Page 39 of Girl, Remembered

Freedom Plaza was close enough to walk. Ella needed the walk more than she needed the ten minutes it would save her driving. She’d snuck out while Ripley and Vernon were otherwise preoccupied. By the time she got to Freedom Plaza it was 7PM. The tour buses and food trucks had already scattered, which made it all the easier for her to spot Roadrunner. He was sitting on a bench near the edge of the marble map of the city.

‘Ells.’

‘Roady. What’s with the cloak and dagger routine?’

‘Sit. Did you leave your cell behind?’

‘Yeah. It’s in my locker. What’s going on?’

Roadrunner checked every compass point, in every dimension. When he was convinced no one was looking at them, he pulled out his laptop bag from under the table.

‘I got something, and it’s… weird.’

For a second, Ella couldn’t pull air. ‘How weird?’

Roadrunner set his laptop up. ‘I got into the Louisiana State Judicial Records, after three hours of poking around. I narrowed things down by everything we know about Doyle, and cross-referenced details from her prison paperwork and birth registry entries from St. Tammany Parish. I found someone who matched, and her name was Lindsey.’

‘But?’

‘But not Doyle.’ Roadrunner’s laptop was still shut. ‘Her name, according to everything I can find, was Lindsey Blanchard.’

This new information, as expected as it was, felt like a baseball bat to the stomach. For months, Ella had known this woman as Doyle. To think of her under anything different felt insulting to the lives of people who’d died so far.

‘Blanchard,’ she repeated.

‘Yes. That was her family name. Once I had that, I could go deeper, and I managed to piece together fragments of things that had happened to the Blanchard family up until Lindsey turned 12, which was in 1996.’

‘Go.’

‘Most of it came from a court case from 1997, which was for a charge against Lindsey’s mom, Caroline Blanchard. She was charged with neglect, because Lindsey’s – and Tracy’s – home life was a mess.’

The information didn’t color Ella surprised. A woman as deranged as Doyle wouldn’t exactly have grown up in luxury. She waited for Roadrunner to continue.

‘Her dad, Jerry Blanchard, was abusive to his daughters. We’re talking physical, verbal, emotional. And the other one.’

‘Sexual.’

Roadrunner nodded. ‘He treated these girls like dirt. He would even drag them to work with him. He would do odd jobs around town, manual labor jobs. He’d make Lindsey and Tracy help him on weekends. Make them work until they passed out in the heat. One part said he’d force them to pull up stinging nettles with their bare hands.’

The humanization of her enemy wasn’t something Ella wanted right now, but it was happening anyway, one detail at a time, whether she wanted it or not.

‘But why was it just the mom on trial?’ Ella said. ‘If he did all that, why isn’t there a Jerry Blanchard court case sitting right next to hers?’

Roadrunner rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand. ‘Because by the time anybody official showed up, there was no Jerry Blanchard to charge.’

‘Come again?’

‘According to the court details, Jerry Blanchard disappeared off the face of the earth. A neighbor statement in the file said he just stopped showing up to his own jobsites. His truck was never found.’

Ella sat back. ‘He abandoned the whole family?’

‘That’s what it looks like on paper.’

It happened. Abusive, deadbeat parents were usually the first ones to flee once the going got tough. ‘Why do I feel like that’s not the end of it?’

‘It’s far from the end of it. The dad never surfaced again. I searched his name everywhere and I can’t find any death certificate or new arrest or new loans or anything. He genuinely just vanished, and he doesn’t seem the type of guy smart enough to do that.’

‘You never know. Doyle is mentally deranged, but smart. Her dad could have been the same. What happened to the mom? And who reported her to the services?’