* * *
Later that evening I decided that I was going to try to talk to Shannon Parkhurst’s boyfriend. Things were getting too complicated, and I felt compelled to get Shannon’s trunk to its rightful place. Hannah Huckleston had told her mother that he was a nice man, and even though I was sure he was grieving Shannon, I hoped that he might talk to me. I didn’t have any specific questions to ask him, but it just seemed as if this simple thing had turned into a complex thing. Maybe I should give him the trunk?
I texted Hannah and asked if she knew the boyfriend’s number, or where he worked. A minute or so later there was a dong! from the phone, letting me know I had a message. It was from Hannah, with a phone number and the message “whats going on?” I had too much to say to text back, so I gave her a call.
We first chatted about the last time we had seen each other at Shannon’s service, or what Hannah called “The hellish funeral that wasn’t,” saying, “Seriously, Lily, that preacher guy had me convinced I was sitting in hell that very moment!”
We visited about her teaching job with fifth graders in a small school district in southern New Mexico, her husband Joe’s job with the Forest Service, and life in general. She knew I volunteered in a small school myself, teaching reading to first graders during the school year, so we shared proud stories of our first graders and fifth graders—quite different breeds.
Then we turned to the reason for the call. I gave her an edited version of events of the past week and asked her if any of it made sense to her. It didn’t, but she asked to see photos of the trunk, so I went down the hall to the office and e-mailed her the photos I had taken. Did the trunk look familiar? I asked her.
“No, I can’t remember anything like that when we were roommates. I think I would have remembered the stickers, though.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re ThaunderX! Don’t you remember ThaunderX?”
No, I didn’t remember ThaunderX. “Who was she?”
“Oh my god! ThaunderX was the best!” She went on to explain, in increasing detail, a Wonder-Woman-like heroine who could best any villain and save the world. Hannah said she had a ThaunderX doll when she was twelve.
“Was Shannon a big fan of ThaunderX?” I asked.
“Don’t know who she was into when she was younger. We were in college when we were roommates.”
Yeah, right, I thought sardonically, a couple years’ difference and you were different people? Well, sure, I thought. At that time in my life, a year was a big deal, and in several years’ time I had changed quite a bit. Like Shannon could have changed a lot since Hannah and I knew her? Maybe.
“When had you seen Shannon last, before you saw her at the party?” I asked.
“A couple of years ago?” she said. She explained pretty much what Betty had already told me about them being roommates. Hannah described a rather quiet girl who’d grown up in a small town in her aunt’s care. Shannon Parkhurst had gone through the typical teenage angst and fallen in with a bad crowd. She’d had a young, drunk punk for a boyfriend, and she’d become a young, drunk punk under his influence.
Then something changed in Shannon’s life. Hannah wasn’t clear what it was, but Shannon had gotten sober. I figured it was at that point that I had met and worked with Shannon; she had shared some of her past with me, too. I kept that information to myself.
Hannah went on to say that while they were at New Mexico State, they both had volunteered at an immigrant project and had tirelessly advocated for the workers and their children. She said Shannon had had a special affinity for those who didn’t have much, for those who were struggling. I remembered Shannon had volunteered that summer she had worked for me, with a group in town that helped at-risk youth become involved in outdoor projects. And she had worked at the community garden, too. A life full of energy. That thought made me sad, for a life cut short, a life that already had contributed so much.
“I was surprised to see her at the party because I didn’t even know she was in Colorado. I was going to ask her why she didn’t let me know she was in town, but I didn’t get a chance,” Hannah said.
“Why not?”
“Well, it was a typical Friday night party in Frederick, you know? We met some friends of Joe’s there, but it was, like, really loud and crowded. You almost had to shout to talk to someone. Shannon said she wanted to tell me something, and we went outside where it was quieter; but out there she just started going on about a big storm coming up; crazy something about lightning and thunder and stuff. Then her boyfriend came up, and she started arguing with him about something, couldn’t tell what. He said Shannon should stop partyin’ and take a break.”
“Was she drunk? Could you smell alcohol on her breath?”
“Mmm, no, she didn’t stink of it at all. Guess that’s why I thought she was just confused, or something, at the beginning. But her boyfriend said she was drunk, so I guess he’d know. Surprised me, though. It just seemed, like, out of character. She was so against booze when I knew her. She was real proud of her sobriety, and I know it took a lot for her to get sober. I was surprised she’d even …” Hannah sighed. “Yeah, she was out of it.”
This is what Betty had reported Hannah had told her before, and what Kelsy said she saw. “And the boyfriend took care of her?”
“Yeah; he seemed nice. I hadn’t met him before. He took Shannon inside to sit down, I guess, and then he came back outside to talk to us. He said Shannon was drinking heavily, and it was really a problem to keep her from hurting herself.”
“Like suicide?”
“No, more like falling-down-drunk hurting herself. He said she’d been on a long downward slide, drinking secretly. He said childhood problems were causing her to drink, as well as problems in her career. I told him I’d talk to Shannon later, but he looked at the number she’d given me and said she’d already lost that cell phone. He said to call him if I wanted to get in touch with her; she’d lost her cell too many times to keep one.”
“Did you mention to him that Shannon’s behavior seemed out of character to you?”
