“We knew each other before John Bishop. We went to elementary school together for several years,” Chrissy said.
“I thought you were homeschooled,” I breathed.
Chrissy shook her head. “That began in middle school. My parents saw the paths my brothers were headed down and they felt like I’d be better at home with them. Of course, Dad was rarely there. But my mom taught me. She wasn’t the greatest teacher, but she made me do the work. She wasn’t lazy and incompetent like the stories would have you believe,” Chrissy said. Then she added, “It’s your move, by the way.”
I slid one of my castles across the board, facing down one of her pawns. I’d always had a preference for the castle piece—its versality and strength.
“Why does Jenny’s mom have a photo of you two? Were you friends before you switched to the homeschooling track?” I asked.
Chrissy sighed. “I don’t know if you’d call us friends. We were in the same class in third grade. She invited me over a few times, that was all. I don’t think her parents were crazy about her hanging out with a Cornwall, to be honest.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“Because they were rich and pretty, and my family was ugly and poor, why else? It was easy to forget about us, to underestimate us…”
I’d forgotten about the bishop. She slid it across the board, taking down my castle in one swell swoop.
“Let’s talk about that day. You didn’t have your driver’s license, but you supposedly forced Jenny inside your brother’s truck. You took her somewhere and killed her, then you dumped her body in our field. If you didn’t want her boyfriend and she used to kind of be your friend, then why? Why would you admit to all that?” I asked, boldly.
Chrissy’s jaw flexed in her cheek, then she reached for her drink. I watched as she drained the whiskey.
“Can I have another one?” Chrissy slid her glass toward me, not waiting for an answer.
“Sure. But then will you tell me about that day … the true story?”
Chrissy grunted a word that might have been ‘yes’, eyeballing the pieces still left on the board.
It’s time to take out my queen. I moved her out, then went to the kitchen to fetch Chrissy’s drink.
This time I made the drink stronger. Chrissy needed it after her tussle with Dennis, and I needed her to trust me more. I filled another glass of Coke for me, then added a splash of whiskey.
“Here you go,” I said, returning to the room.
Chrissy took a long swallow of her fresh drink.
She focused on the same bishop again. As she sat her glass down, her hand was wobbly, her limbs lanky and loose from the booze, and a bit of it swished over the side of her glass. She wiped it with the sleeve of her gray hoodie, then moved her bishop a single space.
Clearing her throat, she said, “I picked her up from school that day, that much was true. But I didn’t force her. I didn’t like her boyfriend … but I must admit, I was flattered by his interest in me. And intrigued at first. But then I started to notice the way he was, and I felt like I should tell her. She deserved to know the truth about John.”
“Okay…” I nodded slowly, urging her on. I wasn’t taking notes this time. How could I forget her words? I couldn’t. And I certainly didn’t need paper or a tape recorder to absorb them.
“When I told her the truth, about him pursuing me, I thought she’d be angry with me, or maybe even deny it. You know how some girls are … they don’t want to accept the truth about the men they love…”
I nodded. “But John wasn’t a man, Chrissy. He was a teenage boy.”
Chrissy shrugged one shoulder. “He was. But you have to remember, we were young too. Full of hormones and full of rage…”
“Murdering someone takes a lot of rage,” I said, solemnly.
Chrissy sighed dramatically. “Anyway, I picked her up that day. We didn’t go anywhere. We just rode around and talked, and we smoked some pot I stole from Trent. She wasn’t used to smoking … and by the time I dropped her off, she was more than a little high. I felt terrible about it honestly. I shouldn’t have left her that way.”
I wanted to believe her, but something was still missing here.
“She didn’t make it home though, Chrissy. You say you dropped her off, but nobody saw her after that. The next time anyone saw her … she was lying dead in the field. And you confessed to the police that you were responsible. If it wasn’t you, who was it? And why confess?”
Chrissy used her bishop to take out my knight, then drained her second glass. She slammed it hard on the table.
“Jenny’s parents were strict as hell. Her daddy was a pastor, for Christ’s sake. How do you think they would have reacted if she came home high, dropped off by a Cornwall with no license, no less? I couldn’t drive her home that day.” Chrissy’s words were softly slurred.
I moved my knight, then she moved hers too. I had no choice but to back off from her, in the game and in this conversation. She was getting visibly upset, flexing her jaw again.
But instead of retreating, I moved my queen, taking down one of her pawns.
Chrissy stared at the board, eyebrows furrowing.
“If you didn’t drop Jenny off at home that night, then how did you both part ways?” I asked, keeping my voice even.
“I dropped her off at the park beside her neighborhood. You know, the one with the merry-go-round…?”
“I know the one.” Although the merry-go-round had been gone for more than a decade. Too dangerous, according to the all the helicopter parents in Austin.
“She insisted on it. But truthfully, I was tired and high, and I didn’t fight her on it. When I left her there, she was walking through the grass, headed toward the goldfish pond…”
But there was one huge problem with Chrissy’s new story. “You told the cops you killed her. If your story is true, then you would never have done that. No one in their right mind confesses to a murder they didn’t do…”
“Who said I was in my right mind?” Chrissy’s eyes hardened, two shiny black marbles in the dark. She made another move, but I couldn’t pull my eyes from her face.
