Marci’s older brother, Martin, had also been interviewed by Smith. Martin was arrested for a DUI only two weeks before the murder of his sister. Martin said he had been working at Bing’s Service Garage in Willow’s Ridge on car repairs at the time of Marci’s murder; his alibi had been checked and cleared. An addendum had been added to the notes that Martin had required hospitalization at Willow’s Ridge General Hospital for a suicide attempt on August 12, 1989. The assigned psychiatrist reported to police that Martin’s attempt could be attributed to the grief over losing his only sister, with whom he had been close.
Cole Ainsley questioned Marci’s soccer coach and the assistant—soccer girl. Both of their alibis cleared. They were together at a soccer coaching clinic in Indianapolis for the week. The assistant told police that Marci had been quite happy in the weeks before her death. She claimed that Marci had been preoccupied with a new relationship and the rumor on the team was that Marci had a new girlfriend. I was named as the girlfriend in question through the interview with Marci’s parents and in Marci’s personal journal that had been found at the scene of the crime. Smith concluded after reading portions of the journal that Marci and I were more than friends and that Marci’s secret affair probably meant that she was also keeping many other secrets from those who loved her.
I know better; everything Marci cared about went into those journal pages. Writing was the way she processed her feelings and planned for her future. If Marci had another secret besides me, it would have been inside those pages.
Where was the journal? When Ainsley and Davis pulled Marci’s items from the evidence box for DNA testing, there was no personal journal. Even though Marci’s case is cold, it remains open, and nothing from the crime scene should be missing from the box of evidence. Clearly, Detective Smith had the journal at one time. That information could be critical to the case, but I also know how evidence tends to go missing in police stations: items get misplaced, lost, and discarded. Any person in law enforcement or the legal community had access to these files and boxes of evidence. Anyone could have taken the journal.
Smith’s notes certainly highlight different suspects, but I’m not surprised to see that he felt strongly about Pastor Jameson’s involvement at one point. Smith questioned both Charles and Mildred because Marci and I were supposed to arrive at the meeting that day, scheduled for five p.m. Smith had to have known the group was ex-gay, but he left this information out of the report. Instead he described Marci as an active weekly participant in Jameson’s religious organization. Still, something about Charles Jameson struck Smith as odd. He noted that for a pastor, a man of God, Jameson was surprisingly cold and apathetic about the violent death of the young girl that was part of his ministry. When questioned, Jameson only said: Our God is a vengeful God. The team requested a polygraph test from Jameson but he refused, citing religious reasons. Both Charles and Mildred Jameson had been preparing for the weekly meeting that was to include other teens from the Ohio region at the time of the murder. Many people had arrived early for the meeting and had seen them both. Smith and his team eventually ended up back where it all began: with a murdered teenager in one of the caverns of Willow’s Ridge limestone quarry and no strong suspects.
I spread the crime-scene photos out on top of the wooden desk and that day comes rushing back so clearly, I feel like I could touch each picture and fall back in time to Thursday, July 27, 1989.
“It is work,” I remind myself, “nothing else.” The batting down of emotions finally wins out, or possibly my sheer emotional exhaustion. For one of the very first times ever, I’m able to focus on Marci’s case without the baggage that generally comes with it.
One photo strikes me most from the handful of shots, the one I can’t take my eyes from. Marci’s body looks so small, so fragile, draped across the rocky wall and floor of the cave. With her head and back propped up against the cave’s wall, her full weight leaned against the side of a large rock. Marci’s arms were spread wide and out to the sides, while her thin, bare legs rested together in a V, knees clamped together. I look at this photo for a very long time, from different angles and in varying levels of light. Something rings familiar about the photo, something more than the memory of finding Marci in this very position.
