by Lisa Regan
“Stop,” Bowen snapped. “I’m afraid you cannot ask any questions about the accident or the day of the accident or anything leading up to it.”
Krystal’s knuckles went white against her shirtsleeve. “You said I could talk to him. You said I could ask questions. He killed my daughter. What the hell did you think I was going to ask about? Casserole recipes?”
Bowen stood up, cold eyes looking past her now. “I’m afraid this meeting is over.”
Virgil put his head in his hands. Krystal sprang up and began to berate Andrew Bowen. Gone was her nervousness. Now there was only the fury of a mother denied answers about her daughter’s death. For a moment, it looked like Krystal might even haul off and punch him, but then a correctional officer entered and escorted her from the room. Her shouts of “You bastards!” echoed in the tiny room. Then the video cut off.
“That’s it?” Ted said, laughing. He swatted Bowen’s shoulder. “You put up a fuss for that? You were the one who did all the damn talking. What a waste of time. I have to get back to work. I’ll have more money for you next week. Detectives?” He took a moment to meet Gretchen’s eyes and then Josie’s. “I’d say it was nice to meet you, but I don’t really like police. Let me just say I hope you find whoever killed Krystal Duncan.”
He left them in the room. Gretchen thanked Andrew Bowen for his time and she and Josie trailed Ted Lesko out the front door, all three of them drawing harsh glares from the secretary. Josie watched Ted walk down the street until he reached a bright-red Prius. A magnetic sign attached to the passenger’s side door read: Food Frenzy. Josie was familiar with it. It was a food delivery service like DoorDash or Grubhub. You ordered from just about anywhere using an app and the driver went to the restaurant, picked up the food, and brought it to you.
“You getting in or what?” Gretchen asked.
Tearing her gaze from Ted as he folded himself into the Prius, Josie looked at Gretchen. “Yeah,” she said. “Turn up the air though.”
Once they were seated in the car, Gretchen cranked the air conditioning up while Josie booted up their Mobile Data Terminal. Hot air blasted from the vents, quickly turning cool, much to Josie’s relief. As she punched Ted Lesko’s name into a database via the MDT, Andrew Bowen emerged from the building, dressed in a full suit, a briefcase in hand. He took a moment to scowl at them. Josie grinned and waved, and he turned on his heel and stalked off.
“What do you think?” Gretchen asked.
“I think he needs to get over himself. His mother is a murderer. I put her away. One of these days he’s going to have to accept it.”
“No,” Gretchen said, checking her cell phone. “I mean about the tape.”
“Krystal obviously wanted information from Virgil about something that happened the day of the accident. What that information was is anyone’s guess now. I think that entire thing left us with more questions than answers, and I’m not sure any of those questions have to do with her murder. Ah, here it is!”
Gretchen leaned over and pushed her reading glasses up her nose. “What do you think of the son?”
“He seems devoted to his father,” Josie said. “He was telling the truth about his prison time. He spent almost three years in prison for stalking. The case was initiated in Philadelphia County eight years ago. He would have been twenty-four.” Josie kept scrolling. “Not so much as a parking ticket since.”
Gretchen sighed. “And no connections to Krystal Duncan other than that his dad killed her daughter. Dead ends everywhere. Let’s go talk to Nathan Cammack and see what he can tell us about the nickname ‘Pritch.’”
Chapter Seventeen
Nathan Cammack lived in a one-bedroom apartment over a comic book store in central Denton. It was not far from the police station. Most people in Denton thought of it as the business district of the city. The streets were laid out in grid fashion, and most of the buildings were huge brick structures that had been standing for more than one hundred years. Many of the buildings, like police headquarters, were on the historical register. Gretchen and Josie found metered parking a few doors down from the storefront and made their way around to the back of the building. A set of wooden steps led to a narrow deck on the second floor. In the center of it was an exterior door. As they reached the door, Josie noticed a tin bucket on the floor filled with cigarettes. A tattered paper that looked like it had been taped and re-taped onto the door multiple times read in scrawled letters: Door sticks. Make sure you pull all the way closed.
