What If..., page 6
“We always get the answers.” She stared at him, hating that this might be heading down the psychic pathways again. But this was something she’d never seen before.
Stefan whispered in her head, Neither have I. Then he was gone.
“It just doesn’t always happen the way we want it to.” Abby shook her head.
“Isn’t that the truth,” Harvey muttered. “You know they’ll expect something out of you.”
“Of course they will.” Abby’s stomach sank. “Too bad I have no answers.”
“Woo-woo strikes again.” Harvey grinned.
“Which doesn’t help at all,” she snapped. “I’d rather be sitting here, staring down the barrel of something completely different.”
“Let’s hope we do soon.”
She nodded. “Any word on the aunt?”
“Nothing,” he replied. “I took another look at her brownstone, but I found absolutely no sign of an attack. No sign she had a visitor. Nothing.”
She nodded. “It looks like she packed up and left.”
“And, under the circumstances,” he added, “that’s suspicious as hell.”
“Yeah, but in which way?” she asked, staring at him. “Do you really see her killing two students in the middle of her class? Because, if that’s the case, why those two? Why in front of everyone?” She paused. “Did we ever get those letters the dean was supposed to send?”
“No, he said it would take some time to gather them.”
“Are there that many?” she asked.
“If felt more like a brush-off to me. He didn’t even want to agree to give them to me in the first place.”
She looked at him in surprise. “Why not?”
“I guess she’s had a colorful life.”
At that, she frowned. “How colorful?”
“We’re about to find out. But the dean didn’t seem to think that this was knowledge that should be made public.”
“I don’t have any intention of making it public. But, if somebody had anything to do with our dead students, we need to know, and we need to know now.”
*
By the end of the day, Leon was more than worried about Gertie. Her voicemail was now full, and he could no longer leave messages. He found no sign anybody had shown up in her office all day, and, according to the dean, she hadn’t called in to reschedule classes. Leon was on his way to her house yet again, hoping to find something. To think of her just disappearing like that wasn’t totally out of character, but it was scary as hell, especially when in conjunction with the two deaths in her classroom. It was a connection that nobody would overlook.
He took her front steps two at a time and knocked hard, then quickly unlocked it. Stepping over the threshold, he met a gloomy silence inside, and he swore. He took his time and searched through all of the lower part of the house, but everything was the same. Her last cup used—he couldn’t even remember when he’d seen a soaking dish before—sat full of water in the sink. But none of her many other dishes were out of place. He opened the dishwasher to find it empty, but then he’d brought her home in the evening, when she hadn’t even cooked. If she’d been home all day, she would have put the dishes away in the morning and never would have been home again to have filled it.
Hating the way his thoughts were going, he searched all through the house, even checking in the space where the utilities were and then headed to the bedrooms. Two bedrooms and two bathrooms were upstairs. He did a thorough search but found absolutely nothing, neither any indication that his aunt had slept in her bed. That was a problem with Gertrude being as neat and as tidy as she was because her bed was perfectly made, as if she hadn’t slept in it, but he also knew it would be perfectly made even if she had slept in it because she always got up and made it just like this again. He also found no sign of her monster purse she packed everywhere.
“Gertie, where are you?” he murmured. He tried to think about who else she might have contacted over this traumatic event. He finally came up with one friend Gertie might have reached out to. It took a moment to find the number. He quickly dialed, and, when a woman’s voice answered, he identified himself. “I’m looking for my aunt. Have you seen her?”
“No,” she replied. “I told her to come here and to spend a few days, but she declined, saying she was fine.”
“So, she’s not there with you?” he asked, his heart sinking.
“No.” Then she stopped and asked, “Can’t you find her?”
“No, not at all.”
“Oh my, where would she have gone?”
“Well, that’s what we don’t know,” he murmured. “And I really, really, really wish I could find that out.”
“Of course. I’d hoped she’d come here.”
“Any idea where she would have gone?”
She cried out, “No, none. It’s not like her to leave at all.”
“I know it’s hard enough to get her to leave her house but to leave the university too? That’s very unusual.”
“And very suspicious,” she suggested. “I wouldn’t just say unusual. This is scary. What could have happened to her?”
“I know she was pretty upset.” He added, “I mean, after all, two women in her class died.”
“Yes, she called and told me about that.”
