Safe from Harm (9781101619629) (29 page)

Jo said, “Uncle Chester says that precision in speech is critical to the smooth functioning of commerce and legislation.”

“That right? What's your position, Bear?”

I sighed and put an extra spoonful of sugar in my tea. “I think that the intent to deceive is a lie.”

Wanderley nodded, his eyes still on Jo and Alex.

Alex slapped the table and I winced. His class ring made a ding in the smooth wood, but he didn't notice.

“Let's talk about intent,” said Alex. “
Our
intent has been to find out why Phoebe was dead.
You
closed the case.”

Alex was the son of an attorney.

“I didn't have any choice,” said Wanderley.

Jo said, “I talked to Uncle Chester. He says you're right,” she said to Wanderley. “There's nothing you can do. He says what happened to Phoebe is outside of the law. He says you can't positively identify who is in the video unless you did some kind of expensive voice recognition program and that even if you had proof that that was Lizabeth Pickersley-Smythe speaking, it wouldn't make any difference as far as the law is concerned. He said he's not a criminal attorney, but he doesn't see a case here.”

Chester takes client confidentiality seriously. He hadn't said anything to me and Annie Laurie.

Wanderley said, “What did he think about you posting a video of someone else's private moment?”

Alex said, “Have you ever
been
on YouTube? You know half the stuff on YouTube is private moments going public, right?”

Jo said, “Technically, I didn't post it.”

“But you know who did.”

“Uncle Chester says he doesn't think anyone in their right mind would want the video associated with them so they aren't going to make any kind of protest. What are they going to do? Contact YouTube and say, ‘That's me telling my stepdaughter she should go kill herself, and that was a special moment between the two of us—could you please take it down?' I don't think so.”

Wanderley pushed his chair away from the table. Baby Bear came to him, started to mouth Wanderley's boot, remembered Wanderley's policy regarding boots and dog teeth, and flopped under the table with a groan.

“Jo, you didn't feel like you were withholding evidence? By not giving me the phone?”

Jo hesitated. Alex said, “We thought that if—”

Jo touched his arm. “Wait. Let me answer.” Jo took her time, getting her words in order. She held her cup tightly in her hands. “I was at Cara's. I get this text from Phoebe who I haven't talked to in like forty years. Phoebe told me she was leaving me something in my room. That's why I went home that night, the night she died. I knew she still had my key, I knew she could get in and I didn't want her in my room. I wanted my key back.” Jo shivered and zipped the sweatshirt closed. She drew the sleeves down over her fingers.

Alex put his arm around her shoulders. I'd been about to do that same thing.

“Alex brought me home. He didn't come in with me because Mom and Dad get bent out of shape about that even though Nana says a gentleman should go in and make sure everything is safe before he leaves a girl home alone. I'm only telling you what she says, Dad.”

It wasn't the time to argue the point.

“I found Phoebe upstairs just like I told you. I honestly forgot what she said about leaving me something because . . . it was a bad night, okay? So I didn't think about it until I picked up the bag I keep my retainer in. I loop it over the post on my bed, and she knew that. Her doing it that way—I knew that phone was meant for me.” Jo waited for Wanderley to agree with her. He didn't respond, and she gave up. “She could have sent that video to me. She could have sent it out to anyone. She didn't, I don't know why. She came over here and she went up to my room and she put it someplace only I would find it.

“But then I couldn't get
into
the phone because she had it password locked and I didn't know her password. She forgot to send it. If you're on drugs, you're not going to remember everything, right? I looked up Dilaudid. You can have hallucinations, you get light-headed.

“I went to her trailer because Phoebe said she kept things there, anything that was important to her, that she didn't want Liz to get her hands on, that's where she kept it, at the trailer. Liz has no respect for privacy. She would even go through Phoebe's purse and backpack. Phoebe said the trailer belonged to her and back when she told me all this, her grandfather wasn't living there. It was important to her that she have someplace to go in case she couldn't take it anymore being at Liz's and she said there was no way she could live
with
her grandfather at the trailer because even though she loved him, he was pretty messed-up.

