I take the paper he holds out to me and look down at it.
“It’s a grocery list,” I tell him.
“You didn’t specify what you wanted in her handwriting, just that you wanted her handwriting,” he says.
“I need something with more substance.”
“I have a book with an inscription, though I find ‘milk, eggs, aluminum foil, apple sauce’ a pretty meaningful slam poetry type thing if you really search for the depth behind it.”
He offers the book out to me, and I take it from his hand with a shake of my head.
“You need more sleep. Just going to put that out there,” I say.
“Yeah. I’ll be sure to check right back in with you when that happens,” he says.
I open the cover of the book and look at the inscription. The handwriting is smooth and seamless.
“This is exactly what I would think her handwriting would look like,” I say.
“Really? It’s so perfect, and she’s so…”
“On edge?”
“Yeah,” he says.
“Yeah. That’s pretty common, actually. You would think the really high-strung people would have really chaotic handwriting, but they usually don’t. It’s almost unnervingly controlled. Look at Vincent’s writing.” I hold one of the notebooks out for him to see. “There are variations in it. It’s pretty consistent, but there are some changes in the size of the letters or the spacing of the words. Sometimes it’s obviously rushed and messier. But Valerie strives for more control than that. She has to project a certain image and make sure other people see her that way.”
“So, you don’t think she really cares if we’re giving Vincent a bad rep. It’s that it’s her husband, and she wants her family to maintain the right image,” he says.
I shrug. “It’s a possibility. I don’t see a lot of love between the two of them. Not to say they dislike each other or anything, but there just isn’t that warmth.”
“Again, that’s just Valerie. Warm is not a word I’d use to describe her. She can be friendly and pleasant, but she’s never going to be the woman you drink hot tea with and talk about your problems.”
“Do you do that frequently with women?” I ask.
He laughs. “Not often.”
I look back at the notebook in my hand and flip through a few pages. “It looks like we might need to find Vincent someone to have hot tea with. He has a lot of emotions going on here.” I look at another notebook, then a stack of papers. “A whole lot. Have you noticed almost none of this stuff is Valerie’s? It’s all Vincent. With the way you talked about her loving to read, I really thought I was going to find journals or notes or something from her. Instead, all these notebooks seem to be Vincent waxing poetic about life. He goes on these long monologues; then there’ll be a few pages of just random thoughts.”
“What do you think are the chances he’s writing a novel?” Sam asks.
“It’s possible. These might just be ideas he’s jotting down or dreams he’s had. But there are things in here that sound like he’s addressing something specific. He talks about wondering what love really is and if it can exist without longing. He wonders why she can’t give him the love he’s craving and if it will ever be possible for her to be what he wants her to be.”
“Damn. Harsh,” Sam comments.
“It really is. I was feeling really bad for him because of the rumors about Valerie’s affair with Jennings, but this is changing my view a bit,” I say. “Do you think that could be why she had the affair? She didn’t feel like her husband loved her, or she wasn’t good enough, so she fell for someone who did pay attention to her?”
“I really don’t know. Like I said, it was years ago. If she was so unhappy, why would she still be with him?” he asks. “She could have just left him for Jennings.”
“Maybe Vincent told her he would change, and they’d work on it, but it just never happened.”
“Or she just couldn’t stand the thought of other people seeing her as a divorcee,” he suggests.
“That would be the type of image she wouldn’t want to have. She needs the fairy tale, and none of the Disney princesses get alimony checks.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“What is your gut feeling about Vincent?” Sam asks.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“We’re scouring through all this trying to find something that links him to the clues or gives any indication he’s behind all this happening. But all we’ve figured out so far is he writes down apparently every thought that goes through his mind.”
“It’s interesting you put it that way,” I say.
“Why?”
“What’s something that’s distinctly missing from any of this stuff?”
“Consistent application of grammar rules?”
“Mentions of the missing children,” I point out. “Now, we haven’t read every single word in all these, but think about what you just said. We’ve just gone through pages and pages of him rambling about sometimes completely random thoughts. Things that contradict each other. Questions. Everything. He’s a reporter. The compulsion to record what he’s thinking and feeling is real; I understand that. That act helps him to distill what he’s going through and process it more effectively. But if he’s that compelled to write down everything he’s thinking, and he’s the one responsible for these children going missing, wouldn’t there be something in here that suggests that? Wouldn’t he mention the children or the clues?”
“He wouldn’t want to write something down he didn’t want other people to know about. If he’s trying to make it look like someone else is doing these things, he wouldn’t completely blow it by recording all the details,” Sam points out.
“He didn’t have reason to think anyone would ever see these but him. Do you honestly think he would write some of those things laying his soul out bare and admitting to those things if he thought there was a chance anyone else was going to be reading it? These are his personal thoughts. He would pour out his musings about the children just like he did all these other things. Think of it this way… why would he want to kidnap those children?” I ask. “What’s the motivation?”
“Notoriety,” Sam shrugs. “Remember, from the very beginning, he was planning on splashing this all over the news.”
I nod. “He wants to be a famous reporter and known for his in-depth accounts of the most sensational news stories. But you said it yourself. Nothing like this happens in Sherwood. Jennings jumped ship and went somewhere else to chase the big news.”
“So, Vincent decided to create his own major news story with him in the starring role as the recipient of mysterious clues that led investigators to the bodies. Emma, you just gave Vincent motive. You cemented him as the prime suspect.”
I shake my head. “No, I didn’t. I proved he shouldn’t be a suspect at all. If he wants all this attention and to be seen as an incredible reporter, he’s going to plan everything out very carefully. This isn’t something he can just throw together on a whim. He has to plan for which children he’s going to take, what he’s going to do with them, and the way he’s going to present the clues. That’s all really intensive thinking and planning. There’s no way he’d go through all that without having to write something down. He would mention something about the children, the kidnappings, the murder, or even the investigation. Even if he didn’t say it straight out, he would do something veiled with it. He’d do some sort of rambling analysis of it and work through what was going on in his mind. Especially after Caleb lived. But I’ve only found one thing. A question. ‘Why did you have to tell the police?’”
“He’s regretting telling us about the clues?” Sam frowns. “Why? They did what they were meant to do. They brought us to Alice and Caleb. We were even able to keep Caleb alive because we got there fast enough.”