“I suspect by the dead woman whose body we have,” he said. “There was blood on her fingernails, skin. And no defensive wounds.”
“What? You think that she did the cleanup after Candy was killed, and then the bullies killed her? Though it’s also possible that somebody caught her in the act and murdered her where she stood.”
“Possible,” he said thoughtfully.
“What if she was involved with the first murder with somebody else? The easy way to get rid of any witness—”
“I hear you. Now all you have to do is prove it.” With that, he hung up.
She brought up the reports in her email and quickly read through them. Not a whole lot of surprises. The woman in the apartment, her last name was Mallow.
She shook her head at that. “Isn’t that some baking ingredient?” she wondered. But her first name was Paula, and that’s where she got confused with the other one, Candy. Okay, so she had a Paula Mallow, and every time she thought of that name, it tripped her up. She quickly pulled up the details on her. She was twenty-four and had been at the university for just one year, after transferring from the University of Toronto. That transfer didn’t allow all her former college credits to carry over, so she was taking more classes to count toward her English degree. Her family was back there, and, with that, Kate picked up the phone. The parents should have already been notified by the Toronto police. When she reached the mother on the other end, she quickly identified herself. The woman bawled immediately.
Kate winced. “I’m very sorry for your loss, but I do have a few questions I need to ask you.”
“No,” she sobbed, “I can’t answer anything.”
“Nothing about your daughter’s life here?”
“No. She insisted on transferring over there because of that guy. And she hadn’t been the same ever since.”
“Not the same in what way?”
“She just became really snooty, as if she was too good for us all the sudden. She didn’t have time to visit with her father or me. She didn’t have time to even say hello to her grandparents. She was completely wrapped up in her own life. She was never like that beforehand.”
“Before what?”
“Before she transferred. She was happy here, and we were delighted to have her close by.”
Kate winced at that because so many parents lost their kids when they ventured out into the brave new world and became somebody else. Usually that somebody else was indicative of how honest they were being when they were at home, compared to finding out who they really were when they were loose. Sometimes they connected with the wrong people and became someone nobody recognized. Really no way to know if independence and freedom were something that they would handle.
Kate asked a few more questions, but the mom really didn’t seem to know much about Paula’s friends. Her parents hadn’t spoken to her in the last couple months. They had tried to send texts, but their daughter basically ignored them.
When Kate mentioned Candy’s name, Paula’s mother said, “I remember something about her.”
“What about her?”
“My daughter didn’t like her.”
“Okay, any idea why?”
“It was the boyfriend. I think it had to do with Paula’s boyfriend.”
“Would that be the one she met back in Toronto?”
“Yes, she went away on some workshop, and he was there. They hit it off and kept in touch. He’s the one who convinced her to head out west. When she got the transfer, we were all devastated but more so because of him. I never did trust anybody who would do something like that.”
“Do something like what?” Kate asked, not sure she was getting all the story here.
“Deliberately try to separate her from her family.” The mom sobbed loudly. “We were really close before that.”
“I hear you. Does she have other family? Any family out west? Did she have a job? Did she have any friends she stayed in touch with?”
“Not since that man,” she said.
“We’re talking about Brandon here, right?”
“Yes, that was his name, Brandon.”