by Jenna Kernan
Demko called on Thursday, frustrated at having no leads in connection with the double homicide on the bay. She shared his frustration but preferred that to discovering her suspicions of a copycat might have some basis in fact.
Demko dropped in on Friday to let her know they’d cleared both Poletti and Lowe’s spouses of the crimes. They went over his timeline for the victims’ whereabouts the day of their deaths. He still had no suspects and that clearly aggravated him. Add to that, he was getting heat from both his supervisors and the local news, which had discovered that the couple had been found nude. The salacious detail fueled speculation. Nadine knew that reporters were pressing for the release of the death certificates and cause of death.
On the first Sunday in August, Nadine found her mother’s reply waiting in the rental box, along with three additional letters. The tsunami of mail had begun. Nadine planned to cancel the postal box as soon as she got approval for visitation.
She didn’t regret writing, yet, because she was anxious to help solve the double homicide and that meant investigating her copycat theory.
Her hands trembled as she opened the first envelope. Inside was a letter and the application for visitation. She set aside the message and filled out the form right there on the counter of the postal place and mailed it. Now all she had to do was wait anywhere between two to six weeks for approval to land in her home mailbox to discover if she was cleared to visit her death row inmate.
Nadine feared that once Arleen recognized that her daughter needed something from her, she would lead Nadine on for as long as possible to get as much as she could in return. The trouble was, Nadine couldn’t anticipate what her mother would want. It worried her.
But if she could learn why her mother picked each victim and how she subdued couples, including men who were bigger and stronger, Nadine might gain insight into how this new killer operated. This was assuming that Arleen would tell her the truth. This was a huge leap, as her mother lied about most everything.
Nadine vowed to keep her guard up and be ready.
As if anyone ever could be.
Which was more terrifying, trying to get herself into the mind of a serial killer or visiting her serial killer mother on death row?
Nadine returned to the letters, unfolding the opened one, when she noticed the young guy behind the counter watching her. No doubt he was curious about the customer who received nothing but correspondence from Lowell Correctional.
“If it’s a pen pal, it’s not worth the thrill,” he said. “You should drop him. Those guys are in there for a reason.”
“It’s my mom.”
He paused at this and lifted his phone. She got a bad feeling that he was going for his camera, so she left the box wide open and hurried out of the shop.
It was 8:45 a.m. and she still had another hour’s drive home.
She had spotted a breakfast place down the road, the kind that made their own bread and where guests lingered at tables. Nadine headed there and a few minutes later she sat in a quiet booth with her bagel and coffee. The other customers seemed to be mainly retirees planted at their booths and one mom hurrying her teenagers, who were dressed in sports uniforms.
Beside Nadine, the purse of letters sat like a coiled snake. Would it be better to read all the letters before seeing her mom or walk in without all that crazy swirling around in her mind?
The clinical psychologist inside her knew that there would be much to learn from her mother’s writing. The daughter of the killer didn’t want to open herself up to more pain.
Nadine deferred, focusing on her breakfast. The meal sat in her stomach with the hard knot of dread.
“Fine,” she said, and opened her bag to retrieve the envelopes arranging them by postal mark.
After sorting, she began with the first letter, which opened with My Dearest Baby Girl.
The letter bubbled with manic delight at her request to visit. Her long hope that they would reconnect. Nadine wondered if her mother had ever spared her a thought until writing this. As a rule, narcissists didn’t consider the needs of others, unless it was for exploitation to meet their own.
Unlike their interactions in real life, Arleen did not call her stupid or ask her if she was stupid. Instead, her questions were designed to reveal as much about her daughter as possible.
Where did she live? Was she married? Kids? Arleen asked if she was a grandmother. How many children? What were their names and ages? The exchange drove home to Nadine that Arlo had done as she asked and avoided sharing details about her with their mother.
Arleen asked for photos, which she would never get, and told her all the things she might long to hear. She thought of Nadine each day and prayed over her before bed. She wanted them to be good friends and was now ready to be the mother she couldn’t be on the outside. Without the distractions, presumably of killing people, she had focused on self-improvement. She was a new woman.
If only.
Nadine set the letter facedown and picked up the next.
“More coffee?”
Nadine startled, both hands going up involuntarily.
“I am so sorry,” said the man beside her table. He held a carafe and wore a neat button-up shirt, apron and an anxious expression. “Deep in thought, right?”
He refilled her cup.
“Would you like some half-and-half?” He reached in the pocket of his apron for the plastic containers.
“I’ll get it from the station.”
“Sure. Sorry to startle you.”
He cleared her plate, and Nadine returned to the letters. The second one began with Dear Dee-Dee. In this, Arleen had lost some of her exuberance. There was a clear concern that her daughter might be changing her mind about visiting.
She should. She really should. But Nadine could not let this new monster escape, and would do all in her power to help Demko catch this unsub. Something connected this killer and her mother. She hoped that she was not that connection. It was narcissistic to think so, but she had learned from the best.
