arrest. I could feel it. The way the story was shifting already. The way people were forgetting her. How they never really knew her in the first place.

On the way out through the lobby, I saw someone I recognized but couldn’t place at first. An older woman, gray hair mixed with black, a narrow face.

She was the woman I’d met down at the lake that morning. She was the woman who’d found Bethany. Her hands were folded in her lap now, her eyes cast downward, as if in prayer.

“Hi,” I said, sitting in a cushioned chair beside her. “Are you here for Bethany?”

Her green eyes met mine, and she nodded once. “Are you family?” she asked.

“No, I didn’t know her. I just figured she could use the company. But I missed visiting hours.”

“Martha,” she said, holding out her hand, looking at me closely. I imagined what she must be seeing – the same similarity the police had noticed. The same eye color, hair color, and shape to our faces; the underlying bone structure of our cheekbones. The element tying me to Bethany to Davis Cobb.

“Leah,” I said, taking her cold hand in my grasp.

“I didn’t know her that well, either. But I saw her. .” She stared at her feet. “Well, and nobody else has come. I feel some responsibility for the girl.”

“Did she live near you?”

She tipped her head, almost a nod. “They said she moved up for the data center. Some entry-level job. She lived in the apartment units nearby, with that bus stop.”

“Hill Crest?” I asked. I knew them. Knew they looked out of place, carved out of a section of the woods, with an ugly sign at the edge of the road, no hill or crest in sight. These were the strangers the locals complained about. There was more of a pass given to the strangers who owned the massive houses built in the new subdivisions.

“Yes, I think so. She said the apartments, and, well, I don’t know any others nearby.”

“Kind of out of the way from where she was found,” I said. The apartments were on the other side of the main road, away from the lake, on the street leading out toward the highway instead of cutting in toward the water.

“Not if you’re walking,” she said. “I’ve seen her down there before, feeding the ducks. That’s how we met. She knew the way. That’s exactly how you’d go if you were walking to a house on the other side of the lake.”

“Why wouldn’t someone give her a ride back? It was pitch-black.”

She shook her head. “Why does anyone sneak around in the middle of the night? Why does anyone move to one of those apartments in this town?”

The place was full of people wanting to start over. Me, Emmy, Bethany Jarvitz. How many people here were dying to escape something? How many people hoped the trees would curve up and around, and the mountains would keep the outside at bay?

“I have to go,” I said. “But can I leave you my number? Please let me know if she wakes up. If anything changes. Please.”

She took the slip of paper from my hand. “Sure. This place is full of strangers now. It didn’t used to be like this.”

I wasn’t sure if she was talking about Bethany or me. And I wondered if she thought it was a stranger who had done this instead of Davis Cobb, as my students also believed.

“Well, I’m glad we’re not strangers anymore,” I said.

She smiled, and her teeth were slightly crooked, and the skin around her cheekbones was papery thin – but I thought she was someone you’d want on your side. She sat here, keeping watch. She was someone who wouldn’t let anything else happen to a girl all alone in a hospital room, not while she was sitting vigil.

I pulled in at home with not much time to spare before Kyle was supposed to arrive. I quickly changed from my work clothes to jeans and tied my hair up.

Kyle showed up promptly at five, which made me smile. I liked that he was the type of person who knew exactly how long it would take to get somewhere. I watched through the sliding glass doors as he walked from his car. His eyes skimmed the surroundings, and I noticed him pause on the drive. My smile faltered as I wondered what it was he was looking for. In the daylight, I loved these windows: You could see out, and no one could see in. But at night, they worked the other way around.

He was in a dark jacket and a light button-down, what I’d come to think of as his uniform, his strides measured, and he took the steps two at a time up to my front porch before knocking. I noticed he was chewing gum. For the first time since I’d met him, I thought he looked nervous. Or anxious. That cusp I’ve been on myself, the edge of a story, so sure it would all be mine soon.

I flipped the lock, slid the door open, forced an easy smile when he smiled first. But when he stepped inside, his nerves dissipated, and so did mine. I liked how I had to look up to see him, and the way he smelled like peppermint gum, and how he put a hand to my waist as he stepped around me. And I knew I was in trouble.

I got him a glass of water as he sat at my table, and I felt his eyes on me, even as I was turned away. Suddenly, I didn’t want to get started, get serious, with the conversation. I knew how this worked. Cops were like reporters: compartmentalizing.

I purposely didn’t sit down, prolonging the moment.

“How’ve you been?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said, “all things considered.”

He nodded, sat straighter. “Speaking of things to consider. . I have something I want you to take a look at.”

“Okay.” I lowered myself into the chair across from him.

He took out a photo of a man, slid it my way. “Ever seen this man before?” The switch was flipped, and we were a go.

The man in the photo had sandy blond hair cut to his chin, his face narrow and angular, his eyes a dull gray. I sat up straighter. “Yes,” I said. “This is him. Emmy’s boyfriend.” My eyes locked with Kyle’s, and he tilted his head to the side. “Jim.”

But Kyle’s expression was not matching my own. The corners of his mouth tipped down. “James Finley,” he said. “He’s the one who worked at Break Mountain Inn, as you said. He was the one who stopped showing up for work, who they replaced.”

“Oh,” I said. Not Emmy, then. No sign of Emmy. “Still, this is something, right?”

“Have you ever spoken to him, Leah?”

“Only on the phone. Only to take a message for Emmy.”

“Not in person, then?”

“No. I only saw him a few times, when he was leaving. Or dropping Emmy off.”

“He’s got a record,” he said, and I froze. Kyle raised his hand. “Nothing violent, nothing like that. But a record.”

“What kind of record?” I asked.

“B and E, check fraud, drunk and disorderly conduct. Your basic lowlife fuckup.”

“You think. .” I swallowed air. “You think he did something to her?”