The House Husband Read online

  “Shhh, honey, everything will be okay. Mommy’s on the case.”

  And then it suddenly hits her, the connection between the Pancoast and Diaz murders. Duh! It’s so obvious she chides herself for not hitting on it hours ago.

  The link between the two cases is Martin Diaz.

  CHAPTER 27

  This morning, I feel like the last man on earth.

  I’m sitting alone in my quiet, empty house. Not completely alone, of course; Jennifer’s tucked away in her crib taking a nap. But the boys are at school, and Ruth isn’t returning my texts—or my calls, for that matter. Is it about the forgotten bananas and milk or something more? She was arctic-cold to me this morning. I tried to apologize, explaining that I didn’t realize how late it had gotten, but she didn’t even want to have the conversation. Wonderful.

  Nothing makes a husband feel quite as miserable as the silent treatment.

  So now I’m sitting here, writhing in my own self-loathing, thinking about how I can make it up to Ruth. Maybe if I run to the grocery store and gather up the ingredients to prepare her favorite dinner (shrimp and basil linguine)? Yeah, that’s definitely the way to go.

  This will also give me an excuse to double-check the odometer on the minivan. Maybe I was seeing things last night. That, or baby Jennifer is sneaking out at night to go joyriding.

  But when I reach the minivan, I realize two things. I’ve forgotten my keys. And more important, I’ve forgotten baby Jennifer, who is still sleeping upstairs in her crib.

  Crapsticks!

  I pound the fat of my fist against the passenger-side window. How could I be so stupid? I pound again and again, grunting with every blow. Sometimes I could just…

  Passersby give me hard looks, like, Who is this lunatic? Sorry, folks, just a harried house husband, losing his mind a little. Go back to your own perfect lives, and let me have a meltdown in privacy.

  Well, standing out here beating my car up isn’t going to help anything. So I trot back up the stairs to my front door and punch in the access code, and…

  BEEP BEEP.

  Nothing. Red light blinking.

  Huh. Must have punched it in wrong. I try again.

  BEEP BEEP.

  Red light blinking.

  What the…?

  The access code is our anniversary, month and year. Not something I’d ever forget. But this stupid security door seems to have forgotten. What, does everybody have it in for me today?

  BEEP BEEP.

  Red light blinking.

  If I try the code again, the security company will be alerted, which means the alarms throughout the house will freak out, and the police will be summoned. And maybe I’m just being silly and superstitious, but it seems like a supremely bad idea to call the cops the day after you’ve killed one of them.

  But I can’t stay out here on my stoop. Not with Jennifer inside alone. What if she wakes up and starts to panic because her daddy’s not there (because he’s a bonehead)?

  Think, think…

  Now, I could walk down to Ruth’s office in Center City and grab her physical house keys. But that would take at least thirty minutes round-trip—and that’s if my slightly out-of-shape (to be honest, gone-to-seed) self ran most of the way. Yeah, that would be real charming, showing up at Ruth’s workplace, saying Sorry-huff-dear-huff-I-huff-seem-to-huff-have-for-huff-gotten-huff-my-huff-keys…

  No way.

  Besides, Ruth would be furious with me if I left our baby girl alone in our house for a half hour, all because I left in a hurry. (Never mind that I was in a rush because I wanted to extend an olive branch in the form of her favorite dish ever.)

  Standing out there, on my stoop, I realize I’m going to have to do something absurd.

  Break into my own home.

  CHAPTER 28

  An adult homeowner spends a lot of time thinking about how to make the ol’ homestead burglarproof. Ruth and I were very good at this. We sat down and made a list of everything we wanted: motion detectors, frame and floor bolts for the front and back doors, and bars on all of the basement-level windows.

  Which, of course, makes the task at hand fairly difficult.

  How the heck am I going to break into the domestic equivalent of Fort Knox? I stare up at my own house, completely flummoxed.

  Then I turn to look down my block and see it, a furry little rodent with a bushy tail darting up the trunk of a hardwood tree. My old nemesis, the common gray squirrel.

