Chapter 34. Lucy
CHAPTER 34
Lucy
The Wednesday After the Conference
Robert was shell-shocked and wild-eyed as I escorted him back to Madison from Atlanta. He fell into a state of mumbling answers for basic questions, and I took the lead on every aspect of getting us home and getting him to his side of the townhouse before returning to my apartment. Of course I was distraught too, but somehow I had shifted into an autopilot of determination. I was sure grief would come later.
Police still had not found any bodies, but they had some DNA from Jasmine Littleton from hair and blood samples, and both women’s personal belongings were buried in Trent’s backyard.
Things were starting to leak out—Steph had withdrawn large sums of money both in San Diego and Atlanta. Police surmised that she and Trent started a hot romance at the conference and he convinced her that he needed money for his growing child support payments. The pair traveled together to Atlanta, but then something went wrong. Maybe Steph refused to take out more money, or maybe it was just that he had a temper. Regardless, she wanted to get away from him—we knew this from her texts to Robert—but then he killed her.
How this Jasmine woman fit in, we didn’t know yet. She was labeled as a drifter from Madison. How did she wind up dead in Atlanta too? When did Trent meet her?
His picture was all over the news now. Even his own station had to report on it. I called up NBC6’s story to see how they were handling it. A grim-faced young reporter named Hannah did a stand-up outside of Trent’s condo, police tape behind her. When she threw back to the anchors, they looked stunned and spoke in hushed tones. The female one named Leigh said they would stay on the story and update people with further details as they came in. I wanted to use the skills I’d learned in a women’s self-defense class and kick Trent right in his baby face, but I couldn’t shake the strong sense that something was just not adding up—that Reiki gut feeling again. If Steph had really met the man of her dreams and wanted more time off, why wouldn’t she have told us? Why would she lie about having a brother?
Opening a new tab on the computer, I went to LinkedIn and called up Trent’s profile. There he was, all frat-boy smiles with wickedly white teeth, grinning away with the NBC6 logo behind his head. He didn’t look like the type I thought she would fall head over heels in love with. His LinkedIn made it clear he was a market-hopper, someone who never truly put down roots, always thinking there was something better, more money, more prestige. I had seen plenty of them in TV.
I looked to see what sorts of things Trent had posted on LinkedIn. It was all egocentric, photos of him holding awards with braggy captions that said things like “So honored to be honored again! Huge night for NBC6 at the Atlanta Broadcasters Association Awards!”
I checked Twitter/X and Threads. Trent’s second-to-last tweet came the day he had flown to San Diego for the conference. He took a selfie of himself grinning at the Atlanta airport with the caption “Wheels up—ATL to SAN!” It had three likes.
But it was his last tweet that truly intrigued me. I peered at a group picture of about ten men and women in what seemed to be an outdoor courtyard at the conference hotel.
“The Lunch Bunch, best News Directors in the country!” it said.
The woman next to him was clearly Stephanie, but her head was turned to the side so that all I really saw was her hair. I did recognize her pink blazer. She was not tagged in the post like the other news directors were. There were twenty likes on this one. Clicking to see who, I noticed that all eight of the other tagged people who seemed to be at the table with Trent and Stephanie had liked it and retweeted it, but she had not done either.
It was as if Stephanie herself were trying to tell me something.
Lying down on my yoga mat in the savasana pose, I was exhausted but not ready to sleep. My mind whirred, but I forced it to slow down as I began to meditate. After twenty minutes, I felt much better and shifted my mind gently back to a place of contemplation.
Think, Lucy, think. Steph’s texts about Mark Ruffalo were so weird, but clearly she had been in Atlanta. She was sending Bruce and Robert voice memos and photos and texts. Her cell phone was found there, and Jasmine’s was now traced to the nearest tower to Trent’s place too.
An idea hit me.
