Postmortem(21)

“We got into an argument, a friendly debate. I disagreed. Some people feel things more deeply than others, and some people feel things the rest of us don’t. This is what causes isolation, the sense of being apart, different . . .”

Marino: “This is something you relate to?”

“It is something I understand. I may not feel everything other people feel, but I understand the feelings. Nothing surprises me. If you study literature, drama, you get in touch with a vast spectrum of human emotions, needs and impulses, good and bad. It’s my nature to step into other characters, to feel what they feel, to act as they do, but it doesn’t mean these manifestations are genuinely my own. I think if anything makes me feel different from others, it’s my need to experience these things, my need to analyze and understand the vast spectrum of human emotions I just mentioned.”

Marino: “Can you understand the emotions of the person who did this to your wife?”

Silence.

Almost inaudibly, “Good God, no.”

Marino: “You sure about that?”

“No. I mean, yes, I’m sure! I don’t want to understand it!”

Marino: “I know it’s a hard thing for you to think about, Matt. But you could help us a lot if you had any ideas. For example, if you was designing the role for a killer like this, what would he be like—”

“I don’t know! The filthy son of a bitch!” His voice was breaking, exploding with rage. “I don’t know why you’re asking me! You’re the fucking cops! You’re supposed to be the ones figuring it out!”

He abruptly fell silent, as if a needle had been lifted off a record.

The tape played a long stretch in which nothing was heard except Marino clearing his throat and a chair scraping back.

Then Marino asked Becker, “You wouldn’t by chance have an extra tape in your car?”

It was Petersen who mumbled, and I think he was crying, “I’ve got a couple of them back in the bedroom.”

“Well, now,” Marino’s voice coolly drawled, “that’s mighty nice of you, Matt.”

Twenty minutes later, Matt Petersen got to the subject of finding his wife’s body.

It was awful to hear and not see. There were no distractions. I drifted on the current of his images and recollections. His words were taking me into dark areas where I did not want to go.

The tape played on.

“. . . Uh, I’m sure of it. I didn’t call first. I never did, just left. Didn’t hang around or anything. As I was saying, uh, I left Charlottesville as soon as rehearsal was over and the props and costumes were put away. I guess this was close to twelve-thirty. I was in a hurry to get home. I hadn’t seen Lori all week.

“It was close to two when I parked in front of the house, and my first reaction was to notice the lights out and realize she’d already gone to bed. Her schedule was very demanding. On twelve hours and off twenty-four, the shift out of sync with human biological clocks and never the same. She worked Friday until midnight, was to be off Saturday, uh, today. And tomorrow she would be on from midnight to noon Monday. Off Tuesday, and on Wednesday from noon to midnight again. That’s how it went.

“I unlocked the front door and flipped on the living room light. Everything looked normal. Retrospectively, I can say that even though I had no reason to be looking for anything out of the ordinary. I do remember the hall light was off. I noticed because usually she left it on for me. It was my routine to go straight to the bedroom. If she wasn’t too exhausted, and she almost never was, we would sit up in bed and drink wine and talk. Uh, stay up, and then sleep very late.

“I was confused. Uh. Something was confusing me. The bedroom. I couldn’t see anything much at first because the lights . . . the lights, of course, were out. But something felt wrong immediately. It’s almost as if I sensed it before I saw it. Like an animal senses things. And I thought I was smelling something but I wasn’t sure and it only added to my confusion.”

Marino: “What sort of smell?”

Silence.

“I’m trying to remember. I was only vaguely aware of it. But aware enough to be puzzled. It was an unpleasant smell. Sort of sweet but putrid. Weird.”

Marino: “You mean a body-odor-type smell?” “Similar, but not exactly. It was sweetish. Unpleasant. Rather pungent and sweaty.”

Becker: “Something you’ve smelled before?”

A pause. “No, it wasn’t quite like anything I’ve ever smelled before, I don’t think. It was faint, but maybe I was more aware of it because I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear anything the instant I walked into the bedroom. It was so quiet inside. The first thing that struck my senses was this peculiar odor. And it flickered in my mind, oddly, it flickered in my mind— maybe Lori had been eating something in bed. I don’t know. It was, uh, it was like waffles, maybe syrupy. Pancakes. I thought maybe she was sick, had been eating junk and gotten sick. Uh, sometimes she went on binges. Uh, ate fattening things when she was stressed or anxious. She gained a lot of weight after I started commuting to Charlottesville . . .”