by David Bell
“I’m happy to help if I can,” Jenna said. “Is this something else about Celia’s case?”
“Maybe,” Naomi said, taking her time. A woman was pushing a crying baby in a stroller, the child’s screams echoing off the high ceiling. Naomi looked over and gave the mother a sympathetic smile. It occurred to Jenna that she knew very little about Naomi’s life. She wore a wedding ring but hadn’t mentioned children. The whole relationship seemed asymmetrical. Naomi could turn Jenna’s life inside out, while Jenna had no such recourse toward her. “Do you know someone named Holly Crenshaw?”
“Holly Crenshaw.” Jenna thought it over, trying to be certain before she opened her mouth again. “I don’t think so.”
“She lives over in Clay County, about twenty miles from here.”
“Should I know her?”
“She disappeared two days ago. She went out with some friends while her husband was away on business. It took a little while for anyone to know something was wrong. She’s young, twenty-three. She doesn’t have any kids and only works part-time.” Naomi brought out her phone. She opened a picture and showed it to Jenna. “See? A pretty girl, isn’t she?”
Jenna’s hands shook as she took the phone. The girl looked young, even younger than her twenty-three years. She was a kid, not much older than Jared. And she was beautiful, almost as pretty as Celia was at the same age. Jenna saw right away the general resemblance between the two women. The hair color and length most notably, the fresh-scrubbed beauty.
“You think there’s a connection,” Jenna said, handing the phone back.
“We’re wondering,” Naomi said.
Jenna waited a moment and then said, “There has to be a reason for you to wonder. What is it?”
“Holly worked at the country club Celia and Ian belong to.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The only thing Jenna managed to say sounded defensive and petty. “I’m not a member of that country club. I’ve never even been there.”
“The country club may not be a connection. There may be no connection.” Naomi studied the screen for a moment, then slipped the phone away. “So far it doesn’t look like Celia and Holly Crenshaw knew each other. Maybe they were passing acquaintances and nothing more. Holly worked in human resources, so she probably didn’t have a lot of contact with the members.”
Jenna looked around the lobby. More people came and went, and she studied the faces, wondering about each and every one of them. Did they all carry pain and regret like hers? “So there could be some kind of killer in the area, someone who is preying on women? Do you think it’s Benjamin?”
Naomi was shaking her head. “We don’t know any of these things. The town’s nervous enough as it is. This is going to dial that up even higher. We can’t jump to any conclusions.”
But Jenna already knew people would. She could imagine the field day someone like Reena Huffman would have with that kind of news. A killer on the loose, beautiful women being targeted in small-town America. What tagline would she come up with next? Maniac in the Heartland? Killer in Kentucky?
“Don’t jump to any conclusions?” Jenna said, repeating Naomi’s words and adding her own sarcastic edge. “I’ll stay nice and calm when the creeps call me on the phone. Or the next time I get summoned to a crime scene.”
“You’re still getting those phone calls? You know we can look into them again.”
“I got one last night, but that’s only because of my performance on CNN.”
Jenna wondered if Naomi would say anything about that, but she didn’t. She directed the conversation an entirely different way, still sounding casual. “Any other thoughts on Celia’s marriage?”
Naomi made it sound as though the two women had just been discussing the topic a few minutes earlier.
“Other thoughts? I answered fifty questions about their marriage when Celia disappeared.”
“I know.” Naomi looked calm, unruffled. “But sometimes I like to check back with people close to the case in the event something new has occurred to them. The mind is a tricky thing. Thoughts can emerge from places we aren’t even aware of.”
