Next Girl to Die

by Dea Poirier

  “We should all go get dinner at the Haven or some other restaurant, just like we used to for your birthday,” Dad says as he lingers behind me.

  I turn, ready to say no, but the look on his face is almost enough to make me cave. Dad’s been super reclusive for the past fifteen years, and it’s obvious from his pallor that that hasn’t changed since I left.

  “You know I’m not eating anywhere with fishermen,” Mom snaps before I get a chance to say a word.

  He deflates, and his shoulders sag. “We should get out of your hair,” my dad says and squeezes my shoulder.

  My mom nods, though she clearly doesn’t agree. The downward curve of her lips and the flare of her nostrils, like she’s smelled something foul, say everything her words don’t. “Consider the dog, please.”

  “Fine,” I say, though I have no intention of doing so.

  This isn’t the first time she’s tried to force something on me in the name of safety. In my teens, she screwed my windows shut. After I left, I got regular care packages of pepper sprays, knives disguised as cosmetics, and Tasers, and even now I occasionally get gift certificates for self-defense classes.

  The front door slams behind them. My mother’s shrill voice echoes outside, but I try not to eavesdrop—knowing her, she’s got nothing nice to say. To distract myself, I grab my suitcases and drag them upstairs, where the rooms are all filled with cigarette-stained striped wallpaper that’s probably been around since the New Deal. If I bought the place, that’d be the first thing to go. But it’s going to be a long time before I convince myself to buy something here. Temporary. That’s what this is. Because if it’s not, it’s like I’ve backslid. All those years of progress I made on my own—gone.

  A simple full-size bed stands against the back wall in the master. It’s the only thing in here, but it’s obvious it hasn’t always been. There are outlines along the wall of where the previous tenants’ furniture used to be. I stare at them, and they remind me of footprints in the snow—a shadow of a life that came before me. I try to push it from my mind, to not think about how long they were here or how long I might be. I shove my suitcases under the window and glance out over the yard and beyond. A lump as hard as a pebble lodges in my throat. I should have been more careful when I found this house; my desire to stay as far away from my parents as possible blurred my memory of the town. I yank the curtains closed as if that will erase what I saw. My bedroom window overlooks the park where Rachel’s and Emma’s bodies were dumped. It never did make sense to me. Rachel would sneak out, yes—but she always went to the park near our house, a park five minutes away. She’d never have come so close to downtown while she was supposed to be in bed. No one knows how her body got there. Then again, I’m not sure how hard they looked.

  A chill snakes down my spine and doesn’t stop until even my bones are cold. I’ll have to face her eventually. But for now, I’ll shut her out like I always do.

  CHAPTER 3

  Outside the small police station, a low conversation carries on the breeze through the open windows. I can’t make out the words, but I stand and listen anyway. The noise is calming, compared to the stark silence that settles over the island most of the time. With the constant hush, I’ve barely been able to sit still all morning, my nerves gnawing at me. Everything is so familiar yet so foreign at the same time. Years ago, I knew this island and everyone on it like they were part of me, for better or for worse. Now it’s like I’m looking in on them all from the other side of a mirror.

  I take a deep breath and steady myself before I open the front door. A reception desk stands in the middle of the small room, taking up most of it. Four plastic chairs are shoved up against the walls, covered in a thin layer of dust. Behind the desk, a woman peeks up from behind her monitors and clears her throat. She appraises me carefully. I straighten my shirt and smooth a few strands that have come loose from my ponytail.

  “Detective Calderwood?” she asks in a high voice, and I’m not sure if it’s because she recognizes me or because Sergeant Michaels told her I was coming.

  I nod and close the few steps between me and the desk. I stare at her for too long. She’s got a tiny triangular nose and a wide face. But I determine quickly that she’s too young to be someone I knew well.

  “I’m Mindy,” she says with a smile and sweeps her short brown hair behind her ear. She’s got brown eyes that look small, but it may just be the glasses she’s wearing.

