“Over here,” Marilyn says, and we roll Michelle to one of the picnic tables, and then I turn her around so she’s facing in the direction of the sea. I can’t see it but I can smell wet salt on the breeze from over that way.
The sun blasts down, turning the park preternaturally green.
“Dani?” Michelle asks.
“She’s right here beside you,” Marilyn says.
Heather mouths the word liar at me, but I see Michelle smile.
“Green,” she says.
Marilyn rubs Michelle’s bony shoulder through her hospital gown.
“Everyone’s with you, Michelle,” she says. “We’re all right here.”
Michelle’s hand does a little leap from the arm of her wheelchair to my wrist, then slides down and finds my hand. I notice that she’s clinging to Marilyn’s fingers with her other hand.
“Good . . . friends . . .” Michelle says.
I almost don’t hear her over the noise of the wind in the trees. She pants a little, squinting into the sun, then closes her eyes because it’s so bright. She stops, then gives a gasp, stops again, then lets out a long, rattling sigh, and I’m holding hands with a dead woman.
I can feel Dani pacing in her holding cell on the other side of the city, frantic with fear, terrified that exactly what just happened has happened. The two of them were together forever, and whoever this is, whatever conspiracy they’ve woven, they’ve kept Dani from being in the one place in the world she promised to be. It’s a cruelty so sharp it cuts me open. Whoever did this, whatever sick monster robbed Dani and Michelle of each other at the end of Michelle’s life, I’m going to make them suffer.
It’s a while before I can bring myself to pull my fingers out of Michelle’s hand. It feels cruel.
“We should go,” Heather says.
“We have to get her back in the car,” Marilyn says. Now that her period of usefulness is over, she’s at loose ends. “Take her back to the hospice, or something.”
“We can’t drive around with her,” I say, and notice I’m whispering. “I think the police are looking for all of us now and your windows are not tinted.”
“I vote we don’t drive around with a corpse,” Heather says.
“We are not leaving Michelle alone in a public park,” Marilyn says.
“Okay,” Heather says, and walks away.
“We are not leaving her here,” Marilyn says. “It’s illegal.”
“Dani’s not going to press charges,” I say.
“The city will,” Marilyn says.
“For what?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Marilyn says. “Littering?”
I’m starting to get nervous again. We’re out in the open with too many approaches. We’ve got a head start, but I need to convince them that we should use this opportunity to put some distance between us and all the people looking for us. The breeze moves wisps of Michelle’s hair. I smooth them down.
“That beats it all,” Marilyn says, digging through her purse. “Did you see my phone?”
“No,” I say. “Look, we need to get moving. People are looking for us.”
“I swear I just had it,” Marilyn says, ignoring me.
“Marilyn?” I say.
“Lynnette,” she says, stopping her search for the phone. “I just want to say—”
“Yes, I know,” I say. “How unhappy you are with me.”
“I was just going to say that we did a very good thing here today,” she says. “Let’s call Dr. Carol and take Michelle to the ranch. We can lay her out there.”
“Good,” I say. “It’s a secure location. We need to get Julia first, then get Dani out of jail, hole up and ride this thing out.”
The sound of Heather talking to a child gets closer. I look up and see her walking toward us, leading the old man with his pants up to his armpits by one arm. He stumps along beside her on his cane. His swollen, tender eyes stream water behind oversized medical sunglasses.
“Guys,” Heather says. “This is Carl DeWolfe Jr.”
“Pleased to meet you,” he quavers, looking approximately in our direction.
“Oh, no,” Marilyn says.
“He’s going to sit with Michelle while she waits for her ride,” Heather says.
“It’s a dangerous park,” Carl DeWolfe Jr. says. “A lady should not be unaccompanied.”
“Exactly,” Heather says, helping him sit down on the picnic bench next to Michelle’s wheelchair. “That’s why you’re going to sit with Michelle and wait. It shouldn’t be long.”
