Look Again

"I'm so sorry about your loss." Ellen approached, extending her hand.

"Real nice of you to come." Gerry's voice sounded hoarse, and she blinked tears from her eyes. "I know Amy woulda wanted to meet you. Someday maybe you can bring your little boy over to the house."

Behind her, Cheryl nodded. "I'd like to meet him, too, when he's feeling better."

"I'd be happy to do that," Ellen said, with a twinge. She'd forgotten that she had lied to them about needing Will's medical history.

Cheryl said, "Too bad you missed my husband and my brother. They were here last night and earlier, but they had to go." She gestured next to her at another mourner, a young woman. "This is a friend of Amy's."

"Melanie Rotucci," the girl said, extending her hand. She looked to be in her twenties, and on another day, would have been pretty, if a little hard-looking. Her gray eyes were red and puffy from crying, and her fair skin pale and wan. She had a cupid's-bow mouth, and her best feature was long, dark hair that spilled over the shoulders of her black leather jacket.

Ellen introduced herself, surprised to meet her. Cheryl and Gerry had told her that Amy didn't have girlfriends.

Cheryl must have been reading her mind. "Melanie met Amy in rehab, and they were really good friends."

"Amy was in rehab?" Ellen asked, confused. It was all news to her.

"We didn't know until we met Melanie. It turns out Amy was really trying to turn her life around. She went to rehab twice, for heroin. She was almost better, right, Melanie?"

"I really thought she was going to make it." Melanie's mouth made a resigned line, in dark lipstick. "She was clean for thirty-five days the second time. At ninety days, she was going to tell everybody, all of you."

"My poor, poor baby," Gerry whispered, collapsing into new sobs, and Cheryl hugged her closer.

Strain etched Melanie's young face. "I need a cigarette," she muttered, rising.

"I'll keep you company," Ellen said, intrigued.

Chapter Sixty-six

"This must be hard on you," Ellen said as they stepped outside the funeral home and shared a grimy top step, its small size forcing them close together. Melanie cupped her cigarette against the cold wind, firing it with a thumb flicked on a yellow plastic Bic lighter.

"It's the worst."

"Were you good friends?"

"I mean, we didn't know each other that long, but when you meet people in rehab, you get tighter a lot faster. Amy said that rehab was like dog years, one is like seven." Melanie dragged on the cigarette, and smoke leaked from her sad smile.

"Where is the rehab center?"

"Eagleville, in Pe

Ellen had heard of the place. "Can I ask, how old are you?"

"Twenty-two."

"A lot younger than Amy."

"I know. She took care of me like a big sister, or a mom or something."

It struck a chord. "Did Amy ever mention to you having had a child?"

"No way!" Melanie looked at her like she was crazy. "Amy didn't have a kid."

"I think she did and she put it up for adoption." Ellen almost didn't believe it herself, after Miami. "She had a baby, but I guess she didn't mention it to you."

"It's possible, I guess."

"It was a very sick baby, with a heart problem."

"I didn't know everything about her." Melanie's eyes narrowed behind a curtain of cigarette smoke. "Amy was her own girl, that's for sure, but we went through group together, the seminars they make us take, the lectures, rec activities all day long. We even spent our smoke breaks together. She never mentioned a sick baby."

Ellen set her emotions aside. "She ever mention a boyfriend? His name could've been Charles Cartmell."

"No. She used to date a lot, but she was changing that, too. She said in group that she was sick of hooking up with abusive guys. She wasn't going there, anymore."

"Did any of them visit her at rehab?"

"No. We're allowed visitors on weekends but she never got any. Neither did I, which was fine with me. If my mom came, I'd a kicked her ass."

Ellen let it go. "I'm wondering about one guy in particular, someone Amy was dating about three or four years ago. He wasn't a bad-looking guy, on the short side, white, with longish brown hair. They might've gone on a trip together, to someplace warm. Did she ever mention a vacation with a guy, at a beach?"

Melanie paused a minute, frowning. "No, but I know that a while ago, she used to see a guy named Rob. Rob Moore."

Ellen felt her heartbeat quicken. "What did she say about him?"

"Just that he was a jerk."

"How long ago was this, that she saw him?"

"I don't know, but it was old news."

"Three or four years ago?"

"Yeah. Really in her past."

Ellen gathered that if you were in your twenties, three years ago was history. "Did she mention where he was from?"

"Not that I remember."

"Did she tell you anything else about him, like where he lived or what he did for a living?"

"No, nothing like that." Melanie blew out an acrid cone of smoke.

"How about his age? Or what kind of car he drove or where he was from? Anything like that?"

"No, just that he was a bad dude. Used to smack her around, and she dumped him. She wouldn't take that, forever. That was the thing about Amy. She was the one we all thought would make it." Tears glistened in Melanie's bloodshot eyes. "Two of the counselors came by earlier this morning, they woulda told you the same thing."

Ellen's thoughts raced ahead. "I hate to ask you, but I feel like I need to know. What was it that happened to her? How did they find her?"

"I was the one who found her," Melanie answered flatly.

"That must have been awful for you."

Melanie didn't reply.

"So she overdosed on heroin? How do you know something like that? Was there a needle in her arm?"

"No. She didn't shoot it, neither of us did. She snorted it. There was junk on the table and the credit card she used, a Visa." Melanie tossed her hair over her shoulder. "Anyway, we were supposed to go out that night, but she never met me, so I went over around nine the next morning. She was on the couch, dressed to go out."

"How did you get in?"

"I have a key. She was all stiff. The family thinks she overdosed, but I wonder if it was bad junk." Melanie faltered, then took a drag. "The cops said that she died the night before."

Ellen processed the information. "Why do you think it was bad junk and not just an overdose?"

"You never know with street junk."

"She lived in Brigantine?"

"Yeah."

"By herself?"

"Yeah. She got a room in a nice house and a new job, waitressing at this restaurant. She was going to meetings, too, every day. She never missed." Melanie shook her head sadly. "She's the one who told me to carry Subutex."

"What's that?"

"A pill. If you take it and you do H, you don't get high. Amy always carried two pills with her."

Ellen had heard of drugs like that. She'd done a story once involving Antabuse, a drug that made alcoholics sick if they drank.

"But that night, she didn't take a pill. The bottle was right on her nightstand with the two still in it."

Ellen thought it sounded strange. "So why did she take heroin instead of Subutex?"

"She musta missed it so much. Heroin's like that. You love it and you hate it, so much. She shoulda known better than to buy off the street, even in a nice neighborhood."

"Wouldn't she have mentioned to you that she was thinking of using again? How often did you speak to her, generally?"

Melanie tossed her cigarette butt to the sidewalk. "We talked on the phone, like, every day, and she was queen of texting. She texted all the time."