The Bachelorette Party, page 14
“I’m ready,” I say, interrupting him.
He’s right. I need to trust him. He isn’t just a Chris rebound. My mom’s wrong. I do love him. I know that I do.
“I’m ready,” I say again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
AUGUST
The next morning, we kiss each other goodbye, but an air of mistrust lingers between us. Jay’s rightfully upset at me for sneaking around his office. And I feel rightfully guilty about that.
But I still feel unsettled inside, like he’s not telling me the whole truth. I try to put it out of my mind, to put my full focus on my meeting with Adam Redmond, the stepfather.
He’s living in Hudson Valley about an hour away from his old house, teaching high school English now. As I walk into the Cooper bar from the sunny day, my eyes take a moment to adjust to the darkness of the room.
The place looks lifeless and depressing. Dead, like a mall after closing time. A pool table stands unused in one corner, a jukebox in another. The long-bearded bartender stands there cleaning glasses, like a stock “bartender” character from a movie. A lone man sits at the bar with a drink. A country song plays over the speakers to no one but them.
“Mr. Redmond?” I ask, sitting down next to him. “Alex Conley,” I say to his nod.
Adam Redmond is a good-looking man, no denying that. He’s tall, with broad shoulders, blond hair with streaks of gray, and silver-blue eyes. He would look more appropriate strutting around Wall Street than sitting at this dank bar.
“You want something?” he asks, spinning to face the bar again.
“A Coke,” I tell the bartender.
Adam throws back his drink, the ice cubes clacking. He taps the table for another, and the bartender obliges. He seems like a regular.
“So,” he says, a puff of alcohol coming out with the word.
“So,” I answer, with a sturdy smile. I place my notebook on the bar.
“I understand you have questions,” he says, with a hint of a slur to the words. “Go ahead. Ask them. I have nothing to hide.”
“I spoke with Eric Myers,” I say, as my drink is deposited next to me.
His face sours at the name. “Is that so?”
“Yes, I’m doing an anniversary profile, like I said.”
Adam sneers at this. “What an anniversary that is.”
I nod, patiently. “I know … he’s not the most trustworthy. And he has reason to lie. But … he said you had issues with your stepdaughter.”
He shrugs, staring at his drink. After a long moment, he says, “I suppose we did.”
The straightforward answer surprises me. “Because?” I ask.
Adam cradles his glass but doesn’t drink from it. “Here’s the truth, Alex Conley. When you marry someone with kids, you’re marrying them too, like it or not. And I loved her mom. Hopelessly, in fact. But, and this sounds awful to say, I couldn’t bring myself to love her daughter.”
His soliloquy is sounding uncomfortably familiar.
“So, I’ll tell you the God’s honest truth. She didn’t like me. And I didn’t like her. But obviously, I didn’t kill her.” He gives me a sad smile, showing me his wrists. “Look, ma … no tattoos.”
“But … why? Why didn’t you like her?” I ask, astonished with this broad admission.
“Listen,” he says, pushing his sweating drink to the side. “Her mother thought she walked on water. But I could see something else.” He leans over the bar, his eyes narrowing. “She had darkness in her. A real darkness.”
I take a sip of my soda. Is he saying she had the beast in her? Some 666 in her? “What do you mean by that?”
“Impulses,” he says, after a long drink. “She liked to drink, do drugs. Have sex. Impulses. Impure impulses.” Slowly, he spins his drink on the table. “I wanted to help her. I tried to help her. I gave her a ring, explained how she should respect herself. Keep herself pure, unsullied.” He frowns into his drink. “But I was too late. She couldn’t be deterred. The devil took his due in the end.” He stares ahead at the liquor bottles and sighs. “He always does.”
I don’t have an appropriate response. We could have a long philosophical discussion on the devil, but Mr. Redmond’s suppositions would come down to some basic religious misogyny.
“Why did she have your name written in her pocket?” I ask instead.
