Chapter Fourteen #2
“Allison had one policy worth two hundred grand that she took out sixteen years ago when Mandy was born. Mandy’s the beneficiary, and if Mandy isn’t around to collect, all of it goes to the battered women’s shelter at the church.”
Jude nodded her head in respect. It was a good piece of detective work. “How long was Allison with Bill?”
“They were married six years, but they dated for four years before that.” Emmy added, “And if you’re gonna ask me who she dated before Bill, I don’t know.
Allison and I knew each other to say hey, but we weren’t close back then.
I never met Mandy’s father. Allison never talked about him.
She told Sherry that Mandy was her reward for enduring a stupid mistake. ”
“At the risk of repeating myself, if a woman has one abusive asshole in her life, she usually has another.”
“Bill’s definitely an asshole,” Emmy said.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to take Lee Rawley’s word on his gambling debts.
The Garrisons have a lot of money. They wouldn’t let Bill get into that kind of trouble.
Especially if Mandy was getting pulled into it.
They’ve known her since she was six years old.
Bill’s Facebook page has hundreds of pictures of Mandy with his brothers and their kids on vacation and holidays and all that kind of stuff. She was part of his life.”
“Abusers are very good at presenting a happy image to the world. They don’t just groom their victims. They groom the people around them. That way, when the victim comes forward, no one believes them.”
“Yeah.” Emmy went silent for a moment. “I keep thinking about how lonely Mandy must have felt. You heard what Skylar said. Living with that knot in her stomach about Allison. She couldn’t sleep.
Bill wouldn’t even let her eat without his permission.
Mandy felt like she couldn’t talk to her friends.
She clearly couldn’t confide in Allison.
She was trapped. And now she really doesn’t have anybody. ”
Jude heard echoes of Emmy’s own situation—not just with Myrna, but with Jonah.
“Anyway.” Emmy shook her head as if to clear it.
“I called Valerie Wilkinson, too. She’s going to bring Talia to the station at six.
Couldn’t get her to come any sooner. She told me she didn’t notice any packages at the house addressed to Mandy, but she works at the office three days a week.
It’d be easy to hide some deliveries. I need to find out more about this UnSub Talia saw with Mandy.
After talking to Skylar, it’s clear Talia knows more than she let on. ”
“It would make sense that Mandy was targeted by another abuser. Children establish learning models from witnessing violence at home. They mirror the behavior of their caregivers, adopting secrecy patterns, absorbing blame, experiencing the same intense anxiety and fear in anticipation of violence. Abuse becomes so normative that they can often seek or even find comfort in repeating patterns.”
“Okay.” Emmy was clearly trying to hold back a comment about yet another lecture.
Jude didn’t give her the chance to change her mind. “What’s next?”
Emmy’s head tilted to the side as she looked over Jude’s shoulder. One of her deputies was walking down from the station. Jude recognized the cupcake eater from before.
“Gregg.” Emmy stood up. “What is it?”
“The manager at the Lazy Eight refused to talk to me, but then I remembered that a buddy of mine from high school works hotel security.”
Emmy had clearly not been expecting the initiative, but she nodded for him to continue.
“He told me Bill’s been Mr. Laid-back Easygoing since he checked in.
Then Allison Vickery showed up the night before the murder.
Sounds like they both got their drink on.
Around midnight, guests started calling down to the front desk complaining about a fight.
My buddy goes to check it out, and he hears a woman screaming, ‘You took the last good thing from me.’ Like, at the top of her lungs. He said she was shook.”
Emmy glanced back at Jude. “Did he hear anything else?”
“Nah, he knocked on the door. Allison calmed down real quick, didn’t look hurt, said she was fine, begged him not to call the police.
Bill said he’d pay for the damage. There was a bunch of broken lamps, a chair turned over.
Nothing my buddy ain’t seen before. He told the guy at the front desk to follow up, made a note in his report, and that was that. ”
“You said the manager refused to talk to you?”
Gregg shrugged. “Yeah, kind of a prick.”
“Okay.” Emmy seemed ready to dismiss him, but then she changed her mind.
“Take a closer look at the manager. There might be a reason he’s being cagey.
