Every Last Fear: A Novel

by Alex Finlay

  “To hell with ’em all.”

  She smiled at that. “How are you, Glen?”

  “I could complain, but I won’t.”

  “Doris?”

  “She passed.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Liv said. “I didn’t know. No one told—”

  “Well, all right then,” he said. As when she was a girl, Glen was a man of few words, and even fewer emotions.

  “All right then,” she replied.

  CHAPTER 33

  SARAH KELLER

  “It’s been just awful. Maggie, she was”—the school principal looked at the ceiling, searching for the right word—“she was “decent. A kind girl whose family had been through so much but she still was positive, a bright light. She was admitted to MIT, and was so excited.…”

  Keller nodded. Mrs. Flowers wore a flowing blouse with a chunky wood necklace. Her office at Naperville High School was filled with photos of her with students. Knickknacks from travel, a lot from African countries by the looks of them. Keller could imagine her greeting the students every morning. The kind of woman who saw promise in everyone, underpaid and overworked, but delighted to be there. The twins were years away from high school, but they should be so lucky.

  “I’d like to talk with some of Maggie’s friends,” Keller said.

  Flowers’s expression tightened while she considered whether to allow her students to talk to the FBI without notifying their parents. But she picked up a phone and asked someone to call Harper Bennett to the office.

  A few minutes later a pretty young woman appeared in the doorway. Eyes wide, she approached apprehensively, as if concerned she was in trouble for something.

  “Harper, please come in,” the principal said.

  Harper Bennett had green eyes and stylish brown hair with chestnut highlights. Keller was surprised at her outfit. She wore what looked like flannel pajama bottoms, white tube socks with sports sandals, and a sweatshirt that said BOULDER.

  “This is Agent Keller with the FBI.”

  Harper’s eyes got even wider.

  “She has questions about Maggie. I know this is a hard time, but we hoped you could help.”

  Harper nodded, and took a seat next to Keller’s in front of the principal’s desk.

  When Principal Flowers showed no intention of leaving, Keller said, “Is there a conference room or somewhere Harper and I could—”

  “Oh,” the principal said. She paused, then said, “Harper, you’re okay with me stepping out?”

  Harper nodded again, and the principal hesitantly left the office.

  Keller gave the young woman a sympathetic smile. “First off,” Keller said, “I’m really sorry about your friend.”

  Harper’s face reddened, and she tucked her legs under her.

  “I have some questions, if you don’t mind?”

  “Sure, but, like, I don’t understand. They said it was, like, a freak accident. And you’re the FBI, and I don’t get—”

  “I know you must have a lot of questions. The FBI often gets involved when an American dies in a foreign country. Even for accidents.” Not totally true, but no need to get into it. Keller still didn’t have confirmation that there’d been foul play. And it didn’t matter. The deputy director, and the president himself, wanted to get to the bottom of the death of the Pines—so murder, accident, or whatever—that was what Keller needed to do.

  Harper looked at her skeptically, but nodded for Keller to continue.

  “You and Maggie were close friends?”

  “Best friends,” Harper corrected, swallowing hard. “Since she moved here in sixth grade.”

  “When’s the last time you saw her?”

  “Like, in person? Or online or—”

  “Let’s start with in person,” Keller said. The kids were different now. When Keller was a girl, it was the landline telephone, meeting at the mall or roller rink. Now they stayed connected through tiny screens.

  Harper looked at the floor. “We went to a party a couple days before she went on her trip.”

  “Was this a birthday party or a school party—or a party party?”

  “Party party,” Harper said. “A kid from school, his parents were out of town.”

  Keller’s smile said, No big deal, I was a teenager once. “How was Maggie? I mean, did she seem like herself?”

  “She didn’t want to go.” Harper’s voice broke and tears spilled from her eyes. “I made her and then she was, like, nearly assaulted and it’s all my fault and, like, the last time she saw me, she was upset and I should’ve—”

  “It’s okay,” Keller broke in, reaching for Harper’s hand. The girl was gulping for air, her face blotchy. “It’s all right,” Keller continued. “You did nothing wrong.” She moved closer, giving Harper time to collect herself.

  Harper dragged the sleeve of her sweatshirt across her face, wiping the tears.

  “I know it’s hard,” Keller said, finally, “but can you tell me what happened the night of the party? Just tell it from the beginning, leave nothing out.”

  And Harper told her. That Maggie’s mom was out of town. That she’d lied to her dad, who had a thing against parties. That Maggie was going there to see a boy. That she and the boy slipped away, and Maggie ran out of the party crying and upset. That Harper and a friend drove Maggie home.

  And then came the cyberbullying. That explained the messages.

  “Did you see her after that night?”

  Harper shook her head. “She shut down the sites about her brother and said she needed a break from social media, from her phone.”

  “Was that unusual?”

  “She wasn’t a big phone person. But she lived for the sites about her brother. You saw the show, right?”

  Keller nodded. Her chest tightened with the idea of the girl from the documentary—the pugnacious investigator helping her father—escaping the party after God knows what happened with the boy.

  “When you saw the messages and that she’d shut down the sites, did you reach out to her?”