In the third letter, Arleen, as Nadine now called her, reminded her that she was cleared to visit, though she had yet to receive that clearance. She reminded her to bring fifty dollars in small bills for use in the vending machines. She reminded her to bring photos of her family and home.
Nadine knew why she asked. From such images, she could make a fair guess at the amount of money her daughter made, based on the furnishings she saw. Information she could twist and use to get to Nadine.
How many times had Arleen told Nadine that, if anything happened to her, Nadine would end up in an orphanage? That she was too stupid and ugly for anyone to want to adopt? The fear of that future had kept Nadine mute for years.
Nadine glanced back to the letter. Did she remember her eighth birthday, when Arleen had brought her a yellow cake with pink icing, and how the bakery had written D-D, instead of Dee-Dee, on the top? Wasn’t that funny?
Nadine remembered that cake and the birthday because it was on a Sunday night. Arleen had come into the kitchen dressed in only a bloody bra and panties, holding a box from the grocery store bakery. The next day, the family of Lacey Louder made a plea to the public. The twenty-four-year-old mother of three had gone missing. They later found her body floating in the St. Johns River. The following week, the papers reported the brutal slaying of a forest ranger in his jeep. Leave it to Arleen to get her to remember not just one of her murders, but two, by reminding her of her eighth birthday.
Nadine slapped down the letter. She hadn’t even seen Arleen yet, and already her mom had made her return to her childhood.
She balled her fists on either side of her coffee as she struggled to slow her breathing.
Damn her and damn whoever was doing this. She didn’t want to remember that kid who had picked up that bag on her eighth birthday, seen the blood, smelled the urine and said nothing.
Nadine stuffed the letters in her tote. Sometimes she thought she’d survived her upbringing. Other times
she feared she never would.
Her mother wasn’t going to help her, and any information she gained would come at a cost.
Then she remembered a person who might know more about this case than even her mother. She sat back at the realization. Was there a way to get case details without paying a visit to death row?
Ten
Two birds with one stone
Nadine looked up the district attorney’s office. Not hers, but the one that had handled her mother’s case. The lead prosecutor had been a man named Bradley Robins. But she found no employee listing under that name. After a phone conversation, she discovered that Bradley Robins had retired. They declined to furnish his home number.
Regardless of the roadblock, she needed to find a way to get Robins’s contact information. The details he might remember could change everything for her current case.
Meanwhile, Juliette did not text about their weekly happy hour date, and Nadine had not contacted the ME since her own rude departure last week. Guilt nipped as she left work early and found permission in her home mailbox to visit the correctional facility. She was certain this turnaround time broke a governmental record.
On Friday, she had no messages from either Demko or Juliette all day. She called Juliette but got no answer. At home, she read all the rules and directions on the prison website in preparation for her visit.
The following morning, Nadine rose exhausted by the nightmares, which had returned after a long absence. Garbage trucks, plastic bags filled with something that was still moving and now new terrors, including metal detectors, pat downs and vicious drug-sniffing canines.
Her weariness did not stop her. She was determined to do everything in her power to help Demko find this unsub, who, she was more certain by the hour, was copying her mother’s crimes.
She drove up to Lowell, Florida.
At the prison, Nadine learned that the inmate’s uniforms were pale blue with a white stripe down each leg, making the convicts look like surgeons attending a formal affair. Nadine waited for her mother to pass through the prisoners’ entrance, her heart drumming. She wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt for the second time as another unfamiliar face appeared. Her skin prickled and an invisible band constricted her breathing. Her mother was unpredictable, dangerous and possibly held answers that she needed. But there would be a price to pay.
Finally her mother stepped through the entrance. Arleen Howler looked older and thinner, but Nadine was not fooled by appearances. Her mother was still deadly.
“There’s my girl,” Arleen said upon recognizing her, establishing both a familial bond and a dominant position in the same instant.
They didn’t allow physical contact, which suited Nadine fine. Hugging her mother was nearly as repellant as taking out one of Arleen’s trash bags.
Two guards, both large and female, stood in proximity. Nadine noted that other inmates did not receive this special attention.
Nadine shifted as Arleen swept her with an assessing gaze.
“Well, look at you.” Arleen’s fist went to her hip. “Don’t look like a scarecrow now, do ya?” Her mother referred to the name her classmates had used to bully her. “Nice clothes. Expensive. You’re still too thin, though.”
Nadine regretted her choice of designer shoes, soft charcoal-colored A-line skirt and the fitted white blouse. The outfit had seemed subdued, but to her mother, it looked like money. She hadn’t said a word and already made her first mistake.
“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”
“Hello, Arleen.” The words, her first to her mother in more than a decade, were stiff and her voice hoarse. She cleared her throat.
“They strip-search you?” asked her mother.
“No.” Was that a thing for every visitor? she wondered. “Just a metal detector and a pat down afterward.”