“Looks like he didn’t get very much in the divorce,” Josie muttered.
“I guess not,” Gretchen said. “When the crash happened, he was some big-time marketing executive. You’d think he’d spring for a condo or a townhouse.”
They pushed through the door, taking care to pull it all the way closed behind them. Gretchen said, “We’re looking for apartment two or, as Nathan told me on the phone, the door on the right.”
At the end of the hall was a door with a metal 2 just above the peephole. Josie didn’t see a doorbell so she knocked. Seconds later, the door swung open. Nathan Cammack stood before them, barefoot in a pair of khaki shorts and a button-down, yellow, short-sleeved shirt. It looked as though he’d made an effort to look presentable except that his clothes were wrinkled, his sandy brown hair was long and shaggy, and there were crumbs in his long, scraggly beard. Josie knew he was in his mid-thirties, but he looked about ten years older. His blue eyes were a darker shade than his ex-wife’s and they seemed hollowed out, as if he’d lost a lot of weight and his cheekbones had become more prominent.
“Hey Detective Palmer,” he said, ushering them inside.
Gretchen introduced him to Josie as they settled onto a futon couch in his living room. The ceilings inside the apartment were high, the walls faded brick. A half wall made of brick topped by round, white wooden pillars separated the living room from the kitchen. Although both rooms were sizable, there was very little furniture. It looked as though a college student lived there except for the photos of Wallace and Frankie hanging on one of the living room walls. There weren’t nearly as many as Josie had seen in Gloria’s house, and the effect was even more heartbreaking. School photos of each child bracketed a candid shot of Nathan and both kids standing on a beach, all of them grinning, even Wallace. Below that was a framed child’s drawing. Handprints in pink and purple paint made the shape of a heart. Above, it said “Happy Father’s Day” and below, it read “We love you. Wallace and Frankie”.
Frankie had drawn a heart where the dot over the I in her name should be.
Josie swallowed over a lump forming in her throat. Although Nathan clearly had the air conditioning cranked up, she felt a film of sweat on her skin. She squeezed her hands together in her lap so no one would see them shake.
Nathan stood in front of them, running a hand through his hair. “I can offer you water and, um, maybe some water. I’m sorry. All I’ve got is water. I haven’t been shopping. I don’t really go shopping now ’cause it’s just me and I don’t need a lot—”
“Mr. Cammack,” Gretchen interrupted him with a warm smile. “We’re fine, thank you. We just have a few questions.”
Nathan went to the kitchen to grab one of the chairs from his table. Josie noticed he only had two chairs and they were mismatched. His laptop sat open on the table next to four coffee mugs, two water bottles, and an open bag of Doritos. He set the chair in front of them backwards, straddling the seat and folding his arms across the back. “I guess you’re here about Krystal, right? Dee told me what happened. I mean, she said she found her in the cemetery, and she was dead. Is it true that someone murdered her?”
“Yes,” said Gretchen.
“How can I help?”
Josie asked, “When is the last time you saw Krystal Duncan?”
“At our last support group meeting. Well, not the one that just passed, but the one before that. Dee told you about that, right? We meet Mondays.”
“Yes,” said Josie. “Did you speak w
ith Krystal during that meeting?”
“Well, not one-on-one. It’s a group. Dr. Rosetti kind of moderates it.”
Gretchen said, “So you didn’t speak to Krystal privately that evening? Either before or after the meeting?”
He shook his head. “No. Sorry, I didn’t. What’s going on here? You think I had something to do with her—her murder?”
“Mr. Cammack,” Josie said. “We’re talking to everyone who was close to Krystal right now.”
He put a hand to his chest, straightening his back. “Oh, I wasn’t close to Krystal.”
Gretchen said, “Your wife told us about the affair.”
His head reared back as if she’d slapped him. “Affair?” he said. “What affair?”
“Your affair with Krystal Duncan,” Josie said.
