Sleep No More (31 page)

"I think I'm going to set up a little apartment in the back of the shop temporarily," she said with forced cheer. "That way I can still be close to work. You know how late I have to work sometimes. It's better that I don't have to drive back to town in the middle of the night." That should convince him.

"Good idea, Jitterbug. But you'll need a place to stay until you get that set up."

This was why she had put off calling him. She knew it was going to be lie after lie. She didn't lie as a general principle, and never to her father.

She sucked it up and spun another one. "I have a friend who's already offered to bring over a bed and some basic things for me to use. So I'm all set." She had to get off the phone before he came up with another thing that forced her to lie. "Listen, I need to go now. I just wanted you to know I'm fine. But my cell phone was in the house, so you'll have to call me on the shop phone if you need me."

"I think I should come out there," he said.

"No need, Dad. Besides, I'm going to be helping move the bed and all over, so I won't be here."

He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "You're just as damned independent as your mother."

"I'll take that as a compliment. Gotta go. Love you, Dad."

"Love you, Jitterbug. Call if you need anything."

"Will do." She disconnected the call and handed the phone back to Jason. "I feel like such a slimeball, lying to him like that."

"Think of them as white lies."

She huffed. "Call them whatever color you want, they're still lies." But she knew they were necessary.

At four-twenty-five, Abby followed Sergeant Kitterman into the sheriff's office conference room. Her head throbbed with each footstep. She had dirt skid marks on the back of her shirt, a scraped elbow, and no clothes except those on her back. But she looked a lot better than Jason. The EMTs had cleaned his cuts and scrapes, which were numerous. She'd noticed him flexing the fingers of his left hand and repeatedly bending and straightening his left elbow, as if trying to work out a tingling nerve in his funnybone.

God. There was nothing funny about it. Any of it.

Abby could only imagine how much worse his injuries would have been if that window had not been open. His close call was the nail in the coffin of their near-relationship. She brought nothing but bad to those she loved. Once she and Jason were finished here today, they were going their separate ways. He would fight it, she knew. But she had to be strong.

As he followed her down the hall, their echoing footfalls on the tile floor tapped out a farewell. She'd developed a connection with Jason unlike any she'd experienced with anyone. It seemed cruel, to have so much that she could not have laid before her.

Even after this short time, Jason Coble was going to be a hard habit to break.

Kitterman stopped in front of an open door, his arm extended, inviting them to enter the room ahead of him. "I appreciate you still coming today. I know you've already been through the wringer."

"I want to do everything I can to help catch this guy before he really hurts someone," Abby said. Her insides were still quivering from that moment when she'd thought Jason had been killed.

They sat down at the conference table on which several manila folders were stacked beside a small tape recorder. Kitterman said, "Sheriff Hughes gave the go-ahead to share what we have with you. But first I want to get this newest development on tape." He turned on the recorder and said to Jason, "Tell me again exactly what happened before the fire erupted."

Jason recounted the entire ordeal once again, from first smelling gas to the moment he dove out the open window. As Abby listened she could have sworn she was becoming feverish. She felt clammy and chills ran just beneath her skin.

"So this lamp and timer were normally in the house?" Kitterman asked.

"Yes," Abby said. "Obviously I don't keep the lamp on the floor. When we came in I was in a hurry because of our appointment here. And Jason was preoccupied with finding the gas leak. It's a small lamp; we didn't notice it wasn't in its usual place."

"Propane gas is heavier than air," Kitterman said. "It would pool and travel across the floor; the highest concentration would be there."

Abby shuddered at the calculating nature of whoever had done this. How well did this person know her? How closely was she being watched? Had he checked out her stove on the previous break-in, or had he improvised?

Kitterman said, "I'm sure the fire marshal will get his report to me ASAP. He knows the urgency." He tapped the top folder on the stack. "Since there's a good chance this is linked to your accident on Thursday morning, let's take a step backward, Ms. Whitman. I've read all of Deputy Trowbridge's notes and looked over the other evidence. I'd like to hear your account of what happened."

Abby shot a glance at Jason. He nodded encouragingly.

"That's one of the reasons we wanted to talk to you," Abby said. "I'm fairly certain that I was sleepwalking, or sleep-driving, at the time of the accident. That's why I can't remember anything before I woke up in the swamp."

He raised a brow, but didn't say anything.

She explained her history and her experience with Sonja. Occasionally Kitterman would look over at Jason, as if seeking corroboration, but he didn't interrupt her.

When she was finished, Kitterman asked, "So you've done plenty of everyday things while sleepwalking?"

"Yes," she said. "I only know that I've been up and moving if I've done something to leave a clue--or if I awaken while I'm still out of bed."

"Had you driven in your sleep before?" Kitterman asked.

"Not to my knowledge."

Her answer seemed to take him a little by surprise, as if it was just now sinking in that she truly did not have any memory of what she did while sleepwalking.

He sat quietly for a moment. "Perhaps if we make this public knowledge--the sleep-driving and amnesia, that is--whoever is threatening you will stop."

Jason put his palms on the table. "In my experience, people who have never had somnambulism aren't going to readily believe that: one, Abby could have driven; and two, she won't remember eventually. Certainly not someone hiding something he's willing to go to these lengths to protect. He may even see her claim as a ruse to hide the fact that she
does
know. It could force him to act more aggressively."

Kitterman screwed his mouth to the side, considering. "You may be right. Along those lines, it's feeling to me like this person has more at stake than just being identified as the 911 caller. It's just an old cop's gut, but I think there's more."

