Reconstructing Amelia

by Kimberly McCreight

  “He made you uncomfortable?”

  “Not him so much as the way Amelia seemed with him. She was nervous or sad or something. I only saw them together for a few seconds, so it was hard to tell. But her body language was off.”

  “You saw Amelia cutting school and going into our empty house with a boy that made her, and you, uncomfortable, and you didn’t think you should tell me?”

  “I figured I’d ask Amelia about it when she babysat the next time. Encourage her to tell you. But then there was no next time. I was afraid if I said something to you directly that you might feel like I was judging your parenting. I’m so sorry, Kate.” Kelsey’s voice cracked, then her eyes got wide. “Oh my God, what if that boy had something to do with what happened to Amelia?”

  When Kate got off the F train at Bryant Park, it was misting and dark, as if the sun had never fully risen. As she crossed the street and headed west on Forty-second Street, the rain picked up from a mist to a drizzle. Kate heard her phone alert with a new message as she stepped up onto the far sidewalk. She paused out of the rain to read it, bracing herself for another message about Amelia.

  I know your little secret. Soon everybody else will, too.

  Kate’s hands were still shaking when she got into work and found her way to the IT Department. She’d never actually been there before. When she had a problem with her computer, the IT Department came to her. As it turned out, all of Slone, Thayer’s very many critical IT functions were tucked into an unimpressive cubby, down on the second floor near the copy center.

  Kate knocked on the door open halfway, but no one answered. She waited another minute before knocking a second time, then pushed it the rest of the way open. Sure enough, there was Duncan, Bose headphones on, facing the window as he played air drums with wild abandon. Kate watched him for a second, but he didn’t notice her. She had no choice but to step up and tap on his shoulder.

  “What the fuck!” he shouted, jumping up so fast that he banged his thighs on his desk. “Ouch!”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Kate breathed. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Dude, that’s okay,” Duncan said, his usual stoner tone, high and wired. “Just don’t do that again, like, seriously. It’ll permanently mess with my chi. We don’t get a whole lot of visitors down here. You can’t, like, sneak up on us, ever.”

  He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths in through his nose. Finally, he opened his eyes and exhaled deeply. And just like that he was back to the relaxed surfer dude Kate had always known him to be.

  She held out her phone. “I got another text like the one Beatrice asked you to trace for me before. You really can’t tell me who’s sending them?”

  Duncan took the phone and looked down at the message.

  “That’s seriously messed up,” he said after he’d read it.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Kate said. “I can see that. I was hoping you could help me with the who’s-it-from part.”

  “Oh yeah, right.” He clicked a couple of buttons on the phone and frowned. “They used the phone company site again to route the message.”

  “So that’s it? Do you think the police could do something more?”

  He shrugged. “In general, I try to steer clear of the po-po. I can’t say what they’ve got up their sleeve, like, policewise. But the phone company would have a record of who logged on from where to send this message, so maybe the police could subpoena it. I guess they’d need probable cause or whatever. I can say that technologywise, with just this phone, the police aren’t going to be able to do anything different than me.” He handed it back to Kate. “Sorry.”

  “Thanks anyway,” she said. “Do you think you could maybe help with some other things, like getting everything off my daughter’s laptop, and the texts printed off her phone?”

  “Definitely,” Duncan said more quietly. His mouth turned down sadly as Kate dumped Amelia’s phone and computer and assorted wires and chargers onto his desk. “But you sure you want everything, like her Facebook page and Twitter and all that? Some of it might be easier to look at online.”

  Facebook. Kate had planned never to look at Amelia’s Facebook page. Her daughter would still be so alive on there. Amelia’s friends, she already knew, had been using the page as a makeshift memorial, going on there to leave I-miss-you messages for her. The thought of seeing them was completely unbearable.

  “I don’t think Amelia had a Twitter account. She never mentioned it.”