  That little creature gives me the answer I need. Because when I engineered my little squirrel trap in the back of the house, I removed the bars from the window. So all I have to do is go back there, push the trap into the house, then shimmy my way in. Which I do, feeling like a complete outlaw (and moron).

  The trap falls to the linoleum basement floor with a terrific clatter. If the neighbors don’t hear it, poor baby Jennifer certainly will.

  I rip the hell out of my shirt and pants as I climb through the basement window. And let me tell you, there is no graceful way to make it to the floor. I drop and stumble and fall on my butt. The Olympic judges don’t even bother to raise their score cards.

  I climb up the stairs, listening for Jennifer’s cries. But I don’t hear her at all. How could she have slept through the sound of the cage banging off the floor? But I do hear a noise upstairs. Something like…running water. Did I leave a faucet running, in addition to forgetting my keys?

  I pick up my pace and run through my living room. Strangely, there’s a tool bag on the living-room rug, next to a small mesh wastebasket overflowing with junk-food wrappers and soda cans. Where did that stuff come from? Did Ruth and the boys have a party last night?

  Never mind that now. I need to check on that running water sound, which seems to be coming from the upstairs bath. Horror and panic grip my heart. There’s no way Jennifer could crawl out of her crib, make her way to the bathroom, and turn on the faucets…is there?

  I run up those stairs faster than I’ve ever run before and practically hurl myself down the hallway and into the master bath. The door is partially open. I kick it so hard it bangs against the wall.

  Inside our bathroom is an image I can’t quite comprehend at first.

  We have a massive claw-foot tub, which practically persuaded us to buy this home right on the spot. And now the faucet is running full tilt, and the tub is filled to the brim and overflowing, the fluid slapping onto the tile floor in gushing waves.

  But that’s not water in the tub.

  My God, is that…

  Blood?

  CHAPTER 29

  “Let me see the crowd footage from the Pancoast case,” Teaghan says.

  She’s back at police headquarters at 8th and Race, the “Roundhouse,” inside its cramped and outdated evidence lab. Officer Alex Sugar, the videographer who shot the footage at the Pancoast crime scene, cues everything up and then hesitates. His hand lingers over the mouse.

  “You sure about this?” Alex asks.

  “What do you mean?” Teaghan says. “Of course I’m sure. I need to see who was watching.”

  They’re standing in front of a battered old monitor nearly two decades old, hooked up to a computer that’s not much younger. Criminals can afford to treat themselves to the latest weapons and communications devices, but cops are often fighting them with tools from the previous century.

  “I don’t know,” Alex says. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to see him.”

  “See who?”

  “Diaz,” he says quietly. “You and Diaz are in the footage, too.”

  Teaghan hesitates but only for a moment. “It’s fine. Roll it.”

  Alex is sweet for warning her. But seeing Diaz is the whole point of this. Because there’s only one connection between the Diaz murders and the Pancoast murders. And that is Diaz himself, who was very visible at the crime scene that morning.

  If the killer saw him, then the killer would have been standing in the crowd, watching them work.

  Alex clicks th
e mouse, and on-screen the crowd outside the Pancoast home springs to life.

  Police videographers often shoot footage of crowds outside the yellow tape, because a surprising number of perps love to return to the scenes of their own crimes. Teaghan is praying not only that the psycho she’s hunting will have done the same thing but that he’ll also have done something to make himself stand out.

  If the killer caught a look at Diaz, that might explain how the nutcase tagged her partner as his next target.

  “Pan left,” she tells Alex.

  But who could it be? There were easily two dozen people gathered on Christian Street that morning, a slice of South Philly life. Retirees, joggers, business types, hipsters, construction workers, parents with children…

  “Wait. Stop right there.”

  Diaz left only one clue behind. The word Daddy, scrawled in his own blood on the living-room carpet. Was her partner trying to tell her something? Or was it merely the first word of a final message to his children? Daddy’s sorry.

  No. That wasn’t Diaz. And Franny wasn’t a killer.

  Someone else in this crowd did this to them.

