Elijah
I RAP ON the door of Sydni’s best friend’s home. Her name is Penny Rockwell. When she opens the door, the floodgates have already opened.
“Hello, I’m Penny.” She hiccups.
She’s a cute gal with brunette hair layered around her face, freckles covering her nose and cheeks, and she sports vivid green eyes. She’s tall, almost six feet, slim, and willowy. She could be a model.
“Syd was my best friend in the entire world, and I let her down.” After a deep, shaky breath, she adds, “I wasn’t there for her when she needed me. I’ll never forgive myself,” she says through a sob.
Penny turns, heading for the inner sanctum of her home, and I assume she wants me to follow. She grabs a box of tissues, pulling out several to mop her face and blow her nose.
I can tell she’s a talker after her introduction at the door. I think I’m about to get an earful. Maybe something she says will give me a clue, something I’m overlooking.
Penny plops down on her overstuffed couch in defeat. A large wedding photo on her living room wall draws the eye. Penny and her husband make a beautiful couple, even if her husband is shorter than her by several noticeable inches.
“Have a seat.” Penny motions to the couch across from her. “You are Elijah Garrett, right? Or did I just let a serial killer into my home?”
“I’m Elijah Garrett. As I said on the phone, I represent the life insurance company, Risk Policy Collective. This is a routine investigation to ensure there’s no insurance fraud involved.”
“Hold on. Are you saying you suspect Syd of something? If so, you’re barking up the wrong tree. She was the most honest person I’ve ever known. I mean, if I got a bad haircut, she’d still tell me I looked beautiful, but when it came to the serious stuff, she’d always tell it like it is. Like when she told me not to buy a used sports car because it was a piece of junk. Or the time she told me it was probably time to quit nursing school because every time I saw a needle, I fainted.”
“You felt Sydni was an honest person,” I state, rather than ask.
Penny wipes at her continuing tears. “She wasn’t just honest. She was kind and compassionate. She never gossiped about other people. I’m not saying she was perfect or anything, but she was inherently good, you know what I mean?”
“I do. Then you feel she would never be involved in insurance fraud?” Penny’s answer will be telling.
“Absolutely not. No way. Are you asking this because they never found her body?” Penny’s voice cracks at the thought. “She’s not the one who would benefit from a life insurance payout.”
“What if Sydni and Cole are in on it together?” I suggest.
“Sydni and Cole weren’t in on anything together, to include their own marriage. The concept is laughable. Your investigation is going down the wrong rabbit hole,” Penny says with blunt honesty.
“Which rabbit hole should I go down?”
“Cole. All bad things that happened to Sydni track back to Cole.”
Interesting, but so far very true. “Do you feel he hurt her in some way. Maybe made her accident look like a suicide?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him. But I don’t believe that’s what happened.”
“What do you think happened? Do you feel she took her own life?” I ask.
“I’m going to answer your question by telling you something about Sydni. She could spend days on end in her attic studio painting her heart out. And she wasn’t lonely, and she didn’t feel isolated. On the contrary, she was in her element. She loved her life fiercely. Does that sound like someone who would drive off a bridge? There’s just no way it’s possible.”
“Losing a baby is hard on a woman,” I remind Penny. “There were extenuating circumstances.”
Penny shakes her head in the negative. “Sydni was not the type to let life take her down.”
“Losing a baby is a really tough blow. It’s not something you ever recover from.” I know firsthand. My ex-wife, I mean we, lost a baby. Much earlier than Sydni, though. Regardless, it devastated her. Heck, it shattered me too. That’s why I didn’t understand Ashcole’s attitude.
Penny leans forward. “Sydni would’ve mourned, absolutely, but she would’ve moved on eventually. You can’t convince me otherwise.”
“You’re my sixth interview today. Sydni reached out to every member of her family. They weren’t there for her on the one day of her life she needed them the most. Not one of them. She was having a hard time, perhaps the toughest thing she’d ever gone through. People crack under difficult circumstances. Even the strongest.”
Penny shakes her head. “No. Not Sydni. She was a fighter.”
I change the direction of the conversation. “When I arrived, you said you let her down. How so?”
