The door opened a few inches after I had knocked and I found myself looking about a half foot down into a rather suspicious brown eye framed by a sliver of face with exquisite if unnaturally enhanced curly auburn hair.

“Si…yes…can I help you?” she asked with a sullen pout to the portion of her mouth revealed by the opening.  Her accent was thick but her English was impeccable when she chose to use it.  At first, she declined to speak with me upon discovering who I was…

“Please,” I said looking her straight in the eye, adopting the tone of a beggar, “I’m not angry or upset with you.  I’m just looking for the truth and I want to hear what happened from you…not from him.  He’s my fiancé.  I have some decisions to make and only you can help me.  Ada…por favor?”

I’m pretty sure what clinched it was my use of her own language.  With a slight nod of her head, she stepped back and opened the door to me in a rather shy fashion. 

To be honest, I’m not sure what I expected her to be like.  She was a tiny little thing, fragile like a bird and humming with nervous energy that she couldn’t contain.  Her hands gesticulated wildly whenever she talked and if she became particularly passionate about a topic, Ada would revert to her native tongue so that the conversation was a mélange of English and Spanish. 

It wasn’t her fault that I found her repugnant given the circumstances…but I made sure that it didn’t show by making appropriate nodding gestures and conciliatory comments like, “Of course” and “I understand.”  The only thought that consumed me was that THIS was what Danny had thrown away our relationship for…and there was no way in hell I was going to put my own welfare in jeopardy for him.

Ada walked me through her apartment as she relived the night of the incident with Danny. 

Both stories meshed completely up until the point where they didn’t…so I feel pretty confident in telling you these events as I believe they transpired.

Ada had been riding her bike when Danny pulled up alongside her in his car.  He charmed her into sitting and talking with him in the public park and after a while they agreed to go to a bar for a couple of drinks together.  Ada insisted on changing her clothing before going out and being the gallant gentleman, Danny offered to drive her back to her place and he placed her bicycle into the trunk of his car. 

At the door to her bedroom, Ada pointed back to the kitchen table where I was sitting and told me that Danny had waited in the exact same spot while she went into this room to change. 

“I was surprised…you know…I walked several times past this door wearing my underwear and he never made a move then,” she said oblivious to my reaction to that statement.

“Then what happened, Ada?” I gently coaxed.

They got back in Danny’s car and decided to go to a bar which sits between the city of Manchester and the town of Londonderry.  The problem was…neither of them knew exactly how to get there.

Their stories diverge when Danny, finally at the end of his patience pulls the car over in maze of residential streets.  According to my fiancé, he simply wanted her out of his car and had decided that no piece of ass was worth all of this aggravation.  They began to argue and he abruptly reached over her to open the car door.  The sudden movement freaked her out and she began yelling her head off…angry that she was being dumped in the middle of nowhere and vowing to get even. 

Ada’s version was slightly different.  After pulling the car over, Danny put the moves on her and when she refused, he wrapped his hand around her throat and tried to strangle her.  She managed to get the car door open and ran to the nearest house for help.

I’m not sure if I really cared about the ending to be honest since my motives for being there were so purely selfish.  Now that I’m older, I’m ashamed a bit by that feeling…but at the time, it just wasn’t important to me. 

Ada, however, was enjoying this visit and the captive audience that she had acquired.  Before I could politely excuse myself and end it, she launched into conversation on topics that were of no interest to me…but drew a rather frightening picture nonetheless. 

She explained to me that being anything other than friends with Danny had never been an option.  She was in love.  Desperately and obsessively in love.  She drew my attention to a calendar on the wall and then pulled it down so that I might view it better.  My breath caught and the hairs on the back of my neck prickled as I realized the extent of her obsession with this man she claimed to love.  Phrases like “I would die for you” and “I saw you today even though you didn’t see me” leapt out from each and every square for that month and several months previous to June. 

I pushed my own selfish desires to the side and regarded Ada with more deliberate scrutiny…and my blood ran cold.  Danny…to put it bluntly...was going to be royally fucked by this woman and not in the way he had hoped. 

“I really have to go now, Ada” I said quietly, eager to be away from her particular brand of madness.  “I understand though and I hope you do too that I’m not here to tell you what to do.”

Her eyes gleamed with the fire of a zealot as she looked at me and smiled, “God says he has to be punished for what he did.”

I nodded.  “You do what you feel you must do,” I replied softly and departed bedlam.

Of course the police officers assigned to this particular case eventually got wind of my visit to Ms. Geigel and tried to make the most of it, especially after the events of that September day…but I never was charged with witness tampering.  Ada vouched for me and said I was one of the nicest ladies she had ever met and that I in no way tried to influence her. 

I really wish I could have said the same about her…but I couldn’t say anything at all.  It wasn’t her character that was called into question and it wasn’t like I could take the stand and say, “That bitch is crazy!”  My hands were completely tied.

One more thing before we say goodbye to Ada Geigel in this story…

Ada was pregnant at the time of the incident with Danny.  The father of the child was the object of her obsessive calendar scribblings.  Years later, Ada would become convinced that her little boy was the spawn of Satan and that it was her Christian duty to punish him.  She murdered her five year old son with a machete before attempting to jump off a bridge in the heart of Manchester.

But of course, at the time that Danny was arrested for suspicion of murder none of us had a crystal ball to see what was coming…