A Killer's Daughter

by Jenna Kernan

  His expression told Nadine that he minded, but he gave a curt nod. Then he looked to her. “Ask for me if you need me.”

  Nadine’s smile held as she wondered again about calling a lawyer.

  She paused at the door to the inner office. The interior more resembled an interrogation room than conference area. Torrin turned to face her.

  “Am I here to help with your investigation, or is this something else?”

  “Just an informal chat,” said Torrin.

  That was vague, and anytime the FBI wanted to speak to you, it was not informal.

  “Am I under suspicion of a crime?”

  Torrin’s smile never wavered. “No, you are not.”

  “I was told you want my help with the recent homicides.”

  “That’s true.”

  Only then did she follow Torrin and Fukuda into the interview room. The glass partitions did not rise to the height of the ceiling and she sat facing inward, so she could not see what Detective Demko might be doing. Pacing, she imagined. Fukuda and Torrin sat across from Nadine, shoulder to shoulder, placing her in the corner and blocking the exit.

  The questions began as she would have, when approaching a new patient. They were general and all ones to which they already had the answers. Easier to compare her responses to the unknown, if the interviewer was familiar with how she answered the baseline. That impressed her.

  There was a pause as Fukuda glanced at his notepad. The man had the body of a distance runner and looked capable of chasing down a cheetah.

  “May I ask a question?” asked Nadine.

  “Go ahead,” said Fukuda.

  “Is it true that you have two missing persons?”

  Special Agent Torrin took that one. “No. We’ve located both the child and teen, safe and sound.”

  The stone in her heart lifted and she smiled.

  “That’s good news.”

  “We are interested in your copycat theory,” said Fukuda.

  This launched them into a prolonged interview on her recollections of her mother’s crimes and then Arleen’s involvement with men. They brought up names that she had nearly forgotten. Men whom she had met. Men who had left, and some that she never heard of before.

  They mentioned women, neighbors and some who she remembered worked with her mom at different job sites.

  Torrin fired off another name.

  “Infinity Yanez?”

  Nadine thought that sounded familiar but could not place it.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  Torrin continued with another name, a male name.

  She thought back, quiet in reflection before answering. “No. I don’t recall him, either. I’m sorry. Who are these people?”

  “Missing persons cases.”

  “Recent?”

  “No. From the 1990s and 2000s.”

  Nadine’s attention moved from Torrin to the table before her. Missing men and women, at least a dozen, and all had disappeared before her mother’s capture. It was harder to breathe now.

  “Could I have some water, please?”

  Fukuda retrieved a small bottle of cold water from the mini-fridge in the corner and offered it.

  The liquid helped, but not enough.

  They moved from her recollections to recent events, focusing on the break-in. It became clear that they had suspicions she was the one who moved the furniture and added the bag of bloody clothing to her own bed.

  “You see a therapist, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you have various prescriptions for anxiety and depression.”

  “Not all that uncommon.”

  “Have you ever considered harming yourself or others?”

  Nadine knew how to answer this one with her eyes closed. “No, never.”

  “Would you be willing to take a polygraph to eliminate yourself as a suspect?”

  “Am I a suspect?”

  “Not really. It’ll help with the media.”

  This reply was designed to appeal to her need to avoid the public spotlight and might be intended to entrap her for crimes she did not commit. Refusing would only make her look more guilty.

  However, she was certain that a polygraph would show deceptive answers and behavior because it was part of her DNA to be deceptive. Since she had nothing to do with any of the string of murders in Sarasota or the break-in, she could answer honestly. Her involvement with her mother’s crimes would not be so easily overlooked. Aiding and abetting was how she referred to her actions in her mind, regardless of the fact the prosecution maintained that, as a child, she couldn’t have aided or abetted anyone. In the eyes of the law, she was another victim.

  So, why do I feel responsible?

  Nadine disobeyed her mother and tucked the garbage bag far under the trailer.

  Her mother had not replaced Nadine’s phone, and she kept her cell on her so Nadine had no way to call for help.

  “Get to bed, Dee-Dee. It’s a damned school night.” Her mother waited in the doorway in her underwear as she climbed the stairs into the trailer.

  Last night, the local news was full of pleas from Sandra’s mother and father to find their daughter. Her disappearance was now linked to a man, Stephen White, thirty-three. Nadine remembered him.

  Phone records connected the pair. White had priors for drug arrests and pandering. The police were treating this as an abduction, which Nadine suspected it was. But not by Stephen White.

  She paused, determined to ask her mother what she’d done to Sandra.

  “Well? Do I have to get the strap?”

  Nadine rubbed the back of her thigh at the memory of the last beating she had taken. She headed to her room. Her mother had long ago placed bars on the rental’s windows, to keep out thieves, even though the shabby trailer had nothing to offer.

  It had been over two years since the last bag. That time, Nadine had finally gotten the nerve to look inside at the men’s jeans and woman’s beige bra, both soaked in blood and sliced. At twelve, she had known what would happen if she told, and what would keep happening if she didn’t.

