The Last Thing She Ever Did

by Gregg Olsen

  “Babe, you need a sedative,” he said.

  Liz could feel herself falling into a black hole. Medication had been her husband’s answer for everything since the accident. She had no idea where he got the meds. She’d taken so many pills, she wondered if she was on her way to becoming addicted to them. Before the accident she had judged others who relied on pills to get through the day. They were weak. They weren’t able to cope with the challenges that come with life. Weak people. Sad.

  Now she was one of them.

  “I need to tell the truth,” she said. “Owen, I need to end this.”

  “You can’t,” he said. “You’ll waste away in prison. You’ll never be a mom. All of our dreams will be over.”

  “Carole and David’s dream is over.”

  “People like that get up, dust themselves off, and then forge a new life. They’ve done that with David’s career. Google probably fired Carole. She started over. You and I are just beginning.”

  “Losing your child is not the same,” she said. “I killed their little boy. Goddamn it, Owen. Can’t you see the difference?”

  Owen kept his arms around her, holding her tightly, imagining how much force it would take to end the conversation.

  “You know that you don’t want your mistake to bring me down, babe. You love me. You’ll ruin me. Promise that you won’t. That you’ll keep everything to yourself. No spilling your guts. Okay?”

  Liz pulled away. Her mascara had left a smudge on his shirt.

  He unbuttoned his shirt and went for a new one in the closet. “That’s my girl. We’ll make it. Promise.”

  Liz was unsure if he was promising she’d survive or if he wanted her to promise not to tell.

  Her phone pinged several times as Owen texted her later in the day:

  How you holding up?

  Doing the right thing sometimes means doing nothing at all.

  I’ll love you no matter what.

  We are going to be fine.

  Call me if you need me. Call me if you need me to talk you off the ledge.

  For each one of her husband’s texts she answered with a sad smiley-face emoji.

  Liz had run out of words.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  MISSING: TWENTY-SEVEN DAYS

  Liz stayed still in her RAV4 and stared straight ahead at the sign for the Bend Police Department. Her hands had started to quaver, so she tried to calm herself by gripping the steering wheel. Hard. Her knuckles went from pink to white. Every muscle in her neck contracted as she sucked in air.

  She could do this.

  On the drive there, she’d practiced what she’d tell the detectives. She would not implicate Owen. She would take the blame for everything. She imagined their responses and how none of what she would tell them would make sense. There would be no use in trying to win them over to see that she had made a terrible accident a million times worse, but the initial act had not been entirely her fault.

  She’d leave out the Adderall and the part about how she kept the boy in the garage all day while she went to take the exam in Beaverton. She’d say she’d had a breakdown. It would be true. Or mostly true.

  Liz considered how she’d hold her hands out so she could be cuffed. She’d ask to call her husband to confess to him what she’d done. In front of everyone, she’d beg him to forgive her. She’d let Owen out of everything, saying that he’d been so distracted by work that he didn’t even notice her obvious reliance on sedatives.

  Liz sat there and planned it all. She’d take whatever punishment the prosecutor gave her. She’d find a job in the kitchen of the women’s prison, or maybe she’d be able to help the other inmates with legal questions. Maybe there would be some kind of purpose to all of this. Maybe her husband would want to stay with her, but she’d tell him to get on with his life. She knew that marriages don’t often survive the truly horrific or the deepest of loss. Carole didn’t trust David. She hadn’t for a long time. As her friend confided troubles in her marriage, Liz could see that there had been a widening chasm in her own for a long time. Owen was wrapped up with Lumatyx. Late nights. Meetings out of town. Runs along the river that stretched into entire Saturday afternoons. But whatever was going on, he’d had her back. Everything he’d done after she killed Charlie had been done to protect her.

  Before going inside. Liz texted Owen a message:

  I stole Charlie’s future. I promise I won’t take yours too.

  She pulled the key from the ignition and started for the door.

