Stick with what you know. You know Janet like a billion times better than Brad. You know that.
What she didn’t know, what she still doesn’t know to this day, was why after Janet was crowned queen for the second time in the same weekend, she hugged her a little longer than usual, a little too long, like she somehow knew it would be the last time she ever did.
Kathy meets us outside the administration building of Sunland Center, the community for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She is on her break.
She has aged well. She looks years younger than Sabrina, lightyears younger than Ben.
She’s a modestly dressed middle-aged woman with light brownish hair going to coarse gray. Still shoulder length like it was back when she and Janet were best friends, parted in the center, but now pulled back into a ponytail.
She stands before us holding an expandable file folder in her right hand.
“I’ve gone over and over that night across the years,” she says. “Haven’t been able to shake anything loose by turning it around again and again in my mind. Not sure I can add anything.”
The moment we stepped out of the air-conditioned truck, the sweat began to pour out of us, dampening our bodies, causing our clothes to cling to us. Kathy has led us over to the side beneath the shade of a huge oak tree, but even in its shade the heat and humidity are intense, and I’m worried about Dad, who seems to be moving even more slowly today.
I wonder why she doesn’t meet with us inside one of the buildings, out of the heat, but decide not to ask until we’re well into the interview, if at all.
“We understand,” Dad says. “It’s a long time ago now. Believe me, I know. But talking helps—helps us, and it may help you remember something that thinking about it alone won’t.”
She shrugs and turns up her lips, then nods. “Maybe so. I’d do anything to help. I still can’t believe it happened. At times the wound is as fresh as if it happened yesterday. Others it feels like something that happened to other people—like in a story I heard or something. In the yearbook, Janet was most likely to succeed, not die. And God, do I feel bad for her family. They never got over it. You never do, though, do you? The death of a child. It’s just not . . . You can’t get over it. And probably don’t want to.”
“Do you have children?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Never did. Looking back, I think it might be more because of what happened to Janet than anything else.” She tilts her head back toward Sunland. “These are my children. I’ve tried to get Verna—Janet’s mom—to put Ralphie out here. She can’t really take care of him. She’s always been a little frail.”
Ralphie is Janet’s little brother who was born with mental and physical impairments.
“Even got permission for him to come out with me during the day,” she continues, “but she wouldn’t even hear of that. Since Janet died, she clings to Ralphie like the last piece of floating wreckage of what once was her life.”
“A poet,” I say, nodding appreciatively. “Nice image.”
She blushes a bit, a plume of red rising up her neck. “In my youth. Not anymore.” She looks away wistfully, her eyes narrowing as if squinting to see something. “Time is a thief. Robs us of so much along the way then steals everything in the end. Hadn’t thought of this in years—years and years, maybe decades. Janet and I were going to do a book together. Words and pictures. My verse, her photography.”
“Maybe you still should,” I say.
She looks as if the thought has never occurred to her, not in almost four decades.
Reaching over with her left hand, she’s caressing the folder she’s holding in her right. “Here are the pictures I promised,” she says. “Hope they help. They’re all I could find. Photocopies of pictures from the party that night, from school, from the ball and pageant that weekend, and, of course, several of Janet’s. I’d almost forgotten how good she was. What an eye.”
She squeezes the folder with both hands then hands it to me.
“Thank you. These are going to be extremely helpful.”
The traffic on 71 is steady, lots of trucks, many of them towing livestock trailers. All of them seeming to be traveling way too fast.
“About the party that night,” Dad says. “You still certain you remember seeing her there?”
“I am. I wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t. She was this amazing, electric person. I’d’ve been aware of her even if she wasn’t my best friend. She was there.”
“Did you talk to her?” he says.
She shakes her head. “She never came inside. I’m not sure why exactly. I only saw her from the upstairs window. She didn’t stay long. She pulled up. She and Ben talked for a little while, then he left with her.”
“What were you doing upstairs?” he asks.
“I hope you won’t think too badly of me if I tell you that my boyfriend and I had just made love. There was a bedroom up there with an old mattress on the floor. I shudder to think of how dirty it must have been now, but . . . He had gone down the hall to the bathroom and I was getting dressed near the window when I saw her pull up.”
“We don’t think badly of you at all,” I say. “He was a very lucky young man. Brad Barnes, right?”
“Gosh, this is really going to sound bad, but . . . I was young and . . . he wasn’t really my boyfriend . . . anyway . . . Brad broke up with me at the ball.”
“Really? Wow. What a terrible thing to do.”
“It really was,” she says. “I was hurt and I was young and impulsive and . . . I had been drinking. I was up there with a guy named Gary Blaylock. It wasn’t a one-night stand or anything. We dated for a long time after that, even lived together for a while after high school.”
“He also saw Janet there, didn’t he?” Dad says. “I didn’t realize y’all were together.”
“We weren’t. I was in the bedroom. He was in the bathroom. We didn’t know we’d both seen her ’til later.”
“Why’d you and Brad break up?” I ask.
The color drains from her face, she takes a deep breath, and it appears as though it physically hurts her to say it. “He was hung up on Janet. He sensed something was wrong between her and Ben and he thought . . .”
