Three hours earlier
Rob Covington held the door open with his
knee while he dragged in two large box fans from the sidewalk. Then he propped
the door open with a brick. His wife, Jennie, came along behind with two more,
smaller fans, followed by their daughter, Annie, who was carrying a box of
cleaning supplies. Rob tried to open a window but they were all either painted
or nailed shut.
“Dammit,” he said to no one. “This isn’t
going to help.”
The Covington family had arrived at the
office of the Vineyard Packet bright
and early on Saturday morning. Job 1 was to clean and ventilate the building
where the former owner, Alvin Funderburk, had sat drinking Scotch whisky
straight and chain-smoking Camel cigarettes for more than 50 years. Job 2 would
be rushing to cover the events of the Independence Day weekend which started
officially in a few hours.
Rob and Jennie, both former journalists
turned best-selling authors, were the new owners of the only newspaper on Martha’s
Vineyard, having purchased the place lock, stock and smoke residue from the
85-year-old founder, who was now happily retired and on his way to somewhere in
the South Seas. It had been a long time since either of the Covingtons was a
full-time working journalist, and they were both eager to jump back into the
business.
Rob had been writing an occasional column
for the Packet since moving to the
Vineyard in 2009, and had helped police track a serial killer called the Candy
Man. Jennie had a reputation for helping to close missing person cases. In the
intervening years, she and Rob had resigned as reporters to write a series of best-selling
books, including their most recent offering about a missing Vineyard woman whose
husband hadn’t seen her for 10 years, since she left the house to buy groceries
one Saturday morning and never returned. Jennie had traced her across the
country, through a series of waitressing and minimum wage jobs in a lot of
small towns, until she turned up a year ago with a new name and a girlfriend,
both of them dealing Blackjack in an off-the-strip Las Vegas casino. That book,
The Woman Who Went Out For Milk and Bread
and Wound Up In the Chips, was a literary success.
Something else amazing had happened during
the last 11 years. The Covingtons’ only daughter, Anne Elizabeth, had managed
to grow up. Just a child of five when the Candy Man was on the loose, she was
now a 16-year-old junior-to-be at Vineyard High School in Oak Bluffs and a
carbon copy of her mother, with pale gray eyes that sparkled when she smiled,
corkscrews of chestnut hair framing a face notable for its flawless, tan
complexion, and an expression that was half smile and half smirk, which she
normally combined with a healthy dose of harmless, playful sarcasm. She learned
that from her mother.
Jennie was tall but Annie was taller at
5-foot-10 with long legs and other body parts exactly where they were supposed
to be. She was a starting forward on the school’s basketball team, editor of
the school yearbook and a writer on the school newspaper, The Vine, which had gotten her a summer internship on the Packet even before her parents bought
it. Every boy in the school wanted to date her, but she was selective in her
choices. She would accept an offer to attend major events such as the prom or
the homecoming dance, for example, but refused to lock herself into a Friday
night-Saturday night dating routine with any of her suitors. She had learned
that from her mother, too.
Today, the Covingtons found themselves the
proud owners of an out-of-date newspaper office with uneven wooden floors,
scratched wooden desks, dinosaur computers and windows that wouldn’t open, notable
for the blended aroma of cigarette smoke, spilled liquor, newsprint and ink,
cobwebs older than they were and six decades of dust.
“I’ve got to open these windows,” Rob said
when the fans were set up around the main room. “I’m going over to Winton’s
Hardware for some tools.”
Next:
Holiday preparations and a surprise
Chapter 3
By 10 a.m., Rob Covington had successfully
opened three of the windows that looked out on Main and Summer streets. Two had
been nailed shut, so he pried out the nails with a claw hammer and jiggled the
casings until they opened. The other window had been sealed with several
decades worth of paint, so Rob used a hammer and chisel to liberate the window within
its frame. Box fans were now blowing Alvin Funderburk’s cigarette smoke and
other assorted odors out of the Packet
newsroom. Meanwhile, Rob, Jennie and Annie were throwing away trash, wiping
down the surfaces of desks, tables and chairs and sweeping the wooden floors,
first with a broom and then with a damp mop.
