by Trisha Wolfe
Thanks.
Despite my reservations, I take hold of her weathered hands. “We’re going to try our hardest,” I promise her.
Her eyes sheen with unshed tears and hope.
Hope.
After a year of searching for the truth, of seeking justice for her daughter, hope has become Bethany’s curse. Even when you try to sever every last thread of it, hope’s gauzy web latches on to the remaining pieces of your heart. It’s a painful thing to witness, when a family member cannot let go, move on.
“Thank you.” She squeezes my hand before she releases me. Then the tears come. Rivulets streak her dry cheeks, like rain down a desert canyon.
The sound of the door closing echos through the narrow hallway. I walk faster toward the elevator.
I sense Rhys’s towering presence behind me. “You did good back there,” he says. “Closure is all we can promise. Even then, it’s usually not enough. We can’t bring their loved ones back from the dead.”
“I know.” And I do. Grieving parents have a checklist. They stay stuck on step punish killer for a long time, and sometimes, when it’s time to move forward to the healing bullet point, they can’t.
“Bethany is the purest grieving mother I’ve met,” I say. “I hope I do her justice.”
I believe to be a true crime writer, you have to respect the victim.
There’s a distinct difference between the creation of a character, the process of conjuring a person out of nothing—giving them living, breathing personality—and depicting a true person on the pages.
If I kill off a fictional character, the reader may suffer, on a topical level. Until they pick up the next book.
But when making a study of people—real people—in order to recount their story, immersing myself in their lives, I have a responsibility to them—the victims—as well as the mourning family members and friends left behind, to share their cruel experience with the utmost respect. To be compassionate, humane.
If for no other reason than to differentiate yourself from the very real killer you’re also depicting.
You need that clear line between good and evil.
I need it.
The voice of the victim, as well as the voice of those closest to the victim, are the ones who direct my narrative.
Rhys and I are silent as we descend to the ground level. When the doors open, we’re in a new frame of mind.
The next bullet point on our checklist: the crime scene.
7
Book of Drew
Lakin: Then
I saw him the first day of my Abnormal Psychology class. I was seated in the second row. He introduced himself as Drew. Not Prof. Abbot. Or even Prof. Andrew Abbot. Just Drew. He was the young teacher. The cool teacher. The one who involuntarily winked while you were talking and made you feel special.
He was giving his introductory lecture on the definition of abnormal.
“We hear that word, and instinctually, subconsciously, we place it in the negative box. Something that is abnormal is not normal, therefor it’s wrong.” Drew glanced around the room, making eye contact with various students. I was one of them. “I want you to free your preconceived notions. Just let them go. Abnormal doesn’t denote wrong. Instead, think of abnormal psychology in terms of the level of interference your patient may suffer in their quality of life due to their disorder.”
He was brilliant. And beautiful. A lethal combination that consumed the air around him. He drew everyone in; the gravitational pull of a black hole, but you felt light, and warmth, from his sun.
A girl in the front row raised her hand. “What about maladaptive behaviors, Drew? What’s the difference between that and a mental disorder?”
I wanted to roll my eyes. This girl—the one who’d stolen his attention, with her pert, bouncy tits and pert, bouncy beach waves—should know the difference if she was registered in AP. Maybe she was in the wrong class. Stumbled in thinking it was her poetry elective.
Blondes with bouncy tits always took a poetry elective.
I mocked her, yet I envied her right from the start. The way she stood out, asked dumb questions to gain his attention. And it worked.
As she peered around the class, my heart lurched, my pulse slammed through my veins. She was stunning. Her beauty was a gut punch to every girl in the class. I felt it ripple the air; a collective domino effect.
Drew knelt in front of her desk, wrist braced on the edge. “Excellent question, uh…?”
“Chelsea.”
“Mental disorders are the root. Maladaptive behaviors are unhealthy ways of coping with the disorder. Most of the time, reinforcing the illness.”
As everyone here learned in Psych 101.
The uncomfortable feeling dispelled as quickly as it came. I couldn’t be envious of someone as vapid as Chelsea. Still, I kept sneaking glimpses at her. Curious.
Later, when Drew chose me, when he picked me out of a sea of vapid girls all angling to be with “the hot professor”, I had no more reason to fear Chelsea.
But, as Drew would denote, obsessing over a fear is a maladaptive behavior in its own right.
Drew stood and turned his attention to the class. “A patient can have any number of coping mechanisms to deal with their symptoms.” He paced the front of the room, and I loved the way he moved in his jeans. “For instance, I once treated a patient who depended on dream interpretation in order to make choices through their day. They couldn’t leave the house, pay a bill, or even take a shower until I’d analyzed their dream.”
Another student raised their hand. “So, you essentially had control over their choices, their life. Isn’t that dangerous?”
This piqued my curiosity. I leaned in, needing to know.
“Yes. Freudian techniques can be dangerous in the wrong hands,” he said. “The challenge in this particular case was to use psychoanalysis in order to get the patient to interpret their own dreams, in essence letting them guide their own life. By delving into their subconscious, we discovered the patient was, in fact, revealing repressed memories through dreams.” He walked to the whiteboard and jotted a note about recovered memories.
