by Elle Marr
The smile drops like a mask. “I’m not a killer, Marissa.” His voice is stern, as if he’s doing an impression of an angry father.
“You let Bethel die.”
Shia’s eager face at the coffee shop flashes to mind, recounting his research of the toy company listed on the cardboard found beneath our bed. “Who else knew about us? Who else knew you were keeping us imprisoned, our mothers imprisoned, for years?”
Chet stammers, opens his mouth, then closes it. He tries again. “What makes you think anyone else knew?”
I stare at him, will my eyes to bore holes into his head and force some kind of pain to travel through these six inches of barrier. “Jameson. Your father. He knew about us.” Chet begins to speak again, but I talk over him into the phone. “He knew, and yet he did nothing, too.”
I spit the words, and I wonder why I bothered to come here. What the hell I expected to unearth by confronting this man for the first time. How desperate I was to believe something productive might come from this visit.
As I stand, Chet lifts his palms, pleading for me to stay and listen. I grudgingly bring the phone back up to my ear.
“Marissa, there’s nothing I can say . . . that might undo what I’ve done. I’ll grant you that. But I’ve spent twenty years thinking about my actions. About the sickness that told me to keep you all to myself. Your killer would be hurting people—keeping them underground—for the power of it, too. He’d enjoy flexing that control over his victims. Maybe as a punishment? If I had to guess, I’d say it comes down to whatever the victims have in common. That’s where you’ll find your killer.”
I allow myself to consider his words and sit back down. Despite wanting to chalk up everything he says to a waste of air—he could be right.
“Why should I listen to you? You’re not a psychologist.”
“No, but this is a state prison. I’ve been surrounded by the worst of the worst for two decades. Believe me when I say I know more than I’d like.”
I fix him with a blank expression and watch for any tic that might give him away. “Are you involved in these murders?”
What if Chet is partnering with someone? What if, driven by some personal stake, he’s the one leaving clues from my childhood around Portland? If I could prove his involvement in these deaths, Chet would be locked up forever. I’d never have to see him or worry about my sisters seeing him again. The thought brings a smile to my face, and Chet mirrors my expression, encouraged.
“No, Marissa. I am not.”
I stand again, done with this conversation.
He lifts another hand. “Please,” he says. “I’ll be released on parole Monday. Once that happens, I’d like to see you. And your sisters. I know Jenessa is in town, but does Lily live nearby—”
“What makes you think I live in Portland?” I snap, racking my brain trying to recall whether I let that information slip.
Chet fixes me with a stare. “Do you?” I don’t answer. “You do, don’t you? You wouldn’t have driven all the way up from southern Oregon or anywhere else for this conversation. You live in Portland, because it’s only two hours away and the risk of wasting your time and energy is small compared to the possible benefits.”
Dumbfounded, I stutter, “Wh-why . . . what—what makes you think that?”
He’s perfectly at ease on his side of the room. “Because it’s how I would assess whether or not to come here.”
Disgust burns through my limbs, outrage at his suggestion we’re so alike. “I don’t care what your plans were, don’t come near us,” I hiss into the speaker.
My anger balloons at the thought of him loose—tracking me down like that Tru Lives reporter, bothering Lily when she’s eight months pregnant.
Speaking into the phone and towering over his hunched shoulders, I seethe—feel myself coming unglued. “Stay away from us.”
“Marissa.” His voice is calm. The exact opposite of my shaking frame. “I loved you girls in my own—”
I slam the phone down. Marching to the door, I bang my fist against it. The guard on the other side opens it and lets me pass, her arm poised on her firearm. I stalk back down the long hall, no longer bothered by the noise of male inmates shouting somewhere in the building, and retrieve my two forms of ID and pepper spray from the lobby clerk.
“Can I help you with anything else?” the man asks. His clip-on tie skews off-center.
