Paying the Price

by Maria Quick

  Both lucies had nothing to say to that.

  Moving on. I Googled Leesha’s name, to see where the cops were with her case.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I gasped, clicking on the first link I saw. ‘Your middle name is Tallulah?’

  ‘Don’t,’ she shuddered, closing her eyes.

  ‘It’s okay. Hers is Destiny,’ George assured her. I shot him a glare.

  After clicking off sixteen ads and hissing at George after he asked why I didn’t have an ad blocker, I finally managed to read the article. After watching another ad, and promising to complete a survey afterwards. Local news, where would we be without it?

  Leesha was murdered shortly after 10pm two Saturdays ago. She was walking home alone after meeting a friend. There were no cameras in the area or witnesses. Her mom, Tamara Wright, described Leesha as a beautiful, fun-loving girl who was studying to become a doctor. She couldn’t understand how somebody could do this.

  ‘Cops don’t seem to have much information, by the looks of things. No cameras, no witnesses. No nothing. I think I’m in the same boat.’

  It’s not often that I hit a wall this quickly. Usually, that only happens after I’ve embarrassed myself in public a few times.

  ‘So, that’s it?’ Leesha shrugged, blasé. ‘Can’t help me at all?’

  ‘I can see if Mickey can hack into police or government databases, but I’m not sure he’s that good with computers.’

  ‘Also, it’s illegal,’ George pointed out. We ignored him.

  ‘Do you have any idea where he lives? Did Izzy take you before you came here?’

  ‘Naw, not really. I think she wanted to but I was pretty shaken up with everything. I wanted to see my mom, so she stayed with me while I watched her. She was a big help, actually. She allowed me to vent and deal with it in my own way. After I was sorta okay, we waited around your school until we overheard someone say you didn’t go there anymore. We knew where your dad worked, since you mentioned it a hundred times at therapy. We followed him for days until he told somebody on the phone that you’d be with Tess this morning. I haven’t seen David since he killed me.’

  Okay, little creepy that two teen ghosts were stalking my dad.

  ‘Who did he tell?’ I frowned. Stacy already knew, and I didn’t know any of his other pals.

  ‘Hell if I know.’

  Alright, majorly helpful.

  ‘Well, I’m still stuck,’ I told her. ‘I have nowhere to go on this. Unless Mickey’s suddenly a pro at hacking, I’m not sure he’ll find anything, either. If I don’t know where David is, I can’t do what I usually do.’

  Which is annoy the killer enough to take a shot at me. Sometimes literally.

  Most of the time, literally.

  Hey, I never claimed I was good at this.

  Leesha stood there frowning as George looked anxiously at us both. I think he was waiting for me to do something, but I wasn’t sure what. Offer my condolences, maybe? Talk about our feelings? I didn’t want to do either of those things.

  But, a thought did belatedly recur to me. Leesha was possibly not the only victim.

  I did a search on strangled women in the local area in the past thirty years, feeling like a total freak.

  ‘Is it true that the NSA and CIA can remotely access our computers and see what we’re doing?’ I asked George, by the by.

  ‘Are you kidding me? That’s absolute garbage. Pretty sure they can look up their own memes without stealing yours,’ he sighed, shaking his head in dismay.

  Good to know. The government wouldn’t know what a total creep I was.

  ‘Did Izzy ever mention that David went on vacation?’ I asked, scrolling through the list. There was one possible murder that could, theoretically, be attributed to him. I was hoping he had a ready alibi for the day in question. Sadly, Leesha quickly burst that bubble.

  ‘He never did. I remember she mentioned that. She got bored going to the same places nearly every day so she’d wander off every now and then to see her family. And Chuck, of course.’

  Wonderful. Although I didn’t really believe that David somehow managed to kill while she wasn’t there, I couldn’t rule out the possibility. My life was full of annoying, stupid coincidences like that, and it’d be just my luck that he was a deranged serial killer.

  You know, I could totally see myself getting murdered here.

  I shoved all self-homicidal thoughts right out of my head and opened my chips. I needed to concentrate. Jessica Lee, you were up.

