Nightwatcher (Nightwatcher #1)(46)

“Ms. Taylor, this is a murder investigation. You’re a key witness.”

Key witness to a murder, on top of everything else. How much stress can she possibly handle before she breaks?

Come on, now, Allison. You’ve been through worse. Get a grip.

Worse. Yes. She’s definitely been through worse. This wasn’t like before, with her mother.

But then, she’d been prepared for her mother’s death. And though it was hardly from natural causes, it wasn’t at the hands of a homicidal maniac.

“You have an obligation,” Detective Manzillo is saying, “to tell me everything you possibly can about what happened the last time you saw the victim, whether or not you think it’s relevant.”

“I know, I’m just . . . I’m trying to remember what she told me about her love life and how she said it, exactly.”

“Do your best.” His blunt pencil is poised over his notepad.

Looking away so that she won’t have to watch him write with it, she recounts what Kristina said about married men being the only available guys in this city.

He nods, making lengthy notes.

Did she just incriminate Mack? In an extramarital affair, if not a murder? If something like that were exposed now . . .

She thinks about Bill Kenyon’s wife, Stephanie; about how she was hoping, just a little while ago, that Stephanie will never find out about her late husband’s roving eye.

She thinks about Carrie MacKenna. If it turns out Mack really was sleeping with Kristina Haines, and it all comes out in the aftermath of her murder, then it’s a blessing that his wife will have died without knowing the truth.

You don’t know that, though. You don’t know that there was an affair, you don’t know that Carrie wasn’t aware of it if there was one, you don’t even know that she’s dead . . .

You don’t know anything, do you?

Detective Manzillo thinks she does, though. She can’t even come right out and tell him that she honestly doesn’t believe anything was going on between Mack and Kristina, because that will only confirm that she’s considered the possibility. And then he’ll think she’s hiding something.

“Was anyone else in the laundry room while you and Kristina were there?” he asks.

“No. I was surprised about that, because sometimes all the machines are full and you have to wait, but it was nice out that day so people were probably out doing— Wait!” Suddenly, she remembers. “Yes, someone else was in the room.”

Detective Manzillo regards her with interest, as though he senses she’s about to reveal something important.

“The building maintenance man—he was there.”

“In the laundry room?”

“Yes, and—oh my God, I can’t believe I didn’t think about this until now.” Her pulse quickens. “He was in the first floor hallway, too, when I got home late on Tuesday night—or Wednesday morning, actually.”

“You saw him there?” the detective asks sharply. “You’re sure?”

“Positive. It was kind of dark, and I was a little bit out of it, but . . .”

“Out of it?”

Should she tell him about the Xanax?

No. He might discredit what she’s saying, and she knows what she saw.

“I had just walked all the way home, and I was exhausted,” she says, “and—you know, shell-shocked. Like everyone else.”

“What time was it?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. Late. I didn’t look at my watch that I remember, and when I got home, all my clocks were flashing because the power had gone out.”

“Okay. What was he doing when you saw him?”

“He was on the first floor, coming out of the stairwell, and he went right out into the alley.”

“Did he see you?”

“I don’t think so.”

The detective nods, writing everything down. “What’s his name?”

“It’s Jerry.”

“What’s his last name?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where does he live?”

“I have no idea. I’m sorry. He’s just always kind of hanging around the building, fixing things. On Sunday, when we were in the laundry room, he was working on a washing machine but Kristina said she didn’t even think it was broken.”

“Do you think she was right?”

“I don’t know—I wasn’t really paying much attention to him, I guess. But Kristina mentioned that he gave her the creeps, and I did see the way he looked at her . . .”

“How?”

“You know—like he was interested.”

“Leering?”

She considers that. “I wouldn’t say leering. It was kind of more . . . I don’t know, innocent. There’s something wrong with him, mentally—he’s kind of slow or something. More like a boy than a man, is how I would describe it.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me about him? Anything at all?”

She searches her memory. “I can’t think of anything—other than that Kristina thought he might have been responsible for the burglaries that happened over the last couple of weeks. Did you know about that?”