Four autopsy photos are included in the file along with the postmortem report. Autopsy findings state that Marci died from head trauma to the base of the skull, most likely from repeated blows to the back of her head from the rock found at the crime scene. Photos show the back of Marci’s head where her hair was shaved to reveal the wounds and the jagged lines etched like a fault line after an earthquake. The report notes a fresh welt on her right cheekbone, cause unknown, and heavy skin damage across her neck. The ME concluded that came from the intense pressure of a forearm choking off Marci’s air supply until she passed out. No semen had been found in or on Marci. However, because she was found with her cutoffs partially pulled down, investigators determined the murder might be a sexual assault gone wrong or the act of an UNSUB trying to make it look like sexual assault, to throw off police.
I sit back and stretch my neck to each side and catch my breath. My thoughts turn to Marci’s brother, Martin. I completely understand his desire to kill himself after Marci died; I felt it, too. After Marci’s funeral, my father took me to see the psychiatrist that worked with Chesterton’s police, fire, and EMS units. Night terrors plagued me and a new fear overtook me: I was suddenly terrified for my father to go to work. I had never felt that before, but with Marci’s death, I worried he too would leave me. The psychiatrist strongly advised against my return to the One True Path meetings. I never went back to Willow’s Ridge or the Jamesons’ basement. My past with One True Path faded into the distant fold of my memory. Everything in my life eventually got better, except for the night terrors.
What helped me most in those early months after the murder wasn’t really the psychiatrist. Detective Roy Tyson of the Chesterton police department was one of my father’s best friends, and with my father’s permission, he took me on a ride-along. Tyson believed the activity would keep me busy and ease my worry that they would never find Marci’s killer. To everyone’s surprise, even my own, I wanted to learn about the job I had lived with my entire life. But not from my dad—it had to be someone else who showed me the ropes at that point. I spent the fall and winter months at Tyson’s side, and eventually I understood that Marci’s murder hadn’t been forgotten. The police were simply waiting for more information. Every weekend I tagged along with Roy on run-of-the-mill small-town cases and learned the basics of investigation and interrogation. Something else happened during my time with Roy—somewhere along the line I decided I wanted to be a cop. Not just a beat cop, but a detective. I wanted to be the one who solved cases and brought answers to families like Marci’s. I wanted to be the one who fought against all odds and helped justice to win out. When I walked for my high school diploma, I knew exactly what career path I would follow.
The hush of two a.m. settles around me. I’ve been at the file for hours, yet I cannot stop myself from flipping back to that photograph of Marci propped against the cavern wall. That image of Marci was sealed into my mind so long ago. Under the desk lamp, I turn the photo round and round. Crime-scene reports state that there was no indication that the cavern walls had been used as a weapon. The ME determined that the killer held the rock that had been slammed into her head and she was choked from behind and was standing at the time of the attack. Those actions would have caused Marci’s body to fall forward. Yet there was no blood on the cavern walls and very little on the cavern floor to match her injuries. Smith and Ainsley concluded that Marci’s body hadn’t been posed, but a person with a head injury does not fall into a seated position with her knees pulled into her chest.
Marci’s killer had manipulated her body after death, just like whoever committed the new murders. Unlike the most recent cases, though, he didn’t leave a cross of any kind on Marci’s body. I look back over the crime
-scene photos and focus on one that depicts Marci from the breasts up. There it is, as plain as day. Her shirt had been pulled open at the neck to reveal the Irish cross Marci always wore. He didn’t need to supply one for this murder; the victim already wore it.
The killer’s attack strikes me as an incredibly passive way to kill someone. Choking and beating someone from behind would prevent him from seeing her face. Most serial killers enjoyed watching their victims die. Ted Bundy talked at length about how much pleasure it gave him to see the light of life slowly give out in a victim’s eyes much the way a candle flame dissipates without oxygen. Additionally, he made a grave error: he didn’t consider that someone might be coming to meet her. Not very well planned, as he seems to be now. All of this evidence leads me to believe that Marci was an early kill, if not his first; she had been Picasso’s training wheels.
