“Mind if I do?”
He shook his head.
She lit up. “I want to take this slow, okay? We can start, but I don’t want to get into any of the… heavy stuff right away.”
“You mean the murders?”
She ashed her cigarette, not looking at him. “Yeah,” she said in a quiet voice. “I’ll talk about it. I will. But I want to work up to it. Is that okay?”
“Whatever makes you comfortable,” he said.
She flashed a small smile at him. “I think this is going to go smoothly between us, Sam. I really do. When I read that you grew up in Cumberland, I was sure of it.”
Where had she read that? Sam never talked about that. He gave her a funny look. “I didn’t really grow up there. We moved away when I was young. To this area, actually. Near Hagerstown.”
“You and your mom, right?” she said. “But before that, you lived in Cumberland. Which is close to where I grew up.”
The murders had happened in Keyser, West Virginia. Only forty minutes away from his hometown. But he didn’t like to think about Cumberland much. Why did Lola know this? “Sure, when I was younger. My mother actually still has the house out there. She never sold it. But I barely remember living there. It was a long time ago.”
“I thought you were fifteen when you moved,” said Lola.
He shrugged.
“You barely remember the first fifteen years of your life?” she said.
He forced himself to laugh. “Who’s conducting the interview here, Lola, me or you?”
She took a drag on her cigarette. “Sorry. It’s a little connection we have, is all. Thought you’d think it was interesting. It gives you more insight.”
He was acting like an idiot. On edge about things that Lola didn’t know. That no one knew. Things that Sam didn’t like to think about. But Lola couldn’t have realized that. She was making an idle observation, and he was reacting defensively. It wasn’t as if it were a secret that his family had lived in Cumberland, or that he and his mother had moved. There was no reason to be suspicious of Lola for knowing that. He took a deep breath. “You’re right. It’s interesting.” He needed to take charge here. He was conducting the interview. “If you don’t want to start with the murders, where would you like to start?”
She blew out smoke. “With my parents, I guess.”
CHAPTER TWO
Lola’s early life had been typical and unpredictable. She was the only child of Paula and Eric Ward, who lived outside of Keyser, West Virginia in the Eastern Panhandle. Her parents were well educated, both working as professors at the community college in town—Potomac State, which was connected to West Virginia University. They were well into their thirties when Lola was born, and they were careful, liberal parents. They encouraged Lola to explore her surroundings and form her own opinions. As an only child, she was doted on, possibly even a little spoiled. Lola spoke of the many toys she had growing up. As she grew older, she was a good student, she had lots of friends, and she was close with her parents.
When she talked about her parents, she wouldn’t look Sam in the eye. She seemed very sad. The loss of these two people seemed to have gouged a deep hole in her, and she had never recovered from it.
Lola said that her parents were the only people who had truly cared about her. After they were gone, she’d been shuffled from one foster home to another. People had always held her at arms’ length. No one had trusted her. She’d been alone and sad.
According to Lola, she was still alone and sad today.
It was a heartbreaking story. As she was telling it, Sam felt sorry for Lola. His drive to protect her deepened.
But later, when he went home, he pulled up the websites with the pictures of little goth Lola on them. It was amazing to him how different she looked in those pictures from the scared little girl at the trial. And how completely different Lola looked today.
Something about the night-and-day difference of her appearance unsettled him. It made him think that one was genuine, and the other was an act. He wasn’t fair to her. He was judging her based on some pictures. As far as it went, it wasn’t even Lola’s fault that she happened to look mature for twelve.
No, Sam knew what it was. When Lola looked sexy as a little girl, when he found her attractive, then he felt guilty and ashamed of himself. So it was easier for him to blame her for his own reaction. If she was trying to look sexy on purpose for some nasty reason, then he wasn’t at fault for falling into her trap.
Sam grimaced. Okay, that was a fucked-up way to think.
He took a deep breath. He would not think like that anymore. He would give Lola the benefit of the doubt.
He wanted to believe Lola. After all, stories about women who rose above adversity were his bread and butter. Those were the kinds of stories he knew how to write. So if Lola were as innocent as she claimed, it would be easy to write that book. As he replayed the recording of her interview, phrases and words sprang into his head. He’d describe Lola as persecuted, as fragile, as a tiny broken doll who couldn’t quite get put back together again.
But another part of him was excited by the idea of doing something different. Writing a different sort of book. This book would begin as if Lola were a victim who’d been horribly abused for years. But then, slowly, he would reveal details to show that Lola was actually lying about everything, that she was secretly a manipulative monster.
He thought the second book would sell better than the first book.
He would write the truth, of course, to the best of his ability, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to go digging for a little dirt on Lola.
He sat in his office, chewing on the end of his pen and wishing for a cigarette. And then he started making phone calls.
As he dialed, he found himself feeling a little giddy and excited. He loved the research part of writing books. It was so exciting. The interviews themselves were raw material. He was never sure exactly what might happen or how they might help him. But when they did, then the story began to take shape. Interviewing was like sorting through puzzle pieces. You never knew how exactly the parts were going to fit together, but eventually you figured it out.
