The Ophelia Killer

by Valerie Geary

  It wasn’t what he expected her to say, not what he thought she’d notice first. He thought she would be upset about the fact that seventeen years ago, the police had a suspect in their grasp but no evidence to bring him in. A kid named Danny Cyrus, who Margot was apparently flirting with that summer.

  Jimmy thought Brett would be upset, too, about the incompetence of the detective, Stan Harcourt, and how little he did in the way of an actual investigation. But no, it’s the coroner’s report she latches on to, the probable time of death, the days her sister spent decomposing in the forest before anyone found her.

  “I’ve spent half my life thinking that if I had just told someone sooner, done something sooner, that she might still be alive.” Brett’s voice is thick with emotion. “I’ve spent half my life thinking I could have saved her. What a waste of time.”

  She tips the whiskey to her lips and drains the glass. A shudder rolls through her, then she flips through the folder a second time, slower now, squinting at each detail. She stops at one of the pictures of her sister lying on her back in a dappled wood.

  Brett’s eyes glisten, and her mouth pinches into a frown. She shakes her head and flips the page to a written report describing the items found with Margot’s body. By some miracle, she was still partly dressed in her bra and underwear, with no signs of sexual assault. She clutched a bouquet of wildflowers to her breasts. Her hair was tangled with leaves and more flowers. Her tongue had been cut from her mouth.

  “It can’t be a coincidence, right?” Brett asks, the trembling emotion in her voice now sharpening to a hard edge. “Was he there? The man we’re looking for now, the Ophelia Killer? Did he kill Margot? Is that what I’m looking at here?”

  Before Jimmy can respond, Brett starts rattling off the similarities, and he nods along, agreeing with everything she says.

  There are too many things the same for Margot’s case not to be linked to the Ophelia Killer. Jimmy has always wondered if there were more than the eleven he’s sure about, if there were women killed before 1967, murders that went unnoticed, others like Margot who have stayed lost in the cold case files of their local departments, moldering away in dank basements for who knows how many decades. It’s a lucky break, finding Margot’s case. Jimmy feels like he should say something about destiny, about the rise and fall of fates, their paths converging to hunt down a killer who never should have wandered free for so long.

  Instead, he says, “Are you hungry? I made tater tots.”

  She gives him a baffled look and flips the folder closed again. This time she keeps her hand pressed flat on top of it. “Someone has to tell Rausch about this. The sooner, the better.”

  She scoots the chair back and starts to get up, taking the folder with her.

  “Not you.” Jimmy snatches the folder from her grasp.

  Trixie, excited by their movements, gets up from her spot underneath the table and winds around their legs.

  “Someone has to go up there.” Brett reaches for the folder, but Jimmy pulls it away. “Someone has to go back and talk to the detective who investigated her case. Talk to the people who were in Crestwood that summer. Maybe someone will remember something.”

  “Yes, but that someone is not going to be you,” Jimmy repeats, emphasizing the words. “If Rausch finds out you were looking at this file, you could get fired. At the very least, you’ll get reassigned back down to patrol duty. They’ll certainly kick you off this investigation.”

  She works her lips between her teeth, and Jimmy realizes with a jolt that he knows her well enough now to recognize she’s scared.

  “Then you have to take it to him,” she says.

  “I want to go up there first.”

  “What? No. Jimmy, this is bigger than your stupid story.”

  He bristles at her words. “I’m doing this for you, Brett. Don’t forget that.”

  “If you were doing it for me, you’d take the file to Rausch.”

  “So he can ignore it like he’s ignored everything else?”

  Brett sighs and sinks into the chair. She reaches to pet Trixie, who’s leaning against the side of her leg, blinking up at her with woeful brown eyes.

  Jimmy sighs, too, but doesn’t sit down. He keeps the folder tucked under his arm as he talks. “I followed up on those tips, too, Brett. The ones Rausch told you not to bother with?”

  She looks at him with a spark of hope in her eyes. “And?”

