Walk a Crooked Line (Jo Larsen Book 2)

by Susan McBride

  Jo bit the inside of her cheek to keep from interjecting.

  “So nothing about Kelly these past few weeks seemed out of the ordinary?” he asked, still trying to get a real answer.

  “Well, I guess there was something,” Mrs. Amster murmured, her gaze darting toward a dog-eared copy of Elle on the coffee table. “Even before school resumed this year, I’d caught her wearing clothes I’d never seen before. They weren’t the outfits we picked out when we went shopping before the term started.”

  “What kind of clothes?”

  “They showed more skin, you know. I told her she looked like a slut. I didn’t like it, but she said it’s how the cool girls dressed. I didn’t have the energy to fight her.” She shook her head. “She had this awful blue dress she seemed obsessed with. It was way too tight. When she lost it, she flipped out, nearly tore apart the house trying to find it. But, honestly, I was relieved. One less trampy outfit for her to put on.”

  Jo figured the fashion magazines were Kelly’s. Maybe the candy bar wrappers, too. So Kelly Amster was a young woman who wanted to be in style, and she probably wasn’t on a diet. That told her more about the vic than her own mother had so far.

  “Are you saying it was unusual for Kelly to want to fit in with the popular girls?” Jo asked.

  “Yes, it was. Very.”

  Mrs. Amster got up and crossed the room to a cabinet. She tugged open a drawer and rifled through it before she found the object of her search. When she returned, she handed Jo a photograph of a smiling Kelly sitting alongside another girl with spiral curls and braces, a gawky contrast to Kelly’s emerging beauty. They were clasping hands, holding them up, proudly showing off the matching braided bracelets on their wrists.

  Jo recognized them. Kelly had been wearing hers upon her death.

  Mrs. Amster went on. “The Kelly I knew wasn’t interested in being social. She made fun of girls who liked to draw attention to themselves. She had one good friend, Cassie Marks, and they didn’t like to stand out.”

  “This is Cassie with Kelly?” Jo asked, pointing at the girl in braces in the photograph.

  “Yes. She lives a street over. The girls have been best friends for ages. You should go talk to her . . . Oh, but she’s in school right now.” Mrs. Amster’s chin began to quiver. “God, poor Cass. She’s going to be devastated.”

  Jo exchanged glances with Hank.

  Why wasn’t Mrs. Amster the one who was devastated?

  Her partner’s eyes seemed to question that, too. What was wrong with this woman? She had just lost her only child. Was she that burned out? Did death not faze her anymore?

  Or, Jo wondered, were they expecting too much?

  She collected her thoughts, not wanting to forget anything important. “You told Officer Ramsey that Kelly left a suicide note,” Jo said. “May we see it, please?”

  “It’s still on her bed. I’ll go get it.” Mrs. Amster grabbed the sofa armrest and pulled herself up. Looking a bit wobbly, she shuffled out of the room.

  Hank turned to Jo and said under his breath, “How the hell is she so calm?”

  “Like they say, everybody grieves differently,” Jo replied, because it was what they’d been taught. They weren’t supposed to jump to conclusions. But she thought something felt off, too.

  “She’s phoning it in,” Hank said and ran a hand over his head. “Jesus, if it were my kid, I’d be gutted. I’d be sobbing and begging to see her before they carted her off . . .”

  “She’s not you, Hank.”

  “But she hasn’t asked why. That’s the first thing that I’d want to know. Isn’t she even curious? Or does she have an inkling and isn’t willing to share?”

  The sound of Mrs. Amster’s returning footsteps silenced him.

  Hank got up from the chair, and Jo did the same.

  The woman clutched a piece of paper to her breasts. “Will you give it back when you’re done with it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jo said. “Of course we will.”

  Kelly’s mom looked beseechingly at Hank, as if she required a second opinion.

  “You will get it back,” he told her.

  Mrs. Amster handed over the note. It was written on lined white paper, torn from a composition book, with a ragged margin.

  Jo held it so both she and Hank could read the purple pen strokes.