“Did she say anything else in that phone call? Because it sounds like you may well have been the last one to talk to her, before she did whatever she was planning on doing.”
“No, she didn’t say anything. And now you’ve got me really wondering what could possibly have happened.”
“Okay, I’m still holding out hope that she’s disappeared somewhere for a couple days to get her head on straight. The cops were asking her a lot of questions, and she was struggling to answer some of them, and I know that’s been a real problem.”
“Well, you know that her memory has really gotten a lot worse.”
“I know,” he noted quietly. “I’m glad she told you about it.”
“Well, she didn’t originally,” she said. “Only after I started bugging her did she came clean about her condition and how it had worsened.”
“Yes, and I know that she’s really bothered by it. I mean, anybody who has spent their life in academia, with their intellect such a big part of their identity, to know they are getting Alzheimer’s and will slowly lose everything has got to be awful.”
“Well, I can’t imagine.”
“I know,” he agreed, “and that’s one of the reasons why I’m wondering if she just took off for a bit.”
“You don’t think that maybe she’s gotten lost somewhere, do you? I’ve heard of spontaneous cases of rapid-onset Alzheimer’s.”
“I haven’t,” he noted, with surprise.
“It’s usually due to trauma or stress.”
He winced at that. “Great. So, this definitely qualifies. If you do hear from her, could you please contact me? I’m really worried.”
“Oh, I am too. I’ll definitely call you if I hear anything.” And she disconnected their call.
Leon had to be happy with that. He took one last look around Gertie’s place and then, into the silence of the night, called out, “Gertie, where are you?”
And, of course, with no answer, he slowly let himself out of his aunt’s brownstone and headed back to his car.
Chapter 5
Abby walked into the station the next morning and headed into her office. Her mind buzzed with possibilities because, so far, there was absolutely nothing. The most interesting thing they had learned was that Gertrude had disappeared. There’d been no sign of her, and she hadn’t returned to her home since she’d been brought home the night of the murders.
After dropping off her notepad and purse, Abby walked to the water cooler area and put on a pot of coffee. It was early; she was the first one here. And then, taking a stack of the files for each of the students researched from Gertie’s class, Abby sat down and opened up a notepad. She was most interested in the two dead students at the moment. It was easy to say they led a blameless life.
One was twenty-seven; one was almost twenty-six, both blonde. She studied their files in amazement because Harvey had gathered a lot of similarities. Both had boob implants; both had nose jobs done, and both had Botox to enhance their lips. She stared at the images of them. “Not only do you two look alike,” she noted, “but it seems that you’ve gone to great lengths to make sure of it.”
And what was the appeal of that? They weren’t sisters, according to their last names, although Abby would have to get DNA results to make sure, but she had no good reason to go down that pathway.
Were they just best friends who were getting sucked into an Oh wait. You did it. I should do it too scenario? Abby needed to contact both of the families again, now that they’d had another day to settle down. She needed to see if they had thought of or discovered anything helpful.
They’d been interviewed right at the beginning, but, of course, nobody ever had answers right off the bat. Everybody’s too shocked. And you can ask all the questions you want that first time, but it never really does any good. She picked up the phone to call the mother of Samantha, one of the two dead women. When Abby identified herself, the woman started crying again. “I’m so sorry,” Abby explained, “but I really need to ask you some more questions.”
“I don’t have any answers. I just want Sammie back,” she wailed. “Besides, I don’t like talking on the phone.”
“I can be at your place in a couple minutes.”
The woman hesitated, then Abby added, “Please. We’re doing our best to find out what happened to your daughter.”
She groaned. “Fine. My husband’s gone to work, though I don’t know how he can even think about working with all this,” she spat into the phone.
Hearing the note of despair and anger in her voice, Abby winced. “I’ll be right there.”
She ignored the fresh pot of coffee, knowing that the rest of the team would come in and immediately take advantage of it. She hopped up, grabbed her purse, and headed out. She was even in before Harvey today, and she wasn’t worried about waiting for him either; she just needed to get some answers. She had to get something up on a whiteboard that would make sense. So far, nothing did.
As she drove to the house, she arrived to find the woman standing on the porch. Abby quickly parked and exited her vehicle, heading toward Sammie’s mom.
Hesitating, the woman then stepped back. “Come in.”
Abby stepped inside, smiled at her. “Thank you for seeing me. I’m sorry to be calling so early.”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I have no purpose anymore. Sammie was my everything.”
