Their Last Secret

by Rick Mofina

  Jurek and other officers moved in, prying Marie from her mother, fastening her wrists with handcuffs.

  “You need not say anything...” Sloan continued “...anything you do or say may be used as evidence. Do you understand?”

  “No!” Marie cried out. Her knees crumpled and two male officers half dragged, then all but carried her down the driveway, her toes brushing the asphalt, placing her into the back of one of the cars.

  Flo and Ned were blocked by officers from approaching it, leaving them staring at Marie, who’d leaned to the side window.

  Her parents’ faces were frozen in utter confused agony, piercing her. The only time she’d seen them in such pain was when Pike died.

  Neighbors gawked from doors, windows and driveways.

  Sloan then began advising Ned and Flo that they would be required to leave their home untouched, aided by police, in preparation for the search—but they weren’t listening. They were watching Marie.

  As the car rolled away, and as if to underscore the moment, the radio in Ned’s truck began playing an Elvis Presley song. “Suspicious Minds.”

  Thirty

  Orange County, California

  Present day

  Emma guided her SUV through the Valley Meadow High School staff parking lot with a mix of relief and apprehension.

  A week had passed since the book sale. The local news had run the story. She’d survived having a TV camera on her, glad it was all behind her. But she had yet to deal with Marisa. In the time after confronting her, Emma had gone by her place twice, even rang the bell, steeling herself, fingers wrapped around a can of pepper spray in her bag, in case the gun-toting boyfriend tried something. No one answered and there was no sign of Marisa’s car.

  I don’t like this, Emma thought, walking across the school lot, glancing at the street, not seeing Marisa’s green Ford Focus.

  Gripping her phone as she entered the school, Emma submitted “Marisa Joyce Narmore” to an online search. Emma’s previous checks of Marisa’s name had yielded nothing. What she found this time stopped her cold: the Orange County Register’s news feed had a photo of a car wreck, with the story:

  Santa Ana Freeway Crash Victim Identified

  Marisa Joyce Narmore, 32, of Santa Ana, was the victim in a single-vehicle crash on the I-5 freeway.

  Narmore’s Ford Focus was speeding northbound, veering wildly in and out of traffic when it entered a construction zone, crashed through barriers, flipped and rolled several times, according to California Highway Patrol and Orange County coroner’s officials.

  The wreck took place about 10:45 a.m. last Friday.

  Narmore, a retail clerk, was also a part-time student at Orange Pacific Community College.

  Emma swallowed, her back slammed against the wall as she steadied herself.

  Marisa’s dead. And it happened while I was following her!

  Emma’s breathing quickened.

  But I stopped following her long before then. I didn’t even see her crash. How can I be implicated? I didn’t do anything wrong. Police would’ve talked to me.

  Emma’s mind raced as she looked down the admin hall. She went to Greg’s office, where the assistant greeted her.

  “Hi, Denise. Is Greg around? I need to see him for a second.”

  “Gosh no, I’m sorry. He’s been away for almost a week. His dad passed away and he’s in Minneapolis taking care of things.”

  “Oh no, I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  “It’s so sad. Want to leave him a message?”

  “Oh, yes. My condolences. Thanks, Denise.”

  Emma left, forcing herself to keep calm, to think things through. She gave her head a little shake and started for her office when her phone rang with a blocked number.

  “Is this Emma, Emma Grant?” a woman asked when she answered.

  “Yes.”

  “Hi, Maggie Shen from KTKT.”

  The reporter from the book sale? Why would she be calling?

  “Emma, are you there?”

  “Yes, hi.”

  “Thought I lost you.” Maggie sounded hurried, calling from a moving vehicle. “We should be there by eleven thirty this morning, okay?”

  “Excuse me? I’m sorry, what’re you talking about? Be where for what?”

  “At your school to interview you for the story.”

  Emma stopped in her tracks.

  “What story—the book sale?”

  “No, your story. Listen, I gotta wrap something else up right now. I’m sorry—I assumed your principal told you what’s happening.”

  “No one told me. I’m not in my office yet. What’s going on?”

  “This just came up. We’re doing a story on you.”

  “On me?” Emma’s heart skipped into a gallop. “What? Why?”

  “Oh—there—pull over there!” Maggie said to someone else, then to Emma, “Sorry, gotta go. See you soon.”

  The call ended with Emma fearful for what might be coming.

  * * *

  Emma’s mind raced with a million fears when she caught up with Glenda Heywood in the hall.

  Demanding to know what the story concerned and why she’d been blindsided, Emma followed Glenda into her office, where the principal deposited a stack of binders on the corner of her desk.

  “Shut the door and have a seat,” Glenda said, reaching for the tepid mug of coffee on her credenza.

  The door almost slammed. “I don’t want to sit. I demand to know—is this something personal?”

  “Yes. And no.”

  “What?”

  “First—” Glenda sipped her coffee “—I apologize that Maggie Shen got to you before I did. The issue came up late yesterday. I’d planned to alert you, but I got tied up with meetings last night and follow-up calls this morning. Your situation is somewhat complicated.”

