by N L Westaway
This was seriously personal for him; Gwen had only truly realized now. “Yer gonna find him, Detective—I just know it,” she said, just as the waitress arrived with her food. Gwen had had an idea, through Scott, about the length of time his father had been on this case, and this had to be the turning point for him.
Scott eyeballed her food. “Sorry—Miss,” he said, to the woman twice his age. “Could I get the same?” He gave her a boyish grin.
She grinned back and gave him a little wink. “Anything for you, sweetheart,” she said, then hustled off to fill the order.
Gwen smacked him on the arm. “What? She loves me—what can I say,” Scott said, rubbing his upper arm.
“You’re not eating anything, Detective?” Gwen asked, as she dispensed a blob of ketchup on her plate.
“Naw-naw—I like to eat breakfast with my wife, when I can. She’ll be waking up soon,” he said, checking his watch. “She’d love to see you for dinner—sometime soon, Scott.”
Gwen smacked him on the arm again.
“Ouch, you’re one to talk—when was the last time you saw your mom?” Scott countered, picking up his knife and fork as if to use them for weapons.
“Ya-ya, I know,” Gwen said, knowing she was due for a visit with her own mother. Redirecting the topic, she asked, “Sir, where did this all start—I mean, how did you get involved?” She stared at the detective over the rim of her coffee cup as she took a long sip, then said, “Did you always want to be a cop?”
“Did I always want to be a cop? No—but I knew pretty early on that I wanted to solve mysteries,” he said. “I didn’t want to be a regular cop—not that it’s a bad thing, it just wasn’t what I wanted to do.”
“Did you grow up in Detroit?” Gwen asked, curious now what drove this man to devote so much of his life to this case.
“Nope, I’m from a small town, but I moved to the big city of Detroit because I didn’t want to be a small-town cop. Something happened in my hometown—that made me want to solve crimes, not just protect citizens from them.”
“Were you living in the same town as the first murder—the first of the serial murders?” Gwen asked, her next question already waiting.
Scott’s food arrived, and Detective Franklin seem to be waiting until the waitress was gone before answering, then he leaned in and said, “The first murder was in Hanover, New Hampshire in the fall of 1998, and less than an hour from where I grew up. I had already completed my degree in Criminal Justice and had only just completed my training at the police academy when I’d initially heard about it. It wasn’t considered a serial case back then yet.” He leaned back. “Have you ever thought of becoming a police detective—you seem like this might be just up your alley,” he added, with a grin.
“Ha—not a chance, but I love a good mystery,” Gwen said, then took another bite of her food, totally engrossed and ready for more.
“You and Dad will get along great then,” Scott said, cutting in between bites of his own breakfast.
Detective Franklin went on, relaying the details of the initial murder. A professor of course, this one was from the Art History Department at Dartmouth College, an Ivy League college with quite the reputation and Hanover had been ranked the sixth best place to live in the country. “They’d had no leads, but students had come forward saying they heard that the professor could get a bit too touchy-feely with the female students,” he said.
“Much like this professor,” Gwen added.
“Guess you heard that part too then,” Detective Franklin said.
“Ya—that kind of thing gets around these days,” Scott said, pushing his plate to the side.
“Do you think a student could be responsible for this?” Gwen asked.
“Not if this is part of the serial case—which it seems to be,” the detective responded. “They’d be too young to have committed the other murders.”
“A parent maybe—a father? Word does get around. Maybe this guy has a daughter who was harassed by the professor, maybe his mother—or a sister of his had been harassed by that original professor—and that started him on his spree,” Gwen suggested.
“So, what—this guy goes from town to town, waiting to see if any professors harass female students and then he kills them?” Scott said, debunking Gwen’s theory.
“Got any better ideas?” she asked, play stabbing his hand with her fork.
“Are you sure you guys aren’t related—you argue like siblings,” Detective Franklin, said with a hearty laugh.
“She wishes,” Scott said, squishing her into the corner of the booth. He had her by at least a hundred pounds. He was built like a tank, played rugby in high school, and still went faithfully to the gym.
She had played volleyball, not quite a contact sport, and she was tall, like her mother, not as tall as he was but still. She shoved him back, tried to at least. “We don’t look anything alike,” Gwen said. They didn’t, he had a square face, hers was oval, his eyes were pale blue, hers were brown, her hair was strawberry blond and his was brown, but she thought of him as someone she would have liked to have known growing up, since she hadn’t had many friends, nor any siblings.
“Where does your mom live?” the detective asked.
“She’s just out of town in Ann Arbor, but she grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. My grandmother still lives there.
“That’s where I’m originally from.” He leaned in again. “What’s your mother’s name?”
“Oh, you might know her, Laura Jamison,” Gwen said.
“Hmmm doesn’t ring a bell. How old is she?” the detective asked, rubbing his jaw.
“She turned 40 this past April.” Gwen at the last bit of her meal, then pushed her plate to the side, to invade Scott’s side of the table.
