Alafair Burke - Never Tell

Uniformed officers had already knocked on the doors of the other townhouses on the street, but no one reported seeing anything out of the ordinary.

She wished Rogan would cut to the chase, but he was still trying to manage the parents’ expectations. “The initial evidence, as we explained earlier today, indicated that your daughter was alone in the bathroom and was the author of the note we found on her bed.”

“Well, at least this time you avoided the S- word, but I think my wife and I heard the same message enough times today.”

Katherine placed a hand on her husband’s knee. “Please, let the detectives speak. They’re here for a reason.”

Rogan paused before continuing. “When we were in your daughter’s room earlier, I noticed that her homework all seemed to be printed out. Did she usually do her schoolwork on a computer?”

Ellie noticed the blankness in Bill’s face as he looked to his wife for the answer. Katherine nodded. “That’s all kids do now. They take laptops to school for note taking. Seems recently she was even getting by just with her iPad. Kids can’t even spell or print correctly anymore without a computer there to help them.”

“So if she had to write a letter of some kind-”

“She doesn’t write letters. No one her age does.”

Ellie now saw what Rogan had been trying to get her to realize on her own in the car. Julia’s suicide note had been handwritten, on paper. And not just written on paper, but drafted on paper, with false starts and crossed-out words.

Julia’s mother saw the point as well. “Julia wouldn’t have written that ridiculous note on her bed. Even if you could convince me that my daughter authored that note, I simply can’t imagine her putting a pen to paper in order to do it. She would go to her computer. Even if she wanted us to have a handwritten version, she’d draft it first on the screen, then write it out afterward.”

“That’s why we’re here. The note had scratched-out words and other scribbles on it, like Julia had started fresh, with a blank page, when she sat down to write.”

“No, not Julia.”

“What about the paper? The letter was on yellow lined paper, with holes punched on the side. I don’t recall seeing a notebook like that when we went through her room. Do you keep yellow legal pads around the house?”

This time it was the wife who looked to her husband. “No, not to my knowledge,” he said.

“So that means she didn’t write the note.” Katherine sounded hopeful for the first time since they’d encountered her. “That proves she didn’t kill herself.”

Ellie finally had to cut in. “It’s always possible she got the paper somewhere else. We’re here because we didn’t want to jump to conclusions.”

But like his wife, Bill Whitmire had already reached his own verdict. “Based on your experience, Detective, do you really believe this scenario makes any sense?”

“We’d like to take another look around if you don’t mind.” Rogan was already on his feet, heading for the stairs.

T hey searched through every drawer, cupboard, box, and bag of the four-story townhouse, but nowhere did they find a yellow legal pad matching Julia’s supposed suicide note.

“You mentioned your daughter’s friends, Mrs. Whitmire. Who knew Julia best?”

It was a simple question, but Ellie recognized the look of determination on Rogan’s face. They were going to rework this case from the beginning, whether she liked it or not, and he blamed her for the crucial hours they had already wasted.

When asked who knew her daughter best, Katherine Whitmire hadn’t hesitated. Answer: Ramona Langston. And they wasted no time, heading straight to Third Avenue for the drive to the Upper East Side.

If the day had been about developing an opinion of wealthy Manhattan mothers, Ramona’s mother helped clear Ellie’s palate. Where Katherine Whitmire was cold, aggressive, and uptight, the woman who answered the door at the Langston household came across more like an organic earth-mother type. She introduced herself as Adrienne-first name only. Given the woman’s long, loose natural waves, Columbia Sportswear pullover, and blue jeans, Ellie could not imagine her fitting in with the other Upper East Side mothers at Casden, the ultra-elite private school where Julia Whitmire and her best friend, Ramona, were juniors.

Even the apartment felt warmer-more lived-in-than the townhouse where Julia’s body had been found earlier that morning. Whereas the Whitmire house was adorned with Edwardian-era settees that were more impressive than comfortable, this place was filled with oversize sofas, plush rugs, and throw pillows that looked like you could actually use them. By the Whitmires’ standards, the apartment might even be considered modest.

The man who walked into the living room after Adrienne excused herself to get Ramona seemed startled to see them. Rogan raised his eyebrows in Ellie’s direction, a signal that he, too, had noticed the man’s literal flinch at the sight of a black man in his house.

“Hello.”

They repeated the introductions they had already made with Adrienne at the front door.

“Ah, I see. I’m Ramona’s father, George Langston. Is it really necessary to pull our daughter into this? She’s having a very hard time understanding what’s happened. We finally called in one of her friends to help calm her down. I don’t want to get her upset again.”

Ellie already had this guy’s number. Just because your daughter appears calm does not mean she is calm. She knew it was a bad habit, but she couldn’t help it: Ellie formed impressions of people immediately upon meeting them. George Langston struck her as a well-meaning but rigid man, both physically and psychologically. He was very small in stature-not much taller than Ellie-but maximized every centimeter of it with perfect posture. It’s not that he was unattractive. She could imagine how some women might be drawn to his clear, blue eyes and smooth skin. But to Ellie he looked like he literally had a stick running up his ass, all the way to the base of his skull.

“George?” Adrienne had returned from the rear of the apartment. “Sorry, I thought you’d gone to bed. These are-”

“We already met. I was explaining that Ramona is as shocked by all of this as anyone. I’m not sure she knows anything sufficiently useful to warrant the disruption that will come with having police officers talking to her tonight. Maybe tomorrow-”

“Not everything boils down to cost-benefit analysis, George.”

Mr. Langston forced the polite smile of a man who was used to quarreling in public. And his wife offered what was probably a common apology for the display of conflict. “Sorry, Detectives. It’s been a rough day-obviously for the poor Whitmires, but for our family, too. There were years when Julia literally spent more nights here than at her own home. I think Ramona would very much like to speak with you.”

“Adrienne-”

He was cut off again by his wife. “She needs to feel like she’s helping. I was a teenage girl once. Trust me, George. Please.”

When George drifted from the room-no more relevant than he’d been before entering-Ellie knew which parent was calling the shots.

So did Rogan, who was already out of his chair. “So, where can we find your daughter, Mrs. Langston?”

T hey found Ramona Langston lying on her bed listening to her iPod, a mangled ball of tissues covering her eyes.

Despite the earbuds and Kleenex, she sensed their presence and sat up abruptly. She wasn’t what Ellie expected. Black makeup smeared both of the girl’s round cheeks. Her thick, spiky hair was flattened against her head on one side from lying on the bed. Ellie was starting to wonder whether two families had mixed the pieces of their family puzzles together. Uptight George Langston belonged with Katherine Whitmire in the townhouse full of antiques, while this girl and her mother, Adrienne, would be happier with a rock producer like Bill Whitmire.