Adventures in Funeral Crashing (9 page)

Ethan scrolled through Vanessa’s friends.
Troy was not among them, but neither was Melissa, Olivia, or Liz.
That was interesting. Although, maybe not if Vanessa had dated Troy
and broke up with him or something. Still, you’d think that maybe
she and Liz would have been Facebook friends.

“Weird,” I said. “She’s not friends with any
of them or even Liz. At least not Facebook officially.”

“Maybe Vanessa deleted Liz after she died,”
Ethan offered, pushing back his chair and sitting to face me.

“Maybe,” I said, even as I made a mental
note. Most people used a deceased person’s Facebook page as a way
to talk to them and remember them. If my mom had made a Facebook
page, I would probably still be writing on it.

Ethan was looking at me contemplatively. From
where I was sitting on the bed, our knees were almost touching. The
dim glow of the computer and the desk lamp cast a light shadow on
Ethan’s face. His chin had some stubble on it. He hadn’t shaved
after his shower.

Ethan’s blue eyes met mine, “I changed my
mind. If the police don’t want to investigate Liz’s murder, I do. I
think Troy Matthews is our number one lead. All the dead girls knew
him. Maybe they were all dating him. Maybe that’s his motive. Some
sick and twisted love thing – like an I’m the only one who can have
these girls or they die kind of thing.”

I nodded. Troy Matthews definitely needed to
be investigated.

Ethan continued and took my hands in his, “I
understand if you don’t want to get involved. You’ve been amazing
so far, actually…”

I was too busy feeling what it felt like to
have Ethan hold my hand, to completely focus on what he was saying.
His hands felt smooth and warm enveloping mine. The butterflies
were going insane in my stomach. I pulled my hands out of his,
needing to focus on what he was actually saying. I’m sure I’d
regret it later. I should have just enjoyed it while I had the
chance. I don’t know why I kept letting my mind get in the way of
my hormones.

I interrupted Ethan before he could go on
talking about why I wouldn’t want to get involved. It was best not
to think about the down side of getting involved in a murder
investigation, “I want to help you find out what happened to Liz.
I’m in.”

“Really?” Ethan’s eyebrows rose.

“Really,” I said seriously. “And, I know just
where to start.”

“Where?” Ethan was looking at me
intently.

A zillion thoughts were going through my
brain, but I knew that one thing was crucial to our investigation
and we had to start there, “Vanessa Martin’s funeral.”

I had a hard time
sleeping on Sunday night after I left Ethan’s. We stayed up until
almost midnight talking. Yes, I’m serious. Still, it’s not like we
were making out or anything. Not that my dad cared. He was a little
mad that I had gotten home so late.

“Kait Lenox, where have you been?” My dad
said as soon as I walked in the door at 12:15 am on a school
night.

I never did that. I think we were both
shocked, so I said, “Out.”

I went to my room and that was the end of it.
I wasn’t about to tell him I was with a boy. If I told him that he
wouldn’t have believed me that nothing happened even though it’s
totally true. Now that I think about it, it was a little weird of
my dad to let it go that I was out so late with no good reason. He
definitely wasn’t as mad as he should have been. He should have
followed me back to my room and demanded an answer. Then he should
have yelled at me and grounded me. He didn’t, though. Maybe he
thought I had made a friend or something and was happy about it.
Parents are weird like that.

Any disapproval on my dad’s part was worth
it, though. Ethan and I had spent the night making plans for
attending Vanessa Martin’s funeral. There was an online obituary
already up and the wake was Monday night from 3 pm to 9 pm. Ethan
and I were going to go right after school. I coached Ethan a little
on funeral crashing, since I had been to so many. He had only ever
been to his sister’s and except for remembering talking to me, the
whole thing was a big blank for him. We were going to pretend to
have known Vanessa through Liz, if anyone asked. We were hoping
Troy Matthews would make an appearance. We were really, really
hoping for more good leads.

There were definitely other leads that I
wanted to follow too. I had a list. I still wanted to talk to Suzie
about Liz and Olivia Reynolds. I was going to do that during school
on Monday. Maybe I could get Kyle to join me and at least introduce
him to Suzie. It would be like multi-tasking. Hey, if Ethan and I
could be semi-friends, Kyle had an awesome as hell chance with
Suzie.

