If She Heard

CHAPTER FIVE

The bar wasn’t really a bar at all, but a drinking area within a greasy-spoon sort of diner. There were dartboards and even a by-God jukebox, but the diner section seemed to be why the establishment was there at all. The bar area within Esther’s Place was pushed to the back, as if the owner might be ashamed of what took place there. But when Kate and DeMarco stepped inside at 5:45 to meet with the friends of Kayla Peterson, it seemed like a nice enough—if not slightly outdated—place.

There were three young women sitting at a booth in the far corner. Kate noticed right away that none of them were drinking alcohol, presumably because they were all under twenty-one. Two had waters, and another had what looked to be either seltzer water or Sprite. All three of them seemed to notice the FBI agents at the same time. They didn’t look scared per se, but certainly on edge. Kate wondered how long the girls would wait until after the interview before they went out in search of a drink or two by illegal means.

DeMarco took the lead as they approached the table. “Are you ladies Claire Lee, Tabby Amos, and Olivia Macintyre?”

“That’s us,” the girl in the middle said. She had gorgeous red hair and a tall slender figure that came into view when she stood up and offered her hand. “I’m Tabitha Amos,” she said. “Tabby to most, though.”

“I’m Claire Lee,” the girl on the left said. She was also quite pretty, but in a plain sort of way. She was wearing a thin hoodie and looked comfortable in it; she was clearly not the type that felt the need to look spectacular every time she left the house.

“And that makes me Olivia Macintyre,” the last girl said. She had dark blonde hair that looked almost brown in the dim bar lighting. She wore a pair of stylish eyeglasses and had a mousy look about her.

“We’re Agents DeMarco and Wise,” DeMarco said. She showed her badge discreetly as she approached the table. “Mind if we join you?”

The trio of girls scooted closer together to allow room for Kate and DeMarco to sit at the booth. The moment they sat down, a waitress came over to take their orders. They both ordered waters and, having missed lunch, also a cheeseburger each to go. The girls seemed a little off put by this and Kate could see right away that DeMarco’s decision to meet them here had been a smart one.

“So, as I’m sure Sheriff Gates told you,” Demarco said, “we want to talk about Kayla Peterson. We especially need to know anything you can tell us about that last night you all spent together.”

The girls looked at one another somberly. They all looked upset about current events but mostly well-centered. Kate wasn’t too surprised to find that Tabby Amos was the mouthpiece for the group. Most people would view her as the prettiest, and therefore the most outwardly confident, of the group. She had also been the first to stand and introduce herself.

“Well, it was my idea. The four of us were very tight in high school. Then Kayla and Claire over there decided to go to college and we rarely saw one another. We all got together last Christmas…that was the last time the four of us were together. I thought it would be cool to have one last hurrah before the wedding.”

“When is the wedding?” Kate asked.

“This coming Saturday,” Olivia said.

“Who’s getting married?”

“My brother,” Olivia said.

“He was sort of a big brother to all of us when we were in high school,” Tabby said. “Had rough words with some of the creeps that asked us out and couldn’t handle the rejection.”

“I’m one of the maids of honor,” Olivia said. “And I invited all of my friends, of course.”

“But we figure it would be stupid to have a rip-roaring night of fun the day before the wedding,” Tabby said. “So we decided to do it Saturday night.”

“What did you all do?” DeMarco asked.

“Hung out at my house for a while,” Claire said. “Well, I suppose it’s my parents’ house. But they were away for the weekend, knew I was in town and wanted to hang out with my friends. So they were cool with everyone coming over. We watched some movies, drank some wine, ate some pizza.”

“Did you go anywhere else at all?”

“Kayla and I went out to the supermarket in Glensville to get more wine,” Olivia said.

“Where is Glensville?”

“About twenty minutes away from Harper Hills.”

“You couldn’t just get wine somewhere in town?” Kate asked.

“No,” Tabby said. “We’re all under twenty-one and everyone knows everyone else in this town.”

“Yeah,” Olivia said. “Plus, there’s this guy in Glensville that I used to date, a few years older than me. He knows the manager at the supermarket in Glensville. They didn’t card and let us get some drinks.” She paused here and then added: “Shit. They aren’t going to get into trouble, are they?”

“They should,” DeMarco said. “But that’s smalltime compared to what we’re dealing with right now. Now…did anything of note happen in Glensville?”

“Nothing,” Olivia said. “We went in, got three bottles of wine, and left.”

“Any cross words with this guy you used to date?”

“No. Hell, I barely even spoke to him. He had his new girlfriend with him anyway. He was sort of in a rush to get out of there.”

“Did anyone end up drinking too much that night?” Kate asked.

