The Pretty Ones

by Jamie Lee Fry

“I mean it—I’m going to call the cops! Leave now,” I say sternly, pointing toward the door.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Charlie. OK, let’s forget about the tape for a second and let’s talk about the night I left. Do you remember what happened in Iowa, Charlie?”

  I sadly shake my head.

  “Because I do, Charlie. I remember it all.”

  CHAPTER 53

  Charlie

  August 2012

  “Quinn, I’m sick of your games,” I shout.

  “I think you might want to wait on kicking me out of Jenny’s house until we get to the bottom of things. Don’t cha think? We have a lot to talk about. Tell me what you remember about our last night in Iowa together.”

  I don’t know why, but I humor her. I need answers, and if this is how I’m going to get them, then whatever. I guess I have to play along with Quinn’s little game.

  “I honestly only remember the day after the party, when you and Nash were packing your things. I remember waking up with the flavor of death in my mouth because I drank too much. I knew something happened because I could feel it in my bones, but I couldn’t put the pieces together.”

  “Keep going, Charlie. I need you to unravel this on your own. You need to get it this time.”

  “This time?” I question.

  “Keep the memory rolling. Charlie.”

  “Don’t you think I’ve been trying this entire summer? No thanks to you, I might add. How could you just leave and not have the decency to at least tell me what the piss I did?” I shout at her.

  “Charlie, it will all make sense. I just need you to work through this,” Quinn responds with authority.

  She moves back over to the couch, like she is getting ready for a night of girl talk. She sits cross-legged in the middle. But I’m still ready to pounce. I can’t sit down. I’m too upset. How is she so blasé about all of this?

  “Keep going. What else do you remember?” Quinn presses me to continue.

  “You just had to have your year-end bash. Didn’t you? If we could have just ordered pizza and watched a movie as I suggested, none of this would have happened, whatever the hell it was that I did. But honestly, all I remember is stumbling out of my room, looking for medicine because I felt like I had gotten hit by a semi-truck.”

  “Yah, Charlie. Side note—I think you have a drinking problem, but that’s the least of your quandaries right now. We will address that one later,” Quinn says.

  I give her a snide look. “Anyway, I walk into the kitchen and I’m shocked and saddened to see you and Nash quietly sneaking around, packing all your things, and moving out of our apartment. Our fucking home for four years. You already had packing tape and boxes. Like, where the hell did all that come from? You must have started hours before I caught you, and when you saw me, you had that deer-in-the-headlights look. You didn’t plan for me to wake up. Did you? You looked like the guilty one, Quinn.”

  Quinn doesn’t speak but instead motions with the sign for “let’s get the show on the road.”

  Bitch.

  “But I did catch you and I asked why, and you didn’t give me a response. Nash kept his head down and kept packing your things. Before I knew it, you were both outside with Nash’s truck full of our memories.”

  “OK, thanks for the recap, but that is everything you already knew. We need to dive into that night, and what you don’t remember.”

  “No shit, Sherlock. That’s what I’m trying to do,” I say to her sarcastically. I’m getting frustrated with this stupid game. “Just tell me,” I shout.

  “Charlie, do you remember the Jenny drawer? Think about it, do you remember me on your bed trying to talk you down?”

  “Talk me down?” I question.

  “Think hard and pull from deep in your memory. You have it. It is there,” Quinn says.

  “I . . . I remember I had too much to drink,” I stutter as I close my eyes, trying hard to put the pieces back together from that night. “Nash bought a lot of beer for the party and I had too much to drink. I remember feeling sad about leaving college, about leaving you. I now vaguely remember finding you sitting on my bed.

  “What did you do when you saw me, Charlie?”

  “I don’t remember, Quinn.”

  “Yes, you do!” Quinn shouts

  “I just, um, I just remember you were going through things in my Jenny drawer. Wait! Is that how you knew about Jenny just now? Because you were in my drawer that night.”

  “Keep going, Charlie, you’re almost there.”

  “I remember you going through my drawer and pulling out all of Jenny’s pictures. You had everything laid out across my bed. Every picture, every memory I had with Jenny. I was mad that you touched my things, my secret things.”