At 11:00, Jennie realized that Fourth of
July events would be getting organized at the lighthouse up the street, so she dispatched
Annie with an iPad and cell phone camera to capture the activities. Annie was a
novice reporter but she had been working on the school paper for a couple of
semesters, so Jennie figured she could handle the challenge of recording Mayor Merle
Mackinnon’s Independence Day speech. At the very least, she could take a few
photos, come back and look up last year’s message, which was bound to be
basically the same.
When Annie arrived, parade organizers were
double-checking their list of floats, bands, scout troops, dancers,
politicians, fire trucks and candy-throwing clowns and waiting for the first
units to arrive for the lineup. Electronics technicians and volunteers were busy
installing a portable stage, chairs, microphones and speakers needed for the
mayor’s holiday address.
Annie was amazed that so many volunteers
were on the scene. Independence Day could really draw the crowds, especially in
this part of the country. She saw members of the Vineyard District Historical Commission, who Alvin Funderburk
had called the “Blue Haired Daughters of the Pilgrim Massacre,” completely
decked out from head to toe in red, white and blue. She saw a couple of art teachers
from her high school, several cops and Vineyard firemen and a man dressed up
like George Washington. Unsurprisingly, she noticed that several
prominent politicians were already roaming through the area, glad-handing
everyone they encountered and passing out everything from brochures to campaign
buttons and even straw boater hats.
“Straw campaign hats,” Annie thought. “Now
that’s old school.”
Even with so many people on the scene, preparations
for the event kept everybody busy enough that no one had bothered to look down
the hill behind the lighthouse at the rocky coastline of Nantucket Sound.
Later, workers planned to set up fireworks in a secluded section of the beach,
but for now, no one was interested in looking over the hill toward the blue water
below.
No one, that is, until Annie Covington
arrived.
Next:
Vineyard Girls
Chapter 4
While Annie and Officer Hutchins were
examining the clothes spread out on Lighthouse Beach, a small crowd of
spectators had gathered around them, including Mayor Mackinnon. Hutchins had
called a supervisor to report what he had found, and soon a detective arrived with
a forensics team to cordon off the area with yellow crime scene tape. The mayor
announced that the parade would be rerouted to end at the Water Street Harbor
House a few blocks down the street, and he would address the crowd from there.
Each of the volunteers grabbed a couple of folding chairs and followed behind the
mayor while the stage and sound system were being disassembled and moved.
Annie, meanwhile, hung around taking
photos of the scene. She texted photos of the clothing to Rob and Jennie at the
Packet and was told to come back there
as soon as possible. This was news that clearly trumped the mayor’s annual holiday
address, and besides, Mayor Mackinnon could be interviewed later about truth,
justice and the American way. While Annie was heading back to the newspaper
office, Jennie called Police Chief Philip Muddlety, who arrived at the office
just ahead of Annie. The Covingtons had met Muddlety, then a sergeant, while
investigating a missing person case in 2009.
“I got a call from my officer on the
scene, so I know the basics,” Muddlety said after taking a seat in the Packet newsroom. “So tell me, Annie. You
were there. What exactly did you see and what do you know that might help us
understand what’s going on?”
“Well, first off, that was part of a
cheerleader uniform, as you probably know,” Annie said. “All of the girls have
them. They wear the hoodies when the weather gets cold. What I don’t understand
is what it was doing there now. I mean, school is out for the summer so there
are no sporting events for the cheerleaders to attend, although I suppose they
might be walking in today’s parade. Plus, it was so weird the way the outfit
was laying there. It was laid out perfectly, underwear and clothes, as if the
person wearing it had somehow disintegrated and left their clothes behind.”
“Like she was beamed up or teleported,”
Muddlety said with a grin.
“Exactly,” Annie said.
“You told Officer Hutchins you thought the
clothes belonged to Evelyn somebody,” Muddlety said. “Tell me about her.”
