Dr. Kelly’s face blanched. “Earnest is dead? How? What happened?”
“That’s what I want to know. I was told it looks like a heroin overdose, but I can’t think why Earnest would fall off the wagon, and the police haven’t ruled out foul play yet.” I realized I was answering her questions instead of the other way around. And that I shouldn’t have mentioned the last part. Shrinks made me flustered. “Can you tell me why he called you?”
She looked down at the form I’d hastily filled out. “Isobel. Oh, I remember now, he did talk about you, but he called you Izzy.”
It was my turn to blanch. “He talked about me? What did he tell you?”
She smiled. “Patient confidentiality, Ms. Avery. I’m sure you understand how important it is.”
I forced myself back on track. “So he was a patient of yours?”
She leaned against the armrest and studied me. Perhaps wondering how much to reveal. Or psychoanalyzing me from the way I sat and dressed and fiddled.
I stilled my hands.
“He was. I guess it doesn’t hurt to tell you. He was working on his agoraphobia with me.”
“How come I didn’t know? Or his mom?”
She smiled again. It was an eerily calm and controlled smile. Probably supposed to put me at ease, but it seemed unnatural to me and had the opposite effect. Who had their life as well ordered as that smile conveyed? Except maybe Connor, but he almost never smiled. And when he did it added life to his eyes, not this serene blankness.
“Earnest was seeing me in secret,” she said. “He told me he wanted to surprise his loved ones with his progress, and I think, underneath that, he was scared of disappointing you if he failed.”
I blew out a breath. “Oh.”
“He was doing well. That’s why he called me Thursday night, or Friday morning if you prefer. At first all our appointments were over the phone, but he’d begun to take short trips out of the house by himself and was slowly increasing how far he could go. It’s a technique called exposure therapy. I would meet him at his destination goal and help him through his relaxation exercises. Thursday night he even managed to go into a convenience store and purchase something. He was very excited about it.” Her serenity faltered. “What a shame he passed away so soon after making such a breakthrough.”
Like that was the one reason to grieve his death. I cleared my throat again to buy me some time while I gathered my thoughts. “Why take those excursions in the middle of the night?”
Her tranquil mask was back. “To keep our sessions secret, of course. He also felt it was easier with less people around. Less variables. Less environmental factors he couldn’t predict or control.”
It made sense. “Do you often work with your patients at such odd times?”
She leaned toward me. “I’m very dedicated to my patients, Ms. Avery. If they need me to meet with them out of hours, I make myself available. There is a surcharge, of course, but Earnest didn’t mind.”
It all made perfect sense. It explained the mystery of how and why Earnest left the house by himself. Corroborated what Humphrey saw. It even gave a reason for the Cheetos purchase.
What it didn’t do was give us any leads whatsoever on who might have killed Earnest. Unless Dr. Kelly had done it. But as much as I didn’t like shrinks, I couldn’t come up with a motive for her.
I thought about the questions my fictional detectives would ask. “What time did you finish Thursday night’s session?”
“Our sessions usually go from about twelve forty-five to one forty-five, so it would’ve been around then.”
“Where did you part ways? Did you walk him home?”
“No, I left him outside Diego’s Convenience Store. He was feeling up to going alone, and he knew I wouldn’t be far away if he changed his mind.” The store Earnest had bought the Cheetos from.
“Did Earnest talk to you about anyone who might’ve been a threat to him?”
Dr. Kelly looked at me curiously. These weren’t the normal questions a grieving girlfriend would ask.
“Sorry,” she said, “but I’ve stretched the terms of my confidentiality agreement as much as I’m willing to.”
Probably not what Connor wanted to hear, but in Dr. Kelly’s shoes, I wouldn’t tell me anything more either.
Connor would have to come back when he had the weight of the LAPD behind him. “Then thank you for your time. It’s been helpful.”
Her smile made another appearance. “My pleasure, Ms. Avery. But we have thirty minutes left. Perhaps you should share why I make you so uncomfortable, and I might be able to help you in other ways.”
