“Go on, Devin.”
“Well, so after Jer dumped Whit, she told everyone the truth about Bethany. She was a slut in Germany, and had sex a lot, and Whit said she even got pregnant and had an abortion. Bethany told her all about it when they had a sleepover one night.”
Ah, girls. Teenage boys would just beat the shit out of each other and then shake hands and move on. With girls, it was a lifetime of turning your back and waiting for the knife to be inserted.
“Sounds like typical teenage stuff, Devin.”
“Yeah, but then Tawny died. And then Madison.”
Sam shook her head slightly, still not getting the connection. “Well, those both appeared to be suicides, and I’m not sure what either had to do with Jeremiah or…”
“Those girls? They’re Whit’s friends. Two of her best friends.”
Sam tried to lead Devin a little more. “So you think Bethany had something to do with it?”
“You do the math.”
“What about Bethany and Jeremiah?”
“He dumped her. She was a slut, just like Whit said.” He flushed again but looked defiant this time.
“Why didn’t you talk to the authorities after the girls died? Tell them you suspected something?” Sam felt a burning in her stomach as she considered the other two deaths, which had been largely handled by Kanesville uniforms and Smithland County deputies.
“You’re the first cop who ever bothered to ask whether or not I think they killed themselves. I never thought they did. None of us did.”
“But no one said anything?”
He just shook his head.
“And you think Bethany is somehow involved.”
He raised his eyebrows and then looked away, the cocky look fading as his father reentered the room. “You about done here? Devin has homework, and I think he’s been through enough trauma.”
“I think I’m done for now,” Sam said, rising from the couch. “Thanks for the help, Devin. Oh, one more thing.”
“Yeah, what?”
“Do Bethany and Whit have last names?”
“Bethany Evans and Whitney Marcusen.”
Sam felt the blood drain from her face.
SEVENTEEN
Sam’s oldest sister, Susanna, had married young, right out of high school. Her beau, Roger Marcusen, was a returned Mormon missionary from an upstanding Kanesville family. Still, her father had been dead set against the marriage, which Susanna defiantly told the family would take place the Saturday after high school graduation.
Her mother, of course, had no opinion at all. She had long since stopped functioning as a human and become little more than a living, breathing home accessory.
Susanna had been filling the role of matriarch in the Montgomery family since the day Callie had been found hanging from the peach tree in the backyard. Sam was distraught at the loss of her mother figure.
“But who will comb my hair, Sissy?” Sam had cried, tears welling in her eyes as Susanna packed up her things the day before she prepared to move into an apartment with her new husband.
“Amy will help you,” Susanna said, wiping at her own tears. She leaned down and pulled Sam close to her. “Look, baby, I have to go. I have to have my own life, and this is the only way. You understand, right?”
Sam had not understood at all. But Susanna had left and Amy had never combed Sam’s hair, then had disappeared from their lives. Sam had lived the rest of her childhood in a rough-and-tumble scrape of altercations with neighborhood children, lectures from the Mormon sisters about cleanliness and bathing, wearing dresses, doing your hair up and ladylike behavior, and a desire to right the wrongs of the world.
In a way, Susanna’s departure, so wrong in Sam’s mind, was the beginning of her law enforcement career.
Now she stood in Sus’s living room, wondering how to tell her that she feared her own daughter, Whitney, was somehow entangled in what looked more and more like a series of murders.
“Well, this is a surprise,” Susanna said, wiping her hands on a dish towel she had carried in from the kitchen. “I can’t remember the last time you stopped by to visit. What’s the occasion?”
There was a slightly bitter cast to Sus’s tone, and her features were pinched, the wrinkles on her forehead and around her eyes prominent. Underneath her dark brown orbs were deep shadows of unmet dreams and wasted potential. She hadn’t bothered with her hair in years, usually just pulling it back into a ponytail, the gray showing through the streaks of brown. Susanna had taken after their mother, who also was a natural brunette, while Sam had been gifted with the light blond, thin, and fine hair from her father’s side of the family. They did not look like sisters.
