Forgotten Girls, The (7 page)

“He never does what I ask, Doug. He
didn’t cut the sea grass as he promised and now it’s not going to grow in
straight. And the sprinklers in the front went on this morning even after all the
rain. The flowers are going to drown!”

Doug sat stoically. He clearly
couldn’t care less that his wife was upset about the garden and didn’t even
bother to answer.

Jenna pouted then came back to the
conversation, as though her little digression had not happened.

“Last night was horrible. I am so
scared,” she said, resting a hand gently on Mack’s knee.

Mack looked at her husband to see
if he noticed, but Doug’s eyes were still affixed to the floor, where they had
remained most of the time. Mack leaned back and took her hand gently off his
leg. She curled her legs up on the sofa like a child.

Bella wondered if Doug was
embarrassed by his wife. If he wasn’t he ought to be, she thought. What the
hell was going on in this guy’s head? Either he was concerned for his wife or
he was concerned about the murder or he was just wrapped tight. Too tight for
her liking. One thing was certain—he seemed to dislike his wife immensely.
Luckily for Jenna, she didn’t seem to notice.   

“How did you hear the news of her
murder?” Bella continued steadily, looking at Doug.

Doug lifted his head, but Jenna
answered before he could speak.

“Stephanie called me. Jamie had called
Jack.”

Jenna said this as though reading
from a script.

“Jack is Stephanie’s husband?”
Bella clarified.

Jenna nodded.

“How did Mrs. Freed seem to you
last night? I would like both of your impressions if you don’t mind,” said Bella,
looking at Jenna and Doug.

“I didn’t really see her or talk
to her at all,” answered Doug quietly.

“She seemed fine. Completely like
herself.” Jenna shrugged.

“We heard Jos worked at the paper
in town? The
Gazette
?” Bella pressed on.

“Ummm…yes, that’s right. I heard that
too.”

“You heard or she told you herself?”
Bella asked.

“Umm, she told me,” Jenna said
offhandedly.

“Do you know what kinds of stories
she was working on?”

“No, I have no idea. Do you, Doug?”

All heads turned to Doug. He
didn’t look up, only shrugged and said he didn’t know. Jenna smiled again.

“Were you and Mrs. Freed close?” Bella
asked, genuinely curious to see what this woman’s perception was.

“Of course! But Joslyn was—she
kind of did her own thing,” she observed.

“What do you mean by that?”

“She just—I don’t know, we
wouldn’t know where she was for sometimes like two whole days. Like, she’d have
things to do and two days could go by and we wouldn’t even hear from her.”

Two whole days, Bella thought to
herself sarcastically. How the hell could a woman with Joslyn’s academic
credentials ever have related to this woman—been actual friends with her! What
in god’s name had they spoken about?

Mack spoke up suddenly and shot
some questions in Doug’s direction. He asked point-blank if Doug thought the
Freeds were happily married.

“Jamie never told me otherwise,”
Doug answered, slightly dumbfounded.

“Did you ever see or hear anything
that might make you draw that conclusion on your own?” Mack asked.

Doug looked like he was thinking
of something that made him uneasy but, if he was, he didn’t share it.

“No, not that I recall,” he said
simply.

“Do you consider him a close
friend?” Mack seemed very relaxed.

“Yeah, sure. I mean, we’re
buddies.”

“Mr. Freed told us you were part
of his crew.” Mack grinned despite himself.

Doug looked slightly embarrassed.

“So what do crews look like up here
in Greenvale? I mean, down in the Bronx the word ‘crew’ can have a bit of a
negative connotation,” Mack pressed on. It seemed to Bella he was having fun.

Doug crinkled his eyebrows,
confused. “I think people just use that word to denote their group of close,
personal friends,” he answered heavily.

“And how close does one have to be
to be considered part of a crew?” Mack nudged.

“I don’t know what you mean or how
to answer that,” Doug responded.

