Written in Blood

by Layton Green

  Ari pointed at the dedication. “Look at the date.”

  Preach read aloud: “On November 7th, a terrible tragedy struck Creekville High when Deirdre Hollings took her own life.”

  He looked up and met Ari’s eyes. It was November 6.

  Tomorrow was the thirty-fifth anniversary of Deirdre’s death.

  He did a quick online check. According to the property records, Deirdre’s family still owned the house in which she had grown up on Georgia Street, a few blocks off Hillsdale. Preach knew where it was.

  He took a deep breath. There was no time for a wild goose chase. He had to get to the mayor before she got to him. Interview the three men he had just locked up.

  But first he was going to follow his gut.

  He stood and paced the living room, trying to decide what to do with Ari. He couldn’t leave her alone. Mac Dobbins was an angry hornet whose nest he had just kicked. After mulling over a few options, he decided to call Ray Logan, who agreed to stay with her.

  “Your old wrestling coach?” Ari said.

  “He lives in the woods with a pack of Dobermans. I trust him with my life.”

  “I thought he was religious?”

  “He is. He believes in the Lord, wind sprints until you puke, and the Second Amendment.”

  Ari nodded, and he was thankful she didn’t make him explain further. He grabbed the yearbook, and they jumped into his car.

  After dropping Ari off with his old coach and giving enough of an explanation for him to grab his shotgun, Preach headed to the station and found Deirdre’s old case file. It was tragic and sparse. Young Deirdre had killed herself with a cocktail of alcohol and her mother’s prescription drugs. No suicide note, no evidence of foul play.

  The chief was on the phone, which was a relief. Preach deflected Kirby’s questions and told him to start interviewing their three prisoners.

  Preach gave himself two hours to investigate the Deirdre Hollings angle. On the way to her old house, he called someone he thought might be able to help.

  49

  “What a pleasant surprise,” Preach’s mother said when she answered the phone.

  He was driving through the narrow, forested lanes of West Creekville. Deirdre’s house was five minutes away.

  “Maybe not so pleasant,” he said. “I need to ask you a few more questions about high school.”

  “Okaay.” She drew the word out in confusion.

  “You remember that suicide you told me about? Deirdre Hollings?”

  “Of course. What a tragedy.”

  His mother spoke the words in a monotone, as if a tragedy were a theoretical thing.

  “I can’t go into detail, but what can you tell me about her?”

  “I . . . that was a long time ago, Joey. I think she had a sister, and I remember her father leaving town soon after the suicide. Deirdre used her mother’s sleeping pills, you know.”

  “What about the mother? What happened to her?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “What was Deirdre like? What kind of person?”

  The line quieted. He could sense his mother reaching into the past, trying to form a mental image. “She was very shy and quiet. Awkward even. Beautiful, mind you—but not in that All-American way boys were into at the time.” Not like you and I were beautiful, his mother’s slightly smug tone implied. “She was a writer, I remember. Her poems were in the school paper.”

  A writer. “Who were her friends?”

  “To be honest, I don’t remember her having any. She was always carrying around a novel, and she just seemed so . . . lonely. And intense. When you passed her in the hall she would look right through you, as if she were living this vibrant life, but it was all happening inside her mind. Do you know what I mean?”

  “I do,” Preach said quietly. “Do you remember seeing her with Farley Robertson, Damian Black, or Elliott Fenton?”

  A pause. “The three victims.”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe once or twice,” she said. “But I don’t really remember.”

  “What about Rebecca Farmer? The mayor.”

  “Hmm . . . again, I seem to remember Deirdre following her around—Becky was far more popular—but it’s just been so long.”

  “If you think of anything else, anything at all, you’ll let me know?”

  “Of course,” his mother said. “I don’t want to know what this is about, do I?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Joey . . .” A longer pause, one that Preach knew would end in a mundane question. “Dinner on Sunday?”

  “I’ll try.”

