Timothy
It’s getting late when I pull up to Amanda Alessi’s little house in a modest neighborhood in the part of Little Valley that
they call The Pink Streets because of the brick roads that characterize it. It’s kind of a young, hip enclave nestled between
the richer neighborhoods where Vera Blacksmith and her family live, and the more working-class areas—where I happen to live.
The neighboring houses are dark. Somewhere there’s the faint sound of windchimes. The smell of pine is heavy in the air.
I push through that wired, vaguely nauseated feeling that comes from too little sleep and too much caffeine. A headache teases
behind my eyes. I can still feel her on me. Ana. She’s a dangerous distraction. I try to forget her, focus on Amanda.
A few calls around to co-workers we found on social media, and to family and friends, confirmed that no one had heard from
Amanda Alessi in a few days, that she hadn’t showed for work, but hadn’t put in for vacation time. Most thought, because of
the social media post, that she’d taken off with Paul. Everyone agreed that this was out of character.
Amanda Alessi, by all accounts, was always on time, reliable, and thoughtful. She called her parents every other day—except for the last few days. Her parents are on their way from California. They gave me permission to enter the house, which they own and Amanda rents from them.
I sent a unit here earlier to knock on the door, but there was no answer. A quick perimeter check and some peering in windows
revealed nothing suspicious. Neighbors hadn’t seen anything. I should have gotten here earlier.
Still in the car, I look at the picture I took from Amanda’s best friend, Jessie, who also gave me the keys to her place.
Her parents told me Jessie would have a set, and they were right.
Amanda is young, just turned thirty, with a blond pixie cut and dark, thickly lashed eyes. Smiley with a full, curvy body.
In the photo, she’s fashionable in a shirt dress and expensive tote, surrounded by her friends. Girls’ shopping day, according
to Jessie. In the photo, she looks happy, smile broad, cheeks pleasantly dimpled, the crinkles of laughter around her eyes.
“I didn’t believe it,” Jessie said, when I dropped by her place to get the keys. “That she’d take off with him. It just wasn’t
her—they’d just met. But that social media post.”
The photo on Amanda’s Instagram feed. Toes, cocktails, sunset. Turns out it was a stock image. Posted on her page and Paul
Hayes’s page. Birch, the young tech guy at the precinct, tracked it down. It was featured on a half dozen ads for beach vacations.
Paradise found.
I have a bad feeling that whatever Amanda Alessi has found, it isn’t paradise.
“Do you think she’s—?” Jessie couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Let’s not jump to any conclusions,” I said.
She shook her head, dark bob cut shimmering. “She just wouldn’t do this. Take off without telling anyone. I should have called
earlier—her Insta post, though.”
“It’s too soon to know anything,” I told her.
Which was true—because we never really know each other. People snap, disappear, leave their lives, suddenly steal and take off. Even people like Amanda. You never know when people have had enough with whatever they’re managing, or what pushes them over the edge.
“She could be a little crazy when it came to men,” Jessie called out to me as I was walking away.
I looked back at her; she was a contrast to Amanda—dark where Amanda was fair, bony where Amanda was curvy.
“Threw herself into new relationships, you know?” Jessie wrung her manicured hands nervously. “She just loved being in love.”
I turned the sentence around in my head. She just loved being in love.
Now I walk up Amanda Alessi’s short driveway, approach the front door, and ring the bell. I stand back to see if any lights
come on, ring again.
Nothing. Darkness. Streetlamps seem dim. Across the street, a single upstairs light is burning. Somewhere a dog is barking—yippy
and relentless.
I wait another few moments before I put the key in the lock and open the door. I brace myself for the smell, but there’s nothing.
From the tiny foyer, I can see the whole first level—kitchen, dining, and living areas. The space is tidy, simply decorated
with mid-range pale modular furniture and a huge flat-screen television dominating the kitchen, living room area. Everything
spotless.
“Ms. Alessi.” My voice bounces around and the silence vibrates. “Little Valley Police.”
No answer. I move through the house, hand on the gun in its holster.
In Amanda’s bedroom, the bed is unmade, covers in a tangle, drawers open, closet door wide. Empty hangers hanging helter-skelter,
a row of underthings missing from a carefully organized drawer. A hasty packing job? Or someone wanted it to look that way?
I open the bedside table drawer, hoping for a journal. But all I find is a box of condoms, a bookmark, some hand lotion, a
book of positive bedtime affirmations.
Downstairs, I check the small garage.
No car.
Also, no phone or purse anywhere that I can see.
All the first things you look for. Phone especially. If you find it left behind, that’s a big red flag that something’s really
wrong.
Her parents told me that they still tracked her location, and she theirs. A couple of days ago, her location became unavailable.
Someone turned it off. Or the phone went dead.
“I feel like someone cut our connection to her,” her mother said, voice breaking.
Amanda’s place is full of photographs—friends and family. I recognize a much younger Jessie, Amanda’s parents. Lots of smiling
faces on the walls, on surfaces, in pretty, coordinating frames. Cozy blankets and fuzzy throw pillows, piles of fashion magazines,
scented candles. A girl who liked pretty, comfortable things.
