The 9th Girl

by Tami Hoag

  “That’s admirable,” Elwood said. “Hopefully, she’ll be able to help. We’ll be speaking with the kids later today. Maybe they’ll be able to shed some light. People don’t always realize what they know. Sometimes a seemingly insignificant detail can mean everything.”

  “Your daughter’s poetry, for example,” Kovac said to Julia Gray. “Her last Facebook post was a poem. It certainly seems to be directed at someone in particular.”

  He pulled a printed copy of the poem entitled “Liar” out of the file folder and slid it across the table to a neutral spot between Julia Gray and Michael Warner. He sat back in his chair and watched them read it with his eyelids at half-mast, as if he might doze off.

  Julia Gray looked frustrated by her inability to penetrate her daughter’s work—or her world—in any way. Michael Warner read it without expression.

  “Any idea who she might be talking about?” Kovac asked.

  “Her father, obviously,” Warner said. “She was lashing out at him. He has all but cut her out of his life. She was especially feeling the sting of that over the holidays.”

  “But what’s the lie?” Kovac asked. “It’s been four years since your husband left you and Penny, Mrs. Gray. It’s no secret he was cheating on you, that he left you for a younger woman. Considering your daughter’s penchant for public displays of drama, I can’t imagine anyone didn’t know how she felt about it all. So what’s the lie? What’s the secret? Who’s the star she means to bring down?”

  Michael Warner slid the sheet of paper back toward him and said, “We can only hope we get a chance to ask her.”

  “And for the record, Mrs. Gray,” Elwood said, “where were you New Year’s Eve?”

  “We went out for drinks,” she said, tearing up. Michael Warner put an arm around her shoulders to offer comfort while she covered her mouth with her injured hand.

  Kovac imagined her remembering the revelry of the evening, dressed to the nines, ringing in the New Year while her daughter was lying dead in the road, a spectacle under the harsh portable lights, TV news cameras angling to get a shot of the carnage.

  Every mother’s nightmare.

  He hoped.

  27

  “You are not to leave this house. Do you understand me?” Nikki said. “I don’t care if it’s on fire. You are not to leave this house.”

  Kyle didn’t look at her. He hung his head and said yes in a barely audible voice.

  They had ridden home in absolute, oppressive silence. She couldn’t trust herself to speak. She couldn’t stand to have music on the radio or DJs trying to fill everyone with phony hilarity. The sound of the blinker was intolerable. Kyle slouched down in the passenger’s seat, trying to make himself invisible.

  The house was equally silent save for the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen. The quiet seemed to press in on her eardrums. Every small sound—her purse touching the dining table as she set it down, Kyle unzipping his hoodie—seemed magnified ten times.

  He sat down at the table looking despondent. She refused to feel badly for him.

  “I can’t talk to you about this now,” she said. “I am so angry and so disappointed in you, I can’t talk about it.”

  He hung his head. “Are you going to tell Dad?”

  “Why would I bother to involve your father?” she snapped. “He’s as juvenile as you seem to be. He’ll probably think it’s funny. It’s not funny. It is so not funny.

  “You could lose your scholarship over this. You could be expelled. You can sit here all day and think about that, and what that means. No television. No Internet. And if I find out you’ve been on Facebook or tweeting on your secret account, I will take your phone and smash it with a hammer right before your eyes.

  “I have to go now,” she said, “because I have to have a job so I can provide for you and your brother, and feed you, and clothe you, and buy you things—all of which you seem to have no appreciation for whatsoever.”

  He was trying to hide the fact that he was crying. She had to fight like a tigress against the urge to go to him and put her arms around him. She loved him so much it hurt like being stabbed in the heart with an ice pick.

  She felt like she was going to explode into a million glass shards as she went back out into the cold and got in the piece-of-crap car from the department pool. It smelled of cold Mexican takeout food. She left the windows cracked as she drove.

