Next Girl to Die

by Dea Poirier

  She’s silent for a beat. When she does speak, her voice is high, unusually so. “I have no idea—”

  “Cut the shit, Mom,” I say, my tone as hard as her granite countertops.

  “That seems a little extreme.” A high, humorless laugh filters out of her. “Fine. They stole money from my purse.”

  “And how do you know they stole it?” I counter. I ask this because my mother loves holding grudges. If there were a sport for holding grudges, my mother would have a medal—actually, she’d have a roomful. The worst part of her little games is that if she can’t find the appropriate reason to hate someone, she’ll invent one. When I was in third grade, she decided she hated my English teacher, Mrs. Blake. She tried to get this woman fired, spread rumors about her, made her life a living hell, all because she invented a sordid glance in my father’s direction.

  “Because there’s no one else it could have been.” Her voice goes up in pitch, like she’s losing the battle of keeping herself calm.

  “So other than your purse being in proximity to Madeline and Emma, your purse was either on you or in your direct line of sight the rest of the day?”

  “Well, no—” she stammers.

  “Okay, if it wasn’t in your sight the entire day, how can you be sure it was them?”

  Silence falls over the line. “They were disrespectful little liars who hated me and took every opportunity to show it,” she seethes.

  This is turning out worse than I thought it would.

  “Emma and Madeline were spoiled brats who were never told no in their lives. The second I said a single word to them, they’d run off to Father Samuel about how mean I was to them.” Her words are laced with venom.

  And now we’ve reached a point where I have to ask, “Where were you the night of October thirteenth, Mom?”

  She laughs. “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “If I have to ask you again, it’ll be in an interrogation room.”

  She clears her throat but doesn’t speak, and I think I’m actually going to have to drive out there. She finally says, “The night Emma died I was home until I realized I’d forgotten my phone at the church. I went back to get it. I was there for probably ten minutes. The night Madeline died I never left the house.”

  “Would you be able to verify your story?”

  She scoffs.

  “Mom, I’m serious.” The man I saw downtown definitely didn’t fit my mother’s description, but if I’m going to rule her out for anything, I need solid reasons for doing so. I won’t make it look like familial ties have any bearing on decisions I make.

  “Yes,” she says finally.

  We finish up the call with my mother being so standoffish to me that I’m hopeful she may not talk to me again for weeks.

  Noah hasn’t been able to find anything in his search for records of Rachel’s autopsy or the items missing from her file. There are details about the autopsy that I need to make connections in the case, and there’s only one other option I can think of—reaching out to the medical examiner who worked on Rachel’s case.

  It takes me three hours of searching to find the medical examiner who worked in Augusta when Rachel died. As luck would have it, when she retired, she stayed in Maine in a small city right off the bay. Now that I’ve got the info on the old ME, I need to head there and ask her some questions about Rachel’s file. I pop my head into Sergeant Michaels’s office. He’s hunched over his keyboard, anxiously hunting keys.

  “Sarge, I’m heading up to see Barbara Valloy.”

  “You should see if Noah is available and take him.”

  “I’m sure he’s busy,” I say, because I really don’t want him tagging along.

  His face grows serious. “He’s helping with Rachel’s investigation—that’s where this falls. Let him help, Claire. He’s got a good perspective on things like this.”

  I nod to Sergeant Michaels, grab my coat, and dial Noah’s number on my way out of the station.

  “You up for a road trip?” I ask as soon as the call connects.

  “Always.”

  “Meet me at the ferry in fifteen.”

  “Deal,” he says, and I swear I can hear his smile.

  I pull my car up to the ferry and drum my fingers against the steering wheel as I wait for Noah. Across the bay, the boat is churning toward us, but at the speed it’s going, it’ll take at least another ten minutes to get here. My door pops open, and Noah slides into my passenger seat.

  “So where are we headed?” he asks as he hands me a cup of coffee.

