“Lucas has a statement from a sorority sister who said that she saw Candace speed into the sorority dorm lot around ten on Sunday night.”
“I heard that on the podcast. Which surprised me, actually, because Candace was usually a good driver.”
“Annie, based on what the police reports stated, and what we’ve learned from the callers, Candace left after the party and no one knows where she went that weekend. She returned Sunday night but didn’t stay in her dorm, and the police cleared both Richie and Tyler. Do you know what she might have been doing or who she would have stayed with?”
Annie said, “I—I really don’t know. If her car was gone, I could see her going to see family. She didn’t get along with her parents, but I could see her hopping on a plane and flying to South Carolina to see her sister if something was wrong. She was pragmatic, like I said, but she was also bold. When she made a decision, she jumped on it. No looking back. When her parents came down to clean out her dorm room after her body was found, they were devastated. They told me the police were looking for Joseph Abernathy, the weird guy who’d been lurking around. I don’t have any reason to think the police are wrong, but…I’ll admit, the podcast has made me think.”
Regan caught Lucas’s eye: that was exactly what they wanted to do, have people start to think.
“Candace originally met Abernathy at Sunrise Center, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Did she ever complain about him or anyone else from the shelter?”
“No. She wasn’t a complainer. One time I remember, and I told this to the police because they’d asked about Abernathy, she was frustrated. I asked about it, and she said that Joseph—she always called him by his first name to show that she saw him as an individual—wouldn’t stay in rehab. He didn’t want it. He didn’t want to be in recovery or do anything different, for whatever reason. He accepted shelter in bad weather, and he went there to eat a few times a week. She wanted to fix everything, and the fact that he wouldn’t take the help bothered her. I think he was somewhat fixated on Candace, which is why he kept showing up at the sorority.”
If Annie had told the police that Joseph Abernathy was fixated on Candace, that would definitely put him high up on the suspect list. A troubled, homeless alcoholic who Candace was trying to help, turning on her. It would check all their boxes, especially since she’d confronted him the night she disappeared.
Except she hadn’t been killed that weekend. And the police knew that.
“Other than you,” Regan asked, “who else did the police talk to in the sorority?”
“Taylor, because she and Candace had had the argument about Abernathy. Probably other girls who were at the party, our advisor, but I didn’t keep track of all that. Everyone was talking about it, but no one really had an idea about where Candace was. After her body was found at the lake, they talked to me again, but I didn’t have anything new to add. They probably talked to Taylor again as well, but she was in shock—she almost left school. I don’t know that she would have graduated at all if we hadn’t all rallied and helped her with her finals.”
“Did you see Candace with anyone you didn’t know or recognize?”
“I really can’t remember. She spent a lot of her free time at the library because she liked the quiet. She spent more time there that last semester, but that could have been because of her finals.”
Regan looked down at her notes and was about to ask about Taylor when Annie exclaimed.
“Oh! Her journal! She kept a journal and wrote it in often. Not every day, but a couple times a week.”
A journal would be a valuable piece of evidence. Things that Candace had said or done, people she might have had conflicts with. If she was scared or intimidated, depressed or worried. “Do the police have the journal?”
“I don’t know. I can’t even remember if I mentioned it to the police. Chrissy asked about it, but that was a couple weeks after she died, and I said I didn’t know where it was.”
The police would have eventually given it to the family, unless the journal was considered evidence. Regan made a note and underlined it.
Where is Candace Swain’s journal?
She glanced at Lucas. By his expression, he didn’t know about a journal, either.
“One more thing,” she said. “Are you still in contact with Taylor James?”
“Taylor pretty much disappeared at the end of the semester. She didn’t even come to the graduation ceremony or the last Sigma Rho party. I heard she was still living in Flagstaff, but I have no idea where or what she’s doing.”