And When I Die, page 27
“Hey, I can totally give you a ride,” Shannon said.
“It’s okay, you said you had to get home—”
“Seriously, it’s no big deal. You said you live close, right?”
“Glenora Lane?”
“So close.” Shannon gestured for Ruthie to follow her. “Come on. I’ll take you.”
Ruthie clutched at her heart through her blouse as she walked lock step with Shannon toward her gleaming hot pink Karmann Ghia. Shannon Kendall—the Shannon Kendall—was giving her, Ruthie Stowers, a ride in her car. Had insisted on it! She was no longer pressed up against the glass of Shannon’s life. She was in Shannon’s life. The adrenaline rushing through her almost made it difficult to open the door, relishing the soft hiss of her bottom sliding across the supple white leather.
Shannon cranked up Power 104, squealing just as Culture Club’s new song came on. “I love this song. Don’t you love this song?”
“Such a good song,” Ruthie agreed, even though she really didn’t like it all that much.
Shannon sang along with the radio, tapping Ruthie’s arm, encouraging her to join in. For those magical few minutes on the way to Ruthie’s house the girls sang together as though this was their normal Wednesday afternoon routine, as though they’d been doing it forever. Once Shannon turned down her street, Ruthie reluctantly directed her toward her house. Why couldn’t she go home with Shannon? Why did she have to be deposited back into her dreary life?
“Thanks for the ride,” Ruthie said, hoping Shannon didn’t detect the warble of sadness in her words. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow in class.”
“What?”
Ruthie tucked a hunk of hair behind her ear. “I’m in your American lit class. And history, physics. Social studies.”
“Really? Do you sit in the back?”
“Yes.”
“I guess that’s why I haven’t seen you before…?” Shannon’s eyes searched her face, grasping for her name.
“Ruthie.”
Shannon snapped her fingers. “Right. Ruthie. I told you, I’m so bad with names.”
“It’s okay. It’s kind of a forgettable name.”
“No, it’s cool. Kind of old-fashioned. Okay, I totally have to run. See you tomorrow. Ruthie,” she said, giggling.
As Shannon backed out of her driveway, Ruthie floated through her front door on a cloud, a knowing secret smile on her face all through dinner, as she and her sisters cleaned the kitchen while her brother played Nintendo. For the first time in her life, her drab little house didn’t bother her, her father yelling at the boxing match on TV didn’t bother her. Her mother’s sensible white hospital shoes stacked neatly next to the front door alongside the canvas tote that would carry her Tupperware lunch of tuna salad sandwich, carrot sticks, and an apple when she left for work in the morning at five, didn’t bother her. As she doodled Shannon’s name in her journal that night, nothing but the wonder of Shannon Kendall consumed her.
She knew they’d be friends forever.
That knowledge was solidified the next morning when Shannon waved to her across the room as she came into American lit and said hi, followed by her name. She could feel the eyes fall on her, envious eyes. Shannon Kendall knew her name. Her. Ruthie Stowers. She smiled shyly and waved back, the same secret, knowing smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
Ruthie didn’t know it wouldn’t last forever.
Nothing good ever does.
68
AVA
Ava rubbed her eyes and looked at the clock on her home computer. Quarter of six. She’d been at this for five hours, becoming a pseudo expert on Ruthie Stowers and Shannon Kendall in the process. Stacks of paper obliterated her desk, alongside her scribbled notes and endless pictures. Thanks to the rabbit hole of YouTube, she’d also watched countless documentaries online about the case, almost able to recite the facts by rote with each new show she found.
Ruthie and Shannon were in drama club together, though as far as Ava could tell, their membership primarily consisted of a one-time appearance in their high school’s production of Bye Bye Birdie, Ruthie’s name lumped into the program with three other girls as nonspeaking teens, Shannon receiving star billing as the female lead. The girls also shared some classes, but no one who was interviewed—not a student, not a teacher—said the two were close. One student remembered the girls attending the class trip to Galveston for spring break, though no one could recall any interactions between the two. Some drama club members commented Shannon had given Ruthie a ride home after rehearsals a few times.
