She Lied She Died Page 13

  “Yeah, but I hear she’s claiming she’s innocent now. Is that true?” Amanda asked, wide-eyed.

  Now it was my time to shrug.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter to me either way. But if we found it, can you imagine how much we could sell that fucker for on eBay? What if it’s got her prints and shit on it, or someone else’s … and it’s been here the whole damn time?” Her eyes were bright with manic excitement.

  I was shocked by her language and attitude but tried not to show it.

  “Don’t you think the cops would have found it by now? Or someone else?” I asked, hesitantly.

  Amanda looked toward the ghoulish trailer but didn’t respond. For the first time I noticed a green pack on the ground a few feet away from her.

  “That yours?”

  Amanda nodded. “I brought it with me. In case we find any evidence. Want to go inside? If Pierre’s too scared to do it, then I’ll do it myself. Unless … unless you’re too scared too?”

  I truly was a teenager again—getting teased and peer-pressured. I don’t miss those years, not even a bit.

  Every part of me said it was a bad idea. I had no right to be here, and what did I hope to find?

  Plus, Adrianna would shit herself if she knew I was helping her daughter break into the county’s private property…

  “Sure. Let’s do it,” I said, decidedly.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  As Amanda fought to open the front door of the trailer, I stared at the eerie black letters until they blurred before my eyes. TRASH. That’s exactly what people thought of Chrissy back then. And still, nothing has changed, I thought drily. Guilt circled back … I shouldn’t have told her to leave. I overreacted…

  “I don’t get it,” Amanda huffed. “Somebody told me that it stays unlocked. Kids have broken in so many times … and I saw some broken windows in the back, but the last thing I want to do is explain to Mom and Dad why I need to get stitches…”

  Amanda twisted the knob side to side, then kicked the front door with a childish grunt.

  “I thought you’d been here a million times,” I said, unable to hide my amusement.

  “Yeah, well, I said what I said. Doesn’t mean it was the truth.”

  Oh, how right she is. Just because someone tells us one thing, doesn’t necessarily mean we should believe them.

  Lies. People told them for so many reasons—to protect others, to protect themselves … to protect their reputation. How many had I told in my lifetime? And more importantly, how many had my brother told me?

  Over the last twenty-four hours, I was starting to suspect that I didn’t know him at all.

  “Watch out.” I stepped up to the door. Amanda, reluctantly, took a step back.

  The knob turned easily in my hand, but the door wouldn’t budge.

  “The frame probably expanded and contracted because of the cool weather,” I breathed, knocking my hip against the side of the door, unsuccessfully.

  I froze at the sound of heavy, quick-footed steps coming up fast behind us. As I turned around, I don’t know what I expected—Officer Winslow running down the hill to arrest us, or Amanda’s parents coming to beat me down … or even Chrissy, her ghoulish face like a banshee shrieking in the low-setting fog … but it was only the boy again. As he stepped onto the porch, the sunlight brushing his nose and acne-laden cheeks, I realized he was younger than I’d originally thought. Perhaps Amanda’s age, after all.

  “I got this,” he huffed. Suddenly, he rammed his shoulder into the door, immediately screeching with pain as the door gave way with his weight.

  “Fuck me,” he moaned, bent over in the entryway, clutching his right shoulder and bent at the knee.

  Amanda and I looked at each other, an amused exchange between us.

  “Who’s the dummy now?” Amanda teased, stepping inside the pitch-black trailer. I followed her, closing the door a crack behind us, but hesitant to close it all the way.

  “Hey, at least I got it open,” Pierre moaned, looking satisfied but still out of breath.

  Amanda glanced back at me again, rolling her eyes.

  Low streams of light created thin, dusty prisms around the abandoned front room of the trailer.

  This was, undoubtedly, meant to be the Cornwalls’ living room at one time. In the light of day, there was nothing frightening about it. Just an empty living space, like any normal family would have.

