The Girl in Kellers Way

by Megan Goldin

  ‘Nancy?’ I say when a woman answers the phone.

  ‘Yes,’ she answers. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘I’m a friend of Alexander Henderson,’ I say.

  ‘A friend of Alex? Which friend?’ she asks, suspicious.

  ‘From his college days. I’d like to stop by and talk to you about him.’

  ‘Well, I don’t see the point,’ she says. ‘Alex is dead and ain’t nothing gonna bring him back.’

  ‘I just found out about what happened. I’m in shock.’ I let my voice break. ‘I want to be with people who cared about him.’

  ‘I don’t know why it should be a shock,’ she says flatly. ‘The only wonder is that it didn’t happen sooner. Alex had been troubled for a very long time.’

  ‘I remember him as an outstanding student at college,’ I say. ‘What changed?’

  ‘Where do I start,’ she says after a long pause. ‘Well, I’m home tomorrow, so you might as well come over and I’ll tell you all about it.’

  That night Matt is so preoccupied with funeral arrangements for Laura that he only does a cursory check that I took my meds. To fool him, I leave the empty foil capsule strip on the table next to my bed along with a half-drunk glass of water.

  My mind is drug-free and crystal clear as I drive to Nancy Poole’s house the next morning. She lives off a main road two counties away, with a chicken farm and a dairy a half-mile down the road in either direction. My chest is tight. I feel anxiety building like storm clouds as I approach the house. But I don’t care because my mind is clear again.

  Matt thinks I’ve adjusted to the new dosage. He believes my mood has stabilised. He has no idea of the lengths that I go to, to avoid swallowing those capsules. There is so much that I’m keeping from him these days. I haven’t said a single word to him about finding the broken headlight down at Kellers Way, or the article that I found about the car accident there. He’ll tell me that I’m making it up, and I’ll get confused again about what really happened there.

  Nancy Poole’s flat-roof house is at the end of a long concrete driveway with weeds breaking out between the cracks.

  ‘Are you Alex’s friend?’ says a shrill voice as I get out of my car. I turn to see a woman in her sixties with a straw sunhat on her head, squatting in front of a raggedy garden bed that she’s trimming with pruning scissors.

  ‘Yes. My name is Stacy.’ I have no idea why I lie to her about my name, but in the moment it seems a smart precaution.

  ‘Come in and have something cool to drink,’ she offers as she takes off her gardening gloves, leading me inside the house. I follow her into the kitchen and perch on a linoleum-covered bar stool. She pours two glasses from a pitcher of homemade lemonade and drops ice cubes into them.

  ‘How did you know Alex?’ She hands me one of the glasses.

  ‘We knew each other at college,’ I tell her. ‘We were in the same study group. I kind of lost track of him after college. You said things had been tough lately. I didn’t know,’ I say. ‘I’ve only recently come back to town.’

  ‘He was using. Drugs,’ she says. ‘Not just marijuana. Hard drugs. It’s a damn shame. He always swore he wouldn’t grow up to be like his daddy, and there he was injecting heroin and smoking crack just the same. It broke my heart to bits.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I never realised that things were so bad for him.’

  ‘It was all on account of that no-good girlfriend of his,’ she says bitterly. ‘Dumped him for another boy just like that.’ She clicks her fingers loudly to emphasise the point. ‘He never recovered from the disappointment. I think that’s why he turned to drugs.’

  ‘In college, he was a top student.’

  ‘It all fell apart after college,’ she sighed. ‘He went to rehab. Several times, in fact. It took years of going in and out of rehab until Alex was finally off the drugs. Finally clean. Even then, it wasn’t easy for him to get a job. He had no references. A few days before he died, he told me that he had a job offer. He said the pay was good and he’d have enough money to get his life back together. He even talked about starting his own store, eventually.’

  As she speaks, she walks over to a closet down the hall and opens it to display neatly packed shelves.

  ‘I keep all Alex’s things here,’ she says. ‘Even his college notes and files.’

