“What about Sabrina Henry saying you were with her?”
“See previous answer. Only two possibilities.”
“I can’t see how she could be mistaken about something like that,” I say.
“So,” he says, “only one possibility. She’s lying. Why? I couldn’t tell you. What I can tell you is that someone viciously and savagely murdered the only girl I’ve ever loved. And he took her, so we couldn’t even bury her. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. I don’t know who. What I do know is Janet’s life wasn’t the only one he took that night.”
71
Sabrina Henry, now Gibbs, has the manic, uptight, slightly crazed-eyes look of someone desperately trying to hold everything together.
In high school she had been mostly on the fringes because the guys didn’t respect her and the other girls didn’t trust her. Back then she was seen as sort of slow and shallow and mostly annoying. She had a good, well-developed body and a prettyish face, but she wasn’t likable. Most of the guys who slept with her only did so once, privately confiding in each other that as good as her body was and as easy and effortless as it was to take her off into the woods or somebody’s empty river camp, it wasn’t worth the aggravation of listening to her on the way there and back.
Now a middle-aged woman with extra weight and a fading allure, she resembles Patsy Ramsey, the former beauty queen mother of the murdered six-year-old JonBenét, killed in her own home in Boulder, Colorado, on Christmas night in 1996. She has the same dyed-black hair, big blue-green eyes, immaculate makeup, and bright red lipsticked lips.
We meet with her on the pool patio behind her huge home beneath the shade of a large umbrella rising out of a wrought iron table.
A pitcher of lemonade and glasses with ice in them along with some sort of simple shortbread cookie are on a tray on the table waiting for us when we arrive.
Without apology or explanation, she tells us to park on the street down a little ways and walk around the side of the house to the gate of the tall wooden privacy fence.
“I remember you always being respectful and kind to me,” she says to Dad. “Didn’t get a lot of that back then. I really appreciated that.”
Dad nods and tips the old cowboy hat he’s wearing, then shakes her outstretched hand. “Was my pleasure, ma’am. This is my son, John. We sure do appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.”
I shake her hand and we all take a seat around the table.
“Speaking of time,” she says, “I’m sorry, but I don’t have much at all.”
“We understand,” Dad says.
He’s got his full Southern-gentleman charm flowing, which seems to me manipulative, insincere, and even condescending, but she seems not to see it that way at all.
“The truth is,” she says, as she pours lemonade into glasses and passes them to us, “I wouldn’t have agreed to meet anyone else. Like I said, you were very good to me back then. Even still, what happened to Janet that night has destroyed a lot of lives. I determined a long time ago it wasn’t going to destroy mine. So I’ve left the past in the past. But . . . I so want justice for Janet. It . . . does my heart . . . I just appreciate that you haven’t given up on finding out what happened to her. But I really, really want to keep this little chat just between us. None of the people in my life now have any idea about any of this—or that I was even . . . involved.”
“Including your husband?” Dad asks.
“Especially him.”
Her husband, a wealthy cattleman fifteen years her senior, owns and operates a cattle farm and processing plant of several thousand acres and worth several million dollars between Mariana and Dothan, and is rumored to be a severe, humorless man as stern with his wife as he is his business.
“Can you tell us what you think happened to her?” I ask.
Without her seeing, Dad shoots me a look that lets me know he’d rather handle the questions.
“Some absolute madman savagely murdered her and hid her body somewhere where no one could find it. It’s the only explanation. No one I know—or knew back them—could have done that. No one. It had to be a monster passing through.”
“Like Ted Bundy,” I say.
“Yeah, maybe, I guess. I heard he was around here that night. Is that true?”
Dad gives me the look again.
“He was,” Dad says. “But we really just want to hear what you remember from that night.”
Her gaze drifts up and away from us. “I just remember everybody bein’ happy. Carefree. For the last time. I guess we had the normal high school drama that we thought mattered so much, but it really was so nothing. You know? It was the last time we were ever just innocent kids. After that we always had this dark cloud hanging over us.”
“Have you remembered anything over the years since we last spoke that you didn’t remember back then?” Dad says.
She starts to answer, but stops as he adjusts in his seat and winces in pain.
“Are you all right?” she asks.
He nods. “Just got a sore hip. That’s all. What were you about to say?”
“I’m sure it’s nothing and you probably read all kinds of things wrong after something like that happens, but . . . I just remember Kathy Holmes arriving late that night and being all out of sorts. She was never late for anything. Ever. It’s the only time I can remember her being late. And I’d never seen her act like that before. She was always with it, but that night she was a basket case.”
“Who?” Dad asks. “I don’t recall anybody by that—”
“Sorry. It’s her married name now. Kathy Moore. Janet’s best friend. I’m sure she had nothing to do with it—a girl couldn’t really do something like that, could she? But it’s just what came to mind when you asked if I had thought of anything else over the years.”
“What was her relationship with Janet like?” Dad says.
