Chapter Six

Deputy Paul had a square face and bushy white hair. He was in his early sixties and his expanding waistline said he enjoyed his wife's cooking. He sat at a desk in the Walnut Creek Police Station and told Callie and Frank about the night Liz disappeared. "It was bitterly cold that night," he said.

Callie shifted in her chair and crossed her jean-clad legs. Paul had spent more time talking about the weather than the actual events of the night Elizabeth Lancaster had disappeared. Still, Callie was grateful he'd agreed to meet with her. Frank sat to her left and seemed genuinely interested in every word Paul spoke. Callie wondered if she was missing something.

Frank spoke, startling Callie, "The jacket and tennis shoes that were found by the creek, they had blood on them?"

Deputy Paul nodded solemnly. "Yeah, the blood was on the inside of the jacket and the inside of the shoes. The jacket was a rain slicker which was a lucky break for us. It was laid over the shoes and kept the blood from been washed away in the rain that night. We really got lucky finding those two items. It's amazing they were still there the next day."

"And with blood on them," Frank mused. "The blood allowed you to positively identify them as belonging to Liz."

"True," Paul said. "But the mother .. what was her name?"

"Blanche," Callie supplied.

"Yeah, Blanche. She still lives in town. Sells flowers I hear."

"She does," Callie said. "You were saying, the mother .."

"Yeah, the mother identified the jacket and shoes right away as being Liz's. So even without the blood we had a positive ID on the jacket and shoes."

Frank frowned, leaned forward in his chair and put his forearms on his thighs. "The blood, was there a lot of it?"

Paul shrugged. His weathered and lined face scrunched in thought, in consideration of the question. "Not really and that caused a lot of discussion within the department. We were of the opinion there wasn't enough blood to say Liz had died."

"Where, inside the jacket, was the blood located?" Frank asked.

"Here." Paul indicated his stomach area. "Now if Liz had been stabbed in the gut, there would've been a lot more blood. What we saw on her jacket was more consistent with, say, a cut wrist."

"A possible suicide attempt?" Frank said.

Deputy Paul's expression grew sad. "That's the conclusion we in the department came to. Teenagers are a temperamental munch as we all know and Liz Lancaster wouldn't be the first teen to commit suicide."

"Did you mention this theory to her mother?" Callie asked.

Paul appeared uncomfortable. "We did and she said we were dead wrong. I quote, 'her baby would never do anything like that.' Course she wouldn't be the first parent to deny the possibility of their child taking their own life. Who wants to believe their child killed themselves? It's heartbreaking. You wish your child had come to you with whatever was troubling them."

"Yes," Callie said quietly and jotted notes on her notepad. Deputy Paul was proving to be helpful after all.

"The blood inside the shoes," Frank said, "what was your explanation for that?"

Callie lifted her head and looked at her husband with admiration. Yes, how did blood get inside the shoes?

Deputy Paul leaned back in his chair. It was obvious he enjoyed the questions, enjoyed being part of a sort of new investigation of the case. "We wondered about that, too. Seemed a little odd to us until we talked to a couple of doctors. Both said – given the suicide scenario – that Liz was probably sitting cross-legged on the ground, hunched over her feet and shoes." Paul leaned forward, over his large stomach, to demonstrate. "See, she's like this. She's got a knife in one hand, got her elbows on her thighs, she leans over her lap and cuts her wrist."

Frank nodded as an image crystallized in his mind. "The blood from her wrist drops onto her socks and shoes."

"And some of that blood trickles down into her shoes," Paul said. "We didn't find a lot of blood in the shoes, just enough to fit the scenario."

Inner confusion showed in Callie's furrowed brow. "I read all the newspaper articles and I never saw the possibility of suicide mentioned in any of them."

"Well, Ms. Hardy, Walnut Creek is a small town," Paul said gently. "Folks here don't like upsetting their neighbors and that's all we'd have been doing if we'd put that in the paper. You see, all we'd have accomplished would be getting Blanche Lancaster tied up in knots. And for what? A theory we had? A possibility? We weren't sure of anything back then. Yeah, it looked like Liz might've committed suicide, but we couldn't say that for sure. We couldn't go putting theories – speculations – in the newspaper. Not around here. We didn't want to sully Liz's good name. She was a straight A student with a bright future. All her teachers loved her. No one had a bad word to say about her. Not exactly the kind of teen you expect to commit suicide."

