Dead Weight

by Ragan, T. R.

  “So where are you living?”

  “Nowhere in particular; here and there. Cathy still lends me her car three days a week so I can get to school and to work. Jessica has loaned me her car, too. I pay for my own gas. I sleep in the car if it gets chilly.”

  Lizzy’s head dropped, her chin nearly hitting her chest.

  “I’m used to it. It’s really not that bad.”

  Lizzy lifted her head and placed a hand on Hayley’s shoulder. “Move in with me.”

  “I thought you were moving in with Jared.”

  “Long story, but that’s all been postponed for now. We’ll talk about that later. I’m begging you, Hayley. Move in with me starting tonight.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I have plans tonight.”

  “I have an extra key in my purse,” Lizzy told her. “I’ll give you the key and you come in at any hour. No questions asked.”

  “I don’t think it would work.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I already know that I’ll come home late.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “You get freaked out as it is. You wouldn’t be able to lock all of your dead bolts on your front door. And we both know that no matter how quiet I try to be, you’ll wake up.”

  “Okay, so?”

  “You’ll start making me hot chocolate or something stupid like that and I’ll feel guilty that I woke you up and then you’ll stagger back to your bedroom, unable to sleep for the rest of the night.”

  Lizzy laughed. Mostly because Hayley was absolutely right. “There’s something you missed,” Lizzy said.

  Hayley arched a questioning brow.

  “If you refuse to come live with me or you don’t come to my place at all and there is no door being opened in the middle of the night, I’ll be up all night worrying about you. I’m not going to sleep anyhow, so you might as well say yes and make me semi-happy.”

  “I can’t afford to pay you rent.”

  “You can help me take care of Rumpelstiltskin.”

  “I’m allergic to cats, but either way, that’s not her name any longer.”

  Lizzy frowned. “Who says?”

  “Brittany, Jessica, and I changed her name over the weekend.”

  “What’s my cat’s name then?”

  “Hannah.”

  “You can’t be serious? My cat’s name is Hannah?” That was the same name Jared’s perky neighbor picked out. What were the odds?

  Hayley nodded.

  “Whose idea was that?”

  “That lame Hannah Montana show was on and we all went with it. All three of us agreed. Personally I don’t care what you call the cat, but we took a vote.”

  “Okay, well then, your rent will be paid by helping me take care of Hannah. You said you were allergic to cats so you don’t have to pet her. Just feed her once a day and help me change Hannah’s litter box every once in a while.” God, she really didn’t like that name.

  “Okay, it’s a deal,” Hayley agreed. “But I can’t make any promises about how long this little arrangement is going to work.”

  “One day at a time.”

  “Perfect. One day at a time.”

  Chapter 26

  Friends are Forever

  The Mexican restaurant was crowded, which made it easy for Jessica to remain anonymous. She sat on one side of the restaurant and pretended to read a book and sip her iced mocha while she waited for Ellen Woodson to get her lunch.

  After Ellen was handed an empty cup, it took her about twenty seconds to fill her cup with soda and exit the restaurant.

  When Ellen left, Jessica followed. She had followed Ellen from the bank where Ellen worked about a mile away from the mall where they were now. Ellen usually took about an hour for lunch. Trying to get the woman alone was proving nearly impossible.

  Until now.

  The moment Ellen entered Macy’s department store, Jessica made her move. “Hi, my name is Jessica Pleiss and I need to talk to you about Carol Fullerton.”

  Ellen turned on her with a wild look in her eye. “Are you kidding me? You’ve been following me, haven’t you? I thought I saw you ten minutes ago. You’re following me into a department store and asking me about my best friend? A girl who died years ago?”

  “Who said she was dead?”

  Ellen tried to collect herself.

  Bingo. Lizzy was right. Ellen Woodson knew something about her friend’s disappearance.

  “I assumed,” Ellen said tartly. “It’s been a long time since I saw Carol. She was a very happy person. She never would have run away. Of course I assumed she was dead.”

  “How long?” Jessica asked.

  “What?”

  “How long has it been exactly since you saw your best friend?”

  Flustered, Ellen started walking again and said over her shoulder, “Fifteen, maybe twenty years. I have no idea. I have things to do. I need to run.”

  Jessica stayed at her side. “Most people would know exactly how many years it had been since they saw their best friend.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  Jessica was still pissed off about Hayley telling her she was afraid to interview people. And yet, Jessica realized that she was more afraid of the possibility that Hayley might be right. If Jessica wanted to be a criminologist, she was going to need to open up, be bold, fire hard questions at the right people at the right time. And sometimes, like now, she was going to have to lie if it meant cutting to the chase and getting to the bottom of things. “We have reason to believe that Carol Fullerton is alive,” Jessica lied, hoping to get a reaction.

  Ellen stopped walking. “What are you talking about?”

  “I work for Lizzy Gardner—”

  Exasperated, Ellen rolled her eyes. “I told Ms. Gardner I didn’t want to get involved. It has been way too long. I don’t want to open old wounds.”