  Jessica was twenty nine. She was kind of an outlier age-wise, but it was the only unsolved strangling in the area. Only other strangling in general, actually. I was much more likely to get killed by a drunk-driver, which was always nice to know. Anyway, Jessica did volunteer work at a tiny local library. It was five years ago, the day before Christmas Eve, and she was the only one working. Everybody else clearly had other commitments, i.e., panic-buying gifts. She was due to lock up at 4pm, and her colleague Terry Roosevelt – no, really, that was his name, I double-checked – would reopen it four days later. When he got there at 9am, the door was unlocked and the lights all switched on. He headed on inside and found her body splayed out in the reading area. Ugh, creepy. There was no heating, so the body was pretty well-preserved thanks to the winter weather. As such, the forensics team could not give a reliable estimate to day of death. It could’ve been anywhere between 2.45pm on the 23rd, when the last witness came forward, to 9am on the 27th when Terry found her. The cops deduced it was likeliest to be somewhere on the first day, considering the door was unlocked.

  Jessica had no family, which explained why she wasn’t found for a kinda horrific amount of time. Didn’t seem to have many friends, either, judging by the paltry flowers left at the library. There’d only been a few articles written about Jessica at the time of her death, no more since. My guess is she was a loner. Probably why she volunteered at a library.

  Plus, her murder bore no relation whatsoever to Leesha’s or Izzy’s, so I thought it was a good shot.

  ‘Okay,’ I began, startling both lucies. They’d zoned out about a half hour ago, when I’d first started my morbid research. ‘One possibility of an extra body. Jessica Lee was killed five years ago. Does that name mean anything to you? Did Izzy mention it at all?’

  ‘The only names Izzy mentioned were her own, Chuck’s and David’s. I’m not sure she wants to know any names that don’t affect her,’ Leesha sniffed.

  ‘Yeah, I can see that. Did she ever mention that David changed emotionally at any time? Like, around that death?’ I prodded. Since it’d be helpful if she nodded, she shook her head.

  ‘I’d love to say yes, but no, sorry. Doesn’t mean he didn’t kill her, though.’

  And it didn’t mean he did, either. Back to square one. If I’d ever left.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ George frowned.

  That I wasn’t cut out for this task? I pretty much get my directions from lucies. “This guy killed me, there’s the evidence, go get him, champ.” Jessica wasn’t a lucy; well, I’d never met her, anyway. And yes, I did have evidence against David: sort of. It was just down a sewer, and was now probably washed away. Okay, I had no evidence.

  Square zero.

  No, wait. I wasn’t a total idiot. I must’ve learned something from all these years of poking and prodding around people’s personal lives.

  Ooh! I should go poke and prod around her personal life.

  A quick search told me that Terry still worked at the library. George swished through my bed to look at what I was smiling at and his frown deepened.

  ‘Who is this guy and why are you about to ruin his life?’

  ‘He worked with Jessica and found her body. And I am not going to ruin his life. I’m just gonna ask him a few questions, that’s all.’

  ‘How are you going to do that? Just walk up to him and strike up a conversation about his murdered coworker?’ he scoffed.

  Yeah, pretty much. Except I wouldn’t be striking up the convers
ation.

  Hannah Smith would.

  9

  Leesha and George seemed a little put out when I asked them to leave my room, but they did so anyway. I needed to change. George shrugged and said he’d show her the massive spider infestation in my basement, which I was hoping was a lie. Taking my mind off that, I set to work.

  Hannah Smith was a non-de-plume I used every so often, to great effect. She was a school journo, and looked like it. Acted like it too, natch. I had my Hannah kit ready and waiting in a box in my closet. Blue sweater, white shirt tucked underneath, boyish-cut jeans. I also had a pair of glasses that gave me +10 to intelligence. Pretty sure no school journalist ever looked like this, but whatever. It worked. Especially with the addition of my school ID badge, that I’d mocked up on Word in about fifteen seconds. I also had a plain notebook and a totally sweet clicky pen that I’d swiped from Tess’ desk at some point.

