by N L Westaway
LETTERS from RACHEL
N. L. WESTAWAY
Copyright © 2020 by N. L. Westaway. All Rights Reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Original Cover Marlene photo by Daiga Ellaby
Cover designed by Beach House Press
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
N. L. Westaway
Visit my website at www.NLWestaway.com
ISBN: 978-1-7339442-7-4
Printed in the United States of America
First Publication: December 2020 Beach House Press
This book is dedicated to my mother, who loved a good mystery.
Thank you to Brenda, Eddie, and Lawrence for your assistance with my research regarding the first responder, medical, police procedural, and the clinical psychology knowledge necessary in order for me to accurately portray the characters in this novel.
Thank you to Cathy my friend and editor, for painstakingly going through the pages of this latest novel. Your support and kindness had been much appreciated during this difficult time in 2020, and your encouragement is something I will be forever grateful for.
To my hubby, I am grateful to you for your never-ending love, your reassurance that my writing is never a waste of time, and your constant words of reassurance and support with any project I choose to take on. There is no one I would rather share a beach house with than you! xo
“The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder.”
― Jim Morrison
Chapter 1
June 23rd, 1997 - Cambridge, MA
“Yes father,” Rachel said despite the fresh injury. How many times in her 18 years had she said those words, when what she desperately wanted was to scream, “No!”
With graduation only a week away, Rachel still had not been able to give her father an answer about what she would be studying at his college. He had used this as an excuse to beat her again, but this would be the last time she would be subjected to his violence. He had given her until the end of the week, and it was Friday now and the last day of high school. Though, her plan hadn’t been to give him an answer today, instead she planned to go to the police finally, before the school day started, and report the abuse.
At the police station, officer Robert Thompson had taken her statement, then asked that she wait in the lobby area.
Out in the waiting area, Rachel watched a door open and a young man strolled out of what she’d assumed was the chief’s office, it being the only closed-door space in the station other than the one marked interview room, of the ones she could see, anyway. Even the holding cell was the open-air kind, like a giant cage with just a short bench inside.
The young man walking towards her was very tall, tall dark and handsome she mused. She didn’t recognize him, but then she didn’t get out much and didn’t really know anyone in town and definitely not any of the men, not if her parents had anything to say about it.
“Fill out the forms, Jamie—get your life in order,” said a deep commanding voice from within the office and just before the door to it was slammed shut. The sound vertebrated through the precinct, and Rachel watched as the other visible officers scrambled around trying to look busy. The handsome young Jamie passed by then and turned his head to smile at her.
She smiled back and watched as he turned away and headed out through the main doors.
“You can go now,” the officer said from behind the desk, grabbing her attention. “We’ll send an officer to the house to investigate. Don’t worry, we’ll make sure things are taken care of.” He gave her a nod.
She nodded back, grabbed up her school bag, and without a word, she headed out of the station and off to school.
Officer Bradly Stinson pulled up and parked the cruiser alongside the front yard of Professor Michael Rampton’s home. The house was an older colonial-style home, its most obvious attribute being the symmetry. It was rectangular in shape, not the traditional two storeys, but a bungalow with the door located in the center with the same number of windows reflected on either side.
At the front door, Officer Stinson gave two swift knocks and then waited.
A woman who looked old enough to be the complainant’s grandmother promptly answered the door. “Yes, hello officer—how can I help you?” the woman said, holding the door open a mere half-foot.
“Gooday, ma’am, is Professor Rampton available?” Officer Stinson straightened up and puffed out his chest.
“No—he’s at the college. Is there something I can help you with?” She glanced behind her as if trying to keep something out of view.
“Does a Rachel Rampton live here? There’s been a complaint, ma’am.” Officer Stinson tried to see through the door and past the woman’s head.
She opened the door wider then. “Come in officer. What has that hellish child done now?” she said with a huff and an eye-roll. “I’m almost embarrassed to claim she’s my daughter.”
“Well,” Officer Stinson said, recognizing now as he passed through the doorway into the front hall, that he was speaking to Rachel’s mother—not the grandmother. She’d had Rachel late in life, he figured. Her hair was short and wavy, mousy brown but mostly grey, even her eyes were a dull brown, and she wore no makeup or jewelry, not even a wedding ring. Her clothes consisted of a shift-style dress in a muted brown colour over which was a long grey apron. She carried an off-white dishtowel in her right hand, and she smelled strongly of pine sol and bleach, he noted. “The complaint was made by her—not about her,” he corrected, rubbing a finger under his nose, irritated by the cleaning product smells.
“What?” she asked, changing her tone to that of a much younger more virtuous woman than her appearance presented. “A complaint about what?”
