Adventures in Funeral Crashing (5 page)

“But who would have done that?” My voice rose
in pitch.

Ethan shook his head. “I have no idea. My
parents are a wreck and totally shocked and so are her friends.
Everyone liked her. Nobody wants to believe that she was a drug
addict. There were no signs, at all. There’s supposed to be signs.
She was happy. I barely ever saw her upset. I never even saw her
drunk, but they’ve all already accepted that Liz was on heroin
anyway because it’s on the police report. I can’t accept it. It’s
not at all like Liz to do drugs.”

My brain was buzzing, “But there’s been a lot
of heroin overdoses lately. It was in the paper and everything.
Maybe it was the cool thing to do and she just got carried
away?”

Ethan nodded, “Exactly. And, they’re assuming
that Liz was just like the rest of them. They think there’s some
kind of a drug ring going on at Laurel Community College. That
heroin has become the hip college drug of choice. They just can’t
seem to find the supplier.”

“Well, maybe Liz only tried it once, just to
try it, “ I offered. “And, it just turned out tragic.”

Ethan sighed. “But she wasn’t the drug type.
That’s what I keep coming back to. It doesn’t make sense.”

I let this sink in, “So, if Liz was murdered,
then the obvious question is do you think the others were murdered
too?”

“Well, yes, it’s a definite possibility,”
Ethan said.

My mind was awhirl with information. If Ethan
was right, there had been at least two other overdoses that were
potential murders. That would mean that there was a potential
serial killer on the loose at Laurel Community College. It was only
a hop skip and a jump over to Palos High School, my high school.
What if the murderer struck there next? Had the police been fooled
by a drug trail, when instead all the girls living around Palos
Community College were really all in mortal danger from a serial
killer? Or was Ethan just a totally distraught brother unable to
deal with sister’s death?

I made a snap decision as my mind continued
to go over the puzzle. There really might be something to his
questions, “I want to help.”

I wasn’t thinking about the benefit of alone
time with Ethan either. I really did want to help. He was so sad
and I know how that felt. I’d want to know the truth too. Okay, at
least, I wasn’t thinking about the benefits of Ethan time when I
originally offered my help. Although now, I couldn’t stop thinking
about it – being alone with him.

Ethan raised his eyebrows in surprise, but
then said, “Okay.”

It took me a moment to process Ethan’s
agreement. He was even kind of smiling at me. I mean, it isn’t
every day that the most popular guy in school talks to me, learns
I’m a funeral crasher, and then accepts my help investigating his
sister’s murder.

The two other
deaths had happened in the last couple of months, both girls, and
all the dead girls had attended Laurel Community College. Hopefully
I was safe, being still in high school, since the killer had not
veered from his pattern…yet. I had watched way too many horror
movies for free from work to seriously want to contemplate being
stalked and killed by a serial killer.

The first was Olivia Reynolds, twenty. Olivia
was found dead in her apartment by her mother, a needle still in
her arm. She had been there for a few days before they found her.
The second was Melissa Kent, nineteen. A teacher found Melissa dead
in a bathroom stall at Laurel Community College. The syringe had
fallen to the floor. In theory, she had shot up just after a math
test. She was found within two hours of taking that test. She had
gotten an A. And, then there was Liz. A policeman found her in her
car on a Sunday night in a nice suburban neighborhood. A stranger
had called the police upon seeing a girl passed out over the
steering wheel. She wasn’t passed out, though, Liz was dead.

Three girls were dead from an overdose of
heroin in just over two months. Stupid kids, drug ring, or murder?
And why had they all been girls? Wasn’t heroin “in" for guys
too?

I was leaning toward a verdict of murder or
at the very least foul play, which is why I agreed to meet Ethan on
Saturday morning. He was taking Friday off from school to spend it
with his family. It turns out a lot of family flew in for Liz’s
wake. It had literally shocked the family into a reunion. Ethan had
snuck out on Thursday night, in order to get to me since he thought
I was a potential lead in his sister’s unsolved murder, but he was
stuck hanging out with family again on Friday. It sounded like he
was looking forward to it now that the funeral was over.

