“We assure you,” Ellie said, “that our questions about the blog are related to the death of Julia Whitmire. I think your question is intended to protect your privacy.”
“I value privacy a great deal.” Adrienne was adjusting the floral arrangement on the foyer’s center table, even though every last stem was meticulously placed.
“Is that why the blog was supposed to be anonymous?” Ellie asked.
“It’s sort of a contradiction, isn’t it?” Adrienne said. “A person claiming to want privacy, while placing every last personal detail on the Internet for every prying eye to see?”
“My father died under horrible circumstances when I was little. All my life I wanted the details of his death to remain private. But two years ago, I found myself in the media spotlight, sharing all of these stories I never wanted to talk about. I did it to help my mother get access to my dad’s pension—it’s a long story—but I have to admit that the process of unloading all of that onto a curious public was strangely healing. If I could have done it anonymously, as with a blog—well, I can see the appeal of that.”
Ellie truly did value privacy. She hated every second of those ridiculous interviews. But, despite what she said to Adrienne, she did not understand people who blogged, Facebooked, and Tweetered (or whatever) their every irrelevant moment. She did not enjoy hauling out her own drama, even for the sake of getting a witness to trust her. Luckily, the trumped-up common ground did the trick.
Adrienne invited them into the living room, gesturing toward an oversize floral-print sofa. Ellie felt herself sink into the plush down cushions.
“I suppose there’s no point in denying the blog is mine,” Adrienne said, claiming a spot on the rocking chair next to them, then tucking one foot beneath her. “You are the police, after all. All these years, I thought I’d put my childhood behind me.”
“So why did you decide to write about this now?” Ellie asked.
She wrinkled her face in confusion as she considered the question, obviously not for the first time. “Who really knows why we do any of the things we do. But my best guess? I look at Ramona. She’s the same age now as I was when I finally told my mother I was being raped.” She used the word without any hesitation or discomfort. “I remember, at the time, forcing myself to understand why my mother didn’t want to believe me when I went to her. She didn’t want to be alone again. My dad left before I was born. She was poor. She was forty years old but looked sixty. Men weren’t exactly pounding on her door.”
“But you were her daughter.” Ellie felt strange talking to this woman about something so personal, when she’d already read the details on her blog.
“Exactly. And when I was a teenager, I really did try not to hate her. I made all kinds of excuses. And it wasn’t hard, you know, because boys were my first consideration, too, at the time. And I wanted to love my mother. But now?”
“You’re not a teenager anymore,” Rogan said.
“Exactly. When you’re a kid, it’s like you don’t have enough experience to gauge how wrong your situation is. It’s not until you grow up that you can truly and honestly evaluate just how off something was when you were a child. I knew enough to understand that my mother’s boyfriend should not have come to me at night the way he did. But I would have also known it was wrong for him to borrow a CD without my permission. It was like I somehow convinced myself they were close to the same level of offense, so I was able to forgive my mother for not reacting more strongly. And, ultimately, I still forgive her, because I know that in some way, it was that same man who made her weak. But, wow, I see my Ramona. If any man ever touched her like that, I’d kill him.”
“And you never spoke to Ramona about the abuse?” Ellie asked.
Adrienne shook her head quietly. “That part of my life is over. I write about it as a way to rid myself of those events, but I don’t want my family to see me as that person. I need it to be separate. Wait, if this has something to do with Julia—does Ramona know about my writing?”
Ellie broke the news that the woman had started to piece together on her own. “She found your blog. She saw the threats, too. She called us because she’s afraid for you.”
“I guess I’ll need to talk to her about it now. And, of course, George.”
“You never told your husband?” Ellie had met George Langford and had filed him away mentally as Mister-Stick-Up-His-Ass, but she still couldn’t imagine marrying someone without telling him something so important. “Not that it’s my business.”
“You’re right. It’s not your business. What does any of this have to do with Julia?”
“Would you say that you knew Julia well?” Rogan asked, still with the military voice.
“Very. She and Ramona were practically joined at the hip since they were in the fifth grade. Slumber parties. Late-night cookie baking. They got their ears pierced together, way too early if you ask me, but that’s another story. Future maids of honor for each other would have been my guess. Ramona—well, I don’t know what she’s going to do without Julia.”
“And everything was okay between them?” Ellie asked.
“Two peas in a pod.”
“And what about Julia’s feelings toward you?”
Adrienne was clearly perplexed by the question. “Me? Oh, I don’t know. I liked Julia. Very much, actually. I felt bad for her. Her parents—well, you met them. You probably gathered that parenting was not their top priority. Sometimes I wished she would just stay with us instead of being downtown in that museum, all by herself. But her feelings about me? I’d like to think that she liked me. And respected me. And recognized that I cared about her. But my guess is that, like all children, she just saw me as the woman who happened to be around Ramona’s house every now and then.” She smiled sadly.
“When we were talking about your blog, you didn’t mention that someone had been posting threatening remarks in the comments.”
“Oh, those drive me crazy.” Adrienne waved a hand as if the remarks were nothing to worry about, but Ellie noticed she was rocking in her chair more aggressively. “I thought about deleting them, but then I figured, if some crazy person wants to attack me, I’ll let my readers see it for what it is. Speaking the ugly truth is a sacrifice. There are people who think survivors should all shut up and keep it to themselves. And that’s why it’s all the more important for survivors to have their voices be heard.”
“Don’t you wonder who’s posting the comments?”
“Of course I do. But I’ve read enough in the newspaper to know I really can’t do anything about it. Words are only words, right?”
Her impression of the law was accurate. If Adrienne had called the police about the threats on her blog, her call would have been transferred to ten different departments until someone finally explained to her that problems of jurisdiction, anonymity, freedom of speech, and antiquated penal laws all conspired to leave only one option: suck it up.
It was time to drop the other shoe. “We have uncovered evidence that Julia Whitmire posted one of those comments.”
Adrienne’s face was initially unchanged, but then the truth must have registered. She looked like she’d been slapped.
“I don’t understand. How can you know that? Julia’s dead.”
Ellie gave her the truncated, nontechnical version of the information they’d pulled from Julia’s laptop. She left out the part where they wouldn’t be a hundred percent certain until Max subpoenaed the Internet protocol addresses from the blog’s hosting site. She had called Max before leaving for the Upper East Side, and he was working on it at that very minute. But Ellie knew what she knew, even without the records. The timing revealed by Julia’s Internet history was good enough evidence for now.