“Think of a computer. The mind is a fascinating, intricate web. Our memories race along the spun webbing, the network, connecting to folders of cached data. But here’s the difference: we don’t recall our memories in perfect clarity or detail. Our minds alter those moments. Every time we look at them, they change in little ways.”
He spouted psychobabble like poetry. He made you feel like he was talking directly to you, intimate. Personable.
I knew I’d fall in love with him that first day.
And I knew—somewhere in the racing neurons of my brain—that love would destroy me.
8
Open Ending
Lakin: Now
As with an author of fiction, every true crime writer has their own style, their own voice, along with their own story to tell. We strive in our research on the case, the killer, the victims. We endeavor to reveal, essentially, our path to the truth.
Whether or not the case is solved, whether or not the killer is caught, varies. Every book is different just as every person is different. Like a fingerprint, each book is unique.
Some writers lay the facts out and lead readers on a quest for that truth with one major theory, expounding on the details until they’ve made their case, like a lawyer arguing before a jury. In the end, the writer hopes to prove their theory and convince readers.
For me, it wasn’t enough to investigate and hammer down a theory. I wanted—needed—a resolution. I craved to look into the eyes of the killer once caught. To know he had stolen life for the very last time. He had met his finality.
Of course, this must happen from a safely removed distance. Poring over Internet images of perpetrators in handcuffs from my dark living room. Watching clips as officers walk them through the doors of a jailhouse. This is also why writing under a pseudonym is important. The “bad guys” can’t have access t
o the author. It’s dangerous, but it’s also…
Succinct satisfaction.
Then it starts all over again.
I’ll pull out my box of files and start the dig. Seeking the next case.
It’s a drug. Once I experienced that first moment of completeness after we closed the Patterson case, it didn’t take long before the hunger returned, more ravenous than before. I have an insatiable desire that I fear will never be sated, no matter how many murderers we catch.
I’m not oblivious. My major in psychology gave me a pretty healthy insight into myself; not allowing me the excuse of denial. My own unsolved case is sitting on the backburner, boiling over, demanding attention.
It won’t let me experience relief for very long.
Not every case becomes a book. But every case must be solved. That’s the unspoken promise Rhys and I made to each other after we shut my file permanently.
The USB drive on my key chain feels weighty in my pocket. The incomplete book a heavy burden to constantly lug around.
I’m an open ending.
I hate open endings.
The only thing in my control is the next case. The next victim. Like Joanna Delany. She deserves my complete focus, not my pity, or self-pity. I’m here and she’s not.
Lucent Lake West is muggy. Mosquitos already abuzz before noon. I spray my arms with repellant and hand the bottle to Rhys. Just another thing I don’t miss about living in Florida.
“I remember when the mosquito truck used to drive down our street,” I say, staring out over the flat lake top. The wind picks up briefly and feathers a current of ripples across the surface. “My mother would scream at me to run inside, or else I’d die from breathing the fumes.” I smile at the memory, though it’s rather morbid.
Amber and I had been playing in my backyard one day, climbing the orange tree, when we spotted the mosquito truck. We raced each other down the tree. She let me win. I know this, because she was faster, more agile.
I fell and broke my wrist trying to beat her, anyway.
That was the moment I absolutely acknowledged I could not win against the Ambers of the world.
As Rhys puts the bottle of spray in my bag, I slip my sleeve up and snap the band around that wrist.
“I didn’t realize there was such a thing as mosquito trucks,” he says as he pulls up the crime scene photos on his tablet.
I raise an eyebrow. “Lucky you.”
A tight-lipped smirk rims his mouth. Rhys once told me he grew up on the northwest peninsula. It rains in that part of the country more than any other, and the winters are cold and harsh. Must be what gives him such a warm personality. I deliver my own knowing grin in return.
He hands me the tablet. “Medical examiner placed the time of death around eight p.m. This isn’t the most secluded spot.” He glances around the marsh scenery. “Yet she went unnoticed for over twenty-four hours before the dog walker called it in the next evening.”
Sometimes it’s difficult to follow his train of thought, but I latch on to his theory in this instance. “Someone familiar with the victim’s schedule or the area, to know she’d be alone, and that they’d have enough time. Her mother said she used to walk in the evenings almost every day. She used it to decompress after work.” Part of the victim’s extended sobriety program as a recovered meth addict.
Ms. Delany was hesitant to go into details, regardless that she knows it’s already in her daughter’s file. Drug addiction is a storm that tears through a family. Time doesn’t heal all wounds.
Rhys nods and looks at the apartment complex that abuts the lake. “The police only canvassed neighbors in the complex where the vic lived. What about the others? There are three apartment buildings that surround the lake area.”
“Maybe a witness that didn’t come forward,” I reason aloud. “And anyone within close proximity could learn her routine.”
“Let’s walk the perimeter. See if we can tell which apartments are in view of the crime scene.” Rhys starts toward the bank.
