“Maybe it’s time to tell Carla your suspicions,” Nick said.
“Not yet. If I accuse Gretchen on a hunch, I’d be doing to her what Jarret’s lawyer did to me. She saw me in the T-shirt, but so did thousands of other people at Dodger Stadium. I’m going to run up to Jarret’s to pick up Dad’s birthday gift. I’ll ask him about Gretchen again and give him the dirt I learned about Kyle. I’ll meet you at your house later.”
Traffic moved quickly along Ventura Boulevard from my house through Sherman Oaks. My phone rang at the light at Beverly Glen Boulevard and I fumbled through my pocketbook, catching the call just before it went to voice mail.
“Liz? It’s Marion Cooper. Yah, I hope it’s not too late to call you. I got your message last night. Bud and I spent all day at the county fair. We ate chicken-fried bacon and fried Twinkies. Can you imagine?” Her hearty chuckle trailed into a smoker’s cough.
I imagined a heart attack and lung disease, but laughed with her nonetheless. “It sounds like you had a good time. Thanks for calling me back.”
“Bud wanted to see the tractor pull and visit the animal barns. I held my nose all afternoon hiking past animal poop. He wanted to stay for the pageant but my feet were killing me.”
Fascinating. “I won’t keep you for too long. Do you remember Jarret’s high school friend Gretchen Kressler?”
“Gretchen? Yah. Sure. Jarret dated her the year before he left for college. We haven’t talked to her since you and Jarret became engaged,” she said. “Why?”
Check off Gretchen’s claim of continuing friendship with Marion and Bud as a lie. “Before I answer, is or was there a family in the area named Schelz? Three children, one of them around Jarret’s age?”
She paused. “Not that I can think of. When did they live here? Did you ask Jarret?”
“They would have come sometime in the late eighties or early nineties. Jarret didn’t recognize the name. What about Margaret Smith from Bull Valley?”
“Smith is Gretchen’s married name. Gretchen is a nickname for Margaret. She began calling herself Margaret after she married Randy Smith from Bull Valley.” Her voice slowed with suspicion. “Why?”
I tightened my hold on the steering wheel. The left turn lane at Sepulveda backed up a half block, giving me time to grasp at my fast-draining composure. “Jarret mentioned Gretchen to me last night. Will you tell me more about her? I’m surprised I didn’t hear about or meet her over the years.”
“You can thank me for protecting both of you. Gretchen was a troubled, moody girl. I honestly don’t understand what my son saw in her. I warned her to stay away from Jarret after your engagement.”
I dismissed moody—what teenage girl isn’t moody, and said, “Troubled how?”
“Clingy and possessive,” Marion said. “Bud and I thought Gretchen was far too serious about Jarret. We tried our best to keep him busy, but she was always around. If she wasn’t with him, she called the house every hour looking for him.”
“How did they get together? I thought Jarret lived and breathed baseball in high school.”
“He did. But she was on the pep squad and, to be honest, I think she joined to be near him. Their teams practiced on the school field at the same times and, of course, the pep squad went to every game. We hoped for a breakup when he left for college and she stayed in town, but when he came home to visit us, she wouldn’t leave him alone. Once I woke up and found her in my kitchen, cooking Jarret breakfast. You don’t know how happy we were when he met you.”
Or how devastated Gretchen must have been. Possessiveness led to jealousy, and jealousy could prompt irrational action. Carry a torch for twenty years? Absolutely. If she confused sex for love—as a teenaged girl might—her unresolved feelings could carry into adulthood. In fact, time and distance added to over-romanticizing an old relationship, especially if her marriage soured.
“I never heard you talk about her,” I said.
“You and Jarret were so happy together. I thought it best to put Gretchen in the past.”
“Gretchen goes by her maiden name now. What happened to her marriage?” I said.
“Randy left her for another woman last November,” Marion said. “We never tell Jarret anything about her. That first weekend he brought you home from college to meet us, Gretchen sat in her car in front of our house. Bud finally went out and told her to leave. After she married Randy, we thought her obsession with Jarret would be over, but she sent Jarret letters and birthday cards at our address for years. I threw everything away, unopened. It wasn’t easy to avoid her—Bull Valley is only a few miles away.”
“What about her family?” I said.
“The father died before they moved here,” Marion said. Schelz is in prison for life. Close enough. “She had an older sister and a much younger brother.” Three children—same as the Schelz family.