A Killer's Daughter

by Jenna Kernan

  Nadine sat in numb silence at her mother’s outburst, not sure if she had gleaned anything useful or if she had just added to her own anxiety. Was this all tied back to that other woman? The one who ran away with her father? But Arleen had said she didn’t just wake up twenty years ago and start killing. Had she started with an easier target?

  A child? Please, not a child.

  “That first one was a bitch, too.” Arleen shook her head.

  Nadine perked up. First kills were often personal and there would be much to learn from her mother’s initial murder.

  “How old were you the first time?” Nadine asked.

  “Young. And it was easy. Never looked back.”

  “How young?”

  That smile again and the lips pinched firmly shut. Arleen shook her head and released a sigh as if completely content.

  “That one is only for me.”

  “Was it one of the couples? The ones you were convicted for?”

  “Nope.”

  “You said the one you buried was the first.”

  “I said the first man.”

  Nadine blinked. She knew her mother’s attorneys were offering a confession in exchange for a reduced sentence. She knew the offer was to close more than one case. Was this unknown person, the first woman, the first victim, one of those on the table? Was the man whom her brother helped her move the other?

  A worse possibility struck. How many more?

  Nadine changed course.

  “And the last two?”

  The last two were her classmate Sandra Shank and Sandra’s pimp and dealer, Stephen White, the final victims. It was a long list. First was Charles Rogers and Gail DeNato, coworkers at the carpet store where Arleen worked for more than two years; next, Lacey Louder, the single mother who lived in their development, and then her regular customer, Ranger Drew Henderson. Next came Michelle Dents and Parker Irwin, her mother’s boss at the marina on the St. Johns River and the mechanic she regularly slept with in the houseboats Arleen was then ordered to clean. Four couples and now Nadine had learned of an unknown man and an unknown woman. Were there others?

  All she knew for sure was that Sandra Shank and Stephen White had been Arleen’s last, because of her daughter.

  Arleen leaned in. “You curious about what I did to her, your classmate? They wouldn’t let you hear it in court. But maybe you read about it since, or do you remember me being gone? Took ’em together at his place. Had them for days. Left him for the ants, staked out behind the barn near the manure pile.”

  “The what?”

  “I worked in the stables at that place up in Ocala. Remember? Took care of horses and took care of that cunt from your school,” she said. “I kept her in a cage, the little bitch. Teach her not to mess with my family. Not so tough then, I can tell you. Had her for days before I remembered that we had a hay delivery coming Tuesday. Might have had her a month or more, if not for that damn hay.” She smiled at the fond memory of torturing a seventeen-year-old girl.

  The pair had been found dead by police several hours after Nadine reported her mother in connection with Sandra’s disappearance.

  This was her fault. Nadine had told her mother what happened, about the taunts at school and the broken phone. She had unleashed this monster of rage on Sandra Shank.

  “Didn’t the owners hear her?”

  “Owners were up north for the season. You remember? Just me and the caretaker, and he drank. Plus, he was deaf. He never came out to the stables. Had the run of the place. Me and the horses that they didn’t bother taking back up to Virginia with them.” Arleen glared at her daughter, narrowing her eyes. “Are you crying?”

  Nadine lifted a hand to her cheek and found it wet.

  “Shit, Dee-Dee. Don’t ask me stuff and blubber about it. You have to be tougher than this.” She shook her head, gazing off across the room before swinging her attention back to Nadine. “For a minute there, I thought you understood. Thought you were like me. Maybe you already killed one and you wanted to hear from me that it was okay or maybe how to keep from getting caught. But you aren’t tough enough for this.”

  “Tough enough to murder an innocent girl?”

  “‘Innocent’? That’s a laugh. And you know exactly what she was. Tell me your life didn’t get better with her gone? Them others never dared bother you again. Did they?”

  They hadn’t. School had gotten better until her mother’s arrest. Then it was far worse.

  “And if that’s all you think this is, then you’ll never know.”

  “I’m not a killer.”

  “But you could be. You’re like me, Dee-Dee. You’ve got my blood and you are out there. You can continue what I started.”

  Her mother reached across the table and captured both of Nadine’s wrists.

  “No physical contact!” The shout came from one of the guards.

  Arleen released her hold. Her hands went to her lap. Nadine’s wrists tingled as if scorched. When Arleen spoke again, her voice was hypnotic.

  “You got a killer instinct. All of us got it. Born with it. And you are good at getting what you want.” She motioned to Nadine’s ammunition, the remaining single candy packet and the empty wrappers. “But if you don’t let yourself be who you are, if you go around scared all the time, pushing down your natural instincts, you’ll never know how it is. What it’s like to do what we do.”

  “I don’t want to know.”

  “Sure you do. You’re curious. Everyone is. That’s why all the girls in here want to talk to me.”

  Before and during the trial, Arleen insisted she was innocent. Nadine found it interesting that her mother now owned her crimes. Was that because being a serial killer gave her a certain gravitas in here?

  “You should tell someone about the other murders. The ones you were never convicted of.”

  “Screw that. I don’t need you to write my story, Dee-Dee, if that’s what you’re doing.”

