by Aimee Hix
Jan’s frown disappeared. “Of course you do.” She sounded incredulous.
“I can’t go back to Mandy’s bedroom but I can see Aja’s; get a feel for her space.”
Jan smiled and nodded. I felt an absurd amount of pleasure that she thought it was a good idea. I had problems with authority but I craved approval. I had a complicated psyche.
“Who’s Mandy?”
And just like that Jan’s smile disappeared. “She’s a girl who’s waited entirely too long for me to figure out what happened to her.”
It wasn’t just about closing an open case file. It was a personal failing to Jan. She was responsible to Mandy for a resolution. She was that kind of cop. We had that in common. Badge or no, I wouldn’t stop until I got to the bottom of the case.
“Just like you’re going to do for Damian, Detective Boyd?”
People really sucked, in general. As a group, you could count on them to do stupid, selfish, mean things. Individually, people were these amazing concoctions of deep generosity and bad ideas, staggering strength and breath-taking vulnerabilities, like every crayon in the box all melted into one pool where you could still see the separate colors.
“Exactly like she’s going to do for Damian, kid. He did terrible things but he didn’t deserve to die like he did. It’s literally the principle that gets her out of bed every morning. She won’t stop until she knows.”
Jan had turned away after she explained about Mandy. When she turned back, her eyes were dry but red. She nodded. “Mandy and Damian.”
Awesome. We were all girl-powered up with integrity and shit.
“Lead the way?” I motioned toward the basement stairs, but Aja led us upstairs. Okay, that was confusing. I was sure she slept in the basement. Had she told me that or had I just assumed it? I tried to think back and could not remember. I had been intent on listening to her story and then checking the house to make sure the little asshole—who’d been murdered, so I probably should stop thinking of him like that—hadn’t found himself a hidey-hole that he was waiting to pop out of and go all The Call is Coming From Inside the House.
“The basement?” I was getting a little nervy going back to the upper floors of the house. My being-watched feeling from the other day returned in force and even Jan being with us didn’t seem to cause it to abate.
Aja turned back while we wound our way up the curving staircase. “I crashed down there after the pillow thing. I figured it would be easier to get out from the basement. He’d never really been down there.”
Plus, the whole space was a giant exercise in optical illusion where Aja would have home court advantage. I had to give the basement’s all-black color scheme credit for, at least, being a good place for Aja to camouflage herself.
We’d reached the top of the stairs and went left down the narrow corridor between the open railing and the wall. I had gone down the hall on the other side of the opening of the staircase the last time. There was a door that I assumed had been a closet because it looked narrower than a regular room door, but that had been an optical illusion. Aja opened the door and entered but Jan hung back, leaving the doorway open for me to walk through.
“I thought I’d check out that loft space you mentioned. I haven’t had the chance you’ve had to see the house and the effects of Damian Murphy’s behavior here.”
I followed Aja into her room and marveled at how different her official bedroom was from the basement where she’d been staying. Whites and pastels dominated. Soft charcoal drawings of flowers covered the walls. Her bed, a massive carved white wood four-poster affair was a fluffy mass of downy bedding and pillows. She had one wall of built-in bookcases jammed full of books, stuffed animals, and snow globes. It was a dream room for many girls.
Aja, her arms wrapped around her body, twisted back and forth. She was uncomfortable here or she was uncomfortable with me being here.
“It’s pretty different from my room, huh?”
“A little,” she said softly.
“It’s really lovely. I’ll be honest, it’s not what I expected.” I walked over to the nearest drawing. The ragged edge made it obvious it had been ripped from a notebook. They all had. Her name was in the corner of all the ones I could see. The dates varied, but there was nothing from the current year.
“You’re really good, Aja. I’ve never been good at anything like you’re good at drawing.”
She sniffed and rubbed her sleeve under her nose. “You think I’m good?”
“Oh, kiddo, don’t you know? Can’t you see?” How could she not know? Her talent was literally on the wall for everyone to see. But who had been here to see? No one.
“I have an idea. Let’s take some of these down and take them home with us. I’ll bet my mom would love to see these.”
She nodded. “Okay, so what do you need me to do to help you figure out what happened to Mandy?”
God, she tugged at my heart. A few days of anyone paying attention to her and the hard shell had just dissolved. Good. And it hadn’t even taken that much. Just a few family dinners and some hardcore momming like only Nancy could mom. I couldn’t ignore the prospect that knowing her tormentor wasn’t ever going to bother her again helped a great deal. Looking at her room, I was starting to realize the transition to the black hair and heavy eye makeup had come at the same time as the transition from scrawny teen to bulked-up stalker was occurring in Damian. I knew why she had morphed from butterfly to emo girl. What had caused the change in Damian?
“Just talk to me about what you’d do in here? Drawing, I’d guess. Talking to friends? Doing your hair? Just regular Aja stuff.”
She began to walk around the room pulling down pictures that looked random to me but I could see the consideration in her face as she chose. Once she’d gathered the pages she wanted, she started pointing out her favorite things and why they were where they were. She pointed out how some items could be seen from the bed or the chair that sat under the window, perfect for reading. She talked about the books she’d saved from when she was child.
