Brooklyn Gothic, page 11
“Do you promise you won’t do anything bad?” she asked, her voice throttled. She knew she had no right to ask this. He had the right to make his own decision about when and how to die. But she was too panicked to give that levelheaded consideration.
“Casey…” he said quietly, looking away from her. “If something were to change in my health situation, would you want to be with a man like me? Someone always worried about perfect strangers?” He back at her, and suddenly his voice was firm and direct. “Because that would be a condition, it couldn’t become a sticking point.”
If she were able to think clearly, she might have said it was too much to always have suffering around her. But she could not think clearly, was too hungry to stave off anything that would take him away from her forever.
“Yes, I’d be fine with that, but what are you saying? Will you go see a doctor? Will you try to—will you try to live?”
In his eyes was a soulful, lost look, a wrestling with something beyond her comprehension, and a sigh seeped from deep in his chest. Then he patted her on the shoulder, as if she were a child. “I won’t do anything bad. I promise.”
The next day, she received an email from him:
Casey,
I’m sorry I’ve put you through so much. Don’t worry. This isn’t a suicide note.
I’m leaving to wrap up the last sale of a family home abroad. It needs to be done in person. I’m not sure when I’ll be back as I’ve hit some snags.
I have a beneficiary for you. She’s alive, but was the victim of an attack a couple of years ago. You may recognize her name and story. See if she needs anything.
I’d appreciate it if you’d work from home as Miss Brock is going to South Carolina to visit her daughter. She doesn’t need to be hanging out at the house if I’m not there. She’s leaving soon, so get whatever you may have left behind in your office today. I know she’s never been friendly towards you and I didn’t want you to feel awkward with her alone, so I directed her not to be there at noon and to leave the door unlocked. I’ve sent you noise cancelling headphones in case there’s still construction next to your building.
Email the information about the beneficiary here. No need to keep me apprised of your progress as I trust your work, but if you hit a major problem, let me know. I’ll access my email occasionally from a café.
Her name is Natalie Marshall; town is Newtown, Connecticut. Yes, she is the teacher.
And, please, don’t worry about me. I promise I’ll get a consult.
Your very, very good friend, Samuel (I’ll call myself that even if you won’t)
22
The Fifth Victim
Natalie Marshall. Newtown, Connecticut. The teacher.
Casey vaguely remembered the story about the attack, as it had happened while she was working at City News. But she hadn’t covered the story and hadn’t paid much attention to it as she was on the celebrity desk by then and busy digging into the finer points of nip slips and selfies.
A search brought up the City News article.
Natalie Marshall was a teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School. She’d survived the mass shooting and saved her classroom of first-graders by hiding them in a back closet. Three years later, on May 15, around two a.m., she’d been sleeping alone. That night, someone broke into her house and attacked her.
The article—dated the day after and containing no quotes from Natalie—had scant details. It said the victim had non-life threatening injuries and was in the hospital. That same day, a plane and its 235 passengers vanished over the Atlantic, and the news world was preoccupied with the larger story.
On LexisNexis, Casey pulled up what appeared to be Natalie’s phone number and address in Newtown (she was the only Natalie Marshall listed, and her age, twenty-eight, matched up with the timeline of the massacre, when she was twenty-three). But when Casey called, she got an automated message that the number was no longer in service.
She wasn’t going to go to Natalie’s address. For one, Natalie might not live there anymore. And showing up on someone’s doorstep unexpectedly was a bad idea—the person could become frightened or alienated. She’d only do that if all else failed.
But Natalie wasn’t easy to find.
Sandy Hook Elementary had been demolished after the mass shooting, with a $50 million school taking its place on the same site. Natalie wasn’t listed on the school’s website as being a teacher. Nor could Casey find her on social media.
Thus began the process of trying to contact people named in databases as potential relatives or who lived near the address listed as Natalie’s. Finding someone who knew a victim could take hours to weeks, depending.
With Natalie, it took five days. A woman named Natasha Goring, listed as a potential relative, answered a Facebook message. It hadn’t been obvious from Natasha’s profile that the two women were related as they had different last names (Natasha was married), but Natasha lived in Connecticut. And she resembled Natalie.
Casey only had one picture of Natalie to go on, as the news stories all used the same photo, a professional shot likely taken from an old teacher’s bio. In the photo was a pretty woman, with a wide pearly smile, black hair in tiny, coiled ringlets, and eyes of an exotic greenish-gold color, with large black irises.
Natasha’s Facebook reply was perfunctory.
Hello, Natalie is my sister. She doesn’t live in Newtown anymore.
Is there any way I could get in touch with her? Casey wrote back. She reiterated that she worked for a private foundation for crime victims. To help prove her identity, she included several links to her stories from City News. It wasn’t the first time she wished Remembrance Foundation had a website.
Though the check mark that appeared next to Casey’s message let her know that Natasha had read it, days went by without a response. Casey knew not to pressure sources, so she waited.
