Pamela Frost Dennis - Murder Blog 01 - Dead Girls Don't Blog

by Pamela Frost Dennis

  Oh no, not the pound. “Won’t he settle down after a while?”

  “Last time he did this, he carried on so long, he wound up having a heart attack and I had to resuscitate him. I don’t think he could survive another one. And I am not paying for another bypass.”

  I had nothing to say to that, so I pointed at the sketches. “Do you see anything here you like?” As soon as I said that, I felt like smacking myself in the forehead. I should have said, which one do you like? I do not want to go back to the drawing board and sweat out more Acme logo creations.

  “Well, darlin’, they’re all nice, but this,” she tapped a sketch with her long, magenta, rhinestone studded acrylic, “this is the one.” She picked it up and went to a grimy window to admire it. “It’s as if you read my mind.”

  We discussed some business details and then I loaded my portfolio and new kitty into the car and set out for the pet store for cat supplies. Yup, I’m a pushover.

  When I brought Tabitha home, Daisy was incredibly cordial to her new sibling. She followed all the proper welcoming protocol. First, she sniffed the young cat thoroughly, while Tabitha purred and twitched her tail. Then she gave the house tour, walking into each room with the cat following obediently. This gave me time to set up the litter box in the laundry room.

  After the royal tour, I showed Tabitha the litter box and she climbed in and did her business. I was impressed. Smart girl. I fed them, then took her to the box again and she went again. Genius. Maybe I should change her name to Einstein.

  After they settled down together for a nap in a warm sunbeam near the French doors, I decided to go to work. During the grueling commute to the backyard office, I thought, I have my own little family now.

  Wanda had picked my least favorite Acme creation, the spewing volcano, so I was not enthused about working on it. I could hear her voice in my ear: It’s as if you read my mind. Rats.

  I knocked off at five and called Mom to finagle a dinner invite. “Hey, Momma. Watch’a doin’?”

  “I’m sitting on the couch with my swollen feet up because I’ve been on them all day long, earning a living, and they hurt,” she said curtly. “I am also watching today’s episode of All My Family on the DVR, as if you care.”

  Ouch. “Oh, yeah. I heard. I’m so sorry.”

  “Too little, too late. I am well aware of what you said to your grandmother about gaining an extra hour of daylight. Hope you enjoy your last few episodes of Frantic Hausfraus. Hold on.” I heard a paper rustling. “I did a little research and do you know we have watched 10,413 episodes, counting today, to your measly 146? Can you even begin to imagine how this feels for us? No, you cannot.”

  I could see my dinner plans would need altering. “Well, for what it’s worth, I truly am sorry, Mom. And I’m sorry about what I said. It was thoughtless and coldhearted and I apologize.” Then I threw out a pitiful, “I love you.”

  “Love you, too,” she muttered and hung up.

  I went to the kitchen and poured a glass of wine. I leaned against the tile counter, reflecting on our conversation and wound up feeling like an ass, which led me to sending them both condolence flowers.

  Bedtime came and after my bathroom beauty routine and Daisy’s perimeter check, we climbed into bed. She was sawing logs before I even had my pillows fluffed. I read A Dog’s Purpose on my e-reader until I reached the blurry-eyed stage where my brain supplied nonsensical words of its own, and then I turned off the light and drifted off to dreamland.

  Around midnight, Tabitha jumped on the bed, stealthily squeezing her ever-purring body between Daisy and me. That jolted Daisy out of a dream, and she reared up with a yip, trampling me and the cat, who hissed and swung her paws in self-defense. I got scratched on the arm and Daisy took one on the nose, yelping pitifully.

  “Out. Both of you. Out.” I shrieked like a banshee, wondering what had possessed me to bring home a cat.

  I attended to my minor wound and went looking for Daisy. I found her snuggled with Tabitha on the couch, both fast asleep. They were so cute I took their picture.

  TWELVE

  Sunday, May 5

  1996

  Phil was in no mood for his weekly Sunday breakfast and golf game with his father at the country club. Adam’s jovial golf buddies always got a kick out of teasing him about his wild fraternity life and up until now, he’d dutifully laughed at their lame toga party jokes, but no way could he laugh at their friendly ribbing now. He called and begged off, saying he had to study for an exam. His mother phoned later and guilted him into coming over for dinner.