“Was Sammie an only child?”
“No,” she said, then “Yes.” right after that.
Abby looked at her and asked, “Which is it?”
“We’re part of a blended family,” she explained. “Sammie was mine, and my husband has two daughters.”
“Got it.” Abby nodded. “That explains the comment.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s a blended family or not,” she murmured.
Abby nodded in agreement. “Understood. What about her friends? Did she have a regular group of them?”
“What about them?” she asked. “She had so many girlfriends.”
“But she had a couple special ones, right?”
She nodded. “Sure, one in particular. That was Aimee. The other victim.”
But she spoke of Aimee with a less-than-friendly tone. “And did you have a problem with that victim? With Aimee?”
“Only that I didn’t approve of her,” she replied. “If anyone did something to get the two of them killed, it would be Aimee.”
“Why is that?”
“She was never happy about anything. She always wanted more. Something different. She was one of those who was always fixing her body,” she snapped. “It was surgery for this, surgery for that. And she got my Sammie into it as well. Before we knew it, Sammie was so busy doing all these surgeries that she didn’t even look like herself anymore.”
“You think that was because of Aimee?”
“I know it was.” She shrugged. “Sammie told me that Aimee was the one showing her how to become a better person.”
“A better person or a prettier person?”
“My daughter was beautiful,” she said, her tone harsh.
“Absolutely,” Abby backtracked quickly. “I’m not disputing that. I’m just trying to figure out what her mental state was in regard to her friend.”
“Her friend was a mess,” she snapped. “She didn’t have the same happy home life that Sammie did.”
“So, why do you think that she was doing the surgeries?”
“Well, to make herself look prettier,” she said in surprise. “Isn’t that why they all do it?”
Walking carefully around this big minefield ahead of her, Abby said, “Yes, that’s what I’m asking. Do you think that’s also why Sammie did it?”
She glared at her. “My daughter was beautiful,” she repeated. “She didn’t need to do anything.”
“And I agree with you.” Yet Abby wasn’t giving an inch. “But I do need to understand why she was doing these kinds of surgeries.”
“Because of that bitch,” she snapped. “It was all about her.”
“Sammie was doing it because of Aimee?”
The woman stiffened. “Sammie loved Aimee, wanted to be like her. Sammie always thought Aimee was right about everything. Perfect in all ways. And if Aimee said jump, Sammie would jump. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Not exactly sure where she was going with this, Abby asked, “Do you agree with that?” She hesitated, and then when the mother wouldn’t talk anymore, Abby leaned forward and asked, “Did you agree to all the cosmetic surgeries?”
“My Sammie was beautiful. She didn’t need to do anything. But there was no talking to my daughter.” She bawled again, big noisy cries for a life lost.
“I’m sorry,” Abby said, “and I’m so sorry for your loss.”
As she escaped to her vehicle, Abby had to wonder about a relationship where the two dead women had bonded over cosmetic surgery. She doubted that was a first. And it was sad that their mind-set would be there, but Abby wasn’t terribly surprised by it. Young women often grow up with a poor body image, and, by the time they were adults, they could throw off whatever parental guidance and restrictions there had been and do whatever they wanted to do. And, in this case, obviously as adults, they had chosen to do things that these parents were not happy about.
Abby wondered if the stepfather even understood anything about the stepdaughter’s relationship with Aimee or if that was something that Sammie kept secret. Abby should have asked Sammie’s mom about that. Frowning, Abby thought about going back in, then realized it would have to wait until the next round. Was it that important? She didn’t know, unless they ended up suspecting that the stepfather might have had something to do with the murders.
But would he have killed his own stepdaughter? It certainly wasn’t out of the realm of possibility; they’d seen it happen time and time again for a multitude of reasons. It just depended on where the stepfather fit into this, if he fit into this at all. Frowning, she stood outside her car, as she thought about it, and turned to look back to see the mother standing on the porch, her hands crossed over her chest. There was something about her energy… Abby quickly walked back over. “Did your husband know about the relationship between Aimee and Sammie? About all the surgeries?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes.”
But something in her tone made Abby wonder. “How did he feel about it?”
The woman glared at her. “He had nothing to do with this.”
“I didn’t say he did,” she clarified in a mild tone, “but you’re not answering my question.”