Friday flew by for me as I did my own
research and counted the seconds to hanging out with Ethan. We
planned to meet at a local coffee shop, Wired, bright and early at
9 am on Saturday. Wired had the best peanut butter banana
milkshakes on the planet. They served those in addition to the
ice-blended coffees and believe me when I say the words – heaven on
earth when referring to them. Wired was also an after school
hangout and high school and college bands played there on weekends,
but nobody was going to be there at 9 am on Saturday morning. I
briefly wondered if Ethan was afraid to be seen with me in public,
but maybe he just wanted to get a jump on his sister’s murder
investigation, being that the murder would have happened a whopping
six days earlier, as of Saturday, and that’s eons in murder
investigation time.

I wanted to help Ethan find out what happened
to his sister and not just because he was hot, but because Liz
really seemed like the kind of girl who deserved to be remembered
as the great girl she was and not a druggie. She had a dog named
Paws for goodness sake, how cute is that? Plus, her killer (her
alleged killer, I guess, since it was still only a theory) should
come to justice! So, Ethan and I were meeting to go over the
details, before going to the police. His family thought he was
bereft with grief and in denial, and he didn’t want the police to
think the same. I was basically going to be his unbiased helper in
going over the facts of his sister’s and the other girls’
deaths.

And, the sooner the police started
investigating Liz’s murder, the better. I mean, according to that
A&E show,
The First 48,
that I watched as I was internet
surfing obituaries and news articles, the case is already cold and
only getting colder. Still, helping the police realize it was
murder and not an overdose would be a great start. Maybe they could
save someone else.

If Liz and the other girls were murdered
there had to be clues. Even the most calculating of killers, has to
make mistakes. So, every spare moment I had on Friday and early
into the hours of Saturday morning, I scoured the internet. I found
news articles on the drug problem at Laurel Community College, as
well as the obituaries of the three dead girls.

I read, copied, and pasted information from
their Facebook pages. They were still up there, even though Olivia
had been dead just over a month and a half. They were really sad to
look at and read, though. Friends had posted sympathy “I’m sorry
you’re dead,” comments and everything. There had to be clues there
somewhere.

Ethan looked tired when I spotted him sitting
in a dark corner of the coffee shop, drinking a steaming cup of
coffee.

I ordered my usual, super yummy, heaven on
earth, peanut butter banana milkshake and went to sit down across
from him with my stack of articles, “Hey, so I found lots of
articles yesterday. I was up all night looking through them.”

“Maybe I was wrong,” Ethan was slumped over
his coffee and obviously having doubts. Grief will do that to you.
Up close, it was obvious he hadn’t slept. He was in the same Green
Day T-shirt from two nights before. Was it possible that he looked
even cuter on no sleep and in dirty clothes? “I mean, I just have
to face it, Liz is dead and I need to move on. Live my life.”

I looked at him incredulously, “I don’t think
you’re wrong at all! None of those girls seem like they were the
heroin using type. They all got good grades. Everyone loved them.
They had never been in any trouble, of any kind, in their lives.
None of them had so much as a speeding ticket. It’s weird.”

“So, why would anyone want to murder them?”
Ethan asked, tiredly.

I looked Ethan straight in the eyes, “That’s
the question we need to ask. Ethan, you were right about this. I
know you are. Liz was murdered. Those other girls were murdered. If
we don’t do anything about it, someone else is going to die. The
police need to start investigating these deaths as murders.”

“So, what do you have?” Ethan asked pulling
the papers I had printed toward him.

I hesitated a moment, before I slid from the
seat across from him, to the chair next to him. It’s a little weird
sitting next to the hottest guy in school at a coffee shop, even if
you’re only helping him investigate his sister’s murder and not on
a date.

I took the papers and spread them out over
the table in front of us. I had already organized them. I pointed
to the first pile, “These are about Olivia Reynolds. She was the
first, so there isn’t much, just an obituary and a local column
about college kids and drugs. Her Facebook page says it all,
though, she was a crafty.”

