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The one loud, contradicting voice in a sea of everyone else claiming Holly’s death came at her own hands.
“Let’s head this way.” I look back to Officer Clay. “Keep your ears open and your eyes on Henry and Hillary Wade. I’m going to them next.”
“Yes, Detective.”
He cuts left, so Fletcher and I move right.
“You’re being awfully bossy for a guy supposed to be on medical leave.” Teasing, Fletch digs his hands into his pockets and brings his shoulders up to battle the breeze. “Here I was thinking I’d run my own case and you’d sit on your ass all day, reading files for me.”
“You sound like Minka.”
Stopping in front of Holly’s aging sister, I try to see the woman in front of me, but in my mind, I juxtapose Holly’s face on top. They’d be similar ages. Same bloodline, same parents. Would Holly stand at five feet, three inches, too? Would she still have colorful hair?
Would she be a grandmother now? Or was her marriage with Henry doomed from the start?
“Detectives.” Lacey breathes the word out and huddles in on herself to fight the chill. “Did you…” Her lips quiver. “Did you see her yet?”
“Holly?” I keep my voice soft. “Yeah, we saw her.”
Instantly, tears well up in Lacey’s eyes. “She’s out? They finished digging her up?”
“They’re still going,” Fletch responds. “The doctors inside are taking very good care of your sister. Officer Clay said that you wanted to speak to us?” He turns, the timing perfect, and indicates to the cop who speaks with Henry and his wife.
Bringing his gaze back to Lacey, he and I both catch the way her eyes harden with rage. The way her hands flex and open.
“What did you need to talk to us about?” he asks.
“My sister didn’t kill herself.” Lacey’s eyes swing away from the woman she described as a bitch only days ago. “Holly would never have done that.”
“A statement you’ve already made,” Fletch nods. “We know, Ms. Trainor.”
“You know,” she presses. “But I need you tobelieve. I need you to understand deep in your hearts that I knew my sister better than anyone else on this planet. I knew her. I still know. She wasnotsuicidal.”
“Why don’t you talk to us about those last few weeks leading up to her death?” I suggest. “Was she feeling down? Out of sorts?”
“Of course she was out of sorts! She was medicated when she didn’t need to be. He was pumping her with pills that literally altered everything about her personality.”
“An accredited psychologist prescribed those pills,” Fletch inserts. “Are you saying he misdiagnosed? Or did he have motive to alter Holly’s moods?”
“He didn’t have enough information,” she cries. “He was a friend of Henry’s family, I’m certain.”
“Is that a fact?” Taking out a book, Fletch begins to take notes. “Was Doctor Brown a friend of Henry’s family?”
“I mean…” She loses a little steam. “Surely, right? He diagnosed and prescribed medication within the first two sessions. She was never unbalanced, so surely, he had someone sitting on his shoulder telling him what to do.”
“For what reason?” Frowning, I study the aged woman who tries so desperately to hold to her version of events. Whether she’s right or wrong, she believes what she says. “Say Henry wanted Holly dead—”
“Or, at the very least, medicated,” Fletch amends.
I dip my chin. “So he sends her to a psych who may or may not be his friend. What’s Henry’s motive in all this? There was no money to gain by killing your sister. There was no scandal he needed to cover up. There was no known affair, no career issues, no debts to bury. There’s just…” I lift my uninjured shoulder to shrug. “What did he gain by losing her?”
“He got married a second time.” Lacey juts her chin high in pride. “Just a year later, he was married again—to Holly’s best friend, no less! How’s that for motive? Maybe therewasan affair. Maybe one or both of them needed her out of the picture.”
“After thirty-six years, their stories remain consistent,” I counter. “If there was an affair, it’s yet to come out. If they wanted to be together while Holly was alive, no one has so much as whispered about it. They didn’t marry within weeks of death; they didn’t even start dating, according to Henry’s colleague, until several,severalmonths after Holly’s death.”
“Monthsafter thelove of his lifedied,” she sobs. “How does a man move on so easily?”
“She was Holly’s friend,” Fletch reasons. “He was in mourning. They wouldn’t be the first couple in history to lean on each other during a bad year. They would have made funeral arrangements together. They would’ve had to eventually pack up Holly’s belongings. These are things, no doubt, they might’ve done together. Long days, lonely nights.”