  I love you, but it hurts too much to stay. I’m sorry. So, so sorry.

  That was it. Exactly what Charlotte Ramsey had quoted from her notes. Nothing more. No explanation.

  “Is this your daughter’s handwriting?” Jo asked before she bagged the note and tucked it away.

  “Yes, it’s definitely Kelly’s handwriting.” Mrs. Amster blinked her tired eyes. “Are we done now? I need to get ready for work.”

  She’s going to work?

  Um, okay.

  Jo tried to tell herself not to judge. Maybe the woman needed the distraction. Maybe taking care of a dying baby put Kelly’s death into perspective for her, or she was just stoic in an “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” kind of way.

  “You do what you need to do,” Jo found herself saying.

  And they would do what they needed to do as well.

  Jo leaned toward Hank and said under her breath, “Her room? Can we take a look?”

  It might pay off, she thought, to go through Kelly’s space and try to dig for something more, because she didn’t feel like she was getting the whole story from Barbara Amster—more like a verse than a chapter.

  But Hank gave a subtle shake of his head and whispered, “Later.”

  Jo understood, but she couldn’t walk away entirely. “Does Kelly have a tablet or laptop she uses for school?”

  Barbara Amster’s expression turned dull again. The gray cloud enveloped her so that her voice was a flat monotone. “She uses a laptop from the district. I don’t know where it is. She doesn’t have a tablet, not one I bought her, anyway.”

  “We may need to talk to you again, ma’am. We’ll be in touch,” Hank said, drowning out Jo’s disappointed, “Okay, thanks.”

  “Well, you know where I live,” the woman said, shuffling to the door and pulling it open for them.

  “Again, ma’am, I’m sorry,” Hank said.

  “Yes, we’re very sorry for your loss,” Jo added, and she meant it.

  “So am I,” Mrs. Amster said, dry eyed, and then she closed the door.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Did you get a weird vibe in there, or was it just me?” Jo said when they got in the car.

  “It wasn’t you.”

  She tugged the seat belt across her lap as Hank started the engine.

  “I’m really trying hard not to judge,” he said, but he wrinkled his nose like he was judging anyway. “Being a parent is no picnic. It’s tough enough when there are two of you. I can’t imagine going it alone.” He hesitated, letting the car idle at the curb. “I got the impression she was kind of disconnected from Kelly, that maybe she didn’t know her kid as well as she thought.”

  “Who knows what Kelly could have gotten into while her mother was at work?” Jo said quietly.

  “Yeah, who knows?”

  Jo didn’t want to be judgmental, either. Her only personal experience with motherhood came from being a daughter. She’d always had an image in her head of the perfect mother: brimming with unconditional love, ever-present emotionally if not physically, overprotective, and selfless to the point of self-neglect. Yes, she understood that not all moms were enmeshed in their kids’ lives. Many had high-powered careers. Even those who sacrificed a salary for full-time parenthood ended up working overtime—volunteering, managing households, and taking care of husbands, kids, aging parents, or all of the above. Others had problems with addiction or mental illness. There was nothing easy about trying to care for a life other than one’s own.

  Jo wasn’t sure how to peg Barbara Amster. She certainly seemed dedicated to her work. She was a nurse. She took care of people for a living. So shouldn’t she ha
ve noticed that her only child was headed down a dark path?

  Or perhaps she had noticed something about Kelly’s recent behavior that she wasn’t willing to share. But why? It made no sense.

  She sat there for a few minutes, looking up at the house.

  Hank seemed lost in thought as well.

  She finally spoke to break the silence. “When Kelly’s phone turns up, it could answer a lot of questions.”

  “Maybe that friend of Kelly’s, Cassie Marks, could answer a few questions the good old-fashioned way,” Hank said, giving her a sideways glance. “You up for a chat?”

  “Right now?”

  “Better sooner than later.” He put the car into gear and pulled into the street. “How ’bout a quick visit to the high school?”

  Jo let out a slow breath, feeling her heartbeat accelerate.

  “What’s wrong? You don’t want to go back to school? Don’t tell me you’re still having dreams about forgetting your locker combination?”

