Four Detective Olivia Newhouse #2
Preston. Walt has never called David by his given name. That alone says a lot about how my partner feels on the subject. All the more reason why I can’t talk to him about how I’m feeling. “There was nothing David could do. The dark and the quiet are the only things that help.”
Walt grunts. “Stella’s sister had migraines. She said stress made them worse.”
“You think I’m stressed, Walt?” I hide my smile. He and Stella had no children, so he’s kind of taken me under his wing. Treats me like a daughter sometimes. I can’t exactly say I don’t enjoy it. Since I lost my father, my friendship with Walt means more than ever. He’s like family.
“Yep, I think that fancy fiancé of yours and the wedding plans have you way too stressed.” He parks in front of the elementary school. “I think you both need to take a breath and relax.”
Laughter bubbles out of me before I can stop it. “No amount of relaxing makes wedding planning easy.”
Another grunt. “There’s always the courthouse. Pick a handy judge. That’s what Stella and I did.”
I can’t help it, I laugh even harder now. “David’s mother might have a stroke.”
He shuts the engine off and turns to me. “You aren’t marrying his mother, Liv.”
“A mere technicality, partner.”
“I guess,” Walt offers, “if you’re in love him and he’s in love with you, that’s all that matters.”
I reach for the door but Walt doesn’t. He is evidently not finished yet.
“You love him, right?”
I sigh. “You asked me this before.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I stare forward, thinking about the answer before I give it.
Do I say what I should say or what I feel?
“I thought I was in love with him,” I admit.
“But lately I’m having second thoughts.” There.
I said it out loud. The ground didn’t break open and swallow me.
The world didn’t capsize. The three-carat solitaire at home on my bedside table probably hasn’t self-destructed.
I don’t wear the ring to work. Don’t want to risk damaging it or losing it and, besides, the celebrity-size dazzler can be a distraction during an interview.
“It’s not until you live with a person that you see who he or she really is,” Walt warns. “Maybe that’s the problem.”
I shake my head. “Actually, I don’t think it’s him.” I drop my head back against the seat. “I think it’s me, and I don’t know if it’s cold feet or what.” I can’t say what I really feel, like maybe I don’t deserve him . . . that I’m not like him and his family. Walt would go ballistic.
“Then you should tell him you need more time.”
I have, and until yesterday it would have been that simple. Now everything is complicated.
“I have to think about all this some more.”
Walt winks at me. “You’ll figure it out. You’re way too smart to get yourself trapped in a relationship that isn’t right for you.”
I smile but inside I want to cry. There was a time when I thought I was smarter than this, that’s for sure.
The past few weeks, it’s as if my ability to think and act with reason and wisdom has deserted me.
I’ve lost my footing, and somehow I can’t find it amid all the uncertainty and newness of suddenly being an adult orphan and a bride-to-be.
Throw mother-to-be in the mix, and I am totally sinking here.
Focus, Liv. I climb out of the SUV and walk alongside Walt into the school. Work has always been my happy place. I need to stay on task and let the other stuff go. At least for now.
Shelley Martin’s principal is more than happy to send an assistant to sit with Martin’s class while we speak to her.
Walt assured the principal that Mrs. Martin was not in any sort of trouble, that we are hoping she might be able to help us with a case.
Still, I doubt the curious principal will let it go.
She will want answers. But whatever answers Martin gives are up to her.
We wait in the teacher’s lounge. When Martin arrives, she doesn’t appear surprised to see us but she does seem nervous.
She wears her black hair in a sleek twist. Her cream-colored trousers and blue shirt are modest. She wears only a simple gold band on her ring finger.
She was Shelley Jones when the abduction occurred.
Walt explains that we’re here to talk about Fanning. She flinches when Walt says the name. Then her cheeks redden and her lips tighten. Hearing his name makes her angry, justifiably so.
“I heard on the news that he’s missing.” She says this as if it’s a confession.
“Mrs. Martin,” I begin, “we need to ask you a few questions about him. Is that okay with you?”
She shifts her stern focus to me. “I loathe him. Pray every day that he will die as painfully as possible. He lured me into his car when I was nine years old. I’d gotten lost from my sister at the mall.
