Page 92 of Snow Creek

Hey girl what’s up? Want to hang out?

Want pizza?

Got new shoes.

“I call these mundane,” Marley says.

“I call them inane,” I reply.

“Right. So there are literally thousands of these. The girls chatting back and forth about clothes, podcasts, celebrities. They come at all hours of the day and night.”

“I thought you couldn’t text in class,” Sheriff says.

“You couldn’t smoke on school grounds back in the day either,” I say, a gentle nudge to his old habit. “Besides, Ellie was homeschooled. And Tyra didn’t strike me as a girl who cared much about her education anyway.”

“Right,” Marley says. “All of that’s true. And all of that changed early in the summer.”

Like a novel reader cheater, I’m skipping through the pages he’d handed out.

“How so?” Sheriff asks.

Marley opens the second folder on the screen.

“Again, all of these are between Tyra and Ellie. In the spring the subject of their parents comes up more frequently. Mostly from Tyra who complains about how her dad is always belittling her mother.”

He points to a group of messages on the screen from Tyra to Ellie.

It’s my job to be a bitch to her. Not his. Jesus! My dad won’t let up.

My dad’s the same way. My mom’s no better.

This isn’t about you. God, can’t you just shut up and let me vent. Seriously.

Sorry. I was just saying.

“It goes on and on like that for some time. Tyra going off on her mom being weak. Fat. A loser. Just every ugly thing she can come up with. And by the way, she’s skilled at trashing her mom.”

“That fifth one.” I walk to the screen and point. “This message from Tyra took my breath away last night.”

Dad hates her as much as I do. He wishes she’d just die. Last night she was so drunk and messed up on her pills when she passed out, we just left her on floor. She puked and everything.

I return to my seat. “Two weeks before the boating accident.”

Sheriff speaks up. “That’s not our case.”

“Right,” I say. “I know they are related.”

“She’s right,” Marley confirms.

“This text.” I run a yellow highlighter through the words on the printout in front of me.

Dad got Mom more meds. Maybe that will fix things.

“That’s a week before the accident. Troy Whitcomb got new meds. How? Clallam told me that she was only on Paxil and Ambien. They couldn’t account for the Oxy. Troy had a bad shoulder from golf. He had Oxy, but he barely used any.”

I’m flipping through the date sequences. Marley makes a face yet gives me what I need—room right then.

“And here,” I say, tapping my marker against the paper. “This one is two days before the accident.”

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