by Becky Durfee
A familiar tug resonated from within Jenny, leading her to put her seat upright and turn the key. Without allowing herself to become too aware, she fastened her seatbelt and backed her car out of the parking space. Once again the car seemed to know which way to go naturally, even though the sky was dark and the roads were all unfamiliar. After a while the car came to a stop along the side of a road in a neighborhood with sparse houses. Jenny exited the car, absorbing the message that Lena was trying to portray.
Jenny reached into her purse and grabbed her phone, dialing Elijah. “Hey, Jenny,” he said when he picked up. “Are you okay?”
“I’m doing much better, thanks. Listen, I’ve been led somewhere.”
“Where?”
“I’m not exactly sure. I’m on the side of the road near an intersection. I’ll have to figure out where I am and let you know. But I have to tell you, this place must be important because Lena is talking to me here.” Jenny tucked her hair behind her ear. “And this time it’s in English.”
Chapter 6
“What is she saying?” Elijah demanded quickly.
“She’s saying stop. Over and over again.”
“She’s saying stop?”
“Yes.”
“Does she seem scared?”
Jenny sighed, trying to interpret the feelings surging through her. “I don’t think she’s feeling fear, necessarily. It’s more like frustration. Anger. Maybe even sadness.” She furrowed her brow, unsure of why she sensed this particular emotion. “She almost seems disillusioned.”
“And you have no idea where you are?” Elijah asked.
“None whatsoever. But I can find out if you give me a minute. I’m near an intersection and I can give you the street names.” Jenny took a few steps toward the street signs. “It looks like I’m on the corner of Mathison and Bartlett.”
“I know exactly where you are,” Elijah informed her. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Jenny waited in her car, noting that no traffic passed by; finally a pair of headlights appeared in her rear view mirror. The car slowed to a stop behind her, so she got out of the car to greet Elijah.
“Hey,” he said as he approached. “Has Lena been behaving herself?”
Jenny smiled. “She hasn’t contacted me anymore, if that’s what you mean.”
“So where exactly did she lead you?”
“Right to where my car is parked. I got out and only took a few steps when I heard her voice screaming stop.”
“And you say you felt frustration rather than fear?”
Jenny nodded.
“Do you think she was being assaulted?”
With a squint she replied, “I don’t think so. She’s disappointed, not terrified.”
After making some notes, Elijah looked around. “Do you know what’s significant about this location?” He sounded more like he was about to disclose information than receive it.
“No.”
“The place where Lena’s body was found was between this location and her house. It wouldn’t have made any sense for her to be at the murder scene if she had gone directly home from the party. But,” Elijah posed, “if she was walking home from here, that would have put her on Pembroke Lane where she was shot.”
Jenny looked at him silently, unable to add anything else.
“But you say she wasn’t running when she was shot.”
“No. I get the impression she was walking calmly.”
Clearly deep in thought, Elijah remained quiet for a long time. “We’ll never find any evidence here,” he eventually said. “Not after fifteen years. I don’t think this place was originally searched, either. We didn’t know it was of significance.”
Once again, Jenny had nothing to say. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself to ward off a chill.
“Okay, well, do you want to come back to my house with me and look over my notes? I’ve got pages and pages from the original interviews that I am going to want to read with a fresh set of eyes, and I’m hoping you can help me do that. Maybe Lena will make another appearance if we get on the right track.”
“Sounds good,” Jenny said. “Do you want me to follow you?”
“Sure, but take down my address in case we get separated.” Jenny programmed his address into her phone and they got into their cars.
Jenny managed to stay behind Elijah for the duration of the ride, so she pulled in front of his house as he parked in his driveway. Another car was there, which Jenny hadn’t anticipated. She had assumed Elijah lived alone.
As they walked through the front door, Jenny realized that the car had belonged to Elijah’s mother, who had apparently come over to watch Samantha after dinner. Jenny surmised that Jacob and Pam must have taken her home. “Hey mom,” Elijah said upon arriving. “How was she?”
