by Dawn Eastman
James: And what did you do?
Frost: I stayed at the party until about midnight. It was still going on when I left. A couple of girls from my apartment building were leaving, so I decided to walk with them. I don’t like to walk home alone in the dark.
James: What time did you get home?
Frost: Maybe twelve fifteen. Brad’s door was closed, so I assumed he had already gone to bed. He hates parties and only goes if Heather and I beg him.
James: Was anyone else in the apartment when you got home?
Frost: Alicia and Nathan were there, too.
James: Full names, please.
Frost: Alicia Stewart and Nathan Nielsen.
James: Are they also roommates?
Frost: No. Alicia is … was a friend of Heather’s. She was staying with us for a few days. Nathan knew Alicia from high school or something. But he and Heather had been dating until the end of September, when she broke up with him. Actually, I was surprised to see him there, but assumed he had walked Alicia home.
James: Anything else?
Frost: No. I went to bed and didn’t find out about Heather until the next day.
“Katie, you might want to see this,” Caleb said.
He turned his laptop toward her and pointed at the screen. “According to the case notes from Taylor’s dad, Russell Hunt was the last person Heather called on her phone. He had a copy of the phone records. Russell said she wanted to talk to him, and he waited for her at his apartment for an hour. She never showed, and so he went out with his friends. That’s the guy you said Gabrielle is dating, right?”
Katie nodded. “Right. Matt said he saw Russell at the party that night.”
“Matt was at the party?”
“From the way it sounds, the whole campus was there. Russell was a grad student at the time and a TA. I’m not sure why he’d be at an undergrad party, but he was.”
“Hmm,” Caleb said. “He sounds sketchy.”
“You think every guy who dates Gabrielle is sketchy,” Katie said.
“And your point is?”
“Just because you don’t like him doesn’t mean he’s a murderer. Plus, you’ve never met him. Maybe you guys would hit it off.”
Caleb muttered to himself and typed something into his computer. He continued to scroll. “Why would she have called him that night?” Caleb asked. “I mean, she’s at a party, and she calls her TA? That sounds like something else was going on. Isn’t there some rule about dating your students?”
“Maybe,” Katie said. “And you’re right, he told Matt and me that they dated briefly.”
Caleb grinned in a triumphant way.
She hated to think that Gabrielle was dating someone who had been involved in Heather’s death. Of course, Katie was dating someone who had been there that night as well. And maybe that was all it was. Russell had been at the party, even though that was a little weird, and she had called him. Caleb was right, Russell was a little sketchy. But that didn’t mean he’d murdered Heather.
“Here’s something,” Caleb said. “She had a fight with one of her exes at the party.” He scrolled some more. “His name was Danny Lloyd. Sounds like it got physical and his friends made him leave the party. Oh, that’s the guy you just asked about. Did you read his statement yet?”
“Yeah, I spoke to him the day I went to see Abby. He says Heather had broken things off that spring. Plus, he had an alibi. He left the party with his friends and they all went home.”
“That doesn’t sound like the strongest alibi,” Caleb said. “Could he have circled back to the party?’
Katie sighed and pulled her notebook closer. This was not going to be as straightforward as she’d thought. She had imagined that Taylor’s thumb drive would contain a nicely thought out paper with references, and instead she was plowing through notes and documents with no guidelines. Taylor’s personal notes were so cryptic as to be almost useless. The files on each person included police summaries, and Taylor had made a few cross-referencing notes to try to tie the people together.
“Based on what she said to me the night she went missing, she suspected someone of a crime,” Katie said. “I just wish I knew who it was. I wish I had stayed and talked to her.”
“Katie, this isn’t your fault,” Caleb said. “You can’t control everything, no matter how hard you try.”
“At this point, all I can do is try to get justice for Taylor. And maybe for Heather as well.”
Katie took a big swig of coffee and began drawing her own map of relationships.
34
By six o’clock, Katie was only too happy to close her laptop. She stretched and closed her notebook as well. Caleb glanced at her and shook his head.
“You have no stamina,” he said.
“We’ve been at this for three hours,” Katie said. “I feel like I’m only skimming the words but not really reading them. I never thought I’d be looking forward to a Halloween festival meeting.”
Caleb snorted and turned back to his laptop. “I’m not finding much else here, either. It’s like once they had Eugene in custody, they just went through the motions.”
“We’ll regroup after the meeting,” Katie said. “Why don’t you take a break too, and we’ll start fresh this evening.”
Caleb shut his computer. “If you insist …”
“Want to come to the meeting with me?”
“Nope. Not even a little bit.” Caleb grinned at her. “You have to learn to say no.”
Katie grabbed her bag and headed out the back door to her car. She did need to say no more often. The word just always got stuck on the way out of her mouth, and before she knew it, she was volunteering for something else. She steered her Subaru in the direction of her clinic.
When she arrived in the lot, she texted Matt that she was outside.
“Hey,” he said as he climbed in beside her.
“Hi, how was it?”
“Not too bad,” he said. “The afternoon was slow. I got caught up on dictations, though.”
