by Nic Joseph
I flipped the flyer over and continued rifling through the folder. A few more Word documents turned up nothing of interest. I slowed down to read a few articles. Some were newspaper clippings about missing people in the area. I made a note of their names and continued reading.
One thing was for sure—Emily had obviously had a lot of projects brewing. That made it all the more difficult to figure out which one she’d been pursuing that weekend and which one could have gotten out of control.
I flipped yet another page and saw that it was filled with a list of names and phone numbers, though there weren’t any indications about which stories they were connected to. I scanned down to the bottom of the list. If she was using this document as her Rolodex, chances were the ones at the bottom had been updated most recently.
I picked up my phone and dialed the first number. It went to the voicemail of a woman named Kimberley Bell, and I remembered that she was one of the patients who Emily had talked to for her Kelium story. I hung up and called again, but still no answer.
The next number had even less information than Kimberley’s—there was no last name. I dialed the number for someone named Amanda and waited. I fully expected it to go to voicemail, like the number before it, but after five rings, a woman picked up.
“Kendall Community Church. This is Amanda.”
“Hello,” I said, caught off guard and suddenly realizing that I hadn’t thought through the purpose of my call or what I was going to say. “My name is Detective Steven Paul, and I’m with the Douglas County Police Department.”
“Okay,” the woman said slowly, and I could hear a definite shift in her tone. “How can I help you?”
“I’m sorry to get right to the point,” I said, “but I am hoping you can provide me with some information for a murder investigation.”
She didn’t respond the way I expected her to. No surprise or confusion. Instead, she sighed.
“I don’t have anything to tell you,” she said.
“But you don’t even know—”
“I don’t know anything.”
“I’m sorry, Ms…”
The woman didn’t say anything for a moment. “Pearson,” she finally muttered. “Amanda Pearson. Look, I’m sorry. Like I told the blogger, I don’t know anything about a murder.”
“The blogger?” I asked, startled. “Do you mean Emily Lindsey from Carmen Street Confessions? Did she call you?”
“Yes, she called me asking about some murder, and I told her I didn’t know anything. Please stop calling me—”
“Wait,” I said. “I don’t know what murder Emily was asking you about, but I’m not calling about the same one.”
“You’re not?”
“No.”
“Whose murder are you calling about then?”
“Emily’s.”
I heard her inhale sharply, and there was silence on the line for a few moments. “What are you talking about?” she asked hoarsely. “She was just here.”
“Wait, she came to see you?” I asked. “I thought she just called. Where are you located?”
“The church is in Ashland,” she said. “I’m sorry, Detective, but I have to go.”
I could hear the panic in her voice, and I could tell that I was about to lose her.
“Wait,” I said. “Please. I’m trying to figure out what happened to her. When was Emily there?”
“A couple of days ago,” she said. “Really, I don’t know anything. I’m sorry to hear that happened, but I don’t have anything else to tell you. Please, don’t call this number anymore. I’ve told you everything I can.”
“Wait—”
I slumped back in my seat as she hung up. I dialed again and was unsurprised when it rang several times with no answer. I hung up my phone and spun it around in my hands a few times.
I looked up the address to Kendall Community Church and added it to my notes. Amanda Pearson wouldn’t be happy to see me, but I needed some answers.
My cell phone vibrated, and I glanced down at it. It was a number I didn’t recognize.
“Hello?” I said, answering.
There was a brief pause, and then a man’s voice filled the line.
“Detective. It’s Philip Jameson.”
“Mr. Jameson,” I said. “What can I do for you?”
“I need to talk to you,” he said. “I—”
“Is everything okay?”
“They said they found the Emily woman. Dead.”
“Yes,” I said. “She was found about twenty minutes away from Piper Lake.”
He was silent again for a moment. “Something is really wrong here,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going on, but something is not right.”
“What are you talking about?” I said. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“The day at the lake,” he said, and then he stopped.
I thought back to when he’d joined the search party at the lake and the team had found Griggs’s ear. I’d never seen someone look so terrified. “What is it?” I asked. “What happened that day at the lake?”
“I saw her,” he said. “She reached into her p-purse…” He stopped, and I could hear him swallow.
“Who reached into her purse?” I said. “Mr. Jameson, I need you to calm down and tell me what’s going on.”
“Eleanor Griggs. I was with her. And she thought I wasn’t looking. She turned and threw something in the woods. I saw it. It was small and soft, and she threw it right where you found it. When she first asked me to lie—to say that Ryan had called me—I thought that it just had something to do with Emily and the blog, and I wanted to do what I could to help—”
“Wait, you saw her throw what?” I asked, grabbing the phone tightly and leaning forward, sure that I couldn’t have heard him correctly. “What did you see her throw in the woods?”