He tipped his head back, looking at the ceiling, and then lowered his forehead onto his arms. “Jesus,” he said, voice muffled. Lifting his head, he said, “Who told you that Krystal and I had an affair? Gloria? Where in the hell would she get that from?”
Gretchen said, “Krystal told her.”
He leaped from his chair and began pacing. “What? When? Is this some kind of joke?”
Josie said, “Mr. Cammack, calm down.”
He stopped pacing and pointed a finger at Josie. “You’re telling me that Krystal told my wife that we had an affair? When the hell was this?”
“Gloria’s not exactly sure. Sometime in the last few months.”
His face twisted. The pacing resumed. “What? Are you kidding me? What? Why would she—what the actual f—are you sure? Krystal told my ex-wife that we had an affair?”
“Yes,” said Gretchen. “Mr. Cammack, please sit down. Gloria said she’s not upset about it. She said your marriage has been over for some time.”
He threw his arms into the air and let them fall back to his sides with a loud slap. “Why would Krystal say that? Why? Listen, Krystal and I did not have an affair. Jesus. She told my wife that and now she’s dead? So now you must think if there was something between us that I—I did something to her?”
Josie stood up and walked in front of him, forcing him to stop. “Nathan,” she said firmly. “No one is accusing you of anything.”
“My ex-wife is accusing me of having an affair!” he exclaimed.
Josie reached for the chair, dragging it along the floor and positioning it so that it was behind him. “Sit,” she said. “Your wife didn’t accuse you of anything. Why would Krystal tell her that the two of you had an affair?”
He plopped into the chair with a heavy sigh. Crumbs spilled from his beard as he used both hands to rub it. “Christ. I don’t know. I have no idea why Krystal would say that, especially after all this time. And to Gloria. Jesus. I thought we were cool. It’s been two years. The kids—”
Josie walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge. Nathan hadn’t been kidding when he’d said all he had was water. There were two bottles. The rest of the fridge was filled with various takeout containers, some of which were pretty old given the smell wafting toward her. Quickly, she grabbed a water bottle and returned to the living room, handing it to Nathan. She said, “Were things ‘not cool’ between you and Krystal when the crash happened?”
He took a long pull from the bottle and then set it on the floor between his feet. “Krystal and I were always cool. We used to get together at night, after our kids were asleep. Gloria was always on her computer or doing some weird New Age beauty regimen that kept her in the bathroom for hours. I used to sneak out. Our backyards connected. Did you know that?”
“Gloria showed us,” Gretchen said. “You used to go over to Krystal’s house at night?”
He shook his head. “Hell, no. She said I could come inside the house, but I didn’t want to. What if Bianca woke up and saw me? She’d have the wrong idea.”
Josie looked down at him. “What was the wrong idea?”
Meeting her eyes, he said, “That we were having an affair! We weren’t. I mean, yeah, okay, when the kids were really little, like when Bianca and Wallace were in kindergarten, we slept together. Once. It only happened one time. Gloria was away, Krystal let Wallace and Frankie come over and play in the playhouse. They loved it. Gloria never let them go over there.”
“Why not?” asked Gretchen.
He rolled his eyes. “She was always afraid that Krystal would try to feed them fast food or something. Or, god forbid, peanut butter and jelly and—” he gave a dramatic fake gasp. “White bread! You know Gloria runs that all-natural family and child shop, right?”
“We’re aware,” said Josie.
“She’s insane about that stuff. She never let the kids have anything good. I mean anything with dyes or preservatives or that was processed. Everything had to be organic and specially made. She made their lunches for school all those years. Do you know that Frankie came home one day and cried because she ate a cupcake at school? Some other girl had a birthday and brought cupcakes for the whole class, and Frankie couldn’t resist. She came home crying—imagine it, a six-year-old filled with regret! She thought Gloria was going to punish her.”
“Did she?” asked Gretchen.
“No. We didn’t tell her. It wasn’t worth it. Then it was our secret. Frankie loved that.” Tears spilled from his eyes as a sudden, unexpected sob rocked his body.
