The Lies I Told(30)
The need to leave suburbia bordered on desperation, and I didn’t take a full, real breath until I reached the interstate. As the lights of the city grew closer, my thoughts turned to Richards. Talking about him had stirred too many unanswered questions, which I knew wouldn’t be satisfied by our one conversation or tonight’s with Brit.
My phone dinged with a text from Paul Jones as I pulled into my parking lot.
Paul: Looking forward to seeing pictures.
Me: I’ll have them soon.
Paul: Spreading the good word about your work.
Me: Thank you.
Paul: You’re on my radar. Let’s get a drink sometime.
Me: Sure.
I didn’t drink, and I didn’t date clients, but age had taught me to be more diplomatic. I moved quickly to my front door. Inside, I climbed the stairs, and as I approached my door, I saw a plain manila envelope leaning against it. I picked it up, judged the weight (hefty), and opened my door. Inside, I flipped on the lights, dropped my keys, food container, and bag on the table.
I unfastened the clip on the envelope and pulled out a stack of papers. The first few sheets were my accident report. The pages behind them were not on official forms but handwritten on notebook paper. The date in the top right corner was January 4, 2009. It was the date Richards had opened his investigation into Clare’s death.
Shrugging off my jacket, I let it slide off and fall to the floor. Heart beating, I read the first page written in Richards’s handwriting:
Sixteen-year-old female. Strangled. Naked. No apparent signs of sexual assault. Found in James River near the Huguenot Bridge.
The past reached out and, in one swipe, hit me hard across the face, forcing me to step back and draw in a breath. Tears welled in my eyes, and I squeezed my lids closed as I struggled to pull in a breath.
I turned from the file, realizing that Richards had done me no favors giving me the notes that he’d taken while investigating Clare’s death.
But I wasn’t looking for kindness or warm fuzzies. I wanted facts, no matter how brutal.
17
RICHARDS
THEN
Friday, January 4, 2009
9:00 a.m.
Frank Stockton is a big man. Wide shoulders, large hands, a high-top haircut that looked twenty years out of date. He knows his height is an advantage, and he’s not afraid to use it. We’ve met before, and when he looked at me, he remembered.
Beside him stood a daughter in her late teens. That had to be Brit. She was dressed in jeans and an ironed shirt. Her hair was washed, and she was wearing makeup. She was tall and had the bearing of a person who liked to be in control.
However, my gaze settled on the second daughter, the younger one. Her thick red hair was braided, the blended strands dangling over her shoulder like rope. Her face was pale, and her hands trembled slightly. She wasn’t anywhere close to pulled together like her sibling.
Staring at the younger sister was unnerving because I’d spent the early morning staring into the dead version of that face. Lifeless, cloudy eyes and skin partly blackened and loosened by the water. I’d known Clare had an older sister and a twin, but I wasn’t really prepared for this mirror image.
“This is my older daughter, Brit, and my second youngest, Marisa.” Frank Stockton’s face was drawn, but a tan gave him a healthy glow that a distraught father shouldn’t have.
I kept staring at Marisa, trying to shake the idea that the dead had risen and followed me here. This was a career first. I cleared my throat. I wanted to lead with questions that I already knew the answers to. They’d show me the person’s demeanor when they told the truth. Later I’d have a benchmark when the lies began. “How many daughters do you have?”
“Three,” Frank said. “Like I said, Brit is my oldest and then the twins, Marisa and Clare.”
“And your wife?” I knew the answer. I’d assisted on her death investigation four years ago, though I doubted the girls remembered.
Under Marisa’s brutal honesty was sadness, pain. “Have you found Clare?” she pressed, cutting off my next question to her father. Lack of sleep and crying had stripped her voice raw.
A muscle pulsed in my jaw. Her pain aside, she wasn’t running this show. I was. “You and your sister are identical?”
“Yes.” She clearly considered the situation grave enough not to punctuate with a teenager’s eye roll or sigh.
“When is the last time you saw Clare?” I asked.
“On New Year’s Eve. About seven o’clock.”
Four days ago, I’d put a clean pad in my folio case, sensing this investigation would require a lot of notes. “Where did you see her?”
“Here at home,” she said.
“Where were you the night she went missing?” I asked.
“I was driving,” she said, glancing toward her father. “Sometimes I like to just drive. I was supposed to meet her at the party but lost track of time.”
I raised a brow. “Just driving?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“To clear my head. To settle my nerves.”
“Why were your nerves rattled?” I asked.
“It’s been that way since Mom died.”
Marisa was lying. She might still be reeling from her mother’s death, but there was more to be told. I couldn’t prove it, but after two decades on the job, I could smell lies and half truths. I also suspected that Marisa was stubborn enough to stick to her story no matter what. The best liars do.