TMZ had identified Steph’s tablemates from the first day of the conference as Dorothy Robinson from Boston and Alan Kozinski from Kalamazoo. They were among the last known people—other than Trent, a maintenance guy, and strangers on the flight to Atlanta—to see and talk to her.
Dashing to my laptop, I returned to LinkedIn and sent direct messages to Dorothy and Alan, explaining who I was and that I had some strange texts from Steph during the conference and wondered if something wasn’t adding up. I put my phone number, asking if they could talk.
I didn’t expect an answer right away, maybe ever. I figured I might get a curt “thanks but no thanks” response, if anything, but just thirty minutes later, as I was unpacking my travel bag in my bedroom, my cell phone rang. The area code was unfamiliar.
“Hello?”
“Is this Lucy from WISC in Madison?” a deep woman’s voice asked.
“Yes.”
“This is Dorothy Robinson. You wrote to me on LinkedIn. I’m absolutely sick about your coworker, and I’m so very sorry. Anything I can do to help. What would you like to ask me, and what’s this about weird texts to you?”
So we began to compare notes. Dorothy made little clucking noises or said “hmm” as I detailed for her what we had seen back in the newsroom and how we began to wonder if someone had her phone. Then she told me how Trent had been awful from the get-go, flirting with Stephanie.
“But Stephanie seemed rather uninterested,” Dorothy summed up. “Which is part of the reason I’m so confused by this.”
“Me too,” I agreed. “So then came lunch?”
“Yes, and we sat at opposite ends of the outdoor portico. Then she was gone. I never saw her again.”
“Anything else?” I asked, starting to feel desperate. “I just feel like it wasn’t her sending those messages to us.”
“No, that was it,” said Dorothy. “I’m sorry I don’t have more for you.”
“Did you see what she was wearing or eating?” I was flailing for anything now, trying to visualize her on this patio having lunch.
“A pink blazer and a black dress. As for food, no, I didn’t. Wait… actually, now that you mention it, I just remembered. Trent told me and Alan afterward that he and Stephanie both had chicken.”
A ripple of adrenaline shot through me.
“Chicken? But she’s a vegetarian! Steph wouldn’t have chicken. Did they offer a vegetarian option?”
“Why yes, they did,” said Dorothy. “Do you think this means something?”
“Dorothy, can I ask you a favor? Can I send you a recent photo of Stephanie, and can you confirm that it was her you saw at the conference?”
“Certainly, I’ll do what I can. It was such a brief time sitting next to her and we were focused on the speakers, but I’ll try.”
I fumbled for my photos and pulled one up from just a few weeks prior: a going-away party for a coworker where Steph had her arm around the woman’s shoulder, both grinning for the camera. Texting it to Dorothy, I held my breath.
“OK, hold on, I’m putting my glasses on,” she said. “Hmmm… if memory serves, that’s her. Same hair, for sure. I’m sorry I don’t have a really clear mental image of her face that differs from this picture. There is one other thing we could try, though. We all had to sign in when we got there. Do you know what Stephanie’s signature looks like? I could call the National Press Foundation and ask for a copy of the sign-in sheet. We could compare.”
“Yes!” I cried out. “That’s a good idea. Steph is a lefty. Is there anyone who can help us confirm that a lefty signed in?”
“Lucy, I have just the person. I’m a former investigative journalist, and you’re getting my juices flowing. I’ll get the signatures from the NPF and call my contact.”
The next morning, just as I was doing my Pilates and trying to stay calm about all things Steph-related, my cell rang again. Dashing for it, I saw that it was Dorothy. I answered breathlessly.
“Lucy, I got the NPF sign-in sheet and sent it to my handwriting expert. It’s definitely written by someone who is right-handed. We’ve got something here. And that’s not all. I went to your website and found a video of Stephanie giving a mission statement about your station. I wanted to compare her voice to the one I remembered from San Diego since the face wasn’t a clear mental image for me. Lucy, I don’t believe that’s the same voice I heard at the conference. We need to call the police.”