I interrupted her recitation of her favorite books to ask her if she’d like to bring some of them back with her. Her eyes got big.
“I should leave them here since I’m only going to be at your house for a little bit longer, right?”
“I don’t know if Mom is ready to let go of you just yet. She gets attached easily.”
Aja seemed to grow a little larger. “Okay. So I definitely need this one and this one.” She kept up a running narration as she stacked books in her arms. If I wasn’t careful it was going to be me who wouldn’t be able to let go of Aja when it came time. Gone was the hard girl with the go-to-hell attitude; in her place was an earnest child who drew flowers and had four copies of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, different editions that I was assured were all critical to her emotional well-being.
“Maybe we should get you another bag to bring this stuff back with us,” I said.
She set the books down on the chair and opened her closet. I walked over and peered in behind her. There hadn’t been any pictures of Mandy’s closet. Why? Because it hadn’t been part of the immediate crime scene? Clothes hung neatly, cute stuff that seemed more in style with the pastel room and flower pictures. I saw Aja run her hand down a few dresses. She was obviously longing to get back to who she’d been before. What was holding her back? Worry about bringing too much back with her? I decided then to make Ben take my truck to school the next day and subtly convince Aja to get whatever she wanted. She deserved to be herself. She hadn’t done anything wrong.
Being in her room with her helped me understand Aja better. It didn’t give me as much insight to Mandy as I’d have liked, but I was sure that the killer was someone she knew and trusted. A person’s room reflected their true nature. Aja’s was, mine was, Mandy’s would have been too. You didn’t invite people you didn’t trust to view your
true self. There had been no signs of disarray, no violent altercation. There was just that small amount of blood on the corner of the nightstand. It had been a shove or fall; that was all it took. The fire was the coverup. It might not have been murder at the beginning. Once that fire was set though … Once the person tried to cover it up instead of calling 911 for help, it became murder.
None of that cleared or incriminated the brother, though I understood why Jan had just those two people as suspects. Most murders were committed by someone the victim knew—usually a family member or romantic partner. And women were predominantly murdered by their husbands or boyfriends. Those were the facts. Brother and boyfriend, neither with an alibi that could be confirmed. I opened the file and flipped through the pages for their alibis. Nothing.
I heard a knock and looked up. Jan stood in the doorway.
“How’s it going in here? Did you get what you needed, Willa?”
I nodded. “Yes and no. I wanted to get a feel for a teen girl in her room. Who she’d let in, who she wouldn’t, how it was set up, what she had, how she treated what was important to her.”
“Uh, you were a teen girl. How come you don’t know what one’s room would be like?” Aja asked.
I could dodge the question with some excuse about being old now or I could tell her the truth and deal with the discomfort that came with people feeling sorry for me. I dodged.
“Oh, sweetie, I needed to see a normal girl’s room.” I winked at her. She laughed and went back to packing up the suitcase she’d dragged out of the closet.
Jan didn’t laugh. She just looked at me, her head tilted slightly, like she was trying to decide something. “Let’s wrap it up here. I promised Nancy you two would be home for dinner.”
Chapter
13
We were home in time for Aja to be put to work helping with the salad. I got a pass to take a shower and change into clean clothes. Nancy’s subtle suggestion was that maybe I needed to think about getting some new, more professional clothes. She was right, as usual. I took a quick shower and dressed as tidily as I could in jeans and a t-shirt then headed upstairs.
They must have missed the whine of the step because Nancy and Aja were talking about me when I hit the top of the stairs. Chopping sounds erratically clicked through under the words. I stood at the top of the stairs eavesdropping, like a good detective does.
“No, I don’t know that I’d use the word normal for Willa, either. She’s so much more than normal.” Moms rock.
“Yeah, but it was weird. I thought it was just a joke until I saw this look that Detective Boyd gave her. It was kind of sad and kind of proud at the same time.”
“Okay, this isn’t exactly a secret but it’s not something we talk about all that much. When Willa was little before she came to live with her dad, they didn’t have a lot of money. Acting is a really rough living. They were always moving as Leila chased work. They moved a lot. One day while they were at the theater they got locked out of the apartment because Leila hadn’t paid the rent for … a while. The landlord put their stuff out on the street and when they got home most of it was gone. Including a baby quilt Arch’s grandmother made when Willa was born.”
“Oh no,” Aja said.
I pressed my head against the wall. It was shitty having a seventeen-year-old pity me.
“Willa loves her mother and she’s too loyal to admit it, but she’s never forgiven her for that. Willa’s mee-maw had died earlier in the year and Leila wouldn’t let her fly to South Carolina for the funeral because Arch couldn’t afford to fly both of them. So … anyway, it wasn’t too long after that Willa decided she wanted to live with her dad.”
“How old was she?”
