Microphones and Murder

by Erin Huss

  “Stop screwing around, Liv,” she huffed out in a nasally voice. “Don’t you know how serious this is? Don’t you know that we’re not allowed to have fun? My entire future is riding on this podcast! Do you want this to end in my professional and financial ruin?”

  “You do a terrible Liv impression.”

  “I’m working on it.” She crossed her legs. “Okay, what more information do we have?”

  “I went through Leon’s notebook. He wrote that Jeremy was in Austin for work from October 8 until October 11. Then, according to the notes, Jeremy went straight from Austin to Phoenix and was there until October 20.” Leon also wrote a few other things about Jeremy that we couldn’t decipher because hiring a graphologist to interpret his handwriting was not in my budget. As it turned out, the notebooks were mostly Leon’s ramblings, pages and pages of him attempting to work through the case on paper and getting nowhere. The more frustrated he became, the sloppier his writing got.

  “He also wrote that Jeremy ‘sobbed uncontrollably’ throughout the entire first interview and called Amelia ‘the love of his life’ multiple times,” I added. Which I found odd. If Amelia was the great love of his life, then why wasn’t he listed amongst those who searched for her at Orcutt Hollow? You’d think he’d be the first person to volunteer to find her.

  “According to Yelp, Jeremy Wang, CPA’s hours of operation today are from nine to five and he has 4.7 out of 5 stars,” Camry read from her iPad. “And Yelpers call him Tax Man.”

  Which brought our cast of characters to: Mr. CinnaMann (Richard), Mrs. CinnaMann (Janet), Aluminum Woman (Amelia), Tax Man (Jeremy), Pineapple Man (Carlos), and The Colon Cleanser (the nickname Camry gave to Penny). This was beginning to sound like a bad murder-mystery party.

  Next, I typed up a list of questions for Jeremy (I had many). His office opened at nine a.m., and I wanted to be prepared. The professional approach would have been to email him and set up a convenient time to talk. This was a podcast. It didn’t matter where the other person was located, so long as they had access to Skype. But with him being in town only twice a month, I decided to use the barge-in-and-hope-for-the-best approach, not wanting to miss the opportunity to see this mysterious boyfriend in person.

  We pulled into the parking lot of Jeremy Wang, CPA at exactly eight forty-five a.m. and waited.

  Or stalked.

  Whatever you want to call it.

  Camry rummaged through her bag and produced one of Leon’s notebooks. “He mentions Blake Kirkland on December 17, 2008, but all it says is ‘find Blake Kirkland’ and nothing else.”

  “I didn’t see Blake’s name in any of the books I looked through,” I said.

  “I sent messages to more Direct Dental employees on LinkedIn,” said Camry. “Using your account.”

  “Naturally.”

  “No replies.”

  “Naturally.”

  I wrapped my hands around a mug of hot chocolate. Hazel’s special recipe, which consisted of half-and-half, vanilla syrup, five scoops of chocolate mix, and love. My cholesterol may never recover from this trip.

  Camry flipped to a new page. “Leon wrote the number for Portland PD in the margins.”

  I polished off the last of my drink. “Does it say who he spoke to?”

  “No, and the rest of his notes are snippets from conversations he had with Richard.” Camry took a bite of a blueberry muffin. Crumbs trickled down her sweater and onto the seat. “I don’t think they got along.”

  “I guessed that. Does it say why?” I used my hand to sweep her crumbs into my empty mug.

  “Let’s see...on January 18, 2009, Richard called Leon a...I can’t make out this word.”

  I looked to where she was pointing. “Douche?”

  “Or dummy?”

  “Probably douche.”

  “Probably. Oh look, Richard called the next day to smooth things over.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Sure, but—It’s nine o’clock!” Camry shoved the notebook into her bag, licked her fingertips clean, and sat up straight. We stared up at the office. The blinds were still drawn, and the Closed sign wasn’t flipped. No Jeremy Wang.

  9:10: Blinds still closed.

