Page 68 of Poison Wood
I sit up straighter. Heather sent me a text on the tenth, but she didn’t want to meet until the twelfth. Maybe she set up another meeting on the eleventh, told her husband she was going to a spa treatment. And does the person she met with know she mailed something to me? And if so, what would they do to get it?
I open my phone to make notes and see a long list of unopened emails. I open one from Dom that says I’m to cooperate with Erinand provide her with all important information. He clarifies I will be treated as a witness on this, not a reporter, and that Erin will make a disclaimer about my connection before every one of her broadcasts. He also says NCN will be issuing an apology. For any other job, this would be overkill, but not for this one. The few seconds before I spoke live from that beach had been enough to do this much damage.
I delete the email and look at the others.
A few are from other journalists, some asking for information, some wagging their fingers and telling me how shameful it was that I didn’t disclose my connection to a story to NCN. I delete all those as well.
Then I scan a text from Katrina asking if we are going to meet up again, and a thought occurs to me. A flutter starts in my chest. Katrina had said they were staying close by. I don’t picture Kat in a cozy bed-and-breakfast in Natchitoches. I look up this hotel’s number and punch it into my phone.
The phone at the front desk rings, and the blonde standing behind it answers. “The Kingston, how may I direct your call?”
I turn my back to the desk and press the phone to my ear. “To Katrina Donovan’s room.” I hear typing.
“Hold, please,” she says.
I hang up before the call can be connected, take another sip of my drink.
If Erin Stockwell has even one brain cell, she’ll already know about Kat and Summer. Our three names are all over the police report from 2002. And now she’s staying at the same hotel as them. Terrific.
I pull up my notes on my phone, to the list I’ve started. The list I should have deleted along with the emails, since this is not my story. Dom made that clear. But like that first step into the dark basement at Poison Wood a couple of days ago, I find myself taking another step away from my line in the sand.
The box of journals sits next to me. Maybe two steps.
Although I’m going to give Erin this box, I filtered the journals she gets to read. The ones I brought only belong to Heather. If I find something in the others, I’ll let her know, but for now, those stay with me.
I refocus on my list. I’ve talked to Kat, Summer, Martha Lee, and Rosalie Adair, sort of. I look at Johnny’s name. Of all the names on this list, I want to speak to him the most. Easy, cowgirl, the voice trying to keep me in check says.
My boss just told me I’m a witness, not a reporter. But ... I could talk to him as Rita, the witness. One witness to another. That’s it.
Another name on my list is interesting as well. Dr. Janet Fontenot. She knew the most about us. Would she have known if one of us was secretly involved with Crowley?
Archibald Crowley.
The girls and I had been called into his office more than once. The pranks, the talking back to our teachers, the breaking curfew.
When he was fired my senior year, the school called us into an assembly and told us Mr. Crowley would no longer be serving as headmaster and, in the interim, B.O. would step in. She walked out in front of us and smiled like the Cheshire cat.
Thing is, I don’t remember much about Crowley except how pompous and proper he was. We had started rumors about why he was fired, ranging from secret satanic rituals to having an affair with B.O. But then the article in the paper came out about him stealing money and killed our fun.
I’d watched from one of the classroom windows alongside Kat and Summer as some of the staff escorted him from the building. We all assumed he left the country and envied him. We pictured him on a yacht in the Mediterranean, laughing and spending the school’s money. In reality, if my thinking is correct, he only went as far as the school basement.
I dive into my search engine, and as the hours pass, I explore rabbit hole after rabbit hole, chasing names and saving any articles I find.
Dr. Janet Fontenot stayed in Louisiana as well. It appears she is still practicing and lives in New Orleans. Her LinkedIn profile picture looks like she did when she was a counselor at Poison Wood, angular jaw, Roman nose, and mean eyes. I can picture her, scribbling away in her notebook as she watched us in group.
I study the 504 number listed on her profile and tap it before I can think better of it.
To my surprise, she answers.
“Dr. Fontenot here.”
Holy shit.
“Hello?” she says.
“Hi,” I say. “This is Rita Meade.”
There’s a pause; then she says, “Hello, Rita.”
