The Scholarship

by Jaime Maddox

  “Okay.”

  “How did you know Stephanie Gates?”

  “We went to the same high school.”

  “What school was that?”

  “Pocono Mountains Prep.”

  “You’d never met her before then?”

  “No.”

  “And when did you meet her? For example, your freshman year.”

  “Yes. It was freshman year.”

  “And under what circumstances did you meet? Were you in the same homeroom?”

  “No. We met on student council. We were both elected to the council, and I met her at the first meeting.”

  “So, at the time of her death, you’d known her for approximately four years?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see each other outside of school?”

  Reese tried not to let her mind wander to all the things she and Steph had done outside the boundaries of the high school.

  “Yes.”

  “What sort of things did you do outside of school?”

  Reese tried to think, not of what she and Steph had done—that was easy. Had they asked her these questions after Steph died? She didn’t think so. The question that stood out was “Did Steph have any enemies?” The answer hadn’t changed in all these years. No. Everyone loved her, including Reese.

  “Dr. Ryan? Do you need a moment?”

  Reese cleared her throat. “We went shopping at the Viewmont Mall, went to movies, swam at the lake, studied, rode bikes. Everything. We did everything together. We were best friends.”

  “You did everything together? Did you have sex?”

  Reese had expected the question, but not like that. She didn’t have to feign her surprise. “What?”

  “Were you and Ms. Gates lovers?”

  Reese had debated the answer to the question for weeks, since she’d learned the DA was reopening the investigation. It was her biggest fear, this question, and she still didn’t know how to answer it.

  “Am I under arrest, Mr. Miller? Because if I’m not, I think I’d like to leave now.”

  He eyed her with a sleazy smile. “No, you aren’t under arrest, so you can leave at any time. But I don’t see why you’d want to. Don’t you want to help us find Steph’s killer?”

  Reese was tempted to speak from the heart, but she suspected anything she might say would only get her into trouble. Instead, she stood, and without saying a word, she walked out of the room.

  The walls really did feel as if they were closing in on her, and she identified the sensation as vertigo. She should probably sit down, but instead she kept walking. When she reached the sidewalk, the sun had warmed the day a few degrees, but not enough to chase her chill. Instead of heading to her car, she walked across the street and into the office building there. After studying the marquis for a moment, she found the name she was looking for and pressed the appropriate button on the elevator.

  “Good morning,” she said to the casually dressed woman in the lobby of the Draper Law Firm. “Reese Ryan for Bucky Draper.”

  He appeared at the doorway so quickly, she suspected he must have known she was coming. He looked like he’d lost weight, but his suit still bunched in all the wrong places, and his forehead was shiny, as if he was sweating. “I can’t help you, Reese.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Reese, if you’re arrested for Steph’s murder, I could be the one prosecuting you. I can’t talk to you about this.”

  “Buck, you don’t actually think I did this, do you?”

  “I…I don’t know, Reese. I…no, I don’t. But I’m still running for DA, and you’re still a suspect in a murder investigation.”

  “But why? Why would they think I did this?”

  He sighed and walked across the room to his secretary’s desk. The woman, Reese noticed, was listening to every word, as if she might have to testify to what she’d heard. Perhaps she would, Reese thought.

  Bucky wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to her. “Go see Gina Leone. She’s not running for office. She’ll advise you.”

  The vertigo threatened to return as she turned, and she had to sit down for a moment. “I can’t believe this is happening, Buck.”

  He patted her shoulder. “Go see Gina. Now. I’ll tell her you’re coming.”

  Reese glanced at the paper.

  Gina Leone. Suite 302.

  Two floors down, Reese found Gina Leone waiting in the lobby. Her name sounded Italian, and she looked the part, too, with long, curling brown hair, dark eyes and skin. Reese guessed she was in her mid-fifties.

  “Gina,” she said as she gripped Reese’s hand in the tightest handshake of her life.

  “Reese Ryan.”

  “I figured. Bucky told me this is an emergency, but that’s all he said. What kind of trouble are you in?”

  “Do we have to talk in the lobby?” Reese asked. Even though it was early, and the place was empty, that could change at any minute.

  “Of course not. Follow me.”

  Reese did, to a conference room overlooking the courthouse square. They were just a hundred yards away from the office where Andrew Miller was plotting her demise.

  “Coffee?” she asked.

  Reese debated the offer. If she loaded up on caffeine, it would certainly help her get through the next few hours of questioning, but it wouldn’t help her sleep later. “No, thanks. I’m going to try to get some sleep when I go home.”

  “Wait. Did you just work all night?”

  Reese nodded. “The investigator showed up in the ER at quarter to seven this morning and told me the DA wanted to go over my statement from 1993.”

  “And you went with him,” she stated.

  Again Reese nodded.

  “And now, you need a lawyer. Okay.” She sat and pulled out a pad and a pen from the credenza at the front of the room. “What exactly did he ask you, and what exactly did you say?”

  Reese thought back and tried to remember all the questions Andrew Miller had asked before he reached the one that had been his sole reason for interrogating her personally. She went through them all, and her answers, as Gina took notes.

