Chapter 39 After
After
The FBI wants to talk to me. I guess it’s not exactly a surprise, but it’s sure as hell intimidating.
I ask Len if I need a lawyer. He says I should be fine without one, so I ask Kenny, who says that Len is a tool of the state even if he has a cute butt and calls in a favor.
A few hours later, I’m sitting in the break room at the station with an FBI agent who looks like he could cut glass with his chin and my newly minted lawyer, an impossibly elegant fifty--something woman named Letty Ramos.
Len was probably right—-the questions are straightforward, and the agent seems torn between impressed and exasperated with my harebrained schemes.
Explaining the beads and Jenny Red--Hands proves a sticking point—-I have to assure Agent Perry several times that no, I do not actually believe there is a witch involved, and no, no one else really does, either.
He listens with patience as I talk about Meghan, about Janie, writing everything down in a way that makes me think he might actually be listening.
Ms. Ramos—-not, she corrects Agent Perry, Mrs.—-interrupts now and then, but at the end of it, she nods to me with a reassuring look. I don’t think I’m in any real trouble here if the Hills don’t make a stink. And I know they won’t.
“Thank you for going through all of this with me,” Perry says.
“I can tell you that none of the bodies we’ve recovered have been recent, but we will take a fresh look at the file on Miss Vale, and I’ll see what we can pull up about your friend.
We’ve identified one of the bodies so far, but any leads on the others we will be sure to pursue. ”
They’re up to five bodies. I saw it on the news this morning.
“Can you tell me who she was?” I ask. “The one you identified.”
“Her family has been informed, and we’re making a statement later today, so yes,” he says. “Her name was Amanda Dennis.”
“We were right, then.”
He nods. “It seems so. And we’re looking at the others you and Deputy Howard flagged as possible matches, but it’s going to take time. We were lucky with Amanda—-her family’s been dogged in keeping the investigation going, and we already had her dental rec-ords on file.”
“Will that be all?” Ms. Ramos asks.
“Should do it.” Perry tidies his notes. “Will you be leaving town anytime in the next week or so?”
“No plans,” I say.
“Good. We may want to speak with you again,” he says, and that seems to be that.
Ms. Ramos rises first, holding out a hand in a clear indication for me to do the same.
I unfold myself from the seat, which I’ve been perched in with the kind of pretzel pose the teens in my office are always assuming, and walk out to the hall, waiting at any moment for this to have been a joke, and for Agent Perry to arrest me.
“That went well,” Ms. Ramos says out in the hall. “I think yours may be one of the only circumstances where someone can fairly say that it’s a lucky thing there was a serial killer in town.” Her tone is dry and not at all amused. “I don’t need to tell you not to get in any more trouble, do I?”
“Plenty of people already have,” I say.
“And?”
“I won’t?”
“Good girl.” She looks down at her phone, sighs. “Call me before talking to anyone in law enforcement. That includes your friend Len.”
“He wouldn’t—-”
She fixes me with a look. “You do not want to put him in that position.”
My cheeks go hot. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, then. I’ll leave you to your own devices,” she says, sounding like she’s questioning the wisdom of this, but balancing her investment in me against the fact that she’s not getting paid. “I’ll be in touch.”
She marches through the lobby, heels clicking. I turn aside—-all the coffee I was swigging in that room has caught up to me.
The door opens while I’m in the stall, but I think nothing of it—-until I step out and discover Emily Hill standing by the sink.
She’s wearing a loose flannel over a camisole, her hair up in its usual ponytail.
Her roots are bleached now, the ponytail tidy; I wonder if Melinda had something to do with that.
Must present the proper image. There are dark circles under her eyes, poorly concealed with makeup.
“Emily,” I say, uncertain. My weight settles on my back heel like I’m ready to run, though I have no idea where I’d go.
“Audrey. I saw you come in. You were talking to the FBI,” she says. I can’t read her tone. Is she angry? Worried?
“Yeah, well. They’ve got a few questions,” I say.
“They want to talk to me, too,” she says absently, looking over her shoulder.
“I imagine they would.” I wonder if I should try to edge around her. Instead, I stand my ground. “You knew. You all did. Liam, Melinda, Andrew—-you know about the bodies in those woods.”
Her lips part. She doesn’t speak.
“You hid it. And the only reason I can come up with for why you would do that is if you knew who’d done it. It was your father, wasn’t it?”
Emily blinks slowly. “Do you want to know what’s going to happen?” she asks. She speaks almost in a whisper, and yet her voice presses into the corners of the room.
“What?” I ask.
“I’m going to sit down with the FBI and the lawyer my sister chose for me.
And she and Andrew and Liam are going to do the same.
And we’re going to tell the FBI how shocked and horrified we are, and of course we are, who wouldn’t be?
And then they’re going to ask us about Terry Butler.
We’re going to tell them he was violent, and reclusive, and misogynist. And no one will be surprised, because it’s all true, and because yesterday the police found trophies from those poor girls in Terry Butler’s attic. ”
My breath catches. “What?”
She smiles thinly. “They didn’t tell you, then.
Locks of hair, they said, that seem to match.
Which means the man who did this is dead.
There’s no more blood to be gotten from him.
So we’ll tell them what a monster he was.
We’ll tell them we had no idea the extent of it.
‘But, oh, part of me isn’t surprised,’ we’ll say.
Melinda will give such an incredible statement.
She’ll talk about ‘centering the victims’ and ‘finding the truth,’ and she’ll write a big check to some appropriate cause and vow that every one of those bodies will be identified, and at the end of it, Audrey, at the end of it, everyone will think she’s somehow the hero in all of this. ”
Her eyes are feverish. She’s come forward as she talks, and now she stands uncomfortably close. She touches my jaw. I flinch; she keeps her finger there, like a punctuation mark on the end of her little speech.
“Melinda will probably even win her election,” she says. “It’s a hell of a story. You need those, in politics. Besides, the other guy is an idiot.” She smiles without showing her teeth.
“There will be questions. You went down there. Over and over. Meghan—-” I say.
Emily hums softly, cutting me off. “The thing about my family you have to understand, the thing about us, Audrey, is that we deal with our problems. We bury them deep.” Her smile is a hook on one side of her mouth, mirthless and bitter.
“You don’t seem happy about it,” I say, my mouth dry.
“I’m not happy. Those girls are dead, why would I be happy?” she asks, head cocking to the side.
“Because you’re getting away with it.”
“What would I be getting away with?” she asks. She’s not denying everything. She’s daring me to say it.
“Where is Meghan Vale?” I ask.
She moves suddenly, so suddenly I don’t have the chance to pull back as she holds my face in both her hands, staring into my eyes. “Stop looking for her,” she whispers. “Please.”
“Is she in one of those graves?” I ask. “Did you hurt her?”
The door slams open. Melinda, in her gray skirt suit, her makeup subdued. “Emily,” she says, like a warning.
Emily drops her hands and steps back. “We were just catching up,” she says.
Melinda’s gaze flicks between us. She frowns. “They’re ready for you,” she says tersely.
Emily takes another loose step away before turning and walking out without another word. Melinda lingers a moment. She looks like she might be about to say something to me, and then she shakes her head and follows her sister out.
As soon as the door closes, I stagger against the wall. I’m shivering, I realize, and there is a strange taste at the back of my mouth.
“What the hell was that?” I ask my reflection. She looks as lost as me.