I shot to my feet. “Uh, I’m good. Thanks.” We shook hands, and I bolted out of her office as fast as my legs would carry me.
Connor looked smug when I climbed back into the SUV. “Don’t like doctors, huh?”
Levi’s face flashed in my mind. “Just not head doctors, I guess.”
“What are you afraid they’ll find out?”
It was a good question. Maybe that I was as much of a mess as I thought I was. I flipped between despair and hope when it came to myself and my future, but I liked to hold on to the hope part.
“Can we focus on the case, please?” I asked.
Connor’s body jerked a smidgen before he managed to repress the reaction.
I hid my satisfaction. Guess it wasn’t every day that oh-so-professional Connor needed reminding he had a job to do.
“Right,” he said. “Assuming our psych is telling the truth, what do we know about the murderer?”
He’d done this on the last case we’d worked together. Asked me questions to walk me through it and force me to draw my own conclusions. I wasn’t sure why he bothered, but I mulled it over. “Do we have a time of death?”
“Between one thirty and three a.m.”
One forty-five and three if Dr. Kelly was to be believed. “Well, there’s no sign of a break-in or struggle at his apartment, so it’s likely the killer apprehended him on his way home—”
“Unless it was someone he trusted.”
“Right.” It was true, but I didn’t like it. The list of names in that category was very short: Mrs. Dunst, Jay Massey, and me. “But the timing seems pretty coincidental if it has nothing to do with his psychology appointment.”
Connor checked his blind spot and pulled out onto the road. “I’ll give you that. But it doesn’t rule out the people he trusted. If they learned about his psych appointments, they might have chosen the time and method to divert attention from themselves.”
Great. Being murdered by someone you love was worse than being murdered by an associate. Even if it made no difference to the final outcome. But I couldn’t believe Mrs. Dunst or Jay could be behind it. Mrs. Dunst fussed and worried over him as only a mother could, and the one time I’d ever seen Jay mad at him was when Earnest had skipped video calling in to his addiction support group meeting.
“What else?” Connor prompted.
“Well, the building where Earnest’s body was left is almost two miles away from where he was supposed to be walking home. It’s a long way to travel on foot, especially with an unwilling, anxious, or heavily drugged person, so he was probably transported in a vehicle at some point. Which means the murderer needed access to a car, as well as heroin or whatever killed him. Given how it was set up to look like an overdose, I’m betting they knew about Earnest’s drug history. That’s not surprising as he freely admits to it on BusiLeaks, but it all adds up to suggest that the murder was planned in advance.”
“Good.”
“The obvious motive I can see is revenge for an exposé on his blog, or as you said, to stop him ousting someone’s secrets in the first place.”
“What about money?”
“Well, I’m not sure if he would’ve left a will, but I’m guessing either way that most of it would go to his mom. There’s no chance it was her. She loves Earnest with all her heart.”
Connor looked less convinced. “You’re so jade
d,” I told him.
“You’re so naive.”
Probably fair. My ex had done a real number on me, and I didn’t want to repeat that experience. But I also didn’t want to become a total hard-ass like Connor. Though he did have a particularly great hard ass.
“Did anybody else love Earnest?” he asked. “Enough to kill him?”
“You have a strange idea of love. Maybe you should’ve been the one to see the psych.” I was still kind of upset he’d made me do that.
He raised one eyebrow far enough that I knew he was doing it for effect. “That’s rich coming from you. I’m not the one who married a scumbag.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I feel like I’m at a disadvantage with you knowing my history when I don’t know anything about yours.”
“Yes,” he said. “Now answer my question about Earnest.”
It took me a moment to remember what he’d asked. “I don’t think so. I’m the closest thing he’d had to a girlfriend in at least two years.” Earnest might’ve been the closest thing I’d had to a boyfriend in about the same. “Besides, he only interacted in real life with three people, including me. Four if you count Dr. Kelly. If anybody loved or hated him for reasons outside his website, they would’ve had to meet him online.”