  “Sounds pretty routine,” she said.

  “It’s getting more interesting, believe me,” Reese deadpanned.

  “Okay. Go on.”

  “He asked if Steph and I were lovers.”

  Gina stopped writing and leaned back in her chair, studying Reese. “How did you answer?”

  “I didn’t. I asked him if I was under arrest, and he said no, so I just walked out without saying another word.”

  “Good girl! Okay. So Stephanie—Steph—was your best friend. You’ve come out as a lesbian, and now someone they’ve interviewed has suggested you and Steph were perhaps more than friends. They’ve had no motive in this killing since day one, so they finally have something, and they’re going to wring everything they can out of it. At least until after Bucky gets elected.”

  “Great,” Reese said, shaking her head.

  “Is there any proof that you and Steph were lovers?”

  Reese shook her head. Shouldn’t Gina ask her if they were? “Don’t you want to know if we were lovers?”

  Gina smiled. “I’ll assume you were. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “So by refusing to answer the DA’s question, I answered his question.”

  “Not necessarily. Sometimes when an interrogation takes an unfriendly turn, people stop talking. But they don’t necessarily end up in my office five minutes later.”

  Reese nodded and looked out the window. She’d never told anyone, but she supposed Steph would understand why she had to. Someone had given her up to the DA. He or she was apparently trying to implicate Reese in the murder. Steph had loved her, and even if they weren’t ready to come out of the closet back then, she was pretty sure she would have by now.

  “We were. Lovers. But anything anyone says is pure speculation. No one knows. We were very deeply tucked in the closet.”

  “You’ve
never told anyone?”

  Shaking her head, Reese answered. “No. You’re the first one. Ever.”

  “And Steph? Would she have told anyone?”

  Again, Reese shook her head. “Steph’s parents adored her, and she lived to please them. She definitely didn’t want them to know. No way would she ever have told anyone. Maybe later, when the questions about a husband started, but not then. Not in high school.”

  “How about cards, letters? Did you put anything in writing?”

  Reese shrugged. “We sent each other a lot of notes during school, but other than the sheer excess, there was nothing suggestive about them. Again, we were very careful.”

  “No one ever saw you kissing in the stairwell, for instance?”

  Reese laughed, shifted in her chair. “No such drama. We were paranoid about getting caught. We never did anything in public, not even secret little touches when we thought no one was looking. It was a different time, you know? No one was out, and we didn’t intend to lead the charge.”

  Gina stared at the wall, tapping her pen on the tablet, then quickly stared back at her. “How about cell phones? Did you have phones then?”

  “Some people did—those box phones—but not us.”

  “So, in your opinion, there is absolutely no proof that you and Steph were lovers.”

  Reese nodded. “Correct. There’s no proof.”

  “Okay, so there’s no proof of a motive, and no proof to link you to the crime, because if they didn’t have any evidence in 1993, they don’t have any now. How about an alibi?”

  Reese told her about the events of the day.

  “So, your sister is your alibi for the time of the crime, and your parents came home shortly after that. They can’t back up your alibi, and I’m going to guess the coroner can’t give an exact time of death, so they’re no help. How about a car? Did you have a way to get to the lake that night?”

  “My mom left her car at the house when they went out, so I could have taken hers.”

  Gina nodded, processing the information. “Okay, you said you called Steph. I have no idea about phone records from back then, but if they exist, the calls could place you at your house. When you called, did you leave a message?”

  “I don’t know. But probably not. I talked to her late in the afternoon, and then I went to bed. When I called later and she didn’t answer, I think I just hung up. I was always worried about leaving messages because the answering machine was in the kitchen, and her mother usually checked it. Steph was concerned about her mother figuring things out, so we tried to alternate calls. I’d call her, and then she’d call me, you know?”

  Gina twirled the pencil in her fingers as she stared at the wall.

  “Okay, Reese, here’s what I think. The DA has nothing. He had to bring you in after someone suggested this connection with Steph, right? I mean, that’s a no-brainer. Maybe he’d get lucky and you’d confess. You didn’t, so what now? Even if he could prove you and Steph were lovers—which he can’t—he still has no evidence to link you to the crime, and you have an alibi. Ergo, he has nothing.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Nothing. Don’t talk to anyone about the case, and if he calls you in again—which could happen—I want you to phone me immediately. Morning, noon, or night, okay?”

  Handing Reese her business card, she stood, and Reese did the same.

  “Okay. This is all going to be fine,” she said as she ushered her to the door.

  Reese sure didn’t feel that way.

  The elevator arrived promptly, and Reese took it to the ground floor, then crossed the street to the courthouse square. Her car was still there, and she sat in it for a few minutes, wondering what she should do. Gina had told her not to discuss the case with anyone, but her heart was telling her something else.

  Putting the Jeep into gear, she turned out of the parking lot and maneuvered through town, heading west, not toward home but toward Lake Winola. A glance at the clock told her it was a silly move; it was already close to nine o’clock, and the drive to the lake and back would eat up more than an hour of her sleep time, if she didn’t drive into a tree when she fell asleep at the wheel. When the adrenaline wore off, a mental crash was almost guaranteed. Hopefully, she’d make it home in one piece.