“That’s better than I did today,” Katie said. “The dictation police are going to come after me soon if I don’t get over there to finish up some discharge notes for the hospital.”
“You definitely don’t want that,” Matt said. “I’ve met Edna, and she is no softie like your buddy Carlson.”
“Edna?”
“She’s in charge of patient records over there.” Matt shook his head somberly. “You don’t want a visit from her.”
“Another thing to worry about,” Katie said as she backed out of her parking spot.
“How did it go with Eugene?”
“As well as expected, I guess.” Katie turned onto Main Street. “I convinced him to turn himself in. I think it’s the only way to keep him safe right now.”
Matt nodded. “It was the talk of the clinic in the afternoon. Everyone had a theory, and most of them included Eugene.”
“I hope I’m not wrong about him,” Katie said.
“You think he might have killed Taylor?”
Katie glanced at him quickly. “Not really, but what do I really know about him? He and his mother told me he was innocent. My gut tells me he’s a good guy. But there’s definitely something a little off about him. I just can’t put my finger on it, and it makes me doubt everything.”
“Well, I guess if you are wrong, at least he’s in custody now.”
“I suppose that’s true.” Katie pulled into the high school parking lot and found a spot.
She killed the engine and turned toward Matt. “Are you ready for this?”
He squared his shoulders and nodded. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
They got out of the car, and Katie clicked the lock button on her key fob. She stood straight and took a deep breath.
“Okay, let’s do this,” she said.
They went straight to the gym, the multiple turns and staircases familiar in that same nostalgic way. The noise was even louder this time around. It seemed that more volunt
eers had been recruited. Delores actually needed her bullhorn to be heard over the melee.
Katie and Matt presented themselves at the parade table and were issued paintbrushes. They’d been assigned to work on the main float for the parade. It had definitely seen better days. Katie couldn’t believe it would hold her weight, much less be able to travel the five blocks of the parade route.
“Huh,” said Matt. “Do they think a new coat of paint will fix all this?”
Katie shrugged and dipped her brush in the paint can. “Let’s hope there’s an engineering crew as well to make sure this thing will run.”
They spent the next hour painting the float, and by the time they were done, Katie had to admit that it looked sturdier. She climbed up onto the platform and imagined trying to keep her balance while it was in motion and she was wearing a pumpkin suit. Her imagination was not that vivid.
“I should probably try on that pumpkin costume and maybe even try to climb up here and see how it will feel,” she said. “I don’t want to totally embarrass myself by falling off of the thing.”
“I’ll help you,” Matt said. He tapped the lid back on the paint can and wrapped the brushes in a plastic bag. “Do you think it’s still in the costume room?”
“Let’s go see.” Katie led the way across the gym and out the door headed to the costume room.
She pushed open the door and saw Nathan Nielsen and another man standing by the pumpkin costume. It was the same man that had been talking to Nathan when they unloaded the pumpkin.
“Oh, hello,” she said. “I was just looking for that.” She pointed to the pumpkin costume.
“Great. We were going to bring it to the gym,” Nathan said. “We can take it from here, Mike.” The other man rapidly exited the room, and Katie got the distinct impression he was grateful for the interruption.
“I’ll just try it on, then,” she said.
Matt stepped forward to help, and he and Nathan lifted it over her head.
Katie took a deep, musty breath and coughed. She’d have to breathe through her mouth to avoid the dank basementlike smell that permeated the pumpkin. There were shoulder straps on the inside, and she slid these over her shoulders and made sure she was standing on the floor in the space made by the bottom hole of the costume. The pumpkin was heavier than she had expected, and she lost her balance as she struggled to lift it off the ground. The foot hole was not very big, so she had to shuffle along only taking short strides.
She felt the men turn her in the right direction.
“You okay in there?” Matt couldn’t keep the smile out of his voice, and Katie narrowed her eyes even though he couldn’t see her face. There was a piece of fabric right in front of Katie that was semitransparent. She assumed it looked opaque from the outside, but she could make out the hazy outlines of objects in the room.
“I’m just great,” she said in a monotone.
“You’ll get used to it,” Nathan said. “Plus you don’t really have to move at all, just keep your balance when the float is in motion.”
She sighed and ratcheted up her worry about her Halloween assignment. Why did Cecily hate her so much? Maybe if she accepted more cast-off cookies from Delores, she could switch duties with someone who got to wear normal clothes.
* * *
Later that evening, Katie pulled into her driveway and Matt parked his car in the street. They had escaped the festival meeting with minimal paint stains but more worries about their Halloween duties.
They met on the front porch, and Katie unlocked the door and pushed it open.
“Hey, Matt!” Caleb approached and shook Matt’s hand like he was a long-lost brother. He turned to Katie and said, “Oh, hi.” He couldn’t hide his grin as he turned away. Katie shoved his shoulder and pretended to be hurt by his greeting.
They slung their jackets over the back of the couch and moved into the dining room.
“How’s the app going?” Matt asked. He surveyed the table and its usual state of disarray.
“It would be going a lot better if I could figure out …”
“Wait,” Katie said. She held up her hands. “Matt is here to help me. Our custody arrangement is very clear.”
