wanted to scream at her: “Take a lesson or two from the tale of Jerry Hatcher.”
But Ellie didn’t want to be that kind of cop. She didn’t want to be the person who joked around about the girl’s crappy mother, like those EMTs. She didn’t want to passively check off the boxes like the medical examiner she called Ginger. She didn’t want to be the cop who didn’t at least pause to ask why Julia Whitmire’s suicide note had been handwritten, not typed, and on a notepad that was nowhere to be found in her home.
Ellie didn’t want to be like everyone else.
Then, like she’d been sucker-punched in the head, Ellie realized what had really been nagging at her about that scene at the Whitmires’. She suddenly stopped pummeling the bag. She held her gloves to her chest and bent over while she caught her breath, favoring one side to forestall an oncoming cramp.
Rogan had a good point. She had to get herself right on this one.
Chapter Fifteen
A s an investigator, Ellie firmly believed she was best at her job when she could live inside the heads of her victims. That kind of empathy hadn’t been as important to her when she was working property cases and vice busts. But coming up on two years of cases in the homicide squad, she knew that some little part of her would always be able to imagine what the final moments of each of those lost lives had been like for the victim.
Ellie liked to think she had a natural ability to imagine the life of another person. She’d grown up watching people. She noticed patterns. She read facial expressions. She had a good sense for what made people tick.
But, other than imagining what it must have been like to write that suicide note, Ellie was having a hard time inhabiting the world of Julia Whitmire.
She surely did remember the emotions that came with being a teenage girl. She also remembered the pressure to mold one’s body into perfection. You don’t become Miss Teen Kansas with all that baby fat.
And she knew what it was like to pine for the attention of a parent. She had idolized her father. He protected people. He was like a superhero in the battle between good and evil. She remembered playing on the basement floor in the makeshift office he had created, the walls decorated with photographs of the victims of the College Hill Strangler and a map filled with pins—red for known kills, yellows for suspected. Ellie would bounce her psychedelic-colored rubber ball and pick up jacks, offering questions and theories for her father as she played. Usually he shushed her, but the days when he’d actually talk through the case with her, despite her mother’s scolding that it “wasn’t right”? Those were Ellie’s most cherished memories of her father.
But, in too many ways, a life like Julia Whitmire’s was so completely unlike anything in her prior experience. From a three-bedroom wood-frame ranch house in Wichita, Kansas, Ellie could never have dreamed of having the independence that Julia Whitmire enjoyed. Once her dad was gone, to describe their family as middle class was overly generous. Ellie had never been east of Kansas City or west of Dallas until she followed her brother up to New York City.
She’d told herself at the time that the move was to allow the one responsible Hatcher child to keep an eye on the other, but in retrospect she knew she had hungered for a different life. As much as was missing in her life, though, she’d never been unhappy. And she’d definitely never been ungrateful.
She had no idea how to get into the mind of a girl like Julia. With the Whitmires’ money and the streets of New York waiting just outside her townhouse door, Julia already had a more sophisticated life than most people could ever imagine. And yet she was miserable.
Ellie and Rogan sat side by side at her squad desk, scrolling through Julia Whitmire’s Facebook profile, hoping to find some clues about her last days.
“The girl’s final status update was Friday
But Ellie didn’t want to be that kind of cop. She didn’t want to be the person who joked around about the girl’s crappy mother, like those EMTs. She didn’t want to passively check off the boxes like the medical examiner she called Ginger. She didn’t want to be the cop who didn’t at least pause to ask why Julia Whitmire’s suicide note had been handwritten, not typed, and on a notepad that was nowhere to be found in her home.
Ellie didn’t want to be like everyone else.
Then, like she’d been sucker-punched in the head, Ellie realized what had really been nagging at her about that scene at the Whitmires’. She suddenly stopped pummeling the bag. She held her gloves to her chest and bent over while she caught her breath, favoring one side to forestall an oncoming cramp.
Rogan had a good point. She had to get herself right on this one.
Chapter Fifteen
A s an investigator, Ellie firmly believed she was best at her job when she could live inside the heads of her victims. That kind of empathy hadn’t been as important to her when she was working property cases and vice busts. But coming up on two years of cases in the homicide squad, she knew that some little part of her would always be able to imagine what the final moments of each of those lost lives had been like for the victim.
Ellie liked to think she had a natural ability to imagine the life of another person. She’d grown up watching people. She noticed patterns. She read facial expressions. She had a good sense for what made people tick.
But, other than imagining what it must have been like to write that suicide note, Ellie was having a hard time inhabiting the world of Julia Whitmire.
She surely did remember the emotions that came with being a teenage girl. She also remembered the pressure to mold one’s body into perfection. You don’t become Miss Teen Kansas with all that baby fat.
And she knew what it was like to pine for the attention of a parent. She had idolized her father. He protected people. He was like a superhero in the battle between good and evil. She remembered playing on the basement floor in the makeshift office he had created, the walls decorated with photographs of the victims of the College Hill Strangler and a map filled with pins—red for known kills, yellows for suspected. Ellie would bounce her psychedelic-colored rubber ball and pick up jacks, offering questions and theories for her father as she played. Usually he shushed her, but the days when he’d actually talk through the case with her, despite her mother’s scolding that it “wasn’t right”? Those were Ellie’s most cherished memories of her father.
But, in too many ways, a life like Julia Whitmire’s was so completely unlike anything in her prior experience. From a three-bedroom wood-frame ranch house in Wichita, Kansas, Ellie could never have dreamed of having the independence that Julia Whitmire enjoyed. Once her dad was gone, to describe their family as middle class was overly generous. Ellie had never been east of Kansas City or west of Dallas until she followed her brother up to New York City.
She’d told herself at the time that the move was to allow the one responsible Hatcher child to keep an eye on the other, but in retrospect she knew she had hungered for a different life. As much as was missing in her life, though, she’d never been unhappy. And she’d definitely never been ungrateful.
She had no idea how to get into the mind of a girl like Julia. With the Whitmires’ money and the streets of New York waiting just outside her townhouse door, Julia already had a more sophisticated life than most people could ever imagine. And yet she was miserable.
Ellie and Rogan sat side by side at her squad desk, scrolling through Julia Whitmire’s Facebook profile, hoping to find some clues about her last days.
“The girl’s final status update was Friday
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