Truth and Consequences

by V. J. Chambers

  “Wait a second, who?” she said in a wavery voice. “I retired five years ago, you know, and I was a teacher for nearly thirty years. That’s a lot of students.”

  “Holly Ross,” said Iain.

  The woman’s name was Florence Deet. “Oh,” she said in a very different voice. “Yes, I do remember that little girl. How could I forget?”

  “Why do you remember her?”

  “Well, she killed the class pet, Nibbles,” said Florence.

  “Killed? How?”

  “Broke its neck, I think. Maybe she flung it up against the wall. I didn’t see the actual deed. I walked in on the aftermath.”

  “What kind of pet was this?”

  “A guinea pig,” said Florence. “The kids all loved it. It was cuddly and adorable. I always liked to have animals for the students to see in the classroom. Lots of learning opportunities there, from responsibility in feeding, to the difference between mammals and reptiles, you know. Plus, children love animals. And Holly seemed to love the guinea pig too. At least, she was fascinated by it.”

  “But she killed it.”

  “Yes, and for no reason either. Utterly disturbing. But this was years ago. She must be twenty-three by now? Why are you calling me now? Did she kill someone?”

  Iain chuckled. “Funny that you’d ask that.”

  “She did, didn’t she?” Florence was quiet. “Well, to be honest, I’m not sure if it’s the first time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This is all conjecture,” said Florence, “but the following year, right after the incident with the guinea pig, there was a tragedy in her family. Her baby brother. Crib death.”

  Iain furrowed his brow. “You’re not saying…?”

  “I think she learned a bit from the incident with the pet,” said Florence. “She saw how negatively everyone reacted to what she’d done. So, the next time she did it, she made sure to cover her tracks. For all I know, she killed lots of animals before she worked her way up to a baby. But she was the type, you know? Just… something not right with her.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “Oh, of course I remember,” said Donna Friday’s voice on the phone. “I was very, very careful with those knives. It was a big deal that the students were allowed to use them, but I was insistent that they were allowed, because I wanted to teach them to cook with vegetables. I think that most people don’t eat healthily because they don’t know how, and I wanted to expose every single student in my class to cooking vegetables. And you have to cut vegetables. And you can’t use a dull knife. You ever tried to cut a green pepper with a dull knife?”

  “Um, sure,” said Elke.

  “Well, then, you know,” said Donna. “Hold on.” The sound of the receiver being muffled. “David, you get back here this instant and take off those muddy shoes, young man!” A pause. “You will be cleaning the floor.” Another pause. Now, her voice wasn’t muffled. “Sorry about that. Teenagers. It was bad enough when I only spent all day with them, but now I have two of my own at home, and I feel as though I never get a break.”

  Elke laughed a little, politely.

  “But, um, what were you saying?” said Donna. “About that knife going missing?”

  “You never found it?”

  “No,” said Donna. “Had to purchase a new one and I had to fight for the right to have them in class all over again. It was my own fault. I should have checked them myself.”

  “Oh, right. You didn’t check them? You had a work study check them?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So, you had a work study. I’m familiar with the term, but maybe you could tell me exactly what it means at your school?”

  “Yeah, no problem. A work study is a student who gets credit for being a teacher’s assistant. They do things like run off copies and pass out papers and that sort of thing.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said Elke. “Do you remember who that work study was?”

  “Sure,” said Donna. “It was Noel Hughes.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Elke.

  “Do you know Noel?”

  “We’ve met,” said Elke.

  * * *

  It was late. Elke was still in her office, but Frankie came by to say that she was heading home. Elke waved her off without telling her about this new wrinkle. She should go home too. She should call Patrick. She needed to get rid of the drugs in her closet. If Powell managed to finagle a warrant somehow…

  She rubbed her temples.

  She didn’t go home.

  She called Noel Hughes instead. But the number she had for Noel was her parents’ number.

  “No, she doesn’t live here anymore. She’s out on her own now,” said Noel’s mother cheerily. “Would you like her cell number?”

  “That would be great,” said Elke. She didn’t fancy going back to the restaurant where Noel worked. If she left the office, she’d have to go home, and she’d have to face everything that Powell had told her. She wasn’t ready to do that yet.

  She hung up with Noel’s mother and dialed the cell number.

  It rang. And rang.

  “If this is a telemarketer, I want on your freaking no-call list,” answered Noel.

  “This is Elke Lawrence with the CRU.”

  “You,” said Noel. “You’re the one who talked to me first. I remember you. You guys still think I killed Allison?”

  “You want to explain what you did with the knife you got from your home ec class?”

  “Oh my God!” Noel sighed heavily. “I can’t believe this. I explained this like over and over. I did not take that knife.”

  “No?” said Elke.

  “No,” said Noel. “Look, I don’t know who took it, but it was probably someone in that class, and there were like twenty people in there. Holly Ross showed up and she wanted to me to get makeup work for Emily Jessup, so I was over at Mrs. Friday’s desk—”

  “Wait a second. Holly Ross?”