“Which is why his computer would’ve been extremely useful,” Connor said. “Whoever wiped it deleted his emails as well. The tech team is trying to hunt down his online accounts and activity on any web forums. We’ll have to see what they dig up. In the meantime, I want you to talk to his friend, Jay Massey.”
“That could be a problem.”
“Why?”
“He thought I was after Earnest for his money. He’ll probably think I killed him.”
7
I walked grudgingly up the steps to Jay’s beach-bungalow-style unit, which was nowhere near the beach. It was in University Park, six blocks from Earnest’s. Connor didn’t care that Jay Massey hated my guts. Sure, he’d promised to come charging in if I was in physical danger, but he didn’t understand that most non-cyborgs fear awkward emotional situations almost as much as bodily harm. Personally, I’d prefer another encounter with Meow’s claws over Jay’s barbed words.
Maybe Connor thought my talking to Jay would reveal something useful. Or maybe he had some time to kill before the LAPD opened the official case and figured he may as well be entertained. Jerk.
I reminded myself, as I always did before facing Jay, that it wasn’t personal. That his hostility toward me came from his loyalty and love for his dearest friend, his urge to protect.
He’d had front-row seats to Earnest’s rapid rise up the corporate ladder, his breakneck descent into anxiety, self-medication, addiction, and self-destruction, and his subsequent attempts to piece together a life for himself. As the sole friend who’d stuck by him, Jay had every right to be overprotective.
So he’d told me when he cornered me in the kitchen and threatened to hack my accounts and make my life hell if I did anything to hurt Earnest.
There’d been a gentle fragility about Earnest that had brought out the protective side in me too.
Fat lot of good that had done.
The doorbell made a harsh buzzing sound. I waited. Caught myself fiddling with the watch again—the one that was sending audio to Connor—and stopped so as not to draw attention to it. After a minute or two, I gave the doorbell another buzz. Nothing.
Either Jay had spied me coming and was ignoring me, or he wasn’t home. Hard to tell when his unit had an enclosed garage. Unless he was missing as well. Logic said it wasn’t likely, but my stomach responded by twisting tighter anyway.
My unease meant I was almost happy to see him when he opened the door.
His expression told me he didn’t feel the same way. “What are you doing here?” His hands, face, and clothes were speckled with white paint, and the fumes coming from inside suggested it was wet. Must be why he took such a long time to answer. His eyes looked like they’d been outlined with red paint. I guessed he’d been crying. A lot.
“Can I come in?”
To my surprise, he shrugged with resignation. “Sure.”
I’d never been to his house before. I followed him down a narrow hallway, made even more narrow by the stacks of moving boxes, and stared at the series of photos depicting a much younger Earnest and Jay in full costume at some kind of sci-fi convention. My favorite was the one where Earnest was dressed as Princess Leia and Jay as Zoe from Firefly. Jay looked surprisingly pretty as a black woman. I wondered what they’d used for the fake boobs.
We turned into a kitchen and dining area where the paint fumes were even stronger. Jay must have led me here on autopilot as I couldn’t imagine he’d offer me a drink.
His decorating tastes were a far cry from the beach-bungalow theme promised by the exterior. The dining table was black and chrome, and while half of the facing wall had been painted white, it was going to take more than one coat to hide the blacks and blues underneath. I stepped closer. The whole wall had been a mural of space. “Did you paint this?”
“The white paint all over me should answer that for you.”
I turned around to see his arms were crossed, uninviting. No hint of the wide grin in the photos.
“I meant the mural,” I said.
His eyes informed me that he knew what I’d meant. Then his arms slipped apart and down to his sides, as if they were too heavy to hold up. “Yes.”
“It’s good,” I told him honestly.
He slouched into a dining chair. The last time I’d seen him seated was on Earnest’s couch, the pair of them cackling like hyenas on a sugar high as they blew each other to smithereens on the flat screen.
