Nice Girls(98)

The police officer mentioned that John Stack had no criminal record in Liberty Lake. However, police from New Haven County, Connecticut, had dredged up a series of old police complaints from 1982 and 1983 for a college student named “Jonathan B. Stack.” The student had been accused of assaulting two different women late at night: one at a bar and the other at a party. For some undisclosed reason, both victims had dropped the charges. Police suspected that after college, John Stack had tweaked his name and moved away from New England.

My throat was dry as I watched the press conference, my temple throbbing. I remembered the rifle that had battered into my head, the hands that had wrapped around my throat. I could smell the coffee on his breath.

And I could see the flatness in his eyes. The blood that leaked out of him. The way his body had split like butter.

“Finally, our investigation has found evidence of a struggle that took place the night of Johnathan Stack’s death,” said the officer. She seemed to stare right at me. “We ask the public to reach out to us with any tips or information into the matter. We believe that there is more to the story than meets the eye.”

By the end of January, Dad was called in for a police interview. They were interested in his construction work for John Stack. When he came home afterward, he beelined for his bedroom, a beer in each hand.

I waited for my turn.

I waited for the police to find me, to tell me that my DNA had shown up on a dead man and his property.

I felt like I was holding my breath, waiting for the end.

February passed, then March. I spent my days doing chores, reading, and going out for walks in the bitter cold. I napped often—long and unrefreshing naps that covered most of the day. When that grew dull, I looked at classes at the state schools. I looked at jobs in town. I liked to imagine that I was going somewhere, anywhere.

One day, Dad brought me a new cell phone. He quietly ended our plan with our old carrier and said that my previous phone had been stolen. The new one had a nice camera, but that was it. I had no one to call or text. I had no social media to use. I had nothing to do.

Then spring seemed to come in the first week of April. The temperature suddenly entered the high forties—sweltering weather for the state. It was a false spring. The sky was gray, cloudy, but in the distance, you could see the faint trace of light.

After breakfast, I took the new phone and went for a drive to the lake. On the car ride over, I rolled down the windows, letting the wind blast in my face. I parked a few blocks away from Dwayne’s old apartment and made my way over to the beach.

I crossed the sandbanks, icy and dusted with snow. Where the sand ended, the lake began—its surface was dark and glassy, stretching on into the horizon.

There was a handful of people around the lake, enjoying the warmer weather. An elderly couple clutched onto each other, giggling as they navigated the ice.

I snapped a few pictures of the lake. I tried to capture the horizon between the sky and the lake, as if two different worlds were melting into each other. But despite the nice camera, the photos looked cheap. They were nothing at all like real life.

I felt eyes on me.

On the other end of the beachfront, there was a blond man standing at the edge of the sand. He turned away as soon as I looked over. There was something familiar about the way he stood, his back tall, hands in the pockets of his military jacket.

I realized I was looking at Kevin Obermueller.

I felt the rage boiling in my veins, white-hot. Kevin looked quaint. He was a free man, enjoying a lovely lakeside view.

He was the same man who had scoffed at a woman’s death. He’d leaked a private photo of his missing girlfriend. He’d avoided the consequences as other men were beaten or thrown into jail for things that he had also done.

Out of the mess of the past few months, Kevin had made it through unscathed. He deserved worse.

Without knowing why, I tramped across the beach toward him. The closer I got, the angrier I became. Whatever happened next was his own fault. He’d earned it.

I was a few feet away, nearly shaking with rage—

Kevin turned. He was looking right through me, a blank expression on his face. He didn’t so much as blink. As I got closer, Kevin started walking past me. He seemed to glide over the ice toward the street. Up close, Kevin was pallid. He was thinner than I remembered, and his face was gaunt.

Before I knew it, Kevin was gone.

And my anger went with him.

I was just tired. That was all the feeling I could muster for Kevin Obermueller. The people he’d hurt were either dead or gone. I didn’t want to be the only one left.

Maybe Kevin was always meant to be unscathed. There were other people like him. Nothing would happen to any of them. Maybe that was how the world worked.

And maybe that was why some people prayed so ardently. They hoped that God would take care of the things that they couldn’t. They hoped that there was justice and righteousness out there. People prayed because they were tired.

I couldn’t blame them.

After a moment, I scrolled through the contacts on my phone. It was one of the only things I had saved on my laptop from the previous one. I found Kevin’s number and blocked it for the both of us.

I had sixty-three numbers left. My new phone had zero calls, zero texts.

I watched as a pair of geese flew overhead.

Then I drafted a message. My fingers moved so quickly that the words were scrambled, misspelled. The text message was one paragraph, then two, then three. I grew frustrated over the words—none of them were right.