One delicate eyebrow quirked and Callie said, "Sometimes, those are exactly the students who do. The expectations they set for themselves are too high, too overwhelming .."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Paul admitted. "But like I said, we just weren't sure. No need to set people in town talking about what ifs and maybes."

Callie nodded that she understood, but part of her wasn't sure she did. "Let me ask you about Tara, the young woman who worked at the Walnut Creek Bed and Breakfast. Tara was, allegedly, the last person to see Liz alive. Whatever happened to Tara?"

Paul chuckled under his breath as if highly amused. "Tara? The receptionist and housekeeper? She was what you call, an unreliable witness. Her story changed every time we talked to her. She was consistent about when Liz arrived at the B and B that night. She said Rudy dropped Liz off at the entrance at seven PM. After that, Tara's story isn't so reliable. One time she's telling us Liz left shortly after she arrived, just stayed a couple of minutes and said she had to leave. Next time she's telling us Liz left at eight-forty-five. Got to where we didn't put a lot of faith in anything Tara Spencer told us."

Spencer. Finally, Callie had a last name for the young woman. "Is Tara still in town?"

"If I remember correctly, she got marry to someone from a nearby town and moved there. Please, don't hold me to that though."

When Callie did not ask an immediate follow up question, Frank said, "I've been thinking about the jacket and shoes that Liz left on the bank of the creek. I'd like to hear your thoughts on why she left them there."

A light shone in Paul's brown eyes. "Our working theory was that she realized that slitting her wrists and waiting to bleed out wasn't the best way to commit suicide. Statistics show it's near impossible to bleed out from cutting your wrists. You'd have to practically cut your hand off."

Frank nodded. This was his line of reasoning, too.

"So," Paul continued, "she decided to jump, or wade into the creek. By then the rain was coming down pretty good and it was cold. If she didn't drown then hypothermia would eventually get her. One way or another she wasn't going to survive."

Frank nodded agreement. "That's what I was thinking. So, she left the jacket and shoes .. why?"

Paul stroked his chin. "Hard to say why or what she was thinking. Probably wasn't in a rational state of mind. Who is when they're sitting on a wet bank in the pouring rain contemplating suicide? Best we could figure was she thought jumping in the icy water with less clothes on would get her colder faster. Hypothermia would be quicker."

"No way to change her mind either," Callie said softly and the men looked at her. She traded glanced with Paul and Frank. "If she really wanted to commit suicide she'd want it to be quick. Well, at least I think she would want it to be quick."

After a moment of silence, Paul said, "That's how we saw it. She didn't want to fail again."

# # # #

Two hours later Frank and Callie were headed home. They had gone shopping after talking with Deputy Paul and had found a gift for Callie's parents and a shape sorter toy for Eva. Frank and Callie had even gotten lunch before hitting the road.

Frank was a dedicated student of his wife's moods and knew the signs when she was troubled. "Callie, you awfully quiet. Anything wrong?"

Callie sighed as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders. "No, just organizing thoughts, trying to decide what to put in my article and what to leave out."

"You got a lot of information these past two days. It's going to be tough to decide."

"Kind of." Callie watched the trees flash by outside the windows. "Seems every person I spoke to had a different view, or perceptive, on Elizabeth Lancaster. I'm not sure what to make of her. Was she really a troubled teen who committed suicide?"

"Hard to say and we may never know," Frank said with the wisdom of a police officer.

"Neither Blanche nor Rose brought up suicide as a possibility for Liz's disappearance. I have to admit that I'm baffled as to what happened to Liz. I hate to think that she's dead. I know that's my motherly heart talking. I feel for Blanche and all these years that she's been without her daughter. How hard it's been for her. I can't imagine losing Eva. I don't think I could go on living."

Frank heard the tremor in Callie's voice and put a hand on hers. Callie's emotions ran deep. It was one of the many reasons Frank loved her so much. Her passion. "Let's not think sad thoughts. We'll be home soon and I want you to be happy."

Callie squeezed Frank's hand. "I'm sorry. You know how I get. Sometimes my emotions overwhelm me. But you're right, I'm anxious to see Eva and hold her in my arms. Once I see her my world will be whole again."

Frank smiled. "Mine, too."


A/N: Sorry for the short chapter and long delay in posting. The next chapter should be the final chapter. Thank you to everyone reading and especially to those who have been kind enough to leave a comment. :)