“A little strange, to be honest. Like love-hate. She seemed like she really liked Janet sometimes, then others she acted so . . . I don’t know . . . like jealous, but more. Like she wanted to be her . . . or . . . replace her. I’m probably reading way too much into this now. So please take it with a . . . just for what it’s worth. But it’s my honest opinion of how it was. She works up at Sunland but she should probably be a resident.”
Sunland Center is a community serving some five hundred individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities housed in an old air force base up on Highway 71 between Marianna and Greenwood.
“You ever talk to Ben Tillman?” I ask.
“Ben? No. Why?”
Getting no look from Dad this time, I proceed.
“Y’all aren’t close?”
“Never were. I sure feel bad for the guy. I just can’t imagine what he’s . . . But no, we haven’t spoken a single word since that night.”
“So you have no reason to lie for him.”
“Right. I liked Ben. Had a crush on him. But I wouldn’t lie for anyone—especially if they could’ve killed someone else.”
“And he was with you that night?”
“He was. I swear it on my life. I have no reason to lie. If anything, I have reason to lie against him—if I was that sort of person. Like I said, he never spoke to me again. I tried so many times.”
“Why do you think he didn’t use you as an alibi?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I have no idea. Guilt, I guess. I really don’t know. My guess is if it had come down to him actually going to jail he might have, but . . . as it was . . .”
“Y’all were together at the party and—”
She jumps up suddenly. “That’s the garage door opening,” she says.
I can hear a slow mechanical sound and various creaks and clicks coming from the other side of the wall to our right.
“It’s my husband. You’ve got to go. Now.”
She seems genuinely panicked, the crazed look in her eyes intensifying.
“Please. Come on.”
She grabs our glasses, po
urs the remainder of their contents back into the pitcher, then tosses them into the pool.
“Please hurry. He knows nothing about any of this. He only moved to town about ten years ago.”
We stand and begin to make our way across the patio, Dad limping, moving slowly.
She quickly walks to the wooden gate, opens it, and ushers us through it when we finally make it there.
“I’ve finally got a good life,” she says. “I can’t jeopardize it for a case that’s probably never gonna be solved anyway.”
72
“How do you have people who knew her equally well disagreeing on whether she was there or not that night?” Anna says.
“Eyewitnesses,” Merrill says. “Only thing worse than one is more than one.”
I smile.
I’m truly happy to have Merrill Monroe, my closest friend since childhood, here with us. As a surprise for me, Anna had invited him to the beach house for dinner and he was here waiting on me when I returned from my day in Panama City and Marianna with Dad.
We are now sitting at a table on the deck at Toucan’s, a large, wooden ocean-side restaurant, the last of the setting sun only an orange glow sinking into the green Gulf.
Taylor is in a highchair at the end of the wooden booth, being spoon fed veggies by Anna and slipped Cheerios by Merrill.
This is the last night of our vacation, which I found out this evening is being cut short because Anna’s mom needs her help after all. Tomorrow Anna and Taylor will travel to Dothan to help care for her mom. I will use the time off I already have to help Dad reinvestigate Janet Lester’s disappearance, traveling to Anna’s parents’ farm in Dothan to stay each evening when Dad and I are done.
“I know eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable,” Anna says, “but this isn’t that exactly, is it? It’s not like there was an accident or event and they saw different things. It’s not like they’re saying a particular person committed a crime or something like that. This is a group of kids with no discernible reason for lying, more than one of which says she was there and more than one of which says she wasn’t.”
I nod. “Yeah. There’s something off about it. I’m trying to track down pictures from that night. Hoping they will help clear up the confusion.”
“’Less it ain’t confusion,” Merrill says, “and they just lying.”
“In which case we’ll have to find out why.”
“Be hard to find out anything thirty-eight years later,” Merrill says.
I shake my head. “Nearly impossible.”
“You need help, you let me know,” he says.
“What are you doin’ with yourself these days?” Anna asks.
About three months ago, Merrill quit his job as a correctional officer because kids were getting killed by cops in the street and he wanted to make a difference.
“This and that,” he says.
“Care to elaborate,” she says.
“A little of this. A little of that.”
“Oh, I see.”
He laughs. “Fighting the good fight,” he says. “Doing favors for friends. Helping out where I can.”
“He’s being vague out of modesty,” I say. “He’s volunteering at the Boys and Girls Club, he’s in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, he’s helping raise money for the African-American Scholarship Fund, he’s part of a program where he works with at-risk kids to build houses for seniors, and he’s helping with some group I forget the name of now that’s similar to the Innocence Project.”
Finished eating and now yawning and rubbing her eyes with her tiny fists, Taylor is ready to be out of the highchair. Anna begins to put her in her carrier, but Merrill stops her.
“Let her sleep on Uncle Merrill’s shoulder,” he says.
“Sure.”
Anna hands Taylor to Merrill, who props her on his muscular shoulder as if he’s an old pro, and Taylor rests her small head near his neck and snuggles in to sleep as if it’s how she falls asleep every night.
“And I thought you meant how was I payin’ the bills,” he says to Anna.
