by Lisa Regan
Dee swallowed, straightened her spine, and kept slicing cucumbers. “I had to tell them. I couldn’t possibly pretend I didn’t know. Especially after the way things ended at our last meeting.”
Gretchen said, “How did things end at your last meeting? I spoke with Faye Palazzo over the weekend, and she said that Krystal had been upset but that you all were.”
Dee swiped a pile of sliced cucumbers into the large bowl and rinsed off the cutting board once more. As she dried it with a dishtowel, she said, “She’s right. Krystal was upset.” She gave a dry laugh. “That sounds so stupid. We’re all upset, all the time, and group is where we come to be most upset with one another.”
Josie said, “But Krystal was more upset than usual? Is that what you’re saying?”
Dee nodded. She placed the cutting board back onto the counter but made no move to continue her work. “I don’t want to say too much about the group. It’s private. I’m not sure the other members would be okay with me telling you things that we talk about.”
“Understandable,” Gretchen agreed. “But Krystal’s been murdered, and we need to find the person who did this to her. Anything you can tell us about what she said would be extremely helpful.”
Dee took in a shuddering sigh and braced her hands against the countertop. “In broad strokes, I can tell you that we were talking about the fact that the district attorney had asked each of us to be prepared to testify at the trial of Virgil—the bus driver. That’s coming up in a few weeks. Did you know that?”
Gretchen grimaced. “Hard not to know about it—it’s been all over the news. Also, I was the lead on that case so I’ll have to testify as to the contents of my reports.”
“Right. Of course. Well, testifying at the trial was the main topic of discussion that night. As long as we’ve waited for Virgil to be punished, it still means reliving that day again. It’s hard, you know?”
Josie and Gretchen nodded in unison.
Dee continued, “Everyone was just talking about how they felt, like we always do, but Krystal was silent. That was unusual. She’s a little high-strung. When she gets really anxious, she tends to talk more, not less. Then again, the meeting before that one, it had come out that she had met with Virgil in jail. That would have been a little over two weeks before she went missing. Everyone was very upset with her. We all came down pretty hard on her initially.”
Josie said, “I’m surprised she was allowed to meet with him.”
Dee shrugged. “Apparently his attorney allowed it. They taped the meeting so there would be no question as to what was said. I think Virgil’s attorney was hoping she’d offer some kind of forgiveness, something that he could use at trial to Virgil’s benefit.”
Gretchen asked, “How did it come up that she had visited him in the first place?”
“She told us,” Dee explained. “She was afraid we’d find out some other way, and she wanted us to hear it from her. I mean, in a way it wasn’t a surprise. Before the crash, Virgil was a good friend and neighbor to all of us. That’s why it was so hard when we found out what he’d done. But anyway, Krystal said it was a mistake, and that she didn’t get what she went there for so we should just forget it.”
“What had she gone there for?” Josie said.
“I don’t know,” Dee said. “She never told us. Never had a chance. Everyone was so angry with her that the whole meeting was spent berating her until she left early. Then she came back the next week, her final meeting, and like I said, she was completely silent. Then about halfway through the meeting, she stood up and started screaming. Just screaming at all of us.”
“What did she say?” Josie asked.
Dee’s knuckles were white against the countertop. “She said, oh my, excuse my language, but basically, ‘Screw you. Screw all of you. Bianca wasn’t even supposed to be there that day. She wasn’t even supposed to be on the bus.’ Things like that. Dr. Rosetti tried to calm her down, but she was completely out of control. I never saw her like that before. She told us we could all, you know, screw ourselves, although that’s not the word she used. Then she stormed out and we didn’t hear from her again. The next thing we knew, her face was on the news and she had gone missing. I’m sorry I didn’t volunteer this when you called me over the weekend, but like I said, the things we talk about in group therapy are very private. I probably shouldn’t even be telling you now except that Krystal’s been murdered, and I . . .”
Gretchen scribbled in her notebook. “You’re doing the right thing,” she assured Dee.
Josie said, “Besides Krystal, which support group members were there that night, Mrs. Tenney? Specifically.”
