Chapter 28
Camille
We’d agreed earlier to have me listening in on the podcast as it was being recorded as a kind of insurance. Ted would call me and simply leave the phone line open (and recording). I could hear everything being said, just in case something went wrong.
And I knew, the minute Shondell asked, “Am I?” that something was very wrong.
I stood, getting even more anxious when she told them to turn off the recording. At first, I was terrified she was talking to Ted. But when the voices continued, both men trying to placate Shondell and failing to keep their own fear out of their voices, I knew she hadn’t noticed Ted’s phone.
“I loved him,” she said. “He was everything.”
I was pulling my coat on, struggling to do simple things like get my damn arm in the right hole. And then I was delayed because I couldn’t find my keys. At last—there they were, on the nightstand, where I’d set them last night when getting ready for bed.
I felt a curious kind of nothingness as I rushed down the stairs from my apartment. Karl’s place in Edgewater was only a few minutes away, but a few minutes’ distance in Chicago could mean a quick trip or a long, delayed one, depending on traffic and the ever-present challenge of finding parking.
I sped down Sheridan Road, grateful the lights were with me. But as I drove, I saw omens—a forlorn tennis shoe, lying in the middle of the road and a dead crow in the gutter.
What was waiting for me?
Was I too late?
And…of course, there was nowhere to park.
I circled Karl’s block a couple of times, hoping to see someone pull out, but there was no movement. It seemed every spot was taken in a two-block radius. If you’ve ever lived in Chicago, you know how plausible this is.
Desperate times call for desperate measures…
If ever there was life and death scenario, this was it.
I pulled up at the end of the block, cutting off access to the crosswalk, turned on my emergency blinkers, and rushed out of the car, barely remembering to close the door behind me, let alone lock it.
People turned to stare as the crazy woman with the halo of frizzy hair hurried up the street, obvious from her awkwardness she was a stranger to running.
Karl’s red brick condominium courtyard building rose up before me, a solid edifice against a sky filled with rapidly darkening clouds.
Snow and rain spit down, the precipitation feeling like needles against my skin.
The windows in the sunroom portion of Karl’s home reflected back the dark sky and revealed nothing about the danger of its occupants.
I got to the door and laid on the buzzer. I couldn’t hesitate but part of me was terrified that the sudden noise could spur Shondell into taking action—if she already hadn’t. But how else could I get in? I buzzed again, praying, praying, praying, despite being an avowed atheist.
No one was answering. I glanced down at my phone. The line was still open, but disturbingly, their voices had ceased. All that came through was silence. That stillness was even more nightmarish than screaming.
At least with screaming, I’d have proof of life.
I leaned on the buzzer long and hard, but fate wasn’t cooperating. My friends could be getting murdered just a few yards away and I was out here, stuck, helpless.
At long last, an old woman emerged from the building, walking a Pekingese.
I smiled and held the door open for her. “You’re brave,” I said, “Taking your pooch out in this weather.” I was being nice because I didn’t want pushback when I tried to enter the building.
But pushback I got.
The old woman’s voice was gravelly, a whisper. “You live here, ma’am?”
I didn’t have time. I kept smiling. “Yes, yes, of course. Anne on the third floor. Surely you haven’t forgotten me?” I laughed, even though my insides churned.
She cocked her head, but I could tell she wasn’t going to make it any harder for me to get in. People will do a lot of stupid things in service of risking embarrassment.
Her gaze was on me as I rushed inside, dashed up the stairs.
Outside Karl’s door, I hesitated. Should I knock? Pound? Scream? I knew I should call 911, but I still was connected to Ted’s phone and I remained hopeful I might hear something, anything, that would prove Ted and Karl were still okay.
In the end, I simply tried the doorknob.
The door swung open.
Inside, it felt too warm after the damp and cold outside. All was still, but as I rounded the corner out of the living room, there were three figures, frozen in a tableau.
Shondell, a knife held casually at her side, stood over Ted and Karl.
Karl was at his desk, staring up at Shondell, mouth hanging open, terror in his eyes.
Ted was slumped in a chair nearby, his chest a riot of crimson.
I winced, groping for the wall beside me.
No. I shuddered, a scream poised at my lips.
But it was simply a hallucination, born of terror. Ted stared at me, his expression one of mute horror.
But he was alive. And the blood I thought I’d seen? All in my mind. I suppose being this stressed, it would be more surprising if I didn’t hallucinate.
They both were breathing and, at least for now, unharmed.
Shondell smiled. “I’m glad you’re here, Camille. You need to be witness to this.”
I was too scared to ask what I was being asked to witness. A murder? Torture? The last thing my tired old eyes would ever see?
Without her gaze leaving mine, she said, “You know what? Turn the recording back on, Karl. Your audience deserves to hear this.”
I wanted to call 911, but couldn’t see any way I could get my phone out, hang up on Ted’s call, and punch in the three digits. I still wanted all of this to be on record, if only for posterity, for prosecution once we were all bloodied corpses.
All of us were frozen, numb, paralyzed in the blinding headlights of what might come next.
But all Shondell did was move to the window, standing near it to stare outside at the darkening sky.
Karl was fiddling with the controls on the virtual sound board of his iMac. Ted stared at me, pleading, but I had no idea for what. What could I do?
She kept the knife in her hand. She began to speak.
Her voice, already deep, came out deeper, more masculine.