  If the psycho saw Diaz, there’s a good chance Diaz caught a glimpse of the psycho, too. And maybe even recognized him in the moments before his death.

  Daddy.

  It’s not the start of an apology. He was trying to tell Teaghan who did it.

  “Right there,” Teaghan says, pointing at the screen. “Can you zoom in on this guy?”

  “Who? The one with the baby?”

  “Yeah.”

  The daddy, she thinks to herself.

  Alex clicks the plus sign at the corner of the image, and slowly the footage zooms in on the daddy. With every jump in size, the image pixelates a bit more. But Teaghan can see he’s a white male in his early forties, a bit of scruff on his cheeks and chin, and in need of a haircut.

  And maybe it’s the jagged image, but there’s something weird about his clothes, too. Like he rolled out of bed that morning and strapped his baby to his chest to run errands before he had a chance to straighten himself up. Some house husbands really let themselves go. She was even starting to see it with Charlie, who sometimes went a day or two without showering. (Which, ew, Teaghan thinks. They’re going to have to talk about that at some point.)

  This guy with the baby, though, looks like he takes a very devil-may-care attitude toward personal hygiene. That poor baby. Imagine what he or she has to put up with all day long.

  “Alex, can you give me a closer look at that kid? Like maybe a sharper glimpse of it from somewhere else in the footage?”

  “It, huh?” Alex asks, bemused. “You’re a new mom aren’t you? I thought it was against the law to call a baby it.”

  “Believe me, I say far worse things at three a.m. when he’s crying and won’t go to sleep. Can you bring up another shot?”

  “Sorry,” Alex says, clicking the mouse. The footage rewinds, pushes forward, and rewinds again until Alex suddenly stops, his eye catching something in the still image.

  “Ooh, I think this is a good one.”

  Alex clicks rapidly. “Bringing up baby,” he says, unable to control the smirk on his face. But if Teaghan gets the joke, she gives no indication.

  “Wait,” Teaghan says, pointing. “Right there.”

  “What?”

  “Push in on that. Can’t you see it?”

  Alex has to click the mouse a few more times before it becomes clear.

  “That’s no baby,” Teaghan says.

  CHAPTER 30

  The blood is everywhere.

  I manage to plunge my trembling hands into the (icky lukewarm) blood to turn off the faucet and stop the flow, but the mess is already made, slopping over my pants and shoes now. What is going on here? Or worse, is something (someone) down there in all of that red?

  I plunge my hands back into the disgustingly full tub, praying that my fingertips won’t brush up against anything—(like my sweet baby girl)—at the bottom.

  The more I feel around, the more I want to vomit. I’m in this stuff up to my elbows…now my upper arms, with my face only a few inches from the surface. The harsh, copper scent of the blood is all up in my nose and mouth and eyes. Human blood has the most distinctively horrifying aroma. Like it’s nature’s way of telling you that if you’re surrounded by this much icky red stuff, then brother, you’re in serious trouble.

  Am I in serious trouble, though?

  Where did all of this come from?

  After much panicked searching, I’m thankful to find nothing at the bottom of our tub. Man, I feel dizzy. I should go check on Jennifer in her crib, just to make sure, but I’m so overwhelmed by the sight of all of this watery human fluid that I stagger backward until I slip, and my tailbone slams against the hard tile floor.

  Just give me a minute. I need a minute to breathe. A minute to process. To let the blood finish dripping from my arms.

  I’m coming, baby girl. Daddy’s coming. Daddy can’t hold you with his arms covered in this horrible stuff.

  But then I see something weird on the floor. (As if a blood-soaked bathroom wasn’t weird enough.) Footprints. Not shoeprints but the partial bloody prints of bare feet, leading away from the tub and toward the hallway.

  How had I not noticed this before?

  Part of me thinks Ruth is totally going to kill me when she sees this mess. But I need to figure out this insanity now and worry about Ruth later. I climb to my feet, sloshing in the bloody water, and follow the bloody prints.