  “Yeah, she was the work study for Emily’s homeroom teacher, and they made the homeroom teachers gather up the makeup work for absent students in their homerooms, and so she came by to get that, and I was busy finding it, not doing knife inventory like I was supposed to be. It was right before the bell.”

  “So, you weren’t watching Holly while you got the makeup work together?”

  “No,” said Noel. “Why would I have been?”

  “Thanks for your time, Noel.” Elke hung up. She got up from her desk and went out into the hallway. She wondered if Iain was still here.

  But Iain was coming out of his office. He looked up and saw her. “I was just coming to find you.”

  “And I was coming to find you,” said Elke. “It’s definitely Holly Ross.”

  “Yeah,” said Iain. “Definitely.” He gestured with his head. “I want to show you something.”

  She followed him back into his office.

  He went back around his desk and pointed to his computer screen. “They’ve got these records digitized and searchable, and so I pulled this up.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s the investigation into the death of the Ross baby,” said Iain. “They thought the baby might have been suffocated, but they ruled it an accident. A lot of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is down to babies getting tangled up in their blankets and things.”

  “Okay,” said Elke. “What are you saying?”

  Iain straightened. “If you think about being stabbed repeatedly in the face like Allison was? That’s hatred. Deep hatred. Maybe that’s jealousy. Maybe all Holly ever wanted was to be an only child.”

  “Oh, geez,” said Elke. “She started early, huh?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well, she had opportunity to take the murder weapon,” said Elke. “Assuming it was the murder weapon, that is. I don’t know if it helps us, though. We don’t have the murder weapon. I mean, she probably got rid of it, right?”

  “If she did, we’re screwed,” s
aid Iain. “But maybe we get lucky. Maybe she kept it. If we go hunting for it, maybe it’ll turn up.”

  “I’ll draft a search warrant,” said Elke. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “No, no,” said Patrick over the phone. “I don’t think we should do anything yet.”

  “But Patrick, I need to do something,” said Elke, who was sitting on the floor in her apartment next to the closet. She’d gotten the duffel bag out and was staring at it. “I want to get rid of this. I want to flush it down the toilet or something.”

  “You do that and Jeremiah will have me killed.”

  “Well, maybe we could pay him off.”

  “Trust me, El, you don’t have the money those drugs are worth lying around.”

  Elke rubbed her forehead. “Okay, so I get in touch with Jeremiah and arrange—”

  “No, they’re watching you,” said Patrick. “Too dangerous.”

  “I have to do something.”

  “I’m so sorry I got you involved in this,” said Patrick. “I really thought that if you went and talked to Felix, he could make it all go away.”

  “So did I,” said Elke.

  “This could really make things bad for you, huh? If these cop guys found those drugs? Your job, everything. You’d be screwed.”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “That sucks. I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “It is, though.”

  “No, Patrick, it’s not.”

  They were both quiet.

  “Look, maybe you should go to the police. Just lay it all out and tell them the truth.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to work,” said Elke. “I think they have ideas about who and what I am, and they’re not going to believe anything otherwise. No, we need to solve the problem with Jeremiah and then we need to make sure that there’s no evidence tying us to this crap and be done with all of it.”

  “Okay,” said Patrick. “Then you let me contact Jeremiah. I’ll tell him that we have the product, but that it’s a touchy situation because there are eyes everywhere. I’ll find some way to work things out.”

  “It’s not safe for you to get in touch with him.”

  “It’s not safe for you either. And you’re only in this mess because of me. So, you let me contact him, okay?”

  She let out a long, slow breath. “Okay, little brother, but you be careful.”

  “Of course,” he said.

  * * *

  “They denied our search warrant?” Elke stared at the paper disbelievingly. “I’m going down there and complaining. It’s well within the purview of the CRU to issue warrants, but if we can’t get anyone to sign them—”

  “You think you’re going to bully a judge into signing it?” said Frankie. She was in the conference room the next morning with Elke and Iain. They’d been catching her up on what they’d found out the evening before when the search warrant came back denied.

  “No, not bully,” said Elke. “Convince. Cajole. I’m a lawyer, if I can’t make a decent argument—”

  “Let me see,” said Frankie, taking the warrant from Elke.

  Elke groaned. “Does anyone have a good relationship with a judge in Haven Hills? If this were Gathopolis, I’d have connections, but I’ve never worked here.” A horrible thought occurred to her. Maybe all the judges in Haven Hills believed that tripe that Powell was spinning, that she was involved in drugs.

  “I know a few,” said Frankie, “but to be honest, as a defense lawyer, I’m not really buddy-buddy with anyone.” She shook her head. “I think this seems pretty strong. I mean, we have the history of violent behavior with the guinea pig, the suspicious death of the brother, DNA, opportunity to take the murder weapon…”

  “Well, I’ll go find someone to sign the warrant,” said Elke.

  “Or maybe not,” said Frankie. “Holly still lives at home with her parents, right?”

  “Right,” said Elke. “So?”

  “Well, maybe I can convince her mother to voluntarily let me search Holly’s room.”

  “We really think she’s just kept the knife she used to kill her sister all these years?” said Elke.