“Hey, remember me? I’m Richard Blake and I’m scared Joshua Kade might stab me with that big old knife of his.
” She laughed. And I remembered the podcast where Bailey had told his listeners all about the fate of Richard Blake and his brush with murder.
Oh my god. It was her. It was her. Even back then, pulling the strings, faking us all out.
Shondell then continued, in her own voice.
“Josh was both a father and a brother to me.” She let out another short, sharp bark of laughter.
“Not in a Chinatown sort of way, but just in the sense that he cared for me as a father would, as a mother would too, if I’m being honest. I know he diapered me and fed me a bottle when I was a baby, later he would push me around our neighborhood in a stroller, enduring the taunts of other boys, who called him a sissy.
He told me he didn’t care. He was lucky, privileged to take care of me.
“I adored that kid. And I continued to adore him as I watched him change. I saw what the early bullying wrought, and the abuse my father heaped on him, did. It didn’t change my opinion. I still loved him and I understood where his selfish, cruel side continued to emerge.
“He was a lost soul. That’s what I told myself. He only wanted love. But he could never rest easy in the fact that he’d found it. With his expectations, I came to know he’d never find love because the kind of love he wanted was impossible. It was too demanding, too needy.”
“I did a bad thing, a very bad thing, thinking I was protecting my brother from harm. Yes, Karl, I do regret it. I stole not only a beloved life from you and your family, I stole the possibility of a hope, of a future together. I deeply regret it.
“In a twisted way, my taking Josh’s life was a way of making things up to you. An eye for an eye kind of thing—setting things straight. Justice? Maybe. Is there really such a thing? To my mind, justice would be resurrecting Reggie for you, giving back the years together I robbed from you.”
Karl’s eyes shone. “What about your mother?”
“What about her?”
“Did you kill her too? Or was that Josh?”
“My own ma? No, are you crazy?”
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
“Our mother died of lung cancer two years ago.” Shondell sighed.
“But let’s keep to the subject. She was a complicated woman who had a miserable life with our father.
But now, I need to even the score, to try to make amends for what had happened to Reggie.
I know, the logic isn’t there, but the emotion is.
“I was certain Josh would have killed you, Ted. I think he may have killed others, and if he did, I fear I was the one who gave him the idea to employ this lethal way of problem-solving. But even I can’t say for sure he ever snuffed anyone’s life out.
He was a sociopath—it takes one to know one—and it wouldn’t surprise me at all to discover he’d killed people.
And what I’m afraid of the most—I set him on the path of murder.
” She looked down for a long time. “There’s blood on my hands. ”
She lifted her head, turned back to us, and closed her eyes. Pain was writ large across her features. She trembled. In spite of everything, my heart ached for her.
“I just want things to be over.” She looked at each of us in turn. She smiled. “It needs to end here. I’m so tired. I have nothing left…not now.”
“What do you mean?” Ted asked.
If Shondell answered, it was only in the most oblique way. “If I promise you you’ll all make it out of here alive, will you do as I say? Please.”
We hurried to assent, to agree to whatever she wanted. But what would that be?
“No matter what?” She was already moving out of the sunroom, holding the hunting knife in front of her like a shield.
We did nothing, save for staring. We were too numb, too shocked to contemplate more. And too damn scared…
She moved into Karl’s bedroom. She paused in the doorway—but there was no hesitancy, only resolve—and gave the most melancholy smile I’ve ever seen. Pain and regret flickered across her features like images on a movie screen.
“I was wounded quite young.” She showed us the scars on her arms. We’d never discover what those scars were from. I didn’t know if I could bear the story behind them. Sometimes, things are better left buried.
With a final look at each of us, she closed the door.
There was silence for a long while. Later, I would liken it to the calm before the storm, the still preceding a house-shaking clap of thunder.
At last we heard something—strains of music, soft but enough for me to discern.
I’ve long been a fan of opera and I immediately recognized Madame Butterfly and its famous aria, “Un Bel dì Vedremo,” or, in English, “One Fine Day We Will See.” The music sounded tinny as though coming from the speaker of a phone, muffled through the door.
I cocked my head.
What was happening? Why was she playing music at a time like this? Ice ran through my veins and something inside screamed this will not end well.
I didn’t know if it was safe to do, but I took the moment of being unwatched to take my phone out, disconnect from Ted, and to call 911.
I moved close to the front door, farthest from the bedroom, and whispered to the dispatcher, “There are three of us here and there’s a crazy woman threatening us with a knife.
Please send help. Hurry.” I gave her the address and she asked me to stay on the line.
I dropped the phone though, when I heard Shondell’s first scream, quickly followed by another. The screams were piercing and high-pitched. They were those of a wounded animal in great pain.
Then again—silence.
Karl, Ted, and I—as one—hurried to the closed door. It was locked. Karl moaned in frustration. And then I could see he had an idea. He reached up to the doorframe and pulled down a small key.
He put it in the keyhole and turned.
The door swung open.
Karl gripped me tight.
I tried to swallow, but couldn’t find any saliva. I could barely find breath.
Shondell sat against the wall, just next to the window overlooking the high-rise next door.
Both her wrists were slit.
The knife lay next to her.
Blood pooled on the floor beneath her. And this time, it was no hallucination.
It was over.
I turned to Ted, who was shaking so badly, I feared his legs wouldn’t support him for much longer. I wrapped him in a tight embrace, turning both of us away from the crimson-stained vision.