  But there was no furniture left behind, only a scattering of trash in the corner—probably from teenagers who had snuck in previously—and knotted old carpet painted with a thick layer of grime. And the smell … it reminded me of an old hamster cage; the acrid smell of urine and waste causing my eyes to water.

  “Let’s go explore,” Pierre told Amanda, leaning his face into her neck, purring something inaudible in her ear. Only friends, huh? Another lie, I presume.

  Pierre pulled her by the hand, and I watched them disappear through a moldy kitchen then a cavernous hallway.

  I’d been in enough trailers to know the general layout—a living room, kitchen, and bedrooms on either side of it. I followed a narrow hallway to my right, stopping to shine the torch light of my cell phone over the crude graffiti splashed all along the walls.

  I KILLED THE BITCH. I stared at those loopy letters, painted deep dark red like congealed blood, then kept moving. I stopped when I reached a door on my left—a tiny bathroom. Out of habit, I groped for a switch in the dark before remembering, ridiculously, that the trailer had no electricity. Even with the sunlight, the place felt like a tomb.

  I held my cell phone light out in front of me, praying my battery would last a little bit longer, and puckered up my face at the disgusting remnants of Chrissy’s old bathroom. It smelled like wet towels and urine, and it became obvious that vandals had been using the commode. The sinks were rusty from nonuse; the grout in the tiles was once probably gray or white, but it was smudged a slimy black color now.

  At the end of the hallway were two narrow doors, in what I could only presume used to be Chrissy and her brothers’ rooms. The door on the left opened into a small bedroom, no furniture left behind.

  There’s nothing here to see, I realized.

  The walls were painted goose gray, the dingy old carpet fraying and curling at the corners. The floor felt wet with mold beneath my sneakers.

  I peeked my head in the last room before entering. It was certainly Chrissy’s old room. Floral wallpaper was peeling in the corners but most of the walls were covered in crude drawings and words.

  ROT IN HELL CHRISSY.

  YOU SHOULD KILL YOURSELF CHRISSY.

  FUCK THE CORNWALLS.

  FUCK YOU CHRISSY.

  Shivering, I listened to the metallic popping of rain as it struck the metal roof of the trailer. I hadn’t expected another storm so soon, but somehow, standing here now, it seemed fitting that one should arrive.

  There was one window in Chrissy’s bedroom, high and tiny. The walls were narrow, and a sad, oppressive aura washed over me.

  There was a closet with pocket doors on the far side of the room, but the doors had been yanked off track. I stuck my head in the closet, almost expecting to see her muddy shoes on the floor, as they had been all those years ago in the police photos. She said she was barefoot in the field that day … if that’s true, then how did her muddy shoes end up here, the prints matching those beside the body…? Did my brother try to frame her? But, if so, then why would he go visit her years later in prison?

  The room had been wiped out, either by Chrissy’s family when they ditched it, or by people breaking into the property.

  Do you feel Jenny there? I imagined Katie’s words the other day.

  I couldn’t “feel” her here either. Whatever that meant.

  According to the late Officer Winslow’s reports, they never found evidence of blood or any sort of crime scene in the Cornwalls’ trailer.

  This is not where she died.

  But it was the place where Chrissy laid her
head at night … were thoughts of murder swirling through her mind? Or was she truly focused on my brother … and did she really allow herself to go to prison to protect him?

  Back in the day, they weren’t using DNA evidence as they were now. Technically, Chrissy could have cleaned up the blood, and no one would be the wiser…

  I stared inside the closet, the only remnants of Chrissy’s childhood a few wire hangers pushed to the back. As I looked at them, feeling foolish for following these teens inside, I caught a glimpse of something from the corner of my eye.

  There in the back of the closet … a child’s handwriting on the wall. I moved the hangers and squatted down, holding up my torch to read the words.

  But they weren’t words, only tiny letters: C.C. + J.B. = 4evr

  Chrissy Cornwall and John Bishop, forever.

  Or…

  Chrissy and Jack Breyas, I realized.

