Kelly Bartley sat alone in the Frederickport Police Department’s interrogation room. She had been waiting for over fifteen minutes to be interviewed. Glancing to the mirror on the far wall, she remembered what Danielle had once told her. It was a two-way mirror. She wondered if someone was watching her. Shifting nervously in the chair, she regretted not stopping first at Ian’s house and picking up her brother. Instead, she had driven directly from Astoria to the police station.
She was considering standing up and pacing the room to burn off nervous energy when the door opened, and Joe Morelli walked in.
“Hi, Joe. I was wondering if you’d forgotten about me.” She smiled.
“Kelly, we appreciate you coming in.” Joe sat down across from her.
“Ian called me earlier today, told me what happened to Mr. Morris. He asked me to call the station and talk to Brian Henderson, let him know I’d left Ian’s house around the time you think Mr. Morris was murdered. I did try calling, but they told me Officer Henderson had left for the day.”
“Did you leave a message? Ask to talk to someone else?”
Kelly shrugged. “No. I just figured that since I really didn’t see anything, it wasn’t urgent. I was going to try calling again in the morning.”
Resting his right hand atop the closed manila folder, Joe looked across the table at Kelly. “Why don’t you tell me about last night. From when you left your brother’s house and got into your car to leave.”
“There really isn’t much to say. I’d been helping him do some Internet research on his current project.”
“The piece on Earthbound Spirits and Peter Morris?”
She nodded. “Yes. After Cleve Monchique’s attempt on Mr. Winston’s life, and then when nothing happened to Earthbound Spirits after Monchique’s suicide, my brother decided to research the group, write an exposé.”
“So what time did you leave your brother’s house?”
“I honestly don’t know. I remember looking at the clock around 11:30 and saying we needed to wrap it up. I was planning to stay with a friend for the weekend in Astoria. So we finished up, I tossed my stuff in a suitcase, and left.”
“Do you have any idea what time that was?”
“I didn’t really pay any attention to the clock after that. But it was probably thirty minutes, or maybe an hour or more, later by the time I left.”
“That’s rather a big difference—thirty minutes opposed to over an hour.”
She shrugged again. “I sometimes lose track of time. Ask my brother. I get doing stuff, tell him I’ll be ten minutes, and then when I finally show up it’s maybe an hour later. I’m sorry. If I’d known the exact time would be important, I would’ve paid more attention to the clock.”
“When you left, did your brother walk you to your car?”
“No. He was in the shower when I left. I’d already said goodbye to him.”
“So, when you went outside, did you go directly to your car?”
Kelly frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe you took Sadie out? Walked around the yard, looked over to Marlow House? Maybe you saw some cars on the street?”
“I honestly didn’t pay that much attention. I just got into my car and left. I didn’t notice any strange cars parked on the street.”
“Kelly, did you bring a coat with you?”
“Coat? Well sure, it’s been cold.”
“Does your coat have a…hood?”
Instead of answering immediately, Kelly stared at Joe. Finally, she said, “Sure. It’s a rain coat.”
“And did you have that coat on last night, when you left your brother’s house to go home?”
Kelly shifted nervously in the chair. “What’s this about, Joe?”
“I think you need to tell me what really happened between the time you stepped out of your brother’s house and got into your car last night. Although technically, it was early this morning.”
Looking down at the table, she closed her eyes. “That person, the one who almost hit me…”
“Kelly Bartley, did you kill Peter Morris?”
Kelly’s eyes flew open, and her head snapped up. She looked into Joe’s dark eyes. “Is that what you’re thinking? Good lord, Joe! Of course I didn’t kill him!”
“Then I think you need to tell me what exactly happened last night.”
Kelly let out a deep sigh before proceeding. “Last night, while I was putting my suitcase and things into my car, I looked across the street and noticed a light on in the parlor of Marlow House. I had intended to stop and say hi to Danielle while I was here, but I never got around to it. So I decided to run over real quick, see if she was the one in the parlor; so I could surprise her and say hi. I knew it was late…but it sounded…well, like a good idea at the time.”
“What happened?”
“By the time I got over there, someone had turned off one of the lights in the parlor.”
“What do you mean one of the lights?”
“When I first looked over, the parlor window was lit up—like the overhead light was on. But when I got across the street, it looked pretty dark downstairs, but there was still some light coming from the parlor. I looked in the window. There was a nightlight on.”
“Was anyone in the room?”
“I saw what looked like a silhouette of a man. I figured it was probably one of Danielle’s guests, and I started feeling like a peeping Tom, so I ran back across the street. When I did, I almost got hit by a car. I was so frazzled and embarrassed from peeking into Marlow House’s window, I didn’t see the car coming. It stopped, I ran to my car, got in, and left.”
“Did you see any other cars parked on the street?”
“No. I’m sorry. I really was not paying attention.”
“Have you ever met Peter Morris?”
“No. I’ve never met him.”
“Are you sure? Not even at Danielle’s Christmas Eve party? You were both there, I remember.”
Kelly shook her head “No. I didn’t want to meet him.”
“Why was that?” Joe asked.
