The Night Shift, page 12
“No, I mean she’d already gotten it taken care of. So maybe the fight had something to do with that. The family had been through enough, and they were super-religious types. And her mother was old friends with someone from our office…”
“Who was that?” Keller asks.
Grosso shakes his head. “He wasn’t on the task force. I don’t remember his name. But he was tight with the mother. Said it would devastate the family if it came out. So we kept it quiet. I figured it might need to come out if Whitaker was ever caught and went to trial.” Grosso looks up, like he’s trying to conjure the memory. “For the life of me, I can’t remember the fella’s name. He was lucky that he wasn’t officially on the team; probably saved his job. If it’s not in the file, you can ask the victim’s mom.”
Keller nods. Someone from the Union County Prosecutor’s Office had a connection with Katie McKenzie’s family. Maybe this someone knew what the killer had said to Ella Monroe. Or maybe there’s more to it.
CHAPTER 30
ELLA
In the back of the limousine, Jesse’s fascinated by the luxurious interior. She plays with the mood lights. Ella shakes her head to stop. Jesse plugs her phone in its Hello Kitty case into the aux cord and her playlist, loud and angry, comes through the speakers. Ella gestures for her to turn it down. Jesse opens the mini bar and peers inside. Ella gives her a Don’t even think about it look.
When the novelty wears off, they sit quietly, the only sound the hum of tires on asphalt.
Ella tries to contain her emotions. She’s angry. At Phyllis, for being Phyllis. At herself, for letting her mother get under her skin. At Mr. Steadman, for pulling her into this mess. At Jesse, for making Ella lose all sound judgment. She chides herself for getting angry at a victim, a traumatized child, at that.
Jesse turns to her. “You’re giving me great color for my story.”
Traumatized kid or not, Ella is tiring of this game. But she bites: “Like what?”
“Like, you’ve got to have a trust fund, right? So what the hell were you doing working at a video store? What were you trying to prove to your mom? To yourself? And why the hell do you live in a low-end apartment complex in Linden?”
How does this girl know where she lives—actually, where she used to live, since Brad has thrown her out?
Jesse continues: “And what’s with the beat-up Nissan?” She looks out the window at Ella’s car as the limo pulls to the curb in front of Corky’s Tavern.
The privacy window hisses down. Charles twists around. “I’m sorry, Eloise. But I need to drop you here. The car won’t be able to maneuver out of the lot—it’s too narrow.”
Ella’s car is the only vehicle parked at Corky’s. Right where she left it last night, before her intoxicated Uber ride to the Target. There’s some type of construction work at the far end of the lot. Orange cones surround a hole in the asphalt covered with a slab of steel.
It takes her back to the Blockbuster parking lot. Stevie standing in the empty space on a Sunday before the store opened. He’d put out cones and was shaking his head as Katie ran them over, trying to parallel park. Stevie may have acted exasperated but he had a soft spot for all the girls. Katie finally had gotten her permit and her driver’s test was coming up.
Stepping out of the limo, Ella suppresses a sob. Katie passed the test the day before she was killed.
*
As she drives to Jesse’s house, Ella rehearses in her head what she’ll say to the foster mother. How to explain? Keep it simple, she supposes. There was a misunderstanding at the Target and Jesse called her. It was late, so they went to Ella’s mother’s house and stayed over.
She imagines the foster mother asking the obvious question: Why didn’t you call? There’s no good answer for that. And unless the woman’s as indifferent as Jesse claims, this is going to be a disaster.
“You okay?” Jesse asks.
This makes it even worse: Jesse thinking she has to manage Ella.
“I’m fine,” Ella says, rounding the corner to Jesse’s street. “So, when we talk to your foster mother, I think I’ll tell her—”
From the passenger seat, Jesse holds up a hand, her face bloodless.
Ella follows her gaze. In front of her house are several police cars.
What the hell? That’s a ridiculous amount of backup for a teen missing less than twenty-four hours.
“Pull over,” Jesse tells her.
“What? No.” Ella hesitates, thinks. “I’ll come with you. I can explain.”