Penny pulls fistfuls of tissues out of the box again to stop the barrage of tears pouring down her red-spotted face. “Because I was one of the people she turned to, and I wasn’t there for her either. She came to my house that day, looking pasty white and fragile. And I was like, ‘Oh, are you getting sick?’ You know why? Because her jerk of a husband didn’t tell me what had happened. He didn’t even give me the opportunity to visit her in the hospital, to be there for her, to bring her flowers. I mean, her smaller than usual stomach should’ve been my first clue, but I was so obsessed with myself, it never occurred to me. She wasn’t pregnant anymore, and I didn’t even notice! She was still wearing a maternity shirt. It wasn’t as if her stomach was flat or anything. She still looked pregnant, but her baby bump was a heck of a lot smaller. How could I not notice? What kind of friend does that make me? Don’t say it, I will. Self-obsessed. You see why I can’t forgive myself?”
“What was going on in your life?” I ask.
“My boyfriend made reservations for the fanciest restaurant in town. I bought a new dress for the occasion. I knew he was going to propose, and I was out of my mind with excitement. Sydni let me go on and on about it, she oohed and aahed over my new dress, and she told me how happy she was for me. That was Sydni. She was happy for me, even though her life was in turmoil.”
I nod toward the wedding photo. “That him?”
“Yes. I wish Syd could’ve been at our wedding. She was the only thing missing from my perfect day.”
“I’m sorry.” There’s nothing I can say to make it better, so I move on. “When Sydni visited you, did she tell you what had happened to her?”
“Not a word.” Penny flops back on her couch like a ragdoll. “She spent an hour and a half at my house and all I did was talk about me. I made her sit down because she looked like she was coming down with something. I made her some herb tea. All the while, I couldn’t shut up about my life. It never once occurred to me that she was turning to me in her darkest moment. I can’t believe I was so blind. I let her down in a huge way. I can’t let it go, I just can’t.”
“That’s what makes you a good friend.” I’ve finally found someone besides her father who cared about Sydni. “Your guilt says how much you loved her. You’ve got to forgive yourself. From what everyone has told me about Sydni, I think she’d want you to be kinder to yourself.”
Penny shrugs. “Maybe.”
“How would you describe her mood? I’m trying to determine her state of mind.” I listen intently to every word Penny utters.
“Happy for me. Interested in my life. Wanted to know every detail. Hindsight has made me realize that at some point in the conversation she made the decision to not talk about herself, to let me have my moment. Because that’s the kind of friend she was. But me, I let her down. I wasn’t there when she needed me. I lost her that night in more ways than one.”
“Maybe that was her final gift to you. Try to look at the situation through a different lens. You helped her think of something else for an hour or so, something besides herself. Maybe that was exactly what she needed.” That’s all I’ve got. I’m not good at comforting a crying female.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t accept that. She needed me, and I wasn’t there for her. End of story. It’s my fault she went off that bridge.”
Was that a slip of the tongue? “I thought you didn’t believe she took her own life.”
“I don’t. She was upset. Accidents happen when someone is crying while driving. I’ll never understand why everyone assumed suicide. That was a huge leap of logic. A distraught woman who was weak as a kitten crashing her car was much more likely. I know that’s what happened. Like I said, no one will ever convince me otherwise,” Penny states with conviction.
I find myself wishing I’d interviewed Penny first. I can see why Penny and Sydni were best friends. Sydni was reserved, and Penny never stops talking. They were a perfect match. Penny makes some excellent points. She seems to know Sydni better than anyone, even her family members.
“What do you think happened to her after the crash?” I ask.
“Are you kidding? What couldn’t have happened? There are only a thousand scenarios. She could’ve been knocked out and carried away by the river. A head injury could’ve given her amnesia and she was picked up by some creep who’s holding her hostage to this day. The riverside is dotted with old houses here and there. I know, because we used to use them as landing zones while rafting down the river. Someone could’ve found her washed up on the shore and taken her inside. Maybe they decided to nurse her back to health, then keep her for slave labor. Or maybe she’s wandering the country, taking on odd jobs to survive, unable to remember her former life.”
