Gray
It seems like forever that I wait alone on my front yard, but I finally hear a siren. Seconds later a police car comes around the corner and pulls up behind Ash’s car.
An officer gets out and comes toward me.
“Are you the homeowner?” the officer asks. “Gray Mackey?”
“Yes,” I say. “My friend…my boyfriend went inside to look around.”
“Do you have some ID?” the officer asks.
I’m surprised for a moment until I realize he has no way of knowing who I am. I fumble in my purse and manage to pull out my driver’s license. He takes it, looks carefully, then nods and hands it back to me.
“How long ago did your boyfriend go in?” the officer asks just as another police car pulls up in front of the house.
“Five or six minutes?” I say.
“Can you call him and have him come out?”
I nod, but before I can dial, Ash appears at the front door and heads down the steps toward us. Wisely, he seems to have left the knife inside.
The second officer comes up next to me. “Holy shit, is that Ash Gunnarsson?”
Of course the man is a hockey fan.
“Who?” the first officer asks.
“He’s on the Hartford Hydra,” the second officer says.
“Oh. I don’t follow hockey,” the first guy says.
The second officer gives him a baleful look but doesn’t say anything.
“Good evening, officers,” Ash says as he joins us. “I just did a checkof the house, but I didn’t find anyone inside.”
“Hi, Mr. Gunnarsson,” the second officer says with a half-grin. “I’m a big fan. You, uh, probably shouldn’t have gone inside, though.”
Ash gives him an apologetic, dimple-rich smile. “Sorry. I just didn’t want anyone to get away if they were still here.”
The first officer turns to me. “Can you tell us why you think someone was in your house, ma’am? Did you see someone?”
I launch into the story of all the oddities I found when I got home and how the last straw was the window with the shade pulled up.
The officer just looks at me when I’m done, as if expecting more. Like he wants me to say, “Oh right! And there was also the guy in the mask who chased me out onto my front lawn.”
“And no one else could have put the wine in your refrigerator or turned off your alarm?” he asks finally.
Ash’s hand lands gently on my hip in a gesture of support as he moves behind me. I start to shake my head until something occurs to me.
“My parents have a key to the house,” I say.
The officer looks at me expectantly, and I dial my mother’s number.
“Gray? Is everything okay?” my mother asks when she answers. This is later than I usually call her, and she’s rightfully worried.
I put the phone on speaker so I don’t have to repeat everything she says. “Hi, Mom. Did you come to the house today and drop off a bottle of wine by chance?”
“Oh, yes. I almost forgot. I meant to text you to let you know, but your father called right as I was leaving, and I got sidetracked.”