“DHHR,” answered someone on the other end.
“Ah, yes, I’m looking to speak with…” He checked his notes. “Mia Barton?” She was Lola’s old social worker.
“May I ask who’s calling?”
“Samson Black,” he said. “She doesn’t know me. It’s in regards to one of her old cases.” Even though he liked being famous for writing books, in situations like this, he always hoped that people wouldn’t recognize his name. It was often better to be anonymous.
“Hold on.” No recognition in the voice, then. That was good.
He waited.
“Mr. Black?” It was the same voice.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry, Mia’s not in right now. I’m going to send you to her voicemail, all right?”
He waited for the call to go through and listened to Mia Barton’s canned voice. Then he left a message with his name and number, which probably made him sound like an idiot. He hated leaving voicemail messages. He always felt on the spot and fake. He was better when he was writing words down than when he was trying to speak off the top of his head.
He made a note next to Mia Barton’s name and then scanned his list of other possible interviewees.
What time was it?
Three o’clock? Well, if he was going to catch Virginia Fritz at work, now was probably the best time. Ms. Fritz had been one of Lola’s teachers at Keyser Primary-Middle School. She was the only one left, in fact. Others had moved on or retired.
He dialed again. This time he was put on hold several times. Ms. Fritz was in the building, but she wasn’t in the office, and the call had been transferred to her classroom. The first time, the transfer didn’t take, so it had to be tried again.
Finally, however, a woman’s voice said, “Hello?”
“Virginia Fritz?�
� said Sam.
“This is she. How may I help you?”
“I actually wanted to ask you a few questions about an old student of yours, if you don’t mind.”
A pause. “I’m sorry. Who is this?”
“I should apologize, Ms. Fritz,” he said, making his voice smooth and soothing. “I didn’t introduce myself. My name is Samson Black. I write books, and I’m interested in getting your thoughts for one of my current projects.”
“But I’ve never taught anyone that someone would write a book ab—Oh. This is about that Ward girl, isn’t it?”
“It is. You’re very astute. Lola came to me, asking if I’d tell her story. I want to talk to people who were close to her, that’s all. Do you think you have a few minutes to answer some brief questions?”
“Well, I guess so,” she said. “Lola knows about this book?”
“She most certainly does,” he said.
“How is she?”
“She’s well,” he said.
“She was a very smart girl,” said Ms. Fritz. “Extremely intelligent, or so I always thought. I expected her to make something impressive of herself. It’s sad about the horrible tragedy she’s been through.”
“Definitely,” Sam said. “I really like what you said abut Lola’s intelligence. That’s exactly the sort of thing I’m looking for here. I want to know what Lola was like before all this happened.”
“Well, I only saw her once a day for forty-five minutes, so I don’t entirely know what she was like.”
“Of course not. You could only be expected to know the kinds of things a teacher might know. Was she a good student?”
“She got good grades, yes.”
That was a bit of a sidestep there, wasn’t it? Why did Ms. Fritz clarify with the grades? “Was she well-behaved?”
“She was a typical middle-school student,” she said. “She had a few issues, but I think she was simply transitioning.”
Issues, huh?
“How did Lola dress?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did she dress in goth clothing? The black lipstick? The black outfits?”
“She didn’t at the beginning of the year,” said Ms. Fritz. “But she started to change at some point… maybe in the late fall?”
The murders had happened in the spring. Lola had changed her look six months before that happened? As if she’d changed it to match Nicholas Todd? Was that when she met Todd? Had she been in a relationship with him after all? Hmm… “She started to dress more goth?”
“I guess that’s what you’d call it. The kids seem to make up new words for it every ten years or so, but people have been dressing that way as long as I can remember. It’s funny, of course, because every new generation seems to think they’ve invented it, and there are always groups of horrified people who seem to have been living under a rock for thirty years or something.”
Sam laughed. He liked Ms. Fritz.
“I don’t judge the kids on how they dress,” she said. “I know that after Columbine, some educators got frightened, but it’s always been my experience that children who want to look different than the mainstream are also much more willing to think outside the box. Most of the ‘goth’ kids I’ve taught have been more intelligent and sensitive than their ‘normal’ counterparts.”
“I see,” he said. “Was that true of Lola?”
“Lola…” She sighed. “Lola caused a few problems in my class. She was very intelligent, as I said, but she had a cruel streak. It’s not uncommon for girls that age. At the beginning of the year, she seemed happy and well-adjusted. In the fall, she changed the way she looked, and she started to get close to another group of girls—goth kids, I guess. But by midwinter, she ruled that little group. They did whatever she said, and the three of them pulled a lot of nasty tricks on a few of the other girls in the class. Nothing harmful, not exactly, but humiliating. They’d do things like take tampons and color them red with magic marker and then attach them to girls’ skirts or bags.”
He wrinkled his nose. “But these were just jokes.”
“She was immature,” said Ms. Fritz. “She thought it was funny. She thought the other girls deserved it. Kids that age often get very resentful towards people who ignore them. They don’t realize, of course, that they ignore just as many people as the people they resent. They’re little hypocrites that way, but they don’t get that.”