  Phil usually ate at least three helpings of his mother’s pot roast, but depression had killed his appetite and he pushed his food around his plate.

  His mother leaned across the table and felt his forehead. “You’re a little feverish. Are you coming down with something? Your sister’s running a fever. Maybe you both have the same thing.”

  His father chuckled. “More like recovering from something, would be my guess.” He sighed wistfully. “Fraternity life is definitely for the young.”

  You can have it, thought Phil. “I’m okay, Mom. Just worn out from studying.”

  “And not eating right,” she said. “Speaking of frat houses. This is awful. Late Friday night, dispatch got a call from a worried mother whose daughter had missed curfew.”

  “You get those kind of calls all the time, Penny,” said Adam. “Dumb kids not paying attention to the time.”

  “This one turned out to be a lot more.” Penny pursed her thin lips and tucked her chin-length, coal-black hair behind her ears.

  “How so?” asked Adam.

  “I tell you, it always makes me grateful that our Phil is such a good boy. Never gives us an ounce of worry.” She reached over and ruffled Phil’s hair, to his annoyance. “This one was a fifteen-year-old girl who’d gone to the movies and dinner with two friends, supposedly, but when the friends got home close to midnight, way past curfew, neither one of them knew where she was.”

  “What did you mean by supposedly?” Adam asked.

  “The kids didn’t actually go to dinner after the movie. They went to a frat party instead.”

  “What the hell are fifteen-year-old girls doing at a frat party?” said Adam. “That’s no place for a kid that age.”

  “I know,” said Penny. “The girl, Lindsay Moore’s her name, was found in the wee hours of Saturday morning sitting at the train station, dazed and crying, and all banged up.”

  “All banged up?” asked Adam.

  “Black eye. Scrapes and bruises. Looked like she’d taken a bad fall.”

  Adam looked at Phil. “Train station’s not too far from your frat.”

  “There’s a lot of fraternity and sorority houses in that area, Dad.”

  Penny continued. “I spoke with Angela Yaeger—”

  “Who’s Angela Yaeger?” Phil cut in, growing uncomfortable with the conversation.

  “She’s a detective. You’ve met her before at Christmas parties. Tall, African-American, with gorgeous copper colored hair?”

  Phil shrugged.

  “Well, you have. Anyway, this afternoon, she told me the officers who found the girl had taken her to the hospital.”

  “Why?” asked Adam. “Was she hurt that bad?”

  Penny whispered, “They suspected she’d been sexually assaulted.” She paused to glance over her shoulder. “I just want to make sure your sister hasn’t come out of her room, because this girl goes to the high school here and I do not want Christy to hear this.” Satisfied the coast was clear, she continued. “Oh, dear God, this is hard.” Her voice trembled. “She’d been gang-raped by three different men, according to her lab report. Angela was called in at the crack of dawn to question her.”

  Fear bubbled in Phil’s stomach. Was it possible the girl his mother was talking about had been the same girl who’d been in Erik’s bed? No way. Erik had said she was a freshman who wanted to party.

  “This sort of thing never happened wh
en we were in college,” said Adam, rubbing a hand over his five o’clock shadow. “Did they get the guys?”

  “Right now Lindsay doesn’t remember anything. Can you imagine having to tell someone they’ve been raped? Let alone your own child? My heart would break.” She sighed deeply, her hand over her ample breast. “Anyway, it turns out she was drugged. Rohypnol. You know, the date rape drug? They found traces in her urine sample.”

  Adam shook his head sadly. “That little girl is going to need some serious therapy.”

  Penny turned to Phil. “Honey, I know I can trust you not to repeat any of this. But if you hear anything, anything at all, let me know immediately and I’ll pass it along.”

  “And you need to be careful, Phil,” said his dad. “Parties can get out of hand real fast. If you think anybody in your frat could do anything like this, steer clear of them. Got that?”

  “Got it.” Phil’s heart was pounding so hard, he thought he was going to have cardiac arrest. Had Erik lied to him? Had he drugged a girl younger than his little sister? That would make it rape and would mean he and Jake had raped her, too. No, no way. Erik’s a player, but no way could he have done this.