  “What old wounds exactly?”

  Ellen was on the move again. “I sold my car to Carol. I didn’t fill the car up with gas. According to the investigator, she ran out of gas. How do you think that makes me feel?”

  “I don’t know; tell me.” Another lie, Jessica realized. She’d read the file and she knew the car Carol Fullerton was driving did not run out of gas. The woman just assumed Jessica didn’t do her homework.

  “I won’t do this,” Ellen said through gritted teeth. “My life is complete shit. I refuse to make it worse by dredging up bad memories.”

  “Bad memories?”

  Ellen Woodson was walking faster now.

  Jessica had to hurry to keep up. “Why won’t you talk to us?”

  “Open your ears and read my lips. It happened a long time ago.”

  “That’s why it’s called a cold case, Ellen. Until this case is solved, people are going to want to talk about it.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “Do you have children?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “I know that you and Carol did a lot of fun things together. You were best friends. Really, you were Carol’s only friend. Why would talking about her be dredging up bad memories?”

  “That’s not what I meant. I feel guilty for not having gas in the car. The bad memories I have are from the moment she disappeared.”

  Jessica ignored her answer and stayed on her heels. “If you and Carol were so close, why would you not want to help a dying mother find her only child?”

  Ellen whipped around so fast, Jessica nearly bumped into her. “Because her mother doesn’t deserve to find her!”

  Jessica stood speechless for exactly three seconds. “She is alive and you know where she is!”

  Ellen’s face flushed with color. Ellen jogged to the nearest cash register.

  Jessica ran after her. “Where can I find Carol?”

  “Could you call security?” Ellen asked the sales clerk. “This woman is harassing me.”

  The sales clerk looked at Jessica.

  Jessica held up both hands, fingers splayed.
“I’m sorry. I was just asking her a few questions. No need to call security. I’m leaving.”

  After one last probing look into Ellen’s eyes, Jessica walked away with a smile on her face. She had done it. What a thrill. And the strangest part was that she had the urge to call Hayley and tell her.

  Instead, she called Lizzy.

  The moment she heard Lizzy’s voice on the other end of the line, Jessica said, “You’re never going to believe what just happened. We definitely need to keep a close eye on Ellen Woodson. I am one hundred percent sure she knows where Carol has been hiding out.”

  ***

  The woman who worked the front desk at Supremacy Insurance brought Lizzy and Jessica straight into Frank’s office and offered them each a glass of water that they both politely declined.

  Frank Fullerton stood until they were seated.

  He looked exactly as he had the first time Lizzy met him when she and Jessica had gone to the house to speak to his wife. If Lizzy didn’t know better, she’d swear he was wearing the same wrinkled suit.

  Immediately after the woman shut the door to his office, leaving the three of them alone, Frank’s expression changed. His eyes went cold; his lip turned into a snarl. “You better have a damn good reason for coming to my workplace and taking up my valuable time.”

  “We have reason to believe your daughter is alive,” Lizzy blurted.

  He shook his head as he sunk even lower into the chair behind his desk. “You sound like my wife.”

  “She believes Carol is alive?” Lizzy asked.

  He actually chuckled. “If she didn’t, would she have hired you?”

  “Yes, I believe she would have. Before she dies, your wife wants to know what happened to her daughter. She wants closure. I would think you would want the same thing.”

  “Not at the expense of spending every day for the rest of my life looking for her.”

  “I see.”

  “You don’t see anything,” he said.

  “The truth is, Frank, you’ve been lying to Detective Roth since the day your daughter disappeared.”

  “Ridiculous.”

  “You told Detective Roth you walk the highway where your daughter vanished every weekend during the summer.”

  “That’s the truth.”

  “But you just told me that you don’t want to spend the rest of your life looking for your daughter.”

  “I said I don’t want to spend every single day looking for my daughter.”

  “Family, friends, and volunteers,” Lizzy continued, “used to help you look in the mountains near the spot where Carol went missing, looking for clues as to what happened to her.”

  “What about it?”

  “I’ve talked to the volunteers, including family and friends and they all say the same thing: that you went searching for your daughter ONE time.” Lizzy leaned forward and held up one finger. “A girl is missing and her father tells the detective working the case that he walks the highway where her car was abandoned. Not once a year, not once a month, but every single weekend during every summer since she disappeared. But that’s not even close to the truth. Why would you lie about that, Frank?”

  “I didn’t lie. There were plenty of people to look for my daughter back then. One more person wasn’t going to help matters. For the past five years, I’ve gone out there on the weekends.”

  “So, for the past five to ten weekends, you’ve gone out there to look for clues, just in case something was missed?”

  He nodded.