  Relief washes over me at her name. I don’t remember a single Mindy. “Nice to meet you.” I shake her hand.

  “So you’re the hotshot detective from Detroit, right?” she asks, and I swear her eyes triple in size. I wasn’t aware that living in Detroit qualified me for hotshot status.

  I nod. “Guess so. Where are you from?”

  “Bangor,” she says with a half smile. “I’ve never been to Detroit, or anywhere else.” She chews her lip.

  She can’t be older than twenty. She may be even younger than that. “Don’t worry. You’ve got plenty of time.” I want to tell her to leave now and never look back, the advice I wish someone would give me right now. Instead, I push my fingernails into the palm of my hand.

  She grins like that’s exactly what she needed to hear.

  “Where can I find the sergeant?” I ask, because I won’t be able to keep up this small talk for much longer.

  She points toward the door to her left. “Straight ahead and to the right.”

  “Thanks. It was good meeting you,” I say as I slip away to the sergeant’s office. I pass several desks lining the walls; the tops are piled with papers, legal pads, and family photos. Each desk has someone swiveling in an office chair. The conversations rumbling through the room stop as I walk by. From the looks of it, there are four patrol officers. One of the officers, Jason, went to my high school and dated one of my good friends, Kyle, for a while. Two of the others, Vince and Marshall, have worked at the station since I was in middle school, at least. The fourth guy’s got long, greasy, mousy-brown hair and a pretty impressive beard. It’s a typical look for many of the fishermen here. He sits by himself in the corner, and all the other guys are angled away from him. I’m not sure who he is, but after a few moments it clicks into place: Allen Warren. I went to high school with him.

  The sergeant’s office is only a few feet beyond the bull pen, down a short hallway. This whole place is stark, decorated about as well as a hospital. The Detroit office was sleek, modern. Sergeant Michaels is hunched behind his desk when I knock on the open door. Gray hair dusts his temples and the sides of his head. His glasses have slipped down, the bulb at the end of his nose the only thing holding them up. His cheeks are pink, like they always have been—as a kid I imagined he was some descendant of Santa Claus. It’s not that he’s built like old Saint Nick—not at all, actually. He’s tall and broad, like he was born to play football.

  He stands from behind the overflowing desk, and I’m reminded of how large he is. “Claire!” his voice booms, and there’s an authority to it that nearly makes me jump. “How was your flight?”

  I reach across the desk and shake his hand. “It was fine. It’s good to see you again.” I haven’t seen Sergeant Michaels since I was in high school, and back then he was a beat cop.

  “Do you want to have a seat and catch up for a bit?” He motions to the two chairs in front of his desk, both of which are stacked high with folders.

  “I’d actually prefer to dive right in, if you don’t mind.” The good thing about police work is that there’s always plenty of it to distract me from my problems.

  He chuckles and waves me toward the door. “Ha! You haven’t changed a bit—always got your nose to the grindstone,” he says in a tone that makes me half expect to have my cheeks squeezed.

  That’s not how I’ve ever seen myself. Not that I’m about to argue with him. He moves past me through the door, and I follow. He leads me into a small office not far from his. The desk is stacked with folders and paperwork, but it’s not in
anywhere near as bad shape as his—at least I can see the keyboard.

  “This’ll be your office. Hope it’s all right. I’m not sure what you had in Detroit,” he says like he expects me to take off at the sight of it.

  This isn’t exactly a promotion, but I sure as hell didn’t get an office at the old station. “This will be fine. Thank you.”

  “Feel free to introduce yourself to the guys when you have time. I’m sure you know them already, though.”

  “What do you have so far on Emma?” He sent me some of the interviews for her case a few days ago. From what I’ve seen, they’ve got less than nothing to go on. It’s been over a month since they found her body. In Detroit, we would be close to bringing someone in. But things work at a different pace on the island. Things are slower; the resources here don’t compare to a big city’s.

