Heart-Shaped Box

  Tyler raised an eyebrow, his expression alert. “Kissing? You saw them kissing?”

  Jessica reluctantly shook her head.

  “Touching?”

  Another pause, another shake of the head. “It was the way they looked. They looked guilty and out of breath. As an actress, that is just how I would portray someone who had just been kissing.”

  “But you didn’t actually see them kissing.”

  “No.” Jessica pushed out her lower lip. “But I know what I saw.”

  “Uh huh,” Tyler said dubiously. “One last thing. I need to ask you about this box Cindy was holding. How was she holding it in relation to the rest of her body?”

  “Cindy was lying on her back and her arm was stretched out next to her side. At first, I didn’t really notice the box because her fingers hid most of it.”

  “Why did you pick it up? You know it was a very stupid thing to do, disturbing a crime scene like that. There’s a chance your fingerprints destroyed the perp’s.”

  She dropped her gaze. “I’m sorry. I was just so startled to see that Cindy was holding a box that looked the same as the one I had gotten.”

  “Did you get it when you checked in, like the other girls?”

  “Yes, in a manila envelope with a printed label with just my name on it.”

  “If you still have the envelope, I need that, as well as the box. We’ll dust everything for prints and see if we get lucky.”

  Jessica shifted in her seat. “They’re both in my hotel room. I’ll have to get them for you later.”

  “Who do you think is behind these boxes?”

  “I have no idea. I can’t even think of why the six of us all got them. We really don’t have anything in common that I can think of. We weren’t all friends in high school. We didn’t hang out with the same group of people. We don’t really look alike. We have different careers, different interests. We don’t live in the same towns now. About all we have in common is that we graduated from Minor High twenty years ago. And maybe one other thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  She looked up at him, her blue eyes wide. “Maybe someone wants all of us dead.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  From the interview with Wade Merz

  Wade looked at the photo Tyler had taken of him, then slid it back across the desk. “Not the most flattering photograph I’ve ever seen.”

  Tyler looked down at Wade’s square, pudgy face, which nearly filled the photo, and then back at the real Wade. His blond hair, streaked with gray, was tamed back into ripples with hair gel. The skin around Wade’s blue eyes was swollen, his face ruddy. Refraining from comment, Tyler flipped to a new page in his notebook.

  “How well would you say that you knew Cindy?” Tyler paused, pen poised.

  “You do know that’s kind of a silly question, don’t you, Tyler?” Wade sighed and tugged at the front of his tailored lightweight denim shirt, which was pulled taut across the bulk of his abdomen. “We started going out right at the beginning of senior year. I was in hog heaven that fall.” He smiled, his voice soft with reminiscence. “There I was, the big man on campus, right, and I had my arm around Cindy Weaver, the most beautiful lady I had ever seen. If you would have asked me twenty years ago, I would have told you we were going to get married.” He made a sound like a laugh. “Just like I thought I’d have a career playing pro ball. But things didn’t work out that way, did they?” He shrugged, then looked down at his hands, open and empty in his lap. “I’ll have to admit it felt a little strange to see her tonight. Cindy is still a very attractive-looking lady. Twenty years and it’s like nothing’s touched her.” There was a pause. When Wade spoke again, there was a catch in his voice. “It was quite a shock, I’ll tell you, to see her like that out in the parking lot. It made me literally, physically sick. Just a few minutes before, I’d been thinking about how things used to be between us, and then to see her like - like that.”

  “Did you leave the Hoe-Down Room at any time before Cindy’s body was discovered?”

  A shake of the head. “No. I was there the whole time until Belinda ran in screaming.”

  “How about anyone else? Did you notice anyone who was gone for more than a few minutes?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you there. The only person I really had my eye on was the waitress. I can tell you for sure that she didn’t go any place.”

  Wade’s attempt at levity met no response. “Did you see Cindy having any kind of argument or disagreement tonight?”

  Wade was already shaking his head before Tyler finished his question. “Nothing like that. Cindy was just having a good time, talking to everyone. Nobody in particular. Well, maybe a little more to people she thought it might benefit her to know. Cindy always had an eye out for that kind of thing. That’s just how she was.”

  “We’ve had reports that the two of you were seen arguing.” Tyler kept his voice deadpan, but his hand - which was drumming the pen nervously on the edge of the desk - betrayed him.

  Wade started out out of his chair. “What are you talking about? What are you thinking?” Tyler drew back when Wade raised his balled hands. Just as soon as it had begun, the rage subsided. Wade fell back into his chair, uncurled his fingers, and put his hands over his face. He finally broke the long silence.

  “Are you crazy, huh, Tyler, are you crazy?” He dropped his hand and looked at Tyler with an expression of disgust. “Do you think I would be so mad at her for dumping me twenty years ago that I would strangle her now? Do you think I could forget about what she used to mean to me and just stone-cold kill her?”

  “Someone said they thought you left the bar with her.” Tyler didn’t have long to wait for Wade’s reaction to this fiction.

