“So you’re fully on board with this, too?” This time it was clear Tucker’s question was aimed directly at Ellie.
“I’m doing the work, yes.”
“Wonderful. Your enthusiasm is inspiring.”
“Look, I could lie if you want me to. The only thing that matters is I agree we jumped the gun yesterday. I regret it, and I want to make it right. But, no, I don’t happen to think she was murdered, and I know for damn sure that no one would be complaining about us jumping the gun if we had the same exact facts with some poor kid dead in a tub in the projects. Regardless, I promise I’m working to get at the truth just as hard as if my instincts told me something different.”
“Given the personal histories involved here, maybe your instincts are off on this one.”
Ellie let out a frustrated laugh. “Very subtle.”
Rogan rapped his knuckles against the desktop. “Hate to cut into your heart-to-heart, but maybe it’s a good idea for us to get back to business.”
Ellie was grateful for the segue. “We need to go to the Casden School and see these kids in person,” she said, rising from her chair.
The announcement served to appease Tucker, who walked back to her office without further comment.
“You’re on your own,” Rogan said once Tucker was gone. “Testimony in the Washington case today, remember?” He snuck a glance at his TAG Heuer watch. “Shit. I got to move. Thirty minutes.”
She remembered the Washington case. First name: Thelma. The defendant was the grandson she’d raised from the second grade. Just like his mother, thirty years earlier, he’d been ransacking the house for drug money when Thelma walked in and confronted him. Unlike his mother—who had simply walked away, leaving her seven-year-old son behind—he had strangled Thelma Washington to death and then sat on the porch until the police came, after, of course, getting in one last high.
Today was the day for a pretrial motion to suppress the defendant’s confession. It was a slam dunk for the state, but in a murder case, a good defense attorney dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s. Either she or Rogan could give the necessary testimony for the prosecution, but there had never been any question that the Washington case—although assigned to both of them—was really Rogan’s. She suspected it had something to do with Rogan’s close relationships with his mother, grandmother, great aunt, and lord knows how many other Rogan women when they’d still been living.
Sometimes a case got into your blood and between your synapses and ignited a passion. Some cases brought out the warrior.
“You want to wait for me?” Rogan asked. “Or you want to go solo for a couple of hours?”
“I’ll go up to the school while you’re in court. Call me when you clear up.”
Julia may not have been murdered, but she was still a person whose screwed-up life had ended unnecessarily, and that ending had brought her to Ellie. The least Ellie could do was to find out what had been the girl’s last straw. She needed to start caring.
Chapter Sixteen
Ellie grew up being told by her mother that she and Jess were lucky to be in one of the city’s “good schools.” The term had little to do with academic standards or curricular content. In segregated Wichita, “good schools” was code, conveying the same message as “good neighborhoods” or “good people.”
The Casden School was an entirely different story. Casden was a “day school.” Until she’d moved to New York, Ellie would have thought the term redundant since she’d never heard of a night school for kids. But now she understood that day schools were in contrast to boarding schools. This particular day school was arguably the most elite coed program in the city. Its Wikipedia entry boasted that for ten years straight the small school had representation in every single Ivy League university’s entering freshman class.
As she followed the directions she had received to the offices of the headmistress, Ellie took in the photographs of alumni that lined the school’s ornately carved stone hallways. She’d already passed the headshots of three senators, two Supreme Court justices, and a vice president. A surgeon who conducted the first heart transplant. The first female CEO of a Fortune 500 company. The editor in chief of Time magazine.
It was a “good school” indeed.
Ellie arrived at the headmistress’s office with certain expectations. She had expected absolute silence in the waiting area, a woman with a tight black bun who talked like Mary Poppins, and an extended song and dance about student privacy and the importance of parental consent for any encounters with outsiders.
As it turned out, Ellie didn’t know much about headmistresses.
She entered the administrative suite to find several adults clustered in the doorway between the secretary’s desk and the headmistress’s office. She heard a voice from inside the door. We have a grief counselor in the student lounge, though this really isn’t a school matter.
Ellie peered around the impressively coiffed hair of one of the concerned parents to get a glimpse at Headmistress Margaret Carter. No Mary Poppins accent. No hair bun in sight. A bit of a song and dance about privacy. Our understanding is that even the police do not have a full understanding of what occurred, but whatever did happen took place off campus and is a private matter for the student’s family. Please, I recognize your children are upset, but this has nothing to do with Casden.
Ellie listened to the exchanges of complaints as the parents shuffled out of the suite. “If the girl went to Casden, then it’s the school’s business, which means it’s our business.” “I hear Julia Whitmire left a note. Does anyone know what it said?” “If that woman thinks we’re just going to ignore this, she’ll be out of a job by finals.” “This is the second time this semester. How can she expect us to simply ignore something like that?”
After the crowd of parents had cleared out, Ellie ventured into the headmistress’s office and identified herself.
“I apologize for the disarray. I’m Margaret Carter, the headmistress here. I’m afraid the rumor mill has a life of its own. My phone has been ringing off the hook with worried parents.”
“What was the gist of the rumors?”
“I know the official cause of death has not been revealed, but all the kids are saying there was a suicide note. They’re saying she popped a bottle of pills and slit her wrists in the bathtub.”
The pills were a dramatic embellishment, but someone had obviously heard at least some of the critical facts.
“I’m hoping to speak to some of Julia’s friends. They’d be in the best position to know her state of mind in recent weeks.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you, Detective. Our students are minors. If you want to contact them off school premises, you can do so during nonschool hours, at their homes, and presumably with the consent of their parents. As of now, they are minor children on private premises. And I’d prefer you obtain a warrant if you want to go beyond any routine conversation with yours truly.”
“How about Julia’s friend, Ramona Langston? Her mother—or stepmother—Adrienne, said it would be all right. You can call her if necessary.” Ellie had no need to speak to Ramona again, but she wanted to test the headmistress’s commitment to stonewalling.
“You must be mistaken, Detective. Ramona’s at home today.” Carter reached a manicured fingernail to a button on her phone. A woman’s voice came through the speaker. “Yes?” “Heidi, can you please check the attendance records to see who contacted us this morning about Ramona Langston’s absence today?”
“No need, ma’am. I took the call myself. That’s how I heard about what happened to Julia. Ramona’s mother called and said Ramona was too upset to come to school today.”