I gave my number to Ben before leaving the diner yesterday, full of French toast and regret. I’ve never given a journalist my phone number (though some found the old one anyway), and I can’t shake the feeling that I made a serious error.
I’ve actually been wondering whether I’ve made a whole slew of serious errors lately. My entire fucking life for the past few days is a serious error, starting with my decision to fly across the country for my traitorous grandmother. My traitorous grandmother who spends about 80 percent (conservative estimate) of her day drunk. Her judgment clearly can’t be trusted.
My phone buzzes the next day, as I’m sitting in Mom’s office, staring at the poster above her desk that says Make Today So Awesome That Yesterday Gets Jealous. I look down to see a text from Ben.
Are you free this afternoon?
I am currently spending my days staring at a motivational quote that borders on toxic positivity, thinking up ways to write kissing scenes without using the word lips fifteen times on one page. Of course I’m free.
I type a one-word response: Why?
Want to meet my assistant? She’s in town.
I spin around in Mom’s desk chair. I do, surprisingly, want to meet his assistant. She sounded smart on the podcast last season. She called Ben out on his shit.
Okay. Where?
We’re in my room at the Plumpton Suites. Room 226.
Now?
Whenever you’re ready. We’ll be working for a while.
So, I put my laptop in my room and carry on with my terrible life decisions by driving across town to the nicest hotel in Plumpton.
Ben answers the door, dressed casually in jeans and a faded gray T-shirt. “Hey.” He steps back so I can walk inside. The room is a basic suite with a kitchen and a small living room, two laptops on the coffee table. A pretty Black woman with a head of long, thick curls and a friendly smile,
sits on the couch.
“Thanks for coming,” Ben says. “Paige didn’t believe that I actually got you to agree to an interview.”
Paige stands. “You cocky little shit. This is not going to help your ego at all.”
“Paige, this is Lucy. Lucy, this is my assistant, Paige. She hates me.” “Sorry.” She’s addressing me now, her hand extended. “It’s nice to meet
you.”
“You too.”
“Please sit down and tell me how he got you to agree to talk to him.”
I sit down in the chair in the corner of the living room as Paige takes a seat on the couch again. Ben stays standing in the kitchen, leaning against the counter.
“Can I get you anything?” he asks. “Water? Or coffee? That’s all I have.
Oh, and whiskey.” “I’m fine, thanks.”
Paige is studying me with such intensity that I wonder whether she’s trying to memorize my face so she can paint it later.
“Paige,” Ben says. “What?”
“You’re doing that thing again.”
She blinks. “Right. Sorry. Is it rude to say you look different than the photos I’ve seen of you?”
“No.” I lean back in my chair. “The only photos that got around were the ones where I looked devious.”
“That’s what it is.” Ben snaps his fingers. “I kept thinking there was something about you that was surprising.”
“My lack of deviousness?”
“Or the expression, anyway. Your level of deviousness remains to be seen.”
“I suppose it does.”
Paige is staring at me again. “Paige,” Ben says.
She doesn’t look away this time. “I can’t believe you’re sitting here talking to us. Do you listen to the podcast?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Okay.” Paige scoots forward on the couch, pressing her palms together in a prayer pose. I can feel the excitement rippling off her. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Paige, she’s not here for an interview,” Ben says. “I just asked her to drop by to say hi.”
He’s buttering me up for the interview. If I’m comfortable with him— and with Paige—I’m more likely to open up. Give him the good stuff.
I have no idea what the good stuff would be, but I suppose he can hold out hope.
“I know.” Paige drops her hands. “Just one, though. I have to know, because I have a theory.”
“Sure.” Why not? Fuck me up, Paige.
“I’ve never killed a woman, but I’m willing to try anything once.”
I shift, trying to ignore the voice. It’s getting louder lately. That can’t be a good sign.
“Why did you punch Ross Ayers in high school?”
I blink, startled. I don’t know which question I was expecting, but that wasn’t it.
“Should have just fucking killed him. That would have been much more satisfying.”
“No one knows. We asked everyone,” Paige continues.
No, only Emmett knew, and he was always good at keeping a secret. “He was taking up-skirt photos of a girl in one of our classes,” I say.
“I knew it.” Paige makes two fists like she’s either victorious or getting ready to punch someone. “I knew it was something like that.”
Ben looks startled, like this isn’t a theory she had shared with him.
“I think he saw me telling the teacher, because the photos were gone when they checked his phone,” I say. “I didn’t tell people because the girl he’d done it to begged me not to. She was embarrassed. So, I figured since he wasn’t getting punished, I’d take matters into my own hands.”
“Paige—”
“I know, call Ross to see if he’ll do another interview.” She’s typing on her phone.
“He’s just going to deny it.”
“Emmett knew, right?” Paige asks. “He got shifty when I asked him about it.”
Jesus. I can see why these people actually solved a case last season.
They’re actually really good.
I don’t know whether I’m relieved or terrified.
“I have an idea—”
“I didn’t tell him who the girl was, but, yeah, he knew,” I admit, silencing the voice.
“I get the feeling Emmett is keeping a lot of your secrets?” Paige cocks her head. It’s more of a challenge than a question.
“I haven’t spoken to the man in five years.” “Why not?” Ben asks.
“Shockingly, people stop calling when you’ve been accused of murdering a mutual friend.”
I think of the missed calls on my phone, the texts from Emmett that I ignored.
Paige is staring at me like she knows I’m lying. I look away.
“Are you in touch with Matt?” Ben asks. “I wasn’t, but I just saw him recently.”
“Are you going to see him again?”