  “It’s not. I don’t want to be interviewed about anything. It’s that simple.”

  “Emma, please. Sit down.”

  “Glenda, I have rights. I could take this to the CTA.”

  “You could. But before you make this a union matter, hear me out. And, understand that what I’m going to tell you is extremely confidential.”

  Emma took a moment, nodded, but remained standing.

  Heywood then confided how a district board member with connections in Sacramento had recently been tipped to potential cuts in education funding in next month’s state budget.

  “She was privy to some chilling figures, which could mean a serious budget drop for the district, which could mean slashing programs and jobs. School counselors will be on the chopping block. Are you with me so far?”

  Emma was listening.

  “Factions on the board will align behind issues, classroom size, sports and the arts. It’ll get political and nasty,” Glenda said. “Board members supportive of protecting school counselors need all the help they can get to make a case for what is looming,” Glenda said. “They’re well aware of your recent action saving a student. A couple of board members saw you on TV with your family at the book sale and urged us to get media attention ASAP on our school counselors, starting with a story about you. So they tipped Maggie Shen at KTKT.”

  Emma sat in a visitor’s chair, digesting the circumstances. At least it was not about Marisa or her past. Still, she was uneasy. “I don’t know about this.”

  “You have to realize the big picture,” Glenda said. “This is more than a fight to save your job and those of other counselors. Think of the students who need you—think of their families. Think if you hadn’t been there to save that troubled boy.”

  Emma weighed it all. What Glenda said was true. Above all, she cared about the students.

  “So,” Glenda said. “Now that you know what’s at stake, will you do it?”

  Blinking several times, E
mma finally conceded.

  * * *

  “We’re good?” Maggie Shen said, nodding to the guy with surfer hair behind the KTKT camera.

  They’d crowded into Emma’s office and set up there. The camera’s light was intense but there was no hiding behind sunglasses this time. This was up close.

  “Just like at the book sale, focus on me instead of the camera,” Maggie said, her face blossoming with a bright smile. Attempting to return it, Emma nodded, feeling her stomach knot.

  “Let’s start with you telling us about a typical day in the life of a school counselor,” Maggie said.

  Emma ran down her daily routine of meetings and reports. Then she gave examples of issues students faced, stressing how counselors strive to make a difference.

  “We understand that not too long ago you made more than a difference with one student,” Maggie said. “Our sources helped us get in touch with his parents. We’re not using his name but they’ve agreed to talk to us for this story.”

  After Maggie asked Emma questions about the incident, they set up a reenactment by having Emma walk the halls when classes changed then go outside and retrace her steps from that day she pulled her student from the path of a bus, waiting until a bus approached the same stop.

  After the interview ended, Maggie struggled to make her day a normal one, scrambling to re-schedule appointments and catch up with her work.

  For the rest of the afternoon Emma was ill at ease over everything that had transpired.

  What about Marisa? How will I find any answers now that she’s dead?

  Her thoughts then shifted to her TV interview.

  How many people will see the story? She wondered as she got into her car, telling herself not to worry. California is a long way from Manitoba. But her attempt at consolation was weak because she realized that in this digital world, everything was just a click away.

  Emma wheeled out of the staff lot, eager to get home.

  Turning onto the busy boulevard and accelerating, Emma didn’t notice that half a block behind her, a sedan had pulled out from a parking spot and was following in the same direction.

  Thirty-One

  Eternity, Manitoba

  2000

  Fourteen-year-old Marie Louise Mitchell cut a lonely figure in an orange jumpsuit, sitting by herself, handcuffed at a table in a small white-walled room at Eternity police headquarters.

  Tears rolled down her cheeks. Her sniffling echoed in the room and through the microphones in the ceiling. They were connected to the speakers in the adjoining room where, unseen to Marie, Sergeant Lou Sloan, Bill Jurek and other investigators observed her through the one-way mirror.

  At Sloan’s insistence, they had moved fast on her. The sergeant’s hunch of Marie’s involvement arose from the photo strips they’d found in both Nikki’s and Janie’s showing the three girls together. Upon Marie’s arrest and execution of the search warrants at the Mitchell home, Marie was fingerprinted, photographed and placed in a holding cell while analysis of her shoes, clothing and other material found in the Mitchell home was accelerated at the lab in Winnipeg.

  Within hours, they had verified the physical evidence, confirming that Marie was the third person involved in the Tullock murders.

  She was formally charged with all four deaths and advised of her rights again, then left alone in the cell. Sloan wanted Marie isolated so the girl could ingest the gravity of her situation. During that time, Sloan read and reread every piece of information they’d obtained on Marie and her family.

  Sloan knew that Canadian high court rulings allowed police to use a range of tactics against a suspect, including misleading, bluffing, even lying, in order to check the suspect’s account against the evidence, the facts, and arrive at the truth.

  She also knew the accused had the right to silence and a lawyer.

  Sloan had to walk a fine line.