  “We’re going to see Barbara Valloy, the ME who worked on Rachel.”

  The ferry finally docks, and we’re able to drive on. With the car locked in place at the front, we climb the stairs to the top to take in the sights. Evergreen trees crowd the bay, some of them still dusted with the snow that fell last night. In the few weeks since I came here, the autumn leaves have succumbed to winter and coated the ground in a blanket of brown.

  “Where is this place?”

  “It’s right off the coast, about a twenty-minute drive after we get off the ferry,” I explain and take a long sip of my coffee.

  “Do you like snow?” Noah asks, catching me off guard.

  I laugh. “Sometimes. Why?”

  “People who grew up with snow all the time have a very different opinion of it than people who didn’t,” he explains. “In Tennessee, it hardly ever snows, unless you live in the mountains. Where I grew up we got it maybe once a year. So it’s magical, not annoying. People from up north hate it, because they’re stuck with it for half the year.”

  “I liked the snow better when I lived here. It didn’t seem to ever get in the way. It was part of life. In Detroit, snow was a constant pain. It slowed things down, made life more difficult,” I explain. “I like snow on Christmas, though. It makes the holiday feel special.”

  He nods. “It doesn’t feel like Christmas without it.”

  “Does it snow in South Carolina?”

  He shakes his head. “Not that I’ve ever seen. I’ve only lived there a few years, though.”

  The ferry horn lets out a long, low, billowing sound. It’s a sound that sets my teeth on edge, loud enough to make your ears ache. It’s the kind of sound you feel in your bones.

  “Where do you want to live?” he asks after a long silence.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s clear you don’t like the island. You’re here because you have to be, not because you want to be. So where would you rather live?”

  I let out a little chuckle. “Virginia,” I say automatically.

  “Why Virginia?” he asks, his eyes wide, like that was the last place he expected me to say. I guess most people would say New York, California—someplace big, someplace that’s alluring for most. But that’s not for me. I’m never going to be a big-city, downtown kind of girl. Detroit was as close as I’ll get, and it never fit me quite right.

  “My dream has always been to work for the FBI,” I explain. “So it’s not so much about the place; it’s about the job.”

  “So why don’t you apply?”

  I laugh again, louder this time. “I barely have any experience. There’s no way I’d get a job with the FBI.” It takes some people twenty years to do it—unless they’ve got connections, that is.

  “You don’t know if you don’t try. After you solve this case, you should try. Otherwise you might end up stuck here.” He offers me a smile.

  He has a point. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life here, the lead detective of a small town. It’s not for me. And I’ll never have a chance of getting out unless I try. If I worked for the FBI, I could do what I love every day. I could hunt down the guys who do this. Some detectives, they want space from this; they want to be able to take a step back, have some breathing room. I want to be in this up to my eyeballs. I need the opposite of space.

  Deep down, I know it’s because I’m compensating. I had a chance to save Rachel, but I didn’t take it. If I
had talked to someone then, if I hadn’t listened to her, she might be alive right now. And the day after she died, I had a chance to help them find her killer, and instead I kept my mouth shut. That’s the kind of power Rachel had over me. Even in death her grip on me didn’t waver. All I ever wanted was for her to love me.

  “Looks like we’re getting close,” Noah says, pulling me from my train of thought.

  The dock is still a good half mile from us, but being able to see it clearly makes Noah feel better. A few miles out, just as I could make out the blurry dock in the distance, the tension in his shoulders started to fall. It’ll still take us at least ten minutes before we can drive off the ferry.

  “How’s your search coming?” I ask, knowing we’ve still got a little time to talk it through before we need to get back to my car.

  “A lot of information about Rachel seems to be missing. I tried tracking down the sheriff who worked on her case, but he died. It feels like dead end after dead end.”

  “At least we found the ME who performed the autopsy.”

  He nods. “Yeah, at least there’s that. There was one other thing I found,” he says, his voice a little unsteady. “Her friend Angela, from high school, found out about my research and reached out to me.”