“Nope, all set. Thanks,” I say, still fuming. Then my eyes land on the sign-in sheet and my messy signature. “Hey, could you tell me who has been to visit an inmate? It’s my . . . father.”
The clerk raises an eyebrow.
“I’d like to make sure my grandmother has been in to see him over the last month. She’s got Alzheimer’s, and her recall is spotty.”
The eyebrow lowers. He taps a few keys on his keyboard, then clicks with his mouse. “Over the last month, he’s had Karin Degrassi and Shia Tua come to visit. Are either of those your grandma?”
My face goes slack. “No. Nana must be confusing things again.”
Outside the prison, fresh air swirls my hair, loose at my shoulders, while my stomach tightens in knots. I raise my camera to eye level and snap a photo of the concrete entrance. All the better to compare to the nightmares sure to come later tonight.
Climbing the steps of the shuttle bus back to visitors’ parking, I look down as a sharp pain registers. “Miss? You all right?” the bus driver asks.
Blood dots from my palm as I uncurl my fist and release the aching flesh. “Just fine,” I reply.
The driver sees what I’ve done, and she hands me a tissue that feels like sandpaper. “Family can be complicated, miss. I promise you ain’t the only one that feels that way.”
I take a seat in the first empty row I see and keep my gaze straight ahead. The gray mass of the prison slides by my peripheral vision.
Shia lied to me. Or rather, he didn’t have to—he omitted the fact that he’d paid Chet a visit.
Once in my car, I navigate eastern Oregon’s major freeway on autopilot; the drive home passes without conscious effort. Seeing my exit at the last minute, I cut hard across a lane of traffic.
When I finally trudge up to my doorway, my eyes feel heavy beneath the weight of my afternoon and more revelations than I care to remember. The flower bed below my window is in need of watering, and beside it, bird poop is caked on the concrete edge of the walkway. A stick from a discarded lollipop lies a foot into my hallway.
I stop dead. A white piece of paper peeks from the corner of my doormat.
The hall is empty. Scanning behind me, there’s only a neighbor across the parking lot unloading mulch from his truck.
Clutching my keys like a weapon—pointed ends first—I bend down and grab the square. The message reads:
Lucky number three
Depends on you.
Find and photograph the location
Before I get tired of waiting.
THREE MORE DAYS, MISSY.
I unlock the door, maintaining a white-knuckle grip on the note, and head straight for the kitchen. After uncorking a bottle of wine, I pour myself a pint glass, then lay the note on the kitchen counter.
Three more days, Missy. Chet will be released in three days. That fact, paired with this author’s use of “Missy” leaves little doubt: whatever his reason for killing these people, it’s related to my family.
The red liquid hits the back of my throat with a satisfying twinge, the black-cherry currants rolling along my tongue. The beginning of a haze settles over me, along with a thin film of clarity.
Although I’ve avoided my past—thinking about it, coming to terms with it—for as long as life would allow me, I can’t stick my head in the sand anymore. For some perverse reason I don’t yet grasp, this person has fixated on me more so than a fan might, and in order to solve this next riddle before someone else dies, I have to start exploring my memories instead of suppressing them.
I need to be honest with myself—about ev
erything.
Nineteen
Drunk patrons dance and sing along to a retro jukebox occupying the corner of Ezra’s Brewery and Restaurant. Shia waves his hand in front of my face. “Claire? Should we go over this again?”
I shake my head. “No. I mean, yes. Yeah, say it again.”
I spent the rest of the afternoon in a daze after seeing Chet, then reading another threatening message, this one delivered right to my door. I sat on my couch and began searching listings online for any brewery location associated with luck, lucky number three, or the number three. Or bracelets. Jewelry shops selling items made by children.
Nothing made sense. I began reviewing the photographs that I took at Four Alarm and The Stakehouse, rereading this second message again and again, its meaning becoming increasingly potent with each review: someone else may die depending on how fast I solve this clue. Someone has already been chosen as the next victim.