  9:20: We fought over who had to check if the door was locked.

  9:21: Camry confirmed that was locked.

  9:33: No sign of life.

  9:45: I called his office phone, and it went straight to voicemail.

  10:15: Camry took a power nap.

  10:45: My eyelids drooped.

  11:00: We polished off a bottle of Tums.

  11:15: I tried to peek in through the window with no luck.

  11:20: I blasted the A/C and Central Coast Country.

  11:25: Camry switched it to a rap station.

  11:26: We decided on no music.

  12:52: Camry smacked me on the shoulder and pointed out the window. A black Audi without license plates pulled into a parking space.

  Camry and I ducked down and waited until we heard the car door close before we risked looking up. It was Jeremy Wang all right. He had on dark slacks and a blue dress shirt with the top two buttons undone. With a cell phone pressed to his ear, he rushed up the stairs, locking his car over his shoulder using the fob.

  I clipped on a microphone, grabbed my recorder, another lavaliere mic, and checked to be sure everything was on. “Let’s do this,” I said to Camry.

  Bells tied to the door handle announced our arrival. The lobby was long and narrow with large bay windows and green drapery. Framed pictures were leaned up against an empty receptionist desk and the couch was wrapped in plastic. There were two doors to our right. One labeled “bathroom” the other not labeled but open. Inside, Jeremy was reclined in an office chair with his feet propped up on the windowsill, and back to us, still on the phone. He must not have heard the bells.

  “Not yet,” he said. “Trust me...it could be a good thing…right, let me check.” Jeremy spun around in his chair and jumped back, dropping his phone on the floor.

  “Hi,” I said with a wave of my hand. “I’m sorry to interrupt you.”

  “No, no, it’s fine.” Jeremy clutched the edge of the desk and blew out a breath. “I didn’t hear you come in. Hold on one second.” He bent down and grabbed his phone. “Dori, let me call you back...Okay...I love you. Bye.” He slid the cell into his shirt pocket and walked around the desk to unwrap the armchairs. “Sorry about the mess. I’m redecorating. Take a seat.”

  Camry and I sat down slowly. I, at the very least, thought he’d ask who we were before offering us a seat. “Did you know we were coming?” I asked.

  “No, but I welcome walk-ins.” He sat behind the desk and wheeled his chair closer. “How can I help you?”

  “My name is Liv Olsen, and this is Camry Lewis. We’re podcasters working on a series about the disappearance of Amelia Clark.”

  “On Millie?” Jeremy grabbed a pen and leaned back. “What kind of podcast?”

  “It’s a true crime investigation. We’d love to talk to you if you have time.”

  He clicked his pen. “Is this like a school project?”

  “No, it’s more like a job project.”

  “Like your full-time job?” he asked, sounding skeptical.

  “Yes. Do you have time to talk?”

  Lucky for us, he did.

  Jeremy agreed to an interview and Camry clipped a lavaliere microphone to his shirt and stripped him of the pen he was obsessively clicking.

  I was not expecting Jeremy to be so compliant. Nor was I expecting him to be so welcoming. He appeared to be a nice guy.

  But looks could be deceiving.

  Camry gave me the list of questions I’d typed out. All fifty-seven of them. I started with number one. “Can you tell us your name, who you are, and how you knew Amelia?”

&nb
sp; “My name is Jeremy Wang. I’m a certified public accountant, and I dated Millie from July of 2007 until August of 2008.” He then launched into the story of how he and Amelia met without me having to ask—almost like he’d been provided a list of questions prior to our interview. Or perhaps it was the natural progression of the conversation and I was reading too much into it.

  Jeremy rocked in his chair, looking off into the distance while he spoke. The accounting job at the Santa Maria Direct Dental office was his first paying job after graduation. It was a small branch. Only fifteen employees. And he had met Amelia on his first day when he passed her cubical on the way to the bathroom.