“It’s Evalynn, as in Eva plus Lynn.
Evalynn Greene,” Annie said. “I think she’ll be the head cheerleader this fall.
She’s also one of the V Girls at school.”
“V Girl? What the hell is a V Girl?”
Muddlety asked.
“Well ….” Annie hesitated, looking around
the room and then at her mom and dad. She was instantly sorry she had said those
words. She hadn’t intended to go there, but now she had said them and there was
no going back. She clearly knew something she didn’t want to talk about, but
the chief urged her on, and Jennie pitched in, too. “C’mon, Annie. Something
terrible could have happened to someone you know,” she said. “Someone could be
dead or hurt or in serious trouble. You want to be a journalist? This is news,
so tell the man what he wants to know.”
“Okay,” Annie said, reluctantly, then
paused again while deciding what to say.
“Well,” she said finally, “there’s this
group of boys who kinda run things at the school. They call themselves the LKs,
which stands for Lion Kings, after the lion, our school mascot. They’re mostly
jock-types who play sports, hang out together, party on weekends and hit on all
the pretty girls. Roby Coin is their leader. He’s on the basketball team. The
LKs are the most popular boys in school and a lot of girls want to date them,
so the girls try to get invited to these parties. Most of the LKs are okay guys
who just like to have fun on weekends, but others – like Roby – try to get
girls drunk so they can, you know, get them into bed. They’re especially interested
if they think the girl might be a virgin.”
Annie looked around at her parents and
Chief Muddlety for encouragement, but no one said a thing, so she continued
with her story.
“They have these temporary tattoos,” she
said. “I looked them up once. They’re kinda like decals that are applied to someone’s
skin for short periods of time. You place the tattoo face down somewhere on the
body and hold a wet sponge on it for about a minute, then peel off the paper
backing and the tattoo appears. Anyone can do it, as long as the girl stays
still for a minute or two. If she’s drunk, or better yet, passed out, this is
not usually a problem. The image will stay on someone’s skin for some time
before eventually fading away, possibly as long as two or three weeks.”
“So how does this apply to the V Girls?”
Muddlety asked.
“It’s almost like a brand,” Annie said. “If
a girl goes to one of these parties but doesn’t hook up with an LK, Roby or one
of his buddies will apply a temporary tattoo on the back of her right shoulder.
It’s a small letter ‘V’ that stands for ‘virgin.’ They usually don’t tell the
girl what it means. They might tell her it’s a sign of acceptance within the
group. Or, the girl might not even know they’re doing it if she’s had a lot to
drink.”
“What happens if a girl does agree to hook up?” Muddlety asked.
“Well, if a girl does go to bed with an LK, she gets a V and a G. That stands for ‘V Girl’ or ‘Vineyard Girl,’ meaning she’s
not a virgin. The tattoos are signals to other boys who take the girls on
dates. They can see if the girl is a V or a VG. The tattoos may be temporary
but they’re hard to remove, so if a girl gets branded as a virgin, everyone who
sees her in gym class or wearing a sleeveless top or bathing suit will know it.”
“Doesn’t the same thing apply to girls
with VGs?” Muddlety asked? “Doesn’t everybody know?”
“Yes, of course,” Annie said, “but some of
the girls who score with the LKs want their friends to know. They think it
makes them more popular than the regular V girls. They believe it somehow
elevates their status in school, to be associated with the cool guys, even
though the boys treat them like property. Less popular people don’t even know
what the tattoos mean. A lot of V Girls keep getting temp tattoos when the
originals start to fade. I’ve heard that some girls even go have a real tattoo
applied. If you have a VG on your shoulder, you’re a girl that’s in tight with the
LKs.”
There was silence in the room, as none of
the adults knew what to say next, thinking that Annie’s story seemed a little too
crazy to believe. Chief Muddlety took off his hat and rubbed his forehead. Jennie
looked stunned and Rob sat shaking his head. Finally, Jennie spoke.
“What about these girls’ parents?” she
asked. “Don’t they see the tattoos?”
