Someone Knows, page 2
She shrugged and fell in beside me. We hadn’t gone ten feet when she said, “We’re breaking up, aren’t we?”
The last thing I’d expected was for her to tee it up for me with such a simple question. Even if she suspected I wanted to end our affair, I thought she would put me through the agony of trying to find the words.
“Don’t you agree it would be the right thing to do?”
She scoffed. “What . . . you can’t just answer my question? You have to ask one instead to somehow put this on me?”
She was right. I needed to be a man and say what was on my mind.
“Yes,” I said. “I asked you to meet me so I could tell you I think we need to end it.”
“You think?”
I sighed. “I know.”
We walked on for a while in silence, which was making me even more uncomfortable than I already was. Finally, I said as tenderly as I could, “Faith, you know it’s the right thing to do.”
“Oh, I know it is. I’d never argue that point. But you know what? It was the right thing to do one minute after we started. It’s been the right thing to do every minute of every day for the last three months. I’m just wondering why you’re getting so righteous all of a sudden.”
Any hope I might’ve had that she would make this easy officially expired with those words. I said, “That’s a fair question. I guess I’ve come to my senses.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, thank you. Only a crazy person would be attracted to me, is that it?”
“That’s not what I meant,” I said lamely.
By then we had reached the bench. She sat down on one end and I sat on the other, leaving a good three feet between us. Always before, we’d sat in the middle, pressed up against each other.
“So what do we do now?” she said. “Go back to work and pretend nothing ever happened?”
“That shouldn’t be too hard, should it? Seems to me we’ve become experts at pretending nothing was happening.”
Just then we heard a twig snap as if someone had taken a step in the dark shadows surrounding us. It was hard to tell where the sound had come from, causing both Faith and I to look around in all directions. The vapor light above us cast a faint glow about twenty feet in diameter. Beyond, it was complete darkness.
“What was that?” Faith said.
“Probably a rabbit or something.”
“Must’ve been a big rabbit.”
“Do you want to go?” I said, hoping she’d say yes. The conversation wasn’t going well, and I didn’t see it turning around. The sooner we wrapped things up, the better.
Then we heard what sounded like another step, and another, this time clearly coming from the darkness across the path directly in front of us. And Faith was right: No rabbit I’d ever seen would make such a sound. Never before had I felt uneasy sitting on that bench at night. As I said, we’d never seen a soul. But now, suddenly, I felt very uneasy. Someone was out there.
She stood up and said, “Yes, I want to go.”
I stood, too, just as a voice came out of the darkness: “What’s your hurry?”
It was a rich, baritone voice and not at all unfriendly. The words were spoken like a gracious host might say them to dinner guests who’d just announced it was time for them to get going. Faith stepped closer to me and took my arm as a man stepped to the edge of the vapor light’s glow. He was taller than me and broad-shouldered. He was also wearing a ski mask and holding a machete.
- 4 -
M
y first impulse was to grab Faith’s hand and beat a hasty retreat back the way we had come. The impulse had a short life, however, for when we turned to leave, we saw another man, smaller and somewhat less imposing but also wearing a ski mask, blocking our way. He was holding a crowbar, which, while it couldn’t hack off our heads like a machete could, still didn’t feel like good news.
I’ve never been one to believe in luck, good or bad, but that moment tempted me to change my mind. What were the odds of this happening on the very night I decided to set things right in my life after months of shameful dishonesty? These two nutcases must have spotted one of us entering the park and decided to follow. Maybe they had some other nefarious act planned but thought we’d be a couple of pushovers for a quick robbery and changed their plan. They’d surely factored in the possibility that either Faith or I might be armed, but if one of us pulled a gun, they could simply disappear into the darkness, knowing we’d never be able to identify them because of the masks.
And speaking of identifying them, if they heard any of our conversation, they knew we were ending a secret, illicit relationship and would therefore be disinclined to talk about this rendezvous with anyone we knew. How elated they must’ve been as they stood in the shadows and listened to us, knowing they could take every dime we had without worrying about us reporting the incident to the police. It was the opportunity every criminal dreams of.
And since neither Faith nor I had pulled a gun when they appeared, they knew they had nothing to fear from us.
“Are you two having a nice time this evening?” Machete said.
His manner of speech threw me. I would have expected a machete-wielding terrorist/robber to offer little more than monosyllabic grunts, but this guy sounded like he’d just stepped out of a board of directors meeting at some Fortune 500 company.
When neither Faith nor I responded, he answered his own question. “No, I don’t think you’re having a nice time. I think you’re a couple of lovers out sneaking around, coming to the bitter end of an illicit relationship. Don’t you just love that word illicit? It speaks of dishonesty and darkness, which happen to be areas of expertise for my partner and me.”
I glanced at Crowbar and noticed that he, too, had advanced toward us. They were roughly ten feet in front of us then, positioned at ten o’clock and two o’clock so the only sure-fire escape route was directly behind us. But we would have had to get over or around the bench we’d been sitting on and then crash into the almost complete darkness of the woods. I had no idea how dense it was and therefore no idea how far we’d be able to get before we got hung up. There was little doubt we’d be caught quickly, especially since Machete would be able to hack his way through the underbrush.