Matt and Caleb grinned at each other, and they all sat at the table. She settled Matt at the far end of the table from Caleb and opened her laptop.
Matt scrolled through the files and opened the police interview of Eugene. After a few minutes, he said, “He didn’t help himself very much, did he?”
Katie shook her head. “No, he never had an explanation as to why he was in Ann Arbor that night. He claimed he didn’t know anyone there.”
Caleb looked up from his computer. “It’s like he didn’t get it. Everything he said, or failed to say, just made the police suspect him more.”
“Have you ever asked him about that night?” Matt asked Katie.
She nodded. “He told me the same thing he always said. That he found Heather on the ground and was just getting ready to find help when he was discovered with her body.”
They were silent for a moment.
Katie took a deep breath and let it out. “I don’t believe Eugene killed Taylor any more than I believe he killed Heather. The whole case against him for Heather’s death is circumstantial. It’s like he was covering for someone, or covering up something.”
“Look at this,” Matt said. “Eugene says he saw a blonde girl in a witch costume walking alone. He claims he followed her to be sure she was safe. He lost her in the Law Quad—they were doing some landscaping and repairs, so there was a lot of equipment and supplies piled around.”
Matt turned to Katie. “I remember that. The Quad was a mess that autumn. I used to cut through there to get to one of my classes, but that fall I had to go around because it took less time to go the long way than to take the shortcut.”
“So you think Eugene could have lost sight of her for long enough for someone to kill her before he found her again?” Katie said.
“Maybe,” Matt said. “But I just thought of something about that party. There were at least five blonde witches that night.”
“How can you recall that?” Caleb asked.
“Remember I told you it was a big deal to wear a costume?” Matt asked Katie.
She nodded. “You said it wasn’t worth it to dress up, because you had to have a movie-worthy get-up.”
“Right, and I was sure Heather would have some amazing costume because that was just the way she was. Any opportunity to attract attention and she would grab it.”
“But she was only wearing a witch costume?”
“Right. Some of the girls had gone all out with Disney princess costumes or other ball gown–type things. Others had amazing makeup done to look like vampires or zombies or whatever. But Heather came with her roommate—I can’t remember her name right now—and Alicia, I think, and a couple of her sorority sisters, and they all dressed the same.”
“Blonde witches?” Caleb asked.
“That’s what Eugene meant,” Katie said. “He said Alicia and Heather were dressed the same. It’s why he thought it was Alicia who was laying on the ground.”
“Right. And these weren’t fancy. They were like costumes you could buy at any of those pop-up Halloween stores. Just a black cape and a pointy hat. And, to answer your question, Caleb, I remember because I was surprised the costumes were so lame and also because they all came to the party together.”
“Did you tell the police when you talked to them?” Katie asked. She was already scrolling to Matt’s interview.
“I don’t know if I did. The truth is, it just struck me now that the costumes were weird. At the time, I was so freaked out that Heather had been killed, I’m not sure I gave a second thought to the costume she was wearing.”
Katie scanned the interview. “It doesn’t look like you mentioned it.”
“What difference does it make?” Caleb asked.
“I’m not sure it makes a difference in Eugene’s favor,” Katie s
aid. “In fact, it might make things worse. If he was following the witch costume and knew that Alicia was wearing it, that would almost give him a stronger motive—at least in the eyes of the police. He had already been accused of stalking Alicia. If the police had put together the costume confusion, then that would actually give them a motive, which was the one thing they were missing in the whole case. They could have claimed it was mistaken identity.”
Matt and Caleb exchanged a glance, and both of them watched Katie.
She noticed the two of them staring.
“What?”
“It’s just that you’ve now identified a motive, which was one reason why you thought Eugene was innocent,” Caleb said. He held his hands out, palms up. “Maybe he did do it and you just figured out why.”
* * *
They continued into the evening discussing various small points and dissecting the interviews. Nothing else emerged that was quite as devastating to Katie as the realization that maybe Eugene had killed Heather—by accident, certainly—because he was trying to kill Alicia.
Katie needed to put that theory aside for the moment and focus on figuring out who else could have killed Heather. One person Katie kept coming back to was Heather’s roommate. Heather had lived with two other students: Brad Humphreys and Hope Frost. Caleb had been able to track them both by using his “research skills.” Katie suspected he’d just typed the names into a search engine and gotten lucky.
From Hope’s social media pages, Caleb had learned that she still lived in Ann Arbor and was a teacher at one of the elementary schools. Hope and Brad had gotten married and had two very cute kids and had taken a trip to Disney World last spring. They also had a new puppy. Katie felt weird prying into a stranger’s life. She had the feeling, though, that Hope would be open to talking to her. She looked friendly.
Brad Humphreys, on the other hand, had almost no social media presence. He was an engineer and had joined a small consulting firm. The only information Caleb could find was a brief bio on his new company’s ABOUT US page that said he was married and liked to hike.
Caleb handed her phone numbers for both of them. Hope’s was her home number and Brad’s was his work number. Katie took Hope’s number and gave Matt the other one.