“Most likely,” Annie said, “but if they
do, the virgin girls just say it stands for Vineyard or victory or volunteer or
volleyball or vegetarian or whatever ‘V’ word they can throw out. The girls
with the VGs will say it means Vineyard Girl without explaining what that
actually means. To be honest, most of these girls don’t get a lot of parental
supervision, which is why they’re free to attend these parties in the first
place. In a lot of these families, no one asks very many questions. And the
tattoos are temporary, so nobody gets too concerned.”
Annie turned in her chair and caught sight
of Jennie staring at her shoulder, which was covered with a plain gray t-shirt.
“No, mom, I don’t have any tattoos, either
V or VG,” she said. “I don’t go to these parties and have sex, and I’m a lot
more discriminating when it comes to the boys I date. You should know that. After
all … I learned it from you.”
Next:
Something hanging from a tree
Chapter 5
Independence Day was a big deal in the
Greater Boston area, owing to the city’s prominent role in the nation’s history
and the Revolutionary War. The city that considers itself the Birthplace of
American Liberty calls its observance the “Harborfest Celebration,” a
family-friendly event marked by historical reenactments, live entertainment and more. The highlight of the event is the
performance with fireworks of the Boston Pops Orchestra.
Independence Day would be celebrated in
Boston on Monday this year, so Martha’s Vineyard had planned its own weekend celebration,
featuring two full days’ worth of events, starting around noon on the 3rd
with the annual parade. (The plan did not include having a team of crime scene
technicians working diligently to uncover clues to the mystery laid out on
Lighthouse Beach.) Still, the parade went off as planned at a new location,
followed by Mayor Mackinnon’s patriotic speech. The celebration continued
through the weekend, with concerts, exhibits and demonstrations, ending with
fireworks just after dark on Sunday night. On Monday, when Boston held its Harborfest
event, Evalynn Greene was still a missing person.
* * *
Four weeks passed without any significant
developments. The clothing found on the beach was photographed from every
possible angle, tested for fingerprints (none were found) and subjected to
every other type of forensic analysis available to police. A DNA test confirmed
it was Evalynn’s clothes, and the blood on the shorts was hers, but everyone
already knew that. Her friends and family were interviewed but nobody admitted
knowing where she was or what might have happened to her. Police interviewed
several of the LKs, but of course, they “knew nothing” about Evalynn Greene. When
it was over, all police had was a missing girl and a collection of clothes,
which were packed neatly into a cardboard box and stored with other boxes in an
evidence locker.
Evalynn Greene’s family had reported her
missing, of course, and police had launched a massive search of the island, including
buildings near the ferry landings on both sides of Nantucket Sound and sections
of the mainland closest to the water, but after four weeks, Evalynn Greene was
still a missing person and there were few, if any, new leads to follow.
Then, on August 7, police received a tip
that a body was seen was hanging from a tree in the Susan B. Terwilliger
Wildlife Preserve just north and west from Edgartown. Two detectives were
dispatched to the scene, where they found a department store mannequin wearing
a long blonde wig and dressed in khaki shorts, a purple hooded sweatshirt and
one black Converse tennis shoe. The Lions logo was pasted onto one side of the
sweatshirt – just like the one found at the lighthouse – and a name was written
in marker on the other side. It said, “Manney.”
“This is somebody’s idea of a sick joke,”
Annie said to her parents when news of the discovery hit the Packet office. “There is nobody in our
school named ‘Manney.’ It’s obviously a play on the word ‘mannequin.’ Somebody
is taunting the police because they can’t find any trace of Evalynn Greene.”
No one was laughing two weeks later,
however, when a girl’s naked body washed up on the banks of Sengekontacket
Pond, a few hundred yards from the edge of the Terwilliger wildlife preserve.
It was a teenaged girl with long blonde hair and blue eyes and wearing only a
gold cross around her neck and one black Converse shoe. On the back of her
right shoulder was a blood red tattoo of the letters V and G.
