The Bachelorette Party, page 9
This development surprises me. “Why would she hate Nicole?”
“I don’t know. But I’m telling you. She looked like this nice little old lady.”
His chair legs crash down to the floor, and I jolt back in my seat.
“She wasn’t. She was a fucking psychopath.”
The lights sparkle on the waves, shimmering, as we lean across the ship railing.
A light wind picks up, and I pull my cardigan tighter. It’s not a cold night, but the ocean breeze cools the night a good ten degrees.
“You want my coat?” Jay asks, already taking his blazer off.
“No, that’s okay,” I say. “You need it.”
He holds it out for me. “You’d be doing me a favor. I hate wearing these things.”
He’s not lying. He never would have worn the blazer without the dress code specifically calling for it. I loop my arms in, relaxing into the warm heft of the coat. “Thanks,” I say, as he puts his arm around my waist.
A white-gloved server passes us with champagne glasses of prosecco. I’ve already had two, but they were so refreshing that I take another. Jay takes one too.
“Cheers, mate,” he says to the server, who nods back. I notice a lot of the (rich) people on this boat don’t make eye contact with the waitstaff. But Jay used to serve at a country club near his house, where he now has a membership for his parents. He doesn’t treat the waiters like they’re invisible.
“Oh,” he says, turning to me. The wind ruffles his hair. “Did Caitlyn email you? About the wedding favors?”
“I’m not sure,” I say, not mentioning that I autodelete whatever she sends.
“She was thinking cashmere pashminas,” he says, loosening his arm on my hip.
“Hmm,” I say, to be polite. “That sounds kind of … expensive.”
“Yeah, maybe,” he says, with a shrug. “Just an idea. She just wanted to bounce a few things off you. Since you haven’t done much on it yet.”
I don’t respond to the subtle barb. Then again, maybe he’s just stating a fact.
A shot of laughter comes out from the cabin of the yacht, where people are dancing. The bass thumps so loud I can feel it through the railing. I thought I recognized a couple of models, and maybe a C-list actress. It’s the ones you don’t recognize that really have the money, Jay told me once.
The sky darkens a shade, the barest of stars poking out. My watch says ten more minutes until showtime. I realize I’m running out of time here. I should ask him about the text before the fireworks begin. In the distance, the sound of the orchestra tuning up floats over the ocean. A cacophony of bleats, chimes, and strings follows, then a silence. The music on the ship stops too, the buzz on the railing disappearing. Partygoers from the cabin file out now, crowding around the railing, where Jay has adroitly staked out the best spot.
Did you take care of her?
I swallow and take a deep breath. “Jay, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Oh yeah?” He turns to me, but then, in an instant, the music swells up, lustrous notes building, flowing into the sky. Jay closes his eyes. “The Pastoral,” he says.
“What’s that?” I ask, like an idiot.
“Beethoven,” he answers, pushing closer to me on the crowded deck. Excitement flurries around us, tittering and whispering. People call over to each other: Come on. You’re gonna miss it. It’s about to start.
A spattering of pink-red and powder-blue fireworks bounce up. The amuse-bouche of fireworks. The ship goes quiet.
Then the music grows louder, instruments blending together, as the fireworks surge up to oohs and aahs. Loud pops turn into splayed-out reds and greens, a starburst spreading then sizzling out, worms whistling across the sky. The air smells of smoke.
The music carries the fireworks, moving together almost spiritually.
I realize the third prosecco must have gotten to me and turn to Jay to find him gone. Addled, I glance around but just see beaming faces around me, all fixated on the sky. I turn back around myself, to see the fireworks popping up again, rapidly now. One after the other, layering on top of each other. Smoke covered by light covered by smoke then light. Around the ship, people murmur, The finale!
I look away again for Jay and see him in the cabin of the yacht arguing with Eli. Jay is shaking his head, and Eli is throwing his hands up. I don’t know Eli well, but it’s definitely him. He’s three hundred pounds and wears snazzy suits. He’s hard to miss.