“A doll, as always,” his mother replied before she looked up. Upon catching a glimpse at Jenny, her surprise became apparent. “Oh,” she said. “I didn’t realize you were with someone. I thought you were working on a case.”
“I am. Mom, this is Jenny Watkins. Jenny, this is my mom Deidre.”
Jenny smiled and shook Deidre’s hand. Jenny could recognize the look on Deidre’s face; it matched the look shared by everyone in Jenny’s family when Elijah stood outside the funeral home under a duck umbrella asking for a minute of her time.
“Well, I guess I’ll be going.” Deidre quickly started gathering her things, looking flustered. Jenny bit her lip to stifle a giggle.
“Mom, you don’t have to rush off…”
“Nonsense. I’ll get out of your hair. Just let me give my love to Peanut first.”
“I don’t have hair,” he reminded her, but the comment fell on deaf ears. Deidre was consumed with showering love on Samantha.
Once she was done with her granddaughter, Deidre came over and patted Elijah’s arm. “Now you two have fun.” She turned to Jenny. “It was very nice meeting you.” She quickly scooted out the door.
“What is it with mothers?” Elijah asked as soon as the door clicked shut.
“I don’t think they can help it,” Jenny noted.
Elijah shook his head. “Here,” he said, holding up a Styrofoam container, “I’ve got your dinner. You must be starving.”
“Yeah, I am pretty hungry.”
“Let me heat this up for you in the microwave. It’ll just be a minute. In the meantime, make yourself at home. Do you want anything to drink?”
“A water would be great,” Jenny replied. “Thanks.”
After Elijah disappeared into the kitchen, Jenny sat on the couch, which she noted was quite comfortable. Samantha was in the corner playing with her dollhouse, talking on behalf of her characters, unaware that Jenny was watching her. Jenny admired her imagination—it reminded her of herself when she was that age. An involuntary smile splayed across Jenny’s face.
Soon Elijah returned with a plate and a glass. He put the dinner down on the coffee table in front of Jenny. “Do you mind eating in here?”
“This is fine,” Jenny replied. She took a bite of her dinner, making her realize just how hungry she was.
“I hate to put you on hold, but I have to put Samantha to bed. Do you mind just hanging out a little bit while I get her ready?”
“Not at all. I’ll just eat my dinner and let you two do what you have to do.”
“Okay, thanks.” Elijah turned his attention to his daughter. “Samantha, Peanut, it’s time for bed. You have school in the morning. And tomorrow is the letter F day, so you need to get your froggy and put it in your backpack.”
Samantha wordlessly got up and disappeared into the next room. She returned with a stuffed animal frog, which had seen better days, and held it up for Jenny. “This is Froggy,” she said. “He’s coming to school with me tomorrow.”
“Well, Froggy should have a lot of fun tomorrow, then,” Jenny said with a smile. “And you should probably tuck Froggy nice and tight into your backpack so he can get some good sleep. He’ll need hi
s rest for such an exciting day.”
Samantha smiled, turning to her toy and wishing it a good night with a kiss and a hug. She placed it in her backpack, which sat by the front door.
Elijah instructed her to get her pajamas on and her teeth brushed, and then she could pick out the book of the night. After a few minutes, Samantha—complete with fresh breath and feetie pajamas—was sitting on Elijah’s lap on the couch as he read a book that, admittedly, Jenny wasn’t familiar with.
Jenny watched that very large and somewhat scary-looking man read with exaggerated inflection to his little girl. Every once in a while he would deviate from the story and point to a picture. “See that?” he would say. “There she is going down the slide.” Or perhaps he would interject with, “Why don’t you read that word? That’s one of your sight words. You know that one.”
Seeing how relaxed and natural Samantha was acting, Jenny knew this father-daughter reading time had to have been a regular occurrence. This wasn’t for show. This wasn’t designed to impress Jenny. This was the normal routine; tonight he just happened to have an audience.
