The Girl and the Black Christmas (Emma Griffin FBI Mystery Book 11)

by A J Rivers

  She nods and takes another sip of her tea. “Did you get that one from Xavier?”

  “He has a t-shirt.”

  “I’m sure he does.”

  Chapter Fifty

  “Look at this,” I point to the map in front of me. “There are three right in this area, all within ten miles of Larsonville College. They happened within a year and a half. Then there are several more that happened near here, but over a longer time frame. I also found two near where Julia’s parents live. The issue is, they all have different patterns, so it’s harder to conclusively link them.”

  “Obviously, my club didn’t look into all of these murders. But I can give you the research they did into Samantha Murray’s death. That one really captured their attention. I think because it was so close to home for them. She had been a student here and lived near so many current students. She had friends on campus.”

  “I know,” I say. “One of them was Lynn Bartholomew, Julia’s roommate. She’s actually the one who told me to look into the murder. Something to do with a scarf.”

  “Ah, the infamous scarf,” Professor Harris nods. “That is the detail that people always latch onto when they hear about this case.”

  “I have a feeling you don’t put as much stock into it as other people do,” I remark.

  He gives an almost sheepish smile and a partial shrug. “I just feel that it’s such a small thing and it’s become almost an urban legend. All the police have is proof that she was strangled. The ligature marks are clear, and she had the breaks of the hyoid bone and petechiae in her eyes. Cause of death was manual strangulation. That’s not up for debate. But there is no absolute proof that it was any particular weapon that killed her, scarf or otherwise.”

  “So, why do you think they’re so fixated on the scarf? All the people at the party said they remember seeing it. She was putting it on as she left,” I say.

  “Group hysteria is real. Especially in times of tragedy and heightened emotion, people can become extremely suggestible, based on wanting to help or be a part of a resistance to something unjust. These people at the party know they saw her alive that night and sent her off thinking she’d be safe. She ended up dead. As far as we know, none of them are responsible for that, but it’s easy to feel guilty. So, if one of them says she remembers a scarf and that sounds like a logical potential weapon, another person may think he remembers seeing it as well. Eventually, the story grows to the point that nobody at the party is going to deny seeing the scarf. And the thing is, they all really believe it. It’s as true in their minds as anything else,” he says.

  “I am very familiar with that phenomenon,” I say, letting out a breath as I look through the materials again.

  “What do you think about the scarf?” he asks. “Show off some of that Bureau skill.”

  A short laugh puffs out of me. There’s something flirty, almost suggestive about the way he said that, and it took me by surprise. I decide not to acknowledge it, but I can’t help but glance down at my hand and wonder if that ring I told Sam I don’t care about is more important to me than I thought.

  “I think that as irresponsible as it would be to put all of the attention of an investigation on one piece of evidence, such as the potential that a scarf was used as the murder weapon because it would distract from other possibilities, it’s also irresponsible to dismiss details. The fact that a lot of young people agree on something doesn’t automatically make it wrong. As much as some people would like to think that. Besides, in this situation, the detail makes sense. She was strangled with something, but there was nothing left on the scene. And it was a very cold night. Wouldn’t it make sense that Samantha would have been wearing a scarf?” I ask.

  Professor Harris looks at me with a slight lift in one eyebrow. “It was cold the night Julia borrowed a scarf, too.”

  Without saying anything, I carefully examine Samantha’s crime scene photos with a thought for incidents that happened after Carla’s death, scanning for any of the gifts she’d bought before her murder. Nothing stands out to me, but before I can look any further, my phone alerts me to a message.

  I glance down at the screen and don’t recognize the number. I’m both curious and wary as I open the message. Rather than being from the same person taunting me through the email and calendar, the text is simple.

  Emma, this is Bill Meyer. I need to speak with you. Please call me.

  I gather everything into my messenger bag.

  “Something wrong?” Professor Harris asks.

  “No, I just need to make this call. Thank you so much for talking about these with me. I’m sure I’m going to have more questions,” I say.

  “You can go ahead and call me anytime. Anything I can do to help,” he says.

  I smile at him and rush out of the building and into the courtyard behind it. As soon as the door closes behind me, I dial Julia’s father.

  “Mr. Meyer, this is Emma Griffin,” I say when he answers.

  “Please, I told you. Bill,” he says.

  “Bill,” I say. “What can I do for you?”

  “My wife would not be happy if she knew I was telling you. But I got a call from Julia’s high school today and I heard about the things you need to know. For right now, we still believe strongly that it was our daughter’s choice to leave her life behind and start out new somewhere else. And the reason for that is why I’m calling you.”

  “Go ahead,” I tell him. “Are you comfortable talking about it over the phone? Or would you rather meet in person? I would be willing to travel to you if you need me to.”

  “No need, they are just a few things I think you need to understand. When you first spoke to us about Julia’s leaving thirteen years ago, my wife placed a lot of emphasis on Julia’s desire to change her major and embark on a career we didn’t approve of,” he says.