The other lead we had to follow up on was
definitely Troy Matthews. And, if he didn’t show up to Vanessa’s
funeral, Ethan and I needed to find a way to talk to him. The trick
there would be not to spook him, especially if he was the killer.
Neither Ethan or I wanted to end up dead just because we said the
wrong thing.

And, then there was the thought of having set
plans with Ethan for a third day in a row. I was starting to get
cocky about it. I mean, if Ariel was going to Homecoming with him,
maybe Ethan was just taking her to the dance. Maybe it didn’t mean
that they were dating too. When did he have time? You know? I mean,
Ethan had spent almost the entire weekend with me. And, okay, a
dance is way more romantic than investigating a murder together,
but still, the amount of time spent with someone counts for
something, right?

The first lead, I was going to follow,
though, was reading Liz’s journal. I opened it to the first page
dated about four months ago.

May 23

Today’s my birthday. Happy birthday to me!
For this year, I want to: save money to go to Paris, get into a
good college, see my first Cubs game, teach Paws five cool tricks,
and find a job working with a vet. It’s going to be an awesome
year, starting today!

I felt exceedingly sad as I finished that
first journal entry. It was a short one on her birthday and Liz had
so much hope for her future and only a few months later it was
gone. I hope she had gotten to do at least a few of the things she
had wanted to do. I kept reading. I learned more about Liz and her
dreams, the mundane things in her life, volunteering at the animal
shelter, her job, about some of her friends and her dog Paws, but
there was nothing helpful, in terms of the investigation (and no
mention of drugs!), until I got to the last three entries.

August 10

I just met this great guy in my English
class. His name is Troy Matthews. Hot, right? Liz Matthews, I can
see it. Anyway, getting ahead of myself, he’s an art major and he’s
probably as into art as I am into animals. And, he’s cute! He asked
me out and we’re supposed to go have coffee on Friday. I can’t
wait!!!! Wait, that is a date, right? Even though it’s just
coffee?

August 14

So, my date with Troy was amazing! We met up
at Wired. He bought me a coffee, so it’s officially a date since he
paid. I even offered, but he said no. We talked all about his art
classes and my work at the shelter and Paws. We had so much to talk
about. He is the most amazing guy. He even showed me some of his
artwork on his phone. He is really talented. I hope he asks me out
again. I had the greatest time. We didn’t kiss or anything, though.
I did give him a hug when we walked outside, but he didn’t try to
kiss me. I hope he likes me.

September 1

I know I haven’t written anything in the
last two weeks, but things have been so great with Troy that I
haven’t even felt like writing. And, we’ve hung out almost every
day. He’s been so amazing. Now I do have something to write about,
though. I don’t know what to do. I have nobody to talk to. I got
this email from a girl claiming to be Troy’s girlfriend. She was
really angry. He says that I’m the only one he’s dating. She claims
that he’s her boyfriend. I don’t even know who she is. She called
herself Mary Shelly, like the writer of Frankenstein. I obviously
don’t think that’s her real name. I don’t know what to do. I want
to believe Troy, but I don’t know. I was so happy. Is he cheating
on me?

The last entry was dated a little over a week
before her death. Was Troy cheating on Liz? Who was the other girl?
I thought back to what we already knew and my mind stuck on one
thing. Vanessa Martin’s email to Liz. Had that been about the other
girl? Is that what she wanted to talk to Liz about? Was Vanessa
Martin the other girl that Troy was dating and cheating on Liz
with? Or did she know her? Regardless, it seemed that Troy was not
the perfect person Liz had thought he was and to myself I thought,
he’s also not the person you’d want to be dating if you actually
wanted to survive college.

