Chapter Thirty #2
He would never be mad at her for something like this. He’d want her to be happy. The bigger problem was that kissing Wade
gave her a flicker of excitement in the moment, but later it opened up a deep fracture of sadness. It reminded her that Tyler’s
lips were gone forever.
She didn’t plan to go on a second date with Wade. It was much too early for her to be dating anyone.
That night, she wrote more words in her strange little journal, unreadable scribbles of sorrow.
A few days after Helen’s date with Wade, Detective Calhoun called and asked Helen to come into the station.
In a soulless, windowless room, she told Helen the good news: The tiny drop of DNA blood evidence in the hallway had returned
a match in the system, and they had made an arrest that morning.
The room started to tilt, and Detective Calhoun offered Helen water, which she drank faster than she should have, because
then she was coughing.
Helen knew she was supposed to feel happy, but the arrest didn’t bring Tyler back, and as Detective Calhoun gave her more
details—Jack Franklin, twenty-four, delivery driver, prior B and E, assault, and drug charges—she just felt her blood boiling.
Such an ordinary name for a monster. Helen would never be able to think of him as a Jack, and when Calhoun showed her the
man’s mug shot, all Helen saw was the black ski mask. He would always be the masked man to her.
“Why did he do it?” Helen asked.
Calhoun looked up from her files. “Why?”
“Why did he kill my husband?”
Calhoun took a moment before answering. “Given his history, I think we can probably assume it was a robbery gone wrong.”
Helen didn’t want assumptions. She wanted a reason that Tyler was dead. She knew no one could give her a good reason, but
at the very least she deserved a shitty reason.
“My husband and I used to get a vanilla latte on most Sundays. Just one to share,” Helen said. “He always took the first sip.
Always. Do you know why?”
Calhoun regarded Helen warily. “Because he liked lattes so much?”
“No. To make sure it wasn’t too hot for me. So I wouldn’t burn my mouth. Who murders a man like that? I need to know why.”
Calhoun looked down at her papers and told Helen she would do her best to find out the masked man’s specific motive. “But
Helen,” Calhoun said, “the answer might not satisfy you. Sometimes crimes are just senseless, random acts of violence.”
The next day, an arraignment was held. Calhoun called her afterward.
“Are they going to let him out on bail?” Helen asked.
“No. The judge didn’t grant bail,” Calhoun said, her tone reassuring.
“That’s good,” Helen said, trying to sound relieved, but she didn’t really think it was good, and relief certainly wasn’t
what she was feeling.
In Helen’s imagination, there was a version of the past she rewrote in her head in which she was the heroine of the story.
In that version, she put a bullet in the masked man’s chest on that fateful night. Boom. The villain, dead. Love of her life,
alive.
It was too late for that perfect ending, but she was preparing for a different kind of ending. At the gun range that morning,
she had hit the target almost every shot. So the truth was that she was gravely disappointed they were keeping the masked
man behind bars. It would be impossible for her to shoot someone who was in police custody.
She should have waited outside the courthouse when they brought him in that morning for the arraignment.
Helen vowed to herself she wouldn’t miss her next opportunity.
Wade called her several times after their first date, undeterred by her flimsy excuses until she finally agreed on a second
date.
Helen figured that, in person, she would tell Wade she wasn’t in a place to handle anything romantic.
She never said those words though. Instead, she discovered as the evening went on that hearing Wade’s voice respond to hers held so much allure.
She almost didn’t care what he said, so long as he said something.
And when he started talking again about moving to the middle of nowhere, not so subtly suggesting that she’d love the forest too, she thought it sounded a little magical.
Besides, if she was going to kill a man, she’d need a place to hide.
Helen hadn’t seen visions of Tyler around the city in a few weeks. She wasn’t sure if the pills were starting to work or if
her mind was starting to work.
When Calhoun called and asked her to come into the station, she had an uneasy feeling though. It was something in the woman’s
tone.
The news was worse than she expected.
The masked man was going to accept a plea deal. Guilty of second-degree murder. He’d be eligible for parole in twenty-five
years.
“What?” Helen said. “But he could be out before he’s fifty!”
“I understand that number sounds shocking,” Calhoun said, “but let me put a few things in perspective. With robberies and
burglaries, the DA almost always pursues second degree—”
“But it was obviously premeditated! First degree! We were just standing there. Did he say why our apartment? Did he say why he stabbed Tyler?”
“He did explain himself, yes.”
Helen sat up straighter. The Big Why of it. Finally. “What did he say?”
“He was on drugs that night.”
“So? Lots of people do drugs and don’t kill people. That’s the reason he gave? Drugs? That’s not a reason at all!”
Calhoun lifted her hand, a gentle but firm request that Helen be quiet. Helen’s shoulders slumped as she fell silent.
“He said he would go to your apartment building sometimes to buy drugs,” Calhoun said. “His dealer lived on your floor.”
“Great,” Helen muttered. “Never realized we lived in a druggie building.”
“Drugs are sold all over the city.”
Once again, Helen thought, If only we’d bought a house instead.
“But he didn’t have enough money that night,” Calhoun said.
“Dealer wouldn’t sell to him, so he left angry.
He went down to his car and got the ski mask and a hunting knife, intending to go back up and rob the dealer.
But once he was on your floor, he had second thoughts—the dealer has a gun—so instead he decided to steal money to buy the drugs.
He’s picked locks before, and he just chose your door at random. ”
Helen lowered her head as a wave of emotion hit her. “He picked the lock?”
“Yeah, he said he picked the lock.”
“So I didn’t leave the door unlocked.”
Calhoun put a hand on Helen’s shoulder. “He went into your apartment looking for cash. He was high on bath salts. They’re
a powerful psychoactive drug. They can make people violent and paranoid.”
Helen shook her head. No excuse.
“He said he doesn’t remember the night clearly, but he panicked when he thought you might be calling the police.”
Helen inhaled sharply and looked at Calhoun with imploring eyes. “So it’s because I ran back to the bedroom? That’s why he
did it?”
“Helen, stop,” Calhoun said. “You won’t find a reason like that. I’ve been in this job too long, and the more I see, the less
I know. But one thing I know for sure: This isn’t your fault. This is senseless violence. This is a crazy, damaged person
doing a horrible thing to innocent people. You can search for all the reasons in the world to try to make sense of it, but
I’ll tell you, no matter what you think you’ve figured out, your reason sure as hell better not be anything you did. Don’t do that to yourself. Do you understand?”
Helen squeezed the bridge of her nose. “Yeah, I understand. Does he remember stabbing my husband?”
Calhoun paused before answering. “He says he doesn’t.”
“He’s lying.”
“Probably.”