He looks defensive at the question. “It wasn’t my name,” he says, then takes a shaky drink. “There was blood covering up the word. It was like MADAME, or maybe DAMNED or something.” He shakes his head. “It wasn’t my name. I told them that.”
“Okay,” I say, writing this down. “And where were you the night she was killed?”
He half smirks. “What, are you the police now?” He adjusts himself on his barstool. “I was at a meeting that night. They ruled me out. I took a polygraph and all that,” he says, waving his hand in dismissal.
I dash this down in the notebook too. I’ll have to check his story, hopefully when the police records come back from my FOIA request. The conversation hasn’t established any new leads, other than the surprising fact that they didn’t like each other. Still, his God complex doesn’t sit well with me. Maybe he was showing her the light, and it didn’t take.
I don’t think that theory would be enough to get Toby to bite though.
“Does Revelation 13:18 mean anything to you?” I ask.
He smiles, nodding. “Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man.” He takes another drink. “Yes, it means something to me.”
“Six, six, six,” I say, “would be that number.”
“Right,” he says, gripping his glass. “So it seems that Eric Myers knew that passage too.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, sensing a dead end. I decide to pivot off religion. “Do you know Leigh Jones?” I ask. “The other woman who was attacked?”
“All I know is they finally believed me that I wasn’t involved when she stepped up with her story. Thank Christ,” he says, shaking his head. “But otherwise, I don’t know her from Adam.” Then he lets out a sloppy snort-laugh. “Look at that. I just punned myself.”
I answer with an uncomfortable smile. “Or Amelia Adams or Angela Atwood? Do you know them at all?”
“No, my dear,” he says. “Not them either.”
We both sit for a while in a heavy silence, me sipping my Coke and him his brandy. Then out of nowhere, he turns to me. “Do you believe in God, Alex Conley?”
“Um,” I stammer, put on the spot. “I guess I would say that … I don’t know.”
He nods, hunching over the bar. “I suppose that’s an honest answer at least.”
I close my notebook. “How about you?” I ask. “Do you believe in God?”
“I used to,” he says, and takes another drink.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
NOW
I stare at the silent receiver in my hand.
Did she actually cut the line?
“I was just calling 911,” I say. “I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble. I’m just trying to help my friends.”
“Is that so?” Esther asks, her voice faded behind the door. “Or are you trying to make plans with Noah?”
Trying to make plans with Noah? I hang up the phone then, striding to the door to confront her. “No, I’m not trying to …” I say, opening the door. But the handle won’t budge. “Esther, you let me out right now. You hear me?”
“I told him you were trouble,” Esther says, with a querulous note. “I told him from the very moment I set eyes on you. Just like that Nicole girl.”
“Okay, listen,” I say to the door, adjusting my tone to convince her. “I promise you. This has nothing to do with your son. I’m not trying to date Noah. At all. I’m engaged already in fact. Remember?”
This is answered with an unconvinced snort.
“Esther,” I say, still trying to reason with her. “I was having a bachelorette party.”
“So you say,” she answers.
Again, I turn the knob without success. “I’m not lying about my friends. They might be hurt.” I wait to see if she might take mercy on my plight, then hear something metallic knock against the door.
“Noah,” I scream, pounding on the door now. Obviously, she will not be swayed, and I can’t waste any more time trying to convince her. “Noah!”
“You shush right now,” she commands, just above a whisper. “You wake him up and you’ll be in some real trouble here.”
“Noah,” I yell louder, then body-slam the door, creaking the door frame. “Noah, help me please!” I kick the door now and notice the hinges loosening. Maybe I don’t need anyone to let me out. I give the door another karate kick. Lainey could probably have kicked this open in two seconds. But Lainey’s not here.
“I’m warning you,” she growls.
I keep kicking and kicking, my chest sweating.
Hurried footsteps sound down the hall. “What the hell is going on?”
“She locked me in here,” I scream, bashing the door.