  “The girls were pretty much dead-ends. They couldn’t come up with much beyond a dark blue sedan. One of them thought there was a Z in the license plate, but the other said she thought it was 2. So, that didn’t go anywhere.”

  The spark fades.

  “The soccer coach, though, had a lot to tell me about the man she saw. She described him to me in pretty good detail. Mid-thirties, she guessed, dark blond hair that curled around the collar of the security guard jacket he was wearing. She said his eyes were blue and cold, that he had a strange look on his face, angry but also bemused. Those were her words. She said he looked like a tiger who’d been torturing a mouse. I had her talk to a sketch artist. They came up with a sketch. She says it’s a pretty good likeness. I took the sketch to the Oregon State campus security office, but they said they didn’t have anyone working for them who looked like the man in the sketch.”

  “So, he’s posing as a security guard? That’s how he can get close enough to take the girls?”

  “Probably. But there’s still the possibility that the man in the locker room isn’t the man we’re looking for.”

  “Show me the sketch,” Brett says.

  Jimmy’s been carrying a copy in his back pocket since the artist drew it up three weeks ago. He takes it out now and hands it to her. She unfolds the paper, studies it a moment, then shakes her head. “I’ve never seen him before.”

  “But someone in Crestwood might recognize him. If this man and the man who killed Cherish and Natasha is the same as the man who killed your sister—”

  “Jimmy, I’m sorry.” She’s on her feet again, gripping the black-and-white sketch tightly. “I know you don’t want to tell Rausch about this, but he needs to know. This could be it. This could be the break we’ve been hoping for. It’s the end of May, but as long as the Ophelia Killer sticks to his previous timeline, that still leaves us two months. We have time to stop him, Jimmy, but you can’t do it by yourself.”

  “I know.” He takes the picture from her, folds it, and puts it back in his pocket. “But let me take it to Rausch, okay? You stay out of it. I’ll tell him everything, and I’ll tell him he has to send someone up to Crestwood.”

  She nods, agreeing, then asks, “What if he doesn’t listen to you?”

  “Then I’ll go up to Crestwood myself.” He smiles, trying to reassure her. “One way or the other, we’re catching this bastard before he kills another girl.”

  Brett drops her hand and scratches Trixie’s ears. Her gaze is unfocused as she stares across the room. Trixie’s tongue lolls out the side of her mouth in pure happiness. After a few seconds, Brett shifts her gaze back to Jimmy and says, “I think I’m ready for those tater tots, now, if you’re still offering.”

  Chapter 12

  The day after showing Brett her sister’s file, Jimmy comes home during his lunch break to walk Trixie and finds his apartment door standing open. From somewhere inside, he can hear Trixie’s muffled barks. Anger and panic flares in his chest. He hesitates outside the door, slowing his breathing, steadying his shaking hands, wishing he was the kind of man who carried a gun.

  All of the neighbors’ doors are closed. He’s never home long enough to get to know them anyway, but certainly, one of them would let him use their phone to call the police. From inside his apartment comes a muffled thump and the sound of someone rifling through drawers. A shadow flashes across the doorway, then another. A male voice thunders, “Jesus, how many pens does this guy need?”

  “You’re not here to count pens, Fred.�
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  Jimmy recognizes the second man’s voice immediately, and his anger flares hotter, fueled by the fear he no longer feels. He steps over the threshold into his apartment.

  The three uniformed officers moving through the small space is overkill. They keep tripping over one another and bumping elbows. Jimmy recognizes one guy as the bumbling Clodfelter from Cherish Spalding’s crime scene.

  Clodfelter flaps his hands at another man with short red hair and says, “I already looked over there.”

  Detective Michael Rausch stands apart from it all in the kitchen. He’s facing away from the commotion, staring through the balcony door at the duck pond. Trixie is locked out on the balcony, presumably by Rausch. Her breath fogs up the glass with each demanding bark to be let back inside, but the detective ignores her. His fingers are laced behind his back, and he taps one thumb in a slow rhythm.

  It takes Jimmy four long strides to get to the kitchen. One officer sees him, and his mouth hinges open, but he doesn’t say anything or try to stop him.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Jimmy shoves Rausch to one side and reaches to open the balcony door.

