Page 33 of Close Her Eyes

“No,” Rosalie said. “That’s just it. She didn’t hear a thing. She said she never even thought about it till a couple of days later when the cops came to talk to her. Jana Melburn talked to that boy for a minute or two and then she left. On foot. The boy pumped his gas and then he left. But it seemed like no one in town wanted to believe it was as simple as that. She said she felt pressured to say that the two of them had had some kind of heated argument when that just didn’t happen.”

“Who was pressuring her?” asked Josie. “The police?”

Rosalie nodded. “It started with them. They didn’t outright ask her to change her story, but they would come around to the house and keep asking her, ‘are you sure that’s what you saw?’ and ‘are you certain that there wasn’t an argument?’ or ‘are you absolutely sure they didn’t have a physical altercation?’ We both had the feeling they wanted her to change her story. Like it might make it easier for them to put that girl’s death on that boy.”

“Do you think Mathias Tobin killed Jana Melburn?”

Rosalie sighed. “How could I think one way or the other? I don’t know enough to form an opinion. All I know is what people in town said. The boy was the last one to see her before she was found dead. The police found her body at the bottom of a ravine. She hit her head. Who am I to say whether someone is a murderer based on that?”

Josie found this reasoning to be exceedingly fair and logical, but she knew others didn’t employ it when publicly commenting on a crime.

Rosalie continued, “Anyway, Carolina stuck to the truth. After a while, especially when the police didn’t charge the boy with murder, people got upset with her. She was the last one to see both of them. It seemed like people wanted her to lie so they could get the boy put away. One lady came into the gas station and told her, ‘you know that boy raped three cheerleaders and you can’t tell a little white lie to get him put away forever.’ I tell you, I was appalled.A little white lie?We were talking about someone’s life. That was just the start. Soon it seemed like the entire town had turned against her. When the rumors that maybe Carolina had killed Jana started, I knew we had to leave.”

“People said Carolina killed her?” Josie said.

“Like I said, she was the last one to see them both. People would come in and say to her, ‘how do we know you didn’t follow her and push her into the ravine?’ Never mind that Carolina didn’t even know the girl!”

“Was there video of the encounter?” Josie asked. “Did the parking lot have cameras?”

Rosalie shook her head. “I don’t know. Carolina never mentioned that. Anyway, we moved to Bellewood but like I said, Carolina got into trouble in a hot second. That’s when I took Shar and the two of us started over here. I stood by my daughter when she was being harassed over what happened to Jana, and I helped her as best as I could. That was a separate issue from the drug use, which was affecting my granddaughter. I had to do what was best for Shar.”

A tear slid down Rosalie’s cheek. Josie reached over and took her hand. They didn’t speak for a long time.

Finally, Rosalie said, “You’re asking me about things I thought were long in the past. My Shar was only nine years old when Jana Melburn died. What’s happening?”

Josie squeezed her hand. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out, Mrs. Eddy. There’s some kind of connection between that case and Sharon’s murder. I’m just not entirely sure what it is yet.”

NINETEEN

Back at the stationhouse, the entire team was in the great room, including their press liaison and Mettner’s girlfriend, Amber Watts. She perched on the edge of her desk, tablet in hand, and listened while Josie briefed Chief Chitwood on the Sharon Eddy murder case. He stood beside the detectives’ collective desks, arms crossed over his thin chest, listening intently. When Josie finished, he said, “You’re telling me that someone took this nineteen-year-old girl, Sharon, and before killing her and dumping her body near the creek, branded her with the same kind of brand that our medical examiner’s asshole husband used on her ten years ago in an entirely different county?”

“Yeah,” Josie said.

“You’re also telling me that there is some famous case from that same county that you’ve managed to connect to Sharon Eddy during the course of your investigation? What’s the name? Mel something?”

“Jana Melburn,” Josie said.

“It’s not famous,” Gretchen said, regarding the Chief from over her reading glasses. “I’ve googled it. It never even made the local papers there. Never got any press at all. The only piece of information on this girl is her obituary.”

“Not true,” Mettner said. “There’s a small thread on NetSleuths about her case.”

“How did you find that?” Gretchen said. “I spent hours scouring the web.”

Noah said, “He didn’t find it. Amber did.”

“Hey!” Mettner protested.

Amber laughed. “These online forums are gaining popularity. I went down the rabbit hole a few times after watching one too manyDatelines.”

Mettner said, “I don’t understand how her case wasn’t ever covered in the news.”

“Because it wasn’t a case,” Josie said. “It was ruled an accidental death. The rest is all rumors and conjecture from people who lived in the area.”

Chief Chitwood said, “Not every death is covered by the press, especially out in the middle of nowhere. Everett is a small county. Any news coming out of Everett County is coming from the city, Bradysport, where they have a pretty big drug problem.”

“It’s true,” Amber said. “We get a lot of deaths here—and our fair share of murders—the press doesn’t cover all of them. I know it’s hard to believe in an age where everything seems like it’s online and under the microscope, but Gretchen is right. There’s nothing of substance about Jana Melburn online. Even the thread I found on NetSleuths doesn’t say much.”

Mettner nodded. “It’s mostly multiple attempts by a user called HKent claiming to be Jana’s mother to start new threads urging people not to forget about the case and to consider it a homicide.”

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