She looked down at her folded hands on the table. “After Adrienne died, I spent a lot of time walking around campus, needing to . . . to . . . feel her. As if by seeing the things she’d seen and loved, I could have a part of her back. And I suppose I was also looking for clues, anything that might tell me what it was she had tried so hard to talk to me about before she was killed.”
Veronica picked up the remains of her watery sweet tea and took a sip. “I went to see the trophy because Adrienne had been as proud of it as if she’d actually been hoisting the sails herself. When I couldn’t find it in the case where it was supposed to be, I asked the team coach. He said he’d allowed the captain to bring it home to show to his father, who was apparently critically ill at the time. The captain brought it back to his dorm, but before he could return it to the case, he claims it was stolen from his room.”
“Any idea by whom?” I asked.
Thomas shook his head. “At the time, they thought it was a prank and that it would show up eventually. But it never did.”
Veronica took Thomas’s phone and studied the yearbook photograph. “That boy—the one holding the trophy. I think I remember him. He might have been one of the boys who helped move Adrienne’s things when she and her roommate moved to the bigger dorm room.”
“Charlie Bleekrode,” Thomas said. “Sailing team captain. And Lauren’s boyfriend.”
The three of us turned to Thomas with expectation.
“And with a solid alibi. He was a senior, but he missed graduation to join a crew for a round-the-world sailing trip. He was somewhere around the tip of South America when Adrienne was killed and Lauren disappeared.”
He flipped to another page in his notebook. “Here’s where it gets interesting. I noticed that Lauren’s very extensive CD collection had been kept intact at her parents’ house. She had pretty eclectic taste in music. Everything from classical to reggae and pretty much anything in between. Her favorite, according to her father, was eighties electronica and avant-garde music, especially by a highly acclaimed performance and sound artist named Laurie Anderson. I’d never heard of her before I got involved in this case.”
“Nobody has,” I said.
Jayne shot me the nanny look she gave the children when they weren’t being nice. “She had that one surprise pop hit in the early eighties, I believe. A bit of an earworm, if I’m recalling correctly.”
“?‘O Superman.’ Once you hear it you can’t forget it. Unfortunately. It’s eight minutes long—and if you can listen to the whole thing, you’re a stronger person than I am. I guess it takes a more . . . educated ear to appreciate it.” I raised an eyebrow.
Thomas cleared his throat. “Yes, well, her father said that one of the last concerts Lauren went to was in Columbia, at USC, where Anderson was performing.” Thomas paused. “She told her mother that she was going with her new boyfriend. And that ‘O Superman’ was her new favorite song because it reminded her of him.”
“Meaning not Charlie?” Veronica asked.
“Exactly. They were surprised, because Lauren hadn’t mentioned that she and Charlie had broken up. And they were a little concerned when Lauren was secretive about the new relationship. She didn’t even tell her parents his name because she didn’t want to jinx it, and she was going to wait until she knew it was the real deal before introducing him to her mom and dad. They claimed she had a really good head on her shoulders and they trusted her judgment.”
“That’s so strange,” I said.
Jayne looked at me. “What? That she loved ‘O Superman’?”
“Well, yeah, but also that she never told her parents anything about her new boyfriend.”
“And that’s not all,” Thomas said. “I received the handwriting analysis comparing known samples of Lauren’s handwriting with both the note left in her dorm room and the notes periodically sent to her parents. They weren’t a match. They were very close, and would have been enough to fool her own parents. But under the microscope, it was clear they were forgeries.”
Veronica sat back in her chair, her bread pudding untouched, her fingers busily shredding her paper napkin. “Do you think this means Adrienne’s murder and Lauren’s disappearance are related?”
“It’s certainly a possibility,” Thomas said, “especially if Lauren didn’t leave of her own accord. They knew each other, and Lauren disappeared around the same time Adrienne was murdered. So, yes, they could be related. Or it could just be a coincidence.”
Jayne and I shared a glance. “Except there’s no such thing as coincidence,” she said quietly.
I eyed Veronica’s bread pudding, wondering if it would be rude to ask her if she was planning on eating it. A pile of shredded napkin had begun to grow next to it. I pulled my attention back to Thomas. “So, where do we go from here?
“I’m not sure. We’re going to put new efforts into finding Lauren now that we know she didn’t send those notes. A great lead would be if we could find the missing part of Adrienne’s necklace. My guess would be that since we haven’t found it, it’s either been destroyed or hidden in a place nobody can find it. Perhaps by her killer.” Thomas looked pointedly at Jayne and me. “Unless we can go to the source and ask directly.”
“I agree,” I said. “But there’s . . . someone else. Someone who doesn’t want me talking to Adrienne. The same someone who shoved me down the stairs. I think Adrienne doesn’t use her strength to appear because she needs to save it. To protect us from . . . whoever that is.”
Jayne sat up. “Unless there’s a place where Adrienne might be alone.” Turning to Veronica, she asked, “Where is Adrienne buried?”
“At Magnolia Cemetery.” Veronica paused, then glanced at me. “But do you think that’s a good idea?”
“We wouldn’t have to go at night,” Jayne suggested.
“We wouldn’t have to go at all. At least not together. I can only imagine the parade of spirits lined up to talk to us. And I really don’t like the idea of either of us going alone.”
“I don’t see an alternative, Melanie. Unless you want me to bring Mother.”
“That’s an even worse idea.”