“Well, let me help you out a
little then. Close enough that you know one another’s secrets? Close enough
that you always have each other’s back?”

Mack leaned in and looked intently
at Doug, ignoring Jenna. Doug looked flummoxed.

“I guess that would describe us
all, yes,” he stammered.

Jenna interrupted. “We have always
called ourselves a crew because we do everything together. We spend Saturday
nights together, we vacation together—we even do holidays together. We’re like
a group. I mean, we have other friends outside our group, but they are not as
close to us as we are to each other. They know it, and we do too.”

“You travel as a group? In all you
do?” Bella clarified. She was trying to get her mind around that.

“That’s right,” Jenna said
bluntly.

“Mind if I ask why?” Bella tried
to imagine what that would feel like, but she couldn’t.

A strange look came over Jenna’s
face—as though she had been threatened. “Because that’s the way we like it.” Her
tone was harsh.

There was an awkward silence in
the room as the women’s eyes met.

“So in other words,” Mack jumped in,
“if one of your crew were unhappily married that’s something you would know?”

“Yes, most definitely,” Jenna said
conclusively. “We are a happily married group.”

She placed her hands squarely in
her lap and straightened her back, as if that were that. The three of them
watched her push the hair out of her eyes and readjust her position on the
couch, farther away from Mack. Jenna was now disgruntled—she clearly hadn’t
enjoyed having her social proclivities questioned.

“We are simply trying to get an
idea of what you mean when you use words like ‘close’ and ‘crew.’ Those two
words can mean different things to different people. I am sure you understand.”
Mack smiled warmly at Jenna as he spoke, which seemed to relax her.

“So from what you have said it sounds
like you both knew the Freeds very well then indeed? Intimately even?” Mack
pressed on. Bella was impressed at his ability to soften Jenna and turn the
conversation in the direction he wanted it to go.

“Yes! OMG—Joslyn was like a
sister!”

Sister my ass, thought Bella. She
didn’t even know about her job.

“I saw in the portrait out front
that you have two daughters. Are they the same age as the Freed girls?” Mack
inquired of Doug.

Doug looked uncomfortable. He shifted
in his seat and crossed his arms in front of his chest. Jenna answered for him.

“Yes, Carly and our Jessie are
besties. Oh my god, they are like sisters. All of our daughters are. They
actually call themselves a cult.”

Doug’s cheeks flushed and Mack
looked taken aback.

“Whoa, that’s a pretty strong word,”
Mack laughed. “You see, there you go again, these labels can be kind of
confusing…”

“A cult?” Bella’s eyes widened.
She tried to stifle a laugh.

“Not literally a cult.” Jenna
giggled. “Oh my god, you didn’t think I meant, like, literally a cult? No, they
just say that to let others know how close they are, that’s all. As a
statement.”

“Lucky it worked out they are all
so close. Would have been messy if one of them didn’t get along, eh?” Bella
observed.

“For sure.” Jenna smiled. “Very
messy.”

Stephanie’s home was quite
different from Jenna’s. A large Tudor, it was nestled on a block of similar
houses, each on about one-third of an acre, surrounded by old oaks, green lawns,
and winding streets that looked as though they had been there forever.

A wide blue stone path lined with
low, cleanly cut evergreens led to the front entrance where a dolled-up woman
answered the door.

“I can’t believe you’re a
detective,” Stephanie exclaimed to Bella in a dramatically high, squeaky voice.
“Oh my god, that’s crazy!”

Stephanie was a slender, petite 5’
3”, with brown hair and brown eyes—well maintained yet too made up to look
truly pretty. She wore flip-flops with tissues in between her toes from the
morning pedicure she received to help her relax. Like Jenna, she wore Lululemon
workout clothes. Unlike Jenna, Stephanie stared at Bella with awe, seemingly
more taken with her than with Mack.

“So you’re not married, are you?” She
looked at Bella’s ringless hand. “I mean it would be hard, right, to be married
and do what you do? Or to have kids?” she added.

