Ellie: Sorry so quiet. BF’s mom drowned.

Josh: Wow. That’s terrible.

Ellie: I don’t know.

Josh: What?

Ellie: You’ll think bad of me.

Josh: Never.

Ellie: She was a very cruel woman. I’m not sorry. My friend is better off.

Josh: I don’t know what to say.

Ellie: I shouldn’t have said that, babe.

Josh: I wish my parents were dead.

Ellie: If mine were gone, we’d be together, wouldn’t we?

Josh: Forever.

I indicate the timeline. “Two weeks later her parents were dead, and Ellie was presumed drowned.”

Sheriff narrows his brow as he thumbs through the pages.

“They don’t plot to kill their folks?”

“Not online,” I answer. “The phone was used only for another few days. The last call, however, was between Joshua and Ellie. We don’t know what they said. At some point after they talked, it was tossed into the neighbor’s yard where I recovered it.”

I look at my phone.

“Joshua has been released from the hospital, arraigned on first-degree murder charges for his mother’s homicide. He’s not talking.”

“I wonder why,” Sheriff says.

Marley nods.

“The interesting ones never talk until they’ve been in custody for a few years.”

I smile.

“Yeah, it’s kind of lonely there.”

Forty-Three

Aunt Laurna, Ellie and her lawyer—resplendent in an Italian suit that I’m immediately convinced the likes of which have never crossed our county line—sit in a row behind a table in the jail’s visiting room. Ellie’s youthful beauty has been eclipsed by her jail-issue jumpsuit. She wears no makeup. Laurna, the foolish do-gooder, is dressed in a smart suit of her own, a thick gold chain around her neck, equally costly, and garish gold earrings dangle like wind chimes.

As I sit down, I can’t help but label each of the three.

Denier.

Killer.

Mercedes.

Mercedes introduces himself. His name is Clifton Scott; he’s a partner with blah, blah, blah.

“I’m representing Ellie here,” he says.

I change his name to Obvious.

Laurna nods at me but doesn’t say a word. I wonder if she’s hired the high-priced attorney out of guilt for coming forward after seeing Ellie’s picture. Her loyalties are a mystery. The girl sitting to her left killed her sister and brother-in-law. I’m thinking now that their family album is a book of horrors.

Ellie just sits there, smugly and silently. It passes through my mind that this might be a new role for her. No longer the one pushing buttons herself but enlisting a lawyer to do so. I set that aside straight away. She had Joshua do her bidding.

“Why are we here?” I ask.

“I’ve negotiated a deal with the prosecutor’s office.”

“I’ve heard you were trying.”

“Well, that’s why we’re here, Detective.”