by Kate Kessler
“I know you are, my dar.” It was a term of endearment her great-grandmother had used; her uncles and her mother used it as well, especially when talking to Alisha. It made her feel better hearing Audrey say it. “I wish I could make this better for you, but I can’t. I wish I could fix it. Hell, I wish I could bring her back for you.”
Alisha knew all of that. “They cut her up and left her out there all alone. She died in pain and afraid.” Just the idea of it made her want to puke.
Audrey’s grip on her hand tightened. “I know, sweetie. I know. It’s a terrible, horrible thing, and I can’t make sense of it either. From what little I know about Tala, she seemed to be a sweet girl who was liked by everyone who knew her.”
“Not everyone,” Alisha reminded her, turning her face toward the window. Her tears were gone—dried up by anger and her feelings of uselessness. If Audrey wouldn’t look for Tala’s killer, then Alisha was left with no choice—she’d have to look for the motherfucker herself.
CHAPTER FOUR
She said what?” Jake’s nostrils flared a bit as he turned toward her. They were in the kitchen, making dinner. He was wearing old jeans, a gray T-shirt, and suspenders. “Grandpa chic,” his brother Lincoln called it. Audrey thought it was cute—on him.
“She said, ‘What fucking good are you, then?’ Seriously, it felt like someone punched me in the chest. Then it pissed me off.” All she’d shown to Alisha was her anger, though. She’d never let the girl know how hurt she’d been by her tone and words. Alisha was a good kid, and she’d feel guilty enough about it later as it was.
Jake’s jaw clenched. “I’m going to have a sit-down with that kid. It’s one thing to mouth off at Neve, but not to you.”
Audrey shrugged, trying to seem more over it than she honestly was. “She’s got a crush on Luke. She’s afraid he’s going to get in trouble.”
He set down the knife he’d been using to cut potatoes. “What would Gran say?”
Not fair of him to play the Gracie card. “She’d say it was no excuse.”
He went back to slicing potatoes. “Lish has always been given a lot of freedom to speak her mind, but there’s a difference between being frank and being an ass.”
“She just found out her friend was murdered. Cut her some slack.”
“I’ve been giving her plenty of slack for the last couple of months. She’s not herself.”
“Probably because she feels guilty for lusting after Tala’s guy. She’s a teenager—you remember how much that sucked.”
“Yeah.” He sighed and dumped the potato slices into a casserole dish along with butter and chopped garlic. “I do. I still want to have a talk with her.”
“Wait a couple of days. You know she’ll be over here sometime in the next twenty-four hours like nothing ever happened.”
Jake nodded. “Speaking of messed-up teenagers, I saw you got a call from a lawyer’s office. Did they set a court date for Bailey?”
“July twelfth. She’s being tried as a juvenile, thank God.”
“Was there any question? I mean, she’s just barely seventeen.”
“Apparently the prosecutor was throwing it around. I think he was trying to make a statement. Severity of the crime and all that.”
“I’m glad it didn’t stick. Poor kid’s been through enough. I can’t imagine what sort of mess Maggie made of her.”
Maggie, Audrey’s childhood best friend, accomplice in murder, and worst enemy. “Mess was the only thing Maggie knew.” She’d reconciled many of her feelings regarding Maggie. She might even go so far as to say she’d made peace with her.
Might.
“Never thought you’d be lackadaisical where she was concerned.”
“Me neither. Maybe there’s hope for me after all.” She smiled when she said it.
“You want to chop onions or tomatoes?” he asked.
“I’ll take the onions.” They bothered his eyes way worse than hers.
Their domestic harmony was interrupted by a car pulling into the drive.
“Alisha or Neve?” Jake asked before turning to look.
Audrey listened. When a car door slammed she smiled triumphantly. “Neve.”
He started walking toward the door. “I think you’re right.”