“You’re just digging up sore spots,” she wailed. “We have enough of those.”
“Well, then you need to tell me the answer to that question, or I’ll have to go to your husband’s place of work and ask him directly.”
At that, the woman’s face paled. “Don’t do that. He only found out about Aimee’s strange influence over Sammie a few weeks ago. There’s been a lot of upset recently.”
“Interesting. And I gather he wasn’t happy?”
She shook her head. “No, he was furious. At me for allowing it and even more for hiding what she was doing from him,” she muttered, as she stared off in the distance. “And, like me, he blamed her friend Aimee.”
At that strong emphasis on the word friend, Abby clearly understood who was getting the blame for this. They were conveniently forgetting that, just as her daughter had been adult enough to sign up for cosmetic surgeries without parental permission, she’d also been old enough to choose the friends she wanted, without asking for parental permission.
Nodding at the woman, Abby got back into her vehicle and drove back to the station.
*
Leon wandered through the house yet again.
“Damn it, Aunt Gertrude, where are you?” he snapped. But there was no answer today, just as there hadn’t been any last night either. He didn’t know if he should be terrified that something had happened to her or angry that she’d taken off without a word, into the world of silence that she could handle much better than most people. If she would at least just let him know in some way that she was safe, it would be a whole different story. But, of course, she hadn’t. She was doing nothing to make anybody feel better about her actions, including her beloved university. And that was even more disturbing.
Leon knew the cops were worried that either she was involved and had taken off or wasn’t involved and had possibly become a victim herself. He couldn’t even look at it that way; yet, with the police training and experience he had, no way could he ignore it.
The trouble was, as he wandered through Gertie’s house, careful to not touch anything, he found no signs of violence. No signs she had been taken by force. No signs that she had been coerced to leave. He stared outside her bedroom window and down onto the small backyard.
The garage was at the back, connected to the house via one walkway, with a little bit of grass that his aunt had taken out and replaced with one of those fake grasses, so she didn’t have to look after it. She was never here anyway, according to her, so why have something she had to maintain? She hadn’t had a problem with it, but now he realized that it meant no tracks, no nothing. It didn’t matter if it rained or not; there wouldn’t be any tracks left behind. And that just made it harder to find out anything or to get any answers right now.
Stefan whispered in her head, Neither have I. Then he was gone.
“It just doesn’t always happen the way we want it to.” Abby shook her head.
“Isn’t that the truth,” Harvey muttered. “You know they’ll expect something out of you.”
“Of course they will.” Abby’s stomach sank. “Too bad I have no answers.”
“Woo-woo strikes again.” Harvey grinned.
“Which doesn’t help at all,” she snapped. “I’d rather be sitting here, staring down the barrel of something completely different.”
“Let’s hope we do soon.”
She nodded. “Any word on the aunt?”
“Nothing,” he replied. “I took another look at her brownstone, but I found absolutely no sign of an attack. No sign she had a visitor. Nothing.”
She nodded. “It looks like she packed up and left.”
“And, under the circumstances,” he added, “that’s suspicious as hell.”
“Yeah, but in which way?” she asked, staring at him. “Do you really see her killing two students in the middle of her class? Because, if that’s the case, why those two? Why in front of everyone?” She paused. “Did we ever get those letters the dean was supposed to send?”
“No, he said it would take some time to gather them.”
“Are there that many?” she asked.
“If felt more like a brush-off to me. He didn’t even want to agree to give them to me in the first place.”
She looked at him in surprise. “Why not?”
“I guess she’s had a colorful life.”
At that, she frowned. “How colorful?”
“We’re about to find out. But the dean didn’t seem to think that this was knowledge that should be made public.”
“I don’t have any intention of making it public. But, if somebody had anything to do with our dead students, we need to know, and we need to know now.”
*
By the end of the day, Leon was more than worried about Gertie. Her voicemail was now full, and he could no longer leave messages. He found no sign anybody had shown up in her office all day, and, according to the dean, she hadn’t called in to reschedule classes. Leon was on his way to her house yet again, hoping to find something. To think of her just disappearing like that wasn’t totally out of character, but it was scary as hell, especially when in conjunction with the two deaths in her classroom. It was a connection that nobody would overlook.