Next:
Evidence begins to emerge
Chapter 6
An autopsy performed on Evalynn Greene’s
body revealed a deep gash on the back of her head, probably caused by violent
contact with a rough, solid object like a rock or a large piece of coral. There
was evidence of a skull fracture and bruising and bleeding of the brain. The
body was bloated, consistent with being under water for several days. Purple
bruises around her ankles suggested she had been tied up for a period of time,
or possibly even lashed to a heavy object that held her under water after she
was killed. No salt water was found in her lungs, meaning she was dead when
placed in the water. Police theorized that the lashings had somehow come
undone, allowing the body to rise to the surface and eventually float along the
coast eastward to the Sengekontacket shore. The easterly direction of the
currents in Nantucket Sound told authorities that Evalynn had been placed in
the water upstream from where she was found, possibly as far away as Oak Bluffs.
Any trace evidence such as blood or semen
had washed away long ago, and the condition of the body ruled out any
determination of sexual activity, although it was assumed because of the VG
tattoo on her shoulder that she had been sexually active. The examining
physician, Dr. Willard Claymore, noted that the tattoo was made with permanent
ink, unlike the temporary tattoos the LKs used, and was applied by an
unprofessional hand. “This was no tattoo artist’s work,” Dr. Claymore told
police. “It’s too uneven and a little crooked. Someone got hold of a pen,
needle and ink and did this to her after any temporary tattoo would have faded
out.”
The following day, Chief Muddlety met with
Jennie Covington at the Vineyard Packet office
to explain the results of the autopsy. “I want you to get the information
directly from me so there’s no confusion and before the rumor mill gets
started,” Muddlety said. “I know you and Rob are responsible journalists, but
this is the internet age. Anybody can post anything on social media and within
hours it becomes truth, no matter how ridiculous or improbable it may
seem.”
As Muddlety unfolded the story, Annie
Covington was in a back corner of the newsroom looking through some files for a
story she was writing about the changing climate of New England. She listened
somewhat casually to Muddlety’s story until he got to the part about the body
being placed in the water somewhere around Oak Bluffs. That was Oak Bluffs, Annie
realized, the location of Vineyard High School where she was a student. Her
instincts were immediately aroused, so with school starting in a few days, an
idea began to form in Annie’s head.
Next:
An anonymous invitation
Chapter 7
On Friday, August 27, Annie was working in
the newsroom alone, trying to finish up the stories she was writing so she
would have her weekend free for some end-of-summer fun. School was starting on
Monday and Annie knew her time at the Packet
would be limited after that. The newsroom door was propped open and Annie heard
someone talking on a cell phone. She looked up to see Wanda Jackson, the Packet’s mail carrier, coming down the
street with the day’s mail. Annie met her in the open doorway, thanked her for
the thick bundle of letters and bills, and carried it to her desk. When she
plopped down the stack, a small, square, purple envelope fell out on the floor.
It was addressed to Annie with white ink, and the words “You’re Invited!” were written
across the bottom.
Annie opened the envelope to find an
invitation to a “back to school” party. It was to be held the following Friday
night on the beach near the old lighthouse “from dark until dawn … or until the
last person finally goes home.” Some food and drinks would be provided, and other
“recreational enhancements” would be allowed. Dress was casual and swimwear was
strongly encouraged. The invitation ended with, “Everyone who IS anyone will
attend this event, so don’t be left out. A wild time is 100% guaranteed.”
The invitation was unsigned.
* * *
School started the following Monday, and
Annie made a point of smiling and saying hello any time she passed members of
the Lion Kings in the hall. There was no doubt in her mind who had sent the
party invitation, and Annie wanted to soften the ground for a plan she was
formulating in her mind. She needed more information about the Lion Kings and
the parties they put on, which she had avoided until now.
She also made a point of chatting up a boy
named Calvin Benoit every chance she got. Calvin was 6-foot-3 and 240 pounds of
chiseled muscle that served him well as the starting middle linebacker for
Vineyard High’s football team. He had also dated Evalynn Greene for a while,
and took it hard when her body was found on the bank of Sengekontacket Pond.
