Page 77 of The Fragile Ones
“Wait a minute,” said Katie. She quickly shuffled through paperwork until she came to the copy of the photo album where Mrs. Mayfield identified the names of the people in the photographs. “Here we are…” The writing samples from the suicide note and the album photos weren’t the same; she didn’t need a handwriting expert to tell her that. They were clearly different—appearing to come from the hand of two different people. It bothered her. She looked closer at the letters and possible meanings behind them. The note was written in a stilted manner, with leaning letters trying to make each loop perfect. The printed names on the photos were perfectly formed and straight up in all capital letters.
Katie let out a breath. “If Robin Mayfield wrote on the photos, who wrote the note? Or if she wrote the note, who wrote on the photos?” She was assuming that Robin had written on the photos because that’s what Katie had asked her to do—but what if it was someone else? The same person who slipped the album into evidence.And why would Robin write a suicide note if she didn’t kill herself?
Katie stood up suddenly, dropping the blanket and pacing back and forth. “Because it’s not a suicide note. We assumed that, because she was dead, but it was a note for something she wasaboutto do. And that’s what she was apologizing for.” It helped her sometimes to speak out loud, even when no one was around.
Cisco chuffed in his sleep.
What was Robin going to do? What was she going to tell? Did she know who killed her girls?
Katie’s phone alerted her to a text coming in:You better be resting. That’s an order.
She laughed. Her uncle was hovering over her, even from afar.
She sent him a text:In my PJs on the couch with Cisco.
A smiley face came back.
Resting her hand on the necklace her uncle had given her she gently pulled it side to side, thinking about the marks on Tessa’s neck from her pendant chain.
Where was her necklace?
Katie’s brain was spinning and her vision was beginning to blur. She needed a break. Leaning back against the couch, she looked into the box of things she had grabbed from her desk and saw that she had thrown in the DVDs found at Darren Rodriguez’s apartment. As she looked them over, she saw there was some writing on one of the DVD covers. It was small, almost missable and written in pencil, but it said,For my bud, you’ll get there, with a strange squiggly character after the sentiment.
They were all DVDs made by Wild Oats Productions. Someone had given Rodriguez these DVDs and, according to Sissy, he watched them all the time. It was strange for someone to have a full collection of this production company’s work, but it was the kind of thing that someone working there might do.
Did Rodriguez know someone on the film crew?
Katie snatched up her cell phone searching for previous numbers that had called her.
She found the one she was looking for and pressed it. It rang. She wasn’t sure what she was going to say.
“Hello.”
“Is this Matt?” she said.
“Yeah, this is Matt Gardner.”
“This is Detective Katie Scott.”
There was a pause.
Finally, “What can I do for you, Detective?”
“I’m working the homicide case of those two little girls we found, and some of your DVD documentaries turned up in a search of a suspect in our investigation.”
He didn’t respond.
“There’s a handwritten note on one of them and I was wondering if you guys ever send out sets of signed DVDs to fans or in competitions. Anything like that.”
It was a few beats before he answered. “Yeah, we have before, but we all usually sign just the first one.”
“Oh, I see.”
“What’s your interest?” he said sternly.
Katie was surprised that the director was gruff and unfriendly to her. It was possible that she had caught him at a bad time, but they had gotten on well on the trip to Silo—even in the storm. “It was kind of a coincidence that a local suspect in my investigation had a whole set of your DVDs.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
