“Sounds like you’ve had almost as good of a day as I have,” he deadpanned.
I smothered my response in sarcasm. “Oh, yeah. It’s been a blast.”
His heart went out to me. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
It was grasping at straws, but I hoped that he had uncovered some kind of a lead. “Did you happen to turn up anything that might be able to help me?”
“Unfortunately not.”
I let out a sigh. “I guess it’s just one of those days.”
It continued to be that kind of day, even after I said my goodbyes to Steven and hung up the phone. As darkness fell, so did my chances of cracking the case that evening. Staring down a half-hour drive home, I decided to say goodnight to Oak Gorge for the evening.
I was halfway home when I received an unexpected call. The country road home was extremely dark, so I didn’t check my caller ID screen before answering for fear of turning into a distracted driver. Besides, I had a feeling that it was my boyfriend calling again—either with a lead or maybe just to tell me again that he missed me.
I couldn’t have been more incorrect. As I took the call, it was someone else entirely.
“Hello,” I said.
Much to my surprise, I received no reply to my greeting. Who called someone then said nothing? Certainly not my boyfriend. He had never done anything like that. This just didn’t make any sense.
Was it a wrong number? Had someone sat on their phone and called me by mistake? I was determined to find out.
“Hello,” I said again. “Who is this?”
Another moment of silence. While no one answered, curiously, I heard breathing on the other end of the line. There was definitely someone there, they just weren’t saying anything.
I tried one more time. “I can hear you breathing. Who is this?”
Finally, a female voice spoke up. “About a month ago, Jennifer went to the health center worried that she might be pregnant.”
Talk about a bombshell. I was in such shock that I nearly drove clear off of the road. I managed to keep just enough composure to keep my car steady, even though my mind was completely racing.
Suddenly, the caller’s identity wasn’t nearly as important as the answer to my next question.
“Was she pregnant?” I replied.
Unfortunately, the female caller didn’t respond.
Argh.
I couldn’t believe it. I asked the question another time, once again to no reply. Instead, the caller hung up on me.
I pulled my car over to the shoulder then frantically went into the call log on my phone and redialed the female caller’s number, but the phone kept ringing and ringing, only to have no one pick up.
In a fit of desperation, I called my boyfriend, hoping he could run the number. He popped the number into the police database only to discover that it belonged to a pay phone outside of a gas station a few blocks from the campus of Oak Gorge University.
Talk about crazy. It had been so long since I had seen a pay phone that I forgot that they even still existed. Unfortunately, I found myself in a strange predicament. It was a good fifteen minutes back to campus. Even if I turned around and sped over to the location of the pay phone, the caller no doubt would be long gone.
At the same time, even though she hadn’t identified herself, I had a feeling that I knew who the female caller was. Granted, I couldn’t be sure exactly, but the voice sounded a lot like Mary Ellen, the receptionist who worked at the health center.
***
The next day, I waited in the parking lot of the health center to talk to Mary Ellen as she arrived. When I confronted her, she denied having made the call to me. I pressed her, hoping to get her to admit the truth, but I had no luck. Despite my best efforts, Mary Ellen looked at me like she had no idea what I was talking about.
I couldn’t tell if she was putting on an act or telling the truth. Either way, I wasn’t about to get any information out of her. As Mary Ellen went in to work, I abandoned the idea of trying to chase down the anonymous caller any further. After all, there were more important matters at hand.
According to the caller, Jennifer might have found out that she was pregnant shortly before disappearing. That opened a whole new can of worms. One that led directly to one person.
Chapter Fifteen
Tyler couldn’t have had less interest in talking to me. I knew this would be a contentious clash. That being said, I didn’t care. Whether he liked it or not, he had some answering to do. Getting him to answer the door was the first hurdle.
After knocking, I heard his voice on the other side of the door.
“You have a lot of nerve, you know that?” he barked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied.
“Yes you do. Heather told me you were on her case with a whole bunch of questions. That’s low. Stop harassing us.”
“I very politely asked her some questions. She was the one who got antagonistic with me.”
“Likely story. Well, I have nothing else to say to you,” he remarked.
“Yeah? Well, I have something very important to say to you. Why don’t you open up?” I replied.
He didn’t heed my advice. The door remained closed, but his mouth opened as wide as ever to chew me out.
“Here’s a better idea. Why don’t you go away?” he said.
“That’s not going to happen. Not after what I have found out about Jennifer,” I replied.
Silence.
I wrongfully assumed that would be enough of a tease to get him to open up. Apparently, he needed more prodding. “Don’t you want to know what I have discovered?”
“No. Like I said, I just want you to go away.”
No one could say that I didn’t try it the easy way. As far as I was concerned, he had forced this on himself. There was one surefire way to get him to open up. I pulled out the heavy artillery.