  “Pretty much,” she said simply, which was true enough.

  She hadn’t exactly liked school, but she hadn’t hated it, either. Going meant escape for seven hours a day, five days a week. That had been a very good thing. But it was hard being a kid and having to keep a secret that was way too big. It was hard feeling different, like she was damaged goods; like what her stepfather did to her made her ugly and unlovable. She’d always been so afraid that, if the teachers found out, the kids would, too. And she’d had no one to talk to about it, certainly not her mother. Verna Kaufman had been a drunk and a liar, and she’d never taken Jo’s word over that of her husband.

  Once he’d died, Jo had breathed at last. With her stepdad gone, she could sleep at night. She could stop pretending. Life wasn’t perfect, but it was better. Just not for Mama. She still drank like her life depended on it, and maybe it had. Jo always wondered if that was what had led to the Alzheimer’s—all the alcohol pickling her mother’s brain. Or else it was her punishment for pretending she hadn’t screwed up her daughter’s life beyond all recognition. Now poor old Verna couldn’t remember anything at all.

  “So you didn’t like school, huh?” Hank prodded.

  When she didn’t explain herself, he went a step further.

  “Look, nobody really likes high school, Larsen. You know that, don’t you? It’s the universe testing us, to see if we can get along with a mixed bag of people. You’ve got the geeks who speak a different language, the jocks who’ve got more muscle in their pinkies than they have brains in their skulls, and the spoiled young assholes who grow up to be pampered old assholes.”

  “So which were you?” she asked. “Because I definitely know which you weren’t.”

  “I played ball,” he admitted, like he was spilling a state secret.

  Jo laughed. “I know. I’ve heard the story a hundred times about how your knees got so beat up.”

  “Just so you understand that I wasn’t good enough at it to be a total knucklehead.” He took his gaze off the road to look at her quizzically. “What about you? I’m guessing you weren’t the prom queen?”

  “Only in a Stephen King book.”

  “You get blood dumped on your head?”

  “Nothing that dramatic,” she said, picking invisible lint from her jeans. “I wasn’t into that kind of thing, that’s all.”

  “What?” He feigned surprise. “Social butterfly like you didn’t put on a fancy dress, get pinned with an ugly corsage, and shake her booty to a lousy cover band?”

  “Sounds crazy, huh?” she said.

  “Seriously.” Hank jerked his chin. “You were the outlier, weren’t you, Larsen? The kid who wore black and cut gym class to sneak a smoke.”

  “Sorry to disappoint, but I wasn’t that badass,” she said, adding dryly, “I was just busy on prom night, stabbing myself in the eye with a fork.”

  “Now that, I believe.” Hank’s weathered face might have worn a half smile, but his eyes weren’t laughing. They looked sober, sad even. Like he realized her childhood had been anything but normal, even though she’d never told him about the abuse, not directly. She’d had the kind of life his two girls would thankfully never know.

  Jo turned to the window.

  She didn’t remember where she’d gone instead of prom. Had she snuck into a dive bar to hear a band? Gone to a movie alone? Did it really matter? She hadn’t liked being around Mama, couldn’t wait to graduate high school and leave home. She’d been an adult before she was ready. It made so many things—like going to prom—feel like a whole lot of nothing.

  Thankfully, Hank dropped it. Within five minutes, they were pulling into the high school parking lot. There was a space right in front reserved for police, so they took advantage. Jo was relieved she wouldn’t have to listen to him harp about walking a mile to the front door.

  There were brief steps as well as a wide ramp leading up to the entrance. When they got to the locked front door, Jo noted the eye of a camera watching her as she pressed the intercom. A disembodied voice immediately said, “Can I help you?”

  Jo stared into the fish-eye lens. “I’m Detective Larsen,” she said and plucked her ID from her belt. She flipped it open and held it up to display her shield. “I’m with my partner, Detective Phelps from the Plainfield Police Department. We’d like to speak with one of your students if we could.”

  “Just a minute, Detective, and I’ll buzz you in.”