After she married, Susanna had quickly become pregnant, and two of those children were already grown, one a returned Mormon missionary now attending Brigham Young University, the other serving his time in the Ukraine, tracting for potential members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and sending desperate letters home to his family, begging to be allowed to return without finishing out his time.
Susanna was torn between wanting her son to “return with honor” and wanting to rush to the airport and bring him home herself, keeping him safe from the terrible ills of a world that was violent and war torn.
Roger Marcusen was strictly on the “return with honor” side. He’d served his own foreign mission, to Brazil, returning home with stories of honor and the powerful nature of the Gospel, and he wasn’t about to let one of his boys besmirch that tradition. Besides, he said, “missions make boys grow up.”
Sam wasn’t so sure. She’d seen the missionaries drive through a neighborhood at top speed, barely missing small children or pedestrians. They were still teenage boys, full of testosterone and hell-bent on having fun. Grow up at nineteen? Why? Why was this so important? Wasn’t nineteen when teenage boys were still acting like morons, drinking too much, and chasing girls who were easy and cheap, and not thinking about tomorrow and eternity?
Not here.
Sam knew all this information about her nephew not because she was her sister’s confidante, but because she spent many hours in her father’s kitchen, where he shared the news of her sister with her and “Ruthie,” offering up family secrets like the chamomile tea that helped him sleep through one more lonely night, his mentally vacant wife by his side.
Sam’s father had been desperate for companionship for years. No one else seemed to see it but her, and so she had learned a lot of family secrets, growing up fast, knowing more about her sisters than they would ever have wanted her to know. But Susanna was really the only one left to see. Callie was long dead. Amy had left the state. And the ward members were busy trying to help her father cope with her mother—his personal desires not at the top of their list.
So he talked to Sam and Ruthie. And Sam found out that the upstanding Roger had turned out to be a serial adulterer. And the reason Amelia moved out of state was because she’d been one of the women he’d had an affair with.
Sam was never quite sure why her father gave her all this information. He handed it to her on a plate, like dessert. Was it because she was the only one who listened? Or the only one who actually heard what he said?
“What’s this about, Sam? You look like the cat that swallowed the canary?” Susanna said, a question in her voice. She sounded almost fearful.
“I don’t think that’s how I look. I don’t feel smug right now.”
“You know what I mean. What’s up? This obviously isn’t a social visit. You never just drop by.”
“I haven’t had a good reason to stop by,” Sam said, feeling anger and betrayal burn in her stomach, and she hated herself for acting like the child she had been. She’d been so angry when Sus left. Would she ever get past this feeling of abandonment?
“Just visiting family isn’t enough reason?”
“Look, is Whit here?”
“No, she’s at cheer practice. Why are you asking about Whit?”
One would think stopping by her sister’s house wouldn’t bring so many questions, but this was Sam’s life and it had never been normal.
“I need to talk to her about Jeremiah Malone’s death.”
Sus’s face blanched and she swayed a little. “Why do you want to talk to Whit about that? What does she have to do with him? They just dated a few times. But she’s still bothered by his death. She isn’t sleeping well. Why do you need to bring it all out again?”
“Bring it out again? He just died, Sus. They haven’t even buried him yet. This isn’t going to ease up for quite a while.”
“Well, I just don’t know what you think Whit could possibly have to do with it.”
“I just need to talk to her, Sissy,” Sam said softly, using her childhood name for Susanna. “She knew each of the kids. Was really good friends with them, in fact.”
Susanna blanched. “That doesn’t make her involved.”
“Sissy, what is wrong with you? Aren’t you worried about her? I mean, if this is a suicide pact, aren’t you worried that Whitney could be next—”
“Suicide pact! Are you kidding me? Did you really just say that to me? My daughter would never kill herself! Suicide pact?” Susanna was yelling so loud Sam took a step back, watching in dismay as her sister fell apart before her eyes.
“What kind of crap is this?” Susanna raved. “What are you trying to say, that my child would do such a thing, such a terrible, terrible thing—”
“Whoa, Sissy, calm down,” Sam said, stepping forward and putting a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “You are out of control here. What’s up? What’s wrong?”
