Adventures in Funeral Crashing (Complete Novel)

Chapter 7: Finger-Pointing

CHAPTER 7: FINGER-POINTING

It took me awhile to calm Ethan down. Although, it was an excellent lead, just because Troy knew all of the dead girls, didn't mean he had killed them.

"We can't just go to the police and accuse Troy," I reasoned with Ethan. "They're not going to believe us. Haven't you seen like every horror movie? Nobody believes teenagers."

Ethan looked at me with frustration and pointed at the computer, "But it's right there! He knew all of them! What more evidence do we need?"

"A motive?" I volunteered.

Ethan shook his head, "Let the cops figure out a motive."

"Look, I admit it's suspicious, but there has to be more," I argued.

Ethan shook his head, but I could see that he was at the very least, calming down. "I'm still going to the police. They have to know about this. All we need to do is get them to change their minds. We don't actually have to solve the case."

"I know, but I still think we need more," I said.

"But this is huge," Ethan replied. "He knew all of them. The cops have to know."

We had been arguing about this for the last half hour, so I nodded, realizing that I wasn't going to be able to dissuade him. I still didn't think we had enough to go on. It could be a coincidence. Troy could be a totally innocent guy, who just happened to have a lot of dead girl space friends. Still, I will admit, even I had a vague hope that the police would change their investigation from drugs to murder and that Troy's relationships to the victims might be a catalyst for that.

The Palos Police Station is a small police station. My guess is that most of their calls are about domestic violence and petty crime. I should have known that they wouldn't know what to do with a murder case, even if it did fall in their laps.

"What can I do for you, Ethan?" Detective Dixon asked, leaning back in his desk chair as he took a sip of coffee from a steaming styrofoam cup.

Didn't he know that styrofoam was practically non-recyclable? What about saving the planet and all that? I didn't say anything, though, even though I was thinking it. We weren't here to save the planet, after all. We were there to stop more people from getting murdered and since I was the weird girl, we had agreed to let Ethan do all the talking. So, quiet, stay quiet, was the mantra I kept repeating in my brain.

Detective Dixon's office was a tiny cubbyhole in the Palos Police Department and it was littered with those empty styrofoam coffee cups. This guy liked his coffee...and killing the planet. Other than that, there were papers everywhere. For a small suburban town with no apparent crime, other than a triple murder labeled as drug overdoses, he looked like he might be a busy guy. And, okay maybe there was more than just domestic violence cases happening in the city of Palos. Maybe it wasn't the nice town it seemed to be. I know I had always felt safe there before, but maybe not so much now.

Ethan was in the middle of explaining the situation, when I tuned back into the conversation and out of my inner monologue, "So, what that boils down to is that we think my sister Liz, Olivia Reynolds, and Melissa Kent were all murdered. And, we think Troy Matthews might be involved. He knew all the victims."

Detective Dixon had spent Ethan's entire explanation nodding, but he hadn't even touched the blank notepad and black pen lying on his desk, "You said they were Facebook friends?"

Ethan nodded, "Yes."

"Technically, aren't they all connected through their school? Isn't Facebook a social tool? For networking? It's possible that they all knew each other too, isn't it? Laurel Community College is a small school. A tight knit community college, if you will. Everyone knows everyone else and everyone's on Facebook. That's why these overdoses are such a tragedy," Detective Dixon had slipped into his procedural police voice.