“George?” Adrienne had returned from the rear of the apartment. “Sorry, I thought you’d gone to bed. These are—”
“We already met. I was explaining that Ramona is as shocked by all of this as anyone. I’m not sure she knows anything sufficiently useful to warrant the disruption that will come with having police officers talking to her tonight. Maybe tomorrow—”
“Not everything boils down to cost-benefit analysis, George.”
Mr. Langston forced the polite smile of a man who was used to quarreling in public. And his wife offered what was probably a common apology for the display of conflict. “Sorry, Detectives. It’s been a rough day—obviously for the poor Whitmires, but for our family, too. There were years when Julia literally spent more nights here than at her own home. I think Ramona would very much like to speak with you.”
“Adrienne—”
He was cut off again by his wife. “She needs to feel like she’s helping. I was a teenage girl once. Trust me, George. Please.”
When George drifted from the room—no more relevant than he’d been before entering—Ellie knew which parent was calling the shots.
So did Rogan, who was already out of his chair. “So, where can we find your daughter, Mrs. Langston?”
They found Ramona Langston lying on her bed listening to her iPod, a mangled ball of tissues covering her eyes.
Despite the earbuds and Kleenex, she sensed their presence and sat up abruptly. She wasn’t what Ellie expected. Black makeup smeared both of the girl’s round cheeks. Her thick, spiky hair was flattened against her head on one side from lying on the bed. Ellie was starting to wonder whether two families had mixed the pieces of their family puzzles together. Uptight George Langston belonged with Katherine Whitmire in the townhouse full of antiques, while this girl and her mother, Adrienne, would be happier with a rock producer like Bill Whitmire.
“My mom said you’re with the police. Was Katherine right? Julia didn’t do this to herself?”
Ellie had wondered whether the girl’s bedroom would be suitable for an interview, but she’d been picturing a room like her own, with barely enough space for a queen-size bed and a dresser. Ramona Langston’s room was more like a studio apartment. She and Rogan settled next to each other on a sofa next to a full-length mirror and dressing table.
Rogan spoke first. “It sounds like your friend’s mother has already shared her concerns with you. Do you have any thoughts about that?” They’d been partners for more than a year, but Ellie was still surprised every time he transformed his voice for certain witnesses, setting aside his usual gruff bark in favor of a sweet, warm, vocal maple syrup.
Ramona shrugged. “Thoughts? I mean, yeah, I’ve been thinking about it ever since I heard, but I didn’t realize the police were actually investigating or anything. I just assumed Katherine was believing what she wanted to believe.”
Ellie was liking this girl more and more by the second. “Why did you assume that?”
“If Julia did this, that means she was in horrible, terrible pain, and felt so alone and so isolated that she would rather end it all than reach out to someone, even her mom. It means Julia was willing to hurt her mother this way.”
And her best friend, Ellie wanted to add. In her father’s case, it was a wife and two young children who had been left behind. Ellie had spent her entire life wondering which was worse: If her father had been murdered by the serial killer he spent his entire career hunting, or if he hated himself so much for failing to find the man, that he was willing to end his life before seeing his own children grow up? And then, two years ago, the Wichita Police had finally identified William Summer as the College Hill Strangler. Summer had had an ironclad alibi for the night Detective Jerry Hatcher was found at the wheel of his car, killed by his own service weapon. The truth about his death had come twenty years too late for his family.
“Do you think Julia might just do something like that?” Ellie asked.
“Honestly? I could see her doing something dramatic like swallowing half a bottle of aspirin to get her parents to pay her some fu—to pay attention to her. But Katherine said she, you know—” She made a slicing gesture across her left wrist.
“She cut her wrist,” Rogan said. “That’s correct.”
“It’s hard to imagine. I talked to her Friday night and she seemed fine. We were supposed to hang out with Casey today, but she never showed up. Now we know why.”
“Who’s Casey?” Rogan asked. “A boyfriend?”
“No, just a friend. More my friend, I guess, but Julia’s, too. He just left a few minutes ago.”
“Where’d you see Julia Friday night?”
“It was just a phone call. Well, texting at first, but then the phone.”
“How did she seem?”
“Normal. Jesus, looking back on it, I did all the talking. Me, me, me. I was such a head case, maybe she didn’t want to burden me? Maybe if I’d stopped and asked how she was?”
Rogan was still using his sweet voice. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Ramona. We still don’t know she did this to herself. In fact, let’s assume she didn’t. That leaves one other explanation—someone else did it. And there’s two different ways that possibility might play out—it could be someone Julia knew, or a stranger. Let me be blunt. The Whitmires must have a million dollars’ worth of jewelry and art in that townhouse, and yet nothing was missing. Detective Hatcher and I work a lot of cases, and, over time, you develop a feel for these things.”
“You think she knew whoever killed her?”
Rogan was only ten years older than Ellie, but sometimes the years mattered. Had he forgotten how quickly high school students could, as he’d put it, get ahead of themselves? An hour from now, the Casden rumor mill would have Julia Whitmire the victim of an ax-wielding serial killer hunting down the prep school crowd.
“All I’m saying is that if she didn’t do it, it’s unlikely this was a random crime. Strangers don’t get inside townhouses without forcing entry, they don’t fake suicides, and they don’t leave behind that kind of treasure. So what we need from you right now, Ramona, is total honesty. Your instinct right now is to remember the very best traits in your friend. You’re going to want to talk about her in a way that highlights what a wonderful girl she was. But those aren’t the kinds of details that might help us know the truth.”
“What do you need to know?”
“Everything.”
“I don’t know—”
“Don’t tell us what you want us to hear about Julia,” Ellie said. “Tell us what you think we really need to know. Can you do that for us? For Julia?”
Ramona had tears in her eyes when she nodded.
“So what did you and Julia talk about on Friday?”
“It’s dumb, looking back on it. I was freaking out about my mom and called Julia for advice. And none of it has anything to do with what happened to Julia, obviously, but I keep thinking that I should have talked less about me. I mean, it’s stupid, but I was wondering whether my mother would be acting differently if she were really my biological mother. Because technically she’s my stepmother. My mom died when I was a baby, but, whatever—yeah, she’s basically my mom. And Julia got all serious, saying that it didn’t matter whether my mom and I were related by blood or not. That she was the best mom in the world. That she’d been more of a mother even to Julia than her own mom. That kind of thing. Maybe she was depressed. What if I had called her to talk about boys and crushes and stupid stuff instead of complaining about my relationship with my mother? What if I set her off or something?”