  She’d been funny with me the next session. I think she knew.

  I got dressed and set my props down whilst I brushed my hair for the first time in, like, a week. It hurt. And I certainly thinned that out. I put it in a neat low ponytail and checked myself out.

  I looked like I was super interested in local news stories and the state of the food in the cafeteria.

  I was ready.

  I met George and Leesha as they were heading back up the stairs. I distinctly saw her shudder, which I immediately tried to forget. They stopped walking as they caught sight of me and stared.

  ‘How do I look?’ I asked, twirling with my black satchel.

  ‘Terrible,’ was Leesha’s input.

  ‘Like a reporter or something. Or what people think a reporter looks like,’ George frowned. I beamed at him.

  ‘Perfect! Let’s go.’

  I marched through them and headed to the garage. Perusing the choices, I opted for the Corvette. I was sad to see Betsy gathering dust in the corner. She’d been my baby ever since I’d passed my test. Unfortunately, she’d been pretty unreliable lately. I’d kept her under the tarp, pretending she wasn’t broken. I couldn’t bear to see her turned into a cube.

  ‘You’re not really going to do this, are you?’ asked George, as though I’d suddenly change my mind after walking down three flights of stairs.

  ‘And you’re not really going to do that, are you?’ I countered.

  He frowned at me in the rearview.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Complain about something I do without giving me an alternative?’

  Leesha snickered as I put the car in drive.

  ‘There are other ways to find out information without lying, Ann,’ he went on.

  ‘Again, not giving me another option, there.’

  I put the address in my satnav and we headed off as he silently fumed in the backseat. Did I say silently? Because that was a lie.

  ‘You never seem to take responsibility for your actions. I mean, you’re gonna go to this guy, and make him relive probably the worst moment in his life, and for what? To see if he remembers and tells you something that he didn’t tell the cops five years ago? Why would he even do that? He doesn’t know you.’

  ‘I’ll say this one more time, George. What else can I do?’

  ‘Plenty of things!’ he exclaimed, leaving it at that. I rolled my eyes.

  ‘George, we’ve been through this every time I’ve had a case,’ I groaned. ‘There comes a time where you need to realize that this is how I’ve always done things, because it works. People lie. All of them. I don’t see an issue with a few of my own along the way. The ends justify the means, alright? If we find out that David did kill Jessica, Terry won’t remember the kid who lied to him. He’ll remember that his coworker finally got justice.’

  ‘It doesn’t excuse the fact that you toy with people’s feelings.’

  ‘Sure, it does. Look, the cops do the methodical thing of asking questions and searching for evidence, which works most of the time. I’m here for the times it doesn’t. And when the cops’ questions have failed, why would my questions suddenly work? Chances are, they’ll be the same. At this moment, I don’t even know who killed Jessica. It could be Terry. And if it is, he’s gotten away with it. So, I’ll go there today and ask him loaded questions and piss him off. If he has something to hide, he’ll make a mistake. If he doesn’t, he won’t.’

  ‘And what if it doesn’t work?’ George asked, ever the optimist.

  ‘Then, I’ll try something else. Did I ever tell you about Carol? She’d killed her sister and boyfriend and made it look like a random burglary. Apparently, the boyfriend had flirted with Carol first, so she’d gotten pissed that her sister had stolen him. Her sister had had a habit of that. “Stealing” things from Carol. She’d played the doting, grieving sibling so well that the cops hadn’t even thought of her as a suspect. She didn’t like her sister. She’d hidden that so well that nobody knew. Carol was never going to admit it.’

  ‘So, what did you do?’ Leesha asked, curious.

  ‘Well, since she was so weird about her sister stealing things, I pointed out what else her sister had stolen. The limelight, basically. I faked up social media accounts to give my condolences on an amazing woman. I dropped off flowers and sent letters to Carol, gushing about her. I made up a memorial blog about her sister. I, in short, pushed her to the edge.’

  Leesha glared at me, suddenly afraid.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘She wrote a letter explaining what she’d done and tried to top herself. Luckily, the boyfriend had been there to watch her and he’d run outside to tell me. I’d been following her at the time, waiting for her to slip up. I called 911 and she was saved.’