  As Marie’s sniffles flowed through the speakers Sloan observed her, crying with her head lowered, looking every bit the vulnerable adolescent. Then a file folder snapped open and Sloan looked again at the crime scene photos of Roy Tullock, his throat slashed, Neal and Linda, eyes wide, frozen in death. Then she flipped to the photo of the message on the wall: KILL THEM ALL.

  She was ready.

  * * *

  Sloan entered the room alone, sitting in the chair opposite Marie.

  “Hello again,” Sloan said, setting a file folder and small canvas bag on the table. “Marie, the first thing I want to make sure of is that you see the cameras and the microphones. This is all being recorded.”

  Keeping her head down, Marie gave a small nod. Her handcuffs clinked as she brushed at hair stuck to her face, her fingertips still ink-stained from being fingerprinted.

  “You were arrested and charged because the evidence against you is overwhelming and ironclad,” Sloan said. “There are some important things you need to know before this goes any further? Will you agree to that?”

  Marie shrugged and mumbled.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,” Sloan said.

  “Okay,” Marie said.

  One by one, as if laying down playing cards, Sloan placed photos before Marie.

  “We’ve got your fingerprints on the knife, in the blood all over the house, impressions from your shoes in the blood.”

  Sloan reached into the bag and withdrew small, clear evidence bags. One held Marie’s death’s head skull ring, the other, a photo strip of Marie, Nikki and Janie taken in the mall photo booth.

  “These pictures were among the items we found in our search of your room at your house. We’ve arrested Nikki and Janie, too.”

  Marie didn’t move.

  “And they’re telling us things, Marie.”

  Marie’s breathing quickened.

  “What do you suppose they’re telling us?”

  Marie said nothing.

  “Do you know that one of them kept a journal?”

  Marie didn’t speak.

  “That’s right. We have it now. We have everything and we know everything.”

  Marie began rocking back and forth in her seat.

  “You know what else I know?” Sloan said. “Look at me, Marie.”

  Marie’s eyes shot to Sloan.

  “This isn’t the first time you’ve been involved in the death of innocent people, is it?”

  Marie shut her eyes as tears flowed.

  “There was your little brother, Pike. I looked into his death and you know what I found in the file, tucked deep in a social worker’s report on your state of mind and your feelings at the time? That you admitted that you thought your parents loved Pike more than you. That he was their favorite. How did that make you feel?”

  Marie’s face crumpled and she looked away.

  “Angry. Worthless and angry—that’s what you told the social worker. That’s interesting because when he was choking right in front of you, you never called for help, did you?”

  “No, it wasn’t like that!” Marie sobbed.

  “But you let him die, right in front of you. You killed him. No more family favorite. Problem solved.”

  Marie began shaking her head, gasping and sobbing.

  “It was ruled accidental,” Sloan said. “But you knew the truth—just like you know the truth now. You hated yourself for what happened to Pike and you took your rage out on the Tullocks, didn’t you?”

  Sloan slapped the crime scene photos on the desk so Roy, Neal and Linda looked back at her in death.

  “No! Stop!”

  “Did you stop when the Tullocks pleaded for their lives, Marie?”

  Sloan let a moment pass as Marie cried.

  “You know we can always reopen Pike’s case,” Sloan said. “Take another look at it and you. Think of your parents, what they’re going through right now, and then for us to exhume Pi
ke from his grave...how will they survive all of this?”

  Marie’s handcuffs began clinking because she was trembling.

  Sloan leaned close to her. “Everything is stacked against you. You’re going to prison for four counts of second-degree murder. Tell me what happened that night. This is the time to tell the truth. We have the other girls, we have the evidence, and lying will only make things worse for you.”

  Marie’s tears splashed onto her handcuffs.

  “Are you ready to tell me the truth?”

  Marie cleared her throat. “I want a lawyer. You said that I don’t have to say anything to you and that I can have a lawyer. I want a lawyer.”

  Thirty-Two

  Morden, Manitoba

  2000

  After interviewing Marie, Sloan and Jurek drove east for about an hour through the Pembina Valley to the town of Morden.

  Eternity jail facilities were small and investigators didn’t want the three suspects held in the same building and possibly talking with each other, so they’d arranged for their custody in separate neighboring jurisdictions.

  During the drive, cutting along the valley’s rolling hills, Jurek’s mind took him back to the scene in the Tullock home. It was beyond comprehension. But as he’d done with the atrocities he’d seen in Sarajevo, he kept his thoughts to himself as he drove, giving Sloan the quiet to work. She studied reports and made notes, finishing when they arrived.

  Morden’s RCMP detachment was located in a small, tree-shaded building resembling a wood-framed bungalow. It evoked a staid air, standing in contrast to the monstrous events that it was now and forever linked to, for accused murderer Jane Elizabeth Klassyn was its sole prisoner.

  She was held in one of the detachment’s four cells and was sitting on the narrow bed, looking through the barred window at clouds floating by, when suddenly the locking mechanism of her cell clanked before the steel door opened. A female Mountie, the name Leduc on her name tag, handcuffed her, then transferred her down the hall to a small windowless room with beige cinder block walls. Like Marie, she was wearing an orange jumpsuit that was far too large for her.