  “Just what we’ve sent you. The initial autopsy, the interviews we’ve done of her close friends and family. Her parents have been ruled out as suspects. Any of the other officers can catch you up if you have questions. Is there anything else you need?”

  I shake my head. “No, I can take it from here.” Though a few more questions might help me, I’ve gone on less before. With the way he keeps inching toward the door, I must be keeping him from something. He’s obviously got plenty on his plate without babysitting me.

  He stops at the door. “The top folder has everything we’ve found so far,” he says before striding back to his office.

  I sling my purse onto the back of the chair. It groans as I sit and scoot closer to the desk. Though I press the space bar a few times, it takes a long time for the computer to whir to life; once it does, I type in the password scrawled on a sticky note taped to the screen. For nearly two hours, I scour the information on the computer and in the file. The files on Emma aren’t organized well. The interviews are mixed in with details I already know about the case—strangled with a cloth over her face, flannel fibers found in her lungs, flesh removed from her back. She was found in the middle of the night in Grimes Park. There are no signs that Emma was taken from her house, and the lack of evidence of a struggle in the park leads me to believe she was killed elsewhere.

  A few things about all the details stick out to me. Why would someone cover her face while strangling her? Where did they take her to kill her? Obviously somewhere private where they wouldn’t be seen. The park is too wide open and exposed to strangle someone, and since there was no blood found in the park, they’d have had to cut the flesh off her elsewhere. Even if Rachel hadn’t also been found there, my assumption would be that Emma isn’t the first murder by this killer.

  The phone on my desk rings, and I jump.

  “Hello,” I say, then catch myself. “Detective Calderwood.”

  “It’s Mindy. There’s someone here to see you.”

  “You can send them back,” I say automatically, sure it’s my mom dropping in to check on me. Quickly I sweep back any strands that may have come loose from my ponytail and sit back in my chair. The last thing I want is for her to sense how stressed I am.

  A light knock at the door catches me off guard; my mom isn’t the knocking type. “Come in.”

  A tall man stands at my door. His dirty-blond hair dusts his earlobes. His strong jaw is covered by a five-o’clock shadow. A slight smile curves his full lips. For a long moment after he opens the door, we appraise one another, as if we’re sizing each other up. His blue eyes are piercing and beautiful at the same time. He clears his throat and adjusts the laptop bag hanging from his shoulder.

  “Claire Calderwood?” he asks, like I’m not quite who he was expecting. He’s got a slow drawl, the kind I’ve only heard in the movies. Maybe he’s from Texas.

  “That’s me,” I say just as he moves a stack of files from the chair across from my desk and takes a seat. I raise a brow at that: how presumptuous.

  He leans back and squares his shoulders.

  “And you are?” I ask when he doesn’t introduce himself.

  “I need to talk to you about your sister,” he says, and my stomach bottoms out. “Rachel,” he clarifies, as if I wouldn’t know. I’ve only got one sister. Had one sister. And despite the distraction of my sister’s name, it’s not lost on me that he avoided telling me who he is.

  My mouth and throat are bone dry. I start to say something—anything—but my words are lost beneath a whirlwind of thoughts. Who the hell is this guy to walk in here and ask to talk about my sister? I knew the questions about Rachel would catch up to me back here, but right now—it’s jarring. I wasn’t expecting it so soon. For thirteen years I’ve managed to keep questions about her at bay.

  “I really can’t talk about her right now.” It’s not just that I don’t have time to. I can’t. I turn my attention back to my computer, hoping he’ll get the hint.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, breaking the awkward silence building between us. I glance at him, eyebrow raised. “I shouldn’t have just come at you like that. I’ve been looking for you for weeks,” he says, excitement lifting his voice. I cock my head at that. “No, no,” he says with his hands raised in surrender. “Not in like a creepy, stalker, I’ve been looking for you kind of way.”

  There’s a heavy lump in my throat that showed up the second this guy got here. Maybe once I ditch him, the lump will disappear, and I’ll be able to focus on my caseload.

