The man looked puzzled. He apparently hadn’t thought this through, more than to feel that she was a nuisance.
The two men got up to leave. As they were walking out the door, the first man turned to look at her. Johanna almost winced, thinking that he was going to accuse her of lying as well, but instead, he said, “Just so you know, the house was locked up. She had these weird deadbolts that only worked from the inside. So once you were inside, you could lock the doors, but there was nothing visible on the outside. So if you know anything about this woman too, we’d appreciate it.”
Johanna wasn’t sure if the man was asking for a confession or help. In either case, she kept her answer to a nod and closed the door behind them.
Johanna was able to work at her studio for two days. She’d gotten behind on the graphic designs due to her clients, and she valued the quiet time to allow herself to be creative. It felt good to be away from the police, the thoughts of the murder, and those poor women she had seen.
Her nerves were still frayed from the experience, and the anxiety had taken a toll on her sleep. Johanna suffered in trying to focus on work at times, but she still felt more at peace than she had before.
On the third night, she awoke at 3:00 a.m. and knew she was awake for the duration—no going back to bed tonight.
She shuffled out to the living area and turned on the television. The news was running a line of text at the bottom of the screen, but she ignored it for the first few minutes. Finally, she focused on the words rushing past her on the screen and saw that they’d arrested someone for the murder of the woman in the park.
Johanna flipped over to the news channel and began watching. Of course, they were on the weather and spent far too much time going through the slim chances for rain next week. Johanna waited until she thought she would scream with impatience. Finally, the anchors flashed a picture of the park where she’d been.
She didn’t recognize the following image: a younger man with plenty of scruff on his face and a buzz-cut. Johanna listened as the anchor read how this man had been apprehended for the murder in the park and was currently in the county jail.
This was wrong, she thought. This man looked nothing like the man she had described to the police—the one she’d seen strangle the life out of that woman. She knew that the police sometimes got the wrong man. She knew that there was possible information that might have linked him to the crimes.
But the following line from the anchor’s mouth made her pause and replay the video she’d just watched. The anchor had said that the man had pled guilty.
After 3:00 a.m., in the dark of the night, Johanna had no one to call at this hour. She was confused and angry. She didn’t understand what was happening. This man looked nothing like the man she’d described. He definitely would not have been picked out of a lineup. She wondered why she’d not been called down to identify the man.
She also didn’t understand how the police could be this wrong. The wrong man almost certainly meant that they’d identified the wrong woman as the victim. Had they recovered her body? What was his story about the cars and the transport of the body? How had he done that without leaving tire tracks? And where was the body?
Greater still, she felt her face flush. Johanna had spent hours with the police, telling them what she saw and repeating it until she felt sick. They knew every detail of what she’d heard, how she ran, where she’d hid, and in the end, none of that mattered. No one had paid any attention to her words.
She knew one thing, though. Tomorrow she would be going to the police station to clear this up.
Johanna didn’t have long to wait when she arrived at the police station later on. Detective Dempsey held the door for her. He nodded at her, but then turned his gaze, watching her as she followed him down the long hall to his desk.
“Can I help you with something?” he asked, pausing towards the end of the long hall.
“I need to talk to you about your arrest,” she said.
“What about it? I would think that you’re thrilled that we caught the man who did this. You’re safe now. He won’t be looking for the witness who saw him.” The deputy turned and started to walk again.
“But that’s not the man I saw. He wasn’t even similar to the killer. This guy was way too young to have been him.”
The detective sighed and looked aggrieved. “We did the best we could with the information that was provided to us. You only saw him for a short time; you didn’t see all of him; and according to you, he had no marks or identifying features. We had very little to go on. He’s not in any of the security footage, either. When we talked to him, he broke down and confessed.”
“How are you certain that this guy isn’t one of these people who just confess?” Johanna asked. “I’ve seen this in the movies before.”
The detective raised an eyebrow. “So have we. He knew certain things about the crime scene—the house with the woman locked inside that no one else could have known. We don’t release everything we know about a crime scene to the press. We hold some back, just in case we need it—and we did this time.”
She nodded. “So did the perp say how he worked the whole home being