  I take a glance down at myself. I look like I’ve been working part-time in a meat-processing plant. Insane!

  I’m careful not to smudge the mystery footprints (evidence, you know) as I track them out of the bathroom and down the hardwood staircase. As I head downstairs, I think about that plaque some people hang in their homes—you know, the one about the footprints and God carrying you on a sandy beach. I wonder what it means when bloody footprints suddenly appear next to yours.

  Whatever it is, it can’t be good.

  The trail leads me through the living room, which is now completely empty, as if bandits cleared us out in the five minutes I was upstairs in the bathroom. Only that stupid tool bag and wastebasket remain. What the heck is going on?

  Worry about it later, I tell myself. You’ll only understand if you follow the trail.

  Being a good father and husband means that you’re supposed to be the rock of stability at the center of swirling chaos. So I refuse to surrender to the insanity. I will figure this out. Ruth and the kids are depending on me!

  The trail leads to the back door, down the stairs, across our smallish backyard, through the fence, down an alley, and through the park. As I trudge through the grass, small gray squirrels dart around me, as if taunting me. Don’t worry. I’ll come back and deal with those little jerks later. All of them. If it means I have to buy dozens of small cages.

  A barrel-chested mailman on his daily route does a double-take when he sees me walking by. I realize how I must look.

  “Sorry,” I tell him. “I know I’m a great big dripping mess. But I’m going through a bit of a personal crisis at home.”

  The mailman says nothing. It’s as if he’s been frozen in place, a thick bundle of bills in his hand.

  “But don’t worry, it’s not my blood!” I quickly add, as if my explanation will put him at ease.

  It doesn’t. The mailman unfreezes, then abruptly turns a corner, either to continue his route or to call the men with the white van and the straitjackets.

  Well, I can’t worry about him now. I’ve got a mystery to solve.

  And sure enough, the footprints continue, taking me all the way across the street and down to the grassy banks of the Schuylkill, before coming to an abrupt halt right at the river’s chilly edge.

  What the heck does all of this evidence mean? Did a blood-covered man use our bathroom, leave the tub water running, then proceed to steal all of our possessions before making a speedy
river getaway?

  You’re so clueless, says a familiar voice. As usual.

  I look up from the riverbank. There, standing waist deep in the water, is my sweet darling wife.

  “Ruth! What are you doing in there?” I practically shout. “You’re going to get sick!” Her face is so wan, so sad. What’s happened to her?

  You’re the one who’s sick, she says. They’re going to catch you. Very soon. I have it on good authority.

  “Ruth, please stop. This isn’t funny! Do you have any idea of what I’ve been through today?”

  Have you ever seen someone’s eyes go completely black? Well, now imagine someone you love, someone you care about deeply and passionately, someone you’ve sworn to honor and obey forever. Imagine their eyes going black, to the point where you’re not sure they’re human anymore.

  Don’t tell me, she says, about what you’ve been through.

  “This is crazy,” I say. Then I pull off my shoes, roll up the bottoms of my trousers, and go wading into the river, intending to pull Ruth out by force if it comes to that. The water is freezing. I can practically feel all the pores on my legs squeezing shut. And let’s not talk about what the bottom of the river feels like.

  “Ruth, just stay where you are…”

  But a few steps in, I realize she’s gone.

  And oh, look.

  I’m the one who’s bleeding.

  CHAPTER 31

  “Are you sure? Looks real enough to me.”

  Teaghan squints as she takes a closer look at the image on the screen. “Trust me, Alex. I just had one of these airlifted out of me. I’m kind of an expert on the subject. That baby is fake.”

  “Still can’t see how you can tell.”

  “No baby stays still for that long. The question is, who’s her daddy?”

  Alex zooms in on the image as close as he can, and yeah, the baby, when seen from the right angle, is obviously fake. A good fake, mind you. Realistically sized and everything, the kind of expensive doll that little girls dress up and take to tea with their mommies. But the perfection is what tipped Teaghan off to the truth. Real babies don’t act like props. They’ve got attitudes and impulses and agendas all their own.