I purposefully raised the volume of my voice so I could be heard halfway down the hallway. “I wanted to discuss this with you in private, but you have given me no choice. Your girlfriend might have been pregnant when she died.”
Another moment of silence. Tyler then swung the door open wide.
“Can you not say that so loud?” Tyler asked.
“That depends. Are you going to answer my questions?”
Tyler sighed. “Fine.”
“Was Jennifer pregnant?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Did you know she had gotten tested?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Are you telling me the truth?”
“Yes. This is all news to me,” Tyler said.
“So she kept this from you?”
“Apparently. I just told you I didn’t know anything about that. I can’t believe it. She might have been pregnant?”
“That’s not the most shocking part.”
“It isn’t?”
I shook my head. “No. If she was expecting a baby, I can’t help but ask myself why she would want to kill herself?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe the idea of becoming a mother at her age was too much for her to handle. It’s a lot of responsibility.”
I didn’t buy his theory for a second. It was time to offer a counterpoint. “It’s more likely that she was killed.”
“Killed?”
“Yeah. She could have been pushed into that gorge. Her body has not been found. The police have closed the case. The killer could have gotten away clean.”
“Who would do something like that?”
That question was so obvious that it didn’t even require an answer. I just stared at him while he realized what I was getting at.
“Wait a minute. You don’t actually think I could have killed her, do you?”
“You already told me you don’t have an alibi for that night.”
“No. What I told you was that I was studying that night.”
“Yes, alone. Which gives you no alibi. You also have a motive.”
>
“Where are you getting that from?”
“You said it yourself. It’s a lot of responsibility having a baby at your age. And being a father, especially when you aren’t expecting it, derails plans.”
“No. Stop it. This is ridiculous.”
“You were the only guy she was sleeping with, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“She wasn’t the type to cheat.”
“Exactly. So who else would want her dead?”
I could see the gears turning in his head. “What about Vanessa?”
“You think her neighbor had such a big crush on you that she was willing to kill Jennifer just to get her out of the way?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“By that token, wouldn’t Heather be a suspect, too?”
“No.”
“Why not? You dated before, and you’re dating again. Maybe she wanted Jennifer out of the way so much that she was willing to kill Jennifer to get you back.”
“Heather is not like that.”
“That brings me back to you then.”
“I didn’t kill Jennifer.”
“I wish I could believe you, but with every piece of information I uncover, it’s getting harder to do that.”
“I don’t have to explain myself to you. We’re done here.”
He retreated back into his apartment and slammed the door. Unfortunately, having a door slammed in my face was becoming too common of an experience. But just because Tyler was done talking to me didn’t mean I was finished investigating.
Chapter Sixteen
I called up my boyfriend to do a search on Tyler. Maybe that would be able to turn something useful up. While I waited for results, Mark Richardson gave me a call. When I went over to meet with him, I couldn’t help but notice how anxious he was.
“Do you have any updates for me?” Mark asked.
Did I ever? The problem was, despite the widespread suspicions I had, evidence to support them was in short supply. I didn’t want to get Mark riled up until I had something more conclusive. I hated being vague with him, but I didn’t really see another option.
“I’m still working,” I said.
He was desperate for anything. “Any leads?”
Mark was reaching. I could have given him what I knew, but it was just bits and pieces. It wouldn’t give him peace of mind. Instead, it would only serve to unsettle him. What if I told him his daughter might have been pregnant before she died?
That would rock him to the core. The last thing a father wanted to hear, no less a pastor, was that his college-aged daughter might have been pregnant out of wedlock at the time of her death.
Mark had hired me to find out the truth, but I didn’t realize it would get this messy. That’s why I wanted to find out the whole truth before I turned his life even more upside down than it already was.
I gave him a subdued reply. “More than I thought, actually. I’ll let you know when I have more to go on.”
Disappointment was all over his face. It pained me not to give him more, but I knew it was best to wait.
“Speaking of leads, maybe this will help,” Mark said.
He held out a plastic bag for me.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I got the key to Jennifer’s mailbox.”
“Is this what was inside?”
“I’m afraid there’s not much there.”
“Really?”
“See for yourself. Just a stack of junk mail, a few bills, and a notice for an overdue library book.”
At first glance, it didn’t seem like much—the usual credit card offers interspersed with a few bills. Then I glanced at the notice from the library. There was something about the title of the overdue book that caught my interest.
I had never heard of the book, but something was telling me that it was time to become acquainted with it.
***
I would have gone to the library to ask about the overdue book, but since it clearly had never been returned, I knew of an even better place to get my hands on a copy. Delia Miller, A mousey-looking twenty-year-old woman, gave me a warm greeting as I entered the campus bookstore. I immediately enlisted her help. When I told her the name of the book I was looking for, thankfully she recognized the title.
