by Leona Fox
“It's a funny story, actually. We were at school together and then we lost touch and I didn't even know she lived here when I came back. I just randomly bumped into her one day and I couldn't actually believe it was her. I don't think she believed it was me either. We stared at each other for ages before we actually realized. Ever since then we have spent time together and you know when you see someone who you haven't seen in years but it's like no time has passed between you at all? That's what it was like for us and now she's...God I just can't imagine...who would want to do anything to her?” she asked. Although it was rhetorical Ellen's mind already was working, trying to figure out who had a motive.
Unfortunately, she wasn't that familiar with Ella. The name rang a bell. Now that Beatrice had mentioned the two of them spending a lot of time together Ellen remembered seeing them around town and in the café. She hadn't paid much attention to them because they just seemed like normal friends. Perhaps the heat had dulled her senses. She felt as though she should have known more about the case or the victim, but she basically was starting from nothing.
“What can you tell me about her?” Ellen asked.
“Oh, gosh, I mean, she was just...she was one of those people who the world just seemed to smile upon. Even back when we were younger we all knew she was going to be something special. She had that spark about her that meant you just wanted to be around her all the time because you knew if you were that something special was going to happen. She was so pretty and, of course, all the boys wanted her, some of the girls, too. She was a woman long before any of us but she always had self-respect as well and she was just...oh, she was just lovely,” Beatrice said.
Ellen cocked an eyebrow at that because surely nobody was ever that perfect. The hero worship of Beatrice was a little suspicious, but it could just have been the fact that the girl was in a fragile emotional state.
“What else about her, what did she do for a living?”
“Oh, yes, well, she ran a recruitment firm for a few years. She always had said when she was younger that she wanted to work in fashion. Really she could have done anything she put her mind to but she sold her firm, for a lot of money apparently, and then started her own business selling boutique clothing online. She had a massive warehouse in the city and a big office. Then her parents became ill and she ended up moving back here with her twin brother to take care of them.”
The similarities between this young woman who had vanished and Ellen were striking, and they gave her an unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach. Was it just a coincidence the two of them had similar names and the same reason for coming to East Pender? She tried putting the thought out of her mind because it wasn't going to help the investigation, but it was always there, nagging at her.
“She has a brother?”
“Yes, Gregory. For twins they're so different.”
“How do you mean?”
Beatrice furrowed her brow as she tried thinking of the perfect way to put it. “You know, like the yin and the yang? They're similar to that. It was like Ella got all the goodness and Gregory got the rest, or maybe there was some karmic balance in the universe that meant if one of them got all the luck then the other would have to go without. I'm not saying Gregory is horrible. I used to see him many times when we were younger but I saw him again when I came to East Pender and there was something about him...something in his eyes. I don't know what happened to him in the years between then and now....Maybe it's just that his parents had died and that can affect a person greatly....I don't know, but he seemed to have a darkness about him. He was always moody when we were younger. I think he was a little jealous of the attention that Ella always got, but now it seems worse, like he's turned in on himself.”
“Do you think he could have had anything to do with it?”
“Gregory? Oh, no!” Beatrice exclaimed with a shocked look on her face.
“He could never do that to his sister. As different as they were it was clear he loved her and everyone knew that they couldn't mess with her because Gregory always would sort them out. They were twins, you know, they had that special kind of connection. I can't explain it really but if you had seen them together then you would know. It was like they could read each other’s minds or something.”
Ellen toyed with the ideas in her mind. Now that she was aware of the players she remembered seeing them about town occasionally, and had indeed seen the twins about. But there was still much to be learned about the case. They needed to get to Ella's house as soon as possible, although it wasn't easy to walk quickly in the heat, especially not when Beatrice was bemoaning the way of the world on the way. She lamented the fact that something terrible could happen to someone as good as Ella. Ellen could only listen in stony silence, occasionally offering a few reassuring words, although she suspected they fell on deaf ears. Eventually, Ella returned to silence herself and the two women walked on quietly, not quite strangers now but not friends either.
When they finally reached Ella's house there was no mistaking it because a crowd already had gathered around and people were muttering among themselves, speculating about what had happened. Despite the heat they still were poking their noses into business that wasn't theirs. Ellen saw Andy trying to get them to step back and go back to their homes. Behind him she could see the door was ajar, and against the handle there was broken wood where the impact of something had damaged the door. Ellen and Beatrice made their way through the crowd, pushing past people without apology, until they reached Andy. He wiped sweat off his brow and looked clearly uncomfortable in his heavy, thick uniform, but was pleased to see Ellen.
“Do you really have to wear that?” Ellen asked.
“Unfortunately, it's regulation,” he said. Beatrice stared at the door and her hand shot to her mouth.
“This is the victim's friend. She was in the park and got a call from another friend, that's how I found out about it. Her name is Beatrice,” Ellen said.
Andy nodded as he looked around, looking stressed. The crowd continued encroaching on the house and Andy yelled at them again.
“Are you okay?” Ellen asked, beginning to reach out a hand to squeeze his arm but then thinking better of it. Since they were in public, she didn't want to undermine his authority.
