Abbie squinted at her phone. She blinked her eyes a few times so that she could read the name of the caller.
“Clarke?” Abbie said.
She was still groggy.
“There’s been another death. You need to get over here right now.”
“Where?”
“The Grants’ house. It’s Jess,” Clarke said.
“I’ll be right there.”
* * *
By the time she arrived, Jessica’s parents were sitting with Henderson in the living room. The dead girl’s father had his arm wrapped around his wife’s shoulders, as if he could somehow protect her. Silent tears were streaming down the mom’s cheeks, but she wasn’t making a sound. She just sat there, suffering in silence. Henderson glanced at Abbie and nodded his head her way, almost imperceptibly, acknowledging her.
Abbie walked up the half-flight of carpeted stairs to Jessica’s bedroom. The room was all pink flowers and white wicker. There were high school dance pictures stuck in the frame of the full-length mirror in the corner of the room. Jessica’s white vanity was overflowing with drugstore makeup and tools to dry, straighten, or curl hair. Blue and red pom-poms hung over the vanity mirror. There was a white dresser against a pink-and-white striped wall. On top were a few bottles of perfume, some trophies with gold or silver figurines of girls holding pom-poms, and a stack of magazines titled Celestial Shine. On the other side of the room was a desk somewhere underneath piles of clothes and papers.
The nightstand was as cluttered as the rest of the room. There was a large framed picture of a family hanging over the desk. Abbie recognized the parents downstairs in their much-younger versions, along with children who were all adults now. There was also a dark-orange prescription bottle with a childproof white cap.
A white twin bed jutted from the wall into the middle of the room. Above the headboard hung a pale-pink poster of the Linda Gay Perry Nelson poem “My Three White Dresses”—not a poem Abbie would have chosen to frame. The poetess celebrated a woman’s life by reducing it to the three times she wore a white dress: the day she was blessed as a baby, the day she was baptized into the Church, and the day she was married “without stain” in the temple.
Jessica’s body lay on top of the bed. She was dressed in a white cotton nightgown that reached her ankles. Her face was pale as paper, her arms folded across her stomach. You could see her silver CTR ring on her right hand, the same hand that was holding the bowie knife. A deep gash ran under her chin from her left ear to her right. Blood stained the pink floral sheets and pillow.
“Do we have any idea about time of death?” Abbie asked the on-call ME.
“Not more than a few hours.”
“Would you care to venture a guess about whether this was self-inflicted?” Abbie pressed.
The ME looked at Abbie and arched his right eyebrow. “No, I wouldn’t. I’ve seen too many gory suicides to think this couldn’t be done by someone’s own hand. It’s amazing what teenagers are doing now. They’ll have a better idea once they look at her in Taylorsville.”
Jessica’s room reminded Abbie of a tableau in Romeo and Juliet she’d seen years ago at the Shakespeare Festival down in Cedar City. Juliet had been played by a beautiful actress with long, brown hair that hung in loose curls down her back. The actress had worn a demure white ruffled nightgown in the final suicide scene. When she plunged the dagger into her chest, dark-red stage blood spread tragically down the pristine white fabric. The image had been so unsettling that, years later, Abbie still felt the visceral reaction she’d had when the scene was performed on stage in the replica of the Globe theater in southern Utah.
“It looks staged to me,” Clarke said as if he had read Abbie’s mind. He’d been taking pictures of the room for a while now. He looked haggard and much older than his twenty-something years. He looked as if he’d aged a decade since she’d seen him yesterday. Young people’s deaths did that to you.
Abbie left the commotion of Jessica’s room and walked back downstairs. Henderson had left the grieving parents with a number of their grown children.
“Her mom found her,” Henderson told Abbie in the hallway outside of the parents’ earshot. “They last saw her early this morning before church. They were heading to Bountiful, where one of their granddaughters was playing the organ in Sacrament Meeting.”