  “I remember,” I say. “It doesn’t seem like enough of a reason for a grown woman to break away from everyone and everything, though.”

  “It might be for some, but I don’t believe it would have been for Julia. She had too much going for her. She was too headstrong. It truly pains me to say this, but the truth is, I believe if it really came right down to it, Julia would take the path she thought was right, whether it included her mother and me or not. She wouldn’t give up everything that she worked for and that mattered to her for something that simple.”

  “But you think there is something else that would motivate her enough,” I say.

  “Yes. Jeremy Fine.”

  “Is that the Jeremy she wrote about?” I ask.

  “I can’t be positive, of course, but I think so. In high school, Emma briefly dated him. It wasn’t anything serious. Just a few dates. Then he invited her to a party. While they were there, he forced himself on her. Others recorded it happening. It was an extremely traumatic experience for her and none of them was ever convicted of anything. After that happened, Jeremy continued to try to contact her. It was as though he believed they could still be in a relationship. When she told him to leave her alone, he started becoming obsessed and threatened her on more than one occasion,” he says.

  “Did you tell any of this to the police?” I ask.

  “We did,” Bill confirms. “But you have to remember at the time we didn’t have her day planner. We didn’t see her notes and didn’t know Jeremy had surfaced again. Since there was no indication anything happened to her, we thought she might be running from him. It would have been an extremely hard decision. After having to leave Larsonville because of the rumors being spread about her, we worried she would never find her place again. Then she was invited to the study-abroad program and brought into Alexandria, and she seemed almost herself again. She was working so hard. I can only imagine how afraid she must have been to have left her entire life the way she did.”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  “That’s great news, isn’t it?” Sam asks. “I know you were looking for Jeremy. Now you know who both Jeremy and Corey are.”

&n
bsp; “Yeah, it’s great in that I don’t have to look for them anymore. But neither of them had anything to do with Julia’s disappearance,” I say. “Corey was wrapped up in the mess at the other school for reasons I still don’t understand. But he had no reason to do anything to her. He hadn’t even seen her since she left Larsonville. And while Jeremy admits he did follow her around and probably scared the hell out of her the last time he saw her, he couldn’t have caused Julia to disappear.”

  The conversation with Jeremy had been illuminating. Both in that he was able to explain the role he played in her life, but also in giving me the feeling I was looking through a piece of glass into the type of brain usually kept tightly concealed.

  “Why not?” Sam asks.

  “Because he was in jail,” I tell him. “When Julia wouldn’t stop to talk with him the last time he saw her and ran off to the bus stop, it made him so upset he ended up going to a bar and getting in a fight. It landed him in jail for three weeks. He couldn’t have had anything to do with her disappearance.”

  “Why was he even around the city for her to run into him?” Sam asks.

  “Well, that’s the fun part. It seems Julia might have actually had reason to be afraid of him. He moved to the area specifically to be close to her and had been following her for months leading up to her disappearance,” I tell him.

  “So, disappearing might have actually saved her life,” he notes.

  “Possibly,” I say.

  “Why did he just tell you all this? Doesn’t it seem fairly incriminating?”

  “He’s been in and out of jail since high school, including a fairly long stint a few years ago. He’s decided he wants to do something better with his life and is undergoing therapy. That includes having to come to terms with the wrongs he’s committed and try to make amends. Obviously, he can’t make amends for what he did to Julia. But admitting to everything so he can be cleared, and we can focus on others, is an important step.

  “But that isn’t the only thing my fact-finding mission of the morning uncovered. When I talked to Julia’s father, he mentioned the study-abroad program again. It was something her mother had serious reservations about and didn’t want to send her on. But she had excelled in high school and had big aspirations. After what she went through at Laronsville, they wanted to do something to get her excited about coming to Alexandria. So, they allowed her to go,” I say.

  “That sounds like a lovely story,” Sam says. “Things are always bad when you tell lovely stories. What’s wrong with this program?”

  “It doesn’t exist,” I say.

  ”At all?”

  “Not as far as the University can tell. I gave them all the information that Julia’s parents gave to me, including the name of the supervising professor, supplemental professors who were traveling along with them, the itinerary they were supposedly following. Everything. They said they had never heard a program like that existed at the University, and the supervising professor I named isn’t someone who has ever worked there. I did a search and can’t find anybody by that name at all who teaches. Same for the supporting professors. All of the information she gave her parents about this program was faked.”

  “So, where was she for the fall and spring semesters?” Sam asks.

  “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”

  “What are you doing now?” he asks.

  “I’m going to the mall,” I say.

  “Christmas shopping?” he asks. “Because you have so much time on your hands?”

  I chuckle. “Not exactly. I know the mall’s probably a lot different than it was thirteen years ago, but I need to see it. I want to see where Carla Viceroy’s car was parked, and what the mall looks like at this time of year.”