  I’m enraged now. I want to cry. I’m surprised I remembered that.

  Quinn keeps pressing me for more, but I can’t find anything else. No other memory is coming back from that night.

  “Charlie, that is when I told you the truth and you didn’t want to hear it.”

  I sit with a quizzical look on my face. “I don’t understand.”

  “Maybe we should just play the last tape, Charlie. You’re just not getting it,” Quinn says, disappointed in my lack of memory.

  “Remind me again, where the hell you were the past two days, and when did you start watching me?” I demand.

  She ignores me again and leaps to her feet, joining me back at the desk. Before I can grab the tape, she has it in her hand. “Charlie, I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but here we go. You have to know the truth,” Quinn says, shaking the tape in my face.

  “That is all I’ve been asking for this whole dang time. The truth,” I scream.

  Quinn places the tape in the recorder. Then with her perfectly manicured hand she pushes down hard on the green triangle button of Jenny’s old tape recorder. “Well, be careful what you wish for.”

  CHAPTER 54

  Charlie

  August 2012

  The start of the third tape is different than the first two. “The date is May twenty-forth, and I’m afraid.” Jenny is speaking louder when she states the date. I suspect she taped that part at her desk. The tape doesn’t have Jenny putting me into the trance. She must have forgotten to push record. When the tape resumes, Jenny’s voice is shaky. “Charlie, can you hear me?”

  I really don’t want to listen to this now, especially with Quinn staring at me. I want to push stop, but I doubt Quinn is going to let that happen. I sit back in my chair and listen involuntarily and against my will.

  My words fill the room, and I sit back in my chair. No point in trying to get Quinn to stop.

  “No, I can’t hear you.”

  Obviously, I heard her if I answered.

  “Can you hear me now?” Jenny asks again.

  “Yes! What do you want?”

  My words hiss from my mouth, cold and unfriendly. You can hear me taking a deep breath and a quick huff out. Jenny must have the recorder close to my body on my bed. I feel violated again.

  Jenny asks, “Are you still dating your boyfriend?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “I would like to know, that is why I’m asking, Charlie,” Jenny presses me.

  “I’m so angry. She betrayed us.”

  “Who are you angry with, Charlie, and who is us?”

  “I wanted him to be the one, but he cheated. I don’t think he knows that I know. We can fix this, but she can’t be here anymore. He loves me, and she was just the slut that teased him. I don’t think she ever loved him. Maybe I should hurt him too. I know it’s not his fault, though. It’s hers.”

  “Who are you talking about?” Jenny demands.

  “I fucking hate her—she is such a whore. I want her to feel the pain she made me feel. I feel like my heart is being torn from my chest. They hurt me badly. She needs to pay for what she did. I can’t believe what I saw.” My voice gets louder with each sentence.

  I hear soft
sobs from the tape. Are they mine or Jenny’s? I can’t tell.

  “My friend told me I can’t talk about it anymore.”

  “Charlie, who is your friend?”

  “My friend said she is a nasty bitch.”

  “Can I meet your friend?” Jenny asks.

  “You will meet her soon.”

  “Those words don’t feel like mine. I’m so scared and confused, Quinn.”

  Quinn presses stop on the recorder and hands me a folded-up piece of paper that she pulled from her pocket. “This was in the Jenny drawer. You need to read it.”

  CHAPTER 55

  Charlie

  August 2012

  Quinn hands me the paper and I unfold it. It’s an old newspaper article.

  Liam Sutter’s Innocence Proven by Northern California Couple.

  An image of Liam smiling with an elderly couple in front of his sage-green house on that stupid familiar street stares me directly in the face. They have a pile of photographs in their hand.

  I want to vomit.

  “Charlie, do you remember this article?” Quinn asks.

  “No, I don’t,” I respond.

  “It was mixed in with your things in the Jenny drawer in your nightstand. You need to read it,” Quinn says, pressing me to continue.

  Many questions surrounded the recent release of Liam Sutter as the main suspect in the murder of psychologist Dr. Jenny Morrison, but Sutter has a Northern California couple to thank for his removal from the suspect list.

