Somebody I Used to Know (7 page)

“You’re not close to being off the hook,” he said, looking down at the phone again, acting coy. “It takes time to get those results. And maybe the killer wore gloves. Or wiped the place down.”

“So what’s tonight’s visit about?” I asked.

He looked up at me again. “We’ve checked Emily Russell out. Background, criminal record, school stuff. All of that. The Lexington police are talking to her roommates and friends. I may take a trip down there in a few days to ask around. And you know what stands out about Emily Russell?”

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all. Good grades. She was an honors student. Wanted to be a pharmacist. She’d never been in trouble with the police. Not even a traffic ticket. She went to church on Sundays, volunteered at a senior center, returned her library books on time. The model kid.”

“Is she related to the Minors?” I asked.

So much for turning the page. But if Detective Reece was going to show up at my house asking questions about Emily Russell, I was going to ask questions of my own.

“Not that I can see,” he said, “and that’s not really relevant to me. But I do want to know this about her. Why does this perfect kid who’s never done anything weird or crazy in her life suddenly decide to get in her car, drive one hundred and fifty miles north to a town where she doesn’t know anybody, not tell anybody where she’s going, check into a cheap hotel under another name and pay cash for the room, and then end up dead with your name and address in her pocket? Why does that happen?”

“What name did she register under?” I asked.

“Ann Smith. Not a very creative spy.”

I leaned back in my chair. “I don’t know why she’d do all those things, but it seems like she was looking for me.”

“Does it, now?” Reece said, his voice full of sarcasm. He turned the phone around toward me and tapped the screen. “Look at this.”

I studied the little document on the small display. It was a photo of a piece of paper, and on the piece of paper were written my name and address.

“Do you recognize that handwriting?” he asked.

I studied the image. The penmanship looked feminine, full of large loops and swirls. “I don’t.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Should I recognize it?”

“I don’t know.” Reece took the phone back and slipped it into his pocket. “But I do know one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“We showed this to Emily’s parents, and it isn’t the girl’s handwriting,” he said. “Someone
gave
her your address.”

CHAPTER TEN

R
eece left after thirty minutes, but not before repeating his request—
demand?
—that I not leave Eastland without checking with him. He also reminded me again that the DNA results would be coming back from the lab soon.

“Do I need a lawyer?” I asked him.

“You’re entitled to one,” he told me.

“Am I a suspect?”

“Let’s just say we’re keeping our options open.”

When he was gone, I looked over at Riley, who thumped his tail against the floor and then yawned.

“Shit,” I said.

*   *   *

I needed help.

Laurel Davidson went to Eastland with all of us, although she didn’t know Marissa as well as I did. Laurel and I were both philosophy majors, so we took a lot of classes together, and then she stayed in town after college and began her career as a police officer before going to work in corporate security for a statewide chain of convenience stores based in Eastland. Every time an employee skimmed from the register or absconded with a bank deposit, Laurel drove to that location and had a sit-down with the pathetic thief. Something about her feminine toughness and lightning-fast intellect always got the perpetrator to confess.

Just before ten a.m., I met her at her office, which was off the square downtown. She kept her hair short and always wore two-piece gray business suits—jackets and pants, not skirts. I never asked, but I had the feeling she carried a gun with her everywhere she went.

When we sat down across from each other, I noticed lines at the corners of her eyes, which were a striking shade of light blue. Laurel ran at least one marathon a year, and spent vacations with her family—her husband, Tony, and two kids—hiking or camping or biking in some far-flung region of the country.

“It’s been a month,” she said. “We used to see you every week. Dinners. Drinks.” She put on a mock frown. “You don’t call. You don’t write. We miss you, Nick.”

“I’m working a lot.”

“Aren’t we all?” She rolled her eyes. “That’s why we’re both millionaires.”

“Yeah,” I said, “social work pays really well. And then the government cuts the budget, so we get spread thin. And there are more people struggling than ever.”

“And you love every minute of it, don’t you?” she asked.

“‘Love’ is a strong word,” I said. “But I like helping people.”

