Did You See Melody?

by Sophie Hannah

  BJ: Yeah.

  KH: And so Dr Allwood raised the question, and I must admit it seems a valid one to me … let’s say Annette and Naldo Chapa wanted to frame the Revilles—

  BJ: That’s exactly what they wanted. They set the whole thing up and it nearly worked. Poor Kristie Reville who’d always been a good neighbor to them, taken care of their little girl while Annette was busy with work. Annette and Naldo Chapa were prepared not only to kill their poor sweet daughter in cold blood, but also to frame an innocent couple who’d never done them any harm. That’s why I call them the embodiment of evil, and I’ll stand by those words till the day I die. They make my skin crawl.

  KH: So let’s imagine for a second that you’re the Chapas, you’ve murdered your daughter and you want to frame Kristie Reville. You somehow manage to get Melody’s bloodstained sock inside Kristie’s car – that’s quite a coup, right? Kristie Reville told detectives categorically that she always locked her car, that she never forgot – she was very security-conscious, especially when she visited her masseur Victor Soutar, who lived in a down-at-heel neighborhood—

  BJ: Look, Ken, I believe Kristie thinks she’s telling the truth there. I believe she thinks her memory’s 100 per cent accurate on that point – but I think she’s wrong. We all make mistakes once in a while: leave things unlocked that we could have sworn we locked up safe and sound. When Kristie visited Victor Soutar the day Melody disappeared, she left her car unlocked. Annette and Naldo Chapa, having murdered their daughter, drove to Soutar’s place and planted that bloodstained sock in Kristie’s car. Kristie was emotional that day, remember? She was facing up to the fact that Soutar’s treatments were never going to help her conceive a child. Locking her car would have been the last thing on her mind.

  KH: Well, with respect, Bonnie, that’s your hypothesis: that she didn’t lock her car and that the Chapa parents planted the bloody sock. No one saw them doing that, did they?

  BJ: That’s correct, no one saw them. The other part? Incorrect. It’s not only my hypothesis. It’s also the verdict of a jury, and therefore the hypothesis of the American judicial system, which I respect even if you and Ingrid Allwood don’t. If Annette and Naldo Chapa murdered Melody – I’m saying ‘if’ to indulge you, Ken; we both know it’s not an ‘if’ any more – then of course they planted the sock. How else did it get inside Kristie’s car? Doesn’t matter that no one saw them. We know it must have happened.

  KH: But then the sock moved, didn’t it? It didn’t stay in the car. It ended up in Melody’s school bag, which was later found in some long grass near a local gas station. You’d say Annette and Naldo Chapa must have moved it, I assume – and Dr Allwood asks, Why would they do that? Putting that sock in Kristie Reville’s car – that’s a successful piece of framing, isn’t it? Nate Appleyard saw it, and if it had stayed in the car the police would have found it sooner than they did, on the property of Kristie Reville. So why move it? Dr Allwood’s right, isn’t she? There’s no reason for the Chapas to want or need to do that.

  BJ: You see, this is the danger with these questions that Allwood, and now you, leave hanging.

  KH: What danger?

  BJ: You only take the thought process so far – just far enough to cast doubt. It’s sickeningly dishonest. Let’s take it further: if the Chapas had no reason to move Melody’s blood-soaked sock, that might mean they’re innocent. Right? Okay, let’s go with that. If they’re innocent, that means someone else abducted and murdered poor little Melody. Either Kristie and Jeff Reville or somebody else must have done it – can we agree on that?

  KH: I think so, yes.

  BJ: Let’s say Kristie and Jeff did it. So the sock’s in their car because they’re guilty as all hell, and they decide to move it to where? A bag that’s covered in Kristie’s DNA – okay, she often took Melody to school and must have held her bag a lot, but still, this bag’s covered in Kristie’s DNA and full of Melody’s blood, her hair which shows evidence of arsenic poisoning, flies that must have come into contact with her dead body … I’m sorry, Ken, I can’t help it. I don’t know how anyone can talk about this horrific crime without getting emotional – you must have a heart of stone.

  KH: It’s a very upsetting case, Bonnie. Do you want to …?

