CHAPTER 28
Roughly 230 miles lay between Chicago and Muncie, and I drive them as fast as my rented Camry will allow. My goal is to get to Lisa’s house and see if I can learn something—anything—before returning to the city by evening. The trip is long, about seven hours total, but if I keep a quick pace, I can be back before Jeff knows I’m gone.
On the way there, I make good time, stopping just once at a convenience store off I-65. It’s one of those sad, generic places that wants you to think it’s part of a chain. But the seams show. All those sticky soda cans, scuffed floor tiles and racks of nudie mags wrapped in condoms of clear plastic. I buy a bottle of water, a granola bar and a pack of cheese crackers. The breakfast of champions.
A rack of silvery lighters sits on the counter. When the stoner clerk cracks open a fresh roll of pennies for the register, I grab one and stuff it into my pocket. He catches me, smiles, sends me off with a wink.
Then I’m back in the car, marking my time by the way the sunlight slants across the flat ribbon of asphalt. The scenery streaking past the window is rural and stark. The houses have stripped siding and leaning porches. Miles of fields fly by, their cornstalks reduced to stubs. Exit signs point to small towns with misleadingly exotic names. Paris. Brazil. Peru.
By the time the sun has become an unblinking yellow eye directly overhead, I’m steering through Muncie, searching for the address Lisa gave me in case I ever wanted to write.
I find her house on a quiet side street full of ranch homes and sycamore trees. Lisa’s is noticeably nicer than the others, with fresh paint on the shutters and pristine patio furniture on the front porch. A circular flower bed sits in the middle of the well-trimmed lawn, a fiberglass birdbath rising from its center like a giant mushroom.
A station wagon with a PBA sticker slapped to its back bumper sits in the driveway. Definitely not Lisa’s car.
After parking on the street, I check myself in the rearview mirror, making sure I look somber and curious, not deranged and stalkerish. At the hotel, I took great care in picking an outfit that walked the fine line between casual and mourning. Dark jeans, deep purple blouse, black flats.
I head to the front door using the flagstone walkway that cuts through the yard. When I ring the doorbell, I hear it echo back at me from deep inside the house.
The woman who answers the door is dressed in a monochrome outfit of tan slacks and beige polo shirt. Tall and angular, I suspect she must have resembled Katharine Hepburn in her younger years. Now, though, webs of wrinkles surround her hazel eyes. She brings to mind an Okie in a Walker Evans photo—thin, hard and bone-tired.
I know exactly who she is.
Nancy.
“Can I help you?” she says in a voice as blunt as a Plains wind.
I have no plan about what to do or say. All that mattered was getting here. Now that I’ve arrived, I don’t know what my next step will be.
“Hi,” I say. “I’m—”
Nancy nods. “Quincy. I know.”
She looks at my fingernails, messily painted black. My right hand, with its mottled scabs smarting like a sunburn across my knuckles, catches her attention. I shove it deep into my pocket.
“You here for the funeral?” she says
“I thought that already happened.”
“Tomorrow.”
I should have known there’d be a delay. There was an autopsy to contend with, plus that all-important tox report.
“Lisa thought a lot about the two of you,” Nancy says. “I know she would want you there.”
As would members of the press, who I assume will be arriving in droves, the clicking of their cameras punctuating the Twenty-Third Psalm.
“It’s probably not a good idea,” I say. “I’m afraid I’d be a distraction.”
“Then it’d be real nice if you told me why you’re here. I’m no genius, but I sure as hell know that Muncie’s not exactly a stone’s throw from New York.”
“I’m here to learn about Lisa,” I say. “I’m here for details.”
Inside, Lisa’s house is a tidy, depressing affair. The bulk of it is taken up by the living room, dining area and kitchen, which merge together to form one giant room. The walls are covered in wood paneling, making the place feel musty and old-fashioned. It’s the home of a widowed grandmother, not a forty-two-year-old woman.
I see no signs that a murder took place here. There are no cops dusting for prints, no grim-faced CSI grunts picking through the carpet with tweezers. Those tasks are complete, results hopefully pending.
Stacks of cardboard boxes—some folded, others not—clutter the living room, which has already been stripped of a few knickknacks. End tables bear dust-free circles where vases and bowls once sat.
“Lisa’s family asked if I could start packing up her things,” Nancy says. “They don’t want to set foot in the place anymore. Can’t say I blame them.”
We sit at the oval dining room table. In front of her is a laminated placemat. I assume it’s where Lisa usually ate her meals. A table setting for one. We talk while sipping tea from mugs with pink roses around the rims.
Her full name is Nancy Scott. She’s been an Indiana State Trooper for twenty-five years, although she’ll probably be retired by this time next year. She’s single, never married, owns two German shepherds that are decommissioned police dogs.