He took her front steps two at a time and knocked hard, then quickly unlocked it. Stepping over the threshold, he met a gloomy silence inside, and he swore. He took his time and searched through all of the lower part of the house, but everything was the same. Her last cup used—he couldn’t even remember when he’d seen a soaking dish before—sat full of water in the sink. But none of her many other dishes were out of place. He opened the dishwasher to find it empty, but then he’d brought her home in the evening, when she hadn’t even cooked. If she’d been home all day, she would have put the dishes away in the morning and never would have been home again to have filled it.
Hating the way his thoughts were going, he searched all through the house, even checking in the space where the utilities were and then headed to the bedrooms. Two bedrooms and two bathrooms were upstairs. He did a thorough search but found absolutely nothing, neither any indication that his aunt had slept in her bed. That was a problem with Gertrude being as neat and as tidy as she was because her bed was perfectly made, as if she hadn’t slept in it, but he also knew it would be perfectly made even if she had slept in it because she always got up and made it just like this again. He also found no sign of her monster purse she packed everywhere.
“Gertie, where are you?” he murmured. He tried to think about who else she might have contacted over this traumatic event. He finally came up with one friend Gertie might have reached out to. It took a moment to find the number. He quickly dialed, and, when a woman’s voice answered, he identified himself. “I’m looking for my aunt. Have you seen her?”
“No,” she replied. “I told her to come here and to spend a few days, but she declined, saying she was fine.”
“So, she’s not there with you?” he asked, his heart sinking.
“No.” Then she stopped and asked, “Can’t you find her?”
“No, not at all.”
“Oh my, where would she have gone?”
“Well, that’s what we don’t know,” he murmured. “And I really, really, really wish I could find that out.”
“Of course. I’d hoped she’d come here.”
“Any idea where she would have gone?”
She cried out, “No, none. It’s not like her to leave at all.”
“I know it’s hard enough to get her to leave her house but to leave the university too? That’s very unusual.”
“And very suspicious,” she suggested. “I wouldn’t just say unusual. This is scary. What could have happened to her?”
“I know she was pretty upset.” He added, “I mean, after all, two women in her class died.”
“Yes, she called and told me about that.”
“Did she say anything else in that phone call? Because it sounds like you may well have been the last one to talk to her, before she did whatever she was planning on doing.”
“No, she didn’t say anything. And now you’ve got me really wondering what could possibly have happened.”
“Okay, I’m still holding out hope that she’s disappeared somewhere for a couple days to get her head on straight. The cops were asking her a lot of questions, and she was struggling to answer some of them, and I know that’s been a real problem.”
“Well, you know that her memory has really gotten a lot worse.”
“I know,” he noted quietly. “I’m glad she told you about it.”
“Well, she didn’t originally,” she said. “Only after I started bugging her did she came clean about her condition and how it had worsened.”
“Yes, and I know that she’s really bothered by it. I mean, anybody who has spent their life in academia, with their intellect such a big part of their identity, to know they are getting Alzheimer’s and will slowly lose everything has got to be awful.”
“Well, I can’t imagine.”
“I know,” he agreed, “and that’s one of the reasons why I’m wondering if she just took off for a bit.”
“You don’t think that maybe she’s gotten lost somewhere, do you? I’ve heard of spontaneous cases of rapid-onset Alzheimer’s.”
“I haven’t,” he noted, with surprise.
“It’s usually due to trauma or stress.”
He winced at that. “Great. So, this definitely qualifies. If you do hear from her, could you please contact me? I’m really worried.”
“Oh, I am too. I’ll definitely call you if I hear anything.” And she disconnected their call.
Leon had to be happy with that. He took one last look around Gertie’s place and then, into the silence of the night, called out, “Gertie, where are you?”
And, of course, with no answer, he slowly let himself out of his aunt’s brownstone and headed back to his car.
Chapter 5
Abby walked into the station the next morning and headed into her office. Her mind buzzed with possibilities because, so far, there was absolutely nothing. The most interesting thing they had learned was that Gertrude had disappeared. There’d been no sign of her, and she hadn’t returned to her home since she’d been brought home the night of the murders.
After dropping off her notepad and purse, Abby walked to the water cooler area and put on a pot of coffee. It was early; she was the first one here. And then, taking a stack of the files for each of the students researched from Gertie’s class, Abby sat down and opened up a notepad. She was most interested in the two dead students at the moment. It was easy to say they led a blameless life.