“The landlord didn’t think so,” he said. “She wants it gone before I move.”
Earnest had told me Jay’s online courses on YouTube marketing were becoming popular and he was moving to a nicer place in Culver City.
I sat down too. “I’m sorry about Earnest.”
Moisture pooled in his eyes. “Dammit.” He rubbed his sleeved forearm across his face like a toddler might, smudging the paint there. “I can’t believe he’s dead. He’d been clean for fifteen months. Fifteen months! And we were chatting online Thursday—it must have only been hours before he died—and he was cheerful as could be.” He looked at me with suspicion. “Did you two fight?”
“No. He was happy and normal when I left him Thursday night as well. I don’t understand it.”
“Right.” He wiped his face again. “Right.”
I waited while he gathered himself.
“Mrs. D. said you found him.”
I nodded and pushed away the memory of it. “I did.”
“Are they sure it’s an overdose? Did it look like one?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. Why was he asking? Because he didn’t believe his best friend had killed himself, or because he wanted to make sure the police did? “I guess. I didn’t… I mean I couldn’t bear to get too close. I think they’re doing an autopsy to make sure.”
Something flickered across Jay’s face. Worry? Anger?
“Do you think something else might have killed him?” I asked.
“Shit. I don’t know.” His shoulders slumped even lower, and he frowned at the table. “I don’t even know what’s worse.”
“Do you—”
Jay stood up and gestured angrily at the wall. “I need to finish this coat so the paint has time to dry. Thanks for dropping by.” In case I didn’t know a dismissal when I heard one, he added, “You can let yourself out.”
I was in the process of doing that when he called out again. “And if you’re hoping you’ll get something in his will, you won’t!”
I took a deep breath and told myself all the reasons I should ignore it. He was grieving. It wasn’t personal. He was trying to protect—screw it. I stormed back into the dining room. “Listen, you moron, I never wanted his money! I hope Mrs. Dunst gets it all. You call yourself his best friend, bu
t you’re a blind idiot for not seeing how much Earnest had to offer a girl besides his bank balance. So back the hell off!”
Then I let myself out.
Feeling sheepish, I gave my visual report to Connor. He’d already heard the audio version, but he didn’t mention my outburst, despite the possibility that his ears were still ringing from the sudden decibel shift. Tactful. Not an attribute I associated with Connor. Maybe he thought I’d yell at him too.
We headed to a Korean hole-in-the-wall restaurant to refuel while we went through the phone records. It had the typical dingy tables and chairs and the usual delicious smells. Nice to know not everything needed a facelift to survive in LA where beauty was placed on a pedestal above every other virtue.
I was feeling virtuous about my meager banana and coffee for breakfast, so I ordered the crispy pork belly. Then I remembered that damn button.
Had it not been for Connor watching on, I might’ve changed my order to a salad, but I didn’t want to draw his attention to my weight gain.
Plus after facing the shrink and then Jay, I really wanted the crispy pork belly.
Connor chose the duck curry before turning to scrutinize me. “I get the idea you were fond of Earnest. Were you two—”
“No. But I liked him a lot. He made a much nicer fake boyfriend than you did.”
Connor’s lip twitched. The equivalent of Oliver’s grin. “I’m not surprised.” His eyes fell to where I was tearing my napkin into thin strips. “How are you holding up?”
I forced myself to put the rest of the napkin down, unmolested. “Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
It was something I’d been avoiding thinking about. But maybe I needed to talk about it. To process my feelings, just a little. So I didn’t yell at any more of our leads. “Earnest was… smart, kind, and a lot of fun in his socially awkward way. He might’ve been scared to go outside, but he was trying to make the world better. I’m… angry, as you may have noticed. I want to get justice for him.”
Connor’s expression was gentle when I looked at him again. “Do you need me to take you to a shooting range?”
The Hunger Pains (An Eat, Pray, Die Humorous Mystery Book 2) Page 7