  The house where Deirdre Hollings had lived was a somber brick federal with black trim and four small windows facing the street. It resembled a piece of granite more than a house, a residence that kept its secrets and denizens sealed tightly inside. A lonely house that whispered to Preach that, no matter what else had occurred within its walls, birthdays and graduations and lifetimes full of love and tiny kindnesses, a single tragedy now defined its existence, the permanent stain of a child’s suicide.

  Preach parked behind a burgundy Camry in the driveway. The scent of pine drifted on the breeze. Solar-paneled neighbors, boulders and wood chips filling the lawns, the stamp of middle-class Creekville.

  As he approached the door, Preach received a text from Chief Higgins that made him grimace.

  -Come see me as soon as you can-

  The chief’s cryptic text meant the mayor was turning the screws even harder. He had to hurry. And if he left with nothing . . .

  A trim woman in her fifties answered his knock. She was wearing a gold necklace and a knitted blue sweater. Most of her bangs had gone grey, and she peered at him above a nose that was a shade too big and a smile of greeting that stopped halfway.

  Preach flashed his ID and said he was looking for the family of Deirdre Hollings.

  “I’m Carrie Hollings,” the woman said, hesitant. “Deirdre’s younger sister.”

  “Do you mind if I come inside?”

  “I wasn’t prepared for visitors, but I, yes, of course.”

  “No preparation necessary,” Preach said, as Carrie ushered him into a living room just off the entrance hall. “I just have a few questions. Are there any other siblings?”

  “It’s just mother and me.” Carrie glanced at a wheelchair-bound woman on the far side of the room whose gaze was locked onto a garden filled with azaleas and hydrangeas turned brittle for the fall.

  Preach waited for an introduction that never came.

  “She doesn’t speak,” Carrie said finally. “Stroke.”

  Preach wondered whether Deirdre’s mother couldn’t hear as well, or whether Carrie was just rude.

  He absorbed the room as he sat on a sectional gray sofa. A side table was laden with issues of Vogue, Entertainment Weekly, and Southern Living. Two armchairs, a sleek metal lamp, and a leatherette footrest. The requisite flat-screen TV. A bookshelf filled with trite curios purchased from department stores.

  Not a single book.

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions about Deirdre’s death,” he said.

  Carrie frowned as if the question inconvenienced her. Out of the corner of his eye, Preach saw the mother’s pinky twitch on the armrest of her wheelchair.

  “Why?” Carrie asked bluntly.

  “It’s possible—unlikely, but possible—that something about her death concerns an ongoing investigation.”

  Carrie’s mouth curled in disbelief. “The literary murders?”

  Preach tipped his head in acknowledgment. “The three victims were close in high school.”

  “Well, I certainly don’t know what that has to do with Deirdre. She wished she were acquainted with the victims, but that wasn’t the case.”

  “Because they were popular?” he asked.

  “That, and because my poor sister was convinced they were part of some secret literary society, which she desperately wanted to join. If there was one thing my sister cared about, it
was literature.”

  He was put off by Carrie’s callousness, but suicide could be a selfish act, and often destroyed the lives of those left behind.

  “You’re talking about the Byronic Wilderness Society?” Preach asked.

  “Silly name, isn’t it? She talked about it incessantly whenever a new issue of the school paper came out. Everyone knew how desperate she was, and then they made her into a saint. I know what you’re thinking, but I spent all of my emotion ages ago. Now we’re just left with the pieces. My father left soon after she died, and my mother,” her voice turned scornful, “well, she never recovered.”

  Preach read between the lines: her mother had never recovered enough to care about her.

  “You said your sister wished she was acquainted with the victims—are you saying she wasn’t?”

  “Oh, God, no. She was absolutely in love with Evan Shanks, or should I say Damian Black. Of course, Deirdre didn’t stand a chance with him. And what a horrid teenager Becky Farmer was. She and Farley were two devils incarnate.”

  “What about Elliott Fenton?”

