Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
________________
ANSON
Back at the precinct, I place a call to the parks and recreation department. It goes to voicemail. I search the web, finding an article on the ribbon cutting for the well. The pictures show lots of children running on the sidewalks. A toddler tosses a coin into the well. The event was a month after Pearl disappeared. I run my hand through my hair, fisting chunks. Then I pick up the phone again.
This time I get a hold of the parks and rec admin. She’ll pull what they have on the park’s history and maintenance and send it tomorrow.
“Do you have employment records? Or anything about what company installed the wishing well?” I ask.
“We purge anything older than ten years. But you might find it archived through the city clerk’s office.”
“Great.” That’s the next email I fire off. The city clerk likes a detailed message, so they don’t have to do the work twice. Anytime I’ve called, they’ve asked me to put it in writing.
My inbox pings with a similar response to the parks and recreation department. They’ll get on my request ASAP.
I know these things take time, but after what Morris mentioned about the well demolition, it feels like I’m wading in molasses. In an instant, finding out what happened to Pearl weighs on my shoulders. It’s like the entire town of Brighton is right and I’m not doing what needs to get done fast enough.
In all honesty, I dealt with my grief the week preceding the anniversary of Angeline’s death by giving her son all of my extra waking hours. I haven’t been at my best because my cup was fucking empty when Mrs. Turner contacted me. I should’ve been more prepared for the meeting than I was. Humans make mistakes. I’d ask Mrs. Turner for her forgiveness if it didn’t open a whole other can of worms.
What’s more, the idea that I surreptitiously dismissed Rae Lee bugs the hell out of me. I later examined my bias towards her because of the lie she told. I’m aware my sisters have done the same thing. I’m the cop who suggested it for their safety.
Good god, I don’t need the mental images of my sisters having one-night stands. It’s bad enough that thoughts of Rae Lee’s lips around my cock and the way she rolled the condom over my shaft and sunk down on my dick have me half hard again. I’ve rubbed one too many out to the memory of her tits being pushed up by the bra, sucking on her pert nipples and the way her skin tasted. If she stayed, I intended on having a real taste of her. Instead, I woke up alone with a sour taste in my mouth. I’d even searched my apartment to make sure she hadn’t stolen anything.
So yeah, I wasn’t exactly kind when her heel hit the grass, and I doubt outside of the sandwich I bought her—big fucking spender that I am—I’ll have the opportunity to make up for that.
The distraction makes it harder to concentrate. My buzzing cell gets lost under a file, and I miss an incoming text from Chaim. He’s caught up in something and needs another hour before we hit Mark-39. Fine by me since it’s taking me a year to find the file with the case’s box number in the evidence locker. When I finally have it, I’m on my feet again, hustling to another part of the building.
Pearl’s case hasn’t had a break like the Pruitt murders. I have access to digitized crime scene photos and a list of the box’s contents using my laptop. I wasn’t with the department during the discovery phase, which necessitates ensuring I haven’t inadvertently overlooked any of the evidence the detectives seized. Once I see the logbook, it’s obvious no one has put eyes on it in quite a while.
Amongst the articles inside the box, I find a softball bat found underneath the bed on Pearl’s floor and brown-stained green hand towel, presumably used to wipe the blood off of it. No prints were on either, which is odd since Pearl’s bat should have Pearl’s prints on it. Currently, getting decent prints off of a cotton textured towel is a challenge. I can’t imagine it back then.
Having no body means Pearl’s picture is in circulation using age progression. But if she’s dead, in all probability, this is the murder weapon.
Did I imagine Rae Lee holding her head when we were at the Turner’s? I need to ask her if she saw how Pearl died.
Why do you believe this woman? I ask myself. What besides your pride is stopping you from believing her? I answer.
I put everything back in the box and go back to my laptop on my desk to open the forensics file. I scroll through the list of items, mentally checking them off in my head. Then I flip over the DNA collection sheets.
Pearl’s to match the blood on the towel.
Mrs. Turner’s.
Mr. Turner’s.
Wait.
Why did the original investigator swab Harvey Turner when they’d already matched the blood to Pearl?
My eyes bug out reading the pathologist’s report. Semen found on the towel was a one hundred percent match to Mr. Turner.
I search through the investigation notes and find an answer. But it’s been a long time and I want it from the horse’s mouth.
“Mr. Turner. Detective Ames. I’m doing some follow-up on the investigation and was hoping to ask you a few questions,” I say when Mrs. Turner’s new husband answers the phone.
“They’re about the towel,” he replies succinctly.
“Yes, they are.”
