The door, p.7
The Door, page 7
“Hell no! We met yesterday afternoon and I told her it was over.”
“You just ended it? Out of the blue, you met up and told her you’re done screwing her?” That question stung but it also highlighted a hole in my story.
“I suppose that’s one way to look at it. Something changed this week and I need to make things right.”
“You tell the cops that?”
“Not yet, I wanted to make sure Shannon knew first.”
“Makes sense. Text me after you meet up with Will.”
“Yup” and we hung up.
I texted Shannon with no expectation of a response, “miss you, I know sorry isn’t enough. need you to believe me”
Within a few minutes, she did respond with a simple, “huh”.
Clearly she was telling me she wasn’t interested, but was at least partially listening to me. It was a very short leash. Then another text, “not coming home today.”
My next text was likely going to be the last thing I’d say to her today. After a few retypes, I ended up with “Call me if you can talk to me” and a sad emoji to hopefully lighten the message just a bit.
EIGHTEEN
“I’m going to be brief,” Will said as I sat down at the table. “I need to know what happened between you and Kara.”
He slowly stirred his Jack & Coke, his eyes distant and distracted.
“Where do you want me to start?” I asked.
“How long?”
“It’s been over four years.”
“So you were seeing her behind my back?!?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that even mean Max? All I need to hear is the truth.”
“Obviously Kara and I have been close for a long time,” I paused for a rebuttal of some kind but found nothing but a dead stare.
So I continued, “Um, I, have never slept with Kara.” His expression yielded until I released more information. “I’m not who you think I am.”
He broke character ever so slightly with a quiet, muffled, “no shit.”
“Look, I can’t really explain what happened to me and I can’t imagine how extremely unbelievable this story is. We’ve known each other forever and apart from this current situation, I’ve never kept the truth from you. This sounds ridiculous to say, but the two stories going on right now, they’re both true.”
Another brief pause for reflection, nothing from Will.
“Let me explain, the cheating happened,” his right fist gently tightened and I continued, “I’m admitting it. I’m telling you the truth.” It was another fine line as I spoke, “and somehow, it wasn’t me. If I was gonna lie, wouldn’t I make up something more realistic?”
I swore there was a hint of understanding, “I’m telling you I passed through universes or some other insane shit.” This was the first time I tried to control the situation since I arrived there.
“Did he,” yes i snuck it in... , “I mean other than hiding the affair, ever lie to you? And even if my story is true, you have no reason to believe I’m not fucking her in my reality either, but I’m not. This happened and I can’t explain it. It wasn’t me.”
I just sat there in silence. If there was a better place to stop talking I couldn’t have thought of one.
“I followed you two yesterday,” he nearly whispered to break the silence. “I saw you at the Pot & Kettle. I saw her touching your arm.”
“Then you saw me tell her it was over?”
“What do you want? A medal? You apparently suddenly got a conscience and just ended it? Wait, or, you are from another universe and you’re as big a liar as Max is.”
“I deserve every bit of angst from you, from Shannon and even the slap Kara gave me before she left yesterday.”
“She hit you?”
“Yes, after I ended things, she slapped me in the coffee house. Then she got loud and made a bit of a scene.”
“Well that part of your story sounds true, she had no problem making a scene.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “It was the last thing I said to her, just a few hours later I was in the police station.”
“They talked to you too, huh?” he asked.
“For 90 minutes or so, mostly going over how I knew Kara and for how long. I didn’t bring up the affair.”
“I was there for a couple hours last night too and an hour already this morning. I think they believe I did it,” he went on.
“Things hadn’t been good between us for a while, then I posted some nasty shit about her on Facebook after you and I talked on Friday. Andrew was over at Kara’s mom’s house for the weekend,” he trailed off.
His face couldn’t hide his emotions, he was still distant.
“Did you go over there?” I asked.
He snapped his head toward me. “You think I did it?” he asked with great surprise in an overly condescending tone.
He pushed his chair back. I jumped a little as he pounded his fists on the table, then briskly swiped his left arm away from the table launching his empty whisky glass into the wall that sat about six feet away.
He began to walk away, then turned back toward me. “If neither of us were there yesterday, who was?” And he strolled out of the bar.
I immediately remembered what Travis said. Why was he hiding that his car was at Kara’s apartment right before she met me at the Pot & Kettle?
NINETEEN
Fifteen minutes after leaving the bar, I received a call from Det. Pettigrew.
“Mr. Jorgens? It’s Detective Pettigrew.”
“Yes detective?”
“Can you come by the station? We have a few more questions for you.”
I felt I had nothing to hide, so instinctively I answered, “yes, I’ll be there in 20 minutes.”
“Thank you Mr. Jorgens.”
Upon my arrival at the station, there were a couple officers waiting for me.
