Sunset Beach(92)

43


The woman, Drue concluded, must be a night owl. At 2:15 A.M. she’d responded to Drue’s message: I’d be happy to talk to you about Colleen. I’m free anytime before noon. It’s a retirement community on the south side. She attached the street address.

Still sleepless, Drue checked her phone at seven-fifteen Friday morning and found Vera’s response. She typed in her own response immediately. If Vera Rennick agreed, she would visit her today. It would make her late to work, but, she reflected, with Wendy out of the office, there would be no hateful yellow SEE ME notes stuck to her desk when she finally did make it in to work.

I can be there by 9, if that’s all right.

Vera’s answer came almost immediately. See you then.

Drue called Rae Hernandez on the way to meet Vera Rennick. “Call me please, Rae. I have new information about Jazmin Hicks, and it’s important that we talk.”



* * *



Vera Rennick lived in a tidy buff-colored stucco bungalow in the sprawling Sunny Shores retirement community in the Bahama Shores neighborhood on the city’s south side.

Before Drue could ring the bell, the door opened. The woman who answered the door wore a floor-length black and white floral caftan. She was stoop-shouldered, peering up at her visitor past a fringe of silver bangs, through thick-lensed glasses.

“Drue? How nice to meet you.”

She showed Drue into the living room, which, though modestly furnished, boasted a stunning waterfront view.

“Sit here,” Vera urged, pointing at an avocado velvet club chair. “It’s the best view of Little Bayou.” She pointed toward the galley kitchen, visible through the half-wall that separated it from the living room. “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee, maybe?”

“No, thank you,” Drue said politely.

Her hostess sat in a worn brown vinyl recliner set between two banks of four-drawer metal filing cabinets. “My research,” she said, patting the top of one of the cabinets as though it were a beloved dog.

“All of that?” Drue asked. “All about Colleen Hicks?”

“Most of it. Of course, all my data is also stored in my iCloud, but I guess I’m old-fashioned, because I like to keep hard copies of everything as backup.”

“That’s very impressive,” Drue said. “I had no idea there was that much information available about the Colleen Hicks case.”

“Some of my materials are actually about other, possibly related cold cases,” Vera said. “You know how it is these days. You do one computer search and pretty soon you fall down that internet rabbit hole and the next thing you know, six or eight hours have flown by. Other bloggers, people in the true-crime community, they share information with me. You’d be surprised how many unsolved cases there are involving missing or murdered women, just in the Southeast.”

“It looks like you’ve become somewhat of an authority on the topic,” Drue said. “And your blog is fascinating. I just discovered it last night. I only stopped reading it because I had to get up and go to work this morning.”

Vera leaned forward. “Your email said you discovered some old newspaper clippings in your mother’s things. But you didn’t mention your mother’s name. Did she have a connection to Colleen? What did you say her name was?”

Drue hesitated. She really didn’t want to divulge anything personal to this stranger. But on the other hand, she couldn’t expect to get if she didn’t give. Just a little.

“I don’t think my mother had a connection to Colleen,” she said. “Her maiden name was Sherri Sanchez. She grew up in Tampa, and moved to St. Pete after she married my father. Her parents owned a little house on Sunset Beach, and my parents lived there in the mid-seventies. I recently inherited the cottage, and that’s how I came across the folder full of newspaper clippings about the case. It was up in the attic.”

“Interesting,” Colleen said, tilting her head. Her skin was surprisingly smooth and unlined, and her eyes, behind pale blond lashes, were like a pair of large, blue marbles. “Any idea why your mom would have saved those articles?”

“No. But I do know my father went to high school with Colleen Hicks.”

“He went to Boca Ciega? What year? Was he in Colleen’s class?”

“Um, well, I think maybe he was a year older,” Drue said.

Vera propelled herself out of the recliner with a soft grunt. She went to a bookshelf beside the window, pulled out a large leatherette-covered volume and sat back down. “This is the Treasure Chest from 1968.”

“Excuse me?” Drue asked.

“Her yearbook. This is Colleen’s. From her junior year.”

“Really? How do you happen to have that?” Drue asked.

“A fan sold it to me,” Vera said, her eyes glittering with excitement. “He bought it from a local antique dealer, who bought it along with a box of books at a yard sale after Colleen’s parents died, back in early 1980.”

She opened the yearbook and began flipping through pages of black-and-white photographs. “What’s your father’s name, Drue? Is he still living?”

“He’s very much alive. His name is Brice Campbell.”

Vera looked up sharply. “The lawyer? The man on all the billboards and bus benches?”