Murder Blog Mysteries Boxed Collection

by Pamela Frost Dennis

Kittens? I assumed she was kidding and gave a “yeah-right” laugh, and asked her if she had any idea of the logo style she wanted.

  “Oh, my goodness, no. You’re the expert, and I’m sure I’ll love anything you do.”

  I inwardly groaned. It makes the job so much easier if I have a clue what the client likes. “All right. I’ll work up a few design ideas, and we can meet again in a few days.”

  “Call first, because I’m in and out all the time.” She hoisted up a gargantuan, genuine Prada handbag from under the counter and extracted a calling card from a Louis Vuitton wallet. “If I don’t answer here at the shop, here’s my cell number. Just try to keep the cost down, okay? The economy is killing us.”

  I left minus an elderly kitten, although I had to admit the one named Dave was pretty darn cute and still had most of his hair. On my way home, I swung by Samantha’s house to see if Chelsea was home. I figured I might as well get the blog debacle over with so she wouldn’t drive me crazy about it.

  Samantha answered the door dressed in yellow bumblebee-print scrubs and looking like she’d given birth to quadruplets during her ten-hour nursing shift in the hospital maternity ward. “You’re just in time for a caffeine fix,” she said as I walked in.

  “Forget about the coffee. You should go to bed. You look pooped.”

  “No can do,” she said over her shoulder as we walked to the kitchen. “There’s a PTA meeting tonight, and Spencer’s in New York on a layover.”

  I sat on a barstool at the granite counter. “Is that man ever home?”

  “The airlines have laid off so many pilots, we’re lucky he’s still working, but I sure could use his help around here. Especially on long days like this.”

  She poured our coffees and split a warm cinnamon roll between two plates. “I’m off tomorrow, so I’ll catch up. Are you here to blog, my dear?”

  “Yes.” I sighed like a put-upon drama queen.

  “Chelsea!” Sam yelled. “Aunt Katy’s here.”

  No response.

  “Come on.” She picked up my plate and started down the hallway with me in tow. Outside Chelsea’s door, she said, “She’s probably on the phone.”

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “You are so 2005.” Sam knocked on the door. “Nobody actually talks now days. ”

  “This generation is going to be a bunch of arthritic-fingered inarticulates by the time they’re our age. God, I feel old.”

  “We’re not old, but I do think Chelsea’s missing out on a lot of fun.” Sam lowered her voice to a whisper. “Spencer and I are working out a plan to limit her tech time. You know—texting, tweeting, Instagram, Facebook, whatever. We’re going to talk to all her friend’s parents and try to get them on board, so we’re not the only bad guys.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “Come in!” called Chelsea.

  As I opened the door, I whispered, “Hey, maybe we could throw an old-fashioned slumber party for her.”

  “Good idea!”

  Chelsea’s room could have been my room as a teenager, except for all the pink. I was more of a purple and green girl. But it was a mess like mine had been, and there were teen heartthrob posters on the walls. I don’t get the “Bieber” thing at all, and don’t think I would have even as a teenager. I pointed to a new poster since my last visit. “Who’s that?”

  Chelsea tossed back her pink-streaked, straight blond hair and clutched her hands to her chest. “Oh, my God. That’s Robert Pattinson.”

  I was clueless. “Is he a singer?”

  “Aunt Katy, you definitely need to get out more. He’s in the Twilight movies. He’s Edward.” Just saying his name made Chelsea look like she was going to pass out.

  “He’s cute if you’re into the dead look,” I said. “We were crazy about Jason Priestley when we were your age.” I inwardly winced at those last few words. Am I really so old that I’m already saying stuff like that? This little visit to Chelsea’s room had really accelerated my aging process.

  “Who’s that?” asked my extremely young friend.

  “Beverly Hills, 90210,” Sam said. “He was soooo cute.”

  Chelsea stared at us like we’d landed from another planet. Very deflating.

  “I guess I’ll leave you two alone.” Samantha backed out of the room into the hall. “Have fun.”