Trying to seem more courageous than I felt, I stepped in front of Faith and said, “You can have all the cash we have on us. We just want to go home and forget this night ever happened.”
When I started to reach for my wallet, Machete said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa . . . keep those hands where I can see them!” and brandished the blade.
I froze and withdrew my hand slowly with my fingers spread so he could see it was empty. “I’m not armed. I was just getting my wallet.”
“You won’t do anything unless I tell you to. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“And besides, who says we want your money?” Machete said with the good cheer suddenly back in his voice. I could see he had his eyes on Faith, and I felt a sickness rising in my gut. What I think we both assumed would be a robbery now suddenly held the potential of becoming something much worse.
Faith must have sensed this too because that’s when she bolted.
Knowing she was fit and athletic with at least some of the quickness remaining that had served her well as a college basketball player, I can only assume she felt she could use the element of surprise to blow past Crowbar and then outrun him to the safety of a nearby neighborhood. The plan, of course, left me behind to face a machete-wielding psycho, but I didn’t take offense then, and I don’t now in retrospect. Considering the way Machete was leering at her, I assumed Faith was the one he was more interested in. I couldn’t blame her for trying to escape before it was too late.
Unfortunately, she didn’t make it.
Yes, Crowbar was indeed caught off-guard by her sudden burst. He’d been holding the weapon in his right hand, across his chest, resting the business end in his left hand. When Faith flashed by his right side, he reacted by taking a backhanded swing at her. I have to believe he only intended to clip her on the shoulder, maybe knock her down and then subdue her. Instead, the curved end of the crowbar crashed into the back of her head, making a sickening crunching sound and causing Faith to sprawl forward and land on her face on the pavement. She seemed to bounce once and then lay perfectly still, her arms and legs outstretched like a skydiver.
Without asking permission to move—without even thinking about it—I screamed Faith’s name and ran to her. I thought she was simply knocked out cold, but when I knelt over her, I saw blood on the back of her head. I put my face close to hers and saw that her eyes were closed. I said, “Faith? Faith, can you hear me?” but got no reaction. Then I touched the back of her head and realized the bleeding was too heavy for a simple laceration. I was no expert, but it sure looked like her skull had been crushed.
More urgently now, I tried to get a response. I took her hand and said, “Faith, can you hear me? Squeeze my hand if you can.” But there was no response. Her eyelids didn’t flutter, and her hand applied no pressure. It wasn’t until I felt for her pulse and found nothing that I realized she was dead.
Horrified and enraged, I turned to face her masked assailant and realized both men were gone.
- 5 -
I
stood and whipped my head around, looking in every direction. I’d been so concerned about Faith, about trying to get a response from her that I didn’t notice the men running away. I assumed they disappeared into the same woods from which they had emerged, but I couldn’t be sure. They might’ve run farther down the trail before ducking into the trees. The only thing I was sure of was that they hadn’t run back toward the trail entrance because they would’ve had to practically jump over Faith’s sprawled body in order to do so.
Not that it mattered where they went. I certainly wasn’t going to chase them. What would I do if I caught up with them? One had a machete and the other had a crowbar. I had a set of car keys and a cellphone. Even more important, they now had tremendous incentive to remain anonymous. Any attempt I made to stop them or expose them would no doubt be met with extreme prejudice. Though they couldn’t have known Faith was actually dead, Crowbar must have known he’d connected with the back of her head and done serious damage. Hurting one more person wouldn’t seem like a big deal if it meant they could keep from getting caught.
Once again, I knelt over Faith’s body and felt for a pulse, hoping I had somehow missed it the first time. I hadn’t. The blow to the back of her head with a hard metal bar, coupled with the slamming of her face into the hard ground, must have caused a fatal head or neck injury.
At that instant, in the eerie lamplight with a light breeze rustling the leaves, reality hit me. The shot of adrenaline my rage had powered through my system moments ago drained out of me as I looked down at the attractively contoured face of what had moments ago been a woman brimming with life. Her hair and the skin of her neck were soaked with blood.
I broke down.
At the place the two of us had spent many intimate moments, I held Faith’s hand and cried. As wrong as our behavior was, and as anxious as I’d been to untangle my life from hers, I did have feelings for her, vivid memories of the times we’d spent together, and until just now, an admittedly foolish hope that we could somehow put our transgressions behind us and go back to just being friends. It was those feelings, however tangled and illicit and naïve they may have been, that I knew I’d spend a lifetime trying to process.
The sound of a siren snapped me back to the moment.
How could the police have been called so quickly? Faith had only been dead two or three minutes, and I was sure Machete and Crowbar hadn’t called them. Suddenly, it dawned on me that someone whose presence we weren’t aware of might have been watching from the trees. We’d never seen anyone on the trail this late, but it was possible someone—perhaps another couple having an affair—had beaten us to the bench and heard us coming, then slipped into the trees to watch and listen. Still kneeling by Faith’s body, I looked around, but of course I could see nothing beyond the small pale circle of light.
