He sighed into his beer. “I’m sorry.”
I shrugged again. “Little-known fact, but you’re not personally responsible when your spouse assaults someone.”
“No, I mean I’m really sorry,” he said, his voice cracking.
I looked down into my drink to avoid his eyes. I had heard this all before. My old email account contained a trove of rambling, overwrought emails from Adam, a combined hundreds of pages of apologies and excuses. I used to spend hours reading and rereading them, nearly enjoying the sick feeling they elicited, like pushing on a bruise. But it had been years since I had opened them, and I wasn’t interested in falling down that particular hole again, in allowing Adam to pick open old wounds.
“I don’t know what happened, but I can only guess it had something to do with me, and I’m sorry,” Adam continued, closing a hand over mine. “I never meant to come between you two.”
The heat of his skin on mine generated a confusing combination of revulsion and excitement, and I yanked my hand away, tucking it safely between my thigh and the barstool. “It wasn’t about you, Adam.”
He frowned, his disbelief obvious. “It wasn’t?”
“Nope,” I said, forcing a nonchalance I didn’t feel. “Not today, at least. Today it was the podcast.”
“That thing,” Adam groaned, rubbing his face. “I should’ve known. Ever since it started, Lanie’s been acting really out of character.”
A small pinprick of hurt stabbed my heart to see how easily Adam transitioned from apologizing to me to worrying about my sister. I shook my head to clear the disloyal thoughts, and overcompensated by being purposefully glib. “Seemed like the same old sister to me, throwing things and everything.”
“It’s been a long time since you’ve seen her, Josie. She’s really pulled herself together. She’s still . . . well, she’s still Lanie, if you know what I mean, but you would have been proud of her.” He shook his head. “But then that podcast started, and it was suddenly like she regressed ten years. She stopped sleeping, stopped eating, started acting really weird. A few days ago, she forgot to pick our daughter up from school. She wasn’t answering the phone, and I couldn’t find her anywhere. When she finally showed up, she had hay in her hair and no explanation.”
I flinched. That behavior sounded like our mother, and no matter how mad I might be with Lanie, I didn’t like to think of her going down that road. I finished my drink and waited for the whiskey to harden me. The bartender set a new one in front of me; I nodded in thanks and lifted it to my lips.
“And one day,” Adam continued, “she didn’t get out of bed at all, and then she spent the entire next day baking cupcakes. The entire day, Josie. We had cupcakes coming out of our ears. I thought maybe there was some sort of party at the elementary school, but there wasn’t. She just felt like baking cupcakes. Said something about using your mom’s recipe.”
The image of Lanie surrounded by cupcakes made me strangely queasy. A memory of our mother tickled at the back of my mind, but I refused to acknowledge it. There had been too much reminiscing today already.
I downed my drink and stood up.
“I should go.”
Adam’s forehead creased in disappointment, and his mouth formed the first syllable of my name before falling silent. He nodded.
“I should probably go, too.” He reached for his wallet. “Let me get your drinks.”
I mumbled my thanks and hurried out before Adam could offer me a ride. Squinting into the late-afternoon sun, I began walking home. I inhaled the crisp air greedily, hoping it would clear my head. I wanted to forget about death, and my sister, and the podcast for just a moment.
Suddenly I heard the sharp click of heels coming up behind me.
“Josie!”
I froze.
It was Poppy Parnell.
Discussion thread on www.reddit.com/r/reconsideredpodcast, posted September 24, 2015
Chuck’s daughters and their tangled love life (self.reconsideredpodcast)
submitted 8 hours ago by elmparkuser1
I went to high school with the Buhrman twins. I was two years behind them in school (I graduated in 2007) so I didn’t know them personally, but I certainly knew of them. Josie (aka the “good twin”) dated this guy—I don’t know if I can post his name, anyone know if that’s kosher?—all through high school, but guess who’s married to him now? LANIE (aka the “bad twin”). I don’t know if it means anything within the context of the case, but it either shows that something was screwy with that family or that Lanie is not to be trusted.
byenow 7 points 8 hours ago
of course they are all messed up, the mom joined a cult ffs
jennyfromtheblock 18 points 7 hours ago Or maybe the mom joined a cult and the kids are messed up because of that super-messed up thing that happened to them (i.e., that time Warren Cave killed their dad)?
dancedancedance 5 points 7 hours ago
I don’t know, wouldn’t you be all fucked up if your dad got murdered?
straightouttaptown 1 point 5 hours ago wut
gingerftw 11 points 5 hours ago
Lanie Buhrman is not to be trusted, and her marriage to Adam is just further proof of that.
Source: Elm Park born and bred
miranda_309 1 point 1 hour ago
Are we allowed to use his real name? Can we get a mod in here for a ruling?
armchairdetective38 9 points 5 hours ago This subreddit is for people to discuss the case, not spread gossip. This isn’t some local board. Take it somewhere else.
chapter 11
Josie, wait a minute.”
The audacity of Poppy’s assumption that we were on a first-name basis appalled me. She might spend her time researching my family, but she knew nothing about me. Training my eyes on the sidewalk in front of me, I powered forward, moving as briskly as I could without running, refusing to wait even a single second for her.
But Poppy Parnell was faster than I would have assumed, given her slight stature and bulky shoulder bag, and she caught up with me quickly.
“Josie, hold up,” she tried again, catching me above my elbow.
I yanked my arm out of her grasp with such force that I came close to dislocating it. Wincing in pain, I whirled around to face her. “Do not touch me.”
She held her small hands up in a surrendering posture. “Understood. And I apologize. I just wanted to ask you a few questions.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
She leaned forward eagerly like a terrier on the hunt. “But if you’ll just—”
I should have walked away. The only way to avoid escalating the situation was to avoid it altogether, but I had been unsettled by the fight with my sister and then lubricated by the midday alcohol, and so I cut her off.