  I plopped next to Chelsea on her flouncy daybed under a swag of fuchsia netting. She opened her pink laptop and logged into the site. She had set up a free WordPress blog, decorated with pink flowers and butterflies, which I agreed was absolutely adorable but so not me. After an intense, twenty minute lesson on blogging, she placed the computer on my lap. “Okay, Aunt Katy. It’s all set up and ready to go. Time to make your first official entry so I can be sure you know how.”

  The pressure was on. I took a deep breath and cracked my knuckles. This would have to be good. Meaningful. Life changing. Spiritual. Deep. And above all, impress my young friend. I started typing and suddenly the words flowed like honey.

  Hello World!

  Wednesday, April 10

  Posted by Katy McKenna

  I hate Lima beans. Always have, always will.

  Chelsea gazed at me like we were kindred spirits. “Wow. Me, too.”

  When I got home, I piled a plate with munchies, poured a glass of wine and settled into my favorite chair to do some blogging. I figured I might as well give it a try since Chelsea had taken the trouble to set it up.

  I easily accessed my site, then sat and stared at it. Hmmm. What to write? Already talked about the lima beans, and I pretty much like all other beans, except fava beans, but that may be due to the movie, The Silence of the Lambs. Come to think of it, I’m not fond of Chianti, either.

  Hello World. It’s Me Again!

  Wednesday, April 10

  Posted by Katy McKenna

  This is my first official all-by-myself blog entry!

  The laptop screen glared at me. Now what? I caught sight of myself in the wall mirror across the room. My hair was half out of its ponytail and was a frazzled mess. Inspiration!

  I hate my hair.

  Then I sat and waited for the next revelation. And it came.

  I hate boys.

  I read my two sentences. Then I wrote:

  I seriously need to get a life.

  I stared at the screen and my mind drifted to Lindsay, and I knew what to write.

  Daisy was poking her nose into my thigh and whining, “Bedtime.”

  I’d been blogging for hours and had lost track of time. Once I’d begun writing my thoughts about Lindsay and what my role should be, it made sense to write everything I knew up to that point. My case notes.

  Turned out I knew more than I realized, and the more I wrote, the more questions I had. Like, who was Phil Hobart? Yes, he was a murderer, kidnapper, and rapist. But was that it? He’d started life as an innocent baby, so what had happened?

  Chapter Nine

  DEAD GIRLS DON’T BLOG

  1996

  Phil Hobart had been a scrawny, sickly kid. The damp Portland, Oregon weather where he had lived with his family had aggravated his chronic asthma, so in 1989, his father, Adam, had accepted a job with an accounting firm in Santa Lucia and they had moved to sunny California.

  The mild central coast climate had improved the boy’s health and he blossomed into a healthy young man. Although aggressive sports like soccer or basketball still triggered an asthma attack, he participated in the ASB, debate, varsity golf, and earned an Eagle Scout badge in his junior year. At 5’11”, brunette with hazel eyes, the girls swooned over him, not just for his good looks but because he was a genuinely nice guy. All four years he was in advanced placement classes and honor society, and he graduated in the top twenty of Santa Lucia High School’s class of 1994.

  Phil was now in his sophomore year at University at Santa Lucia, studying to be a high school history teacher much to the disappointment of his father, who’d wanted him to attend an Ivy League law schoo
l and become a hot-shot lawyer. His mother was proud and supportive, telling Phil he had to follow his own dreams not his father’s. To pacify his father, he’d joined his father’s old fraternity, Alpha Gamma.

  Phil lived in the frat house in a large room on the second floor with his two roommates, Jake Werner and Erik Mason. Jake was a farm boy from Wisconsin, studying for a dairy science degree on a full-ride wrestling scholarship, and Erik, a rich kid from Greenwich, Connecticut, was majoring in partying, with a minor in chasing skirts.

  Phil’s mother, Penny, worked as a police dispatcher for the Santa Lucia Police Department, and his sixteen-year-old sister was a junior at Santa Lucia High School, who spent most of her time holed up in her room writing miserable poetry about how miserable she was.

  His folks were members of the local country club, and every Sunday, Phil would meet his father for breakfast and eighteen holes. Phil had a +1 handicap to Adam’s 14, so the links were the one place where his dad praised him.

  Recently his mother had been talking about getting an RV and in the coming summer, visiting a few national parks. Adam was reluctant, his sister thought it was a miserable idea, and Phil felt he should be working a summer job to save money. But he also knew it would most likely be his last family vacation, so maybe that was more important.

  Then Friday night happened and Phil’s life changed forever.

  Friday

  May 3, 1996

  Another Friday night mixer was underway at Phil’s fraternity house. Although the night was young, most of the one hundred plus crammed into the ground floor of the decrepit old Victorian were already drunk, thanks to several kegs of cheap beer and a refrigerator full of gelatin shots.

  The music pounded, and the temperature inside was pushing eighty-five, even with the doors and windows open. Scantily clad, inebriated freshman girls were flashing, some were dancing, and one was puking into the kitchen sink.

  Phil wasn’t a partier, which didn’t mix well with frat life. Since there was no escaping the noise and the chaos, he was lounging in a threadbare chair tucked in a corner of the living room, nursing his umpteenth beer and thinking about his father. Had it been this way back in his day? He’d spoken of the lifelong bonds forged with frat brothers, but he’d failed to mention all the partying, vomit, hangovers, and drunken sex.

  He was debating about another beer when three girls entered the room. They looked way too young to be there, so he watched them with curiosity. The tall one looked older than the other two but still too young. She whispered to one of the girls, and then left them standing there looking ill-at-ease. He felt sorry for them, so he got up and went to offer them a soda. Up close, they looked around the same age as his younger sister.

  “Aren’t you a little young to be at a frat party?” he asked, suddenly feeling like an old man.

  The plump redhead with braces and too much mascara said, “My cousin wanted to come and she’s driving, so...” She trailed off, shrugging.

  “Want something to drink?” he asked.

  The nervous-looking skinny one with long, blond hair and startling blue eyes eyeballed his beer and whispered, “Do you have any sodas?”

  “Follow me.” Phil led them to a garbage can packed with sodas and ice.

  He had no intention of babysitting them, so after they got their drinks, he steered them to the food table, got himself another beer, and settled back in his chair. That was the last he saw of them.

  An hour later, it was still early and the party was going strong, but he’d consumed more than enough and now his options were to sleep it off in the chair or go to bed. He pried his lethargic body out of the chair and into a standing position. The alcohol slammed him, spinning the room around him, and he wobbled against the chair. He struggled to regain his balance and staggered to the stairs, where he had to climb over the people sprawled on them. In the upstairs bathroom, he ignored a couple swapping spit in the shower, and peed about a gallon of beer into the toilet, then stumbled down the hall towards his bedroom.

  Phil stopped at the bedroom doorway and blearily peered into the dim room, lit by a glowing lava lamp.

  “Yo, Phil.” His roommate, Erik, called from the room. “Get yo’ ass in here.”

  He squinted to focus and saw Erik with his pants puddled around his ankles, straddling a girl lying spread eagle on his bed. The scene didn’t register as his eyes continued to roam the room and found his other roommate, Jake, passed out on his bed.

  “This girl is so fucking hot, I can’t keep up with her,” Erik said, as he stood and hauled up his pants and zipped the fly.

  Phil entered the room and stared with little comprehension at the writhing girl whose face was buried under a pillow.

  “See what I mean, bro? She wants it bad.”

  Phil turned to cross the room to his bed and Erik grabbed his arm. “Hey. Where do you think you’re going? You gotta do me a favor and keep her happy until I can get it up again.”

  He pulled the confused boy to the bed and forcefully shoved his face down into the girl’s wet crotch. Her musky scent instantly aroused Phil, and he was suddenly overcome with the biggest hard-on of his life. Every shred of decency drained from him, leaving him senseless with a blinding need beyond any coherent thought and it demanded immediate release. Like a primal out-of-body experience, he jerked down his pants and thrust himself into her. She groaned louder, squirming under him, driving him wild as he pumped furiously. When he was spent, he collapsed on top of her, euphoric, and within moments he passed out to the distant sounds of Erik laughing and yelling for him to move over.

  Phil woke on the floor next to Erik’s bed. Whoa. I must’ve had one beer too many.

  His head pounded and his body ached, but hydration and a couple of ibuprofens usually cured anything when you were nineteen. He grabbed a towel, some clean underwear from his dresser, and headed for the bathroom down the hall to shower the party off.

  Dried, dressed, and refreshed, he went downstairs to get something to eat. He found Jake at the kitchen table, hunched over a smoothie. Phil took a carton of orange juice from the refrigerator and poured a tall glass. “A little too much party last night, Jake?”

  His roommate stared into his beverage and didn’t respond.

  Okay, thought Phil, as he picked up an open bag of taco chips on the counter and sat opposite him. “You sick or something?”

  Jake looked awful. His greasy sun-bleached blond hair was matted to his head and his red-rimmed gray eyes sunken and bloodshot. “I’m thinking about moving home.”

  Phil reached into the bag, grabbed a handful of chips, and stuffed them in his mouth. “Why?” Jake glanced up and Phil saw tears filling his eyes. “Dude, what’s going on? Did you get some bad news?”

  “Something happened last night.” Jake’s voice broke. “Something really bad.”

  Phil was afraid to ask but had to. “Are your parents okay?”

  “Nothing like that.”

  “Heidi break up with you?”

  Jake shook his head. “No. But she’ll never marry me after this.” He folded his arms on the table and rested his forehead on them. “I think I screwed a dead girl last night.”

  “No way.” Phil reached over and shook Jake’s shoulders. “Dude, there aren’t any dead girls here. If there were, the place would be crawling with cops. You were drunk and probably just dreamed it.”

  “No, it was real.” Jake rolled his head back and forth on his arms, whimpering, “Oh God, oh God.”

  Phil ran his fingers through his wet hair, wishing he could leave the room. “Tell me what happened.”

  Jake raised his head. “I was seriously tanked last night, but I remember there was a girl in our room, and I think I was screwing her, but she wasn’t moving or talking so she must have been dead. Maybe alcohol poisoning or something.”

  He jumped up, knocking his chair over, and ran to the sink to puke. Phil followed and turned on the water and the garbage disposal. The fetid smell gagged him and he held h
is breath, squirting a heavy dose of lemon scented dish detergent into the disposal. Jake rinsed his mouth under the faucet and then hung his head, staring at the sudsy drain, waiting for the inevitable next onslaught.

  As Phil watched his friend’s misery, a cold unease seeped through him as lurid snapshots flashed in his head. His silence got Jake’s attention and he glanced up from the sink. “Say something,” he pleaded.

  Phil could not meet his eyes. “I don’t think you were dreaming.” His voice was flat and unemotional. “I was there, but you were passed out when I came in… I screwed her, too.”

  Jake dropped his eyes back to the drain, trying to comprehend Phil’s words. His mouth flooded with saliva as another vomit tsunami rolled through him, pitching the last of his banana smoothie. He yanked a wad of paper towels from the roll hanging under the cupboard, mopped his sweaty face, and sat back down at the table.

  Phil recited what he could recall from the night before. It was fragmented, but coupled with Jake’s memory, it became a reality. “So you’re saying we all screwed some girl?”

  Phil nodded, feeling sick. “Yeah. I think so. On Erik’s bed.”

  “That’s fucking twisted.” Jake slumped in his chair, pressing the paper towels to his mouth. “Is she still there?”

  “I don’t know.” Everyone knows this stuff happens at frat parties, so she must’ve wanted it or why would she have been there? Phil thought it was degrading and had never partaken, but now, thinking about the hazy memory, he felt his penis stiffen. He remembered her pale, smooth legs spread wide and he was filled with an unwelcome, overwhelming desire to do it again. He was ashamed.

  “I know I was really drunk,” Jake said, “but I can’t even remember her face.”

  “Neither can I. We need to talk to Erik. She was on his bed and...” His memory flashed a clip of Erik shoving his face into the girl’s crotch.