  “Of course. She was my best friend. And there was no fucking way I was going to let those fucking—” Harper stopped herself. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I told her I was there for her.”

  “And what did Maggie say?”

  “She said they were going to Mexico for spring break. That she was okay and just needed to get away.”

  “Did you know her family was planning to go on a trip?”

  “Not until after the party. She said her dad decided at the last minute.”

  “Did she text you from Mexico?”

  Harper shook her head.

  Keller decided that Harper had calmed down enough to return to questions about the party. “Did you tell anyone—your parents or a teacher or anyone—about what had happened at the party?”

  “She didn’t want her dad to know. She said he didn’t … She made me promise.”

  “Who’s the boy?” Keller asked. She wanted to shake the name out of Harper, but she needed to be patient.

  “Eric Hutchinson,” Harper said. “He’s telling people he didn’t do anything, that she just freaked out and kicked him in the balls for no reason, but that’s not Mags.”

  All the kids knew something had happened, but not one had talked to an adult.

  “Anything else you can remember about the party? Or anything unusual about Maggie before she left for Mexico?”

  Harper chewed on her lower lip. “There is one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “After we heard about the accident, Toby Lee came to find me. He said Mags had asked him for help before she left for Mexico.”

  “Toby’s a classmate?”

  “Yeah. He said she was trying to track down someone’s phone. Toby’s a computer guy.”

  Tracking a phone? That was unusual. “Did he help her?”

  “I think so. He can give you the details. But he thought it was weird.”

  Keller
wanted to shout, So why didn’t either of you tell anyone? But such was the teenage brain.

  Keller thanked Harper for her help, asked her not to tell anyone what they’d discussed, and sent her back to class.

  Alone for a moment, Keller felt her jaw clench as she realized that one of the last experiences a seventeen-year-old girl had on this planet was an upsetting incident with a boy. Harper said his name was Eric Hutchinson. Keller checked her watch. She needed to talk to Toby Lee about this phone-tracking business. But there was no way she was going to let what happened at that party die with Maggie Pine.

  The principal returned to the office.

  “I’d like to speak with Toby Lee,” Keller said. “But first, bring me Eric Hutchinson.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Eric sat up straight, arms folded, a scowl on his handsome face. He wore a shirt that had a picture of crossing lacrosse sticks and read EAST COAST DYES. His father—a ruddy-faced man with the build of a former athlete—sat next to him in a similar pose, chewing gum and glowering at Keller.

  When Eric had been called down to the office, he’d refused to speak to Keller without his father there. A wise move, all things considered. It was always the affluent, the well-educated, who lawyered up—or in this case, parented up. They’d been exposed to lawyers, or studied Miranda in their AP Government classes, or had been schooled by America’s biggest educator on police procedure and the Bill of Rights, Law & Order.

  Though not every kid. Danny Pine hadn’t been so worldly-wise. If he had just asked to speak to a lawyer, he’d probably be a free man. Keller had watched the video of his interrogation several times, and it turned her stomach. That didn’t mean the interrogating officers were corrupt. They were small-town Nebraska cops with little training. And the scant interrogation instruction they’d received—a method known as the Reid Technique—had one critical flaw: it often resulted in false confessions. The great strides in DNA had not only freed many innocents, but had proven, contrary to conventional wisdom, that people did in fact confess to crimes they did not commit, especially juveniles.

  A couple years ago, Keller had attended an interrogation best practices workshop and she’d been shocked at the number of false confessions. Keller remembered her instructor, a renowned expert in interrogation techniques, saying, “We used to teach you to look for signs of lying, like bad eye contact, fidgeting, but that’s just what kids do when they’re uncomfortable. We used to teach you to prod the suspect with a few details of the crime, but we found out that kids just parrot the words back. And we used to teach you to employ minimization techniques and tell kids that if they told the truth they could go home, but we found out that kids often jumped at the chance and confessed, believing that their innocence would be straightened out later.” The instructor closed the session by saying, “I interrogated a fifteen-year-old who falsely confessed and spent eleven years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. It’s my goal in life that it never happens again.”

  That didn’t mean Danny Pine was innocent. He was an obvious suspect. He’d dated Charlotte, and the truth of the matter was that it was rarely a stranger who killed you; it was usually someone you held dear. As Keller knew too well, the sheep spends its life worried about the wolf, only to be eaten by the farmer.

  Keller looked at the wolf—no, wolves—sitting across from her.

  “What’s this about?” Eric’s father said to Keller. “And I do not appreciate the school letting our kids being grilled by a federal agent without a parent present.” His glare landed on Principal Flowers, who insisted on being present at the meeting.

  Keller didn’t flinch. She never had trouble with alpha males. She’d grown up with one, and understood that the alpha-ness was born of their own insecurities. These men who loved to tell women to stop being so emotional were in fact the ones who let their emotions control them. She handed the kid’s father a printout of some of the messages that had been sent to Maggie Pine.

  “What’s this?” Mr. Hutchinson said.

  “That’s what we wanted to ask your son.”

  Mr. Hutchinson looked at Eric. His son’s face showed the first break in the facade.

  “Why were you and your friends sending these messages?” Keller asked.