This was different than the first note. At Four Alarm and The Stakehouse, the victims were already dead, decaying to some degree when they were found. The realization that the killer has linked me to the fate of this third person seized my chest and made me sit forward on the couch cushions to hyperventilate between my knees. When I was able to catch my breath, I downed the rest of my pint glass.
Shia called me, asking to meet up for one of his sessions, and suggested Ezra’s. I wanted to hang up on him right then and there, but the envelope of cash hidden beneath my mattress and his promise of another, much larger paycheck kept me from being rude. Instead, I showed up thirty minutes late.
He takes a deep swig of his stout ale, then plucks a thick-cut french fry from our basket. Our new meeting point definitely has advantages over the library’s community room.
“Okay. We’re trying to determine what did Marissa, the child born in captivity, experience that no one knows about, what wasn’t reported on the news or already beaten to death by human-interest pieces over the years?”
Excellent question. Others might be: what does the killer think he knows about me, and why does he keep looping in details from my early years? Why did Shia go to visit Chet but not tell me about it? My initial fear that Shia is the note writer returns. Scanning the wall behind him, I locate the glowing green letters of the emergency exit sign. Just in case.
Lucky number three depends on you. Three more days, Missy.
“Claire?” He pushes thin glasses higher on his nose. A black ink smudge covers the bone of his wrist.
Although he was drafting his manuscript before we met, Shia has been working day and night to make progress faster. He’s already one hundred pages in.
He leans across the tall bistro tabletop. “Think hard. I’m sure it was normal in a lot of ways, but how was it abnormal, knowing what you know now? Try and remember what it was like, being a five-year-old underground.”
My legs dangle from the chair as I weigh his prompt. “I was generally happy for most of it. We were like any kids in tight spaces, bumping into each other, playing games, and retreating to our separate corners when we needed space; we didn’t know what we didn’t have. Rosemary allowed us to watch television, and at first, she said it was all make-believe—that the people we’d see on there weren’t real. Then when we got older and started asking questions, she said some things were real—people on talk shows—while other things were just make-believe and for fun—like cartoons and movies. Nora was there for the first few years before she escaped, and I remember her telling me that ice cream was real when I was about three years old. Rosemary was so pissed because she thought that would start the landslide of questions from us girls. And she was right. I sympathized, even as a small child, but I was also beyond curious to know what it tasted like after that and what else was real that I thought was a game or make-believe.”
Shia slides his phone closer to me, recording my every inhale and crunch. “Where is Nora now?”
I shrug and wipe my hands on a paper napkin.
“Don’t know. She seemed enthralled with the florist shop she bought with her settlement money. I haven’t heard from her in years, but I know she’s taken up traveling recently.” My voice drops off, hearing my sadness at not having contact with a woman who was so involved in my life at the beginning. “Jenessa actually asked to live with us after we were out. It was a big thing between Nora and Rosemary.”
“Wow, I’ll bet. How did that turn out?”
“I think the courts kind of decided? I felt terrible for Nora after that. She went through rough phases of depression and was in and out of psychotherapy. I know she was on some medications, and Jenessa said there were a few months of dissociation, too. No one really processed our time in captivity well.”
“Except you.”
I pause in wiping the beads of sweat from my beer glass. “What does that mean?”
“You’re the only one who managed to adjust to outside living, to deal with all the emotional baggage of your past. You made it. Whereas everyone else, all the other women, and Chet included, have struggled to get by.”
Shia looks at me with something like arrogance. Part of me wants to throw his drink in his face and then smash the glass on the warehouse floor. “You don’t know me. You don’t know how I’ve processed anything, and you sure as hell can’t judge me against my sisters or mothers.”
He nods and uses my moment of ire to take another sip. “Fair enough. I overstepped. Let’s talk about your mothers. Was that ever weird calling them all Mom?”
“Mama,” I correct, still huffy. “They were all Mama plus their first names.”