  ‘Do you mind if I have a look?’

  ‘Knock yourself out,’ she says.

  I spend a good ten minutes going through the papers. I find a file containing notes from a psychology experiment that Alex participated in while at college. It includes a list of all the participants in the experiment. My name is on that list too. That’s how I first met Matt. It was his study and he ran the experiment.

  I’m afraid of what else I might find among the papers. I hastily push the box back onto the shelf. Lying on a higher shelf is a framed photograph of a man in his twenties, young and clean-shaven. He’s wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap. He has his arm around a girl with shoulder-length hair. They’re both smiling into the camera. It’s obvious they’re a couple.

  ‘That was the last time he was happy,’ says Nancy, her voice cracking over the last word. She stands behind me looking on.

  The girl in the photo has her hand out over her forehead to block the sun from her eyes. It throws a shadow over her face. That’s probably why Nancy doesn’t realise the woman in the photograph is me.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Mel

  When she was a student, Helen Williams was plucked from the anonymity of graduate school to work as Laura West’s assistant. Laura mentored Helen and arranged a fellowship that allowed her to complete her PhD at a time when she had been considering dropping out for financial reasons.

  From the photographs that I’d pulled up in an online search, Helen fashioned herself after her boss in more than just her professional aspirations. She wore her hair in a similar style to Laura and dressed in classic clothes and suits that seemed odd when she was a student in her early twenties, but were less out of place for the position of adjunct professor she now held.

  On the walk across campus, I toyed with the idea of calling ahead. That would have been the polite way to do it, but I wanted to see Helen’s raw reaction to my questions. Facial expressions can be the most revealing part of an interview, if you read the person right. I gave a cursory knock on her office door and walked straight in.

  ‘Why are you asking about Laura?’ she asked, after I flashed my badge and introduced myself. ‘That case was closed years ago.’

  I sensed more than curiosity in her manner. There was a wariness.

  ‘I’m investigating a related case.’

  She looked like she wished I’d disappear into thin air as she reluctantly pushed her laptop out of the way and motioned for me to take a seat on the other side of her desk.

  ‘What was Laura like?’ I deliberately asked an open question. I wasn’t sure which side of the fence Helen stood when it came to Laura West. I had realised by then that people had strong opinions about Laura, one way or the other.

  ‘Laura?’ she asked as if trying to figure out my angle. ‘Laura was amazing. She was one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever encountered. It was an honour to have worked with her and a tragedy that she died so violently.’ Her answer seemed rehearsed yet there was sincerity in her delivery.

  ‘Did Laura have enemies here?’ I asked. ‘Anyone who might have wanted to harm her? Perhaps even kill her?’

  ‘There’s always politics at a university campus, but I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt Laura.’

  ‘Including her husband?’

  ‘Especially her husband,’ answered Helen. ‘They were very close.’

  ‘I understand you were Laura’s assistant?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. My desk was in a cubicle adjacent to Laura’s office and I was very involved in her work and research.’

  ‘So you probably knew more about Laura’s habits than most people at the university?’
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  ‘We worked together closely for a long time,’ she responded.

  ‘Did Laura take medication? Did she drink? Did she have any addictions?’

  ‘I never saw her taking any regular medication, except headache tablets. She was prone to migraines. When they came, she’d immediately leave the office. She once told me that she needed total quiet when one of those headaches hit. The slightest noise was excruciating for her. She rarely drank. Wine, especially red wine, was one of the triggers for her migraines.’

  ‘What about recreational drugs?’

  ‘Are you seriously asking whether Laura was a drug addict?’ she said.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘No,’ she snapped, offended. ‘Laura did not take recreational drugs of any sort.’

  ‘Was Laura going through a difficult time at home? In her marriage? Or in some other aspect of her private life? Was she troubled about anything in the months or weeks before she died?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ said Helen. I could tell she was uncomfortable with the direction of the questions. We were in sensitive territory. ‘Laura was a very private person. I don’t think she confided in anyone. She kept a notebook in her purse and wrote in it every now and again. I think she only really confided to her journal.’

