3
What Grace had referred to as “conference room B” was now officially known as the Bernard B. Holder conference room. The studio chief, Brett Young, had christened it as such upon Holder’s retirement last year. Holder had been at the studio even longer than Brett, overseeing shows as varied as soap operas, hard-hitting journalism exposés, and a new breed of reality television that seemed anything but realistic.
Grace, however, continued to refer to the room by its original, generic name. So many times, Laurie had wanted to lecture Bernie for the off-color jokes he often made at Grace’s expense, but Grace had insisted on smiling politely. “I’ll be here long after him,” she liked to say. And so it was.
Laurie could hear raised voices from inside the conference room as she approached the door. She paused before turning the knob. She heard a woman say something about moving on and peace for the sake of the children. “I hate the family name being involved in a scandal.” The man’s voice was clearer and bitterly angry. “I don’t give a damn about preserving the family name. She murdered our son.”
Laurie waited four beats before finally entering the room. Mrs. Bell sat up straight in her chair, and it appeared as though her husband had already been standing.
Laurie introduced herself as the producer of Under Suspicion.
“Dr. Robert Bell.” His handshake was firm but quick.
His wife’s grip was barely a squeeze. “Call me Cynthia,” she said quietly.
Laurie could see that Grace had already played hostess. They both had paper cups with cardboard sleeves to protect their hands from the hot liquid.
“My assistant said you were here first thing this morning.”
Dr. Bell’s eyes were icy. “To be honest, Ms. Moran, we assumed it was the only way we could be assured of a meeting with you.”
She could tell that at least one half of the couple was already treating her as the enemy, and she had no idea why. But the only thing she knew about Robert and Cynthia Bell was that they had lost their only child to a homicide, which meant that she would go out of her way to be kind to them.
“Please, call me Laurie. And, Dr. Bell, have a seat if you’d be more comfortable,” she added, gesturing to the unoccupied chair next to his wife. He looked at her suspiciously, but Laurie had always had the kind of demeanor that put people at ease. She could almost feel his blood pressure begin to lower as he got settled into the leather conference chair. “I assume you’re here about your son. I’m familiar with the case.”
“Of course you are,” Dr. Bell said, sniping, and drawing a disapproving glance from his wife. “My apologies. I’m sure you’re a very busy woman. But I would certainly hope you’d at least know my son’s name, and the circumstances surrounding his horrific death. After all, we were the ones who contacted you. We wrote the letter to you ourselves, side by side, each word coming from both of us.” He reached over and held his wife’s hand on the table. “It wasn’t easy, you know, recounting that terrible night. We had to identify our only child’s body. It’s unnatural. We weren’t meant to outlive the next generation.”
“We were childless for years,” Cynthia added. “We assumed it was never going to happen. And then, when I was forty years old, there he was. He was our miracle.”
Laurie nodded but said nothing. Sometimes listening in silence was the most compassionate thing to be done for a murder victim’s loved ones. She knew that from personal experience.
Cynthia cleared her throat before speaking. “We just wanted to hear it for ourselves: Why won’t you help us find our son’s killer? You’ve helped so many other families. Why isn’t our son worth the effort?”
One of the hardest parts of Laurie’s job was wading through letters, emails, Facebook posts, and tweets from the survivors. So many unsolved homicides. People who just went missing. Their friends and families sent Laurie detailed timelines of the cases, complete with stories about the lives lost. Graduation photos, baby pictures, descriptions of the dreams that would no longer be fulfilled—sometimes it was enough to make Laurie cry. She had decided that it would do more harm than good to contact families personally when she wasn’t moving forward with their stories. But sometimes, like now, the families wanted to hear from her directly.
“I’m so sorry.” Laurie had delivered this news so many times, but it never got easier. “It’s not a question of your son’s value. I know he had young children, and was a highly regarded physician. We only take on a few investigations per year. We have to focus on the ones where we really believe we have a chance of making progress where the police did not.”
“The police made no progress,” Robert said. “Not even a named suspect, let alone an arrest or a conviction. Meanwhile, we have to watch Martin’s killer raise his children.”
He didn’t need to use the suspect’s name for Laurie to know that he was talking about their former daughter-in-law. The details of the case were fuzzy now, but Laurie remembered that the wife had been unhappy in the marriage and appeared to be withdrawing money for unexplained purposes.
“That’s actually the very worst part of it,” Cynthia added. “It’s bad enough to live with the fact that Kendra killed our son and got away with it. But grandparents basically have no legal right to see their grandchildren. Did you know that? We’ve had lawyers look at it from every angle. Until some court of law holds her responsible for Martin’s death, she has complete say-so over the kids. Which means we have to be nice to that woman, just to keep Bobby and Mindy in our lives. It’s sickening.”
“I’m so sorry,” Laurie said again, feeling like a broken record. “It’s never an easy decision for us.”
The mail through which Laurie routinely waded had taught her that the country was home to thousands and thousands of unsolved cases. Mysteries waiting to be solved. But many of them were mysteries with no leads. No loose threads to be picked. No holes to be dug further. For Laurie to do her job, she needed clues to follow. Laurie had pulled the Bells’ letter about their son’s case because it had seemed promising. It also had the added benefit of being a local case. She tried to travel as little as possible during Timmy’s school year.
But, unfortunately, the case turned out not to be a good match after all. Under Suspicion required a suspect or suspects who were willing to go on camera and attest to their innocence. On television, there were no police around, no defense lawyers, and no Miranda rights, only tough questions. Not every suspect was willing to go along.
“As the title of the show suggests,” Laurie tried to explain, “we can’t make much headway without cooperation from the people who have been living under the shadow of suspicion in the years that have passed since the crime.”
“What other suspects are there?” Robert demanded to know.
“That’s the type of thing we explore once we believe we might be moving forward with production.”
“But you just suggested that was the reason you couldn’t use our son’s case. You needed cooperation from the people under suspicion, so to speak.”
“Yes.”
“So who are the other people? Maybe we can get them on board.”
“We never got to that point, I’m afraid.” Laurie felt as if they were speaking in circles, like a bad version of “Who’s on First.” It had been obvious to Laurie, both from the Bells’ letter and a cursory review of press coverage, that any reinvestigation of Martin Bell’s murder would require the cooperation of his widow, Kendra. Had she been willing to participate, Laurie would have worked with her, the police, and other witnesses to identify alternative suspects and attempt to gain their participation as well. But once Kendra Bell made it clear that she was adamantly opposed to appearing on Under Suspicion, Laurie had moved on to another case. She did not understand why the Bells were so confused by this.
“Kendra was our one and only suspect,” Robert said. “The police never named her as a suspect, but they certainly led us to believe that she was the leading contender. What more do you need?”
The fog suddenly lifted, and Laurie got a tickle in her stomach. She realized the source of the confusion in the room.
“And you think Kendra’s still willing to participate?” Laurie asked, testing her theory.
“Absolutely,” Cynthia blurted, her eyes brightening with hope. “She was very upset that you took all these months to make a decision, only to turn her down. Oh, please, tell us that you’ll reconsider.”
Laurie smiled politely. “I can’t make any promises. But let me take another look at the case, just to make sure I didn’t miss anything.”
Laurie hadn’t taken months to make a decision, and she certainly had never turned the case down. Kendra Bell had lied to Robert and Cynthia, and Laurie was determined to learn why.