“Please.” Jesse’s tone is desperate, the tough kid morphing into a little girl again.
Ella turns down a side street and eases to the curb. “Look, it’s going to be okay. You won’t be in trouble. I’ll talk to the police and your foster parents.”
But Jesse already has her seat belt off. She flings open the door. “It’ll be better if I go alone.”
“I don’t think that’s—”
“I don’t want you to get in trouble,” Jesse says.
Ella thinks about this. She may indeed face some consequences. She’s a therapist and she’s kept a teen girl out all night without permission. Not to mention the breaking and entering at the rail yard. Running from the police.
No, she won’t leave her. She’s the adult. She needs to act like it.
But in the nanoseconds that it takes to complete the thought, Jesse’s out of the car.
“Thanks for everything,” she says, slamming the door shut.
“Jesse, wait.”
But she’s already running. Down the street and through someone’s backyard. Away from her house.
CHAPTER 31
Ella’s knuckles are white, clenched to the steering wheel, as she drives aimlessly. What to do? She’s already canceled all sessions for the day. She doesn’t have a home. She’s at odds with her mother (again). And she doesn’t really have any friends. No one to talk to about what she’s feeling. Dread is consuming her.
What’s causing this sense of imminent doom? Obviously, it’s what Jesse told her. That she’d lied about what happened: she’d had a dispute with one of the victims at the Dairy Creamery.
But it’s more than that. It’s the feeling that Ella’s had ever since Y2K. The foreboding has dulled over the years. From the pills. From the denial. From the faking it with Brad. But the beast is back.
She decides to stop by the apartment—what Jesse called her “low-end” abode—to change her clothes, pack some things. Brad will be at work, so better to go now. At the front door, she slides the key into the slot, relieved when it clicks open. Brad hasn’t changed the lock at least. Not yet, anyway.
After showering and getting dressed, she finds two empty suitcases in the storage closet: one is Brad’s but, oh well. She begins stuffing her clothes in. On the nightstand, she sees that the photograph of them—one of Brad’s favorites—is facedown.
She’s feeling guilty. Not for leaving. That’s the best decision she’s made in a long time, one Brad will thank her for one day. She feels remorse for betraying him. For pretending for so long. He may be boring as shit, as Jesse said, but he’s not a bad person.
In the bathroom, she packs her toiletries. She finds the small makeup bag behind the box of tampons, a place she knew Brad would never venture.
She unzips the bag. Inside are a cluster of orange pill bottles. She pulls one out and walks to the toilet. She’s going to dump them. Flush every pill from this bottle and every other vial and never look back.
Uncapping the bottle, she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She stares at her reflection. This could be one of those moments in life, a turning point, something she’ll want to remember.
Who’s she kidding? She rolls a pill from the bottle, pops it in her mouth, then clicks on the childproof cap. She stuffs the bottle in the makeup bag and carries it and her toothbrush and jams them in the suitcase.
She debates what else to take.
He can have the rest, she decides.
No, there is one more thing. She heads to the bookshelf in the corner of the room. It’s stuffed with those motivational business books Brad loves and some paperbacks. She pulls one of the few hardcovers from the shelf: A Farewell to Arms. A book her father gave her after Blockbuster. She riffles through the pages and stops at the bookmark—a photo booth strip, black-and-white photos taken shortly before her world changed. When she was herself. She can see the difference in her face. Next to her sits a boy. Oh, god, where is he now? In a different life, she’d be on Facebook stalking him. Reconnecting with a first love. She finds the passage her father highlighted in yellow: The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. The world certainly hadn’t made her father stronger at the broken places.
She closes the book and then shoves it in her handbag.
She then drags the heavy bags to the front door. She refuses to turn around and do that last-look thing people do. She doesn’t need this shot on her mental camera reel.
Back in the car, she fights the urge to cry. “Hurt,” the Johnny Cash version, plays on the radio, a song both beautiful and crushingly heartbreaking at the same time.
Now what?
She’ll find a hotel, she supposes.