“Not quite ten. Arch and I were engaged then. She had some birthday and Christmas money saved and put herself on a bus headed east. Leila was in a panic when she called Arch to tell him about the note Willa had left her.”
“That’s so horrible. She was just a little kid.”
“Sweetheart, Willa has never been a little kid. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Chronologically, yes, but emotionally, no.”
“I guess she got here okay. I mean, obvi.”
“Arch lived at that bus station until she arrived two days later. She said she’d stuck close to a woman and I guess everyone assumed they were together. We got this story as she sat at the table eating. Her little legs didn’t reach the floor, and it took everything in me not to cry in front of her.”
I heard her sniffle and I fought back my own tears.
“The next day Arch started searching for the perfect house for us and we’ve all been here ever since. She’s lived here with us almost twice as long as she lived that crazy nomad life with Leila, but she’s never really put down roots. I guess once she lost that quilt she decided that she couldn’t count on things being hers. She has things, but nothing special that she could lose. It’s why losing Michael hit her so hard, I think.”
I heard a throat clear quietly and saw Dad standing in the opening between the dining room and living room. I knew he’d heard it all too. I shook my head. Nancy would feel bad that I’d heard them and worry about my feelings. I slipped back down the stairs halfway and made a big production of coming up.
Aja was setting the table when I walked into the breakfast room and she avoided looking at me. I breezed past her to turn the L into the kitchen proper, where Nancy stood tossing the bowl of salad. She too avoided eye contact.
“What’s for dinner?” Dad asked, coming in through the doorway from the dining room. It was choreographed to seem like we were arriving at the same time by chance. We were well-practiced at it.
“Um, chicken, brown rice, salad, and green beans,” Nancy replied, focused intently on the salad bowl. Sheesh, maybe I should have given them extra time to compose themselves. I made a face at Dad to convey my uncertainty. He gave me a slight nod then dropped his eyebrows. Excellent. He was going to take care of it.
“Shoot. I forgot to wash my hands. I’ll be back.” I fled the room for the office’s bathroom and heard Dad muttering behind me. Then he was practically on my heels, racing me for the office door on the other side of the dining room.
When we were alone we started talking over each other.
“I thought you were dealing with them,” I said.
“I thought you were going to get them off on a different subject,” he said.
“What subject was that? Our scintillating menu?”
“Don’t you have a case you can talk about? I know you’re working with Jan,” he replied.
“Yes, I have the murder of a teen girl from almost twenty years ago and Aja’s ex-boyfriend slash former-stalker’s beating death from a few days ago. Which do you feel will sufficiently lighten the mood?”
I glared at him while he stared back at me, confused. “Good point.”
“I suppose I could talk about my stakeout waiting to get the goods on a cheater at a sleazy motel,” I said. “Maybe you’d like me to tell that story so Mom and I could both get angry with you again. Or I could bring up Seth being adopted and you knowing and not telling him or me.”
I heard a bark from behind the closed door. I opened it to find the family assembled. Apparently Ben had wandered into the kitchen when his stomach’s timer had gone off, having heard me and Dad talking.
“Dinner’s on the table,” Mom said.
“Be right there,” Dad said.
I left with them while he stayed behind in the office. Maybe he really did need to wash his hands. I’d just showered so I felt mine were clean enough for eating. We were all finished distributing the food onto our plates when he finally arrived. He placed a file folder next to my plate and sat down in his spot to my left.
“You can decide what to do with that information, Willa.”
I left it sitting where he’d placed it. Mom was pretty
loose with us talking about work while eating, but I knew she’d be upset if I buried my face into paperwork. We kept conversation light, mostly about what Ben and Aja were doing in school and the college acceptance process. Ben had heard back about all his applications and had been accepted by all the colleges he’d applied to, naturally. Aja had her acceptances from her top two choices but couldn’t decide. She’d asked me how I’d chosen where I attended and I’d answered honestly that I went to the only school that accepted me—Mason. I told her a bit about Michael’s deliberations. She was interested in him and our history. It was, as far as awkward dinners go, enjoyable enough.
Ben volunteered to clean up with Dad so I took my folder downstairs and locked myself in my room. I got comfortable on the bed before opening it. I was curious but stalling because I was nervous about what the folder contained. I was right to be nervous. The three single pages in the folder told a whole story. One page each for Michael and Seth’s birth certificates with parents’ names. The third page was a death certificate that had been issued by the Arizona Department of Corrections for the man on the birth certificates.
“Dammit, Dad.”
I woke up after a night of fitful sleep. Those three pieces of paper weighed less than an ounce, yet the information on them was a burden so heavy I could barely stand to think of it. I stumbled up the stairs vowing to buy a coffeemaker for the basement. I could hole up down there and avoid my family entirely.
Through the open front door, I saw Aja and Ben’s bus pulling away from the curb with my mother waving goodbye from the porch. A senior in high school and she still watched him wait for the bus. I could only imagine the sadness she’d feel on the first day of school next year when there was no bus to watch for anymore. It probably wouldn’t feel as bad as it would if you learned your biological father was a violent criminal who’d died in prison.