This Is How I Lied

by Heather Gudenkauf

  I turn to the 911 transcript. As I read, flashes of that night come back to me.

  We’ve looked everywhere but the caves, I said. Let’s go check them out. Nola gave me an odd look but agreed. It had started to snow and I remember the cold and wet seeping through my tennis shoes. Nola had handed me a flashlight when we got to the last streetlight at the end of the dead-end street that lead to the caves.

  I remember the whistle of the wind and the way we had to step over a litter of fallen leaves and dead branches until we were swallowed up by the pine trees. I tripped on a snaggle of exposed roots and grabbed at a low-hanging branch to steady myself.

  About a half an inch of snow had fallen since Nola and I began our search and the stepping stones across the creek were dusted with a slippery layer.

  Once over the creek the caves weren’t far off. Nola led us directly to Rattlesnake, a cave whose main tunnel stretched out like a long sinuous snake. I knew that bats hibernated during the winter but I still covered my head as we entered the mouth of the cave. Our breaths seeped from our mouths in ghostly puffs, illuminated by a flashlight that only let us see a few feet in front of us. Though the air in the cave was warmer than outside, my teeth chattered. I kept one hand on the damp, rough wall of the cave to help guide my way though I knew that if we kept following the curves and didn’t veer off into one of the side caves we would eventually come to the opening that would lead us out the other side.

  We walked for about fifteen minutes, the only sounds the soles of our shoes scraping across the rocky ground and the soft plop, plop, plop of water and our occasional calls of Eve’s name. Was it possible for there to be running water in a cave in the dead of winter? I had visions of bat shit dripping from above. But as scared as I was to stay put I was even more frightened of moving forward.

  I focused the beam above us, half expecting to see a colony of bats curled up in furry balls on the craggy ceiling. There was nothing there. I lowered the flashlight spotlighting first the icicle-shaped stalactites and then the pocked gray walls. Still I heard the bubble of water running—an underground stream somewhere off in the distance.

  The trail slanted upward and the temperature gradually rose. The all-encompassing black pitch we were traveling through shifted to an inky charcoal and I knew we were finally close to the cave’s exit.

  She’s not here, I breathed with relief. Let’s go, I said, picking up my pace, my thigh muscles burning as we climbed the steep path.

  Wait, what’s that? Nola asked, grabbing the flashlight from me. The beam bounced off a kaleidoscope of colors fanned out across the stone floor. It was Eve. Her bright red hair incongruous against the drab limestone, her face stained dark with blood, her wide, staring eyes.

  I screamed and skirted past the body out the mouth of the cave into the gently swirling snow, not knowing if Nola was behind me or not. I stumbled and fell and got up again only to slip again and again. I paused and vomited into the nearly frozen creek.

  By that time Nola had caught up with me and together we hurried to the closest house, Mrs. Benson’s.

  The 911 transcript is pretty straightforward but transcripts can be deceiving. They chronicle what the caller says but not the raw emotion. I flip through the binder and sure enough in the back is a three-hole plastic page protector containing an audio tape labeled Eve Knox 911 Call.

  I have to do some hunting in order to find a cassette recorder. I find one, coated with dust in a box in the IT office. I dig out a pair of earbuds from my purse and realize, of course, they aren’t compatible. I press Play, adjust the volume by spinning the wheel on the side of the player and listen. The tape is slightly warped with age. Sluggish, so that each word is lazily drawn out. Even so, I can hear the alarm in the caller’s voice.

  Vivian Benson, the woman who initiated the call, sounds breathless and panicked, stumbling over her words as she tries to provide the dispatcher with the requested information. I don’t remember much about pounding on Mrs. Benson’s door that night after Nola and I found Eve but I do remember shaking with cold and terror.

  When Nola comes on the phone line, I’m immediately struck by her composure. She sounds cold. Mechanical. A stark contrast to the woman who handed her the phone and to my jagged crying in the background.

  We had just found Eve dead. Could Nola’s reaction have been shock, like the dispatcher suggested? I scan the notes that the first officer on the scene jotted down as he talked to Nola for the first time. Thirteen-year-old juvenile doesn’t seem v. upset. Matter-of-factly led us to the body of her sister. No emotion. Follow up.

