What did she want with me?

I shrugged and then closed the door. Sure, an unexpected visitor at such an hour was strange, but it wasn’t enough of a mystery to keep me awake… or sober.

***

I stayed in the following day. I laid up in the apartment, staring blankly at what passed for daytime television on the scuzzy TV set I had found in the closet when I moved in.

I gave some thought to my late night visitor, trying to figure out who it might be. The only thing I could figure is that maybe Anthony’s wife had found out where I lived. Maybe she had come by to give me a piece of her mind and then chickened out when she heard someone stumbling towards the door.

The real question was why she had knocked on my door only to run away before I could answer. Isn’t it obvious, you drunk? I told myself. She heard you stumbling around in here and she got scared.

The stream of ideas came and went, fading in and out during the day. It was what Sarah would have called a Wasted Day — one of those days when you do absolutely nothing. It’s a waste of time, a lurid sort of nothingness.

Somehow, night came. I sort of recalled eating lunch, and I know I had a dinner of god-awful mac and cheese. I had considered heading to the pub, but I hadn’t drunk anything all day, and I figured what the hell? Maybe I could give my promise to Amir the old college try after all.

I also know that I spent the wasted hours of that day thinking about Sarah and Tommy. I recalled the details of their case files. I had photocopies of the files in my closet (a gift that the Metropolitan Police Department didn’t know I had), and I knew I could go to them whenever I wanted. I also knew every line by heart, every gruesome heartbreaking detail. Every Photograph.

The Blackened room. Sarah’s ruined body sprawled on the sofa. Tommy, face down on the floor, left hand outstretched clutching his favorite orange toy gun.

There were no answers to be had there. If there were, then I was apparently not a good enough cop anymore to figure them out.

I decided to head to bed early. Maybe a restful night’s sleep would help to re-orient me. A good sleep, a huge breakfast…and then perhaps the next day I would do as I had told Amir. I’d start really working on the case, interviewing their old neighbors or Sarah’s former co-workers. Then, after some real, sober police work, I might find myself with some kind of lead.

As I was heading to the bathroom to brush my teeth, I caught a flicker of light outside of my grimy living room window. Someone had pulled to the side of the street to park and —

I froze for a moment in front of the window. It was the car from last night — the car the woman had gotten into after retreating from my door. I saw it just enough in the scant light from the lamppost. If she was trying to be sneaky, she was doing a piss-poor job. I stood there and watched her, waiting to see if she would get out. If she did, the interior light would kick on, and I might be able to get a good look at her face.

But she didn’t. In fact, I don’t think she even bothered to kill the engine. She apparently changed her mind about meeting me again. She pulled away from the curb less than thirty seconds after parking there. I watched her taillights fade away in a swirl of dazzling red that reflected from the drizzling rain.

I retired to bed as I had originally planned, but sleep was a long time coming. I kept seeing those red taillights and knew that something peculiar was going on.

Who was this mystery woman?

FIVE

Smoke and taillights.

The next day was better in a few ways. I went into the office with the files on my family and went over it all again. There was nothing new, of course. They had died from the fire at the house. Sarah had been hit over the head first. No signs of rape or much of a struggle. Cloth under Tommy’s fingernails where it is assumed he fought off an attacker. Even at the age of ten, my son had been willing to die to protect his mother.

And where had I been when they had been killed right in their very own home? I knew the answer. It was one that disgusted me and that I had been living with ever since. It was the sole reason for the guilt I carried — the reason that going through these files was like having someone suffocate me as I read.

I’d been on the other side of the Atlantic.

Sarah had once told me, “If you can’t do the smart thing, do the right thing”.

What was the right thing to do here? Was I wasting my time by being halfway around the world to investigate her death?

I grabbed a lunch of Pita and Falafel at Amir’s restaurant, partly because it was close but mostly because it was free, then I stayed in the office for ten hours. I did some new research online, finding nothing. I made notes, cross-referenced things, and even tried creating a timeline of events on the day they had died.

Night came almost too quickly, and when I looked out to the streets and saw that it was dark already, an idea came to me. I shut my computer down, locked the office, and headed down through the closing restaurant. I noticed that Amir seemed in good spirits with his staff. He didn’t even look skeptical when he spoke to me. Not once did he ask about my drinking or how I had slept. I guess I was looking better than I had when I’d had lunch with him.

I did feel better. Especially now that I had a steady idea in my head. The notion had nothing to do with my family’s case, but I thought it might go a long way in getting my head clear and setting me back on a motivated path.

I headed out to my Toyota and drove around the block a few times scoping the scene. When I came back to my street, I parked at the end behind one of my neighbor’s cars and some large industrial bins. I sat there and ate some sandwiches I had picked up at a gas station, looking to the mostly empty streets around me.

The meandering, tight knit London streets made it hard to see much in terms of oncoming traffic but I was confident in my location. It had been a long time since I had been on a true stake-out, and it felt good to be back.

I sat there for almost an hour and a half before the woman’s car arrived. I’d had a hunch that it she would show up again. She’d come two nights in a row…so why not a third?

Her car passed mine and crept towards my apartment. She pulled to the curb 20 yards ahead of me and stepped out. The interior light of her car came on when she opened her door, and I saw a couple things in the dim illumination. She looked to be in her mid-to-late fifties. She was wearing a luxurious coat that looked like it might be worth more than my car. She had pretty blonde hair cut in a simple fashion. I didn’t see much of her face, just the taught line of her lips drawn down into something that wasn’t quite a frown.

She stepped up onto the sidewalk, headed for the alley that led to my apartment. When she disappeared out of sight around the corner, I placed my hand on the door handle, ready to open it if she remained out of sight for more than thirty seconds.

But she was back within ten seconds, apparently having changed her mind. I wondered why it had been so easy for her to come to my door and knock two nights ago but now found it harder. There were far too many questions, and I knew from experience that it would only frustrate me to try to figure them out on my own. So I didn’t bother.

Instead I watched her walk back to her car, get inside, and sit for a moment. Her shoulders sagged and her head was bowed. After a while, she started her engine and pulled away. I let her get a good distance ahead before I rolled out behind her. I kept a safe distance and followed her car, watching the taillights flickering in the steady to-and-fro of my wiper blades.