I shrug. “He asked to get together, but I haven’t texted him back. Why?” “He won’t do an interview. I thought maybe you could put in a good
word.”
I lift an eyebrow. “Seriously? You want me to try to get Matt to do an interview?”
“Why not?”
“He thinks I did it.”
“Is he right?” Paige asks.
I shoot her an amused look to try to cover the swell of panic I feel. “You know what? Fine. No promises, but I’ll try.”
Listen for the Lie Podcast with Ben Owens
EPISODE FOUR—“THE AMNESIA DEFENSE”
Reporter (news broadcast): Breaking news tonight—a local wedding took a tragic turn when one of the guests, twenty-four-year-old Savannah Harper, was found dead in the woods not far from the festivities. A second young woman was found wandering nearby, also injured in the apparent attack, and is currently in stable condition at the hospital. Police are asking that anyone with information …
Savannah was pronounced dead at the scene after Gil—the jogger—found her. The coroner later determined that she died from a blow to the head. Two blows to the head, actually. Someone hit her with an unknown object twice, and then left her there to die.
Lucy was initially thought to be a second victim, not the perpetrator. She’d also suffered significant injuries.
However, police found no evidence of a third person at the scene. An autopsy showed that the
scratches on Savannah’s arms were from Lucy’s fingernails, and the bruising appeared to be in the shape of Lucy’s hand. When witnesses began to come forward with what they’d seen at the wedding, the narrative around Lucy changed.
I spoke with Nina Garcia about what she saw between Lucy and Savannah that night.
Nina: A bunch of people saw Lucy and Savvy fighting at the wedding, yeah.
Ben: What do you mean by fighting? Can you describe what you saw?
Nina: I came out of the bathroom and Lucy and Matt were making out in the hallway. Savvy looked pissed.
Ben: Savvy looked pissed about Lucy kissing her own husband?
Nina: Yeah. And Savvy, like, cleared her throat, and they stopped. Then Lucy tried to say something to Savvy and Savvy let her have it. I couldn’t hear what she said, but it was super tense.
Ben: You didn’t hear anything at all?
Nina: No. And I didn’t see it, but I heard that later, when Savvy and Lucy left together, Savvy was still angry. People saw her yelling at Lucy and slamming her car door. There was clearly a situation happening there.
Lucy has insisted, from the very beginning, that she has no memory of Savannah’s murder. In fact, she claims to not remember anything from the night of the wedding at all.
Here’s Colin Dunn again, Savannah’s date to the wedding.
Colin: Yeah, Lucy says she doesn’t remember anything after leaving her house that day. She doesn’t even remember arriving at the wedding, I guess.
Ben: So, what does she remember? From what you’ve heard.
Colin: She remembers getting in the car with Matt to leave for the Byrd Estate. But then nothing else? I didn’t even know amnesia was a real thing. I thought they made that up for TV.
Ben: It’s a real thing.
Colin: Weird, man. Anyways, yeah, they had me go talk to Lucy a couple days after she got out of the hospital.
Ben: Why?
Colin: They were like, trying to get Lucy to remember what happened that night. Matt had told her some stuff, but he was really wasted. I can hold my booze. My memory was all right.
Ben: Were you okay with that? With going to talk to her?
Colin: Yeah, whatever. I felt bad about—well, you know. The whole thing with that woman in the car. That wasn’t cool.
Anyways, I went over to the Chases’, because Lucy was staying with her parents. I asked her to tell what she did remember, and she said, “We met in the parking lot and we all went in together and found our table,” and I was like, “No, we didn’t.” And then she just started sobbing, which was really weird.
Ben: Sobbing?
Colin: Yeah, so apparently someone else had seen Matt and Lucy talking to another couple in the parking lot, and they’d thought it was me and Savvy. They’d told the police that, because at the time, they were trying to put everything together, so it was all important, you know? But that person got confused or was like also wasted or something because we actually got there later. Lucy and Matt were already sitting at the table when we walked in.
Ben: That upset Lucy?
Colin: Like, for real upset. Totally freaked me out. I thought she was going to pass out or something. Kathleen and Don told me later that Lucy had said she remembered walking into the reception, with Matt and me and Savvy. Like she had created a whole new memory around the bad information? I think everything went to shit after that. Lucy couldn’t tell what was real and what she was creating to try and remember.
Ben: Did you believe her, when she said she didn’t remember anything?
Colin: I don’t know, man. She was putting on a hell of a show if she was lying. I sort of believed her after people told me that amnesia wasn’t just a TV thing.
The thing I don’t really get is—wouldn’t she remember something eventually? Like after the head injury healed? That’s suspicious to me, man.
Something stuck out to me during my conversation with Colin—he said that he went to see Lucy just two days after she got out of the hospital. He went there specifically to try to help her re-create the night her friend was murdered, which seems like a huge amount of stress to put on someone who just suffered a head injury.
In fact, not many people talk about Lucy’s head injury at all. It’s been reported that she suffered a “moderate traumatic brain injury,” which is actually a very serious injury. I spoke to a doctor who preferred to stay off the record since he never treated Lucy Chase, but he confirmed that yes, amnesia is a real thing that happens with brain injuries. In fact, it’s not that people who have suffered a brain injury forget what happens, it’s that their brain stopped making memories at all. The memory doesn’t exist.
So, to answer the question that a lot of you have been asking—yes. The amnesia defense is a real thing. Given the extent of Lucy’s injuries, it’s possible that she really doesn’t remember what happened that night.
But is that the truth? And why is everyone in Plumpton so convinced she’s lying?
