Once Bent let the last interviewee go and had closed the door to the office, he joined Vera on the settee.
“How’re you holding up?” He searched her eyes, worry in his own.
“Well, my head hurts like hell.” It was incredible that she’d suffered such a blow and there’d been no blood involved. At the moment she was grateful. The thought of washing her hair made her want to curl into the fetal position. “The nausea is mostly gone, and I don’t feel dizzy—sitting down, anyway.”
“You should go home now and relax. At least until tomorrow.”
He was probably right, but that wasn’t going to happen. Her cell vibrated. She’d silenced it for the interviews. “I have a call. I’m sure you want to check in with your deputies. Let me know if they find anything relevant.”
“I assume that’s my cue to exit the room.”
Vera smiled. “Thank you.”
He grabbed his hat and settled it into place, his eyes on her the whole time, then he walked out the door. Vera smiled, no matter that doing so hurt. The call had ended but came again almost immediately.
“This is Mina Childers,” the voice on the line said. “You left a message for me to call.”
Nola Childers’s mother. Childers was Erwin’s roommate at university and the stated reason for her making the move to the Fayetteville area. Hopefully this contact could provide some additional background information on Erwin.
“Thank you for calling me back, Mrs. Childers. I know it’s been a while, but I wondered if you remembered Valeri Erwin, your daughter Nola’s roommate at Lipscomb?”
The silence that followed had Vera’s anticipation building.
“I do remember her, yes.” A sigh whispered across the line. “She and Nola were very close. Valeri didn’t have any family in the area, so she came home with Nola for holidays and sometimes just to get away from campus. Over time we came to consider her a second daughter. Such a sweet girl.”
Vera recognized what came next. “When did things change, Mrs. Childers?”
“After Nola died, we never saw Valeri again. Well, other than at the funeral. Not long after that, we learned she had settled in Fayetteville, and it was a little hurtful that she was so close and never bothered to so much as call. I suppose it’s understandable somehow. She had to move on. But she had made us feel as if she adored us, so it was hard to accept when she just disappeared from our lives. It was like losing two daughters.”
Erwin’s decision to walk away from any sort of relationship with the family wasn’t very nice of her, but it wasn’t a crime.
“Then you haven’t heard from her in all this time?”
“No. I tried to call after I found out she had taken the job with Mr. Wilton, but she never called me back. Maybe she felt guilty because the job was to have been Nola’s. She shouldn’t have. Nola was gone. But my husband and I decided that might be the reason she didn’t want to see or speak to us again.”
The ache in Vera’s head suddenly dropped off her radar, and her full attention zeroed in on the caller’s words. “You’re sure Nola had already accepted the position with Mr. Wilton?”
“Oh yes. She was top of her class. Mr. Wilton recruited her during the final semester of her senior year. She was so excited.” Childers cleared her throat as if emotion had gotten the better of her. “Mr. Wilton paid for her funeral expenses and insisted that since Nola had already signed a contract with his company, that we were entitled to the one-million-dollar insurance policy. He was unexpectedly kind about everything.”
Vera regretted the necessity of asking the woman about her daughter’s death, but it would be far quicker than contacting the police involved and asking for the report. “Mrs. Childers, would you share with me how Nola died?”
“It was such a terrible heartbreak.” The poor woman’s voice trembled with emotion. “She was celebrating graduation and the start of her new job. It was the Friday before she was to begin work on Monday. Valeri said they went out to eat and came home to share a bottle of champagne. Later Nola ran a bubble bath in that big claw-foot tub in the house they rented.” A long moment of silence, then a big breath. “Apparently she fell asleep and slipped under the water. Nola wasn’t much of a drinker, so the champagne likely went straight to her head.”
She took another moment to steady her composure. “When Valeri woke up the next morning, she found her in the tub. It was one of those bizarre accidents that you never expect to happen. A simple mistake that cost our sweet girl everything. I guess the good Lord just needed another angel.”
Vera’s instincts were screaming at her. She would be requesting a copy of that autopsy report. There had to be one. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Childers. But I thank you for sharing the details with me.”
“It’s just awful about Mr. Wilton and his wife. I swear I don’t know what this world is coming to.”
Vera couldn’t claim to know what this world was coming to, but she damned sure recognized when a tragic event that turned out to be a lucky break was a little too providential to be mere luck.
After the call ended, Vera sat for a moment and thought about what this meant. Valeri Erwin takes the job her dead friend was supposed to get. Then she pretends the family she had adopted no longer exists.
More suspicious in Vera’s opinion, a girl who rarely drank suddenly drowns in the bathtub after drinking too much champagne with her roommate in the same apartment, sleeping off her own overindulgence.
Valeri Erwin had just scooted into a tie with Alicia Wilton on Vera’s suspect list.
13