  To say that they were both horrified would be an understatement. Look, they weren’t there. Carol’s sister only knew the extent of her hatred when the bullet hit her in the heart. Carol thought with her sister dead, she’d be free.

  I just assured her she wasn’t.

  ‘You’re a lot scarier than I realized,’ Leesha shuddered. ‘Driving somebody to suicide? That’s dark. Even if she is a murderer. I don’t know if I like that or not.’

  ‘You weren’t there,’ I shrugged. ‘She shot her sister and her boyfriend point blank, then methodically went about knocking over chairs and pulling out drawers. They lived in a secluded area so nobody heard the shots. She took her time. And she laughed at her sister’s body as she was leaving, saying she’d won the game, whatever that meant. All I did was play her at her own game, using her weakness against her. Sometimes, to catch a killer, you gotta play by their rules.’

  They had nothing to say to that. I almost laughed. I bet Leesha wanted me to do whatever it took to have David arrested. But what if David decided prison was not an option for him? I mean, this is real life. Not all killers are law-abiding. Besides, if you’ve killed once, you can kill again, right? In most religions and philosophies one murder is as bad as twenty. Might as well keep going until you’re free. That’s a reason most people kill anyway, to be free of something. Poverty, abuse, something or someone holding them back. You know, it’s actually not against the law to escape prison in Germany, because they see freedom as a basic human right. Point being, freedom’s a pretty enticing ideal.

  Not many are willing to give that up.

  I parked up in one of the two parking spaces outside the library. This obviously was not a popular one. Leesha and George had still not said anything, so I guess they were fine with me asking Terry stuff. I grabbed my notebook, pen and fake ID and headed in.

  You ever been in a building that was so old and crumbling that you wondered if you’d stepped back in time? Yeah, this library was like that. I knew of a few other libraries around here which actually had modern facilities like computers and electrical lighting. This place looked like that really old guy in a nursing home who still insists on living, even though generations of nurses have come and gone and his family have forgotten he’s there. A relic of the past that nobody wants. Don’t look at me like that
, we did that with my racist grandpa. After my lovely Grandma died, we all stopped pretending we liked him and didn’t bother visiting him ever again. He died four years later. My dad was actually surprised to get a phone call from his sister about his death.

  The books in here hadn’t seen the light of day since day or light was invented. I dinged a bell – yeah, exactly like the ones on eerie Twilight Zone hotel desks – and waited for a beady-eyed, creepy-looking man to shuffle over from the abyss. I mean, I wasn’t waiting for that specific person in particular, but he seemed to be the only guy in the building.

  ‘May I help you?’ he greeted suspiciously. I guess he didn’t see many people here. Not living, anyway.

  ‘Hi, my name’s Hannah Smith, and I’m the sole reporter, photographer and editor at my school newspaper. Here are my credentials,’ I snootily said, shoving my badge into his nose.

  Startled, he jumped back and peered at it under a lantern (no, really, I am not making this up) and handed it back to me.

  ‘Okay,’ he said slowly.

  ‘I’m doing a report on violence against women in the local area,’ I went on, narrowing my eyes at him. That was still a popular topic, right? ‘I believe that this place was the scene of a heinous crime not so long ago. Could you give me and my loyal readers a sense of what happened?’

  The guy blinked a lot as I stood with my pen poised, ready to villainize somebody.

  ‘Uh, you mean Jessica?’

  I nodded firmly.

  ‘Wow, well, that was a horrible time. For me and- well, only me. It was only the two of us here, you see. We’re not exactly well-funded. It’s hard work keeping this place running. Lonely, too. But Jessica and I? We got along really well. She made it all seem so easy. We were good friends,’ he sighed wistfully.

  ‘Really? Even with the age gap?’ I frowned. This guy must’ve been counting down the seconds before he could retire.

  ‘It wasn’t that big. We didn’t even notice it,’ he snapped, on the defensive. My BS meter dinged but I kept a straight face.

  ‘Of course. So, you must really miss her.’