“Mallory Quinn,” she says. “I heard you’re leaving Spring Brook tomorrow.”
“Things didn’t work out.”
“That’s what Caroline said. I was a little surprised you never mentioned it, though.”
“It didn’t come up.”
She waits for me to elaborate, but what does she expect me to say? It’s not like I’m proud of being fired. I try to change the subject.
“I just got off the phone with Annie Barrett’s grandson. A man named Curtis Campbell. He lives in Akron, Ohio. Claims his Granny Annie lived all the way to age eighty-one.”
Briggs grins. “I told you that story was a whopper. My grandfather grew up with Willie. They used to fish together.”
Teddy interrupts us, calling from inside the shower stall. “Hey, Mallory?”
“Right here, buddy.”
He sounds panicked. “There’s a bug on the soap.”
“What kind of bug?”
“A big one. A thousand-legger.”
“Splash some water on it.”
“I can’t, I need you to do it.”
He unlatches the door and then retreats to the far corner of the stall, getting out of my way. I reach for the bar of Dove soap, expecting some kind of nasty slithering silverfish, but there’s nothing.
“Where is it?”
Teddy shakes his head, and I realize the bug was just a ploy, an excuse to make me open the door. He whispers, “Are we getting arrested?”
“Who?”
“The police lady. Is she mad at us?”
I stare at Teddy, bewildered. Nothing about this conversation makes any sense. “No, buddy, everything’s fine. No one’s getting arrested. Just finish up, okay?”
I close the door and he latches it behind me.
Detective Briggs is still waiting.
“Everything all right?”
“He’s fine.”
“I mean you, Mallory. You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
I sink into a chair to steady my thoughts, and I say I’m still reeling from the phone call. “I’d convinced myself that Annie Barrett was murdered. I can’t believe people have been spreading this story for seventy years.”
“Well, the truth doesn’t reflect well on Spring Brook. If the town had been a little more tolerant, maybe Willie and Annie could have stayed here. Maybe George wouldn’t have felt the need to stage a crime scene.” Briggs laughs. “You know, there’s still guys in my department who think the murder really happened? I tell them the truth, and they act like I’m trying to stir things up, a black woman cop handing out race cards.” She shrugs. “Anyhow, I don’t want to keep you long. I just had a quick question. We found Mitzi’s cell phone in her kitchen. The battery had run down but we found a charger and got it working again. Seems she was in the middle of sending you a text. It doesn’t make any sense to me, but maybe it’ll mean something to you.” She looks down at her notepad, squinting over the tops of her reading glasses. “Here’s what it says: ‘We need to talk. I was wrong about before. Anya isn’t a name, it’s’”— Briggs stops and looks to me. “That’s as far as she got. Do those words mean anything to you?”
“No.”
“How about Anya? Is that possibly a typo?”
I nod in the direction of the shower stall. “Anya is the name of Teddy’s invisible friend.”
“Invisible friend?”
“He’s five. He has an active imagination.”
“I know she’s not real,” he calls out. “I know she’s just make-believe.”
Briggs furrows her brow, puzzled by the cryptic message. Then she flips forward a few pages in her notepad.
“Yesterday I spoke with Caroline Maxwell, and she says she heard Mitzi having an argument on Thursday night. She saw Mitzi leave her house in a nightgown around ten thirty P.M. Did you happen to hear anything?”
“No, but I wasn’t here. I was at Adrian’s house. Three blocks away. His parents were having a party.” At ten thirty Thursday night, I was sitting in the gardens of the Flower Castle, wasting my time with The Collected Works of Anne C. Barrett. “Does the coroner know how Mitzi died?”
Briggs lowers her voice so Teddy won’t hear. “Unfortunately it appears to be drug-related. Acute lung injury stemming from an overdose. Sometime Thursday night or early Friday morning. But don’t go printing that on Facebook. Keep it under your hat for a few days.”