“Mr. Jorgens, please come with us.” They were direct, but not forceful.
I swallowed hard, wondering if they had something on me.
They brought me into the same room Det. Pettigrew had interviewed me the day before. This time though, he closed the door.
“Everything okay Detective?”
“Max, you need to tell me everything this time.”
Knowing exactly what he meant, I still played dumb, “what do you mean?”
“I think you know exactly what I mean, your story yesterday checks out. But there’s more you’re not telling me. It’s time to quit hiding. Tell me everything.”
After a deep sigh and a second that seemed like an eternity, “Kara and I were having an affair.”
No response, just silence as he waited for me to continue.
“It’s been over four years, and yesterday I broke it off.”
Still nothing.
“Do I need my lawyer?”
“That’s your decision Max, I’m not charging you with anything yet, but you need to tell me everything.”
“Kara and I had been sleeping together for more than four years,” I confessed. “I don’t think I can even tell you why it started,” luckily that was the truth. “Yesterday I told her I was done. We, ... were done.”
“You just happened to come to that conclusion?”
I tried to make some sense out of why I would break it off, without opening the door on ‘the door’.
“I need to put my attention on my family.”
“How did Kara take it?”
“Not well, the discussion got heated and she slapped me. Then I ran out the door after her.”
“Where was this?”
“The Pot & Kettle, but once she got to her car, I wasn’t going to follow her.”
“Was that the last you saw of her?”
Don’t think I hadn’t noticed his questions become very probing and direct.
“Yes, I went straight home and told Shannon what had happened.”
“You went straight home?”
“Well, no actually,” I conceded. “I had to clear my head and just drove around for a while first.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know, an hour or so.”
“Where did you go?”
“I went the wrong way on the interstate, about 15 minutes, then I turned around.”
“And Shannon was home waiting for you?”
“No, I got home before she did. So I sat there for a while trying to figure out what the best way for me to tell her was. Then I fell asleep.”
“What time did she show up?”
“5:30 or so I guess.
“You... guess?”
“Her cooking woke me up. After I went downstairs to greet her, I turned on the news. Last thing on the tv before I turned it off was the end of a story about a murder that had just taken place. Ohhhhhhh,” big pause as it hit me. “Geeze. I, I uh, didn’t even realize.”
He gave me a minute as he tried to gauge how true my reaction was.
“When we came to your door, that was the first time you’d heard about Kara’s murder?”
“Yes, I had no idea prior to you standing on my doorstep.” I could feel my entire body and soul withering as the heaviness of the situation engulfed me.
“How did Shannon take the news?”
“Like every woman should, not well. She talked with me briefly, then went upstairs. She left early this morning and I haven’t heard from her since.”
“After Kara hit you, how did you feel?”
“Embarrassed and ashamed. A bit mad too.”
“Why mad?”
“I uh, I was mad that I’d put myself in that position.”
“And then you ran after her.”
“Yes.”
“We have some witnesses at The Pot & Kettle who say you were aggressive with her and then followed her out trying to get her to stop.”
It was my turn to be silent. There wasn’t a good response to that statement.
“So Max, between the time of your altercation and Shannon coming home, nobody else saw you?”
“I think I’d like to call my lawyer now.”
TWENTY
Martin Drisp showed up 40 minutes later for me. Martin and I had also known each other since college. We tended to be at a lot of the same events and gatherings and while we weren’t really friends, we got along just fine.
Martin met with Det. Pettigrew and ten minutes later, we were walking out of the station. He explained to me that they didn’t have any evidence implicating me and if they weren’t going to charge me with anything that I would be allowed to leave.
On our way out the door, Det. Pettigrew threw one more bomb on me.
“That call we received this afternoon about you, it wasn’t the first one.”
I turned and looked at him, “call, what call?”
But there was no response. Martin redirected me to the exit, advising me not to say another word, and helped me vacate the premises.
At the car he asked a few basic questions like “did I do it?” and “where were you when?” Then we scheduled an appointment at his office first thing Monday morning.
As I drove away from the precinct, I looked at the brick building and wondered about the call he mentioned. Still, somehow, what bothered me most was the “it wasn’t the first one” comment.
To the best of my knowledge there were only three people with pieces of the puzzle that could have made the call, Shannon, Travis, and Will.
Right before that visit to the precinct, I was with Will and he was completely pissed about my relationship with Kara. Was he upset enough that he would call the cops on me?
Shannon? No way Shannon makes that call, even with those circumstances.
Then there was Travis, it didn’t make any sense why he’d have made the call, but he did have that photo of my car at her complex.
I texted Will, plainly and simply, “Thx”
Then I passed through the stop light and made my way home.
Shannon’s car was in the garage, which made no sense as she’d said she wasn’t coming home.
I walked in and began to look for her, after she ignored my gentle calls for her.