“All four of us,” Tabby said. “I was sort of pissed when I found out Kayla had left. Her mom’s house is only like ten minutes from Claire’s house, but still. It was irresponsible of her to drink and drive. Of course, then I found out she had been killed and…”

“What do you mean when you found out Kayla had left?” DeMarco asked.

“Well, near midnight Claire brought out some of her folks’ liquor,” Tabby said. “We had a little too much to drink. I faded out sometime around one.”

“I blinked out shortly after that,” Claire said.

“Yeah,” Olivia added. “Kayla and I were the last ones hanging in there. I don’t think she drank any of the liquor. Sure, she was sort of buzzed, but I don’t think she was flat out drunk. Not when I passed out, anyway.”

“So you all think she just saw that everyone had passed out and decided to go home?” DeMarco asked.

“Seemed that way,” Claire said.

“And she didn’t call or text any of you when she left?” Kate asked. “She didn’t leave a note or anything?”

“Nothing,” Olivia said.

“I just assumed she was a little embarrassed,” Tabby said. “She was never a huge drinker in the first place. I don’t think that changed when she went to college. Of course, maybe she was just embarrassed to be hanging out with a few friends that never decided to get out of Harper Hills and go to college. I don’t know.”

“Was she acting any different than you can remember her acting in the past?” Kate asked.

“No, and that’s the weirdest thing of all,” Claire said. “She was the same old Kayla. Cracking jokes, open, honest. It was almost like nothing at all had changed since we’d graduated high school.”

DeMarco asked a few more questions, specifically about the conversation they could remember having the night Kayla had died. While she orchestrated the question, Kate did her best to size up the demeanor and body language of the three girls. She had no reason to suspect that any of them would be hiding something, but her attention did keep coming back to Olivia. She was fidgeting slightly and her eyes would not stay in one place for very long.

She’s the only one that was alone with Kayla on the night she died, Kate thought. Maybe we could get more out of her if the other two weren’t here. She made a mental note and filed it away as DeMarco wrapped up the last of her questions.

The waitress brought their burgers and the agents gave their farewells. DeMarco ended the conversation by giving each of the girls one of her business cards, instructing them to call her if they thought of anything else or heard any murmurs about what had happened to Kayla.

“What do you think?” DeMarco asked Kate as they walked back out to their car.

“I think Olivia may have had more to say if her friends hadn’t been around. She seemed antsy. And she was the only one that spent any alone time with Kayla.”

“You think something happened when they went out for that extra wine?”

“I don’t know. But even if not, I wonder if they maybe talked about something that might have been related to what happened later. It’s all speculation, but…”

“No, I saw that she was sort of uneasy, too.”

They both considered this as they got into the car. Night was slowly falling and though the day felt long, Kate knew it was not over yet. DeMarco had always been a night owl, milking every last minute and ounce of productivity out of the day.

And that was fine with Kate. Because as the first day of the case came toward a close, something in her heart became more and more certain that this may be her last case. If that were true, she intended to make the most of it.

CHAPTER SIX

DeMarco was doing everything she could to not overthink things. But she also had to be honest with herself. For a moment, as brief as it may have been, she had been a little pissed off when Duran informed her Kate would be joining her for this case. That disappointment had quickly been replaced by joy, though. Her partnership with Kate Wise had been, at first, almost like a mentorship. But as they had grown and learned each other’s habits and mannerisms, it had become something more. Still, along the way, DeMarco had always felt that she had been a junior agent…someone still learning the ropes, hoping to impress Kate as her own skillset continued to develop and mature.

DeMarco knew this case was hers. Kate had come on board at the last minute and was going out of her way to remain in the back seat. While DeMarco appreciated the gesture more than she could express, it was making her feel uncomfortable. Kate was a born leader and something about watching her knowingly give up control was odd.

It also made DeMarco wonder what might be going on behind the scenes. How was Kate viewing her career now that she was the so-called Miracle Mom and had finally come back to work?

DeMarco wasn’t sure, but had a feeling she’d know by the time this case came to a close. First, of course, they had to close it.

She pulled into Larry’s Lanes and Arcade at 6:15. The parking lot was mostly empty, colored a strange red in the faded neon of the word ARCADE in the sign out front. DeMarco parked as close to the front as she could, not sure where the body of the first victim had been found. As she and Kate walked inside, DeMarco paged through the contents of the case reports, having filed them to memory last night before going to sleep.

The victim was Mariah Ogden, nineteen years of age. She had been found by the owner of Larry’s Lanes and Arcade at 10:40 on Wednesday night. She had been lying on the pavement behind her car. Though Larry had not seen them, the coroner’s report detailed the bruising around her neck and the evidence of immense pressure against her windpipe. Mariah, like Kayla, had been strangled by someone who appeared to be quite strong. So far, it seemed no one had seen what had happened and there were no leads at all.

