Chapter 12
After sending the text to Lily and before hearing back from her, Martha, suddenly physically exhausted, went to the living room sofa and lay down. Until she had seen that photograph of the Jane Austen brooch, a part of her believed that she'd concocted the whole thing out of her overactive imagination, that her husband was exactly who he seemed to be, and that the crimes (the murders) that had taken place in cities where he'd traveled only represented an odd coincidence. But now she lay on the couch, her mind both numb and somehow spinning, and looked up at her ceiling with its tiny cracks and realized that her world had altered forever.
Gilbert jumped onto the couch by her feet, startling her. He gave her a cursory glance, then folded his paws under his chest and settled into a meat loaf position on the very edge of the sofa cushion. Martha concentrated on her breathing, telling herself to not overreact until she spoke with Lily. Maybe she wouldn't be as convinced by the significance of the brooch as Martha was currently feeling.
After lying on the couch long enough that Gilbert had fallen asleep, curling onto his side to catch the sliver of sunlight that was coming in through the south-facing window above the alcove, Martha forced herself to stand up. She went into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator even though she wasn't hungry. Then she wandered the house, half in a daze, mostly berating herself for having the audacity to actually get married. She'd long known that her life was meant to be lived alone. Did she think that particular curse had a time limit on it? But then she told herself that maybe things really did happen for a reason, the type of thing her religious sister was always saying. Maybe the reason for her marriage to Alan Peralta was so that she could be the one to stop him from continuing to kill women. From now on, that was what Martha decided to tell herself.
When her phone finally rang, she was back in the living room, on the computer, looking for anything she might have missed in the articles that had been written about the drowning death of Mikaela Sager.
"What did you find?" Lily said.
"I found out a lot," Martha said, annoyed to hear that her voice was shaky, "but the reason I sent you that text was because of something I found out about Mikaela Sager, the massage therapist."
"Uh-huh, what was that?"
"So, the night she was drowned... the police officer was describing the clothes she was wearing, and apparently she was wearing a brooch. I asked the detective what kind, and he sent me a picture."
"What was it?" Lily said.
"It was a brooch, or like an enamel pin, of Jane Austen's face."
"Is that something Alan sells?"
"I mean, it's exactly the kind of thing he would sell. I don't actually recall ever seeing one before, but I rarely see the stuff he sells. Still, the conference he attended in San Diego was for high school English teachers. He could have had that pin in his booth."
"Okay, slow down. Remind me: Mikaela Sager was a massage therapist, right? She didn't attend the conference."
"She didn't, but that doesn't mean anything. Maybe Alan took her out, or he booked an appointment with her, and that's when he gave her the pin. Or, who knows, maybe he killed her on the pier and then put the pin on her before throwing her body in the ocean."
"Why would he do that?"
Martha, gesturing with her free hand even though she was on the phone, said, "Honestly, I don't know, but I keep coming up with scenarios. Maybe he wants to get caught? Maybe he's just a cocky bastard, or he's totally insane. Maybe nothing means anything. All I really know is that it's a huge coincidence, if it even is a coincidence."
"I'm not saying it's a coincidence. I do think it's a pretty strong connection between Alan and this woman who died, but it doesn't prove anything. I mean, if you want to go to the police now, I will support you one hundred percent—I'll even make the call, if you want—but just putting Alan on their radar won't necessarily produce anything."
"Yeah, I know," Martha said, rubbing the back of her neck. "So what do I do now? I mean, I'm more convinced than ever that my husband has killed women. I can't go on living with him. What do I tell him if I just up and leave?"
"Let me think for a moment, okay?" Lily said in a slow, measured tone. Martha knew that Lily was trying to calm her down, but she didn't mind, exactly. "Why don't you tell me what else you found out today?"
"Okay," Martha said. "First of all, I got the feeling that there's a reason none of these cases have been solved. There's not a lot of evidence, or leads, or patterns, and since some of the dead women were prostitutes, then I think the police departments don't care as much."
"The women were all prostitutes?"
"Not exactly. Mikaela Sager wasn't, but she was an in-house massage therapist, so it's a possibility. Kelli Baldwin, the Atlanta victim, was a streetwalker. Nora Johnson, who was a bartender at the hotel Alan was staying at in Fort Myers, was running a kind of side hustle with a parking attendant who also worked for the hotel. She'd pick up some traveling conventioneer and bring him to her car for sex or a blow job, and then this attendant would crash in and get money from them. I didn't learn a whole lot about Bianca Muranos, who was killed in Chicago. I got passed off to someone in the department who seemed to be looking at the file for the first time. But what I got was that she was killed in the alleyway behind the hotel that Alan was staying at, and that she was wearing clothes that suggest she was either a prostitute or else just out at the clubs. I mean, short skirt and stuff. Not much, I know."
"You've done some good work," Lily said.