Finally, Natasha got back in touch and agreed to contact her sister on Casey’s behalf. Casey sent her phone number and email address, saying Natalie could get in touch any time, day or night.
Another week went by, and Casey began to think Natalie wouldn’t end up being a beneficiary. But she decided to give it another few days before alerting Mr. Foster.
The next day, she finally received a message from a woman claiming to be Natalie. Casey again explained her reasons for contacting her, and Natalie wrote back that she did not wish to receive any money. Although she’d been injured, she was fine, and just wanted “some peace and quiet.”
Casey said she understood. But if Natalie didn’t want any money, perhaps the foundation could make a donation in her honor to any charities of her choice? A few days went before Natalie wrote again.
“That might be nice,” she said. “I know there are groups founded by parents from the school. They could use a donation, I’m sure.”
Casey thanked her and turned her attention to researching the organizations. She found a few working to improve school safety on a national level. That was the last Casey expected to hear from Natalie Marshall, and she was planning to update Mr. Foster, but late one night, the instant messenger on her email pinged. It was Natalie.
Natalie told her she hoped she wasn’t being rude by turning down money from a foundation, but she was wary of strangers, given what had happened to her. She had a policy not to give out her personal information.
After her attack, she’d moved to a nearby town (not naming which one) and was teaching at another school, which had agreed to leave her name off its website and anything else going out to the public. She knew these precautions wouldn’t stop someone determined to find her, but she refused to change her name and wasn’t going to move to an island. She had a gun, she had a German shepherd guard dog, and she was a brown belt in Jiu-Jitsu.
“You sound prepared,” Casey wrote, assuring her that she wasn’t being rude.
“There are people who’ve threatened us,” she replied.
“Yes, that’s insane.”
Casey knew to what Natalie was referring. There was a lunatic fringe who claimed the school massacre was a hoax. The hoaxers or “truthers”— as they called themselves—had conspiracy theories about the massacre either not happening or being staged by the government. Many of the theories were tied to the belief that mass killings were faked to crack down on private gun ownership.
“Ironic, since the first thing I did afterwards was to go buy a gun,” Natalie wrote.
“Do you think it was one of these hoaxers who attacked you?” Casey asked.
“I don’t know.”
But minutes later, Natalie sent an article about a hoaxer who’d recently been sentenced to prison for threatening the father of a young victim. This let Casey know where Natalie’s suspicions lie. Simultaneously searching, she saw there had been several hoaxers, both male and female, arrested for harassment of Sandy Hook parents.
“Someone even took pictures of my license plate, got my address, and posted it online, saying I was a crisis actor. Apparently my car was too shiny to be a real teacher. I have to be extremely careful now,” Natalie wrote.
“I completely understand,” Casey replied.
“You still write for City News?”
“Right now I’m working with the foundation, but I can always pitch a story to an outlet. Is there something you have in mind?”
“I haven’t spoken to the press, but I’d do it for one reason.”
“I’d like to hear it.”
“I want women to know about self-defense. It saved my life.”
Natalie said although she’d bought a gun after the mass shooting, she had nieces and nephews who came to her house, so she didn’t want a weapon lying around. She began taking Jiu-Jitsu. She believed it was her training that saved her life when, three years later, a man broke into her house and attacked her.
“That would be a great story,” Casey said. The reporter in her was excited about getting an exclusive from Natalie about her experience during the massacre, but she was more than willing to spin that to a self-defense angle. In fact, it was preferable to a story that might sensationalize Natalie’s terror during the massacre.
Over the next couple of weeks, the pair developed a routine: Usually late at night, Natalie would send an instant message. First, they would chitchat about uncharged topics like movies or food. Natalie was a foodie, and Casey feigned more of an interest than she had to establish rapport.
She’d then ease into asking questions about Natalie’s personal attack, as well as the massacre. She quickly realized Natalie would not say the mass killer’s name, so she followed suit.
This was the kind of story Casey had gotten into journalism to be able to tell.
And Natalie was twice a survivor. She wanted to tell it.
23
An explosion of pain had woken Natalie Marshall, and someone was leaning over her in the dark of her bedroom. She could barely open her eyes, but she could see the darker outline of his body. The unexpected explosion had stunned her body into silence and paralysis.
But she’d met him already. She already knew the non-human, the monster, the killing machine. This gave her a crucial edge this new brand of evil wasn’t expecting. She needed no time to vault that psychological hurdle. He was there to kill her and she didn’t question why or how. She wasted no time telling herself this must be a mistake, this can’t be happening. There was no mistake. It was happening. She only needed a few moments to process it. Then she reacted.
She swung a fist at his head and heard a dull clanking. When he flipped her around and flung her down like a rag doll, pinning his arm against the back of her neck, she knew she was nothing to him at all, she was air to him.
She bent her leg at the knee and kicked back, feeling her heel connect. Sliding her face around on the bed, she smelled chemicals, like plastic. She bit down on his hand, hard, not flinching like most would have. There could be no flinching here, only two wild animals besieging each other in a pure, raw fight to the death.