She was. A few moments later Neve walked in, again wearing her on-duty outfit of dark pants, white shirt, and blazer. She looked tired. “Hey there,” she said. “Sorry to just show up like this, but I wanted your opinion on something—professionally.”
Audrey washed her hands to get rid of the onion smell. “Okay.”
“Do autopsy photos brother you?”
Wiping her hands on a towel, she shrugged. “They’re never pleasant, but I’m pretty good at detaching. Let’s go into the dining room.”
In the next room, Neve sat down at the table and set a folder on top of it. “I hear you’re going to be doing some work at the school.”
Audrey joined her. “God, news travels fast in this place.”
Neve smiled, revealing teeth that seemed impossibly white. They had to be veneers. “I stopped by to talk to Principal Welton and ran into Micheline. She told me.” The smile faded a little. “Are you going to tell me if you hear anything criminal?”
“Not unless I think someone’s in danger. You know the rules.”
Neve sighed. “Yeah, I just don’t like them. What if one of those kids did it? Are you going to protect them?”
Audrey met her direct gaze with one of her own. “I would have liked it if someone had protected me.”
Neve looked as though she hadn’t considered that. She probably hadn’t. “Good point.” She slid the file folder toward her. “As a forensic psychologist, tell me what kind of person you think did that.”
After a deep breath, Audrey opened the file. There, in full color, was Tala Lewis’s naked corpse on the autopsy table. She’d been cleaned up and her wounds were clearly visible. There were so many of them, mostly focused around her breasts, abdomen, and groin. Between her legs had gotten the worst of it.
“That’s a lot of anger.”
“Tell me about it. Charlotte found a piece of the blade—it broke off inside her. It takes a lot of strength to stab someone that many times.”
“And rage. I’m no profiler, but from the damage done to the sexual organs, I’d say this person was really pissed off that Tala was transgender. But at the same time, they removed the very part of her that she herself longed to be rid of.”
“Not like that, I don’t imagine,” Neve remarked dryly.
That went without saying. “Was there sexual assault?”
“No signs of it.”
“That seems odd to me—that there was no assault—given the sexual nature of the stabbing.”
“Maybe he couldn’t get it up.”
“Or it wasn’t the point.” Audrey looked at the body in the photo. Death eventually made monsters of everyone, even the beautiful. “They didn’t touch her face.”
“Not a mark. She had defensive wounds on her hands and arms, a contusion on the back of her skull, and bruising on her right shoulder and both thighs.” At Audrey’s questioning glance she continued, “Her attacker took her down and held her there. Knelt or sat on her legs. Put a hand on her shoulder for leverage.”
“Or so they could get close. They wanted to watch her suffer.”
“That’s not the kind of thing a stranger does, unless it’s a serial.”
“This doesn’t feel methodical enough to be a serial, unless he’s new to it. Even then, it feels personal to me.”
“Me too.” Neve leaned forward. “What does it say to you when a killer leaves something in the victim’s mouth?”
“Depends on what it is. But shoving something in a person’s mouth is a way to silence them: literally gag them. I once studied a case of a kid who used to shove his victims’ fingers in their own throats to show how they made him sick. What did they put in Tala’s mouth?”
Neve lifted her chin. “Look a
t the last photo.”
Audrey did. It took a second for her to realize what it was. She looked at Neve in horror.
“Her penis.”
The last people to see Tala Lewis alive were Luke Pelletier, her family, and Kendra Granger. Tala had been a fairly popular girl by virtue of still being relatively new at the high school, and had many friends, but the one everyone seemed to agree had been her best friend was Kendra. If anyone knew why Tala was in the park the night she died, it was Kendra.
Neve and Vickie were heading over to Eastrock to interview the girl when Neve’s cell rang. She took the call through the car’s Bluetooth. “Graham. What’s up?”
“Hey, Detective.” It was Malcolm, another trooper on Neve’s team working the murder investigation. “They found a glove in the parking lot at the top of the falls. It had blood on it. They’re testing for a match against Tala Lewis now.”
