“I came back around four-thirty in the morning. I’d forgotten my phone here at the house. We were all drinking last night, and I forgot it.”
“At four-thirty in the morning, you drove all the way back to Kerry Manor for your phone?”
Sarah frowned and nodded.
“Yes, I - the morning after Halloween we always have an early breakfast. It’s a tradition. I met someone last night, and I was excited. I never went to bed. After she left, I decided to come back.”
“She?” the detective asked.
Sarah felt a familiar flair of aggravation at his question.
“Yes, she, I’m gay. Is that relevant?”
The detective did not blush, the typical reaction when she announced her sexual preference.
“Everything is relevant,” he said. “You drove home with a date and returned at four-thirty a.m. to have breakfast. What time did you leave here?”
“A little after one in the morning.”
“Were there still a lot of people at the party?”
Sarah shook her head.
“No, maybe ten people still milling about, but I figured everyone would leave soon.”
“And you returned at four-thirty. Did you call first?”
“No, I didn’t call first. I realized when I got home, I forgot my phone. I tried to sleep for an hour, but I was wired so I got up. I…” Sarah paused.
“Leave nothing out. It’s impossible to say what might be helpful at this point.”
“I had a weird feeling while I was trying to sleep. I might have dozed for a minute and then, I don’t know. I sat bolt upright in bed and needed to come back to Kerry Manor.”
“You had a weird feeling?”
Sarah rubbed her temples. Exhaustion seeped in, blurring the edges of her vision.
“Sammy and I were connected. We were twins. As children, we shared feelings sometimes. I can’t explain it to you, but I think that’s what it was. I think I sensed something had happened to Sammy.”
“So, you came back to check on Sammy?”
“No. I mean, I had a weird feeling, but it wasn’t like I realized something bad had happened to him. I was coming back anyway, and I knew I’d never fall back asleep. When I got here, there were lights on, but everyone had gone home. I ran upstairs to wake them up.”
“You intended to wake them up at four-thirty in the morning after you guys had been partying all night?”
Sarah rolled her eyes.
“Yes. He’s my twin brother, my best friend, and Corrie comes in a close second. They’re my best friends. It’s not unusual for me to do that.”
“Okay, and then what happened?”
“Their bed was empty. I figured they passed out in the great room in front of the fireplace. But that room was empty too. In the kitchen there were rags by the sink, bloody rags.”
The detective nodded.
“Did you touch them?”
Sarah squinted, trying to remember. Had she touched them?
“I don’t think so. I looked at them and then looked through the kitchen window. The moon illuminated something in the lake, something big and white. I walked onto the porch trying to see it, and then I realized I was looking at Corrie.”
“Corrie was floating in the lake?”
“Yes.”
“Face down?”
“Yes. I ran to the water, but before I got there, I saw…” She saw him again. Sammy, lying beneath the oak tree, his face gray, his clothes a puzzle of dark splotches. Blood - she hadn’t quite known it in that moment, but yes, it was blood.
“Sammy,” she breathed, clutching her shirt and twisting it in her hand as if that might ease the tightness in her chest.
“Did you go to him?”
“I started to and then stopped, because I knew.” She paused and forced the words out in a burst. “I knew he was dead.”
“How?”
She blinked at the detective, angry that he’d forced her to relive a moment she wanted to forget.
“His eyes. They were cloudy, and his body looked contorted, like he was frozen in place.”
“Rigor mortis had already set in at four-thirty a.m.,” the detective murmured, writing in his notebook.
“I walked into the lake and turned Corrie over. I thought she was dead too. The lake was freezing. Her body was so cold and heavy in her dress. I turned her over and dragged her to the beach. She spit up some water, and I carried her back into the house.”
“Did you notice any injuries on Corrie?”
Sarah shook her head.
“She was half-drowned. I didn’t exactly inspect her, but I helped her out of her dress. She just laid there shivering, her teeth chattering. I wrapped her in a blanket and called the police.”
“Did she say that someone attacked them? Her and Sammy?”
“No. I think I asked her, or I asked what happened. She didn’t know. She woke up and found Sammy dead.”
“She went into the lake on her own, then?”
Sarah nodded.
“I think so. She was overcome with grief.”
The detective nodded, flipping a page in his notebook.
“I asked Corrie if there were any strangers at the party and she didn’t seem to know.”
“There were a lot of people,” Sarah said.
“But anyone out of place? I can’t stress enough how important these next few hours are, Sarah.”
“You think I don’t know that?” she snapped, bracing her hands on the edge of the counter.
The detective sat back.
“I understand you’re in shock and you’re in grief, but try to allow your mind to wander back. Return to the party. Did you get a bad feeling about anyone? Did you see Sammy arguing with anyone?”
Sarah sat heavily in a chair and took a deep breath. She tried to push the pain surrounding Sammy off to the side as she returned to the party. Had anything unusual happened? Anything that foretold the horror that lay ahead?
She shook her head as the memories rolled past. She remembered Sammy in his Total Recall costume, weird dead alien baby hanging from his stomach, standing at a long, cobwebbed-draped table and talking animatedly with a group of men as he popped appetizers in his mouth. She glimpsed him on the porch with Corrie, laughing and holding his arms out as if shocked at how many people had come to the party. She recalled him dancing in the great room to Michael Jackson’s, Thriller, but he looked rather drunk and fell twice.
“There’s nothing, Detective. Nothing that sticks out. It was typical Sammy. He was laughing and happy, and everyone he came into contact with shared his expression. There were no fights, no evil men lurking in the shadows. I mean, unless you consider a hundred people dressed as monsters and zombies sinister.”
The detective smiled.
“I can imagine picking out the bad guys in such a group is challenging. Let’s take a different approach,” he said. “I need a list of everyone at the party. Just start listing names. I hope to contact everyone who attended within forty-eight hours. Between you and Corrie, perhaps we can get the majority identified.”
Sarah glanced at Corrie and doubted she’d be much help.
“Hold on,” Sarah said. She jumped from her chair and hurried into the kitchen, where men in uniform moved meticulously through the room dusting for fingerprints. Sammy’s black leather planner was sealed in a plastic bag.
She returned to the great room.
“There’s a black planner in the kitchen. It looks like it’s already been put in an evidence bag. Sammy will have a list in there with phone numbers and emails. That won’t cover everyone, but it will come close. The other guests will be friends of guests or people who tagged along. I won’t have all those names, and neither will Corrie. You’ll have to get them from the guests themselves.”