“Going to the laundry room?” she asked.
Julia wanted to give her one of those sarcastic responses that would be filler dialogue in a lazily written sitcom, but she stopped herself. Those exchanges might work to establish setting or just give one of the characters something snotty and vaguely funny to say, but it never really worked out in real life. Instead, she just nodded.
“Yeah. I didn’t realize I’d shoved a bunch of dirty stuff back into my bag to bring back with me after Thanksgiving,” she said.
Her roommate nodded. “Are you going to bring the scarf that you borrowed with you so you can wash it before you return it?”
Julia let out an exasperated sigh, her head falling back as she rolled her eyes at Lynn.
“What is it with you and that scarf? You wouldn’t stop staring at it when I first came in. You had to ask about it. Then I found you examining it yesterday. Do you have some sort of problem with me wearing a scarf?” she asked.
Lynn looked like she was trying to come up with something equally as terse to respond with, but eventually her face went slack, and she turned her body on the couch so she was looking at Julia.
“It just made me curious because it reminded me of something. Of someone,” she said.
Her voice was emotional, heavy with concern and maybe even regret. It softened the anger inside Julia and made her curious. Finally, all their bickering might be over. Maybe they could connect as people. As friends, maybe.
“Of who?” she asked. She hesitated and Julia took a step toward her. “Who, Lynn?”
“It’s going to sound ridiculous,” she said. “Like I’m just trying to be a bitch or upset you just for the hell of it.”
“I won’t think of it that way,” Julia said, shaking her head and setting the detergent down on the higher counter that separated the open kitchen from the living area. “Just tell me.”
“A few years ago, a girl I knew was murdered. I wouldn’t exactly call her a friend. But I was really close with somebody who lived in her building, and we hung out a couple of times.”
“A dorm?” I ask.
“No. She lived in an apartment off campus. She’s a couple years older than me. My friend in that building actually dated my brother. Their whole thing didn’t work out, but she and I got along well. She would have parties and invite the people from the other apartments in the building. That’s how I met Samantha. She was really nice. Smart. Really focused. The kind of girl you feel like your high school guidance counselor is talking about when they tell you to work hard and live up to our potential.”
Julia nodded. “I know the type.”
I used to be the type, she thought.
She went into the living room and sat down, propping the basket of clothes beside her. Lynn sat back and let out a breath, running her fingers through her hair.
“I knew her for probably a year. Maybe a little more. So, I guess we were friends. It’s hard to think that way about someone you only see in one certain set of circumstances. Samantha and I never saw each other away from those parties. We didn’t have each other’s numbers or social media. I don’t think we would have ever gotten together for lunch or gone shopping or anything like that. But it was good to see her when she showed up.”
“Just because you don’t see somebody all the time doesn’t mean they aren’t your friend,” Julia offered.
A face formed in her mind, but she forced it to dissolve away.
A sad smiled touched Lynn’s lips as she nodded. “My friend had one of her parties to celebrate Thanksgiving. It was right before everybody was going to go home for break. Samantha came, but she was only there for a little while. She said she had another thing she was supposed to go to. She was kind of dressed up, and it didn’t sound like a party. After she left, one of the other people who were there mentioned that one of her professors sometimes had people over for a networking thing. We assumed that’s what she was doing. But the next day, her roommate came to the apartment. I had spent the night with my friend and the roommate was really freaked out. She said Samantha never came home.”
“Oh,” frowned Julia.
“We tried not to get too worked up over it. We knew it was entirely possible she had gone somewhere we didn’t know about or had hooked up with somebody. We called her a few times, but she didn’t answer. We figured she would come wandering home hungover and we could make fun of her a little. But that didn’t happen.”
“When did they find her?” Julia asked.
“Almost a week later. She was wrapped up in a blanket like she was sleeping. Just left in an abandoned building.”
“Oh, god,” Julia said.
Lynn nodded. “It was so cold that week her body was pretty well preserved. They could see she had been strangled. But there wasn’t anything around her that would have caused the injuries. And the scarf she was wearing the night she left the party was missing. We all remembered seeing her wrapping it around her neck as she was walking out. It wasn’t on her or around her, and they didn’t find it in her apartment or her car.”
“If she was in an abandoned building, could it have just been stolen? Maybe by a homeless person?” Julia asked.
“Her body was wrapped in a blanket. Her clothes, including a really nice coat, socks, and a pair of boots, were found neatly stacked beside her. Like that was where she had gotten undressed to go to bed. It wouldn’t make sense for someone to take a scarf, but not of the rest of it. The police think whoever killed her might have taken the scarf with him as a souvenir.
