“You mean Edmond?”
“I don’t know the boy’s name. Apparently Mr. Davis had to get a restraining order against him?”
“Yeah, that was Edmond Bertrand,” Suzanne explained. “Just about the scariest boy a group of us girls could have imagined back then. Of course, that was before we realized how much worse people could be.”
“What exactly was the problem with Edmond?”
“A lot of what I know about the beginning is kind of secondhand. Amy and I really weren’t all that close around then. I suspect she and her friends thought I was a bore. Whatever happened, though, I do remember how obsessed Edmond got over her.”
“So they were high school sweethearts or something?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. It was a short-lived thing. He was sort of an outcast – the kind of weird kid who only has one friend, you know? Kind of sad. Amy – well, I don’t feel right saying something bad about her. It was so long ago and now she’s gone.”
“Her mom said something about him changing a grade for her?” Ellie prompted.
“Well, that was what I heard. She used him, to be frank. Everyone at school knew something wasn’t quite right with him. He wasn’t slow enough to be in the special classes with the short school bus, but, still, something was off. He lived in one of those group homes or something. But everyone knew how bad Amy wanted to get into one of those elite colleges she was always talking about, and he started bragging about how he knew how to change grades. Amy saw a way to take care of that C in Mr. Gribble’s bio class.”
“I don’t suppose you know whether it involved hacking into the school computers, did it?”
“Well, that’s what Edmond said he did.”
Ellie felt the beginnings of an adrenaline high. Whoever they were looking for had better-than-average computer skills.
“To tell you the truth,” Suzanne went on, “the rest of us figured it was all talk. But the next thing you know, the rumor is Amy’s letting him cop a feel behind the school fence.”
“I gather it didn’t last?”
“Only until she got her college acceptance letters. She blew him off, then started complaining around town that he wouldn’t leave her alone. At first we all felt sort of sorry for him, like she kind of brought it on herself, but then he crossed this line. It was like he was trying to possess her somehow – like if she wasn’t going to be with him, then he wasn’t going to let her move on.”
“And this continued even when she left for Colby?”
“Um, yeah, I think so. They pressed charges at one point. I think he got, like, thirty days in jail. I’m sorry. I know you’re trying to be thorough, but what does any of this have to do with what happened in New York?”
“Probably nothing,” Ellie said, trying to keep her voice even, but knowing in her gut she could be on the right track. In a boy who was already unstable, seduction followed by rejection and a jail sentence could be a motive to kill, even years later. The question was whether Edmond Bertrand was unstable enough to take out a few extra people to cover his trail. “We’re just trying to make sure. There have been cases where people carry grudges for decades then reappear out of nowhere.”
“I don’t think this is one of those cases. Evelyn and Hampton didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?” Ellie asked.
“Edmond Bertrand is dead. He overdosed on heroin. I was probably a junior in college by then. I heard about it at LSU.”
Ellie looked at all the notes she’d just taken and ran a giant, frustrated scribble across them all. “No, I didn’t realize. They mentioned that things got worse after Bertrand’s arrest but-”
“They got weird is what they got. Amy always wondered if he would’ve been using drugs at all if it weren’t for her. We tried telling her it wasn’t her fault. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. He’s been dead for ten years.”
“I didn’t realize. I’m sorry to waste your time,” Ellie said.
“I’m sorry if you wasted yours. You don’t know who did this to her, do you?”
Ellie wished she could offer another answer to the question but could think of only one honest response. “Not yet.”
20
HE LEFT WORK A LITTLE EARLY. HE WANTED TO SEE MEGAN WHEN she emerged from her building. He wondered if watching her – getting to know the life he would eventually take from her – would be as enjoyable as it had been with Amy Davis. Amy had been special. He had taken his time setting up every last detail. It had paid off too. The plan played out without a hitch.
With Megan, everything was different. He had nothing against her personally. Not yet. At least not consciously. But following her, tracking her, secretly becoming a part of her life – it could still be fun. He was surprised at how eager he was to experience his own reaction.
He sat at the front counter of the Starbucks on Forty-sixth, sipping an Oregon chai tea, monitoring the two revolving doors of the office building across the street now ridiculously named the Avenue of the Americas. He had seen seven pictures of Megan by now. The most recent involved little more than a sheer white negligee. Still, this would be his first look at her in person – in the flesh, so to speak. He wasn’t certain he would recognize her.
But precisely six minutes and ninety-eight departing employees later, there she was. She pushed her way awkwardly through the door, carrying an overstuffed canvas book tote and a Macy’s shopping bag. So much for her claim of being low maintenance, the rare woman who despised shopping.
That was not the only penchant for consumption she had lied about. The photographs she sent, even the racy one, had all been conveniently cropped beneath her ample chest. There had been one full-length shot, but two rug rats – a niece and nephew, she claimed – obscured her lower body. Watching her plod away from her building, he smiled slightly. Sure enough, she was a chubster. The only “athletic” frame she could legitimately avow belonged in a sumo ring. So predictable. So typical. Such a manipulative little liar.
Over the years he had learned that everyone lied – not just to others, but to themselves. They convinced themselves that they were good and motivated by decency. They assuaged their own guilt by conjuring excuses for their self-interested actions. Megan, no doubt, persuaded herself that all of her self-indulgences were justified. He could just picture her fat face saying, “I deserve it,” as she shoveled in another piece of chocolate cheesecake.
That’s how it was with the average person. They were dishonest and stupid, each trait feeding the other. Only a stupid person could believe the lies most people tell themselves. Only a blissfully ignorant person could be so stupid. He, on the other hand, was different. He was honest – at least with himself – and was definitely not stupid.
Megan had a not unpleasant face, with round, pink cheeks and cheerful hazel eyes – at least she described them as hazel on FirstDate – and framed by bouncy brown curls. She reminded him of a Campbell’s soup kid. Or maybe one of those annoying Cabbage Patch dolls the spoiled girls collected when he was a kid.
His heart rate picked up slightly as he walked outside and adopted a pace about half a block behind her. This would be the fun part. Spying online was one thing, but he had learned with Amy that he enjoyed the live version even more.
Early on, he decided that the next victim would have to be a woman who contacted him. That way, the initial step was actually hers. He was just playing along. He had two other rules as well. Somewhere in the communications, he’d tip her off. He would give her a reason to be cautious. And third, if she ever told him to leave her alone, he would. It was that simple. He was empowering her to leave herself out of his game, if that’s what she chose.