“Hannah Dotson’s Sweet New Life?” Delia said. “Yeah, we have that.”
I became excited. “You do?”
“Should be in aisle two,” Delia replied.
“Have you read it?” I asked.
Delia nodded.
“Would you mind telling me what the plot is?”
“Sure thing. It’s a novel about an unhappy woman who fakes her own death, changes her name, moves to a new city, and tries to forge a new life.”
I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. Rarely did I find myself stunned, but Delia’s answer had stopped me dead in my tracks. It appeared that the lucky break that I had been desperately searching for had finally arrived.
I immediately purchased a copy of the book and read the entire novel in one sitting. As I finished reading the book, my head was filled with ideas. More importantly, I finally had a solid theory about what had truly happened to Jennifer.
Chapter Seventeen
Following my hunch, I had my boyfriend run the name Hannah Dotson in his regional police database. Surprisingly, that pulled up a hit in Milwaukee, of all places. I made the two-hour trek east and stopped at a diner that was located in the western suburb of Elm Grove.
That’s where I saw an unmistakably pregnant Jennifer Richardson waiting tables. The nineteen-year-old had long brown hair that was pulled back into a ponytail. She was a short woman with an oval face and hazel eyes. Jennifer wore a plain-looking waitress uniform and had a name tag pinned to her blouse that read “Hannah.” One thing that she did not seem to be doing was living a sweet life.
I approached her as she entered an order into a computer terminal.
“Jennifer,” I said.
She looked up at me instinctually before stopping herself and darting her eyes away from me. Jennifer tried to turn her attention exclusively back to the computer terminal, but I wouldn’t be deterred.
I said her name again. “Jennifer.”
This time, she gave me a dismissive stare. “I think you have me confused with someone else. My name is Hannah.”
“No. That’s the name of the main character in Hannah Dotson’s Sweet New Life. I know that your real name is Jennifer Richardson.”
Jennifer scrunched her nose as she looked me up and down. “Who are you?”
I showed her my private investigator credentials. “I’m Melanie Cooper. Your father hired me to find out what happened to you.”
Her eyes opened wide. “You’re a private investigator?”
I nodded. “I am, and I know what this is all about.”
She was in disbelief. “How did you find me?”
“It’s my job.”
Jennifer gritted her teeth in frustration.
I clued her in about what had tipped me off to her location. “The Oak Gorge University library sent out an overdue notice about that copy of Hannah Dotson’s Sweet New Life that you never returned. I filled in the dots from there.”
Jennifer grimaced. “I can’t believe it. I thought I had covered my tracks.”
To me, there were much more important matters that needed to be addressed. “You know, your father is worried sick about you.”
She put her hand on her pregnant belly. “He’d feel differently about me if he saw me like this.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“You don’t know my father like I do. If he found out that I was pregnant out of wedlock, he’d disown me.”
“Are you sure about that?”
She nodded. “Do you have any idea what a firestorm it would cause in my father’s parish if his congregation knew that I am having a child out of wedlock? Talk about public embarrassment. Beside
s, the fact that I’m unmarried and pregnant runs contrary to all his beliefs.”
I wasn’t about to have a religious debate with her. She knew her father better than I did. Besides, I wasn’t here to get into a philosophical argument.
I changed the subject. “So what was your plan exactly? Did you really think you could fake your own death, change your name, move to a different city, and never be found again?” I asked.
She bit the corner of her lip. “Look. It’s complicated.”
“I’m all ears.”
“What I did, it wasn’t just about my father.”
I had a hunch about where she was going next and tried to nudge her along. “Let me guess. Tyler wasn’t thrilled when he found out you were pregnant with his child.”
Her eyes widened. “You talked to Tyler?”
I exhaled. “Unfortunately.”
“Then you know how he is—how unreasonable and bullish he can be.” She took a deep breath. “When he found out that I was pregnant, he wanted me to have an abortion. I told him I wouldn’t do it. That even though this child was an accident, it deserved to live. That’s when Tyler threatened me.”
I was confused. “If he threatened you, why didn’t you call the police?”
“I was afraid—for both myself and the safety of my child. I mean, here’s the thing, Tyler threatened me, but only verbally. He never laid a hand on me. So if I called the police, they could have detained him, but they wouldn’t be able to keep him for long. Once Tyler got out of jail, I worried that he would come after me in retaliation. Besides, if I had called the police and had filed a report, it would be public record, which means that my dad would find out about it. Not to mention the fact that I was pregnant. Can’t you see what a terrible position I was in?”
I couldn’t deny that Jennifer had been in a very tough spot. At the same time, I wasn’t there to judge the past. My focus was more on the future.
“So what’s the plan now, then? Are you going to hide out here forever, waiting tables while your father mistakenly assumes that you are dead?” I asked.
Meredith Potts Fourteen Book Cozy Mystery Set Page 7