“Jesus,” he grumbles. “Not again.”
Not again?
“Come on, Mom. Put that thing away. We’ve been through this before. It’s dangerous.” A tumbling sounds in the hallway. “Mom, seriously,” he snaps. “You’re going to hurt someone.”
“She’s the seed of the devil, son,” she says, her voice strained with effort of fighting him off. “We can’t let her out of here.”
“Mom, Jesus Christ. Stop. Please.” A scuffle emerges on the other side, the knob twisting back and forth. “You need to stop this. Right now.”
“It’s for your own good,” she returns, her body knocking against the door in the invisible skirmish.
“I’m going to call Dr. Singh again,” he warns. “Is that what you want? This time, he’ll start the medication. I promise you.”
“I won’t let her hurt you,” she cries. “You’ll start up again. I know it. And you’ve worked so hard to be clean, son.”
I scoop up my backpack and step back a few paces. Then, with everything in me, I rush my body against the door. The hinges pop off and the door flies open, putting into full view the surprised, sleep-ridden face of Noah and the enraged face of his mother. And in her arms, a shotgun.
She aims it at me.
“No, Mom, no!” he yells, pushing her and the shotgun toward the wall and away from me. “Hurry. Get out of here,” he says, holding his mother back.
I barely slip by her and run down the stairs, my backpack thumping against me. Tripping on the last step, I twist my ankle and grunt with the sharp pain. Grabbing my hat, coat, and mittens from the fire, I throw them on as I’m running toward the door, the clothes still damp but warmer now.
“Mom,” Noah yells. “Stop!”
Glancing back, I see Esther coming down the stairs, faster than her bad hips should allow, with Noah trailing after her. Her shotgun bobs up and down with each step. I throw on my boots, wet and cold on my new socks, then push the door open and leap outside, wincing at the shot of pain in my ankle, only half in my boots.
I try to run, but it’s hardly a run, my ankle and hip killing and snow weighing down every step. I want to look back but can’t waste a single second. I just keep jogging in long, lurching steps. A muted voice sounds out behind me.
“It’s for your own good, son.”
“Mom, please …”
I keep pushing forward, as fast as I can. A voice wails inside my head. Run, Alex.
Run.
The crack of a shotgun breaks the sky.
CHAPTER FORTY
AUGUST
Later that week, I’m still waiting for my FOIA paperwork on Adam Redmond and Ryan Johnson, when the female Ryan finally answers her phone.
“Sorry,” she says, with a strong Long Island accent. “I wasn’t trying to avoid you. I just … don’t have the fondest memories of that time.”
“I get that,” I say, tapping my pen on my desk. “Ryan said you might not be his biggest fan. That was his exact quote actually.”
“Damn right I’m not his biggest fan,” she says. “He gave me a fucking STD.”
Wiley guffaws, and I take the phone off speaker.
“I see,” I say, writing down Ryan-female sign-STD. “But he was there, that night? You’re sure?”
Wiley motions drinking coffee with a questioning eyebrow raise, and I shake my head no.
“I’m abso-fucking-lutely sure,” she brays. “That’s not something you forget.”
I guess that would make me bray too.
“And he stayed all night?” I ask, though with a touch of imposter syndrome. I’m asking questions from cop shows since the real-life police never bothered to dig past the superficial layer of male Ryan’s story. And if I want to uncover new angles here, then I need to do so. “All night?” I repeat.
“Yes,” she answers. “All fucking night.” I hear typing noises over the phone, sounding as if she’s stabbing the keyboard. “Of course, he wasn’t there when I woke up. He said he had to work early. But I bet he went back to see Clare. I was just his side piece back then.”
I write this down. The fact is, he could have left at any time after she fell asleep. So the alibi isn’t a full alibi after all. This still puts him in the window for the murder.
A loud slurping sound comes over the phone. “I kicked his ass to the curb. But not before he gave me gono-fucking-rhea.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, giving her some credit for the most creative use of the f-word I’ve ever encountered.
