That first day…the day of Danny’s arrest…was probably the longest twenty-four hour period in my life.  Physically and emotionally I was drained.  My stomach was churning sourly from hours sitting in a police station drinking nothing but what passed for coffee by their standards.  Danny’s lawyer showed up, gave me a ten minute pep talk and then dashed off into the dim recesses of the building to confer with his client.  When he returned, I was given Danny’s belt and shoelaces as a souvenir to take home with me.      

I had never felt so powerless in my life.

For the moment, things were quiet…but it wasn’t a peaceful quiet.  It felt more like a long, deeply drawn breath before the real screaming began.  But I took it and was grateful for it. 

Living as I was near ground zero of this event, one would think that I would have a better seat than most to the unfolding of it.  That was not the case.  Like everyone else, my information had to come from outside sources.  Which was why at 6 o’clock that evening, like so many others, I was sitting in my living room watching the local news. 

Nearly every channel was covering the story…from Portland to Boston.  Most reporters mangled Danny’s last name, but in time it would roll off their tongues with greater fluidity.  There were pictures of the house where the missing woman had lived with her husband, police cars and yellow tape, dogs combing the woods that surrounded the dwelling for any sign of her…and then a picture of Danny flashed up on the screen as the suspect.  God, the picture looked horrible.  He looked like a deranged serial killer.  It wasn’t the person that I knew…

In complete contrast, there was a brief interview with the victim’s husband, David Goss.  He stood at the end of the driveway with his family, holding a picture of his wife, Kimberly.  He looked as lost as I felt…his eyes shiny with unshed tears, his face a mask of shock and disbelief that something like this could happen.  David wasn’t ready yet to believe that his wife was something more than missing…and while I hoped that was the case, in the pit of my stomach I already believed that the detective’s earlier implication was probably true.

The screen flickered and the reporters began to cover what information they had on the suspect, Daniel Van de Bogart.  There were shots of our apartment building obviously taken while I had been at the police station earlier that day.  Several of our neighbors were interviewed.

It had always been a source of amusement to me that people living within proximity of someone accused of a crime will always say things like, “he seemed so nice” or “I never would have suspected that I was living next door to a cannibal” when interviewed.   Suddenly, it didn’t seem so funny.  If I, the person closest to Danny, hadn’t seen this coming…how could they?

I was definitely glad I had not been at home for the reporters would have caught me completely off guard.  My relief however was extremely short-lived.  Thwarted in his attempt to catch “the fiancé,” the reporter that had interviewed my neighbors had settled for a shot of our mailbox.  My anonymity was gone in five seconds thanks to that little white label with both of our last names typewritten on its surface. 

As if on cue, the phone began screaming…

Thinking it was probably somebody from my family or possibly Danny’s lawyer…or wishful thinking, even Danny, himself…I snatched up the receiver quickly.

“Hello?”

At first I could only hear breathing…and then a man whispered…

“You’ll be next…bitch.”

Before I could even react, the caller hung up and I stood there in my kitchen shaking uncontrollably.  How could somebody do something like that?  Why?  I moved quickly around my house, pulling the shades down as far they would go…suddenly feeling exposed and vulnerable.  The entire time, the phone kept ringing…and ringing…

I let the machine answer…but it didn’t prevent me from listening to the messages that were left.  Most of them were calls from the media.  They’d caught my scent now and like wolves, they were sniffing at the door of my burrow hoping to ferret me out.  Some were well-intentioned friends.  They had seen the news and they simply could not believe what had happened…and if there was anything they could do…just let them know….please call.  A lot of these people I had not talked to in months…and I strongly suspected that they were just as salacious as the media wolves.  One friend in particular, Dean, was more determined than the rest and kept calling repeatedly, leaving message after message, chewing through my valuable tape time. 

The phone was ringing so often that I didn’t have the time to delete messages before it would ring again.  It was only a matter of time before I ran out of space…

I had no choice finally.  If anyone important called, I needed to be able to answer…so I said a quick prayer and tried to delete the messages before the next call came in.  Evidently, God was screening his calls that night too because my prayer wasn’t answered.

The phone rang…

“Hello?”

“Hello!  This is Byron Barnett from Channel 7 news!”

Crap…

“Yes?”

“May I ask whom I’m speaking with, please?” he inquired in a rather cheerful tone.

Without quite deciding to do it…my primitive brain went into complete survival mode.

“I no understand you.  I just here to take care of cats.”

It was a ludicrous accent, really…some strange hybrid of Gretchen Kraus from the television show, “Benson” and Mrs. Livingston from “Courtship of Eddie’s Father.”  It was all I could come up with under pressure.

“Oh…I see,” Byron said smoothly, “So tell me…Ms.....what did you say your name was?”

“I no can talk now.  I just here to take care of cats.”

To his credit, Byron chuckled.  I really don’t think I fooled him one bit. 

“Well that’s really very…neighborly?...of you.  Do you know Daniel Van de Bogart and his fiancé well?”

Damn he was persistent. 

“Oh…so sorry.  I have to go now.  Bye!”

I quickly hung up on the reporter and re-engaged the answering machine.  Damn Dean and his persistent phone calls…why did he have to be so nosy?  Why did everyone have to be so fucking nosy? 

The reporters were digging hard and it would only be a matter of time before they hit pay dirt.  Just the thought of everything that would eventually be exposed was enough to make me cringe.  I was convinced that nobody would understand…and the trouble was, I couldn’t really explain without digging the hole even deeper and making it worse.