“I’m here because I want to be.”
“I’m glad for that, Ro.” I feel her nod behind me. “Thanks. I definitely don’t say that enough.” I rub my open hand along the smooth line of her strong shin bone.
Rowan continues sponge-bathing me, spreading the water into all my hollows while I tell her about the murder that matches Klosenova’s photograph number two. “He never stopped,” I say. “He just moved away to Wyoming. For some reason, he made his way back to Willow’s Ridge.”
“There’s no doubt it’s your guy?”
“Nope. The posed body is a match. Davis wants you to come in with me in the morning and take a look at the crime-scene photos again. See if you recognize anything as out of place.”
“I’d love to help.”
I feel half-drunk on the lavender aroma mixed with the steam. Rowan lets more hot water in to heat up the cooling waters. The pounding of the water revs up my emotions again, tightens some of what the bath has loosened.
“Ugh.” I drop my forehead against my bent knees. “We’re too late to save them, Ro.” My mind flashes to Marci’s smile. “To save her.”
Rowan tests the silence, then whispers, “If you’d been there with Marci, you’d be dead, too.”
I’m not sure why this moment feels so right to talk. Maybe it’s the emotional eruption I had earlier in the evening. Or maybe it’s the steam or the lavender oil that opens me, but I feel like everything has shifted into place, as though I am a vault and the correct combination has been entered. Almost before I realize it, I’m telling Rowan details I’ve never told another.
“I was late that day, you know. There was an accident on the interstate. When I found her, she hadn’t been dead long. There she was, hair a bloodied mess, her clothes half torn off her.” I shake my head. “If only there hadn’t been the accident.”
“Then what? You were a kid, not a cop! The police would have found the two of you dead and hidden away inside that cave.”
“Maybe I could have done something.”
Rowan lets out a very tired and long sigh. “Marci knows, Luce. She knows. All she wants out there in the spirit world is for you to forgive yourself.”
I close my eyes and shake my head. It’s hard for me to believe that Marci has forgiven me. After all, she’s the one who’s dead and I’m the one enjoying a bath with my lover. Where’s the fairness in that equation?
“Marci would never blame you for what happened. Look, I know you hate when I get all spiritual on you. I get it. But you have to understand that the mystics and my spiritual studies have made me who I am.”
Rowan took two years of religion and philosophy classes while getting her art degree at the university. Her real studies in the spiritual world, though, were during the time she spent studying at the ashram. I’ve never seen someone who could fade into that prayerful place that Rowan sometimes goes while she twists her small body into some of the craziest positions that hurt me just to watch. I’m thankful that Rowan waited to get into all this until after I’d fallen in love with her. With my cop mentality, sometimes I wonder if I’d have gone out with her a second time if she’d slipped into cat or eagle pose while chanting in that haunting way that simultaneously calms and frightens me. My conversations with my dead father notwithstanding, some of Rowan’s moves can be plain creepy.
“Finding Marci’s killer and bringing him to justice will set her free. And you.” Rowan takes a deep breath. I feel the air slip out of her over my right shoulder. “Set yourself free of the past, Luce.”
Rowan continues to rub my back with soapy water, letting rivulets of warmth spill over my shoulders and down my chest. Silence lets her words sink in.
After some time, Rowan speaks again. “How was the meeting with One True Path?”
I groan. “It was an intervention. I should have realized they were up to something. It was way too easy to get the Jamesons’ permission to attend the meetings.”
“Like a drug and alcohol intervention?”
“Exactly. Only this was about my addiction to homosexuality. You have to admit that you are powerless over homosexuality before the group will agree to help you.”
Rowan lets out an incredulous laugh behind me. “Holy shit. Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack. I’ve had two of those interventions now. Two too many,” I say.
“You had an intervention with your dad?”
“I came home from school one day and Pastor Jameson and our own minister were sitting in our family room with my dad. It was so crazy because my dad had this finger food set out on the coffee table. I’d never seen my dad set out any kind of food except to throw a chip bag at a visitor. I knew something was really up when I saw those cold cuts and dip on the table. It made me really curious just how long he’d been planning this surprise event.”
“How did you react?”
“Barely spoke a word,” I say. “I didn’t cry like you see people do on that show Intervention, but I felt wooden, stiff. Unable to speak. It was much later on that year that anger erupted.”
“Is this how everyone gets into these groups? With an intervention? How does it work?”
“You really don’t know?” I ask.
She shakes her head behind me. “How would I know? You never told me!”
“I didn’t think you wanted to hear about this stuff.”
Rowan tosses her hands up beside me while the water splashes. “You always get so upset. I don’t want to bother you with the details.”
There is so much of myself that I haven’t shared with Rowan. All these feelings and thoughts I’ve kept bound up within me under the assumption that if I told Rowan about my past, I’d only hurt her or she would consider me insane. I kept this part of myself hidden, never talking about One True Path except to make fun or to joke about its craziness. Clearly, in my attempt to protect Rowan—and myself—from the past, I’ve pushed her further and further away.
