And When I Die, page 37
“Ava Ewing is here to see you.”
“Who?”
“Ava Ewing. Says it’s important. About the Dean case.”
She sighed wearily, not up to dealing with the hysterics of yet another outraged mother demanding to know what they were doing to catch Whitney Dean’s killer. Screeching missives flooded into the department email on a daily basis, its Twitter feed and Facebook page littered with high-pitched calls for justice. Maggie had been bitched at more on this case than on any other in her law enforcement career.
“All right, tell her I’ll be right up.”
She rubbed her eyes, blinking them rapidly in a woeful effort to look alive, sharp. Aware. Not beaten down and exhausted.
Ava Ewing sat perched on the edge of one of the cloth chairs lined up beneath the window facing the parking lot. The blurry features of the woman’s daughter, Carly, floated beneath the surface. She clutched a hefty white binder filled with paper, the accessory somewhat out of step with the sleek black pantsuit, red-soled stilettos, yellow purse, and the type of simple, chunky gold bracelet that graced the pages of the glossy, high-end magazines her sister read like they were crack. Maggie smiled dully as her eyes met Ava’s and she extended her hand to the woman.
“Mrs. Ewing? Detective Diehl. How can I help you?”
“Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”
“Of course. We can go into one of the interrogation rooms.”
Ava Ewing traveled dutifully behind her, the soles of those expensive shoes striking authoritatively against the gray concrete floor. She didn’t look like the typical harried suburban housewife, but rather had the sheen of a no-nonsense corporate bigwig. A high-ranking executive at a global conglomerate with missions and objectives Maggie would never understand if she had ten MBAs.
She opened the door to one of the empty interrogation rooms and told her to have a seat. “So, what can I do for you today?” she repeated as she sat down across from Ava.
Ava laid the binder down on the table and plucked a piece of paper from the front inside pocket. She slid it across the table.
Maggie looked at the image—copied out of an ancient yearbook from the looks of it—of a young girl with glasses, crooked teeth, beak of a nose and shrugged, nonplussed. Irritated.
“What am I looking at?”
“The girl who killed Whitney Dean.”
88
RUTHIE
Rumors about what happened to Shannon Kendall ripped through the halls of Willow Branch High School like an inferno. Shannon had been stabbed thirty times. It was a crazed ex-boyfriend. A disgruntled patient of her father’s, someone obsessed with her mother and who wanted to get to her through her daughter. A satanic cult who’d sacrificed her for some crazy ritual. An escaped serial killer.
On and on and on, the loop of salacious gossip wrapped itself around the student body, who all now eyed each other with weary, suspicious contempt. The police had questioned some students and teachers multiple times, particularly all the members of the pom-pom squad and tennis team. Ruthie herself was questioned twice. The first time had been because of drama club in general. They didn’t even ask her about the party on the other side of town she told them she’d gone to that night—who went, if anyone could verify she was even there. She’d held her breath, certain she would say something to trip herself up, that they could smell her fear and anxiety, could see the sweat pooling inside her shirt, would question the constant fiddling with the elastic hair tie in her hand. To her surprise and relief, they, like so many others in her lifetime, seemed utterly disinterested in her. Merely checking a box.
Despite the brief focus of attention on members of the drama club, the police’s interest always seemed to meander back to Lyz, Sharla, and Abby, the bros Skip Lane, Mikey Gold, and Chad Warner, as though the answer to what happened to Shannon lay within the confines of that glitzy, tight-knit circle. Shannon spent more time with them than anyone. It very well could have been one of them. Not that anyone seriously thought someone in Shannon’s circle did it, but then again, no one was completely ready to rule them out either, especially since the police hadn’t made an arrest. They were all up for grabs.
That is until a viable, concrete suspect emerged for everyone to turn their ire onto.