  It was the first time that I’d heard that Laura kept a journal. I made a mental note to check the case files in case we had a copy.

  ‘Were there any students who had a grudge against her?’

  ‘None that I can think of. Laura was very popular with the student body. Her students were hand-picked. They’d gone through a rigorous intake process to be accepted into the program. Laura was a big name in the field and she attracted big donations. When she died, some of those funds dried up and we had to downsize the department considerably. So no, I can’t think of a single student who had a grudge against Laura. Except perhaps a student who wasn’t offered a place in her program. There were thirty places offered each year and we had thousands of applicants from around the country, and abroad.’

  ‘Did Laura have rivals among the faculty?’ I asked.

  ‘The entire faculty are rivals in some way,’ Helen said. ‘We’re all competing for funding and grants. And of course recognition. But it never spills over into the realm of violence.’

  ‘Did you ever sense tension between Laura West and her husband? Did you overhear arguments in the weeks before she died?’

  ‘I overheard the usual couples conversation. Weekend plans. Cancelled dinners due to work commitments. That sort of thing. He came around sometimes to talk about a research project they were both working on. Their discussions sounded heated at times. My desk was in the other room, so I never actually heard what they discussed.’

  ‘I didn’t know they worked together,’ I said with genuine surprise. ‘What were they researching?’

  ‘They were in the early stages of a collaboration. I don’t know the details. She kept it under wraps. Even from me. Laura was excited about it at first, and then she lost interest. I’m not sure if it’s because the preliminary findings were disappointing or because she didn’t have the bandwidth once her baby was born. I had the impression it sort of tapered off.’ I didn’t miss the fact that Helen hadn’t once met my eyes throughout this rather vague and lengthy response to a direct question. This was a woman who was not telling the truth. I chose to back off. For now.

  ‘Did Laura have anyone in her life besides her husband? A lover?’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ she said hotly. ‘Laura reduced her hours at the university to spend more time with the baby. She said that after so many years of waiting for a baby, she wasn’t going to miss out on watching her grow up.’

  ‘What about her husband. Was he faithful to her?’

  ‘What have you heard?’ Her tone became wary. I said nothing. I wanted her to do the talking.

  ‘There are always rumours about handsome male professors and their female students,’ she answered carefully. ‘It’s a cliché really. The joke on campus is that they were Matt’s harem. I took it for what it was: malicious gossip.’

  ‘Matt?’ I said. I could tell from her guilty expression that she’d hoped I hadn’t noticed the slip. ‘It sounds like you know him quite well?’

  ‘That’s what Laura always called him,’ she responded quickly. ‘I guess it rubbed off on me.’ She looked at her watch abruptly. ‘Look, I hope I’ve been of help, detective. If you don’t mind, I have a lecture to deliver after lunch and I need to finish preparing my slides.’

  ‘Absolutely. Just one last question. Is it true that Laura was trying to kick you out of her department before she died?’

  ‘Where did you hear that?’ Helen looked rattled, even though she tried to hide it. Her cheeks flushed and she tightened her fist until her knuckles turned white.

  ‘Why didn’t Laura want you to work for her anymore, Helen?’

  ‘I don’t have the faintest idea, detective,’ she said. ‘Now if you don’t mind, I really do need to get on with my work.’

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Julie

  After my meeting with Nancy Poole I head towards a place I haven’t visited in years. The back roads of the lake district are narrow asphalt, but my mind is not on the road. I’m lulled by the hum of the car engine as I keep going over what I found out at Nancy Poole’s house.

  Back in college I knew Nancy’s nephew as Alex Trent. I’d never known that Trent wasn’t his real family name. I knew that he’d had had a falling out with his father, I guess that extended to him not wanting to go by his father’s name.

