CHAPTER NINE
Amber Holloway’s last known address was a shotgun house on a quiet stretch in Gentilly.
A chain-link fence ran along the front. The yard was small but someone had put effort into it; flower beds along the path, a hanging basket by the door that was starting to brown at the edges, a ceramic pot with a dead plant.
Ella stepped out of the cruiser and looked at the house over the roof. It was a far cry from the lavish places she’d seen half a mile back. This was a working house on a working street, and a twenty-two-year-old woman who’d lived here was now on a steel table.
‘Not much to look at,’ Ripley said, climbing out the passenger side.
‘Not everyone lives in a palace, Mia.’
They started up the path. Ella had the evidence bag with the snowman necklace in her jacket pocket.
She’d signed it out from Guidry with the understanding that it went straight to the evidence room once Ella was finished with it.
What she wanted was simple: show the figurine to whoever knew Amber Holloway best and find out if the ceramic snowman meant anything.
If it was Amber’s, it pointed one way. If it wasn’t, it pointed elsewhere.
They reached the front door. A screen door sat in front of a solid wooden one, both closed. No doorbell that Ella could see. Ripley knocked, but no one answered.
Ella looked through the screen. The hallway beyond was dim. A pair of sneakers sat by the baseboard. A jacket hung from a hook. They were ordinary things belonging to a woman who would never come back for them.
Ripley knocked again and waited. Then she said, ‘No car out front. Could be at work.’
‘Or at the precinct. Fields said he’d informed Amber’s mom of her passing, but he didn’t say she’d gone into the station.’
Suddenly, the front door exploded outward, hard enough to smash Ella in the shoulder and stagger her back.
If she hadn’t been facing Ripley, it probably would have broken her nose.
The impact made Ripley drop into a defense stance with a hand on her weapon.
When Ella composed herself a second later, Ella found herself staring at a red-eyed woman.
‘What now?’ the woman snapped.
She must have been late forties, with short blonde hair cut off at the chin. She was wearing a charcoal bathrobe, and her eyes were so swollen they looked like they'd been sandblasted.
Not who are you. Not can I help you. Just what now, which told Ella that this woman had already opened her door to strangers today and knew that strangers on the doorstep never brought anything worth hearing.
‘FBI,’ Ella said and pulled out her badge. ‘Could we talk to you?’
The woman's eyes went to the badge, then to Ella's face, then to Ripley. Her mouth pulled tight, and her nostrils flared, and for a second, Ella thought she was going to slam the door shut. Instead she gripped the frame with both hands as if the house might slide out from under her if she let go.
‘Oh, great, more cops. That’s exactly what I need this morning.’
Ella caught the hair color, the porcelain cheekbones, the button nose. ‘You’re Amber Holloway’s mother,’ she said.
Then the tears came. Ella considered breaking out the Bureau-approved platitudes but the only thing more useless than a sympathy card was a stranger mouthing off feel-good nonsense about time and healing, which Ella knew from experience was no consolation.
So instead, she said, ‘We’re here because we’re trying to find out who did this. I have some questions, and I have something I’d like to show you. Can we come inside?’
Miss Holloway clasped her hands over her face and let out a series of violent sobs. Ella bridged the gap between her and the grieving mother, put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. Sometimes, the comfort of touch was enough to keep the pain at bay, at least for a short while.
‘I suppose I don’t have any choice, do I? But if you want answers, you’ll be the second set of cops today to leave disappointed.’
***
The inside of the shotgun house was exactly what the outside promised – small, lived-in, and full of someone.
The rooms ran one behind the other in a straight line from front to back, the way all shotgun houses did, and every surface held evidence of two women sharing a space that was built for one.
The framed photos of the dearly departed dotted throughout only turned up the sense of loneliness the house coughed out.
Ella and Ripley followed Miss Holloway’s shuffling form into a living room decked out with tan couches, puffed up cushions and a zebra skin rug that looked about as out of place as a snowball in summer.
Miss Holloway sagged onto a recliner and palmed her temples.
She was haggard, pale, and her tears had turned her cheeks wrinkly.
Ella could tell the mom genes still ran strong.
She gestured to a loveseat big enough for one and a half asses, but Ella respectfully declined.
She couldn’t sit in such a comfortable place given the circumstances.
‘We’ll stand, Miss Holloway. We don’t want to keep you too long.’
‘Good. I’m Carol. Now, what do you want to ask me?’
Ella asked, ‘What other police officers did you speak to today?’
‘Dunno their names. I called the cops after Amber didn’t come home last night. They said they’d look into it, and about an hour ago two of them showed up and told me…’
‘I’m sorry,’ Ella said. ‘Did they ask you about her?’
‘Everything. Where she’d been last night, who she was with, all that crap.’
‘Did you have any answers?’
‘None. The girl is twenty-two. I don’t keep tabs on her.’
‘Can you tell us about her? Where did she work?’
‘Dollar General on Franklin. Four days a week, sometimes five if they’d give her the hours. She hated it but she showed up. Amber wasn’t one of these kids who sat around waiting for something to happen. She worked. She always worked.’
Ripley chimed in, ‘How long has Amber lived here with you?’
‘One year. Lived here until she was eighteen, then got her own place, then came back.’
‘She moved out young,’ Ella said. ‘What made her leave the nest so soon?’
‘What else? A boy.’ Carol spat the word.
‘Some smooth-talking Romeo she met at a club. He fed her a bunch of lies about forever and she fell for it. Next thing I know, she’s telling me they’re getting hitched and I’m standing there with my jaw on the floor because my baby girl is barely legal and she’s already making the biggest mistake of her life. ’
Ella could tell that Amber’s mother had rehearsed this speech in her head a thousand times. ‘A whirlwind romance,’ she said.
