by Gregg Olsen
“You must be terrified,” she said. “The poor girl.”
“Jesus, Mom, I’ve seen a lot in the past few years, but nothing like this. I’m talking like something out of a slasher movie. Spatter all over the wall.”
She wanted Jenna to get on a plane right that very minute. Certainly, she knew Jenna’s strengths. She was tough, because she’d had to be. They’d made it through a nightmare five years earlier with the three horrific murders that shook Cherrystone and the ensuing events that nearly cost them their lives. But that was past them. It was water under the bridge. It had to be. To let violence consume either mother or daughter would be letting go of the love they had for each other. The bond they had was unbreakable.
“I’m OK, Mom,” Jenna said.
“Honey, I’m sure you are. But why don’t you come home?”
“A grief counselor is coming in from Nationals, and they want me to stay until he gets here. I said I could do it. I mean, Mom, this girl was slashed to death and the sisters here saw it.”
“Saw the murder?”
“No, no. The aftermath. What I mean is, most of them saw Sheraton’s body and after the police came through with the crime kits, the room has been visited by everyone who lives in the house. One girl sent photos from her cell phone to her dad’s paper in Knoxville and they put them up on their website.”
“Nice. What’s wrong with people?”
“That’s what I thought. Mrs. Barker, the housemother, says that she’ll clean up the mess. I feel a little bad that I didn’t offer to help her.”
“Are you sure you’re OK?”
“I’m a little shaken, but I’m doing all right,” Jenna said, tearing up a little.
Emily knew that Jenna was on the verge of falling apart, but to mention it would be to push her to the edge. She was a thousand miles away and there was no way to wrap her arms around her. “All right,” she said. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“No. I’m just going to stay until the counselor comes. Then I’m going to come home. Nationals wants me to take a couple of weeks off and skip Gainesville.”
“Good idea. So when will you be home?”
“Monday night at the earliest.”
“I’ll meet you at the airport.”
“Don’t worry about me, Mom. I’m fine. I’m going to help these girls the best that I can, but really, I know that’s not my expertise. So far two of the girls said they’re going home, but I’ve seen their grades and I think they would have dropped out anyway.”
“Do they have a suspect?”
“They won’t say. At least not the police. The girls think Sheraton’s boyfriend was mad at her. But mom, I had dinner with Sheraton last night and she said how much she loved the guy. There were no problems. Not on her part. She wasn’t smart, Mom, but she was a nice girl. I liked her.” Jenna almost said “really liked her” but she knew that was the kind of editing of feelings done after a tragedy. Sheraton was a nice enough girl, and she didn’t deserve what happened to her, but she was hardly anyone with whom Jenna would ever stay in touch.
Now that was impossible anyway.
“Have the police picked up the boyfriend?” Emily asked.
Jenna didn’t answer.
“Jenna?” Emily looked at her phone and the signal was strong. “Jenna?”
“Sorry, Mom. I have to go. They want me to come to the station to make a statement, so, of course, I have to do that.”
“Call me when you get back. I love you.”
“Love you more. Say hi to Chris.”
Emily was overcome with worry. She’d done her best to keep up a calm front, but the idea that her daughter had been so close to a killer was more than unnerving. Sorority houses had been drenched in blood before, certainly. Whenever pretty young girls were sequestered in places like sororities, nursing dorms, or Girl Scout camps, men with evil in their hearts had a way of tiptoeing inside. One deadly step in the darkness toward their prey.
The women of Emily’s generation knew of one case that brought an instant and deep shudder of fear.
In mid-January 1978, serial killer and jail escapee Ted Bundy entered the Chi Omega sorority house on the Tallahassee campus of Florida State University. He slipped inside around 3 A.M. No one heard him. No one had a clue that he was even in Florida, let alone on the hunt once more for young, female victims. In a bloody frenzy that lasted no more than a half hour, Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman were bludgeoned and strangled to death; Karen Chandler and Kathy Kleiner were severely injured.