“Yeah, it's just this heat, makes people crazy you know?” he said, and when he looked at her she could see he was tired.
“Are you sleeping okay?”
“No, my room is so hot, and then I come to work and I have to wear this all day,” he said with an exasperated sigh.
Ellen handed him her water and insisted he drink it. He took a sip, then people started moving closer to the door, and he yelled at them again. This time he reached around and pulled out his handcuffs.
“I'm serious! The next time someone comes close I'm arresting them. Now move back and give us some space! I know this is all very exciting but we have a job to do and if anything is disturbed it's going to affect the investigation,” he snapped.
Ellen never had seen Andy like this before. Neither had the people in the crowd, and they shifted back, intimidated by him.
“Have you been inside yet?” she asked.
Andy turned to look at her, and there was something about his face that had a beleaguered look. He was about to speak when someone barged through the crowd. Ellen turned to see a tall, dark-haired man, red-faced and glowering. He looked at the door and pain filled his cold, hard eyes. He ran forward and Andy stood in his way.
“I need to get in there! My sister! She has to be alright!” he said.
Ellen was close to him and she smelled the scent of sweat and the woods. He was wearing a plaid shirt that was open at the collar, long shorts, and heavy duty boots with thick leather soles. His face was peppered with unkempt stubble and his hair was uneven and long.
“Sir, you have to wait. This is a crime scene,” he said.
Beatrice, who had been transfixed by the door, now saw that Gregory had arrived and turned to face him.
“What are you doing here? Did you do this?” he yelled.
Beatrice looked shocked, as did Ellen. Gregory moved forward toward Beatrice, who cowered. She was unable to speak.
“Ella told me what you really came here for. Did she finally say no too many times?” he growled.
His fists were clenched and Ellen tried stopping him but everything moved so fast. The crowd gasped and started to yell, and one of them made a move toward the house. Andy's attention was distracted for a few moments and that gave Gregory the opportunity to move away from Beatrice and run into the house. His big frame disappeared over the threshold of the door, and Beatrice squealed as he ran away. Andy twisted back.
“Ellen! Follow him! He'll mess up the crime scene!” he said.
Before he'd finished speaking Ellen already was sprinting into the house, breathing hard as the hot air filled her lungs and scorched her throat.
“Ella! Ella!” Gregory yelled, his words echoing through the house.
Now that she was inside she could hear Gregory's heavy boots clomping around the house, searching desperately for his sister. Apparently there was no sign of her because when he returned to meet Ellen the color had drained from his face and sweat was dripping from his brow. He looked thoroughly miserable, like he had lost everything. He was in the same sort of trance as Beatrice had been when she first had received the call that morning. He walked past Ellen without saying anything and returned outside. Andy went ballistic at him, but Gregory didn't seem to be able to hear anything. He merely glanced toward Beatrice and then walked through the crowd, his morose form disappearing.
Andy brought his hands to his temples and blew out his cheeks as he wiped yet more sweat away.
“It's too hot to be dealing with this sort of thing,” he said, shaking his head and looking in the direction Gregory had walked.
“Look, I've got a lot to sort out here. Can we catch up later, after I can change into some normal clothes and have a shower?”
“Sure thing,” Ellen said. “I think you might want to keep Beatrice around to make a statement as well. I'll go tell her,” she added.
Andy nodded his thanks and smiled at her, and she was glad she was able to make his day a little easier. She went over to Beatrice and took her aside, away from the crowd and into the shade of the house so nobody could hear them.
“Was any of what he said true?” Ellen asked. Beatrice's eyes flickered down and shifted back and forth.
“If it is it's better that you tell me now,” Ellen insisted, making her tone sterner.
“Yes. I mean, the stuff about the offer. I was just...I wanted to do something with my life, you know? I had some savings and I didn't want to keep doing what I was doing. Ella had spoken to me about possibly selling her company. She said she wasn't sure what she wanted to do with her life after her parents died, but when we spoke about it she said no and that was that. I didn't push her at all. I wouldn't have done that. We were friends. We were supposed to hang out today and now we can't. Do you...Do you think she's...”
Beatrice began, but she couldn't bring herself to say the terrible words that were at the forefront of her mind. Ellen knew exactly what she meant. She wished she could have reassured the young girl. However, she knew that in these cases when somebody went missing they often ended up dead. No matter how good and pure Ella seemed there was nobody who was safe from the specter of death.
Chapter 3
By the evening word had spread through town and everybody knew Ella was missing. It was a big event that seemed to wake the sleepy town from its slumber and people were alive with various theories about what had happened. Many of them were mistrustful of the whole affair because Ella was an outsider and had only lived in East Pender for around a year. Mostly she had kept to herself. Ellen had to remind them that she, too, was once an outsider. Yet she had managed to become a valued member of the community. She heard many people cry out that Gregory was the murderer, but an equal number thought it was Beatrice. Yet, some thought the whole thing was a big hoax, as though they were playing a trick on the town, trying to get some attention.