  Rausch lays a hand on Jimmy’s arm, stopping him. “She’ll only be in the way.”

  “No, she won’t.” Jimmy wrenches his arm back. “Because you’re all leaving.”

  A smug, self-satisfied smile creeps onto Rausch’s face as he pulls a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket and holds it out to Jimmy. “We’ll leave when we’re good and ready to leave. And I’m only going to ask you once to not interfere. I’d hate to have to arrest you for obstruction.”

  Jimmy snatches the paper from Rausch and scans the fine print, trying to figure out what kind of lies the detective told a judge to get him to sign off on this ridiculous search. He shoves the paper back into Rausch’s hands. “You know you’re wasting your time, right?”

  “We’ll see.” He gestures to the kitchen table. “They’re almost finished. Why don’t you and I sit down and have a little chat.”

  “I have nothing to say to you.” He grabs Trixie’s leash hanging by the front door, returns to the kitchen, slides open the balcony door, and kneels down beside her. She leaps at him, licking his face. He clips the leash to her collar and brings her inside.

  Rausch stands to one side but never takes his eyes off Jimmy.

  In the living room, something crashes to the floor. Trixie starts barking again. Jimmy hushes her and turns to Rausch. “Are you going to pay for whatever they break?”

  Rausch snorts a half-laugh. He takes a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.

  “Don’t smoke in here,” Jimmy warns him.

  Rausch shrugs. He pulls a cigarette out of the pack but doesn’t light it, just flips it in his fingers, rolling the paper over his knuckles. “I’ve been working back over the timeline,” he says. “It all fits.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You move back to the area. Bam. Girls start showing up dead. Then you start showing up to my crime scenes, inserting yourself into the investigation, taking a particular interest in certain girls and not others.”

  “I take an interest in the ones that are similar,” Jimmy says, trying to keep his voice level. He doesn’t want to come off sounding defensive because he knows how Rausch could use that against him. But he can’t stand here and say nothing either. “We’re on the same side, Rausch. We both want the same thing.”

  “I’m not so sure about that anymore.” Rausch drops the unlit cigarette back into his pocket.

  He leaves the kitchen to go stand in front of the living room wall. Jimmy follows him, tugging on Trixie’s leash to get her to come along. Her tail is tucked between her legs. A low growl rolls through her chest as she eyes the three officers darting around the apartment, opening drawers and lifting cushions.

  Several things have been added to Jimmy’s wall since Rausch was in his apartment last July. Natasha Tinneford’s picture, for one. Plus, a description of the car the sorority girls saw parked on their street. And a copy of the sketch of the man the soccer coach confronted in her locker room. Rausch takes the drawing down and holds it up to the light. His eyes flick back and forth between the picture and Jimmy’s face as if he’s comparing the two.

  “Is this our guy?” he finally asks.

  “Could be.”

  “And what information did you base this sketch off of?”

  “There was a witness—”

  “Bullshit.” Rausch spits the word out then crumples the paper in his fist. “There are no witnesses.”

  Jimmy draws Trixie’s leash a little tighter. She presses her warm body against his legs. “There’s a soccer coach at Oregon State who says she caught a man lurking in the girls’ locker room. Based on her description, that’s what the guy she saw looked like.”

  Rausch tries to smooth out the paper again. He frowns at the sketch, then glares at Jimmy. “This could be anyone. Or no one. This could be you trying to steer us in the wrong direction, so you can choose your next victim.”

  “Like I told you the last time you were here,” Jimmy says through gritted teeth. “If you have proof, go ahead and arrest me already. But I’m telling you, the man we’re looking for would never be so brazen as to hang out with cops the way I do. He certainly wouldn’t help them. What he does to these women, the kind of relationship he believes he has with them, it’s a private one.”

  The man they’re hunting wouldn’t be so blatant about hanging his victims’ pictures on his wall. He wouldn’t pal around with cops. He wouldn’t write articles. He would sit in a quiet, dark room with the cut-out tongues, listening to their whispered secrets, keeping the women all to himself.

