nothing for them to investigate.”
“Except maybe murder,” Clemmons threw in.
“There was a diary-more like a journal, actually-but there wasn’t much in it that I didn’t already know. As you can tell, my younger sister and I were very close. Our… our parents were killed in an auto accident twelve years ago, when she was fourteen and I was twenty-four. We lived together until she started nursing school-the same school I had gone to in Washington. During vacations and summers, she stayed with me in the condo I bought with my half of the sale of our parents’ place.”
“Exactly what did you find in this diary that led you to believe the suicide note she left was somehow bogus or forced by another person?”
“First of all, I want to say that I am a psych nurse in one of the best departments in D.C. I’ve been in that specialty for a long time. It’s my job to know when someone is suicidal, and believe me, Rick, Belle was not suicidal. Not in the least.”
“The diary?”
“It wasn’t a deeply personal, from-the-heart diary; more like a journal of events in Belle’s life. It wasn’t locked up or hidden away. I found it on her nightstand while I was boxing up her things.”
“So I’m guessing the diary-I’m sorry,
journal
-didn’t say, ‘I’m going to kill myself.’ If it did, you wouldn’t be on this show.”
“Exactly. There was nothing in any of her entries to suggest that she was even in a fragile state. In fact, I was planning on driving down in a week. All she said the last time I… the last time I spoke with her was that she couldn’t wait to see me.”
“But there was that broken-off engagement that she was depressed about, right? Her fiancé, Dr. Doug Dearing, an orthopedist at the Carolina Bone and Joint Hospital, reportedly was having an affair with her best friend.”
Jillian took some comfort in knowing that Clemmons had at least a cursory knowledge of the facts. She could handle him ogling her, but only if he gave Belle the respect she deserved. It was also great to hear Dearing’s name and actions broadcast.
“Sure, she was depressed about it,” Jillian answered. “Who wouldn’t be? She had seen a therapist and gotten the sleeping pills that-that she took. But she was philosophical about the end of the engagement, and actually grateful she found out about what he was before”-Jillian paused and cleared the fullness from her throat-“they got married. There were passages in her journal where Belle wrote about feeling stronger, more like her old self again. She even referenced her upcoming diving trip to Cozumel with her girlfriends, and how much she was looking forward to it. That’s not the writing of somebody who would take her own life.”
Jillian had read the journal several times. It brought them closer, the way e-mails or talking on the phone had done. But it was also like experiencing Belle’s death over and over again-traveling alongside her through years of hopes, joys, and disappointments, all the while knowing it would come to a tragic end.
“So, have the cops ever investigated this Dearing fellow?” Clemmons asked.
“They did. But he had an alibi. He was with his girlfriend and out of state the night Belle died.”
“Then there’s this wild psychic connection business. What was that all about?”
“I would prefer to avoid the implications of the word ‘psychic,’ and just leave it at ‘connection.’ ”
“Go on.”
“At what might have been the exact moment Belle died, certainly within the same half hour, three hundred and thirty-five miles to the north, I became as violently ill as I have ever been. It felt for a while, as I was getting sicker and sicker, on the floor in my bathroom, as if I were going to die. The horrible attack went on for half an hour or so, and then simply went away, just like that.”
“Yes, okay. Well, the Night Owl listeners to the Rick Clemmons Show might believe in such psychic connections, but we’re
“Except maybe murder,” Clemmons threw in.
“There was a diary-more like a journal, actually-but there wasn’t much in it that I didn’t already know. As you can tell, my younger sister and I were very close. Our… our parents were killed in an auto accident twelve years ago, when she was fourteen and I was twenty-four. We lived together until she started nursing school-the same school I had gone to in Washington. During vacations and summers, she stayed with me in the condo I bought with my half of the sale of our parents’ place.”
“Exactly what did you find in this diary that led you to believe the suicide note she left was somehow bogus or forced by another person?”
“First of all, I want to say that I am a psych nurse in one of the best departments in D.C. I’ve been in that specialty for a long time. It’s my job to know when someone is suicidal, and believe me, Rick, Belle was not suicidal. Not in the least.”
“The diary?”
“It wasn’t a deeply personal, from-the-heart diary; more like a journal of events in Belle’s life. It wasn’t locked up or hidden away. I found it on her nightstand while I was boxing up her things.”
“So I’m guessing the diary-I’m sorry,
journal
-didn’t say, ‘I’m going to kill myself.’ If it did, you wouldn’t be on this show.”
“Exactly. There was nothing in any of her entries to suggest that she was even in a fragile state. In fact, I was planning on driving down in a week. All she said the last time I… the last time I spoke with her was that she couldn’t wait to see me.”
“But there was that broken-off engagement that she was depressed about, right? Her fiancé, Dr. Doug Dearing, an orthopedist at the Carolina Bone and Joint Hospital, reportedly was having an affair with her best friend.”
Jillian took some comfort in knowing that Clemmons had at least a cursory knowledge of the facts. She could handle him ogling her, but only if he gave Belle the respect she deserved. It was also great to hear Dearing’s name and actions broadcast.
“Sure, she was depressed about it,” Jillian answered. “Who wouldn’t be? She had seen a therapist and gotten the sleeping pills that-that she took. But she was philosophical about the end of the engagement, and actually grateful she found out about what he was before”-Jillian paused and cleared the fullness from her throat-“they got married. There were passages in her journal where Belle wrote about feeling stronger, more like her old self again. She even referenced her upcoming diving trip to Cozumel with her girlfriends, and how much she was looking forward to it. That’s not the writing of somebody who would take her own life.”
Jillian had read the journal several times. It brought them closer, the way e-mails or talking on the phone had done. But it was also like experiencing Belle’s death over and over again-traveling alongside her through years of hopes, joys, and disappointments, all the while knowing it would come to a tragic end.
“So, have the cops ever investigated this Dearing fellow?” Clemmons asked.
“They did. But he had an alibi. He was with his girlfriend and out of state the night Belle died.”
“Then there’s this wild psychic connection business. What was that all about?”
“I would prefer to avoid the implications of the word ‘psychic,’ and just leave it at ‘connection.’ ”
“Go on.”
“At what might have been the exact moment Belle died, certainly within the same half hour, three hundred and thirty-five miles to the north, I became as violently ill as I have ever been. It felt for a while, as I was getting sicker and sicker, on the floor in my bathroom, as if I were going to die. The horrible attack went on for half an hour or so, and then simply went away, just like that.”
“Yes, okay. Well, the Night Owl listeners to the Rick Clemmons Show might believe in such psychic connections, but we’re
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