“Live and learn,” she said.
They went into her dad’s office—a room he’d built on after she had moved to the East Coast. A wall of windows, built-in bookshelves, a potbellied stove in the corner, and her grandfather’s antique desk that her dad had refinished. A couple of leather chairs and a small table completed the comfortable room. Lucas looked around and his eyes widened when he saw the stuffed black bear in the corner. “Is that real?”
“It is.” In addition to the bear, there was the head of a pronghorn mounted on one wall, and the largest fish her dad had ever caught, a forty-two-pound rainbow trout, above his desk. Not world-record size, but close. A mountain lion head, a javelina head—they were nasty creatures. “Don’t let them intimidate you. There’s a story behind each one. My brother and dad go hunting every year, if they can get tags. I prefer pheasant to big game, but I was with my dad when he caught that fish. I don’t know if I ever saw him more excited in my life.”
She sat at the desk and motioned for Lucas to take one of the chairs. “I’ll put her on speaker, but don’t talk, okay?” she said. “If you have anything you want me to ask, write it down. I think we’ll get more information this way.”
Lucas agreed.
Regan called Annie at their prearranged time. She answered on the second ring. “Hello, Annie Johnston? This is Regan Merritt.”
“Yes. I’ve been waiting—but you’re right on time. I guess I’m nervous.”
“There’s nothing to be nervous about,” Regan assured her. “As I told you in my message yesterday, I graduated from NAU, and as a favor to my college advisor, I’m helping Lucas Vega with his podcast, which seeks to solve the murder of Candace Swain.”
“After you reached out yesterday, my boyfriend and I listened to all the episodes. I guess—well, I didn’t believe Lucas when he told me he had Candace’s sister helping. I thought he was lying to get me to talk to him. But I still don’t want to call into the podcast. I have mixed feelings about the whole thing.”
“That’s okay. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me now. You should know that I plan to share whatever you tell me with Lucas,” Regan said, glancing over at him as he sat rigid in the chair across from her.
“I’m fine with that. Sigma Rho, my sorority, sent out an email six, seven weeks ago telling all alumnae that a student was doing a podcast about Candace and her murder and that they had voted not to participate. It made sense when I read it—the idea that the podcast would sensationalize her murder, that we didn’t know whether Candace’s name would be dragged through the mud, or the sorority itself, and the idea that this is better a matter for the police. But then, when I listened to the podcast, while a few things seemed a little over the top, I thought he did a good job being fair to both the sorority and Candace.”
“How long were you Candace’s roommate?”
“Three years. The way our sorority handles recruitment and housing is that we rush our first semester freshman year. Second semester we can move into the sorority dorms at Mountain View, or stay in our own dorm until our second year. Most of us move into the sorority because it’s fun and exciting. I met Candace during rush, but she and Taylor were best friends and roommates in the dorms, so they stayed roommates at Sigma Rho. But something happened, I don’t know what, and they had a falling-out. Second year Candace and I roomed together. She reached out to me, and it worked. We weren’t best friends, but we were best roommates, if that makes sense. She was very considerate, respected my space, things like that. We were both very neat people. She was private. We were close, but we didn’t do much together outside of the sorority.”
“According to the police and media reports, you were away for the weekend and came back late Sunday, correct?”
“Really late. I didn’t get back until after one in the morning. I went home most weekends, to Mesa, south of Phoenix. My grandmother was sick, and I wanted to spend all the time I could with her before she forgot me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was three years ago and she’s still with us, but her Alzheimer’s has progressed. I wouldn’t have traded those weekends with her for anything. So I left Friday morning and didn’t go to the party—which really wasn’t my thing, anyway.”
“Did you see Candace that morning?”
“Briefly. She was just waking up, maybe around eight? I was leaving and trying to be quiet. I told her to have fun for me at the party. She said she didn’t even want to go but had to because she was on the sorority council.”