Henderson looked broken. “I know we just saw her at church this morning. Apparently she met up with some friends for lunch. We’re still trying to get everyone’s stories straight to get a reliable timeline. Her parents didn’t get back from Bountiful until late. They went to bed without checking on her, but her mom peaked into Jessica’s room when she woke up in the middle of the night to get some water.”
“So the last time her parents saw her alive was Sunday morning, but you and I saw her at church around noon?” Abbie asked.
“Yes,” Henderson said.
“And we’re figuring out the rest of the timeline right now?”
“Yes. The Grants may be clearer on all these details in the morning. Right now I think they’re in shock.”
“Did you ask them about the prescription for Ativan?” Abbie asked.
“What?”
“There was an empty bottle of Ativan on the nightstand. The prescription had been filled two days ago. It should have been nearly full,” Abbie said.
“I didn’t notice it,” Henderson said.
Abbie couldn’t blame him. Everyone on the scene looked stricken. Children and young people were the hardest deaths to deal with. They just seemed wrong. Abbie didn’t know a cop around, regardless of toughness, who didn’t feel at least a hint of grief when a young person died of unnatural causes.
“You can go ahead and talk to them if you want, but keep it short. We can always talk to them later,” Henderson said. “I need to get some air.”
Abbie stepped aside in the narrow hallway to let Henderson pass. She had never seen him look so deeply sad. She walked into the living room. The Grants were collapsed on the sofa in what could only be described as despair.
“Brother and Sister Grant, I’m so sorry. There are no words,” Abbie said. She reached out to touch the mother’s shoulder. Abbie knew all the thoughtless things people said to a person grieving the loss of a loved one. In the last few years, she had been on the receiving end of some pretty callous comments. She had vowed never to say anything like “It was for the best” or “She’s in a better place.” It was amazing the things that came out of people’s mouths.
The air in the living room was heavy. Utah didn’t have high humidity, so it wasn’t as if the air really could feel oppressive the way it could in places like Florida or even New York in the summer. This felt like the house itself knew something terrible had happened.
“Detective,” Jessica’s father said, interrupting the silence. “What can we do to help you?”
“I don’t want to burden you now with too many questions, but I have a few. You last saw Jessica this morning before you left for church?
“Yes. She was still in bed, but we had to leave early to make it to Bountiful,” Sister Grant said. “She was texting some friends on her phone. I kissed her good-bye.”
“When did you get home?”
Jessica’s father answered, “Around ten fifteen, I think. We had dinner at my son’s and then drove back. We thought Jessica was asleep, so we didn’t look in on her.”
“Thanks,” Abbie said, then asked, “Can either of you tell me how long Jessica had been taking Ativan?”
Both parents looked surprised.
“Ativan?” Jessica’s dad asked.
“It’s a prescription drug to reduce anxiety,” Abbie replied.
Jessica’s parents looked genuinely perplexed.
“I don’t know anything about it. I didn’t know she felt like she needed…” The mom’s eyes filled with tears. Abbie wished she could have spared them the question, but she couldn’t.
Abbie glanced across the room and saw two of Jessica’
s brothers. They exchanged a look. They knew about the prescription.
“Thank you. Again, I’m so sorry for your loss.” There really was nothing else to say to parents who had just walked in on the gruesome remains of their youngest daughter.
Clarke came downstairs. “I’ve finished with the pictures.”
“Okay,” Abbie said. “Let’s talk to the brothers.”
Abbie and Clarke walked over to the two men Abbie had seen react when she’d asked Jessica’s parents about the Ativan.
“I know this is a really hard time, but the sooner we know the basic facts, the sooner we can figure out what happened.”
“Sure,” the older of the two said. “Maybe we should go outside.”
Clarke and Abbie followed the brothers into a small kitchen and through a back door.
“Did either of you see your sister today?” Abbie asked.
“I didn’t,” Tom, the older brother said, then looked at Jake, his younger brother.