“I was one of the first people to enter that sorority house,” she says. “And I was the first person to realize Lisa wasn’t dead like the rest. All the other guys—and they were all guys except me—took one look at those bodies and assumed the worst. I did, too, I guess. Oh, it was bad. The blood. It was just everywhere.”
She stops, remembering who she’s talking to. I nod for her to continue.
“When I took one look at Lisa, I knew she was still alive. I didn’t know if she’d stay that way, but somehow she pulled through. After that, I took a shine to her. She was a fighter, that girl.”
“And that’s how the two of you became close?”
“Lisa and I were close in the way that you and Frank are close.”
Frank. It’s disconcerting to hear him called that. To me, he’s simply Coop.
“She knew she could call me whenever she needed to,” Nancy says. “That I was there to listen and help in whatever way I could. That kind of thing is delicate, you see. You need to let them know you’re there for them, but not get too involved. You have to keep a distance. It’s better that way.”
I think of Coop and all the invisible barriers he’s built between us. Always nodding, never hugging. Not coming up to the apartment until he absolutely had to. It’s likely Nancy gave him this same spiel about keeping a distance. She doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who keeps her opinions to herself.
“It was only in the past five years or so that we became what you’d call friends,” she says. “I became close with her family as well. They’d have me over for Thanksgiving dinner, family birthdays.”
“They sound like good people,” I say.
“They are. They’re having a hard time with this, of course. That grief will be with them for the rest of their lives.”
“And you?” I say.
“Oh, I’m furious.” Nancy takes a sip of tea. Her lips pucker from the heat before flattening into a harsh line. “I know I should feel sad, and I do. But more than that, I’m mad as hell. Someone took Lisa away from us. After all she went through.”
I know exactly what she means. Lisa’s murder feels like a defeat. A Final Girl finally vanquished.
“Did you always suspect foul play was involved?”
“I sure as hell did,” Nancy says. “I knew Lisa couldn’t have killed herself. Not when she’d fought so hard to survive and had done so much with the hand she’d been dealt. I’m the one who ordered that tox report, conflict of interest be damned. I was right, of course. They found all those pills in her system but no prescription bottle in the house to keep them in. Then they looked at the knife wounds, which is something that should have been done in the first place.”
“When we all spoke on the phone, you said there weren’t any suspects. Has that changed?”
“Nope,” Nancy says.
“What about motive?”
“Still nothing.”
“You sound like you don’t think they’ll ever catch who did it.”
“Because I don’t,” Nancy says. “By the time those idiots realized what really happened, it was too late. The scene was already compromised. Me with those boxes. Some of Lisa’s friends and cousins. All of us clomping in here and dragging in God knows what.”
She leans forward, looks to the table.
“The whole time, that circle of wine sat right here. From the glass no one knew was missing. Whoever killed Lisa took it with them. It’s probably smashed on the side of the road somewhere. Tossed out a car window.”
My hands are resting on the table’s surface, palms flat. I quickly pull them away.
“They already dusted for prints,” Nancy says. “Couldn’t find any. Same with the bathroom, the knife, and Lisa’s phone. All wiped clean.”
“And none of her friends know anything?” I ask.
“They’re asking around. But it’s been hard. Lisa liked to be around people. She was very social.”
Nancy’s disapproval is obvious. She spits the word out as if it might leave a bad taste in her mouth.
“You don’t think she should have been,” I say.
“I thought she was too trusting. Because of what she went through, she was always willing to help people in need. Girls, mostly. Troubled ones.”
“Troubled how?”
“Girls who were at risk. Having trouble with their parents. Or maybe running away from a boyfriend who liked smacking them around. Lisa took them in, looked out for them, helped them get back on their feet. I saw it as her trying to fill the void in her life caused by that night at the sorority house.”
“Void?” I say.
“Lisa didn’t date very much,” Nancy says. “She didn’t trust too many men, with good reason. Like most girls, she probably once had dreams of getting married, having kids, being a mom. That day at the sorority house took all that away from her.”
“So she never dated?”
“A little,” Nancy replies. “Nothing that ever got very serious. Most guys split once they found out what happened to her.”
“Did she mention any of them to you? Maybe about one of them harassing her? Or did she ever talk about having problems with one of the girls she befriended?”
Sam. That’s who I really mean. Did Lisa ever mention Samantha Boyd?
“Not to me.” Nancy drains her teacup. She looks at mine, clearly hoping I’ll do the same and take my leave. “How long are you in town for, Quincy?”
I check my watch. It’s quarter past one. I need to be on the road by two-thirty if I want to make it back to Chicago without Jeff arousing Jeff’s suspicions.
“Another hour.” I look around the half-packed room, then the empty boxes leaning flat against the wall. “Need some help?”