"Have I? I don't know. Tell me what you found out."
"I met Josie Nixon's husband today. I'm in the car right now driving back from Woodstock."
"How'd that go?"
"She didn't kill herself. At least, I'm ninety-ninepercent sure she didn't. But the biggest takeaway was that she was in an open sexual relationship, and she'd been looking forward to meeting someone during the conference."
"To have sex with?"
"Yes, that was the idea."
"The husband told you all this?"
"Uh-huh. He said she was excited about it."
"Which means she fits in with all the others. It means my husband hunts women to have sex with, and then he kills them. It doesn't matter to him if they're prostitutes or just up for sex, or even if they're just massage therapists he thinks might have sex with him."
"You're making some leaps."
"I know, I know. I think my mind just needs to conjure up the worst, somehow. But if Alan is responsible for these deaths, then the pattern is that he looks for someone sexually available, a young woman. I mean, he's not out there killing sixty-year-old department heads."
"Right. I see what you mean," Lily said, then added, "Josie Nixon was also deathly afraid of heights."
"Meaning she wouldn't have willfully jumped from the dormitory balcony?"
"Meaning she wouldn't have willfully gone out on the balcony in the first place."
"Okay."
"At least that was what Travis Nixon said. He was convincing. I thought he was going to be someone who just couldn't accept the fact that his wife might have been suicidal, but that's not how he came off at all."
"But if she was deathly afraid of heights it's like what you said: She might not have gone out on the balcony at all. How did someone get here out there?"
"Oh, there's my exit. Sorry, I'm driving."
"Should we talk later?"
"No, this is fine. Yes, I've thought about that, the balcony thing. It gives us insight into what kind of killer your husband is, if he even is a killer. I'd wondered if he was someone who compulsively cheated on you and was then consumed by guilt and lashed out at the women. That killing them was a way of punishing the act, and that would make sense with the bludgeoning deaths. But if he got Josie Nixon onto a balcony when she was afraid of heights, and he did it without any force, then that meant he talked her into it. I can kind of imagine it, him saying something like, ‘You have to come out here and see the stars. Just don't look down,' et cetera. And then he throws her off. It would mean he wasn't in some kind of fit of homicidal mania—he was calm, and it was premeditated. How are you doing with all this?"
"I'm okay, just listening."
"Maybe I'm making too many leaps, as well?"
"No, you're okay. You're speculating. And if he's doing this, he's incredibly good at it. He doesn't leave any evidence behind at all, and the crimes he commits don't fit a recognizable pattern. The deaths are different enough that no one would connect them. So what do we do now?"
"Can I call you back? I might be lost."
Martha paced some more, thinking. She went and stood at the rear door at the back of the kitchen, looking through its glass panes into her backyard. An unchanging view, except that it had changed. Her life had changed. There was before she knew who her husband really was, and now there was only after. And the rest of her life would be spent in the after. She told herself that for right now, her only job was to find out the truth. She didn't have to do it alone. She had Lily. And when she did find out the truth, then she would make sure that Alan was put away for good. And then what? Then she'd have been the wife of a serial killer, the stupid librarian who didn't know who her husband really was. A panic rose in her, and she shut it down. It didn't matter what other people thought. Her mission now was finding out who Alan really was. Soon she'd talk some more with Lily. They'd form a plan. And then she'd greet her husband on his return, and make sure he didn't suspect a thing.
As she walked back into the living room, with a yogurt from the fridge, her phone rang.
"I'm home," Lily said. "How are you since we talked?"
"I'm good," Martha said. "We just need to do what we need to do."
"Right. Tell me again when Alan leaves for his next trip."
"He's going to Saratoga Springs on Monday morning. I can look it up, but I think it's a math and science conference."
"I'm going to go to that conference," Lily said.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm going to go to Saratoga Springs. I need to at least look at him, Martha, maybe get a sense if he's on the make or not. And I need to keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn't hurt someone. I won't take risks."
Martha couldn't think what to say.
Lily said, "I'll follow him. If I see anything suspicious at all, I'll call the police right away."
"You promise?" Martha said.
"Yes. The moment I think he's up to something bad, I'm calling him in. I'll lie if I have to. It won't necessarily get him arrested, but I'll stop him from hurting anyone else. That's the most important thing, right?"
"I agree, I'm just... I don't know what I am."
"Look, I'll be careful. But we need to know for sure, don't you think?"
"But what if he just attends the conference, sells his T-shirts, then goes to bed early each night?"
"Then we'll know a little bit more about him."
"Okay," Martha said. Then, "Oh shit."
"What?"
Martha watched through her bay windows as Alan pulled into their driveway, back from whatever he'd done with his day. "Alan's back."
"You can handle it," Lily said.
"I know I can."
"Just make it through the next few days, and one way or another we'll know more about what's going on by this time next week."