“Jillian Perry.”
“The bride?”
“The bride.”
Madeleine looked closely at the ad.
“The two images in the photo are both of her,” Gurney explained.
Madeleine nodded quickly, meaning that this had already occurred to her. “That’s what she did for a living?”
“I don’t know yet whether it was a job or an occasional thing. When I first saw the photo hanging in Scott Ashton’s house, I was too amazed to ask.”
“He has
“He talks about her the same way her mother talks about her-like she was some kind of uniquely brilliant, sick, seductive maniac. The thing of it is, the whole damn case is like that. Everyone connected with it is either a genius or a lunatic or… a pathological liar or… I don’t know what. Christ, Ashton’s next-door neighbor, whose wife presumably ran off with the murderer, is playing with a Lionel train set under a Christmas tree in his basement. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so goddamn adrift. It’s like the trail-the scent trail the K-9 team was able to follow that led to the murder weapon in the woods, but it didn’t go any farther, which suggests that the killer went back to the cottage and hid there-except there’s no place in the cottage to hide. One minute I think I know what’s going on, the next minute I realize I have no evidence at all for what I think. We have lots of interesting scenarios, but when you look under them, there’s nothing there.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that we need to come up with hard data, firsthand observations by credible witnesses. So far none of the narratives has any verifiable facts to support it. It’s too damn easy to get carried away by a good story. You can get so emotionally invested in a certain view of the case that you don’t notice it’s all wishful thinking. Let’s eat. Maybe food will help my brain.”
Madeleine put a large bowl of shrimp and pappardelle with a tomato-and-garlic sauce in the middle of the table, along with small bowls of shredded asiago and chopped basil, and they began eating.
After a few mouthfuls, Madeleine started toying with a shrimp. “The little apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”
“Hmm?”
“Mother and daughter have a lot in common.”
“Both a bit erratic, you mean?”
“That’s a way of putting it.”
There was another silence as Madeleine lightly tapped her shrimp with the tines of her fork. “You’re sure there was no place to hide?”
“Hide?”
“In the cottage.”
“Why do you ask?”
“There was a terrifying movie I saw a long time ago-about a landlord who had secret spaces between the walls of the apartments, and he’d watch his tenants through tiny pinholes.”
Their landline phone rang. “The cottage is pretty small, only three rooms,” he said as he stood to go and answer it.
She shrugged. “Just a thought. It still gives me the shivers.”
The phone was on his desk in the den. He got to it on the fourth ring. “Gurney here.”
“Detective Gurney?” The female voice was young, tentative.
“That’s right. Who am I speaking to?” He could hear the caller breathing, apparently in some distress. “You still there?”
“Yes, I… I shouldn’t be calling, but… I wanted to talk to you.”
“Who is this?”
The caller answered after another hesitation. “Savannah Liston.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Should I?”
“I thought he might have mentioned my name.”
“Who might have mentioned it?”
“Dr. Ashton. I’m one of his assistants.”
“I see.”
“That’s why I’m calling. I mean, maybe that’s why I shouldn’t be calling, but… Is it true you’re a private detective?”
“Savannah, you need to tell me why you’re calling me.”
“I know. But you won’t tell anyone, will you? I’d lose my job.”
“Unless you’re planning to hurt someone, I can’t think of any legal reason I’d have to divulge anything.” That answer, which he’d used a few hundred times in his career, was about as meaningless as it could be, but it seemed to satisfy her.
“Okay. I should just tell you. I overheard Dr. Ashton on the phone with you earlier today. It sounded like you wanted the names of girls in Jillian’s class that she hung out with, but he couldn’t give them to you?”
“Something like that.”
“Why do you want them?”
“I’m sorry, Savannah, but I’m not allowed to discuss that. But I would like to know more about the reason you’re calling me.”
“I could give you two names.”
“Of girls Jillian hung out with?”
“Yes. I know them because when I was a student here, once in a while we hung out together, which is kind of why I’m calling you. There’s this weird thing going on.” Her voice was getting shaky, like she was about to cry.
“What weird thing, Savannah?”
“The two girls Jillian hung out with-they’ve both disappeared since they graduated.”
“How do you mean, ‘disappeared’?”
“They both left home during the summer, their families haven’t seen them, nobody knows where they are. And there’s another horrible thing about it.” Her breathing now was so uneven it was more like quiet sobbing.
“What’s the horrible thing, Savannah?”
“They both talked about wanting to hook up with Hector Flores.”
Chapter 30
By the time he got off the phone with Savannah Liston, he’d asked her a dozen questions and ended up with half a dozen useful answers, the names of the two girls, and one anxious request: that he not tell Dr. Ashton about the call.
Did she have some reason to be afraid of the doctor? No, of course not, Dr. Ashton was a saint, but it made her feel bad to be going behind his back, and she wouldn’t want him to think that she didn’t trust his judgment completely.
And did she trust his judgment completely? Of course she did-except maybe she was worried that he
So she’d told Ashton about the “disappearances”? Yes, of course she had, but he’d explained that Mapleshade graduates often made clean breaks for good reasons, and it wouldn’t be unusual for a family not to have contact with an adult daughter who wanted some breathing room.
