The Perfect Stranger (26 page)

I’ll deal with it later,
she tells herself as a mighty yawn escapes her.
Or maybe I’ll just forget about it.

What does it matter? Roger is gone. Finding out who killed him won’t bring him back.

She slips into the bed they shared and rolls over onto Roger’s side.

There, on the bedside table, pushed up against the base of the lamp, she sees his silver lighter.

It hadn’t been stolen after all. He must have forgotten it that morning as he tucked the cigarettes and wallet into his pocket.

He must have been frustrated, reaching into his pocket for that first morning cigarette he always enjoyed so thoroughly and realizing he couldn’t even light it.

Landry resists the urge to check her watch, not wanting Detective Burns to get the impression that she’s anxious to leave this conference room—though that is, indeed, the case.

It’s not easy to sit here and reveal personal details to a total stranger . . .

Which is, ironically, precisely why she became involved with the Internet—and, by association, with Meredith and the others—in the first place. Now Detective Burns is pumping her for information not just about herself, but about her fellow bloggers.

Is it because she suspects that one of them killed Meredith?

Do I suspect that, too?

It’s not the first time Landry has speculated about it, but until now she’s been able to talk herself out of it.

They’re strangers, Landry . . .

With Rob’s comment echoing in her ears, and now this, suddenly, it seems not only possible, but plausible . . .

Still, maybe she’s just paranoid.

Who wouldn’t be, sitting here being interrogated by a homicide detective?

Okay, this isn’t an interrogation; it’s an interview. She knows there’s a distinct difference between the two, and Detective Burns made it very clear up front that she was interested in conducting the latter.

But now that the woman has abruptly stopped taking notes and is sitting there as if she’s just been handed an incriminating piece of evidence, Landry backtracks through the conversation, wondering what she could possibly have said to inspire the reaction.

She was merely spelling Jaycee’s name, and Detective Burns was in the midst of writing it down. Before that . . .

Shifting her weight in the chair as if snapping out of a trance, the woman resumes writing, then looks up again at Landry.

“Jaycee. You say she lives in New York? As in New York City?”

“That’s right.”

Detective Burns types something into her laptop, focused on the screen as she asks, “What else do you know about her?”

“She has some kind of corporate job—”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

Now the detective is looking at her. “But she told you this?”

Landry considers the question. Did Jaycee actually tell her, or did she simply infer it based on the fact that Jaycee was frequently traveling and talking about meetings?

“I’m not sure.”

The follow-up questions come fast and furious, punctuated by the tapping keys of Detective Burns’s keyboard: How long has Jaycee been blogging? Has Landry ever met her in person? Ever spoken to her on the phone? What does Jaycee sound like? What does she look like?

“I’ve never seen her,” is Landry’s response to the last question. “She doesn’t post personal pictures.”

Seeing the expression on the detective’s face as she utters those words, Landry realizes that they do, indeed, seem incriminating.

“But lots of people don’t post photos of themselves,” she finds herself hastily adding, struck by the instinct to protect Jaycee.

Why?

Because I’m sure she’s innocent?

Or just because she’s one of us?

That, she realizes, is the reason, pure and simple. It was the same back in her sorority days. She didn’t know some of her sisters nearly as well as others, and while she loved many of them, there were a few she didn’t even like very much. Still, they were bound by sisterhood and had each other’s backs, always.

Looking thoughtful, Detective Burns returns her gaze to the screen and rhythmically taps the same key on her laptop—as if she’s scrolling down a page, Landry thinks. Probably Jaycee’s blog.

She asks a few other questions about Jaycee—questions Landry can’t answer, like whether she’s married or has children; where she grew up; exactly when she was diagnosed; where she might be today, at this very minute.

“All right,” the detective says, in a shifting gears tone, “let’s take a look at something.”

Relieved to be moving on to a new topic, Landry watches her type something on her keyboard, wait and then peer at the screen.

After a moment Detective Burns turns the laptop around so it’s facing Landry. “Do you recognize this woman?”