  Alone, she couldn’t help but let some of her own tears fall. She was exhausted, both from the case and from all the drama with Kyle. At times like this she found that terrible, insidious worn-out wish sneaking in the back door. The one where she imagined someone stronger than she felt offering to take some of the burden away and let her rest in a safe place. It was a cruel dream, one she never expected to be fulfilled. But it crept in the back door just the same.

  She drove to the medical plaza where Penny Gray had been treated for her broken wrist and picked up the X-rays that were waiting at the front desk, then headed downtown to the ME’s offices.

  She was informed at the front desk that Möller was in the middle of an autopsy.

  “Which suite is he in?” she asked.

  The receptionist blinked at her. “You can wait in his office. He’s in the middle of an autopsy.”

  “Yeah, I got that the first time you said it.” She held up the large manila envelope with Penelope Gray’s name on it. “I need him to look at these X-rays now. I don’t care if he’s knee-deep in decomposing corpses. Which room is he in?”

  The young woman looked alarmed, torn between fear and duty.

  “Look, sweetheart,” Nikki said brusquely. “You can call Dr. Möller and interrupt him or you can tell me which room he’s in and I’ll interrupt him myself. I need to know if his Jane Doe is my missing child case. I have a mother hanging in limbo.”

  Still uncertain, the young woman swallowed and said, “He’s in two.”

  She was already picking up the phone to call the suite and cover her ass as Nikki turned and headed down the hall.

  The smell hit her in the face like a baseball bat as she went into the autopsy suite.

  “Holy Mother of God!” she exclaimed, reeling. Her stomach flipped over like a beached fish, and her head swam.

  Möller looked up at her, his eyes sparkling above his mask. “Ah, welcome, Sergeant Liska! You don’t like our ambience today? So sorry. The piquant bouquet of our latest customer isn’t for the more delicate nose, I’m afraid.”

  Liska clamped her nose shut with thumb and forefinger and tried to breathe through her mouth. Her eyes watered as if she had just sliced open an onion. “What the hell is that?”

  “A dissatisfied client from a funeral home in north Minneapolis. One of several. Apparently, they ran out of storage while waiting for the weather to cooperate for burials,” he explained. “And ran out of embalming fluid, it would seem, as well. Seven corpses stacked in a closet like cordwood.”

  “I’m gonna puke,” she said, then promptly turned toward the nearest receptacle and unloaded her breakfast into a laundry bin.

  Unfazed, Möller went on about his business, waiting for her to recover.

  “Okay,” she said, still breathing hard through her mouth. “That guy isn’t going to get any deader. I’ve got the X-rays to match to our Jane Doe. Can we go somewhere with a lower gag factor and have a look?”

  “Of course,” Möller said pleasantly, stepping back from the table. “If you had allowed the girl at the desk to call ahead, I would have met you in the hallway.”

  He stripped off his gloves, mask, and gown and threw them in the laundry bin, then washed his hands in one of the big stainless steel sinks.

  Liska didn’t wait for him, bursting out of the room and sucking in fresh air by the lungful. Möller stepped into the hall and offered her a wrapped peppermint, which she took in exchange for the X-rays.

  They went into his office and he clipped the pictures of Penny Gray’s broken wrist to a light box. He had already mounted the
matching X-rays from the Jane Doe autopsy. He stood looking at the images, frowning and silent.

  “What do you think?” she asked. “Are our pictures the healed version of that?”

  “Yes,” Möller said. “How did this allegedly happen?” he asked, pointing to Gray’s known X-rays.

  “The mother said the girl fell off a bike. Why?”

  “No,” he said. “You fall from a bicycle, you reach out to break your fall like so,” he said, stretching out one arm, his hand flexed back. “Your hand strikes the ground, the break happens here.” He cut his other hand across the wrist. This is not what happened to this girl.”

  Liska looked at the fracture, the steep angle of it.

  “This,” Möller said, “is a spiral fracture. A spiral fracture is caused by a twisting motion.”

  He turned toward her, grabbed hold of her wrist, and slowly twisted.