But a kidnapping and a possible death was no joking matter. Ellen made it clear to those people that talk like that would not be tolerated in her cafe. Her own mind had been churning with ideas and theories but there was so little information about the people involved that she found it difficult to formulate anything concrete. All the idle chatter around her did not help, either. In the late evening, after the cafe had closed, she went to Kelly's house in the hope that she would be able to provide some clarity, and also to spend time with her best friend. Having seen how deeply Beatrice was affected by Ella’s disappearance, Ellen wanted to cherish Kelly in case anything like that ever happened to either one of them.
“Hello dear,” Kelly said as she opened the door.
She was wearing a white top that was draped over her body like a bed sheet. Even indoors she was wearing a wide-brimmed hat and held a fan in her right hand, which she occasionally fluttered. Her face was a milky white and, when contrasted with Ellen's deep tan, Kelly looked like a ghost. She poured a glass of milk from the fridge and handed it to Ellen, who looked at it with confusion.
“It's good to protect the skin, my love. You need to replenish the oils you have lost being out in the sun. It gets so terribly dry,” she said.
“Is that actually true or have you just made it up?” Ellen asked, and Kelly only laughed in response.
“Who knows anymore?” she admitted.
“Have you even been out in the sun recently?”
“Of course not. You know, I don't want to look like a withered old prune when I'm older. I want to keep my youthful glow and the only way to go about that is to protect my skin from the sun. Besides, it's oh so much effort to go outside in this heat. After just a few steps I feel like I'm ready to faint and that's more than I can bear.”
“So what have you been doing, just sitting around here all day? Have you even been painting?” Ellen said. She didn’t want her tone to sound accusatory but it was difficult to prevent it from being so.
“Mostly, yes, and no, I haven't been painting. Even lifting a brush is just too much work. This heat, it saps my strength so much. It is like a sleeping potion and all I want to do is wait until it cools down.”
“Kelly, I don't want to pry into this or anything but don't you need to paint? I mean, how else are you going to earn any money?”
A strange look came upon Kelly's face. “Don't you worry about me dear, it's all taken care of,” she said mysteriously and patted Ellen's cheek, acting as though she were in a drunken stupor.
Ellen wasn't sure Kelly would be much help with the case but persevered nonetheless and told her the events of the day so far. Kelly listened intently at the beginning but her attention soon began to drift and Ellen became irked. A lot of people in town grew frustrated with Kelly because all they saw was a ditsy artist who never could keep two thoughts chained together. Usually Ellen could put up with that because she knew that behind that was an intelligent and sharp woman. Yet this heat had changed her in such a way that sometimes Ellen became infuriated, and she had to keep snapping her fingers to keep Kelly's attention.
“Maybe it was the boogeyman,” she said after Ellen had finished speaking, and threw back her head, howling with laughter. Ellen shook her head.
“Fine. You know what? If you just want to sit in here until the heat passes then go for it, but I can't be around you when you're like this. This is a serious matter and it requires our full attention,” she said, and Kelly was suitably chastised. She told Ellen to sit down.
“I'm sorry. I'm sorry,” she said, taking Ellen's hands in an effort to placate her. Ellen sank down and exhaled deeply.
“What's the matter?” Kelly asked, noticing Ellen looked more affected by this case than usual. At first Ellen tried brushing it off, but Kelly kept insisting and, eventually, Ellen told her the truth.
“It's this girl, Ella. I mea
n, she's basically me when I was younger. She came back here to look after her parents, and then she lost them and now she's missing. It just makes me think...I don't know; it makes me wonder how my life would have turned out if I had made different decisions.”
“Like what?”
“Well, Beatrice told me Ella was planning to go back to the city. I can't help but wonder where I would be if I had gone back.”
“You would have been in a bad place because you wouldn't have the café. You wouldn't have been able to solve all these crimes. You wouldn't have me in your life and you wouldn't have Andy. I know it's easy to think the grass is greener on the other side but it's not always. I'm surprised you're letting yourself think like this, usually you're so focused on the here and now. Has this heatwave gotten to you, too? Has the great Ellen Thatch been compromised by the temperature outside?”
Ellen laughed a little. “Maybe I have. I am only human, after all. It just makes me sad for the girl and her brother, to go through that, especially when they're so young. It must be hell on them. At least when my parents died I could say they had had a good life, you know, and they got to see me grow up and establish myself as an adult. Ella and Gregory never will get a chance to show them what they're truly capable of.”
The two women let the silence linger over them for a few moments as they dwelt on their own relationships with their parents. Then Ellen got back to the case.
“Anyway, I don't know where to start with this case. She's only been in town for about a year. So I can't imagine there would be many people who want to hurt her. I'm just afraid...”
“Afraid of what?”
“When my parents died I felt lost and empty and I didn't know what to do. I felt like I was drifting and there was nothing to anchor me to the world. My first instinct was to run. I didn't even know to where. I just wanted to be anywhere else but where I was. I'm wondering if Ella felt the same; if she just left because she couldn't handle it anymore?”
“But that wouldn't explain the door being kicked in,” Kelly said in a reasoned tone.