  Margaret and Saul Bowerman were sitting in their home when they saw the news about a homicide investigation surrounding a murder that happened in May. Margaret recalls almost fainting when Liam’s photo appeared as the main suspect in Morrison’s death. “We just got back from spending a summer camping in our RV. We hadn’t seen or heard any news in months. We were just shocked when we heard a poor woman had been murdered the same day we were camping in that very town. We were even more shocked when the man they suspected as the murderer was Liam. After putting together the timeline, we knew it couldn’t have been this man. We spent the entire day with him. There was no way he would have killed that poor girl, and we had evidence to prove it.”

  Sutter was always firm and stuck to his alibi that he was camping with his sister and niece just outside of town the morning Jenny was murdered, although Sutter’s sister couldn’t confirm that Liam was at the campsite at the time of Morrison’s death—she had had to leave in the middle of the night with her toddler as it was too cold for her and the child was getting fussy. Liam always stated he met a couple that could confirm his innocence, but police could never locate the so-called couple and no one else ever came forward to substantiate his story. The police assumed he was lying, and it made him look even more guilty. He couldn’t remember their names or any other identifying details.

  According to Saul Bowerman, he was just sick to his stomach over this because he had proof he was with the suspect and he felt bad he hadn’t seen the news earlier. “We saw Liam attempting to light a campfire the morning of the girl’s murder. He was struggling because the wood was wet. He wasn’t going to get anything going with that wet stuff, so my wife and I invited him over to our fire and we enjoyed breakfast together. We had enough for all of us. He seemed like a nice young lad. We told Liam that we were photographers, and he spent the entire day asking me questions—he told us he was an aspiring photographer too. We enjoyed his company. He stayed and played cards with us all day and picked my brain about cameras, exposures, and nature photography. My wife took photos of us throughout the day and luckily, they were date stamped. We don’t condone the kind of relationship Liam had with the girl, but we couldn’t let an innocent man go to prison for something he truly didn’t do. We hope he continues to get the help he needs.”

  To remind our readers how Sutter came to be the main suspect in Morrison’s murder, we have to go back to how his name was falsely given to the police. Morrison’s niece, Charlie Faye, gave his name to the police but never revealed any evidence to support her suspicion. Also, she could not explain how she knew Sutter was the man responsible for the murder. Sources close to the case say Faye was shocked by her own outburst and didn’t remember saying his name after she shouted it to the police.

  Later it came out that Faye admitted to being in a relationship with Sutter. This, of course, shifted the investigators’ attention to Faye herself. Did she have motive to kill her aunt? If Liam was dating both girls, then one must have been jealous of the other. Liam denied all of that. He said he accidently went to the wrong house and met Faye once. That, according to Sutter, was the only contact he ever had with her and they never had the relationship that Faye claims.

  This new information put Faye on top of the list of suspects, and they shifted their attention and efforts to her. Faye and Sutter both were given lie-detector tests, and both passed. Faye was eventually taken off the suspect list. Faye still holds strong to the fact that she was involved with Sutter, and Sutter still claims he only met her once. The only part of their stories that matched up was the day they met, but they still both passed the lie detector. With no further evidence to link Faye to her aunt’s murder, she was removed as a suspect.

  Investigators have had no other leads to pursue. The family is losing hope that Jenny’s killer will ever be caught.

  “Charlie, Liam didn’t kill Jenny. You have to believe that part now,” Quinn says with tenderness in her voice.

  “I don’t remember any of this, Quinn. I really don’t. If police cleared me and Liam, then who did it? Who killed Jenny?”

  CHAPTER 56

  Charlie

  August 2012

  I grab the four notes with one hand and shake them toward Quinn. “Who the hell killed my aunt and who wrote her these hateful notes? I don’t get what you’re trying to get out of me, Quinn? I just don’t understand.”

  Quinn ignores me and presses play again on the tape recorder.

  Once again, Jenny’s quivery voice fills the air. The hairs on my arm stand erect, and goosebumps quilt my entire body. I instantly feel queasy and unsure I want to continue listening, but Jenny’s words continue, and I’m stuck, paralyzed in my chair.