Abby said, "I've been assuming it was kids who weren't supposed to be out, maybe drinking. Maybe it was even someone who was with Kyle... another motorcyclist, even. You think it's more nefarious than that?"

"I'm just trying to equate the risks this person is willing to take with what he wants to remain secret," Kitterman said.

"To a kid," Jason said, "depending on the circumstance, getting caught out after curfew or underage drinking might be enough. When you're dealing with teenagers, logic and proportional reactions aren't involved in the equation."

"True enough," Kitterman agreed. Then he looked at Abby. "Tell me what you remember from the accident."

Abby was a little surprised that he seemed to accept that she'd been asleep while driving, but she wasn't about to question him about it. Instead, she went through what she did after waking in the van.

As she spoke, Kitterman leaned back in his chair, one hand fiddling with a pen. Once in a while he would nod slightly. Abby wondered if these nods were at things that she said that aligned with the evidence, or if he did it as a matter of course when he was listening.

When she finished, he said, "I've been down to the impound and checked out your van. There's very little damage to the body, other than scrapes and a broken driver's side headlight. I've also been to the scene and studied the photos taken that night. I can't figure out how the driver's side window got broken."

Abby sensed Jason sitting up a little straighter next to her. He'd been interested in the broken glass, too.

Jason asked, "Was there any other broken glass on the van?"

"No," Kitterman said. "And it takes a pretty strong sharp blow to shatter safety glass like that. It had to come from outside the vehicle because the glass was all over the inside of the van and we didn't find a single trace on the road or along the tracks into the water.

"Ms. Whitman, you said you remembered red lights, like taillights."

"I remembered it under hypnosis, but I can't say that it happened with certainty. I had a dream that was very similar. And I can't recall anything before or after that glimpse of red lights, so I'm doubting I truly saw them."

"Has the investigation team come up with a theory about how the accident happened?" Jason asked.

Kitterman said, "It's clear that the motorcycle and Ms. Whitman's van were traveling in opposite directions. But the skid marks the van left on the pavement are too far from where the motorcycle left the road to indicate they were the result of trying to avoid a collision."

She leaned forward, suddenly every nerve humming. "As in
I
didn't hit him? Is that what you're saying?"

"Or you didn't hit the brakes until after impact," Kitterman offered matter-of-factly.

Her heart sank like a rock in a pond.

Impact.
Even the word sounded horrible.

"Are you sure the motorcycle actually did make contact with another vehicle?" she asked with guarded hope.

"Yes, of that we're certain. We'll need lab confirmation for the paint found on the motorcycle to know if it matches your van--it was white. There are thousands of white vehicles around. But from what I saw of your van, I don't think it'll be a match."

Abby grasped that shred of hope, but didn't allow herself to believe, not until she was certain she hadn't killed Kyle Robard.

Jason asked, "What about the fingerprints on Kyle's phone, any luck there?"

"There were two fingerprints on the phone that were not the victim's and good enough quality to do us some good. They likely belong to the same person. Until we have something to compare them to--they didn't match any in the database--they're useless." He leaned forward slightly and looked at Abby. "We do know they are not yours."

Abby felt a little vindicated and hoped Officer Trowbridge had received the news and choked on it.

Kitterman tapped his pen against his chin. "The castings from the shoe imprints around the body have told us that there were at least two other people on the scene besides Ms. Whitman. The imprints near the motorcycle and body are all over each other, which isn't unusual at an accident scene where people are disoriented or upset."

He opened a folder and showed Abby and Jason photos taken of the castings. One shoe was smooth-soled. The other was grooved and patterned, like an athletic shoe. They were both large, so Abby assumed they belonged to men--or boys.

Jason said, "So there could have been multiple vehicles."

Kitterman said, "That's a lot of traffic out on that road in the middle of a weeknight. I'm betting on multiple people in one vehicle. Also, alongside Ms. Whitman's bare footprints on the pavement where she came out of the marsh, there were muddy shoeprints from both of these shoes--also leaving the marsh."

"Maybe they checked on me too before they called 911," Abby suggested.

"Possibly. The castings I took by the river yesterday went to the lab today. They called a short while ago. They class-match one of the pairs of shoes at your accident scene."

"Class-match?" Abby asked.

"They have identifiable tread markings to say they're the same brand and size. We don't have anything that will single them out to a
particular
pair of that brand and size, at least yet. The experts have yet to analyze them."

"It can't be a coincidence," Jason said. "It has to be the same guy."

"We don't speak in absolutes until we have absolute proof, but I'd be hard pressed to disagree too strongly," Kitterman said. "And if they do match absolutely, then the person at the accident scene is certainly the person who broke into Ms. Whitman's house."

"What about the other things: the phone call, the vandalism at the cemetery, and the slashed tires?"

"
Likely
connected, not absolutely," Kitterman said. "The phone call came from a pay phone at the Silver Star Tavern. Of course nobody remembers seeing who made it. The fingerprints on the iPod from the cemetery are all too smudged to be of use. It does have an engraving on the back, '226.' "

Jason shook his head; those numbers were about as useless as smudged fingerprints. "How are we going to get absolutes?"

"We're following all of the leads we can. Other than the prints--which as I said do no good without a match--we only have the prayer card from St. Andrew's."

"That could have come from me," Abby said. "I was at that funeral, and I did most of the flowers."

Kitterman looked at her. "But the fingerprints on it don't belong to you. They match those found on Mr. Robard's cell phone."