  “She was chewing the end of a pen, working on an Excel spreadsheet for her boss,” he said. “She had on a black dress and her hair was twisted into a bun using one of those claw type clips.” The memory brought a smile to his face.

  Jeremy thought Amelia was cute but shy. After a month of employment, and two hundred trips to the bathroom, the two finally had a conversation beyond the casual “hey, how’s it going.”

  “We talked about Grey’s Anatomy,” he said. “I told her that I’d never seen the show before, and she got really animated and told me the entire plot about McSteamy and McDreamy and all the other characters. When she’s passionate about something, she talks with her hands and stumbles over her words.” He laughed and swiped a pen from his desk, studying the Ballpoint logo before continuing. “It was cute,” he said, pain flickered across his face.

  It was on a Thursday, recalled Jeremy, that he finally asked her out. The company had an anti-fraternization policy, which he didn’t think was going to be a problem. “It was one date, and it wasn’t like I planned on getting serious with anyone. I was only twenty-three years old.”

  Jeremy was still living an hour away in Santa Barbara, and they met for tacos at a restaurant there. Later that night, while walking on the beach, the two shared their first kiss and, “I knew then I was in trouble.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “Amelia was not...” he paused to search for the right words. “She was closed off. And she didn’t like crowds. We rarely left my apartment the entire time we were dating. If you can call nights spent at home eating pizza and having sex dating.”

  For the record, I do.

  “Why do you think she was closed off?” I asked.

  Jeremy bit at his bottom lip and shrugged but offered no answer.

  “Why did you break up?” I asked, not wanting to rely solely on Penny’s side of things.

  Jeremy pulled his mouth to a line and clicked the pen against his temple, as if deciding how to answer. “I was ready to tell Direct Dental about our relationship and she wasn’t.”

  “What would have happened if they found out?” I asked.

  “They’d transfer me to a different branch.”

  “Which branch?”

  “Santa Barbara.”

  I shook my head, trying to understand. “But you lived in Santa Barbara. Wouldn’t it have been convenient for both of you, since she spent so much time there anyway?”

  “Yes.”

  Huh. Odd. “How’d she take the break up?” I asked.

  Jeremy refused to meet my gaze. “It was heart wrenching for both of us. But what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t be cooped up in my apartment with her forever.”

  “I have a question,” Camry chimed in. I’d almost forgotten she was here. “Did she not want to tell Direct Dental so you could stay with her in the office?”

  “We didn’t spend much time together at work,” he said.

  Camry leaned forward. I unclipped my mic and held it up to her mouth. “But if she was shy and closed up, like you said, maybe having you close was comforting to her? Just a thought.”

  Jeremy shook his head. “She wasn’t the type to allow someone to protect her. She’s more the type to throw herself in front of a moving train to protect someone else. And she’s a runner. She’d run from problems.”

  I clipped the mic back on my shirt. “What did she need protecting from?”

  “Isn’t that why you’re here?” he asked, his eyes meeting mine.

  Goosebumps erupted down my arms.

  “It’s been over ten years,” Jeremy said. “Someone has to figure out what happened.”

  “Did you take her?” Might as well ask since I’m here.

  “No! But think about it. They found two spots of blood in the car, but they recovered no other DNA.” He slammed his fist to his chest. “I had been in that car recently. Her parents had been in her car recently. There’s no way they thoroughly searched that thing and came up with zero DNA. They found the blood, tested it, and that’s it.”

  He raised an interesting point, but I said, “Detective Ramsey told me they swabbed the whole car.”

  “Then why didn’t they find my DNA in there?”

  “The car could have been cleaned before it was dumped,” I suggested. “But the person who dumped it missed the blood stains because they were too small. Also, why were you in her car if you two had broken up?”

  Jeremy clicked the pen again. The click-clack would be hell to edit, but it appeared to be a nervous habit of his. Which begged the question: What was there to be nervous about?

  “A little over a week before Millie disappeared, she drove me home from work when my car wouldn’t start,” Jeremy said.

