Beverly Connor - Dust to Dust

“Sam, not now, and not in front of strangers,” he said.

Kingsley and Samantha exchanged brief glances.

“Dad, you’re always talking about me making good grades. Well, I need to get to the library,” she said.

“All right. Do you have your cell?” he said.

“Always,” she said.

“Don’t be too late.” He turned back to Kingsley and Diane. “I don’t want you here ever again. I don’t want you harassing my family, or my neighbors. Do you understand?”

“As I said, Dr. Carruthers, the police will be taking it from here. Now, we need to go, unless you intend to keep us here against our will,” Kingsley said.

He backed off and raised his hands, palms outward, then walked to his car. “Just remember what I said,” he yelled, getting into the driver’s seat.

Kingsley and Diane got back in their car and Kingsley drove off. Diane saw the bright convertible behind them. Kingsley headed toward the mall.

“I certainly hope Lynn comes through,” said Kingsley, “or I’ve just been bluffing.”

“I said there’s no guarantee she’ll come up with murder,” said Diane.

“But you think she will,” he said.

“Yes. And with what we found in the apartment, I think the police definitely need to reopen the case.” Diane glanced over her shoulder at the red convertible following them. “What is the deal with Samantha?” she said.

“I have no idea,” said Kingsley.

“She was there when you spoke with the drummer, right?” asked Diane. “She looks a lot like her sister. You didn’t recognize her?”

“We were in a dark café, and she has that pink and black hair and the weird makeup. No, I didn’t recognize her.” Kingsley glanced into the rearview mirror. “God. She found the body. What kind of hell is that?”

To Diane this was the hardest part of dealing with crime: the aftermath, the effect on the victims. Long after everyone thinks they should just get over it, the crime is always there inside them. Every day they wake up and it isn’t a dream; it’s a living nightmare.

“Are you okay?” he said as he turned on the Dawson ville Highway.

Diane nodded. “I wasn’t very professional, I know. It’s one of those characterizations that is likely to set me off-that I don’t know the pain of loss.”

Kingsley was acquainted with the tragedy Diane went through: the loss of her adopted daughter in a massacre in South America when Diane was there as a human rights worker.

“You may have done her some good. You let her know she isn’t alone in her grief,” he said.

“Maybe, but sitting in front of that painting day after day,” she said. “If it was her and not the father.”

“What? Did I miss something?” he said.

Diane told him about the indentations in the rug.

“I didn’t notice. What made you look at the rug?” he asked.

“It was the arrangement of the furniture,” she said.

“Do you have to be female to notice things like that?” he said.

“No.” She smiled. “Just experienced at doing crime scenes. Little anomalies stand out. I can’t imagine what it’s like for Samantha.”

He drove onto Pearl Nix Parkway and to the mall. Samantha wasn’t far behind. They walked into the mall with her and sat down in front of the Cookie Company after Kingsley got each of them a rather large chocolate chip cookie and a drink.

“Are you going to tell my parents?” asked Samantha after she took a bite.

“How old are you?” said Kingsley.

“Eighteen,” she said. “I’m an adult.”

Diane had to smile. She tried to hide it behind her cookie.

“I take it you’re not Jimmi’s cousin,” said Kingsley.

“No. We made that up for the police. I was so freaked out and Jimmi was, well, she was, I mean, Stacy was her friend since middle school.”

“Why didn’t you tell the police who you are?” asked Kingsley.

“I knew my parents would find out. I couldn’t let that happen. They would take my car away. And Mother would have some kind of screaming fit if she knew I was hanging with Stacy Dance. I showed the police one of my fake IDs.”

Kingsley rolled his eyes. “You what?”

Samantha reminded Diane of Star, Frank’s daughter, the girl he adopted at sixteen when her parents, Frank’s best friends, were murdered. Like Samantha, she had multicolored hair, was defiant, and used kid logic to make decisions.

“They didn’t care. They hardly questioned me,” she said. “I told them I lived in Ohio and was going home and that Jimmi could get in touch with me if they needed me.”

“They bought that?” said Diane.

“I told you, they didn’t care. They were like my parents. I’m invisible. I think it’s my superpower,” she said.

“Why were you hanging with Stacy? How did you meet?” asked Kingsley.

“Both of us were auditing a class at Gainesville State College. She wanted to transfer there and was trying it out. I’m going there until I can transfer to UGA. I recognized her last name, but there are lots of Dances, so I didn’t think anything of it. Of course she recognized mine and kind of avoided me.”

“How did you finally meet?” asked Kingsley.

“I found out she was in a band. A real successful band. They played lots of gigs, and people in class knew them. See, I play the guitar and I’m really good. I wanted to be in the band and they needed another guitar player. I talked to her and that’s when she told me who she was. She was kind of freaked about it,” she said.

“You weren’t?” asked Kingsley.

“No. She didn’t do anything to my family. And she said her brother was innocent and she was going to prove it,” Samantha said.

“Did you believe her?” asked Kingsley.

“Why not? I’ve been blamed for stuff I didn’t do. My parents still think I took money out of my aunt’s purse when I was ten. It was my cousin who did it, but he’s a really good liar. So why couldn’t it have happened to her brother?” she said.

“What about all the evidence?” said Kingsley.

“Evidence doesn’t mean anything. It can be anything people want it to be. I mean, look at Jurassic Park . The dinosaurs looked real to me,” she said.

“It must be hard, living in a world where everything could be an illusion,” said Diane.

“We all do. It just means we can make the world the way we want it. That’s what Stacy’s band did. They wanted to be successful and they are making it real. Or, they were,” she said.

“You need to tell your parents you found her body,” said Kingsley.

“They’ll just yell,” she said. “They’ll tell me I betrayed El. You’d think they would want to be really close to me, with El gone and all, but they don’t. All Mother does is sit in front of that painting. And Dad… he just pays lip service to telling me not to be late. He doesn’t even know when I come home. He stays in his games. That’s how he’s remade his world,” she said.

“Games?” asked Diane.

“ Warcraft and Second Life . He fights demons, rescues princesses, and builds his own world to live in.”

“I’m sorry,” said Diane.

Samantha shrugged. “They gave me a cool car, clothes, telephones, and money. It’s not so bad. I don’t want that to stop. It’s all I have.”

“You need to talk to someone,” said Diane. “The police are likely to be coming around and they’ll recognize you. Your parents need to know what happened to you. Maybe this will jolt them into the real world. At least go to a counselor at college.”

Diane took one of her cards and wrote her psychiatrist friend Laura Hillard’s name and number.

“Dr. Hillard is a friend. Tell her I sent you. If you don’t want to talk to her, she can send you to someone here who would be good.”