“. . . 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 . . .”
His voice was trembling very badly now.
“Uh, the smell was sick, unhealthy, as if maybe she was sick and had been in bed all day. Explaining why all the lights were out, why she hadn’t waited up for me.”
Silence.
Marino: “Then what happened, Matt?”
“Then my eyes began to adjust and I didn’t understand what I was seeing. The bed materialized in the dimness. I didn’t understand the covers, the way they were hanging off. And her. Lying on top in this strange position and not having anything on. God. My heart was coming out of my chest before it even registered. And when I flipped on the light, and saw her . . . I was screaming, but I couldn’t hear my own voice. Like I was screaming inside my head. Like my brain was floating out of my skull. I saw the stain on the sheet, the red, the blood coming out of her nose and mouth. Her face. I didn’t think it was her. It wasn’t her. It didn’t even look like her. It was somebody else. A prank, a terrible trick. It wasn’t her.”
Marino: “What did you do next, Matt? Did you touch her or disturb anything inside the bedroom?”