“No, didn’t really have a chance. Some guy came out and motioned at him—Barry—to come in, so he gave me his number, said he’d talk to us later, and left.”
“Do you know how Shannon and Barry met?”
“I don’t know—because they worked together, maybe?”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think he mentioned a name. Shannon didn’t, either. He did say she’d broken down under the stress at work a couple of times, which led to binges, and that they’d found some discrepancies in her accounts. I guess it was, like, a big deal. He said it was. Maybe Shannon killed herself because of all that?” Hannah Huckleston sounded sad.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. Based on my experience, alcohol could take away so many decent things in life, and self-respect was the first to go. The information we had pointed to Shannon Parkhurst killing herself. I was just reluctant to believe it.
“One more thing—did Shannon have a brother, or other family?” I asked, thinking of Nephew.
“Not that I know of. I think her aunt was the only one. Why? Oh, yeah, the nephew. So who was he, then?”
“I don’t know,” I said again. Something was in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t bring it forward. But I then remembered what Vicki Sinclair’s niece, Kelsy, had said about the photos of Shannon on Facebook.
“Hannah, someone said that she saw photos of Shannon drunk at that party you were at, too. Was someone there taking pictures?”
“Well, everybody has a cell phone, Lily,” Hannah said, reminding me of the method it seemed that the world, except for some hold-outs, was using for photography.
“She said she saw the photos on Shannon’s Facebook page. Isn’t that rather crass to post embarrassing pictures of someone who’d just died?”
“I wouldn’t have done that, but some people don’t really think about it, like, you know, don’t think it throug
h. They’d probably been on there since the party; that’s what people usually do, post party pictures,” Hannah said.
“I didn’t have the heart to check it out when I heard about it. Did you see them?”
“When Ian, our friend from school, called to let me know Shannon had died, he mentioned the photos—someone else had told him about it—but I didn’t check her page until later. I guess I didn’t want to see them, either. By then they’d been taken down. So, no, I didn’t see ‘em.”
At least they had been taken down. “Well, thanks, Hannah. We’ve been talking for over an hour, and we both have to work tomorrow! Thanks so much for the info. Tell Joe hello for me.” We said our good-byes and rang off, and I started getting ready for bed. It had been a long day. Even the dogs looked tired as they trudged in.
Some things that Hannah had said bothered me, though. The boyfriend, Barry, seemed to be giving out a lot of Shannon’s personal information to relative strangers. Maybe it was my own issue with privacy, but it didn’t seem appropriate. But then, there were the photos, posted for all to see, so what did it matter what he told people?
The wind picked up outside. The weather report had said there was a possibility of a shower, but not a probability. We could use a good soaking, and I went over to the window hoping I’d been wrong about the thunderstorms being too far to the east. Air rushing through the cottonwoods in the yard smelled damp like rain. A flash of lightning startled me, and made the dogs flinch in anticipation of the thunder to follow. We waited, but there was no thunder. Thunder. Now I remembered what had been in the back of my mind since talking with Hannah. It was late, but I had to call her back and find out.
Turns out she was still up—do the young ever sleep?—so I made it quick.
“You said the party was in Frederick on a Friday night, right?”
“Yeah—”
“And Shannon talked about a big storm coming, with thunder and lightning and all.”
“Yeah—”
“Some friends of mine were just south of Frederick at the speedway that Friday night and they said it was dry weather, no storms. What was Shannon talking about?”
“Hadn’t really thought about it.” There was a short silence. “Oh my god! Now I remember Joe and I talking about how many stars we could see on the way home. It didn’t storm that night! But Shannon was going on about thunder and lightning—”
“Both? Or was she talking more about the thunder?”
“Well, I think it was … it was the thunder. Oh my god! Do you think she was talking about ThaunderX? Do you think she was trying to tell me something about the trunk stickers?”
“Yeah, maybe; it sounds like she was trying to. I think she was trying to direct you to the stickers. Like she was saying ‘Pay attention to this trunk!’”
“I didn’t pay attention to her because it didn’t make any sense! She was rambling. I didn’t know about the trunk.”
“Did she say anything else? That, well, now would seem odd?”
“Don’t think so. But why would she start talking to me about stickers on a trunk I didn’t know about anyway? Why not just tell me about the trunk?”
“I don’t know. Doesn’t sound like she was thinking straight. Maybe she would’ve gotten to it … ” It sounded like Shannon had been less than rational.
“Maybe so. We didn’t have much time together before her boyfriend hurried out and took her inside. Now I wish I’d talked to her longer.” I heard Hannah sigh. “You said you looked in the trunk. What’s the big deal?”
“I don’t know,” I said for what seemed like the hundredth time about all this. “That’s my question, too.”
We talked a short while longer but it was really late, so we rang off.
Pecos had already jumped up on the end of the bed, ready for a snooze, breaking rule number zero about no dogs on the bed, which I always allowed him to break. As I tried to settle down myself, I thought about Shannon Parkhurst. Now I didn’t just have it on my own speculation that it seemed she intentionally attached the stickers to her trunk to get someone to notice it. Shannon had tried to talk about it with Hannah, it seemed. Well, the trunk was noticed, but for what end? What was she trying to tell us?
CHAPTER SIX