One was twenty-seven; one was almost twenty-six, both blonde. She studied their files in amazement because Harvey had gathered a lot of similarities. Both had boob implants; both had nose jobs done, and both had Botox to enhance their lips. She stared at the images of them. “Not only do you two look alike,” she noted, “but it seems that you’ve gone to great lengths to make sure of it.”
And what was the appeal of that? They weren’t sisters, according to their last names, although Abby would have to get DNA results to make sure, but she had no good reason to go down that pathway.
Were they just best friends who were getting sucked into an Oh wait. You did it. I should do it too scenario? Abby needed to contact both of the families again, now that they’d had another day to settle down. She needed to see if they had thought of or discovered anything helpful.
They’d been interviewed right at the beginning, but, of course, nobody ever had answers right off the bat. Everybody’s too shocked. And you can ask all the questions you want that first time, but it never really does any good. She picked up the phone to call the mother of Samantha, one of the two dead women. When Abby identified herself, the woman started crying again. “I’m so sorry,” Abby explained, “but I really need to ask you some more questions.”
“I don’t have any answers. I just want Sammie back,” she wailed. “Besides, I don’t like talking on the phone.”
“I can be at your place in a couple minutes.”
The woman hesitated, then Abby added, “Please. We’re doing our best to find out what happened to your daughter.”
She groaned. “Fine. My husband’s gone to work, though I don’t know how he can even think about working with all this,” she spat into the phone.
Hearing the note of despair and anger in her voice, Abby winced. “I’ll be right there.”
She ignored the fresh pot of coffee, knowing that the rest of the team would come in and immediately take advantage of it. She hopped up, grabbed her purse, and headed out. She was even in before Harvey today, and she wasn’t worried about waiting for him either; she just needed to get some answers. She had to get something up on a whiteboard that would make sense. So far, nothing did.
As she drove to the house, she arrived to find the woman standing on the porch. Abby quickly parked and exited her vehicle, heading toward Sammie’s mom.
Hesitating, the woman then stepped back. “Come in.”
Abby stepped inside, smiled at her. “Thank you for seeing me. I’m sorry to be calling so early.”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I have no purpose anymore. Sammie was my everything.”
“Was Sammie an only child?”
“No,” she said, then “Yes.” right after that.
Abby looked at her and asked, “Which is it?”
“We’re part of a blended family,” she explained. “Sammie was mine, and my husband has two daughters.”
“Got it.” Abby nodded. “That explains the comment.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s a blended family or not,” she murmured.
Abby nodded in agreement. “Understood. What about her friends? Did she have a regular group of them?”
“What about them?” she asked. “She had so many girlfriends.”
“But she had a couple special ones, right?”
She nodded. “Sure, one in particular. That was Aimee. The other victim.”
But she spoke of Aimee with a less-than-friendly tone. “And did you have a problem with that victim? With Aimee?”
“Only that I didn’t approve of her,” she replied. “If anyone did something to get the two of them killed, it would be Aimee.”
“Why is that?”
“She was never happy about anything. She always wanted more. Something different. She was one of those who was always fixing her body,” she snapped. “It was surgery for this, surgery for that. And she got my Sammie into it as well. Before we knew it, Sammie was so busy doing all these surgeries that she didn’t even look like herself anymore.”
“You think that was because of Aimee?”
“I know it was.” She shrugged. “Sammie told me that Aimee was the one showing her how to become a better person.”
“A better person or a prettier person?”
“My daughter was beautiful,” she said, her tone harsh.
“Absolutely,” Abby backtracked quickly. “I’m not disputing that. I’m just trying to figure out what her mental state was in regard to her friend.”
“Her friend was a mess,” she snapped. “She didn’t have the same happy home life that Sammie did.”
“So, why do you think that she was doing the surgeries?”
“Well, to make herself look prettier,” she said in surprise. “Isn’t that why they all do it?”
Walking carefully around this big minefield ahead of her, Abby said, “Yes, that’s what I’m asking. Do you think that’s also why Sammie did it?”
She glared at her. “My daughter was beautiful,” she repeated. “She didn’t need to do anything.”
“And I agree with you.” Yet Abby wasn’t giving an inch. “But I do need to understand why she was doing these kinds of surgeries.”
“Because of that bitch,” she snapped. “It was all about her.”
“Sammie was doing it because of Aimee?”