“I’d tell you the same thing now I told you then. They weren’t perfect, but they seemed happy. I hate to say it, but I felt maybe neither one of them was paying enough attention to Ursula. Ian worked a lot. Celia had an active social life. And all of that was going on right when their daughter was hitting puberty and adolescence. But I’m a single mom. I’m not home when my son gets out of school.” She’d seen the Jim Beam bottle in Jared’s room the night Celia disappeared. Her interruption of Jared and Tabitha just the day before. No, she couldn’t throw stones at any other parents. Everyone did their best. And then they hoped. “Some people have suggested that Celia ran away and wasn’t taken. There’s no way that’s true. She wouldn’t leave Ian or Ursula.”
“Who’s suggesting she ran away?” Naomi asked.
“People online mostly. I go to those message boards sometimes, especially the one at the Dealey Society.” As Naomi well knew, the Dealey Society was an organization, founded by Paul and Pam Dealey, dedicated to discovering answers about missing persons cases involving adults. The site featured a clearinghouse of names, photos, and other information, as well as a message board where anyone could log on and discuss active and closed cases. They’d gained national attention over the past five years when members of their online community helped solve a couple of long-cold cases. The Dealeys started the site when their twenty-eight-year-old daughter, Sheila, was kidnapped and murdered. “I know I shouldn’t. I know it just stirs up difficult emotions. But there’s something comforting about talking to other people. It feels like there are individuals who really care.”
“And you feel like you’re being useful,” Naomi said. “You’re helping.”
“Yeah,” Jenna said, her voice trailing away. It hardly seemed like any form of real help. And it also required interacting with the occasional crazies who made the creeps on the phone seem normal and well adjusted. More than once, Jenna made vows to never go back, to stop dipping her toe in the online waters of the Dealey message board. But she inevitably went back, drawn there by the constant stream of new information, the ongoing sense that a group of people were trying to keep Celia’s memory and case alive.
“So nothing about the marriage,” Naomi said, drawing her back to the matter at hand.
“I’m hardly the person to evaluate that.” Jenna tried to sound light and joking, but she could still feel a small measure of shame over the failure of her own marriage. Conversations with her mother or chats with other, happily married couples could still sting. “Mine flamed out pretty spectacularly.”
“You’re not alone in that category,” Naomi said.
“I haven’t spoken to Ian since Celia disappeared.”
“Really? Still?”
“I told you we were never that close. I was friends with Celia, not really with Ian.”
“Sometimes events bring people closer.”
Jenna thought she detected something, an ever-so-slight emphasis on the word “closer” as Naomi completed her sentence. Or was she imagining things? If the emphasis had been there and not simply in Jenna’s head, what did it mean? If the people who knew Celia and Jenna and Ian the best, the friends they’d had since high school, remembered everything accurately and told the truth about the past, then the police would know that it was Jenna whom Ian first showed interest in when they were all fifteen years old, that it was Jenna who first caught Ian’s eye when they all ended up in the same chemistry class during their sophomore year at Hawks Mill High School.
Celia knew it, although the two friends never ever talked about it. But Jenna remembered how high Celia turned up the volume on her thousand-watt smile as soon as she saw Ian’s interest in Jenna. Once Celia set her sights on Ian, Jenna knew she didn’t have a chance. Celia was prettier, more polished
. Celia came from a better family, one almost equal in stature to Ian’s in Hawks Mill. Like a fighter who knew when she’d met her match, Jenna bowed out gracefully and let things progress the way they were supposed to.
Despite Celia’s easy victory, or maybe because of it, a barrier always existed between Jenna and Ian, an invisible force field that seemed to repel them away from each other in even the most mundane situations. They rarely shared a joke or made much more than small talk. As the years went by, Ian worked more, spent more and more time invested in his career. The truth was, Jenna and Celia’s friendship existed independently of Ian and almost never involved him.
“That hasn’t been the case with us,” Jenna said, hoping the line of questioning would end. She was late for work, and if Naomi expected to hear something new from her about Celia’s marriage, she would be waiting a long time. “You’ve talked to Ian more recently than I have.”
“I guess so, then.”
“How is he doing?” Jenna asked.
“He’s holding up as well as he can.”