  As if Nadine wanted to pin her title and reputation to that.

  “Did you tell anyone about the man you buried? The one who owed you money?”

  “Tell who? Check the records. I ain’t had no visitors. You all abandoned me when I got locked up.” She chugged her second soda and slapped the container hard on the tabletop. “I tried to get the FBI down here. Heard they were interviewing people like me. Doing some big research project. But I never did see them. You know why? Because they don’t include women in their studies. I’ve written them. That’s how I know. It’s despicable.” She threw up her hands, raising her voice. “Fucking men!” She slapped her hand on the table, making the empty bottle topple. The crack brought a guard in their direction. Arleen did not notice or, perhaps, did not care. “How fucked up is that? We’re half the population. It’s like the damned medical studies. They study men’s heart attacks by the million. Then a woman walks into the emergency room telling them that she’s sick and they tell her to go home and take a nap. Guess why? We ain’t in the damn studies!” She pointed at the closest male guard. “Sexism. That’s what it is.”

  And like Pavlov’s dog, the guard made his approach. Her mother seemed oblivious, now on a tear.

  “Lower your voice, Arleen.”

  She didn’t.

  “Fuck him!” She waved a dismissive hand at the corrections officer, who now stood at their table, arms folded.

  “Settle down, Howler,” he said.

  Her mother drummed her fingers on the table as she spoke to the guard. “It’s bullshit. Not including us. I killed more than that guy in California and more than the guy up in Green River. Way more than that cannibal guy.”

  All the examples she used were old. It seemed Arleen had made a study of the killers caught before her incarceration.

  “But they’re all famous. You know why? Two reasons. First, they all got a cock.” She stared at the guard’s groin. “Second, they all got cool names.”

  “Up,” said the guard.

  “I can’t do nothing about the cock
. But I can give myself a name. Night Slasher!” She turned to Nadine. “What do you think, Dee-Dee?”

  Another guard arrived. Arleen laughed as they pulled her to her feet. She’d worked herself up into a rage. Nadine sat frozen as they dragged her mother away. Arleen went with them, shouting obscenities about men.

  After the door closed behind them, the room was so quiet, Nadine could still hear Arleen shouting. She stared at the remaining unopened package of chocolate and the empty soda bottles, now on their sides. All the folded money was gone.

  She stood, the stares of every inmate and their guests on her as she walked from the gathering area. It was not until she cleared security that she began to shake. Nadine cleared the last security check and sat on the curb of the hot sidewalk, head in her hands.

  Instead of details on the couple murders, she had added two bodies to her mother’s grim list of homicides. A man she had buried and someone, a woman or girl, whom Arleen had killed when she was young. How young?

  Every single thing about this interaction had been horrible. Nadine felt as if Arleen had sucked away her life force, leaving her with the crushing weight of obligation to solve these murders as well. But she’d need help and that thought terrified her.

  Had she learned anything useful? Yes. Arleen had worked with or lived near all female victims. And she had targeted them, just as Nadine feared this new killer was doing.

  Nadine pushed herself up, brushing away the bits of gravel that clung to her palm. When she reached the parking lot, the stench of mildew and unwashed bodies still lingered in her nostrils.

  She paused to breathe fresh air and spotted someone just ahead of her who looked familiar.

  She squinted in the bright sunshine. The man leaving Lowell Correctional before her was Detective Clint Demko.

  Eleven

  Skin in the game

  Nadine called to Clint across the prison lot a moment before some part of her brain re-engaged.

  “Detective Demko?”

  He turned and she suppressed the urge to hide, because seeing him here meant that he would also see her. She wanted to know why he was here but didn’t want him to have the same information. It was too late to retreat. Demko had already spotted her and looked taken aback. She had caught him off guard, judging from the expression of bewilderment and his fists pressed to his hips. Curse his sunglasses for hiding his eyes. His brows lifted and his mouth hardened. He wasn’t happy to see her.

  “Nadine? This is a surprise.” His smile seemed tight at the corners.

  “Yes. It is.”

  “We could have ridden up together,” he said.

  Up until this minute, she had been ready to tell him all she knew. Now she paused.

  Why was he here?

  “I’m sorry I didn’t return your call. I dumped my phone in a swimming pool at a home invasion yesterday and had to get a new one. I just got your message this morning.”

  “I see.”

  “What brings you up here?” he asked.

  “Psych evaluation.” Partly true, as she did evaluate her mother. “You?”

  “Parole hearing.”

  “Ah,” she said, nodding. They didn’t do parole hearings on Saturday, and it was very doubtful that she would do a psych evaluation on the weekend, either. They were both lying, and even as she accepted his bullshit excuse, she recognized that he was doing the same. Neither of them called the other out. Both wanted to keep their secrets more than they wanted answers.

  But Nadine planned to dig further into Detective Demko’s past to see who among the inmates he might know.

  Why hadn’t she seen him in the visitors’ area? Could she have missed him in her preoccupation with Arleen? Had she noticed anyone? Just vaguely. Why didn’t he see her, then? She had walked right up to the vending machines, past most of the families and prisoners.

