I walk her out of the building, keeping my arm around her, almost as if I’m holding her upright. The right thing to do, of course, would be to accompany her to the police station, but that’s not even a consideration. There’s no way I’m letting the police see my face or let them learn that I know Ella.
I flag down a taxi and then open the door for her. Before shutting the door, I lean in to the backseat.
“Promise me that you’ll call the second you’re done with the police, okay?” I say.
“I promise.”
As I watch the cab pull away, I contemplate whether running is now the smart move for me. With the discovery of Charlotte’s body, it’ll become a murder investigation. Should I get on the first Amtrak to Canada? Or better yet, board a plane for some country without an extradition treaty with the United States?
Just a little longer, I tell myself. Keep Ella in play for another day or so.
I know I sound like one of those guys in Vegas wanting to play just one more hand in a losing game, but breaking contact with Ella now means a lifetime of waiting in the dark for the police to show up at my door, and that simply isn’t an option I’m willing to entertain.
I walk a few blocks away from Ella’s building before getting into my own taxi. I don’t want a cab driver to be able to tell the police he picked someone up in front of Ella’s home at precisely the time she left for the police station. I continue the subterfuge on the other end, asking the cabbie to drop me three blocks away from my apartment.
During the ride home, my mind swirls with the thought of possible loose ends I’ve left untied. The affected accent of Hercule Poirot plays in my head. “It was almost perfect, except for one little thing. One minor detail you overlooked . . .”
What is the one little thing I’ve forgotten? The minor detail I’ve overlooked?
I imagine the movie version of my life. Shots of me lying in bed intercut with the evidence that will lead to my arrest. But what is in the second image? Her body? The suitcase? Someone who works at the W Hotel?
I decide to think about it methodically. To go over each piece of new evidence now in the police’s custody.
First, there’s Charlotte herself. Now the police know that she’s certainly dead, and they’ll undoubtedly test her body a million ways to see if it yields any clues that will help to identify her killer. We always used a condom, so my semen, at least, won’t be inside her. But could they find something else linking to me? My fingerprints? A strand of my hair?
No, I tell myself. Not after a week in the East River. All her corpse will tell the police now is that she died of strangulation.
Then a different thought hits me. Another thing the police now have that they didn’t know before: Charlotte’s body was disposed of in the East River. That means that the police’s best lead might be to canvass the area for someone who remembers a man pulling a large suitcase the night she went missing.
But I didn’t see another soul in the park that night, so I can’t imagine that someone saw me. And even if there was someone at a distance that I hadn’t noticed, at most they saw a silhouette. There’s no way that anyone could identify my face from that night. It was pitch-black.
Last is the suitcase. I scrubbed it clean, but could I have missed something? A hair caught in the zipper? I try to take solace in the belief that immersion in the East River for a week would destroy anything linking back to me, but I have no idea whether that’s actually true.
The discovery of the suitcase also gives them the brand. I remember Marcia Clark’s famous claim that the bloody footprints belonged to O. J. Simpson because they were made by “rich man’s shoes.” I wonder if Tumi will be considered “rich man’s luggage.” Does Tumi change models every couple of years, like car manufacturers? With any luck, they’ve been selling the same model I used as Charlotte’s coffin for years. Tens of thousands of people might own one exactly like it.
I try, without success, to recall where I bought it. I remember it was purchased shortly before I went on a twenty-one-day African safari. What year was that? 2012? 2013? I went with Stephanie and broke up with her the week we returned. Would she remember that I had a Tumi suitcase that matched the one Charlotte was found inside? For the life of me, I couldn’t remember her luggage. Why on earth would she remember mine? Does she have any photos? Us at the airport, surrounded by our bags? Our jeep with the luggage in the back, secured by a bungee cord?
Get a grip, I tell myself. A million things would have to happen before the cops start looking at my ex-girlfriend’s old photos for proof that I once owned a large Tumi suitcase.
What about the bellhop at the W hotel? Will he remember I had a large Tumi suitcase? Is it unusual in his line of work for a man to wheel a large piece of luggage out of a hotel after midnight? Would my refusal to ask for a cab be something that would stick in his mind? What about my not checking the bag? Then again, how many large suitcases does that guy see in a day? A hundred? A thousand? And I’m certain the brand couldn’t have registered. Why would it? Besides, what are the odds he follows the news close enough to realize that a dead girl was found in a suitcase? And even if he knew this fact, would he want to get involved in a high-profile murder investigation? Is he the kind of guy who would reach out to the police?
But if he does, it would be the beginning of the end for me. I’m on the hotel registry. My real name. My American Express card is on file. A copy of my driver’s license. The hotel’s surveillance cameras would show Charlotte and me entering the hotel. A few hours later, I’ll be on camera leaving by myself, only to return an hour after that with a large, black Tumi suitcase. Then an hour after that, the video will show me leaving yet again, this time with that same suitcase—with it looking much more difficult to handle.
And, of course, the cameras will never show Charlotte leaving.
Once I’ve returned to my apartment, the realization that things could be closing in on me causes me to immediately go to the liquor cabinet. My good friend Mr. Johnnie Walker is front and center. I pour myself a double. Drink in hand, I settle into my living room and reflect on what I’ve wrought—and what might follow.
Eventually the alcohol does its job. I fall asleep in my chair. I might have slept through the night had it not been for the ringing of my phone. My burner phone.
Ella.
“Hello?” I say.
I can hear the drunkenness in my scratchy voice. Sober up and focus, I tell myself. There’s no room for error here. One slip with Ella and I’ll make myself a prime suspect.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“No, it’s all right. Where are you?”
“At my father’s. I’m going to stay here tonight. I don’t want him to be alone.”
“Okay. How’d it go with the police?”
She starts to answer, and then her voice cracks. When she begins again, she says, “I saw her, Dylan. I saw Charlotte. I saw what that animal did to her. I’m never going to get that image out of my mind. And I swear to God, I’m going to . . .” Her voice trails off into sobs.