“I know. And I know you’re good at it.”

“I do see Tony at basketball,” I said. “You should come to a game. Or come out for a drink afterward. It’s all guys. They’d love to have a woman around.”

“I bet. Or maybe I could just enjoy the time alone.” She smiled. “Okay, what’s up?”

“Have you been following this Emily Russell murder?” I asked.

Recognition spread across her face. “The girl who was murdered in the motel? Sure.”

“You’ve seen her picture?”

“It was in the paper,” she said.

“Did she look familiar to you?” I asked.

Laurel stood up. She went over to her desk and dug around in a stack until she pulled out a newspaper. She unfolded it and came back to her chair, studying something on the front page while she walked, her movements brisk and efficient.

“Mmm. I see it now. You think this girl looks like Marissa, right?”

Relief passed through me. “Exactly. I’m not crazy, am I?”

“No, there’s a resemblance. Same coloring. Same face shape. Did someone say you were crazy for thinking they looked alike?”

“Heather Aubrey.”

Laurel made a noise like
pffft
. “You can’t trust her. She hated Marissa.”

“Secretly she might have.”

“Exactly. And she never got over you.” Laurel tossed the paper onto her desk. “Heather? Marissa? Are you here to go down memory lane, Nick?”

I told her about the encounter in the grocery store with Emily. And the note in her pocket. As I explained it all, Laurel’s face grew more serious, and she tilted her head toward me. A couple of times she stopped me and asked me to back up and repeat things I’d already said. When I was finished, she leaned back in her chair, taking it all in for a moment.

“Crap,” she said finally. “That’s bizarre.”

“I know.”

“And you
let
them fingerprint you and take the cheek swab?” she asked.

I heard the disdain in her voice. It said I trusted the police too much. “I wasn’t in that motel room, Laurel. There’s nothing to find.”

She raised her eyebrows. “What’s that little three-word expression? ‘Famous last words.’”

“It’s not that bad,” I said. “I told the cops everything I knew.”

“You need a lawyer,” she said. “No way you’re going into this without help.” She stood up and went over to her desk. She scrolled through her phone, then forwarded something to me, making my phone chime. “Call him when you leave,” she said, coming back. “He’s good. I trust him. You should too, or you’ll be up a creek.”

I read the name on the screen.
Mick Brosius.
I slid the phone back into my pocket. “Thanks.”

Laurel thought things over some more. “I get that it’s weird, that seeing this girl who looks like Marissa threw you for a loop. Especially since you’ve always been so hung up on her. And then she ends up dead.
And
the girl has your name in her pocket.”

“See? It’s weird,” I said.

“Weird, yes. But maybe she had your name for a perfectly benign reason,” she said. “Maybe you helped her grandmother with housing, and she wanted to thank you. Did you ever think of that?”

“I did. I searched all my records, and her name didn’t come up. There were people with the last name Russell, but how could I tell if they were related? And her family is from Richmond, Kentucky.”

“And her grandmother or another relative wouldn’t necessarily have the same name as Emily. Right? Maybe it’s her great-aunt or just a family friend you helped. If that’s even what’s going on.”

Neither one of us said anything for a moment. The phone on Laurel’s desk rang, but she ignored it. I had to hand it to her—she’d always been a good friend. Loyal, supportive. When Marissa died, she sat with me for long hours. Talking. Listening.

“Why don’t you let the police have a little more time on this?” she said. “They know what they’re doing. Something will turn up.”

“But what if . . .” I wasn’t sure I could say it. I tried again. “I keep thinking about something.”

“What?” she asked.

“What if that girl, Emily, what if she really is related to Marissa? What if she’s Marissa’s daughter?”

“Her daughter?” she asked, the look on her face telling me I sounded crazy.

“What if . . . what if . . .” I was floundering, trying to get my thoughts together.

Laurel reached over and picked up the newspaper again. She scanned the article while I continued to try to speak. “Nick,” Laurel said. “Marissa died in October of 1993, right? And here we sit in March of 2014, right? And the article says Emily Russell was twenty. She’s twenty now. Are you saying Marissa gave birth to a baby one year
after
she died?”