  “I’m afraid of what I heard and saw tonight in Charlie’s room. I finally was able to see her computer and what I found in her browser history, well, frankly terrifies me. I had hoped it was a book or TV show influencing her, but it’s much worse than I could have ever predicted. I feel ill.

  Liam Sutter, Liam Sutter, Liam Sutter. Liam Sutter. Every single drop-down in her history had his name somewhere in the search.

  Myspace—Liam Sutter. Photography—Liam Sutter. Facebook—Liam Sutter

  I’m dumbfounded as to how she even knows him. I’m scared if she really does have a relationship with this monster. Could he be doing the same things to her that he did to me? Could he be tormenting her too? I’m so confused but I think she believes she is dating Liam, and perhaps they are dating, but I’m not sure what to think. She says she has a boyfriend, and she is quite jealous of the other woman he is seeing.

  Me.

  She wants to harm that person.

  Me.

  If Charlie weren’t my niece, I would . . .”

  Jenny trails off. She takes a deep sigh and then resumes.

  “What kind of predator did I bring into our lives?

  I will have to go to the police tomorrow to report what Liam did to me. I can’t continue to let him get away with what he’s doing, even if that means I have to blow up my own life in doing so. I can’t let him harm another person, especially not my sweet Charlie. He’s done a number on her psyche, whether they are dating or not. She is clearly obsessed with this awful man. I will give her the respect of attending her graduation tomorrow before I go to the police and before I fill in Joan and Frank on Charlie’s hypnotherapy. This will break their hearts. She has been withdrawn from the family, her friends, and school, and if she isn’t dating Liam, I have to think about the possibility
of delusional thinking.”

  Jenny chokes back tears.

  “Oh my. It couldn’t be—Mom. Just like Mom . . . Did Joan know? She told me to think about Mom. Is this what she meant? Was I blind to what I didn’t want to see? Look into schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, or dissociative identity disorder, but refer her for further evaluation. I cannot confirm at this time. I also cannot continue to treat her after today. This will be my last session with Charlie.”

  Static again.

  Then Jenny’s voice enters once again.

  “Charlie must have seen me and Liam together. What if Charlie is the one writing me the notes? Did she see Liam at my house today? What did she see? What if. . . Oh, my God. It has to be her, who else could it be?”

  Jenny starts crying on the tape and it echoes through the house, bouncing off every wall and hitting me right in my heart. The tape stops.

  “Charlie, why do you think her screams haunt you at night?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know, Quinn,” I say with fear, tears streaming down my face. “How do you know all of this, Quinn?”

  “Think about it, Charlie. Remember the rest of the party? You were so confused. You were beyond inebriated, and you started pacing the room. Back and forth. Back and forth, mumbling to yourself after you saw all the Jenny memories spread out on the bed. You went back out to the party where you confronted Nash. You called him Liam and said he was cheating on you with Jenny. Does any of this ring a bell now?”

  “Why would I care what Nash was doing, and why would I have been so confused?” I cry.

  “You started hyperventilating as you paced the room. We couldn’t get you to calm down. Nash tried getting you to breathe, and you wouldn’t sit still long enough for us to help you. You were chewing on your fingernails and pacing and breathing heavily in a panic for what felt like hours but was probably a matter of only fifteen minutes. We couldn’t get you to stop. Suddenly, you snapped and jumped on Nash. You pushed him to the ground and started slapping him repeatedly. You called him Liam and told him to get off Jenny. You were a scrappy little fighter, and he couldn’t push you off without hurting you, so he just took it. You repeatedly called him Liam. Nash kept screaming at you, demanding who Jenny and Liam were. I just sat there afraid to speak or do anything. Charlie, that’s why we left. You were out of your mind, and we were afraid of you. You were so confused, and Nash couldn’t get you to explain yourself. Eventually, you tired yourself out, and we put you to bed. Nash shut the party down. Most people cleared out on their own after your drunken antics. He started packing immediately after. Charlie, I tried to show you the truth, but I couldn’t help. I had to leave.”