After that terrible incident, mothers and fathers across the country made hurried trips to see that their daughters lived in houses with security systems that could preclude a killer from gaining entry.
What the parents didn’t know—and what surely would have given them even greater pause—was that most houses had alarms. But girls frequently gave out the alarm codes so tardy sisters could get home late at night.
Later, when David Kenyon got the news of Sheraton Wilkes’s slaying and learned that Jenna had been there when it happened, he called Emily. By then, she was in her office reading Jason’s latest report on what Mitch Crawford’s neighbors thought of him.
“We need to get our daughter out of there,” David said, without bothering to say hello.
Emily sent down the report and put her ex-husband on the speakerphone. She pushed her chair back and glanced at Jenna’s high school graduation portrait.
“Nice to hear from you, David.”
“There’s a crazed killer out there and she needs to come home.”
Emily let out an exasperated sigh. “She has a job. She’s fine. She’s safe.”
“Emily, I think we have different ideas about what’s safe and what isn’t.” The subtext of his remark was meant to hurt, to conjure images of the past when Jenna was, in fact, in grave danger.
Emily could hear a baby crying in the background, which meant that David was likely calling from home. Dani had probably left to go shopping. She’d rather spend money than time with him, she thought. For once, I don’t blame her.
“Look, David. We don’t need to have conversations like this anymore. We’re done. She’s over twenty-one. And, in case you’ve forgotten, she’s working the Beta Zeta gig because you reneged on your offer to send her to law school. Stupid me. I should have had that written into the divorce decree, but I was dumb enough to still trust you. I didn’t know you and Dani were already so involved.”
“Does it always have to go there? Do you always have to bang the drum about Dani? Get over it.”
Emily felt her face grow hot. I’m not letting him do this to me. I’m not having my buttons pushed!
“I am over it. And I’m over you. Consider this conversation over, too. Our daughter’s grown. Don’t ever, I mean, ever, call me again pretending that you care about her.”
The baby’s cries grew louder.
“David, give the baby a bottle. Try being a dad to her. You might like it.”
She hit the speakerphone Off button. It felt so good being a bitch to a man who treated their daughter like an after-thought—like something on a list that had to be checked off.
Buy groceries
Fill up the car
Pick up dry-cleaning
Care about your daughter
A thousand miles away in the basement office of his Garden Grove home, Michael Barton read Jenna Kenyon’s latest entry, posted around 3 P.M. that same day.
I’m still at DU. I’m sure most of our sisters have read or heard the sad news about one of our own. Sheraton Wilkes was savagely killed. Her parents are going to hold a memorial service in her hometown and I’ll post all the details here later in the week. Nationals is putting together a tribute for Sheraton. I didn’t know her well, but she was a very nice girl. We’re heartbroken in Dixon.
In light of what happened, I’m canceling my recruitment training for the BZ house in Gainesville this week. I’m going home to Cherrystone. You can call me on my cell, leave com
ments here, or use my e-mail addy. Thanks for understanding,
Jenna Kenyon, Southern BZ Consultant
Everything the young woman wrote made him angry. The way he saw it, Jenna Kenyon pretended to be so concerned about her sisters, the dead girl, and the BZ organization.
What a phony piece of garbage!
He glanced at the calendar and opened his e-mail account, selecting his boss’s name from the address book. He started typing:
Clay, I got a couple of leads I need to work in goddamn Spokane. Leaving on Monday, back Wednesday night. Tell the gang to feel sorry for me. At least Nashville has Jack Daniels. Not sure what, if anything, Spokane has. LOL
—Michael
He liked the LOL—laughing out loud—to close the e-mail. It made him feel more fun. Sure, he could be fun.
Chapter Thirty-four
Cherrystone
Casper Wilhelm’s voice was unmistakable. Every word he uttered hit like a punch to the face. The Spokane County medical examiner seemed impatient and a little irritated, which pretty much was the way he always was.