I think my eyebrows hit my hairline. Penny has quite the imagination. On one hand, I think maybe she’s been watching too many movies. On the other hand, I wonder if she could be a little bit right. After all, I wondered about the amnesia situation as well. “What do you do for a living?”
“Freelance journalism. I write articles and short stories for various publications.” The upward tilt of her chin says she’s proud of her work.
“Fiction?”
“My short stories are fiction, yes,” Penny says with a slightly defensive tone. “The articles I write are nonfiction, based on facts. I realize my creative mind makes me think up some crazy scenarios. But isn’t that what an investigator does? Think through the possibilities and follow leads? The police only saw suicide. The investigator in charge was being lazy. He should’ve probed deeper into the case. He never even came to interview me.”
Penny might be a tad over the top. But she’s winning me over. She’s right. Any number of things could’ve happened to Sydni. I need to think outside the box.
Penny doesn’t know about the go-bag, though. If she did, I can’t imagine what kind of stories she’d conjure up. Maybe the same types of possibilities my mind is chewing on.
“Do you have any reason to believe that Sydni needed to escape from Cole? Was she scared of him?” I need to know.
“Cole? Nah. He’s a jerk, but he wasn’t physically abusive. Can you imagine? He’d worry about ruining his manicure, or getting his clothes dirty, or messing up his hair. Besides, if Cole ever hit Sydni, she’d hit him right back. I know most people thought she was quiet and reserved, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t have a backbone. She didn’t let people push her around.”
“Her father feels Cole took away some of her zest for life.” Only an insecure man treats a woman like she’s his child instead of his equal.
“He did, for sure. He tried to control her,” Penny confirms. “It didn’t go well. Now her mom and her sister, they’re a different story. Those two had the power to knock her down a peg or two. They weren’t even trying to be mean—they just were. Totally clueless, those two. They left her out all the time. She cried on my shoulder more than once over the situation. They treated her like an outsider, like she wasn’t one of them. It killed me every time I witnessed it.”
“Was there any reason for her to run away? Anything at all? Was she scared of someone? A stalker? Someone jealous of her success in the art world?” I fade off, hoping Penny’s imagination will fill in the blanks for me.
“What are you getting at? Do you think she was running away?” Penny leans forward again. “Do you think she’s out there somewhere?”
“I’m simply exploring every possibility. Like you said, it’s something the police investigator should have done many years ago. That’s all,” I lie. I am wondering if Sydni is still alive.
“I don’t believe you. You’re looking for her, aren’t you?”
“It’s part of investigating possible insurance fraud.” I can tell she’s unconvinced. “It’s routine.” Now I sound like I’m making excuses even to my own ears.
“Listen, I’m filled with false hope that she could be alive somewhere. I always have been. Call me if you find her. I’ll come. I’ll be there faster than a New York minute.” Penny flips her short hair out of her eyes, then stands.
This interview is over. I get the hint. I get to my feet, one thing still niggling in the back of my mind.
“One more thing. Was there a particular house on the riverbank you used as a landing zone?”
“Wow. That was random.” Penny is blunt, but I like her style.
“Sorry. When a question hits, I need to ask it before I lose it. Sometimes my questions are a little haphazard.” My brain often works at a faster rate than my mouth.
“So you’re taking my scenarios seriously?” Penny asks with interest.
“It’s certainly a lead that’s worth checking out,” I hedge. “Did you know the people who lived in the house you used as a landing zone? Did they give you permission to use their property? Was it more than one house?”
“Every single high school student in this area knows who it is. I told you the investigator was lazy. It was Old Lady Rutherford. She’d load us up in the back of her old jalopy of a truck and take us back to Sydni’s house. Honestly, it was more dangerous to ride in her truck than to raft down the river. She was so nice, though. Always gave us homemade cookies. All the high school kids knew they could rely on her to get them back home after a day on the river. I think we helped ease her loneliness. Win-win.”
“Do you know the address? I’d like to meet her.” I can’t ignore this lead.
“I have no idea if she’s still alive. I haven’t seen her in years. She lives in a house that should’ve been condemned years ago at the end of Lazy River Road. I’m not even sure she has a house number.”
“I’ll find it. Thanks, Penny. You’ve been very helpful. You’re a good friend. Don’t forget it.”
Penny starts to cry again.