Brenda Novak - Dear Maggie

Twenty minutes later, he found it.

“MOMMY, WHEN’S-S-S Mrs-s-s. Goober coming over?”

“Mrs. Gruber?” Maggie corrected. “Soon.” She was sitting at the kitchen table, preoccupied with the various newspaper articles she’d copied off the Internet a few hours earlier. According to what she’d found, six unsolved murders reported over the past year had enough common characteristics for investigators to assume they were committed by the same person. The victims were all Caucasian women ranging in age from twenty-four to thirty-nine. They’d been stabbed repeatedly with something resembling a butcher knife. And they’d had their tongues removed after death.

That last gruesome detail was as good as a signature—and was more than enough to make Maggie feel ill. What kind of sick bastard was this guy? It terrified her to think of him circulating among the people of her own city. He could be the guy smoking outside the café where she bought her coffee each morning. He could be her newspaper carrier or the house painter down the street. He could be anyone. And it appeared he could go anywhere. One victim was murdered in Massachusetts, one in Missouri, two in Colorado and two in Washington state. As if what she’d found wasn’t unnerving enough, she noted that his last victim, before Sarah Ritter, had been a reporter for the Seattle Independent.

“Gads,” she whispered. “What are we facing here?”

“Mommy! When’s Mrs-s-s. Goober comin’ over?” This time the frustration in her son’s voice finally broke Maggie’s concentration. Crayons were scattered across the table next to her, along with several scribbled pictures. She’d tried to entertain Zach while she worked, but he was bored with it all.

She glanced at her watch. Where had the time gone? Her “date” with John was in twenty minutes and she still needed to feed Zach.

“Where is everyone? All the lights you got on in this place, you’d think electricity didn’t cost money.” Mrs. Gruber shuffled into the kitchen, an overnight case heavy on her arm, but probably no heavier than the industrial-sized purse she carried in the other hand. Maggie had no idea what was in her purse, but she knew the contents of the suitcase by heart. She watched Mrs. Gruber pack it up each morning. A bag of gumdrops—her diet staple and probably the culprit in her denture disaster—a pair of reading glasses, a jar of cold cream, a toothbrush, a hair net and an entire medicine cabinet of vitamins. She’d tried to get Mrs. Gruber to leave her things in the guest bathroom, but her neighbor felt more comfortable carting it all back and forth. So Maggie had given up trying to convince her. Mrs. Gruber was a fantastic baby-sitter—more like a grandma to Zach, really—but she was accustomed to certain things. She always let herself in, said whatever came to mind and considered it her personal mission in life to see that nothing was ever wasted. She collected aluminum foil, washed and reused disposable flatware, birthday candles and plastic bags.

“Mrs-s-s. Goober! Mrs-s-s. Goober!” In his excitement to see her, Zach launched himself from the kitchen table and nearly tackled the old woman.

Mrs. Gruber told him to settle down and mind his manners, but her gruffness did nothing to stifle Zach’s enthusiasm. He knew she loved him.

She held him close, then delved into her overnight bag. “Look at this,” she told him. “I brought you something.”

It would have been a rare night had she not brought Zach a small present—a pretty rock for their collection, a quarter for his piggy bank, a new toothbrush. Maggie filed the disturbing newspaper articles away, planning to take them to the office with her, before tossing a look over her shoulder to see what Mrs. Gruber had brought him today.

“Pajamas-s-s with a cape!” Zach shrieked, immediately stripping off his clothes.

A widow who lived alone, Mrs. Gruber survived on social security and what Maggie paid her. She had no business spending her money on Zach, and Maggie often told her so. But that didn’t change a thing.

“He’s getting too tall for his football pajamas,” she explained, a defensive note creeping into her voice when Maggie cocked a brow at her. “And they were on sale.”

“I’ll pay you back.”

Mrs. Gruber scowled and helped Zach pull the top of his new pajamas over his head. “They didn’t cost enough to worry about.”

“That’s what you say about everything you buy him.” Maggie started rummaging through the cupboards, wondering what to feed Zach, but Mrs. Gruber nudged her aside.

“What are you lookin’ for?”

“Something for dinner.”

“I brought dinner. Zach loves my spaghetti and meatballs.” Before Maggie could respond, she added, “And don’t tell me not to bring food. It was leftovers. What did you want me to do, let it go to waste?”

She took out a plastic container with enough spaghetti and meatballs to feed an army, and Maggie knew darn well that it wasn’t leftovers. She’d made it for them, probably today.

“You’re spoiling us,” Maggie said, shaking her head.

Mrs. Gruber harumphed. “It’s just leftovers,” she said again.

“What are you doing here so early?” Maggie asked, changing the subject. “I don’t have to be at work until ten.”

“You were gone most of the day. I thought you might want to take a nap. You don’t get enough sleep. You don’t eat good. It’s going to catch up with you one day.”

Maggie smiled. Mrs. Gruber foretold her physical collapse on a daily basis. She was too thin. She worked too hard. She should be getting out more, making more friends, eating more vegetables. Today Maggie would’ve liked to take her up on the nap, but she wasn’t about to postpone her meeting with John. She’d been looking forward to it all afternoon. “I can’t sleep,” she said. “I have a…date.”

Mrs. Gruber’s face brightened beneath the tight, perfect rows of short, bluish curls. “Is it that nice garbageman who takes my trash out to the curb each week? I’ve told you to introduce yourself to him. He’ll probably start getting your trash now, too.”

Maggie didn’t tell her that there was no nice garbageman. She lugged the trash cans out for both of them when she got home from work on Tuesday mornings. “No, it’s someone I met online.”

“On what?”

Maggie laughed. “Online. On the Internet. We met at a chat, and now he’s e-mailing me.”

Mrs. Gruber propped one age-spotted hand on a bony hip. “He’s sending you messages? That’s it?”

“Well, no, not exactly. He’s taking me on a cyber-date tonight.”

“But you’ve never seen him? Never heard his voice?”

“Nope.”

“You’re going to stay in your house and he’s going to stay in his?”

“Yep.”

“That’s too bad,” she said. “You can’t neck with a man online.”

MAGGIE LEFT ZACH EATING spaghetti and playing Candyland with Mrs. Gruber and hurried to her bedroom so she wouldn’t be late for her date. She couldn’t believe she was actually nervous about “seeing” John again. What did she have to be nervous about? It was a cyber-date. It was nothing.

Her modem screeched through the familiar pattern of tones as Maggie hooked up to the Internet. She’d added John to her buddy list and expected to find his screen name listed there, but a quick glance told her he wasn’t online yet. She found a message from him instead.

Maggie—

When you’re ready for tonight, just click on the link below.

See you there.

John

The link John had sent consisted of a bunch of letters and numbers highlighted in blue. Maggie had expected another instant messaging session as their date, but apparently John had something else in mind. Pointing her mouse on the link, she clicked, and a moment later the picture of a beautiful island village filled her screen. Then a voice came through the speakers of her computer.