  Had he been somewhere else inside the prison?

  “You this way?” He motioned in the direction opposite Nadine’s vehicle.

  “Over there.” She pointed.

  “Oh. Everything okay with you?”

  “Yes. Fine.” She did not like this new awkwardness between them.

  “My cell number is the same, despite the new phone.”

  “That’s good. I have it.”

  She noted that he was rocking from toe to heel and back again, eager to be gone.

  She glanced toward her car, which seemed miles away.

  “So, I’ll see you at work?” he asked.

  Would he? “Oh, yes. Of course.” Nadine nodded, though they had made no plans to meet, and after seeing him here, she was not anxious to see him again. Not until she got some answers. A cold spike of dread tore through her as she recognized he would also be searching for answers, and he was a professional at that job.

  Had he been here to visit her mother? Did he see her with Arleen and change his mind?

  He looked expectantly at her and she realized she had missed something.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “I wondered if you’re free tomorrow. I know Molly would love to see you again.”

  He’d been in her office last week, but that seemed a lifetime ago.

  “I’d like that.” What in the wide world was she doing?

  “Great. We’ll pick you up at eleven for brunch. We’ll have to go somewhere with an outside table, since dogs can’t go inside.”

  “Where do you have in mind?” she asked.

  “The French café on Main is good, or there’s that gastropub on Lemon.”

  Nadine could walk home from either. “Let’s try the French place. Their bakery is amazing. I’ll meet you there.” Because I’m not getting into your car. She knew it might be an overreaction. But she didn’t wholly trust him.

  She imagined a police report for her homicide. She seemed to have known her attacker.

  Not this girl. Nadine didn’t think Demko was a killer, but he was flashing signs of deception. And she wanted to know why he was really visiting this prison.

  “Oh, all right,” he said. “I’ll reserve us a table. Eleven okay?”

  She nodded.

  “See you tomorrow.”

  Nadine held her smile as he took both her hands, then leaned in to kiss her cheek, trying and failing to staunch the longing in her heart and the heat ignited by his touch. He moved back and away, taking four steps before turning to wave. She waved back. Then he headed off toward his vehicle.

  Had she just accepted another date? What was wrong with her?

  She had a three-hour drive to consider why Demko was up at Lowell. None of her reasons were good ones and all pointed to him being a liar. Takes one to know one, she thought grimly.

  Was this just more crazy? At the Fruitville exit off I-75, Nadine pulled into a drive-through for dinner and drew out her phone. No calls from Demko.

  When the car behind her blasted its horn, she tucked away her phone and placed her order.

  A little less than an hour later, her tires crunched over the crushed shells lining her driveway. Inside the door to her cottage rental, she paused, hand still on the door latch, as she glanced at the main room. All the dinette chairs were stacked, one upon the other, in the center of the glass surface. The narrow coffee table balanced on the couch arm like a teeter-totter. The television was on. None of this was as she had left it this morning.

  Every hair on Nadine’s body stood up.

  Someone had been in her house.

  Was someone still in there? She dropped her takeout meal and backed up, hand still clutching the latch as the other gripped her keys.

  Nadine’s vision blurred and for a moment she was afraid she would pass out. Was it one person or more than one? Images of the Manson Family darted like an arrow through her brain. She shuttered, freezing cold in the ninety-degree heat.

  Help.

  She needed to call help. Looking about, she saw no one. Nadine fumbled in her purse with sweat-slick hands as her vision faded at the periphery. Where was her phone?


  Was she going into shock?

  Nadine’s knee hit the planking and the pain jarred her attention back to the open door. Why was she looking for her phone, when there might be someone watching her?

  Run away, whispered her survival instinct.

  Nadine stared into the yawning maw that had been her portal to safety. Someone had invaded her personal space, violating her without ever laying a hand on her.

  Her breath now came in trembling pants, but she was breathing. She could see. The fear was morphing into fury.

  Who would do this? Who would dare?

  She squatted and searched her purse, finally gripping her phone. She held it in two hands, as if it were some holy chalice. Her lifeline, a chance to bring help, if she could muster her voice back from the small desperate hole where it now hid.

  What is my passcode?

  Nadine blanked out that information, and it took precious seconds to remember to use her fingerprint to unlock her device.

  Once in the phone app, she somehow successfully dialed 911. When the dispatcher asked, “What’s your emergency?” she gasped and sputtered.

  “Hello? This is emergency dispatch. Please state your emergency.”

  “I need help. I… Break-in.”

  “Yes, ma’am. You are reporting a break-in. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you alone? Is there anyone there?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know if they’re still here.”

  “Yes. I understand. Please move to a safe location or somewhere where you can lock the door. I’m sending a unit to you. I’ll stay on the line until they arrive.”

  “Thank you. I could… I’m… I could lock myself in my car.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Do that. Let me know when you are in your car.”

  Nadine fumbled with the keys, setting off the panic alarm, before finally releasing the door lock.

  Once inside, she used the remote to lock all doors. The air was already stuffy inside. She started the engine, turning up the air conditioner.