  Moments later, I was passing through the living room and kitchen, following the opposite hallway in the dark. A large master bedroom lay at the end of the hallway. As I peered inside the room, I shrank back as I saw what Amanda and Pierre were doing.

  They were still clothed, but her back was against the wall, legs wrapped tightly around his waist as he pressed his body to hers.

  “I’m going,” I said, weakly.

  Amanda’s eyes popped open and she smiled at me over Pierre’s shoulder, baring all her teeth.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Great Aunt Lane lived 90 miles north of Austin, in a town that looked eerily similar to Austin itself.

  After a while, it’s like all small towns are the same—boring yet full of secrets.

  As I navigated the narrow lanes of Muncie passing by churches and cemeteries that looked just like the ones back home, I tried to remember how long it had been since I’d seen her.

  Lane had to be nearing ninety by now, one of the few members of the Breyas family to make it beyond the ripe old age of seventy. She was rabbit-toothed and cadaverous, with a rosy, wrinkled face covered in tattooed makeup. At least that’s how I always remembered her.

  My father had always been so quiet; it was mind-boggling when people met his aunt. She was gabby and blunt, and whipper-snap thin to his fleshy, broad frame. They were nothing alike, at all.

  The last time I saw her was at Jack’s funeral.

  She and a few distant relatives on the Breyas side had been the only family members in attendance. The rest of us are gone. Or hiding, as is the case with my mother, I thought bitterly.

  Lane’s house on Stony Brook Boulevard looked smaller than I remembered. It was old, built in the ’70s, but it had been well maintained over the years. The shutters were painted a shiny sky blue, the siding appeared recently pressure-washed. And someone was obviously doing her lawncare. The shrubs that lined the pathway to her front door were perfectly sculpted into neat, pointy diamond shapes.

  There was something soothing about being here though—Lane was the only real connection I had to my family anymore, even if we weren’t that close. I knocked on her door, waiting breathlessly.

  I didn’t expect her to be so fast, but the door popped right open, Lane’s big smile and shiny bright teeth welcomed me.

  “Sorry I didn’t call. I was in the neighborhood,” I lied.

  “Oh, honey. Come in! Come in! You don’t need an excuse to visit me, silly child,” she cooed.

  As she let me in, she squeezed both of my shoulders, looking me over. “You look dead dog tired,” she concluded, sizing me up.

  “I am tired, Lane,” I admitted, drily.

  The sunken family room brought back a thousand memories. I’d only been here a few times as a child, but the memories had left their mark. There were still three bear cubs in the corner of the room, their painted faces vicious and strange. The fireplace mantel still lined with tiny knick-knacks—a black and white glass yorkie, a petal pink rose made out of plastic masquerading as metal … and I could remember her never allowing me to touch anything.

  “This place hasn’t changed a bit,” I said, smiling half-heartedly.

  “Right. It hasn’t but I have. I guess that’s how it goes, right?”

  I wasn’t sure what she meant exactly, but I nodded, letting her lead me into her large dining space. The long pine table I remembered had been replaced with a smaller glass round one.

  “Take a seat. I’ll fetch you something to drink. But mind your prints on the table. I just got it and I hate cleaning fingerprints off the glass.”

  As I waited for her to come back with my drink, I kept my hands tucked neatly under the table in my lap.

  I was here for one reason and one reason only. To ask her about that time when Jack came to stay with her.

  But now that I was here … I couldn’t help thinking about my mother too. Lane was the only one still in contact with her. Over the years, my mother had sent her postcards and she’d forwarded some of them on to us as teens. I can remember a few birthdays, getting envelopes stuffed with dollars. But then, those eventually stopped too.

  Lane returned, carrying a white flowery cup of tea. She sat it on a coaster in front of me.

  I lifted it to my lips shakily and blanched at the bitter taste of it.

  “So, how are you, dear? It’s been too long since I saw your face,” she said, sitting down beside me. She rested her well-manicured, paper-thin hands on my arm. The touch surprised me, but mostly it felt strange because I enjoyed it … how good it was to be touched by a family member after so long. I’d forgotten what that felt like.

