Letters From Rachel

by N L Westaway

  “Why do you keep all these textbooks?” Gwen asked, standing then.

  “Oh, I don’t’ know—I like to learn, never got to go to college full time, you know that. Get out of there now,” her mother said, appearing a bit flustered, shooing her out of the closet and then out of the bedroom. “Come tell me about how your on-the-job-training is going.” She gave Gwen a light tap on the elbow to go down the stairs ahead of her.

  “Well, I was on scene at that murder the other week—the one linked to the serial killer,” Gwen tossed out, before reaching the first floor. She turned back to see her mother stopped in the middle of the staircase. “Mom?”

  “Sorry, dear… yes, the one in the news,” her mother said, quickly descending the last few stairs. “You didn’t have to see the dead body, did you?”

  “Mom, I’ve seen a dead body. It’s sort of part of the job,” Gwen said, standing next to the dining table.

  “Yes, okay—I see,” her mother said, going to the kitchen window and pushing back the curtain to look out.

  “Do you remember hearing about the very first murder? It happened not far from where you grew up, in Hanover.”

  “No… I don’t recall,” she said, moving across to the living room to peek out the window there.

  “The detective working the case is from your hometown. Did you ever know a Jim Franklin?”

  She heard her mother take in a sharp breath. Then she turned and said, “I’m just going to go for a walk. You’ll lock up won’t you dear?”

  “Mom, are you… okay?” Gwen had started to ask, as her mother grabbed up her satchel from the hall table, but she had been out the door before Gwen could finish.

  Chapter 7

  Laura - July 8th, 2019 - Ann Arbor, MI

  Hearing that Gwen had been on the scene at that latest murder had thrown Laura for a loop. Thoroughly on edge, she had struggled to get air into her lungs and had rushed out before letting her daughter see her in such a state. She knew she was going to have to tell her daughter eventually, about what she knew about the murders, about the stalker, the man who had been chasing her across the country. In hopes to calm her nerves now, she had walked the five blocks to the local university campus to further walk the grounds.

  Six years and she’d not heard a peep, then the other week as she’d been working in the back of the bakery, the news had spewed out from the small television, informing her that based on the MO, the killer was back. Not in her town, but close enough—too close in fact, as the murder had been on the campus her daughter had attended. Why was he back and why now, she had wondered and worried?

  She had been in Ann Arbor now since the fall of 2013, and it had been halfway through her daughter’s sophomore year in high school, when Gwen had begged her to stay here. She had told Gwen that she would think about it. And though there had been no postcard received on this move, there had been on the four moves prior.

  After two years in Virginia, Gwen had established some nice friendships, so she had not been impressed with them moving to North Carolina. They had stayed there for two years while Laura had been running the company’s catering expansion. There had been no message from the killer, nor had she heard of any new murders. Well, not until that June, when the professor of Engineering who had been visiting the local University, had wound up dead. When a postcard arrived in July they had packed up and moved to West Virginia, but come that September, there had been yet another murder, another Professor killed at the local University.

  When another postcard arrived the following January, they were on the move again, this time to Gambier, Ohio. And the only reason they had stopped there was because Gwen had been experiencing severe abdominal pains. The doctor in the emergency, had kept saying it was all in Gwen’s head, had even called for someone in psych to evaluate her. To pay for the medical bills, they had had to stay in the town so Laura could find work.

  Then the day of Gwen’s 13th birthday they had been back to the hospital with her once again suffering abdominal pains. The same doctor had been there, but luckily for them, there was another doctor in charge, and he’d examined Gwen this time. Laura had known Gwen’s pain had not been in her head, and the new doctor had proven such, and had diagnosed her with an irritable bowel, that was potentially brought on by stress. Talk about guilt, Laura knew she was to blame for the stress, and for the instability with making her daughter move all the time.

  The following day at her waitress job, the best she could find under the circumstances, the public TV they had on the wall of the diner, had shown a news report about the Professor of Psychology from the local college being killed, and there had been a photo with the broadcast. The photo was of the doctor, the first one who had seen Gwen, the one who had said the pain was all in her head, who had also been a professor at the university. A few weeks later in May, a postcard arrived, and Laura had gotten her daughter and herself out of that town as fast as she could, moving them to Indiana.

  It would be another two years before a news bulletin provided the horrifying update that another professor had been killed, this time a Professor of Film Studies from the local university. A week later another postcard had followed, and it had been time to move again. In July of 2013 Laura had landed them in Charleston, Illinois.

  Stressful moves had been the understatement at that point, so in hopes of easing the stress and tension with her daughter, and to perhaps educate them both, Laura had suggested she and Gwen take a summer course in nutrition at the university, to better understand Gwen’s stomach condition and how it was impacted by food. Gwen had been open, and it had helped heal their frayed relationship some.