DeMarco and Kate approached the shoe rental counter, where a man of sixty or so was standing by a small television. He looked extremely bored. A quick glance of the fifteen lanes behind her revealed that only two lanes were occupied—one by five middle-aged women and another, all the way at the far end of the building, by a lone man.

The man behind the shoe rental counter nodded to them as they approached, giving them a strange look. The lapel on his shirt read LARRY. “Can I help you?”

DeMarco acted quickly before there could be any odd tension between her and Kate. She showed her badge and ID and said, “Agents DeMarco and Wise, with the FBI. I was hoping to get some information about the death of Mariah Ogden.”

“I already told the cops everything I know,” Larry said. “But if it’ll help find who’s been killing these girls, I don’t mind.”

“You said girls,” Kate said. “As in more than one. I assume you heard about the second victim?”

“Can’t help but hear terrible news like that pretty quickly in a town as small as this one. Yeah…it was Kayla Peterson, right? Home for a wedding, from what I hear.”

“Larry, how did you find Mariah’s body?” DeMarco asked.

“I had closed the place down. Walked out to my truck and saw a car still in the parking lot, all the way over near the edge. Sometimes the teenagers hang out over there after they’ve bowled. So I walked over to see what was going on. Figured maybe just someone left their car there while going out somewhere else with a friend. But as I got closer to it, I saw a sneaker. And then I saw a leg attached to it. And there was Mariah Ogden, right behind her car.”

“Already dead?”

“Yeah. But I don’t think for very long. I heard there was bruising on her throat. But I didn’t see any when I found her like that.”

“Had she been in here that night?”

“Not that night, no. But she would come in here from time to time with her friends.”

He was about to say something else, but was interrupted by the clatter of pins falling and cheering from the crowd of middle-aged ladies. When the noise quieted down, Larry continued.

“She was a lovely girl, really. Very polite, well-mannered.”

“Do you know anyone in the crowd she typically hung around with?” DeMarco asked.

“Not really well, no. But you may want to check with him.” He nodded behind him, in the direction of the man who was bowing by himself.

“Who’s that?”

“His name is Dwayne Patterson. He would sometimes be with the crowds Mariah would come in with. Bashful kid. He’s here a lot, sometimes by himself, but usually sort of meanders from crowd to crowd. I have no real evidence to support this, but the way he sometimes looked at Mariah and laughed at anything she said…I think he might have fancied her a bit.”

“Thank you, Larry,” Kate said.

He gave a wink to them both as they turned and headed for the lane all the way to the left. As they approached, Dwayne Patterson rolled a ball that left him with a dreaded 7-10 split. He angled his head as if hoping to see something different and then approached the ball return machine. As he waited for his ball, he spotted DeMarco and Kate. There was no mistaking where they were headed; he knew they were coming to speak to him and it showed in his eyes. He looked like a trapped cat, cornered by two feral dogs.

“Mr. Patterson,” DeMarco said as they approached the ball machine. “Larry over there says you might be a good resource for information about Mariah Ogden.”

It was clear that Patterson had not yet decided if he should be fearful or not. He eyed them skeptically and asked: “And just who the hell are you?”

This time, DeMarco and Kate moved at the same time, showing their IDs in tandem like a well-rehearsed magic trick. “Agents DeMarco and Wise, FBI. Now, do you want to be just a bit more accommodating?”

Slowly, Patterson took a seat behind the scorekeeping machine. “Sorry. I had no idea. Um…yeah, I mean, I knew her. Not super great or anything, but I knew her.”

“How old are you, Mr. Patterson?” Kate asked.

“Nineteen.”

“Would you say you and Mariah were friends?”

“Sure. We were friends through most of school, just not best friends, you know?”

“Sure,” Kate said. “How about this past Wednesday night? Did you see her then?”

“Yeah, that was the night she died. I was here, bowling with a friend. When he and I left, I saw that Mariah and a few of her friends were hanging out in the parking lot.”

“Is that something she did a lot?”

“Not a lot, no. But from time to time. There’s not really much else to do around here, you know?”

DeMarco did know. She’d grown up in a similar town where the only thing to do after hours was hang out in convenience store parking lots, smoking cigarettes and maybe making out when the coast was clear.

“Did you go over to hang out?” DeMarco asked.

“Just for a little while. At first, I mean. I took my friend home and then swung back by just to check in.”

“Check in on what, exactly?” Kate asked.

Patterson frowned, sensing that he might be venturing into dangerous territory. Slowly, he started to do his best to explain. There were nerves in his voice, as well as something else. Regret, maybe? DeMarco wasn’t sure.

