“Yeah, he called three times that day, so, you can imagine. She was pretty mad.” Steele raised his eyebrows and grinned a little, “Sharon could really get hot about things like that.”
“What time was this?”
“Shawn was already in bed, so it was after eight. It was probably about eight-fifteen, eight-twenty.” Steele stopped and exhaled. He looked up at the small windows with an expression of grief and despondence. He breathed deeply, and shook his head slightly. “Y’know how many times I’ve thought about it? She went down the hall and I went downstairs to watch TV. The next time I saw her . . .” He stopped again.
Reilly looked over at me and I could tell right away he had no more experience with this kind of thing than I did. We waited while Steele kept himself from losing his composure. I thought I heard water dripping somewhere in the room. Steele exhaled again — long and slow, like he’d been punctured with a needle and his past was flowing out, propelled by the pressure of his own remorse.
Finally, Reilly asked, “When did she go take a bath?”
“Right after Matt called. Probably around eight-thirty.”
“What were you doing while she took a bath?”
“I just went down to the family room to watch television and shoot some pool. I flipped on an old Hitchcock movie. Well, I don’t know if it was Hitchcock, but something like that. And I made myself a drink, and I racked the pools balls.”
I watched Steele’s movements as he spoke. Though he was a small man, he had a large personality. I could see the politician in him. He used wide gestures and his torso moved back and forth as he talked.
“And then what?”
“I heard a noise.”
“A noise like what?”
“Well that’s just it, it’s like . . . you know how you can be sitting at home and you think you hear something? You know how you perk up and listen for it again because you’re not sure if you really heard anything at all? Y’know what I mean?”
We both said we did.
“Well, it was like that. I thought I heard a scream, or a woman hollering or something, but first, it was real faint and second, it’s not something you expect to hear so you discount it. Plus, the TV was on and it was some kind of thriller that might have a scream in it.”
“Then what?”
“Then nothing. I mean, I didn’t hear it again. I stopped listening and went back to playing pool.”
“How much time went by?”
“It’s really tough to say. It could have been as long as a minute, but it was probably less. I thought I heard something, I paused for a few seconds and didn’t hear anything else, and then I went back to what I was doing. And then I heard a scream.” Steele stopped again, just as he had before. His face was somber and his hands fell down to his side.
Reilly waited a second before speaking. “So the second time you knew you heard a real scream.”
“Yeah. It wasn’t loud, but it had a quality to it. I knew it wasn’t the TV. It was real. I just froze for a second. I was terrified because I knew right then what I heard before was real too and that something was going on in the house. Then I just bolted, ran right out of there.”
Reilly prodded, “And then what happened?”
“I ran up the stairs and down the hall and as I came around the bathroom doorway somebody else was coming out. I mean he was running out and I grabbed hold of him, it was just a reaction. I mean we literally ran into each other. Then he pushed me back and swiped at me. I didn’t see the knife or anything. He just made a slashing motion and pushed me away. There wasn’t anything I could do. I’m a small guy.” Steele patted the chest of his coveralls, as if to confirm the obvious. “I must have hit my head because I was stunned for a second. By the time I shook it off, the guy was gone.”
“So you were knocked out?”
“No, no, I mean it was only, I don’t know, five seconds or something. But this guy was sprinting, I mean he was out of there, like he knew exactly where he was going.”
“Which direction did he go?”
“I honestly don’t know. The stairs were just a little way down the hall. Once