The Feminine Touch

by V. J. Chambers

  “Yeah, apparently, they found DNA in some of the bodies when they were doing autopsies. Bart Martin’s DNA.”

  “In them? Like…”

  “Yeah, apparently they were sexually assaulted.”

  He made a face. Then he started to walk again. “Hold on. All of those bodies are old. Some are only two years old, but others are a lot older, right? DNA keeps that long?”

  “Dude, you saw Jurassic Park, right?”

  He rolled his eyes, picking up the pace. “That was encased in amber. These bodies were just buried in the ground. I mean, I know that burying preserves a corpse a lot better than dumping it in a river or something, but seriously, there’s still semen in them?”

  “I don’t know,” said Zoe. “I’m only telling you what I heard. I didn’t get any specifics.”

  “Maybe he wrapped them in plastic or something,” said Nash. “Maybe that would preserve them better.”

  “I don’t know if it was semen,” she said. “Maybe it was hair or something. I think it takes a long time for hair to break down.”

  “Yeah, could be,” he said. What were the odds that he could get the police to give him an interview about this? Probably not good, considering that when he’d called earlier to ask questions, they’d been pretty hostile. He’d reached the door to the hotel. He pushed it open and stepped into the lobby, which was chilly from air conditioning. He felt goosebumps pop up on his arms. Man, it was warm outside, but it wasn’t that warm. “So, anyway, this is insane. Bart Martin killed all those girls.”

  “Appears so. I guess that’s why Billie doesn’t want to do the podcast,” said Zoe. “Can you imagine finding out that your father was really a rapist and serial murderer?”

  Nash paused, thinking that through. “God, she must be a wreck. I really came off like an ass to her earlier. I wish I’d known.” And damn it all to hell, because the kids of a serial killer was a great story in and of itself. Did they have any inkling he was a bad guy? Had he been a loving and attentive father?

  “Give her some time and call her again,” said Zoe. “Or maybe I could call her?”

  “Maybe,” he said quietly. He didn’t speak for a moment, thinking. “So, uh, what does any of this have to do with Siobhan?”

  “Who’s Siobhan?”

  “Didn’t I tell you this? I knew Sibel in high school. She was a friend of mine. But her name was Siobhan Thorn.”

  “No shit,” said Zoe. “Well, hell, we have to find her, then.”

  “What if Martin killed her too?”

  “Then why isn’t she buried up there with the rest of his victims?”

  “I don’t know,” said Nash.

  “Are you at your hotel?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m coming over. We’ve got to track her down.”

  * * *

  “So, who was your class president in high school?” Zoe was saying. She had his laptop, which she’d snatched away from him, and she was scrolling through his Facebook friends.

  “Why does that matter?”

  “The class president puts together all the class reunions,” she said. “That person has a list of current addresses for everyone.”

  “Oh, right, okay,” he said. “But the thing is, Siobhan didn’t come to our ten year reunion.”

  “That doesn’t mean that she wasn’t invited.”

  “I guess it doesn’t.” He nodded. “The president was, uh, Clarissa Mabel.”

  “Cool,” said Zoe. “There she is. Okay if I send her a message as you?”

  “I guess so,” he said. “What are you going to say?”

  She was typing. “Just trying to reconnect with an old friend,” she said slowly as her fingers danced over the keys. “Do you have any current contact info for Siobhan—” She looked up at Nash. “How do you spell that?”

  He spelled it for her.

  “Seriously?” she said.

  “Seriously,” he said. “It’s Irish.”

  “I was thinking it would be spelled like, um, Chevrolet or something. C-H-I-V-H-A-N.”

  “That’s a weird way to spell it.”

  “Not if you think of Chevrolet.”

  “What’s the extra H for?”

  “I don’t know, it’s kind of a soft V, don’t you think?”

  He shrugged.

  She went back to typing. “Thorn,” she finished. “And… send.”

  He held out his hand for his computer. “So, I’ve been thinking, and I don’t get it. If you’ve got that successful podcast, why even bother with a college degree. What’s the point?”

  She handed the computer back. “I tried saying that to my parents, and they were all, ‘You need to have something to fall back on.’ And I said that my podcast experience would probably be better than a degree if I was competing for some corporate broadcast journalism job, of which there are currently twelve worldwide anyway.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, it’s not exactly a growing field, that’s for sure.”

  “But… I don’t know. I guess it’s good to have a degree. You have a degree, right?”

  “Yup,” he said. “A degree in Secondary Education with a minor in History.”

  “Oh, wow,” she said. “You were going to be a teacher?”

  “I was a teacher,” he said. “I was bad at it, though.”

  “Really?”

  “I just… I don’t have a filter sometimes. Things I think are interesting other people think are offensive.” He peered down at his computer screen. On a whim, he typed in Blue Lake Stalker.

  “Offensive how?”

  “I don’t know. I think I’ve been studying violent crime for so long that I’m not as disgusted by it as other people are. I can talk about it like it’s nothing, and that really creeps people out.” The screen filled with search results. “Well,” he said, “Billie’s going to have to deal with people knowing about her dad. The story’s already leaked to the local press.”

  “That was fast,” said Zoe.

