Snow Creek(64)

I return to my seat. “Two weeks before the boating accident.”

Sheriff speaks up. “That’s not our case.”

“Right,” I say. “I know they are related.”

“She’s right,” Marley confirms.

“This text.” I run a yellow highlighter through the words on the printout in front of me.

Dad got Mom more meds. Maybe that will fix things.





“That’s a week before the accident. Troy Whitcomb got new meds. How? Clallam told me that she was only on Paxil and Ambien. They couldn’t account for the Oxy. Troy had a bad shoulder from golf. He had Oxy, but he barely used any.”

I’m flipping through the date sequences. Marley makes a face yet gives me what I need—room right then.

“And here,” I say, tapping my marker against the paper. “This one is two days before the accident.”

My dad wishes she’d just die. I told him that wishing for something is stupid. I told him to divorce her. He said that he’d lose half of what we have, and I’d have to live with her. Fuck that.





“She killed her own mother?” Sheriff says.

I shake my head and look at Marley.

“No,” I say, “her father did.”

“I can see that, I guess. But…”

“Right, not our case.”

Marley isn’t annoyed. He actually seems to be enjoying the exchange between me and Sheriff as we untangle what happened to Tyra’s mom and what happened to Ellie’s parents. It wasn’t as I’d thought. Tyra hadn’t hooked her friend into a let’s get rid of our parents’ murder scheme, after all.

“It inspired Ellie,” I say.

Marley runs his fingers through that amazing hair of his and nods.

“Let’s break down Ellie’s communication first with Tyra, then Josh,” he says, closing the Tyra folder and opening one named Ellie.

“Tyra wrote thousands of texts to all sorts of people, mostly during the period before her mother died, including to Ellie; Ellie, on the other hand, had only two main points of contact—Tyra and Josh. Ninety percent of Ellie’s communication with Tyra was in answer to a text from Tyra. In fact, many of her texts directly to Tyra were unanswered or only responded to with an emoji.”

“The lazy way to respond to someone,” I say, looking over at Sheriff who sends a thumbs up or a smiley face to most of what I text to him.

“Right,” Marley says, “but also passive. You see, Ellie was actually the alpha here. It was Ellie who encouraged Tyra, supported her. I expect a psychologist looking into their relationship would see what was really going on.”

Sheriff looks up from his papers, lowers his eyeglasses. “I don’t get it. Tyra was hating her mother all on her own.”

“Okay,” Marley says. “Look here, at this exchange, where Ellie’s replies are all emojis.”

I wish my mom would die.

:)

She treats me like crap.

>:(

I wish she would just die.

Happy Dance.





“Throughout all this time, Ellie was encouraging her,” I say. “Feeding Tyra what she needed to hear. I suspect she was living in her own fantasy world of wanting to see how far someone could go. How far with a gentle and persistent nudge?”

“Okay, but what does it have to do with our case?” Sheriff asks.

“Turn to page 245,” Marley says.

“Already there,” I answer.

“First,” he goes on, “the highlight reel.” He opens the folder marked Joshua. “This one has photos too. Let’s start with the timeline. Joshua and Ellie meet online two months before the murder of her parents, overlapping what happened to Tyra’s mom.”

“How did they meet?” Sheriff asks.

I take this one. “On a social media site for kids whose parents don’t understand them.”

He rolls his eyes. “What? Does it have 100 million members?”

“Make that 2.5 million,” Marley says.

“I thought he was forbidden to be online. Her too.”

“You don’t have teenagers, Sheriff,” Marley replies. “Kids find a way.”

“So they connect on the site and start talking,” I go on. “His parents are too controlling. His dad is a religious freak. Her dad is the same. Her mom is clueless. And so forth. Innocuous at first as they try to one-up each other on how bad their dads and moms are. Then the relationship started to move to a romantic vibe.”

Ellie: I feel so lonely. So trapped.

Josh: Hate that you feel that way.

Ellie: Wish I could be with you.

Josh: Rents won’t let me date until I’m 21.

Ellie: Oh God. Mine are the same way!





“She makes a mention of Tyra’s mother’s purported accident a couple days after the incident,” I note, pointing out the text.

Ellie: Sorry so quiet. BF’s mom drowned.

Josh: Wow. That’s terrible.

Ellie: I don’t know.

Josh: What?

Ellie: You’ll think bad of me.

Josh: Never.

Ellie: She was a very cruel woman. I’m not sorry. My friend is better off.