“I can’t imagine her pain,” Cole said. “She might not want to think about the signs that she missed. Or that her daughter was hiding anything from her. You need to talk to other people who knew Lily.”
“That’s my plan. I started with the officers and staff here.”
“And what did they say?”
“No one knew her well. One of the officers said that her son graduated with Lily, but they’d lost touch when her son moved away for college. Most of the others just knew her from the bank where she worked as a teller. Everyone says that Lily was always smiling. That she was a happy young woman.”
That didn’t necessarily mean anything. I knew how it felt to feel entirely lost and alone but force a smile for the outside world.
“What about the other suicides?”
“The reports are thin.”
The former chief hadn’t been a stickler for details. That was something the staff here was going to have to change because I wasn’t going to let short, hurried reports be the standard.
“Last year, a seventeen-year-old boy hung himself in his basement. Before that, it’s all been women. Three, including Lily, jumped to their deaths off a cliff. Another slit her wrists in the bathtub. Another downed a bottle of prescription pills. And the first, ten years ago, shot herself with her father’s pistol. I guess he was a cop.”
No one in the station had wanted to talk about that case.
“Damn.” Cole blew out a long breath. “That’s a lot for such a small town. Especially because it’s mostly women.”
“Exactly.” Suicide rates were over three times higher in men. Yet in Quincy, it was like the statistics had flip-flopped.
“It’s not unheard of but it gives me pause.”
“Me too. It’s not necessarily out of the normal range, but the girls were all in their twenties. Typically, I would have expected them to be younger. Dealing with high school stuff, you know? These girls were all working and transitioning to their adult lives. The high school problems should have largely been behind them.”
“Were they all from Quincy?”
“Yes.”
“Even though they were older, they were probably still connected to it. Their old acquaintances, good and bad. The town.”
“True.”
“What does your gut say?” he asked.
“It’s unsettled,” I admitted. “Maybe if we had found a note or a journal or anything that showed this girl was struggling, I wouldn’t feel so uneasy.”
“Keep looking. Keep talking to people.”
“I’m ruffling feathers.”
He laughed. “You’re quite good at losing your phone and keys. But you’re fantastic at ruffling feathers.”
“Ha ha,” I muttered, a smile on my lips. I’d missed Cole’s teasing.
“Rile ’em up, Winnie. If that’s what it takes until your gut stops screaming, ruffle all the feathers you need.”
“Thanks.” A knot of anxiety loosened in my stomach. Cole often told me what I already knew. That didn’t make his words any less powerful.
“Call me if you need to talk it through again.”
“Okay. Give Poppy a hug for me. Brady and MacKenna too.”
“Will do. I’ll shoot you a text with some weekends that work for us.”
“Can’t wait.” We said our goodbyes and then I sat back in my chair, staring at the mess of files to review.
Maybe I was reading too much into Lily Green. Quincy was a small town and I had to think that my officers had a good pulse for what was happening. If there was any reason to suspect foul play, they would have seen it, right? And Pops too. He hadn’t mentioned a thing about the suicides.
Except what if the reason no one had questioned these suicides was because they were from Quincy? I was the only person who hadn’t spent years working in this department. Not only that, but every staff member had been born and raised in this county.
Maybe to them, this was normal.
The saddest truth would be if they were right.
A knock came at the door.
“Come in,” I called.
Janice poked her head inside. “Emily from the newspaper is on line one for you.”
“Would you please tell her I’m in a meeting and take a message?”
“Sure thing.” She eased the door closed, leaving me to my own thoughts.
I swiveled in my chair, right then left, right then left. My eyes never wandered from the stack of files.
Why? Why was Lily’s death bothering me?
“No note.” That was the biggest missing piece.
“Her car.” Why had it been miles away from Indigo Ridge? Who’d taken her up there?
“Her shoes.” If she’d walked, where were her shoes?
On Saturday, after a fitful night’s rest on Friday thanks to the man who’d kissed me dizzy, I’d returned to Indigo Ridge. I’d canvased the area, hiking the ridge not once more, but twice. Then I’d walked the path to where we’d found Lily’s car again.
No clues in sight, certainly no missing pair of shoes.
What I really felt like doing with my day was heading out to the trail again, but the stack of files wasn’t getting smaller, so I took a sip from my now-cold coffee and got to work.
Eight hours and too-many-files-to-count later, there wasn’t anything particularly noteworthy, though I had added three more items to my list of new paperwork requirements. Janice had scheduled one-on-one meetings with every officer in the department, and starting tomorrow, I’d sit down with each to talk on an individual basis.
I had positive praise for each person—except Officer Smith—but there were critiques too. I doubted I’d win many friends by the time these meetings were complete, but whatever. This was my department now, damn it, and we were going to start creating reports worth reading.
By the time Janice came in to say good night, I was exhausted and starving. I was in the middle of packing up a few files to take home for the night when my phone rang. “Hey, Pops.”
“I’m grilling burgers for dinner.”
“I’m on my way. Need me to pick up anything?”
“Cold beer.”
“On it.” I smiled and hustled out the door. After a quick stop by the convenience store for his favorite, Coors Original, I headed across town.
Pops lived on the outskirts of Quincy, in a neighborhood nestled against the river. The house had been his and my grandmother’s before she’d died fifteen years ago. In all my life, the house hadn’t changed. The outside was still the same pea green. The interior was a symphony of beige.
My grandmother had loved chickens, and her collection of rooster and hen statues sat proudly above the kitchen cabinets. Walking through the front door was like walking into my childhood. His love for her clung to the outdated floral curtains, crocheted afghans and cross-stitched toss pillows she’d left behind.
“Pops?” I called from the entryway.
He didn’t answer, so I headed toward the back deck. The smoky scent of his barbeque greeted me as I stepped outside, along with another familiar face.
“Well, there she is.” Frank, my grandpa’s neighbor and friend, popped out of a deck chair. He clapped once, then opened his arms. “I’ve been waiting for you to come over here and visit.”