  “You sure?” Duncan asked. “Most kids in high school are on Twitter at least sometimes, and they’re texting all the time. Then there’s Facebook. E-mail’s like the new snail mail. Don’t know if she’d bother to mention Twitter. It’s all second nature to them. Like, of course they have it.”

  Kate was staring at him. It was too much. There were so very many places where terrible things about her daughter’s life could be tucked. Kate thought again about that text she’d seen to some boy named Ben. Lucky me, Amelia had written sarcastically about having Kate for a mom. Reading that had been awful, and it could get much, much worse.

  “What do you say we slice it this way?” Duncan piped up, rescuing Kate from her choked silence. “I’ll print out all the Word docs and anything else on her hard drive, and I’ll get you her browser history. On the other accounts like Facebook, I’ll set you up with the passwords. That way you can, you know, take a quick peek,” Duncan said, resting one hand on Amelia’s computer. “Because you don’t want to like get into the deets of your kid’s Facebook page. I mean, I’m twenty-four, and I’m a pretty scrubbed-up guy and whatevs, but my ’rents would stroke out if they saw my whole page. You’ve gotta filter it for ma and pa. I mean, who wants to see their kid doing body shots, like, ever?”

  “Body shots?”

  “Come on, dude, you’re not that old.” Duncan rolled his eyes. “Facebook just wasn’t around back when you were letting the good times roll.”

  “How long will this all take?”

  Duncan looked at the clock. “Couple hours, max. I’ll shoot you a text when I have everything.”

  Kate was on her way up to her office when her cell phone rang. It came up as a blocked number. She paused in a quiet stretch of hallway off the elevator bank, feeling queasy as she answered.

  “Hello?”

  “This is Lieutenant Lewis Thompson with the Seventy-eighth Precinct.” The voice had the same thick Brooklyn twang as Molina’s but was extremely careful and polite. “Is this Ms. Kate Baron?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve been assigned your daughter’s case and—”

  “What happened to Detective Molina?” Kate asked, then immediately wished she hadn’t. It wasn’t as though she wanted Molina back. She would take this Lieutenant Thompson person, whoever he was. She would take anybody over Molina.

  “He’s not with the department anymore.”

  “He got fired?” It was one thing to suspect Molina was incompetent, but to be that right would have been almost frightening.

  “Voluntary departure. Took a job in private security. His last day was yesterday.”

  “Oh, I see,” Kate said, even though she did not see. She did not see at all. He’d called her only the day before.

  “But we got the results of the handwriting analysis—”

  “Wait, you did one?”

  “This case got kicked back to me based on the results.”

  “How could they test the handwriting if they didn’t even have a sample from Amelia?”

  Kate was already bracing to be told that the sorry written on that wall was definitively her daughter’s. And she was done accepting at face value that the police were doing their job with the proper thoroughness.

  “They did have a sample from your daughter, or at least from somebody. I’ve got it right here in my hand. It’s a note directed to a Jeremy, thanking him for providing a reference. It’s signed ‘Amelia.’ That ring any bells?”

  Jeremy, of course. Amelia had sent him a thank-y
ou note for writing her a recommendation to Princeton’s summer journalism program. Jeremy was an alumnus, and when he’d heard that Amelia was applying, he’d generously offered to support her application to the prestigious program for high-school students without Kate’s even having to ask. Apparently, Jeremy had done more than just call the police commissioner, he’d pushed the handwriting analysis through.

  “If you think there’s a chance this note isn’t your daughter’s,” the lieutenant went on, “let’s run the test again with a sample you provide. I want to be one hundred percent sure we get it right this time.”

  “So the handwriting matches?” Kate asked, still preparing for the bad news. “Amelia wrote ‘sorry’ on that wall?”

  “Can you answer my question first, ma’am?” Lieutenant Thompson asked, not impatiently, exactly, but firm. “Is that note from your daughter?”

  “Yes, it’s from Amelia.”

  “Then it looks like whoever wrote on that wall, it wasn’t your daughter.”

  “The handwriting’s not Amelia’s?”

  “Not even close.”