“Why did you tell them you did it, Chrissy?”
“Because I was protecting someone. Checkmate.”
I froze, a trickle of fear flowing through me. Protecting who?
When I looked down, my king was surrounded on all sides; either way I moved, I was dead.
“I had no more moves, don’t you see? If I told the truth, my life was over. If I lied, it was over too,” Chrissy slurred.
“Who were you protecting, Chrissy?”
Chrissy stared at my king, eyes watery and strange. “I used to sneak out of the trailer every night. Wander the dark roads sometimes, but mostly, I went down to the woods. I liked to sit by the creek, smoking. Thinking. I didn’t see who put her in the field, but I saw her there before anyone else. I stood over her body. I cried beside her. Then I got scared and went back home. And you know what happens next.”
Shakily, I moved my king, letting her castle take me.
“My parents found her. I saw her body from my brother’s window,” I said.
“And in the days that followed, there were all sorts of crazy theories… Do you remember that part too?” Chrissy asked.
I nodded.
But, truly, I didn’t. I was young then. I knew my parents were shook up and the kids at school were talking … but I didn’t really understand most of it until I was older.
“Someone at the school saw her with me that day, whipping out of the school parking lot. I didn’t force her in the truck. Jenny wasn’t scared of me! Did you read the letter she wrote me?”
I nodded. “I did. The letter with the initials ‘JJ’.”
Chrissy lifted her glass to her lips, sniffed at the empty tumbler then set it back down. She stared at the board, admiring her win.
“How did she end up in the field after you dropped her at the park, Chrissy?”
Chrissy shrugged.
“She walked there, I guess. But someone stopped her. Someone…”
“Who?” I pressed. “Who were you protecting?”
“I’ve had too much to drink,” Chrissy said, abruptly. She pushed back her chair and stood up, stumbling forward into the table. Chess pieces fell over, a couple hitting the soft carpet below.
“Can I stay here tonight? I know it’s rude to ask, but I’ve had too much to drink and I’m not supposed to be drinking … plus, I can’t go home to that … well, it’s not even really my home. I don’t have a fucking home anymore,” she said, bitterly.
As much as I wanted to know the truth, she was too drunk to push right now.
“Okay, Chrissy. It’s okay. You can sleep in my old room.” I took her by the elbow, leading her toward the stairs.
Chrissy was clumsy, leaning hard into my shoulder, as we made our way up the stairs.
“If you want me to write this story, Chrissy, then I need to know who you were protecting. Who you’re still protecting,” I said, leading her to the door. “You can trust me. I’m on your side here.”
“She was out there in the field, bugs crawling over her skin … worms eating her eyes. I can’t stop thinking about it. How scared she must have been … how awful I was for not protecting her,” she slurred.
Chrissy was choking up with tears now. I pushed her the rest of the way up the steps, keeping her steady as she took one step after another toward my childhood bedroom. My old bed was still in there, with the gold frame and itchy blue blankets.
She stumbled through the doorway and plopped face first on my bed, groaning.
“I don’t feel good,” she mumbled into the pillows, closing her eyes.
She still had her shoes on; the bed still neatly made beneath her body.
“Who were you protecting, Chrissy?” I asked again, softly in the dark.
But she was out like a light and I felt myself sigh in frustration. Gently, I rolled her into the recovery position, just in case. Then I closed the door, giving her privacy.
Chapter Seventeen
I closed the door to my bedroom, balancing a slice of cold pizza as I made my way for the bed. The files of the late Burt Winslow were stuffed between my mattress and box spring, beckoning me to read them.
Nibbling the pizza, I opened the worn-out folder; it was thick, nearly fifty sheets to go through, and I had no idea how long I’d have them. For all I knew, Nash might show up in the morning and whisk them away.
My mind circled back to Chrissy’s last words.
Who was she protecting?
John Bishop? Her brothers? Or perhaps her father…
I tried to consider my own family: would I go down for a crime to protect them? I no longer had a family to protect; those who were living, out there somewhere, my mom and Aunt Lane, didn’t matter. They don’t keep in touch, so why should I?
If I knew Jack killed someone, would I take the fall?
I suppose it would depend on the circumstances…
Why is Chrissy being so vague? Why doesn’t she come right out and say it? And if someone else really was involved in Jenny’s death, what will the repercussions be for telling this story?
I thought about her chess strategy … slow and methodical, a sneak attack from all sides…
Setting aside thoughts of our conversation, I removed the first ten pages from the file and spread them across my bed like a fan.
Nash’s father may have been gone from this earth, but his stern voice spoke to me from the pages…
The probable cause affidavit, charging Chrissy with first-degree murder was page number one. A small trophy for him.
The report was mechanical and matter-of-fact, the justification for arresting Chrissy on July 15, 1981.
The most damning piece of evidence was her written confession. I pulled the rest of the sheets from the files, locating a copy of it—Chrissy’s messy, childlike writing. I set it aside to read later.
