Ellie didn’t need an EMT to explain the signs of this girl’s eating disorder. “Her skin’s loose. That’s one of the things the EMT was probably seeing.”
“She’s dead. Skin gets loose.”
She peered between the girl’s parted lips. “No, it’s more than that. See how her face is bloated even though she’s gaunt around the eyes? And her teeth are gray. This girl was definitely making herself sick.” She walked out of the bathroom and over to the bed, bending down to read the hand-scrawled note, filled with scratch marks and second attempts, propped against the pillows.
She took in every scribbled word, but a few lines summed it up.
I know I should love my life, but sometimes I hate it… I’m constantly being told how lucky I am, but the truth is, my so-called privileged life hurts… It hurts to believe that I can never amount to the person I’m supposed to be. It hurts to feel so alone every second of the day, even when I’m surrounded by other people.
Poor little rich girl.
The final sentence said it all:
And that is why I have decided to kill myself.
She left Rogan to read on his own as she did a quick walk-through of the upper-floor residence. Medicine cabinet filled with high-end hair and skin supplies, but no prescription drugs other than a birth-control packet made out to Julia Whitmire. Hairclips and magazines in the nightstand. Top dresser drawer filled with expensive La Perla lingerie, more suitable for a soft-core porn shoot than a high school girl’s bedroom. No food in the refrigerator except two bags of baby carrots and a bottle of nonfat ranch dressing. Cabinets filled with liquor. Wine rack stocked with bottles.
Rogan trailed into the kitchen behind her. “So what do you think?” he asked.
“Looks like making herself throw up wasn’t quite enough self-inflicted damage for her anymore.”
“What were you saying about sensitivity?”
“Hate to say those tools were on to something, but this looks pretty clear-cut to me.”
“The note even had tearstains on it,” he said.
“And yet I noticed you didn’t touch the letter. Neither did I.”
“Don’t need to. Got that LASIK shit. These eyes shine like diamonds and focus like laser beams.”
She rolled her own, un-LASIKed, eyes. “You know what I’m getting at. Those idiots had a point about people who’ve got-what did he call it-grease? I don’t know who that woman outside is, but she’s clearly rich enough to have a setup like this, and she’s apparently powerful enough to set her own terms about where she’ll stand and what type of detective will be sent to her home.”
They were interrupted by a towering bald man in medical scrubs. Rogan squinted at Ellie, a sign that he recognized the new arrival’s cue ball but had forgotten his name.
“Ginger,” she called out with a smile. Cue ball had called her “Blondie” during a tense moment when they’d first met. Instead of making an obvious bald comment in response, she’d called him Ginger. Since then, he always returned her calls in record time.
“It’s Blondie and her stoic partner.”
Apparently Rogan wasn’t the only one in the room who struggled with names. “Bob King, you probably remember J. J. Rogan.”
“I’m told there’s a tearstained note,” King said.
“Our guys or the EMTs?” she asked.
“Your guys. Two of them cowering on the front porch like bitch babies. I take it they’re a-scared of the mama grizzly out in the living room. Or the parlor. Whatever you call that big useless room down there.”
So much for telling Katherine Whitmire to wait outside.
“Yeah, there’s a note,” she verified. “Body’s in the tub.”
She noticed that he stooped slightly beneath the doorway as he crossed the bathroom threshold, a habit of the tall, she supposed.
While he was inspecting the body, Ellie rifled through the bright-orange Hermes handbag on the kitchen counter until she found an unlabeled vial of pills. She unscrewed the cap and held an orange-and-white capsule up to the light. “Bingo.”
When King stepped from the bathroom, she threw the capsule in his direction. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but Adderall’s prescribed for depression?”
“Nah, more for ADHD-attention deficit hyperactivity disorder-but, yeah, it’s a stimulant. Your extra-special law-enforcing eyes seeing anything that my awesome medical training is missing?”
They shook their heads.
“Haven’t seen slit wrists in a while,” he noted.
Despite the well-worn paradigm, Ellie knew that a cut wrist was a surprisingly ineffective method of death. The vessels in a wrist just aren’t that big. And bodies fight to survive. The vessels usually close before death occurs. That’s why cut wrists are often followed by cut chests or necks. But, in this case, Julia had the bathwater to help keep the blood flowing. The empty bottle of Barolo on the marble floor indicated some alcohol-related assistance as well.
Ginger placed his hands on his hips. “Well, I don’t know about you two, but I get paid the same whether I’m here or back at Twenty-sixth Street. If this were a subsidized studio at the Patterson Projects, I’d be heading back to the office. But for Mama Grizzly out there? I plan on doing everything I’d do if you told me this was fishy. Better the taxpayers’ dollars than my ass.”
“Then it’s unanimous,” Rogan declared. “Let’s do it.”
“Yoo-hoo.” Ellie waved a hand. “Not unanimous yet.”
“What’s the big deal? We’ll get CSU to work the place up. Talk to a few of the girl’s friends. Canvass the neighborhood. Make sure we’re not missing anything.”
“Or we could get the hell out of here and eat lunch.”
“Again: Sensitivity and what not?”
