by catt dahman
I’m gonna either barely graduate and go to work or go on to work early.”
I listened and watched Judy light a cigarette. She had a new crutch. “I’ll get knocked up and get married to some loser, and so will the rest of the kids marry and drift from job to job, town to town, and we’ll get further apart.
One day Mom will die, and some of us won’t make the funeral. If we do, we’ll talk about Susie, and the youngest won’t remember her so well; time is gonna erase a lot, David.”
“I suppose it does for everyone.”
“Yep, well, it will be as if Susie never was.” Her eyes were shining with emotion. “And everyone will forget she ever lived.”
“You won’t.”
“No, I won’t. But someone did this to her…to us… and got away with it. What if he does it again? Or has?”
“You think he has?”
“Have you seen…there was a girl missing, and one killed that sounded odd. They didn’t look exactly like Susie but…”
“Similar?”
“Yeah.” She fished out a fresh cigarette. “I watch things.”
“I saw a little, I guess, but again, I’m not a detective. I have no idea what to think.” Funny we had put things together, but no one else had.
“I’m just bouncing ideas. Do you think someone is killing blondes?”
“We would be told if they were, right?”
“Maybe.”
Now, right here, it’s a good place to note that Texarkana was once called Little Chicago, and the mob was king; in 1946 there had been a serial killer here who shot and bludgeoned several people, robbed, raped some of the female victims, and generally preyed upon lovers’ lane.
The stalker had appointed himself to judge those parked, stealing from and torturing them. One girl, he had made play a sickening game with him: he chased her, caught her, and chased her again, destroying her mind, and leaving her body torn and bruised.
He was never caught, and most of us could recall the fear of that time period. Some cited police incompetence, political favors, public disinterest, and limited skills and resources.
But it was much more; there had been survivors, but no one could describe the man, and he appeared and vanished like the wind, following his plan and then going away. All that tied the events together was his insane agenda to murder and terrorize young people who were in privacy.
Susie had died in a different way, and maybe there was no police connection, but Judy, like me, had seen the similarities in the girls’ looks to connect a few dots. If there could be one serial killer, and keep in mind, this was before they used that term, there could be a second. Back then, they called them a hell of a lunatic, pronounced on the Arkansas side as a hail of a liner-tic.
“I think the police would have figured it out,” I said to Judy, but I didn’t really know.
“Well, I appreciate your time. I think I may lighten my hair, go blonde, and see if I can get anyone sniffing around.”
Oh no. Not good. “That sounds dangerous.”
Judy said, “Not if I am wrong.” She hugged me. “Besides I have a pretty tough new boyfriend who would fight for me in a heartbeat. I wish you all the best, David.”
I felt bad for Judy. She needed more help than I could give her; she needed a good detective, but I wasn’t a detective; I was just a guy who studied hard, watched people too curiously, listened too much to others, and connected a lot of dots. Oh, you thought I spent all my time studying and seeing Grace like I said I did? Sorry. I had one or two other hobbies as well; I kept my secrets, but others? They didn’t keep secrets as well.
Cue my laugh here.
Chapter 15
I took Grace to the Valentine’s Day Dance. Bernie glared at us but kept his mouth and temper in check, surprising me.
Coming out of the lav, I heard muffled voices. The Student Union Building was set into a labyrinth of rooms and little coves; I had a fast-building headache, and I was curious. Who was arguing at a romantic dance?
“I don’t care; I’m not Grace.” That was interesting.
Why was Jennifer whispering that and to whom? No one was around, so I crept through dark doorways, watching for shadows, listening.
She was cursing softly; Bernie was the other person, and he was just as angry, telling her to shut up. The gist was Bernie was mad about losing Grace, and Jennifer was furious that he cared. Back and forth, they argued. She whispered anxiously that he should date her again while he arrogantly chuckled, telling her he didn’t date whores.
“Crack.” Okay, someone had been slapped, but the whispers continued quietly with sniffling. If Bernie saw me, there would be a huge fistfight and more than a few obscenities tossed; it would not look really well for me or for Grace.
I needed to butt out and save an unworthy dramatic display. I might have turned, but I heard moaning. Someone was in pain. Not intending to play hero, but just having a need to know, I crept closer. Shadows flickered.
The door was opened a crack, so they could listen for anyone coming, its window was double paned, lightly frosted with wire embedded. Fun fact: Years later they would demolish this building amid asbestos insulation.
Jennifer was moaning, but it wasn’t pain. I watched for just a few seconds, long enough to see she was enjoying his attentions; they were making love against a wall.
I went back to the dance, my headache gone, humming with Connie Francis, wondering about their odd behavior, wondering who was sorry now. Jennifer had clearly been willing, but strange that they both got pleasure with his hand tight against her throat.
Now, I knew why she often wore scarves tightly wrapped around her neck.
I felt sorry for Jennifer.
I didn’t see them return to the dance, but we were having fun, and I can’t say I was watching for them. I just kept my secret close.
It may be hard to imagine how we still were around friends who just didn’t say anything about Grace and me being a couple, but it was not an issue.