  “She could have,” said Iain. “Maybe it’s a trophy.”

  “Wouldn’t she be more likely to have buried it or something?” said Elke.

  “I don’t know,” said Iain. “I think she might feel safer if she had it close. Buried, maybe anyone could find it.”

  “Buried, no one would know she was involved,” said Elke.

  “True,” said Iain. “But it’s my experience that most criminals are kind of, um, stupid.”

  Elke laughed.

  “I’m serious,” said Iain. “The kinds of criminal masterminds you see in the movies? They don’t exist. People who are smart are too smart to commit murder.”

  “Or too smart to get caught,” said Frankie.

  “I don’t think Holly’s that smart,” said Iain. “You willing to try to get access to her room?”

  “I am,” said Frankie.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  “Oh,” said Lisa when Frankie came to the door. “I thought you’d be back.”

  “Yes,” said Frankie.

  Lisa opened the door and let her in. She gestured to the same recliner from the other day. “Would you like to sit?”

  “I think I’ll stand,” said Frankie. She had volunteered for this, but she wasn’t sure how to come out and say it. She needed to tread lightly, and she wanted to make sure she did this right.

  “You still can’t tell me who your new suspect is?”

  “I…” Frankie took a deep breath. “I do think I have to at this juncture, but it’s not an easy thing to say. I know that after everything you’ve been through, everything you’ve lost, you must really want to hang onto what you have left.”

  “It is Holly, isn’t it?” Lisa sucked in a trembling breath.

  Frankie swallowed. Her voice was quiet. “Yes.”

  “Oh, Jesus.” Lisa turned away.

  “Listen, we don’t have any proof of that,” said Frankie. “And maybe it’s not true. If we could be sure that there wasn’t any evidence tying Holly—”

  “You know,” said Lisa, staring off into the distance, “I was there for every minute of Allison’s life, but with Holly, I wasn’t. You see, she was born early because I was in a bad car accident. Head-in collision with a drunk driver, if you believe that. Nine months pregnant. They thought she’d die. They thought I’d die. We were both in intensive care.”

  “I’m… sorry,” said Frankie. Why was Lisa telling her this?

  “But she recovered faster than me. Babies are real resilient, you know.”

  “I’ve heard that said.” Frankie wasn’t sure how she was going to steer this into a request to search Holly’s room, but she already felt worse for the girl knowing the way she’d been brought into the world.

  “I had to stay. I was really injured, and I was in the hospital for months after they were able to take Holly home. Jeff was home with the girls and his mother was there too, but his mother… well, let’s just say that there’s a reason why Jeff is the way he is.”

  “Um… I…” Now, Frankie was very thrown.

  “Jeff’s not a bad man,” said Lisa. “He can be cold and manipulative, though. But he was the father of my children, so I stayed with him.” She shook her head. “God damn that man. God damn his mother.” Now, her voice was cracking.

  “Listen, Mrs. Ross, maybe—”

  “And then I was finally home, but I wasn’t mobile, and I couldn’t care for my baby. I begged Jeff for a wheelchair, so that I could get around, but he thought I was fine with crutches, and I could hardly… Well, sometimes, Holly would just cry and cry, and I would be crying too, doing my best to get to her, and…” Lisa put a hand to her mouth. “It was heartbreaking. And I would tell Jeff about it, and he didn’t care. We’d had that fight with Allison. He said that babies needed to
learn to keep quiet early, that his mother said children were to be seen and not heard, and that they just cry themselves into learning that. I should have fought harder for that wheelchair. I should have insisted he keep his mother out of our house. It’s my fault.”

  “Mrs. Ross, no one is saying—”

  “Holly and I just never bonded right,” said Lisa. “Once I was well, I tried to make up for it. I tried to love her as hard as I could, but it was always… harder to love her for some reason. It was like, I don’t know, something about her…” She gave Frankie a small smile. “I do love Holly, believe me, I do. But there has always been something about that girl that just wasn’t right.”

  Well, in some ways, this was going better than Frankie had hoped. “Um, listen, the reason I’m here—”

  “I think she did it before,” said Lisa. “I think maybe… did you know I had another baby?”

  “Actually, we did, and we do theorize that…” Frankie couldn’t complete the sentence.

  And then it was silent for several long moments.

  “She’ll probably do it again, won’t she?” Lisa hugged herself. “Did you know she works with small children at a daycare?”

  Frankie licked her lips.

  “I can’t let her do that,” said Lisa, her voice cracking.

  Frankie’s voice was gentle. “I wonder if you would allow me to search her room.”

  Lisa raised her eyebrows. “You’re searching for something?”

  “Yes,” said Frankie.

  “But I told you that she didn’t take one of our knives.”

  “I know that. It’s not your knife we’re looking for.”

  “If you find it, what happens to her?”

  Frankie took a deep breath. “Well, she would be arrested.”

  “Could they help her, you think? If there’s something wrong with a girl, really wrong that made her do things, she’d go to a special place, right? Not like a prison, but someplace they could help her?”

  “I…” Frankie’s heart went out to the woman. “I think so, yes.” And she hoped to God that would be true.