“Sure did.” The tech said showing her the phone. “I had to use one of the social media accounts on her phone to make the I.D. It’s called Scatter.”
Lily snapped a pic and did a quick search for Serena Fellows. Two social media accounts for Serena appeared. She clicked on the one for Scatter. Let’s see what you have to tell the world.
Chapter 10
October 25, 8:28 a.m.
Carrying her black penny loafers, Lily rushed out the front door of her house and hopped into the passenger seat of the Dodge Charger. As she reached for the car handle, an autumn breeze tugged the door from her hand and swirled leaves in the corner of the driveway.
“Didn’t we just see each other?” Morgan asked.
“Yeah, but I think you have this secret thing for me where you take me everywhere you go.” Lily closed the door and waved to Julius as he went back inside the house.
“How’s the leg?” Morgan threw the gear in drive, sped around the cul-de-sac and drove towards the highway.
“It’s healing.”
“Fabulous.” Morgan pressed on the gas and got into the right lane. “Our lady in the cornfield is one lucky female.”
From the dashboard, Lily retrieved a stack of papers held together with a black binder clip. “Is she awake?”
“As of an hour ago.”
Lily flipped through the pages. “This is good news. Someone up above was watching over her.”
“Don’t start with your faith speech.” Morgan yielded for a brown mini-van getting onto the highway.
“There’s nothing wrong with having a little faith,” Lily said.
“Anyway, I got the skinny from Sarge about our almost dead victim. She was walking home after going to the store when she was attacked. She fought back and that’s how she ended up by the road where we saw her being dragged off.
“Reminded me of a scene out of a horror movie.”
Lily slid her feet into her loafers. “I’m thinking it was CtryGeek23.”
“I’m thinking you’re right. Although, we have nothing to prove that.”
“Serena Fellows,” Lily said pulling out her cellphone and tapping on a link in favorites. “Age nineteen. Graduated Olson High School and plans to study nursing at Whitewater University next year. She just moved into her new apartment; one of the photos she posted had the building number on it.
“She just got back from Wisconsin Dells, which CtryGeek23 commented on. Last night she updated her status every ten to eleven minutes, which included a craving for buttered popcorn and cherry soda. Courtesy of Scatter.com.” She dropped her phone into her breast pocket. “That was all I could get. You have to be a member to view a person’s full profile.”
“Of course you checked,” Morgan said, merging into the left lane. “Sarge wants us to go visit a Joshua Robins. He’s claiming to have information that may be tied to our case.”
“This case is going to attract everyone who wants their two minutes of fame,” Lily said, staring out the window. A peaceful feeling settled in as she took in the cluster of trees that zipped by as bits of sunshine sliced through the gray skies. Several deer grazed in a nearby field while a doe and her fawn retreated further into the woods, hiding from something.
Like Serena. Had Lily not been driving down that road, Serena would’ve ended up like her latest victims. You’re out there CtryGeek23 and I’m gonna find you.
Before long, the Charger came to a stop on a gravel driveway off of Highway N and parked in front of an old farmhouse. A covered porch and rickety steps sagged as if they held the weight of the shared joys and sorrows of several generations of family.
Vibrations thumped against Lily’s breast. She answered her phone. “Julius, I’ll call you back,” she said, unbuckling her seat belt.
“Are you working late tonight?”
“It depends. Why?
“Today’s the twenty-fifth, Babe.”
“I can’t believe I forgot! What about the flowers?”
“Already ordered them. They’ll be delivered this afternoon.”
“Meet you at the cemetery.” Lily hung up and reached for the door handle.
“Did you really forget about your monthly visit to Celine’s grave?” Morgan asked.
“There’s been too many distractions,” Lily answered quietly, getting out of the car.
As they made their way up the stairs, a small elderly woman with pudgy arms pushed open the screen door. “Joshua! We have company. You nice ladies must be here for my grandson. I told him one day he’d find some way to get involved with the law.”
Lily smiled. “At least he’s not in trouble.”
“Well, don’t just stand there. You’re lettin’ all my heat out. Come in and have a seat.”
“Thank you, but we’ll remain standing,” Lily said, following her inside.
“Suit yourself,” the woman mumbled, sitting down in her rocking chair. She reached into a fabric-lined knitting basket, removed a green scarf, and placed it in her lap. “You police ladies want a cup of hot cocoa?”
“No ma’am,” Lily said, glancing at the cracked plaster on the walls. “If it’s okay with you, we’d like to talk to Joshua.”
“Nanna, don’t harass the detectives,” a young man said, walking into the room. “Don’t mind Nanna. She’s harmless. I’m Joshua.”
Dressed in a skull and crossbones t-shirt and a pair of holey jeans that draped over his feet, Joshua sat down on the arm of the couch.
Lily took out her writing pad. “We appreciate you seeing us.”
“I like helping out.”
“You stated you saw Tanya O’Neal and Samantha Bernard at the home of your neighbor, Thomas Sanchez. Is that correct?”
“Yep.”
“Before that day you’d never seen them?”
“Never.”
“Did it seem like they were there willingly?”
“They weren’t screaming for help, but one of them pulled away from Thomas as they went around back. He grabbed her by her neck and pushed her inside.”