  “Yeah,” he murmured, scrolling through the results on the screen.

  “Anything interesting?” said Zoe.

  He shrugged, continuing to scroll.

  She propped her head up on her hand, her elbow resting on her knee. “Hey, I can assume you googled Siobhan, right?”

  “Of course,” he said. “You think I’m an idiot?”

  “Did you google Sibel?”

  He furrowed his brow. “You know, I don’t think I did.” He typed Sibel Martin into the search bar. The first result to come up was, “Scholarship fund in honor of the victims of the Blue Lake Stalker created.” Below, in the description, he saw Sibel Martin in bold. He clicked on the link.

  The story popped up. He scanned it.

  “What?” said Zoe, moving over to look over his shoulder. “Whoa, seriously? Does it say how she did it?”

  “No,” he said, “just that she donated the seed money for the scholarship. No one seems to have made the connection that she’s Bart’s wife.”

  “Weren’t people suspicious?” said Zoe.

  He glanced at her and then back to the screen. “I think maybe she started this fundraiser and issued this as a press release. All of this is coming from her.”

  “So, she’s out there?” said Zoe. “She’s making fundraisers. How much money did she donate?”

  “A hundred thousand dollars,” said Nash. “Funny, that’s how much money Billie said her grandmother’s ring was worth.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Nash shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Who steals something and then gives it to charity?”

  “I’m not saying she did that. Just… the amount. It’s the same is all.” He snagged his phone up off the bed and punched in a number from the screen.

  “Who are you calling?”

  “I’m calling the number here.”

  “Are you going to donate, because that’s the number for donations?”

  “No, I’m not going to donate.” He put it
to his ear. “This is how you track people down. Watch and learn, intern.”

  The corners of her mouth turned down.

  Someone answered the phone. “Caring Hands, this is Cindy speaking.”

  “Hi, Cindy, I’m calling in reference to an article about the scholarship fund to honor victims of the Blue Lake Stalker?”

  “Sure, yes, we’re handling that. If you’d like to donate—”

  “I’m actually a journalist doing a story. I wondered if I could speak to someone about this person who started the fundraiser. Sibel Martin?”

  “Oh.” The person on the other end appeared to be thinking about this. “Hold on a minute.”

  Hold music came up on the phone.

  Nash took it away from his ear and put it on speaker.

  “If she didn’t want to be connected to Bart, why use his last name?” said Zoe.

  “Do we know her maiden name?” said Nash. “I mean, it would obviously be fake, but that would probably be a place to start to find her if this doesn’t pan out.”

  “Hello?” said his phone suddenly.

  Nash snatched it up. He repeated his little spiel about being a journalist.

  “I did speak to Ms. Martin, yes.”

  “Do you have contact information for her?”

  “We exchanged phone numbers, but I don’t feel comfortable giving that to the press,” said the person on the other end. “Tell you what I will do, though. If you give me your name and number, I’ll call her back, and I’ll tell her to get in touch with you if she’d like.”

  Nash considered. “Okay. I guess that’s all right. My name is Nash Wilt.”

  “Nash Steven Wilt,” said Zoe. “You always call yourself—”

  He held up a hand to stop her. “Nash Wilt. Tell her that. Uh, if you talk to her, say, ‘classic rock.’ She’ll know what that means.”

  “I’m sorry?” said the person on the other end of the phone.

  “Just tell her,” said Nash. “Here’s my number.” He rattled it off.

  The person on the other phone paused to take notes. “All right, then. I’ve got it. I’ll call her right away so that I don’t forget.”

  “Thank you,” said Nash. He hung up.

  “Is that going to work?” said Zoe.

  He shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “Look, do we still think she killed him?” said Zoe.

  “Maybe,” said Nash. “Maybe… he tried to hurt her, like he tried to hurt his victims and it was self-defense.”

  “That doesn’t make sense, does it? I mean serial killers don’t kill people they’re close to.”

  “Not male serial killers, anyway,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “When I was thinking she was maybe a female serial killer, I was thinking she didn’t fit the profile, because women serial killers don’t go out and stalk their victims. They’re much more likely to kill their husbands or their children or their students or their patients.”

  Zoe made a face, shuddering a little. “That’s awful.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “But, you’re right. She doesn’t fit the Blue Lake Stalker’s profile.”

  “Well, she does, though. She looks like the victims.”

  “I guess that only proves that he had a type.”

  “If she knew he was killing them, why didn’t she just go to the police?”

  “That’s why it must have been self-defense,” said Nash. But that didn’t make sense either, and he knew it. And what about the missing girls in his hometown? How did all that connect? Was it just some kind of macabre coincidence? Then he sat up straight. “They don’t do that when they work alone.”

  “What?” said Zoe.

  Nash’s jaw twitched. “Female serial killers don’t stalk or kill for sexual power when they work alone. But when they work with a male partner…”

  “They do,” said Zoe.”

  He nodded.

  “Okay, I saw this movie once,” said Zoe, “and it was about this woman who was being abused by her husband, and he forced her to bring women home and like give them these drugs so that they wouldn’t be able to fight or whatever, and then he would rape them. And then they killed the women together. So, what if…?” She took a deep breath. “What if this was like that?”

