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I was about to take another sip when the cell phone tucked into my back pocket rang. I dug it out, saw MAX on the screen. I was surprised to see the name of my former next-door neighbor. It had been a long time since we’d spoken.
“Hello,” I said.
“Andy?”
“Hey, Max. Long time.”
“Yeah, well. It was lucky I still had your number in my phone. Not sure I would have found you otherwise, because, well, I’d heard you changed your last name and I didn’t know what it was. You’re still in Milford?”
“No,” I said. I wasn’t comfortable talking about changing my name, and didn’t volunteer my new one. “In Stratford now. You cross the Housatonic, it feels like you’re in another state.”
“So, this is going to sound crazy, and I didn’t know whether I should call or not, but I figured this is something you’d want to know about.”
“What is it, Max?’
“So I was out front, this morning, and this car pulls in to your place. Well, your old driveway. Not your old house, since they rebuilt on the lot, but—”
“I’m aware, Max.”
“Anyway, this car pulls in, and this woman gets out, and she looks at the house and she goes kind of crazy, asking what happened to her house, where did it go?”
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck start to stand up.
“You there?” Max asked.
“I’m here.”
“The girl next door, the one who lives in the house where yours used to be, she came out, told this lady it was a new house, the old one was torn down, and this woman looks kind of freaked out, gets back in the car, takes off. Didn’t even close the tailgate. Like she’d seen a ghost. Or, I don’t know. As if maybe she was the ghost.”
Max paused, as though steeling himself.
“The thing is, Andy, I mean, I know Brie’s been missing six years now, and everyone figures something bad happened, and I don’t want to get your hopes up and all, but …”
Another pause, and then:
“But I think it was her.”
I needed to be sure I understood what Max was telling me. “Say again?” I said.
“Brie,” he said. “I think it was Brie.”
Three
Statement of Charles Underwood, June 7, 2016, 12:30 p.m., interviewed by Detective Marissa Hardy.
Detective Hardy: Mr. Underwood, what is the name of the company you work for?
Charles: Triple-A Pest Control. We’re in the book under AAA Pest Control, so we’re the first ones you’re going to find if you’ve got a problem.
Detective Hardy: And you received a call from Brie Mason when?
Charles: Saturday morning. She said she thought she’d heard something in the walls the night before and she was kind of freaked out and she left a message on the voice mail since we don’t usually take calls on the weekend. But I checked the message and she sounded pretty upset, so I said I could come over that afternoon.
Detective Hardy: And when did you arrive at her residence, at, let me just check … thirty-six Mulberry?
Charles: I guess it was around two, two-thirty. Yeah.
Detective Hardy: She met you at the door?