On the side of the refrigerator, there’s an old-school paper calendar, the little boxes filled with colorful loopy scribbles—drinks with Jessie, girls’ brunch, dinner with M an old woman in a thin robe peers out at me. I identify myself.
“I already told them, the ones who came earlier. I didn’t see anything,” she croaks. She has watery brown eyes, face a landscape
of deep lines.
“Did you see anyone come out of Amanda Alessi’s house just now?”
She shakes her head. “Only you.”
“Were you watching from upstairs?”
She doesn’t answer, pulls her robe tighter, shuts the door a little. “I heard a noise. It woke me up.”
“Ma’am,” I say. “Does this camera record?”
“What camera?”
“The one in this doorbell.” I tap on it. It looks like it has a direct line of sight to Amanda Alessi’s house.
She waves at me. “Oh, my son installed that. I don’t even know how it works. Can’t even hear it when it rings.”
“Can I have your son’s name and phone number?”
“I don’t have to give you that,” she says, frowning.
I take a card from my pocket, slip it through the slowly closing door. “Okay, then can you have your son call me?”
She takes it, nods at me, eyes narrowed with suspicion. I’m guessing the card is going right in the trash.
“Thank you,” I say. “Sorry to disturb you so late.”
As I’m walking away, “She was a bad girl.”
I stop and turn. “Amanda Alessi?”
She wags a finger. “A party girl. Always with someone new. Dressing up, going out. People spending the night. Music! Too late,
I told her. Turn it down!”
I imagine this lonely old woman, alone in this run-down old house watching Amanda living her happy life.
“Did you see anything this week that you found unusual?”
She shakes her head. “I already told them. The cops. And the other girl who knocked on my door.”
“What other girl?”
“She wanted to know about the camera, too.”
“Did she leave a name? A number?”
She nods, then shuffles off, comes back shortly. Through the opening she hands me a piece of paper with a scribbled number
and name. Oh my god. Seriously?
“Take it. I’m never going to call her. I could tell. She’s a bad girl, too.”
“Was this the same woman who was here tonight?” It’s a reach. Maybe it wasn’t a woman at all.
“I told you. You’re the only one I saw snooping around tonight.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Please have your son contact me.”
She shuts the door. Hard. I stand a moment, stare at the paper in my hand.
I look up and down the street one more time. Peering into the night, I see no one. But I swear I feel like the night is staring
back.
Back at Amanda’s house, I make one more sweep. Inside, my phone rings.
Beck starts talking as soon as I answer.
“So, I put a rush on the Hayes toxicology screening because certain substances can’t be detected in the system after forty-eight
hours. The early clinical picture is consistent with death from alkaloids.”
“English please.”
“The toxins found in conium maculatum, more commonly known as hemlock. It’s a common plant in the carrot family, sometimes
called Queen Anne’s lace,” says Beck. “Symptoms start with dizziness, pupil dilation, weak or rapid pulse, eventually impacting
the cardiovascular system, leading to death. A very small amount is needed, and it grows wild in this area on public and private
land. It’s quite commonly mistaken for parsnip or parsley, and there are multiple incidents annually of accidental ingestion
in humans and livestock.”
“So, it’s possible he ingested it accidentally?”
“Sure,” says Beck, exhaling sharply, probably vaping. “But he didn’t bury himself in the woods.”
Truth.
“There’s a young woman, Iggy Rose Caine, in a coma at the hospital,” I tell him. “Can you call over there and share your findings
in case these things are connected and helps them treat her?”
“Will do. Unfortunately, there’s no antitoxin for this. You basically have to weather the storm of symptoms and either you
survive, or you don’t.”
“Got it,” I say.
But he’s already hung up. I take a moment, let the information sink in.
Paul Hayes died slow and ugly. He suffered. As if someone wanted him to pay for something he’d done.
My breath is returning to normal, heart rate regulating.
I open the refrigerator to find it spotless, housing just a few lonely take-out containers and two bottles of Moet.
In the living room, I take another pass at the photos of Amanda’s happy, richly populated life.
So many pictures of Jessie, in fact mostly of the two of them doing various things—horseback riding, hiking, in bathing suits somewhere tropical.
A long relationship, best friends. I wonder how Jessie felt when Amanda got serious about Paul. Jealous? Angry? Left behind.
I keep looking at the photos. And this time, I see something I missed.
In a selfie from what looks like a martini night, Amanda smiles brightly. It’s a big group shot. Many of the women are unfamiliar.
But there are faces I recognize.
There’s Jessie, of course, smiling broadly and cheek-to-cheek with her bestie.
Vera and Ana Blacksmith are also in the frame, as well as Ignatia Rose Caine.
Iggy’s grin is shy, self-conscious.
Ana’s smile is wide and knowing. Again, an unbidden flash of memory of our bathroom assignation, her breath in my ear tonight.
Vera hangs back in the darkness behind, the corners of her mouth just barely curled upward. They are all holding pink concoctions
in frosty martini glasses toward the camera.
Those sisters.
Something tingles down my spine, a single word bounces around my head.
Poison.