  BJ: I’m just fine, thanks, Ken. Let’s get back to our hypothesizing. Why would Kristie move the sock that she knows Nate Appleyard has already seen in her car to Melody’s school bag full of hair, blood and blowflies? Why link herself to the evidence of murder in that way? I can’t see her doing that. Can’t see anyone doing it.

  KH: Then, according to you, the Chapas planted the sock in Kristie Reville’s car, and also later moved it to Melody’s school bag?

  BJ: Absolutely.

  KH: So they got lucky twice? Kristie Reville left her car unlocked twice, at two very opportune moments for Annette and Naldo Chapa?

  BJ: I don’t believe the locking of cars would have been at the forefront of Kristie Reville’s mind on March 2, 2010. She was devastated to think that her infertility might be permanent, not temporary as she’d always tried to convince herself. That was what was going on for her that day. So yes, I have no trouble believing she might have forgotten to lock her car more than once.

  KH: But Kristie herself says otherwise. She says no matter what state she was in, she always locked her car – on March 2, 2010 same as always.

  BJ: I have a theory about that – one I can’t prove. I don’t believe Kristie wants to admit that her best friend, as she saw Annette – her only friend in the world, really – could do that to her. Kristie and Jeff still insist their good friends and neighbors the Chapas are innocent. It’s heartbreaking, really. That’s the problem with truly good people, though: they don’t see evil. They just don’t see it, don’t recognize it.

  KH: It was kind of like a mutual acquittal society, right? The Chapas saying the Revilles were innocent and the Revilles saying the same about the Chapas? Not what you’d expect.

  BJ: Yeah. The Revilles naïvely believed the Chapas couldn’t be guilty. The Chapas, meantime, knew the Revilles were innocent because they themselves were guilty as hell.

  KH: In her article, Dr Allwood also raises the question of why there was so much blood in the school bag when the hair found to be Melody’s indicated arsenic poisoning. Did the Chapas poison their daughter to death or did they kill her in a way that caused her to spill lots of blood?

  BJ: Well, I can’t believe I have to point this out, Ken, but the two are not mutually exclusive! You can poison someone and cause them to shed blood. For some reason Annette and Naldo Chapa changed their minds about the murder method. They started with poison, then made a new plan. I’ve no idea why. I don’t understand the mentality of a parent who’d kill his or her own child, or any child, and I’m very glad I don’t, frankly.

  11 October 2017

  I jolt awake. It’s light outside. The sun streams in through the windows. I’m on the sofa in my casita. My neck hurts, as if I’ve slept on it bent, and my mouth is painfully dry.

  Shit. I must have fallen asleep halfway through the Bonnie Juno clip I was watching – that’s the last thing I remember from last night: Bonnie arguing with a talk-show host. What was his name? Ken something.

  I look for the iPad mini and find it on the floor. It must have slid out of my hands while I slept. I turn it on. The battery’s down to 23 per cent. I’m going to have to go back to the resort shop at some point and ask Mason for a charger.

  It’s 9.20 a.m. I can’t believe I slept so long and so heavily. I check for any further communications from Jess, Olly or Patrick. My heart leaps when I see I’ve got an Instagram comment from Olly. He’s written, ‘Jess says i have to write something so u know i am okay, i am okay, talk when ur back on 24/10 is that still when u r back?’

  I post a reply: ‘I’ll definitely be back on 24 October, Ol. Can’t wait to see you. Love you and Jess so much xxxx’.

  Still no word from Patrick. He’ll have to talk to me e
ventually, however angry he is.

  I’ll do some talking too. It didn’t feel possible before. My brain wouldn’t mould my feelings into a coherent form that could be expressed, apart from with a howl of anguish. My mouth wouldn’t open. The opposite: I’d feel my lips press together tighter whenever Patrick appeared.

  I couldn’t speak, so I ran.

  I’m not going to email him again. Any further attempt at communication would be a concession I can’t afford to make. It’s up to Patrick to make the next move.

  I need water, lots of it, before I can do anything. I go to the kitchen and fill one of the glasses on the counter from the cold tap: drink, refill, drink, refill. Gradually I start to feel more human.