Jenny found she couldn’t look away. She was overcome with an emotion she couldn’t identify. Was she feeling the love between a father and daughter from ten feet away? Was she jealous that this life wasn’t hers? Was she angry at the woman who held all of this in the palm of her hand and walked away from it? Was she feeling an odd sense of attraction to this man who was clearly an amazing father? Probably yes to it all. For Jenny the moment seemed surreal, interrupted only when the story they were reading came to a close.
“Time for bed now, Peanut. Tell Miss Jenny goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” Samantha said with a smile.
“Good night, sweetie. Have good dreams,” Jenny said, wishing she could be the one to tuck this little girl in.
Elijah disappeared for a short time, apologizing for the delay when he returned. He was able to quickly switch hats; suddenly this teddy bear of a father was all business. “Okay, I’ve got my notes over here.” He walked over to a book case that contained several accordion folders, taking a few of them and bringing them back to the coffee table. “There’s a lot of stuff to sort through, unfortunately. This process isn’t going to be easy.”
“I didn’t expect it would be,” Jenny noted.
After about an hour of searching through endless papers, Elijah located the notes the original investigators had taken during their interviews with Mark Smalls, Adam DeWalt and Nick Bruccato. “Finally,” he said when he uncovered them. “These three weren’t really considered prime suspects when this happened, so their interviews got lost in the shuffle. As far as the detectives were concerned back then, they were just kids at the party, along with fifty one other people. Now, though, they may be moving up the priority list. From now on, these papers will go on top of the stack.”
“So what do they say?” Jenny asked, pulling her legs into her chest on the couch.
“This is the interview with Mark,” he began. “It says here that he arrived at the party with Adam and Nick around 7:30, which is what Jacob had told us at the restaurant. Mark said they played cards for a while.” Elijah nodded while he read. “He went on to say that he hadn’t really interacted with Lena at all that night; he barely knew her, so he hung out mostly with other kids that he knew better. He said he and his friends left around midnight. He drove Adam home first because he was so drunk he could barely stand, and then he dropped off Nick. He claims he was home by 12:30. His mother substantiated that, saying she heard him come in. She insisted he went to bed and was there for the rest of the night. He woke up around ten thirty the following morning.” Elijah looked up from his papers and looked at Jenny. “But how could his mother have known he was there the whole night? If she was asleep, like I suspect she would be, he could have easily snuck back out without her knowing it.”
“Of course his mother is going to provide him with an alibi,” Jenny noted. “Mothers always want to protect their children.”
“Indeed. Okay, chalk that one up to flimsy alibi.” Elijah flipped to another sheet of paper. “This is the interview with Nick.” He made mumbling sounds as he skimmed quickly through the file. “He pretty much says the same thing as Mark. They played cards; Adam was really drunk; they didn’t interact with Lena. Mark dropped Adam off first, then Nick got home at twelve-twenty and stayed home the rest of the night.” Elijah furrowed his brow and looked for a moment at the paper. “Huh,” he eventually said.
“What is it?”
“Twelve twenty.” He contemplated the time some more. “Twelve twenty.”
“Is something wrong with that?”
“Not necessarily. It’s just a weird time to say you got home. Usually, when you’re estimating a time, you use half hour increments. Or maybe fifteen minute. Or some kind of range, like between twelve-fifteen and twelve-thirty. It’s very rare that somebody gives such a specific time…unless they’re trying to establish an alibi.”
Jenny raised her eyebrows. “Maybe it’s worth looking into.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. Let me see what Adam had to say.” Flipping the sheet, he read Adam’s statement. He covered his mouth with his hand and said, “This one is even weirder.”
“Oh yeah? How so?”
“Well, it says exactly the same thing that the other guys said. He played cards, didn’t hang out with Lena, got dropped off first, and made it home at twelve fifteen.”