  My dad must have thought so too because on one of the hundreds of sticky notes that freckle the pages of files, he wrote in his familiar, messy scrawl: Nola Knox—psychological eval. My heart squeezes. My dad doesn’t write anything anymore. Now he can’t harness his thoughts long enough to put them into written form.

  Next come the crime scene photos. They are hard to look at, even for a law enforcement officer. The baby kicks at my stomach and I wonder if looking at such disturbing pictures is unhealthy, that I’ll be inflicting some psychological damage on my child. “I need to do this,” I murmur to my belly. “Someday maybe you’ll understand.”

  I take a deep breath and look at the first photo. It’s a shot of Eve’s body lying just inside the mouth of the cave and looks like it was taken from at least two hundred feet away. This was smart thinking by the officer. He knew how a flurry of activity could soon destroy any possible evidence at the scene. The photo shows the area in front of the cave, unmarred except for a jumble of footprints in the snow. Eve’s body was how I remembered it—bloodied and broken. I stand, nauseated.

  I force myself to sit back down. I can do this, I tell myself. I’m good at compartmentalizing. I always have been. This is what made me a good cop and makes me an even better detective. There are several other photos of the crime scene and I examine them carefully, looking for anything that might jump out at me.

  I feel like I’m missing something. Something obvious. I shake my head in frustration. Nothing.

  I flip through the binder in search of a list of evidence found at the crime scene but can’t find one. This is a problem. I can’t send the evidence to the lab to be retested until I know exactly which items to send. I’m sure it’s somewhere within the files, but where? I get up and grab a second binder and flip through it. This one holds the medical examiner’s report and Eve’s autopsy photos.

  I take a deep breath and try to fully enter my cop state of mind. Unemotional, analytical, unfazed. I open the binder to the first page.

  DECEDENT: Eve Marie Knox

  Autopsy Authorized by: Dr. Felicia Waller

  Saturday, December 23, 1995

  Identified by: Henry Kennedy, Grotto Police Department

  I never knew that my dad was the one to identify Eve’s body. I never really thought about it, but it makes sense. I couldn’t see Eve’s mother being capable of doing it, Nola was much too young and as far as I knew there was no other family.

  Rigor: present

  Livor: red

  Distribution: posterior

  Age: 15

  Race: White

  Sex: Female

  Length: 60 inches

  Weight: 57 kilograms

  Eyes: Green

  Hair: Red

  As I read through the reports it becomes clear that Eve died a long, painful death. According to the pathologist, Eve had a broken wrist, a skull fracture resulting in significant swelling of the brain and dozens of contusions. There was also indication of ligature strangulation.

  The doctor determined that the time of Eve’s death was between 4:00 and 9:00 p.m., give or take. The plunging temperatures that day made it difficult to pinpoint the exact time of death.

  The last time Eve was seen was by Nola at around three thirty at their home just before Nola left to go visit he
r mother at work. Eve could have been lying there on the edge of death for hours.

  Nola stayed with her mother at the motel, watching TV in the rooms her mother cleaned until six and arrived at the public library at six fifteen. The librarian backed up Nola’s account, even providing documentation that Nola checked out several books that evening and stayed there until eight. Nola then walked home where her mother was waiting for her. Eve was nowhere to be found.

  I flip through the files. They found tree sap on Eve’s hands but not much else. Nola’s clothing was taken and examined. Hair consistent with Eve’s was found, but that isn’t surprising; they were sisters, lived in the same home. There was no evidence of Eve’s blood found on Nola’s clothes.

  I go back to the report and continue reading. It also chronicled the state of Eve’s clothing. She was wearing a coat, jeans and a turtleneck sweater. Testing back in 1996 showed the blood found on Eve’s clothing belonged to Eve. No other physical evidence—semen or hair—was found.

  I move to the autopsy photographs but can’t stand looking at them except for a cursory glance. Instead I return to the crime scene photos.

  The next several pictures were taken from the same distance away but using a zoom lens focused on Eve’s body. She’s lying on her back, arms at her side as if in the midst of making a snow angel, except for the crimson pillow of congealed blood beneath her head.