“The ear,” he said. “I watched her reach into her purse and throw her husband’s ear into that pile of leaves. She zipped her purse up quickly, but not before I saw the blood on the inside. Who does that?” he asked. “Who the hell does that?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I banged on the Griggses’ front door with the palm of my hand and waited.
One the one hand, what Jameson had told me was simply too ridiculous, too far out in left field, to be true.
On the other hand, he didn’t have any reason to make it up.
Still, I had a hard time wrapping my mind around what he was saying.
I banged on the door again and pressed the doorbell a few times. I’d tried calling, but no one had picked up. I started to head around back when I heard footsteps, and finally, the door opened slowly.
I stood face-to-face with the Griggses’ assistant.
He frowned. “Sorry, but it’s not a good time, Detective.”
“This is important,” I said. “I need to speak with Eleanor. Now.”
“I can’t—”
“It’s all right,” I heard a woman’s voice say.
Eleanor Griggs appeared, her eyes red and puffy. She was holding her phone in her hands. “You can come in, Detective.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Was that him?”
She frowned and tilted her head to one side.
“Was that who?”
“Your husband,” I said, suddenly out of breath, the anger making it difficult for me to speak normally. “Was that him on the phone?”
“What?” she asked, the frown deepening. “Of course not. What’s going on? Why are you asking ridiculous things like that?”
“Was that your husband?” I asked again. “Is that who you were just talking to.”
“No,” she said firmly, anger creeping into her voice. “I just told you. Besides, I would have called you if I’d heard from him.” She turned and walked into the living room, sitting down on t
he couch. She looked down at the phone in her hands and took a deep breath. “That was my mother. She called to ask me if I’d heard anything from Ryan. What are you doing here, Detective? What’s going on?”
“What’s going on is that I need the truth, Mrs. Griggs,” I said. “Did you put that piece of your husband’s ear in the woods?”
Her eyes widened, and the phone tumbled out of her hands. She sat there for a few moments, her mouth open, and she stared at me as if I had snakes growing out of my head. I knew that I should be more delicate, that I shouldn’t have tossed the question out there so quickly, but I couldn’t push down the feeling of anger about being lied to.
“What are you talking about?” she whispered, her eyes wide. “What do you mean did I…put his ear there?”
“I received a report that someone saw you reach into your purse, pull it out, and throw it in the woods,” I spat out, barely able to wrap my mind around it. “As ridiculous as it sounds, I think it’s true.”
She coughed, putting her hand to her stomach.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” she said. “I can’t believe you’re asking me that. Are you serious?”
“I’m completely serious,” I said.
“Then are you crazy?”
I didn’t say anything.
She shifted in her seat. “No, Detective,” she said. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Why would I—”
“What if I told you that I talked to Philip Jameson just half an hour ago, and he told me that you came to him and asked him to lie about your husband contacting him?”
It was as if I’d reached over and slapped her. She reeled backward, jolting against the back of the couch, and inhaled sharply.
“Well, I’d say he’s lying,” she said hesitantly, and I could see her choosing the words as they fell from her lips. “I’d say that he’s making things up, and I truly don’t know why.”
“So that never happened?” I asked. “Could he be misconstruing it? Maybe you asked him to exaggerate? Really, you’d do best to give me a straightforward answer about this.”
“I don’t think so,” she said quietly, but her hands were shaking. “I mean, I don’t know what I could have said to make him think that he should make that up.”
“What if I told you that he would swear to it? That he said that he even had a voicemail of when you first called him to tell him about it. What would you say then?”
I watched as she swallowed. She reached over and picked her phone up off the floor, rolling it over in her hands. And just like that, I knew she was lying. I could see it in her eyes, in the way she moved her jaw, in the way she twirled the phone slowly through her fingers.
“Mrs. Griggs, please,” I said. “This is important. I need you to tell me what happened between you and Jameson.”
Her eyes filled with tears again, but this time, they spilled over onto her cheeks.
“I’m sorry I lied,” she said, and a deep, guttural sob escaped her. “I didn’t really… I guess I wasn’t thinking. I asked Philip to help me. You’re right. I asked him to lie and say that Ryan had called him and that he was going to follow Emily.”
“Why did you do that?” I asked.
“I guess I thought it might help us,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking straight. When you told me that they found her with a knife, covered in blood…I guess I thought I could gain some sympathy votes for my husband, for Kelium, if people thought that maybe…” She shook her head. “I honestly don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Did your husband have anything to do with this?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “Nothing at all. I figured I’d hear from him, that he’d come home soon and then everyone would know that he was okay. But before then, we would have maybe helped to hurt her image a little, you know? It was a stupid idea. That was before we found his…” She shuddered. “Before we found his ear.”
“So you deny that you had anything to do with that?”
“Of course,” she said. She stood up and began to pace back and forth in front of the couch. “I can’t believe he said that. He must have seen something else, though I don’t even remember reaching into my purse that day. You have to believe me,” she said, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “I have no idea why Philip would say such a thing.” She was breathing hard and staring at me with desperation—she was practically pleading with me to believe her.