“Me, Faye, Sebastian, Nathan, and actually Miles was there, too. He likes to avoid me, but I know the upcoming trial is bothering him a lot.”
“Do you have any idea what was behind Krystal’s outburst?” Gretchen asked.
Dee shook her head. “Not at all. I wish I did. I wish I had. I should have gone after her, tried to talk to her. But all of us are bowing beneath the awful weight of this thing. It’s hard to be there for one another when each one of us is….” Again, she glanced at Heidi. She whispered her next words: “barely hanging on.”
Josie asked, “Do you have any idea why Krystal would say that Bianca shouldn’t have been on the bus that day?”
“No. Bianca rode the bus every day. Krystal’s work schedule would allow her to get home at the same time as the bus dropped the kids off around the corner, but she could never get out early enough to pick Bianca up from school. That day was no different than any other day.”
“Was there someone in the support group that Krystal was closer with than everyone else?” Gretchen asked.
“No, not that I am aware of. She was always working so much, she rarely had time to socialize even before the accident. Afterward, she withdrew even more. I was glad she joined the group. I thought it was good for her to have some human interaction besides work.” She shook her head, and said, almost as if to herself, “Who knows if it’s any help? We just keep going. What else are we supposed to do?”
Although her voice was low, Josie noted from her periphery that Heidi was no longer focused on her laptop but on Dee. Was there even anything coming through her earbuds? Had she been listening to them the entire time?
Gretchen said, “One last thing, Mrs. Tenney, and then we’ll leave you for the day. Does the word ‘Pritch’ mean anything to you?”
“Pritch?” Dee asked, a puzzled look on her face.
“Yes,” Josie said, spelling it out.
“No, I don’t know what it means. I’ve never heard it before,” said Dee.
From the table came Heidi’s voice. She said, “I know what it means.”
Chapter Eleven
They all turned toward Heidi. She closed her laptop and took out her earbuds, setting them onto the table. Dee walked over and stood across from her. “Heidi? What are you talking about?”
Heidi looked past Dee, toward Josie and Gretchen. “Pritch was a nickname we had for Wallace Cammack.”
Quietly, for Josie’s benefit, Gretchen said, “He was one of the kids who died in the bus accident.”
“Gail never told me that,” Dee said, her voice tremulous.
Heidi gave her a pained smile. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Tenney. It wasn’t one of those things that we talked to our parents about. Plus, it was a combination of two words you probably wouldn’t approve of.”
“Like what?” asked Gretchen.
A slight flush spread across Heidi’s cheeks. “Prick and bitch.”
Dee’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh,” she said.
Josie walked over to the table and looked at Dee. She touched the back of one of the chairs. “Do you mind if we sit, Mrs. Tenney?”
Dee pulled out the chair closest to her, not taking her eyes off Heidi. Taking that as a yes, Josie and Gretchen sat down. Gretchen said, “Heidi, how old are you now?”
“I’m fourteen. You want my dad’s permission to talk
to me, right?”
Josie said, “Since we’re not questioning you as either a suspect or witness to a crime, we don’t technically need his permission, but we do always prefer that parents are aware that we’re speaking with their children.”
“I don’t have a mom,” Heidi said bluntly. “So you have to get permission from my dad.”
“That’s fine,” said Gretchen.
“Heidi,” Dee admonished.
Heidi rolled her eyes. “What? It’s true. I don’t have a mom.” She looked earnestly at Josie and Gretchen. “Adults like to say—” Here she lowered her voice in a tone of mock seriousness. “‘Heidi’s mom is not in the picture,’ but what really happened is she was a one-night stand, and she’d just turned nineteen when she had me so she decided that the whole baby thing wasn’t for her, and she left me with my dad. I don’t even know if she’s still alive or not. So, yeah, it’s just me and my dad.”
Dee pressed a palm to her forehead and closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them, a strained smile spread across her face. “Heidi, I don’t think this is the time to get into that. How about if we just ask your dad for permission for these detectives to talk to you?”
