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May’s first impression, looking at the collective body of news, was that it was definitely interesting.
“One thing I’m seeing here is that bullying has been a problem at the school for longer than I thought, but it’s flared up recently,” May said. There were a couple of incidents where parents had gone to the media, and where teachers had spoken out.
However, bullying was not an exclusive problem of Chestnut Hill High alone. Many schools faced similar issues, May knew, and she couldn’t see how they could make a connection between that and the crimes.
“Drugs are a problem, too. There are a couple of incidents of drugs. But I guess for any school these days, that’s also not unusual. You’re never going to be able to control it totally,” Owen said.
“These are serious problems, without a doubt. But I’m not finding anything that links them to these crimes in a way we can take forward,” she said.
They stared into each other’s eyes. Neither of them seemed ready to give up.
May scrolled back another page just to make sure.
And then she landed on an article that at first didn’t ring any bells. Then, suddenly, it did. She looked at the name, and the name was familiar. The name brought it all back to her, just like that.
“Here it is, Owen. I’ve found it,” she said excitedly. “This is what I was thinking of, what was nagging at my mind. But it was longer ago than I thought. Years ago. This happened just after I joined the police. That’s why I heard about it but I wasn’t really involved.”
“And what is it?”
May read out the headline.“Chestnut Hill High Student Commits Suicide. Bullying Cited as the Cause.”
“So a teen committed suicide due to bullying?”
“Penelope Jackson was on a school sports team, and a good academic student. But bullying drove this lacrosse star to take her life,” May read.
“Lacrosse?” Owen raised his eyebrows.
“Yes, if I remember correctly, which I’m now starting to do, she was the team captain,” May said. Goosebumps prickled her spine. The pieces were starting to fall into place for her now. Was this the critical information they needed to solve this case?
“So she was a well-respected student there, in spite of whatever she was going through that caused her suicide?”
“She was a very talented athlete and good academically, but you know how bullying is. Sometimes that doesn’t make a difference. It was the other students who were the problem.”
“That’s very sad,” Owen observed.
“I think we need to look into this. Let’s see what we can find on this case. The lacrosse angle is a link, and it’s significant to me that all of the victims who have been taken were involved in bullying. Both Shawna and Emily were accused of it. And although Chanel’s mother said she was not a bully, she did say that people from that school got sent home during the day for that reason.”
Owen nodded. “So someone watching the school might have thought she was.”
“Let’s find out the details,” May decided. “Let’s see where the Jacksons are now, and take a closer look at exactly what played out with this incident. It was long ago, but sometimes things brew. Something could have triggered somebody to start killing now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
May felt this newly discovered angle was her last chance. It was the only other possibility she could think of. Nothing else seemed viable, or linked the victims together.
With the victims all attending the same school, there was already a common thread. This was not a random selection of young women. Chestnut Hill High was being targeted by the killer, most definitely. And he wasn’t just picking them up outside the school gates. Shawna, for instance, had gone out running and disappeared from there. She hadn’t been taken while leaving the school. So the killer had known who she was. She had been singled out and followed.
At least, May strongly suspected so, and she was going to go forward with this premise as the most likely.
With this important fact in mind, May set out to read up on the case she dimly remembered from her earlier years as a trainee police officer.
Strangely enough, that moment when she’d heard the news about Penelope had been one of her most vivid memories at the time. It had resonated with her.
She’d recently failed the FBI entrance exam. She’d been hurting and ashamed, feeling inadequate compared to Kerry, who had been the top candidate accepted two years previously.
As a new officer in the local department, May had been learning the ropes, which had often consisted at that time of doing all the tasks nobody else had time for or wanted to do.
May remembered that before she joined, the Fairshore police department had been much messier and more disorganized. Sheriff Jack had spruced it up and done a major clean-out. May’s job at the time had been to go through mountains of dusty paperwork, organizing the files into bundles and making sure all the information was correct before being sent to the archives.