  “Why?” he asks.

  “I was looking at Julia’s day planner again. The same day that Carla was murdered, Julia has one of her mysterious ‘visit’ notes, but it’s not the same time as all the other ones. Every other mention of visiting occurs at either noon or 3 PM. But this one is later. So, I had her father check if they still had access to her credit card records from that time. I know she had a credit card, but it was paid for by her father within a certain limit. When he checked, it showed she made a purchase that day from a store that had a location inside the mall.

  “He doesn’t have the more detailed records that would show the exact address where she made the purchase, but it’s something to go on. The department is working on getting me the surveillance camera footage, and hopefully I’ll have that in the next few hours.”

  “You know if you need me at all, I’m here, right?” he says. “I’ll take one of my vacation days and come there to help you in any way you need me to.”

  “You hang onto those days. We’re going to have a much better use for them. But, yes, if I need you for something, I’ll let you know.”

  “You’re aren’t just going to run off and do everything by yourself,” he says.

  It’s not really a question, not really a statement, and not really a request. It’s all of those things rolled together, and I know he’s worrying about me again.

  “I’ve been doing all the investigating and legwork by myself so far,” I point out.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Let’s just see what I can find out before we worry about my running off anywhere.”

  The mall is as much of a hectic mess as I thought it would be this close to Christmas, in a shopping complex this size. Cars drive in every direction: some trying to find spots, others looking for specific stores, others lost within the parking lots and unable to find their way out to the street. People stream in and out of the exterior buildings, as well as the huge arched stone entrance that leads into the open-air portion of the mall. Some are laden with dozens of bags and packages, others cradle a single purchase as if they’re protecting it from the cold.

  The file the police department gave me contains copies of crime scene and investigation photos, and the differences between this complex then and now are startlingly slight. All the decorations I see look fresh and neat, but also exactly as they did thirteen years ago, when the place was brand new. It’s as if the managers of the property have painstakingly maintained the exact same aesthetic from year to year.

  I can understand the motive behind that. Christmas is such a nostalgic time. People have strong memories and respond to things that bring up those warm feelings. After thirteen years in business, this mall is now a tradition for shoppers in the area. Keeping their decorations the same means reminding customers of happy times and triggering that feeling of holiday spirit when the lights first go up.

  Of course, that also means more shopping, more loyalty, and more of the hustle and bustle. But even the hustle and bustle itself seems to add to the holiday atmosphere. As I follow the train of cars going into the parking lots, I take in each of the decorations to try to orient myself so I can find the spot Carla where was parked.

  An enormous lighted wreath on one side of the mall catches my eye. It was in one of the photos, and I know to drive down to the third spot from the end of the row, just outside the arc of illumination from the light post.

  There’s a spot available a few places away, and I slide into it. The trek across the parking lot is going to be long, so I bundle up before climbing out of the car.

  Paying attention to how long it’s taking and what I’m seeing along the way, I go through the parking lot and find my way to each of the stores Carla went to. Then I find each of the ones the credit card activity suggests Julia went to.

  Two of them are right beside each other, and two others are within just a few steps. I stand in front of one of them, the store where Carla must have bought the ring that’s gone missing, and look around, imagining what she saw and what someone watching her would have seen.

  Laughter and Christmas carols emanate from an adorable Santa’s workshop set up not far away. Children line up in their best outfits, with matching sweaters, to sit on Santa�
�s lap and get candy canes from the elf waiting at the end gate.

  It makes me smile and I stand watching them for a few seconds.

  The next morning I’m looking at the scene again, only this time as a series of stills from the surveillance footage, and the last thing I want to do is smile.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Professor Murillo doesn’t even try to look as if she’s not unhappy to see me when I knock on the door and she invites me into her office. She looks up, obviously expecting someone else, and almost rolls her eyes when she sees that it’s me.

  “Hello, Emma. I thought we were finished talking,” she says.

  “Tell me again you had no personal problem with Julia,” I demand.

  Her expression becomes quizzical and she sets down the pen in her hand. “What are you talking about?”

  “When we talked about Julia, you said the two of you didn’t really see eye-to-eye, and your personalities clashed. But that it was just an issue between a student and a teacher. You seemed pretty insistent that there were no personal issues between the two of you. I just want to make sure that is what you want me to believe.”

  “Emma, I don’t understand why you find so much difficulty with the idea that Julia and I didn’t form a good relationship and might have had a few conflicts here and there. As I said, it was nothing more than classroom clashing. It happens to every single teacher. I had no personal issue with her because I did not know her personally.”

  “Then explain this to me,” I declare, laying one of the still images from the surveillance camera flat on the desk in front of her.

  She picks it up cautiously and looks down at it. “What’s this?”

  “That is a still captured from surveillance footage from the Towne Crossings Mall a few days before Julia went missing.” The throne where Santa is sitting takes up most of the image, but I point to an area in the top corner of the picture.