“I am happily single,” Bella
answered, caught off guard and displeased at the personal questions. Bella
caught Mack’s smile out of the corner of her eye. Stephanie saw it too.

“You must work with all men,
right?”

“I work with men and women,
Stephanie. All different kinds of people,” Bella said slowly.

Bella’s tone was firm; she wasn’t
smiling and her eyes pretty much said go to hell. But Stephanie didn’t take the
hint.

“I’ve never known a real detective,”
she continued. “I just don’t understand, though, like, why you would want to
surround yourself with such horrible people. Like, don’t you spend your days in
really scary places and deal with dangerous people all day?”

“I spend my days trying to solve
the murders of young girls and women and trying to put murderers behind bars,”
Bella responded bluntly.

“Exactly! That’s what I am saying!
Isn’t that, I don’t know, isn’t that so stressful?” Stephanie had a sympathetic
look on her face.

After meeting Jenna, Bella had
assumed it would only get better. She was shocked to see it hadn’t.

“Stress is part of life, no?”
Bella was irritated. “I love what I do.”

“I just could never be around
those kinds of people, ya know? So scary...” Stephanie trailed off as she ushered
them through her home toward the kitchen, where the three of them now stood at
an immense white marble island.

Despite her annoyance, Bella had taken
in the interior design of the home. Dark oak floors throughout contrasted well
against crisp ivory walls. Family photographs in delicate gold frames lined the
walls. The color scheme, pale blue and chocolate brown, was echoed in delicate
needlepoints adorning the foyer and living room. Thick white wooden box molding
covered the bottom half of the dining room walls below chocolate brown walls
above. The only other color in the house came from the fresh, pink azaleas in a
tiffany vase on the kitchen island.

“Someone’s gotta do it, right?” Mack
said disarmingly with a laugh, trying to come to Bella’s aid. He smiled, hoping
it would be the end of it. But it wasn’t.

“I know, but someone like her,” Stephanie
said to Mack. “She’s so young and pretty.”

Then she turned to look at Bella.

“You are really pretty. I would
think you wouldn’t want to spend your life like that. I mean, don’t you want a
family?” she asked, concerned.

Mack saw Bella’s cheeks flush and came
to her rescue by complimenting Stephanie’s home—her choice in furniture and
colors and, of course, the photos of her children. This did the trick. The
focus was finally off Bella. A few minutes later, Stephanie sat them on a white
linen upholstered window seat at a corner kitchen table and quieted down.

“White linen in the kitchen, huh?
You must have the world’s neatest kids,” Bella said.

“My kids eat at the island,” she
answered calmly. “No one really uses this table.”

“Really?” said Bella. “So dinner
time is short and sweet?”

“Dinner time?” Stephanie asked,
looking confused. “Yes, it is short and sweet. Very short, but not always very
sweet.”

She laughed at her own joke.

“The island is where the girls
grab and go,” she continued, unsolicited. “That is their main way of eating.
The dining room we only use when we have people over on holidays or big
birthdays. A few times a year.”

She was flushed with excitement at
having an audience interested in her family’s eating habits. You’d never know
she lost her best friend the night before.

“So that leaves you and your
husband,” Bella replied. “Where do the two of you eat mostly? So many choices.”

Stephanie thought this was funny
and giggled.

“He comes home late from work, at
like nine thirty, ten o’clock, and by then he has picked something up for
himself and I am done.”

“So you guys don’t eat together?”
Bella asked pointedly.

“Rarely,” she responded.

“Huh. I am sorry.” Bella couldn’t
resist this dig.

“For what?” Stephanie wondered.

Bella didn’t answer.

Stephanie simply shrugged.

“For such a big home it sounds
like you don’t use half of it,” Mack said with a phony laugh.

“We don’t!” Stephanie laughed back,
but hers was real. “Are you thirsty?”