“Not what, ma’am—who,” he stated, glancing around the entry hall. The space was exceptionally neat and tidy, as was the living room, the only room he could see from where he stood. He wondered now what it was she thought she was hiding from him.
“Who?” she asked, shutting the door with the dish toweled hand. Her other hand she brought to her throat, running it up and down her neck to her collarbone.
“Her father, ma’am,” he said, sliding his thumb through the side loop in his tactical belt.
“My husband—are you serious?” she questioned, turning to stack the already tidy mail on the sideboard next to the empty coat rack.
“Yes, ma’am.” He sniffed.
“Muriel please—call me Muriel,” she said checking her watch.
“Mrs. Rampton, when is your husband expected home?” he asked, growing restless. He did not care for the back and forth dialog, in fact he wasn’t exactly interested in investigating some prominent professor from his hometown.
Muriel cleared her throat, then checked her watch again. Changing her stance to a much stiffer posture, she said, “Our daughter has always been a bit of a storyteller. Usually just trying to get her father’s attention in one way or another.” She checked her watch a third time. “Always misbehaving,” she added firmly, as if closing her point.
“These are some serious allegations, ma’am,” he stated, shifting his position to get a better look into the living room. “Can you please have your husb
and—Mr.—Professor Rampton, come down to the station as soon as possible?” He squinted, trying to see into the room at the end of the hall but the door was partially shut.
“I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding—I apologize Officerrr…,” she started, searching for his name badge.
“Stinson,” he added for her, turning back towards the front door.
“Officer Stinson—yes, I’m sorry you had to come all the way out here over another one of Rachel’s lies.” She cleared her throat again. “My husband and I will address this with her—once she is home from school,” she added, reaching over to open the front door.
“Please have your husband call the station—to follow up,” Officer Stinson requested, doing his job yet assuming he’d wasted his time and his lunch hour driving out there for some teenager’s parental issues, rebellion, whatever. “Gooday, ma’am,” he said, exiting the home.
The door closed behind him.
“What a hag,” he mumbled to himself, relieved to be out of there, strolling eagerly down the front walk to the police cruiser.
At 3:30 p.m. Rachel opened the door to her home and walked to her bedroom, feeling safe for the first time in her life, despite knowing she would have to deal with her mother over this. Her father would be sitting in that jail cell by now and asking for his one phone call. He would call his lawyer first before calling her mother, that was for sure. She smiled at the thought then dropped her school bag on the corner of her bed and glanced around the room.
Her bedroom was where she spent most of her time if she wasn’t studying at the library or expected in the kitchen to help her mother. The room had been painted white and had dulled with age, and it had light grey wall-to-wall carpet. There were no posters or artwork on the wall as you might find in a typical teenager’s room. They had not allowed Rachel to put anything on the walls. The only furniture was a twin bed, a dresser that held her clothes, and next to the only window was a child-size desk and chair that they expected her to do her homework at. The room itself, was sized for a young child, not a grown teenager.
There was a closet, but it held only her winter coat and boots, plus a second set of bedding of which she was responsible for washing each week. She was given a standard amount of laundry soap to do so, but she was never given any fabric softener, so her bedding had become worn and paper-like and was neither cool in the summer nor warm in the winter. The bed was just a mattress and box-spring on a metal frame, and had a single unimpressive pillow covered by a dark grey comforter that she had had as long as she could remember. It too, had not weathered the laundry and was now scratchy and had lost its thermal density to provide any warmth. She had no mirror in the room, and she was given very little time to bathe each day and get ready for school.
The house itself had only two official bedrooms now, the third bedroom, one much larger than hers, the one between hers and the master, had been converted into her father’s office. The office was where he spent most of his time when not at the college, and where he most often chose to conduct her beatings. He had decorated in the style of a pretentious scholar, with a large decorative dark wood desk and a plump dark leather chair. The walls had been lined with bookshelves matching the style of the desk and were filled with hardcover and leather-bound books she realized when she had opened some, he had never read. But she was done with that office, she was done with him, and she was done with high school now too. All that was left to her senior year, was the ceremonial part of her graduation and then she would be free.
She laughed then and spun herself in a circle, arms outstretched like a ballerina. On a second spin, her mother’s silhouette came into view of the bedroom’s doorway, and Rachel stopped.
There was a substantial purple bruise that stretched the length of her mother’s face from temple to jaw, and the lower right side of her lip was swollen and still leaked blood. Large hand-shaped red compression marks encircled her neck, and the expression she gave Rachel was one of loathing.
“You think I look bad,” her mother said, dabbing her lower lip with a dishrag. “This is what I got—for telling your father what you did. For not being able to control my ungrateful daughter.” She winced and dabbed her lip again. “Wait until he’s done with you,” she added indignant, but was abruptly shoved aside out of the way then, replaced in the doorway by Rachel’s father.