One of the newspapers reported on the mysterious phone call Mrs. Kendall told the police she got about a top-secret drama club dinner that Saturday night, the one that caused Shannon to leave the house. Ruthie, along with the other drama club members, was called in for a second round of questioning. They’d pressed her a little harder that time, asking if she’d heard anything about the call, could she think of anyone who would make that call, if there were any dustups with Shannon and any other members of the club. She shook her head, affecting wide-eyed innocence that she didn’t know anything about it, reiterating how beloved Shannon was.
While that news lit the match, what really ignited the inferno was the unsubstantiated rumor the drama club planned to stage The Children’s Hour in the winter (Ms. Grazoli had actually decided on Our Town). The drama club being used to lure Shannon out of the house, coupled with the mere suggestion of a play with homosexual themes tarring the lily-white image of Willow Branch High, rankled the community and they turned their wrath onto Ms. Grazoli, fingering her as the culprit.
She was a made-for-TV suspect. A New Yorker—a divorcée to boot—with a penchant for chain smoking and head-to-toe black. The close-cropped bleached blond hair, and studded dog collars for bracelets made her a thorn among the roses of big hair, frosted eye shadow, and Jessica McClintock dresses. First were the whispers she was actually a lesbian who’d tried to convert Shannon, savagely murdering her when she couldn’t have her way with her. Then it was decided she and a gang of lesbians had done it. Mingled with those whispers were the titterings that Ms. Grazoli actually had a boyfriend and they were swingers who’d kidnapped Shannon for perverted sex games, murdering her after savaging her. Each day brought new, more bizarre claims against Ms. Grazoli that she did little to defend herself against, likely believing the brouhaha would blow over. Her colleagues avoided her in the teacher’s lounge, students went silent when she walked down the halls. Some hissed at her retreating back. The drama club, once a thriving after-school activity, became a fungus, as all but the most diehard of theater geeks dropped out in droves. Students who were able transferred out of her class into art or music. Those who couldn’t get an official transfer stopped going altogether, taking an incomplete.
Eventually, there would be no more Ms. Grazoli, as the target on her back swelled. Her car was egged, rocks thrown through the windows of her house, followed by spray-painted epithets, and trash strewn across her lawn. The administration did little to stem the waves of vitriol, claiming their hands were tied. Finally, Ms. Grazoli quit and ran home to New York, eventually landing a job teaching acting classes at a theater school in Brooklyn.
Everyone thought that was the end of it.
Ruthie especially.
She had no idea the police were closer to her than she knew.
89
CARLY
“I can’t believe how hot it is,” Madison said as she took a sip of her iced latte.
“So hot,” Lexi agreed as she bent the tip of her straw with her finger. “I think my skin is melting.”
The three girls launched into mindless chatter about the end of the school year and the yearbooks scheduled to come out next week. The yearbook editors had interviewed the pom squad about Whitney and rumor had it there would be a full color spread taking up half the book. Carly doubted it would be that much, but she knew it would be a lot. Girls like Whitney Dean didn’t fade into yearbook obscurity.
Jordan flashed across Carly’s mind, as she often did, the creeping guilt she always squashed down prickling against her neck, trickling down her spine like ice water. None of the girls had ever talked about their role in Jordan’s banishment from East Lake Forest. For bullying Jordan out of school. In fact, they’d patted themselves on the back for getting rid of her. Carly had gone along with the smug victory, but the truth that she couldn’t quite admit to herself was that she was mortified at how she’d acted. Spreading gossip, bullying, lying. A mean girl. That’s not who she was.
She just wanted to be liked.
Madison looked at her watch. “I’ve got to get home to babysit my brother. You guys want to meet up tomorrow morning to work on some pom routines?”
Carly and Lexi nodded as they gathered up their things and deposited the nearly empty plastic cups into the trash. They continued their small talk about what they would do when they got home, what books they were reading over the summer, what time they should get together tomorrow. The girls said their goodbyes and departed to their individual cars, Carly grateful for the light traffic as she made the short drive home. She was surprised to see her mom’s car in the driveway, as she could have sworn she was supposed to be out of town today. Not that Carly could keep up with how often her mom was gone.