  We dated briefly, brought together by our difficult backgrounds. I’d come through foster homes. Whenever social services couldn’t place me with a foster family my extended family would move me around among themselves like an unwanted pet. Alex also came from a broken home, the son of drug addicts, which made him all the more determined to avoid drugs. His aunt was right. Alex had first-hand knowledge of where that could lead.

  Alex was smart and driven. He’d been hell-bent on going to law school even though his real passion was teaching. He often complained that a teacher’s salary wouldn’t dent the mountain of student debt he’d accumulated.

  As for our relationship, he took it more seriously than I did. All I really wanted was to get away from this town. Ironic that after all these years I’m still here.

  I’m so immersed in the past that I lose track of my surroundings. I come out of my reverie to realise that I’ve stopped the car on the banks of a lake, next to a house that I haven’t seen in years.

  The lake house looks the same as it did the last time I was here, with Matt, except for the air of neglect that surrounds it. I slam the car door shut. Gravel crunches under my shoes as I walk down the path towards the house. It has its own private cove and a jetty.

  I vaguely register the decay wrought by time. The exterior of the house has faded and turned cream. It was once a brilliant white. The garden has gone to seed. It’s not the same as in those heady days when Matt and I would sneak out here to be together while Laura was immersed in her work and out of the way.

  The lake house has been in Matt’s family for decades. Every once in a while, Matt and his mother argue over what to do with it. Usually they agree to do nothing. Matt says it’s derelict and should be torn down. Anne won’t hear of getting rid of it, even though she never visits. She’s not really into bucolic vacation homes, even if she did bring her sons here when they were children.

  The lake house is a piece of family history, she tells Matt whenever he pressures her to sell it. Anne is sentimental in that way. It’s probably why she rattles around in that old Southern mansion of hers with its leaky roof and poor insulation in the winter.

  Matt’s hated the house ever since he almost drowned in the lake as a kid. He probably would have died if his father hadn’t jumped in and pulled him to the jetty, where Matt vomited up the water he had swallowed. Anne remembers it differently. She says Matt’s leg was caught i
n the reeds and he panicked until someone threw him a lifebuoy and he was pulled to shore. Other than splashing his arms about wildly, she insists Matt never went underwater. It’s strange how two people remember the same incident completely differently.

  What the lake house lacked in fond childhood memories, it made up for as a bolthole for Matt’s extramarital affairs. I don’t kid myself that I was the first woman he brought here. It’s the perfect place for assignations, less than an hour’s drive from town and offering complete privacy. There aren’t any neighbours, as the house is on the edge of a national park.

  The first time Matt took me here was on a late afternoon in early summer, about a fortnight after we’d first slept together. Ostensibly we came to the house for a swim. Laura had gone up to New York for the wedding of an old college friend. She had the keys with her, but there was a spare set hidden in case of emergencies. Matt counted the white painted rocks along the garden path leading from the house to the lake until he reached the eleventh rock in the row. He lifted it to reveal a keyring in a plastic bag caked with mud.

  I do the same now, counting off the rocks. The key is still there in its hiding place.

  Inside the lake house, slivers of sun creep through the gaps in the drawn curtains, leaving rays of dust hanging in the air. I open the front windows to let in light and to air out the musty smell. The furnishings have a Southern grace that gives the place a laid-back charm. I see Laura’s hand in the interior design.

  There are drop cloths over some of the furniture and cobwebs in the light fittings. It’s been a long time since anyone was here. I am relieved. It means that Matt hasn’t brought Emily here. Yet.

  In the kitchen pantry are old tins of soup and a jar of coffee that’s long out of date. The fridge is unplugged and partially open.

  There are two bedrooms down the hall. The mattresses are stripped bare. The cupboards are empty. The third bedroom is in an attic loft, up a set of timber stairs. The stairs rattle as I climb up. When I reach the top, it’s just as I remembered, the bed looking directly out at the lake through a long window. I lie on my side on the bare mattress and watch a bird skim its wings along the water before soaring up again. How many times did Matt and I take in the view from this very bed?