Josie’s breath caught in her throat. She stepped forward and laid a hand on his shoulder. His body trembled under her touch. He looked over at the photos of his children and used the pads of his thumbs to wipe away his tears. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.
Gretchen said, “You never have to apologize for missing your children, Mr. Cammack.”
He nodded and sucked in several deep breaths. “It’s weird, you know? It’s always the good memories that get me. I can talk about the accident, about that day. I can remember the funerals, those first awful weeks, and I feel dead inside. But then I think about the look on their faces when we did the really fun stuff together—just me and them, without Gloria—and I feel like I might die from missing them.”
Josie gave his shoulder a squeeze. Another question was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t force it out. Gretchen picked up the thread for her. “Did you take the kids to Krystal’s whenever Gloria was away?”
He shook his head. “No. Not every time. Not when they got older and stopped getting along.”
“You said you and Krystal were intimate?”
“Right, but just that one time. I felt terrible and so did Krystal. She was single, but she wasn’t that kind of person. She didn’t go for married men. It just sort of happened. But like I said, that was it. It was a one-time thing. A mistake.”
Josie let go of his shoulder and took a step away from him. Steadying her voice, she said, “Then why were you sneaking out at night to see Krystal?”
He sighed. “We smoked pot together, okay? In the playhouse. I caught her smoking up there one night, and she got all freaked out. She was afraid I’d tell people. I told her it wasn’t my place to tell anyone anything and that if she wanted to smoke weed in the privacy of her own yard, it was none of my business. Then she burst into tears.”
“Why?” said Gretchen.
“Work stress,” Nathan said. “I don’t remember specifically, but Krystal was always stressed out about something. She said pot was the only thing that helped her anxiety. Anyway, we were sitting up there so long, she offered me some. Then it became like a thing, you know? We met out in that tiny-ass playhouse, smoked weed; she complained about work, and I complained about my marriage.”
Josie said, “How long did this go on?”
“I don’t know. A couple years. After the crash, we never did it again. I never even talked to her alone after the crash.”
Gretchen said, “That still doesn’t explain why she would tell your wife two years after the bus crash that the two of you had had an affair.”
“I know,” he said. “I don’t understand why she did that. I don’t—I can’t e
xplain it.”
Josie said, “Nathan, does the word ‘Pritch’ mean anything to you?”
“Pritch? Like pitch with an r in it?”
Gretchen said, “Like a combination of the words ‘prick’ and ‘bitch’.”
Nathan’s shoulders slumped. “Wow. I haven’t heard that in ages. Two years. If you’re asking about it, I assume you know what it is—a nickname my son earned at school.”
Josie met Gretchen’s eyes briefly. Not only were Gloria and Nathan opposites in terms of appearance and their homes, but evidently in the way they had viewed their children as well. Josie said, “Earned it? How did Wallace earn a nickname like that?”
Nathan’s chin dropped to his chest. After a deep breath, he looked back up, turning his head to meet Josie’s gaze. “I loved my son. Deeply and unconditionally. I would have taken a bullet for him. For both of them. I would put myself in their place in a heartbeat if I could. But the truth is that we had some problems with Wallace bullying other kids at school. I’m not proud of it, okay? I thought we should work with him on it, but Gloria didn’t see it that way. You ever hear of these ‘not my son’ parents?”
Josie had heard of them, but Gretchen said, “What’s that?”
“These parents who raise their sons to be entitled assholes who think the world owes them everything and no matter what they do wrong, no matter how strong the evidence of their misdeeds, the parents refuse to believe it. ‘Not my son,’ they’ll say. Their son couldn’t possibly have gotten drunk underage and mowed down a bunch of pedestrians. Their son couldn’t possibly grope some poor girl at a party. Their son couldn’t possibly hurl racist insults. ’Cause their son is perfect. Get what I’m saying?”
“Yes,” Gretchen said.
“Well, Gloria was kind of like that. It was one of the things we always fought about. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Wallace wasn’t near as bad as some of those examples I just gave you. He was only twelve. But I was worried that he was headed in that direction, you know? I mean, no one wants their kid to grow up to be a douche.”