  Eric was about to say something when his father extended an arm across his son’s chest like a shield.

  “Whoa, hold on, lady. I don’t see my son’s name on any of these messages. And if I need to get our lawyer here, I—”

  The principal spoke, trying to take things down a notch. “Agent Keller is here about the Pine family. She didn’t fly across the country about teen cyberbullying. But as part of her work”—the principal nodded at the printouts—“the FBI uncovered these messages targeting Maggie Pine just before her death.”

  Keller chimed in now. “That’s right. Cyberbullying is usually a school matter. But sexual assault…”

  “Sexual assault?” the father spit out the words.

  “Witnesses say your son had been alone with Maggie Pine at a house party, and that she ran out, upset. The anonymous messages appear to be trying to intimidate her to be quiet about whatever happened.”

  Keller looked at the boy’s father, who pulled at the collar of his dress shirt. His jaw was set. It was the boy’s face thirty years from now, puffier but just as arrogant. She wished the mother had come. If the messages to Maggie Pine wouldn’t faze the mom, there was no hope for this kid.

  “You’ve got nothing,” Eric’s father said, aggressively working the gum in his mouth.

  It was a day of doing things the hard way, it seemed. “That’s your response? That’s what you want to teach him?”

  “What I teach my son is none of your goddamn business.” Mr. Hutchinson glared at the principal. “This is unacceptable, Barbara.”

  Keller released a breath. “You’re right. I’ve got no basis to arrest your son. No basis even to hold him. But I do have enough to contact his college. I understand he’s been accepted to Michigan for lacrosse.” The principal had briefed Keller on Eric before his father arrived.

  The color drained from Mr. Hutchinson’s face. He looked to the principal, but he’d get no support from her now.

  Keller threw out a lifeline. “All I want is for Eric to answer some questions. And to know that you’re taking this situation seriously.”

  The man thought about this, then nodded for Keller to continue.

  Keller looked at Eric. “Did Maggie say anything to you about her trip, or anything that stands out in your mind?”

  Eric shook his head. “I didn’t know her that well. I’d see her in the Center.”

  “The Center?”

  “The tutoring center after school. I’d flirt with her, you know, and stuff like that.”

  “So before spring break you saw her?”

  “Yeah. I went to the Center. I asked her to go to the party and stuff like that. I didn’t do anything, and I—”

  Keller put up her hand. She feared losing her temper if she let him lie.

  “I saw her at the Center before break. She was, like, talking about her brother’s case.”

  “Anything in particular?”

  “She showed me a video someone had sent her. A tip and stuff like that.”

  Keller nodded. If he said “and stuff like that” one more time, she might have to arrest him.

  “What did she say?” Keller had watched the video several times, but nothing had caught her eye. She made a mental note to watch it again, and to check on the status of the computer team’s enhancement of the footage.

  Eric said, “Maggie was excited. She thought it showed the U.P., you know, from the show.”

  “What else did she say?”

  “That was it. I asked her to go to the party. I didn’t talk to her again until then.”

  “That’s it?”

  He nodded.

  “And what happened at the party?”

  The boy’s father tensed.

  “Nothing,” Eric s
aid. “She said she wanted to talk alone and I figured, you know. So we were, like, just kissing and stuff, and then she just got freaked out, kneed me, then took off. I didn’t do anything, I swear. I told some people, and they said she was saying I tried to force her, which isn’t true. If they sent her messages telling her not to lie, it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t tell them to.”

  It was a convincing performance. Untrue, but convincing.

  “Young man,” Keller said. “Do you know how easy it will be for the FBI to trace who sent the anonymous messages to Maggie Pine? And if just one of those messages was from you—or if any of the kids who sent them say you asked them to do it—then you’ve just lied to me. Do you know the penalty for lying to a federal agent?”

  The boy swallowed.

  “Five years in federal prison.”

  The boy’s father spoke up. “But you said—”

  She held up her hand to silence him. “The statute of limitation is five years.” Keller took in their pathetic expressions. “My office has a good relationship with the University of Michigan’s police force. If they get a report—so much as a rumor—that you’ve been anything but a perfect gentleman, I’m going to pay you a visit. And you will find out the consequences of lying to me today.”

  The boy started to speak.

  “Don’t,” she said. “If I get wind that you were even rude to a girl … Do you understand?”

  The boy nodded.

  She looked at the father. “He dodged a bullet today. That happens once.”

  “Understood,” the father said, looking like a beaten man.

  “A perfect gentleman,” Keller said sternly.

  “A perfect gentleman,” the father repeated.

  It wasn’t justice for Maggie Pine, but maybe it would save the next girl. With no witnesses and a dead victim, Keller decided it would have to do.

  CHAPTER 35

  MATT PINE

  Matt slept nearly the entire flight. He’d spent several hours at the Cancún airport, killing time by dispatching texts to his friends, and eating terrible Americanized Mexican food at an overcrowded chain restaurant in the center of the departure gates. The margaritas were good, though, and the waitress packed him a giant slushy tequilaed mess in a Styrofoam to-go cup for the plane. That ensured that he was out cold until he hit the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, and again on his connection to Omaha.