I had to admit, it sounded ridiculous. But the certainty in Jameson’s voice earlier that day was hard to deny.
“What reason could he have for saying something like that?” I asked. It wasn’t really a question meant for her, but I said it out loud.
She stopped pacing. She stood in front of me, shaking her head slowly back and forth. “I have no idea,” she said. “Philip has always been a devoted board member and friend to us. I… He doesn’t have any reason to lie.” She walked over to the table near the front hall and reached for a tissue. Wiping her face, she walked back over to me. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Her whole body was shaking, and I felt bad for starting so strongly.
“Look,” I said. “Maybe we can clear this up pretty easily. Jameson said that he saw you take something that looked like the, uh, remains out of your purse. There’s no way that could happen without a considerable mess. Perhaps if you showed me the inside of your purse, we could clear this all up.”
“You still don’t believe me,” she whispered. “I don’t know how I can prove to you that I’m telling the truth.”
“You could just show me the purse,” I said again.
She shrugged and let out an exasperated sigh. “Of course,” she said. “Fine. If that’s what it’s going to take, I’ll show you the purse.”
She walked out of the living room without saying a word, and I wasn’t sure if I should follow her. I walked back into the foyer, but she’d begun to walk up the stairs. She turned around and looked at me.
“I’ll be right back,” she said.
I waited at the bottom of the steps. So she’d asked Jameson to lie for her—for her and her husband—and hadn’t felt the need to come clean when her husband’s ear was found in the woods. I wanted to believe her; what Jameson was proposing was pretty hard to stomach. I looked up as Eleanor appeared again and began to walk down the steps, a large brown bag in her hands.
She walked over to me, her hands still shaking, and she held the bag out.
“See,” she said. “There’s nothing in there.”
I took the bag from her but didn’t bother to look at it. It was a bold move but not too surprising; she didn’t have any reason to think that I’d paid too much attention to the purse she’d been wearing the day before. But Gayla’s comment about Eleanor’s purse that day—her large, black purse with no strap—hit me, and in that instant, everything became clear.
Jameson was right.
Eleanor Griggs had something to hide.
“I think you’re going to want to try again,” I said.
“What?”
“The purse. This isn’t the one you had the other day. I know that, and you know that. So do you want to go upstairs and get the right one?”
“This is the one I had,” she said, looking at it with a frown. “At least I think it was…”
“No, you know it wasn’t,” I said. “The purse you had yesterday was black. I remember because my partner thought it was an odd choice to bring to a search party. I think you know which one I’m talking about, though. Now, do you want to go get that one, or do I need to get a search warrant for your house?”
Her eyes narrowed, and there were no traces of the tears left. “I told you, Detective, this is the purse I had with me. There’s no other purse for me to give you.”
I handed the purse back to her and nodded. “Okay,” I said. “I guess I’ll have to come back. Trust me, we w
ill find it. I don’t care how deeply you’ve hidden it.”
“There’s no other purse,” she said again firmly. “Look, I have a lot of black purses, and if you think I’m going to go upstairs and search through them for your little witch hunt, you’re mistaken. And I’m really offended that you would come here and talk to me like this when my husband is missing and that smug bitch is sitting in a hospital, not saying anything.”
Eleanor’s entire demeanor had changed. Gone was the sniffling woman from moments before; now, her eyes told me that she knew more than me, that the purse was someplace where she was sure I’d never find it.
Which meant I was going to have to convince her to give it to me.
“That’s all well and good,” I said. “But you should know that the smug bitch you just mentioned? She’s not sitting in any hospital bed. She never was. She was found earlier today on the side of the road, not too far from where your husband’s ear was found. And she’d been stabbed—twenty-two times—in the chest. Oh yeah, and as you can imagine, that makes your husband one of our primary suspects.”
Eleanor’s faux surprise before had nothing on the real thing.
All of the color drained from her face, and she gasped. She blinked several times, and I could practically see her brain processing the information. Finally, she straightened her shoulders and pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. She pressed a few keys and then held it up to her ear, her eyes trained on mine.
“Hey,” she said into the phone, her voice strong and in control. The sniffles from a moment earlier had disappeared. “No, wait. Stop. Never mind that. You need to come home. No, now.”
Chapter Thirty
Then
6:54 p.m.
Brat pushed her dinner around on her plate. The peas had grown cold, and the mashed potatoes had hardened, since she’d been pushing them around over the past hour. She looked at her sister’s plate across the table. Gumball’s didn’t look much better, since it was still more than halfway filled, too.
Neither of them had much of an appetite. Brat continued to swirl the peas as she looked across the room at Jack. Unlike the twins, he was chomping away quietly, and he didn’t look the least bit nervous. Brat wished she could handle things the way he did.