“How are you?” she says. “All that sounds like it pays in mansions in heaven.”
“A little of this. A little of that. Odd jobs. Favors for friends. Track down shit that’s missing—people, property, whatnot.”
“So you’re sort of like a Deep South Shaft?” she says.
“Who’s the man who’ll risk his neck for his brother man?” I say.
“Can you dig it?” Merrill says.
“Is that enough to make ends meet?” Anna says.
“First dollar I ever made, my mama made me put part of it up for a rainy day.”
“’Cause your mama told you the same thing the Shirelles’ mama told them?” Anna says.
“I’ve done that with every dollar I’ve ever made,” he says. “Still doin’ it. But it’s there if I need it. Hell, y’all need a loan, just let me know.”
Our food arrives—seafood platter for Merrill, grouper imperial for me, and honey-glazed salmon for Anna.
Anna and I both offer to take Taylor or to put her in her carrier, but Merrill tells us he only needs one hand to shovel the seafood into his mouth.
We eat in silence for a while, enjoying the evening and being together.
I finish first and ask them to excuse me for a moment. “I want to call Johanna before she goes to bed.”
Walking down the wooden ramp to the beach below, I call my daughter at her mother’s in Atlanta.
“Hey sweet girl,” I say when I hear her soft, sleepy voice.
“Hey Daddy.”
“How’s my girl? How was your day?”
“I’m good. It was good.”
“I miss you so much,” I say.
“I miss you, Daddy.”
I think about how similar our conversations are each evening and wonder how I can make them different.
“I can’t wait to see you this weekend,” I say. “We’re going to have such a good time.”
She doesn’t say anything and I can hear her yawning.
“You sleepy baby?”
“Yes sir.”
“Okay, I’ll let you go so you can get some sleep. I love you so much. Sleep well. Sweet dreams. Night.”
“Night, Daddy.”
When I get back to the table, Merrill and Anna are talking about Ted Bundy.
“What makes the sheriff believe Bundy did it?” Merrill asks.
Like so many people in Pottersville, Merrill still refers to Dad as the sheriff. For an entire generation of us, he’s the only one we’ve ever known.
“I’m not sure exactly. We’re just starting. And I thought I was on vacation.”
“You are,” Anna says, patting my leg. “For a few more hours anyway.”
“I was hoping to finish the murder book tonight and talk to Dad about it tomorrow. I know Bundy was in the area around the time Janet went missing and that she looked similar to his most common coed victim type, but I’d think it’s more than that. Bundy being in the vicinity is enough to make him a suspect in a case like this, but Dad would have to have more than that to actually convince him he did it.”
73
It’s late.
We’re lying in bed reading—Anna, the new Zadie Smith novel, me, the murder book—propped on pillows, our bodies touching, the fingers of our hands not holding our books entwined.
“It’s so good to see Merrill doing so well,” she says.
I nod. “Unlike so many of us, he’s not just talking about things, or worse, complaining about how bad things are, he’s actually doing something about it, actually making the world a better place. Can’t say that about many people.”
“I wish he could find someone,” she says. “Be as happy as us. It’s the only thing missing from his life now. Wonder if Zadie Smith is single.”
I laugh. “Now that’d be a good match.”
“Don’t you think he’d be even happier, do even more and better if he had someone?”
“He
’s about to find someone,” I say. “Or she’s gonna find him.”
“You sound so certain.”
“I am.”
“Why do you think he is?”
“He’s in the right places, doing the right things,” I say. “It follows that’s where he’ll meet the right partner.”
She nods. “You’re right. Wonder if we could get Zadie Smith to come speak at a fundraiser for one of the organizations he’s working for?”
I laugh and shake my head and keep reading.
After a little while, she yawns and closes her book.
“Any blood or physical evidence in the car that wasn’t Janet’s?” she asks.
I shake my head. “If there was, they missed it.”
“Of course, Bundy rarely left any physical evidence behind, did he?”
“Not much, no. He was pretty meticulous.”
“Is Bundy’s DNA in the FBI database?” Anna asks.
“Not until just recently,” I say. “Almost wasn’t at all. Look at this. Dad stuck it in the book just a few years back.”
I hand her the news clipping.
There’s a national database of DNA profiles of convicts maintained by the FBI, but America’s most notorious serial killer hasn’t been a part of it until now.
Savage serial killer Ted Bundy, who confessed to murdering some thirty young women across several states before being executed in Florida’s electric chair at Florida State Prison in Raiford in 1989, could now be proven to have committed many more.
Recently, a complete DNA profile of Bundy was created and is being submitted to the FBI database so that law enforcement agencies nationwide can finally determine whether Bundy was responsible for some of the open unsolved cases in their jurisdictions.
There has long been speculation that Bundy killed far more people than he confessed to. When one police interviewer asked Bundy if he had killed thirty-five woman, Bundy responded “Add a one to that.” And now one of his former defense attorneys has a new book out claiming that Bundy confessed to him that he had murdered more than one hundred people.
True Crime Fiction Page 30