Mostly, Grace and I spent time alone, watching a sunset at the lake, holding hands on her porch, studying quietly. There was comfort and ease in the simplicity, and no, I had been right about the fact that sex was indeed fun and pleasurable, bringing us closer, but it wasn’t all we had; there were weeks when we weren’t able to be alone. I don’t think it changed either of us. It was finally so easy to live now, just to be at peace.
Chapter 16
Winter turned to spring with East Texas alight with color. No place compares with East Texas for beauty in the spring where all the colors take on a surrealistic quality. The semester ended with our having 4.0 grade averages. Both sets of parents began to look at us with smiles, and Grace became part of my family, and I became part of hers. We were a couple.
Next, the summer blazed with humidity. Cool as they were, my parents had finally installed a small kidney-shaped pool in our backyard for their upcoming second childhood when I left the nest. There were cook outs with good East Texas bar-be-cue every weekend, and Grace and I almost lived in that pool, tanning dark. Our friends gathered there almost daily to swim. Some evenings, Grace’s parents played Monopoly with us. Her mom cheated.
Every day with Grace wasn’t nearly enough.
We decided to announce our engagement that Christmas, but it wasn’t something we dwelled on. It would happen as it happened.
Then, before we were ready, it was September, and we were back in classes. That year, it was unmercifully hot and humid. My shirts, with my sweat, stuck like glue to me; even the girls’ short-shorts in class that fall didn’t make the weather tolerable.
A girl went missing in Spring Lake Park.
Sweating like railroad workers, we searched the paths and woods as part of a volunteer search group. Near the duck pond, mosquitoes and flies plagued us when we frequently had to take breaks, drinking Kool-Aid and water to avoid dehydration.
Deputies searched, too, wearing soaked uniforms and carrying guns, reminding us that this was serious.
Will’s brother, Brad, had just started as a deputy.
The girl was only fourteen, but Grace had done a double take after seeing the picture that circulated; the teen could have passed for a sister to my girlfriend.
The park pylons at the entrance to Spring Lake Park stood like sentinels and were built of rusty-colored stones, tall, dark, and spider-filled. Each reeked of urine since they were used by kids playing at the park and couples out parking at night. They stank with the urine, old and soaked into the soured dirt.
Empty. We gulped water from the fountain, watching people fill containers for drinking water.
Men in hip-waders trudged through the edges of the duck pond where reeds grew thick, glared out towards the deeper, mucky water that might have to be dredged. It was rank, muddy water filled with duck and goose crap, some dead fish, and old molded bread that the animals refused.
Those volunteers, older than we were, remembered that one couple, a decade before, had been attacked at Spring Lake Park. So far, there was no reason to be reminded of that time, yet they were. Old stories were whispered. This time, the girl had been walking home, through the park as a short cut, and had not returned home in forty-eight hours.
At seven that night, there were shouts, and people went running, only to be held back by deputies. In a few minutes, we heard the girl’s mother and relatives screaming. Moving close to a few deputies, I listened as they said she had been found far behind the zoo in the woods under a tree.
She was dead; they speculated that she had climbed a tree and fallen, breaking her neck. Years later, the medical community would have forensics tests for all kinds of things, but at that time, a broken neck was pretty well conclusive, so it was written off as an accident.
I wasn’t so sure.
Chapter 17
In October, the weather turned cooler.
After I picked up Grace for a party, we drove over. Cornering me at once, Will had plenty to tell me. “Did you hear about Bernie?”
“No, what happened?”
“I got the whole thing from my brother, Brad; you know, he’s a deputy now?”
“I saw that. Is he liking it?”
“Yeah, mostly. Hours get to him, sometimes.”
“What’s up?”
“ Okay, Brad told me Bernie went over to see Jennifer at her house, and they had a huge fight.”
“That is hardly big news. They’ve always fought.”
“Well, it was about you and Grace.”
“What the hell?” I was shocked.
“Seems he started in on Jennifer about how she should be more like Grace…classy and all. Bernie was yelling all this stuff, saying how Jennifer was trash and Grace was a lady, really letting loose.”
“Typical Bernie.”
“But he was angrier than ever before.”
“Wow.”
“Wow, is right. He went on about how Grace was perfect; he kept stressing that, over and over that she was so pure and perfect. Witnesses said he was raving about that part,” Will said.
“What an idiot.”
“So, Jennifer said something such as, ‘perfect girls get perfect guys’ as if Grace had chosen you and not Bernie.”
“That sounds bad.”
“It gets worse. Brad said that Jennifer said Bernie was loud, almost seemed to be in a trance, acting as if he were half there, and she thought he was drunk.”
“Maybe he was.”
“Naw, Brad said he was sober. But even if Jennifer were ‘creeped out’, you know how she is: she won’t back down from a fight with Bernie.”
“True. She has a temper.”
“She lost it.”
“So what happened?” I was ready to hear him out and get back to Grace.
“Jennifer said she taunted him. She asked him that if Grace were so perfect, then why had Grace been seeing you while she dated Bernie and why was Grace sleeping with you? Grace wasn’t so pure and perfect after all.”
I blushed. It was if all my private information had been shared with the world. “Jennifer has a big mouth. How does she think she knew any of that?”