  In the bathroom, I splash cold water on my face and enjoy the feeling of it running down my neck. Looking at my wet skin in the mirror, I think about the girl’s green and black swimming costume I saw in another bathroom recently, hanging up to dry, and the rubber swimming cap …

  Were they Melody Chapa’s? Why would a girl who’s supposed to be dead – who’s presumably in hiding – go swimming at a busy holiday resort? Whatever number that room was, there was no private pool attached to it. If Melody swam, she must have done so in full view of other Swallowtail guests.

  I’m reaching for a towel to dry my face when it occurs to me: something so obvious I can hardly believe I didn’t realise sooner – immediately, as soon as it happened. How could I have missed it?

  The bathroom. The door …

  I go to the casita’s nearest phone, pick it up and press ‘0’ for reception. A woman answers, expresses the impassioned hope that I’m already having a truly great day, and asks how she can help to make it greater still. I ask for Riyonna.

  ‘She’s not in yet – for which I apologise – but I expect her to arrive at any moment. Can I ask her to call you right back? Would that be okay?’

  ‘Yes. If she could call me back …’

  ‘She sure can! No problem at all! She’ll be delighted to do that.’

  ‘That would be wonderful, thank you.’ America: Land of Hyperbolic Overstatement.

  I think of Bonnie Juno’s description of Melody’s parents: ‘evil monsters’. Maybe she’s right and that’s what Annette and Naldo Chapa are, but the way she said the words, with such relish, made her sound like a monster too. Perhaps this is the unavoidable flip side of American overstatement. Have an awesome day – unless you’re an evil monster!

  Juno’s excessive make-up in the clip – the smooth orange-beige mask where her skin should have been, her dark pink shiny lips, the bright blue glittery gunk above her eyes – made her look monstrous; so did her stiff, dyed-jet-black hair that never moved and her air of absolute confidence that she was right about every single aspect of the Melody Chapa case. Even seated, she looked a foot taller than Ken, and she kept pulling herself up in her chair in order to glare down her nose at him more effectively. She’d worn heels that were at least six inches high for the interview. If I was built like her, I’d wear the flattest shoes I could find at all times. Most women would.

  I wonder if Bonnie Juno made a decision early in her career to flaunt her height rather than be ashamed of it.

  If the detectives come back today to interview me, if they believe me and take me seriously, how long will it be before Bonnie Juno finds out that some nobody of a tourist from England is putting forward a story that directly contradicts hers? What if she has her researchers try to dig up dirt on me, or attacks me on her show? She seems to be able to say whatever the hell she wants and get away with it.

  Don’t flatter yourself, Burrows. No big US TV show is going to be interested in you.

  I consider going for a dip in my private pool, but if I do that and Riyonna rings I might miss the call. Also, I’m starving.

  I ring room service and order breakfast: Eggs Florentine and English Breakfast tea with cold milk. While I wait for it to arrive, I look again at my list of search results from last night. Many of them are YouTube clips of Bonnie Juno that look similar to the one I fell asleep to last night. Those that aren’t look to be different versions of the Melody Chapa story.

  I spot, attached to one of the YouTube clips, the headline ‘Where is Melody’s Poggy? ask Bonnie Juno and Ingrid Allwood’. The video’s dated 10 June 2010, three months after Melody disappeared.

  I’ve no idea where Poggy is now, but two nights ago he was in room three hundred and twenty-something at the Swallowtail Resort and Spa, Arizona. At least I think he was.

  No. I’m sure he was.

  Sighing in frustration, I tap the white arrow to play the clip. Ingrid Allwood has a round pink face, large grey eyes, seashell earrings and a maroon scarf wrapped around her head; her piles of blonde curly hair spill over its edges. She’s wearing sunglasses with chunky blue wooden frames, but on her forehead, over her scarf not her eyes. As Bonnie Juno – in red six-inch heels this time – holds forth, Allwood looks as if she’s trying not to smile, as if Juno’s nothing but a joke to her.

  The clip begins with Juno in mid-flow.

  BJ: … to speculate when it takes you in a direction you want to go in, but not when it might lead to a conclusion that supports my argument. And you have the nerve to deny you’re a hypocrite? Ha! Don’t make me laugh!