  Lizzy shook her head. He’d obviously been lying about it for so long, he believed it himself. “Detective Roth has been keeping tabs on you for a few years now. He goes so far as to put a camera on the highway near the area where Carol’s car was abandoned. He does that just to be sure he doesn’t miss your car, should you pass by. I could understand you missing a weekend or two, but you have never walked the highway where your daughter disappeared. Never. Not once. And yet you’re sitting here now lying to me and my assistant, trying to make us believe you’re a grieving father who still looks for his daughter even after all these years. Never mind that you just told me you don’t want to spend the rest of your life looking for your daughter. So which is it?”

  “I think it’s time for you to leave.”

  “Her car was abandoned,” Lizzy said, ignoring him. “When the police found her car, they found some of Carol's belongings: school books, a hairbrush, and snack foods. According to friends of Carol’s, she was in good spirits and had no reason to run away from her life.”

  “That’s right. She was happy and smart and she didn’t have a care in the world.”

  “Investigators initially operated under the theory that Carol was troubled and decided to escape from the demands of her life for a while. As a result they didn’t immediately begin to look for her, but your wife was adamant about that not being the case, which is why friends and family began to search on weekends.”

  “Sounds about right,” Frank said with a sigh.

  “The official search did not begin until five days after her car was found. When the search finally got under way, helicopters, search dogs, and ground teams covered the area. The dogs picked up her scent on the highway where her car had been abandoned and lost the trail before the first exit to the national park.”

  "No footprints were found," Frank added. “Why are you telling me all of this? You might as well read me the entire file.”

  “Either Carol was picked up by someone driving on the road, or she walked to the closest house to ask for help.”

  He raked his hands through his fake hair. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “Police say they did not treat Carol’s case as an abduction because they saw no signs of a struggle at the scene.”

  He nodded.

  “Your daughter emailed one of her teachers and told them she’d be absent for a few days because of a death in the family. But again, family and friends—your family and friends, Frank, not mine—said no one in the family had died.”

  “That’s right.” He picked up the phone. “You’ve got one minute to get out of my office.”

  “Why did your daughter run away, Frank?”

  “That’s the million dollar question.”

  “What did you do to her?”

  Frank hung up the phone, stood, and walked out of the office.

  “He’s guiltier than sin,” Lizzy said.

  Jessica nodded. “One hundred percent.”

  “But why hasn’t anyone else figured that out?”

  “It sounds like Detective Roth knows he’s lying,” Jessica said.

  “Roth has always been suspicious of Frank,” Lizzy told her, “and he has spent many weekends watching and waiting for Frank to appear near the spot where Carol’s car was abandoned, but he has never used a surveillance camera.”

  Jessica smiled. “You’re so good you’re bad.”

  Lizzy smiled too.

  “If only we could find Carol and ask her.”

  “Thanks to your great work today we’re going to find her,” Lizzy said. “If Frank won’t tell us why Carol ran away, we’ll just have to find Carol and ask her ourselves.”

  “Obviously Carol has no interest in being found,” Jessica said.

  “That’s just too frickin’ bad, isn’t it?”

  Chapter 27

  People Change

  The Rocklin Apartments were long and sprawling stucco buildings located near the Roseville Galleria Mall.

  Lizzy knocked on apartment number 33 and waited for the occupant to open the door.

  The woman who answered was definitely Debra Taphorn, the same girl in the photograph Michael Denton, the feeder, had given her. If not for the big green eyes and dimples, though, Lizzy never would have recognized her. Judging by her thin heart-shaped face, she was literally half the person she used to be.

  “Hi, I’m Lizzy Gardner, private investigator.”

  Debra’s eyes widened. “You’re the one who was abduc
ted by that lunatic.”

  “Yep, that’s me,” Lizzy said. “I need to talk to you. Can I come in?”

  Debra frowned. “I don’t know. I really don’t have much time. What did you say this was about?”

  “I didn’t, but the truth is, I need your help.” Lizzy shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “It’s about Diane Kramer.”

  “I’ve never heard of her.”

  Lizzy reached into her purse and pulled out the picture that Michael had given her of Debra when she was at his house.

  Debra stared at the picture for a long moment. All color left her face. “Talk about having your past come back to haunt you. Where did you get that?”

  “From Michael Denton. Can I come inside?”

  “Sure.” Debra moved to the side so Lizzy could enter.

  Debra Taphorn’s apartment was spacious and immaculately clean. The large windows provided for a lot of natural light. The walls and the furniture were shades of crème and white. Lizzy took off her shoes, but realized it probably wasn’t necessary since Debra was wearing heels inside. Better to play it safe and get on the woman’s good side.

  “Michael told me that the two of you used to be close,” Lizzy said when the silence quickly became awkward.

  “How well do you know Michael?” Debra asked.

  “I know he’s into feederism and that he used to enjoy feeding you.”

  “You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

  “You said you didn’t have much time.”

  “You got me there,” Debra said as she gestured a hand toward the kitchen. “Can I get you anything?”

  “No thanks. I just have a few questions and then I’ll leave you alone.”

  “Is it about Michael?” Debra asked. “Because if he said I had anything to do with him other than the food thing he’s lying. I never—”