‘Romance, my ass. But there was no talking sense into her. She was so far gone.’ Carol shook her head with a rueful twist of her lips.
‘So I smiled and played nice, even though I knew it’d end in tears.
And what do you know? A year later, there’s Amber on my doorstep with mascara running down her face and a suitcase in each hand. ’
‘What happened?’ Ella asked, even though she could guess. Same story, different players.
‘Amber caught the guy with another woman.’ She wormed a tissue out of her bathrobe pocket and swiped at her nose.
‘I tell you, I ain’t never seen heartbreak like that before.
It was like the light just went out of her eyes.
My firecracker of a girl, snuffed out by some loser who couldn’t keep it in his pants. ’
Ella made a low, sympathetic noise in her throat. It never got easier, watching the people you loved get shattered by those too inconsiderate to handle their hearts with care.
‘She pick herself back up okay?’ Ripley asked.
‘Yes and no. I mean, she dragged herself out of bed in the morning. Ate her meals, even if they were just a few bites. Went to her shifts at the store.’ Miss Holloway twisted the soggy tissue between her fingers. ‘But it was like there was a sheet of glass between her and the rest of the world.’
‘What about her house? Did she have to sell it?’
‘That prick boyfriend got it all in the divorce, never mind that she’d paid for half of everything... apparently when you’re a nineteen-year-old starter wife, the courts don’t give a rat’s ass. She walked away with nothing but her clothes and a pile of debt.’
‘How did she afford a house at such a young age?’
‘Inheritance from her aunt paid for the deposit, but she wasn’t on the mortgage. She didn’t earn enough, so it was just in her ex’s name.’
Ella swapped a look with her partner. Nine times out of ten, the husband did it, and clichés were clichés for a reason. ‘You got her ex’s name?’
‘Ryan Grimshaw. Amber’s old house was on Lawrence Avenue, number 1213.’
She made a mental note of it. ‘How was Amber after all that?’
‘Bitter as hell. Started going out more, staying out all hours doing god knows what. Coming home stinking of gin. It scared the life outta me. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.’
Like a phone call from the hospital. Or the morgue.
‘And in between her benders? Did you notice any changes in her routine?’
Carol leaned over to a table beside her chair and snatched up a framed photo.
She skimmed her thumbs over the glass affectionately and for a second, the misery on her face briefly cleared.
‘Not really. Amber didn’t do a whole lot other than stare at her phone.
Social media, YouTube. Loved those influencers or whatever they’re called. ’
As much as Ella didn't understand influencers, she understood why a downtrodden woman would find solace in them. Ella's napkin analysis was that Amber wanted to crawl inside them and live their perfect Insta-lives instead of facing her own mess.
Ripley asked, ‘She have many friends?’
‘Not really. No one she could rely on. She had some school pals, but they ditched her when she shacked up with Ryan.’
‘What about enemies?’
Carol said nothing, just stared at that captured moment of happiness like it held the key to bringing Amber back. After a long beat, she set it aside with a shaky exhale. ‘Don’t really know. It wouldn’t surprise me, but if you want names, I got none.’
Ella nodded. ‘You said you didn’t know where Amber was last night. Is it normal for her to be out until the early hours?’
‘Yup. Find me a twenty-something girl who doesn’t stay out all night.’
Ella could name a few, but she let it slide. Instead, she pulled the bagged necklace from her pocket and held it up, but concealed the snowman with her hand. ‘Miss Holloway, this may be difficult, but we need to confirm if this belonged to Amber.’
The effect was immediate. Carol’s face crumpled like a tin can and fresh tears spilled over onto her cheeks.
‘Oh god. Yes, that’s… her necklace. She never took it off, not since I gave it to her for her sixteenth.’ She pressed a fist to her mouth.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Ella murmured. She looked at the necklace, then back at the weeping mother. ‘This is going to sound strange, but did this chain ever have a figurine attached to it?’
Carol blinked at her, confusion temporarily overriding her grief. ‘A figurine? No, never. Why would it?’
Ella hesitated. That twisting feeling in her gut was back in spades. She moved a little closer and revealed the attached object. ‘Because we found this on the chain. When Amber was discovered.’
‘I don’t… I don’t understand. I saw that necklace two days ago and it didn’t have a snowman on it. What is this? Where did it come from?’
Ripley asked, ‘It doesn’t belong to Amber irrespective of it being on the necklace? It’s not one of her ornaments, or a childhood toy?’
‘No. Definitely not.’
Ella asked, ‘Did Amber mention meeting anyone new? A stranger, someone at work, someone she ran into?’
Carol shook her head. She was staring at the pocket where Ella had put the necklace, as if she could still see it through the fabric. ‘She would have told me. We talked. We weren’t one of those households where nobody says a word to each other. If something was off, she’d have said.’
Ella believed her. The house said as much. This had been a small life shared between two people who paid attention to each other.
‘Is there anything else you can tell us about your daughter? We’re going to do everything we can to find who did this.’
Carol pushed to her feet, arms wrapped tight around her middle like she was physically holding herself together. ‘No. Nothing.’
She caught Ripley’s eye. Ripley gave her nothing back, which was Ripley’s way of saying they had nowhere else to go from here.
‘We’ll get out of your hair, Miss Holloway. Thank you for your time. If you think of anything else-,’
‘I won’t,’ she said flatly.
Ella and Mia showed themselves out. The sound of muffled crying followed them all the way to the car.