save you from that conversation. He had her number too.”
I punched the numbers into my phone as he read them off. “So just keep the questions on the fact-gathering side, then turn more personal if it feels appropriate?”
The corner of his mouth tipped up. “Look at you becomin’ a pro at this.”
“I’m gonna take that as a yes.”
His mood turned serious. “Yeah.”
I took a deep, centering breath, then pressed send and put the call on speaker.
A woman answered with “Hello?” on the third ring, and my heart leapt into my throat.
“May?”
“Yes…” she said hesitantly.
“Hi, this is Carly Moore. I’m sure you don’t know me, but—”
“Oh, I know who you are. You work with Molly at Max’s Tavern. She says you’ve been nice to her.”
I had to wonder what she’d have to say about me after our shift today.
“Molly’s been great,” I said.
“But I know why you’re callin’,” she said, her tone becoming more cautious. “Mitzi called me yesterday.”
Marco’s eyes widened.
“Honestly,” she continued, “I’ve been expectin’ to hear from you. I’ll tell you what I know.”
“Thank you,” I said. “We can meet somewhere, if you’d prefer. It’s just not a good idea to meet at your house.”
“Paul found out, didn’t he?” she asked wearily.
“I tried to be careful, so I found Mitzi at the grocery store and asked her some questions there.”
“That was a good idea,” she said, “because Paul is likely watchin’ her every move. He’s a controllin’ bastard.”
“He showed up at the grocery store.”
“Not surprisin’. He likes to check up on her to make sure she’s behavin’, like she’s a toddler who’s incapable of taking care of herself.” She paused before adding, “I’d rather talk on the phone.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “I understand. She told me that you became close to Heather after the Christmas before she left town.”
“You mean was murdered,” May said, her voice tight. “She was murdered.”
“Yes,” I conceded. “She was, but most people only just discovered that.”
“Most people?” she asked in surprise.
“Obviously the murderer knew.”
“Yeah. I guess that’s true.”
I looked up at Marco to get his take on her reaction, but his face was expressionless.
I shifted sideways in my seat, holding the phone over the console. “May, when I heard about people who hung out with Heather, your name kept coming up.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“I know she was hoping Wyatt would propose to her that Christmas. Did she ever talk about it?”
“Wyatt didn’t deserve her,” she said, “or at least she had me convinced of that. Heather was really good at convincin’ people she was right. I bought the whole ‘no one understands me like you do’ story hook, line, and sinker. She convinced me that we were best friends and she couldn’t handle her life without me. She called or showed up at my doorstep at all hours of the day and night, expecting me to give her my undivided attention. And I did, because she had this gravitational pull that had a way of grabbing hold of you and not letting go. But it seemed like a kryptonite kind of thing. The more time you spent with her, the more the need to be with her increased, but if she drew back, you started to realize you didn’t need her after all. That being around her was emotionally draining.”
“May,” I said, “are you speaking of your own personal experience or in general?”
A moment of silence, then she said, “Both. We’ve all discussed it over the past nine years. Compared our experiences with her. We think she’d have had hundreds of followers if she’d started a cult.”
I cast a glance to Marco again and he mouthed, You’re doing great.
Marco had been right about body language. I wish I could see her facial expressions. If she was nervous or reluctant, I couldn’t tell. “When you say we, who do you mean?”
“Mitzi, Dick…Anna Faith.”
“What about Abby Atwood?”
“I met her that Christmas when she came home from vet school. She wasn’t back for very long because she had a job back in Knoxville. She was goin’ to vet school and needed the money for her rent. I remember Heather was furious about her leavin’.”
“Why?”
“Because Heather hadn’t dismissed her. She dared to leave Heather’s orbit without permission.”
“Do you know who Heather’s boyfriend was?”
“Everyone knows Wyatt was her boyfriend,” she said slowly, like someone speaking to a child.
Was she insinuating there hadn’t been another boyfriend? But if Mitzi was right and May and Heather had been sleeping together, I could understand why she’d dodge the question.
Ask about Wyatt and the