Chapter 40 – A Call of Concern – Holly Hayfield

Lilith swayed back and forth in my arms with anticipation. Her phone was in my hand, ready to call Vivian Hale. She was practically drooling over the thought of going on the offensive for the sake of learning more about Malorie. Since she had lived up to her side of the bargain I had no choice but to live up to mine. I hated doing things like this, but in truthfulness I already made a choice, didn’t I? I chose to get closer to Lilith in exchange for probing someone I didn’t know or care about for information.

“What are you waiting for? Call her!” Lilith said impatiently.

“Give me a minute to think about how I’m going to word things. This isn’t easy, you know. If I mess up she’ll hang up in my face and we’re going back to the drawing board. This will be a touchy process.” I said.

“You’re not going to tell her we’re with the student council?” Lilith asked.

“That’s too suspect for this situation. It worked with Jacob because he’s unfamiliar with the inner workings of our school. That trick won’t work on someone that probably knows the dates for the student council elections.”

“True…” She said.

“I think I have a better idea.” I said. “Stay quiet while I talk to her.”

The phone rang on speaker-phone mode once I pressed call. It seemed that Lilith had already activated the speaker-phone feature before handing me the phone. There was no way she was going to let herself miss out on this. The pressure was on me to bring in some real results. If I didn’t pull through with the call then when was the next time I’d get to hold Lilith like this? On the other hand, if things did work out, did that mean she’d let me hold her more?

The phone rang on and on to Lilith’s dissatisfaction. I really had no problem with it. It would’ve made my day easier to just have the phone go to the answering machine. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. Someone picked up on the other side but I couldn’t hear anything. Wherever they were it was somewhere outside with heavy background wind.

“Hello…?” I asked.

“If you’re with the loan company then go to hell! I told you assholes to stop calling me! I already sorted out everything with Macy, or whatever her name was! She said the payment isn’t due till the fifth, so…”

“I’m sorry, that’s not why I’m calling.” I said.

“Oh…?”

“Is this Ms. Vivian Hale?”

“Yeah, it is. Are you calling about money?” She asked.

I could hear her slam a door, presumably a car door by the acoustics. My guess was comfirmed when I heard the sound of an engine roar up in the background. The sound of the engine was large and old, like an antique truck. The car didn’t even start on the first attempt. I could hear her swearing in the distance as she moved the phone away from her face to finally start the vehicle.

“I’m not calling about money.” I said politely.

“Then what the hell do you want already?” She asked.

I rolled my eyes. Just the tone of this woman’s voice alone irked me. She sounded like a difficult person. This was going to be a difficult conversation. When Lilith looked back at me to keep going I reaffirmed my conviction to continue. I rested my free hand atop hers.

“Hi, I’m sorry for the inconvenience. My name is Melissa Clarence. I’m a Mental Health Specialist from Saint Mary’s Psychiatric Hospital calling about an old acquaintance you might remember. I’d just like to ask you a few questions so that I can complete a mental assessment profile.”

Lilith looked at me in surprise. She probably wasn’t expecting the scenario and change of voice. The truth was that I was just mimicking the counselor that I had over the summer with only a slight change in name. Saint Mary’s Psychiatric Hospital was the largest facility of its kind in the area. Based off her record it was likely Vivian would recognize the authority I was claiming to operate from.

“Who is it you want to ask about…?” Vivian asked.

Vivian actually sounded genuinely curious after the introduction. That meant I at least had her attention. Selling it convincingly was going to be the hard part.

“Her name is Abigail Emily Logan. Do you recall this person?”

“I do…” Vivian said despondently.

“One of her family members has commissioned me to look into her well-being. You see, Ms. Logan’s mental state is considered dire to some of the people I’ve already talked with. I’ve mostly talked to her co-workers. I haven’t had the chance to talk to any of her personal friends. I’ve been searching for a relevant friend in Ms. Logan’s life and apparently she doesn’t have any. I asked my client about Ms. Logan’s former friends and your name came up.”

“Well… I haven’t talked to Abby in years. We didn’t exactly part on good terms either. I’m not surprised she’s struggling though.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. My client wished to keep this investigation a secret from Ms. Logan as she has been violently resisting help. It seems Ms. Logan has been on a downward spiral since high school. I’m not sure if most people would understand. I might be asking too much of you to lend me some assistance.”

“No, I understand. God knows I’ve had some problems of my own. The world knocks you down sometimes. Hell, the world knocks you down a lot. Sometimes it’s hard to find a reason to get back up.”

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“Would you be willing to talk to me a little about Ms. Logan? I promise I’ll try to avoid wasting your time.”

“Sure. I’ll be sitting in traffic for a while anyways.”

Lilith turned back to me and smiled. She was enjoying this as if it were a theatrical play. Then again, it probably was from her perspective. I was the performer and she was listening to this for her own amusement. My performance needed to be top notch now that I managed to secure Vivian’s trust as a ‘Mental Health Specialist’ from a respected hospital.

“Thank you. I’d like to start off by saying that I’d appreciate any insight that you can give me into her mental state of being from the time that you knew her. Recently, according to Ms. Logan’s relatives, she’s been at high risk of self-harm. I’d like to know if she was always like this.”

“No. Back when we first started going to the same school she was easy-going and fun to hang around. It was only towards graduation that things between us began to sour. She became more adversarial and started picking fights with all her friends.”

“That’s a good observation. You’ve given me a time frame to work with. If we can find the beginning of her depression then maybe we can help her end it.” I said.

“It’s useless.” Vivian said. “Abby is too busy living in the past. She’s never had the will to move forward. At some point we got sick of putting up with her and just started ignoring her.”