“I don’t like being kept on hold, Sheriff.” Dr. Wilhelm’s smoky, deep baritone echoed in the concrete cavern of the parking garage where Emily imagined he’d gone to make the call so he could light up a Lucky Strike.
A car honked.
Yes, he was smoking in the garage.
“Sorry about that, Doctor.” Emily knew him well enough to acquiesce whenever he chided anyone. Arguing only ensured a long and painful outcome—with the good doctor always right.
“I’m sure you are. But forget it. I’m about to make your day. I think. It’s about the Crawford case. You know, the dead pregnant woman?”
As if she’d forgotten. He must have had Cherrystone mixed up with Detroit or someplace where murders could be confused. In Cherrystone they were an exceedingly rare occurrence. Emily walked to her door, and pushed it shut with her hip.
“What’s up? Tox screen back?”
“Not that. She was clean as a mother-to-be.” He took a drag. “The DNA swabs came back.”
Emily could feel the doctor play with her a little, or maybe just dragging it out so he could finish his cigarette.
“Well?”
“Well. If Amanda Crawford was alive, she’d have some explaining to do. Turns out that Mitch Crawford wasn’t her baby’s father.”
Emily could feel the air squeezed from her lungs. “You’re postive?”
“We swabbed Mitch when he came up to do his ‘cry me a river’ routine, and you know the rest. The other part of the picture was on an autopsy table in my lab. Procedure. We ask and if they give it, we call it a bonus. Saves everyone the trouble later. Never paid off like this before.”
“I’ll bet it hasn’t,” Emily said, a mixture of excitement and uneasiness taking over. They chatted a bit more and, then, apparently done with his smoke break, the coroner ended the conversation as abruptly as it had stared.
“I’ll have the reports on your desk tomorrow,” he said.
Click.
“Thank you, Dr. Wilhelm,” Emily said, knowing he’d already gone. Thank you for making my case harder than it had been before.
Jason Howard walked by as Emily was about to call prosecutor Camille Hazelton. She waved him inside her office and indicated to shut the door.
“Don’t go anywhere. You’re going to want to hear this, too.”
Jason slumped into a chair as Emily got Camille on the line.
“You’re on speaker,” she said. “Jason’s here, too. I just got off the phone with Dr. Wilhelm.”
“How was Spokane County’s favorite old cuss? Wilhelm. Not Jason, of course.”
Everyone laughed.
Emily’s eyes met Jason’s. “He’s fine. He had a bit of news. Turns out that Mandy’s baby wasn’t Mitch’s.”
Jason mouthed, “Whoa.”
There was a beat of silence before Camille spoke. “Oh, really? That does make things even more fascinating.”
Emily glanced at Jason, then back at the speakerphone. “I know. I was thinking of springing it on Mitch this afternoon.”
“Let me think on that for a second,” Camille said. The wheels were turning. “Do we use it to shake him loose? Or do we spring it on him later, when we have no other options? It’s pretty hot, so I’m sure we don’t have the luxury of time. You know McConnell is a bear when it comes to discovery.”
“I’m sure.” Emily hated the reminder that Cary McConnell was involved.
“OK. Thought about it. Spring it on him. Also, go back to the scrapbooking girls and anyone else who was close to them. If we tell them what we know, maybe they’ll feel free to share something.”
“People hate sharing the secrets of the dead.”
“True. But they hate letting a murderer go free even more so.”
Emily set down her phone and looked at Jason, who’d done an expert job of pulling in both sides of the conversation.
“Let me guess. I get the scrapbook girls.”
Emily nodded. “I’ll take Samantha Phillips.”
“Who gets Mitch?”
Emily managed a smile, the first one of the day. “We’ll make a party of it. Let’s do it together.”
“Thanks, Sheriff. I’ll do my best. I won’t let you down.”
“You never have, Jason.”
Emily had one more call to make. She knew that the information about the baby’s paternity would leak from the ME’s office. She dialed the number for Amanda’s parents. Hillary Layton answered.
“Mrs. Layton, I mean Hillary, I have some news.”
