Girl, Forgotten (Andrea Oliver 2)

4

Andrea felt an unexplained and possibly unfounded sense of rejection after leaving Judith’s studio. The woman who was possibly Andrea’s half-sister had no interest in their possibly shared father. Judith only knew the People magazine version of Clayton Morrow’s later crimes. She had never dug deeper or tried to reach out to him. She did not want to know more. In fact, she seemed to want to know less.

“Why would I give him one second of my thoughts?” she’d asked Andrea. “Why would anyone?”

It was a good question, one that Andrea couldn’t answer without giving everything away.

She held tight to her iPhone as she walked around the back of the house. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the screen. She’d managed to take a few surreptitious photos of the Emily collage while Judith had closed up the studio. The ultrasounds, the group shot, the candids of Emily simply living her teenage life, the liner notes. Then Andrea had spent the remainder of their short time together nodding along while the woman talked about Guinevere, who was indeed a handful, and the judge, whom Judith managed to soften from granite into clay by revealing her interest in gardening and her unwavering support of her granddaughter’s desire to pursue art rather than the law or economics or anything that could actually pay the bills.

“Granny is so driven,” Judith had confided. “She told me that from the beginning, she was determined not to make the same mistakes with me as she did with my mother. It’s a horrible way to get a do-over, but she made it mean something.”

Andrea had not stuck around to hear what those mistakes were, though she’d had the feeling that Judith was eager to share. That was what living in a small town did to you. The isolation, the lack of ever meeting anyone new, turned you into a different person. You either talked too much or you didn’t talk at all.

Despite Andrea’s ulterior motives, she had found herself wishing that Judith fell into the latter category. It was too weird and dishonest to know so much about another person’s life and pretend otherwise. For instance, she could tell Judith that she was very wrong about one seemingly random but important thing—

The handwriting on Emily’s mixtape did not belong to Clayton Morrow.

As far as Andrea knew, it didn’t belong to anyone in Emily’s group. All of the witness statements from the original investigation had been written by the actual witnesses. So, Jack Stilton’s almost illegible cursive and Ricky Blakely’s childish use of circles to dot her ‘i’s were frozen in time. As was Clay Morrow’s habit of randomly capitalizing letters in his block print. He’d pressed the pen down so hard into the paper that the Xerox had caught a shadow from the gouges.

At approximately 5:45 p.m. on April 17, 1982, I, Clayton James Morrow, was standing by the STAGE inside the gym when Emily Vaughn approached ME and my girlfriend, Rhonda Stein. Wordlessly, she stared at us, swaying back and forth with her mouth open. Everyone could tell that she was intoxicated or under the influence. Many people noticed that she wasn’t WEARING any shoes and she seemed very disturbed mentally. Obviously, she was disoriented. She remained wordless before walking away. People were making jokes about her, which made me feel bad. We used to be friends until she went off the rails, thus I felt compelled by responsibility to make SURE she was all right. Outside the gym, I told her to go home. Anyone who claims I grabbed her is misrepresenting the actual facts. If these so-called witnesses were standing close enough, they would’ve seen her eyes roll back in her head. I caught her so she wouldn’t fall. That’s it. I do admit I yelled at her to be careful, and might have said that she was going to get herself killed, but that was only out of concern for her safety. Like I said, she was doing a lot of drugs and she was going around pissing people off, especially because every guy who ever LOOKED at her wrong got accused of raping her. This insanity is why I extricated myself from our previous acquaintance. I don’t know who the father of her baby is and I frankly do not care. All I know is that it’s not me, because I was never interested in her. If anything, she was more like a kid sister. If she wakes up from the coma, that is exactly what she WILL tell you. I am actually dating Rhonda very seriously. She is the captain of the cheerleading team and we share a lot of interests. I would never wish any ill will on anyone and I hope she gets better but honestly, this has nothing to do with me and I am glad I am leaving soon to go to college. I have actually built up enough credits to graduate and will leave soon. My parents can mail me my diploma, or they can hang it on their wall. I simply do not care. I was wearing a black TUX that night as were a lot of people, so I am not sure why that is relevant, but I was told to add that information. I swear the CONTENTS of my statement are true under penalty of law.

What stuck with Andrea the most about Clay’s statement was the fact that, barring the first line, which was obviously the same coached line of all the witness statements, Clay had never used Emily’s name again.

Andrea had reached the front of the Vaughn mansion. The dual Ford Explorers were still parked alongside each other. She assumed Harri and Krump were giving Bible the rundown as they handed over the shift. Instead of going inside the house, Andrea put her back to the wall. She unlocked her iPhone. Her fingers moved quickly across the screen as she ran a series of searches.

‘Hurts So Good’ by John Cougar was from the American Fool album.

‘Nice Girls’ was featured on Eye to Eye’s self-titled debut.

Juice Newton’s ‘Love’s Been a Little Bit Hard on Me’ was from Quiet Lies.

Andrea looked up the rest of the list, from Blondie to Melissa Manchester to Van Halen. According to Wikipedia, all of the songs were from albums that had been released in April of 1982. Which meant that whoever had made the mixtape had been in touch with Emily weeks if not days before she’d been attacked.

She smoothed together her lips. She swiped through the quickly taken snapshots of teenage Judith’s first collage. She found the cassette tape liner notes and zoomed in.

Back in 1982, someone had used a fountain pen to write out the artists and titles. The ink had smeared. The letters were almost calligraphic, blending a book hand with roman writing alongside a Palmer-method precise cursive. Andrea had to guess that whoever had made the tape had either been overwhelmed by an artistic urge or gone to the trouble of trying to disguise their handwriting.

In light of Emily’s brutal attack, the answer felt obvious.

The phone vibrated in her hand. Instinctively, Andrea’s eyes rolled before she read her mother’s name on the text, because of course Laura had texted her. She tapped open the message and found a photo of an Arc’teryx jacket that Andrea had to admit perfectly matched her style if not her current weather situation. Then another text popped up, this one a link to an outfitter in Portland, Oregon.

They’ve got your size, Laura had typed. Talked to Gil, the mgr. He’s there til 10.

“For fucksakes,” Andrea mumbled.

She texted back—Can’t read because of strong winds from helicopter blades.

A door opened inside the garage. She poked her head around the side and saw Bible walking toward her.

“Sorry.” She held up her iPhone. “My mother’s going for helicopter parent of the year.”

“No problem,” he said, but she could tell it was a problem. “Harri and Krump wanted to give you a howdy-do before they hit the hay.”

The two men appeared behind Bible, both well over six feet and, combined, almost as wide as one of the garage bays. She gathered from the exhaustion on their faces that they wanted to get the hell out of here.

Bible said, “Mitt Harri, Bryan Krump, this is Andrea Oliver, our new dewsum.”

“Glad to meet you.” Harri gave her a warm handshake. She recognized him as the driver of Judith’s Mercedes. He was taller than his partner, which meant he had to duck his head under the garage door. “Welcome to the service.”