Did you take care of her?
What are they fighting about? Me?
Did you take care of her?
The music screams in a climax, then stops as the final cannon sound explodes.
The boom echoes, pounding into my ears.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
NOW
Eye level with the street, I see snowflakes piling, like icing on a wedding cake.
My brain struggles with the simile, and I am half wondering why I decided to lie here and watch the snow when the throbbing in my head reminds me. The reel plays backward to the scene of me throwing a tantrum like a toddler before falling. I acted like an idiot, and I fell.
“So get up,” I mumble to myself, my tongue tasting blood.
But it takes strength. Part of me wants to just lie there. Maybe close my eyes again, just for a few minutes, hitting the never-ending snooze button that Jay complains about.
Jay.
Lainey. Melody.
I need to get up. I’ll get hypothermia or get hit by a car, not getting up ever again, one way or another. I need to get up.
I try to move, pain shooting through my body, clawing at my hip and my shattered elbow. The side of my tongue feels sliced, like a pound of beef. But at least I can move everything. My arm and hip may be bruised, but they’re not broken.
Gingerly, I try to turn over onto my other hip. The streetlight bangs against my eyes, my vision swimming with the movement. I work myself up to a sitting position, then take a break, catching my breath and waiting for the spinning to stop.
The sky still looks dark, so not too much time must have passed. Slowly, I stand upright, using the strength of my good arm and leg. I take a careful, testing step, the pain in my hip bowling me over. I stop, gather myself, and breathe again. My elbow throbs in rhythm with my head and my tongue, but I force myself to take another step, and another. I have forty-eight hours to find them.
Less now. So I have to keep moving. I have no choice.
The car seems like an improbable dream now, shooting by me and leaving me stranded. But something about the car needles me. The vision of the car, the brief glimpse through snow, floats up in my head. I try to clutch the picture before it slips away again. As I walk, I rewind time, slowing down every second to focus on details. A flash of silver—yes, it was silver. Boxy and powerful. The vision solidifies. It was a sedan.
Okay, fine, it was a sedan. But it’s gone, so dwelling on it won’t help. I can’t shake the image, my brain still batting it around, when the memory weaves through my muddled brain.
The Amber Alert.
I grab my pocket to check the alert on my phone before remembering again—no phone. Searching my memory, I retrace my steps in the parking lot of the convenience store. I was thinking about Lissa. I was looking for … a silver Lincoln.
I’m almost positive it was.
I don’t remember the license plate number and couldn’t have seen it anyway with the car flying past. I couldn’t say it was a Lincoln for sure, and there are a lot of silver sedans out there. But maybe that was the car.
I keep trudging ahead.
A silver sedan. Okay, so let’s say it was the same car. Is that even related to my missing friends? Probably not. In most of these cases, the captor is most likely the “noncustodial parent,” i.e., the father. Which is cold comfort, because sometimes the father would rather kill his children than lose control of them. We don’t feature too many of those on Crimeline. Pretty White women—that’s our demo. Dead kids aren’t as popular.
In any case, most likely no relation to whatever happened to Lainey and Melody. But then again, my Crimeline mind would say, there are no coincidences. I lick my lips, my tongue sore and dry. Just keep walking. Just keep walking. I click open my compass again, brushing falling snow off the face.
South. Keep walking south.
I let my mind take over. Walk, walk, walk.
A memory springs up of cross-country skiing with my father while my mom stayed in the lodge doing crosswords since she hated skiing. I remember the swish of our long skis, which looked skinny compared to the downhill ones I would rent. We would ski and ski, my head sweating into my hat, until we hit a rhythm. A flow. Just me and my father. The world felt big and small at the same time.
I am entering this rhythm now, this flow.
Walk, walk, walk. South, south, south.
But then I stop.
I come upon a sign on a wooden gate, which opens to a long driveway. And at the end, if I squint through the snow, I can see the barest outline of a farmhouse. Maybe this was the one Melody commented on.
