Within another fifteen minutes, the officers who had been dispatched to Abby’s apartment called back. They’d broken the news to her roommate, another woman in her early twenties. She was distraught by the news and the only bit of information she could offer was that Abby had gone out on a date that evening. She didn’t know the guy’s name, as Abby tended to be very reserved and quiet about her love life.
When the police had searched Abby’s room, they’d discovered a box from an online retailer. The box had been open and inside was a brand new smartphone. The phone had been powered up but not yet set up or programmed. The package receipt inside gave an order date of two days ago. A quick call to the delivery service confirmed that the phone had arrived earlier in the day—maybe a few hours before Abby Costello had been tossed into Jamaica Pond.
It was this bit of information that Avery, Kellaway, and Finley were discussing in an A1 conference room twenty minutes after Abby’s body had been removed from the scene. It was 4:30 in the morning, the coffee was brewing, and Avery’s day was just getting started.
“This could maybe actually work out in our favor,” Avery said, pouring a cup of coffee.
“Having no phone at all?” Finley asked. “How’s that?”
“Because if she has a brand new phone, it means that her contract for her old one was probably up. That or it was just crapping out on her. How many times in the past when you have upgraded your phone did you simply just throw the old one in the trash?”
“Never,” Kellaway said. “I usually keep mine as a backup music player.”
“And when Rose was younger,” Avery said, “I’d keep my old ones for her to play games on. But either way…if Abby Costello had just received a new phone, the old one is probably still around somewhere and not at the bottom of the pond, as I had feared.”
“The cops at her apartment never found the old one, though,” Finley pointed out.
“So then we contact her service provider,” Avery said. “If they can’t get us the physical phone itself, they probably have records of phone calls and texts that we can use to find the killer.”
“There are those ecoATMs, too,” Kellaway said. “Those little things that look like miniature recycling bins where you can get rid of your old phone. It’s like a recycling initiative or something.”
“Great point,” Avery said. “We’ll need to assign someone to all of these tasks as soon as the local mobile and wireless stores open up.”
“So what do we do in the meantime?” Finley asked.
“You do whatever O’Malley and Connelly have you doing around here,” Avery said with a bit of pride in her voice. The smile he gave her warmed her heart. “As for Kellaway and I, we’ll start talking to the roommate and the family. And please, if you don’t mind, direct the calls from the coroner to me as they come in.”
“Aren’t you more worried about the spider case?” Finley asked.
“I am,” she said. “But I have a hunch…”
“That they’re connected?” Finley asked. “Really?”
“I’m going to assume they are until it can be proven otherwise.”
Finley shrugged and got up for his own cup of coffee. “Hey…if you want to overwork yourself within your first two days back, be my guest. Either way…it’s good to have you back.”
She said nothing to this, mainly because she wasn’t sure if she was really, truly back. It felt like it, but that could just be the excitement of it all. Whatever the feeling was, it was thrumming through her as she and Kellaway left the conference room, heading out into the early morning with two murders to solve.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Abby Costello’s roommate was a sobbing mess when Avery and Kellaway arrived at their apartment. She was another petite blonde, barely able to keep herself in a sitting position on the couch when they arrived. Her name was Amy Dupree and even before Avery had the chance to question her, there was quite a bit that she surmised about the two girls simply based on the apartment.
The pictures of Abby and Amy in the living room showed them cheesing in front of a camera with parties going on behind them. One of the picture frames bore the Greek letters that made up Sigma Sigma Sigma—Tri Sig.
Sorority sisters from college, Avery thought. It at least helped her better understand why Amy was taking the news of Abby’s death so particularly hard.
Maybe it was because of the age similarities between them, but Kellaway managed to take the lead in getting Amy to calm down long enough to answer a few basic questions. Amy still sobbed and sniffled through the questions but she was at least finally able to form some coherent sentences.
“You told the first officers that came by that Abby had a date tonight,” Kellaway said. “But you didn’t know the guy’s name…that Abby kept her love life to herself. Is that right?”
“Yeah. She was always like that. Abby wasn’t a relationship sort of girl, you know? She’d see a guy for a few weeks, maybe a few months depending on the guy, and then it would just sort of end. She had one serious relationship in college that ended with him cheating on her. There was a pregnancy scare in there, too. And ever since then, she’s been very private about the guys she sees.”
“Did she say anything at all about this date tonight?” Avery asked.
“No. She never told me his name, what he looked like…nothing like that. Just that he was cute and a little older.”
“Do you know how much older?”
“I’d guess maybe no older than forty. Abby had this funny thing for older guys, but swore she’d never get involved with anyone over forty.”
“Any idea how long she’d been seeing him?”
“Maybe two or three weeks. If that. I really couldn’t tell you.”
“And what about the new phone she ordered?” Avery asked. “Do you know why she ordered it?”
“Yeah, the old one had a crack in the screen. It still worked fine, but the crack annoyed her. She called up the company and had it replaced.”
“Do you know what she did with the old one?” Avery asked.
“No idea.”
Avery looked around at all of the pictures again. The two smiling blonde girls looking out at her from those pictures looked like something out of a storybook.
“What about Jamaica Pond?” Avery asked. “Do you know if she had any ties to the location? Or had you ever heard her mention it?”
“God no,” Amy said sternly, almost on the verge of breaking into deep sobs again. “That was maybe the worst part about hearing she had died…how she had died. Abby was scared of water. I mean, she’d get in a pool as long as there was a shallow end. But open bodies of water scared the hell out of her.”
“Do you know why?” Avery asked.
“She almost drowned when she was a kid. Like ten or so, I think. Her family went to some lakefront property in Virginia. She was trying to learn to water-ski and there was some sort of freak thing with the rope. She went under for a while and the lifejacket she was wearing was too loose. Her head got trapped in it and it popped right off of her, I think. So yeah…she stayed away from water. We went to the beach for our senior year of college, us and about five friends. She never got in the ocean—always sat up on the sand, as far away as she could without being rude.”
“So if her date had suggested they go for a moonlight stroll around Jamaica Pond, she wouldn’t have gone for it?” Kellaway asked.
“Highly doubtful,” Amy said.
Avery considered it for a moment and then headed for the door. “Amy, thank you so much for your time and help. If you happen to think of anything else that might assist us, please call us.”
“Do you have anyone to be with you for the next day or so?” Kellaway asked.
Amy nodded. “My brother is coming over. He should be here in an hour or so. But I’m good…I’ll be okay until he gets here.”
Avery hated to leave a grieving woman alone, but she had more stops to make before the night was over. She and Kellaway made it out the door, closing it behind them, and then to the stairs before they heard the muffled sounds of Amy Dupree’s crying.
“The water,” Kellaway said as they got into the car. “It’s like the spiders, isn’t it?”