There was no one in the garage.
“Let’s fine those NoDoz. I’m exhausted.”
Sarah and Josh walked back into the house and put their guns down on the coffee table. Just then the doorbell rang and someone knocked on the door so hard it rattled against the jamb. Sarah looked at her watch. It was two o’clock in the morning. Simultaneously, Sarah and her husband reached for their pistols.
“Mrs. Lincoln?”
Her hand paused. She looked at Josh and then back down at the guns.
“It might be the police. They probably heard the gunshot.”
The doorbell rang again. A fist pounded on the door, this time even louder and more insistent.
“Mrs. Lincoln? It’s Detective Malcovich from the police department. Are you okay? We had a report of shots fired at this address.”
Sarah relaxed.
“Just a minute.”
She handed both guns to her husband, who carried them into the kitchen and shoved them in a drawer. Sarah walked to the door and peeked through the peephole. She saw a big, grizzled middle-aged man with salt- and- pepper hair pulled back into a ponytail. He had an unkempt goatee with stray hairs of different lengths spiraling off in different directions. He was taller than Josh, well over six feet, though not as wide or as muscular. Even with his sports jacket buttoned his belly was still visible, bulging over his belt. He looked like an old hippie in a wrinkled brown business suit he’d picked up from the Salvation Army.
“Let me see your badge.”
The man pulled out a gold shield and held it up to the peephole. Sarah had no idea how to determine if it was real or not. She didn’t open the door.
“What do you want?”
“We had a report of some gunshots coming from your home. I stopped by to check on you.”
“We’re okay.”
“I’m afraid I need to see for myself. I’m going to need you to open the door.”
Josh was standing beside her now. Sarah unlocked the door but she let Josh step forward to speak to the detective.
“Can I come in?”
“Let me see your badge,” Josh said.
The detective handed it to him along with his LVPD identification. Josh studied the ID and then the man’s face. He nodded his head and handed the badge and ID back to the detective.
“Harold Malcovich. You can call me Harry,” the detective said, holding out his hand.
Josh shook his hand.
“My name is Josh and this is my wife Sarah.”
“Can I come in now? It will only take a moment.”
Josh stepped aside and Sarah stepped back, allowing the detective to enter.
“What can I do for you?”
“First, what were those gunshots?”
“Gunshot. It was just one. I startled Sarah when she was carrying her gun.”
“Do you have a permit for it?”
“It’s registered in my name and I have a license to conceal. Why would they send a police detective to investigate gunshots? They’re supposed to have a patrol car checking on the house.”
“I was on my way to your house when the call came in. Since I was already headed here I told the dispatcher that I would respond.”
Josh narrowed his eyes in suspicion.
“By yourself? What if there really was something going on?”
The detective raised an eyebrow and shoved both hands into his pockets to pull his pants up.
“Well, I may look like Willie Nelson but I’m an old gunslinger. I can handle myself pretty well.”
Harry winked at Sarah and scratched his scraggly facial hair. He nodded at them and then gestured to the couch in the living room.
“Do you mind if we sit? I think we have a lot to talk about.”
Sarah looked at Josh and then back at Harry. Josh shrugged his shoulders as he always did and began walking into the living room, followed by the detective. The detective unbuttoned his sports jacket and sat down next to Josh on the sofa. His weight created a depression in the cushions that made Josh lean toward him. Josh scooted over, looking more than a little uncomfortable. Sarah joined them both on the sofa. Just a few weeks ago she would have found the image of Josh sitting on the couch looking painfully uncomfortable next to a big long- haired hippie in a wrinkled business suit hilarious. Now she had little humor left.
“So what’s this about?” Sarah asked.
The detective looked Sarah directly in the eyes for an uncomfortably long time. He lowered his head and wrung out his hands; then he licked his chapped lips and brushed a long strand of gray hair back behind his ear.
“I saw the tape.”
“It’s not a fake,” Sarah said before he could continue. The veins in her neck and forehead bulged and her hands clenched into fists.
The detective held up his hands palms out as if preparing to ward off a blow.
“I didn’t say it was. I didn’t think it was. In fact, what happened to you and your husband, I’ve seen it before. I mean, I heard about it. Once.”
Sarah touched her forehead with her fingertips and closed her eyes. She was trembling. She opened her eyes and looked over at Josh. Josh’s mouth hung open and his eyes had widened in surprise.
“You-you-you’ve seen this before?”
“Where?” Josh asked.
“Not on video. I heard an audiotape made by a woman named Dorothy Madigan who was convinced that she was being raped and murdered every night by her coworker. She was having terrible dreams about the guy in the next cubicle breaking into her house at night and attacking her. She had hidden a cassette recorder under her bed the night before and it had recorded everything. I heard her crying and begging and pleading for her life. Then I heard that bastard laugh. It was the most evil sound I’d ever heard. You could hear the bed squeaking while he raped her. She was weeping and praying and then I heard her scream and that scream seemed to go on forever, getting louder and more agonized. It really sounded like someone being murdered. But there she was, standing in front of me without a mark on her. We ran a rape kit on her. We checked her for cuts and bruises. There was nothing. There was no sign, no evidence, that she had been attacked except for that tape.”
Sarah frowned.
“So let me guess. You didn’t believe her?”
“She couldn’t even remember what had happened. She had gone to sleep and when she woke up she played the tape and that’s what was on it. But she couldn’t remember anything. What could I do?”
Sarah wasn’t sure what she was feeling. She was both excited and scared. Anxious to hear what the detective had to say but frightened because she thought she knew what he had come here to tell her. The man who had sat in the cubicle next to the woman who thought she was being raped and murdered every night was now living across the street from her.
“What happened to her? Where’s she now? Can I talk to her?’ ”
“She’s in a mental institute now. She tried to set herself on fire.”
“Oh, my God,” Josh gasped.
“It was Dale, wasn’t it?” Sarah asked. “Dale was her coworker, the one she thought was raping her. Wasn’t he?”
“The man she identified as her attacker was Dale McCarthy. We never arrested him. That’s why his prints weren’t in the system. We didn’t have enough to go on and her story didn’t make any sense. So we closed the case. We figured she was just crazy. Then when she dumped kerosene all over herself and lit a match, we just figured that that confirmed it. Then I heard about your case from Detective Lassiter. I saw the tape and I heard your neighbor’s name. I put two and two together.”