“Could you tell if the glove belonged to a man or a woman?”
“It was one of those knit ones that stretch.”
“What color?”
“Gray.”
So, still gender neutral. Might be Tala’s. They didn’t find gloves on the body, which was unusual given the time of year she’d been killed, but there had been wool fibers in the wounds on her hands. “You got photos?”
“Ay-huh. Sent them to you just a couple of seconds ago.” As if on cue, Neve’s phone buzzed with a notification.
“Great. Any luck finding the knife?”
“None. I’m thinking the killer took it with him. We’ve been through the entire park—even the river.”
“Keep looking. It might have gotten caught up in meltwater.” It might have been two days since they’d found the body, but she’d been out there a little over two months. They’d had flooding lately too. If the killer had tossed the knife, it could be in the ocean by now, or somewhere along the miles of river edge.
Or, it could be caught up on a rock, just waiting to be found. Regardless, it would be pretty clean by now, but there could still be identifying marks. They had lots of area to cover before giving up the search on the girl’s personal items.
“Will do. Anything else?”
“Talk to the folks who live along that road. Maybe one of them will remember something from the night Tala disappeared.” According to Annette, it seemed the girl had been murdered the same night. Annette based this on the condition—and contents—of the stomach and digestive tract, and the amount of microbial activity before the body froze and after it started to thaw.
“On my way. Catch you back later.”
Neve disconnected. “What are you looking at?” she asked Vickie after a quick sideways glance.
“Kendra Granger’s Twitter feed.” Vickie swiped the screen of her phone. “The day we confirmed it was Tala Lewis, she posted, ‘Too sad 4 words. Good-bye, Tala. You’ll always be my best friend’ and then that arrow-three thing that makes a heart.”
“The less-than sign,” Neve corrected before she could stop herself. “Any responses?”
“Yeah. Mostly dramatic outpourings of love and support, but there are a few nasty ones—stuff like how Tala deserved to die, calling her a faggot.”
“Get some screen shots.” Even though tech could document it all with no problem, Neve liked to have as much primary information as possible. “What about Tala’s account?”
“Oh, that’s blown up. Lots of people leaving memories and condolences, and of course, the assholes coming out of the woodwork to bash her. I hope her family hasn’t seen it. I’ve grabbed copies of those for you too.”
“Thanks. Make note of the names and accounts of all the users who posted something—good or bad. The replies too. The killer might have trouble keeping his mouth shut.”
“It’s mostly just kids.”
“Kids are just as capable of killing as adults.” Didn’t she know it.
“Right. Sorry. You really think this is a hate crime?”
“There was a lot of hate involved; whether it was based on Tala’s gender, I don’t know. I just know we can’t ignore it.”
“The parents couldn’t tell you anything?”
Neve shook her head. “They hadn’t told anyone about Tala’s transitioning, and Tala hadn’t told them about any bullying. In fact, as far as they were concerned, their daughter was finally happy with who she was becoming, and was living a life like any other normal teenage girl.”
“Did they actually say ‘normal’?”
“Yeah. I think the Lewises were having a harder time accepting the change than they even know.”
“It must be hard. You have a baby, it’s a boy and you think of it that way, and then, fifteen, sixteen years in, the kid says you’ve had it all wrong.”
“It usually comes to light well before the teens, I think.” She’d been doing a lot of reading on the subject, and watching videos, so she could better understand what Tala had been going through. From what she’d seen and read, transgender kids had a hard time of it, not just with being accepted by others but accepting themselves as well. Alisha and Audrey had mentioned body dysmorphia, and Neve now had a better understanding of the disorder. It had to be a terrible thing. As a teen, she’d had her own bout of being uncomfortable in her own skin. As the only black girl for miles, she’d spent a lot of time wishing her skin were lighter, that her hair were different. There had even been times when she was angry at her mother for being black, and at her father for having married her. All she wanted was to be like the other girls at school.