The woman stiffened. “Sammie loved Aimee, wanted to be like her. Sammie always thought Aimee was right about everything. Perfect in all ways. And if Aimee said jump, Sammie would jump. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Not exactly sure where she was going with this, Abby asked, “Do you agree with that?” She hesitated, and then when the mother wouldn’t talk anymore, Abby leaned forward and asked, “Did you agree to all the cosmetic surgeries?”
“My Sammie was beautiful. She didn’t need to do anything. But there was no talking to my daughter.” She bawled again, big noisy cries for a life lost.
“I’m sorry,” Abby said, “and I’m so sorry for your loss.”
As she escaped to her vehicle, Abby had to wonder about a relationship where the two dead women had bonded over cosmetic surgery. She doubted that was a first. And it was sad that their mind-set would be there, but Abby wasn’t terribly surprised by it. Young women often grow up with a poor body image, and, by the time they were adults, they could throw off whatever parental guidance and restrictions there had been and do whatever they wanted to do. And, in this case, obviously as adults, they had chosen to do things that these parents were not happy about.
Abby wondered if the stepfather even understood anything about the stepdaughter’s relationship with Aimee or if that was something that Sammie kept secret. Abby should have asked Sammie’s mom about that. Frowning, Abby thought about going back in, then realized it would have to wait until the next round. Was it that important? She didn’t know, unless they ended up suspecting that the stepfather might have had something to do with the murders.
But would he have killed his own stepdaughter? It certainly wasn’t out of the realm of possibility; they’d seen it happen time and time again for a multitude of reasons. It just depended on where the stepfather fit into this, if he fit into this at all. Frowning, she stood outside her car, as she thought about it, and turned to look back to see the mother standing on the porch, her hands crossed over her chest. There was something about her energy… Abby quickly walked back over. “Did your husband know about the relationship between Aimee and Sammie? About all the surgeries?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes.”
But something in her tone made Abby wonder. “How did he feel about it?”
The woman glared at her. “He had nothing to do with this.”
“I didn’t say he did,” she clarified in a mild tone, “but you’re not answering my question.”
“You’re just digging up sore spots,” she wailed. “We have enough of those.”
“Well, then you need to tell me the answer to that question, or I’ll have to go to your husband’s place of work and ask him directly.”
At that, the woman’s face paled. “Don’t do that. He only found out about Aimee’s strange influence over Sammie a few weeks ago. There’s been a lot of upset recently.”
“Interesting. And I gather he wasn’t happy?”
She shook her head. “No, he was furious. At me for allowing it and even more for hiding what she was doing from him,” she muttered, as she stared off in the distance. “And, like me, he blamed her friend Aimee.”
At that strong emphasis on the word friend, Abby clearly understood who was getting the blame for this. They were conveniently forgetting that, just as her daughter had been adult enough to sign up for cosmetic surgeries without parental permission, she’d also been old enough to choose the friends she wanted, without asking for parental permission.
Nodding at the woman, Abby got back into her vehicle and drove back to the station.
*
Leon wandered through the house yet again.
“Damn it, Aunt Gertrude, where are you?” he snapped. But there was no answer today, just as there hadn’t been any last night either. He didn’t know if he should be terrified that something had happened to her or angry that she’d taken off without a word, into the world of silence that she could handle much better than most people. If she would at least just let him know in some way that she was safe, it would be a whole different story. But, of course, she hadn’t. She was doing nothing to make anybody feel better about her actions, including her beloved university. And that was even more disturbing.
Leon knew the cops were worried that either she was involved and had taken off or wasn’t involved and had possibly become a victim herself. He couldn’t even look at it that way; yet, with the police training and experience he had, no way could he ignore it.
The trouble was, as he wandered through Gertie’s house, careful to not touch anything, he found no signs of violence. No signs she had been taken by force. No signs that she had been coerced to leave. He stared outside her bedroom window and down onto the small backyard.
The garage was at the back, connected to the house via one walkway, with a little bit of grass that his aunt had taken out and replaced with one of those fake grasses, so she didn’t have to look after it. She was never here anyway, according to her, so why have something she had to maintain? She hadn’t had a problem with it, but now he realized that it meant no tracks, no nothing. It didn’t matter if it rained or not; there wouldn’t be any tracks left behind. And that just made it harder to find out anything or to get any answers right now.