I explain the organization’s history to Rowan. “The national organization is really wealthy and makes its money by running these retreats and revivals. People from all over the world attend. They sell expensive tickets to seminars and self-help books about how to leave homosexual desire behind for good. It’s a modern-day money-making machine.”
“How Christian of them,” Rowan chimes in.
“Exactly. The national organization provides funding and support for all the local groups to spread the message.”
“That God can change your sexuality?”
“Homosexuality, they say, is an addiction caused by a traumatic event in your life. The idea is once you realize that root cause, then you can work with that in order to correct your sexual orientation.”
Rowan slides out from behind me. “I need to see you,” she says. She wraps her legs behind me and moves until we sit face-to-face. Wet ringlets cling to Rowan’s cheeks as her eyes search mine for connection. “What is a root?”
In the ministry, so many of us were terrified of our own root causes. The pastor’s insistence on identifying it only heightened that terror. Most of the time, we had no idea what he was referring to and let him guide the way. Anything just to get out from under the intensity of his gaze. “They believe that everyone is born straight. It’s always an event in childhood that veers you off course into the land of homosexuality. The big one is sexual molestation but there are others, like smother mothers and doting fathers.”
“Smother mothers?” Rowan laughs incredulously.
“You heard right. It’s like a doting father but a mother who will not allow her kid to grow and breathe without her constant guidance. The sexual feelings get transferred to her. Little boys become effeminate and little girls become dykes.”
“Huh.” Rowan’s in deep thought. “What happens if you go through the therapy or whatever for the root cause and the sexuality urges don’t change?”
“Great question!” I throw my hands up for emphasis. “One True Path’s answer to that, because this does happe
n, obviously, is that you embark on the fantastic journey of conversion therapy—reparative therapy. Supposedly this therapy will uncover the real root cause that you have buried so deep inside you don’t even know you have it. One True Path recommends it for all! They retrain you to be straight and teach you how to be with the opposite sex.”
Rowan laughs again. “Teach? You mean how to have sex with a man if you’re a woman?”
“Exactly. I’ve heard it’s even crazier for guys who have to learn to get it up for women.” We laugh together at that image, but then I sober. “One True Path still promotes this type of therapy even though psychologists and doctors have found just how damaging these groups are,” I say.
“I know I’m laughing, but how awful,” Rowan says. She drops the sponge and rubs her open palms up and down my arms, slowly, an attempt at comfort. “It must have been so crushing to hear that a part of you was a sin, especially as a teenager. Were there people in your group who really believed they were saved?”
“Healed, yes, based on the belief that God can heal the sick and broken. So they pray to be healed from the disease of homosexuality. The Jamesons’ son claims to have been healed. He’s now married to a woman who was in our group, and they’ve adopted two kids. There were also two men who were a bit older, in their forties, who claimed they were healed and only continued with the meetings to guide us fledglings.”
It feels good to speak of what happened during this period of my life so seriously for once, to finally explain to Rowan why I sometimes behave the way I do.
“Sounds like those faith healing revivals they show on TV late at night.”
I nod. “Sometimes it’s not that far from it. My first visit with the group…” I’m not sure I can tell this part of the story.
Rowan squeezes my shoulder, then leans in to kiss me softly at the nape of my neck to urge me. “Go on.”
“I had to first meet with the pastor and his wife alone and confess my lesbian experiences. Thank God I didn’t have to do this in front of my dad. They wanted to know if my love with another woman had ever been consummated. So, there I was, trying to figure out exactly what they meant by the word consummated. I figured kissing did not mean consummated, and when I said no, the two of them broke out in a ruckus of thankful prayer. I could still be saved and healed into what God made me, a shining heterosexual, through the hands of Jesus.” I mock their rhetoric.
With her head thrown back, Rowan laughs at my obnoxious reenactment of the Jamesons. It has been a long time since I felt this close to her. “I see it didn’t change you.” Rowan places her hands into the prayer position.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
She kisses my cheek again, gently. “That’s the universe’s way of telling you what you confessed wasn’t a sin.”
“Apparently Chaz still believes it is.”
“You’ve never mentioned him. Were you close?” She nudges me when I don’t answer. “Luce?”
“Yes.” I’ve told Rowan this much, why not tell the entire story? “We were paired up together from my start with the group. The pastor had chosen me as a mate for Chaz. It just never worked out for the long term. Marci got in the way of all that.”
“Are you serious?” There’s no laughter this time. When I didn’t respond, she says, “You are. Oh my God.”
“It was sort of like an arranged marriage. My dad knew. Granted, he didn’t believe we would be encouraged to practice sex with each other, but he knew.” I tell her about the experimentation behind the mess hall. The words spill out of me in a quick flurry, like I’ve been waiting for forever to finally tell her.
“You’ve been through hell, baby. Thank goddess you made it back.”
“I’m sorry, Rowan. I know you are”—I make the quote marks in the air with my fingers—“spiritual, with all the Buddhism and yoga. Does my lack of faith bother you?”