She heard a strangled ahhhhggg and his heavy weight shifted, the pressure off the back of her neck. Bending her arm, she slammed it sideways, her elbow crushing into his flesh. His weight shifted again and she realized she could move. Scrambling off the bed, she knew she had only a moment before he would grab her.
She lunged out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. But the floor vomited up and slammed her on the chin. He had dove into the back of her knees, flipped her over, and was on top of her, straddling her. His hands pressed down hard her shoulders, nailing her to the floor, as if he wanted a good, long look at her, as if he enjoyed having his prey immobile. The motion sensor light he’d tripped on the back patio slanted through the glass doors, illuminating eyes that were flat, void, and vacant, like buttons. He had on a black cotton ski mask covering his mouth.
Then he made a mistake.
He lifted his hands from her shoulders, and was bringing them down to her throat. That second or two of freedom was all Natalie needed.
She crooked her fingers and plunged them, hooking them as hard as she could inside the pucker at the base of his throat. His weight was suddenly gone and she heard a convulsing blast of coughing and gagging. Then she was up and saw him tipped over. She side kicked at his kneecap, like she’d sent sidekicks flying at her hanging bag hundreds of times.
Exploding out of the screen door, she flew down the street, her only hope that she would find someone before he found her. She saw no one.
A whitish glow emerged in a window and instantly she knew it must be a television. She swirled up to the small house and tried the door—locked. Banging on it, she swallowed her screams. She didn’t want to frighten the residents, as maybe they wouldn’t answer the door if she did.
There was the face of an old man, his mouth half open. She knew him, an old man she’d waved at many times as she’d ridden past him on her bike as he rooted weeds out of the ground with big white gardening gloves. She slammed past him and for a moment thought she had knocked him over. Flinging her way through the house, her jaw clanked violently as she screamed words she wouldn’t remember.
It was only there, inside the kitchen, where she slid down shivering behind a table leg, that the mushroom cloud of pain radiated from her skull. Lifting her hand, she brought it back down, and saw bright red clots. The otherworldly pain that had woken her up had been him hitting her on the head with something.
Lightning reflexes had saved her from splitting her face wide open when he’d dove into the back of her knees, but she’d banged her nose and blood was snaking its way to her teeth. Huddled behind the neighbor’s kitchen table leg, the old man and his wife crouched low, trying to talk to her.
Once again, Natalie had escaped a madman. And the first madman had prepared her to save herself from the second.
That day, she’d herded the children into a storage closet. There were thirteen of them and she piled them on top of each other, picking them up and throwing them like squirming bundles. She would never forget the look in their eyes—terror children should never know. They were too young to know. She crowded in with them and played a game. Shh. Who can be the most quiet? But they were not fooled and knew it was no game. They heard everything and understood it all. Evil is coming. Evil is here.
I don’t want to be here. She’d heard the boy on the other side of the wall.
Well, you are here. She’d heard the madman before he shot the boy.
Natalie and the children were in the closet for how long she did not know, an eternity, before there was a calm knock at the door, a man’s voice saying, “Is anyone in there? You’re safe, we’re here to help.”
She could tell it was not the evil man whose voice she’d heard on the other side of the wall, but she didn’t know if this was a different evil man, so she said, as steadily as she could so not to frighten her students, “I need an ID. Under the door,” and a badge appeared.
Investigators would later say the weapon used to hit Natalie was likely a crowbar. The suspect had the presence of mind to take it with him before he’d slipped out the back sliding glass doors, the same ones he’d broken into for entry. Tracks on the lawn showed he’d clipped on a pair of snowshoes, which he’d either hidden outside on the porch or had in a knapsack during the attack.
He must have known that snowshoes, unlike sneakers, had no pattern on the bottom that could identify their brand or lead to a retailer, nor would they give investigators enough information to estimate his height and weight.
It was assumed he’d then walked through the impenetrably dark woods with a flashlight, about half a mile before the thick pines bordered a small side street without street lamps. There, the houses were ducked back deep enough from the road that anyone who might have been looking out a window when he emerged wouldn’t have been able to give a description.
Then he must have gotten into a car and disappeared into the night. He had planned it all meticulously.
Unfortunately, the plastic gloves Natalie had tasted on his hand when she bit him meant he’d left no fingerprints. And if she’d bit down hard enough to draw blood, the gloves had stopped it from leaking anywhere.
Natalie was pleased that her assailant had knocked over two of her lawn chairs during his escape, indicating he’d stumbled his way through the patio, off balance from the mild beating she’d given him.
A couple of weeks later, Casey had written up summaries on the organizations connected to Sandy Hook: one fighting hoaxers and two working to stop school shootings. She emailed them to Mr. Foster, explaining that Natalie Marshall did not wish to receive any funds, then assumed she wouldn’t hear back from him for a few days. To her surprise, she had a response within twenty minutes.
He said he would forward the summaries to his office and instruct that a donation be made to each organization. He added:
