The Ugly Girls' Club: A Murder Mystery Thriller

by C. A. Wittman

  "Ms. J, with all due respect," Nisha spoke over the crying babies. "You need to get a grip on yourself and calm the hell down. Our. Friend. Is. Missing." She emphasized each word by tapping her palm with two fingers. "You feel me? We sorry we interrupted your whole Mr. Rogers lunchtime situation you got going on up in here, but her child," she pointed at Henry, "is missing, and we need to find out where they at. Because it ain't like Hunter to pull this bullshit." Nisha's eyes watered, and she took a breath to steady her emotions. "The officers just wanna ask you some questions, and then they'll be outta your hair."

  Jill trembled, lips pressed firmly together. She was losing it, Emma thought as she held tighter to her baby brother, her ears pulsing from the commingling of her siblings' high-pitched screams.

  The sound of the kitchen door opening and the screen slapping shut had them all turning to see Officer Parks stepping back into the living room. He held up a phone with a sparkly black case. "Is this Hunter's phone?"

  "Yes," Henry breathed out. "Where was it?"

  "Out in the side yard, amongst some weeds."

  "But what is Hunter's phone doing in our yard?" Jill asked.

  "Why don't we all have a seat and start from the beginning," Officer Parks said.

  Emma and Jill took the sofa with a twin on each of their laps. Henry remained standing, arms crossed tight across her chest, leaning against the armrest at Emma's end. The two police officers stood across from her. To the left of the cops, Cassandra and Nisha sat in narrow grey armchairs.

  "Where were you when Hunter texted you?" Officer Parks asked Emma.

  "At a friend's in Westwood." Emma pulled out her phone and handed it to him, hoping he wouldn't ask her who the friend was. She knew it wouldn't bode well for Blue if the police began sniffing around her scene. Fortunately, he only read the text exchange with Hunter, saw the missed calls on Emma's end and her attempts to call Hunter back.

  "What time did you arrive home last night?"

  “I’m not sure. Around 7:30.”

  “It was 7:43,” Jill said.

  Officer Parks stared at Jill and Emma with eyes that made Emma think of Raisinets.

  "Tell me about this letter you two talked about in the text," Officer Parks said.

  "It was from a friend, who committed suicide a month ago. She'd sent it right before her suicide, I think, because it was postmarked the day of her suicide. Hunter was only just getting it. That's why they were nervous."

  Officer Park's pen hovered over the paper in his hand, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he swallowed.

  "And a week before her suicide—" Emma began.

  "Can you speak up?" The other officer interjected, his cool dark eyes scrutinizing her.

  "Yeah," Emma said a little louder. "A week before she died, Hunter had lost another friend to suicide.” Emma’s voice dropped again.

  Officer Park's hand froze in the note-taking.

  "Poppy Fields and Wren Mahoney?" He asked.

  Emma nodded.

  "May I see Emma’s phone?" Jill asked, holding out her hand. Officer Parks gave it to her. Jill read the exchange while he scribbled down more notes. He glanced at Emma, his eyes sweeping over her from head to foot. "Any idea why Hunter's phone would have wound up in the weeds in your yard?"

  Emma shook her head no, chancing a look at Henry. The lines around her mouth had grown longer, dragging her face down, her skin drooping into small jowls. The twins had finally quieted, and a buzzy silence filled Emma's ears. Cassandra picked at her nails, the ends of her hair curling into tendrils feathering her wrists, her fedora sitting crooked and stupid-looking on her head. Nisha's expression was unreadable, and Jill blinked, eyes enlarged by her bifocals. She appeared to be focused on the dark-haired officer's chest. Emma knew she was either thinking or mesmerized by the coppery buttons on his shirt.

  "But why did you miss Hunter's call?" Jill asked, mouth turned down. "In the first text exchange, he said he would call you in half an hour."

  "They," Emma said.

  "What?"

  "Hunter uses the pronoun, they."

  Jill waved her words away. "That's not important at the moment. Hunter received an important letter and was nervous about opening it. He asked you to be available to read it with him. You told him you would."

  Emma felt her face grow hot as everyone focused on her.

  "I just… got to talking with my friend, and I didn't have my phone near me. I didn't realize how much time had gone by." Emma tried to hold her face steady, but she could feel her chin trembling. Officer Parks started to say something, but Jill cut him off. "Poppy and Wren were part of a friendship trio. There is another girl named Posie. I specifically recall you telling me that." Jill said to Emma.

  "Yeah?" Emma said, wondering where her mom was going with this.

  Jill frowned at her uncertainty. "You told me that the day Poppy was discovered deceased at Santa Monica Swim Center. You left school early and went to Cat's house, where you spent the day. I distinctly remember you standing there." Jill pointed at the front door. "You were wearing Adidas tennis shoes. They were brown with silver stripes, and it was hard for me at first to focus on what you were saying because you didn't take off your shoes. You know how much I don't like shoes worn in the house." Jill added for emphasis.

  They were all shoeless, except for the officers.

  The dark-haired officer's left brow rose, and Officer Parks jotted down what Jill said.

  "Has anyone talked to Posie?" Jill asked. "She is also Hunter's friend."

  "Hunter hasn't been spending time with Posie," Henry said. "Since the suicides, she's been depressed and rarely leaves her apartment."

  "Still," Jill argued. "She may know something. Maybe Hunter is there now."

  Henry's brow wrinkled. Then she took her phone out of her pocket and scrolled through her contacts, tapping out a text to Posie.

  "I don't think she's familiar with my number," Henry said of Posie. "Just want to let her know who I am before I call."

  They waited silently while she stood with the phone to her ear.

  "Hello, Posie?… Hi, it's Henry, Hunter's mom… Hi, yes, how are you?… Have you heard from Hunter?"

  Henry's brows drew together while she listened. "No?… Yeah. Could you do that?… Joanne and I haven't heard from them since yesterday, and we're a bit worried… Yes. Thanks, sweetie."

  Henry ended the call and pocketed her phone, lips tucked in tight. She shook her head no.

  "Okay," Officer Parks said. "I'm going to fill out a missing child report."

  Jill's lips twisted to the side, and she shifted the toddler she held to her other knee. "I wonder why Hunter's phone was in our yard. You know last night, I heard scuffling outside and a yell. I thought it was a neighbour or pedestrians. I was busy with the twins and didn’t think much of it.”

  Both officers eyed Jill as if they were trying to figure her out.

  "Are you sure you didn't see Hunter last night?" Jill asked Emma.

  "No!" Emma exploded. She'd seen enough cop shows to know that you didn't hint at your own guilt—or your kid’s. Her brother's bottom lip turned down, and his breathing quickened before he threw back his head and began to cry again. "I'm sorry, shh." Emma bounced him on her legs, but he was having none of it, his arms shooting out toward Jill.

  "It's fine. I'll take him." Jill half rose to scoop him up from Emma's arms and situate him on her lap next to his sister.

  Feeling like she could breathe a little better, Emma appealed to Officer Parks, who seemed nicer than his partner, like he might give her the benefit of the doubt.

  "Hunter did not visit me. I don't know why their phone is here. But I think… I think…" She couldn't bring herself to look at Henry. "I think something's happened to them."

  Henry's hand floated to her chest, where she pinched aggressively at the skin, wrinkling it and leaving angry red streaks.

  "What do you think might have happened to Hunter?" Officer Parks asked Emma.
r />   "I don't know." Emma could hear the whine in her voice. "It's not like them to not get back with people. I mean, phone or not, they would have called their moms at least." Emma didn't want to continue with her train of thought. She didn't want to say in front of Henry what she feared. That something horrible had happened to Hunter.

  Officer Parks stared hard at her again with his waxy brown eyes before addressing Henry.

  "Let's get started with the report. You'll get a call from one of our detectives who will stop by your house to talk with you within the hour. What is your address?"

  Henry gave it to him.

  "In the meantime, I'd like to hold onto Hunter's phone. See what information we can mine from it."

  "Yes, please do," Henry said sadly. She ran a hand over her spiky hair, eyes roaming the room.

  "What's Posie's last name?"

  "Jenner," Emma said. The cop wrote it down. "And Posie's address?"

  "I'm not sure. I've never been there." Emma glanced at Nisha and Cassandra. They shrugged.

  "She lives on Ocean Avenue," Henry said. "But I've never been there either."

  "That's alright. We can look it up," Officer Parks said.

  Henry nodded, blinking quickly, eyes watering. "Okay," she said, her tone flat. Wordlessly, she took a seat on the sofa next to Emma. There was a crinkling sound as her hand landed on some papers, Jill's notes.

  The twins had quieted, and the air around them felt muffled and heavy. The dark-haired officer stepped out to get something from his car. A triangle of honeyed light stretched across the pale interior of the living room. Emma shuddered, and her phone vibrated. Jill handed it to her and she glanced down at the screen.

  It was Blue.

  Hey, what r u up to?

  Chapter 34

  A two-hour search of beaches and public swimming pools in the Santa Monica and Venice area finally ended at 3PM on Saturday, July sixth. The Culver City Police received an anonymous call about a body found along the Ballona Creek Trail and Bike Path in Culver City.

  Hunter Garret, a gender nonconforming fourteen-year-old, is now the third teenager in a tight-knit group of friends to commit suicide in the last two months.

  The suicides have all been staged near water, the victims' bodies found in beach chairs, wearing bathing suits, their nails oddly painted in multiple colors. Lethal doses of the drug ketamine, used as an anesthetic in medical settings and as a recreational hallucinogenic, were found in all three teens.

  Wren Mahoney and Poppy Fields, the two previous victims in what police now call the Waterside Suicides, left notes expressing low self-esteem and depression.

  According to a friend of Hunter's, Hunter sent a text the night before their death about a mysterious letter found in their mailbox a month late. The letter was from Poppy Fields, written just before her suicide. This letter remains missing. There is no suicide note from Hunter, leading police to believe that Hunter's demise may derive from suspicious circumstances.

  Both of Hunter's moms have stated that Hunter did not outwardly show signs of depression or suicidal tendencies, and have expressed that Hunter was a well-adjusted child who had a penchant for embracing life. However, a video made by Hunter Garrett on YouTube, just days before their death, tells a different story of a young person angry with the predatory influences of the internet on young people.

  Was Hunter Garrett possibly a victim of the problems they so adamantly railed against in the five-minute rant they posted on YouTube?

  Today, the community has come together to pay their respects. Once again, flowers are left and prayers are said in the wake of yet another suicide.

  Joining me today is Dr. Reza Hadid, who is here to talk about the warning signs of teen suicide.

  Gumption clicked off her phone and poured herself a glass of carbonated water. She walked out to her backyard and stared unseeingly at the man-made boulders and pond-like swimming pool. A gentle breeze formed mild ripples on the surface of the water. Bell brushed against her bare ankles, and she bent to stroke the cat's back as it mewed melodically at her.

  Hunter.

  Gumption's chest tightened, her face too warm. She didn't realize she was crying until one of her tears leaked to the corner of her lips and she tasted the salt.

  “That dear, dear boy,” she muttered to herself and closed her eyes for a moment, going to that place. The moment her son was taken from her. Silk on air. Gumption took a breath and turned around to go back into the house. Candace stood at the kitchen window, her dark eyes pensive. Face immobile. Shadows accentuated her gaunt cheeks and high, pale forehead. All that was alive in that face were the eyes, fiery and black.

  Gumption stepped back inside and walked into the kitchen.

  "Candace?" She called out.

  A twitter of birds outside.

  A distant lawnmower.

  "Candace. Where are you, dear?"

  Bell padded up to Gumption on silent paws and mewed again.

  Gumption sipped her water and thought of Lady Catherine—eccentric, aristocratic. She wore her hair like a 1920s flapper, although it was 1960 and the flipped bob and beehive were all the rage. Lady Catherine's clothes were always tailored and conservative, the fabric thick and expensive, impervious to wrinkling. No matter the weather, even in that choking New Orleans summer heat, she wore sleeves.

  "You're in a bit of trouble, my dear," Lady Catherine had said. Her lips had barely moved when she spoke, her voice and tone always well-modulated.

  Gumption had pushed her narrow hips forward, a stance she took to heft the increasing weight of her growing belly.

  "How would you like to come to England with me? I can take care of this for you." She'd motioned at Gumption's belly. "And I can take care of them." A reference to the police circling in on her like carrion birds. "Those men," she said. "They had it coming."

  A sliver of a smile. A slow wink.

  There was something cold and hard in Lady Catherine that spoke to whatever it was that had frozen in Gumption's heart. After she'd put that first bullet between the sheriff's eyes, a part of her had turned to ice, like the little boy in the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale, “The Snow Queen”.

  Gumption had been walking around with a partially frozen heart most of her life. Now, in her old age, it was thawing. The pain? Well, it was excruciating.

  Chapter 35

  The penthouse was unexpected. Emma gawked at the high-rise, Blue’s building coming to mind, before entering the resort-style lobby and asking the concierge to ring up Jenner. During her brief friendship with Hunter, they had never mentioned Donovan and Posie living in a luxury apartment on Ocean Avenue. But that was Hunter, Emma thought, a lump forming in her throat. They never bragged or played up anything.

  Three hours after Hunter had been found, Detective Garcia, who spoke at the middle school after Poppy's death, had stopped by Emma’s house at six at night. The shock of the news had electrified Emma, a sizzling terror winding its way through her body. She'd doubled over, and Detective Garcia had to take her arm and lead her gently to the sofa while Jill stood still as a statue, eyes blinking and enlarged behind her glasses. He'd talked with Emma for more than an hour and asked to see her phone. She'd deleted the browsing history and cookies on her phone after Officer Parks and his partner had left her house. It mortified Emma that the cops might get ahold of her phone and see how much porn she watched. Most of the time she went incognito, but lately she'd become lazy, not bothering with the extra step.

  Emma had texted everyone after Detective Garcia left. A frantic conversation had bounced back and forth between Nisha, Cassandra, Emma, and Cat on WhatsApp because Cat was in Europe. Between the group texting, Emma had opened up a separate conversation with Blue, who had informed Posie of Hunter's death. The police had paid her a visit when Hunter was still missing.

  Now Hunter's face loomed in Emma's mind. An open, honest face. Hunter had always been there for her. For all of their friends. Emma sniffed, the heat of the coming tears conge
sting her sinuses.

  Yesterday, she’d had a more formal interview at the Santa Monica Police Department with an attorney present, a suggestion of Oliver's.

  Emma rode the elevator up to the sixteenth floor and rang the bell at apartment 16B.

  Donovan answered. He wore a ribbed black tank, black track pants, and black high-tops. He looked her up and down, then stepped aside.

  "Come in," he muttered.

  A stale odor of cigarettes lingered in the air, beer bottles scattered everywhere. An ashtray filled with cigarette butts sat on a smudged glass coffee table littered with dirty dishes and cups. Clothing was draped over chairs and even lay on the floor amongst a single gold high heel. Out the plate-glass window, Emma took in the breathtaking view of the palm tree-lined street, the Santa Monica Pier, and the pale blue ocean as far as the eye could see.

  "Sorry about the mess," Donovan said and took a seat on a nondescript grey sofa, running his hands over his face. "I just woke up," he said into his palms. It was two in the afternoon.

  "Oh," was all Emma could think to say.

  He lowered his hands and stared at her for a moment.

  "I'm sorry about Hunter. It's fucked, these suicides."

  Emma felt the lump return to her throat, and a shudder of revulsion passed over her. Whatever attraction she’d possessed for Donovan had vanished entirely.

  "Posie and Blue are in her room," Donovan said, pointing toward a shallow hallway. "Last door on the left."

  "Thanks," Emma mumbled.

  Emma gave a soft knock on Posie's door before opening it a crack.

  Blue sat perched on the end of Posie's bed, knees drawn up to her chest. Posie stood before a full length mirror, brushing her hair. She eyed Emma's reflection from the mirror without turning around. Blue straightened out her legs and stood, giving Emma a sad smile.

  "Hi, babe," she said and walked over to Emma, who remained at the door, giving her a tight hug. "I'm so sorry," she breathed in Emma's ear and then released her. Posie continued brushing her hair. She was tanned and ruddy-cheeked, like she'd been spending most of her summer outdoors—not inside, depressed and crying into her pillow.