And could she trust David Musgrave and Elgin DeGuerre? Her mother had. But Elgin was retiring and, frankly, not doing so well.
As she went into the school, she made a mental note to talk to Cooper about it.
* * *
Cooper called his contact at the lab, Gina Rodriguez, as soon as he got to work, but was told they didn’t have any results on Gwen Winkelman’s death yet. “Everybody wants a rush,” Gina told him when he asked for the same. “I’ll get back to you this afternoon to let you know where we are.”
Because Howie was handling the attack on Marissa, and that included Troy Stillwell and Greer Douglas, Cooper had handed him the Stapleton/Timbolt part of the investigation, since Tyler Stapleton had been with the other two boys that same night. Now, Howie brought him up-to-date on the situation with Tyler, Katie Timbolt, and the Pendelans. “No one’s pressing charges. I don’t know what those parents said or did to get their children off the hook, but it’s all done.”
“Offered them money,” Verbena guessed.
“The school’s taking a harder look than we are. Robbie Padilla, the coach, is taking heat because the Stillwell and Douglas kids are out of the game this Friday. Stapleton, again, too,” Howie said.
From speaking with Robbie, Cooper knew his old friend was trying to wrangle all three boys into making better choices. Troy Stillwell’s father, Deon, was no help. In many ways, he was Troy’s biggest problem.
“That faction of freshman parents you met with?” Howie added. “The ones who wanted the boys expelled over the Halloween mixer prank? They’ve gotten wind of some of what’s going on and are doubling down.”
Cooper thought about Edina, Caroline, and Marty and Hal, the foursome with freshmen children who were vocal about how the school should be run. It looked like Cathy Timbolt, known for being a wolf crier against perceived wrongs at the school, had ceded her crown of outrage to those four. Katie Timbolt had probably ended her mother’s run for a school board position to boot.
He turned his mind from the goings-on at River Glen High, which were small and irrelevant compared to the attacks on Marissa and Bette Kearns. If none of the teens were responsible for either of those home invasions, were the attacks related in some other way? He couldn’t believe they were completely independent of each other. But if there was a connection, he didn’t see it yet. Nothing had been stolen, so the doer hadn’t gained personally. One was of a teenage girl, the other a woman in a rocky marriage. One took place at a home in the older part of town, the other at the newer, west end of town, on the edge of Staffordshire Estates.
And was there . . . how could there be? . . . some kind of eerie echo to the attack on Emma Whelan twenty years before?
“You really stirred up Eric Volker,” Verbena said with a faint smile.
“Volker? Why? His alibi would be hard to break,” said Cooper.
“He seemed to think your ‘interrogation’—his word, not mine—of his ex-wife was unnecessary and ‘unseemly’—again, his word—and that he’s planning to sue the police and you personally.”
“He can get in line,” Cooper growled, recalling William Ryerson’s threat to do the same.
Thinking of Ryerson, Cooper pulled up Nadine Ryerson Campbell’s number again. She’d never gotten back to him. He figured he’d try her again and leave another message, if need be. He wanted her to know he wasn’t giving up.
The call rang and rang, and he prepared himself to reiterate what he’d said in the other messages; namely, that, as a detective with the River Glen Police Department, he was looking into some cold cases, like the one in which Emma Whelan was attacked in her old house. He wanted to ask Nadine about her recollections of that night.
He was so prepared that he was slightly taken aback when she suddenly answered. “Hello, Detective Haynes. What do you want to know?”
She clearly had recognized his number. “Hello, Nadine. I wanted to go over the night Emma Whelan was attacked.” As he had said several times before. “You arrived at the house ahead of your husband and discovered Emma Whelan on the floor.”
“Detective, I don’t know what I can tell you that I haven’t already said. It was a terrible night from beginning to end. William was embarrassingly drunk and fell off a chair. He was flirting with Kayla and mean to me. He kept saying he knew I had a lover. Loudly. I could feel my face burning. I actually kicked him once, under the table, but he just howled and said what a bitch I was. He was the one tomcatting around, but he was blaming it all on me. So, I left with Alain. I needed a shoulder to cry on, and he was there.” She hesitated, then added, “I was a little attracted to him, and I’d had more to drink than I realized, so I went to his place. Not for sex. I was so sick of William. Of his cheating and drinking and just everything. I was so exhausted I fell asleep on Alain’s couch. Nothing happened between us. Alain shook me awake to take me home, and I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay, but . . .” She inhaled and exhaled. “You know the rest. Alain took me home and dropped me off. I didn’t want him to come in, in case William was there. I didn’t need another scene. I walked into the house and into the living room and there was Emma, on the
