Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
I had made a fairly long list, and after ordering the pizza, Colton pulled out the actual police files, which he'd brought home to study. But just as we were about to start sharing, the pizza arrived, so we put that on hold while we ate.
I was thrilled that Colton's choice of pizza was vegetarian, which went well with mine and made me feel like we were on the same page, at least in terms of pizza.
As we finished eating, Colton said, "So…Crawford."
I wiped my mouth with a napkin. "You want to start with Liam? Because I think we should begin with what was going on at the theater first."
"I'd rather start with your boyfriend."
"Ex-boyfriend," I said pointedly. "Liam mentioned he knew you, but only on the basketball court."
"Exactly. And you knew him much better, so I'm interested in what you have to say."
"Well, I thought I knew him well nine years ago.
We were together most of our senior year.
I knew how he took his coffee, what his favorite video game was, how lost he'd felt after losing his parents in a plane crash, how his grandfather had taken him in and raised him in the back room of his neighborhood bar, and how much Liam wanted to own a place just like that.
He wanted a bar where he could bring people together over drinks and food and music, where they could be part of a community.
He had a passion and a purpose very early on, and I responded to that, because I had my own ambition and focus.
It felt like we were two creative people heading toward a bright future together. "
"Why did you break up?"
"There were a lot of reasons. I was obsessed with the play, and I took my frustration out on Liam.
After Paige died, I was completely overwhelmed.
I had to step into her part. It felt horrible when it should have felt good.
Everything was ruined. Her death ended all the good times for all of us.
I don't know that anyone survived unscathed.
The innocent ignorant bliss of our college years was wiped out by a tragedy that we couldn't understand. "
"But you didn't even like her."
"We had once been friends before our egos took over, and I felt guilty that I'd been mean to her before she died, that I didn't answer her phone call that night."
"You never explained why you didn't want to talk to her. And I don't think it was because you were too busy to pick up the phone."
"I was afraid she was going to tell me she was with Liam or something else I didn't want to hear. We weren't talking to each other outside of rehearsal. I didn't see a reason to change that. In retrospect, I wish I had answered her call."
"Okay. Why do you think Liam didn't answer her texts?"
"He told me that he'd already spoken to her in person and made it clear that he was with me, and there wasn't going to be anything between them. He didn't want to get into it again, so he just didn't respond."
"Do you believe him?"
"I think so. He said he hadn't told me about the texts back then because he knew it would have made me angry, and he didn't want to set me off.
I probably would have been furious if I'd known that Paige was flirting with him.
" I paused. "Let's change the subject. Tell me more about Cabot, not who he was as a cop, but who he was to you.
Because I'd like to understand where you're coming from, Colton. "
"Let's see…I grew up in the Howard Street Corridor, the roughest part of Evanston, and I met Vincent when I was sixteen.
I was joyriding with some friends in a car I didn't know was stolen.
We hit another car, and that got the police involved.
Suddenly I was facing charges of grand theft auto.
Cabot was a patrol officer at the time. He was smart enough to see I wasn't the ringleader; I was just an idiot kid, who didn't ask enough questions.
He told me he would help me get out of that jam but only if I promised I'd get involved with a basketball league he ran.
In other words, I owed him. I started showing up, and that promise, that league, changed my life. "
"Seriously? Basketball changed your life?"
"It's not that strange. I needed something productive and competitive.
I loved to run and to battle on the court.
It gave me an outlet for all the frustrations I had in my family life that wasn't such a great place to be.
Where I grew up, half the kids have a record by the time they're eighteen.
I wanted to be on the other side of that statistic. "
"So, Cabot started mentoring you when you were a teenager. No wonder you care about him so much."
"I respected him more than anyone in my life. He was a father figure. Mine spent a lot of his time in jail."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"It was what it was. He wasn't a master criminal. In fact, he was usually doing a menial task for someone powerful and wasn't smart enough not to get caught."
