Chapter 13 #2
"Honey, I grew up in a town smaller than this.
I know there's not much to do but go out to some pasture and have a bonfire with some beer and maybe some weed.
Let's not pretend here. Kids make their own fun if they don't have anything to entertain them.
My point is, Lori's behavior changed significantly.
She stopped drinking. She stopped smoking.
And these changes happened suddenly, not gradually. "
"Because of her stomach," Kelly insisted.
Christ, she was genuinely confused. She hadn’t thought about this possibility at all.
Shit.
"Yes, to her stomach. Think about that. Sick. Tired. What is a common reason for women to stop drinking or smoking?"
“Because they don’t like how it makes them feel.”
He'd been turning the theory over in his mind since they'd left Cal's office. The symptoms Cal had described, combined with Lori's changed behavior and her apparent secrecy, all pointed in a specific direction.
"Nausea, long after a flu should have subsided. Fatigue. Suddenly becoming health-conscious. Stopping drinking and smoking abruptly." He ticked the points off on his fingers. "And according to Cal, Lori wanted to settle down, get married, have a family.”
Kelly's wine glass halted halfway to her lips. There was a dawning of comprehension in her eyes, but she was going to make him say it out loud.
“Ben, I’ve grown tired of this little game. Spit it out.”
If that’s what she wanted, he would.
"I'm saying that these symptoms aren't just consistent with a persistent stomach flu. They're consistent with something else. Something that would explain Lori's sudden health focus and her urgency about marriage."
Kelly shook her head slightly, but there was an inkling of knowledge in her eyes that didn’t match the denial. And it was clear she wanted to deny it. It would complicate things, make them messier than they already were.
"I think your friend Lori was pregnant."
The words hung in the air like a giant, flashing neon sign.
Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant.
Over and over. On and off, until she wanted to scream.
Ben thought Lori was pregnant.
Her mind struggled to process what Ben had just suggested as if he’d spoken in a strange language she didn’t understand.
"No." The word escaped her lips before she'd even formed a conscious thought. "No, that's not possible."
The case file was on the coffee table, placed there after their meeting with Cal. She’d made a few notes and tucked them inside the manila folder.
His theory made her want to reach out and open that folder, push it his way, and show him all the reasons he was wrong.
He was so wrong.
"She would have told me." We told each other everything.”
Shit, she sounded defensive as hell. She didn’t have anything to defend. Sure, he’d had an idea, but that didn’t make him right.
Ben didn’t reply, several expressions flitting across his handsome features before settling on something bland and neutral.
"We were like sisters,” she went on. He didn’t speak; she was going to. “We shared clothes, makeup, secrets. We talked about everything. She wouldn't have kept this from me."
"People keep secrets even from those they love most," Ben said finally, his voice gentle. "Sometimes, especially from them."
Kelly stared down at the file on the coffee table. She knew it backward and forwards. She could have recited the statements by heart if she had to. She’d seen all the photos a million times.
Had there been signs she'd missed?
The nausea that wouldn't go away. The sudden health kick. Suddenly stopping drinking and partying?
No. This was absurd. It was a leap based on circumstantial behavior changes that could be explained a dozen different ways.
"Lori and Cal were sexually active, weren't they?"
The question hit with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Of course they were. Everyone knew it, even if it wasn't discussed openly in their small town with its veneer of traditional values. But where there were teenage hormones, there was going to be sex.
"We weren't angels," Kelly admitted. "None of us were."
"I'm not judging," Ben replied, placing his hand on hers. "I'm just trying to establish if it was possible."
"It was possible." The admission felt like a betrayal to Lori somehow. "But that doesn't make it true."
"No, it doesn't," Ben agreed. "But it’s a theory that I can’t seem to shake, and I wouldn’t bring it up unless I think it was a real possibility.
The symptoms Cal described, the nausea, the fatigue, the sudden health consciousness.
The stopping drinking and smoking. And most telling, her urgency about marriage and settling down. "
He just didn’t understand. He hadn’t been there. She couldn’t blame him, after all, she was the one who had brought him here. He was only trying to help.
"If she were pregnant, why wouldn't she have told Cal?" Kelly challenged. "He said they had a fight about marriage, and then she dropped it. That doesn't sound like someone who's pregnant and desperate to get married."
"Or maybe she realized he wasn't ready, and she was figuring out what to do next," Ben suggested. "Maybe she was planning to tell you, but hadn't worked up the courage yet. Then it was too late."
Something cold settled in Kelly's stomach. Was it possible that Lori had secrets? Secrets that she didn’t tell Kelly?
No. Not this. Not something this big.
"Lori was practical," Kelly argued, grabbing onto this thought like a lifeline. "If she were pregnant, she would have had a plan. She wouldn't have just kept it to herself, crossed her fingers, and hoped for the best."
"Maybe she did have a plan," Ben said. "Maybe she was going to tell people once she'd figured out what she wanted to do. Maybe she was planning to tell you that weekend at the mall."
The weekend she’d never made it to. The weekend she’d died.