  “Hopefully,” Penny continued, “she’ll start remembering things and those lowlifes will be arrested and put away for a long time. The courts are taking this date-rape drug thing very seriously. Just didn’t think we had to worry about it here in Santa Lucia.” She looked at Phil’s full plate. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry. I completely ruined your dinner.” She got up and pressed her lips to his forehead. “You do feel warm. I hope you’re not getting sick.”

  Phil had to get out of there. “Maybe I should go home and go to bed.”

  “You can stay here, you know,” said his father.

  “Can’t. Got an early class. It’s easier to go back to the house.”

  His mother wrapped his leftovers and gave him idiot-proof instructions for reheating. As she droned on and on, it was all he could do not to scream, Shut up! Let me go! Finally he escaped and drove home in a daze.

  The fraternity house reeked of fried fish and the smell turned his stomach when he entered. He barely acknowledged a few guys watching TV in the lounge as he passed through, going straight up the stairs to his room. He stashed his food in the little fridge that also served as a nightstand.

  Jake was lying on his bed reading an animal husbandry book and did not acknowledge Phil when he entered the room. After a couple of minutes, Phil noticed he wasn’t turning the pages.

  “We need to talk,” he said to Jake, moving to the window overlooking the backyard.

  “Really don’t want to.” Jake kept staring at the book.

  In the twilight, Phil could see a gray squirrel lounging on a branch of the old sycamore in the backyard. He wished he were the squirrel. No worries. Just gather nuts and hang out. He turned to Jake and said, “About the girl on Friday night.”

  Jake exhaled loudly and flipped a page. “I told you I don’t want to talk.”

  “Listen to me, Jake. My mom said a fifteen-year-old girl was gang-raped by three guys at a party on Friday night. The police found her at the train station. That’s only two blocks from here.”

  “So? What’s it got to do with us?” Jake spoke slowly, still staring blindly at his book. “I’m not proud of what we did, but we didn’t rape a kid.” He closed the book over his fingers to mark the page and looked at Phil. “Don’t you think if it had been a rape, she would have been fighting it? She just laid there and let us do it. How is that rape?”

  Phil stepped to his bed, tossed aside some clothes piled on top, sat down, and told him about the three young-looking girls he’d seen earlier at the mixer. “Mom said it was three high school girls. Two made it home and the third one didn’t. She was drugged with roofies and raped by three guys.”

  Jake shook his head, hanging on tight to denial. “Nope. No way. Erik’s a player, but he doesn’t need to drug anybody to get sex. He always has a hottie on the line.”

  “I dunno, Jake. It’s too much of a coincidence.”

  The door opened and Erik walked in, sweaty from a long run. “Hey, guys. What’s going on? Got anything to drink?” He checked Phil’s refrigerator. “Ooo, what’s this I see? Leftovers.” He unwrapped the food. “Oh, yeah, your mom’s pot roast.” He waved the packet. “You don’t mind, right?” He took a bite and cold gravy dribbled down his chin. “Mmm. Speaking of leftovers, you guys okay now about what happened the other night?”

  Loathing his roommate’s flip attitude, Phil asked quietly, “Just how drunk was that girl? I mean, she had to be pretty trashed to want to do it with three guys.”

  “Wellll…” Erik returned the food to the refrigerator and wiped his greasy mouth on his orange t-shirt. “I wouldn’t exactly call it drunk, maybe more like a little…drugged.” He sank into a yellow beanbag near the window, wearing a guilty grin.

  “Was it roofies?” Phil prayed the answer would be no.

  “You know what? You two should be grateful.” Erik settled his body into the squeaky bag, snickering at Phil. “About time you guys got some action.”

  Phil jumped off his bed and grabbed the front of Erik’s t-shirt, jerking him up. “Tell me!”

  “Yeah, okay. It was roofies.” Phil shoved him back into the bag. “No need to get so ticked off.” Erik had never seen Phil lose his cool and it unnerved him, but he maintained his bravado to cover his growing realization that maybe he’d made a bad choice on Friday night. “I put a roofie in her soda. So what? I was pretty high and I wanted to get laid, but she wasn’t having it. Kept saying she needed to go home, but I knew she really wanted it. Why else would she’ve been here? So no big deal.”

  Phil turned his back on him, his fears confirmed. “Do you have any idea how much trouble we’re in?”