“It is an honor,” Carl DeWolfe Jr. says, inclining his head in Michelle’s direction. “I enjoy a good conversation.”
“She’s more of a listener,” Heather says.
She leads us away.
“This is low,” Marilyn hisses at Heather. “Even for you, this is low.”
“What’s the big deal?” Heather asks.
“The big deal is that he might defile her,” Marilyn says.
I stop walking and look back.
“I’m with Heather on this one,” I say.
The two of them stop and see what I’m seeing. Carl DeWolfe Jr. pats Michelle’s hand, chattering away at her, and then he leans over and adjusts the blanket around her shoulders, pulling it higher.
“Anyway,” Heather says as we continue toward Marilyn’s car, “I already called an ambulance. Here.”
She hands Marilyn back her phone.
“You what?” I say, but Heather is already hanging back, separating herself from me.
“You can’t just take things without permission,” Marilyn says, scrolling through her call list. “Who have you been calling?”
Heather is grinning like she’s ashamed of something, and I’m staring at her, and then I hear the voice that makes all the time disappear and I’m sixteen again.
“Well, hello there, pretty lady,” it drawls. “Been looking all over for you.”
Garrett P. Cannon comes up the sidewalk in his three-piece beige suit, cowboy hat pulled low to throw a slash of black shadow across his eyes. His white mustache squirms when he talks.
“You just try to run.” He grins. “Because I am itching to take you down hard.”
Cop cars pull up on either end of the street. Cops swarm up the sidewalk. Cops come across the bright green lawn. I stopped watching. I stopped checking my six. I stopped paying attention to my surroundings. I lowered my guard.
“What did you do, Heather?” I ask.
“It was you or me,” she says. “You or me.”
I look at the cops. I can go over the hood of the parked car next to me. There’s a gap in their line, and I can make it to the street and run. I’m stupid, stupid, stupid. I can’t believe I let my guard down.
“You did this?” Marilyn asks Heather like she can’t believe what’s happening either.
The police get between us, separating me from them.
“The rest of us are survivors,” Heather calls at me, still backing away. “You were always just a victim.”
She melts into the line of police and I know she’s cut a deal, she traded me to save herself. It’s what I did to Julia: abandoned her to save myself. It’s unforgivable.
I tense, ready to fake left and run right, but Garrett knows me too well. The second my muscles bunch up he whistles between his teeth, and the cops are on me. I break the fingers and thumb of the first one who grabs my wrist, but there are more. There are always more. In the end, they take me down hard.
—incident report, American Fork, Utah, Police Department, December 24, 1990
THE FINAL GIRL SUPPORT GROUP XI:
Better Watch Out!
The good thing about interview rooms is they always sit you facing the door. The bad thing about interview rooms is they’re always full of cops. The bald hipster detective wit
h a neck tattoo peeking over his collar sits across from me, bulging out of his Men’s Wearhouse suit, hands clasped on top of an open manila file. A lady cop sits next to him in a navy polo shirt, arms folded, leaning back in her chair, radiating contempt. Everyone else is in the other room, watching on the camera that hangs from the ceiling. I assume Garrett’s in there, probably eating popcorn.
“When did you first have sex with Santa Claus?” Men’s Wearhouse asks.
I’m so surprised I almost open my mouth to answer. Are these Garrett’s “shocking revelations”?
“Let me repeat for the hard of hearing,” Men’s Wearhouse says. “Can you tell us the date of your first sexual encounter with the Santa Claus Killer.”
I need to know what the hell they’re talking about, but no one ever regretted not talking to the cops.
“Lawyer,” I say.
“Did you have sex with the Santa Claus Killer before or after he tried to kill you?” he says.
“Tried to kill you twice,” Lady Cop amends.
“The second time wasn’t him,” Men’s Wearhouse corrects her. “It was his brother.”
The wall is a nice color. Sort of a pale yellow. I wish I could rest my eyes on it forever.