  I rack my brain for a memory of Angela. I’m not sure that I would have called her and Rachel friends. Instead, my guess is that Angela got wind of Noah’s research—and how cute he is—and wanted to squeeze into the spotlight.

  “And what did she say?” I ask, trying to keep the skepticism from my voice.

  “She said that Rachel was planning to leave the island. She suspects your mom found out about it and got angry—there might have been a fight between them.” He eyes me, obviously waiting for some kind of reaction.

  I knew Rachel was planning to leave; that doesn’t surprise me. It does surprise me that she might have told Angela. I just don’t buy it. And if my mom had found out that Rachel was going to leave, she probably would have locked her in her room, and I’m sure I would have heard the fallout from it.

  “Did Rachel say anything to you about leaving?” he asks when I say nothing.

  “Well, yes. But I don’t think she told Angela that, and I sure as hell don’t think my mother hurt Rachel. She wouldn’t kill her.” My mind flashes to that night, and I clench my eyes closed just long enough to burn the image from my mind. “It wasn’t her.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I just am,” I snap.

  As the ferry bounces against the docks, we climb back in my car and drive toward Rockland, Noah silent as a stone since I snapped at him. I don’t mind the silence; I’ll take it over a barrage of questions any day. It takes us twenty minutes to get to the house of the old medical examiner. We’re an hour early, but I’m bad at two things—waiting and killing time. So I decide I’m fine with being the kind of asshole that shows up an hour early.

  The house is a tiny cottage with bright-green shutters and daisy-yellow siding. White details line the house—edging, roofline, and ornate porch. It’s as cute as an overdecorated cupcake or a Victorian gingerbread house. The former medical examiner, Barbara Valloy, is hunchbacked and frail. Her face is bloated, taking away some of the lines that should be there. A spiderweb of blue veins peeks from beneath her translucent, milky skin. Barbara is the kind of old that disturbs me. I can see in her dim eyes that she’s going to die soon. I can’t imagine her ever being young; her features are too far gone for that. Saying she’s got one foot in the grave would be a kindness; it’s more like she’s clinging to life with her splintered fingernails. I introduce myself and offer her a thin smile.

  “Detective Calderwood? Are you early? Or did I take an extra pill this morning?” she asks, and it isn’t until she laughs that I realize she’s joking.

  “I’m sorry we’re early.”

  “Oh, pishposh, I’m an old lady. What the hell else do I have to do?” She cackles in an unnerving way as she ushers us into the house.

  Her house is well kept, pristine, the kind of house that doesn’t see grandchildren often. There are no toys, no candy dishes out; there isn’t a single stain on her carpet. The furniture in her living room looks like it belongs in a dollhouse: dainty, floral, carved into unnatural curves and loops. The wall closest to the door is covered in pictures of the family that doesn’t visit her. A smiling family, arms looped around each other as they hover together at the beach.

  “That’s a beautiful family you have.” I nod toward the pictures.

  “You didn’t say you were bringing your partner,” Barbara says as she smiles at Noah and sweeps her long white hair behind her ear.

  I almost correct her, but Noah reaches out and introduces himself as he shakes her hand.

  “It’s lovely to meet you,” she says, smiling at him and leading him to the living room. I follow behind them, forgotten.

  Noah and I take a seat side by side on the couch, and Barbara sits across from us on a plush pink chair. Between us on the coffee table, there’s a half-finished crossword puzzle. We might be side by side, but Noah is clearly all she can see.

  “Barbara, like I said on the phone, I was hoping I could ask you a few questions about your time at the medical examiner’s office in Augusta.” There’s already a lot I know about her. She retired a few months after Rachel died. Rachel would have been one of the last bodies that Barbara saw, so I’m hoping that makes her stick out in her mind.

  She nods. “Ask away.”

  “Do you remember seeing the body of a girl who was murdered in Vinalhaven in 2004?” I ask as I flip open my notebook.