Clarke piped in, “Jake, did you see Jess today?” Clarke then turned to Abbie. “Jake and I were at Weber State together,” he said.
“I saw her in the afternoon. Probably around four. After church.”
“How did she seem to you?” Abbie asked. She didn’t think this death was any more a suicide than Steve Smith’s had been, but it was premature to rule anything out.
“Like Jess. All unicorns and rainbows.” Abbie couldn’t help but notice a little sarcasm in his voice. It seemed jarring under the circumstances.
“What do you mean?” Abbie asked.
“Nothing. Only that Jess kinda lived in her own world. She was a bit of a princess waiting to be rescued,” Jake said.
Abbie turned to Tom. “Do you agree?”
“I wouldn’t have put it that way, but yeah, Jess was the baby of the family, and she acted like it. We all loved her and protected her. By the time she was born, our parents had already had four of us. They were tired. They gave in to what she wanted a lot more than they had with the rest of us.” Tom didn’t sound angry or jealous, just matter-of-fact.
“Had either of you noticed a change in her mood in the last few weeks?” Abbie asked.
The two looked at each other.
Clarke spoke up. “Listen, we don’t know what we’re dealing with right now. The more you can tell us, the better.” Abbie felt a shift in the brothers’ demeanor. Clarke had read the situation correctly and said the right thing.
“Okay, so, Jess was kind of giddy two weeks ago,” Jake said. Tom nodded his head in agreement. “She wouldn’t tell me what was going on, which was a little weird because we were really close, since we’re the only two who live at home and she’s only sixteen months younger than I am. Anyway, she was kind of floating on air. Then, I don’t know, about a week ago, she just took a dive. My mom was worried. She wasn’t eating again.”
“What do you mean, she wasn’t eating again?” Abbie asked.
Jake looked at his older brother as if he were asking permission. Tom closed his eyes slowly, which, apparently, was all the permission the younger sibling needed.
“Okay, there was a while in high school, a couple of years maybe, when Jess was sort of anorexic. It never got so bad that all her hair fell out or anything like that, but it was bad, bad enough that she had to go away for a summer to some special center to learn how to eat. It was really expensive, too. Luckily, our sister had money and paid for the whole thing. Anyway, now whenever Jess is going through a rough patch, we’re all on high alert about her eating. We know how to spot it when she cuts up food on her plate, pushes it around, but never eats it. We know to look for the excessive exercising. You know, all the stuff you have to be aware of when an anorexic relapses.”
“Any idea why she went from being on top of the world to not eating?” Abbie asked.
“No,” Jake said.
Abbie turned to Tom. “Do you have any idea what happened?”
“I wish I did,” he said. “My guess would have been that it had something to do with a guy, but I don’t think she was seeing anyone.”
Abbie saw something register on Jake’s face. “Was she dating?” she asked.
Jake looked at the ground and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know.” He was lying, but Abbie had a feeling he was not going to open up in front of his older brother.
“So, what do you know about the Ativan?” Abbie asked.
This time Tom spoke first. “We all knew about it. I mean, not our parents, but all of us.” Abbie understood “us” to mean Jessica’s brothers and sister. “After the anorexia scare in high school, we all were keeping an eye out for her. There was a point in her sophomore year in college when things were going badly. She was struggling with her grades and it didn’t seem like she could keep up. Our dad’s a teacher. Doing well in school matters. Jess was not really an academic, so she always had a hard time. Anyway, Sariah—that’s our sister—saw the signs first. We had a sort of sibling meeting and decided the best thing would be to get Jess in to see a therapist. She got the Ativan then and has been taking it ever since.”
“Your parents don’t know about it?”
The two brothers shook their heads at the same time. “They’re kind of old school. They don’t think you should ever need to see a psychologist for anything. You should be able to deal with all your emotional problems on your own or with the help of prayer and church. Jess needed more help than that,” Jake said.
“Do you know if she was seeing a therapist again? For more than just refilling prescriptions?” Abbie asked.
