Page 78 of Dead Man's Hollow
“Probably,” Amy agrees.
“We need to talk to the kids now before they find out some other way.”
Her sister is right, but first she needs to deal with the women on her porch. She pulls Rich’s car into the garage. “Go ahead inside. I’ll get rid of them.”
Chloe and her husband enter the house through the mudroom, while Amy walks down the driveway and circles around to her front porch. As she draws near, Michelle and Lynn both pop to their feet.
“Hi,” Michelle says.
“Hi. My sisters didn’t invite you inside?” Amy wouldn’t put it past Diana to let them cool their heels on the porch, but surely Kristy would have let them come in.
Lynn shakes her head. “They offered, we refused. We don’t want to intrude, but we were hoping to talk to Maisy.”
As she finishes the sentence, Jordana drives up in Amy’s car, which she parks in the driveway, followed by Maisy, who parks on the street behind Lynn’s minivan.
“Well, you’re in luck.” Amy reaches for the door and is about to go inside.
Michelle puts a hand on her forearm to stop her. “We’re going to tell her where Andre might be buried.”
Amy rotates in a slow turn to stare at them. “You knew all along?”
“No,” Lynn hurriedly clarifies. “We didn’t know any of it. But last night, when you kicked Rich out, he went to Brett’s. Andy and Rachel were over there hanging out, and the guys talked about it. Rachel was in the other room with Brett’s wife, but she heard bits and pieces of their conversation. She came to Michelle today and said enough’s enough.”
“We’re done—we’re all done—covering for the guys,” Michelle says.
“Better late than never, I suppose.” She goes into the house and closes the door in their faces.
ChapterForty-Two
Transcript of “The Farley Files Podcast Season Two:
Dead Man’s Hollow—The Disappearance of Heather Ryan”
Episode 3: Heather Ryan Returns
As you may have noted from the title, this week’s episode will, as my mama would say, butter your biscuit. We’ve got a lot to cover, so let’s jump in.
After Episode 1 aired two weeks ago, the Farley Files received an anonymous tip that Heather Ryan had been talking to a boy from Allderdice, one of the Pittsburgh city high schools. Also according to our tipster, later that night, as the party broke up, a fight erupted between several of the boys from Heather’s school and the Allderdice boys.
Producer Jordana Morgan and I checked. There was not a single mention of either the boy or the fight in any of the witness statements given by students who were in Dead Man’s Hollow the night Heather vanished. So I spoke to Amy Ryan Marino, who confirmed that Heather had been flirting with a boy Amy didn’t recognize.
MAISY: Tell me about him.
AMY: There’s nothing to tell. He didn’t go to our school. I’d never seen him before. I decided to take a walk. They were flirting, and I didn’t want to be a third wheel.
MAISY: It was mutual?
AMY: It seemed mutual. That’s why I walked away. If he’d been hitting on her and she wasn’t into it, I never would have left. I’d have stayed and told him to beat it.
MAISY: I’ve reviewed every witness statement your friends and classmates who were in the woods that night gave to the police. Why do you think not a single person mentioned this boy?
AMY: I don’t know.
MAISY: Why didn’t you.
AMY (clears throat): You have to understand how things were back then. If I’d have told the police or my parents that Heather was flirting with a Black guy before she disappeared, they’d have jumped to conclusions. I thought … I guess I thought that information would distract them from finding her because they’d have an easy scapegoat.
Amy insisted she knew nothing about a fight but volunteered to ask her husband, who was one of the last to leave the woods that night.