  She waved a hand. “He did whatever Becky wanted.”

  “So, as far as you know, Deirdre had no contact with any of the victims outside of school?”

  “She worked on the school paper with Evan. Shortly before her death, she’d started making up ridiculous stories about having a relationship with him.”

  Preach’s gaze had wandered to the old woman, and he glanced sharply back at Carrie. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, she bragged that she and Evan would be going out soon. Whenever I asked for proof she gave a secretive smile and changed the subject. To books, of course. That was all she ever talked about, Evan Shanks and literature. And homemade cherry ice cream,” she said, with the first hint of affection or regret Preach had heard. “My sister loved ice cream.”

  “When did she start discussing a potential relationship with Evan?”

  Carrie pressed her lips together. “A month or so before her death, I suppose.”

  “Was there a public rebuff?”

  “As I said, it was all in Deirdre’s head.”

  “You told this to the authorities?”

  “Probably. I don’t really remember.”

  “Why do you think your sister committed suicide?” Preach asked quietly.

  Carrie’s mouth twisted. “My sister was always so . . . emotional. Mentally fragile.” She pressed her lips together as she shook her head. “I just don’t know why she went so far.”

  “But if you had to guess?” Preach asked. “I’m sorry to dredge up the past.”

  He thought he saw another twitch of a pinky from Deirdre’s mother. Then again, a hummingbird had just alighted on a bush near the window.

  “Oh, something probably happened with a boy or at school that tipped the scales. Maybe Evan snubbed her. The smallest thing would set her off.”

  He lowered his voice out of respect. “What about at home?”

  “My mother doted on her. Our father traveled constantly.”

  “I have to ask—was there any abuse?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “A rumor going around the school?”

  Deirdre’s sister smirked, shaking her head as if she had considered it a million times. “As I said, there was nothing any of us knew about.”

  Preach let out a wispy breath. The case, his career, was slipping through his fingers. “Can I see her bedroom?”

  “Sure.” She held up her palms. “But it won’t do you any good.”

  The mother turned her head as Carrie led them upstairs. Preach smiled and greeted her, feeling uncomfortable, but the older woman merely blinked.

  Deirdre’s room was the first doorway on the left. As he had seen with many families struck by tragedy, Preach expected to find an eerily anachronistic bedroom unchanged from the day Deirdre had died, a memory trapped in amber.

  Instead he found a room with a fresh coat of beige paint, empty except for an aging Steinway piano. He got a whiff of lemon-scented aerosol.

  “We had a garage sale this summer,” Carrie said. “Finally got rid of Deirdre’s things. Sometimes you have to let go.” She gave a nervous glance at the stairs, as if her mother hadn’t approved of the decision.

  Preach’s shoulders slumped in disappointment. Any evidence that might have called out to him from the past, however remote, had drifted out of reach. “Are any of Deirdre’s possessions left?”

  “I’m afraid not. A woman came in and bought everything of Deidre’s we had.”

  He blinked. “Do you know who this woman was?”

  “She never gave her name. She was fixing up a room for a visiting niece and offered a good price for the whole kit and caboodle. I play the piano, so we kept that. I was glad to see it all go, to be honest. It was like living with a ghost.”

  “Was this woman from Creekville?”

  She shrugged. “I assume so.”

  “Can you describe her? Please think hard.”

  “Oh.” Carrie leaned on the piano with sudden seriousness. “I see. Well, she seemed about my age, maybe a little older. Medium height. Stocky.”

  Not even close to Rebecca Worthington’s description, he thought, and Carrie would have recognized the mayor. “What about her face?”

  She considered the question. “I didn’t pay that much attention. I remember it was a bitterly cold day, very windy. She wore an overcoat and a hat pulled low.”

  Preach’s heart started beating faster. “Was it a beige overcoat? With a bowler hat?”