He took me to the parking lot of an abandoned warehouse and raped me.
” She swallows hard. “He left me there naked, injured, and terrified. I gave the police his description, but they never found him. There was no evidence because he wore a condom and kept my clothes to ensure nothing from him or his car stuck to what I was wearing. It wasn’t until many years later that he was caught.
I came forward and testified against him.
I hoped he would rot in prison, but apparently that wasn’t considered the sort of justice he deserved. ”
Her words are laced with hatred and bitterness. But who wouldn’t feel that way?
“Mrs. Martin,” Walt says gently, “we understand your feelings. You have every right to feel betrayed by how the legal system sometimes works. But we’re here because it’s our job to ensure no one else is harmed by the horrors Fanning carried out against you and so many others.
With that in mind, would you tell us if you’ve seen him since he was released from prison? ”
Her eyes round with fear. “I certainly have not. Do you have reason to believe he has been watching the people who testified against him?”
Her reaction is a logical one. No doubt every one of his victims has surely experienced that same thought.
“We don’t,” Walt admits.
Now for the hard question. My partner and I exchange a glance, and I take the lead. “Ma’am, can you tell us where you were from Saturday night until Monday morning?”
The anger vanishes from her face and shock takes its place. I brace for the blast of outrage that will kick in any second now.
“Are you suggesting I had something to do with his disappearance?”
“No, ma’am,” I assure her. “We’re only trying to determine who may have seen him or heard from him. Anyone who has may be able to help us figure out what happened.”
Fury twists Martin’s lips for another moment before she regains her composure.
“I was home with my family. We had a big breakfast at home Sunday morning, and after that I took my twin daughters shopping. Sunday was their birthday. The girls, my husband, and I arrived home about nine that evening, and I didn’t leave again until I came to school the next morning.
I picked up my girls after school on Monday and went home. My family can confirm this.”
We already established with the principal that Martin was at school all day on Monday.
“What about Saturday night?” Walt asks. “What did you and your family do Saturday night?”
We’re stretching the timeline a little, but so many things can affect the forensic details of a case. There is always something new to learn.
“I had cocktails with a friend.”
The fury that rolls off the words warns we’ve hit a hot button. She is done with the interview. But she also just admitted that she wasn’t with her family on Saturday night.
“If you could provide the name and number for you friend,” Walt suggests.
Face tight with that building fury, she spouts a name and number. Trina Irvine. I enter the info into the note app of my phone. Walt sticks with the old-fashioned route of a pad and pen. Which is why I generally take the notes.
“Thank you,” I say. “We appreciate your cooperation.”
She shakes her head. “How dare you come to me—interrupt my day at school—with such ludicrous questions.” She jams her thumb into her chest. “I am the victim.”
Walt and I share another look. He says, “Mrs. Martin, we haven’t released to the public what I’m about to tell you. We would appreciate it if you don’t share this part with anyone.”
Her anger drains away instantly as fear of the unknown creeps in and takes its place. “You have my word.”
“The other person involved with whatever happened to Fanning was injured. We found a second blood type at the scene. Our goal with these questions is to figure out if another person was hurt by Fanning the night he disappeared. If that’s the case, we may have someone out there in need of our help and we don’t even know it. ”
“You’re saying he may have taken another victim?” The abject horror on her face is palpable.
“We can’t say anything for sure,” I counter.
“This is why,” Walt goes on, “it’s extremely important that we ask these hard questions of anyone who is connected in any way to Fanning.
For all we know, you may have driven by his place—accidentally or not—and noticed someone who might be relevant to whatever happened there.
You may have a friend or family member who—without your knowledge—wants revenge. ”
She shakes her head. “I do not. I saw on the news that he’d been released, and I tried not to think of him again.
Of course it was impossible. Before the trial, I was just an anonymous little girl he picked up at the mall and did bad things to.
My name was never released in the news. But then, at the trial, I had to face him.
He learned my name; with that, it was easy to find out where my parents and sister lived.
I won’t lie, I’ve been looking over my shoulder since the day he was released. ”
“That’s completely understandable,” I say. Deep in my skull, the ache begins and I refuse to acknowledge it. I have never had a migraine reoccur so many times in one week. This is really wrong.