I passed both kids on my way to my bedroom. Neither of them would talk to me either, wouldn’t even look at me. It was clear they knew enough.
In the bedroom, I closed the door and found Shannon laying on her back on the bed staring through the open window.
I put my hand on her foot and sat at the edge of the bed.
“The cops think I did it.”
Without moving her head, she said “you didn’t do it.”
It was a statement more than a question but in the dryest tone ever. It was as though the worst thing she could imagine happened to her, because it did. Even in her most disenfranchised state, she managed to defend me.
“No, I came back here after ending it and waited for you.”
More of nothing.
“I had Martin meet me at the station when the questions began leading to me as a suspect.”
She rolled over slightly, I could see in her face that she’d been crying. She was splotchy and her eyes spoke with the residue of being bloodshot.
I let out a deep sigh and continued, “somebody called me in as a suspect. They told the cops about the relationship and my meeting with her yesterday. I’m surprised they weren’t looking at me sooner,” I dropped my head in disgust as I explained. While I needed Shannon to be sympathetic right then, I knew she couldn’t.
I put on my pajamas, grabbed my pillow and returned to the family room downstairs to prep the couch.
Before I laid down, I grabbed a glass of water. As I looked up into the window, my phone dinged with a text from Will.
The text preview just said image. The picture was of Andrew.
TWENTY-ONE
I immediately snapped back into a sense of reality, albeit a confused one. Why was he sending me a picture of Andrew? I was mumbling to myself as I paced around the kitchen.
Believing Will had to have been the one to tip off the cops, I entered his game.
I texted him back, “Is Andrew okay?”
“Huh?”
I paused waiting for him to make a move.
“He’s your son”
“???????????”
“ANDREW
IS
YOUR
SON”
“Ohhhhhhhh fuck” I muttered.
Without any prompting, he finished with “he’s fine but you and I are done”.
That about cemented the question of who called the police. And if he was telling the truth about Andrew, it would be one more thing they could hang over my head. I had no idea whether I would, or even could, tell Shannon.
Another restless night of sleep awaited me before my meeting with Martin.
TWENTY-TWO
First thing Monday morning I got up, ran for a bit and immediately took off for Martin’s office. I was in his office before 8:30 and ready to figure out what the hell was going on and how I was going to survive.
Reid, Moore and Wright was a top firm in town. The three partners had been together for decades and had hired guys like Martin Drisp to bring them into the 21st Century.
They practiced out of a four story round building just outside of downtown. Martin was a defense attorney and one of the best. In college, he was the nerdy guy at the weekend parties. He always stood in a corner, away from everyone else. He was a people watcher with very low personal skills. He wore textbook eyeglasses with tape wrapped around the rim. He was the ultimate geek and loner and nice to everyone when he allowed himself to be social. Then one semester, something clicked. Before you could blink, he’d turned into a stud. He clearly had a Ronald Miller from “Can’t Buy Me Love,” type of vibe. He quickly became something of a legend, befriending damn near everyone and finding loopholes to get people out of predicaments.
When I was busted for my DUI, he identified an issue with the breathalyzer and managed to get the arresting officer suspended on suspicion of misconduct. The officer wasn’t out long, but it was enough to get me off with just community service. I never even had to pee in a cup.
Since then, he’d put on a few pounds, and had gone back to wearing glasses. Only as he matured, his glasses were more professional and presented himself as an authority. He had that look of “nobody can mess with me”.
Reid, Moore and Wright’s building resembled something out of a John Hughes movie. It had this nostalgic feeling, marrying the comforts of home with the best technology and modernization can offer.
In some ways, like the pillars out front, it felt like a manor. They prided themselves on tech, providing everyone with anything they needed to get their jobs done and help their clients. Their paralegals had more tech than NASA. They’d modernized the profession, with their vast library completely digitized for ease. To cover regulations, the basement still had all the printed documents and files.
“Alright Max,” he started. “Tell me everything.”
I hesitated, not really knowing how much to tell him. Up to that point, nobody believed much more than a sniff of my story. The longer I was in that place, it became harder for me to believe my story, even I was questioning things.
“Go on,” he urged.
“Ok, but promise me you’ll wait until I’ve told you everything before you ask questions.”
“Deal.”
I went on to explain everything, beginning with the door on Thursday night, and took him through all the things that were different for me since that moment. I covered my conversations with Kara, my discussions with Will, the texts with Travis, everything that went on in the police station and of course all my recent issues with Shannon. To my amazement, he followed along while showing no emotion or reaction of any kind.
“As a lawyer, I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of crazy stories,” I continued. “And I’m also betting that this is one of the craziest you’ve heard.”
“I do have questions,” he opened up.
“Ok.”
“Clearly, presenting this story as a defense, should you be charged with Kara’s murder, would be a tough sell to any jury.”