  The receptionist at the front desk looked up from his computer, then went back to typing.

  Liz could feel the sweat roll down her sides and her back. She held her purse as if it were a life preserver, close to her chest. She was sure she was going to vomit. By keeping the purse close, she felt she could control whatever her body was going to do.

  “I’d like to talk to Detective Nguyen,” she said.

  The receptionist, a man in his late thirties, balding, with a gold hoop in each ear, barely looked at her as he tapped on his keyboard. “Detective Nguyen is busy now, but she should be out soon,” he said. “Can you tell me what it is regarding?”

  Liz thought of turning around and leaving, but stayed put. “Yes,” she said, her voice catching just a little. “Charlie Franklin.”

  The receptionist’s flat affect swiftly turned to keen interest. He studied Liz over the tops of his black-framed readers, tracing her features, noting her fragile demeanor.

  “The missing boy?” he asked.

  Just then Liz saw herself through his eyes. She knew she looked a fright, but there was nothing to be done about that. “Yes,” she said. “I want to talk to her about Charlie.”

  He locked his eyes with hers. This lady was about to break down. He shifted uneasily in his chair. “Hey, are you going to be all right?”

  Liz didn’t answer right away. “I guess so,” she said finally.

  “All right, fine. Please have a seat.”

  It wasn’t fine, of course. Nothing would ever be fine again.

  Liz sat in a chair next to a silk ficus that needed to be dusted. A stack of magazines, labels removed with scissors to conceal the name of the subscriber, were fanned out on the coffee table. Her phone buzzed.

  It was a text from Owen.

  Are you at the police station?

  She wondered how he knew that. She texted back.

  Yes. I’m waiting.

  Owen texted back immediately.

  Don’t do this. Don’t.

  Owen Jarrett didn’t say a word to anyone. He grabbed his jacket and car keys and bolted from Lumatyx as though the place were on fire. Liz was at the police station. Holy. Fuck. She’d promised him. And now she was going to knife him in the back.

  She’d said she was waiting. Maybe she still hadn’t told anyone anything yet. Maybe there was time.

  He’d installed a tracker on her new phone and been compulsively checking it the way some people look at their social media pages for likes and updates.

  He’d known he couldn’t trust her.

  Esther looked at her phone and the message from the receptionist while the safety adviser continued with her mandatory training, highlighting the importance of bending at the knee and not lifting more than twenty-five pounds. The annual training was augmented by a video and opportunities for group discussion and role-playing. No one liked the session or the presenter.

  The message stared back at her.

  Woman here to see you re: Charlie Franklin. Seems like she’s on the brink of a breakdown.

  The training session would be over in ten minutes. If the end were twenty minutes away, she’d have gotten up and left. Ten minutes—she could wait that out.

  The roomful of clock-watchers sprang to its feet at break time. Esther motioned for Jake to follow.

  “Someone’s here with info on Charlie Franklin.”

  “Cool,” Jake said.

  The pair wound their way through the building to the reception area. It
was empty.

  “Carl?” she asked the receptionist.

  “They left. You just missed them.”

  “‘They’?” Esther repeated.

  “Yeah,” Carl said. “She left with a man. Her husband, I think.”

  “Did you get her name?”

  “No,” he said, waiting a beat. “Something better.”

  He slid Liz’s purse over to Esther and Jake. “She left this. Driver’s license is in there. Was just about to call. Her name is Elizabeth Jarrett.”

  Esther took the purse and looked at Jake.

  “We’ll take it to her,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  MISSING: TWENTY-SEVEN DAYS

  Liz found herself letting the weight of her body press against the door as she looked through the peephole. It was as though she needed something to keep her from falling to the floor.

  The detectives from the Bend Police Department were outside.

  “Who’s there?” Owen called over from the kitchen.

  “The police, Owen.”

  Her husband hurried over to her and leaned into her ear.

  “Don’t ruin everything,” he said. “I’ll kill myself if I lose you.”