  The door let out a telling beep, and Hank took the handle and pushed it open. They entered a wide hallway with checkerboard marble floors, doors opening to their left and right, and beyond, the hallway going in all directions.

  A dark-eyed young woman with a hesitant smile stepped out of the door on the right. “I’m Margie Fox, Principal Billings’s assistant. If you’ll come with me, Detectives, I’ll take you to her office.”

  “Thanks,” Hank said, nodding.

  They followed Margie into a carpeted anteroom hung with student-made artwork and passed several small offices with open doors before they entered a room with a heavy brown desk. A slender woman with cropped white hair and tortoiseshell glasses rose from behind it, coming around to extend her hand.

  “I’m Helen Billings,” she said. “You’re detectives from here in Plainfield?”

  “Yes,” Jo said. “We’re hoping to see a student of yours, Cassie Marks.”

  The eyes behind the glasses squinted. “Why?” the principal asked. “Is Cassie in some kind of trouble?”

  “No, it’s not that at all,” Jo began to explain, when Hank kicked in, “We’ve just come from speaking with Barbara Amster. Her daughter, Kelly, was found deceased this morning on the grounds of the old water tower.”

  “Oh, my heavens.” Helen Billings sucked in her breath. Her expression registered more surprise than they’d seen in Barbara Amster’s face earlier. “Kelly is dead?” the principal said. “How? Was it an accident?”

  “We’re in the process of investigating, ma’am,” Hank told her. “That’s why we need to ask Cassie some questions, if it’s all right with you.”

  The principal sprang into action, quickly rounding her desk and sitting down. She paused as she plucked up the phone. “If y’all don’t mind, I need to call Cassie’s parents and make sure it’s okay. They both work, and I’m not certain if one of them might want to be here with Cassie.”

  Jo nodded.

  “Sure, that’s fine, ma’am,” Hank said. “If one of ’em wants to sit in on the interview, we’ll wait.”

  The principal hesitated with the receiver in hand. “I’ll tell them I could stay with Cassie if they’re agreeable.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hank said. “That would work, too.”

  Jo nudged her partner. “Let’s give Mrs. Billings some privacy.”

  They headed for the door as the principal looked up a number and began to dial. As Jo walked out with Hank on her heels, she nearly ran into Margie.

  The young assistant had tears in her eyes. Clearly, she must have over
heard the conversation. She whispered, “Is it true? Poor Kelly’s gone?”

  “Did you know her well?” Jo asked, ignoring Hank as he shut the door behind them. The high school had more than three hundred students, as far as Jo was aware. She figured it took some effort to become familiar with every one of them.

  “I wouldn’t say well, no. It’s not like Kelly stood out or anything,” Margie said as she gestured toward a pair of chairs off to the side where Jo and Hank could wait. “She didn’t get into trouble and end up in Helen’s office. Nothing like that. But she sometimes forgot her lunch and didn’t have money to purchase one, and we heard from the cafeteria ladies that they were subsidizing her.” Her face clouded. “When Helen brought Kelly in and asked her about it, she was so embarrassed. She didn’t want anyone to know.”

  “Did you talk to her mother?” Jo asked.

  “I think Helen tried, but she had a difficult time catching her, since she works kind of odd hours.” Margie smiled hesitantly. “The principal personally took care of it. She’s a good lady.”

  “She sounds like it,” Jo said.

  “Anyway, I saw Kelly on the first day of school. She seemed different somehow, more grown up, I guess.” She pursed her lips. “When I asked how her summer went, she said that it had changed everything.”

  “Did she tell you how?” Jo asked, hoping to get some clarity.

  “No, I’m sorry,” Margie replied. “And I didn’t ask. I just assumed it was for the good.”

  “Did you see her again the past few weeks?”

  “I did, yes.” The woman tucked short, dark hair behind her ears. “She told me she was trying out for cheerleader, maybe even student council. She seemed very focused, very determined, and I was rooting for her. She’d been such a mouse her whole freshman year, sitting on the sidelines with Cassie Marks. I sensed that wouldn’t be the case anymore.”