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“I had to look him up in the yearbook. Took me a couple of hours to dig that out, but yes, once I saw his face, I remembered him. He was a year behind me and Vance in high school. Vance and I ran in the same circles with him. All the football players and their girlfriends hung around together.”
“Did you know him well?”
She shook her head. “Not well, no. Not at all, really. I knew of him. I don’t remember any direct contact with him, but I do remember that he was accused of sexual assault by three of the cheerleaders. I definitely wouldn’t have had contact with him after that.”
“What about the cheerleaders?” asked Josie. “Did you ever speak with any of them?”
“No. But they were a year behind me, too. They had their own clique and although I was Vance’s girlfriend, I was not welcome in it. They thought I was stuck-up and snobby. Honestly, looking back, I’m not even sure how Vance and I ended up together or how I managed my way through high school. Without him, I would have been a loner, an outcast, even. I was far more into studying than football, and those of us who were focused primarily on academics were not treated well at that school.”
“Do you know what happened in terms of those accusations?”
Trout stopped again, this time sniffing a holly bush on the edge of a neighbor’s property. Anya rolled her eyes. “This I remember because it was so appalling. Mathias was charged and given an ankle bracelet, but he was still allowed to go to school and play football even though many people protested.”
“Football more important than the safety of girls?” Josie said. “Unfortunately, in a lot of places, that is the reality.”
“Yeah, well, it’s an ugly one.”
“I agree.”
“Eventually, those girls recanted and the charges were dropped. I didn’t like them—like I said, they didn’t treat me well—but I was upset. I was afraid that somehow they’d been bullied into recanting or that they saw how the charges were already being handled with Mathias being prioritized over them and decided going through with a trial wasn’t worth it.”
“Did you ever talk with any of them?” Josie asked.
“No. Maybe I should have but who was I to talk? I ended up in an abusive relationship and didn’t get out until my husband branded me for life.”
“Did you ever talk to Vance about Mathias?”
“Yes. I expressed my disgust for what had happened a few times, but he said there was nothing to worry about because there was no way in hell Mathias had done what the girls said he did. Believe me, we had heated arguments over that. I didn’t go to the games for the rest of the year. He wasn’t happy.”
“Were they friends?” Josie asked.
“No, I don’t think so. I never saw them together except at football practice or games. I think it was just a matter of Vance defending his teammate. Plus, with Dermot coaching, Vance treated the team like family. You defend your family. Stand by them. He never said it out loud to me, but I think he thought that those girls made the whole thing up. The accusations were a stain on the whole team—that’s how Vance saw it. God, I was such an idiot. Looking back, I can’t believe I had feelings for him.”
“You were a different person then,” Josie said. “A kid. Let’s fast-forward to the time that you prepared your autopsy report on Jana Melburn. The police had not discussed any suspects with you, and you had no inkling that Mathias Tobin or anyone else was or might be held to blame for her death?”
“No.”
“Then why change the ruling from homicide to accidental? You could have made it undetermined.”
Anya sighed. “Garrick. He knew the police had no leads, same as I did. He was concerned that if we ruled Jana’s death a homicide—which would never be solved—it would cause a lot of fear and upheaval in the community. People would think there was a killer on the loose. If I ruled it undetermined, in some ways that might be worse than calling it a homicide. People would still be freaked out, thinking there was a killer on the loose. He thought the best thing for all concerned was to call it an accident.”
“You can’t rule someone’s death an accident just because you think it’s what’s best for the community,” Josie said.
Anya pressed a hand to her heart. “I know that and Josie, I swear to you, if there had been even a shred of evidence that pointed to homicide besides the extent of Jana’s head injuries and my own instincts, I would never have gone along with it. But there wasn’t. There was nothing. Also—” She broke off.
After a couple of beats of silence, Josie said, “What is it?”
“I don’t even want to say.”
“Tell me,” Josie said.
“Garrick knew Dermot, my ex-father-in-law. They grew up together. They were friends. Vance was like a nephew to him. Garrick promised me that he would talk with Vance and do everything he could to keep him from coming after me once I left.”
Josie’s heart fluttered. “In exchange for listing Jana Melburn’s death as accidental on the autopsy report?”
Anya grimaced. “Not exactly. He never said, ‘Hey, make the manner of death accidental in your report and I’ll keep Vance away from you for good.’ It wasn’t like that, but it did come up during our talks about the report. It was…implied.”
Josie thought of the Anya she had seen in the wedding photo on Vance Hadlee’s dresser. A woman much younger and almost unrecognizable from the woman who stood before her today. A woman with no family support of her own, manipulated into a life she didn’t really want, abused, beaten, worn down. A woman who, once she found the courage to tell her husband she wanted to leave, had been violently assaulted and branded like cattle. A woman living in fear every moment of her life in a community where her husband’s family had more power than the justice system.