  One of the officers pops his head out of the bedroom door and says, “I think we may have found something.”

  An arrogant spark flashes in the detective’s eyes as he spins away from Jimmy and strides into the bedroom.

  Jimmy trails after him, and even though he knows he’s innocent, knows there’s nothing to find that could mark him as a killer, his heart starts to race. He doesn’t trust Rausch not to twist facts to make them fit this bullshit story he’s made up about Jimmy’s involvement in this case.

  Apprehension turns to dread when he steps into the bedroom to find Detective Rausch flipping through Margot Buchanan’s case file. The very same file Jimmy was planning to bring to Rausch as a possible lead looks damning in this cramped and dimly lit space.

  Between Rausch and the three officers, there’s barely any room left for Jimmy to step through the doorway. A bead of sweat trickles down his back and cools against his skin, shivering a chill up his spine.

  “What am I looking at here?” Rausch frowns and waves the folder in the air.

  “I was going to bring that to your office next week, after the holiday.” Even if Rausch decided to work on Memorial Day, it’s still a good excuse for why Jimmy didn’t bring the file in as soon as he realized the possible connection between the cases. It’s better than the truth, anyway.

  Part of the reason Jimmy held off showing Rausch the Buchanan file sooner is pure selfishness. He wanted to show Brett first, and he wanted to take the story to Tadd, so maybe he deserves what’s happening now. But the other reason he didn’t go to Rausch right away is because he knew exactly what Rausch’s response would be, and he’s sick of wasting time.

  Detective Rausch slaps Margot’s case file closed, and a blast of laughter escapes his lips. “You’re kidding me with this, right? Who did you have to sweet talk to get this file? Oh, and let me guess, you think this seventeen-year-old case is connected.”

  “I think if you take a closer look at it, you’ll see the similarities, too.”

  Rausch hands the file to one of the officers. “Bag this.”

  Jimmy starts to protest, but Rausch cuts him off, swinging his hand in the air over his head. “And bag up all that stuff in the living room, too. That shrine he’s built for t
he girls he’s killed.”

  “It’s not a shrine.”

  “I don’t give a shit what you call it. It’s evidence, and I’m taking it with me.”

  The officers slide out of the bedroom and begin pulling everything off the wall. Jimmy grits his teeth as every scrap, every piece he worked so hard to find, is taken down and stuffed into cardboard boxes.

  “You’re wasting your time on me, Rausch,” Jimmy says. “The real killer’s out there right now hunting his next victim. Every minute you spend trying to make me look guilty is another minute you’re giving him to get away with murder.”

  “You’re making this harder on yourself, Slim-Jim. You know that, right? All you have to do is tell me the truth.”

  “You need to send someone to Crestwood,” Jimmy says.

  Rausch tilts his head to one side. “You ever been to Crestwood, Slim-Jim?”

  “I’ve never even heard of Crestwood before I saw that file.”

  The last scrap of paper is taken off the wall. The officer drops the lid on the box and straightens.

  “That’s it, Mikey,” he says, talking to Detective Rausch. “Want us to take him in, too?”

  The detective’s expression is hard to read—calm, but there’s a spark in his eyes, the flash of something deadly. He pops his knuckles, then he shakes his head. “Let’s give him a night to think things over. He’s not going anywhere. Isn’t that right, Slim-Jim? Because you know how that would look, don’t you? If you left town right now? Don’t worry, he’ll still be here in the morning. We can come back for him then, after we make it official.”

  The three officers leave the apartment with the box.

  Detective Rausch stops in the doorway, turns to Jimmy, and says, “You can make this easier on yourself, you know. Come down to the station with me right now, come clean. I can help you out here, Jimmy. I can make your life easy, or I can make it hell. The choice is yours.”

  He waits with his hand on the doorknob.

  Jimmy counts the seconds as the silence stretches between them. Rausch is bluffing. If he had any good evidence at all, Jimmy would already be in handcuffs.