As Sick as Our Secrets

by A B Whelan

  Williams is in his office, talking on his phone. He’s taking this Obama doppelganger thing to a whole new level with his white shirt, red tie, and black suit. The guys tease him all day, Brad told me, but he considers their nipping at him as signs of their envy. I don’t think he’s right.

  I poke my head in the door and knock on the frame. He waves me in and points me to a chair.

  “I got all the files on my desk right here, sir. We are going over the details…no, sir. The victims seem to be picked at random…all different ages, build, race, hair color…yes, sir. No, sir. I will, sir. All right. Thank you.”

  He puts the phone down and leans back in his chair. “The captain is calling me every hour. How can I work the case if I don’t even have time to think?”

  “Yeah, Brad told me about the serial killer you’ve been chasing all over the county.”

  “He did?” He adjusts his tie. “Well, then, I’m sure he warned you not to get gas after dark and to take care of your grocery shopping during the day.”

  There are no secrets at a police station. They all know that I’m a stay-at-home mom. Job description: shopping, filling up the car with gas, and housekeeping. It’s hard to appreciate the work you do when society tends to belittle your job.

  “Brad’s shift starts at four,” he says, opening a brown folder. I catch a glimpse of Skyler’s name on the cover, and I can barely keep myself in the chair.

  “I know. Actually, I came to see you.”

  A suspicious expression freezes on his face. “Me? What for?”

  “The girl you found yesterday at Lake Hodges,” I begin.

  “Yes? I have her file right here. What about her?” He leans protectively over the file like a lion protecting its kill from hyenas.

  “Well, she is…was the patient of my best friend. I dropped by as a favor for her to see if you can share any information about the case. She’s rather beaten up about what happened to Skyler.”

  He closes the file so fast that the dust from his desk blows onto my lap—as if he was afraid I’d steal the folder from underneath his nose.

  “You know, Betty, I can’t. If any details show up in the media, the captain will have my ass.”

  “Nobody is running to the newspapers, Dave. You met Skyler’s cousin, I assume. Peter O’Neill? My friend Ashley and Peter worked together to try to save that poor girl from the streets. They’d only like to hear that you’re working the case, that’s all.”

  His skin darkens. “Of course we’re working the case,” he snaps.

  “Well, you know, we’re all familiar with how Skyler earned a living. Peter thinks her file might be pushed to the bottom of the pile.”

  “Well, tell him it’s not.”

  He won’t give me anything. I’m pushing my luck here. “Can you at least tell me what you know about the other victims?” I open my legs, lean forward, and push the pie closer to him. I’m not even remotely as sexy as Sharon Stone, so I use what I have, my baking skills, and hope my puppy face will be enough to appeal to his better nature and my pie to his stomach.

  “Brad told you about that?”

  “He did. You know he’s worried about me. I’m a woman—maybe not within the killer’s target age range but still a woman—and Brad wants me safe. If a serial killer is using our city as a hunting ground, we ought to know about it, don’t you think?”

  His eyes linger on me, unblinking.

  “Could you live with yourself if something happened to me and you were in a position to warn me, but you didn’t? I’d ask Brad, but he doesn’t know anything. You know how it works here.” I don’t have a cute smile anymore—I used to have one, but years of bitterness have turned my lips into a permanent frown—but I smile anyway.

  “All victims were in their early twenties,” he blurts out, smoothing down his tie, and gets to his feet. “I’m only telling you this because you brought me that pie and because of that damn good shrimp burrito you make. I start drooling just thinking about it.”

  Here is my moment. Maybe I’m not sexy enough to grab men by their dicks, but I have another skill. I can grab them by their stomachs. Who said nature wasn’t fair? “You know, I’ve been thinking about a little get-together at our house again. You know, tacos, pies, beer, and the usual. I’ll have Brad talk to you and come up with a date.”

  “That would be great. Will your sister be there?”

  “If you want, I can arrange it.” I wink.