"How does your family feel about you being a cop?"
"They didn't like it at first. Then they thought it would help them in some way. When that didn't work out, they went back to not liking it. Now, I think they just don't care anymore."
"You're not close?"
"I have a younger sister I'm close to here in Chicago.
My mom and I stay in touch, but she moved to New Jersey a few years ago.
I don't know where my father is. My younger brother is on a better path than he used to be.
He met a girl who grows organic vegetables on a farm in central California, and he seems to have become a farmer. "
"That sounds healthy."
"Anyway, where were we?" he asked.
"You and Cabot."
"He helped me get my first job, and I've been there for twelve years now. It's hard for me to believe he might have deliberately botched a murder investigation. It doesn't correlate with the man I thought I knew."
"One case might not change everything about him." I felt a strange need to make him feel better. "Maybe it was just one mistake."
"I'm not sure it was a mistake. That's the hardest part of this. I don't see how he was forced to do anything. He chose to do it. And that makes it worse." He blew out a breath. "Let's get back to you. How did you get into true crime podcasts?"
"I lost my job in a company-wide layoff.
My two friends, Cassidy and Morgan, were part of that.
We needed something to do while we were looking for career jobs, and we love true crime stories, so we thought it would be fun to drink wine and talk about crime, which I'm sure sounds frivolous and bad to someone like you. "
"I'm aware of the popularity of true crime novels, podcasts, and television shows. But it's often romanticized or sanitized."
"Well, sure, because the real darkness would be too much.
It's not really about the crime itself; it's about the people involved.
Their characters, their backstories, their friends, their families.
One decision, one mistake, one moment can change everything.
We want to understand how they got to that moment, what they could have done to prevent it, what others could have done if they'd only been more aware or more willing.
And then there's the mystery of what actually happened when there are no answers.
In our podcast, we want to give a voice to the people who no longer have one.
That's the premise; we want to tell their story.
We want to bring them back to life so they're not just a statistic or a case number.
Their lives mattered." I stopped abruptly. "Sorry, I got a little carried away."
"I like it. I like your passion and your premise. Contrary to what you may think, I believe every victim should have a voice as well, and I'm often that voice."
"I'm sure you are. You're a real investigator; we're just armchair detectives most of the time. And it's just a podcast."
"A very popular one from what I've seen. Is this your career now?"
"It is for the foreseeable future. We're getting new sponsors every day, so we're able to support ourselves again, and it's become a job for all of us.
We don't always go on the road. That's for special cases.
This time around, it was just because Alina forced me to get involved, and I think our listeners like it when we are personally involved. That's part of the attraction."
"The inside scoop," he murmured.
"Yes."
Colton considered me for a moment over his beer. "You know what's ironic? Cabot used to say our job was to show up for the victims and their families, to make sure they got justice. But he didn't show up for Paige."
"So, we'll have to do that."
"We will," he said, making it sound like a vow.
"We better get to work."
"Let's start with your list."
Three hours later, my head was pounding, and my eyes were starting to blur with fatigue, reminding me how little sleep I'd gotten the night before.
We'd gone over every person I knew who'd had a relationship with Paige, but the more we talked and the more questions Colton asked, the more I realized how little I knew about some of those people and how often I couldn't answer his questions.
"I don't think I've been as helpful as I thought I would be," I said at the end.
"You've been great." He paused as he got a call and picked up his phone.
"Barclay." He listened for a few moments, then said, "Okay.
Thanks." He set his phone back on the table.
"Officers made contact with Margaret Lawrence.
She's a retired school librarian who had knee replacement surgery five weeks ago.
Answered the door on a walker, offered the officers banana bread, and was very confused about why anyone cared about her car, which is sitting in her garage with a layer of dust on the hood and a handicap placard on the mirror.
It hasn't moved in five weeks. Her daughter's been driving her to physical therapy. "
"Then how was her car outside my hotel?"