  When I’ve looked at them all I realize that my face is wet with tears. I’ve had enough for today.

  I reach for my phone and besides missing a half a dozen calls from Shaun, I’m surprised to see that it’s just about five o’clock.

  I call Shaun back and say I’m sorry before he even says hello. “I didn’t see your texts,” I say.

  “I was worried. You missed your doctor appointment. We were supposed to meet there at four,” he says, his voice tight with irritation.

  “Dammit,” I say. “I completely forgot. I came back to work to follow up on a few things and time got away from me. I’m sorry.”

  Shaun doesn’t respond. I really screwed up.

  “I’ll call the doctor first thing in the morning. I’m sure everything is fine. I feel fine.”

  “I just can’t believe you’d take this chance, Maggie,” Shaun says. “We’ve gotten this far, we can’t have anything happen now.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen,” I snap. “It’s just one appointment. I said I’ll call tomorrow.”

  “Okay, fine,” Shaun says. I know it’s not fine.

  “I’m on my way home,” I tell him, softening my tone.

  “Don’t hurry because of me,” Shaun says flatly. “I’m working late tonight.” Then silence. He hung up on me.

  I sigh and rub my forehead. Obviously from the sheer number of documents collected, my dad and the sheriff’s department were very thorough in their investigation but their organization skills left something to be desired. That wasn’t like my dad. Were his memory issues already surfacing? I couldn’t put my finger on exactly when my dad began to fail but I’m almost positive it wasn’t back then.

  Our new chief, on the other hand, had no history of neurological decline. What was his excuse? I would have to tread lightly. Digby not only had decades more experience than I did in law enforcement, he was my boss. It would do no good to openly criticize their investigation.

  I pull the lid off a cardboard box labeled Eve Knox—Interviews and am met with a stack of papers that nearly spill over the edge. “Jesus,” I murmur.

  What a mess.

  I start with the page at the top and begin to arrange the interviews in alphabetical order. Once I have them organized and inserted into a new binder I begin to read.

  I see names of classmates that I haven’t thought about in years. Most don’t have anything useful to add. No, they didn’t see Eve after she left school on December twenty-second. No, they didn’t have any idea as to who might want to hurt her. She was nice, she had no enemies, she loved her boyfriend and he loved her, her sister was weird.

  I knew what that was like—loving someone but being afraid of them. I wish Eve and I could have talked about it. Who we loved and what we feared. Maybe we could have helped each other through it, together. Maybe things could have turned out differently.

  The statement from Miss Cress, the Grotto High art teacher, is kind of cryptic. She mentioned that Eve had come to her the day she died a bit upset but didn’t reveal much about why. Eve was supposed to meet with Miss Cress after school but never showed up. I wonder what they were going to talk about.

  I come across the transcript of the interview I did with Dex Stroope back in 1995 and immediately set it aside. I’m not ready to read it yet. That was such an awful night. I remember crying nearly all the way through and running to the bathroom several times to vomit. I couldn’t believe my friend was gone. Forever. My dad finally stepped in to end the interview. Enough, he said.

  I slam the binder shut. Enough. This was enough for now. Tomorrow, I’ll do a few quick follow-up interviews and then pack up the evidence and get it sent off to the lab. It will take some time to get the results; there is always a big backlog at the state lab when it comes to testing evidence.

  I rise from my seat. I need to go home to the orchard, to the apple trees and my cats and my husband. I want to lie on the couch with my hands resting on my abdomen feeling the baby move beneath my fingers. I want to be lulled to sleep by my little girl floating within the ocean of my womb.

  My hand is on the light switch when I pause and turn back to the shelf. I reach for the thick binder of interviews and tuck it beneath my arm and shut and lock the door with a gentle click.

  911 Transcript

  Item #1—911 Call

  Grotto Police Department

  Transcript of 911 Call for Service

  12/22/95—9:48 p.m.

  DISPATCHER: 911, What is your emergency?

  VB: Someone’s been killed. I’ve got two girls here who say they found a dead girl. Please hurry!