“Because…” Kelly took a deep breath. “Peter Morris arrived at the party around the same time I was walking across the street from Ian’s. I was on my way over to the party when I saw him drive up. I recognized him. I didn’t want him to spoil Christmas Eve, so I waited until he went into the house, and then I went over and avoided him, making sure I stayed away from the man.”
“That’s quite a reaction for a person you’ve never met.”
“I didn’t have to meet the man personally to know what a piece of garbage he was. I suppose I should say I’m sorry he’s dead, but I’m not. I hope he went straight to hell, where he belongs.”
Joe studied Kelly, surprised by her outburst.
“Kelly, I think you need to tell me why you had such a strong dislike for Peter Morris.”
Tears filled Kelly’s eyes. Biting her lower lip, in an attempt to stem the flow of tears she shook her head. “It will all be in my brother’s article. You can read about it there.”
Setting his elbows on the table, he leaned forward, his voice low. “No Kelly, I need you to tell me, now. Why did you have such a personal dislike of Peter Morris, so much so, that you didn’t want to run into him at Danielle’s party?”
Wiping away her unshed tears, Kelly took a deep breath, attempting to calm herself. “Peter Morris killed my best friend.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, he didn’t pull the trigger exactly. But he might as well have.”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning,” Joe suggested.
“Candice and I went to high school together. During college, we were roommates. She was a sweet girl, but she had some emotional issues. After a particularly painful breakup with a boyfriend, she started looking for answers.”
“Looking for answers?”
“A lot of people do it. Life starts to throw nothing but hardballs, and you figure religion will give some meaning to it all. She started searching for answers—like why did her boyfriend leave her? Why was her mother such a looney tune? Why did her grandmother have to die? Unfortunately, she went to Earthbound Spirits for the answers.”
“How did your friend die?”
“She overdosed. It was intentional. She left a farewell note. An odd handwritten suicide note.”
“What do you mean odd?” Joe asked.
“Odd. It said something like, Don’t cry for me, it was my idea to do this, no one else’s. Goodbye.”
“What was Peter Morris’ part in this?”
“I knew she had gotten involved with some church. That’s what she called it. I assumed it was a Christian church. I had no idea at the time it was Earthbound Spirits. I wasn’t really concerned when she first got involved with them, because she seemed content—at peace. Which was saying something for Candice.”
“What happened?”
“A day before she killed herself, we got a little drunk. I had no idea at the time it was her going away party to herself. We were both pretty wasted when she started giggling and told me she was going to miss me, but that we’d see each other someday. I asked her what she was talking about. She told me her spiritual advisor had told her it was time for her to move on—time to leave this world. I asked her what she meant, but she just started giggling again. I figured she was just wasted.”
“Did she say who her spiritual advisor was?”
“No. But the next day I slept in. And when I woke up, I went to check on Candice. She was dead. I found the note.”
“When did you find out she’d been involved with Earthbound Spirits?”
“I just found out before Christmas. It’d been years since her death. I thought she just had some sort of mental breakdown. Like I said, she always had some issues. But in November, I ran into her sister, Baily. I hadn’t seen her since Candice’s funeral. We went out to lunch, started talking about Candice…and it all came out.”
Joe quietly listened to what Kelly had to say.
“Candice came from a very wealthy family. I always thought her mom was sort of nuts, and her father was too busy making money to notice what was going on around him. Mrs. Bradford—Candice’s mother—was one of those people who obsessed over what the world thought of her—of her family. After Candice died, the money she had inherited from her grandmother was left to Earthbound Spirits.”
“So, Candice had her own money?”
“Yeah. Candice was always close to her grandmother. When the woman died she left a couple million to each of her granddaughters, Candice and Baily.”
“Did her parents contest the will?”
“I suppose they could have, even though Candice was of legal age to leave her money to whomever she wanted to. But a couple million was not that big of a deal to the Bradfords. What was a big deal was letting the world know their daughter had gotten tied up with that crazy group. It was bad enough their daughter committed suicide. They did all they could to keep the entire thing a secret, even signing an agreement with Earthbound Spirits to not contest the will, providing the group didn’t publicize the fact that Candice had left them her estate. I’d no idea Candice was that involved with Earthbound Spirits, not until Baily told me in November.”
“Why would her sister tell you now?”
“For one thing, Baily never knew—not until her mother died and she came across the written agreement between Earthbound Spirits and her parents. Their father died a few years after Candice. But their mother, she passed away just a few weeks before I ran into Baily in November. Baily had just found out the truth, needed to talk to someone, happen to run into me, and she knew I loved Candice.”
“What did she tell you about Peter Morris?”
“Nothing specific. Of course, I already knew about the group. I didn’t tell Ian immediately. I, well, at the time I didn’t really think there was anything I could do, and in some ways, I was dealing with Candice’s death all over again. But when Ian decided to do an exposé on Earthbound Spirits, I told him what I knew. And when we started digging into it, I found some people who knew Candice back then—who were in the group. And they told me Peter Morris was Candice’s spiritual advisor.”
“Why didn’t you or Ian come to us with what you knew? Especially after Cleve’s suicide?”
“We would have eventually.”