Landry leans in to look. There’s a glare, and she can’t see anything until she reaches out and tilts the screen at a different angle.

Now the image on the screen is plainly visible—and instantly recognizable. Landry immediately says, “That’s Jenna Coeur. I actually just read an article about her in the newspaper this morning, on the plane.”

“How much do you know about her?”

“Quite a bit,” she admits. “I’ve seen all her movies—I mean who hasn’t? But I also read a lot of celebrity magazines and books, and I read that true crime best seller a few years ago.
Coldhearted
, I think was the title, and it was . . .”

She trails off as a terrible, preposterous thought occurs to her.

“You don’t think Jenna Coeur had something to do with Meredith’s death?”

“Do you?” the detective returns.

“No! Why would she? It’s not like she and Meredith knew each other . . .”

“You’re sure about that?”

“I’m positive.”

“Because Jenna Coeur was at the funeral today. So obviously, there was a connection.”

Speechless, Landry can only shake her head, her mind reeling.

Surely Meredith would have mentioned a personal connection with a woman who went overnight from being one of the most beloved movie stars of the twenty-first century to one of the most notorious murderesses of all time. That’s not the kind of thing you keep to yourself. Not if you’re Meredith, who not only appreciated, but seemed to share, her own interest in all things Hollywood.

One of Meredith’s many off-topic-of-breast-cancer blogs was about her random brushes with celebrity, like spotting Nicolas Cage in a New Orleans restaurant and seeing one of the Real Housewives at an airport. That was a popular post: most of the other bloggers shared their own celebrity run-ins in the comments section. Kay mentioned Timothy McVeigh’s execution at the prison where she worked. You’d think that alone would have inspired Meredith to mention her own connection to another notorious criminal.

When Jenna Coeur’s televised high-profile trial was unfolding, it seemed like the entire world was tuned into
Court TV
—including Rob, who was far more interested in the legal posturing than the movie star aspect of the case.

Jenna wasn’t convicted, but only because she had the best defense team her millions could buy. She reportedly wanted to take the stand, but her lawyers refused to allow her to testify. Later, she never issued a statement other than to say—through her attorneys—that she was relieved the ordeal was over, was grateful to her legal team, and would appreciate privacy as she tried to rebuild her life.

That didn’t seem likely. Every journalist in the country sought the big interview with her. But she never stepped back into the spotlight to proclaim her own innocence. She simply faded into obscurity . . .

Only to pop up today at Meredith Heywood’s funeral in Ohio?

It made no sense. None whatsoever.

“If Meredith knew Jenna Coeur, she probably would have mentioned it at some point. So I honestly don’t think she did,” Landry tells the detective again.
It’s either that, or I didn’t know Meredith.

“Unless,” Detective Burns says, “Meredith
wasn’t
aware
that she knew Jenna Coeur.”

Momentarily confused, Landry digests the comment and her eyes widen. “You think they were connected online?”

“It’s feasible, isn’t it?”

Landry nods slowly as her mind hurtles through various scenarios. Plucking the most logical one, she asks, “So you think she was lurking on Meredith’s blog?”

“Maybe lurking. Or maybe interacting, but disguised.”

“I didn’t even know she had cancer.” You’d think something like that would get out.

“Maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she’s just pretending she does.”

Landry’s jaw drops. “Why would anyone in their right mind—” She cuts herself off. No one in her right mind would fake cancer. Just as no one in her right mind would slaughter her own daughter in cold blood.

Cold-blooded . . . coldhearted . . .

That’s Jenna Coeur.

Detective Burns rests her elbow on her table and her chin in her hand. “Tell me again,” she says with quiet deliberation, “what you know about your blogger friend Jaycee.”

Wondering why she’s abruptly shifting gears, Landry tries to tear her thoughts away from Jenna Coeur and focus on the question at hand. Belatedly, she realizes that the detective is pronouncing Jaycee’s name oddly, without the emphasis on the first syllable and with a distinct pause before the second.

Then it hits her: Detective Burns hasn’t shifted gears at all.