“So that's why I went to the trailer, to see if she had left stuff there or something that would give me her password because I
knew
there had to be a message for me on the phone. I'd tried every password I could think of and I couldn't get into the phone. I thought maybe she had a pet name when she was a baby, maybe she'd had a dog or something and she'd used the dog's name—I could maybe find a clue in the trailer. Because that's what she left me—” She looked at Alex and he squeezed her. “That's what I thought, and Cara thought so, too.” He nodded.

Wanderley crossed a leg and clasped his boot shank. “If you had given me the phone, I could have petitioned the phone company—”

Jo interrupted, “No, you couldn't have, right? Because it was a suicide and case closed. So if I'd given you the phone, you would have given it to her dad or her stepmom and that would have been the end of it. And then what could I have done? Phoebe left that message for
me
.” She pressed her hand, still covered with the sweatshirt sleeve, against her heart, leaning in toward the detective. “Because I
owed
her. Because even though Phoebe was awful to me, I should have cut her slack and I didn't. Instead, I cut her off.” Jo wiped her nose on the sleeve cuff.

“So that's why me and Cara went to the trailer. I'd tried every password I could think of and I couldn't get into the phone. I thought maybe she had a pet name when she was a baby, maybe she'd had a dog or something and she'd used the dog's name—I could maybe find a clue in the trailer. But then Mr. DeWitt pulled a gun on me and I never got a chance to look around—”

Wanderley yanked his chair back to the table. He bumped the edge and sloshed tea from his cup onto the fine wood. Jo and I both instinctively snatched up napkins. Annie had trained us well.

Wanderley said, “Stop. What is this about a guy pulling a gun on you?”

Jo said, “Didn't Dad tell you? I thought you guys were friends!”

Not being part of the generation who thinks it's cool to spend a night in jail, I hadn't told
anyone
. Certainly not my friends. I had taken a personal day on Friday.

I piled the sodden napkins on the tea tray. I said, “See, on Thursday night—”

Wanderley interrupted, “Is that why you weren't at the memorial service? I thought Annie was suspiciously vague when I asked her about it.”

Jo and Alex told Wanderley the story. I interjected occasionally to clear up some misconceptions (for instance I did
not
just present myself as a great big target and Alex did
not
save me from sure death). Wanderley surveyed us like he was sitting across the table from the three big sillies who had tried to sieve the moon from the pond. “What are you people putting in the communion wine over there? Are you all completely crackers, or what?”

I couldn't think of a response that was going to raise Wanderley's opinion of me so I didn't say anything. Alex said, “It's juice.”

“What's juice?”

“The communion wine is juice,” said Alex. “Church of Christ. No wine.”

Wanderley stared at us. We stared back at him.

“How'd you get the password?” Wanderley said at last.

“I'm not giving you the phone.”

He said, “Hah! It's a little late for that. I just want to know how you figured it out. Will you tell me?”

Alex and Jo shared a look. Alex said, “We tried everything we could think of—nothing worked.”

Jo took up the tale. “Then at the memorial service— I watched it online with Dad—when Brick said how Phoebe really
had
had a chance to go to the Air Force Academy? Then I knew it was really, really important to her because it's a big freaking deal to get in there. You have to work super hard to get admitted. Like, they only take the few and the proud.”

“That's the Marines,” said Alex. Jo shrugged his arm off her shoulders.

“I googled the Air Force Academy and tried a ton of stuff and then I googled the Air Force. Do you know what the Air Force motto is? It's ‘Aim High.' That was her password. Phoebe wasn't always messed up. ‘Aim High.' Yeah.” Jo nodded. She could admire someone setting high goals for herself.

“All that business Sunday at church—that was your doing?” Wanderley said. “You thought during church would be a good time to paint someone black?”

Jo went red, but she stuck her chin out. “The video went on YouTube Saturday night. Some people didn't hear about it until they got to church.”

“You know how many people have seen that bit of work?”