  “That, my friend—,” he began.

  Liska finished the sentence for him. “Is abuse.”

  28

  Have u heard about Gray?

  Brittany looked at her phone. Kyle. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? That was her first thought. Her second thought was that in her heart of hearts she actually kind of wished she could see him and talk to him. He was always so sure of what to do, of what was right. She didn’t always agree with him, but she wished she had some of his strength right now.

  She glanced around to see if anyone was watching her, then texted him back. She’s missing. Cops here now. Where r u?

  They sat at a big, glossy wood table in a room in the principal’s offices. Christina and Aaron and the other kids who had been at the Rock & Bowl that night—Jessie and Emily, Eric and Michael; the core of the clique. The police wanted to talk to them.

  “How did they even know we were there?” Aaron asked.

  Brittany was silent, dreading having everyone’s attention on her. Would they be angry? Would they hate her? She hadn’t asked for the police to come to her house.

  She felt Christina’s dark eyes on her with extra intensity. She had to tell them. They would find out anyway.

  “They came to my house last night,” she said. “Gray’s mom told them she was staying with me.”

  Emily’s eyes got big. “The police came to your house? Oh my God.”

  “This is what happens,” Christina said with firm disapproval. “This is what you get for letting her come to your house, Britt. She’s always in trouble. She is trouble. I’ve told you that a hundred times!”

  “I know, I know,” Brittany said. “But her mom kicked her out. She needed a place to stay—”

  “Let her go stay with one of her weird poet friends. She’s not your responsibility, Britt. You don’t owe her anything.”

  Brittany said nothing. Everything with Christina was cut-and-dried and bent to fit, but Brittany never seemed to see things so clearly. She had been friends with Gray before she was friends with Christina. Even though she didn’t really get Gray, she felt like she did owe her a certain amount of, if not loyalty, then kindness, at least.

  She felt badly for Gray. Her father had cut her out of his life. Her mother was a selfish bitch who would have been just as happy if Gray disappeared forever. That was so sad. Brittany had great parents. They didn’t always see eye to eye on things, but she knew her mom and dad loved her. They would never in a million years throw her out of the house, throw her away like she was a broken doll or a piece of trash.

  “Maybe she had her own reasons for wanting Gray to sleep over,” Jessie said sarcastically. “A little girlie action, Britt?”

  Brittany looked at her, seeing the nasty little gleam in her eyes. Jessie considered Christina her BFF and was easily made jealous. If anyone had lesbian tendencies, it was Jessie, but Brittany didn’t have the nerve to say so.

  “Maybe I’m just a nice person,” she said. “Maybe if your mom kicked you out, you would like somebody to be nice to you too.”

  “Leave her alone, Jess,” Christina snapped, conveniently forgetting that she had made the same kind of nasty comments before that night at the Rock & Bowl. All was forgiven now.

  “What did you tell the cops?” Aaron asked.

  “That we went to the Rock and Bowl and that Gray got pissed off and left.”

  “And you told them that we were all there,” he said. “Thanks, Britt.”

  “What difference would it make if I did?” she asked defensively. “What difference does it make who was there? Gray left. That’s all that matters.”

  “Did you tell them that douchebag Hatcher was there?”

  “I didn’t tell them anything about anyone!” Brittany insisted. “Stop trying to make me feel like I did something wrong! They’re the police, Aaron. You think they wouldn’t find out whatever they wanted to find out?”

  He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Was one of them Hatcher’s mom?”

  “No.”

  “Then how come he’s not sitting here?”

  “How would I know?”

  “He’s your boyfriend.”

  “He is not! How can he be my boyfriend? You’re the one who keeps saying he’s gay.”

  “Aaron, stop it,” Christina snapped. “This isn’t Britt’s fault. Kyle probably told them we were all there. Who knows what he might have said.”

  “Fucking loser runt,” Aaron muttered, staring down at his fists on the tabletop. He had a tendency to pout, his full lower lip jutting slightly forward, his eyes narrowing to slits.