  He looks at me for a long time until I start fidgeting from the awkward silence. “You didn’t hear it from me, but here is what we know. There are seven unsolved murder cases, and we believe they are all the work of the same killer. All girls were in their late teens or early twenties, troubled, junky hookers from Temecula Valley, Escondido, and Los Angeles areas. That’s all I can tell you.”

  “I take it you won’t tell me their names?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Brad told me that there wasn’t much evidence to go on in Skyler’s case. How about the other victims?”

  He lifts his coffee mug. “I don’t know about you, Betty, but I could use another cup of coffee.”

  Is he insinuating for me to peek into the files while he’s gone to get coffee? Is he testing me? Or does he simply want another cup of coffee? Oh, gosh, I’m such an amateur.

  “Yeah, thanks. A dash of creamer, if you have any.” I wait for a wink or a whisper to “help yourself to the file while I’m gone,” but he offers me nothing.

  “I’ll see if we have any. Might take a few minutes.”

  “I’ll be here.” I wink again, but he doesn’t reciprocate.

  He closes the blinds and shuts the door behind him.

  I hesitate to move. Sweat rolls down my spine. Then, with a now-or-never sensation, I fly around the table and flip open Skyler’s folder. I take snapshots of the medical examiner’s report and a psych analysis on the Fifty Shades Killer.

  Most of the pages are pinned together in the folder, and it’s hard to navigate through the package.

  Beads of perspiration gather on my forehead. I have never done anything illegal before—unethical, yes, but not illegal. I feel my moist pits soaking through my shirt. How much time do I have?

  I flip to the last sheet of paper and take a picture of the reference page. I see a list of men’s and women’s names. I’ll sort through them later. There are two more folders on the desk in plain sight. Alice Somono and Sarah Moore.

  I open Alice’s folder and find a series of crime scene photos inside. A naked woman wrapped in plastic, lying near a body of water.

  I take a picture of her profile photo. She was a young girl with Asian features, light skin, almond eyes, and a wide smile exposing a row of big teeth. The photo is low resolution. It’s most likely been downloaded from the Internet—a social media picture, perhaps.

  I’m scared to venture deeper into her file, so I open the third folder titled Sarah Moore. I find similar crime scene photos like those of the other two victims. I snap a picture of her bio sheet too. Her profile picture is disturbing, like she was posing for a teen sex ad. She is young—very young—fifteen or sixteen with long, curly brown hair. She is spread out on a wood log in a Cleopatra position, wearing only a white bra with tiny pink flowers and a pair of jeans, with a forest scene behind her. She is looking away from the camera. It’s staged. I’d take her for a cowgirl, someone who grew up on a farm riding horse.

  All these girls started life as innocent babies, only to end up in the gutter. Who or what to blame? Social media, the restless human spirit, the lack of love and empathy in our society, our always-hungry souls that are never satisfied?

  “I made a fresh pot. Go get your cup before it’s gone.” Williams is talking right outside the door. My shaking hands are barely able to shove the papers and pictures back into the folder. I start to hyperventilate as I slam back into my chair. No time to put my phone away. I sit on it.

  “Only got powder creamer.”

  “No problem. Tha
nks, Dave.” My chest is shaking, and my blouse is sticking to my back.

  We make small talk about the last party at our house, when Williams had one drink too many and fell headfirst into my sister’s lap. He dragged her to the ground with him. He talks highly of Cathy, and I won’t shatter his illusion.

  After we bid farewell, I half-walk, half-run through the police station toward the parking lot, simply waving and nodding at the guys who notice me. My mouth is dry. I can barely breathe. If someone stops me to talk, I won’t be able to utter a coherent word.

  Out on the street, I take a deep breath of the stale city air. While I frantically search for my car keys, I drop my purse twice.

  I’m almost at my car.

  I made it.

  Success!

  “Betty!” I hear someone calling my name. I drop my purse a third time. “Hold on a second.” I look back without reaching for my purse. I know the officer who is marching toward me with a soldierly stride. My heart stops. What’s his name? I can’t remember.

