Page 85 of Last Girls Alive

“Mr. Weaver?” said Katie.

He looked up and said, “Yes, you’re Detective Scott? Oh, I was expecting a Deputy McGavnor.”

“McGaven, Deputy McGaven,” she corrected. “And yes, I’m Detective Scott. Nice to meet you.”

“Yes, indeed,” he said and extended his hand.

Katie immediately noticed that his palm was hot and sweaty.

He stared at her for a moment.

“Do you have some paperwork for us?”

“Oh, yes, of course. I’m sorry, it has been the busiest and somewhat worst day today. And it’s only Monday. I had to visit sixteen locations—sixteen cases. There just aren’t enough hours in a day—and I still have to visit four more.” He fumbled through his briefcase for a full minute, and then went to the files, shuffling, sorting, and putting paperwork in the correct order. “You don’t want to hear about all that, I’m sure.”

Katie watched with mild amusement, wanting to get home. “It’s Monday for all of us.” She didn’t know what else to say.

“Ah, here we go. I made copies of everything I could find about the Elm Hill Foster Home. There might be some pages missing, but I assure you everything you might need is there.” He handed Katie a stack of papers clipped with a large metal fastener.

Katie thumbed through them briefly just to make sure it was what McGaven had requested. There were reports, some handwritten, others typed, from the visits to the mansion. “It looks great, Mr. Weaver. You know, you didn’t have to drive here personally. You could have scanned them and emailed, or had them couriered.”

“Oh, but that’s so impersonal. I thought if you had any questions I could answer them for you in person. I apologize for taking this long,” he said, dropping paperwork from one of the files. It sprayed the eight-and-a-half-by-eleven sheets across the floor.

“Here, let me help you,” said Katie not knowing what else to do.

“Thank you.”

They picked up all the pieces of paper and he returned them to the folder.

Katie thought about the house with the secret stairway entrance and said, “Actually, you could answer a couple of things for me.”

“Of course.”

“Do you remember the mansion well?”

“I deal with many cases, but the Elm Hill Mansion definitely left a lasting impression.”

“What was your overall impression of the girls and Mrs. McDonald?”

“Every time I made an appointment, things were tidy and the girls were behaving. I knew it was a show, but I was never able to get what I needed for the reports. At that time, we weren’t allowed to do unannounced visits.”

“I see. What about the police reports?”

“Now that was different. Every time the police were dispatched, I had to come out and speak with everyone. It became almost routine, and seemed like every week, or every other week—like clockwork.”

“Did you notice anything that alerted you to abuse or psychological damage?”

“There was only one girl that I worried about, and tried to get Mrs. McDonald to get her to talk to a counselor.”

“Karen Beck?”

“Karen, no. I was talking about Candace… Candace Harlan.”

That assessment struck Katie as strange because of everything that she’d heard about her. “I thought that Candace was the strongest of the bunch, the one that the other girls looked up to?”

“Oh, that’s true. But what has probably been overlooked by others is that she was a troubled girl who suffered from dramatic changes in mood, grand highs and depressing lows. I suspected that she might be bipolar. I’ve seen many people who suffer the same.”

“Bipolar?” said Katie.