“Lawyer,” I repeat.
“Do you recognize the man in this photograph?”
Men’s Wearhouse slides an eight-by-ten glossy across the table. Ricky wanted to be an actor, and his headshots wound up in his file. There he is, three-quarters angle, giving me a sly smile from the tabletop. Casting directors probably thought he was charming, full of devil-may-care attitude, but all I can see is the crazy.
“Lawyer,” I repeat.
I focus on Men’s Wearhouse’s neck tattoo. It looks like a woman’s name. Lucille? Shanelle? Janelle?
Lady Cop makes an impatient sound, pushing air out between her teeth.
“What about this man?” Men’s Wearhouse says, peeling up Ricky’s eight-by-ten and putting down a mug shot of Billy.
Billy didn’t take care of himself the way Ricky did. He lived rough, had his nose broken playing football, but he’s got the same soap-opera-actor looks, although it’s hard to tell from the picture. They beat him up before taking his mug shot. I’m not too sad about that.
“Lawyer,” I repeat.
“The public defender’s office is swamped,” Lady Cop says. “We conveyed your request and they hope to have someone down here by the end of the day.”
“Or tomorrow,” Men’s Wearhouse says.
“I’ll wait,” I say, trying to keep my lungs from cramping shut.
Men’s Wearhouse and Lady Cop stand up and walk out of the room. They leave the photos of Ricky and Billy Walker looking up at me from the table.
The camera’s still watching so I can’t scream, or cry, or bang my head on the table, or do a single thing I want. It takes all my willpower. Is this what’s getting spread everywhere about me? I had sex with Ricky Walker? I can’t even think that sentence without my stomach feeling grease-slicked and slimy.
I focus on taking deep, full breaths. I don’t look at the photos. I rest my eyes on the wall. After a long time the door opens and Garrett comes in alone, carrying a thin manila folder, wearing his parade float of a cowboy hat, and his shitty, patronizing smile.
“Nobody here but us chickens,” he says, putting the manila folder on the table.
As usual, the room’s not big enough for me, and him, and his cologne.
“I notice you didn’t really have much in the way of conversation for Los Angeles’s finest,” he drawls. He pronounces it “Los Ang-guh-lees.” “So I convinced those boys to give us some alone time. You and me are old friends, so let’s bypass the pleasant banter, detour around the chitchat, wave a fond farewell to the ‘how’s the weather, preacher’ part of the program, and get down to brass tacks. How’s that sound to you?”
He looks into my eyes. It’s like having a flashlight shine in my face, but I won’t look away.
“I don’t like liars, Lynney. But I’m giving you a chance to do the Christian thing and come clean.”
He’s so smug and arrogant that I forget myself.
“About what?” I ask.
“She speaks!” he says, making a big production of opening the folder so I can’t see its contents. “Hallelujah.”
The photos he pulls out don’t bother me. I watched the real thing happen. But the way that one second I’m listening to him strut and preen, and the next the table is covered in glossy shots of my dead family, it draws a hot iron band around my chest. Now I know my lawyer isn’t coming.
“Yeah, they always get me the same way, too,” he says, smoothing down his mustache with his fingertips, watching me from beneath the brim of his hat. He pulls out the picture of my father’s corpse and puts it on top. “I respected the hell out of that man.”
He leans over the table, the brim of his hat bonking me in the forehead. He speaks low and slow.
“How long were you having carnal relations with Ricky Walker?” he asks.
The words don’t make any sense.
“You know I didn’t” comes out in a whisper.
“Billy says different.” He smiles. “The boy has found Jesus and cannot tell a lie.”
“My dad said you couldn’t even direct traffic at a Bulldogs game without someone holding your hand,” I say, making myself look him in the eyes. “Whose idea was this?”
He flashes me a thin smile that shows a slice of his teeth.