  “I won’t,” she said.

  Owen reached for her hand. For a moment she thought that he was about to hold it, to give her some support. Instead, he pressed two pills into her palm.

  “Take these. I’ll let them in. Stay calm.”

  Liz nodded and disappeared into the kitchen for some water.

  Owen opened the door.

  “Mr. Jarrett,” Esther said, “we’re here to see your wife.”

  “What about?”

  “Well, to be honest, we’re not sure.”

  “She’s not feeling well. She hasn’t been feeling well for a while now. No surprise. It has been a very hard time for all of us.”

  “Right,” Esther said. “Can we come in?”

  “Like I said, she’s not well.”

  “For just a minute,” Jake chimed in.

  “I don’t see any point in it,” Owen said, letting them inside and shutting the door.

  “She was at the police department today,” Esther said.

  “Right,” Owen said. “She called me to come get her. She wasn’t feeling well.”

  “I see,” Esther said. “May we talk to her?”

  Owen was about to make some excuse when Liz emerged from the kitchen. Her appearance had changed dramatically since the first day the detectives had met her. She was no longer the picture of youthful beauty. She looked tired. Old. Her skin no longer blemish-free. Her hair dull. Even her outfit was at odds with the young woman who had been fastidious in her appearance. A food stain ran down the front along the zipper of her light blue jogging suit.

  “Liz,” Owen said, “the detectives want to know why it was that you came to see them today.”

  Liz stepped closer to the trio by the front door. Her movements were somehow both jittery and slow. She was a machine that hadn’t been used in a very long time.

  “Right,” she said. “I came by to see you.”

  “Yes,” Esther said. “That’s right. But when I came out to talk to you, you were gone.”

  “Owen’s right,” Liz said. “I wasn’t feeling well.”

  “You left this,” Esther said, handing over the purse.

  Liz stared at the purse like it was a foreign object, thinking a moment.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Like I said, I felt sick.”

  Esther kept her eyes on Liz. “Are you feeling better now?” she asked.

  Liz set the purse down and rubbed her temples. “No. Not at all. I think I need to lie down.”

  “My wife needs some rest,” Owen said. “This ordeal has been very hard on her.”

  “Of course,” Esther said. “But first, Mrs. Jarrett, do you mind telling us why you came to see us? Did you have some information that might be helpful about Charlie? Do you know something about his disappearance?”

  “I need to lie down,” she said. “I really don’t feel well.”

  Esther persisted. “All right. I understand. Then why did you come?”

  Owen interjected. “Can’t you see she’s a wreck? She’s heartbroken. She wanted to know why the hell you people haven’t found Charlie. It’s killing her. It’s killing Carole.”

  Esther ignored Owen. “Is that why you came to see me?”

  Liz slumped backward onto the sofa. Her fall was hard, not a soft landing at all. Nearly a free fall. “What Owen said. I just wanted to see if there was anything we could do. That’s why.”

  Esther didn’t think so. “It’s more than that, isn’t it, Liz?”

  Liz blinked, and her eyes rolled back into her head.

  “Is she all right?” the detective said, turning to Owen.

  “She’s fine,” he said. “She took a sedative before you came. That’s how messed up she is by all of this. It’s tearing her apart. You can only cry so much before you look for new ways to ease the pain. I think you both should leave right now.”

  “Maybe she needs a doctor,” Esther said.

  Owen got up and went to the front door. He swung it open. His movements were abrupt. “What she needs is for you to do your job,” he said. “We all need that. Your department is the sorriest excuse for a police force in the state. Little kid goes missing and you do nothing. Shame on you both.”

  “Well, that was quite a show,” Esther said to Jake on the way to the car. “Mr. Lumatyx doesn’t seem to want his wife telling us anything.”

  “She’s obviously fragile,” Jake said, opening the passenger-side door. “Maybe he’s just protecting her.”