A hanging metal sign swings, creaking in the wind, the design obscured by the snow. I reach forward and knock off the snow, revealing the black silhouette of a horse jumping. And stenciled above this black iron design is a name.
The Thompson Farm.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
JULY
I’m on the subway on my way to work, my jean jacket looped over my arm. I didn’t need it after all, the morning already sweltering and hotter in the subway. A drip of sweat glides down my back, and I breathe through my mouth to escape the overwhelming body odor all around me.
I’ve decided to forget about the text for now.
Jay’s obviously going through something with Eli, but it’s none of my business. And between my job and the wedding, I don’t have time to worry about it. To kill some time, I flip through one of the true crime books and come on the autopsy report.
NAME OF DECEDENT: NICOLE WHITE
DATE OF BIRTH: 7/4/1996
DATE OF DEATH: MAY 3, 2012
AGE: 16 YEARS OLD
DATE OF AUTOPSY: MAY 4, 2012
SEX: FEMALE
MANNER OF DEATH: HOMICIDE
CAUSE OF DEATH: Exsanguination due to multiple stab and incised wounds (torso, neck, arms).
EXTERNAL EXAMINATION:
The body was that of a well-developed, well-nourished sixteen-year-old Caucasian female fully clad in one bra, underwear, one pink T-shirt, one pair of jeans, two green socks, red sneakers. The clothing was bloody, with multiple punctures as described below. Near the victim was a black leather purse with contents spilled out onto floor. On the floor was a black cell phone, opened pack of gum, four tampons, three sanitary pads, one lipstick, a scrap paper with Revelation 13:18 ADAM written in blue ink, letters stained by blood. Car keys with metal keychain reading “Hawaii Forever” and pink nail file. Near the victim’s head was found a torn gold necklace with butterfly pendant.
The body weight 133 lbs. with a height of five foot six and appeared consistent with her reported age. The body was cold. Rigor was broken to an equal surface on all of the body. The scalp hair was long and brown. The irides were brown, and corneae were cloudy. One tattoo of a blue butterfly was noted on the left wrist, with an apparent laceration.
FINDINGS:
1. Generalized pallor and evidence of exsanguination.
2. Multiple stab and incised wounds
1) Penetrating base of left lung,
2) Penetrating middle lobe left lung,
3) Penetrating superior vena cava,
4) Penetrating left fifth rib,
5) Penetrating spleen
6) Penetrating left iliac crest
3. Incised wounds. Multiple, consistent with defensive wounds.
4. Toxicology is positive for ethanol and cannabinoids in peripheral blood. A urine drug screen is positive for cannabinoids.
Opinion:
The sixteen-year-old female, Nicole White, died as a result of multiple stab wounds resulting in exsanguination. The autopsy reveals no gross evidence of significant natural disease processes. The toxicology was positive for ethanol and cannabinoids. With the information available to me at this time, the manner of death, in my opinion, is homicide.
Signed:
Aaron Goldberg, MD
I suck in air as a shock of pain makes me look up from the book.
A man in hiking shoes has stepped on my sandal, scrunching my pinkie toe. He apologizes, appearing mortified.
“It’s okay,” I say, but grit my teeth in pain, tears filling my eyes. The toe tingles, already swelling up. A spot of blood pops up under the nail.
The car screeches to a stop, the calm voice announcing the station. And the man apologizes again, then escapes into the throng of people leaving. I wipe off my toe quickly, telling myself to stop being such a baby, as a mass of people file in, searching for seats or places to stand. I turn back to the page again to take my mind off my throbbing toe.
It jars me, the juxtaposition of the cold words on the page with the white-hot rage of the crime. Yes, she had on a pink T-shirt, bra, jeans, and red sneakers. But they don’t paint the true picture of Nicole White, who was alive before she was dead, a young woman becoming a senior next year, not just a victim requiring an autopsy. She lived a life in those listed clothes, the pink T-shirt emblazoned with a sunburst Old Navy logo, the pale boyfriend jeans with the cuffs rolled up, the lime-green socks, the old-school red Converse sneakers with a blue-inked heart on the cracked white rubber on the left toe.