But Ruthie was not part of Shannon’s circle of friends. There were no trips to the mall on Saturdays, no sharing makeup tips or marathon phone sessions. Ruthie did not score invites to Shannon’s pool parties, or rate mentions in her diaries. She was not asked to sit at Shannon’s table during lunch. Mrs. Kendall told the police she’d never heard Ruthie’s name until her arrest.
Ruthie was nobody to Shannon Kendall.
Until that Saturday night when Ruthie murdered Shannon.
Despite extensive interrogation from the police, the only thing Ruthie would ever admit to was stabbing her classmate. And then, after serving her ten-year sentence, she vanished into thin air, never to be heard from again.
In general, the similarities between Whitney and Shannon were more than a little eye-opening for Ava, a little too uncomfortable. Both pretty, both popular, both on the pom-pom squad, both hailing from prosperous families in desirable communities.
Both savagely stabbed to death.
One could say it was all a coincidence.
Or history repeating itself.
She hoped to God it was the former.
Ava picked up a sheet of paper from atop one of the piles, examining Ruthie’s picture for about the hundredth time, scouring the girl’s face for even a glimmer of connection between her and Erica and continuing to find none.
It didn’t seem possible that Erica and Ruthie were the same person.
Yet, she still wasn’t convinced they weren’t.
She needed an irrefutable link, a concrete anchor between the two to definitely say they were one and the same.
Her eye fell on the invitation from Erica’s birthday party. She picked it up, mesmerized by the photo of a teenaged Erica.
Maybe it was time to roll the dice.
Ava bit her bottom lip and shook her head before she picked up her phone on the desk next to her, scrolling through her contacts for Erica’s number. She hit the phone icon and waited.
“Ava. Hi,” Erica answered. She could hear the genuine surprise in Erica’s voice. “How are you?”
“Well, I was calling because we’ve been saying for a while now that we need to get together for a drink and I wanted to see if you were free this week.”
“Oh. Um … Jordan and I just had a run-in with Lauren and she’s really upset. I don’t feel good about leaving her tonight.”
“What happened?”
Erica sighed. “She came storming over here accusing Jordan of murdering Whitney and—”
Ava’s heart lurched. “What?”
“Yes, I don’t—I don’t really want to go into it,” Erica said. “The whole thing is disgusting.”
“What about tomorrow?” Ava asked, hoping she didn’t sound like the eager puppy scrapping around her human’s ankles. “You can tell me all about it. If you want to, I mean.”
“Actually, tomorrow would be perfect. I’ll probably have calmed down by then,” Erica said. “Why don’t you come to the house? We can sit out by the firepit.”
Fear burst inside her, blood hammering in her ears. No way in hell did she want to be trapped in Erica’s house, just the two of them.
She licked her lips, the soft, salty sheen of nervous perspiration catching the tip of her tongue. “Why don’t we go to The Gallery? I haven’t been there in ages.” Ava chuckled nervously. “Let someone else do the work.”
“Well, I can’t argue with that.”
“I’m working from home tomorrow, so how about five?”
Erica agreed and the two women said their goodbyes. She leaned back in her chair, telling herself this little tête-à-tête would ease her discomfort, that Melody got it all wrong and Erica Mitchell was no more Ruthie Stowers than Ava was. She’d surreptitiously ask her some questions about her background, compare it to the bits and pieces she’d gleaned about the woman over the years, looking for any discrepancies and put the confetti swirl of theories to rest. People had always told her she had a way of extracting information and she’d do it tomorrow night.
Even as she told herself this, the twang of uncertainty snapped inside of her.
She rolled her head around to relieve the cricks in her neck, her hand dropping down atop one of the fresh stacks she’d printed off earlier as she sighed, too tired to plow through the printouts. Without thinking, she plucked a sheet off the top to skim it, vowing to read it more thoroughly tomorrow. A brief article about Ruthie’s parole hearing. Granted four to one.
