Everyone Here Is Lying(78)

“What have you got for us?” Bledsoe asks after the preliminary greetings. He looks comfortable enough, Gully observes, not the queasy sort at all.

“Come, have a look,” the ME says, gesturing for them to come closer.

Gully looks down at Marion Cooke, so pale and cold and waxy. The sheet is drawn up over her chest, only the shoulders and head showing. Gully remembers questioning this woman at the police station, oblivious to the fact that Avery was being held prisoner in her basement. How convincing she was in her insistence that Avery got into Ryan Blanchard’s car. And now she’s dead.

“This is what killed her,” the ME explains, as she tilts the head and points to the wound. “The corner of the stair post penetrated the back of her head.” She pauses. “It probably happened in the fall.” Gully and Bledsoe look at her, waiting. “Although not necessarily.”

“What are you saying?” Bledsoe asks.

“I’m saying I can’t be completely sure. Falls are tricky. She might have struck her head hard enough at just that angle. And if she’d been alone, I would rule the manner of death as accidental as a matter of course. But she wasn’t alone at the time of death, and the circumstances were unusual.” She adds, “People do die from falls down stairs, but certainly not always. For every hundred falls down a flight of stairs resulting in injury, very few are fatal—only about one percent.” Into the silence she adds, “I’m going to rule the manner of death as undetermined, because I simply can’t be sure.”

“I see,” Bledsoe says. “Thank you.”

Gully follows Bledsoe out. She and Bledsoe walk back to the car in silence. They don’t speak until they are inside and the doors are closed. “What do you think?” Gully asks.

Bledsoe sighs and leans back in his seat. “I don’t know.”

“That girl troubles me,” she says. “Something about her.”

“I know what you mean,” Bledsoe agrees. “She’s a bit—off somehow.” He sits silently, considering. Then he says, “Is it possible that Avery went to the bottom of the stairs and struck Marion’s head against the post while she was lying there?”

Gully is silent.

“She’s nine years old, for Christ’s sake,” Bledsoe says, as if dismissing the idea.

After a while, Gully shakes her head, staring out the windshield. “It’s such a bizarre case. There was never any actual physical evidence against Ryan Blanchard—he would never have been convicted. What was Marion thinking?”

“She was nuts,” Bledsoe says. “Don’t you watch Dateline? Forensic Files? I do. People do strange—unbelievable—things. It might have been enough for her to ruin his life, to have that cloud hanging over him. And over Wooler too. Keeping him and Nora apart.”

“She must have seen Ryan drive his car down the street just before Avery appeared at her back door. How could she have done it otherwise? What if Ryan had been at work? She saw him drive down the street that day, at that time, which we know he did. Then Avery appears at her back door, without her jacket, her hair in a braid—and she sees an opportunity.”

“Yes,” Bledsoe agrees.

Gully starts the car.





Fifty-four


Erin is anxious as she arrives at the police station late on Monday afternoon, having been called in by Detective Gully. William is already there when she’s brought into an interview room. What can they possibly want now?

She doesn’t have to wait long to find out. Bledsoe tells them rather delicately about the autopsy findings, that the ME is going to rule the manner of death as “undetermined” rather than accidental.

“What are you saying?” Erin protests. “It was self-defense!”

“Self-defense is a legal defense, not a manner of death,” Bledsoe explains. “For a death that is not from natural causes, the ME can only make a ruling of accident, homicide, suicide, or undetermined.”

Erin stares back at him, wondering what he’s getting at, exactly. Bledsoe continues. “In this case, the ME can’t be completely certain the fatal injury was sustained in the fall, or whether it happened immediately afterward.”

Erin gets it now. “I don’t believe this,” she says staunchly, although she is shaken. “Are you implying that Avery might have deliberately hurt Marion after she pushed her down the stairs to get away?” She glances at William; he is quiet but looks startled—and concerned. He doesn’t leap in to defend their daughter like he should. She’s furious at him.

“Please,” Bledsoe says. “Don’t alarm yourself. There will be no charges against your daughter. No one thinks Avery did anything but push Marion down the stairs to escape.”

There’s a silence filled with tension; no one seems to want to speak. Finally, Gully asks, “How is she doing?”

The thing is, Erin thinks, Avery has been fine. Just the same as she was before the abduction. Moody, demanding, uncooperative, controlling. But no different than before. Except—if anything—she might be more cheerful. She isn’t withdrawn or having nightmares or wetting the bed. Erin will try to make an appointment with a doctor—one from the list—soon, but she worries that Avery will refuse to go.

Erin answers, “I don’t know. She seems okay, but maybe she’s still in shock.” The mutual liking and respect that had existed between Erin and Gully at the beginning of the investigation has evaporated. The successful conclusion, after all, had nothing to do with good police work, and they both know it. And now there’s this. Erin can’t help thinking that if they had done their jobs better, they might have found Avery before she’d been forced to push Marion down the stairs. But she’s too well behaved to say this out loud. Erin wonders if Gully can read her thoughts—her regretful expression indicates that she might.