I fell asleep after 4 am. So, I know I had
bags under my eyes from lack of sleep when I rode the bus to school
on Monday morning. I had spent ten minutes trying to cover them up.
I had, in fact, dragged myself out of bed early despite my lack of
sleep to try and look super cute for school. Usually I rolled out
of bed and just went, with my hair still damp from a morning
shower. Today, I pulled out my mom’s old blow dryer and her curling
iron and tried to do my hair in a style other than its usual boring
straightness. I mean, I was knowingly going to spend part of the
day hanging out with Ethan. It couldn’t hurt for him to actually
think I looked cute, right? Hopefully he wouldn’t be too
egotistical and think I was doing it just for him. I mean, maybe I
was, but it’s not like I really wanted him to know that. I wanted
him to think I looked cute all the time, even if I had spent the
last two plus years going to school with wet hair because I hated
getting up early to actually try and do something with it.

Sadly, after all that prep time, I’m not
really sure that my hair looked any different on the bus this
morning. Sure it was dry for once and maybe it was slightly wavy
from the curling iron, but not all that different. Maybe I should
have straightened it instead. And, I had bags under my eyes despite
my attempts with cover-up. Maybe I could get a nap in during some
point of the school day. Lectures could be excellent for putting
one’s mind to sleep.

I wasn’t even going to see Ethan until after
school, when I was meeting him at his car. Well, I mean, we might
pass one another in the halls. We did also have the same lunch
hour, but I don’t think Ethan even knew that. He usually sat with
his friends Dave and Mike and the whole popular crowd.

Would he say hi to me if he saw me? Or, at
school, will I have reverted back to the weird girl that nobody who
wants to be popular can talk to unless they’re harassing her like
Ariel?

I tried not to think about Ethan too much,
even though my brain wanted to go there. Besides staying awake, my
focus this morning was Chemistry class, fourth period. I wanted to
get there early, so I could spend a few minutes talking to Suzie.
The morning flew by and I don’t think I heard a word the teachers
in my classes said. I spent the time in my head planning out what I
was going to say to Suzie. I didn’t see Ethan at all, or thank
goodness, Ariel. And, I didn’t see them together hand in hand
either. I hoped he wasn’t dating her. He deserved better. Like me,
I wanted to add, but come on, that’s still just wishful thinking on
my part.

The bell rang signaling the end of third
period and I raced to Chemistry class, making it there in such
record time that nobody else had even arrived yet. I sat down at my
lab table and waited for people to filter in. It felt like eons,
but was probably more like seconds before Suzie walked in and
toward her lab table.

“Suzie!” I called, as she was about to walk
past me.

Suzie turned and looked at me, paused, and
then walked toward me, stopping near the chair Kyle would be
sitting in, when he arrived. That is, if he didn’t have a heart
attack first, that Suzie was standing next to his lab table.

“What’s up?” Suzie asked softly,
hesitatingly.

I had decided that it was best to be
straightforward, “How did you know Liz O’Reilly and Olivia
Reynolds?”

Suzie’s eyebrows shot up and she stammered,
“W-w-why?”

I didn’t mean to scare her, so I whispered,
“I’m helping Ethan Ripley look into his half sister’s death. He
wants to understand what happened.”

Suzie sat down in Kyle’s empty chair and
stared at me, wide-eyed, “But…”

I nodded, “I know. Weird, huh? But I’m just
trying to help. He’s really distraught and we started talking, long
story, but Liz seemed like a nice girl and I’m sure Olivia was too.
So, I’m just trying to help.”

Suzie wasn’t a gossip, but I didn’t really
want to get into my long story with Ethan because then I might also
have to explain the whole funeral crashing thing...again. I didn’t
really want more people to think I was a total freak. And, I liked
Suzie. Maybe one day we could be friends or something.

Suzie nodded back, “Liz was great. We
volunteered at the same animal shelter. She was always telling me
that I needed to talk more and not to be afraid of the popular
people like her brother. That some of them, like him, were nice.
Not like I was going to talk to him or anything. You really talked
to Ethan Ripley?”

I smiled, there was nothing like an unpopular
girl talking to a popular guy that helped two unpopular girls to
bond, “Yeah. So, did you see anything to indicate that Liz was on
drugs?”

Suzie shook her head, “No way. It was so
weird and sad to hear that she overdosed. It was so not like her.
She was really nice and she totally loved animals too.”

It would figure that Suzie loved animals. She
was completely the sweet girl. Just like Liz.

“Wait, you said you worked at the animal
shelter?” I asked.