His wife looked at him with wide eyes. “You can’t say that about someone dying. He has a family too. How do you think they’re going to feel? How many times have we said we wouldn’t wish what we went through on our own enemies?”
“Turns out that wasn’t true. I did wish it on my own enemy, and I’m happy it happened. Like I said, he deserved what he got.”
Mrs. Creedy wasn’t so sure. She was a lot more cautious about her reaction to the news. She looked at Zachary, giving a little grimace to tell him that her husband wasn’t always like that. He was a good person, he was just bitter about his daughter. And she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Her eyes were tortured hollows.
“How exactly did it happen?” she asked tentatively. “It’s so bizarre that he was killed the same way as Hope.”
“That’s one thing that we’re looking into,” Zachary said authoritatively. “It is a big coincidence. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you. To see whether you know of anyone who might have been threatening Brandon or who might have wanted to hurt him.”
“It serves him right,” Mr. Creedy reasserted. “It’s not very often you see real justice done in this world. But that… that might be the exception.”
Mrs. Creedy was dabbing at the corners of her eyes. She looked at Zachary, waiting for his answer. Zachary tried to replay the conversation to see what he had missed.
The details. She wanted to know how Harding had died. It wasn’t enough for her to know that he was dead, or that he had died in a hit and run like her daughter. That was enough to satisfy her husband, but Mrs. Creedy wanted the details. She wanted the whole story.
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you very much. He was walking near his home and he was struck by a semi.”
“Just like Hope,” Mr. Creedy said with relish. “You see?”
“His body was thrown into the ditch and he wasn’t discovered for a couple of days. They had to have scent dogs out to see if they could find him. Search parties. For a couple of days, his girlfriend had no idea what had happened to him; where he had disappeared to, or why.”
Mrs. Creedy’s eyes were seeking to connect with her husband’s. “You see? We didn’t have to deal with that. We knew right away what had happened, we didn’t have to wait for days to find out.”
But Mike Creedy apparently didn’t care about that.
“Do you know anyone who might have had reason to harm Brandon?” Zachary pressed. “Or someone who might have threatened to?”
“Besides us, you mean?” Mr. Creedy challenged. “You want to know who other than us wanted to kill him?”
Mrs. Creedy put her hand over his, trying to quiet him. “Mike…”
“It’s true and I’m not going to deny it. If I ran into that monster on the street, I would have done my best to kill him. He should not have been out walking free. He should have been behind bars for the rest of his life. He knew what he was doing when he got into that car, and he should never have been given the opportunity to do it again. People like that cannot be allowed to walk around in free society.”
“He served his sentence,” Mrs. Creedy said.
“His sentence. They could have given him thirty years. Why didn’t they? If Hope was still alive today, she would have been thirty-two. She might have been married. She might have had babies, given us grandchildren. She could have been living a happy, fulfilling life with a family and a career. But he took that away from her. He took that away from all of us. And he should have had to pay. Not just eight years. Forever. He should have had to spend the rest of his life behind bars.”
Zachary thought about the sentence. Harding had killed two people because he was drinking and driving and stunting. Why had the sentence been so light? He could understand Mike Creedy’s bitterness and venom. Brandon Powers might not have planned to kill anyone that night, but he had still caused their deaths. He had chosen to drink when he was supposed to be the designated driver. He had chosen to speed. He had chosen to leave the scene of an accident where two people had been killed, to run away from his dead and injured friends and the stranger he had struck down in the night.
“I imagine that your extended family members probably feel the same way,” Zachary suggested, trying to nudge the couple back to the question at hand.
“I’m sure everyone felt the same way,” Mrs. Creedy agreed. “We all loved Hope dearly. She was the light of our lives.”
“You have another daughter and a son…?”
“Yes. Noelle and Luke. They are twins.”
“I imagine this was just as devastating for them as it was for you.”
“It was,” Mrs. Creedy agreed, eyes filling with tears for her children and the trials they had been through. “They were young teens at the time of the accident and the trial, old enough to understand everything that was going on and to know that they were never going to see Hope again. To be in the public eye all the time, everybody watching them for their reactions, reporters wanting to interview them, and the daily torture of the trial and sentencing… to have to go through that while their brains were still developing…”
Zachary nodded his understanding.
“I can’t help but think that it damaged them… that things would be different now if we had been a whole, happy family, instead of having had to go through all of that.”
“How are they now? You think it affected them permanently?”
“Oh, they’re fine…” Mrs. Creedy looked at her husband, soliciting his opinion. “They’re not drug addicts or homeless. But they both struggle with depression, and I think that if Hope had been able to finish college and go on, she would have been such an example for them. They would be motivated to further their educations and to be… more successful in life.”
“They’ve done just fine,” Mr. Creedy said. “You don’t give them enough credit. And becoming successful in a career takes years. I didn’t get to where I am in a year or two. I had to work at it for a long time.”
“Yes. They’re doing well, really,” she said, retracting her previous comment. “It’s so hard for kids to get ahead in today’s world.”