Detective Franklin shook his head. “Ya—no, we wouldn’t have been in school together back then. And I don’t recognize the name.” He shrugged.
Gwen shrugged. She hadn’t known much about her mother’s past, and her mom didn’t talk about it. She didn’t talk much about anything from her life, not even Gwen’s father. All she knew was that he had died in a car crash shortly after he and her mother had gotten married, he wouldn’t have even known Gwen existed at the time of his death.
Drawing Gwen’s attention back, Detective Franklin said, “It wasn’t until the next two murders, one at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and the other at Middlebury College in Middlebury Vermont, that the feds realized that they had a serial killer on their hands.”
Chapter 5
September 1st, 2008 - Charlottesville, Virginia
When they had first moved to Charlottesville, Laura had swiftly secured a new job at a family run chain-style bakery, and she had found a new place for them to live in a four-plex. Their new place was on the first floor with a shared front door for all the units, but out back they each had their own space, the bottom floors being porches and the upper units being balconies. Laura had been hesitant at first with the two entrances, communal front and personal back, but having the back porch and yard, tiny as it was, it had provided them a nice space to sit outside they had not had before.
Laura had hated that Gwen had to finish out her school year in a new place but there had not been much Laura could do about it. Knowing that Gwen made friends easily, she had breathed a sigh of relief when she had made friends with the little boy and girl next door on the same floor as them. The back porches had only a long skinny planter to divide them and the yard space was more like one big fenced-in space for the kids to play. The two kids had even offered to walk with Gwen to school each day. It was just up the street, but Laura had found some comfort in the three walking together. And their mother, a bit down and out and on social assistance, was a respectful woman, and had given Laura plenty of privacy when they had moved in.
As the school year ended, the little girl next door was having a birthday party, and Gwen had been invited. The party had been mostly girls, the lit
tle brother the only boy, eight kids in total, and it was then that Laura realized, Gwen preferred the company of the little boy over the girls, as she had played with him the whole time. Gwen was a bit of a tomboy, which made boys more appealing to play with, Laura had guessed. Either way, Laura was happy if Gwen was happy. Until she wasn’t, Gwen that is.
The fall of that same year, in the second week of the new school year, Laura received a call to come to the school. When she’d arrived, the vice principle explained that Gwen and the neighbor boy and another little boy had been playing some game that Gwen had been winning at, the other boy upset at not winning, had said something to upset Gwen. Both her neighbor and the mother of the other boy had been called in too. Apparently, the boy had said something about how Gwen was a loser because she didn’t have a father. That’s when Gwen had yelled at the kid, saying, “We don’t need a father, do we?” Referring to herself and the neighbor boy. Then she had punched the kid hard, which is what had actually gotten her in trouble and why the parents had been called down to the school.
When Gwen was brought into the office, she had entered wiping her eyes using both hands, and Laura could tell her daughter had been crying.
“Well they don’t—have fathers,” the other boy’s mother said, before Laura had a chance to even speak to her daughter.
Laura and the neighbor glared back at the woman, then Laura said, “Gwen, you are not to play with that little boy again.” Then she turned her daughter to go back out the door.
“My son won’t be playing with your son either,” her neighbor said, as she followed the Laura and Gwen out.
On the walk home, the neighbor expressed that both Laura and her daughter were kind and personable, but still private, and that would not do well with making friends around here. She also said she knew that people liked to pry, but she wasn’t one of them. Laura had liked the neighbor, liked that she rarely made any negative comments despite her circumstances, and she had liked her even more after that.
Later that night, after the kids had been put to bed, Laura and the neighbor sat out on their respective back porches, chatting. The neighbor shared with Laura about her kids’ father, about how she’d had to escape an abusive marriage, literally change states, with the assistance of a government funded program she’d found, and that she and her kids were doing great now and were all better off without him.
Laura found a connection and a sense of security with what her neighbor had shared, and Laura chose to share her story as well. She explained that Gwen’s father had died before Gwen had been born, had left her with nothing, how they’d been young when they had gotten married, how she’d moved around a lot, and how it had been hard finding work at times. But she also told her how she loved working in the baking industry, and that her daughter was happy here. “Gwen is resilient—more than me,” she said to her new friend.
“You should try for more courses,” the neighbor suggested to her.
Laura had been intrigued by the idea, though another year went by before she was brave enough to take the plunge.
The University of Virginia was another one of those small-town schools Laura loved so much, and had been founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819, not that that was important to Laura, she had just found it interesting. The school had a multitude of programs, but Laura was only interested in the state funded evening cooking classes they offered, the ones her neighbor had told her about. She liked the idea of expanding her cooking knowledge outside of her baking skills, and she enrolled that September.
By Christmas she had completed her first intensive course. It had been harder than she’d expected but she’d learned a lot, and as a small bonus, the class worked together on the last day, to prepare a variety of holiday specialties for their own little holiday party.
