The Blue Journal (38 page)

“Did she make that threat?”

“Not in those words. She would just drop remarks about how much she and Fran hated each other. How it would kill my wife if she knew about us.” He rubbed his face roughly with the palms of both hands. “She would say things that made it clear she was on some sort of mission. But that didn't matter to me either. That's the crazy part. None of it mattered because she was such an incredible woman. I mean, I don't really want to get into all of that if I don't have to, but trust me, there is no other word for it. She was incredible.” He paused, lost again in the memory of Elizabeth Knoebel.

“You were going to her house,” Walker prodded him gently.

“Right. So I got there and I rang the bell a couple of times and got no answer. So I tried the door and it was unlocked. I figured, what the hell, some more of Elizabeth's games. So I go inside, just like a lemming upstream, right? A real genius.”

“Go on.”

“It's strange when I think about it now, and I've thought about it plenty, believe me. I don't know why I just didn't get back in my car and drive away.”

“Had you ever been in their house before?”

“Never. I didn't know if I was walking toward the kitchen or the living room. I'm just standing in the middle of the entrance, the foyer or whatever, and I call out her name. Another good idea, huh? What if someone other than Elizabeth was there? Like her husband, for instance, with a gun or a baseball bat? But there's no answer. I call out again, still nothing. I tell myself, ‘Thomas, get the hell out of this place.' But instead I walk upstairs, I figure this is just Elizabeth's way of testing me, so I call her name a few more times, start looking in different rooms until I got to the bedroom. And we all know what I found there.”

“No we don't. What did you find?”

“She was dead. Naked, on the bed, blood all over the pillow. Jesus, I almost threw up. I just stood there, staring, like I couldn't move. I just stood there until I realized, hey, what if the killer is still somewhere in the house? Or what if someone heard the gunshot and the police are on their way? So I slammed her door shut, ran down the stairs, jumped in my car and beat it outta there.”

“I want you to really think about this for a minute. Did you touch anything in the house that day? Anything at all.”

Colello mentally retraced his steps that afternoon, an exercise he had engaged in countless times during the past week. “I don't think so,” he said. “Except the front doorknob, I guess. And the doorknob to her bedroom.” He gave Walker a guilty look. “I have to admit, I wiped them both with my shirt tail.”

Walker nodded. “How did you know she was dead when you saw her?”

“Jesus, man, I'm no expert, but dead is dead.”

“What time were you there?”

“It was five. I'm sure of that. I was supposed to be there at five and I was right on time. I mean it was her house, and she said the housekeeper was off and her husband wouldn't be back that night. I wasn't going to take chances with the timing. I said that already, right?”

“More or less.” Walker looked down at his notes again. “What did you do after you left the house?”

“What do you think I did? I drove outta there fast, then went for a drink. Several drinks, actually. I told my wife I would be out at a meeting until late that night, so I couldn't go home. I really didn't want to go home. There was no way I could face Fran. So I got good and drunk.”

“Mr. Colello, do you know if Elizabeth Knoebel had other lovers? I'm referring to the period of time when she was seeing you. Did she ever mention anyone else?”

“No. But now as I look back on the whole thing, it wouldn't surprise me. You want to know something?” He looked Walker in the eyes again. “Nothing about Elizabeth would surprise me.”

Walker studied him carefully as he asked, “Did Elizabeth Knoebel ever discuss her diary with you?”

Colello shook his head, and looked away. “Never.”

“But you knew she had a diary, is that right?”

“I didn't, no. I mean, not then. I just heard about it the other day.”

“And where did you hear that?”

“Some guy I know. Jesus, I shouldn't have said anything, don't want to get him in a jam.”

Walker, Gill, Kovacevic and even his own lawyer stared at Colello.

“Sir,” Walker said politely, “I wouldn't worry about getting anyone else in trouble right now.”

Colello shrugged, then tried out a look that was supposed to persuade them he was a tough man to intimidate. It was less than convincing.