“What was that like, having multiple mothers? Did you feel more affectionate toward one or the other?”
Mama Bethel used to braid my hair before bed, and I would lay my head on her belly and wait for the baby to kick. “They were so young, and all of us were desperate for comfort and kinship. I would say no. It was like one big commune. Everyone cared for each other, regardless of who birthed you. We were all connected anyway.”
“You were all connected by tragedy and circumstance?”
“You could say that.”
Shia writes something down. He looks up. “What was your interaction like with Chet?”
The question stiffens my back. “I went to see him. Earlier today.”
He lays the pen on the page. “Really? What was that like?”
For a moment, I debate keeping my knowledge to myself. But I doubt the snarl on my face will allow that much longer. “I found out you went to visit him.”
His face blanches. “You did?”
“What were you doing there?” Heat climbs my neck. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He sits forward. “I went to speak to him, just like I asked Jenessa and you to speak to me. Chet didn’t want to see me, though. So I left without even a face-to-face.”
I cross my arms. “Is that supposed to make it okay?”
A smile slides across Shia’s mouth. “This is my job, Claire. I was trying to get sources for my book. I’m sorry if I gave you another impression.”
“You didn’t,” I snip. We sit awkwardly for a minute while we both digest that I thought Shia was better than seeking out the monster who ruined so many lives.
“Who is Karin Degrassi?” I ask.
Black eyebrows draw together. “No idea. Should I?”
“She was Chet’s other visitor this month.”
“Huh.” He chews his pen a moment. “Sounds familiar. I’ll do some digging and let you know if I find anything. Do you want to talk about your visit to him? Your impressions of Chet?”
“He was exactly what I thought he might be. Self-involved. Presumptuous.”
“What were his spirits like, days before his release?”
I shrug, and the white envelope underneath my mattress returns to mind, pressing me to earn my paycheck. “I mean . . . it was my first time seeing him. He seemed . . . secure. Expectant. Assured of his freedom.”
In truth, he was a sad, lesser version of what I
once knew him as: a terror, a resident player in my nightmares, although I’m not sure I could have picked him out of a lineup before this morning. The way he used to look at me as a child would send me crawling into my mother’s lap, covering my ears, waiting for her shouting to die down and for him to return upstairs. I’m not sure I even remembered that until now. Or maybe I did but tried to excise anything related to him from my mind. Being honest with myself, as I vowed I would be, might be painful.
I flag down our waiter for another beer. Wheat. Citrusy. Big. The smell of something deep fried wafts from the next table over.
“What else do you remember of him from when you were a kid?”
I look down at my hands, tan with knobby fingers. Other scars from my adolescence mar the wrists and knuckles in white lines, matching the polka dots of my inner elbow and its still-healing scab.
“The way he walked. His footsteps always seemed heavy, foreboding, coming down the stairs. In hindsight, that was probably the floorboards being old and him owning a Victorian. His footsteps were the first sign that he was on his way, and it was a three-times-a-week ritual. It was never a surprise, those heavy steps. The reaction they elicited in us was one of stress.”
“What would he do once he was down there?”
“Once a month, he would inspect us. Inspect the women first. Rosemary later told me her theory was that Chet was ex-military, but it turned out he’s a germaphobe; despite us being insulated from any serious diseases, he wanted to make sure we were all clean and well cared for physically. So it was first the women, then us girls.”
“How did he inspect you kids?”
The words lodge in my throat. I blink back tears. “When we were very small, we were running around in diapers all the time, so it wasn’t unusual for us to be naked. When we started wearing clothing more consistently, we would have to undress.” My cheeks flush, speaking my childhood shame.
The waiter returns with my beer, and I whisper a grateful “Thank you.”
Shia watches me a moment. He doesn’t try to lighten the mood or sympathize or say something utterly trite that people think will make things better when it can’t. When I feel in control of myself again, I exhale a deep breath. “I haven’t thought about our day-to-day in a long time.”