“They’ve got their own places?” Zachary suggested, though he already knew this to be the case. “They’re not living at home anymore?”
“Oh, yes, of course. Let me get you their information.”
Mr. Creedy looked like he would stop her, but then shrugged and let her get her address book to write out the information for Zachary.
“They really are good kids,” he said to Zachary, not even looking at him.
“I just need to cover all of the bases,” Zachary assured him. “None of you are suspects. Like your wife says, it is a huge coincidence. I don’t think I need to tell you, the police don’t like coincidences.”
Mrs. Creedy focused on writing the addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses down for her two children.
“Did you know that Harding—that is, Brandon—was out of prison?” Zachary asked.
Mr. Creedy nodded. “Of course we knew. We knew the day and the hour they released him. We were doing everything we could to block his release, but there was nothing we could do. We spoke to the review board and everything, but it didn’t do any good. They didn’t care about us or our family or what damage Powers could do if he was unleashed on the public again. It was all just a sham.”
“I suppose they thought he was young and had made a youthful mistake,” Zachary suggested. “One that a lot of kids make… but not usually with such devastating consequences.”
“He killed our daughter. He should have had to give his life for hers. He should have had to stay in prison for the rest of his life.”
So far, Mr. Creedy hadn’t repeated the same words as the stalker. He hadn’t said that Harding shouldn’t have been allowed to live. He didn’t say that Harding should have died, or killed himself, or been executed. The stalker had repeated those phrases hundreds of times. If the cyberbully were Mike Creedy, Zachary didn’t think he could have avoi
ded saying those things when he was angry. They would have been part of his speech, like an auditory fingerprint.
Mrs. Creedy had kept quieter than her husband, so Zachary couldn’t be as sure of her. She might have been saying less and keeping calmer in an effort not to make Zachary suspicious.
They had both seemed genuinely shocked when Zachary had told them about Harding’s death. He really didn’t think they had been faking it.
He met her eyes briefly as she handed him the addresses, and again Zachary saw the deep wells of sorrow. But he didn’t see guilt there. He didn’t see the stalker or a killer.
Chapter Fifteen
Z
achary had only just begun his interviews. There were other people to talk to. Noelle and Luke were already on his list, and he added the additional details Mrs. Creedy had provided to his list. Mr. and Mrs. Creedy probably called the children as soon as he left the house, so he decided to give them a chance to talk with each other and decide that it was in their best interests to help Zachary, then he would follow up with them later.
Hope’s old best friend, Suzie Markell, would probably be harder to catch in a surprise visit than Mr. and Mrs. Creedy had been. She was younger and more likely to be out, either running children around or spending time with her friends, depending on what direction life had taken her. So Zachary called her to set up a meeting. He was encouraged to be able to meet with her the same day as the Creedys. If all of the interviews could be lined up so quickly, he would not have to spend as much time in New Hampshire and would be home a lot sooner. Maybe with the case laid to rest.
Suzie Markell’s house was chaotic. It was not in as nice an area as the Creedys, not as big a house. It looked like it had rolled off the assembly line with all of her neighbors’ houses. There were a number of children running around making noise. Zachary wasn’t actually sure how many there were. At least four, maybe more. He found it hard to ignore them and to focus on Suzie, distracted by noise and activity around him every few seconds. If he’d had it to do again, he would have topped up his ADHD meds before going to her house. He was used to keeping the dose as low as possible, but that just wasn’t sufficient for the Markell house. It was, like some of the homes that Zachary had lived in, a hub of activity, and there wasn’t anywhere he and the busy mom could escape to for a quiet word.
“Have a seat,” Suzie offered, sweeping toys from the couch to the floor to make space for him. There were cracker crumbs between the cracks of the cushions, and Zachary sat down gingerly, wondering about what else he was going to sit down in.
She made space for herself in an easy chair and flopped into it with a sigh. She straightened up, pulling some more toys from behind her, and leaned forward to talk to Zachary.
“So tell me exactly what this is about? Something to do with Hope Creedy’s death all those years ago? Poor Hope. I felt so badly for her family. It was a terrible, terrible thing.”
“Yes,” Zachary agreed. “I can see that they’re still suffering from it. I’m helping the Vermont police with a possibly-related incident. Did you hear anything about the death of Richard Harding?”
“Richard Harding.” Suzie shook her head. “That name doesn’t ring a bell. Who is he?”
Zachary watched her face for any tells, but there was a crash like a bookcase falling over somewhere above his head, and he nearly jumped out of his seat. Suzie didn’t turn a hair.
“Just ignore it,” she advised. “If there’s no blood, we don’t worry about it.”
“You’re sure it’s okay?”
She made a motion to brush it away. “Really. Don’t worry.”
“I…” Zachary tried to pick up the thread of the conversation.
“Richard Harding,” Suzie prompted. “Who is that?”
“Oh. Richard Harding’s former name was Brandon Powers.”
“Brandon? The guy who hit Hope?” She covered her mouth. “Oh, my goodness. I didn’t even know he’d changed his name. I knew he got out, of course, but he just kind of disappeared, so I didn’t know whether he had left the area or what. I thought he should go to some South American country and just start a new life. How could you keep living in the same neighborhood when people knew you had done a thing like that?”