Dad and I exchange a look she doesn’t see.
“That never came out back then either,” Dad says.
“Sorry. I was embarrassed, but I wasn’t trying to hide anything. If I’d thought it had anything to do with what happened to Janet . . . I would’ve . . . said something, but . . .”
“It may have been the key to solving the whole thing,” Dad says.
“What?” she asks, her voice rising. “How? I don’t understand.”
“What if Brad tried something and she shot him down and he lost it and . . .” I say. “What if she and Brad got together? What if Ben found them?”
“Oh my God. No. There’s . . . no way. Believe me, I’m not fan of Brad Barnes but there’s no way he or Ben could do what was done to Janet. Not in a millions years. No way. It has to be Bundy. Do something like that. Has to be. I just wish we knew where he hid her body.”
77
“How are you holding up?” I ask.
Dad and I are back in his truck, driving away from Sunland.
“I’m okay.”
“What do you need? You ready to eat? Need something to drink? Take something?”
“What I need is a new body,” he says. “Short of that . . .”
“Figured we go see Janet’s family now, then get some lunch, and I’ll track down a few things while you take a nap.”
He doesn’t say anything. He’s been resistant to the idea of going to see Janet’s family, though he hasn’t come out and said so, and I wonder what his hesitation is about.
“Do you not want to go see Janet’s family?” I ask.
“We’ve got to see everybody,” he says.
“You just seem hesitant to go there.”
“It’s a sad place,” he says. “And a
reminder of my biggest fuckup and failure.”
I nod slowly and give him an understanding look. “I can go alone if you’d rather.”
“Nah. Thanks. I’ve got to face them again. Just . . . not looking forward to it.”
“Then we should do it next and get it out of the way.”
He nods. “Fine. What about what Kathy said?”
“Sheriff rushes us out of his office this morning and now we find out his brother had a thing for the victim and made a play for her the night she disappeared.”
“Got to add him to our list of people to interview,” he says. “But what about two of the main witnesses who say they saw Janet there that night and saw her leave with Ben having the kind of connection they do?”
“A love connection?”
“Angry, revengeful, I-just-got-dumped-because-my-boyfriend-has-a-thing-for-my-best-friend sex is not love,” he says.
“You speaking from experience?”
Ignoring my question he asks one of his own. “Why not tell us they were together upstairs that night?”
“Maybe out of embarrassment. Like she said.”
“Maybe,” he says. “Or maybe they’re lying. One saw from the bedroom window at the same time one saw from the bathroom window down the hall. You heard what Sabrina said. Kathy was obsessed with Janet. Was jealous of her, wanted to be her—or at least take her place.”
“If it was someone Janet knew and not Bundy or another stranger,” I say, “why take the body? Why hide it? Why do that to her family? Seems like an excessive level of hate and anger.”
“Yes it does. And that’s worth remembering.”
We ride along in silence a moment, Dad trying to get comfortable in his seat.
“You heard from Jake?” I ask.
“No. Why?”
“I tried calling him last night and this morning and it goes straight to voicemail, which is full, and he hasn’t called me back.”
The Lester place is an old two-story wooden house on some former farmland. It sits at the end of a wooded, white rock and pebble driveway, an old barn where Janet used to keep her horse in the back. The yard, like the house and the barn and the family, is in disrepair, in need of care and restoration.
One look at Verna Lester and I can see why Dad was averse to the idea of coming here. She wears her brokenness like a burial shroud and the sadness in her eyes is difficult to take in, though I don’t look away.
“Jack,” she says to Dad when she opens the door, her voice filled with surprise and something else—more pain maybe, or maybe something a little more subtle and complex than that, something bittersweet with streaks of pain and pleasure.
“Verna,” Dad says, taking off his hat and holding it in his hands. “Mind if we come in? This is my son, John.”
“Hi John. It’s so nice to meet you. Yes. Sorry. Please come in.”
She leads us through a cathedral-ceilinged foyer filled with huge framed photographs, mostly professional portraits, of Janet and Ralphie, through an immaculate and nicely furnished open-concept living room/dining room/kitchen, to a den beyond.
Unlike the rest of the rooms, the den actually looks lived-in—a comfortable, well-worn couch and chairs, a TV showing cartoons, a small stack of mail that includes a newspaper and a couple of catalogs on the coffee table.
Ralphie, a soft, overweight man with glasses, hearing aids, and other obvious impairments, is seated in a recliner snickering and repeating certain words and lines from the cartoon on the television.
“Ralphie, you remember the sheriff,” Verna says, muting the TV with the remote from the coffee table.
“Hey Ralphie,” Dad says.
“Sheriff Jack,” Ralphie exclaims, clearly happy to see Dad. “Sheriff Jack.”
“Hey,” Dad says. “How’s my old crime-stopper buddy?”
Dad’s demeanor and tone of voice take on a certain quality of kindly condescendence that is sweet and endearing.
Not only is this extra time with Dad such a gift, the opportunity to help him so rewarding, but I’m getting to see and appreciate him in ways I never have before.