She leans in to me. “There’s a big difference between religious and spiritual. I’ve told you before that my trust in the spirit, or God, if you want to use that term, has nothing to do with the church’s teachings. I’d like to spend some time talking to the Jamesons about the spiritual realm, I tell you.” Rowan sidles back behind me and holds me closer against her chest while her knees pull in to hold me tighter.
“And you know what? You’ve told me before that you have no faith. Go ahead—roll your eyes,” Rowan says. “But the way I see it, you do have faith, you do believe in spirit or God or whatever, you’re just so angry and hurt over what’s happened. There is so much rage and pain over what you think God allowed in your life, but you’re not even close to living without faith.” She kisses my cheek. “Spirit is with us, Luce, whether we want it or not. The Jamesons’ God is not the only one. Trust me.”
Rowan holds me close long after the water turns cool. I memorize this comfort I take from her, this peace she gives me with her touch—wrap it up in my mind and save it for when I’ll need it again. Inside that bathtub Rowan comes at my Berlin Wall from the side, sneaking in to quietly chisel away the bricks and stones, tearing down what stands between us before I even realize what has happened. She works diligently throughout the night, carving away a stone at a time.
When we finally emerge from the water, though, Rowan’s no longer working alone. I’m there at her side, naked and somehow made new, with my own hammer and chisel in hand, pounding away at the rock and debris that has covered me for so long and kept me at such a distance from her. Rowan has given me a light at the end of the tunnel, and now that I see faint rays of that shimmering glow, there is no turning back.
Chapter Twenty
Monday, January 14
It’s six a.m. and the station reeks of burned coffee. Someone forgot to put the glass pots under the drips, leaving a gritty brown mess across the conference room floor. The carpet swishes with the weight of our steps as the entire team gathers around the conference table.
To a stranger to law enforcement, the room must look like a gruesome art collage exhibit: crime-scene photographs are projected onto the wall and multiple murder boards fill the room, each painstakingly loaded with every tip and every piece of information about the victims and suspects that we’ve been able to gather. It is Rowan’s first time to see the innards of a serial, and the boards I make in hotels and at home pale in comparison. Rowan pores over each picture, every clue and detail. Davis sits beside me. Sergeant Rick Hodges from Wyoming faces us from across the table. His worn cowboy hat balances on his knee and his weather-tanned face is in desperate need of a good shave. The red-eye flight has made roadmaps of his bloodshot eyes, but he insists his mind’s awake and ready to work.
Ainsley takes a swig of his coffee and watches Rowan’s back at a murder board. “Artists.” He shakes his head and then tries to catch my eyes. The sight of him there at the table stirs some of last night’s biting anger. But then there was the bath with Rowan, and somehow I left much of that rage in the water that swirled down the drain. It’s inevitable: Ainsley and I will have our conversation. Now, at this table with the case lanced open in front of us, isn’t the time.
As soon as I awoke this morning, my hair still damp from the bath the night before, and while the thick darkness of early morning still covered everything, I ran searches on Ainsley. He’s owned a home in Willow’s Ridge since 1974 and only changed addresses once. He’s been employed by the Willow’s Ridge police for thirty-five years. No other listed addresses or sources of income. With each additional search, my focus on Ainsley as the killer waned. Ainsley’s challenging conduct toward me can be explained by his disapproval of my sexuality and his full approval of One True Path. He’s also not too keen on working with a woman who outranks him. All of these observations added up to me closing the folder on Ainsley as our Picasso.
“Do you see something we missed?” Davis calls out to Rowan. He looks particularly subdued and gray this morning. He’s wearing the same clothes he did yesterday, a clear indication that he worked through the night.
“Why an older artist?” Hodges has a soft voice with a drawl that carries.
Rowan points at the crime-scene photo of Vivian Hannerting that has been paired with the Klosenova photo. Her confidence spikes—she’s in her realm of the art world now. “If you look at this work, he’s really quite good. The focus clearly captures the body and fades the surroundings. Even the exact foliage that was highlighted in Klosenova’s is here. It takes a great artist to be able to replicate something at this high a level. It also takes a good deal of practice. A younger artist would most likely not have the experience with light and shadow work.”
“Voice?” Davis asks.
“His artistic truth. The original statement or message we have inside us. It takes some artists longer than others to find it. Many never do.” Rowan turns back to the murder boards. “I’m sure you’re aware that other murderers have used death in their art. I once had an art professor who told us that serial killers are artists who use a different medium but are cut from the same mold.”
“Our man’s taken a wrong turn somewhere,” Hodges adds.
While others in the room chuckle at Hodges comment, Rowan’s not so amused. “Darkness and violence have always been a part of art,” she says with a flare of the defensive. “We’ve all heard of the classic tortured artist. We’re looking at the work of one.”
Davis thanks Rowan then, clearly an attempt to thwart a theoretical discussion of art, and flips the slide projector to victim number two. He invites Rowan to stay and examine the crime-scene photographs with us. “Your insights are most helpful,” Davis tells her. “Just remember that everything you see here is confidential. Understood?”
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