What stuck with Andrea the most about Clay’s statement was the fact that, barring the first line, which was obviously the same coached line of all the witness statements, Clay had never used Emily’s name again.
Andrea had reached the front of the Vaughn mansion. The dual Ford Explorers were still parked alongside each other. She assumed Harri and Krump were giving Bible the rundown as they handed over the shift. Instead of going inside the house, Andrea put her back to the wall. She unlocked her iPhone. Her fingers moved quickly across the screen as she ran a series of searches.
‘Hurts So Good’ by John Cougar was from the American Fool album.
‘Nice Girls’ was featured on Eye to Eye’s self-titled debut.
Juice Newton’s ‘Love’s Been a Little Bit Hard on Me’ was from Quiet Lies.
Andrea looked up the rest of the list, from Blondie to Melissa Manchester to Van Halen. According to Wikipedia, all of the songs were from albums that had been released in April of 1982. Which meant that whoever had made the mixtape had been in touch with Emily weeks if not days before she’d been attacked.
She smoothed together her lips. She swiped through the quickly taken snapshots of teenage Judith’s first collage. She found the cassette tape liner notes and zoomed in.
Back in 1982, someone had used a fountain pen to write out the artists and titles. The ink had smeared. The letters were almost calligraphic, blending a book hand with roman writing alongside a Palmer-method precise cursive. Andrea had to guess that whoever had made the tape had either been overwhelmed by an artistic urge or gone to the trouble of trying to disguise their handwriting.
In light of Emily’s brutal attack, the answer felt obvious.
The phone vibrated in her hand. Instinctively, Andrea’s eyes rolled before she read her mother’s name on the text, because of course Laura had texted her. She tapped open the message and found a photo of an Arc’teryx jacket that Andrea had to admit perfectly matched her style if not her current weather situation. Then another text popped up, this one a link to an outfitter in Portland, Oregon.
They’ve got your size, Laura had typed. Talked to Gil, the mgr. He’s there til 10.
“For fucksakes,” Andrea mumbled.
She texted back—Can’t read because of strong winds from helicopter blades.
A door opened inside the garage. She poked her head around the side and saw Bible walking toward her.
“Sorry.” She held up her iPhone. “My mother’s going for helicopter parent of the year.”
“No problem,” he said, but she could tell it was a problem. “Harri and Krump wanted to give you a howdy-do before they hit the hay.”
The two men appeared behind Bible, both well over six feet and, combined, almost as wide as one of the garage bays. She gathered from the exhaustion on their faces that they wanted to get the hell out of here.
Bible said, “Mitt Harri, Bryan Krump, this is Andrea Oliver, our new dewsum.”
“Glad to meet you.” Harri gave her a warm handshake. She recognized him as the driver of Judith’s Mercedes. He was taller than his partner, which meant he had to duck his head under the garage door. “Welcome to the service.”
“Same here.” Krump settled on a fist bump. “Don’t let Foghorn Leghorn talk your ear off all night.”
Andrea couldn’t help but laugh. The description wasn’t that far off. “I’ll try.”
“Mike’s a solid guy,” Krump said, and Andrea stopped laughing. “Never believed the rumors.”
“Me, neither,” Harri chimed in.
“Great,” was the only word Andrea could force out between clenched teeth.
“Good deal. Thanks, fellas. Sleep tight.” Bible patted Andrea on the shoulder, indicating she should hurry along. “Judge is about to go upstairs for the night. Come in and meet her first.”
Harri and Krump gave her a salute before heading out. Andrea shoved her iPhone into her pocket as she followed Bible through the garage. There was another Mercedes parked in the far bay, a boxy 1980s S-Class with faded gold paint and cracked leather seats.
“Yankee Cheap,” Bible whispered.
Andrea smiled, because he was being nicer than she had a right to expect considering he’d told her to check the periphery and she’d ended up taking a thirty-minute introductory class in the Dyeing Methods and Collages of Judith Rose.
She told him, “I ran into Judith again. And Guinevere.”
“I’m guessing Guinevere was sneaking a smoke downwind to piss off her mama,” Bible said. “You like Judith’s stuff?”
“Uh—yeah.” Andrea realized she sounded diplomatic when she was actually feeling caught out. And then she realized diplomatic probably wasn’t a bad way to play this. “Art is subjective.”
“I know that’s right.” Bible patted her on the back in comradery. “Judge is in the kitchen with Dr. Vaughn. I’m gonna take a look-see around. Meet me in the library. That’s the place with all the books.”
Again, Andrea had the sensation of being tossed into the deep end. She wasn’t going to sink the way she had with Chief Stilton. She looked around, trying to orient herself in the long, dark hallway. Half-bath with newspapers on top of the tank. A shoe rack from the Dark Ages. Black and white Winslow Homer-esque portraits of rugged farm stock hung crookedly across a wood-paneled wall. Syd the parakeet’s warbles echoed down the back stairs. Somewhere, a television was playing. It was less House Slytherin and more Miss. Havisham does Hufflepuff.
She heard silverware clattering against china and assumed that was meant to draw her toward the kitchen.
Thermometer, Andrea reminded herself as she walked down the hallway. The judge would be cold, so she needed to be cold, too. Andrea could do that. She was, after all, her mother’s daughter.
She took a breath before entering the kitchen. Low ceiling with heavy oak beams. Corian countertops. White melamine cabinets. Faux-brick pattern in the faded linoleum. Gold chandelier over the farmhouse table. Someone had gone all out on the remodel back in the 1990s. The only update was one of Judith’s very good collages hanging beside the fridge.
“Hello, dear.” Esther Vaughn was sitting at the table with a cup of tea. Her husband was in a wheelchair beside her. His face looked completely slack. One of his eyes was milky. The other stared blankly up and to the right. “This is Dr. Vaughn. You’ll have to excuse him for not speaking. He suffered a hemorrhagic stroke last year, but he’s still fully compos mentis.”
Andrea guessed the stroke was the real reason for his retirement. And also why his granddaughter had moved back home around the same time.
She said, “Nice to meet you, Dr. Vaughn.”
The man offered no response, which was unsurprising. Because of Laura’s work as a speech therapist, Andrea was very familiar with the different types of strokes and their consequences. Hemorrhagic was the worst, caused by an artery bursting in the brain, which could lead to hydrocephalus, which caused intracranial pressure that could destroy surrounding tissue, which was a polite way of saying brain damage.
Esther misread her silence. “Do wheelchairs make you uncomfortable?”
“No, ma’am. They make me glad that the people we love are still with us.” Andrea fell back on her good southern manners. “I should thank you both for having me in your home. I know this is a stressful time for your family. I’ll do my best to stay out of your way.”