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Max felt bad about not booking the day off the following week for Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year. She wished she could treat it like any other day, but she never seemed to succeed. The past few years, even though she hadn’t gone to temple or synagogue, she’d taken the day off and spent it reading poetry or listening to music. She’d told her parents she couldn’t take both Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, but it wasn’t true. She hadn’t even tried. She sat at her desk, trying to make herself look busy. She hadn’t actually closed the missing gal case, even though she had no doubt Ella had left Breezy for a guy. The name change thing was what still had her interested in the case. She was waiting to hear whether the name change was official. Gulfport, being a small town, couldn’t afford access to databases the way larger cities could, so everything took longer than when she’d worked up north. She wasn’t worried about Ella’s disappearance like Breezy was, but her curiosity had gotten the better of her, and she wanted to fully resolve everything before moving on completely.
“What’s up, Golden Girl?” Del sat at his desk, shuffling papers from side to side. Looked as if he was about as busy as she was.
“I want to take next Wednesday off. Can you work it for me?”
“Can’t help ya. Wife and I are headed up to our cabin in the mountains.”
“My my, aren’t we fancy. Didn’t know you were a member of the elite. Do you own your own lake as well?”
“Smartass. It’s actually a 30-foot trailer in the woods.”
“Where is it? Pennsylvania? New York?” She thought back fondly to the Poconos and the Finger Lakes. It had been a long time since she saw hills and mountains.
“Nah. It’s in North Georgia. Between Blue Ridge and Ellijay.”
Max had returned to her paperwork, but now she spun around so fast she got momentarily dizzy. “What did you say?”
“Said we’re going out of town for the weekend.”
“No, I mean...you said my missing girl’s name. Ella Jay.”
Del laughed. “Nah, I said it’s where we bought a summer place. Ellijay. It’s spelled with an “i.” I guess we locals do pronounce it more like your gal’s name, Ella, than how it’s spelled.”
Max was still staring at him. “Don’t you see? That’s it. Maybe her parents were murdered there. That’s why she picked the name.”
Del cocked his head to one side, apparently considering what she’d said. “I guess it could be, though I never heard of anything like that happening there.”
Max enveloped him in a bear hug. “I know it is. I bet if I check out double homicides in Ellijay, I’ll come up with something.”
But when she typed Ellijay into the database, nothing came up. She couldn’t believe it. There had to be a connection. She turned back to Del.
“Tell me more about Ellijay. What kind of place is it? How did you hear about it? What makes it special?”
“Slow down. One question at a time. What kind of place is it? It’s a small town that gets a fair number of visitors because it’s one of those places the ladies like to go shopping. You know, antiques, foo-foo stuff. Just the kind of place you’d like.” He smiled and Max whacked him on the arm. “It’s got a real mix of people. Hillbillies and pot-smoking ex-hippies living in rundown trailers, wealthy ranches owned by folks who escaped the big city of Atlanta, progressives, extremists, they’re all there. There’s a small town center, but most of the folks live in the hills or by the rivers. That’s where we have our place, on a creek. It’s way cooler than Florida.”
She brought the map up on her computer then expanded it to see the broader location. It was an area of the country she didn’t even know existed. She’d driven through Georgia when they relocated to Florida, but it had been a straight shot on I-95, a freeway as flat as any in Florida. Who knew Georgia was that close to mountains?
Max was convinced Ella had to be connected to the town and that’s why she’d taken its name. Maybe one of her parents grew up in Ellijay, or maybe that’s where her grandparents lived when she was a kid, and she had fond memories. Breezy said Ella had relocated from California, but it seemed far more likely that she would have heard about Gulfport if she lived in the next state and not three thousand miles away. Maybe the murders had happened somewhere close to Ellijay. Del had said it wasn’t that far from Atlanta. What if that was where the murders took place? She knew nothing about the city or its layout. The only things she knew about it was that it had the busiest airport in the world and that you never wanted to be there in a hurricane. She could still remember the TV news stories showing people stuck without food or gas on gridlocked freeways when the last hurricane hit.
Max keyed in double homicides in Atlanta. There were plenty. She narrowed it down to married couples and discovered there were several every year. She had no idea what year she was looking for. Since Ella came to Florida three years ago, she was probably looking at a range between three to six years ago. As she read, she felt adrenalin coursing through her veins. She knew this was a long shot. For a start, Breezy said Ella was from California. But then again, Ella had clearly hidden plenty of things from her fiancée.
The first homicide she read about was a gruesome execution of a young couple after they were kidnapped and the ransom wasn’t paid. They were only in their twenties. She quickly ruled them out.
The second involved the murder-suicide of a middle-aged couple, the Farringdons. Could this be it? If Ella’s father had killed her mother, he probably had a long history of domestic violence. And females in families where the moms were abused had a high likelihood of ending up in abusive relationships themselves. It wasn’t the first time Max had considered that Ella might have changed her name because she was hiding from a batterer.
Max thought back to that answer Ella had given Breezy when asked if they’d found her parents’ murderer. “Kinda.” If her father killed her mother, it would be pretty clear they found the culprit. The father’s death would have been ruled a suicide. Unless Ella thought it was staged and someone else killed them both. Either way it would make sense that Ella didn’t want to discuss what happened with Breezy. Having a murderer for a father wasn’t a fact most folks would want to throw around. Max read on to find out more.
The couple lived in Decatur, a suburb of Atlanta. They were white and middle-class and had one adult daughter named Emma. Emma? Max could feel her heart start pumping. How much closer to the name Ella could you get? Max raced through the information. The only other family member mentioned was the father’s brother, Bob. Breezy said Ella had no relatives but maybe the murder had caused a rift between her and her family. It was pretty common with domestic violence cases. There were photos of the couple, but none of the adult daughter.