  “You’ve aged quite a bit though, haven’t you?” she asked, abruptly.

  I pulled back from her and sighed. No, she hasn’t changed a bit despite what she says, I decided.

  “Yes, I have. But you look great, of course. How are you, Aunt Lane?”

  She smiled, something in the way her eyebrows moved reminding me of my father.

  “I’m all right. Same-o, same-o. And I’m happy to see you, but I’m a little surprised. You should have called first,” she said. So much for not needing to call.

  “Sorry about that. I need to ask you some questions about Jack,” I said.

  Lane’s face fell. “That poor boy. I’d kill him myself if I could, for leaving us behind the way he did…”

  I flinched at the harshness of her words.

  “Yeah … well, I wanted to ask you about a time he came to stay with you for a few days. He was young at the time, almost sixteen. Jenny Juliott was murdered while Jack was at your house. Do you remember that?” I asked, carefully.

  Lane frowned. “Well, of course I do. I’m old, not senile. And how could I forget? He was here with me when we heard the awful news about that girl.”

  “When did he come to stay exactly?”

  “Well, it was the night before it happened. Your father brought him to me. He wanted to stay with his Aunt Lane for a few days. We were close, remember?”

  I did remember.

  It had always bothered me how much she favored him, pinching his cheeks and doting over him on Christmas. Inviting him over, but then not me. Mom used to say it was because Jack reminded her of Daddy, and I reminded her of Mom. They were as close as in-laws could be, I guess, but I suspected there was some tension, or disconnect, between my mom and Lane. Which is why I found it so odd that they had kept up communication over the years…

  She doesn’t want to talk to her husband or children, but she wants to talk to old aunt Lane … and now there’s only one of us left and she still doesn’t care. I’ll never forgive Mom for leaving us, I decided, heavily.

  “I do remember that. But I was wondering why he came the night before. Was something wrong? I feel like I was so young … I can’t put all the pieces of that terrible time back together in my head,” I said.

  Lane pursed her lips. “I don’t remember a particular reason. Although you don’t need a reason to visit family. In fact, I really wish you came around more often, Natalie.”

  “How did he seem whil
e he was here?” I asked, skirting around her scolding words.

  “He seemed okay. I think he was as okay as any boy at that age could be. He was caught in that limbo, you know? Stuck between being a child and a man. I think he wanted to get away from the farm for a few days.”

  “What time did he come that night? I’m impressed by your memory, auntie.”

  “Oh, don’t patronize me, dear! I know about that awful woman getting out of prison, and I saw what’s happening in the news. She’s not innocent. You’d be a fool to believe that! And, frankly, coming around here, asking me all these weird questions about your brother … what is this nonsense about? I might be daft, but I’m not dumb. I know there’s a reason or you wouldn’t be asking. I don’t think you’d be here at all if you didn’t need something,” she said with a sniff.

  And there it is. That look of disdain. I do remind her of my mother.

  No one was ever good enough for her precious nephew—my father—and for many years, she had snubbed my mother and me. And with Jack, she always thought he was better than the rest of us too…

  “I’m just trying to get the details straight for the book, Lane. I want to explain how it seemed, from my perspective, that day. And I want to make sure I have the facts straight. If Jack wasn’t there, then I don’t want to mess up and put that in the book.” I was patronizing her now, but I needed to stay on her good side to get more information.

  “Well, your brother wasn’t there when that girl was killed. He was with me, staying the night. Your mother brought him late that night, but that’s because she was working that new job of hers and she got off late. And she had to pick you up from somewhere too…”

  “I thought you said it was my father who brought him,” I said, quietly, unsure.

  Lane narrowed her eyes. “Well, I can’t remember every detail. That’s right … it wasn’t either or. It was both of them that brought him. And he stayed here for two days. We had a lovely time, playing pinochle and singing Dolly Parton songs, if you must know.”