Before they could answer, Stephanie
jumped up from the table, went to the large stainless steel refrigerator, and brought
out a glass pitcher of iced tea with lemons and basil leaves floating in it. She
poured the iced tea into three polka-dotted glass champagne flutes.

“Would you like some Splenda? Or
Equal? Or I have Sugar in the Raw,” Stephanie said, pointing to her sugar
holder.

“Good old sugar will do the
trick,” Mack answered. Ignoring him, she slid the choices over to where he sat.
Bella nodded to Mack that he should begin. She found herself needing a moment’s
respite.

He asked the same questions Bella
asked Jenna but Stephanie added nothing meaningful. She called Jos one of her “best
friends” for fifteen years. She claimed her husband Jack and Jamie were best
friends, as were their daughters. And, while she seemed sadder than Jenna when
she spoke of Joslyn, she was not sad enough for Bella’s liking.

“Did Joslyn seem OK to you? Last
night?”

“Yes, she seemed fine.”

“Did she mention her plan to go
down to that yacht?”

“No. Not at all! She was with us
all night!”

“Do you have any idea who she
would have been meeting on that yacht?”

“Oh my god, of course not!” she
replied.

“What time was it when you left
the club?” Bella asked.

“I don’t know exactly. Eleven
thirty-ish, I think?”

“Did you see Joslyn when you
left?”

“No. I didn’t.”

“When was the last time you
remember seeing her?” Mack asked.

“After the memorial speech Principal
Harding gave for two girls who recently died in our town. Jos was teary-eyed. We
all were. We were all in the restroom together. It was crowded and hot. We all
just wanted to go home. I said goodbye to her there and left.”

“Who is we all?”

“Me, Jenna, Kim, Jos...”

“Was Joslyn drunk?”

“A little tipsy, I guess. Not
much. Oh, I don’t know really. I was a bit woozy myself.”

“Did you see anything or anyone
strange that you can remember? Something that may have struck you as odd that
you didn’t give much thought to at the time?”

“No, nothing unusual at all. Just
a typical night out at the club,” Stephanie answered quietly.

“Nothing typical about that memorial
speech, huh?” Mack added.

Stephanie nodded.

“It was terrible. Vey upsetting. Those
poor girls’ mothers.”

“Was there anything going on in
her life recently upsetting Joslyn? Anything or anyone she was worried about?
Any problems at home? At work?” Mack asked.

“At work? Oh, you mean the
Gazette
?
No, I don’t think that was a particularly high-pressured job.” She giggled
nervously and pulled her hair behind her ears.

“At home?” Stephanie continued. “No.
I mean, what could she possibly have been upset about? Carly was accepted to
Vanderbilt early decision—by Christmas the nightmare of college applications
was behind them. She had won.”

A strange look suddenly crossed
her face.

“Who had won? Jos?” Bella asked.

“Yes. She had won. A coveted spot
at a top-tier school,” Stephanie replied quickly, but she seemed preoccupied.

“I am confused. We’re talking
about Jos or her daughter?” Bella asked, feeling naïve but not sure why.

“Well, Carly is the one who is
going, obviously, but it was Jos who won.”

Bella’s surprise at this answer was
palpable. She mulled over it a moment. Acceptance to college was considered a
win for the mother? Did that mean rejection was a blow to the mother as well? Stephanie
interrupted Bella’s thoughts.

“We were with them actually when
they got the news over Christmas break. In Mexico—our family, the Freeds, the
Jordans, and the Brennans. We were celebrating the girls’ last year of high
school at the resort Riviera de Maya.”

“The Jordans? Are you referring to
Jenna and Doug?” Mack remarked.

“Yes…” She trailed off. “We are
all best friends. Me, Jenna, Kim, and Jos.”

Bella and Mack glanced at one
another and Stephanie put her head in her hands.

“Oh my god,” she cried.

Maybe her friend’s death was just
now hitting her. Mack reached over to give her a tissue, but when she lifted
her head, he saw she had not shed a tear. She took the tissue and rested it in
her lap.