  Then on the last day of the course, when another teacher, the Professor of Exercise Science, had overheard the reason why they’d taken the course, he had gone off on a rant, telling them what Gwen should and shouldn’t eat, all geared to sports nutrition, and the opposite to what they’d learned, both from the doctor who had diagnosed her and from on the course. The professor had said, “The doctors don’t know what they are talking about.” He’d been pushy and basically a jerk, and… had ended up dead. So much for being healthy if someone kills you, Laura had morbidly thought. When Laura had seen the death on the news, it had been paired with an update on the lead detective running the case. The news had stated that with the latest killings being somewhat back-to-back, that the detective had turned his focus on tracking the serial killer West across the country. That had also been when it had dawned on Laura, that she needed to change her travel route, backtrack or something, go North to Michigan, maybe. And when yet another postcard showed up, they were on the move, again.

  After they had first arrived in Ann Arbor, Laura had done her usual security routine, but this time she had added reinforcement to her entry door buy installing a door strike plate. She’d been told by the guy at the local hardware store that it helped to strengthen the door’s weak spot, the jamb, by providing a heavy-duty plate and extra-long screws needed to withstand a burglar trying to kick in the door. The guy had said, “Depending on when the dead bolt was installed, if it hadn’t been in the last 10 years, it would need to be reinforced.” Then he had pointed her in the direction of the hardware she would need and gave her the instructions on how to install it.

  Her front door may have been reinforced now, but the internal struggle she had about all the moving and the lying to her daughter had weakened her resolve. So, when Gwen had asked about staying, Laura had decided to do a little research on another topic to help with her decision. At the library in town, she had looked up stalking and had found several psychology magazines and some self-help resources.

  The first magazine she’d found had an article that defined stalking as repeated and unwanted attention, harassment, contact, or any other behavior directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear. It cited a 2006, large-scale representative study of stalking behavior across three continents. In it the report stated that 2–13% of
males and 8–32% of females are victimized by stalking at some point in their adult lives, and in most cases, the person is stalked by someone they know. It went on to say that the relentless neurotic nature of the stalker can be anything from harassing their targets, calling them repeatedly, to even sending letters and gifts. And if ineffective, the stalker may escalate to more intrusive behaviors like spying, and unpredictably confronting their victims. She could identify with that, but the part she had found useless, had been the part about how there was little to explain what exactly motivated a stalker, and the article had focused more on how to therapeutically treat these people.

  Part of the article stated that most stalkers don’t suffer from delusions or hallucinations, but many suffer from other forms of mental illness such as depression, substance abuse, and personality disorders. At the bottom of the write-up, there had been some guidelines for stalking victims, and it indicated that if applied, they may reduce the odds of physical or emotional harm from their stalker. All she had seen was the ‘may’ part in that, and that had not been hugely helpful. She had been hoping to better understand what motivated a person to obsess over another person, or what delusions could possibly stir those feelings for another person to commit murder. She hadn’t wanted that—hadn’t ask for it, but it had happened, and she needed to know what she could do about it.

  In the next magazine, an older one from 2000, there had been an article on a study conducted in 1993 by an Australian stalking expert, who was a clinical director and chief psychologist at a high-security hospital for mentally ill offenders, where he had analyzed the behavior of 145 diagnosed stalkers. He and his colleagues had defined five stalker subtypes to facilitate diagnosis and treatment.

  Laura had made a photocopy of that article and had read it several times over when she had gotten home. But when Gwen had asked her then why they moved so much, Laura had not been ready to tell her the truth and had told her instead that she didn’t like to stay in one place too long and that she was looking for the perfect place for them. And that had been when her daughter had said, “Ann Arbor is the perfect place, Mom.”

  In the end, she had made the decision to stay, obviously, but how was she going to protect herself, protect her daughter, she had agonized then? Laura glanced down at her purse. She hadn’t wanted to get a gun, hadn’t wanted one around her daughter, so instead she had opted to purchase and keep pepper spray with her at all times now. As Laura strolled further through the campus, she patted the side of her purse and then adjusted the strap at her shoulder.

  It wasn’t a purse per se, it was an RAF blue canvas travel shoulder messenger satchel, that she’d gotten at the local army surplus store, and had had since before Gwen was born. In high school, she had put several colourful pin-buttons on it. Over time she had removed some, the ones that had stopped having meaning or impact as she had gotten older. She’d had one from the local library from her hometown, that had been the first to come off, as it gave away where she might have been from. The one with ‘When it Rains it Poes’, a play on the name of one of her favorite authors, had been the next to come off. The rainbow, flower-power and peace happy face had been the one to come off after that, mainly because it felt juvenile and she had wanted to be seen as an adult. The last one she had removed had been the one with the words ‘The Twilight Zone’, referring to the original, and was considered vintage, though she’d never seen the tv show. Her daughter had given her a button from her high school when she’d gotten to stay in Ann Arbor, and then she’d replaced it a few weeks ago, in salute of her upcoming graduation from college with one that had the words ‘Parent of a First Responder’ on it. Laura wore it proudly, and she had followed it up by putting a new peace sign happy face one on as well. Peace and happiness, Laura thought as she brushed a finger across the two pins left on her purse.