  Kate raced back to her office to grab her things and let Beatrice know that she’d be out for the rest of the day. She’d told Lieutenant Thompson that she’d meet him out in Park Slope, at Dizzy’s, in an hour. And she had a stop to make before she headed out.

  She darted down the internal stairs two flights, then around the corner to Jeremy’s huge office. When she jerked to a stop at his open door, he had his chair swiveled in the opposite direction, probably to hide the fact that he was reading the sports section of the New York Post.

  Jeremy startled when Kate knocked.

  “I just wanted to say thank you,” she said as he turned around. “For speaking to the police commissioner and for arranging the handwriting analysis. It’s amazing that you kept that note.”

  “It was a nice note,” he said. “Was the handwriting a match?”

  Kate shook her head. “No.”

  “Really?” Jeremy looked stunned. “Wow.”

  “I know. I didn’t think Amelia wrote it, but to get confirmation . . . It’s still shocking. Anyway, they’ve assigned somebody new to the case, too. I’m on my way out to meet him.”

  “I’m glad to hear they’re taking the whole thing seriously,” Jeremy said. “Maybe now you can get some real answers.”

  “I hope so,” Kate said, staring at him. She thought for a second about saying something more, but she already knew that she wouldn’t. “Anyway, thanks for your help.”

  “Absolutely. If there’s anything else I can do, please let me know,” Jeremy said. “Will you keep me posted, too? Let me know what you find out?”

  “Definitely,” Kate said as she turned for the door.

  “Oh, and one last thing,” Jeremy called after her. “I know this isn’t on your radar right now—and it shouldn’t be—but I wanted to let you know that I’ve pulled Daniel off Associated. You’ll be the only partner on the case when you’re back. No rush at all. I mean it. Between the senior associates and me, we’ll be fine whenever you come back. But it was something I needed to move forward with. Daniel made a lucky call on the subpoena, and he wrote a good brief for the Second Circuit. It’ll go down as a win in his column, but you’ve logged six years on that case. It’s yours, and it should stay yours. I may work you all to death, but I believe in loyalty. It should count for something. That’s a message the other junior partners in the firm need to hear. When you come back I’m going to pull out, too.”

  Jeremy was the senior partner on virtually every major litigation matter the firm had. Directly or indirectly, he’d brought in most of those clients, so they remained his, even if he didn’t do any of the work. It was a ceremonial thing as well as a billable thing.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, it’s your case—the billables, the profit, the client.” Jeremy had an eager look on his face, like he was bestowing a precious gift on Kate, one that he had labored over with his own hands. “It’ll be like you brought them in yourself. Victor’s fully on board, too. In fact, he seemed delighted to see me go.”

  Kate had heard rumors of Jeremy “giving cases” to partners over the years, cases that then went on to define the future of their careers. Having an enormous client like Associated Mutual Bank considered hers would do just that for Kate. It was the kind of opportunity she would have relished before Amelia died. Now it made her feel vaguely sick. But she didn’t want to disappoint Jeremy. He was trying to help her in the only way he knew how: by pushing her career ahead.

  “Thank you,” Kate said, because she was supposed to, and because she meant it. “For everything you’ve done.”

  Dizzy’s was mostly empty when Kate stepped inside. She looked over the worn red booths and hodgepodge of eclectic pictures on the walls until she finally spotted a slight man in his mid-sixties with curly gray hair seated at the far back. He had on a suit jacket and tie, and he was talking to a cute waitress with a nose ring and a red bandana tied around her head. Kate watched as he said something else and the waitress tipped her head back and laughed hard. Finally, Kate moved toward his table. He was the only person seated alone. Though he hardly looked the part, Kate figured he must be Lieutenant Lewis Thompson.

  “Lieutenant Thompson?” Kate asked tentatively, once she’d made her way over to him.

  “You can call me Lew, as in Lewis.” He held out his hand. Up close he was even smaller, with pale blue eyes behind thin, wire-rimmed glasses. “Have a seat.”