She thinks about Jesse, then texts Principal Steadman to see if he can meet her after school. She needs to know more about this girl. What happened between Jesse and the victims. What happened at her last school. What happened to her family.
At the same time, she fears what she’ll learn.
CHAPTER 32
KELLER
Keller breathes through her teeth in the tobacco-stained living room of Tawny O’Shaughnessy, mother of Blockbuster victim Candy O’Shaughnessy. The space is cluttered, filled with porcelain figurines of angels, and shag carpet that has seen better days. The woman across from Keller and Atticus has also seen better days. She’s either in her fifties or sixties, it’s hard to say, and she has bleached-blond hair and wears dark liner around watery eyes, like she’s taking style tips from a 1980s Def Leppard video. But she has a sweet demeanor and welcomes them into her home.
“He’s so handsome,” she says in her gravelly voice, staring at Atticus, who’s perched on a worn lounge chair across from the couch, looking uncomfortable. Between them, a coffee table holds several remote controls and an ashtray filled with butts.
Keller smiles. She’s standing, explaining that it’s because of her back.
“I’ve been there, honey,” Ms. O’Shaughnessy says. “My Candy, she was a kicker. Two days of labor and, I swear … she grabbed onto my ribs and they had to yank her out.” She gives the saddest of sentimental smiles.
“We’re sorry to barge in on you, but we have some follow-up questions,” Keller says.
“I assumed,” Ms. O’Shaughnessy says. “When I saw what happened at the ice cream store, I thought I might get a visit.”
“Why is that?”
“The case seems to perk up when something happens. Usually it’s a TV show about the murders, or a mass killing somewhere, and reporters call. Not as often anymore, though. And rarely a home visit from the police, much less the FBI. I used to call over to Union County every day, but after a while you just have to accept it.”
It’s true, Keller knows. Vince Whitaker’s trail went cold long ago. The only reason she’s here is another tragedy. And if they don’t find Whitaker, there probably won’t be another visit to Tawny O’Shaughnessy until another mass slaying or new Dateline episode. But, looking at Atticus, the earnest detective who took a keen interest in the cold case on his own time, even before the ice cream store tragedy, Keller hopes she’s wrong.
“I’m sorry you have to relive this every time,” she offers.
Ms. O’Shaughnessy nods. “It’s okay, hon, you’re just doing your job. And Detective Singh can come by any time.” She smiles at Atticus, who tries not to blush.
“We’re going back through the file. Looking at it with fresh eyes. And we wanted to talk a little about Candy, if you wouldn’t mind?” Keller says.
Ms. O’Shaughnessy smiles. “I love to talk about my daughter. People forget that. It makes them uncomfortable. But she was my baby, my life. And after her no-good father left, she was my best friend. We told each other everything.”
Keller isn’t a mother yet, but her heart hurts for this woman. She’s gotten a taste of what’s to come. On those days when the twins haven’t kicked in a while, she waits for long, excruciating minutes until she feels movement. That sensation only gets more intense, exponentially stronger, with each second of our children’s lives, Keller surmises.
“I wonder if you could tell us a little about your daughter’s life at the time.”
Keller doesn’t need to know so much, it’s a question that risks a long, irrelevant detour, but she feels like Ms. O’Shaughnessy needs it.
“Oh, where to start? She was wonderful. A spitfire, like me when I was young. But she knew who she was and made no apologies for it.”
Ms. O’Shaughnessy reaches for the glass of brown liquid, which Keller assumes is not iced tea. Jameson, by the faint aroma and slight slur in Ms. O’Shaughnessy’s voice.
She tells them about a headstrong young girl who was fiercely independent. Candy didn’t want or need a boyfriend, and probably partied more than she should. She worked hard to help her mom, given that her deadbeat dad was years behind on child support. Her mom worked as a bartender at a Hilton hotel, and Candy worked at the Blockbuster. She’d been accepted to nursing school over in Irvington.