There was more listed in the affidavit … a muddy shoe print in the field, with a distinct converse emblem imprinted into the bottom. And then the straw that broke the camel’s back: a pair of matching, filthy shoes photographed inside Chrissy’s trailer. Specifically, in Chrissy’s bedroom closet.
I flipped through the dusty old pages, looking for an image of the shoe print and the matching pair photographed at Chrissy’s. I stopped, scalp prickling with fear, as I reached the glossy crime scene photos.
How many times have I seen her face … eye bulging, her cheeks and lips bloated…?
But here they were, in full color, triggering a wave of memory and fear. My stomached twisted in knots, I fought the urge to vomit as I had all those years ago…
There were five photos in all. I pushed aside the other papers, lining up the photos in front of me. I forced myself to stare at her face, to study the wounds on her body.
The person who did this had been enraged.
Finally, unable to look for one more second, I turned them over, face down on my bed.
No matter—I could still see her, the image of her pain, the horrible suffering she must have endured burned on the back of my retinas for all eternity…
I went back to searching for the shoes. I found the photograph near the bottom of the stack. A muddy pair of sneakers tossed in the back of Chrissy’s closet. A perfect match in the field. As I stared at the print and shoe side by side, I couldn’t shake off Chrissy’s altered version of events…
If she really went out to the field and saw the body, then ran back home in a rush … then the print and shoes meant nothing. They only supported her claim that she was there and that she’d tossed them aside in a hurry, like she told me.
If she were the killer, wouldn’t she have disposed of the shoes in the days following the murder? They weren’t discovered until after her confession. Between the time of the murder and the confession, she’d made no effort to get rid of them … besides tossing them in her closet.
But she had been barely a teenager. Maybe she just didn’t think it through. Or perhaps, she had plans of confessing all along, and that’s why she didn’t hide them.
I allowed myself to consider Chrissy’s story … the new one she had given tonight.
The medical examiner had determined that Jenny wasn’t killed in the field. She’d been dead before she got there.
I scanned through the brief typed report made by the medical examiner, Dr. Samantha Green.
There were thirteen stab wounds. Minor burns on her face and hands. Evidence of strangulation. She technically died of shock, blood loss, and then organ failure.
I shivered, closing my eyes. Fighting off the flashing images of that eye, of the deep, violent wounds on her back and belly.
I turned over one of the photos and examined her hands. There were some defensive wounds.
Which means she tried to fight off her killer…
Whose face did Jenny see on that cold dark night? Was it Chrissy’s? Or someone else’s…?
I didn’t realize I was crying until I saw the drops of water on the photo. Quickly, I used my thick black quilt to wipe it away.
Lying back on the bed, I swiped at my face. I was emotional, not to mention exhausted.
The clock on my nightstand read 3:33am.
The half-eaten pizza was still on the bed. Groaning, I set the plate on the nightstand, then pushed it as far away from me as possible.
The park near Jenny’s home was less than a mile away. Maybe she was coming this way to see Chrissy again—but why? Why did she suddenly need to come back to the girl? And who stopped her along the way?
Someone who possibly wanted to frame Chrissy. Someone who also had a reason to hate Jenny. There was only one person who came to mind: John Bishop.
But John Bishop was supposedly cleared from the get-go—he was at football camp when the murder occurred.
Chrissy said she didn’t force Jenny to go with her; that it was a friendly ride … but if that were true, why did a witness say otherwise?
But that wasn’t true. As I flipped over the next page, I found only one witness’s statement in regard to the day Jenny left the school.
It wasn’t another teenager from Austin middle, but a third grader at Austin Elementary, in the adjacent playground, who had seen the incident between the two girls.
A student who’d stayed behind after school, waiting for her mother to pick her up … she’d seen the incident and told the police she was scared. I gasped as I read the witness’s name: Adrianna Montgomery.
Carefully, I stacked the fragile photos and papers and slid them back inside their folder.
It was late and my eyes were heavy with sleep. I’ll go through this more in the morning, I decided, closing my eyes and letting this new revelation about Adrianna sink in. We had been friends then, the best of friends … why didn’t she tell me about it?
I tucked the folder under my mattress again and crawled beneath the covers. For the first time in a long time, I imagined my parents in this room.
And the room above me … the place where I used to lay my head. There’s a possible killer up there now, I thought with a shiver.
I turned out my lamp, but I couldn’t close my eyes. Above me, I stared at the swirling popcorn patterns on the ceiling, imagining Chrissy in my old bed.
My bedroom door was locked tight. But still … the thought of her being so close, in my house, in my room … made my stomach twist with unease.
If she did kill Jenny, then there’s an evil person lying above me.
She might be lying.
But did I really believe that? No, I decided. There’s a reason this case has always bothered me … and I need to know who Chrissy was protecting if I want the truth.
Chapter Eighteen
I woke up shivering, bladder full, and my head throbbing from crying myself to sleep. As I opened my eyes, the first things I noticed were the shadows on my bedroom walls.
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