  “I’m sorry that I’m late,” Kate said, trying not to feel defeated by the way he looked. But it was hard to imagine him chasing after bad guys, much less catching one of them.

  The lieutenant looked past Kate and motioned for the waitress. “You know what you want to eat? Sorry, I couldn’t wait.”

  He motioned to his food: fruit, a vegetable omelet, whole-wheat toast. Even his meal was not coplike. Then again, it wasn’t as if Molina, the seemingly quintessential cop, had gotten her anywhere.

  “What can I get you, hon?” the waitress asked Lew, who in turn pointed to Kate.

  “Just coffee is fine,” she said, even though she was actually hungry.

  “You sure?” Lew asked, once the waitress had disappeared. “Nothing is more important than eating right.”

  “What department did you say you were from?” Kate asked, afraid that he might say something like traffic enforcement. “I think you said it on the phone, but I missed it.”

  “Seventy-eighth Precinct, Homicide,” he said, taking another careful bite.

  “Homicide?”

  “Homicide, as in a dead body,” he said, reading Kate’s mind. “I don’t have any new evidence on your daughter’s case yet, apart from the handwriting analysis. I’m here to listen, not to talk. So, why don’t you tell me why you think your daughter didn’t kill herself.”

  Over two cups of coffee, Kate talked. She talked about the kind of student and daughter Amelia had been. She talked about not believing Amelia would cheat. Not believing that she’d killed herself. All the while, Kate kept telling herself that it wasn’t just her denial talking, that it wasn’t just that she couldn’t live with the thought that her child had taken her own life. But a tiny part of her was afraid that her denial was the reason she was sitting there, across from this small lieutenant. But she pressed on, describing the mystery boy whom Kelsey had seen and all those little “I hate you” notes. And she told Lieutenant Thompson about the texts she’d gotten, three of them now.

  “So what’s the secret this person thinks you have?”

  “I have no idea,” Kate said, over that little voice inside her screaming Maybe I do! Maybe I do! “Honestly, I don’t.”

  “And you have no idea who might be sending the texts.”

  Kate shook her head. “I had the IT Department at my firm check it. The texts came from the same phone company site, but that’s all they could tell me. They’re also going to pull all the text messages and e-mai
ls off Amelia’s phone and laptop. I’m not sure Molina went through all of that the first time.” Kate resisted the urge to say that Molina had outright lied, but there didn’t seem any harm in hinting at as much. “He said he did, but he didn’t have the password to her phone, so I don’t know how he could have. He missed those little notes in Amelia’s room, too.”

  “Hmm. Okay, we’ll get our guys on the texts. They’re not the fastest, but they might be able to get some more specifics. We can subpoena the phone company, too. But they’re not exactly lighting quick either,” Lew said. “I did go back through your daughter’s file, though.”

  “And?”

  “It’s maybe a little thin.”

  “Maybe?”

  “Listen, a decent cop doing a decent job can look a lot of different ways. There’s a range.” He measured the distance with his hands. “But in a case like this, you would expect more witness interviews, more detailed notes. There were some of each, but probably not enough, and then there’s the autopsy report.”

  Kate had never seen the report. She hadn’t asked, and it hadn’t been offered.

  “What about it?”

  “First off, it wasn’t in the investigation file,” he said. “I went into Manhattan to track down a copy, and all they had at the main OCME office were the photographs. I’m no expert at analyzing autopsy photos, but there’s at least one thing that doesn’t seem to go with someone falling on purpose.”

  This was it, what Kate had wanted: real proof that Amelia hadn’t killed herself. And yet, suddenly, she felt panicked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “There were scratches on Amelia’s forearms, long ones. Like maybe they were put there with someone’s fingernails.” He paused when Kate winced. “Are you sure you want to hear this? This level of detail probably isn’t necessary.”

  “I want to know,” she said, trying to get herself to breathe. “I have to. Keep going.”

  “The body positioning, too. It doesn’t rule out suicide, the way, say, landing far out from the building might. But it raises questions. Questions someone should have gotten answers to.”