  “Can we start over?” There’s an edge to his voice, and for the first time, his full lips curve into a frown. “I’m Noah Washington. I’m a journalist,” he says as he extends his hand to shake mine. “With the fifteenth anniversary of Rachel’s death coming up, I was really hoping to dig into new details, shine a light on it. And then cover it all on a cold case podcast.”

  For a long moment, I look at his hand, unsure if I want to shake it. The intensity behind his big blue eyes softens. Years of experience have taught me not to trust journalists.

  “Will you please answer some questions about Rachel?”

  Anger flares inside me. I don’t have time for this. There’s a homicide investigation that needs my attention.

  “I wish you luck with your research, but I need you to go. I’m very busy.” I turn my attention back to the computer.

  “I just need a few minutes of your time.” He leans close to me, his eyes pleading.

  “Not today, Mr. Washington. Please go.” I use the best tone of dismissal that I can.

  When he doesn’t move, I glance toward him, hoping my expression will mirror my words.

  The look on his face is resigned, like it’s what he expected me to say. “I’ll keep digging. I’m going to find out the truth. I’m going to find out what happened to her.”

  What the hell does he think he’s going to find that the police couldn’t?

  I do a quick Google search to see if Noah is who he says he is, because something about him rubs me the wrong way. The page fills with article after article written by Noah covering everything from politics to true crime. I shake my head as I consider that. I hope he moves on, because if he keeps digging, I know what he’ll find.

  He’ll figure out that I’m the reason Rachel’s dead.

  CHAPTER 4

  After kicking Noah out of my office, I head out onto Main Street in search of answers. I’ve gone over all the interviews of Emma’s family and friends several times, and one keeps sticking out to me. Maybe it’s my gut, or maybe it’s my experience keeping secrets as a teen. But there are quite a few holes in the questioning of Madeline Clark, the mayor’s daughter and Emma’s best friend. To make matters worse, Madeline was questioned with her father present. Any teen is going to clam up—or lie—under those circumstances.

  It’s a short walk to the mayor’s house, but I measure my steps, letting the questions build in my mind. I’ve been a detective for three years, but I still have to watch my tone, the way I ask questions. When I was a beat cop, my sergeant told me over and over again that I was too blunt and brash to climb the ladder. Six months later, I proved the a
sshole wrong. I’ve become a master at biting my tongue. Most of the time.

  On the sidewalk, I stand staring at the mayor’s house—a white wood-frame house off Clamshell Alley. This is the kind of town with cutesy names like Clamshell Alley and Frog Hollow Road. Since I last saw the house, they’ve added bright-blue shutters that don’t suit it. I try not to gawk and instead sip my coffee to settle my nerves. It’s like preparing for war, but the enemy is my emotions. The boards groan beneath my feet as I walk across the wide porch. I knock slowly and listen for movement inside the house.

  There’s a rustling to the left, where the living room is. I know that’s where it is because one of my best friends in high school, Ashley, lived in this house when it was in much better condition. I know its secrets, its stories. When we were twelve, we carved our names into the rafters of the attic. She buried a time capsule in the backyard the same year. Rachel and I used to play here—that is, until I realized my friend liked Rachel better than she liked me. It wasn’t the first time one of my friends ended up liking her better, and it wasn’t the last. Being here, seeing this house again, it’s enough to tug my memories straight back there.

  I’m able to trace footsteps through the house before the door opens. A balding man stands before me, the mayor. Time has worn on him. He’s tall and lanky, and his body doesn’t match his face. His brown eyes have dimmed from chocolate brown to hazelnut. Deep lines are etched on either side of his mouth, framing jowls.

  With the way he’s got the door cracked only a few inches, it’s like he thinks I’m going to slip in without permission.

  “Mayor Clark?”

  He nods and narrows his eyes. There’s a flicker of recognition. “Claire?”

  I nod. “I’m sure that Sergeant Michaels mentioned I was coming on as the new detective?” I know Sergeant Michaels told him.

  “Yeah, he did mention that. With everything going on, it slipped my mind.”