  “Yes. Yes, it was! In fact, I thought she was a man at first, but when she spoke, I realized she was a woman.” She stared at him, her face twitching. “How did you know what she was wearing?”

  “Would you be willing to describe this woman to a sketch artist?” Preach asked. “I’ll send one over right away.”

  “I—of course. What I can remember.”

  “Did she say or do anything unusual?”

  “She just took everything that might be a good fit for her niece. It seemed very natural. Since my old things were sold ages ago, it was all Deirdre’s. You know, if the room itself is important, we have a photo of it from before the sale. I . . . took it for mother.”

  “I’d like to see it.”

  Preach’s mind was spinning as Deirdre’s sister left the room. Ari’s stalker was a woman?

  Carrie returned holding a 5 x 7 photo. It portrayed the same room in which they were standing, except the walls had flowery teal-and-mustard wallpaper. Framed photographs sat atop a dresser, a pair of bookshelves took up the wall opposite the bed, and a pair of old ballet shoes hung next to a vintage Degas poster.

  Sitting on a nightstand was an alarm clock, a small stack of books, and a pink jewelry box shaped like a lotus flower. Above the bed, a Japanese woodblock displayed an ethereal scene of cherry blossoms sprinkling a sidewalk.

  Preach peered closer, but he couldn’t make out any of the people in the photos. “Do you have a magnifier?” he asked Carrie.

  She left and returned with a handheld magnifying glass. Preach held it up to the image, eager to see if one of Deirdre’s photos harbored a clue. After scanning the pictures, he straightened in disappointment. Besides Carrie, no one close to Deirdre’s age was depicted in the photographs.

  “It’s just family,” Carrie said, sensing his unvoiced question.

  Preach examined the rest of the room with the magnifier, just in case. He found nothing else of interest until he peered closer at the stack of books on the nightstand, trying to read the titles.

  There were four books, spines aligned and facing the photographer. He could just make out the titles, and the shock of what he was seeing pulsed over him, rocking him back on his heels.

  Crime and Punishment.

  The Works of Edgar Allan Poe.

  Five Little Pigs.

  Lolita.

  50

  The quartet of titles stared back at Preach like the mouth of a cave. They
were even arranged in order of the murders, starting with Crime and Punishment on the bottom, and he was forced to make the ominous assumption that the novel on top, Lolita, would become the same emissary of death as the other three.

  Carrie leaned over to see what he had focused on, then took a step back and clamped a hand to her mouth. “Dear Jesus. The books from the murders.”

  Preach scoured the photo a final time. “Did those books have any particular meaning to your sister?”

  “If they were on her nightstand, they were probably her favorite novels at the time. They tended to rotate, though Poe and Agatha Christie were two of her favorites. And Jane Austen, of course. She worshipped her.”

  Preach lowered the photo, thinking of the halved Jane Austen tattoo on the inside of Ari’s wrists—another connection between the two.

  Except Deirdre Hollings had been full of agony, and short on hope.

  “Was The Murders in the Rue Morgue a favorite of your sister’s?” he asked, since the Poe volume was the only compilation among the four. If Deirdre hadn’t chosen that particular short story, then someone else had.

  “Not that she ever told me.”

  “I hate to ask,” he said quietly, “but did you ever have any doubt as to whether your sister committed suicide?”

  “No, and neither did the police.”

  He reached for one of his business cards. “If you think of anything else unusual, either around the time of your sister’s death or in the weeks surrounding the garage sale, please call.”

  Carrie started to shake her head, then stopped. “There was one thing, though I’m sure it’s unrelated. My sister had a secret admirer.”

  Preach tightened his grip on the business card.

  “Someone sent her gifts, once a week for two months. Flowers, candy, even that jewelry box you saw in the photo.”

  “Deidre never told you who it was?”

  “I don’t think she knew.” She gave him a knowing look. “Mother thought Deirdre was seeing someone behind our back, but I always thought it was a prank. One of her classmates getting his kicks, maybe even that horrid Byronic Society.”