The Stranger (22 page)

W
ith the two cops
still standing at their door, Thomas and Ryan surprised Adam. They didn't protest or offer any resistance. They just quickly grabbed their stuff and got ready to go. They made a production of hugging and kissing their father good-bye. When Len Gilman smiled, slapped Ryan on the back, and said, “Your dad is just helping us with something,” Adam managed not to roll his eyes. He told his boys not to worry and that he'd contact them the moment he knew what was up.

When the boys were gone, Adam walked down the path to the police cruiser. He wondered what the neighbors would think, but he really didn't give a crap. He tapped Len Gilman on the shoulder and said, “If this is about that stupid lacrosse money—”

“It's not,” Len said, his voice a door slamming shut.

They didn't talk during the drive. Adam sat in the back. The other cop—young guy, hadn't introduced himself—drove, while Len Gilman sat in the passenger seat. Adam had figured they were headed to the Cedarfield police station on Godwin Road, but when they hit the highway, he realized that they were heading into Newark. They took Interstate 280 and pulled up to the county sheriff's office on West Market Street.

The car stopped. Len Gilman stepped out. Adam reached for the door handle, but there weren't any in the backseat of cop cars. He waited and let Len open the door for him. He stepped out. The car drove off.

“Since when do you work for the county?” Adam asked.

“They asked for a favor.”

“What's going on, Len?”

“Just some questions, Adam. More than that, I can't tell you.”

Len led him through the door and down a corridor. They entered an interrogation room.

“Have a seat.”

“Len?”

“What?”

“I've been on the other side of this, so do me a favor. Don't make me wait too long, okay? It won't make me cooperative.”

“Duly noted,” Len said, closing the door behind him.

But he didn't listen. After Adam had sat there alone for an hour, he got up and pounded on the door. Len Gilman opened it. Adam spread his arms and said, “Really?”

“We aren't playing with you,” Len said. “We're just waiting for someone.”

“Who?”

“Give us fifteen minutes.”

“Fine, but let me take a piss.”

“No problem. I'll escort—”

“No, Len, I'm here voluntarily. I'll go to the bathroom by myself like a big boy.”

He did his business, came back, sat in the chair, played with his smartphone. He checked his texts again. Andy Gribbel had taken care of clearing his morning schedule. Adam looked at the address for Gabrielle Dunbar. She lived right near the center of Fair Lawn.

Would she be able to lead him to the stranger?

The interrogation room door finally opened. Len Gilman came in first, followed by a woman Adam would guess was in her early fifties. Her pantsuit was a hue that could best be described as institutional green. Her shirt collar was too long and pointy. Her hair was what they called wash-and-wear—a sort of brown shag-mullet that reminded Adam of hockey players in the seventies.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” the woman said.

Her accent was slight, maybe Midwestern—definitely not New Jersey. She had a rawboned face, the kind that reminded you of farmhands and square dances.

“My name is Johanna Griffin.”

She reached out with a big hand. He shook it.

“I'm Adam Price, but I assume you know that.”

“Please sit.”

They sat across the table from each other. Len Gilman leaned against a far corner, trying like all get-out to look casual.

“Thanks for coming in this morning,” Johanna Griffin said.

“Who are you?” Adam asked.

“Pardon me?”

“I assume you have a rank or . . .”

“I'm a police chief,” she said. Then, after giving it some thought, “From Beachwood.”

“I don't know Beachwood.”

“It's in Ohio. Near Cleveland.”

Adam hadn't expected that. He sat and waited for her to continue.

Johanna Griffin put a briefcase on the desk and snapped it open. She reached inside, and as she pulled out a photograph, she asked, “Do you know this woman?”

She slid the photograph across the table. It was an unsmiling head shot against a plain backdrop, probably off a driver's license. It took Adam a second, no more, to recognize the blond woman. He had seen her only once and it was dark and from a distance and she'd been driving a car. But he knew right away.

Still he hesitated.

“Mr. Price?”

“I might know who she is.”

“Might?”

“Yes.”

“And who
might
she be?”

He wasn't sure what to say here. “Why are you asking me this?”

“It's just a question.”

“Yeah, and I'm just an attorney. So tell me why you want to know.”

Johanna smiled. “So that's how you want to play it.”

“I'm not playing it any way. I just want to know—”

“Why we are asking. We will get to that.” She pointed to the photograph. “Do you know her, yes or no?”

“We've never met.”

“Oh wow,” Johanna Griffin said.

“What?”

“Now you're going to play semantics games with us? Do you know who she is, yes or no?”

“I think I do.”

“Super, terrific. Who is she?”

“You don't know?”

“This isn't about what we know, Adam. And really, I don't have time, so let's cut to it. Her name is Ingrid Prisby. You paid John Bonner, a parking attendant at an American Legion Hall, two hundred dollars to give you her license plate number. You had that number traced by a retired police detective named Michael Rinsky. Do you want to tell us why you did all that?”

Adam said nothing.

“What's your connection to Ingrid Prisby?”

“No connection,” he said carefully. “I just wanted to ask her something.”

“Ask her what?”

Adam felt his head spin.

“Adam?”

It didn't escape his notice that she had moved from calling him Mr. Price to the more informal Adam. He glanced toward the corner. Len Gilman had his arms folded. His face was impassive.

“I was hoping she could help me with a confidential matter.”

“Forget confidential, Adam.” She reached into her briefcase again and produced another photograph. “Do you know this woman?”

She put down a picture of a smiling woman who looked to be about Johanna Griffin's age. Adam shook his head.

“No, I don't know her.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don't recognize her.”

“Her name is Heidi Dann.” Johanna Griffin's voice was a little off now. “Does that name mean anything to you?”