  Without warning, Camry ripped the mic from my shirt, dragging me with it. I grabbed hold of the back of her chair to keep from falling over. “Why would she drive you all the way to Santa Barbara if you two were broken up?” Camry asked.

  “To be nice,” he answered.

  “Yeah, but she was heartbroken, and by your own account, she ran from her problems. Why would she want to put herself in a situation with you if you broke her heart and she was still recovering?”

  I yanked the mic from Camry’s tight grasp and clipped it to my shirt. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be sorry. It’s a good question,” Jeremy said. “It had been almost two months since we broke up, it wasn’t like it was a fresh wound.”

  “It takes longer than two months to get over a heartbreak like that,” Camry said.

  “We were on friendly terms.” Jeremy shifted in his seat, clearly uncomfortable.

  “Ex-lovers can’t be friends,” Camry retorted.

  Camry spoke from experience. Her last boyfriend, Phil, dumped her with no warning on their one-year anniversary. It took six months before she could talk about him without bursting into tears—and she still can’t look at pictures of when they were together. She was heartbroken. I could tell that listening to Jeremy’s description of his and Amelia’s relationship was bringing those emotions back to the surface for her. Problem was, Jeremy wasn’t Phil and Camry wasn’t Amelia. She was making this personal, and while I did feel bad for Camry, I was sending her mental messages to shut her mouth.

  We had to remain impartial and allow our guests to tell their story without our interference. Camry was treating this like an interrogation.

  “Ex-lovers can be friends,” Jeremy said.

  “Not that soon afterward,” Camry said. “An hour alone in the car would have been hard for both of you.”

  Jeremy studied Camry while I nudged her with my foot. She pretended not to notice and stared straight ahead. We sat in silence for several awkward seconds that felt more like hours. I was about to apologize once again, but Jeremy broke the silence first.

  “She wanted to talk about getting back together.” He paused to clear his throat. “She missed me, and I missed her and...”

  I waited for the rest of the story, but it didn’t come. “And what?” I asked cautiously.

  Camry gasped. “You hooked up! The two of you hooked up right before she disappeared, but then you didn’t take her back.”

  I looked to Je
remy for confirmation, but he didn’t answer.

  Which answered the question.

  “Loving Amelia Clark was hard. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t go down that path again. Nothing had changed, and I didn’t want to get hurt more than I already was. She was the great love of my life and—” He snapped his mouth shut. “Can you not use that last statement?”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because he has a wife now,” Camry said. “She probably wouldn’t like that.”

  Oh.

  Right.

  The wife.

  She probably wouldn’t.

  Jeremy dropped his pen. “How’d you know I was married?”

  “It’s a matter of public record,” Camry said.

  “Oh,” is all Jeremy could say.

  “We’ve been doing research on everyone involved,” I said.

  Jeremy nodded his head slowly. “That’s a good idea.”

  “Does your wife know about Amelia?” I asked.

  “Yes, she does,” he said.

  I consulted my list. “Why do you have an office in Vegas and in Santa Maria?”

  “To help keep an eye on family,” he said.

  “I thought your family lived in Santa Barbara?”

  “I have family all over the Central Coast.”

  Fair enough. Moving on. “Was the night you two hooked up the last time you saw Amelia?”

  “I saw her the day after the gala incident. She was crawling through the lobby, trying to sneak past the receptionist.”

  “Wasn’t Penny the receptionist?”

  “Yes, she was also the office gossip. Millie was avoiding her. She didn’t want to talk about the gala.”

  “Did you talk to her about the gala?”

  “I tried to, but she ran off. I left about an hour later to fly to Austin for business.”

  “And you were in Austin for a week, then flew straight to Phoenix, right?” I asked.

  “No. I was in Austin from the fourth until the eleventh. Then I came back for two days and flew to Phoenix to visit friends.”

  Wait a second. “You were here in Santa Maria for two days?”

  “Yes.”

  “Detective Ramsey said you flew from Austin to Phoenix.”