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First up, I needed actual facts about David. I called my lawyer friend, Ally, up in Seattle, hoping she’d find out some dirt. She didn’t answer, so I called a couple more times before begrudgingly sending a text. She was starting to worry me. I’d met her around two years ago, and she’d been totally enthusiastic from the start. She was a believer of absolutely anything, as long as it didn’t make sense or have any physical evidence to support it. Finding me had been a gold mine for her. Recently, though, she’s been distant. Real distant. Avoiding my calls, sounding put out when I ask for help. She used to jump at the chance. I didn’t know what was wrong with her.
Eh, it was probably nothing.
Since Ally was a bust, I turned to my other friend, Mickey. Ugh, that sounds so pathetic when I say it out loud. And in my head, for that matter. Two friends, and at least one of them doesn’t want to know anymore. Well, Mickey was usually reliable. I was supposed to stop by his place later anyway, after school. Oh crap, I owed him mini muffins, too. I’d have to stop by the store on the way.
‘What’s she doing?’ Leesha asked. ‘Is she trying to work all this out in her head?’
‘No, it just looks like she’s doing that. She’s probably thinking about food,’ George explained.
Was I that transparent? Time to save face.
‘I’m thinking about what research I can do. Mickey’s at school right now, so he’s no help. Do you know if David has Facebook or Twitter or anything like that?’
‘Why the hell would I know that?’ Leesha asked, giving me a funny look.
Good point, and it was completely lazy of me to ask, considering I could immediately find out myself. And I did, two minutes later. He had a Facebook, no Twitter or anything else I could find. He did have LinkedIn, with 0 contacts. Poor guy.
Wait, he was a killer. I really had to stop thinking about him in that way.
I clicked onto his Facebook, which was completely private and had no information whatsoever. He didn’t even have a picture. I wasn’t even sure if it was the right David Schaffer.
Hell, I wasn’t even sure he existed at this point.
‘Okay, as far as the modern world is concerned, David doesn’t exist. I have no idea where he lives or works, and I know Izzy does, but she’s following him. And I reiterate, I don’t know where that is.’
Both lucies had nothing to say to that.
Moving on. I Googled Leesha’s name, to see where the cops were with her case.
‘Oh my God,’ I gasped, clicking on the first link I saw. ‘Your middle name is Tallulah?’
‘Don’t,’ she shuddered, closing her eyes.
‘It’s okay. Hers is Destiny,’ George assured her. I shot him a glare.
After clicking off sixteen ads and hissing at George after he asked why I didn’t have an ad blocker, I finally managed to read the article. After watching another ad, and promising to complete a survey afterwards. Local news, where would we be without it?
Leesha was murdered shortly after 10pm two Saturdays ago. She was walking home alone after meeting a friend. There were no cameras in the area or witnesses. Her mom, Tamara Wright, described Leesha as a beautiful, fun-loving girl who was studying to become a doctor. She couldn’t understand how somebody could do this.
‘Cops don’t seem to have much information, by the looks of things. No cameras, no witnesses. No nothing. I think I’m in the same boat.’
It’s not often that I hit a wall this quickly. Usually, that only happens after I’ve embarrassed myself in public a few times.
‘So, that’s it?’ Leesha shrugged, blasé. ‘Can’t help me at all?’
‘I can see if Mickey can hack into police or government databases, but I’m not sure he’s that good with computers.’
‘Also, it’s illegal,’ George pointed out. We ignored him.
‘Do you have any idea where he lives? Did Izzy take you before you came here?’
‘Naw, not really. I think she wanted to but I was pretty shaken up with everything. I wanted to see my mom, so she stayed with me while I watched her. She was a big help, actually. She allowed me to vent and deal with it in my own way. After I was sorta okay, we waited around your school until we overheard someone say you didn’t go there anymore. We knew where your dad worked, since you mentioned it a hundred times at therapy. We followed him for days until he told somebody on the phone that you’d be with Tess this morning. I haven’t seen David since he killed me.’
Okay, little creepy that two teen ghosts were stalking my dad.
‘Who did he tell?’ I frowned. Stacy already knew, and I didn’t know any of his other pals.
‘Hell if I know.’
Alright, majorly helpful.
‘Well, I’m still stuck,’ I told her. ‘I have nowhere to go on this. Unless Mickey’s suddenly a pro at hacking, I’m not sure he’ll find anything, either. If I don’t know where David is, I can’t do what I usually do.’
Which is annoy the killer enough to take a shot at me. Sometimes literally.
Most of the time, literally.
Hey, I never claimed I was good at this.