  IA: That’s simply not true, Bonnie. You seem determined to misunderstand me, so I’ll explain again. I’m happy to speculate in all directions as long as we’re clear that’s all we’re doing. You cannot claim to know where this Poggy toy is. It hasn’t been found – anywhere.

  BJ: No, and neither has poor little Melody’s body. And yet that tragic little body – the dead body of a sweet, innocent girl murdered by her own parents – has gotta be somewhere, right? And mark my words, when it’s found, Poggy will be found right there with it. No doubt at all.

  IA: I’m afraid you can’t say ‘no doubt’ about something that hasn’t happened yet and may never happen.

  BJ: In my heart, there’s no doubt. Annette and Naldo Chapa took Poggy out of Melody’s school bag and, wherever they’ve buried her, they buried him with her. In their twisted minds, putting her favorite soft toy next to her would have represented some kind of comfort. The message, one can only assume, is ‘Sorry we killed you, but here, have your favorite snuggle toy as a consolation.’ It’s a horrific kind of warped sentimentality, just … beyond appalling to any normal human being, but it’s typical of those two monsters. Let them sue me if I’m wrong about them.

  IA: I’m sure they would if they weren’t devoting all their resources to trying to find their missing daughter.

  BJ: Answer this: what genuinely distraught parents would fail to express any fears or worries about their kidnapped beautiful little daughter being interfered with? Being in the clutches of a sexual predator? That is every parent’s worst nightmare. It’s also one of the main motives for a stranger to abduct a child. Everyone knows this, we all know it. Yet not once – not once – has either Annette or Naldo Chapa expressed to the detectives searching for their daughter any fears along these lines. They haven’t so much as mentioned the possibility of Melody being the victim of sexual violence.

  IA: Not that you know of.

  BJ: Ask Detective Larry Beadman if you don’t believe me. He’ll tell you. Not once. All of this is well documented. You know I’m not making it up. And let’s not forget that the Chapas seemed to hold out no hope at all, from day one, that poor little Melody would be found alive and well. Nuh-uh. They publicly invited her killer to confess. Oh, they knew that sweet child was dead – no doubt about it.

  IA: You keep insisting there’s no doubt – and I believe you feel that way – but you’re factually wrong. What you have is a strong hunch and nothing more. You don’t, you can’t, have certain knowledge of any of the things you claim to know. As a psychotherapist, I know that desperate, suffering families are capable of behavior that looks strange to those on the outside – yes, the Chapas’ reactions seem a little off, but you’re unwilling to
believe just how normal that is.

  BJ: And I suppose I haven’t interacted with families that are beside themselves with grief and panic? All my years as a prosecutor in the DA’s office in Philadelphia? Believe me, I know what’s normal, and, what’s more, I know what’s normal for Philly – my home turf for so many years.

  IA: Parental anguish is the same in Philadelphia as it is everywhere else in America.

  BJ: And so is the lack of it. I know distraught parents when I see them. Annette and Naldo Chapa’s reactions? Light years away from those of any innocent relative in pain that I’ve ever encountered.

  IA: So they smell off to you. I hear that. But in relation to the toy, Poggy, your argument is weak.

  BJ: No, it’s not.

  IA: All right, so Poggy wasn’t in Melody’s school bag when it was found, but it could have fallen out at any point. Kristie Reville, crucially, did not see Melody zip up the side pocket she’d put the toy in. So, sure, someone might have taken it but it equally could have fallen out.

  BJ: No, he couldn’t. Incidentally, Poggy is a ‘he’, not an ‘it’. He couldn’t have fallen out. You oughta take a look at that bag. The pocket where Melody kept Poggy on school days was deep, and she pushed him right down inside it to make sure he wouldn’t fall out. Kristie Reville watched her do it the day she disappeared, before they set off in the car to school. Poggy had never fallen out of that bag before and he didn’t fall out of it the day Melody was taken and murdered. Satisfied? Annette and Naldo Chapa took Poggy out of that pocket, to bury alongside their murdered little girl, to make themselves feel like good people. It’s truly sickening.

  IA: You’re being completely illogical. Let’s say that’s why Poggy was removed from the bag, so that he could be buried with Melody – and we should make clear here that Melody has not been declared dead, her body hasn’t been found—