“I don’t know. A hamburger sounds pretty good right now. Or does your girlfriend still have you watching your cholesterol, old man?”
Rogan shook his head. “I never should have mentioned that shit to you. Like riding with my moms. A whiter, blonder, more freakily intuitive version of my mother. It’s not like you to walk away from something so quickly, Hatcher.”
“I walk away when I know my time’s being wasted. You two stay up here if you want, but I’ve got a court appearance to make. I’m going to talk with the mother, then I’m out of here.”
Chapter Four
Ellie found Katherine Whitmire perched on an upholstered banquette at the bottom of the stairs, a cordless phone to one ear. The officer who was supposed to have accompanied her outside stood by. “I’ve been with her the whole time,” he offered as a consolation.
Ellie was beginning to wish she possessed whatever power this woman seemed to exert over others.
Katherine used her free hand to wipe away smears of black mascara when she noticed Ellie approaching.
“I have to go, Bill,” she said into her phone. “One of the detectives just finished up in the bedroom. She might have some news. But you’re heading back into the city, right? Immediately?” She muttered a soft thank-you before clicking off the line.
“My husband,” she explained. “He’s getting a helicopter back from East Hampton. He was talking about a meeting out there. I think he’s in a bit of shock.”
“It’s not unusual.”
“Right. I guess you’re used to dealing with these sorts of things, aren’t you?”
“You never get used to it. Tell me about your daughter.”
“She would never do something like this to herself.”
Everyone thought they could spot suicidal tendencies. Ellie knew better. Some people advertised their misery with unshowered days spent self-medicated in bed, but just as many kept up appearances as workers, students, neighbors-fathers. It had taken Ellie nearly twenty years, but she’d come to the truth the hard way.
“So tell me about her.”
“I don’t understand, Detective. What is it that you want to know?”
She wanted to know how this woman saw her daughter. Mostly she wanted thi
s woman to feel like she had been given the opportunity to speak before Ellie left her to deal with the long and messy aftermath of a suicide. “I know you overheard a couple of the police officers talking to the EMTs. Obviously you believe they jumped to the wrong conclusions. So tell me what you want us to know about Julia, so we can have the whole picture.”
Ellie followed the woman to the living room, where she removed a framed photograph from the mantel. “This was two Christmases ago.” Katherine Whitmire had not changed since the family portrait, but her daughter looked much younger with no makeup, plump cheeks, and pink lips struggling to cover her metal braces through a smile.
“Is that your son?” Ellie pointed to the preppy-looking boy seated next to Julia.
“Billy. Bill Jr., yes. He’s a freshman at Colby now. And that’s my husband, Bill. I haven’t called Billy yet. I–I don’t know how to. He doesn’t handle change well. He’s very regimented, very planned-like his father. Not like Julia at all.” She smiled sadly. “Julia’s more like me. Or was. Independent. Free-spirited. Stubborn as all hell, but so tolerant and accepting and loving of every person she ever met. She had the kind of heart that wanted to save us all.”
“Did you need saving?”
Her wistful expression was replaced by an intense stare. “I didn’t mean myself personally, Detective. I meant-you know-society, the world. She wanted to save the world. I warned her. I told her that some people just couldn’t be saved. They might have been decent people under other circumstances, but that kind of poverty, living on the streets-it makes people desperate. It makes them dangerous. That’s what happened here. One of those-animals-killed her. They probably stole a few bucks from her purse. That’s what this is about.”
The words were tumbling out too quickly to follow.
“You sound like you have someone in mind.”
“They’re kids from the street. I found them here with her-maybe two months ago.”
“And who were these kids?” In the world of the Whitmires, kids from public school might be considered bad influences.
“I don’t know if they’re orphans or in foster care, or maybe they’re just homeless. I don’t know their names. There were maybe three of them here-two boys and a girl, I think. Ramona would know. Ramona Langston. She’s Julia’s best friend. I told Julia not to have those people over again, but, God knows, my daughter never did listen to me. Bill said she’d only hold on to them closer if I tried to push them away. What can you do, though? She was all grown up.”
“I was told she was sixteen?”
The woman blinked as if Ellie’s response was a non sequitur.
“So these kids were here two months ago?” Ellie asked. “You didn’t see Julia with them since then?”
“I’ve only been back once since then.”
“I’m sorry. You told us when we arrived that this was your house?”
“It is, but Bill and I only come in about once a month or so. We’ve been going back and forth between here and East Hampton for years, but we’ve tapered off our city presence. When Billy went to college, Julia moved upstairs.”
“And before Billy was at school?”
“Then the two of them would be here. Oh, they were inseparable. I don’t even know how to tell him what’s happened. Julia followed Billy everywhere. She has never liked being alone. That was probably why she befriended such desperate people. You know, I was here more often before Billy went to school. She had me. She had him. Now-”
“So, I’m sorry-Julia was basically living here alone?”
“Most of the time. That’s right. She preferred the city. Her school. Her friends. Everything is here.”
And this woman had called the street kids the orphans.
What else would a good, thorough, concerned detective ask? “Did she have a boyfriend?”
“A boyfriend?” Like the word was foreign.
“A guy in her life?”
“Well, my daughter certainly dated, I’m sure. But no one special I know about.”