Leesha stood there frowning as George looked anxiously at us both. I think he was waiting for me to do something, but I wasn’t sure what. Offer my condolences, maybe? Talk about our feelings? I didn’t want to do either of those things.
But, a thought did belatedly recur to me. Leesha was possibly not the only victim.
I did a search on strangled women in the local area in the past thirty years, feeling like a total freak.
‘Is it true that the NSA and CIA can remotely access our computers and see what we’re doing?’ I asked George, by the by.
‘Are you kidding me? That’s absolute garbage. Pretty sure they can look up their own memes without stealing yours,’ he sighed, shaking his head in dismay.
Good to know. The government wouldn’t know what a total creep I was.
‘Did Izzy ever mention that David went on vacation?’ I asked, scrolling through the list. There was one possible murder that could, theoretically, be attributed to him. I was hoping he had a ready alibi for the day in question. Sadly, Leesha quickly burst that bubble.
‘He never did. I remember she mentioned that. She got bored going to the same places nearly every day so she’d wander off every now and then to see her family. And Chuck, of course.’
Wonderful. Although I didn’t really believe that David somehow managed to kill while she wasn’t there, I couldn’t rule out the possibility. My life was full of annoying, stupid coincidences like that, and it’d be just my luck that he was a deranged serial killer.
You know, I could totally see myself getting murdered here.
I shoved all self-homicidal thoughts right out of my head and opened my chips. I needed to concentrate. Jessica Lee, you were up.
Jessica was twenty nine. She was kind of an outlier age-wise, but it was the only unsolved strangling in the area. Only other strangling in general, actually. I was much more likely to get killed by a drunk-driver, which was always nice to know. Anyway, Jessica did volunteer work at a tiny local library. It was five years ago, the day before Christmas Eve, and she was the only one working. Everybody else clearly had other commitments, i.e., panic-buying gifts. She was due to lock up at 4pm, and her colleague Terry Roosevelt – no, really, that was his name, I double-checked – would reopen it four days later. When he got there at 9am, the door was unlocked and the lights all switched on. He headed on inside and found her body splayed out in the reading area. Ugh, creepy. There was no heating, so the body was pretty well-preserved thanks to the winter weather. As such, the forensics team could not give a reliable estimate to day of death. It could’ve been anywhere between 2.45pm on the 23rd, when the last witness came forward, to 9am on the 27th when Terry found her. The cops deduced it was likeliest to be somewhere on the first day, considering the door was unlocked.
Jessica had no family, which explained why she wasn’t found for a kinda horrific amount of time. Didn’t seem to have many friends, either, judging by the paltry flowers left at the library. There’d only been a few articles written about Jessica at the time of her death, no more since. My guess is she was a loner. Probably why she volunteered at a library.
Plus, her murder bore no relation whatsoever to Leesha’s or Izzy’s, so I thought it was a good shot.
‘Okay,’ I began, startling both lucies. They’d zoned out about a half hour ago, when I’d first started my morbid research. ‘One possibility of an extra body. Jessica Lee was killed five years ago. Does that name mean anything to you? Did Izzy mention it at all?’
‘The only names Izzy mentioned were her own, Chuck’s and David’s. I’m not sure she wants to know any names that don’t affect her,’ Leesha sniffed.
‘Yeah, I can see that. Did she ever mention that David changed emotionally at any time? Like, around that death?’ I prodded. Since it’d be helpful if she nodded, she shook her head.
‘I’d love to say yes, but no, sorry. Doesn’t mean he didn’t kill her, though.’
And it didn’t mean he did, either. Back to square one. If I’d ever left.
‘What are you thinking?’ George frowned.
That I wasn’t cut out for this task? I pretty much get my directions from lucies. “This guy killed me, there’s the evidence, go get him, champ.” Jessica wasn’t a lucy; well, I’d never met her, anyway. And yes, I did have evidence against David: sort of. It was just down a sewer, and was now probably washed away. Okay, I had no evidence.
Square zero.
No, wait. I wasn’t a total idiot. I must’ve learned something from all these years of poking and prodding around people’s personal lives.
Ooh! I should go poke and prod around her personal life.
A quick search told me that Terry still worked at the library. George swished through my bed to look at what I was smiling at and his frown deepened.
‘Who is this guy and why are you about to ruin his life?’
‘He worked with Jessica and found her body. And I am not going to ruin his life. I’m just gonna ask him a few questions, that’s all.’
‘How are you going to do that? Just walk up to him and strike up a conversation about his murdered coworker?’ he scoffed.
Yeah, pretty much. Except I wouldn’t be striking up the conversation.
Hannah Smith would.