She didn’t call out for her mom as she entered the house, as she was likely in her office on a conference call or a Zoom or whatever she did. Instead, she grabbed a sparkling water from the fridge and a protein bar from the pantry before heading upstairs.
Carly did a dead stop at the threshold of her room, blood pounding in her ears at the sight of the neatly folded sweatshirt, the spatters of blood still visible, the X-ACTO knife on top, the blood of that Saturday long since crusted over.
“Where were you that Saturday?”
Carly gasped at the sound of her mother’s voice behind her before she whirled around to face her. “Mom, I—”
“I just want the truth.”
Tears flooded her eyes. “Mom, please. Please don’t make me.”
“Carly, I promise, whatever it is, we’ll figure it out together.”
She shook her head. “It’s too much, it’s—I can’t.”
“Did you see Whitney that day?”
Carly shuddered. She had to come clean. She had to stop pushing her feelings of guilt and shame deep down inside her. She gulped and nodded. “Yeah. I saw Whitney that day.”
“What happened?”
“She said some really horrible things to me.”
Her mom was silent. Waiting.
“She said I was erased, over, that she was going to ruin me at school, get me kicked off pom.” Tears pushed out of Carly’s eyes. “I thought my life was over, so I … I was going to kill myself.”
Her mom’s façade cracked as she shook her head slightly. “Oh, Carly.”
“I bought an X-ACTO knife and I went down to the lake because I’d read that if you drown yourself after you do it, like in a bathtub, it goes faster.” She shook her head. “Jimmy called me that night about something stupid and if he hadn’t … I had a bandage around my wrist for a whole week and nobody even noticed.”
For several minutes, her mom didn’t say anything. Just stood there, the quiver of her bottom lip the only movement on her face. The silence was deafening. Her mom hated her. She knew it. In that moment, Carly knew her mom would never love her the same.
“I’ve failed you, Carly,” she finally said, her voice hitching as a single tear slid from one eye, followed by another and another. “I never knew how much until right now.”
“Mom—”
“I’m going to take a leave of absence and we’re going to therapy.”
“You don’t have—”
Her mom held up her hand. “No more traveling. No more late nights, no more early meetings. No more insanity.”
“But, Mom, you love your job. Like, love.”
“And I’ve let you think I love it more than you.”
Without a word, her mom grabbed her, pulling her into a hug as they both cried.
90
DETECTIVE MAGGIE DIEHL
Admittedly, when Ava Ewing marched into the station a month ago floating a ridiculous assertion that Erica Mitchell, wife of the richest man in town, had murdered Whitney Dean, Maggie’s first inclination was to laugh. The childish fit of giggles had simmered in her cheeks, danced on her lips, quivered in her bones. She managed to keep her composure and the semblance of a professional demeanor throughout the woman’s calm and careful explanation as to how she’d arrived at this crackpot theory. It was ludicrous. Beyond ludicrous. The work of a true crime enthusiast/wannabe amateur detective, which, God knows, anyone with an Internet connection thought they were these days, proffering an absurd notion about a grown woman murdering a teenager over some tweets.
Tweets.
Until Ava Ewing played her trump card.
Maggie couldn’t believe what she was seeing, but it didn’t matter. She was off to the races.
As she’d pored over the material Ava Ewing had provided, spreading everything across an interrogation room table—scribbled notes, timelines, photocopies, reams of computer printouts—it was more than enough to hold up a giant magnifying glass to the anonymous Erica Dane and the clean slate of her past. She was highly impressed with the depth and breadth of the information Ava Ewing had provided, rivaling any investigation Maggie had seen. She had called Houston PD, getting a Commander Murphy on the phone, the original investigator on the Shannon Kendall case, just days away from retirement, but more than happy to rhapsodize about Ruthie Stowers and arrange to get her the case file, which had proved to be fascinating reading.