  “Yes,” I say. My voice is weak and powerless. My heart beats in my ears. My eyes go blurry, and I visualize myself in handcuffs, being escorted to jail, lights of cameras flashing in my eyes, microphones pushed into my face. “Why did you do it?” a reporter asks, cutting into other people’s words. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking!” I plead with a dozen reporters. Brad is not there to support me. He’s ashamed of me.

  My knees can’t hold my weight. I’m going to collapse.

  “I’m glad I caught you,” the officer says. “You left your phone on the chair in Williams’s office.” He hands me my cell phone. The rush of adrenaline lights my head up like a bonfire.

  “Oh, thank you so much. I’d lose my head if it wasn’t attached to my neck.” I perform an inane laugh, which he acknowledges with a strange sideways glance.

  “Well, drive safe now, ma’am.” He two-finger salutes me and heads back to the station.

  I get into my car and chain-smoke three cigarettes before I’m able to turn the key and operate a motorized vehicle.

  Ashley

  FRIDAY

  I wake late in the morning with a killer headache. My mouth is so dry that I could spit a cotton ball.

  I nuke yesterday’s burrito and eat it sitting on the toilet in the bathroom while I wait for the water to get warm in the shower. I have an amazing green smoothie recipe with over thirty ingredients I keep in the freezer for those days when I finally decide to start my healthy life. This morning would be a perfect time to take the first step, but I can’t bring myself to move. I want to cry, but I ran out of tears—so I snort a line instead.

  After an hour at the library, where I’ve been researching archived local newspapers till my nose started to bleed, I start feeling the lack of caffeine—and it’s clearly affecting my attention span. As determined as I am to find the names of the other victims, I can barely keep my eyes open.

  My phone vibrates on the table from Betty’s call. I use the opportunity to hit the vending machine in the glass-boxed refreshment room.

  I finish my coffee before she finishes her story about her exciting adventures at the police station. As I watch a short, plump woman pulling out two chairs by my table to sit down with a young girl, I ask, “All right, so did you find out anything helpful?”

  “Sure did! Let me see, here is the psych analysis on the alleged serial killer. Let me pull out the interesting parts. He’s manipulative…he gets off on making people do things they don’t want to do…and he’s a sadistic sociopath. He likes to take his time with his victims, to draw out the pain. While torturing his victims, he feels no empathy and afterward no remorse. He doesn’t have a conscience or any regard for anyone’s feelings. He most likely an educated, wealthy, charming, and manipulative man who tends to dominate women. He takes his victims to secluded, secure places where he can take his time with them. Know anybody who fits the bill?”

  “Most men I meet.”

  “Oh, gosh, Ashley. You just never change, do you?” She laughs.

  I once looked up why we laugh when we hear about a tragedy or a frightening piece of information, and I found out that some people laugh as a defense mechanism to help cope with shocking news, thereby sending uplifting messages to the brain through smiling facial muscles.

  “What else did you find out?”

  “I took a picture of the medical examiner’s preliminary report, and Skyler had no defensive wounds. Nothing under her nails, no fluids, no semen or any hairs or fibers. The time of death, based on rigor and lividity, was some time around 9:00 p.m. to midnight on Wednesday. No prints were found either. There was no water in her lungs, so she was dead before she hit the water. She was strangled with a single, thin object, a silk ribbon, pantyhose, or something similar, but whatever it was, it didn’t leave a distinguishable mark.”

  Each word she speaks pushes my heart lower into my stomach. My vivid imagination comes in handy when I draw or sketch, but now it’s killing me.

  “Did you come across any of the other victims’ names?”

  “I found two. Do you have a pen and paper?”

  “Give me a sec.”

  I leave the snack bar and walk back to my table. The woman smiles at me, as if it were perfectly normal that she is running a homeschooling session at the table where I’m trying to do my work. I don’t return her plastic smile, and she seems to take offense.

  I rummage through the clutter inside my purse and only find an unopened water bill. I turn it over to write on the back of the envelope.

  “Go ahead,” I tell Betty.