Soon the siren started to fade, and I realized it had passed by the park on its way to a different emergency. Still, the sound had been a wakeup call, a reminder that I needed to get my head together and think about what I should do.
Unquestionably, the moral response to what had just happened would have been to pull out my phone and dial 911, then stay by the body until the police arrived. I alone would be able to tell the police what had happened and give a description of the thugs who confronted us. The problem, of course, was that such a course of action would mean disaster for me. My affair with Faith would be exposed, both of our reputations would be ruined, my marriage would likely be irreparably damaged, and I would certainly lose my job. And if none of that was bad enough, I would also find myself in the middle of a three-ring media circus. I imagined the sensational headline that would be broadcast from coast to coast: “Illicit affair with principal leads to teacher’s violent death!”
And that’s if the police believed my story that Faith was killed by a masked assailant.
What if they didn’t?
After all, I couldn’t prove anyone else had been there. Yes, Faith’s skull had been bashed in, but it wouldn’t be unreasonable to suggest that I had done it and disposed of the weapon. Because I did have a motive, they would say. I had come to the park to tell Faith our affair was over and she, in her anger, was threatening to get back at me by telling the world what we’d been up to. Fearing the ruination of my life, I had panicked and struck her. Surely, such crimes of passion were not uncommon. The storyline sounded reasonable even to me.
The question was, would my telling the truth and facing the implosion of my life, not to mention a possible prison sentence for a crime I didn’t commit, bring Faith back to life? The answer was no. As cold as it may sound, what was done was done. She was gone forever.
Some might say what I did next was smart. Others would surely call it cowardly. Perhaps it was a little—or a lot—of both.
I ran.
- 6 -
M
en in street clothes, running in residential areas at night, inspire suspicion and phone calls to the police, so when I reached the end of the tunnel of trees at the trail entrance and exited the park, I slowed to a walk. I didn’t see anyone around, which was encouraging. When I reached my car and got inside, the temptation to get out of there as quickly as possible was overwhelming. I knew, however, that squealing tires and a speeding car would also attract attention, which would surely be remembered when the police showed up and started asking questions of the folks in the neighborhoods surrounding the park.
I had no idea how long it would take for someone to discover Faith’s body. Whoever was taking care of her daughter would probably grow antsy, especially as midnight approached and Faith hadn’t returned and wasn’t answering her phone. It wasn’t like Faith to be out late. Even when we met, we would often make it a point to be home before ten so as not to arouse any suspicion with Mary Beth or Faith’s babysitters. I wondered how quickly the police would be called and what their policy was on such matters. I assumed a person would have to be missing for a certain amount of time before they would start investigating, but I had no idea what it was.
My best guess was that Faith’s body would be found sometime after dawn the next morning. An ear-budded jogger would surely come trotting along the trail and get the shock of his or her life. A quick 911 call could bring the authorities, and then the game would be on. As Faith’s boss, I would likely be one of the first people they would call. I would also be one of the first people they would question.
I started the car and glanced at my watch. I’d only been gone from home for thirty-five minutes. I’d told Mary Beth I was going to the office to email a document to Mike Waterson, and now it was even more important than ever that I get it done as quickly as possible. I needed an alibi, and if I could point to a time stamp on a business email sent from my office IP address that coincided with Faith’s approximate time of death, I’d have one. It might not be airtight, but it would be better than nothing. I started the car and pulled out of my parking spot with all the caution of a first-year driver’s education student. The last thing I wanted was to attract the attention of a cop.
While on my way to the school, I took deep breaths and tried to think through what I was facing. Like most people’s, my knowledge of criminal investigations came primarily from TV shows, movies, and crime novels, which I assumed couldn’t always be trusted as accurate. I assumed also the first thing the authorities would do would be to call in the forensics professionals and go over every inch of Faith’s body. I was thankful we hadn’t walked arm in arm or snuggled on the bench like on previous occasions. The only time I had touched her was when I felt for a pulse and held her hand.
That’s when a thought hit me like a piece of debris in a gale force wind. I reached up and flipped on the dome light.
I had Faith’s blood on my left hand.
Which meant it could also be on my clothes, on my keys, on the door handle of the car, and possibly on the steering wheel. Of all the things that could get me sent to prison, only a video of me actually killing Faith would be more damning than her blood on my person and property.
I cringed when I thought about how easy it would have been to walk over to the water fountain and rinse my hands. It would have taken no more than ten seconds to eliminate what was now a potentially devastating development. Would I end up spending the next twenty-five years in prison because of such a stupid oversight?
Suddenly, my decision to leave the scene of the crime wasn’t looking so smart. At the time, I’d been thinking only about the catastrophic consequences of my affair with Faith being exposed. But if that happened, I would at least be a free man. Broken and humiliated, for sure, but at least free. This way, I ran the risk of both having the affair exposed and spending my life in prison. An innocent man wouldn’t run, they would say. And he certainly wouldn’t have the victim’s blood on his hands and in his car.