“Tell us about the diary.”

“A guy I know in Town Hall, said he heard about it from a friend of his in the police department.”

“The man's name, please?”

“Damnit,” Colello said.

“Tell them,” his lawyer advised him. “You've already told them every other bloody thing.”

“Yeah,” Colello said. “I suppose you're right.” He puffed out his cheeks and exhaled in one blast, then he gave him the name.

Gill and Walker exchanged a look. That was something they would follow up on later.

Walker turned back to Colello. “Did you ever tell anyone else about Mrs. Knoebel's diary?”

Colello hesitated.

Walker fixed him with an intense look, his gray-brown eyes seeing through the man. “Mr. Colello, who did you tell about the diary?”

Colello wilted under the detective's gaze. “Only one person. Fred Wentworth,” he said. “Guy in my therapy group with Doctor Conway.”

“He's the only one?”

“Oh yeah, Bob Stratford was there when I told Fred, but I had the feeling he already knew.”

“And that's it?”

Colello nodded. “That's it, I'm sure.”

“All right,” Walker said, pausing to glance at his notes again. Without looking up he asked, “When did your wife find out about you and Mrs. Knoebel?”

It was the first question that truly startled Colello. “What do you mean? My wife never found out.”

“Are you sure?”

Walker watched as the man's shoulders sagged, his head lowered slightly and he glanced at his lawyer, who by now was too dumbstruck by his client's admissions to interrupt. “Sometimes Fran looks at me and I think she knows things she has no way of knowing. We pretend we're working on our marriage, but it's all bullshit. I thought I knew Fran better than I ever knew a living soul. Now I'm not sure of anything.”

“Is it possible Elizabeth Knoebel told her?”

The thought had occurred to Colello more than once. “What isn't possible? You tell me.”

“We're going to have to speak with your wife.”

“I realize that now,” he said hopelessly.

“It's not my job to give out information and it's not my purpose to ruin anyone's marriage.”

“Like it isn't screwed already,” Colello said, then looked up at Walker again. “I know it was all wrong. It was even worse to go on once I knew the truth. When I knew she set me up.”

“Set you up?”

“She planned the whole thing, like I'm telling you. When she picked me up the first time, that was no casual meeting in a bar. I have the feeling you already know that, right?”

Walker nodded. “That's how we figure it.”

“At the very least, when she told me Stanley was her husband, that's when I should've let it go.”

“That's not the issue right now,” Walker replied in a flat tone. He paused. “The issue is why you have kept silent, why you didn't come forward on your own.”

Colello shrugged. “Pretty obvious, don't you think? I never saw anyone else at the house. I just saw Elizabeth lying there and then I made tracks. I honestly don't know anything that can help.”

“Maybe so, but we're going to need to go back over all this in more detail. You never know what you might have seen that you may not realize.”

“Okay.” Colello took out a cigarette. He was so unsteady that Kovacevic looked to Walker, who nodded.
The hell with the rules
. Kovacevic reached out and lit it for him. “Look,” Colello said, “I know I'm not about to win any good citizenship awards, but I want you to believe I'm telling you the truth here, all right?”

“It's not important what I believe. I just put the facts together and let the state's attorney make the decision.” Walker looked up at Chief Gill, then turned back to Colello. “Okay,” he said, “let's take it from the top. Step by step.”

CHAPTER 48

Stanley Knoebel was sitting in the den. His vacant gaze fell on Elizabeth's computer. It had been returned to him by Officer Kovacevic.

He stared at the machine, wondering at what his life had become. He could see nothing. He could hear nothing. He was spiritually blind. Emotionally deaf.

No man is a success if he attains all of his goals. Such a man is without purpose, hollow and spent. Yes, Stanley Knoebel thought, that was precisely how he felt. He was bereft of purpose. His only dreams came at night, unwelcome and unforgiving, thrust upon him, spoken without invitation, leaving him with unbearable sorrow.