“Am I in danger?” she wailed out
of nowhere.

“There’s no reason to think so,
Stephanie.”

“But I can’t! I just can’t! It
just hit me that I too could be in danger!”

“Why would you be in danger,
Stephanie?” Bella asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be? How could this
have happened at the Yacht Club?” Stephanie wailed.

Bella didn’t know how to answer
that non- sequitor.

“OK, calm down,” Mack intervened,
calmly and smoothly. “No need to get upset.”

He said this sweetly and kept his
hand on her arm while he did. It seemed to do the trick. She smiled
appreciatively and quieted down.

“Did you see her last night with
her husband?” Bella asked impatiently.

Stephanie looked anxious all of a
sudden.

“No,” she replied.

“Were they happily married?” Bella
asked softly.

Stephanie looked surprised.

“Yes…I mean, I assume so,” she
answered, backtracking.

“You were one of her best friends,”
Bella pointed out.

“Yes, but some things are private,”
she replied, looking embarrassed.

“You spent more time with them
than anyone else, practically,” Bella pressed, with a smile. “And women know
these kinds of things. Just looking for your impression.”

Stephanie looked uncomfortable now.
Bella wondered why.

“Jamie is a lovely man and I am
sure he is heartbroken,” was all she said.

“I am sure he is,” Bella agreed. “I
noticed he doesn’t wear a wedding band,” Bella added with a smile. “Did you
ever notice that too?”

“No, I didn’t…well, yes, actually
now that you mention it, I did notice that, yes. But that’s quite common. A lot
of men I know don’t wear their wedding bands.”

“Really?” Bella asked, with
genuine surprise. “Why would that be?”

An image of Ryan wearing the
makeshift rope band she had given him as a joke popped into her head. He had
told her he would never take it off if that would make her happy. He had meant
it.

“I don’t know,” Stephanie
faltered.

“But it’s an important symbol, no?
Especially to other women?” Bella pressed.

Stephanie’s squinted her eyes and
seemed to be trying to read Bella’s meaning. Bella needed to repeat her
question.

“I guess. Jos was happy all the
time though, so…” She trailed off.

“All the time?” Bella replied. That
was exactly what Jamie had said. “That’s a pretty amazing feat.”

“Why is that so amazing?”

“I just don’t know many people who
are happy all the time,” Bella pointed out.

“Well, look at the people you hang
out with, Detective. Maybe that’s why.”

Wow. So this woman did have some
bite in her. Bella looked at Mack.

“Even the people I know who are
not behind bars are not happy all the time,” Mack laughed. He and Bella both
looked at Stephanie.

Stephanie carefully sipped her
iced tea and a basil leaf got stuck on her lip; she slowly peeled it off and
put it on a napkin beside her. She avoided their gaze.

“Did you by any chance know the
two girls who died? The two you mentioned before?” Mack asked out of the blue.
Bella was grateful for the question.

Stephanie’s mouth hung open.

“I did,” was all she said.

“Can you tell us anything about
them?” Mack continued.

Stephanie looked at him with
uncertainty in her eyes.

“They had been accepted to
Vanderbilt.”

“Like Carly?” he continued.

“Yes, but Carly wasn’t close with
them. They were softball girls.”

“OK…?” Bella let the question in
her voice be heard.

“You know…they joined the LGBT
club. That’s what my daughter Ashley told me. It was a big deal.” Her voice had
dropped to almost a whisper. She looked down at her feet and wiggled her toes.

“So they were gay?” Mack asked, sounding
surprised.

“That’s what Ashley said. That’s
what the rumor was. This year they were caught in the locker room together and
it became news. I mean, at school. They must have been more tormented by it
than anyone realized. That’s the only explanation—I mean nothing else makes
sense. I mean, they got a spot at Vanderbilt for god’s sakes. I mean who kills
themselves if they have the chance to go to Vanderbilt?”