Maybe it was the strength the killer needed to choke Marci, or the force it would have taken to bash her head open. Either way, Smith dismissed me as a suspect after my first interview. He was confident that I was just as surprised as everyone else that someone would want Marci dead. Then I saw the handwritten addition to the bottom of one of the last pages in the file, only a scribbled-in afterthought: Ainsley wonders re: Lucinda Hansen’s involvement in the murder. Led killer to victim?
I hardly remember being questioned by Smith or Ainsley at the time of Marci’s death. I try to replay all the conversations I’ve had with Ainsley since I arrived in Willow’s Ridge for this case. It’s late and my mind begins to spin with conspiracy theories. Was it really only the universe bringing me back to the case of my past, as Rowan says, or are there human elements involved? No matter what, the inescapable conclusion remains: I may be Ainsley’s main suspect for Marci’s murder despite the fact that there is absolutely no evidence to support that theory.
And because Ainsley believes all the crimes are connected, I may be his number one suspect for all the Willow’s Ridge murders.
*
“Marci!”
The dark-haired girl’s racing feet pounded along the ridge over what served as a path while sweat dripped from her brow in the hot summer sun. When she rounded the corner into the entrance of Stonehenge, her flushed face spoke of pure panic. She stood above the girl still slumped against the cavern wall.
The dark-haired girl dropped to her friend’s side and froze with the thick, warm liquid seeping around her bony knees. She looked as though she could sit there forever lost in this trance, but the noise from the back corner of the cave alerted her. The dark-haired girl’s eyes flashed into the cave—but it had only been a scrape of something against the limestone floor.
She reached for her friend. “Help is on the way,” the dark-haired girl told her. “Please don’t go!” With shaking hands, she reached out to her dead friend to check for a pulse and a breath once again, but found none. “They’ll be here soon,” she repeated and her eyes flooded. “Don’t leave me,” she begged.
Then another noise. Something hard and metallic. The dark-haired girl’s senses sharpened to high alert and the tiny hairs on her arms and neck rose. She looked past her friend’s dead body into the depths of Stonehenge. She strained to hear any other noises. Goose bumps rose over the rest of her body. Slowly, she stood and took a step toward the back corner of the cave. Then another step. That’s when she saw him—a stranger huddled in the darkness of the back corner. At first, neither one moved, each only watching the other for a reaction. It was he who lunged for her, knocking his head on the bridge of the cavern ceiling. The dark-haired girl spun, jumped over her dead friend, and sprinted out of the cave toward the trail she’d just come from.
The dark shadow bolted out of the cave after her. She looked over her shoulder to find that he was within fifteen steps of her and gaining. She’d made this run twice already and her legs quivered under the pressure to run faster. Quickly she turned to her left and shot through the heavy forest. Her sudden change of course threw the dark shadow off for a moment, and he had to slow down to make a turn toward where she had gone. Thick trees and heavy vines bit at the dark-haired girl’s bare legs and arms, swiping against skin, leaving the screams of welts. Still she pushed on, tucked her chin into her chest, and barreled one frantic foot over the other. The change of course had gained her a few steps, but the dark shadow wasn’t far behind. The jagged breath and the pounding of his feet grew closer.
I wake, sweaty and shivering. Gasping for air, I’m unable to take in a full breath and tears seep from the corners of my eyes. I half walk, half crawl to the bathroom and throw handfuls of cold water over my face. Ever so slowly the cold water brings me back to now.
My reflection in the mirror shows the horror of what my memory has blocked. I’m pale and wide-eyed with fear. All this time I thought I’d been dreaming of Marci’s attack. But I saw the silhouette of the killer; he chased me, too. Somehow I outran him. Somehow I survived after interrupting his kill and stopped him from setting the ritual with Marci. My hands tremble and a tsunami of fear breaks over me. The killer knows me. He tried to kill me, too.
“Fuck!” I slam my fists against the bathroom wall. My mind races, caught in an endless loop that goes from Ainsley to the killer and back to Ainsley.
There is still a half carton of wine in the fridge. I line up three hotel cups and fill them to their plastic rims, enough wine to stop these shakes and ease my nerves. When the hotel cups are empty and my belly burns with the cheap alcohol, I fill them again and start all over.