“I don’t think she was, but I don’t know. I don’t live here,” Tom explained. Jake didn’t say anything.
“I don’t think there’s any good way to ask this, but do either of you know anyone who’d want to hurt Jessica?” Abbie looked at each of the brothers.
“Not a soul,” the older brother said.
Jake piped in, “Jess may have been irritating with all her fairy tale stuff, but everyone loved her. Nobody could ever even stay mad at her.”
“Okay. Thanks for your help. I’m so sorry for your loss. We’ll be in touch soon.” Abbie handed them each her card. “Please reach out to me or Jim if either one of you remembers anything or thinks of anything that might help us.”
Abbie and Clarke had started to walk back toward the kitchen when Jake asked, “You don’t think she killed herself, do you?”
Abbie looked back at Jessica’s brother. “At this point, I don’t have enough information to know. Do you have any reason to think she might have?”
“I don’t know what a person is like when they’re suicidal, but Jess was pretty despondent this past week. Whatever happened was major. She seemed really hopeless. I don’t think she had it in her to kill herself. She wasn’t like that, but she was worse off than even the lowest point of her anorexia. Not every second, sometimes she even seemed normal, but this week was the worst I’d ever seen.”
“Thank you,” Abbie said. “I think we should let you be with your parents. It might be a good idea if none of you sleep here tonight. I know we’ll have officers in Jessica’s room for most of the night.”
Tom assured Abbie and Clarke that everyone would be staying at his place for the foreseeable future. By the time they returned to the living room, the rest of the family had arrived—Sariah Morris and a man who, judging by the family resemblance, must have been the middle brother.
They were praying.
TWENTY-SEVEN
When the alarm went off, Abbie decided sleep was more important to her health than an early morning run. In the cruel way that only alarm clocks manage, the snooze alarm buzzed only a few seconds later, even though the clock maintained it had been ten minutes since it had last made its presence known. The citrus scent of her grapefruit shower gel did nothing to make her feel alert. Jessica’s death had crawled into Abbie’s head. Last Sunday, Smith had died. They had found his body the next morning. This Sunday, Jess had died. Abbie felt accountable for Jessica’s de
ath. If Jessica had killed herself, could Abbie have prevented it? If Jessica’s death was a homicide, would she be alive if they’d caught Smith’s killer? There wasn’t a scenario Abbie could think of that relieved her of the dreadful weight of responsibility.
Abbie stopped in the local coffee and bagel shop on her way to work. She needed caffeine. The coffee was tolerable. The bagels weren’t, but they would have to do.
She walked into the station. “Good morning.” Her voice sounded as exhausted as she felt. Clarke was already at his desk studying the pictures he had taken just a few hours earlier. Abbie handed him an orange juice and large poppy bagel with cream cheese, red onion, and smoked salmon.
“Thanks.” Clarke unwrapped the bagel and took a large bite. His desk, which was usually littered with candy bar wrappers and the remnants of whatever snack he had just eaten, was detritus-free. He had to be hungry.
“We need to talk to Jessica’s parents again. Can you track down where the older brother lives? We need to know whether they had any idea about Jessica’s relationship with Smith.”
Clarke swallowed the bite of bagel he was chewing and said, “Sure, I’ll call Jake.”
Abbie walked to her office. The normal sounds of the station were muted. Sadness had muted the day-to-day noise of police work. It felt wrong to smile.
Abbie had just managed to sit down and take her first sip of coffee when Clarke appeared in her doorway.
“We can head over there now. Jake said they’re not doing so well, but that’s probably to be expected.”
“Okay. Let’s go, then.”
Clarke climbed into the passenger side of the Range Rover. He served as navigator, and a few minutes later they arrived in front of a split-level house in an older neighborhood in Pleasant View. The entire street was lined with modest-looking, well-maintained houses, probably built in the 1950s and 1960s. There was an older-model Lincoln Town Car parked in the driveway and a brand-new GMC pickup truck.
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