The last line of the story jolted Ava straight up, her leather office chair squealing like a pig.
The lone dissenting member of the parole board explaining why she voted to deny Ruthie early release.
Ruthie has a hair trigger temper that she has a difficult time controlling. The last time she lost control, it resulted in the brutal murder of an innocent young girl. I’m convinced there will be a next time with Ruthie. I’m convinced she’ll do it again.
69
JORDAN
Jordan took a deep breath, glancing toward the door, then at her phone, and back again. She’d been sitting in the interrogation room for twenty minutes already. Flop sweat stung her underarms and paste lined the inside of her mouth. She finally folded her arms over the dusty metal table and nestled her face inside, her breath deep and ominous inside the dark cocoon of her hoodie. Detective Diehl had called her yesterday and asked her to come down to the station to answer some questions. She hadn’t told her mom, deciding to risk it all on her own. Her mom would totally take over and be super obnoxious. At least when her dad was obnoxious, he was blunt, which made people snap to attention. Her mom just looked like a fool and was annoying.
The door swung open, flooding the room momentarily with ringing phones and the low murmur of voices. Jordan shot up and smoothed her hair down, fear racing through her once again. The detective smiled as she closed the door behind her before taking a seat across from Jordan, a manila folder and a tablet in her hand.
“How are you today, Jordan?” she asked, folding her hands on the table in front of her.
“Fine.”
“Thanks for coming down this afternoon. I really appreciate it.”
She didn’t say anything, squirming in her chair as she watched the detective flip open the folder and shuffle some of the papers inside.
Diehl stopped and looked up at Jordan, smiling. “As I mentioned on the phone, we’re still trying to clear up some things around the day Whitney was murdered and I was hoping you could help us by answering a few questions.”
“Okay.”
“So, I need you to tell me again what you did on the day of the murder.”
Jordan gulped, her heart hammering against her chest. “What do you want to know?”
“Just what you did that day. Walk me through what you did from the time you got up until you went to bed that night.”
She pursed her lips and alternated between picking at her cuticles and stretching her ponytail holder. “What, you mean like what I had for breakfast?”
Diehl chuckled. “Why don’t we start with what time you got up that morning.”
“About eight.”
“What did you do when you got up?”
“I mean, I took a shower, came downstairs and grabbed a yogurt, talked to my mom while I waited for my dad to take me to the library, since my mom took my car keys and my phone.”
“Okay. And what time did you and your dad leave for the library?”
“I guess about nine-thirty.”
“All right, so you got to the library and then what?”
She shrugged noncommittally. “I did my research for my paper and then I went to that club. I told you.”
“Right. And what time was that?”
“I guess about three. Maybe four. Definitely in the afternoon.”
“What was your paper on?”
“The Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
“Anything in particular?”
Jordan winced. It was exactly the kind of question her mother would ask. “We just had to write about some of the different things that happened that led to it,” she said, repeating almost verbatim what she’d told her mother when grilled. “There was a lot of microfiche and old magazines that I looked at.”
“What did you get on the paper?”
“An A.”
“Sounds like all that research paid off,” Diehl said. “I was a terrible student, so I’m impressed.”
Jordan stared at her, waiting.
“And how did you get to Evanston? Since you said your mom took your car keys.”
“I took the Metra. The station is across the street from the library. I told you. Remember?”
Diehl clicked her tongue against her teeth and nodded as she contemplated this. “And remind me, what time did you get home that night?”
“About nine-thirty.”
“Just to make sure I have it right, you got up that Saturday around eight, came downstairs, talked to your mom, waited for your dad, who took you to the library around nine-thirty. You got there, stayed for a couple of hours, then took the Metra into Evanston to hang out for a few hours at Click’s?”
“Yeah.”
Diehl nodded. “Okay.”