“She had the temperament for it. She liked to help people, but she also took charge of situations, didn’t rattle under pressure, and most certainly would put an arrogant doctor in his place if she needed to.” Ms. O’Shaughnessy has a faraway look, possibly imagining her daughter in a nursing uniform, living the life that was stolen from her.
“Did she ever talk about Vince Whitaker?”
“Ah, ‘he who must not be named,’” Ms. O’Shaughnessy says. “I don’t remember her talking about him directly, but she talked a lot about the gals she worked with at the store.”
“What did she say?”
“She said one of the gals, I always mixed up their names, was seeing some boy her parents wouldn’t approve of. You know teenage girls.”
Keller has never been one for drama and in high school she surrounded herself with sensible girls, but she understands.
Ms. O’Shaughnessy continues, “Candy told me one of the girls got herself in trouble.”
“Pregnant,” Keller says, a statement, not a question.
Ms. O’Shaughnessy nods. “And the guy was obsessive, abusive. Candy said she was gonna give him a piece of her mind. Her and Mandy both.”
“By Mandy, you mean the other victim, Amanda Young?”
“Right.”
“So you think maybe they did that, and—”
Ms. O’Shaughnessy cuts in with an exaggerated nod. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. I mean, why else kill them all?”
It’s the same theory as Grosso’s. Yet something bothers Keller. If Katie McKenzie had taken care of the pregnancy, would Vince Whitaker kill her over that? Or were they fighting about something else?
A tear spills down Ms. O’Shaughnessy’s cheek. “It was just so like her, speaking up for someone. Trying to help.”
Keller and Atticus remain quiet, allowing Ms. O’Shaughnessy to collect herself. She dabs her eyes with a tissue, the eyeliner smearing now.
Keller finally asks, “Did Candy ever talk about the survivor, Ella Monroe?”
Ms. O’Shaughnessy thinks about this. “I always get them mixed up. You know, back then, they were mostly her work friends. She and Mandy were tight, but the others, they ran in different circles. I think she talked about Ella, the rich kid, but nothing sticks out in my mind. I mostly remember her saying they were gonna help the religious girl with all that drama she was having with the older guy.”
“How about the parents of the other victims? Do you keep in touch with them?”
Ms. O’Shaughnessy shakes her head. “At first, we got together, you know, for support. But I didn’t really connect with any of them.”
“Any particular reason why?”
“The fathers were all macho, you know? Like they were gonna break into the jail and beat the kid up. And I’ve had enough macho types in my life. And, I don’t know, one girl’s parents were Bible-thumpers. And the other dad had some condition, so it was hard to be around him.”
Keller thinks about Walter Young at the insurance company.
“I met Ella’s folks only once. And they were hoity-toity.” She takes a pull of the drink. “And after a while, we all lost touch. At some point, I just decided that I needed to accept it and that Candy would’ve wanted me to move on.”
Keller turns to Atticus to see if he has anything more. He leans in, looks Ms. O’Shaughnessy in the eyes, and speaks in a soft voice: “She was lucky to have you as her mom.” It’s unnecessary, serves no purpose since they’re closing the interview.
Ms. O’Shaughnessy gazes at Atticus. “This one,” she says, pointing her drink at Atticus, then directing her gaze to Keller. “We’ve gotta find him a nice girl. He’s a keeper.”
CHAPTER 33
ELLA
Mr. Steadman looks tired. He’s probably had little sleep since Ella saw him at the hospital yesterday. Could that have been only yesterday?
Like most educators, Steadman’s job doesn’t end when the bell rings. Terrible hours, but at least the pay is bad, he always jokes. To make ends meet, he has a couple side hustles, including tutoring and running a driving school.
He agreed to meet with Ella at their usual spot, Daisy’s Delights, a cupcake store in downtown Linden. They’d been meeting in this spot on and off for fifteen years, though for the first ten Daisy’s had been a coffee shop. Mr. Steadman brings two cupcakes to their table, a red velvet and a vanilla.
“How are you holding up?” he asks.
“I should ask you the same thing,” Ella says, watching him peel the cupcake’s paper shell. This has to be his only vice.
