This death felt particularly personal to Marian because she knew the victim’s sister. There was a tissue box on the table. Nick handed it to Marian. “Like I said, this is sensitive material.”
Nick went on to explain that even in cases such as Melissa’s, when there were only skeletal remains to go by, medical examiners were able to determine hyoid and laryngeal fractures. “Forearm strangulation from behind is likely to crush the larynx and fracture the hyoid. It takes about twenty pounds of pressure,” Nick said. “There’s a point on the neck where the carotid artery extends to the brain. If you put sufficient pressure on the artery, you’re looking at about ten seconds to the victim being unconscious, and twenty-four seconds to death. And there’s less chance of a struggle when the victim is strangled from behind, less chance for trace evidence under her fingernails.”
“What was different about Melissa Marsh’s case?” Marian asked.
“Melissa used to warn others about the dangers of hitchhiking. She was picked up on a public road in broad daylight two blocks from her apartment. The witness who saw her get into the vehicle said there wasn’t a struggle. She wouldn’t have willingly gotten into the vehicle of a man she didn’t know. And why would she accept a ride in the first place when she was only two blocks from home? More than likely she’d agreed to go somewhere with the driver. There are two points here that make this case different. First, this time our perp knew his victim. He’d had prior conversations with her, had established a level of trust. The pursuit of the victim is highly seductive for the killer. With each point of contact, the killer’s fantasy would have intensified and his anticipation escalated, heightening the climax of the actual attack. Second, with Melissa, our killer was taking risks; he was pushing the limits, as if saying, ‘Look what I can get away with.’ The more he can get away with, the greater his ego. As Charles Manson said, ‘You’ve got to accept yourself as God. You’ve got to realize you’re just as much the devil as you are God.’ And as with Lynn-Marie, the killer may have taken his time with Melissa once he had her under his control. Though we can’t know for sure, I assume he did.”
Then Nick asked Marian what kind of vehicle Tate drove, and she told him a silver Nissan Xterra. “I have it now,” she said. “His sister signed over the title to me. The vehicle has a lot of miles on it.”
“He had it for a while, then,” Nick said.
“He bought it used. According to the title, he had it for six years. Why?”
“Melissa Marsh was seen getting into a green SUV.”
Marian breathed a little more easily. Her shoulders began to relax.
Nick pushed himself up from his chair, and the long-haired cat on Marian’s lap raised his head and jumped down. Nick held on to the edge of the table as he walked around it toward the kitchen, and with each step he shifted his weight as if his left foot were asleep.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Marian asked. But again he dismissed her with a wave of his hand and said, “Fine.”
A cabinet opened and he set a glass on the counter. She heard him take out a second glass. “You like bourbon?” he asked.
“I’m not a big drinker.”
Marian listened to Nick open the refrigerator, scoop up some ice, and drop the cubes into the two glasses. The cubes clinked again when he poured the bourbon.
His legs were moving more fluidly when he reappeared and set one of the glasses on the table in front of Marian. Then he lowered himself back into the chair across from her.
“Despite the differences of each of these cases, the similarities remain the same,” Nick said. “The killer terrified his victims; he humiliated them by having them take their clothes off; and he destroyed them.”
A gust of wind knocked the bird feeder against the window. The noise startled Marian, though it didn’t seem to faze Nick at all. “It’s getting ready to rain,” he said. “With the dry spell we’ve had, we can use it.”
Marian had wrapped both hands around the glass in front of her. Its condensation collected on her palms. “Why do you think the first victim was found outside Helena?” she asked.
“Could be an area where the killer was living at the time. Could have been a route he frequented often. It may not be any of those things. More than likely the event was inadvertent, not something he planned. We’re looking at a person who would have been in a constant process of fantasizing that led up to the initial murder. Maybe he looked in windows. Maybe he walked into homes and moved things around, scaring the shit out of people. All of these things would have been a rehearsal of the process going on in his head. The idea that there has to be some kind of trigger to incite a psychopathic killer is a myth.”
Marian said something about Natasha Freeman being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Nick said, “Correct,” and that once a predator has destroyed his prey, he will inevitably kill again. “But between each of these women’s murders, this guy would have hunted dozens of times. He may even have gone so far as to establish face validity with a potential victim, in other words get her to trust him, which he would have done in a matter of minutes. The level of excitation he would experience on the hunt or in establishing that validity would be much better than the actual kill.”
“Would he ever pursue a relationship with a woman?” Marian asked.
“There may have been girlfriends over the years. He may have been in a relationship when he committed the crimes. Perhaps as a cover-up. More than likely out of convenience. But whatever sincere feelings a woman may have had for the killer would not have been reciprocated.”
Marian’s stomach dipped, as if Nick were speaking about her. “Your drink’s getting warm,” he said. She picked up the glass and lifted it to her lips. The room had become full of the kind of shadows that precede a storm. A napkin and a piece of mail blew off the table. Marian reached down to pick them up. The envelope was from Kootenai Health Cancer Services in Sandpoint. She placed it back on the table.