“Fine,” said Heidi. “I’ll text him.”
From a backpack beside her chair, she produced a cell phone. Her fingers flew across its screen. They heard a series of beeps and then Heidi slid the phone over to Josie so she could read the text exchange.
Dad, the police are at Mrs. T’s to talk about Krystal. Okay if I talk to them about kids I knew at school?
The response was a single letter: K.
Gretchen leaned in and took down the number Heidi had texted. Josie knew she’d double check to make sure it belonged to Heidi’s father later.
“Okay?” Heidi asked.
Gretchen said, “Tell us about Wallace Cammack.”
“He went to my school. He was in my grade.”
“You rode the bus with him every day,” Gretchen prompted.
“Yeah,” said Heidi. “There were six of us that got dropped off last. Me, Gail—that’s Mrs. Tenney’s daughter—Wallace and his little sister Frankie, Bianca, and Nevin. When the accident happened, Gail and Nevin were in the sixth grade, Frankie was in fifth, and me, Wallace, and Bianca were in seventh grade. But like I said, we were all on the bus together every day. Anyway, Wallace was a bully, and we got tired of it and some of us came up with that nickname for him.”
“Pritch,” said Josie.
“Yeah. Because he was mean as a prick—” She broke off and looked at Dee, but Dee seemed to have disconnected, her eyes suddenly vacant, her body still. Heidi continued, “But when any of us stood up to him, he would whine like a bitch. He was a pritch.”
“You said he was a bully,” Gretchen said. “What kinds of things did he do?”
Heidi gave a half shrug. “I don’t know. The stuff all bullies do. Call us names, say mean things to us, knock stuff out of our hands. Once, when we had a substitute teacher, he wrote his name in for Student of the Month, which was a joke because he was always in trouble. But the regular teacher never did anything about it. Sometimes he’d pull girls’ hair.”
Dee blinked and cleared her throat. “He pulled Gail’s hair once—really hard. Actually, they got into an altercation. It was right before the accident. Apparently, he pulled her hair in the hall at school. It wasn’t the first time. My husband had told her not to take any crap from Wallace Cammack so she hit him. Not hard, just a slap, but he became very angry and pushed her pretty hard into a water fountain. She fell and hit her head. I had to take her to the emergency room. She had quite a lump. Everything was fine but before we had a chance to properly deal with it, the accident happened, and, well…”
She drifted off, eyes going glassy and blank again.
Heidi said, “I know he’s dead, but he was a jerk. I mean, I’m sorry he’s dead. He was a bully sometimes, but he didn’t deserve what happened in the accident. No one did. Still, he caused a lot of trouble for a lot of kids before the crash. A bunch of kids started calling him Pritch. He hated it so much.”
Gretchen said, “Did any adults know about his nickname?”
“I have no idea,” said Heidi.
Josie asked, “How many kids knew? How many called him Pritch?”
Heidi said, “Well, the kids on the bus. Probably everyone in my grade.”
“Who came up with it?” Josie asked.
“I don’t know exactly. I mean, it just kind of happened. A few boys in our grade started calling him a prick ’cause he was always messing with everyone. Then one day, on the bus, he kept kicking the back of Nevin’s seat—Nevin Palazzo—and Nevin got really mad and stood up and yelled, ‘You’re such a prick!’ Nevin was small and always so quiet and it was kind of funny to see him that mad, you know? Anyway, everyone on the bus started laughing—not at Nevin, at Wallace. They were like, ‘Damn, little Nevin’s gonna kick your ass’ and Wallace got upset and said he wasn’t. Then a few of the other boys started chanting ‘prick,’ and Wallace looked like he was about to cry. That’s when Gail said, ‘Look at him, he’s just a little bitch’ and someone in the back of the bus—I don’t know who—yelled, ‘He’s a pritch!’ Then everyone on the bus cracked up and Wallace never bothered Nevin again. But the nickname stuck.”
“What was the bus driver doing while all this was going on?” Josie asked.
Heidi shrugged. “He was driving. Mr. Lesko didn’t pay much attention to what was going on as long as we all stayed seated.”