  Now at fourteen, she lay on her bed, listening to the rain beating on the tin roof, and knew the police were never going to catch Arleen.

  If this was ever going to stop, she was the one to do it.

  * * *

  On Monday morning, when she dragged the bin to the street, she left the bag behind. She spied a corner of the black plastic again on the way to the bus stop and thought she would throw up.

  What was she doing? They’d come and take her. No one would want to adopt her, and her mother would be arrested.

  Another thought struck her. Sandra might still be alive. Please let her still be alive.

  Nadine marched toward the bus stop.

  The garbage truck rumbled past her as she repressed the urge to run back and do what her mother had ordered her to do.

  Throw out the trash.

  “Dr. Finch?” said Special Agent Torrin.

  Nadine snapped her attention back to the FBI agent, who eyed her cautiously; she considered again asking for a lawyer.

  The agent seemed to expect this and told her that Detective Demko had already taken a polygraph. But law enforcement officers were not required to tell her the truth.

  “I’d like to hear that from him,” she said.

  “We’ll bring him right in,” said Special Agent Torrin.

  Nadine waited with Special Agent Fukuda, who stood silently at her periphery. It occurred to her during the wait that Detective Demko also did not have to be honest regarding the polygraph. It would come down to if she trusted him.

  Nadine did not like this new position as crash dummy. Special Agent Torrin returned with Detective Demko. Both gave reassurances and they wheeled in the machine.

  The polygraph took about forty-five minutes. It was painless and distracting to watch the needle dance as she made her answers. Afterward, the agents asked her to wait with Demko in the reception area. Nadine assu
med this gave them time to analyze the results. She lied on several questions about her childhood, but on none regarding her current state of mind or lack of involvement with the murders.

  “They don’t want our help,” she said. “They just want us eliminated as suspects.”

  Demko took hold of her hand. “That’s the first step.”

  An FBI officer ushered them back into the interview room and they took their seats across from Torrin and Fukuda.

  “Dr. Finch, your profile interests us, particularly your theory that the disfigurement of the ring finger was associated with infidelity.” He sat forward. “That detail was not revealed at your mother’s trial. How did you hear of it?”

  “I reached out to the district attorney who prosecuted my mother.”

  “Bradley Robins.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you had no prior knowledge of this mutilation?”

  “I did not.”

  “Yet you thought the recent double homicide was a copycat.”

  “There were other similarities,” said Nadine.

  “Such as?”

  She listed them: the rope, the slashes on the female’s buttock, the victims were engaged in an affair. The men were all dispatched first. The women shared physical characteristics, such as their height, build, eye and hair color, and most were found naked in a natural body of water. And there was a progression of holding and torturing the female victims for increasing lengths of time.

  “I see. Well, we have our people speaking to Bradley Robins now. He’s assured us that this detail and the marks on the women were not revealed during the trial and that he has not relayed that information to anyone but you and Detective Demko. But the person who killed the first victims in the most recent murders, Debi Poletti and David Lowe, must have had firsthand information about the case or some association with your mother. How do you think the unsub learned of it?”

  Had Nadine just stuck her head in a noose? She eyed Torrin, judging whether he was speculating or accusing.

  “I don’t know,” she said, and stopped talking.

  “We are impressed with the speed you made this association and reached out to Mr. Robins. It was between the double homicide and your visit to your mother. Is that correct?”

  She shook her head. “After the initial murders and my first visit with my mother.”

  Nadine felt more like a suspect by the second. Her knee began to bounce, and she quelled the nervous motion.

  Torrin continued to watch her.

  “We have contacted the warden at Lowell, at Demko’s suggestion, because you alerted him that there may be correspondence between your mother and the killer.”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  “We think your connection could be useful,” said Fukuda. “Would you be willing to pose a series of questions to her?”

  “That depends on the questions.”

  “Fair enough,” said Fukuda. “I will say that we tried to interview your mother, and she was less than cooperative.”

  “Because you excluded her from your study.”

  “I beg your pardon?” asked Torrin.

  “The recent study published on your website by the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crimes. That’s part of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group in Quantico. Right?”

  Fukuda nodded. “That’s correct.”

  “The study indicated that you did not include kills for hire, medical practitioners who committed serial murders or women.” She couldn’t believe that she was going here. But here she was. “You have a statistically significant population of female killers and failed to include them. It seems an obvious gap in your research.”

  “Point taken. Now back to the serial killer we are pursuing. Do you feel it’s a woman?”

  “I don’t make predictions based on feelings. My mother’s cases and these show a strong correlational relationship. It might, in fact, be some kind of tribute to her. Or…” Nadine’s gaze drifted, and she closed her mouth, not ready to say this next part aloud.

  “Or?” prompted Torrin.

  Nadine glanced to Demko. He gave her knee a brief tap and she couldn’t read the significance. Was this a warning or encouragement?