Nick rose from his chair and walked into the living area. He shut the two windows and turned on a lamp. He suggested they move to the other room. Marian gathered her things and joined him, bringing her drink with her. She sat on the sofa in front of the two windows. Nick sat in the recliner. He pushed his weight back in the chair and raised the footrest.
“I’ve stayed too long,” Marian said. “I’m sorry.” And she went to put her items in her pack.
Nick said, “If I thought you’d stayed too long, I would have said that.”
And so Marian relaxed against the sofa, and when she did, the cat reappeared and jumped up beside her. He purred loudly, dug his claws into the pilled upholstery, and lay down with his back pressed against Marian’s thigh.
“His name’s Good Fellow. He likes women.”
Marian rubbed the cat behind his ears and stroked his fur. She sipped the cold bourbon until it was almost gone. “Melissa Marsh disappeared over two years ago,” she said.
“Yes. I believe so.”
“So far, no one else has gone missing.”
“That we know of,” Nick said.
“Does a killer like this ever stop?”
“Theoretically, no. The ideation is there. He’ll still carry out the fantasy in his mind. Sometimes a killer might get sloppy, take too many risks. He may feel like authorities are getting too close. He might move on and take the crimes elsewhere.”
“The cases are still being investigated,” Marian said. “What made you stop?”
Nick pushed himself up from the chair and walked across the living room to the hallway. He returned, holding a framed photograph. He stood next to Marian and showed her the picture.
“This is why I stopped,” he said. “That’s Cate. My wife.”
The photo was taken in front of a bed of peonies.
“She likes to garden,” Nick said. “So do I. We planted those peonies together. We’d like to plant a lot
more.”
Nick walked over to the recliner and sat down. He set the picture of his wife on the small table beside him.
“Do you take a lot of pictures?” Marian asked.
“I guess I do. Birds, wildlife.”
Marian finished her drink. “I should get going,” she said. She thanked Nick for his time.
“I’ll have more questions for you,” Nick said. “We should talk again soon.”
Marian excused herself to use the bathroom. And as she was washing her hands, she noticed the two prescription bottles on the vanity. Both had been written for Nick. One was for lorazepam, the other for temozolomide.
When she walked back into the living room, Nick’s eyes were closed. His head had dipped toward his right shoulder. He was sleeping soundly. Marian picked up the crocheted afghan that was draped over the back of the sofa. She stepped softly across the room and laid the blanket over him. The cat jumped into Nick’s lap. Though Nick’s breathing deepened, he didn’t stir.
The rain had just begun to fall when Marian left. Once she was in her vehicle, she took out her phone and looked up lorazepam. It was used to treat anxiety symptoms. It was also used to treat seizure disorders. Then she looked up temozolomide: an orally active alkylating agent used in adjuvant chemotherapy for persons diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, a stage IV brain tumor. She stared at the words on her phone as if she could hear their foreboding and felt the sharp edge of grief for Nick and his wife, who’d appeared so lovely in the photo, and for Natasha Freeman and Erin Parker and Lynn-Marie Pontante and Melissa Marsh.
10
PRESENT
August 2017
MARIAN
The Den, Montana
Looking into Tate’s past wasn’t going to be a simple process. Nick had been right. Marian was searching for two things: Who was this complicated man whom she’d loved? And, could he have been involved with the Stillwater murders? Nick had cautioned her on the latter, saying a psychological autopsy wouldn’t tell her whether Tate had killed these women. But Marian knew that a timeline could prove that he didn’t. If only she could access the program’s network, she was sure she could find a detailed account of Tate’s past assignments. She could prove to herself he had never been at the scene of the crimes. For the time being, she would have to rely on other resources. She would talk to Trainer. He’d been with the program since the beginning, looking after the property, taking care of the dogs. He was a big, warmhearted man from Louisiana who could talk for long stretches if someone gave him the opportunity.
The morning after Marian met with Nick, she showed up at the barn earlier than usual.
“Morning, sunshine. You’re up early.” Trainer was scooping food into the dogs’ bowls.
“Thought you could use some help,” she said.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
She shrugged. The truth was, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept well. That previous night was no exception.
The morning was cool, the air crisp like a glimpse of fall. Marian attempted her and Trainer’s normal banter among the hungry whines from the kennels: What was the weather forecast? What did the day’s schedule look like? But mostly they made a fuss over the dogs, sending them cooing affirmations: “Hang on, Winter, your food’s coming. I know, you’re such a good boy”; and, “Yeti, if you aren’t just the sweetest thing,” and “I love you, baby girl.” Trainer had a soft spot as big as Marian’s when it came to the dogs.
Marian began delivering the bowls of food to the different kennels. When she was finished and the dogs were gulping down their breakfasts, which for most of them would take no more than a couple of minutes, she asked Trainer if she could talk to him. “I’ve been thinking about something Tate told me, about the Stillwater murders. He said they took place not far from here. I was wondering what that was like for the staff. Were the handlers ever afraid?”