Max located a Robert Farringdon right there in Atlanta almost immediately, but what excited her much more was the fact that she couldn’t find Emma Farringdon anywhere in the state of Georgia. It could be that Emma got married and took her husband’s name, but a cursory review of marriage records didn’t show that to be the case. She searched a Georgia database to find out what college Emma attended but once again drew a blank. “Dig deeper,” she exhorted herself, topping off her stain-ridden mug with stale coffee. She expanded her search beyond Georgia and scrolled wearily through more lists. She almost spilled her coffee when the name Emma Farringdon popped up at a Meredith College in Raleigh North Carolina, especially when she saw that it was a liberal arts women’s college. What more perfect place for a young lesbian?
“I’m trying to track down a graduate of yours by the name Emma Farringdon,” she told the person in the alumni office the operator transferred her to.
“One moment...” She heard the tap of computer keys, a sigh, more tapping, and finally the woman came back on the line. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have an alumna by that name.”
“Are you sure? The public records show she attended your school.”
“Who did you say was calling?” the woman asked.
“I didn’t. But I’m calling from a Florida law enforcement agency.”
“Oh.” She heard an intake of breath. “Let me transfer you to the provost’s office.”
More clicks, and finally another voice for her to explain her search. This time she got an entirely different reaction.
“Oh, that poor thing. She was in the Taubman program, for older returning students. In her thirties I think.” Max felt her heart almost explode with excitement. The right age! “Of course we remember her. You must have spoken with Lashonda. She’s a new employee. I’m so sorry. Emma did attend our school, and she was all set to graduate when that dreadful incident happened. She dropped out and never came back. We tried to encourage her to return—she only had one semester left—but there was nothing we could do. She was simply devastated. Who can blame her?”
Darn. She’d have to speak to the uncle. She punched in the number she’d located for him but when she got a recording, she hung up. The last thing she wanted was to leave a message stating she was from law enforcement. A moment later her phone rang.
“Who is this?” an aggressive male voice asked her. “And why did you hang up on me?” She heard a lot of background noise and tried to figure out where he was.
“I’m sorry, sir.” She put her coffee cup down quickly. “I’m actually glad you called me back. My name is Detective Golders and I’m trying to track down your niece, Emma.”
“Why? What’s she done?”
Max tried to judge the tone he was using. Not too much compassion. A certain amount of wariness.
“Uh...we think she might have gone missing.”
“Jeez.” The sigh was audible enough for her to pull the phone away from her ear. “Hold on,” he said. “Let me get to an office where we can talk in private.”
A moment later, he was back. “Sorry,” he said. “Damn hot-desking. I hate it. Sharing a workstation with a bunch of others, it’s crazy. What were you saying about Emma?”
“Can you tell me when you last saw her?” Max was aware that he hadn’t asked her any identifying information. Whenever she had to research a case, she found herself having mixed reactions when her subjects opened up too easily. On the one hand it made her life a lot easier. But on the other, she was constantly shocked by how many people gave out personal information with no real idea who they were talking to.
“I haven’t seen Emma in over three years,” he said. Max’s stomach muscles tightened with anticipation. She couldn’t believe her luck. This had to be Ella!
“May I ask why not?”
“I presume you know how her parents died.” He said it without needing to put a question mark at the end of the sentence and Max figured he was used to the fact that everyone he met knew.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks. To answer your question, we were never that close to start with. It was her mother’s fault. Didn’t care for me. She was a sorry specimen. My brother should never have married her. She lied about him all the time, accused him of things he would never have done.”
“You’re saying he wasn’t violent toward his wife?”
“She went out of her way to annoy him. Did things she knew he didn’t like, so he’d end up hitting her around to get her back in line. Then she’d call the cops and cry victim. I didn’t have much respect for her.” Max began to get a sense of why Emma might not want to have much to do with her uncle. “After they died, Emma blamed me. Said I was the older brother and could have intervened. That he’d have listened to me. I told her she could have done a better job of keeping her mom in line. We fought, and she said she didn’t want to be in touch anymore. I said that was fine by me.” Max heard the cycle of violence turning its gruesome wheel. She hoped like heck Robert wasn’t married, but it wasn’t her business, nor why she was calling.
“Do you have any idea where she is?” Max asked. “And do you know if she might be going under an alias? I wouldn’t have called you if I could track her down, but I haven’t been able to.”
“That’s not surprising. She changed her name.” Bingo!
“Did she tell you what she changed it to?” Max held her breath, waiting to see if in the next moment she’d get the answer she hoped for.
She heard a snort on the other end of the phone. “That was part of why she changed it. She didn’t want me to be able to find her. Said she was disgusted with the family name and wanted nothing more to do with it.” Smart girl, Max thought, even as her heart sank from disappointment.
“I see. Does your family have any connection with any of the small mountain towns north of Atlanta?” Max tried to make the question sound as casual as possible, as if she was changing the subject. When he didn’t answer immediately, she listed them. “Blue Ridge, Blairsville, Ellijay...”
“Nah,” he said. “We’re city people. Not the hiking-fishing kind.”
“I see.” Max wondered if there was any other information she could get from him and realized there was. “Would you be willing to send me a photo of your niece?”
“I can probably locate one off my old tablet when I get home,” he said.
She started to thank him, but he interrupted her. “You asked me if Emma told me her new name and I said no. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know what it is. I wasn’t going to let her disappear and leave me with no idea what was going on. Her dad wouldn’t have liked that. I did my homework. Silly girl didn’t even make it that hard. She dropped her last name and goes by her first and middle names. Emma Marlie. Like I said, just like her mother. Stupid. Last I tracked her she was teaching special needs kids in the Appalachians.”
Max tried not to punch her desk with frustration as she hung up.