Laura had been enjoying the food and the comradery with the other women from the class, when she’d heard a voice from behind her say, “Men are better cooks—we all know that. But women, I’d allow them to still work in the field.” When Laura turned around, she saw a fat fifty-something man, with a greasy face, wearing a bad suit, going from serving dish to serving dish, sticking his finger in each and then lifting the finger to taste each one. Luckily, they had all had their servings, but it had still been disgusting to watch. He hadn’t used a napkin to wipe off his hands, instead he wiped the saliva covered finger he’d used across the front of his suit jacket, then he’d dipped it into the next pot, and so on.
One of the other women from the class glanced over at Laura, and said, “Another one of those professors who doesn’t practice what they preach.”
“What?” Laura asked.
“You know, those who can’t—teach. He teaches The Politics of Food class here.” She rolled her eyes.
The man seemed to think he owned the place and had glowered at Laura while he licked his fingers from the last dish. It took everything she had not to throw up right there. She chose then to make her excuse to leave and say her goodbyes to the teacher and the other students. She had been having fun, but she needed to go, needed the comfort of her home and to see Gwen snug in her bed. When she got home, she’d carried Gwen into her bed to sleep with her. She had felt uneasy about something, something that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
In the morning, as she headed out the door with Gwen, she ran into her favorite neighbor. “How was the last night?” the neighbor asked.
“Good,” she said, handing Gwen off to walk with the other two kids.
When the kids were out of earshot, the neighbor said, “Did you hear about the professor? He taught in the same building where you took your course.” The neighbor crossed her arms over her chest.
“Which professor,” Laura asked, worried something might have happened to her teacher. She scanned the street, glancing right then left.
“Dead—they thought it was a heart attack, but the cops say it’s murder,” she told her, leading against one of the posts that held up the tiny front porch roof.
Laura’s worry turned suddenly to dread. “Not the guy who teaches Politics of Food?”
“Ya—that’s the one—why, did you know him?” she asked.
“No-no, I didn’t,” Laura sputtered out, feeling sick suddenly.
“Good, because I hear he was a real pig,” she said, then snorted, “looked like one too in the photo they showed on the news.”
“I gotta go,” Laura said, moving her satchel off her shoulder, instead to cross over her chest, then she rushed down the front steps and off to work.
Later, when she returned home from work, she found a postcard in her mailbox, had almost been expecting it, but what she hadn’t expected, was what had been written in the message.
It had said,
Congratulations on completing your course!
As a reward, I killed that professor for you. And I’m going to let you stay here for a while.
Just don’t get too comfortable, and remember, no police, or you and your daughter will NOT live to regret it.
I see you, Laura. I’m watching you both.
Enjoy your reward!
Murder was not a reward. But being able to stay, was, because the owners at her job had been impressed with the assistance Laura had given them with developing a new line of savory goods for the bakery.
The line went on to be successful for both the local sales and distributed, and as a result, Laura had been asked to oversee it and any new development. And over the next two years, along with running the development for the bakery, Laura had been able to learn the production and distribution side of things with the company. As an added bonus, thankfully, Laura had heard no news regarding any new murders, nor had she heard anything from her stalker. Though that hadn’t been the case with her moves prior.
In Lewisburg back in 2002, despite hearing the news about the murder, she had stayed for an additional year that time. She hadn’t been in a position to move right away, and with the obvious changes in the
messages from her sick stalker, the focus now on her daughter, she had felt it best not to throw suspicion her way and keep the cops at bay. If she had taken off right after the murder like she’d done previously, it would have looked sketchy why, and considering she had been the one who had talked to the victim that day, it may have looked as though she had a motive or had been somehow involved. And in a way, she had been.
She had information that could be vital to the cops, but what could she have told them, that some guy had been following her across the country, killing professors as devotional tokens of some sort? All that would have done was given her unwanted attention, put her daughter in the spotlight, and possibly enrage this stalker to take things to another level, potentially hurting her and her daughter, or worse. She hated knowing someone was out there killing people, but she couldn’t risk it. Maybe it had been selfish, but she had only one goal, and that was to keep her daughter safe. The following January, she had been better prepared to move again. In Baltimore, Maryland, she had found a place to live and had secured another job at a bakery.
The owners had been impressed with her skills and work ethic, but what they had really needed was someone to help manage the place as well. Into her first month at the bakery, the owners had suggested Laura take some business courses, that they would even pay for them. She hadn’t wanted to pass up the opportunity, so she had enrolled in one of the evening classes that had been starting that month.
When March rolled in, she had been in her glory, working the morning shift while her daughter attended school, her afternoons were spent with Gwen, and evenings spent attending class or working on her homework. The place she had rented was the upper level of a duplex, though she would have preferred the lower, the landlord and owner of the place occupied the first floor. The older woman clearly hadn’t needed the rent money, and Laura had been convinced that renting to someone had been more about wanting the company, because she had invited them for supper that first night when they’d moved in, and later, when Laura had told her about the night classes, she’d generously offered to watch Gwen for her anytime. Between her job, the paid-for night classes at the local university, and the built-in babysitter, all things considered, Laura had felt her new setup was a win, win, win.