The dog food was stored in a metal garbage can. Trainer fastened the lid. He folded his arms against his chest and leaned his back against the wall. “They talked about it, sure,” Trainer said. “Only two of the victims were from around here, and I think both of them were hitchhiking.”
Marian wanted to correct Trainer. According to Nick, only one of the victims was hitchhiking. Melissa Marsh had gotten into the vehicle of someone she knew.
There was a flicker in Trainer’s blue eyes. “A couple years back, Jenness quit the program. Took a job at the vet hospital in Columbia Falls. She worked with one of the women who was killed.”
“I heard that,” Marian said. “I worked with the woman’s sister in Utah. She told me her sister and Jenness were friends.” And maybe Marian would have asked Jenness about the situation upon returning to The Den, but there had been word of Tate’s death and then Jenness’s impending trip to Alaska. “Did she ever talk about it?” Marian said.
“Well, like I said, she was working at the clinic when it happened. A couple of us were in contact with her. No one knew for sure what had happened. The body wasn’t found until a year later, about the same time Jenness asked for her job back. But, no, Jenness kept pretty quiet about the whole thing.”
The dogs had finished eating and were starting to play with their bowls. Trainer began making his rounds, gathering the bowls from the kennels. Marian did the same. They stacked the bowls in the storage room. “There’s a guy not too far from here that the police were looking into,” Trainer said.
Marian looked up sharply, her eyebrows raised.
“You know that old farmhouse on Stage Hill? The big white one? He lives there by himself. Used to live with his mom, but she passed on. His name’s Dana Lear. He’s a schizophrenic who sometimes forgets to take his meds. You may want to avoid that direction when you’re going for a run.”
Nick said there had been persons of interest. She’d not realized one of them had lived so close, no more than a few miles from The Den. “Why wasn’t this mentioned to me before?”
“It’s been a while since his name went through the rumor mill. I think he’s fallen off the radar. I don’t know the details.”
* * *
• • •
Two days later Marian had gone into town to run errands. It was late in the afternoon, pushing close to six when she was on her way back. But instead of turning into The Den, she kept on going another three miles, until she made a left-hand turn onto Stage Hill Road. The land opened up and the sun shone down as if there once had been farms along that section of clearing. The impulse had been spontaneous, and yet here she was, driving slowly, her neck bent at a precarious angle, as she looked at the two-story farmhouse, painted white, coming up on her right. It was built on top of a hill, and Marian was staring into the sun, and the house loomed above her like an ominous shadow.
Marian slowed to a stop, directly in front of the house, and about fifty feet away from a black pickup truck that was parked in the front lawn with a For Sale sign in the window. The pickup was probably an antique, with a beveled bed, and the price on the sign said $8,900.
Marian had not made the turn onto Stage Hill Road with a strategy in mind. Aside from curiosity, she had no idea what she was doing here. Of course there were people of interest, individuals capable of horrible things that she couldn’t believe Tate had been capable of. She was trying to get to the root of something, that was what it was, and maybe this place would tell her the things she wanted to know. Maybe it would point her to Tate’s innocence.
She parked her vehicle on the edge of the road and the two-foot-wide shoulder of gravel and dirt. She could feign interest in the pickup truck that was for sale, and with that facile plan in mind, she opened her door and climbed out of the vehicle and walked around to the front lawn where the truck was parked. Though there were no trees in the yard and despite the evening sun, the shadow from the house was chilly.
The grass was tall, maybe a foot and a half, and dandelions
had gone to seed, and in the ditch alongside the road was Queen Anne’s lace that had grown stately. Marian stepped toward the front of the pickup truck and inclined her head forward, as if reading the For Sale sign more closely, and after a few seconds she casually looked up the hill toward the house. At first she noticed the front door, painted green, and the first-floor windows with curtains that appeared to be lace, and then she looked up to the second floor. In the window to the far right was a man standing broadside and staring back at her, and she immediately felt more nervous than she’d already been, and she wondered if he could tell, and her face was sweating, and she wondered if he could tell that, too. She skirted her eyes away. She would stick to her plan; she was an interested buyer. She stepped closer to the truck and peered inside just long enough to be convincing, and heard a voice inside her head telling her to go, and though the air was still, even the grass seemed to whisper. Her heart tapped in her ear like something staccato as she walked back to her vehicle, as she felt the man still watching her, and if she were a child, she would swear the house was haunted. She was prejudiced, she knew, because of what Trainer had told her, yet the house was expressionless, and the face on the man was expressionless, too. She started her vehicle and looked up one more time, and yes, the man was still standing there, and Marian was certain even his hands had not moved.
* * *
• • •
Late the next evening, sometime after dark, Marian was sitting at her desk with her laptop in front of her and talking with Nick over Skype. They’d been in contact the past few days by email, ever since she’d visited him at his house. He’d said he had some information for her.
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