“A what?” Ethan’s eyebrows arched at the
question.

“A crafty. She liked to make crafts. Her
Facebook page had tons of home made items. She was a knitter – she
made tons of scarves, hats, and sweaters. There’s even a link to
her knitting blog. Olivia was also getting into making jewelry from
some art class she was taking. She could sew too. She would so not
be your typical drug user. I mean, her favorite singer was Taylor
Swift, for goodness sake.”

Ethan cracked a smile, “Did you just say
goodness sake?”

“Yes,” I smiled back at him.

“You’re weird,” Ethan said, but he was still
smiling at me.

“Thanks,” I replied and I think he meant it
as a compliment.

We sat in silence as Ethan looked over the
papers on Olivia Reynolds. It was all there and plain to see.
Olivia Reynolds may have been the type to do pot in a hippie sort
of way, but not heroin.

I went on, “Okay, pile two is about Melissa
Kent. There was a little more about her in the news because she was
the second overdose in two weeks from Laurel Community College, but
this time, they focused on what the school was going to do about
the obvious drug problem, so again, I turned to her Facebook page.
And, Melissa was a good Catholic girl, unless her Facebook page was
lying. Her Facebook page said the words, “I love God” and
everything. Her groups listed were church youth groups and
volunteer services. She was so not a heroin addict type
either.”

Ethan picked up the papers on Melissa. I
watched him look through them, his brain furrowed as he read. He
was really cute. I felt myself staring at him in full crush mode
and shook myself out of it. What we were doing here was more
important than my crush. After reading so much about Melissa and
Olivia, I really felt like I knew them. I didn’t think they had
overdosed. Even if one of them, somehow had, the combination of
them didn’t make any sense.

Ethan nodded, looking up from the papers,
“And, then there’s Liz.”

I nodded back, looked at the third pile that
was all about Liz. I had read up on her already too. Still, I
looked back at Ethan, “So, what happened the night she died?”

Ethan took a deep steadying breath and said,
“We don’t know exactly. She was home in the morning, in her room.
Then she went to go work at an animal adoption for the Palos Animal
Shelter at the park on the corner of 135
^th
street and
Moorpark. A lot of people saw her there. She was walking with a
really cute scraggly dog. Everyone said she seemed totally fine.
She was trying to get the dog a home.”

“So, she wasn’t on drugs then?” I asked.

“No. Everyone said she was just Liz. Nothing
weird,” Ethan shrugged. “They’re all floored she’s gone.”

“Where did she go after that?” I asked.

“Well, she left there a little after seven.
She helped get the animals loaded back up to go to the pound and
she spent a little while talking to this couple about the dog.
After that, we don’t know where she went,” Ethan said.

“What time did the police find her?” I
asked.

Ethan was solemn, “About two and a half hours
later. Nine-thirty about. She was in her car about two miles away
from the park and about a mile from our house. It looked like she
was on her way home. At least that’s what they think.”

“What time do they think she died?” It was a
hard question for me to ask Ethan.

Ethan paused, “They think it was within the
hour that they found her. Between eight-thirty and
nine-thirty.”

“So, where was she for the hour and a half or
so before she died?” I asked.

Ethan shrugged, “We don’t know. Nobody was
with her that we know of. All of her friends said they hadn’t seen
her that day. At least the ones we know about. And, all of them
said they knew nothing about the heroin.”

I frowned, “Well, the heroin thing isn’t a
surprise. What teenager would confess to that? Seriously, though,
nobody knows where she was for the last hour of her life?”

Ethan shook his head, “No. We even checked
her cell phone and there were no calls.”

“Were there any calls at all that day on her
phone?” I asked.

“Just the usual ones. A couple of her friends
and I talked to them. They said nothing was wrong or weird,” Ethan
said.

“Texts?” I offered.

Ethan frowned, “No. She deleted them. My mom
once read through her phone in high school and ever since then she
never saved them.”