Page 48 of Pieces of Her (Andrea Oliver 1)

She fluttered her lips again.

She was taking a hell of a lot on her mother’s word. Then again, following her own instincts would’ve meant that Andy would be at the funeral home right now sobbing on Gordon’s shoulder while he worked out burial arrangements for her mother.

Andy’s fingers returned to the keyboard. She looked over her shoulder. The librarians had disappeared, probably to log in the returned books or practice shushing people.

Andy clicked on PREFERENCES under the Google tab. She set the browser to Incognito Mode to mask her browsing history. She probably should’ve done this first thing. Or maybe it was overkill. Or maybe she should stop berating herself for acting paranoid and just accept the fact that she was paranoid for a very damn good reason.

The first site she went to was the Belle Isle Review.

The front page was devoted to Laura Oliver, local speech pathologist and killing machine. They didn’t actually call her a killing machine, but they’d quoted Alice Blaedel in the first paragraph, which was the same as.

Andy scanned the article. There was no mention of a man in a hoodie found with a frying-pan-shaped indentation in his head. There wasn’t even a stolen vehicle report on the black truck. She clicked through the other stories and gave them a quick read.

Nothing.

She sat back in her chair, perplexed.

Behind her, the door opened. An old man shuffled in, heading straight for the coffee as he launched into a political tirade.

Andy didn’t know who the tirade was for, but she tuned out the rant and pulled up CNN.com. The site led with the Killing Machine quote in the headline. Gordon was right about a lot of things, but Andy knew her father would not be pleased to be proven correct about the focus of the news stories. The patheticness of Jonah Lee Helsinger’s life was highlighted in the second paragraph:

Six months ago, Helsinger’s sheriff father, a war veteran and local hero, was tragically killed in a stand-off with a gunman, around the same time police believe young Helsinger’s thoughts turned to murder.

Andy checked FoxNews.com, the Savannah Reporter, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

All of the stories were focused on Laura Oliver and what she had done at the Rise-n-Dine. There was no mention of Samuel Godfrey Beckett, or even an unidentified murder victim in a hoodie.

Had Laura managed to move the body? That didn’t seem possible. Andy supposed her mother could’ve refused the police entry into the house, but the 911 text sent from Laura’s phone was probable cause for entry. Even if Laura managed to turn away the Belle Isle cops, the person in that unmarked black Suburban would not have taken no for an answer.

Andy tapped her finger on the mouse as she tried to think it through.

Someone with a lot of connections was keeping a tight lid on the story.

They?

The same people who had sent Hoodie? The same people Laura was terrified would track down Andy?

She felt her heart bang against the base of her throat. Half the police force would have been outside Laura’s bungalow. Probably Palazzolo, maybe even the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. That would mean they had some kind of pull with the governor, maybe even the feds.

Andy checked behind her.

The old man was leaning on the check-in desk, trying to engage one of the librarians in a political discussion.

Andy looked at the time on the computer again, watched the seconds turn into minutes.

The unit number is your birthday. One-twenty.

Andy put down the coffee. She typed in January 20, 1987.

January 20, 1987, was a Tuesday. People born on this day are Aquarius. Ronald Reagan was president. “Walk Like an Egyptian” by the Bangles was on the radio.Critical Condition starring Richard Pryor topped the box office. Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising was #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

Andy counted back nine months in her head and entered April 1986 news into the search. Instead of a month-specific timeline, she got a general overview of the year:

US bombs Libya. Iran–Contra. Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Perestroika. Halley’s Comet. Challenger explosion. Swedish Prime Minister murdered. Oslo G-FAB assassination. Pan-Am 73hijacked. Explosion on TWA jet over Greece. Mercantile bombing. FBI Miami bank shoot-out. Oprah Winfrey Show debuts. 38,401 cases of AIDS worldwide.

Andy stared at the words, only some of which seemed familiar. She could spend all day backtracking the events, but the fact was, you couldn’t find something if you didn’t know what you were looking for.

Paula Koontz.