“I found birth control pills in your daughter’s medicine cabinet. I thought that might indicate she was seeing someone regularly?”
“Oh, those? She’s been on the pill since she was fourteen. Bill’s idea, actually. Better safe than sorry.”
There was something about Julia’s father’s name that felt familiar to Ellie. Whitmire. Bill Whitmire. She couldn’t quite place it.
“What about other prescriptions? We found Adderall in her purse.”
“Adderall? I’ve never heard of it. I mean, she would get headaches. Maybe-”
“It’s a prescription stimulant used for ADHD.”
Katherine shook her head. “She didn’t have anything like that.”
“Did she see a psychiatrist?”
“No. Lord knows I do, as do a lot of her friends. But Bill thinks therapy and antidepressants and all of that are overused by overindulgent rich people. I suppose to you we might seem to fit that description.”
“Your husband’s name sounds familiar to me. Do you mind if — ”
“CBGB.”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t tell me you’re so young you don’t know about CBGB?”
Ellie and her brother, Jess, had probably logged a couple thousand hours at the celebrated music venue before it succumbed to escalating rent prices. “Of course I know it.” Then the light clicked. Bill Whitmire was the famed producer behind bands that had played with the Ramones and Blondie.
“It’s a John Varvatos boutique now,” the woman said sadly. “Can you believe that?”
Ellie stayed with the woman in the living room while CSU officers came and went. She heard about the school Christmas play Julia wrote in the fifth grade, where Santa Claus went to a doctor named Cal Q. Later to lose weight so the reindeer could still fly with him in the sleigh. She learned that Julia had been the one to write her older brother’s college admission essays. She found out that Julia had organized the first chapter of Amnesty International at Casden, her Upper East Side prep school. That she loved dogs but was allergic. That she once met Bono through her father and got his autograph-not for herself, but to donate to a charitable auction for an animal shelter.
Ellie interrupted on occasion to voice aloud the questions raging in her head.
Didn’t you notice your daughter had an eating disorder? Why would you ask that? She’s naturally thin. Right, despite that chubby adolescent picture on the mantel.
Did it dawn on you your daughter might have reasons to feel lost? Have you heard anything I’ve been saying to you, Detective? Have you been listening to yourself?
I assume this note is in your daughter’s handwriting? Handwriting can be imitated. You must have learned that on CSI.
And though she pontificated about her daughter and their family for well more than an hour, Katherine Whitmire never once mentioned the fact that her sixteen-year-old bulimic daughter died in her bathtub from a slit wrist, leaving behind a suicide note propped against her overstuffed down pillows.
Sometimes it was easier to deny undeniable facts than to acknowledge a painful truth. Ellie knew that better than anyone.
S he took a deep breath of fresh air once they left the townhouse, as if freshly oxygenated blood could wash away her unwanted thoughts, imagining what it had been like to grow up with Bill and Katherine Whitmire for parents.
“Some house, huh?” Rogan had been spared all but a few sentences of the conversation with Katherine and was still looking up with envy at the four-story abode.
“Her dad’s Bill Whitmire. The music producer.” She rattled off a handful of the projects he’d backed.
“You and that loud white-boy music. Give me Prince any day. I wanna be your… lovah! ”
“Hurry it up, will you?” She looked at her watch as she continued her march to the car. “I’ve got that hearing scheduled. Told you I’d make it in time, but only if you drop me by the courthouse straight from here.”
“I thought you said
when we got the callout your testimony wasn’t that important. You said the DA could get by without you if necessary.”
“Well, I don’t see anything here that counts as necessity. You said yourself no one reported anything out of the ordinary here over the weekend.”
“We’ve still got uniforms canvassing the neighborhood,” Rogan said.
“They haven’t found any witnesses, and they’re not going to.”
“You know what’s going to happen if we blow this off, right?”
“Katherine Whitmire will huff and puff and blow our house down?”
“Seriously, Hatcher, what is up with you? We’ve worked cases before that we knew weren’t going anywhere. We don’t usually walk away.”
He was right, of course. How many hours did they waste a year on gang shootings where there was no such thing as a witness? But those cases were different.
“It’s just pathetic, Rogan. Some people have kids just to satisfy their own fucking egos. That girl was sixteen years old and was expected to be all grown up because her parents were too cool and too impatient to have children in their lives. On the pill for two years already. Obviously bulimic, and her mom doesn’t even notice. Apparently hanging out with street kids just to get some attention from her parents.”
“Shit, you’re confusing me. Now you’re saying we’re missing something?”
“No, Rogan, none of that’s suspicious. It’s totally, completely, one hundred percent predictable, and it all adds up to a reason why she’d kill herself. This girl slit her wrist as a final cry for help, and her mother refuses to see it. You do what you want, but I’m going to the courthouse.”
They’d wait for the medical examiner’s report. An autopsy. Forensic findings. Science. It would all sound more official and indisputable than the experienced instincts of cops and EMTs. But there was no doubt in Ellie’s mind that by the end of the week, Katherine Whitmire would be informed with all finality: her daughter killed herself. Maybe then she’d look in the goddamn mirror and start facing the truth.
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