Sunday, November 6, 2011
The dead girl’s name was Jamie Ann Drake.
A pair of matching silver VW Passats sat in the driveway of her parents’ home, the driveway paved, a rarity in these parts, most driveways up here in the Kingdom were dirt or crushed stone.
Test stared at the house, dreading what came next. Interviewing the parents of a murdered child exhausted and depressed her like nothing else. There was no delicate approach. She had to sit with a mother and father still so shocked they had yet to begin to grieve, ask them to lay bare intimate secrets, troubled behavior, drug use, or promiscuity. Most families had never had their secrets exposed to an outsider’s scrutiny. Now, all the secrets would be dissected. The questions were cruel by the very act of their being asked.
The home was much like Test’s, alarmingly so, what she thought of as adorable, a mid-1800s eyebrow Cape that, she could tell even in the fog and rain, was lovingly tended while maintaining the rustic integrity of the farmhouse. Dried cornstalks framed the black main door on the front porch. A wreath of bittersweet adorned the center of the door itself, and a wicker cornucopia of pumpkins, squash, and gourds rested at the sill.
Test walked up the driveway to the side door; no one in Vermont used the front door. The side kitchen or a mudroom was the everyday entrance. The front door was used by distant relatives converging for the holidays, peddlers of obscure religions, kids pushing candy to fund D.C. trips. Test’s kids had been drilled to never, ever, answer a knock at the front door.
Test knocked, her chest tight.
A dog barked once; the door opened.
A couple, midforties, stood before Test, the man tall and lean, his posture erect, proper, though his maroon cardigan sagged on his frame to give a false impression that he was slouching. A black Labrador retriever sat at the man’s bare feet, leaning slightly against his owner’s legs, wetting the man’s trousers with drool.
The woman, petite with alert blue eyes, offered a smile of teeth as white as cream as she squeezed her husband’s hand in hers. The couple were not exactly the picture of grief a layperson might expect, but as a police officer Test knew grief had as many outward appearances as there were people grieving.
“Detective,” the man said and held out his hand for Test to shake. “Stephen Drake. My wife, Shirley.”
Shirley Drake kept smiling, as if afraid to stop.
“Come in,” she said.
Shirley asked Test if she would care for anything to drink. Test declined, then wished she’d accepted. Ritual tended to calm the bereaved. The Drakes sat on a love seat across from her, the Labrador retriever collapsing in a heap at their feet with a dramatic sigh.
Test expressed her condolences. The parents of the murdered Jamie Drake nodded. Shirley Drake went on smiling as if she were stoned.
“I have to ask insensitive questions,” Test said, wishing again she’d accepted the offer of a drink. Her throat was dry. The air dry in a way only a house heated by a wood stove could be dry.
“We understand,” Stephen Drake said. “But we were asked many questions already by the state police, late into the night.”
“I apologize to have to ask again,” Test said, taken aback, not realizing the state police had already been so thorough. Whatever the case, Test was here now, forward her sole option.
“When were you last in contact with your daughter, in person or otherwise, by phone or texting?” Test said.
“We saw her just yesterday morning, just two hours before—” the mother said. “We both went to work. I work at the Connecticut River Bank, as a teller.” She said this as if she were apologizing for her chosen work. “My husband has his own accounting practice. We said good-bye, left Jamie at the breakfast table.”
The dog whimpered at the mention of the Jamie’s name.
“And did you notice anyone strange, men in particular, near the house or near your daughter, or did she mention anyone or anything that had bothered her lately?”
“Nothing,” the mother said.
“Was she upset, angry, or blue?” Test asked.
“She was normal,” the father said. “Upbeat, for the most part, into her music and acting, frustrated she didn’t get the lead in the school play, typical stuff.”
“I hate to ask,” Test said. “But I need to. Was your daughter involved in anything you disapproved of?”
The mother blinked, in a way that made Test think she wanted to glance at her husband but did not dare. The father blinked in the same manner and his head had started to turn toward his wife, but stopped.
“We all do things as kids,” the father said. “I think of the way I behaved as a teen and I pity my poor parents.”
“Did she do things?” Test said.
“Like what?” the father said.
He and the mother shifted uncomfortably. Perhaps the state police had asked only rudimentary questions.
“Drinking? Drugs?” Test said.
“Our daughter’s murder is not her fault,” the mother said.
“Of course not,” Test said.
“Even if she’d been a junkie,” the father said, “or promiscuous or— Which she wasn’t. She—”
“We don’t know if she did drugs or drank,” the mother said. “We assume she did to some extent. Drank anyway. She’s a teenager. We kept a close eye on her. She gave us access to her Facebook account; we let her stay out to eleven on Saturday night. We’re firm but open. And never saw any crazy posts. We didn’t see any signs of her being in trouble despite who she’d started to hang around with.”
Test’s antennae raised. “Who had she started to hang out with?”
The mother and father looked at each other with what appeared to be confusion.
“We’d have thought the state police would have told you. Aren’t you in communication?”
“We haven’t been on this precise point yet. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to fill me in.”
“We had no signs of, as you put it, things to disapprove of. But the girl she took up with. We knew she—”
“No,” the father interrupted. “We didn’t know.”
“I did. I knew,” the wife said. Her hand slackened its hold of her husband’s.
“To be honest,” the father began, “my wife did suspect. We talked about it, though not to Jamie. Because there were no outside signs, not even subtle ones, that this girl Jamie had become friends with was influencing her in a bad way. We were apprehensive, naturally. You want your kids to hang out with so-called good kids from so-called good families. But you also want to give the benefit of the doubt to a kid who comes from a tougher, more challenging situation. Those kids get ostracized enough. I know. I was one. Had a single mom. Poor. Anyway. We gave Jamie’s friend the benefit of the doubt.”
“You gave her the benefit the doubt,” Shirley said.
What are these two going on about? Test wondered.
“But neither of us,” the father said, “knew our daughter’s friend was that kind of trouble.”
“Of course not,” the mother said. “Who would ever think that? But now—” She wiped at tears.
“Who is this friend?” Test said. “Who are you talking about?”
“She and our daughter both loved acting and bonded because of it, despite having absolutely nothing else in common.” Shirley Drake glanced at her husband. “Despite my knowing nothing good could come of that girl.”
“What girl?” Test said.