“You think . . .” Landry shakes her head in disbelief, even as a forgotten thought tries to barge back into her head. “You think Jaycee is really Jenna Coeur?”

She pauses for the inevitable response
—“Do you?”
—but receives only a shrug.

Jaycee . . .

J.C. . . .

Jenna Coeur . . .

An elusive thought flits at the edge of her consciousness. There’s something she should remember . . .

“Can I take a quick look at her blog page?” she asks the detective, gesturing at the laptop. “I just want to see . . . maybe there’s something there that will give her away if it’s her.”

“Be my guest. I don’t think there is, though.”

Landry clicks over to Jaycee’s blog, noting that there have been no new entries all week. That’s not unusual—none of them have been posting. She’d assumed everyone is, like her, too shell-shocked by Meredith’s death—not wanting to put the loss into words yet, but not able to write about anything else, either.

“She usually writes about general topics related to breast cancer—usually political stuff, criticizing spending, encouraging lobbying . . . that sort of thing.”

“Jenna Coeur was one of Hollywood’s most vocal political activists.”

“That’s right. I remember.” Truly, she knows her movie stars. Reads about them, follows them online, watches those gossipy infotainment shows on television . . .

And there’s something . . .

Something else . . .

“It’s not a stretch to think that if she wanted to pose as a blogger,” Detective Burns is saying, “she’d cover topics that might actually mean something to her.”

“No, that does make sense.”

Landry scrolls down the page, tap, tap, tapping the down arrow key, knowing there’s something she should be remembering.

Frustrated, she flips over to her own blog and clicks to the archived entry about brushes with celebrity, wondering whether Jaycee contributed to the barrage of comments. As she scans them, finding nothing, the detective continues to question her.

“When you spoke to her on the phone this week, did she—”

“Oh my God! That’s it! That’s the thing I was trying to—when she called me, it was from a California area code. She said she was at a hotel in L.A.”

“Do you still have the number? Was it on your home phone, or—”

“No, it was on my cell . . .” Landry is already pulling it out of her pocket. “And at the time, I thought there was something familiar about her voice . . . I kept thinking she reminded me of someone. No wonder.”

She quickly scrolls through the call log, hoping the number is still there.

It is.

She reads it off to Detective Burns, who jots it down, then grabs the laptop and enters it in a search engine. “She wasn’t lying about where she was. The number belongs to a hotel off the Sunset Strip. Do you have a phone number for her in New York, or her cell?”

“No—yes!” Landry remembers. “She gave me her cell, then hung up before I could get the home number.”

“Do you have it in your phone contacts?”

“No, I wrote it down somewhere at home.”

“Do you think you can get it?”

“I can try.”

Detective Crystal nods and gestures at the phone in Landry’s hand.

“Oh—you mean right now?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll just call home and . . .” She dials the house, trying to remember where the number might be. For all she knows she scribbled it on a napkin and then mistakenly threw it away.

Rob answers. “What’s up? Everything okay? How’d it go with the detective?”

“I’m still . . . listen, can you do me a quick favor? I need you to find a phone number I wrote down a few days ago. I might have put it on the bulletin board like I did the insurance cards.”

“I’ll check.”

He does, and reports that it’s not there. Hearing voices in the background, Landry asks, “Is that the kids? Can you put Addison on the phone?”

“Sure. Tucker’s here, too. You can talk to them both. But don’t you want that phone number first?”

“I do want it—that’s why I need Addison. She’s a lot better at finding things than y’all are.”

“Ouch,” he says mildly, and hands the phone over to their daughter.

“Mom?”

A new wave of homesickness washes over her with the sound of her daughter’s voice. “Hi, sweetie. I need your help. I wrote down a phone number the other day, probably on scrap paper, and it’s around there somewhere. Can you look for it? I was in my bedroom, I think, when I talked to her, so you might want to start there.”

“Sure. Hang on a second.”

Landry nods at Detective Burns. “My daughter’s looking.”

“Gotcha. For what it’s worth, my husband can never find anything either. Men, right?”