“No.”

Johanna locked eyes with him. “Be sure, Adam.”

“I am. I don't know this woman. I don't recognize her name.”

“Where's your wife?”

The sudden change of topics threw him.

“Adam?”

“What does my wife have to do with any of this?”

“You're full of questions, aren't you?” There was steel in her voice now. “That's getting really annoying. I understand that your wife is suspected of stealing a lot of money.”

Adam glanced back toward Len. Still impassive. “Is that what this is about? False allegations?”

“Where is she?”

Adam considered his next move carefully. “She's traveling.”

“Where?”

“She didn't say. What the hell is going on here?”

“I want to know—”

“I don't really care what you want to know. Am I under arrest?”

“No.”

“So I can get up and go at any time, correct?”

Johanna Griffin glared at him. “That is right, yes.”

“Just so we're clear, Chief Griffin.”

“We are.”

Adam sat up a little straighter, trying to press the advantage.
“And now you're asking me about my wife. So either tell me what's going on right now or . . .”

Johanna Griffin took out another photograph.

She slid the photograph across the table without saying a word. Adam froze. He stared down at the photograph. No one moved. No one spoke. Adam felt his world teeter. He tried to right himself, tried to speak.

“Is this . . . ?”

“Ingrid Prisby?” Johanna finished for him. “Yes, Adam, that's Ingrid Prisby, the woman you
might
know.”

Adam was having trouble breathing.

“According to the coroner, the cause of death was a bullet to the brain. But before that, what you're seeing there? In case you're wondering, we believe that the killer did that to her with a box cutter. We don't know how long she suffered.”

Adam couldn't look away.

Johanna Griffin produced another photograph. “Heidi Dann was shot in the kneecap first. We don't know how long the killer tortured her either, but eventually, the same thing. A bullet to the brain.”

Adam managed to swallow. “And you think . . . ?”

“We don't know what to think. We want to know what you know about this.”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Really? Let me run down the chronology for you, then. Ingrid Prisby of Austin, Texas, flew into Newark airport from Houston. She stayed for one night alone at the Courtyard Marriott by the airport. While here, she rented a car and drove to the American Legion Hall in Cedarfield. There was a man in the car with her.
That man talked to you inside the American Legion Hall. We don't know what was said, but we do know that sometime later, you paid off a parking attendant to get her license plate and presumably you tracked the two of them down. Meanwhile, Ingrid drove that same rental car all the way to Beachwood, Ohio, where she had a conversation with this woman.”

With a shaking hand, with something that looked like barely controlled rage, Johanna Griffin put her finger on the photograph of Heidi Dann.

“Sometime after that, this woman, Heidi Dann, was shot in the kneecap and then in the head. In her own home. Not long after—we are still putting the timetable together, but sometime between twelve and twenty-four hours later—Ingrid Prisby was mutilated and murdered in a motel room in Columbia, New Jersey, right near the Delaware Water Gap.”

She sat back.

“So how do you fit in, Adam?”

“You can't possibly . . .”

But they did.

Adam needed time. He needed to get his head together and think it through and try to figure out what to do here.

“Does this have anything to do with your marriage?” Johanna Griffin asked.

He looked up. “What?”

“Len tells me you and Corinne had some difficulties a few years back.”

Adam's eyes snapped to the corner. “Len?”

“Those were the rumors, Adam.”

“So police work involves gossip?”

“Not just gossip,” Johanna continued. “Who is Kristin Hoy?”

“What? She's my wife's close friend.”

“And yours too, right? You two have been in communication a lot lately.”

“Because—” He stopped himself.

“Because?”

Too much coming out too quickly. He wanted to trust the cops, but he just didn't. The cops had a theory here, and Adam knew that once a theory was formed, it was hard, if not impossible, to get them to see the facts and not twist them to suit what they already believed. Adam remembered how Old Man Rinsky had warned him not to talk to the police. The stakes had been upped, no question, but did that mean he had abandoned the idea of finding Corinne on his own?

He didn't know.

“Adam?”

“We were just talking about my wife.”

“You and Kristin Hoy?”

“Yes.”

“What about your wife?”

“About her recent . . . trip.”

“Her trip. Oh, I see. You mean the one where she just left work in the middle of the day and never returned and now won't reply to your or your children's texts?”

“Corinne said she needed time,” Adam said. “I assume, since you clearly went through my communications—and keep in mind I'm an attorney and some of the communications you intercepted could be construed as work product—you read that text too.”

“Convenient.”

“What?”

“Your wife's text to you. That whole thing about going away and not looking for her. Kinda gives a person time, don't you think?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Anyone could have sent that text, right? Even you.”

“Why would I . . . ?”

He stopped.

“Ingrid Prisby was with a man at the American Legion Hall,” Johanna said. “Who is he?”

“He never told me his name.”

“What did he tell you?”

“It has nothing to do with this.”

“Sure it does. Did he threaten you?”

“No.”

“And you and Corinne have no marital issues, right?”

“I didn't say that. But it has nothing—”

“You want to tell us about meeting up with Sally Perryman last night?”

Silence.

“Is Sally Perryman another friend of your wife's?”

Adam stopped. He took deep breaths. Part of him wanted to come clean to Johanna Griffin. He really did. But right now, Johanna Griffin seemed hell-bent on nailing him or Corinne for whatever craziness was going on. He wanted to help. He wanted to know more about these murders, but he also knew the cardinal rule: You never have to take back words you don't say. He'd had a plan this morning. Go to Gabrielle Dunbar's house in Fair Lawn. Get the name of the stranger. He should stick with that plan. It wouldn't take long to drive there.

More important, it would give him a chance to think.

Adam stood. “I have to go.”

“You're joking, right?”