And she had no doubt that was something she and Tala Lewis had in common. But Neve had made a few friends who accepted her, and it seemed Tala had as well.
The Granger house was located on one of the “good” streets in Eastrock. It was a neighborhood where centuries-old houses had been well maintained and updated over the years. It was where the “old” families lived, where the few doctors, lawyers, and business owners of the area tended to live. The lawns were perfect, and there were several cars in each of the paved drives. The Grangers lived on the north end of the street, in a big Victorian painted a warm, rosy peach with white trim.
Neve parked behind a red Range Rover and got out of the car, Vickie with her. When she knocked on the door, it was opened by a young man who looked to be in his early twenties—Kendra’s brother, Kyle. He was a good-looking kid, if you liked frat-boy types. He was wearing low-slung jeans and a gray T-shirt with a faded logo on the front. His green gaze sparkled as it met Neve’s, and his grin could only be described as flirtatious.
“Detective Graham,” he drawled. “Been a while. You look good.”
Neve almost rolled her eyes. In the background, she could hear a television blaring and male voices laughing. “Thanks, Kyle.” She didn’t return the compliment but noticed he smelled of beer. “Is your sister home?”
“Yeah.”
When he didn’t step back or invite her in, Neve raised a brow. “I’d like to speak to her.”
“Sorry, but the parental units aren’t here.”
“What difference does that make?”
He looked a little smug. “You can’t question her without our parents here.”
He obviously watched too much TV. “She’s not under arrest, Kyle. I just want to talk to her—and I can do that whether your parents are here or not. Now, are you going to let me in, or do I have to acknowledge that joint behind your ear?”
Horror stiffened Kyle’s handsome features. His hand immediately shot up to his ear, where the thin rollie rested. His cheeks flushed, but he still managed to meet her gaze as he stepped back, waving his arm with a flourish. “Come on in.”
With a satisfied smile, Neve stepped over the threshold into the foyer of the house. Inside, she could smell vanilla and furniture polish mixed with the subtle but distinctive scent of pot.
Kyle pulled out his phone and swiped his thumbs over the screen. A moment later, he looked up. “She’ll be right down.” Then he turned his back on them and walked away.
“Hangs them on his ego, I imagine.” Neve glanced around at all the rich wood and gleaming floor. She felt like the hired help being made to stand there in the entry hall, and that was so not her comfort zone, so she walked farther into the house, her fellow trooper just a few steps behind. She was just about to enter a small, parlorlike room at the foot of the winding stairs when she heard what sounded like a small herd of wild animals approach. Two girls ran down the staircase toward her—Kendra and Lucy Villeneuve, whom Neve had previously nicknamed “Kendra’s shadow” when first investigating Tala’s disappearance. Talking to both girls would definitely save her a trip to Lucy’s house.
Neve opened her mouth to speak, but Kendra cut her off. “Did you find him?” She demanded. “Did you arrest Randy Dyer?”
Alisha was watching a movie in the living room and eating store-bought pizza when the glare of headlights swept through the front window. It was too early for her mother to be home from work at the resort a little farther back their road, and the vehicle didn’t sound like Jake’s or Audrey’s. Frowning, she left her pizza on the table and got up off the couch.
Since being abducted by a nut job last year, she was much more cautious than she used to be. The screen door was locked as well as the inside door, and she knew where the key to the gun cabinet was.
She peered out the window in the door. There, under the bright light of the porch, hands in his pockets, was Luke. Alisha’s heart gave a surprised thump at the sight of him. What was he doing on her steps? Why had she decided to change into sweats and a T-shirt? And did she have pepperoni breath?
She opened the door. When his gaze fell on her, Luke smiled. Then she unlocked the second door and let him in.
“Hi,” he said, stepping over the threshold.
“Hi.” She so had pepperoni breath. “What’s up?”
He shrugged. “I was going nuts at home, y’know? I had to get out, and you’re the only person who hasn’t started looking at me differently since they found Tala.”