Lily pulled out a picture of Tanya and Samantha and handed it to him. “Are these the women you saw?”
“Yep. It was a quick glance.” Joshua pointed to Samantha’s face and gave the photo back to Lily. “But I was able to see her face for a moment when she yanked away from him.”
“Out of a hundred percent, how sure are you it was them?” Morgan asked.
“Maybe seventy?”
“How many people were there total?” Lily asked.
“Umm, four.”
“So there was the two women, your neighbor and…,”
“Another male. He pulled up behind them in a black car. I think it was a Focus.”
“What time did this happen?”
“Six, six-thirty. I was heading out to meet up with my crew.”
Lily and Morgan exchanged glances.
“Can you elaborate?” Morgan asked.
“My friends and I head to the woods with our music and smoothies to vent about society and our lives. It’s a regular thing.”
Lily nodded and looked out the window to observe the Sanchez property. A root cellar door lay opened, wobbling in the breeze next to a rusty burning barrel still smoldering from an earlier fire. “Is he home?”
“No. He’ll be home around six.”
“Like clockwork. If nothing else, you can always depend on Thomas to be on time,” Nanna said, continuing to knit without missing a beat.
“What do you mean, if nothing else?” Lily asked.
Nanna stopped knitting and clasped the material against her bosom. “Thomas is ornery and curt. I took over one of my fresh baked apple pies to thank him for helping my grandson when he’d broken down off of Third Street. He stood firmly in the doorway, thanked me and tossed it in the yard for the deer.”
“Maybe he likes his privacy,” Lily suggested.
Nanna huffed, rose and shuffled toward the kitchen. “You nice police ladies want a piece of pie?”
&nbs
p; “Nanna, you’re still fussing,” Josh called after her. “The day I had car trouble was the same day I saw him bring the girls home,” he said.
“Is there anything else you remember?” Lily asked.
“The night before those two girls was on the news I heard noises coming from his basement. I told my buddy what I told you and he suggested that we spy on him.
“He never uses his porch lights, so we knew it would be safe to look through the windows to the basement and see if we could see anything. And that same night, that’s what we did.” Joshua paused. “Am I in trouble for what I did?”
“No,” Morgan said. “Did you see anything?”
“Only stairs and an old desk. After that, we waited for almost an hour, hoping he’d leave so we could sneak in. He never did. Instead he came out and tossed something into the burning barrel.”
“Did you see what was in the barrel?” Morgan asked.
Joshua shook his head. “But I did get his license plate.”
Lily’s cellphone vibrated on her hip. “This is Blanchette.”
“It’s Keys. Can you talk?”
Joshua wrote on a piece of paper and handed it to Morgan.
“Not really. I’ll call you when I get back in town.” Lily clicked off her phone, closed her writing pad and pulled out a business card. “If you or your friends remember anything else, please don’t hesitate to call.”
Turning to leave, Lily waved to Nanna, who was washing fruit in the kitchen sink. “Thanks for letting us in your home.”
*
12:00 p.m.
When the detectives reached their cubicles, Lily picked up her desk phone and dialed Detective Keys’ number.
“Did I miss the call?” Evan asked, stepping into the cubicle.
“No. You’re just in time,” Lily said.
When Keys picked up, Lily placed her on speaker.
“Any luck recovering the emails?” Lily asked.
“We were only able to recover Tanya’s browsing history. She chatted with someone with the username ‘CtryGeek23’ on a social networking site called Scatter.com.”
“Do we know who this person is?” Lily asked.
“Unfortunately, we need a court order to access the ISP. The logs would allow us to determine who’s using a certain IP address at a given date and time.”
“I’ll let Ibee know.”
“Tanya also received emails from CtryGeek23, but I can’t read them. The emails have been saved to an encrypted file. So we’ll have to wait a little bit longer.”
“Can anyone encrypt a file? I mean, is it something I could do?”
“If one thought about it, sure, but it helps to have it built in the system. This particular laptop doesn’t have it. The person would have to know what to do or where to look.”
“Ursula,” Morgan said.
Lily nodded. “What about the massage business Tanya was running on the side?”
“Tanya posted her services in a few personal forums and used her email as the only form of contact. Her first posting was a month ago. I’ll get the drive sent out and get back to you.”
Lily clicked off the phone, opened up a new session on the internet and typed in the website.
Once the site appeared, Lily arrowed over to the sign up button and hit enter. Within a matter of minutes, she had created an account on Scatter.com. Other than dealing with unwanted advertisements, registering was easy. After email verification, Lily was able to view Tanya’s profile page.
“It’s amazing what kids post for the world to see,” Evan said, looking over Lily’s shoulder.
“I guess it’s their way of venting,” Lily replied.
“Telling the world that your family is going on a week’s vacation is not venting.”
Lily scrolled down Tanya’s page. One status read: “I definitely don’t pose like this often.” It was followed by a picture of Tanya in a strappy bikini, straddling a bale of hay.
The rest of the page was littered with comments and replies about other pictures of Samantha and Tanya. Of the seventy-eight remarks, CtryGeek23’s comments were at the bottom of the screen.