  “What is this all about? I like women, I’ve never denied that. Ask any of my ex-wives or girlfriends. Lord knows there are plenty of them around. All of them will tell you that I’m an asshole. That I drink too much. That I like to go to Vegas and lose all my money. And that I played around on them. Every one of them will tell you that. That I slept with ladies I met in bars, in restaurants, in airports. That I have sold cars to ladies and then sealed the deal in the backseat. But I have never hit a lady in my life.”

  “Speaking of hitting, we have reports that Cindy hit you tonight. Would you care to explain that?”

  Wade sagged in his chair. “It was just a little slap. I made a little joke to her, that’s all. I made a little joke about doing something for old times sake and she didn’t see it the same way. She’s not the old Cindy. The new Cindy doesn’t have a sense of humor any more. She doesn’t want to be reminded that it’s been twenty years since anything happened. Jesus! Are you suggesting that you think that means I killed her?”

  “The old Cindy,” Tyler echoed, without answering Wade’s question. “That reminds me. Why did the two of you break up, anyway?”

  “It’s none of your business why we broke up.”

  Tyler continued to look at Wade, until he was forced to expand.

  “That was twenty years ago. It didn’t have anything to do with what happened tonight. She just said she thought we were too young to be so serious. I hadn’t really told her how I felt, but I guess she knew.”

  “But didn’t that make you angry? You’d already lost your football scholarship, and now you’re telling me you had no bad feelings towards Cindy for breaking up with you just when you needed her the most?”

  “You think I don’t know that what’s past is past?” Wade snorted. “I’ve spent twenty years learning that, Tyler, twenty god-damn years.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  From the interview with Sawyer Fairchild

  Sawyer was rubbing his temples when Tyler told him about the need for a photo. “What?”

  I said, “I need to take your picture.”

  Sawyer was enough of a politician to lift his chin at that, although his face was etched with fatigue. He blinked away the flash.

  “Did you know Cindy in high school
?”

  “Not really. I think she might have been in one of the biology classes I taught. And I remember seeing her around the halls, dressed in her cheerleading outfit. Although that would be hard to forget that after seeing her cheer tonight. Some people leave high school and don’t ever change. Others - well, look at you, for instance. At first I was surprised to hear you had made a career of law enforcement, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. I remember how methodical you were back in high school. And chief of police - congratulations!”

  Tyler tried, but couldn’t hide his smile. “Thank you.” He made a note. “So did you talk to Cindy tonight?”

  “Only for a moment. She told me she would vote for me.” Sawyer managed a half-smile. “You want to know something? Absolutely everyone I talked to tonight assured me they were going to vote for me. In a way, I was disappointed to hear that. Twenty years ago, I came into Minor High on fire to teach one lesson: that the most important thing in life was to be honest and to hold true to your principles. I guess it didn’t stick.”

  “I remember what you said.” Tyler nodded, then looked away and tapped his pen three times on the edge of the metal desk. “So - did you happen to notice anyone having any kind of disagreement tonight with Cindy?”

  “That’s the thing, Tyler. I might have. I slipped outside for just a minute. I wanted to breathe some air that didn’t taste like it had already been in the lungs of a hundred different people. Since the smokers were to the left, I went to the right. And while I was standing there, I heard two people arguing. I’m pretty sure one of the voices belonged to Cindy.”

  Tyler straightened up. “Who was the other person?”

  “That’s the problem. I don’t honestly know. All I can say for sure is that it was a man. And I got - how can I say this - the impression that it was her husband.”

  “Did you see either of them?”

  “No. They were standing behind one of those huge four by fours. The kind of thing that gets about eight miles to a gallon.”

  Tyler ignored this side trip to environmentalism. “When was this?”

  “Sometime between eleven and midnight. I wish I could be more precise. I still don’t like to wear a watch.”

  “What did you hear them saying?”

  Sawyer leaned forward and rested his forehead on his fingertips. “The man said something like, ‘How could you do this to me?’ And Cindy - at least I think it was Cindy - said, “Everything isn’t always about you, you know.’ Her tone was quite sarcastic.”

  “What makes you think this was her husband? Kevin Sanchez?”

  Sawyer shrugged. “That’s just the thing. I don’t know why I thought that. I’ve never heard him speak. I wasn’t even introduced to him tonight. Maybe it was just the way Cindy was talking to him, with this overwhelming disdain. In my experience, the only people you treat like that are people in your immediate family.” Through pursed lips, he blew out a puff of air. “It doesn’t make sense though, does it? I mean, why would a man rape his own wife?”

  “Rape isn’t usually about sex.” Tyler tapped the butt end of the pen on his teeth, thinking. “And I’m not one hundred percent certain that it was rape.”

  Sawyer looked at the other man with unseeing eyes. “Finding her like that - it brought back some memories. I remember this Viet Cong nurse we found, on her back like that. Her belly was slit open and someone had pulled her entrails out.” The words were flat, unaccented.

  Chapter Sixteen

  From the interview with Jim Prentiss

  “I see whoever has this office normally smokes.” Jim pointed to the lumpy hand-made ashtray sitting next to the Rolodex on one of the wire shelves. “Do you mind if I do?”

  “Not at all.” Tyler set the ashtray, which appeared to have been molded from bright blue Play-Do that had cracked as it dried, on the desk between them. “I’ve been dying for a smoke myself. I think you’re the first smoker I’ve talked to tonight.”