  “That’s what he wants us to think. He yanked her out of our office as fast as he could. She didn’t even take her purse.”

  “Maybe she really was having a breakdown and he wanted to save her from making a public scene.”

  “He’s all about appearances, that’s for sure,” Esther said. “Those jeans he was wearing cost three hundred dollars. The watch, four grand.”

  “That’s a lot of dough,” Jake said. “How do you know that?”

  “I was married to a guy like that. Everything had to be the best. I wore the same three suits all week long and he had to have a new one every month. My ex was definitely an Owen Jarrett type.”

  “If she has something to say, what do you think it would be?”

  “My guess is that she has information about Charlie’s disappearance as it relates to someone close to her. I don’t think she witnessed anything. She’d have told us that on the first day. Someone must have disclosed something or she found out something on her own. Look at her. She’s a mess because something terrible is eating her from the inside out.”

  “I thought she was going to pass out,” Jake said.

  “She knows something.”

  “Like she’s protecting someone.”

  “Right.”

  “Then who? Her husband?”

  Esther started the car. “Maybe. But I don’t think so. He was at work when Charlie went missing.”

  “And she was at her exam.”

  “Yes. My guess is that it all ties back to Carole and what happened that morning.”

  “You think Carole did something to her own son?”

  “I don’t want to think that,” she said. “But we can’t account for what she was doing after David left for work at seven and when she talked to the insurance adjuster. She had several hours alone with her boy.”

  “She doesn’t seem to be the type,” Jake said.

  “The type never seems to be the type,” Esther said, wincing at her words. “You know what I mean. You just can’t ever know what’s in someone’s heart, Jake. Not based on how they look, the money they have, their education, whatever. Sometimes there’s a lot of ugly behind perfection.”

  “Carole seems genuinely distraught.”

  “She does, I’ll give you that. The truth is we can’t know what’s be
hind someone’s emotions. Half the time we project what we think we’d be feeling if we’d found ourselves in the same dire situation. Empathy is often misplaced.”

  “That’s a pretty jaded opinion, Esther. Sorry, but it is.”

  “I know. You’re just starting out. Give yourself some time. What we see up close changes us.”

  Jake refused to be convinced. “A mother killing her own child? I just don’t buy it. Not this mother.”

  “People said the same thing about Susan Smith and Diane Downs.”

  “Those were genuinely evil women,” he said.

  “Not to the people who knew them before their crimes. Before the outer layer was peeled off from their personas, they came across as normal, loving moms. Carole Franklin might be like that.”

  “You think Carole’s guilty and Liz knows it?” he said.

  Esther shrugged. “They are close. Carole’s staying with her. Maybe she said something that got Liz thinking. Maybe she flat-out confessed.”

  “Well, Carole Franklin’s not talking to us.”

  “Not at the moment. All roads lead back to Liz.”

  “We need to get to her when her husband isn’t around,” Jake said.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  MISSING: TWENTY-EIGHT DAYS

  Liz hadn’t been over to the Miller place in a very long time. A decade. No. Much longer. There were times when she had wanted to stop by the place that had been the starting point for so many summertime adventures on the river. One summer she and Seth had it in their minds that they wanted to go inside the beaver lodge that slowed the river to the point where the surface was a sheet of glass a hundred yards downriver. They spent three days preparing for it. Jimmy ruined everything by insisting he and a baggie full of firecrackers would be just the right addition to their plan. He was kidding, he claimed, but the very idea of blowing up the beaver dam was too much for Liz. She didn’t want to do anything that would hurt those funny animals. She’d only wanted a closer look inside their home and, truth be told, a chance to hold one of those tiny kits that she’d seen bobbing like glossy-furred corks near the lodge.

  It wasn’t Jimmy who changed things. It was the tragedy at Diamond Lake that morphed into an impenetrable force field between the two families. She’d thought of coming over to see Dr. Miller to make amends for the part she might have played in the doctor’s downturn.