  “You said that Sibel wasn’t in the area when the other victims were taken,” said Nash.

  Zoe nodded. “That’s true. But you said we wouldn’t know one way or the other. She could have been.”

  “Maybe…” Nash took a deep breath. “Maybe it was like you said, only the other way around. Maybe Siobhan was the dominant personality, the one calling the shots. I’ve met Siobhan. She’s very…” He groped for a word. “Charismatic. And I think if she wanted to convince someone to, um, do things for her, she could.”

  He remembered Siobhan’s voice, a whisper in his ear. You’ll do whatever I want, right? Anything I want.

  “You think she was the abuser?”

  “Well, Adam pointed out that she doesn’t really have the upper body strength to kill and bury these women. Not on her own.”

  “She didn’t kill them. Bart did.”

  “For her,” said Nash.

  Zoe drew back. “What?”

  “I think she might like that,” said Nash. “Having power over a man. Making him do things for her.”

  “Seriously?”

  “When I knew her in high school…?”

  “What? What did she do in high school?”

  He just shook his head. “I don’t even know how to get into that.”

  “Did she ever convince you to do something you didn’t want to do?”

  “No, but there were other guys…” He studied his palms. “That’s why the victim profiles don’t match. She doesn’t pick the vics, she makes the man she’s working with do it. Maybe it even was different guys in high school killing those girls. I mean, I never talked to Pike about this, but I know they had a thing, and he was weird about it later.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He dragged his hand over his face. “Forget all that. What I’m saying is that Siobhan was working with Bart for years, and she was talking him into killing women for her. Maybe he started to resist, so she felt she had to get closer. She insisted they get married. And then, maybe he wanted out. Or maybe he threatened to expose her or something. Or maybe she was just done with him. But she killed him and buried him with the other bodies.”

  “That’s… that’s…”

  “But would she really do something like that?” he whispered. When he’d known Siobhan, he would never have considered her capable of violence. Still… it sort of fit. Farrah came to that damned party, and then they were all in the room together, and Pike was supposed to go and get her. But he never brought Farrah back.

  Now that Nash thought about it, at the other party, Pike had gone after Heather too, but he’d come back and said he couldn’t find her. And hadn’t Siobhan and Heather been doing some project together for history?

  He got up off the bed, swallowing. He went to the window, pulled aside the curtain, stared out. Had Siobhan wanted to make him into a killer too? If so, what had changed her mind?

  * * *

  “Hello?” said Nash into the phone. He and Zoe were still pouring over leads on the Internet in his hotel room.

  “Who is it?” said Zoe. “Is it Siobhan?”

  “Is this, um, Nash Wilt?” said the voice on the phone. It was a woman’s voice. She had a faint southern lilt to her accent.

  “That’s me,” said Nash. Maybe this wasn’t connected to anything, after all. Maybe it was someone calling in a tip for the podcast. He had cleared his schedule for this case, and he didn’t know what he would tell this person. If it was a tip, maybe he should relegate this job to Zoe. Scheduling—or rather apologetically not scheduling—someone seemed like a job for an intern.

  “Uh, I’m Siobhan Thorn’s girlfriend, Charity. I got a call that you were trying to maybe
interview her or something about a scholarship fund she set up? The thing is, she is doing that all the time, and she even does it under different names sometimes, and I don’t know why that is, but anyway, I don’t know if I’ll be much help to you—”

  “Girlfriend?” said Nash. “As in… girlfriend?”

  Charity laughed. “Yeah, as in lesbians. Siobhan says I should just be upfront about it, and if people are going to be rude—”

  “No, no, I—there’s nothing wrong with….” He cleared his throat. “When I knew Siobhan, she was very, very… That is, I thought she was straight.”

  “You know her?” said Charity.

  “In high school,” said Nash.

  “No way.” Charity laughed again, this time in wonder. “That’s really amazing. I’ve never met anyone who knew her when she was young, and she never talks about that time in her life. I think she had a bad home life, to be honest.”

  “No,” said Nash. “I met her mother. I went to her house. She—” But then he broke off. “I guess I don’t really know, though. She never said anything.” He was reeling.

  Zoe was bouncing up and down, obviously wanting to know what was going on.

  “Oh, she wouldn’t have said a thing,” said Charity. “It’s not her way.”

  Nash rubbed his forehead. “I’m just… I don’t understand this. So, how did you get my number?”

  “Well, I guess Siobhan left my cell number with someone for the fundraising. She does that sometimes, because I’m always available, and she goes out on her little… trips every now and again.”

  “Okay, is it possible for me to speak to Siobhan?”

  “Oh, she’s not here.”

  “Maybe you could have her call me back or—”

  “To be honest, I don’t even know when Siobhan will be home again. When she goes off, sometimes it’s two weeks, sometimes it’s eight months. She is not predictable.”

  “Really,” he said. “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know. Anyway, I have authorization with her money and her accounts and everything, and she has me fix things when stuff goes wrong? So, anyway, I guess that’s why the woman from this, uh, scholarship called me? She said to pass along the name, but I thought I’d just call you because I don’t know when Siobhan will get home.”