  When Brittany had first seen Aaron Fogelman, like every other girl in school, she had thought he was hot. He was tall and athletic and good-looking in a young Channing Tatum kind of a way. She had fantasized about him being interested in her, but that hadn’t lasted long. First of all, he was Christina’s boyfriend. But as she’d gotten to know him, the hot looks had faded behind the fact that he was spoiled and sulky and not very nice to a lot of people.

  She hated the way he treated Kyle—the bullying, the nasty gay references—even if Kyle did sometimes ask for it. As she looked at him now she could hear Kyle’s voice: Nice friends you’ve got there, Britt. . . .

  Her phone vibrated in her hand. She held it down in her lap and tried to read the text surreptitiously.

  @home. Suspended.

  “Did you see what he put on Twitter?” Eric Owen asked the room in general. He was snickering when he brought the picture up on his phone and held it so everyone could look. He laughed even though one of the cartoon figures was clearly himself.

  Aaron swore half under his breath, reached over, and snatched the phone out of his buddy’s hand.

  “Hey!”

  “It’s not funny, dickhead!” Aaron declared.

  It wasn’t funny when Kyle did it to Aaron, but it had been hilarious when Aaron had done it to Kyle. Brittany wished she had the courage to say it, but she didn’t.

  “Where do you think Gray is?” Christina asked her.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You haven’t heard from her?”

  “No, but why would I?” Brittany asked. “She thinks I set her up.”

  “You did,” Jessie Cook said smugly.

  Brittany looked down again at Kyle’s text—@home. Suspended.—and thought, Wish I was there.

  She wanted to deny Jessie’s charge, but what good would it do her? She wanted to believe she hadn’t known Christina was going to retaliate that night. Nobody had told her in so many words. Christina had texted her, knowing full well Gray was with her, and told her to come to the Rock & Bowl. Brittany had convinced Gray to go.

  Now she felt ashamed of herself for being a part of it, for not being brave enough to say something that night.

  “She had it coming,” Emily Peters said.

  That was true. Gray had invited the trouble—as she always did. She had written a nasty poem about Christina called “Queen of the Class” and read it out loud at PSI’s monthly Artist’s Open Mike Night right before Christmas break had started. Brittany could see it in her
head like a scene from a movie: Gray standing at the microphone wearing a look that always meant trouble—half-mean, half-excited—as she began to read.

  Queen of the Class

  Princess of sass

  Boss of the cool elite.

  Mermaid hair

  Down to there

  Never has tasted defeat.

  Believes she’s adored

  Everyone is so bored

  Pretending to worship her shit.

  Each one and all

  Can’t wait for her fall

  Just wishing she’d take a big hit.

  But life as a rule

  Is exceedingly cruel

  To the queens of phony glory.

  They all fall down

  And break the crown

  And that be the end of their story.

  The ones they look down on

  The ones that they frown on

  Are only too happy to say, Fool

  We knew all the time

  That this was your prime

  Bitch, you peaked in high school.

  Gray had been so pleased with herself. She loved making people uncomfortable when she believed they deserved it. No one had been able to make eye contact with Christina. They all knew the poem was about her. Christina’s face had turned to stone.

  “You know they think she’s that dead girl that fell out of that car New Year’s Eve,” Aaron said. “The zombie.”

  Brittany frowned at him. “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s true. Emily, you said you read about it on TeenCities.”

  Emily nodded. “In Sonya Porter’s blog. It was all about how there’s this serial killer out there killing young women and doing terrible things to them.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s Gray,” Christina said.

  “You know,” Jessie said, “the way they described that dead girl on the news, it kind of sounded like Gray. God, how weird would that be—to know someone who was murdered by some sick psycho?”

  She seemed almost excited at the prospect.

  “If it is Gray, the killer got her after she left the Rock and Bowl,” Brittany said. “And she left the Rock and Bowl because of us.”