A soft hiss of relief escaped Jordan’s lips and she leaned against her chair and crossed her legs, confidence creeping up her spine like the slow rising mercury of a thermometer.
The detective leaned over, her eyes glittering. “Except, the thing is Jordan, we have a little problem.”
Jordan’s heart plummeted and her stomach gurgled, the sliver of relief evaporating. She twisted the ponytail holder around her index finger until the tip turned purple, the painful pressure of the stunted blood supply oddly comforting. “What do you mean?”
“For starters, no one remembers seeing you at the library that day.”
“So?” Jordan sniffed. “I don’t remember everyone I see every day.”
“And we checked the surveillance of the Metra station for that Saturday and you weren’t in any of the footage.”
Jordan pushed her fingernails into her palm. “I mean, I—”
The detective picked up the slender black tablet in front of her and swiped across the screen. “I’m going to show you something, Jordan, and I want you to tell me what you think about it.”
She waited, her breath still as the detective swiped and tapped some more before pushing her chair back and walking around the table until she was standing over Jordan’s shoulder. She leaned down, placing the tablet on the table. Surprisingly clear surveillance footage in color flickered across the screen as her dad’s white Jaguar came into the frame.
Jordan’s heart slammed against her chest. It was over. It was so over.
“There’s your dad’s car and there you are getting out,” Diehl narrated. “He rolls down the window, says something to you, and you turn around just a second to respond to him before you go inside.”
The blood pounded in her ears. She knew what was next.
“Not five minutes later, you come out of the library,” Diehl continued. “That hardly looks like a day spent researching a history paper to me.”
Jordan sat in stony silence, her lips pressed together, aware of how loud her breath had become.
“And you don’t go in the direction of the Metra.” She tapped some more and there was Jordan, walking down the street and getting into a waiting car, which disappeared from the view of the camera. Diehl walked back over to her seat, placing the tablet quietly on the table, and looked at Jordan. “Now. Do you want to tell me where you really were that day?”
“Please don’t say anything to my parents.”
“Where were you that day, Jordan?” she repeated.
She sniffed, swiping her arm across the line of mucous from her nose as she grasped for breath. Diehl continued staring, her face blank.
“I can’t help you unless you tell me where you were that day,” she said, her voice softening.
“All right,” she finally said. “I’ll tell you where I was that Saturday.”
70
LAUREN
“Are you okay?”
“You have to stop asking me that. I’m fine.”
“Lauren…”
She raised her hand to rub her eyes before remembering they were rimmed in thick black eyeliner, taupe eye shadow, and false lashes coated with three swipes of the black mascara brush, the most makeup she’d worn in months. Lauren scratched an imaginary itch on her cheek instead and no sooner than she’d lowered her hand did a makeup fairy appear to flick her face with a blush brush. Unconsciously, she smoothed down the front of the Chanel suit, feeling oddly uncomfortable wearing something that was once a second skin, longing suddenly for her sweats and ponytail.
Steve grabbed her hand and squeezed it and in spite of her irritation at his repeated inquiries as to her state of mind, she squeezed back. Even though he didn’t agree with this little sit-down, he was supporting her need to do so.
Someone had to speak for Whitney.
Wendy Sheridan sashayed onto the set, absorbed by the pile of oversized notecards in her hand, ignoring the makeup fairy struggling to keep up with her. Lauren had never thought of Wendy as especially attractive anytime she saw her on the air. She had a gap between her two front teeth, her nose was weird, her dark eyes beady. But there was something magnetic and compulsively watchable about her all the same and was part of the reason she’d chosen Wendy to do the interview. They wanted to do this at their house, but Lauren didn’t want the intrusion, so instead, they were sitting in a shivering studio with a hideous blue couch, an ugly vase bursting with dusty fake flowers, and oversized books ranging from Chicago architecture to sports stacked atop a small wooden coffee table. Wendy glanced up and saw the Deans, her demeanor softening as she lowered the notecards and held one hand out to Lauren.
