“Yeah, I saw you were on that case. Kinda weird seeing you on the news, bro.” Sounds of my nephews in the background had Tony turning his attention away from the phone for a moment before saying louder, “I don’t know what a high school story has to do with your case, but I’ll tell you. Just let me step away from the kids.”
I saw Mira look at me funny in the passenger side mirror as we continued on, but she kept her mouth shut.
“Okay, so I think I was maybe fourteen or fifteen when I first heard it.”
“Couldn’t have been,” I said. “I was already in Quantico when you told it to me. We were at Mom’s for Christmas.”
“So sixteen then?” He continued with waiting for verification. “Anyway, there was a rumor going around my school that a girlfrom Atelihai Valley was sexually assaulted by her father. She got pregnant with his baby and then committed suicide.”
“That’s awful,” Mira said. “Was it true?”
“Rumors always start somewhere,” Tony and I said together. Then Tony added, “I doubt this one is, though. By the end of the school year, the rumor was that she’d had sex with the entire wrestling team and that’s how she got pregnant before committing suicide.”
Mira made a face. “I can see why you didn’t want to say anything in front of your kids.”
“Can you remember anything else?” I asked my brother. “Like her name, age, anything?”
“I’m a stay-at-home dad with two kids under six. I barely remember what I had for breakfast.”
Fair point. “Thanks, bro. I appreciate you talking about this.”
“You think Atelihai Valley really has a serial killer?” he asked. I could hear the apprehension in his voice, even though he lived hours away from Atelihai Valley.
“They have something,” I said cryptically. “I’ll talk with you later.”
“’kay. Bye, Mira. Pleasure not meeting you.”
She laughed. “You too, Little Brother because Big Brother didn’t bother to introduce you.”
He chuckled. “Tony Mallory at your service, ma’am.”
“Hey, Mr. Flirtypants, go kiss your wife,” I snapped.
“Bye, asshole,” and then he hung up.
I dropped my phone in the cupholder, my mind spinning. “What are the chances that there was a rumor about a teenage pregnancy and suicide following the school year Atelihai Valley won the state championship they’re so fucking proud of?”
“You think it’s real? You think there was a girl who committed suicide?”
I shook my head, feeling like I was trying to solve a puzzle with no picture. “I don’t know what I am thinking, but we have all the police reports from those years. Why wasn’t one of them a teenage suicide?”
“Hopefully, the sheriff will be able to tell us,” Mira said as I made the turn into the hospice facility. “Do you know what he’s dying of? It’s not dementia, right?”
The question was not as heartless as it seemed. We needed to know we could rely on the information former Sheriff Renfrew gave us.
“Stage four prostate cancer,” I answered. “He’ll be of sound mind.”
After parking, we headed inside. Our badges got us in even though visiting hours were near ending.
I’d seen pictures of Clyde Renfrew through our investigation into Atelihai Valley and the figure in the hospital bed was a ghost of the man he’d been. Gaunt, pale, and bald, he had an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, an IV in his arm, and an EKG machine attached to his heart.
“Sheriff Renfrew,” I said as we took seats next to his bed. “My name is Shawn Mallory and this is my partner, Mira Barnes. We’re with the FBI. I called you earlier today.” I held my badge up in front of his face so he didn’t have to move his neck. “Are you able to speak with us?”
The man made a universal motion with his right hand. Mira immediately stood up and walked around the foot of the bed to hand him her notepad and pen.
We watched as the dying man struggled to write before handing the pen back to Mira.
She picked up the pad, her eyes going wide a moment before she started reading. “‘This is my deathbed confession. In the closet, there is a lockbox with everything you need. May God have mercy on my soul.’”