Alex said, “Forty-seven thousand, two hundred and sixteen, last time I checked.”

Wanderley pulled his phone out of his holster. He clicked and scrolled then peered at the tiny screen. “Congratulations. You broke a hundred thousand. You are at . . . let's see, one hundred twenty-two thousand, seven hundred and fifteen.”

Alex and Jo exchanged raised eyebrows.

Wanderley said, “If it keeps up, you'll make some money on the video—would you like that? Get your revenge and get rich doing it?”

Jo started to answer but Alex cut her off. “He's trying to get a rise out of you, Jo. Don't play the game.” To Wanderley he said, “Yeah, that's a moral quandary we're going to need to wrestle with—I'll bet soft drink companies are lining up to have their names associated with
that
particular video,” he scoffed. “You know that's not what this is about. And anyway, we didn't post the video. Jo told you that. If there is money, it's not going to us. And the guy who . . . the person who posted, he's stand-up—he's not going to be taking blood money.” Alex gave it a moment's thought. “He might use it for college. I don't have an issue with that.” He looked to Jo for confirmation but she looked uncertain.

“Have you read the comments?” Wanderley asked.

Jo crinkled her nose, “A few. There's some nasty—”

Wanderley interrupted. “Then you wouldn't know there's been some death threats. Veiled, but death threats all the same. Did it occur to you that you could be setting some psycho vigilante on Lizabeth Pickersley-Smythe's trail?”

Jo rolled her eyes. “That kind of stuff is always up there. You should see what they say about the Kardashian sisters. Nobody ever does anything.”

Alex added, “Besides, only a handful of people know the background. Nobody is using names in their comments. Nobody wants to get sued.”

Wanderley produced the guitar pick, passing it over and under his knuckles the way he does sometimes. “What about Mark? What do you think this is going to do to their marriage?”

Because I was sitting on the same side of the table, I could see Alex's quick movement, snatching Jo's hand and holding it between his own hands.

Alex said, “You don't think we've thought this—”

Jo pulled her hand free and laid her hands on the table. Her nails were short, with chips of worn polish on them. They had been bitten to the quick. She said, “Alex? Could you let me answer? Could you let me own this? I'm not ashamed of what I've done, and I'm not afraid, either.” She took a breath and looked straight on at Wanderley.

“I don't know what this is going to do to their marriage. That's not something you worry about when you arrest someone, is it? You're not thinking, ‘Wow, his poor wife, what's going to happen to her,' right?”

She was speaking rhetorically, but Wanderley answered her, leaning way over the table, his fingers laced and the guitar pick still.

“Yes, Jo, I am thinking about that. Lots of times, I'm thinking just exactly that. About the kids involved, the companies that could fail and put people out of work, the marriages that could be destroyed. It is no small thing to interfere in people's lives. I try to never do it lightly. But I have a job to do and I do it.”

She nodded. “You arrest them anyway. If they've done something wrong. Because it's not okay to go tromping all over other people, stealing and cheating and killing. And that's your job.”

“That's right. It's my job. But it's
not your
job, Jo.”

She hid the bitten nubs of nails in her palms. “Most of the time, it's not my job. But this time, this one time, Phoebe
made
it my job. And there's not anything I can do about it, do you get that? If she were still alive . . . if she'd come to me and been all mysterious, ‘If anything suspicious happens to me, I want you to find out the truth . . .'” Jo used a quavery ghost voice for the departed Phoebe. “. . . then I could have said, ‘No way. Find someone else. We're not even friends anymore,' and then she would have to lay all this on someone else. But the way it is, it's me or nobody. I tried to put it on you. It's not like I
want
to be all mixed up in this—I
hate
this—I
hate
that I heard that video—I don't want to know that people can be like that. But Detective Wanderley, if I didn't do something, it's like the whole world looked the other way and pretended nothing happened. That's not okay.” Her eyes were glassy with tears. “And if her dad really texted that to Liz? He's the same as her, then. Even if he thought Phoebe would never see it.”