And most importantly, he was on the football team with several members of the
LKs, so he could get closer to them than Annie could.
Annie was convinced that the LKs were
responsible for Evalynn’s death – or at least would know how it happened – and
she was determined to find out what they knew. She was also convinced that it
would take a student like herself or Calvin to get through to the Lion Kings,
who were arrogant enough to pull the stunts they pulled but cautious enough to
avoid conflict with parents, school officials and especially the police. No one
in the group was going to spill anything to someone in authority, that was
certain, but when it came to high school girls? Especially pretty high school
girls? Yeah, the Lion Kings liked them a lot, Annie knew. Who knows what they
might say to a girl they were trying to impress?
It took Annie a couple of days to
formalize her plan, and when she did, she was eager to share it with Calvin
Benoit.
Next:
Party time on the beach
Chapter 8
Friday, September 3
About 50 kids had assembled on Lighthouse
Beach for the “back to school” party, and true to its promise, things were getting
pretty wild. Drinks were flowing, some drugs were passed around and
occasionally a boy and girl would head off down the beach alone. The event had kicked
off right at dark and had hit its stride somewhere around 11 p.m. Roby Coin had been in high gear most of the
night, cruising among the assembled masses and making sure that everybody was
sufficiently lubricated, while also managing to hit on practically every girl
on the beach.
He was picking out the ones who were most
approachable, making sure each girl had plenty to drink and maybe even a little
extra boost, when one girl who arrived late caught his attention, and he forgot
about all of the others. She was tall, maybe 5-foot-10, with corkscrews of
chestnut hair and light gray eyes that sparkled even in the dim light of the
beach. Dressed in cutoff denim shorts and a white halter top over a bikini,
Annie Covington had made her presence known. Roby took one look at Annie and knew
what he had to do.
***
It was just after midnight when the music
stopped and the beachgoers suddenly went quiet. All of the talking, laughing, drinking
and dancing had come to a crashing halt, and a stunned crowd had congregated
near the rocks to watch Officer Rick Hutchins of the Vineyard Police clap
handcuffs on Roby Coin before escorting him up the hill toward the police car
that was waiting on Water Street.
Hutchins had approached Roby a few minutes
earlier while the boy was sitting on the beach. In classic LK style, Roby had
taunted Hutchins when he arrived, calling him “Chief Wiggins” — a reference to a bumbling
police character from the Simpsons TV show — and telling him to “go home and
play with your nightstick.” But Hutchins thought Roby didn’t look quite so
cocky when he ducked his head through the open door and sat him in the back
seat of the cruiser. Back down the hill, two other officers had taken Roby’s
friends, Jake Winters and Freddie Boone, off to another section of beach and
were questioning them about the Lion Kings and the death of Evalynn Greene.
Funny thing about that: Witnesses said the
LK bravado seemed to wear off quickly in the presence of the police, and faced
with actual jail time, the two seemed more than happy to throw their pal Roby
Coin under a bus. Chief Muddlety, meanwhile, had contacted Rob and Jennie Covington,
who arrived within five minutes, still unsure of what had happened and how
Annie was involved. The chief met them at the foot of the lighthouse hill.
“What’s going on here, Chief?” Jennie
asked. “Is Annie okay? Did she get hurt? Is she in some kind of trouble? I
mean, dammit, Chief, what the hell is going on? Who are these people and why is
that boy going to jail?”
“Are you asking as a reporter or as
Jennie’s mother?” Muddlety asked.
“Does it make a difference?” Jennie snapped.
“No, I suppose not,” Muddlety said.
“Listen. Your daughter is a real hero. Something very bad was likely to happen
here tonight, but Annie figured it all out and outsmarted the lot of them. She came
here with a plan and she pulled it off without a hitch. And she was never in
any real danger, although it might have seemed that way.”
“Danger? What kind of danger?” Rob wanted
to know.