“Why is that strange?” Jenny posed.
“Well, if he was as drunk as everyone has made him out to be, I’m not sure he’d be able to remember all of those details with such clarity. I’ve stumbled in drunk like that a few times, and in the morning I usually have to ask who took me home and how late I was out.”
Drunkenness was not one of Jenny’s fortes, so she’d just have to take Elijah’s word that this was suspicious behavior. “Do you think they’re covering for each other?”
“It seems like they might be. I’ll give each of them a call in the morning and see if I can re-interview them. Perhaps fifteen years’ worth of guilt and maturity can jog their memories a little bit.”
“Let’s hope.” Jenny leaned her head on her hand. After a long silence she posed, “You know, I have to admit, I’m impressed with you, dad. You are really good with Samantha.”
Elijah smiled and looked down. “Thanks. Yeah, she’s a good kid.”
“Well, that’s a reflection on her parents.”
Another sheepish smile. “No matter how I feel about her otherwise, Amanda is a good mom.”
“Actually, I was talking about you.”
He shrugged modestly.
“Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”
“No, go ahead.”
“What happened between the two of you…you and Amanda I mean? You just seem like a nice guy and a good dad—I wouldn’t expect you to be divorced.”
He let out a snort. “I never expected it either.”
Suddenly Jenny felt like she may have been overstepping her bounds. “I’m sorry. If it’s something you don’t want to talk about…”
“Oh, no, it’s okay. I just thought that when I got married it would be forever. I never dreamed it would end this way.”
That was a statement Jenny could whole heartedly relate to.
“It’s just that…things changed,” Elijah continued. “And not in a good way.”
“How did things change?”
“I think Amanda started to feel trapped. Things were fine until Samantha was born; after that Amanda quit her job and was a stay-at-home mom. In hindsight, I recognize what a huge mistake that was. Amanda used to work as a counselor before Samantha came along, and I believe that was a good part of her identity. Once she stopped doing that, I think she felt like a part of her stopped existing. She was no longer Amanda; she was just Elijah’s wife and Samantha’s mother. That took a pretty big toll on her.”
“I actually know how that feels, to some degree,” Jen
ny confessed. “I mean, I was never a mom, but I feel like I had to give up too much of myself when I married Greg. It didn’t feel like I was the same person. It wasn’t like Jenny Mongillo just became Jenny Watkins—you know, the same girl with a different last name. It was more like Jenny Mongillo died and Jenny Watkins took her place.” Jenny looked toward her lap. “I’m not sure I like Jenny Watkins.”
“Well, Amanda definitely didn’t like being Samantha’s mom. You can take that shit to the bank. And I felt a little bit helpless because I kept suggesting she go back to work if she wasn’t happy staying home, but she insisted on staying home. But then she’d turn around and complain about how much she hated it. I think she felt like she should be a stay-at-home mom, so she was sucking it up, but it came at a very hefty price.”
“Do you think your marriage would have survived if she went back to work?”
“I can’t say for sure,” Elijah confessed. “But I do think it would have stood a better chance. Although, I have to admit I did change quite a bit myself. I can’t blame just her for this.”
“In what ways did you change?”
“Well, I was in college when I met her. There’s a big difference between studying criminal justice and solving murders. In college I did have homework to do and papers to write, but once that was over I was free to hang out with Amanda. And when I was with her, I devoted all of my attention to her. We went out. We had fun. Then once I got a job on the force, I became unreliable. If I was out on a call, I couldn’t just leave because my shift was over, you know? And when I got promoted to homicide detective it got even worse. Now I was trying to solve murders. That’s not just something you can turn off because the clock says five. If I didn’t do my job quickly enough, people might be killed. Innocent people. So I would work long hours. And then I would come home and work some more. And even when I did put my work aside to spend time with Amanda, I never really did shut it off. I couldn’t shut it off. There was too much at stake. So I would be with Amanda physically, but mentally I was still at the office.