Gretchen said, “Were there a lot of problems on the bus?”
“No, not really. I mean it wasn’t like an everyday thing that people were getting bullied on the bus. Maybe at school, but the bus wasn’t so bad.”
“How long before the crash did Wallace get the nickname Pritch?” Josie asked.
“I’m not sure. A couple of months, maybe?”
Gretchen continued to scribble in her notebook. Josie slid a business card across the table to Heidi. “My cell phone is on there,” she said. “If you need anything or if you think of anything else having to do with Wallace and his nickname, you’ll let me know, okay?”
Heidi picked up the card and stared at it. “Sure,” she said. “Hey, how did you know about that in the first place?”
For the first time in a few minutes, Dee’s eyes seemed to take on some life. Her head swiveled in Josie and Gretchen’s direction, awaiting their answer.
Gretchen said, “We’re not at liberty to say.”
Chapter Twelve
Denton’s police headquarters was housed in a large, three-story, gray stone building. It was on the historic register and had been converted from the town hall to the police station over sixty-five years ago. It was both beautiful and imposing with its ornate double-casement arched windows and bell tower in one corner. Gretchen circled the building and parked in the municipal lot out back. Normally, the sight of it brought Josie comfort. It was her second home. It was the one place where things always made sense. Here, she was guided by protocol and purpose. Here, she was kept busy with cases to solve—puzzles that kept her mind fully engaged so that it had no chance to dwell on the demons of her past.
Now, she felt a small bud of anxiety bloom inside her as she got out of Gretchen’s vehicle and walked toward the entrance. Gretchen was ahead of her, almost to the door, when Josie stopped. The sun had fallen closer to the horizon now that it was after dinnertime. The heat was less oppressive and at this hour, the parking lot was mostly shaded. Still, Josie felt a sheen of sweat envelop her body. She didn’t want to go in. But why? She’d been there this morning. She’d been fine.
Gretchen turned back toward her. “Boss?”
Josie swallowed. She willed her feet to move but they wouldn’t. It was as if the soles of her shoes had melted into the hot asphalt. She thought about what Dee Tenney had told them about the last support group meeting, how Krystal had come unglued. Bianca wasn’t even supposed to be there that day. Josie closed her e
yes as a wave of feeling washed over her, so strong that her knees trembled. It was the same mantra that had played on a loop in her mind for months. Since the night Lisette died. She wasn’t supposed to be out there. Josie said those words to Noah almost every night when she woke from her nightmares. If Lisette hadn’t been out near the woods, she’d still be alive, and Josie wouldn’t have to go back to work and carry on with life as if it was perfectly normal when it wasn’t at all.
“Josie,” Gretchen said, closer now.
Josie opened her eyes and looked at her friend. Her skin felt hot all over and yet, her limbs started to shiver. “I’m not ready,” she whispered to Gretchen.
Gretchen nodded and moved beside Josie, putting a hand under her elbow. Josie didn’t need to explain. Gretchen understood. Josie wasn’t ready to keep working, to return fully to life as she knew it without Lisette, even though she had no choice. Throwing herself into the Duncan case, returning to work with her whole heart in it, getting back to normalcy, felt like she was accepting Lisette’s murder. But she would never accept it.
In her ear, Gretchen said, “This isn’t an either-or situation, Josie. You’re still here. You have to move forward. It doesn’t mean anything except that you’re still alive. Lisette lost both her children, and she kept doing all the things that living people do.”
Josie nodded. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Dr. Rosetti had made her do a deep-breathing exercise every time she went to therapy. Josie had always thought it was bullshit, but now it seemed to help. A sweet sense of relief filled her as the tidal wave of feelings swept through her consciousness and numbness replaced them again. The sludge. She knew Gretchen was right. Josie had lost her first husband to violence. Even though they were separated at the time, his death had still devastated her. She’d carried on. Why did this feel so different?
Gretchen gave her arm a squeeze. “Besides, we’re here to help the dead. Krystal Duncan’s killer needs catching. Are you with me?”