  “That’s the sister you mentioned on the phone, right? Rachel?”

  I nod. “Yes, that’s her.”

  “I do remember her. It’s not often with all these small towns that we get something that . . .” She pauses and purses her lips. “Gruesome. There are things I’ve seen a lot. Stabbings, gunshot wounds, poisonings. Things that are ritualistic like Rachel, though—that’s not something that I came across often.”

  “It’s happened again,” I say before I can stop myself. She needs to know what’s at stake here, that other girls could die if I don’t stop this. “Two girls in Vinalhaven were killed in the same way.”

  She shakes her head and rubs her cracked lips. “It’s a damn shame they never caught the bastard that did it.”

  “That’s why I’m here. Information from Rachel’s autopsy and police reports is missing,” I explain.

  She leans back, crossing her legs and draping an arm over her knee. “I wish I could say that surprises me, but it doesn’t. Not in the least.”

  “It doesn’t surprise you?” I ask, my eyebrow raised.

  “Things got lost a lot back then. The security isn’t anything like it is now.”

  “Just for my own peace of mind, who would have access to the ME’s files?” I ask.

  “Only someone who worked for the medical examiner’s office or for the police station. Technically no one from the station should have been left alone with our files, but not everyone was on top of following those rules, us all being on the same team and whatnot.” An undercurrent of annoyance taints her words. It must have happened often. More often than it should have, anyway. “If you don’t mind me asking, what in particular was missing from each report?”

  “From the ME’s report, time of death and details about the body—they were all gone. From the police report, suspects and interviews were all missing. Images of the crime scene, toxicology, notes about the case, details that weren’t released to the media—they were all there.”

  She shakes her head. “That goes deeper than it should. Her official cause of death was strangulation. Also, based on the evidence I saw, it appears she was strangled with cloth over her face. There were fibers in her mouth. The police also found a pillowcase near the body. One thing I really remember was discovering grease on her body and traces of fuel, like she’d been on a boat. Her feet were grimy, bare. Dirt was caked between
her toes. Not to mention the flesh that was cut from her ankle; that was just bizarre.” After she says this, she purses her lips, as if the words themselves are sour.

  The other girls weren’t found with grease, dirt, or fuel on their bodies. Did Rachel try to escape? She had shoes on the last time I saw her, and winter clothing—there’s no reason she would have had dirt on her feet.

  Barbara sighs and crosses her arms. “I’m not sure if it’s in your police report or not, or in the copy of the report you have, but I made a few notes about her death and the hours thereafter,” she explains. “It was clear the body had been moved. Since there was no blood on the scene, the flesh must have been cut from the body outside of the park. There was also sand on her pants, like she’d been on the beach.”

  While our beaches are mostly pebbles, if you kick those up, you can find sand underneath. Considering my previous thought that the killer was bringing the bodies from the water and into the park, that’d make sense. But she would have had to dig her heels in to get some kicked up. Or was there sand wherever the killer took her? “Do you remember seeing any deaths that reminded you of Rachel’s?” The question is a little more open ended than I’d like. She likely saw way more murder victims in the thirty or so years she worked for the ME’s office than I ever have. For a long moment, she furrows her brows and sips her tea.

  “There were two that I can remember before Rachel died. The bodies of two women were found in the bay, about nine or ten years apart. They got caught in the nets. Both had been strangled and had a patch of flesh removed. They were Jane Does, though.”

  “Did anyone from Vinalhaven ever come to identify the bodies?” Typically, if a Doe is called in from the ME’s office, all local stations will check their records and try to match the Doe to any missing persons in the city.

  “We notified all the departments about the similarities of the homicides. The sheriff from back then who worked with me on those, Sheriff Dyer, came to see both. He said they weren’t from Vinalhaven. He didn’t seem concerned about it at all.” She takes a long sip of her tea. “Back then, no one had ever been killed in Vinalhaven, though.”