Kelly's throat tightened again. She reached for her wine glass, taking a long swallow to ease the sudden dryness.
"It's just a theory," Ben added, his tone softening further. "But it might explain why someone wanted to silence her."
Kelly's mind raced through possibilities she'd never allowed herself to consider before. It didn’t look like Cal had either, and he would be the father. Had they both deliberately closed their eyes to this?
"The autopsy report," Kelly said suddenly, reaching for the folder and pulling out the paper. "It would have shown if she were pregnant. There would have been evidence. So you’re wrong. Lori couldn’t have been pregnant.”
"You told me yourself that the coroner was friends with Lori's father," Ben reminded her.
"You said the whole town wanted to sanitize what happened to her, and that they’d lie to protest the Powell family.
What's more sanitizing than erasing evidence that the town's golden girl was pregnant out of wedlock? "
Kelly stared at the autopsy report in her hands, seeing it with new eyes. The sterile language, the scant details.
"Mason Whitfield was the coroner," she said quietly. "He'd been friends with Robert Powell since elementary school. They played golf every Sunday."
"And a friend like that might do anything to protect the Powell family from further pain," Ben observed. "Even omitting certain findings from an official report. But we need to find out for sure. If she were pregnant, it would change everything about this case.”
Kelly sighed heavily, setting the autopsy report back on the coffee table. It was one thing to suspect corruption in an abstract way. It was another to stake their entire investigation on it.
The coroner, Mason Whitfield, wasn't just Robert Powell's golf buddy. He was a man with a history, a troubling one that Bergen's selective memory conveniently overlooked.
"Mason Whitfield wasn't exactly the town's most stable citizen," Kelly said, taking another fortifying sip of her wine. She had to be careful that she didn’t drink too much tonight in an effort to stop all the intrusive thoughts running through her mind. "Even before he became coroner."
"How so?"
"When I was about twelve, there was an incident at the hospital.
I only heard about it because I was getting a haircut at the local beauty shop, and I overheard a conversation between another hairdresser and a client.
Whitfield was an ER doctor then. A pregnant woman came in with abdominal pain. She was afraid she was miscarrying."
"According to the nurse who witnessed it, the woman was hysterical, screaming at Whitfield that he wasn't doing enough to save her baby. He told her to calm down. She didn't. And then he punched her."
"He punched a pregnant patient?"
Ben sounded outraged, and she didn’t blame him. Years later, she still felt the same, but Whitfield was a man and a doctor, and Bergen wasn’t about to throw him under a bus.
"Right in the face. Broke her nose." Kelly nodded grimly.
"He claimed she attacked him first, that he was defending himself. But three nurses saw it happen. No charges were filed, and the woman and her husband mysteriously dropped the complaint after a private meeting with the hospital administrator. But Whitfield lost his ER privileges. There were a few rumors about a financial settlement.”
"And somehow he ended up as the county coroner," Ben finished, understanding dawning in his eyes.
"The morgue was the perfect place for him. No living patients to interact with." Kelly's mouth twisted into a humorless smile. "It was basically a demotion disguised as a lateral move. All the adults in town knew it, but no one talked about it openly."
"Lovely, we're talking about a man with anger issues and a history of professional misconduct," Ben summarized. "Who also happened to be best friends with Lori's father."
"Yes."
"Do you think he'd take a bribe? Or cover something up as a favor?"
Kelly considered this question carefully before answering. The town had always operated on an intricate web of favors and obligations. Nothing was ever as simple as right or wrong.
"The Powells weren't just wealthy. They were influential, too," she replied. "If they asked for a favor, I don’t think many people would refuse them."
"We need to talk to Whitfield," Ben said decisively. "Find out what he knows, what he might have covered up. Is he still in Bergen?"
"I doubt it. He'd be in his seventies now, probably retired. I have no idea where he ended up."
"We can find him."
Ben was already reaching for his phone before he finished his sentence.
"How? I wouldn't even know where to start looking."
Ben smiled, fully confident that he could get the job done. She had the sudden image of him in a boardroom in New York City, wielding million-dollar deals. He was a man used to getting things done.
"I might know a few people who can help us," he said. "My dad was a sheriff, remember?"
"It would be great if you could. I could try finding him myself, of course, or I could hire a private investigator."
"Let me make a few calls." He stood, moving toward the kitchen where the light was better. "We'll start with his professional licensing. If he's still registered in any capacity, even as retired, there'll be contact information."
“Maybe you should have been a cop, too.”
“It’s not my thing,” Ben said with a shake of his head. “But I do like finding answers to questions. If we can talk to the coroner, we can ask him if Lori was pregnant. If she were, that opens up a whole new line in the investigation.”
Lori. Pregnant.
It wasn’t out of the question. It was a definite possibility.
That thought settled over Kelly like a lead weight. For years, she'd believed she knew everything there was to know about her best friend. Now, she had to face the possibility that Lori had been keeping the biggest secret of all.
Had someone killed Lori to keep her quiet?
If it was true, they needed to go back and talk to Cal again. He would be suspect number one.