I’m getting reports that Bill was paying women for sex.
The manager might be facilitating those transactions or looking the other way.
Tell him I don’t care. I just wanna know about Bill. We need to pin down his alibi.”
“Damn.” Gregg was clearly impressed. “You got it, boss.”
Emmy waited until he was gone to turn back to Jude. “Am I stupid for following a lead off Reggie?”
“You could subpoena Allison’s medical records to see if Bill really gave her the clap.”
“I could also ask Louise at the Good Dollar if Allison got a script for antibiotics filled.” Emmy’s phone came out of her pocket. She started texting.
Jude should stop being surprised by these small-town workarounds. The shooting had just crossed the twenty-four-hour mark. Absent an abduction or kidnapping, subpoenas took days or even weeks to garner any actionable information. Emmy had her response in seconds.
“Thumbs up from Louise. Allison filled a script for doxycycline. I guess that means Reggie was being honest about something.” Emmy pocketed the phone. “I feel like I’ve got all these threads dangling in front of me, and I don’t know which one to pull first.”
Jude was happy to be back in her role as sounding board. “What are the options?”
“Woody’s at the bottom of the list now. Reggie’s still at the top. So is Bill. Neither one of them is going to talk to me. I don’t have any leads on the UnSub. If the UnSub even exists.”
Jude watched her pace the sidewalk.
“I could talk to Mandy’s teachers, but I feel like they’re not gonna know more than Talia and Skylar. Kids that age are too good at hiding things. And part of me wonders if that’s even the right direction and I’m being a stubborn idiot and I’m not seeing what’s right in front of me.”
“Bill?”
“It’s the first thing you asked about when we were in Allison’s house—is she married?
Is she cheating on her boyfriend? You know the statistics better than me.
Seventy-five percent of abuse-victim homicides occur when the victim tries to leave.
Female victims of abuse are five to six times more likely to be murdered with a gun when a gun is in the house.
An intimate partner is guilty of the murder at least forty percent of the time.
Forty-five percent of murdered abuse victims have been strangled before.
Bill choked Allison so many times I actually texted her a link to a research paper on it.
Strangling is so predictive of murder it’s called a Practice Homicide. ”
Emmy stopped pacing.
She said, “All of it points to Bill.”
“Statistics are not evidence.”
“I feel like I made a mistake not following Bill to the hospital yesterday and trying to pin him down.”
This was why Jude had told her to delegate, but now wasn’t time for a lecture. “You don’t know if that would’ve worked. Bill doesn’t have to talk to you.”
“The game started eight minutes late at the ballpark. Nobody knows why Bill was late. He had his coaching assistant warm up the kids. Came in right as they were throwing out the first pitch. The hood on his truck was still hot when I got there. I don’t know if Gregg’s gonna get the motel manager to open up, but Bill’s alibi during the shooting feels shaky. ”
Jude tried to let her off the hook. “You’re not even halfway through the first forty-eight hours. When you make an arrest and when you’re called on the stand to testify, you need to be able to say you looked at everybody, not just Bill.”
“I know I can be stubborn, but the reason Bill’s not my sole focus isn’t because Reggie and Brett keep pushing me in that direction.” Emmy sat down again. “Did Dad ever tell you about the cult of a case?”
Jude shook her head.
“You latch on to one theory, and you mold everything else around it. Everybody starts amplifying the theory instead of digging into the inconsistencies. Any alternate explanations are dismissed because you already know the truth. Everybody starts working toward that same truth until it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“Happens all the time,” Jude said. “You think Brett’s cult of the case is Bill. What’s your cult?”
“All the crap I keep loading onto the horse has kept me from getting out of the gate. The Giglio list. Reggie. The drug squad. The UnSub. Worrying about Dad’s reputation.
Bill’s alibi. I keep thinking I don’t have any clues to follow, but maybe Allison left me some at the house.
Maybe she wrote that number on the back of the Wyeth print because she knew I’d find it.
We’ve got two keys we haven’t matched to locks and a book on physics checked out by a woman who loved reading about elves making love to fairies. ”
“Lean the horse,” Jude said. “What should we do now?”
“Let’s go to the library.”