  There was a moment of silence, broken only by the scratch of matches and the deep, grateful inhalations of smokers with a half-century of addiction between them.

  Jim blew a stream of smoke out of the side of his mouth. “Yeah, there aren’t that many of us left, are there? My girls keep bugging me to give it up, but...” He let his words trail off, then tipped his head back and blew a series of perfect smoke rings that floated up to the ceiling.

  “I don’t think my lungs would know what to do with just plain air.” Tyler’s laugh ended in a cough. He tried to cover it by asking in a voice that was only slightly twisted, “So, how well did you know Cindy? If I remember, not that well.”

  A shrug. “She was high priestess to the football team, and I was - what? A stoner? A hood? Anyway, not in the same class, that’s for sure.”

  “Except you were,” Tyler said. “So to speak.” Tucking his cigarette in the corner of his mouth, he made a note. “Did you talk to her tonight?”

  “Nah.” Jim took another drag on his cigarette. “I don’t think she said one word to me.”

  “I think I’ve only heard that from one other person. The way she worked the room, you would have thought she was running for office instead of Sawyer.” Tyler’s lips curved into a smile, but he dropped it when it went unanswered. “So did you see her having any arguments, anything like that? We’ve had reports that she was seen arguing with someone in the parking lot.”

  Jim raised his shoulders and let them fall. “I didn’t see anything like that.”

  “Besides you and me, who else was out there smoking? Seems like they would be the most likely to have seen something.”

  Jim began to tick off on his fingers. “You, me, Logan. Jessica came out and bummed a cigarette off me once. So did Wade. I hate people who pretend to themselves that they aren’t smokers because they don’t buy their own cigarettes. Oh, and that guy in the orange tanktop - can’t remember his name - the one who was drunk off his ass?” Tyler has his pen poised until Jim added, “Except I saw his wife shove him into their car around ten at night. So he probably wasn’t around to see whoever took Cindy out into that parking lot.”

  “So you think she was taken? Like with a gun?” Tyler looked at him with renewed interest.

  “Taken, went - how do I know what happened?” Jim ground his cigarette out in the ashtray.

  “So while you were out there smoking, did you anyone wandering off in that direction?” He elaborated. “Toward the place where you guys found Cindy’s body? Cindy or anyone else?”

  Jim shook his head and lit another cigarette.

  “After Belinda came in and you guys were going out there, did you notice anything unusual? Anyone hanging out on the edges, watching? Sometimes perps like to stay someplace where they can watch people find their handiwork.”

  A grimace. “No. Once I saw Cindy’s body, it was hard to look away. I just couldn’t believe it was really happening.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual about the body?”

  “I’ve never seen anything like that before, so how do I know if it was unusual? All I know is that I never want to see anything like that again. Cindy may have had her faults, but no one deserves to die like that.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Claire waited for Tyler to finish interviewing Dante, wanting nothing more than to be asleep. But even as she slowly blinked her burning eyes, she knew there was no way she would sleep for more than a few minutes at a stretch. It would probably be days before she could sleep without meeting Cindy again in her dreams.

  The room had grown quieter as the reality of what had happened sunk in. More and more of the people who hadn’t been there when Cindy’s body was found began to leave, as well as those who had finished up their interviews with Tyler. No one seemed sure if Cindy’s death had been a random act, a planned attack, or the first strike of a serial killer. Alert for unseen danger, people walked back to their hotel rooms in little groups, like herd animals ready to start at the slightest sound.

 
“Wait a minute,” Maria said, just before she and a group of about half a dozen were about ready to leave. She scanned the faces in the room. “Where’s Logan?”

  “Where is Logan?” Sunny echoed. She looked at Jim, who was standing next to her. “Didn’t you say he was one of the people who was with you when you went out Cindy’s body?”

  “He was,” Jim agreed slowly. “But I don’t think that Logan would ever be” -.

  “He was watching her tonight,” Jessica interrupted. “I saw him watching Cindy. And he had this intense look in his eyes.”

  “Are you sure he was watching her any more than anyone else?” Claire asked. “Everyone was watching Cindy tonight. She made sure of that.” But it was as if she hadn’t spoken. The people in the room were alert again, eager to find an answer to all their fears.

  “I think I remember him taking woodshop,” Sunny said. “He would probably know how to make boxes like that.”

  “And when we went out to Cindy’s body, he just stood off to one side and shifted from foot to foot. He was talking to himself. Mumbling. It gave me a chill. And then,” Jessica spoke slowly, “he didn’t come back with us. Maybe he only came out to revisit the scene of the crime.”

  “Only a small percentage of the mentally ill are violent,” Sawyer said. “Just because he’s schizophrenic doesn’t mean that he would kill.”

  “Don’t you read the papers?” Maria asked rhetorically. “I live in New York City. Just in the last month a man was pushed in front of a subway train and another woman was beaten to death with brick. Both by schizophrenic men in their mid-thirties.”

  “Even so,” Sawyer said. “If Logan did kill Cindy- and I’m not saying that he did - it wasn’t him that did it. It was his disease.”