Arleen took in this information. Nadine recognized too late that she had made her second mistake, feeding her mother details she intended to exploit.
“Then they have dogs to check for cell phones,” said Nadine.
“And drugs.”
“Right,” she said, lifting a finger at the point her mother had made. “I have to go through that again if I use the restroom.”
“‘Restroom’!” The word struck her mother as hilarious and the cackle she emitted chilled Nadine’s blood.
They stood in the visitors’ area inside the prison. Around them, other inmates greeted their guests. Gradually the incarcerated and their family members settled on the stools anchored to the rectangular tables. The configuration reminded Nadine of her old high school cafeteria. The similarities between this institution and that one was not lost on her. But here, the vending machines were full of junk food instead of water and healthy snacks.
Before the soda machine, Nadine watched a young inmate greeting an older woman and a shy toddler, who clutched a tattered yellow blanket. Arleen noted the direction of her gaze but not the subject of her attention.
“Did you bring the money?”
Nadine reached into the pocket of her skirt. It held the three items permitted for visitors to the correctional facility: one car key, her identification and fifty dollars in small bills. After a moment of fishing, she extracted the money from the rest and held it between them.
Arleen snatched the cash and spun, hurrying toward the vending machines, leaving her daughter to follow. Nadine reminded herself that the letters and the endearments were all a means to an end, a way for her mother to meet her needs. They had nothing to do with her daughter. If Nadine wanted her needs met, she’d have to meet them herself.
Her mother straightened out a five in preparation for insertion into the bill reader, and Nadine recognized she had already lost control of the situation.
She reached the soft-drink machine and plucked back her money out of Arleen’s hand. Arleen turned on her, bloodshot eyes blazing. But she restrained herself. Her face flushed from the effort.
“I was just getting us something. What do you want? Anything you like.”
Arleen was generous with her daughter’s money and the prison’s machines. Nadine’s mouth twitched but never lifted to a smile.
“What I want is information. I’ll buy it from you for this.”
“Sure. I’ll tell you anything.”
Nadine snorted and turned to the machine. “What would you like?”
Arleen made her selection and Nadine pressed the buttons. The plastic bottles rolled out, one after the other.
“What else?”
Her mother picked two kinds of salty chips and three types of chocolates. Nadine gathered them all in her arms, like a squirrel, then returned to her table. Only when Arleen took her seat across from her did she pass over one soda.
“What about the rest?” Arleen asked, holding her smile and her temper. Her greedy eyes fixed on the hoard.
“After a bit.”
The struggle was closer to the surface now. Nadine suspected her mother would like to call her “stupid, worthless, a mistake.” Make demands. Issue ultimatums. But that might drive her daughter and the chocolate away.
A burly guard moved from one table to the next, pausing at the end of the row closest to them. Nadine felt his stare and met it, narrowing her eyes on him. He looked away.
When she looked back, her mother’s smile was genuine. Her voice was low, and there was approval in it. “Now there’s my girl.”
The folded bills and change grew damp in Nadine’s sweating palm. The room stunk of unwashed bodies and mildew.
She lined up the offerings of food and placed the money beside them. “I want to know about the murders.”
Arleen rolled her eyes and pushed off the cafeteria table, keeping one hand firmly on the soda bottle.
“I don’t talk about them.”
Nadine made a show of gathering the chocolate and standing.
Her mother lifted her free hand in surrender. “Okay! Geesh. What’re you doing, writing a book or something? My Mother, the
Monster?”
“Why I need to know isn’t important.”
“You married, Dee-Dee? Because if you are, then you understand about men. What they’re like. They sure have no use for a woman with kids.”
Her mind tripped back to Demko. He hadn’t called this week or stopped by, just a few texts, all business. That was good. Right?
Yesterday she’d called to ask how he was and immediately wished she could delete the message. He hadn’t called back.
But somehow it made her feel sad and lonely. She knew she was sending mixed signals. She wanted to connect and also feared doing so.
“I’m not here to talk about my life.”
“Oh, right.” Arleen opened her soda and took a swig. “You hear from Arlo?”
“No,” she lied. She didn’t want Arleen using Arlo to get to her. He had enough trouble without that.
“He writes me about once a week,” said Arleen. “You heard about his parole?”
Nadine shrugged, noncommittal.
“He got denied, again. Four more years on his sentence. You could help him out when they spring him.”
“I plan on it.”
Arleen took another drink. Nadine watched her guzzle the liquid. Her mother lowered the bottle and made a sound of satisfaction.
“How about those chips?”
“Did you hunt for your victims in a territory or did you target couples?”
Arleen stared at her with dark eyes, her mouth pulling down at the corners.
“Long time ago. I don’t recall.”
Nadine tore open the chip bag and Arleen folded.
“I’d pick them first. Follow them and watch where they did it.”
The chips slid across the smooth surface of the table.
“Then I’d wait.”