  “So, there were two more folders besides Skyler’s on the detective’s desk. I didn’t have time to look at them much, but the Fifty Shades Killer’s name was mentioned in both files, so I assume they are connected. One girl’s name was Alice Somono, and the other one was Sarah Moore.”

  She spells the names out for me.

  “Did you look them up?” I whisper, covering my mouth with my hand. I’m already getting nasty looks for using my cell phone—rightfully so, I may add.

  “No, I’m swamped today. My open house starts soon, and I didn’t even pick up cookies yet.”

  I bid farewell to Betty and press the space bar to revive my laptop. After Googling both names, I find the rest of the victims. Chiara Kerr, nineteen, from Escondido. Emma Edwards, twenty, from Sun City. Harriet Wilding, nineteen, from Rancho Santa Fe. Lizzy Jamison, fifteen, from Poway. Stella Barrow, seventeen, from Pala.

  Since the investigations are still ongoing, not many details have been released to the press. But I do learn that all victims were found in or around Lake Hodges in similar conditions: strangled, naked, and wrapped in a plastic sheet.

  I text the names to Olivia but receive no reply.

  Although there is a ton more research to do, I wrap up my things because the little girl reading the ABCs aloud next to me is driving me crazy.

  As I push my chair back from the table, I respond to the woman’s full-teeth, proud-parent smile with a frown. It’s like how the curtain goes down at the end of a play—her expression changes just as drastically, and she begins lecturing me about my rude behavior.

  I ignore her, and that sets her fire ablaze.

  I don’t give in to temptation to argue with her. My mother is right. I can’t change the world or the people in it. But I can do something about my mood, and it’s waiting for me at home, on the nightstand, right where I left it this morning.

  Olivia

  FRIDAY

  After the typical introduction of “Hi, I’m Olivia Campbell, Richard’s wife” makes its rounds in the office, the initial interest in the boss’s wife slowly diminishes among the employees, and I get a chance to slip out of sight. My first trip is to the break room to see one specific person I have in mind. I pour a tasteless, lukewarm cup of coffee into a Styrofoam cup, which by the end of the week will be added to a mountain of nonbiodegradable items that occupy a landfill somewhere.

  I lean my back against
the cabinet, thinking about how many times I’ve dreamed about working here, commuting between offices in the hallway, dressed in a stylish suit, carrying important folders tucked under my arm, and making a difference.

  I pictured myself sitting at a desk in an office bearing my name, answering phone calls, and working on the computer.

  I even yearned for taking a break with my coworkers, nibbling on Danish pastries to fight the afternoon drowsiness together.

  I’ve been filled with blind jealousy for Richard’s assistant, Jessica, for making calls in the name of my husband’s foundation, for welcoming visitors to my husband’s office, for overseeing my husband’s case files. It should have been me. I have the relevant education, determination, and time to contribute to his life’s work. Yet I was denied the opportunity without a reasonable explanation.

  And now, here I am, the newest assistant program manager for The Good Samaritan Foundation, working under the mentoring wings of Senior Program Manager Steve Richardson.

  It’s a giant, positive step forward for me and for our marriage. So, plotting to get into the archive room in the basement to dig dirt on my husband is a despicable way to show my gratitude. But I can’t help myself. The overwhelming need to find proof that the other victims of the Fifty Shades Killer may have had a connection to The Good Samaritan Foundation is the only thing I can focus on.

  My patience pays off. The person I’ve been most eager to see enters the break room—Cynthia from records. She pulls out a meatless salad from the refrigerator, smiles at me, and squeezes herself into the chair at the table. I watch her stabbing the green leaves with a plastic fork and putting each bite in her mouth as if it were poison.

  Pouring the rest of my horrible coffee into the sink, I turn to her. “Wouldn’t it be awesome if someone invented a candy that tasted like food but without the calories? Like jelly beans that tasted like BBQ pork ribs, mashed potatoes, and buttered biscuits?”

  She looks up at me with dreamy eyes. “Banana cream pie with whipping cream?”