“You arrested Mitch for Mandy’s murder?”
“No. This is upsetting news, but not that. I’m afraid that the baby that your daughter was carrying wasn’t Mitch’s baby.”
Hillary Layton started to cry very loudly into the phone.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know that this is hard to hear.”
“It isn’t that at all,” Hillary said, calming herself. “I’m so happy that Mandy had found someone to love other than Mitch Crawford. I only wish I knew who it was.”
Emily didn’t say so, but she was thinking the very same thing.
Samantha Phillips was filling boxes with clothing and household utensils in the garage when Emily arrived later that afternoon.
“I don’t suppose you’re here to help,” she asked, looking up from the pile of odds and ends that she was sorting.
“You’re not moving, are you?”
“Oh no. I could never leave here. Bad memories will fade soon, and I’ll focus on the good times with my family. And Mandy. This stuff is going to the Goodwill. The kids get so much crap at Christmas if I don’t clear things out of here, I’ll be featured on TV as one of those crazy hoarders.”
“Not likely,” Emily said, looking around. “You might be the most organized person I’ve seen, Martha Stewart notwithstanding.”
The garage was an organizer’s fantasy. Almost a vision of organizer’s porn with hooks here, labeled bins there, bikes hanging on racks like a row of Sunday suits, tools in perfect order above a workbench.
“I’m here about Mandy,” she said.
“I figured. I saw Mitch in the paper the other day. He was quoted that he was innocent and that the case has been a witch hunt from the start. Said people are jealous of him or don’t like him for this or that. No kidding.”
“I saw that article, too. I’m here about Mandy and her baby.”
Samantha set down her bundle of clothes. “What is it, Sheriff?”
“This isn’t easy to say. I know how close you and Mandy were.”
“Thank you. But what?”
There was no gentle way of saying it, so Emily was direct. “The baby Mandy was carrying wasn’t Mitch’s.”
Samantha shot Emily the kind of look meant to sink a person to the lowest depths of their being. “Why would you say something like that? I thought you were on our side?”
“I am, Samantha,” she said gently
. “But it is the truth.”
“It smacks of something Mitch’s defense lawyer would say to smear her. How could you?”
Emily knew Samantha was right. But the evidence could work the other way, too—as a motive for murder. She didn’t say any of that to Samantha. No argument was needed. The shock of the news had to sink in.
“The DNA results came back,” Emily said. “I was as surprised as you are.”
Samantha turned away and walked toward the workbench. “You think you really know someone. I guess the joke’s on me. I told her everything about my marriage. How I hated the idea that my husband had his hands in people’s mouths all day long. It disgusted me. I told her how I thought my oldest wasn’t very smart and I wanted to kill myself for thinking that.”
“We all have silly thoughts. Every mother does.” Emily said, as the woman crumpled in front of her.
“The point here,” Samantha said, “is that I told her everything. If that baby isn’t Mitch’s, I wouldn’t have the first clue as to whose it could have been. It makes me wonder if I ever really did know her at all.”
“Nothing to suggest maybe she might have had an affair?”
Samantha shook her head. “Tell me something, Sheriff Kenyon.”
“What?”
“How do you grieve for a best friend you really didn’t know?”
Emily didn’t have a good answer, but she offered one anyway. “There are things we don’t know about each other, but our love is just the same.”
Samantha looked around her perfectly organized garage. Order amid the chaos. “She was like a sister to me.”
“I know. She still is.”
“But I didn’t really know her.”
“Maybe she didn’t want to disappoint you.”
On the other side of Cherrystone, Jason Howard made the rounds of the scrapbooking group. Neither Erica Benoit nor Alana Gutierrez had an inkling about who might be the father. He caught up with Tammy Sells as she trudged out on the crunching snow to get her mail.
“If Mitch knew about it, it’s the reason he killed her,” she said, stuffing her mail into her coat pocket and bracing herself against the chilly air. “In a way, though, I’m kind of happy for Mandy. Maybe for the last few months, she really did have a little happiness after all.”