“He’d didn’t go as far as South America. Just to Vermont.”
“I guess if you like snow…” Suzie laughed.
“Mommy!” One of the myriad children rushed into the room and directly for Suzie so fast that Zachary looked around to see who was chasing her. “Mommy, I need to know where the alligator is. I must know where it is right now!”
“Later, sweetheart.” Suzie kissed the urchin on the forehead. “Mommy’s busy right now. Don’t you have some homework you should be working on?”
“But I can’t do it without the alligator!”
“Then do something else for now. Don’t bother Mommy when she has a visitor.”
The little girl turned and looked disdainfully at Zachary. “Who are you?”
“I’m… er…”
“Leave him alone. Go study your spelling words.”
The girl pouted and marched out of the room.
“You said he died?”
Zachary looked back at Suzie in consternation.
“Brandon Powers. You’re looking into his death? What happened?”
“He was the victim of a hit and run.”
“No!” Suzie’s eyes were dramatically wide. Was she putting on an act? Just dramatizing for him? “That has to be the most bizarre coincidence I’ve heard since… oh, I have no idea. How could he have been in a hit and run? He wasn’t the perpetrator again, was he?”
“No. He was the victim. He was walking and was hit by a truck.”
“How awful. I remember how sick I felt when I heard about Hope. I just couldn’t believe it. I felt like throwing up. It was such a horrible thing.”
Another child came into the room. He was Asian, and the rest of the children Zachary had seen had been white. Probably a friend to one of Suzie’s own children or someone she was babysitting. He was about four. He walked into the room with a little pair of scissors and a stack of paper. He sat down on Suzie’s feet and proceeded to fold and cut a snowflake out of the first piece of paper. Zachary stared at him, mesmerized by the triangular and diamond-shaped bits of paper that fell from the little boy’s scissors every few seconds.
“Do you think there is some kind of connection between Hope’s death and Brandon’s?” Suzie prompted. “I can’t see how there could be.”
“No… I haven’t been able to find a connection either.” There was another crash and a squeal from overhead. Zachary felt like his head was going to explode. He closed his eyes, taking deep breaths.
“I mean, the only way they could be connected that I can think of is if someone who knew Hope had tracked Brandon down and then hit him in revenge.” Suzie gave a sharp laugh and shook her head. “I don’t think that’s realistic.”
“You can’t think of anyone who would be angry enough to do that?” Zachary was forcing the words out, but they sounded wrong in his own ears. Flat and emotionless. Distant.
“No. Unless you mean—no. Nobody would do that!”
“Unless who?”
“I just… I mean, her father… he was so angry. But I know the man and he really is a lovely person. Of course he was angry. Any father would have been. I don’t think he was too angry. I can’t see him doing anything like that. For someone to hunt Brandon down and run him over, that’s just… it’s sick.”
Zachary nodded his agreement. His eyes darted around the room, looking for any other approaching children or disasters. He was perched on the edge of his seat, ready to spring up at the slightest warning. His muscles quivered and adrenaline was surging through his veins, his heartbeat loud to his own ears.
“I really can’t think of anyone who would do anything like that,” Suzie said. “And I think I’ve met all the major players.”
“Do you know Hope’s brother
and sister?”
“Yes, but they’re just kids.”
“They were just kids eleven years ago. They’re not anymore.”
“No… I guess not. Funny how you think kids don’t grow up while you’re gone. In your mind, they will always be the same age as they were the last time you saw them. Or when you really knew them well.”
A red plastic ball went whipping across the room for Zachary’s head, launched with the click of a trigger and the force of a spring somewhere behind Suzie, where Zachary couldn’t see. He batted the ball down and jumped to his feet.
“Ari!” Suzie’s voice was stern. “What’s the rule about throwing balls in the house?”
“I didn’t throw it,” a disembodied voice replied.
“What is the rule about shooting people?”
“It wasn’t a bullet, it was—”
“Okay, Mr. Lawyer. You lose the gun for the rest of the day and your name goes up on the fridge. Go put it up.”
The little boy voice groaned, and there was a dragging noise as he scooted out of the room, never becoming visible to Zachary. Zachary stayed on his feet, unwilling to sit down again.
“Can you think of anyone else who was close to Hope at school? Or anyone who organized protests at the court house?”
“It was so long ago now. I tend to have other things on my mind these days! You may not have noticed, but…” She broke off laughing.
“Any names at all?” Zachary prompted, trying hard to stay focused just a few minutes longer.
She thought about it and offered a couple of names, but they were people who were already on Zachary’s list, so he just nodded and didn’t ask for their details.
“Thanks for taking time to meet with me. I can see you’re a busy mom…”
“Oh, any time. I crave adult conversation.”
Zachary got out of there as quickly as he could.
The visit at Suzie’s had wound up and exhausted him. Zachary decided he’d had enough for the day. He’d compile his notes and follow up with more people on his list the next day.
He was Walking Alone Page 13
