Adventures in Funeral Crashing (6 page)

“That sucks,” I felt discouraged. “Her phone
and its texts may have given us a real clue.”

“Yeah,” Ethan sighed.

“And, nobody at the park saw her leave with
anyone?” I asked.

“No. The last people she talked to at the
park was the couple adopting the dog,” Ethan said.

“Huh,” I said, thinking. “Was she friends
with any of the other Animal Shelter people?”

Ethan shrugged, “Not good friends that I know
of, but I mean, she saw them a few times a week, so they were on
okay terms.”

“But none of them said they were with her?” I
asked.

Ethan shook his head, “No.”

“And, the police didn’t find anything in her
car?” I had to ask.

“No,” Ethan frowned. “Just the needle.
Everything else was the same – just the stuff that was usually in
her car.”

“No finger prints?” I asked.

“I don’t know. They just ruled it an
overdose. I didn’t see a report or anything,” Ethan said.

“Not that they’d give us one,” I smirked.

“That’s probably true, but if we can get them
to open the case back up, maybe they’ll re-look at all of that
evidence. We just need to get something that they missed. Something
that seems really weird,” Ethan said.

Liz was the only victim we had a detailed
time line on. Ethan knew all there was to know about it because he
was family. It still didn’t help us, though. We needed more to go
on. Where was Liz the last hour of her life? Was someone with
her?

“We’ll find something. I know we will. So, do
you want to tell me about her?” I asked. “What was she like?
Anything that might help?”

Ethan took a shuddering breath and continued
anyway, “Sure. She loved animals. Her grades weren’t the best so
she was going to Laurel Community College to get them up, so she
could get into a good school that would get her into a veterinary
college. They can be really hard to get into and she wanted it more
than anything. She volunteered at the Palos Animal Shelter a few
days a week after school and she had a job at Petsmart. Animals
were her drugs, if anything. She had lots of friends and she had
just started dating this guy she really liked, so there was no
reason for her to…”

“Wait. What guy?” I asked, interrupting
Ethan.

“Uh, I’m not sure. I mean, I think his name
was Mark. No, that’s totally not it. That was the guy before this
one. Uh, Travis? Or, was it Brent? Don?”

“You really have no idea, do you?” I
asked.

Ethan was really concentrating. “I can’t
remember. I just thought it was another guy and it was a sorta new
guy.”

“We could check her phone,” I offered.

“Yeah, but she has like three hundred
contacts. Everyone she’s ever met is in her phone. I checked. Maybe
if I saw him. She did show me a picture on Facebook. They only went
out for a couple of weeks before she died. It wasn’t super serious
or anything yet.”

A thought was forming in my brain, “Was he at
the funeral?”

Ethan thought for a moment, “No, I don’t
think he was. At least I didn’t see him there. The whole funeral
thing was a blur for me, though. The only person I remember being
there is you, actually, because you ran away from me.”

I grimaced, “Thanks. So, do you think there’s
any way he could be involved in this? Her semi-boyfriend?”

Ethan shrugged, “Sure, if he knew all of the
other girls.”

That is how I
ended up at Ethan Ripley’s house, with nobody home, on a Saturday
afternoon. Any normal girl would have been beside herself with
nerves at being alone in Ethan’s house, in his room, on his
bed…

It was a large bedroom actually, bigger than
mine, at least. I was surprised to see that he had a large
bookshelf filled with books. I knew Ethan was smart and such, but
he actually read for fun? Cool. There was a lot of science fiction
on the shelves. I saw
Dune
and
Ender’s Game
and
Stephen King’s
The Gunslinger
series. He reads! It was super
sexy to me. Other than that, there were no posters on the wall,
just a few framed records spaced out decoratively – a Beatles
album, a Clash Album, a Bob Dylan album, and a few others. There
was a guitar lying against the bookshelf. Did Ethan play music too?
Wow, I was impressed. He really was the perfect guy. Sigh.

I was struck again by being alone in his
house with him. To even be close enough to him to see the inside of
his bedroom was amazing. I never would have thought I would be
here. And, I mean, butterflies were jumping around in my stomach,
but come on, we were investigating a murder, romance wasn’t going
to happen. I’ll admit to being slightly disappointed about
that.