“He was treated pretty poorly when Celia disappeared,” Jenna said. “People assumed . . .”
“We didn’t.”
“But you questioned him. For a long time. Repeatedly.”
“Wasn’t I supposed to do my job?” Naomi asked, her voice acquiring a little edge. “Wasn’t I supposed to do that for Celia?”
“Of course.” Jenna felt bad for implying that the detective had been too hard on Ian. He was the missing woman’s spouse. Everyone knew the odds. And Ian could take care of himself. “I can only tell you what I know from Celia about their marriage, and that’s that they were doing as well as they always were.”
Naomi didn’t speak, but she held her gaze on Jenna’s face for a longer period of time than seemed normal. Something flickered in the woman’s eyes, a poker player’s glint that said she might just know something Jenna didn’t. But again, just like the emphasis on the word “closer,” was it something Jenna was simply imagining in her own off-kilter state?
“Well, I’ll let you get to work,” Naomi said.
They stood and shook hands, and Naomi promised to be in touch if she needed anything else.
“Can you do me a favor, Detective?” Jenna asked.
“Sure.”
“Can you tell Holly Crenshaw’s family I’m thinking of them? I know what this is like. I hate to think of other people going through it as well.”
“I’ll pass it along.”
“And you’ll let me know—”
“If we learn anything from Ludlow, anything I can share, I’ll call.”
As Jenna walked across the lobby, heading toward the entrance to Family Medicine, the sense came over her that Naomi was watching her walk away. Jenna didn’t want to turn around, didn’t want to know the truth, but couldn’t help herself. She craned her neck around and looked, but Naomi was gone.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jenna fell into the easy rhythms of the workday. She tried not to think about Ian. Or Celia. Or Benny Ludlow. She never thought she’d be thinking about Benny Ludlow again.
But how did he end up with Celia’s earring?
Were Celia and Holly Crenshaw hurt by the same person?
Was it Benny Ludlow?
Sally distracted her. They traded notes over how tired they were when they woke up that morning. “Are you kidding? The wine helps me sleep,” Sally said. “That’s why I drink some every night. Doctor’s orders.”
Jenna admitted her sleep had been lousy, the lingering effects of the previous day’s events, particularly the disagreement with Jared.
“The boys,” Sally said, shaking her head. “They develop the sassiest mouths. If mine hadn’t been so big, I would have kept right on spanking them.”
Just before eleven, Jenna stepped out to the lobby and called a patient back. A middle-aged man, someone she had never seen in the office before. Possibly a new patient or someone she simply hadn’t crossed paths with yet. When she called the man’s name, he looked up, a hopeful smile on his face. People usually smiled when they were called back. Their wait was ending. They were that much closer to getting an answer from the doctor or receiving treatment. More than anything, they didn’t have to wait anymore.
But as the man came closer to Jenna, the look on his face changed. His brow wrinkled, the smile disappeared. When she attempted to make the usual small talk—How are you today? Is it any warmer out there?—the man grunted.
She understood. Some people didn’t want to talk. They wanted the business conducted without any of the frills. Except the smile the man first showed marked him as a talker . . .
When they entered the exam room, Jenna pulled out the blood pressure cuff.
“Just relax your arm,” she said. “No need to roll up your sleeve.”
The man cleared his throat. “Is there another nurse who can do this?”
“Excuse me?”
“Another nurse,” he said. “Besides you.”
Jenna didn’t follow. The man refused to meet her eye. “Is something wrong, sir?”
Then he looked up. “I don’t want to be helped by someone with a foul mouth, a troublemaker. It’s just not my values, that’s all.”
It took a moment to understand what he referred to, but then she knew. The TV interview. Reena Huffman. In the lobby, his face fell because he recognized her.
“Are you serious?” Jenna asked.
“What you’ve put that family through,” he said. “They’re pillars of the community.”
Some other “foul” words popped into her mind, and she wished she could share them. But she didn’t. She stepped out of the room without saying anything else and handed the chart off to one of her colleagues.
