Sherlock asked her, “Did you know Tommy Cronin?”
“Sure. Tommy was over here whenever he could get away from Magdalene, maybe once a week. I liked him a lot. For a while he was thick with one of my girlfriends, Melissa Ivy, and it was Melissa who introduced me to Stony. She said we might as well go out with guys who had a future rather than those jocks and losers at school who were only out to score. I remember she was so pleased when Tommy invited her to Thanksgiving dinner at his grandparents’ house—well, mansion, really, she told me. But that didn’t work out. I’m sorry, Agent, I got off track.”
“That’s fine,” Sherlock said. “Tell me whatever you wish.”
“Well, Melissa was with us last night at the rave, went home as drunk as I did. I think she was mad at Peter—Peter Biaggini; he’s another of Stony’s friends—but she wouldn’t say anything about it, said she wanted to forget about it and him. I wondered if he was as upset as Stony and shutting her out.
“They’re both gone now, both Tommy and Stony. And they were so young. Isn’t that strange?”
Sherlock lightly touched her fingertips to Janelle’s sweater sleeve to bring her back. “Were you surprised when Melissa left Tommy and went with Peter?”
“Melissa said Tommy was too uptight, said he wanted to study all the time instead of be with her. She took up with Peter then; I don’t remember exactly when.”
“That’s all right. Now, I know this is hard, Janelle, but we really need your help. When you left Stony tonight, did he tell you he expected anybody?”
“I don’t know, because we weren’t speaking. He didn’t even say good-bye to me. I didn’t say good-bye to him, either. I slammed out.” Tears were falling down her face. She didn’t make a noise, just let the tears fall. “When I got back I was too drunk to fight with him. I went in the bedroom to say something snarky to him and I saw him lying there. I thought he’d fallen asleep with his clothes on, and I touched him, but then I saw his eyes and they were staring at me.” She gulped, sat stone still.
“I picked up his note and read it. I know now I shouldn’t have touched it, but I did. I don’t understand what he meant—I can’t live like this. I’m sorry. Did it have anything to do with Tommy dying? Do you know what he meant?”
Sherlock shook her head.
Janelle looked down at her clasped hands. “I looked at the bottles. He must have stolen some of his mom’s pills. Can you imagine how she’ll feel when she finds out he used her pills to kill himself?”
“Did you see the pills here before tonight?”
She shook her head. “Stony hated to ever take pills. I’d have to beg him to take an aspirin when he had a headache. He was weird that way. I can’t imagine when he stole them. Did he visit his parents this weekend? But to steal his own mother’s pills? Why would he do that? Do you think she knows yet?”
She raised her white face to Sherlock. “Do you think Stony had anything to do with Tommy’s death? Is that what he couldn’t live with? Was he feeling guilty about something he did? When we heard that Tommy was dead, I saw him crying in the bathroom, and that’s why I stayed with him almost all day Saturday. Then he was gone most of today and I left, too, but I came back. But when I got here, and ordered his favorite pizza, he wouldn’t even talk to me, wouldn’t say a thing, just cried and got angry at me. Why would he kill himself?”
She fell silent again. She was a pretty girl, Sherlock thought, gold-streaked hair, nice figure, but too much makeup that was all smeared now. All the eye shadow made her look older than she was. Sherlock supposed she wanted to look like a grown-up at the rave.
Sherlock said, “I promise you, Janelle, we will find out why.”
Judge Hardesty’s Airfield
Near Maestro, Virginia
Monday, dawn
The early morning was freezing cold, the snow shiny with an ice crust. The trio of pine trees next to the small hangar stood tall like white sentinels, straight and still in the cold air. Griffin, Delsey, and Anna stood huddled against a clapboard wall of the still-locked hangar, their breaths making white puffs of vapor as they waited for the plane. Griffin and Delsey were running on fumes after a night of recorded interviews about the crime scene and discussions with Sheriff Noble, who’d had no luck finding the man they’d seen running away in the alley last night. Worse for Griffin than the cold was that his sister had been arguing with him since he woke her up in her new bed in their adjoining rooms at the B&B to tell her she was leaving Maestro. Not even Anna’s being there with him had helped convince her, and now she opened her mouth and started up again. “Look, Griffin, I know last night was scary, I mean, it was terrifying, but—”