“So you’re saying you didn’t fuck Ricky Walker for six months before the killings? Your statement is that you didn’t ask him to murder your parents? You’re saying that you didn’t tell him you hated your father? You didn’t convince that poor psychotic boy to murder your folks? That’s the problem with psychos, Lynney, you can lead ’em to water but you just can’t make ’em kill the people you want. They tend to go hog-wild.”
Suddenly I have an idea of what else is inside that folder and I can’t hold on to the real world anymore, and I’m tumbling into this fucked-up, through-the-looking-glass horror show where everyone else is already waiting for me.
“That’s not true,” I say, but it sounds small.
“No one likes a cop killer, Lynnette.” He smiles. “Especially cops.”
“I didn’t . . .” I begin.
“Aw, of course not,” he says, cutting me off. He’s trying to get me worked up. He’s succeeding. “You’re only an accessory. It’s not just Billy’s word, either. Because it doesn’t matter how much Jesus a convicted serial killer has in his heart, most judges don’t give that shit for credibility.”
I see them all: Mom, Dad, Gillian, Tommy. I close my eyes.
“How did you think it was going to go?” he asks. “Was Ricky going to kill your boyfriend and your parents for you?”
I remember Tommy trying to protect me, Tommy not staying down, Tommy getting up over and over again no matter how bad Ricky hurt him.
I hear the manila folder open. A plastic evidence bag crinkles. He reads in a sickening falsetto.
“Dear Ricky, don’t put your return address on your letter. My daddy is the chief of police and if he knew you were writing to me—”
That’s when I go over the table.
They were waiting for me right outside the door. Men’s Warehouse leads the charge and they pour into the room, forcing me down, crushing my rib cage against the table. They shackle me and drag me out of the room.
They haven’t been wasting their time. One whole wall of the cell they throw me into is plexiglass. On the other side of the glass they’ve made a little display for me: an artificial Christmas tree, all set up with twinkling lights and everything.
Lady Cop taps on the window. She’s wearing a Santa Claus hat and a big white beard.
I start screaming, and she just stands on the other side with all
the other cops and laughs and laughs and laughs.
* * *
—
The cell where I’m going to die is smaller than Michelle’s hospice room. It’s brightly lit and they watch me through the plexiglass wall in case I try to kill myself before they can arrange to have me killed. The plexiglass is unbreakable. I know this because I already tried to break it. The walls are light pink cinder block, the floor is concrete. There is a slab sticking out from the wall where I can lie down. Behind the slab is a stainless-steel pedestal with a sink on top and a steel toilet on the other side. If I crouch over the toilet and bend down until my chest is on my knees I gain some small measure of privacy. They give me a roll of toilet paper but take away my shoelaces.
I don’t hate Heather for calling Garrett anymore because I’m saving up all my hatred for myself. If all these cops weren’t watching me, I’d have killed myself by now. I’ve got no shoelaces but I’m resourceful. I’d bite off my tongue and choke to death on my own blood if I knew they wouldn’t be in here before I bled out.
It’s cold. I fall asleep on the slab. There’s no blanket. At one point, I wake up and a bunch of cops are watching me and singing Christmas carols. They’ve taped a Santa Claus decoration to the window so I can see his face, all red and jolly. They want me to give them a reaction. I can’t help it. I give them one.
I wait for Marilyn to show up with a lawyer. I wait for Julia to arrive with the public defender. I wait for Dani, for Dr. Carol, for someone to save me from myself. Then I remember that Julia is in the hospital. Dani is in custody. And Marilyn and Heather and Dr. Carol probably hate me because they think I’ve committed the one sin we can’t forgive: lying down with your monster. They all think I’m another Chrissy Mercer.
I can feel it out there. I’m on the news again. What they imagine I did. The slut who slept with the killer. My high school picture and Ricky’s mug shot, our faces pasted next to each other like a couple at prom, bouncing all over cable news as a single image.
The Final Girl Support Group Page 13