Chapter Seventeen
Sunday, January 13
Davis slams the gas, and the cruiser belches and hurls us over the last big clump of snowdrift. At the top of the winding single-lane road, Davis throws the car in park. The town of Willow’s Ridge lies below, where chimneys steam out white, puffy trails from their fireplaces and furnaces against the early morning light. My head pounds with thoughts of last night’s drinking binge, the empty cartons beside me this morning when my alarm went off. Everything looks foggy and my body feels much too slow to be anywhere but in bed.
Davis pushes open his door. “Follow me.”
“Davis!” I protest.
“Follow me, Agent.”
Davis and I weave between rows in the Willow’s Ridge Cemetery, among gravestones of all shapes and sizes. As I trail behind him, my boots look like those of a child within the imprints of his. Even in the icy folds of snow, Davis is quick and light on his feet with long, loping strides. He leads me up another snowy hill and behind more rows of gravestones. From this vantage point, the highest spot of the surrounding area, I’m able to see how large the cemetery actually is. Markers dot the rolling hills below and new graves have begun to spread out past each base. Some of the gravestones are nothing more than small slabs, and time has weathered the engravings away. Others are large monuments, a mausoleum for an extended family. A section of veterans’ graves features flags and medals.
Davis finally stops at the foot of a grave, and I step up beside him to see the large marker featuring a cherub in full wings. The stone as tall as my waist reads:
Beloved son,
Rest in the comfort of God with peace your constant companion.
Timothy Michael Ainsley
1976–1999
Black fattened crows caw and squirrels sprint for the shelter of large trees. Up here, under the blankets of snow, everything seems peaceful.
“Ainsley’s only child. He always called Tim a miracle baby because he and his wife conceived late in life. They never expected to have a child. Tim’s death nearly devastated Cole.” Davis looks up a moment, takes in a deep breath. “Tim committed suicide. Cole was on duty when we got the call. We had to physically restrain him from entering his own house until we were able to process the scene.” Davis shudders at the bitter cold air that whips through the trees. “Cole’s wife came home from the grocery and found their son hanging from a banister.”
I can’t speak. A knot of something I can’t quite explain has lodged deep
within my throat.
“Tim came out when he was around sixteen and was active with One True Path. Once Cole began volunteering his time to the group, Tim withdrew. His suicide note said that he couldn’t get the homosexuality out of him and he couldn’t stand to look at his father’s disappointed eyes any longer. The poor kid.”
I swallow the knot. “So you did know about the Jamesons and the One True Path meetings.”
Davis’s body stiffens, his muscles bracing as if waiting for impact. “Cole Ainsley’s not perfect, Hansen. He’s been through a lot. One True Path is a mission that is near and dear to his heart. He saw it as a beacon of hope for his son and for his family.” Davis’s words defend his decision not to let on that he’d known about the Jamesons. He did it to protect Ainsley and his family’s past.
“It didn’t work, though.” I can’t stop the words before they spill out. “Those meetings only added to this kid’s guilt and shame over something he couldn’t even control. One True Path shamed Tim to death.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Davis struggles. He starts and stops a few times before he finally finds the words he’s searching for. “There are two sides to this, Hansen. Cole says that the months his son spent with One True Path were the first time he’d seen his son happy since childhood. Tim felt connected at those meetings. There, around everyone else who struggled, Tim found hope.”
The longer I look, the more it appears that the cherub inside Tim Ainsley’s gravestone grins and winks at me as though we share a long-lost secret. Maybe we do. One True Path is a club where we all suffered tremendously in order to be ourselves. The silence settles between me and Davis and this might very well be a first: I don’t have a response. This time, in this moment, I am listening.
“I’m not asking you to be Ainsley’s best friend, only his partner for the remainder of this case. He wants this thing solved as much as you do. It’s that determined drive to solve these crimes that makes you the perfect partners.”
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