“I just can’t believe that you—”
“Sissy, these are Whit’s friends and, apparently, her most recent boyfriend. And they are dead. I have to do this. It’s my job, but I’m concerned, believe me. And right now, I’m more concerned about you than anything else. You are falling apart. What the hell is going on?”
Susanna collapsed inwardly, her shoulders slumping, the fire leaving her eyes as quickly as it had entered. She shook her head, over and over, but didn’t speak. Didn’t seem to be able to speak.
Tears began to fall from her eyes, and she moved toward a chair and fell into it.
“Please, talk to me,” Sam said gently, moving closer. “What’s wrong?”
“This is not the life I thought I’d have,” her sister whispered, wiping at the tears streaming down her face. “Roger Junior has been kicked out of BYU for violating the honor code. Pornography. Can you believe it? Jace hates his mission, and wants to come home. He feels like he’s in jail, and I guess he is, because Roger won’t let him come home early. Trapped in a foreign country with no one around to love him or help him. And Whit … Something’s wrong with Whit. She’s always been popular, sometimes saying or doing things I didn’t like, but that’s her, and who she ran with. Maybe a little wild, but I always watched her, always grounded her, always made sure she was behaving. But now.…”
“What?”
“I think she’s pregnant,” Susanna whispered, as though the words wouldn’t be real if she kept the volume low enough. “A mother knows. And she hasn’t had her period for several months. She is sick all the time, and she’s nervous and anxious.…”
“Good God.”
Susanna flinched at her sister’s curse and then put her hand to her forehead.
“But, wasn’t she dating Jeremiah Malone?”
“Yes. Yes, she was. And now he’s dead, and won’t be able to marry her. The whole world will know. And I’m not old enough to be a grandmother. And God knows that Roger is absolutely no help whenever life isn’t picture perfect. He just disappears and … never mind.”
Susanna’s face portrayed unimaginable anguish, the sorrow lines deep across her forehead. A straying husband. A pregnant teenage daughter. Sam could not understand how her sister and so many others like her could keep going back to church, time and after time, trying to reason away the cruelties of life as “God’s will.”
God wanted everyone to suffer?
And the mental image of Sam’s teenage niece pregnant was too much to comprehend. Whit was vain and sometimes cruel, more worried about clothes, looking cute, and boys than anything else. Sam liked her but couldn’t help but wince when she was around her, knowing Whit was the kind of girl who would have teased Sam mercilessly when she’d been a motherless waif trying to find her way through life without guidance.
“Have you told her you know?”
“No, we haven’t talked about it. I need to, but with everything that has happened in the past few months.…”
“Uh, Sis, this is one of those things that really can’t be ignored.”
“I know that,” Susanna said, giving her a disgusted look. “And why are you acting all concerned anyway? You never come by, never call. You moved back to town months ago, and this is the first time you’ve been here since you returned. Why act so concerned now? You couldn’t care less about me and my family.”
“I’ve always cared, Sissy. I just had a hard time dealing with you leaving us. I felt betrayed, and your family was my competition. I’m sorry. I know this all goes back so long ago, and it’s really juvenile, but it is what it is.”
Susanna started to cry again. “I know. I know, Sam; I’m sorry. I’m such a mess today. I’m so worried. So worried about all of my kids. Worried about you. Worried about Mom and Dad. When does it ever get easier? When?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure it does. But I’m going to have to talk to Whit, Sissy. I’m sorry, but it’s my job.”
“I know,” Susanna whispered. “I’m just afraid of what you might find out.”
* * *
Sam sat in the bleachers of the Smithland High School gymnasium. She watched as Whit went through the motions of the cheers listlessly, the fourteen-member squad now down two members. The two dead girls had both been on the team, and they had been the closest of friends. Before, it had seemed like a sad set of tragedies. Now, it seemed like impending doom was ready to settle in. Would another of these girls be next? Would it be Whitney?
With her long reddish-brown hair, pert nose, full lips, and perfectly shaped body, petite Whitney had always had the attention of all the boys, and more than one girl’s hatred. It didn’t bother Whitney. Sam knew her niece was a little spoiled and pampered. But she didn’t look that way right now. Today she looked tired, and scared.