  “Or,” she continued, “it may be a call to action.”

  Torrin and Fukuda exchanged blank looks and then turned their vacant expressions on her.

  “Explain,” said Torrin.

  “I’ve been considering why this is happening here and now. It occurs to me that I am the same age as my mother was when she committed many of these crimes. And having me here with Detective Demko and Tina Ruz and Dr. Juliette Hartfield is too strange to be coincidence.”

  “What do Hartfield, Ruz and Detective Demko have to do with this?” asked Fukuda.

  Now she and Demko exchanged blank looks. They don’t know.

  “Someone hired us all. And all of us have mothers convicted of murder.”

  Torrin was on his feet and out the door in a matter of moments.

  “You have a suspect?” asked Fukuda.

  “No. But it would have to be someone in personnel or a supervisor, Dr. Crean, for example. Perhaps an influential person on the city council?”

  “An office assistant responsible for collecting résumés,” added Demko.

  Fukuda had his hand across his mouth and his elbow on the table, thinking. Finally he dropped his hand.

  “It’s an interesting theory, considering Dr. Crean’s obvious connection with serial killers.”

  “Female killers,” she corrected.

  “Well, we’ll bring Crean in,” said Fukuda.

  Torrin returned. “We’re collecting a list of all city employees involved in the hiring process.”

  “Great,” said Fukuda. “Now, our own profiler is relatively certain that this is a male offender. Average intelligence. A social misfit who holds a job that involves physical labor, potentially also a fisherman, considering knowledge of the waterways and fishing spots, who likely owns both a truck and a motorboat. Married or recently divorced and whose wife is, or was, unfaithful. He is using others to punish someone who cheated on him.”

  Nadine snorted. “He give you a model on the boat?”

  Fukuda glanced at his notes. “I don’t think so.”

  Demko chuckled.

  “You disagree?” asked Torrin, picking up on her sarcasm.

  “It’s very specific.”

  “And differs from yours,” said Torrin. “A copycat who idolizes Arleen Howler.”

  “Yes,” said Nadine. “Our unsub has formed some connection with my mother. I know she has correspondence from all sorts of people. The prison records for incoming mail is a start but don’t ignore who visits, calls or emails her.”

  Torrin scribbled something else on his pad.

  “The mutilation on the fingers, our profiler agrees this is a calling card. Can you explain why you think this maiming is indicative of infidelity?”

  “The mutilation is always on the left ring finger. That’s significant. My mother told me she intended this as a permanent wedding band. A reminder of the vow they broke.”

  Fukuda nodded. It seemed she and the profiler agreed on that one.

  “What about the marks exclusively on the women? They are all on the fleshy part of the buttock, all approximately four inches long and each series include seven cuts, six roughly horizontal lines and one vertical one.”

  “I’m sure they have significance. But perhaps only to the killer.”

  “Our profiler believes this is a way to further humiliate the females. A defeminizing.”

  “No. That would involve cutting or removing the breasts or damaging the sex organs.”

  Fukuda dropped his head again to record something.

  “The marks are similar to the ones left by your mother on her victims,” said Torrin.

  “Female victims only,” she corrected.

  “Would you be willing to ask her about the meaning?”

  “I hav
e. She wouldn’t tell me.”

  “You have a theory?” he asked.

  “Yes. My mother had a special hatred for women who slept with married men. Not all her female victims were married, but the men all were. Check back. She attacked the males to incapacitate and kill, often carved them a new wedding band postmortem. But she carved the married women’s when they were still alive. She wanted them to suffer. It was the women she was after, her real targets. And all got that mark or brand. She called them ‘mean bitches’ and ‘whores.’ She said they were…” Nadine’s thoughts whirled as she spoke, and the pieces snapped into place. She gasped as a flash of insight tore through her and she pinned her gaze on Demko.

  “I know what they are. The marks on the women. I think… no, I know what they mean.”

  Twenty-One

  Out of the loop

  “My mom called these women ‘whores’ and ‘bitches’ and… ‘homewreckers’! The gashes, they’re letters, initials. H and W.”

  “Hold on,” Demko said, and reached for his phone, pulling up a photo of Hope Kerr, the female victim found floating in the inlet off Robinson Preserve. He zoomed in on the marks. It seems so obvious now. The letters were sideways in the image but would have been vertical to someone carving them with a blade.

  “Rotate it,” she said.

  Demko turned the image ninety degrees.

  * * *

  She glanced to Torrin, triumphant, and saw his eyes narrow on her. She sank back in her chair. This man was not impressed. He was suspicious.

  Demko noticed the pall that had descended over the room.

  “She’s right,” he offered.

  Torrin’s gaze flicked from him to her.

  “Dr. Finch,” said Fukuda. “You just stated that you asked your mother about the marks but were unable to obtain an explanation. But now, remarkably, you have deciphered their meaning?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see. Also your profile conflicts with our profiler, who believes this offender is a social misfit.”

  “Not a misfit, a social chameleon.”