  “What trouble? She’s gone, and the beauty of that drug is, she won’t remember. So we’re good.”

  “Oh, yeah, we’re good, all right.” Phil sat on the edge of his bed, hanging his head. “We all screwed a girl you drugged.” He shook his head with a grim laugh. “But hey, we’re good.”

  “Dude, come on. It was a party, so that makes it consensual. If she didn’t want to party, she should have stayed home.”

  Jake flung his heavy book across the room, snapping its binding against the wall. “You’re a fucking idiot, Erik.” He stood up, clenching his fists, the veins in his neck throbbing. “She was fifteen!”

  Erik remembered Jake coming after him the day before and kept his tone calm. “What would a fifteen-year-old be doing at a frat party?” Doubt crept into Erik’s voice. “And how would you know this?”

  “Phil’s mom. Remember she’s a police dispatcher? You tell him, Phil.”

  “She told me cops found the girl at the train station and took her to the hospital. They know she was raped by three men, and they found Rohypnol in her urine.” Phil angrily shoved the pile of clothes on his bed to the floor. “They’re calling it a gang-rape.”

  “Shit, we are so screwed,” Jake said, pacing the room and wringing his hands. “Why did she come here? She should have known better. If she remembers what happened, she’ll be able to identify us and we’ll all go to prison for the rest of our lives. Who’s going to believe we weren’t part of the drugging? No one.”

  “Even if she hadn’t been drugged, it’s still sex with a minor,” said Phil. “That’s statutory rape, even when the girl wants it. And she didn’t want it, did she, Erik?”

  THIRTEEN

  Just Do It

  By Katy McKenna on Saturday, April 13

  I woke around 7:30 and after a shower and a five-minute makeup, I sipped coffee and read the paper on the patio while Tabitha warily explored the yard for the first time. I hope she will be a stay-at-home cat and not a neighborhood gadabout, but there is no way I can keep her housebound and still have a dog door for Daisy.

  I was about to commute to the office to work on the Acme project when she leapt into my lap and curled into a p
ulsating fur ball. I didn’t have the heart to dump her on the ground, so I remained on the chaise lounge, telling myself I’d give her five minutes.

  Five minutes stretched into thirty as I pondered the “Lindsay petition” idea again. I decided that I should quit procrastinating and just do it. I carried Tabitha into the house and deposited her on the sofa and then sat at my desk in the living room to write a list of places to leave the petition.

  Cut ‘n Caboodles, Pop’s Fix-it Shop, Suzy Q’s Cafe, Melanie Rogers’ office, her husband’s office, the hospital where Samantha works, Klondike Pizza…I tapped the pencil on my chin. Where else?

  The Bookcase Bistro—because Chad owes me. Plus, it might do me good to bury the hatchet. No, not in his back. But it is a small town and I’d rather choose the time and place that we finally face each other, and I’d rather it not happen by chance in Target.

  That brought me to Holly and Erica, local friends I’ve neglected during my divorce and long pity-party. Erica is a stay-at-home mom, working her butt off chasing after toddler twins. She belongs to every mommy group there is in Colinas de Oro, about twenty minutes north up the road, so she could probably muster up a lot of signatures. Holly is a physical therapist in a big clinic here in town, so plenty of signature opportunities there. Who else? Ruby’s senior community. Maybe I would get thousands of signatures after all.

  I typed up the petition and after proofing it about a hundred times, I printed it out, immediately caught an error, and printed again.

  I changed into a more formal outfit than my office attire of baggy, faded sweats. Jeans, T-top, cardigan, and sandals—pretty much my year-round uniform on the temperate California central coast. I refreshed my makeup, tightened my ponytail, and added a floral print scarf and a pair of silver hoops.

  Daisy kept a close eye on my mini-makeover, and when I picked up my handbag and walked to the front door, she danced around me, thrilled about whatever super-exciting adventure I had planned for us.

  “Sorry, Daisy. Not this time.”

  I went to a print shop on South Oliva Street first. My legal size petition had room for fifteen signatures below the brief account of the crime and the plea to stop Hobart’s parole. I printed one hundred, which would get me fifteen hundred signatures. The girl at the counter asked if she could keep one to print out and gather signatures from her customers. As I walked out, I heard her asking the shop manager to sign it.