“Well, she was hanging out with some of the regulars…some friends of hers from high school and a new girl she met at the community college in Charlotte. But there was this other guy with them, some dude I’ve seen a few times and just…I don’t know…sort of avoided. I went back by later to check on Mariah to see if he was still around.”

“Why would you avoid this guy?” DeMarco asked.

“He’s sort of creepy, you know? The type that used to hang around the high school parking lot a few years after he had already graduated. He’s got to be at least twenty-five.”

“And what were the ages of the crowd you and Mariah hang out with?”

“Between nineteen and twenty-one or so. I hate to stereotype someone like that, but he’s sort of a loser. But anyway…that night, it was clear that he was drunk. Being loud and belligerent, you know?”

“What’s this guy’s name?” Kate asked.

“Does anyone need to know I was the one that told you?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Jamie Griles.” There was some grit and anger in his voice as he said it. “There’s no hard proof, but a lot of people think he goes to high school parties to get girls drunk and then sleeps with them. So when I saw that he was hanging out with Mariah and those younger girls, it felt creepy.”

“And was he still here in the parking lot when you came back by?”

“No, he had already left. One of Mariah’s friends said there was a party somewhere and even joked that Jamie went because there were younger girls there.”

“Is Jamie Griles a local?” DeMarco asked.

“Yeah. Born and raised. He’ll die here, too. Loser won’t ever amount to anything.” Patterson chuckled and shook his head. “Says the nineteen-year-old mechanic bowling by himself on a Monday night.”

“Have you spoken to the police?”

“No. No one bothered talking to me. Like I said…I wasn’t best friends with her. Just…a guy that knew her.”

The way he said this made DeMarco think Larry had been right; Dwayne Patterson had feelings for Mariah Ogden. She wondered if he ever told Mariah. The way he was handling it made her think he had not—that he had kept his feelings bottled up.

“Did you not think to talk to them about Jamie Griles?” Kate asked.

“Well, I didn’t even pause to think he might have been the one to kill her. Yeah, the guy is a creep and a loser, but I don’t know that I’d put murder within his reach.”

“You said he was loud and belligerent,” DeMarco said. “Do you know if there was anyone in particular he was upset with?”

“No clue.”

DeMarco looked around the bowling alley, as if searching for more questions to ask. When it was clear that they were done, she handed out yet another one of her business cards. “Please don’t hesitate to call if you think of anything else or even hear about anything that might be about Mariah’s murder.”

“I will,” Patterson said, pocketing the card. “Thanks.”

The thanks seemed a little odd, but DeMarco could tell by the resigned look on the young man’s face that he was happy to have helped, even if only in the slightest of ways. He was already picking up his ball to try managing that 7-10 split when DeMarco and Kate turned and walked away.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“You think it’s too late to make a house call?” DeMarco asked.

Kate laughed as she buckled her seatbelt. As soon as Dwayne Patterson had given them Jamie Griles’s name, she knew they would be making at least one more stop before calling it a day. She envied the drive and energy DeMarco had and could clearly see why she was so quickly making a name for herself in the bureau.

“Not for someone with the lifestyle that Jamie Griles seems to lead,” Kate said. “I assume that’s the stop you’d like to make?”

“Figured it might be worth a shot. It’s not even seven o’clock yet.”

“I’ll call Gates and see if he can pull up an address.”

Kate placed the call to Gates, only to find that he wasn’t at the precinct. He patched her through to Smith’s desk. The officer seemed happy enough to help, coming up with an address within twenty seconds.

Just as Kate plugged the address into the map app on her phone, her hand started to buzz as Gates called her back.

“Can I ask what you’re looking into Griles for?” Gates asked.

“We got word that he was hanging out with Mariah Ogden’s group of friends on the night she was killed. He was apparently loud and possibly intoxicated.”

“I should warn you that he’s a creep of the highest degree. But I honestly don’t see him as the sort to kill anyone.”

“That’s what we’re hearing. Now, can you define creep?”

“I’ve arrested him at last three times in the past few years. Small stuff, mostly. He’s got a DUI on his record, as well as a charge for disturbing the peace when he decided to start a little bar brawl at Esther’s Place. And, as I’m sure you may have already heard, he has something of a habit of trying to impress younger girls…often by purchasing alcohol for them. We haven’t been able to bust him for that yet, but it’s pretty much common knowledge.”

“Yeah, we’re hearing all of that, too.”

“Let me know if you need a hand.”

Kate ended the call, starting to wonder if Griles might be more of a lead than she had originally thought. She checked the address in her GPS and saw that it was only sixteen minutes away from the Larry’s Lanes and Arcade.

“You thinking the killer might be some sort of jilted or rejected ex-boyfriend or something?” Demarco asked as she guided them to the address.