“Man, this isn’t a tiny town, but the mentality here is small. You know everyone knows everyone else’s secrets. Maybe she just guessed that or made it up; I don’t know, and I don’t care, but Jennifer screamed that at Bernie.”
“Guess he was mad.”
“David, he lost it. Brad said Jennifer was beaten really badly.”
“He hit her?”
“No, he beat her. Not like with Walter, thankfully, but Bernie smacked her around pretty badly.
“She was in the hospital, may still be.”
“Then they took him to jail, okay? And Brad told me Bernie was still blaming Jennifer for causing him to beat on her, by saying all of that about Grace. But this is the weird part: he wasn’t upset about what he did to Jennifer or being in jail or the secrets; he was going on and on and on about Grace not being perfect anymore. Brad said it was creepy to listen to Bernie just moaning about Grace failing.”
“Seriously?”
“The Sheriff told him to shut up, and he kept saying, ‘Grace failed’.”
“That’s weird.”
“No kidding. So now you know. Everyone is talking about it.”
“That’s fast.”
“You know how this place is with gossip….”
I squeezed his shoulder to thank him, took Grace’s arm, hurriedly, and summed up the gossip, and we walked in. We thought it best to say hello to friends and then leave early. In retrospect, yes, we should have never gone in.
The music was down low, people were standing around blankly.
“Hi!” Jim called out, “did you all hear about Bernie?”
Small town mentality, indeed. “We heard.”
“It’s horrible,” Sandra said, walking over to us.
“I hope things get better,” Grace mumbled numbly as we went to get sodas. Sandra followed.
“Can you imagine how that felt?”
I didn’t want to know how it felt to be beaten that way. “Can’t imagine.”
“What a shock.”
“Seems the secrets came out,” Jim said.
“No one is perfect.” Lu laughed.
“Wish I had seen it.” Nell sneered.
“It’s just all wrong.”
I felt goose bumps as my hair stood up on end, Nothing felt right, as if people were reciting lines from a play. “We should go.”
“I can’t believe how everyone was fooled,” Colli stated, staring at Grace with fury blazing in her eyes. This was the same girl who was friendly to both of us and had been for the last year, knowing we were dating. It was out of character.
“What?” Grace looked flummoxed.
“There is no perfection,” Colli spat. Buddy laughed.
“Colli…” I knew it was time for us to get out, but we seemed locked in place. Maybe I was misunderstanding this? Lorene stared, open jawed, and walked out of the room in disgust, staring Grace down.
Cornelia smiled, her hand on Bobby’s arm. “I just hope Bernie is okay after all this is over.”
“Bernie?” I stuttered.
“Yes, Bernie.”
“It was Jennifer who was beaten up?” I stammered.
Violet eyes lit up. “It seems to me that Bernie simply hit the wrong person.”
Grace stepped back as if she had been slapped, looking at me.
Colli moved in closer. “Maybe he should have gone a few rounds with you, David. Or with her.” She pointed at Grace.
“I agree,” Jim said, and Buddy echoed it.
What the hell?
“Looks as if you drove Bernie to do this,” Bobby stated as he casually popped a pretzel into his mouth.
“We’re going. You all are acting like a bunch of nuts.” I was angry now. These people, some of whom I had known since grade school, were like strangers.
“You know you should be ashamed,” someone said.
I glanced at Will. Grace was gr
ipping my hand like a vise.
“David, go.” That was Will, his usual happy, funny visage replaced by confusion, as if he were not quite sure of himself. These were not my friends. I felt as if something were controlling them, making them say these things.
We turned to go, but the crowd was all around us. Claustrophobia reigned. They stood so close that I would have to push past them now.
“Not so perfect.” Cornelia laughed again.
“Bunch of small town sheep acting like a mob. What the hell is wrong with you all? “ I roared. “Get out of our way.”
Lu and Nell, in disbelief, confusion covering their faces, finally walked away. Both were pale as milk, a sheen of sweat covering their faces.
Will was shaking, his eyes wide and wet.
Charles followed Patsy as she ran to another room, holding her head as if in pain, making gagging sounds.
Not a one of them would even remember saying these awful things later; they would swear they hadn’t, but for now, they were saying terrible, hurtful things.
“Come on.” Grace pulled at my hand, reminding me we were leaving.
“Slut.”
Everyone turned to Jim as he said it.
There was a warm stillness in the room, tension, something that made me cold and hot at the same time, made my hair stay raised, suffocated me. There was no oxygen.
I wanted to run out but was frozen in place. It wasn’t a mob of people distracting me, but a noise somewhere in my head that buzzed at my hairline, too high pitched to hear, so low pitched that I felt nauseated. I wasn’t sure if I were there or not; my hand was transparent; I didn’t feel the floor beneath my shoes.
And they all felt it, too. But they could hear something else besides the white noise. Something spoke into their ears. Whispering urgently, the voice told the things, and they cocked their heads, straining to hear. Like Bernie. Like…
I swung around, almost falling, and grabbed for Grace to run. But she had moved first. She ran.
Will, sweat dripping from his face, shoved me, breaking the paralysis so we could follow. Trudging in molasses, I tried to hurry after Grace, but it was so slow.