“It’s long story and it’s going to get pretty
crazy down here,” Muddlety said. “Annie’s over there talking with friends. Why
don’t I go get her and all of us can go someplace where she can tell you the
story.”
A half hour later, Jennie, Rob and Annie
Covington sat in a booth at the Brew Ballew coffee shop with Chief Muddlety
seated beside Annie. He took a drink of coffee, then tapped Annie gently on the
shoulder. “Go ahead, Miss Covington. This was your night. Tell your parents what
you did.”
Annie took a drink of water and began:
“Well, it all started about a week ago when
I got an invitation to this ‘back to school’ party,” she said. “I could tell
from the invitation what kind of party it was going to be, so I decided I
should attend. I had a feeling this was exactly what had attracted Evalynn
Greene the night she disappeared, so I wanted to see what would happen if I
went to the party and saw girls getting hustled by one of the LKs. I wasn’t
going to go in there unprotected, so I contacted Calvin Benoit and told him
what I had in mind. He had previously dated Evalynn and I knew he’d have my
back, so we made a plan to trick the LKs into thinking I wanted to be one of
their V Girls.
“The invitation called for beach wear, so
I dressed in a bikini and covered it with a tank top and a pair of cutoff denim
shorts. I wanted to attract attention, and I definitely did. Almost as soon as
I arrived at the lighthouse, Roby Coin headed my way. We sat down on a rock and
he started hitting on me with a string of lame pick-up lines, telling me how
hot I looked and how we could go somewhere and have some fun. He offered to get
me a drink, so I asked for some Tequila. While he was gone, I got a text from
Calvin telling me that Roby was putting a roofie in my drink.
When Roby came back, I pretended to take a
sip, and then Calvin — acting like he was drunk — staggered past us and bumped
into Roby, knocking him over backward onto the beach. Roby got up like he
wanted to fight and started arguing with Calvin. While that was going on, I
poured the drink into a plastic bottle I had in my back pocket and stashed it in
the sand under a log.
“Roby apparently thought better of
fighting with Calvin, so when he came back, I pretended to chug the rest of the
drink from the empty cup. Soon after that, I started slurring my words a little,
so Roby went to get his two friends, Freddie and Jake. They all came over and the
four of us walked up the beach to a secluded spot. I started staggering and
acting like I was going to pass out, so I laid down on the sand and Roby knelt
down beside me. He started touching my hair and rubbing the back of my
shoulder, where the VG tattoo would go, then started to pull up my shirt. When
he did that, Calvin, who had been following us, came up behind Roby and grabbed
him around the neck. That freaked out Jake and Freddie and they took off
running down the beach.
“While Calvin held him down, I told Roby I
knew what he had done to Evalynn Greene, and I was gonna make sure he paid the
price for it. Calvin had already called the police, according to our plan, so
we just sat there waiting for them to arrive.
“Roby was belligerent as ever,” Annie
continued. “He started laughing at me and calling me some names I won’t repeat.
‘Go ahead and call the police,’ he said. ‘Call the sheriff. Call the states.
Call the goddamn FBI if you think you can prove anything, but you can’t and you
know it. You didn’t see me put anything in your drink tonight and you can’t
prove that I did anything to Evalynn Greene.’”
“No,” I said, “I can’t ... but Calvin can.”
“That’s right, Roby,” Calvin said. “I watched
you drop a roofie in Annie’s drink, and I heard you tell your buddies that when
it kicked in, you three could take her up the beach and have some fun with her,
just like you did with Evalynn Greene. That’s when I texted to warn her that
you were on your way.”
“That’ll just be your word against mine,”
Roby said. “I’ll deny everything.”
“Then deny this,” Calvin said. He clicked on
his cell phone and started playing the video he had shot a half hour earlier. A
few minutes in, you could see and hear Jake Winters telling Roby they needed to
back off the plan. As the video played, here is what they heard:
Jake:
“Getting girls drunk is one thing, Roby, but you know what happened to that
other girl the last time we used Rohypnol. I don’t want any part of another date rape,
buddy boy.”