  DISPATCHER: What’s your address?

  VB: 29 Ransom Lane. Please hurry. She said her sister was killed. What if he’s still out there?

  DISPATCHER: Killed? As in murdered?

  VB: Yes!

  DISPATCHER: Are your doors locked?

  VB: I don’t know. The back door, I need to lock the back door!

  DISPATCHER: Go lock it and come right back.

  VB: Okay, they’re locked.

  DISPATCHER: Good. Now tell me what happened.

  VB: Two girls came knocking on my door and one said her sister is dead. Oh my God.

  DISPATCHER: I’m sending someone to your home right now. What’s your name?

  VB: Shhhh, honey, I can’t hear what they’re saying. It’s going to be okay. What? What did you ask me?

  DISPATCHER: What’s your name?

  VB: Vivian Benson.

  DISPATCHER: Okay, Vivian, did the girls say where the sister is right now?

  VB: They say she’s down at Ransom Caves. They came over here when they found her. Where are the police? What’s taking so long?

  DISPATCHER: Help is coming. I promise. How old are the girls?

  VB: How old are you?

  Muffled speech

  VB: Thirteen and fifteen.

  DISPATCHER: Okay. Can one of them speak to me?

  Muffled speech.

  VB: Yes, she can talk to you. Here she is.

  NK: Hello?

  DISPATCHER: Are you in a safe place? Are you okay?

  NK: Yeah, I’m okay.

  DISPATCHER: Good, good. Can you tell me your name?

  NK: Nola Knox. We found my sister.

  DISPATCHER: Where did you find her? We’ll send help.

  NK: I don’t think you can help her.

  DISPATCHER: Do you know what happened? What are
her injuries?

  NK: She’s dead. Someone killed her.

  DISPATCHER: Are you sure? Could she just be hurt very badly?

  NK: No, she wasn’t breathing. I checked her pulse. Be quiet, Maggie! I can’t hear!

  DISPATCHER: You checked her pulse?

  NK: Yes. No pulse. Her skin was blue.

  DISPATCHER: Okay. You’re doing a great job. How do you know someone killed her?

  NK: Her head. I could tell by her head.

  DISPATCHER: Someone hurt her in the head?

  NK: Yes. It was bashed in. She was pale. There were little dots on her skin. Around her eyes.

  DISPATCHER: Did you see her being attacked? Do you know who hurt her?

  NK: No. I don’t know.

  DISPATCHER: Okay, Nola. I want you stay where you are. A police officer is on his way over.

  NK: Okay.

  DISPATCHER: Can you put Vivian on the phone for me, Nola?

  Muffled speech

  VB: Yes? What now? What should we do? She’s hysterical. She can’t stop crying.

  DISPATCHER: What’s her name?

  Muffled speech

  VB: It’s Maggie Kennedy. She said her dad is Chief Kennedy. It’s going to be okay, Maggie, the doors are locked. No one can get in. Nola, go get Maggie a glass of water from the kitchen.

  DISPATCHER: Just do your best to keep everyone calm. An officer will be there shortly. Can you get blankets for the girls? Keep them warm? They could be in shock.

  VB: Yes, but the other one is fine. She’s calm. Very calm. It’s not right.

  DISPATCHER: Okay. Stay on the line until the police arrive.

  VB: I hear the siren. They’re here.

  EVE KNOX

  Friday, December 22, 1995

  7:05 a.m.

  Eve sat on the edge of the bathtub staring at the blue tiles, trying to think of a way to keep Nola from telling their mother about the bruises.

  They called this room the Larimar Bathroom even though it was the only bathroom in the house. Many years ago, Nola christened it Larimar after seeing a picture of the pale blue mineral in a book she borrowed from the library. So now it became the Larimar, like it was some fancy hotel powder room with gilded mirrors instead of a pukey-yellow-and-blue bathroom with a leaky faucet, moldy tub and shower and cracked tiled floor. Maybe it would be better if it all came out. How Nick treated her, the name-calling, the pushing and roughness. He always claimed he was just joking, that she was overreacting. Was she? And anyway, who would even believe her? She was a nobody.