The tangled origins of Erica Dane had proven the most laborious. She’d first stolen the birth certificate—a time-honored scam of ex-, current, and future cons—of an Emily Kason, who’d died in childbirth in 1954 Louisiana. From there, she obtained a state ID card from Florida, where she stole yet another birth certificate—three-year-old Melinda Stokes, who’d died in a fiery car crash with her family in 1965. Another ID card, this time from Massachusetts under the name Violet Ford. She was even issued a social security number. Finally, in a Chicago courtroom, some three months after she’d walked out of Huntsville Prison, Violet Ford legally changed her name to Erica Dane. Four different stolen identities. Maggie couldn’t fathom how in the pre-Internet age, Ruthie Stowers had managed to successfully navigate this quagmire of identity theft without raising one hackle of suspicion. Of course, she’d been in prison for ten years, so someone on the inside had probably left a hearty trail of breadcrumbs for her.
As if Ava Ewing’s trump card wasn’t enough, a minor detail, mentioned in passing by Jordan, woke Maggie up in the middle of the night, yet something else to kick herself over for not picking up on it at the time: Erica Mitchell was in possession of her daughter’s phone the Saturday of the murder. And unlike Whitney Dean’s carrier, the Mitchell’s carrier archived text messages for over a year.
And what a story those text messages told.
If that jackpot wasn’t enough to get Maggie humming, Erica Mitchell’s financials revealed she had traded in her less than a year-old car the Monday after the murder. The dealer had already sold it and they had to impound it from the new owner. Unfortunately, the car had been thoroughly detailed, leaving behind almost no forensic evidence.
Almost.
Her partner, Lucy Prentiss, stood over the glass partition of her cubicle.
“Room’s ready.”
Maggie nodded. It was time to make the phone call.
91
AVA
Ava stood in front of the colorful boxes of sparkling water, her vision blurring at the choices of cherry, cranberry, grapefruit, passion fruit, and even some combinations her pea brain could not conceive of. Kyle had been on a sparkling water kick the last few months, sucking through a twelve pack a day. She couldn’t seem to buy it fast enough.
They’d started family therapy and the revelations at just how low an ebb Carly’s self-esteem hovered around was sobering. Coupled with how much harder it was to detox from her job than Ava had anticipated and the wait for something to happen since her march into the police station armed with her evidence, left Ava more drained at the end of each day than a month of red-eye flights.
She was sure that after she laid out her case to the detective that it would be a matter of hours—days at the most—before Erica was walked out of her house in handcuffs. She’d ignored the look of skepticism smeared across the detective’s face as she’d plowed through her evidence with aplomb.
That is, until Ava had dropped her bomb. It, as her grandmother would have said, made the cheese a little more binding.
And yet still, she waited. She kept her eyes pinned to the ceiling each night as she waited. She still had copies of everything and had contemplated anonymously sending just enough of what she had to the media and let them put the pressure on the police. Something would need to move the needle and if Detective Diehl wouldn’t, Ava’s finger was twitching to do the honors.
“Well, hello, Ava.”
She jumped at the shrill bell of Erica’s voice, blinking rapidly as she forced herself to turn around to face the woman bearing down on her with a grocery cart.
“Erica. Hi.” Ava croaked.
“It certainly has been a while, hasn’t it?” she asked, leaning over to give her a hug, having no idea how startled Ava was by the affectionate move. “I was starting to think you’d moved away and didn’t tell me.”
Ava chuckled uncomfortably. “I’m so sorry I disappeared. We’ve just had a lot going on at home lately.”
“We never did get the second round of drinks we talked about.” A shadow passed across Erica’s face. “Of course, we’ve had our hands full.”
“Carly told me about Jordan transferring schools.”
Erica scoffed. “We sent her to a boarding school in Connecticut. Thanks to Lauren and her nonsense, that stupid interview. The principal actually had the nerve to say Jordan was ‘distracting.’ Can you believe that? A distraction.”