It’s not like I planned it or like he even
planned it, being alone in his house. His whole family was spending
the day at his uncle’s in a sort of get out of the house day. Since
he had spent the day before with the family, Ethan had claimed
plans and declined going. I was just excited that I had made the
list of Ethan’s plans.

The plan, as we were sitting together in his
room alone (I loved being able to say that!), was to break into
Liz’s Facebook account and see if she and the other victims had any
friends in common, most particularly Liz’s boyfriend Ted or Brent
or Travis or Bob or whatever his name turned out to be. We hoped to
find that out from her Facebook emails as well, since her status
was a non-committed “In a Relationship” without the subject of the
relationship’s name.

Ethan was lying on his bed, eyes trained on
the Facebook computer password screen that was visible on his
laptop. I was lying next to him, trying not to think about how
close his entire body was to mine.

I distracted myself by looking through Liz’s
phone again. She did delete all of her texts and her contacts list
was an eon long. Her missed, received, and dialed calls were mostly
girls that Ethan said were her good friends. He didn’t think they
had anything to do with it. There were three guys, though. One of
them was probably her boyfriend – either Troy or Dylan or Max. None
of them rang a bell for Ethan. I wanted to call up one of her
friends or the guys, but Ethan had nixed that idea. Her friends
were all really upset and nobody wanted to talk about murder. So,
he wanted to hack into her


Facebook
instead. If we could get in, I was all for it. Besides, it meant I
got to hang out with Ethan a little longer, in his house,
alone.

“I know it has something to do with Paws,”
Ethan said, still staring at the screen.

The dog, Paws, was lying at the foot of
Ethan’s bed, fast asleep. He was a cute little guy, a Boston
Terrier, who had lost an eye and wound up in the shelter. Liz had
felt sorry for him and didn’t think he’d get adopted, so she took
him home, ignoring her family’s no pet rule. Ethan said it took
them less than twenty-four hours to fall in love with the dog too
and throw out the rule. Doesn’t sound like a girl who would OD on
heroin, does it?

“Yes!” Ethan yelled.

I turned away from Paws, to look at the
screen. Ethan was into Liz’s account.

“It was ilovepaws, if you can believe it,”
Ethan grinned and then seemed suddenly sad as he said, “So totally
Liz.”

Liz’s home page was up on the computer
screen. She had two new messages. Ethan clicked on the inbox icon.
Two messages appeared. One was from a guy, Troy, the other from a
girl, Vanessa, both dated the Sunday Liz had died. Liz had never
gotten the chance to read them. The rest of the inbox was empty.
She must have deleted her messages as she read them, just like the
texts.

Ethan was smiling, “Jackpot! It’s him! His
name is Troy Matthews!”

Ethan clicked on the message from Troy:

Hey, Liz!

It was great just talking the other night.
I’m glad we did. I can’t wait to see you again! Call you later.

<3, Troy

“That doesn’t seem weird or anything,” I
commented after reading the email over Ethan’s shoulder. “But that
doesn’t rule him out, either.”

Ethan nodded and clicked on the message from
Vanessa:

Liz -

When you get a chance I really, really,
really need to talk to you. Called you, but it went straight to
voicemail. Thought I’d see if you were online. Call me!!!

-
Vanessa

“Now that’s interesting. She’s not on the
missed calls,” I said looking at Liz’s phone again.

“Her phone must have been off,” Ethan said
after a moment.

“That doesn’t help. I wonder what the big
deal was. Do you know Vanessa Martin?” I asked Ethan as I peered at
her picture. I knew I had never met her. She probably went to
Laurel Community College too.

“No. She must’ve been one of Liz’s college
friends. They didn’t really come over, like her high school friends
did. It wasn’t cool to hang out here, if you know what I mean. Not
that it is now either, but I have nowhere else to go. A lot of her
new friends have their own places,” Ethan shrugged.

“I really wonder what Vanessa wanted to talk
to Liz about,” A thought popped into my mind. “Can we email her? I
mean, not from Liz’s account because that might creep her out, but
maybe from yours?”