“You mean you and her former friends had a falling out with her?”

“Yeah, she would always give us tons of shit about anything she could come up with. We wanted to move on with our lives and she was making that difficult. So we stopped talking. I’m not surprised that her family member hired someone to try talking her down from the ledge. The only thing I’m really surprised about is that this didn’t happen sooner.” Vivian said.

That assessment of Ms. Logan seemed pretty apt coming from someone that supposedly hadn’t talked to her in years. I didn’t doubt her claim by weighing that fact either. It solidified my belief that the internal pain Ms. Logan suffered was from guilt surrounding Malorie’s fate. Vivian herself was also suffering in some way. They underwent a similar experience involving Malorie but Vivian’s takeaway was less emotionally attached.

Despite Vivian’s rude tone of voice, she sounded put together over the phone, unlike Ms. Logan. Her voice didn’t waver and she lacked any sort of stuttering. Although her police record was a mess she at least had some sense of self-control. What I wanted to know was why? How was it that they were both undergoing some form of mental health breakdown and yet Vivian was totally distanced towards her situation?

“May I ask you a personal query?” I asked.

“Like what…?”

“I’d like to know if you still have any personal feelings towards her. Are you concerned for her right now? I understand you two may not be on good terms but I’d like to know how you feel about her pain.” I said.

Lilith looked back at me with an annoyed look. She didn’t know where I was going with this sort of left-field question. I winked at her and stroked her hand gently to give her some reaffirmation that I was on course. She let out a sigh beneath her breath and leaned back into me. She closed her eyes and finally relaxed like I recommended earlier.

“Well…” Vivian said with a gloomy huff. “I wish things were different. I wish that we never had the falling out that we had. It sucks to hear that she’s like this, but what can I do? She wouldn’t want to talk to me anyways. I’m probably the last person she’d like to reconnect with. She’s always blamed me for everything that happened. I always blamed her. We couldn’t make peace back then and we won’t make peace now.”

“Thank you for being so honest with me Ms. Hale. I know this must take a toll on you to relive.” I said.

“I don’t mind. Actually, it feels sort of nice to have someone to talk to about this. Abby has been on my mind for a long time now. I’ve been wondering about how she’s been doing after all these years. I guess I know now.”

“Are you willing to tell me a little about how this fallout happened? I don’t need any personal details that you feel uncomfortable with sharing. I’d just like to have more insight to the pain that Ms. Logan is living with.”

“Well it basically began with the collapse of our after school club.”

“Ah!” I said as if I were having an epiphany. “Ms. Logan’s relative showed me a picture of you two in an old school yearbook with something about an art club. Could that be the one?”

“Yes. It shut down when we couldn’t recruit enough new members to keep it going. We tried to merge with the theater club but it didn’t work out. They were already on the verge of being shut down themselves due to budget cuts. It was bad times for everyone back then.”

“Do you think losing her artistic outlet could be a part of the reason Ms. Logan fell into depression?”

“I guess that could be part of the reason.”

“There was another girl in the picture of the art club. I looked it up and apparently her name was Malorie Noelle? I tried to call her as part of my mental health assessment but I was told that she ran away in high school.”

Lilith opened her eyes again. Now she was back to being interested. There was a tense pause on Vivian’s end. If she was going to be suspicious of me at all during this conversation then now was the time. That’s why I didn’t say that she went missing. Saying that she ran away made it sound like that theory was already fact. That’d make things easier on Vivian, whom I was hoping would still be willing to talk to me.

“Yeah…” Vivian said softly.

“I’m sorry for your loss. Ms. Logan must’ve been heartbroken to hear that her friend ran away. Was it hard on you as well?”

“It was hard on me, but for different reasons… To tell you the truth, I was never really close with Malorie. In fact you could say that we didn’t get along. The moment she joined our art club things started to go downhill. Abby and Malorie were inseparable. Once she joined us I knew things would never be the same ever again.”

“It sounds like the new member made things unnecessarily complicated. Am I right in believing that things would’ve been simpler if Malorie had never entered the picture?” I asked.

By asking it this way I made it sound like I was on her side. In reality this was a setup tactic so that she’d take the bait without a fight. By pretending to be behind her she’d be more open to tell me things she wouldn’t tell me otherwise. In this moment she was venting her feelings to a self-proclaimed mental health professional. As long as I didn’t take her out of her comfort zone then we could keep going deeper.

“I said the same thing to Abby but she wouldn’t listen! She was always so stubborn back then! Thinking about it now kind of pisses me off. If only she had listened then maybe… Maybe Malorie… Maybe Malorie wouldn’t have gone on the run.” She said.

Lilith and I were sharing looks of acknowledgement. This was the information that we needed. We had a narrative. What we lacked was the catalyst. How did this story go from an estranged friendship to a murder mystery? How much more information could I get out of Vivian without tipping the scales too far?

“Thank you, Ms. Hale. This is a lot for me to work with. I only have one more question that I’d like to ask you.” I said.

“What’s that?”

“Right now my working theory is that the shutdown of your club and her friend running away from home helped shape Ms. Logan’s modern state. From what it sounds like you two were her support group. She lost that and now she has had trouble staying on her feet. So my question is as follows. Do you think that Ms. Logan has had any contact with Malorie after she ran away?”

This question almost sounded nonsensical, knowing what actually happened to Malorie. However, depending on Vivian’s answer, this could be a turning point in our search.

“You know…” Vivian said sorrowfully. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she did. I think she knows where Malorie is these days. That’s one secret I never found out.”