“But if you’re asking if I think he killed that girl, Nicole White?” she says. “The answer is no. No fucking way.”
The certitude of her statement surprises me. “And you say that because …”
“Because he’s an idiot,” she says, irked. “I mean, seriously. Ryan was too fucking dumb to get away with that.” I hear another slurping sip, and then the keyboard being pounced again. “Plus, he’s an asshole, right? But that doesn’t mean he’s a killer.”
“Okay,” I say, as Wiley returns with a coffee in hand. “That’s good to know.” So again, not the nicest guy ever, but not a killer. But also, without an alibi. “Hey, while I have you,” I say. “Do you have any idea what Revelation 13:18 means? Followed by the word Adam?”
“What?” she asks, sounding annoyed and done with the interview. “Sounds Biblical. Ryan might remember. He was in that Bible class with her.”
I pause. “Ryan was in the class? I thought Clare was.”
“They both were,” she says, “as far as I remember.” She slurps another drink. “Explains why Nicole was a bit of a wild child anyway.”
I flip to a new page in the notebook. “I know she was in the class too. But … why would that make her a wild child?”
“Because obviously she was rebelling against the teacher,” she says, with some annoyance. “I don’t remember his name, but … you know … her stepfather.”
“Yes, but the investigators must have known that too,” Toby says, unimpressed.
She spins from side to side in her chair, her feet barely reaching the ground, looking like a child playing at her parent’s office.
“I didn’t see it mentioned anywhere,” I return, gripping the arms of my chair across from her. “Any of this. It’s like they just gave up on any investigation of the note when they got word on Eric Myers.”
She shrugs, the movement barely visible under her oversized blazer. “Can you blame them?”
“No,” I say, rubbing my arms in the overly air-conditioned room. “And I’m not saying he didn’t do it. Just that it deserves another look. No one has adequately explained the Revelation note. No one has—”
“That just points to the 666 thing again, doesn’t it?” she asks, sounding dubious.
“Maybe,” I admit. “But it also might have to do with this Bible group. Nicole and Ryan Johnson were in it. So was Clare, his ex. And Nicole’s father led the class. That just seems too coincidental.”
Toby squints in thought. “I don’t understand this. Ryan was dating who? Another Ryan?”
I exhale. “Okay,” I say, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees. “Boy Ryan met Clare in Bible class, and they started dating. He then met Clare’s friend Nicole, the victim, in the same Bible class and cheated on Clare with Nicole. But he was still sleeping with Clare, and the night of the murder, he went creeping to cheat on Clare with Girl Ryan. But he left Girl Ryan’s house before morning, maybe to go to work. Maybe to go back to Clare. Maybe to kill Nicole. And in the midst of this all, Nicole’s stepfather was leading the Bible class.”
Toby lifts one eyebrow. “This Boy Ryan has gumption.”
“I suppose,” I say, though this is not the moral of the story I would have come away with.
“So, let’s say the father did it. Or … Boy Ryan did it. Either one.”
“Yes,” I say, cheered that she’s even considering it.
“Then why did they attack Leigh Jones first? Before Nicole? What’s the connection there?” She tucks a pencil behind her ear. “And why kill the other girls?”
A long pause follows the question. I have ruminated on this too, without an adequate answer.
“I can see the stepfather or boyfriend being in the frame for Nicole’s murder,” Toby says, pursing her lips. “But then they suddenly become serial killers?”
I rub my ice-cold hands together. “But they’ve never actually proved that Eric Myers killed the other girls. It might be someone else altogether. It’s possible that this isn’t a serial killer after all. Maybe the A-girls are totally separate. And we just need to find a connection between Nicole White and Leigh Jones.”
The pencil slips out from behind her ear and onto the floor. She dips down to retrieve it, then pops back up, looking like Ariel arising from the water. “And have you?” she asks. “Found any connection?”