Rachel in her shock, still noticed that he had taken his regular work dress shirt off already, as was par for the course with his beatings. “Wouldn’t want to make a mess of my good shirt now—would we,” the memory of his voice echoed in her head. He still wore his suit pants, and like usual, he unbuckled his leather belt and drew it through the loops to end in a sharp snap as the strap pulled loose.
“Your mother had a visitor today,” her father said, taking a step into her room. “Apparently, you made a visit to the police… had a report written up… a complaint… about me.” He wrapped the buckle end of the belt around his left hand, then holding the end of the length in his other, he snapped it straight. Snapping the belt a second time, the sound resonated within the small room, as he took another step closer.
Rachel stepped back, her legs meeting the edge of her bed, the comforter’s fabric scratching the back of them. Behind her father stood her mother again in the doorway. Rachel watched as her mother reached for the doorknob, grabbed ahold of it, and then yanked the door shut.
“How dare you embarrass me—how dare you bring disgrace upon my name,” her father said, seizing her attention again. He was a well-known, well-respected literary professor at Cambridge College here in Massachusetts, but his level of condescension was as if it were the famed Cambridge University in the UK. And other than his reputation, school and books were the only things he ever cared about. She had tried to please him by getting good grades, exceptional grades in fact, getting extra credits, even pushing herself to graduate with honors. But over the last few years, the beatings had often still been about her grades, the occasional A- being enough to evoke embarrassment upon his name—or so he had claimed. She had never seen him this angry before, although she had never done anything like this before either. She never disobeyed him, never went out, never had a friend over, she kept to her room, only ever coming out to help her mother with meals or to go to school or the library. Before this, she had never been brave enough to tell someone what was really going on in their home, well, other than her mother.
“Your mother has enough to deal with regarding the care of this home, tending to the needs of this family, to be bothered in the middle of the day—interrupting her chores, to deal with a police officer at the door,” her father said through gritted teeth, his words thundering out, spit forming at the corners of his mouth.
She glanced down, focusing on the tips of his expensive loafers. Her mother was basically a slave to her father, and it was not a marriage in the traditional sense Rachel had come to realize, not with the proclivities he had had for her when she’d been a child. From the age of five, she been abused by him, sexually abused. Never penetration, but he had made her do things to him, disgusting vile things that had given her enough nightmares to last ten childhoods. However, when she had reached puberty, the sexual abuse had stopped only to change to regular beatings instead, as if it had sickened him to witness her mature into womanhood. These beatings were always accompanied by the name calling, whore, slut, tramp, and often proceeded by the ‘f’ word to give them more weight, and all despite the fact that she was still a virgin, had never had a boyfriend, or even a friend for that matter. When she had turned sixteen, she had finally had the courage to tell her mother. Although, her mother had not believed her, and in her denial, she had turned a blind eye. Better me than her, she had probably rationalized.
“Look at me—you little bitch,” he ordered, snapping the belt in her direction.
Rachel knew by his malevolent expression that this would be the cruelest beating of all beatings, and she was not free… she would not be…
she was nothing and no one—not even her mother cared what happened to her. She drew in a deep breath as her father took one last step forward and snapped the belt again.
When it was over, Rachel’s father leaned down to her and whispered in her ear. “I’ll give you 20 minutes to think about what you’ve done.” His breath smelled of onions and some kind of liquor. A drop of his sweat hit her cheek before he lifted his head away, though she still kept her eyes closed. “Then get your ass up off the floor and go help your mother in the kitchen with dinner,” she heard him say before hearing the door shut.
She had let him beat her, she had not fought it, hadn’t even called out in pain like she had typically done before. This time she had not wanted to give him the satisfaction of her resisting, of hearing her cries. He had hit her harder for it, used the buckle end of the belt and had cut her upper thigh open, but she had gone somewhere else, had let her mind escape during each brutal blow. She had not been free… but she was now, and she had a new plan.
This evidence, these welts and bruises now forming across her arms and legs, she figured would show them she had been telling the truth. He never hit her face, she was lucky for that she guessed, but that was more to keep hidden what he had been doing, and you couldn’t hide a black eye. They lived out of town and a ways from where her father taught, so any bruises or injuries that her mother may suffer would never be seen since no one really ever came to the house. But if the police came back now, they would see what he had done to her mother, not that Rachel cared, but it would be more evidence in her favor.
Rachel cautiously turned on her side. The dress she had worn today had been torn off leaving her in her underwear and tank top, and she chose to leave the ruined garment where it had been thrown. With little time to spare, she forced herself up on her knees, then reached beneath her bed for the jeans, sweatshirt, and boots she had stashed there. Standing then with a wince and a hushed moan, she leaned on her dresser and opened the drawer that held her underwear.