But I hadn’t heard her. Or I hadn’t entirely paid attention to her. Because I kept going. I kept saying things that I felt but that didn’t really make any sense. I couldn’t stop myself.

“I keep thinking . . . what if Marissa was pregnant when she broke up with me? And what if that baby . . . what if Emily, is really mine? What if she’s my daughter?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

L
aurel tried to keep the shock off her face, but despite her efforts, her jaw dropped. “Honey, what’s going on with you and your stepson, Andrew?” she asked me.

“No progress,” I said. “I can’t really see him. But you haven’t answered my question.”

“I
am
answering your question.” She sounded calm, teacherly, and her voice was soothing as she laid out the facts. “You have some holes in your life, holes that are crying out to be filled. You’re single. You see a girl who reminds you of the love of your life, and you go a little crazy in the head.”

“You really think Marissa was the love of my life?” I asked.

“Don’t you?”

“I do. I guess I always have, even when I was married to Gina. But you know how that is. People think two twenty-year-olds couldn’t possibly be in love or know they belong together. I’ve wondered that myself. Am I just hung up on that time in my life? The freshness. The freedom. How beautiful Marissa was. How hungry we were for each other.”

“I believe it’s possible for young people to fall in love that way, but only you can know for sure. Gina’s great. I really liked her. But I didn’t get the feeling the two of you were . . . meant for each other, I guess. It felt like a nice marriage between two good people. But nothing that was destined in the stars.”

“That sounds about right.” I sighed. “You met my dad a few times, didn’t you?”

“Sure. Good old Henry.”

“Indeed. When he was dying, I mean when he was really at the end, I went to see him in hospice. He could barely talk. I was married to Gina at the time, but it wasn’t going great. No one knew that, only Gina and I. I sat there in hospice, holding the old man’s hand, and he opened his eyes and he looked at me. He said, ‘You know something, Nicky . . .’ He hadn’t called me Nicky since I was about six.”

“Cute.”

“Don’t get any ideas.” I felt sad at the memory of my dad. His hand in mine, his big, strong hand, the life fading away. “He said, ‘You know how you can tell if you’re meant to be with someone? If you don’t know anyone better than the person you’re with. Or if you can’t even imagine anyone better than the person you’re with.’ Then he closed his eyes again. He and I never talked about marriage or women or love. We had never talked about anything personal. Never. He just came out with that out of the blue.”

“It was on his mind,” Laurel said.

“Yeah. It’s funny. I never really thought my parents were in love, but I do know one thing. They know
us
better than we realize they do.”

“True,” Laurel said. “So how did you answer your dad’s question? Who did you imagine?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Marissa every time. Even when I was married to Gina. Even now.”

“So there you go,” Laurel said. “Maybe you
can
know when you’re twenty. I met Tony when I was twenty-five. That’s not much older, and I knew right away. Your dad was a wise man.”

“He was.”

“Look, you’ve been through a divorce,” she said. “You’re middle-aged. You’ve found yourself in the middle of your life, lost in a dark forest.”

“You’re really quoting Dante to me?” I asked.

“That’s what college taught us. The humanities, remember?”

“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” I asked.

“It happens,” she said. “We all lose our way sometimes.”

“You don’t seem to,” I said. “Ever.”

“Do you remember sophomore year of college when I had that perm?”

I pictured it. Laurel’s hair had looked ridiculous, even though beneath the artificial curls she had remained pretty. We all were beautiful then. We were young. “Okay,” I said. “Fair enough.”

“And you’ve lost that kid,” she said. “Andrew. He was like a son to you. Hell, forget that. He
was
your son, right? You felt like he was your own?”

“I did. I don’t know any other way to think of it.”

“So you have this one chance encounter in a grocery store, and it brings all these memories back up. Beautiful memories. Painful memories. What if I
were
with Marissa? What if
we’d
had a kid together? It’s brutal to think about it, Nick.”