Before I follow his lead, I look at the tablet in my hand, at the image displayed on the screen. My chest prickles as a sinister awareness slithers over me.
Last night, I was able to get through most of the case file while lying in the hotel bed. The reports describe the body in grisly candor, but actually seeing the mutilation is different; it stirs a visceral reaction.
With a guarded breath, I zoom in on the laceration that stretches the length of her rib cage. Despite the bloated skin, the washed out, paled appearance, I can imagine what it would look like—feel like—once healed, had the victim lived through the attack.
It’s not the same placement, or size…but the sight of the injury spikes my blood like a shot of alcohol. Dizzy, I lower the tablet.
“Dammit.” Air fights its way into my lungs, and I swallow past the constriction of my throat. I stumble over a mound of reed grass, my legs shaky. “Rhys…” He doesn’t hear me. “Agent Nolan!”
This stops him on the shore. He looks back at me, his suit jacket flapping open as a breeze crosses the lake. His features pull together in question.
I hold up the tablet when I reach him. “Did you see this?”
His hands go to his hips, pushing his jacket open farther. “Hale, what are you talking about?”
“This—” I point to the victim on the screen. “The ME report didn’t record this laceration correctly. Did you know about it? Did you see this image?” The accusation in my tone startles even me. I draw in a breath. “Am I crazy?”
His frown deepens as he squints against the noon sun. Then his eyes find mine. “You’re not crazy.”
My relief is momentary.
“But,” he continues, “I asked if you were comfortable taking this case.” It comes across accusatory.
I drop the tablet by my thigh. “That’s not—”
“I read the report. Studied the images. I asked you before,” he stresses.
“Stop. This isn’t about my reaction. Don’t analyze me. There’s a distinct similarity here.” Now that the words are out there, I can’t take them back.
At his intense silence, I look past him, out to the ripples sheeting the lake.
Take it back.
But I can’t. The remembered pain surges to life, bigger than this moment.
Rhys draws closer. Mercifully, he doesn’t make me elaborate. He doesn’t need me to. He’s seen this reaction before. In victims.
“Hale, look at me.”
I force my gaze away from the lake, but it’s difficult to look into his knowing eyes. Still, I make myself do it, to face the cold truth.
His jawline is tense. A muscle feathers along his cheek. He’s holding back. “Are you seeing a similarity?” he finally asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
My mind flips through my psych classes. One of the signs of late onset schizophrenia is seeing patterns where they don’t exist. Then there’s frequency illusion. Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon. It’s also a sign of stress. Like when a person is working a cold case that resembles their attack.
Simplest, most logical explanation. Stress.
“Focus on me. Right here,” he says, directing my gaze to his eyes. Something flashes in his steely gaze, and he takes hold of the tablet. He zooms in on the laceration. “What does the ME report read?”
“Length of laceration is six inches, though it could be longer. And the case file didn’t have a photo from this angle. Maybe the pathologist measured wrong…”
“There are going to be similarities between this case and yours,” he says. “Certain familiarities that are going to make you uncomfortable, to react. No one will judge you if you can’t handle this case.” He swallows, and I watch the dip along his throat. “I won’t judge you.”
Pressure builds at my temples. I scratch my wrist. “I can handle it.”
He releases a heavy breath. “We should’ve gone over the case together before we hit the crime scene.”
“I�
��m fine, Rhys.” I catch my lip between my teeth, and his gaze lowers, sending a jolt of awareness through me. We’re too close.
As always, he’s able to sense my unease. He steps back, giving me space. He nods once, like he’s answering some unspoken question within himself. Then: “First thing I did was cover every similarity and search out every disparity. I made sure. Similar, but not our guy. If I thought, even for a second, that it could be related—”
“I know,” I say, forcing his words to stop. I drag my fingers through my hair as I look up at him. “Similar. But not a match to the MO.” Joanna’s clothes were removed. A very distinct difference for the perpetrator. “This isn’t about me or my case.”
“Do you believe that?”
“The victim suffered eight stab wounds to the torso focused on the abdomen, all in varying degrees of depth.” As I say this, his gaze flicks to my chest, and I feel as if he can see right through the sheer material, see the scars. I cross my arms. “The fatal wound was a stab delivered to the left side of the chest that severed her pulmonary artery and lung. Cause of death, drowning.”
I break it down, reciting the report like a pathologist; clinical, detached. This puts the case into perspective, separating facts from sentiment.
I suffered ten stab wounds. One profound laceration to my sternum. I died from trauma resulting in pulmonary edema. The most likely reason for my inability to recall the attack.
Rhys studies me closely. “This isn’t like you.”
I swipe at the loose wisps of hair battering my face. “I know.”
It’s been proven; I’m not an emotional person by nature. Even after my attack, I couldn’t be brought to tears. I wasn’t choked up by violence on TV. The news didn’t make me lose my faith in humanity. Rhys knows this about me, and he knows this outburst of…whatever it is, is out of character.
I haven’t cried since Amber.
I drag in a breath. “The crime scene image jarred me. That’s all.” It’s all I can admit.