All Good People Here(88)

According to Jodie’s searches, just like Polly and Natalie, most of the little girls had been reported missing, then found a few days later, dead. All of them had died by strangulation or blunt force trauma to the head. All had signs of sexual abuse.

Some of the Google searches, however, didn’t produce unsettling news stories and heartbreaking obituaries, but rather regular results for regular, alive girls. Leah Henderson, originally from Wisconsin, was currently a sophomore at a local community college. Becca Walsh, from South Dakota, was in her high school’s marching band. Apparently, Wallace hadn’t succeeded with every girl.

By the time they made it to the second-to-last box, they’d discovered that seven of the fourteen boxes belonged to girls who’d been murdered. The rest had survived.

Margot reached down to grab the box labeled Lucy, but that wasn’t the one she was interested in. She wanted to see the name on the one underneath it—even though she already knew what it was going to say.

Sure enough, when she removed Lucy’s box, the name January was staring back at her. As Margot gazed down at the name of the girl from across the street, the girl who’d once upon a time been her closest friend, the girl she now knew had been her cousin, she realized her cheeks were wet. After all these years of wondering, of obsessing, of searching the face of every man she passed, finally she’d found the one she’d been looking for. And finally, she had the evidence to prove what he’d done.





THIRTY-THREE


    Margot, 2019


Margot woke the next morning to the sound of her phone ringing. She flipped over on the futon and reached a hand to the little side table, patting around blindly. When her fingers landed on the cool plastic of her phone case, she grabbed it and squinted one eye at the screen. It was Adrienne.

Margot tried to sound awake when she answered, but her exhaustion must have been obvious, because her ex-boss’s first words were, “Oh, sorry. Did I wake you?”

“No.” She cleared her throat. “Just tired.”

There was a smile in Adrienne’s voice as she said, “I bet.”

The previous night, after Margot and Jodie had documented the entirety of Elliott Wallace’s perverse collection, they snuck out of the unit, climbed back over the fence, and headed to Wakarusa. As Jodie drove, Margot looked up the number for the Indiana State Police’s line for anonymous tips and told them everything—the location of the storage facility in Waterford Mills, Wallace’s unit number, and the incriminating evidence they’d found inside.

Jodie dropped her off at Luke’s, and Margot spent the rest of the early morning writing an exposé on Elliott Wallace, connecting him to eight girls across the Midwest who’d been kidnapped and killed within the span of twenty-five years. At around six that morning, Margot sent her draft off to Adrienne then collapsed into bed.

“When I finished your story,” Adrienne said, “I looked Wallace up. I’m sure you already know, but the police just made an arrest.”

“Oh. I didn’t actually. That’s good.”

A warm feeling of rightness spread through Margot at the news. She knew the evidence from his storage unit would be enough for any prosecutor anywhere to confidently put Wallace in front of a jury. It would take time, but he would go to jail for what he’d done, and every little girl across the Midwest would be just a little bit safer.

“And your article,” Adrienne continued. “I mean, Margot, I know you must know, but it’s fantastic.” There was an apologetic undertone to Adrienne’s voice that showed she realized the awkwardness of the situation. Here she’d fired Margot only days earlier for trying to pursue this very story, and now she clearly wanted to run it.

“Thanks.”

“Really. Your work here is—well, it’s the best I’ve ever seen from you. You systematically convince the reader of Wallace’s guilt, without ever actually saying the words. And the structure, the way you start with Natalie Clark, work your way back and open it up to the rest of the girls, then end with that speculation about January. It’s—it’s just really great reporting.”

“Thanks.”

Adrienne hesitated. “Right. Well, I suppose this is the moment when I apologize.”

“It would be nice,” Margot said, but her voice was teasing. She was still upset about being fired, of course, but over the past few days since, she’d come to realize that perhaps Adrienne had kept her around longer than she’d actually deserved. And Margot had to admit, if she hadn’t been fired, she wouldn’t have had time to investigate January’s story. She wouldn’t have found Wallace.

“Well, I am sorry,” Adrienne said. “Really. You’re a great reporter and I wish I’d fought harder for you. But lucky for me, you fought hard for yourself. I’m assuming that’s why you sent your piece to me and not some other paper? Because you want us to run it?”

“And I want my old job back.”

The idea had been percolating in the back of Margot’s mind throughout the four hours it had taken to write her article. Despite her ego being bruised, she believed IndyNow was the best publication for the story. Wallace was from Indianapolis and IndyNow was the biggest, most respected paper in the city, probably the best across the state. And while she’d fantasized about taking her story and her résumé to somewhere like the Times, she realized that she wanted to stay in Wakarusa with her uncle, wanted to work at a paper that served her community. Plus, recent events excluded, she liked working with Adrienne. She was a good editor. She made Margot better.