“And just ask her what she needed to talk to
Liz about?” Ethan sounded doubtful.

“Yeah, I mean, if she knows something, maybe
she’ll tell you. Play up the grieving brother,” I offered. “It
can’t hurt. Worst thing, she’ll say is no.”

“What about Troy?” Ethan said, clicking back
to Troy’s message.

“I don’t think we should email him…yet.” I
stared at Troy’s message for a moment. “Actually, I have an idea.
Can I?”

I reached for the computer and Ethan handed
it to me. He sat up and looked over my shoulder as I went to
Facebook’s friend finder. I typed in the name – Olivia Reynolds.
Her name popped up immediately and I clicked on her profile. I was
looking for the mutual friends list and there it was - two friends
in common, Troy Matthews and oddly enough, Suzie Whitsett, the girl
my chemistry lab partner, Kyle Jones had a crush on.

“Okay, interesting. So, Liz and Olivia both
knew Troy Matthews and Suzie Whitsett,” I started.

“Wait are you thinking… Check out Melissa
Kent,” Ethan was unknowingly, holding a death grip on the
comforter. “Troy has to know her too.”

“Okay, okay, I’m checking her too, but do you
know how Liz knows Suzie Whitsett? She’s in our grade at school,” I
said, while typing in Melissa’s name.

“The quiet girl? I think they volunteered at
the animal shelter together or something. Liz took me to an animal
adoption at the park once and introduced me to Suzie. I only
remember because I had seen her in school, but had never actually
heard her speak before,” Ethan said, staring at the computer
screen.

“You know, you can be really arrogant,” I
said, without thinking, as the results popped up.

Ethan turned away from the screen to look at
me, “What?”

“Suzie’s a really nice girl and really smart.
She’s just shy. You need to learn to get to know people before you
judge their entire personalities,” I don’t know what was wrong with
me. I was telling off the most popular guy in school for not taking
the time to figure out that the quiet girl is just shy.

“Like you?” he asked, watching me.

I ignored the question and turned to look
back at the screen and Melissa Kent and Liz O’Reilly’s common
friends. I felt Ethan look at me for a moment more before he turned
to look at them too.

There it was, only one friend in common –
Troy Matthews, Facebook friend to all three of the alleged murder
victims. Coincidence? I think not. Although, one would think he’d
delete them from his friend’s list after he murdered them, but I
guess not.

It took me awhile
to calm Ethan down. Although, it was an excellent lead, just
because Troy knew all of the dead girls, didn’t mean he had killed
them.

“We can’t just go to the police and accuse
Troy,” I reasoned with Ethan. “They’re not going to believe us.
Haven’t you seen like every horror movie? Nobody believes
teenagers.”

Ethan looked at me with frustration and
pointed at the computer, “But it’s right there! He knew all of
them! What more evidence do we need?”

“A motive?” I volunteered.

Ethan shook his head, “Let the cops figure
out a motive.”

“Look, I admit it’s suspicious, but there has
to be more,” I argued.

Ethan shook his head, but I could see that he
was at the very least, calming down. “I’m still going to the
police. They have to know about this. All we need to do is get them
to change their minds. We don’t actually have to solve the
case.”

“I know, but I still think we need more,” I
said.

“But this is huge,” Ethan replied. “He knew
all of them. The cops have to know.”

We had been arguing about this for the last
half hour, so I nodded, realizing that I wasn’t going to be able to
dissuade him. I still didn’t think we had enough to go on. It could
be a coincidence. Troy could be a totally innocent guy, who just
happened to have a lot of dead girl space friends. Still, I will
admit, even I had a vague hope that the police would change their
investigation from drugs to murder and that Troy’s relationships to
the victims might be a catalyst for that.

The Palos Police Station is a small police
station. My guess is that most of their calls are about domestic
violence and petty crime. I should have known that they wouldn’t
know what to do with a murder case, even if it did fall in their
laps.

“What can I do for you, Ethan?” Detective
Dixon asked, leaning back in his desk chair as he took a sip of
coffee from a steaming styrofoam cup.