And what was he to make of that? Was Ms. Fritz burnt out on teaching children for too long? He didn’t think so. She didn’t sound angry or annoyed by what she was saying. She was very matter of fact. She spoke like a woman who had seen the dark side of youth but still accepted it, warts and all.
“So Lola’s behavior was a worry?” Sam asked. That didn’t really matter, he supposed. So Lola was a bratty kid. That didn’t make her a murderer.
“I wouldn’t go quite that far,” said Ms. Fritz. “She was disciplined a few times. I met with her mother. Nice woman, but she seemed at her wit’s end when it came to Lola. She was very apologetic, and she assured me that Lola would be punished, but I could tell that she was frustrated with the girl. I tried to assure the mother that she was doing the right thing. Sometimes it takes a very long time for parents to really see the results of their parenting techniques. Kids get worse before they get better, but if they have a good foundation, they do get better.”
Interesting. “There was friction between Lola and her mother?”
“Oh, Mr. Black, there’s friction between every adolescent girl and her mother.”
*
Nicholas Todd had been eager to meet Sam. For Sam’s other books, he’d interviewed the kidnappers in jail, so he was aware of the procedure that had to be followed to get in and visit them. Sometimes it took a lot of work because the inmates needed some cajoling to place Sam on their visitor lists. But with Todd, it had gone fairly smoothly and easily.
So Sam was now sitting in the visitors’ room, peering at Todd through the smudged glass. Sam kept resisting the urge to reach up and wipe at it with his shirt sleeve.
Todd looked a lot different than he had in his pictures. For one thing, he wasn’t in his goth getup. For another, his hair was short now, and it wasn’t dyed black. Instead, it was light brown, cropped close against his head. But one thing hadn’t changed about Nicholas Todd. He still looked like he was grimacing instead of smiling, his teeth bared and his face twisted.
Also, Todd was huge. He must have spent a lot of time doing pushups in his cell or something. He had hulking shoulders and a thick neck. Sam had never been that kind of guy. He’d been much more interested in developing his intellect than developing muscles. Not that he was flabby or anything. Not exactly.
The point was, Todd was pretty scary looking.
Todd picked up the phone receiver with a meaty hand.
Sam did the same.
Todd glared at him. “So, you’re writing a book.”
“I am,” said Sam. He held up a small notebook. “Okay if I take notes?” He would have used his recorder, but he wasn’t sure it would pick up Todd’s voice.
Todd shrugged. His shoulders were massive.
Sam gripped his pen tighter. He wasn’t freaked out by Todd. He’d talked to bad men before. He could handle this. “Look, I’m here because I’m writing a book about Lola.”
“That’s what you said.” Todd didn’t look impressed.
“Well, I basically want your side of the story,” said Sam. “I’m aware that you originally said that Lola was involved in the murders—”
“Originally? You saying I changed my story? That I’m a liar or something?” Veins bulged in Todd’s neck.
“No, of course not.” Sam’s fingers started to feel slippery on the pen. “I guess I can assume that you don’t have anything to add, then. You still maintain that Lola helped you kill her parents.”
“There a problem with that?”
“Well… Lola says she didn’t.” Sam gave him an apologetic look. “You can’t bot
h be telling the truth.”
“You think I’m lying.”
“I don’t think anything yet,” said Sam. “That’s why I’m here. I want to know your side.”
Todd shifted the phone to his other ear. “Lola.” His voice was quiet. He got a faraway look in his eyes—something almost worshipful. “I would have done anything for her.”
“How did you know she wanted you to kill her parents?”
Todd looked at Sam as if he were stupid. “She told me.”
“When did she tell you?”
“When didn’t she tell me?” Todd snorted. “She told me every time I saw her. It was all she talked about. It was very important to her. She said that there was no other way for us to be together.” He turned back to Sam. “Her parents were really strict, you know?”
“Were they?” Sam hid his face in his notebook so that Todd wouldn’t see his expression. Even assuming that Todd was telling the truth and that he’d had a relationship with Lola,it was a strange thing to say. Any parent who wouldn’t let a twelve-year-old go out with someone like Todd was just being a good parent, not being strict.
“Oh, hell yeah. They wouldn’t let her go anywhere or do anything. They told her she wasn’t allowed to see me.”
“But Lola wanted to see you?”
“Back then she did.” His jaw twitched. “Or she pretended she did, anyway. After we got away, after we were together, she ran off from me and called the cops on me. She turned on me.” He bared his teeth again. “She betrayed me.”
Sam waited for Todd to say something else, but he only sat there, brooding. Sam scribbled brooding in his notebook. It was a good word. “Were you angry with her?”
“Not at first.” Todd looked down. “At first I was only hurt and confused. It didn’t make sense to me. We were soul mates. We were meant to be together. I knew it. When we made love, I was sure that she loved me as much as I loved her.”
Sam leaned forward. “Hold up. You had a sexual relationship with Lola Ward?”
“We had a very pure love,” Todd growled.
The Girl on the Stairs Page 3