The list of wounds underscores the horrific, lurid photos. Penetrating, penetrating, penetrating—a testament to each excruciating blow. And in the end, it all boils down to one obvious sentence.
The manner of death, in my opinion, is homicide.
With a sigh, I’m about to close the book, when one detail catches my eye.
The blood-stained note reading Revelation 13:18 ADAM.
The Crimeline episode delved into this briefly, as did the police reports. Her stepfather’s name was Adam, but that lead didn’t go anywhere. No one managed to decipher this juicy piece of evidence, which essentially fell by the wayside when Eric Myers fell into their lap. I can’t help but wonder at it. The curious note doesn’t quite fit, like a leftover puzzle piece, with too many nubs for the remaining slot.
Pondering this, I almost don’t hear my station called, but manage to slap the book shut and limp off the train at the last minute.
ARMCHAIR SLEUTHS:
Kathy: The Revelation thing? I don’t think they ever figured it out.
Colby: And who’s Adam?
Insook: Not to be negative here, but isn’t this a waste of resources? Why does it even matter? Eric Myers is in jail already.
Alex: But what if he’s innocent?
Colby: Yeah, not to be “that guy” but I don’t think he’s innocent.
Mark: Seconded.
Kathy: 100%
Alex: Adam is the name of her stepfather. But it seems he was ruled out.
Tom: Yeah, I heard that.
Insook: Not surprised. Why would he have attacked Leigh Jones?
Colby: And he has no connection to the A-girls either.
Insook: Not to be a jerk, Colby, but I hate when people call them that.
Kathy: Yeah, it bugs me too. Amelia and Angela. They have names.
Insook: Otherwise, they just become like, not even real people.
Colby: Apologies. Didn’t mean it that way, of course. L
Insook: Oh, no! I know you didn’t. Just wanted to point it out. J
Mark: I still don’t understand how they never got him to admit to killing them. He signed the confession. Why not help those girls too?
Kathy: That was effed up. They had the death penalty on the table and took it off before even trying to negotiate with it.
Insook: Death penalty? In New York?
Kathy: They were trying to make it a federal crime, due to the violence. But it didn’t stick. So, state crime. No death penalty. No info on Amelia and Angela.
Mark: Sucks.
Kathy: Yeah, sure does.
Colby: So, what is the note, then? Revelation?
Mark: One of the podcasts said the police thought it was a password.
Colby: Which podcast?
Mark: Don’t remember for sure. Murder, He Wrote maybe?
Tom: I heard that too. That it was a password. I don’t remember from where though. Maybe one of the books.
Colby: But why would she have his password written on a paper in her pocket?
Kathy: Or anyone’s password for that matter?
Alex: And what kind of password is that? It’s like two different things. A Bible passage and a name.
Insook: Yeah, you’re right. It doesn’t make sense.
Colby: It obviously still has to do with Eric Myers though.
Kathy: For sure.
Insook: You know what it refers to, right? The Bible passage?
Tom: Definitely. “Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. The number is 666.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
NOW
An old woman in a thin bathrobe stands half hidden by the door, her gray hair in curlers. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. In the few photos of Esther Thompson from the trial, she is sitting, appearing doddering and frail, even ten years ago. Her hand on the Bible as she glared at Eric Myers. At a full stand, though, she is nearly six feet, with a gargantuan torso, like a female linebacker. Shardai was right to scoff at her being some “farmer’s wife.”
“Hi,” I say, still catching my breath from the trek down the driveway. My feet have turned from tingly to thoroughly numb, as well as the tips of my fingers.
She doesn’t open the door any wider, eyeing me with suspicion.
“I’m … my name is Alex.” My lips don’t work right though, as if shot with Novocain. “I’m a little lost … um … can I borrow a phone maybe?” I try to peek inside, but she blocks the doorway. “I just need to call someone if I could. Please.”