There you are.
She tapped on CtryGeek23’s username to visit his profile, but it was locked on private. I see you like to hide from the outside world. Unsatisfied, Lily clicked on the stream of previous messages between Tanya and CtryGeek23 and hit “print.”
She put on her coat, snatched up the printouts and handed the papers to Morgan. “Check the messages and comments section to see if you can find a discussion about meeting one another or phone number swap. Then go to Serena Fellows’ page and print it. We’ll be able to see more about her now that we have an account. Evan, I’ll call Ibee on the way and give her the update. Will you follow up?”
“Are you going to the cemetery?” Evan asked.
“Yes. I’m meeting my Julius there. Call me if you hear anything.”
*
7:00 p.m.
Puffs of cold air shot Lily in the face as she leaned out her window and gazed at the headstones, searching for the section where her sister was buried. Soon, the sign for St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery appeared. Her headlight beams cut through the darkness, landing on Julius’s tailgate. She rolled her truck to a stop, parked alongside her husband’s Ranger, and joined her husband on the sidewalk.
Julius handed her a small bouquet of flowers and a single silk lily. “I can never remember which section she’s in.”
“Section D.” Lily cradled the sun spray roses and miniature carnations. Celine’s favorites. Julius slid his hand in Lily’s and they walked down the black top until they came to a statue.
“I’ll wait in my usual spot,” Julius said, letting go of her hand.
“Are you scared of being here at night?”
Julius handed his wife a flashlight. “This place,” he replied looking around, “reminds me that my parents aren’t in good health. As Mama’s liver cancer gets worse, I just don’t want to face that reality right now.”
“All right.” Lily switched on the flashlight and advanced several steps until she came to a bronze headstone. She knelt down, pressed the plastic vase in the ground, and arranged the flowers. “It’s not fair that you’re not here. I’m done trying to make things work with Mother. She refuses to talk to me about anything. Things are getting worse and I’m convinced she’s hiding something.
“I’m not looking forward to Thanksgiving. Mother insists on having a family dinner with everyone there and pretending we’re the perfect family. Far from it. Dad can’t be in the same room with her and Julius doesn’t want to go. The truth is, Mother hates him.”
Lily used her hand to wipe the headstone clean and placed the lily on top of it. My promise to you. She removed her rosary beads from her pants pocket, clasped them between her hands and bowed her head.
After several quiet moments passed, she returned to Julius. “Thanks for being here with me.”
Julius pulled her into an embrace and they wandered over to their cars. “Why’d you include a lily?”
“It symbolizes my dedication to find her killer.”
*
8:55 p.m.
Morgan shoved a folder into a file drawer at her desk and tapped the drawer closed with her foot.
“You done?” Alec asked, leaning against her desk.
“Finally. And after two hours of reading their chats, I felt like I’d read a soft porn magazine. But I did learn that Tanya was hell bent on attending college down in Texas.”
“It made her vulnerable.”
“I’m not sure Tanya was vulnerable. I think she was rebelling against her parents for pushing her to attend a university here in Wisconsin.”
“She’s still a victim.”
“I know that, Alec. I’m just keeping it real. Tanya started an escort service on the side and had Ursula hide her emails so no one could see them. Now she’s dead and her parents are probably thinking it’s their fault because they couldn’t afford to send her
to the school in Texas.”
“Everybody rebels. What matters is whether or not we regret it. What about you? Did you rebel?”
“Of course. And when I prayed to God to spare my boyfriend who died after a drunk hit us, He ignored me. I think if I had just obeyed my parents, my boyfriend would still be alive.
“So, with the help of my parents, I got myself together and joined the academy.”
A few seconds of silence passed as Morgan watched Alec for a reaction. She hadn’t told anyone else except Lily.
Alec pushed off the desk with the palms of his hand. “Good thing you joined. Now you’re stuck with us. Hungry?”
“Starved.”
“McGinley’s?”
Morgan nodded.
Chapter 11
October 31, 9:03 a.m.
Former district attorney Ronald Thorson reached for one of the Parker Pens in the ornate dual pen holder centered on his glass desk. He never thought he’d hear from his long term client after completing his will twenty-five years ago.
The Blanchettes never waited until the last minute to come to him for their estate planning. And to have Collin visiting him after all this time only meant one thing: he wanted to amend his will.
When the door to Ronald’s office opened, he sat down in the wingback leather chair and let out a groan. The warmer weather this late in the year had been good for his old bones, but the wear and tear from the harsh Wisconsin winters had him itching to sell his practice and live out the rest of his years down south.
He gestured for Collin to take a seat, grabbed a yellow legal pad, and flipped to a new page. “You weren’t very clear when you called the other day. Mind telling me what this is all about?”
Collin placed a thick manilla envelope on the table, sat down and faced Ronald. In the six months since Celine’s funeral, he looked like he’d aged six years. Waves of silver and bronze toned hair that darkened near the roots leveled into his neatly trimmed sideburns. “Thanks for making time to see me.” He opened his coat, retrieved a wrinkled piece of paper and handed it over. “I want the changes to my will done immediately.”
Promised Lies (A Detective Blanchette Mystery) Page 7