Chapter Eleven #2
“No.” But as she answered, Wendy’s gaze drifted away.
Was she hiding something? “We worked really hard preparing for your interview. She wanted it to be perfect, more in-depth and serious than the show had been in the past, almost like a documentary. I warned her that style wasn’t her brand.
True crime is always a little sensationalized.
If it stuck a hundred percent to the facts, it would be dull, right?
Sometimes you have to feed the drama to get subscribers.
Clicks are money. That’s the nature of the genre. ”
Olivia wanted to disagree. With her books, she aimed for truth. But did she speculate just a little to keep the pages turning? With a small internal cringe, she thought, Maybe.
Wendy continued. “Zoe wanted to get it right. I can’t accept that she would put that many hours into a project if she was planning to cut and run.”
“I agree,” Olivia said. “Is there anything you can tell me? Anything at all about her movements or phone calls over the past few days?”
“No.” But again, Wendy wouldn’t meet Olivia’s gaze.
“How was the show doing? Was the show making money?”
“She didn’t share specifics, but things seemed to be going really well.”
“But you don’t know the numbers?”
“No.” Wendy grimaced.
Olivia caught her eye.
Wendy frowned. “Frankly, that annoys me. I mean, she hired me to improve the show. I’ve clearly been successful, because our subscriber base increased and we got two new sponsors over the last couple of months.”
Or was Nicki’s social media plan responsible for the show’s increased success?
“How am I supposed to gauge my efforts if she won’t share the spreadsheets?” Wendy tapped a frustrated foot under the desk. “I have revenue benchmarks to hit for my bonus.”
“Are you worried?”
Wendy shook her head. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Zoe did say the third quarter was looking like her best yet.”
“Zoe didn’t mention any upcoming debt payments or bills she couldn’t pay?”
“No.” Wendy ripped off a chunk of thumbnail. When she finally made eye contact, there was something in her eyes that didn’t mesh with total innocence.
Olivia pressed. “You didn’t disagree about anything?”
Wendy blinked away. “Not really.”
Bingo. The vague negative felt like an admission.
Olivia waited. In an interview, silence created tension. Eventually, the subject almost always filled the void to relieve it.
But Wendy didn’t bite.
Rather than put her on the defensive, which could make her shut down, Olivia moved on to her next question. “Had Zoe picked a case for next season of the show?”
“Yes. She’d decided to pursue the Jennifer Hamilton murder.”
“Do you know the details on that case?”
“Yes. I have my own notes.” Wendy opened her laptop and typed.
“Twenty years ago, Jennifer’s body was found in the woods behind a truck stop just outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
The police determined she was killed elsewhere and her remains dumped at the rest stop.
She lived just a few miles away from the dump site.
According to the Me, she’d been dead about a week.
Cause of death was strangulation. Though she’d been missing for two weeks, no one filed a report.
Her father, Conway, was a drug dealer. Her mother was an addict.
Neither parent seemed very concerned. During the initial investigation, the police assumed the father did it because of his record and overall nastiness.
But they couldn’t prove anything. Two years later, the father went to prison on unrelated manslaughter and drug charges.
By that time, the investigation had long gone cold.
But Zoe wasn’t convinced that Conway was guilty.
She’d found two other similar cases in which remains were dumped at rest stops, and she wanted to pursue a potential serial killer angle, looking for someone who had a job that required him to travel the interstates frequently.
Jennifer’s mother overdosed ten years ago, but Zoe tried to contact Conway multiple times for a possible interview. ”
“Did he respond?”
“Not that she told me. She was planning to drive to Scranton and knock on his door, which seemed like a very bad idea to me.”
“But totally what Zoe would do,” Olivia said. She would do the same. “Scranton is only a few hours away by car.”
“Since Conway was recently released from prison, Zoe assumed he wouldn’t want to go back and would want to talk to her to prove his innocence.”
Unless he isn’t innocent.
What if Conway Hamilton killed his daughter and didn’t want to go back to prison?
Would he threaten Zoe to keep her from resurrecting Jennifer’s murder investigation?
He might want to steal any evidence Zoe had collected.
Maybe he knew Olivia had been to Zoe’s apartment.
She hadn’t noticed anyone following her, but she wasn’t a PI or a cop.
The most logical reason the man had tried to steal Olivia’s purse and break into Zoe’s office was that he wanted something Zoe had in her possession.
Maybe something he assumed had been in Zoe’s apartment and that Olivia had taken.
Like Zoe’s cell phone.