My God
, Knoebel thought.
Is there nothing remaining of me?

Memories are the only things we truly own, the only things that can never be traded or stolen or given away. We create our memories, shape them, edit them, hold them for as long as we need or want them. Memories are not always real, but they are ours. Memories can be counted on, even when the people we are remembering have long since disappeared or disappointed, even after our own emotions have let us down.

Emotions are not faithful in the way memories are. Emotions live their own lives, beyond our control.

Happiness leads an evanescent existence, easily destroyed and impossible to resuscitate at will. Examine happiness too carefully and it evaporates, like a bubble that floats on the breeze until you try and take hold of it for a closer look.

Sadness is made of sturdier stuff, standing up to scrutiny and reason, usually surviving intervening thoughts and events that would easily crush delight. If you observe happiness too closely, some or all of it will fade. Explore sadness and you will only grow sadder. We are under its spell, like it or not.

Love can be more powerful, and far less predictable. We can often identify the source of our happiness or sorrow, even if we have no ability to govern those feelings. But love is mysterious. It controls us, and we willingly give ourselves up to its control. We covet its magic like nothing else in creation.

Stanley Knoebel wished he had never fallen prey to its fascination, but it was beyond his control, he had truly loved her. He had loved Elizabeth as much as he would ever love anyone.

Yet hate, as he came to see, exists in the underbelly of love's power. Hate has its own great force, with an appetite unmatched by all other feelings combined. It eats away at everything we are and, in the end, unless we can struggle free from its grasp, it leaves us with nothing.

Nothing, that is, but our memories, however we choose to see them and hold them and keep them for ourselves.

He had loved Elizabeth, but he came to understand that she did not love him. She might have, in the beginning, he allowed himself that much, but ultimately their marriage became her prison. She was locked inside the wealth and comfort he provided and, coupled with her own fears, she found it was a confinement she could not escape. Instead she became determined to punish him for her own disappointment.

How could she have failed to see who he was, to gauge his limitations? He wanted to provide what she needed, but she would not forgive his imperfections, his remoteness, his inability to be what she wanted him to be. She continually tore him down, ripped their marriage apart, and destroyed their lives in the process.

He drew a deep breath, then let it out in a rush as he stood up, crowbar in hand. He raised it high above his head and paused. What would his lawyer say? What would the police claim? That he had destroyed legal evidence? That it proved he was her murderer?

To hell with them. His lawyer, the police. To hell with all of them.

He brought the heavy metal bar crashing down. Then again. And again, as the metal and plastic yielded to his forceful blows. Sparks were sent flying and crunching sounds resonated through his head as he destroyed Elizabeth's computer.

CHAPTER 49

That evening, Fran Colello waited for her husband to tell her the truth. About his discussion with Detective Walker. About Elizabeth Knoebel. About everything.

She waited, but so far he had not told her anything.

“What happened?” she finally asked. “What did the police want?”

Colello said the police had brought him in for routine questioning because he was acquainted with Stanley Knoebel through group therapy.

“Routine questioning? The police came to our door without warning, for all of our neighbors to see. No phone call, no request for you to stop by and meet with them. What sort of routine questioning is that?”

Colello shrugged. “I don't know. Maybe that's how they do things in a murder case,” he told her. “They don't care who they upset.”

“What did they ask you about Doctor Knoebel?”

“You know, the usual stuff. What do I think of him, did he ever say anything strange, did I think he was the kind of a guy who would murder his wife, that sort of thing.”

“What about Mrs. Knoebel? Did they ask you about her?”

“Why would they? What do I have to do with Elizabeth Knoebel?”

“Elizabeth?”

“Sure. That was her name, right?” He fixed her with an angry stare. “What is this? I already got the third degree from the police.”

“The third degree? I thought it was routine questioning.”

“Sure, it was routine. But it's a murder case. They break your chops, you know?”

“I don't know, I really don't. Tell me.”