Roby:
“That was an accident and you know it. Evalynn got wasted and hit her head on that
rock.”
Jake:
“She got wasted because you dosed her, Roby. She hit her head after you raped
her and she tried to get away from you, staggered and fell. Ain’t nobody gonna
call that an accident.”
Roby:
“Don’t try to play innocent with me, Jake. It was you and Freddie’s idea to
leave her clothes there on the beach and to hang that mannequin in the park.
You and your stupid pranks. I told you to burn the clothes but you had to pull
your little stunt. You thought we were invincible and could get away with
anything because we’re LKs, but I’ll tell you what. If I go down for this, you
two go down with me, so I strongly suggest we stick together whatever happens
from now on. So let’s go do this and get it done.”
With
that, Calvin clicked off the video. Roby looked at Annie and half-way smiled.
He didn’t know what to say.
“I told Roby that Jake and Freddie were back
down the beach talking with the Vineyard cops. That, plus Calvin’s video plus
the tainted drink he gave me—which I poured into a container—should be all the
police will need to put him away for a good long time.
“And that’s when Officer Hutchins and the
other cops arrived and took Roby Coin away,” she said.
***
Nobody spoke for a few minutes while
Annie’s words settled on her mother and dad. Finally, Jennie asked her daughter
the obvious question: “Annie, what you did was remarkable, but you told us you
were going to a friend’s house tonight to watch movies. Why in the hell didn’t
you tell us what you were planning to do?”
“Seriously, mom? If I had told you, would
you have said, ‘Oh sure, Annie, go right ahead. You have our blessing?’”
“Well … no. Of course we wouldn’t,” Jennie
said.
“No, you wouldn’t,” Annie said, “but you
were a reporter for a long time, mom, and you took your share of chances. Some
of the tricks you pulled could have turned out badly, but you always had a plan
and you executed it to perfection. And dad, you pulled your share of
shenanigans to get stories that no one wanted you to get, am I right? Well now
I’m trying to be a reporter and I’m practicing the lessons I learned from you.
Just like you, I took precautions. I had Calvin for backup, and I worked out
the plan in detail before I tried to pull it off. Isn’t that what you would have
done?”
No one at the table could argue with the
logic, so nobody even tried. Rob looked at Jennie and Jennie looked back at Rob
and they both looked at Chief Muddlety, who got up from the table and started to
leave. “I think they’re gonna need me back at the lighthouse,” he said. “We can
talk again tomorrow if you want to. I know you’ll be writin’ a story about all
of this, so give me a call. Thanks for the coffee, and you have a pleasant
evening now.”
When he was gone, Rob got up to pay
the check, followed by Jennie with Annie trailing behind. “She’s right, you
know,” Rob said to Jennie as they were leaving the table. “I remember some of
the stunts you pulled with your cop friend Sammie Ellsworth while tracking down
those missing women, and how you went out on a limb looking for that journalist
who went AWOL. And don’t even get me started on that time you put yourself in a
room with the Candy Man, right in the middle of his killing spree.”
“Yeah,
and how about you, Mr. Know No Danger?” Jennie shot back. “Why don’t you write
a story that enrages the bad guy, draws him out of hiding and sends him racing toward
our house? Or maybe we could pretend to have another big fight in front of
witnesses so you can set yourself up as a target? Or maybe you’d like to
threaten a police chief or two to force them to give you the information you
need? Like Annie said, we’ve both had our share of adventures covering stories
or writing books.”
“Yes,
we have, but Annie was right about something else,” Rob said. “We always
thought about what we were doing, and we always followed a plan.”
He
turned and put one arm around Annie and the other one around his wife. “It’s
been a rather interesting night,” Rob said in the understatement of the week.
“What say we all go home, drink a toast to a job well done and head on off to
bed?”
“You
and Mom can go ahead,” Annie said, “but I’m still running on adrenalin. I think
I’ll walk over to the Packet office
first. I’m a journalist, too, remember? And I’ve got a story to write.”
The End