“Like I told the first detective, Pearl interrupted Susan and I when we were…and uh, you know how it goes. I finished in the bathroom. It was the closest thing to grab to get the job done.”
“This happened the day Pearl disappeared?”
“Yes. Susan and I had been waiting for Pearl to get back from her friend Ellen’s. Susan was unsure we’d have any privacy after going out to dinner. Pearl had a habit of rushing me out of the house. I thought we had more time. She always lollygagged coming home.”
“Why’s that?”
“Losing her dad was just hard on Pearl. She had all those preteen hormones. Had a rough time with Susan dating. Moving on. It was almost like I was taking her mother away. Is there anything else?”
“Did you put it at the top or the bottom of the hamper?” I stare at the picture on my computer screen. The towel in the photograph is on top of girl’s clothing.
“Not the bottom. But not on top. I used the bathroom Pearl used. I hadn’t wanted her to find it.”
My curiosity is piqued. I know the Turners have a master bathroom. Who hadn’t Harvey wanted to find the towel with his jiz? Was it Pearl… or Susan?
“Thanks for your continued cooperation, Mr. Turner. If there is anything else, I’ll let you know.” I hang up the phone.
Aside from a crime going unsolved, something doesn’t feel right. There are pieces that don’t fit together, and I don’t know if pursuing Turner is a wild goose chase.
“Hey, you ready?” Chaim taps me on the shoulder.
“Yeah, uh , no. Rain check on me. I need to—” I flash a finger at my laptop.
“I get it.” Chaim backs away with a “been there” attitude. “Don’t stay too late.”
“I won’t. In the morning, I need your expertise on a search warrant.”
“You have probable cause?”
“Exigent circumstances. Destruction of Evidence.” Reasonable suspicion aside, I want the wording spot on so that I can be there when the town removes the wishing well.
“Type it up and send it over. Sure you don’t want a beer? I’m still buying.”
“I’m sure.”
I spend the next hour tracking down Ellen Wainstraw, Pearl Tatton’s best friend from middle school. She agrees to meet me.
“Did Pearl ever give you the impression that she was afraid of Mr. Turner?” I ask Ellen the following day.
Ellen’s lower jaw juts out, her teeth scraping her upper lip. I patiently wait for her to speak. “I don’t think I thought she was afraid of him, but she didn’t like that Susan was having a relationship with him.”
“Did Pearl tell her mother she didn’t want her mother dating him?”
“I guess her mom knew. Susan stopped seeing Harvey for a while.”
“How long?”
Ellen exhales. “Six months? Maybe more. It was a long time ago, but I don’t remember not knowing Pearl didn’t want Harvey around. She didn’t like him even before her dad died.”
“Was she afraid of him?” I rephrase the question, trying a second time. I hate to lead anyone to conclusions, but I suspect from Ellen’s first answer that she hadn’t realized her best friend might have had something to fear. “Can you recall a situation where Pearl expressed any apprehension about being left alone with Mr. Turner?”
“Not one situation. A lot of them.” Ellen looks to the sky. “You know all the Pinewood State news coverage, detective?”
“Of course.” If the station weren’t abuzz with my co-workers keeping abreast with the developments as the perp went to trial, the news reports would have been hard to miss.
“My sorority sister was one of the victims.” Ellen glances down, her cheek pulls in. The young woman tears up.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Is your friend getting the help she needs?” I have contacts I’m glad to offer.
“Yes, she is. Thank you. It’s been a rough road for her. I —ugh , I’ve never known anyone who was assaulted, raped, or… I don’t know, I thought I didn’t.”
“Now you aren’t sure.”
“We were twelve. Like when I got my first period and my mom had to have the talk with me... I was still trying to wrap my head around adults doing that . That my parents would do that. A man doing those things to a kid? It just never crossed my mind. I never thought the reason Pearl had anything against her dad’s business partner was because he’d, you know, done those kinds of things to her.”
“But since the Pinewood State rape trial, you can’t stop thinking he could have.”
Ellen nods, her lips twist. She dabs her eyes with her sleeve. “It was so hard for my sorority sister and we weren’t kids. Her soul was crushed, and it affects everything she wants to do for the rest of her life.”
She covers her face, composing herself. “How could that happen to a little girl? What kind of monster would do that to his friend’s daughter? To the child of a woman he was dating? I feel like I have to be wrong about it, Detective Ames. That Pearl would have told me. Flat out told me why she hated Harvey. We were best friends. I would have kept her secret.”
I give Ellen a hug and a gentle pat on the back. “That’s never a secret a child should keep.”