• • •
The receptionist in the lobby of Walters Foundry, a young woman with a bright smile and hair the color of straw, informed Jenna that there was simply no way she could see Mr. Ian Walters today. She offered to call upstairs to his private office and schedule the appointment herself with Ian’s secretary.
But Jenna didn’t feel like being turned away.
Something Naomi said stuck with her. Jenna did surf those Web sites and message boards because it made her feel as though she was doing something productive, even though, deep in her heart of hearts, she knew her little gestures didn’t make a bit of difference. Jenna remembered those first days after Celia’s disappearance. She walked the woods and hills of Hawks Mill with a group of volunteers. She manned a phone bank, dutifully writing down tips and leads.
None of it made any difference as far as she could tell. Celia remained lost, out of reach of all of them.
The other volunteers, as well as the observers and the citizens who casually followed the case around the country, they too slipped back to their daily lives, and the story barely left a mark on them. Another crime or crisis would pop up in the news, another distraction, and if something came up regarding Celia, they could flip the channel right back and pick up where they’d left off. The Reena Huffmans of the world would be sure nobody missed a detail.
Jenna, and those closest to Celia, floundered in the mire. No path forward presented itself. There was only looking back and regretting. Jenna wondered if she was stuck most of all. She wasn’t a member of the inner circle, a tight group she imagined included Celia’s mother, her sister, Ian, Ursula, and perhaps other friends Jenna didn’t know well, and she couldn’t walk away. Patience had become her watchword. Answers, if they came at all, wouldn’t come quickly. She understood the harsh truths: Even if they did find Celia’s body—in a rotten barn, a ditch, or a forest—they wouldn’t necessarily be any closer to knowing what had happened to her, unless they could firmly tie it to somebody. Benny Ludlow or anybody else. They’d only know she was dead, an unpleasant truth Jenna tried to push from her mind whenever it crept in.
She needed to do something.
So Jenna told the secretary—insisted—that she call up to Mr. Ian Walters’s private office and tell him Jenna Barton was here to see him.
Needed to see him.
The cheery young woman did as she was asked, never losing her smile.
A few minutes later, the phone on her desk rang. She nodded, writing on a small pad of paper. She tore it off with a flourish. “Mr. Walters says he’ll meet you at this address in fifteen minutes.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jenna took a seat at the Landing, Hawks Mill’s nicest restaurant. She arrived shortly before the height of the lunch rush and asked for a table for two. She felt self-conscious in her scrubs among the lawyers and executives and wealthy retirees who all were coming in wearing coats and ties and large rings. It was several years since Jenna had eaten at the Landing. Dr. Phillips, the founder of Hawks Mill Family Medicine, once brought the whole staff there for a holiday party. Other than an occasion like that, Jenna wouldn’t spend the money on a place like the Landing. When the waiter asked her what she wanted to drink, she asked for a glass of water.
While she waited, sipping her water, she bounced her feet under the table and rested her hand on the cool glass to keep from tapping her fingers too much. She tried to think of the last time she and Ian had spent any time alone. She guessed it was before he and Celia started dating, long before the two of them were married. Celia missed school one day, so Jenna started walking home alone. She didn’t mind the solitude. She let her mind drift, taking in the leaves that were just turning, the warm fall air that already carried a hint of decay. Her mind drifted so far she didn’t notice Ian until he was walking beside her, a couple of books in one hand, the other tucked into the pocket of his jeans.
Even then he was taller than everyone else, almost to his adult height of six-four. His hair was longer then, a lock of it tumbling over his forehead, but he didn’t give in to the grungy fashions that were sweeping through the high school. She never saw Ian in flannel or ripped jeans, never saw him in Chuck Taylor sneakers with the names of bands scrawled on the canvas in Magic Marker. She doubted his parents would allow it. They might not let him back in the house if he dressed that way.