by Rick Mofina
To pursue the truth, Ben continued telling investigators every single thing he knew about Emma, his work on the Skull Sisters case, everything. He continued demanding updates from detectives in San Bernardino, Orange County and the FBI, who were looking into Rita Purvis’s homicide, Torrie Tullock and the deaths near the cabin.
Ben tried calling Ed Tracy for more information, but he’d already passed away. He tried the other lawyers in the case but they couldn’t offer much more than what he already knew. He called Torrie Tullock’s relatives. They were shocked by the tragedy and in mourning yet again, but knew nothing. He tried reaching Lou Sloan and Bill Jurek, but they were working with US investigators, telling him that everything would be passed to them.
In the end, Ben had made little progress and felt as lost as Tug, watching him with his ball looking for Emma, or roaming the house with her sweater in his mouth, until one day his phone rang.
“Ben, it’s Oscar Garcia at Orange County. We’d like to update you. Can we drop by this afternoon with a few other investigators?”
A few hours later, Garcia and his partner Lilly Webb arrived with law enforcement people from San Bernardino, the FBI and a Royal Canadian Mounted Police sergeant, who was a liaison officer from the Canadian Consulate in Los Angeles. They gathered in Ben’s living room and relayed what they knew.
Canadian authorities had DNA and fingerprint records of the three women known as The Skull Sisters on record. US and Canadian investigators, working with the coroners in San Bernardino and Orange County, had positively confirmed, and re-confirmed, their identities.
The murder victim in the park, Rita Mae Purvis, was born Marie Louise Mitchell.
The woman who attacked Kayla at the cabin was Lucy Isabel Lavenza, whose birth name was Nicola Hope Gorman, otherwise known as Nikki.
Emma Anne Chance, or Emma Grant, was born Jane Elizabeth Klassyn, known as Janie.
“This confirms your wife, Emma, was Janie,” Garcia said.
He went on to relate that a knife belonging to Lavenza was recovered near Ben’s cabin and submitted for DNA analysis and was found to be the knife used to kill Rita Purvis. Additionally, footwear impressions where Rita Purvis’s body was discovered were made by shoes worn by Lavenza.
Investigators noted that footwear impressions belonging to Emma, and a knife from the Grant home, were found in the vicinity but not at the murder scene. Investigators believed that Emma was startled and fell when she’d spotted a man in the wooded distance, who, it turned out, was most likely the dog walker who had discovered the corpse of Rita Purvis.
Continuing, investigators said they tracked the car rented by Lavenza to a motel, where they found a laptop, a video camera, notes and other items leading them to conclude that Lavenza was responsible for Rita Purvis’s homicide and threats to Ben’s family, arising from her perceived betrayal of their pact as teens. It was always Lavenza’s intention to kill Rita Purvis, using her as an expendable resource to frame Emma Grant for her murder.
“So Lavenza, or Nikki, set this all up?” Ben asked.
“Yes,” Garcia said. “As for her dying claim in the ambulance, it appears Lavenza, or Nikki, was making a final attempt at revenge against your wife. From Lavenza’s discovered notes, she wanted to find Emma, extort her, frame her for murder and destroy the life she had.”
“But why?”
“We suspect Lavenza could not stand to see her succeed and be happy in life. Perhaps we’ll never know. It was as if Lavenza was locked in time, never outgrowing her life as a tormented fourteen-year-old.” Garcia looked at his notes. “Lavenza had written: ‘I’ve got nothing to lose and I’ll do anything to win in the end.’” He looked at Ben. “It seems clear that she wanted to control the Skull Sisters to her very last breath.”
“My God.” Ben took a moment to grasp what he’d been told. “And Torrie Tullock?”
“Still under investigation,” the FBI agent said. “We’re working with the RCMP on her case but it’s clear that she had hired a team of investigators, including Del Brockway, Marisa Joyce Narmore and Leo Wicks, to locate and follow those responsible for her family’s deaths, intending on committing an act of vengeance on all three women.”
* * *
Despite holding a memorial service for Emma, it took Ben and Kayla weeks to absorb and process what they’d experienced.
Together they went to a counselor, who had helped them come to terms with it all, coming to the bitter relief of acceptance and healing.
Ben reached deep inside for the strength to resume working.
He hired lawyers who made successful legal applications in Canadian courts for all the court and prison records he could get concerning the Skull Sisters, including all of the journals they’d kept while incarcerated, using the argument that because they were deceased, Girl A, Girl B and Girl C no longer had identities to protect.
The court agreed, and all the requested records were released to him.
Then one day while Kayla was doing laundry, she scooped to the bottom of the large box of powdered detergent and found a clear plastic bag containing the journal Emma had started after she and Ben were married.
Tears came as she read the few words and shared them with her father.
Started a new, wonderful life. Finally and truly, I buried my past. This new journal will be the last of many I’ve kept in my life. It will stand as testament after I’m gone.
No one knows the truth about me, that I set in motion all the steps that led to unthinkable, horrible events: The murders of four people. I tried to stop it. I tried so hard. I never killed anyone but I will always feel responsible. I buried Janie, the person I was, long ago, to work on being a better human being. But for as long as I live, I will never forgive myself...
Ben stared at his wife’s journal for several moments.
“Dad,” Kayla said. “She saved two lives. Remember that.”
The next day, Ben and Kayla went alone to the spot near the cabin where she died and erected a roadside cross.
“While we will never forget all the terrible crimes that touched us all, we hope she’s finally at peace and has found the absolution she sought,” Ben said.
* * *
Fueled by heartbreak and passion, Ben held nothing back, ensuring that every aspect of the truth, including his own, went into what would be his most powerful and successful book.
Eternity
The Story of Homicide in a Small Town
* * *
Acknowledgments & A Personal Note
In writing Their Last Secret, I took creative liberties with police procedure, jurisdiction, the law, technology and geography. For example, the communities of Eternity, Manitoba, and Cielo Valle, California, are fictional.
And while history holds a number of true life cases of unspeakable crimes committed by young people, the stories of Janie, Marie and Nikki, as well as Benjamin Grant’s books, including, Eternity: The Story of Homicide in a Small Town, are imagined. But in my effort to make Their Last Secret ring true, I drew upon my real experiences as a crime reporter in Canada and on assignment in California, and the kind help of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, D Division. In areas where police procedure seems accurate, thanks goes to the Mounties. In areas where it doesn’t, you can blame me.
In bringing this story to you, I also benefitted from the hard work, generosity and support of a lot of other people.
My thanks to my wife Barbara and to Wendy Dudley for their invaluable help improving the tale.
Very special thanks to Laura and Michael.
My thanks to the super brilliant Amy Moore-Benson and Meridian Artists, the ever-talented Emily Ohanjanians and the incredible, wonderful editorial, marketing, sales and PR teams at Harlequin, MIRA Books and Harper Collins.
This brings me to what I believe is the most critical part of the entire enterprise: you, the reader. This a
spect has become something of a credo for me, one that bears repeating with each book.
Thank you for your time, for without you, a book remains an untold tale. Thank you for setting your life on pause and taking the journey. I deeply appreciate my audience around the world and those who’ve been with me since the beginning who keep in touch. Thank you all for your kind words. I hope you enjoyed the ride and will check out my earlier books while watching for my next one.
Feel free to send me a note. I enjoy hearing from you.
Rick Mofina
www.rickmofina.com
facebook.com/rickmofina
twitter.com/RickMofina
ISBN-13: 9781488056444
Their Last Secret
Copyright © 2020 by Highway Nine, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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