  The winding roads heightened her awareness, and she rehearsed her speech over and over in her mind as she guided the Jeep toward Sophie’s house. It was probably foolish to do this, and she knew it, but she also knew that she didn’t want Steph’s mother learning about them from the DA or, worse, from the TV news.

  The driveway was empty, and belatedly Reese wished she’d called. With the kind of day she was having, it wouldn’t surprise her if Sophie wasn’t at home. But she answered the door shortly after Reese rang the bell and pulled her into a deep hug before seeming to sense something was wrong.

  “What is it?” she said, clutching her heart with both hands.

  “Can we talk?” Reese asked.

  “Of course. Come in. Can I get you a cup of coffee? And I baked blueberry muffins yesterday. They’re still fresh.”

  “Maybe some juice. And a muffin,” she said, surprised she could even think about eating.

  When Reese’s breakfast was on the table, Sophie sat and stared at her. After a bite of muffin and a drink of juice, Reese met her gaze.

  “I was called into the DA’s office this morning. About Steph.”

  Sophie nodded. “Yes, of course. They’re calling everyone in.”

  “I know. But it’s more than that. It seems that someone…suggested to the DA…that…because I’m gay…and Steph and I were so close…”

  Reese didn’t want to finish the sentence, and she let it hang there. What more should she say? Should she out Steph to her mom? Surely, Sophie knew she would never have hurt her, but would the knowledge of their love affair skew her thinking?

  “They think Steph was a lesbian, too,” Sophie said, as her gaze locked on Reese.

  “Yes.”

  “And that you and she were lovers.”

  Sighing, Reese nodded. “Yes.”

  Sophie looked past her, off to the side and out at the lake. Reese’s appetite had vanished, and she just sat, eventually looking out at the view as well.

  “It would explain a lot,” Sophie said, finally looking back at her.

  She didn’t respond. What more could she say, unless Sophie asked her a direct question?

  “You look exhausted, Reese. They must have really grilled you.”

  “It’s not that. I worked last night. The investigator showed up at the ER early this morning. I went straight from the hospital to the courthouse, and then here.” She didn’t mention the fact that she’d lawyered up in between stops.

  “My word. You have a right to be exhausted, then. Why don’t you take a nap before you go? I’d never forgive myself if you crashed on the way home.”

  As many times as Reese had visited over the years, she knew she couldn’t sleep there. It just didn’t seem right. “I’ll be okay,” she said, thinking of Gina’s promise.

  They both stood, and Sophie walked her to the door. “Thank you for preparing me, Reese. I’m sure this won’t be the last I hear of this.”

  Then Sophie opened her arms, and Reese stepped into them, and Sophie held her as she sobbed.

  “This doesn’t change anything, Reese,” Sophie said.

  Reese hoped she meant it.

  Chapter 20: Confessions

  Miraculously, Reese had managed to sleep. A vodka and tonic for breakfast helped, and when she awakened it was dark outside. After a quick shower, she was ready for work, three hours ahead of schedule. Picking up her phone, she dialed Ella’s number.

  “Hi. No FaceTime tonight?” she asked.

  In spite of her anxiety, Reese laughed. “I thought I might stop by on my way to work for live, up-close-and-personal face time. How late will you be up?”

  “Well, you know me. It’s eight o’clock, and I’m already in my jamm
ies.”

  “I can come by now,” she said.

  “I’ll be waiting,” Ella said.

  Reese stuffed the duffel she always took to work with the essential items: emergency power bars, an apple, a banana, a bottle of water, a bottle of Coke (in case of a migraine at work, which was a good possibility on this night), Motrin, and a few other items. Zipping it closed, she picked it up and headed out the door.

  She had to talk to Ella. Soon, it would be all over Scranton that she and Steph were lovers and that she was currently number one on the short list of suspects in Steph’s murder. Who knew how long this nonsense would go on? It might be over in a matter of weeks, but it could take until the election almost three months away before the new DA dropped her from the list. Bucky knew her; he’d admitted to her he didn’t think she’d done it. Surely, he’d knock the task force in line and get them looking for the real killer, instead of focusing on the inconsequential detail that she and Steph had been more than friends.

  What if it didn’t work out that way, though? What if the public was crying for blood, and Bucky—or whoever won the election—decided to keep investigating her? How long would she be subjected to impromptu visits to the ER? Would she go to jail because they thought she was a flight risk? Would she be suspended from her job because she’d lost the public’s trust?

  There were too many uncertainties, and with all the questions spinning through her mind, Reese couldn’t add the distraction of her attraction to Ella. Whatever was going on with them—and Reese sincerely hoped it was leading toward something wonderful—would have to wait. She couldn’t pull Ella into a police investigation. She didn’t know how she’d stand up to the pressure, how she’d hold up if reporters started showing up at her house and colleagues started whispering when she passed in the hallways. And based on her knowledge of such matters, it wouldn’t be long until everyone in Northeastern Pennsylvania learned she was a suspect in Steph’s murder.