With the help of a cane, Ralphie pushes himself up and awkwardly hugs Dad.
Ralphie is large and crippled, Dad weak and sore, and I step over toward them to catch Dad if Ralphie’s weight and clumsiness is too much for him.
“He’s always loved your dad,” Verna says. “Sheriff Jack is his hero.”
“Mine too,” I say.
“Okay, Ralphie,” she says. “Let him go now. Sit back down and I’ll turn your show back up.”
Slowly, reluctantly, Ralphie lets go and returns to his recliner.
I look over at Dad. He’s breathing heavily but seems okay.
“Why don’t we step out onto the porch so we can talk?” Verna says as she turns up the volume on Ralphie’s cartoon.
“Let me know when you need my help to get the bad guys,” Ralphie says. “I’ll be ready, Sheriff Jack.”
“Will do, Ralphie,” Dad says. “Will do.”
“Mama’ll be right back here on the porch if you need me, baby,” she says.
“I’m gonna go put on my supercool special crime-fighting uniform,” Ralphie says.
“Okay. Come show it to us when you come back, okay?”
“Roger that,” he says, and hurriedly hobbles out of the room and toward the back of the house.
Verna leads us through a set of French doors and out into a glassed-in Florida room where we sit on white wicker furniture with thick cushions.
“You okay, Jack?” she says, patting Dad’s arm affectionately.
He nods.
The color has drained from his face and his breathing is labored.
“You sure?” I say.
“Yeah. Just need to catch my breath.”
“Let me get you a glass of water,” Verna says, pushing herself up and leaving the room.
“You really okay?” I ask.
He nods. “Just winded. It’s hard for me to be back in this house. And I feel so bad for not staying in touch, especially with Ralphie. I . . . just . . . out of my own discomfort I stayed away.”
Verna returns with a glass of water.
Beneath her life-long grief, there is an attractive, stately older woman. In glimpses, I can see the poised, even regal woman she would be if not for the shroud of sadness, the loss of faith and hope and joy.
Handing the glass to Dad, she rubs his shoulder, then touches his forehead with the back of her hand. “I think you may have a little bit of a fever,” she says.
I wonder if her comfort and intimacy is merely maternal and she would treat anyone the same way, or is the result of the time they spent together back when Dad was working the case. Her concern, her attentiveness are clearly expressions of appreciation and affection.
“I’m fine,” he says. “Stop making a fuss. Thank you for the water. Now sit down and relax.
She does, but not before slapping him on the shoulder. “Jack . . .” The slap and the use of his name express equal parts frustration and fondness.
How many hours had they spent together, grieving mother and the lawman here to find her daughter’s killer and avenge her death?
When Verna sits down, the little lilt and light from when she had been interacting with Ralphie and Dad are gone and the dead-eyed, sallow-faced, too-soon old woman who had first opened the door to us is back.
A crime, particularly murder, always leaves far more victims than is at first apparent.
Verna is as much a victim as Janet was—maybe even more so.
In some ways, some more obvious than others, everyone involved, both families—Janet’s and Ben’s—Dad, this entire small town, is in some sense a victim of this violent crime and will never fully recover. But no one more than Verna.
We’ll never know exactly what happened to Janet. We won’t know what her last hours, minutes, moments were like, not fully. And we don’t know what happened, if anything, once her life here ended. We don’t know w
hat happens to those who are taken, but for those left behind, we do know. We witness the sort of half life they are left with, shadowed by grief and loss, dogged by death, both in the monotony of daily existence and the excruciating pain of memories and those moments where the absence of the dead is particularly acute, is a fate, if not far worse than death, a death all its own.
Janet died once. Verna has died a million times.
Would she still even be here if she hadn’t had Ralphie to care for, to take care of?
Ralphie appears at the door in a too-small Zorro costume—complete with pressed-on mustache, ornate sword, and black mask.
“Zorro,” Dad says. “One of my favorites.”
“I’ll be right in here if you need me Sheriff Jack,” he says, and disappears again.
Verna smiles. “You’ve always been so good with him, Jack,” she says. “He doesn’t get a lot of that from anyone but me. Thank you.”
“How’s Ronnie?” Dad asks.
She shakes her head. “Not good. Wasn’t doing particularly good before the . . . But what happened to Janet crushed him as much as anyone . . . except maybe me. He lost his business. I guess you probably didn’t know that, did you?”
“I’m so sorry to hear that. No, I didn’t know. I should’ve stayed in touch more, Verna. I’m sorry.”
“We almost lost our house, but he owned some property around town. We’ve had to sell it just to hang on, that and the little bit of disability we draw. Did you know they built a new high school?”
Dad nods, though it’s clear he doesn’t understand why she’s asking. “Back in 2005, wasn’t it?”
She nods. “That’s when it opened. That was our land out on Caverns Road they built it on. I didn’t want him selling it, but if he hadn’t we’d’ve lost our house and no telling what else. That was a bad time. I guess all times have been bad. ’Cept maybe for a little while on a certain day back in ’89. Other than that . . . they’ve all been bad.”
Ted Bundy was executed on January 24, 1989. I assume that’s the day she means.
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