  It had been six years since the killer disappeared. And in that time Laura had built a nice life for herself and her daughter, though Gwen wasn’t living at home anymore and was living an hour away in a different city. Gwen had left right after high school, gotten a job working at the college she been attending, in the cafeteria. She’d worked part-time with Laura at the bakery during high school. “Saving for college,” she would say to Laura. It had taken Gwen longer than normal to complete her training to be a paramedic because of her having to work to pay for things. Laura always felt guilty for that, had felt guilty for a lot of things. She had raised her daughter to be independent, but the last thing Laura had wanted was for her to move out.

  In Ann Arbor, with all the reference letters Laura had gathered, she had been able to get a house to rent instead of an apartment. It was a garden home and for the first time she had chosen to live in a community-style housing development, figuring that maybe more eyes on them meant more security, the busybodies could be good surveillance people without realizing they were. It seemed to work too. No one got anywhere near their house or meandered around the community grounds without a neighbor reporting it or confronting the person, and Laura loved that. She couldn’t blame Gwen for wanting to move out though, they’d shared so many spaces together, and Gwen had needed a space of her own. Laura was loving her job here too, helping to run the bakery. She had introduced them to the catering option as well, and it had become highly lucrative for the bakery.

  She and her daughter had both flourished in these past few years living in Michigan. Laura had watched her daughter grow into a smart, capable, young woman. She had been there to watch her daughter get her driver’s license, though Laura still didn’t own a car, she didn’t even have her own driver’s license. But she did have a cell phone, had gotten one shortly after moving here, mainly because it was added security, giving her and her daughter a way to communicate, for emergencies Laura had told herself. She only had three numbers in her contact list: Gwen, the bakery, and Marlene, her friend—her only friend.

  She had met Marlene just before Gwen’s high school graduation, when Laura had been out on a break from the bakery, sitting and enjoying her coffee with one of the pastries she’d made that morning. She had been hesitant initially when Marlene had first approached her, sitting on the bench herself for a break. She had been friendly, commenting about the weather, but before Laura had realized it, they had been full on discussing the feelings Laura had been having about the upcoming graduation. They had ended their first conversation on a happy note, when Laura had told her how much she loved it here, where she lived, her job, and even her neighbors.

  The following week when Laura had gone for her break again, Marlene had been sitting on the bench when she had gotten there. To Laura’s delight, their conversation continued as did their friendship. Now they meet every Tuesday like clockwork and over the past three years they have discussed a variety of topics. It was the perfect spot, up the street from the bakery and just up the street from the college where Marlene was a professor of psychology. Laura had begun to trust Marlene and had taken comfort in the consistency of their meetups. Laura had liked where she was, liked this little town and the people here, but it had been traumatic when Gwen had left for a college out of town, so it had been wonderful to have someone to talk to about the empty nest stuff.

  Gwen was graduating from college in less than a month, and she had wanted to talk to Marlene about it, but having been away last week, she hadn’t been able to meet with her. Laura had often wondered if she would ever finally trust someone enough to tell them what she had been dealing with over the past 20 years.

  The killer was back… tomorrow was Tuesday… and she would see Marlene back at their bench. So, maybe then would be a good time to tell her friend the story, Laura thought, as she turned and headed back toward her home.

  Chapter 8

  Last week had been the first time in the past three years since Laura and Marlene had become friends, that they hadn’t met for coffee and pastries. Laura had been so anxious since yesterday to speak with her, that she’d asked the other baker to cover for her, so
she could take some extra time for her break, and had headed to the bench early, mainly to calm her nerves. She had finally been feeling ready to tell her friend everything.

  Laura already knew a lot about her friend, Marlene had shared things about her life easily, and everything Laura had learned about her friend she had appreciated, and as their friendship had grown, Laura had found she liked basically everything about Marlene. They were the same age, which was nice as they related to a lot of the same things, though there was a lot that Laura also struggled to connect with, yet she always found those topics and the dialog about them particularly interesting. Laura had realized her growth had been in the struggling and she had always enjoyed learning.

  “Heeey, I missed you last week,” Laura heard a woman’s voice say, and she turned towards the voice to see Marlene strolling over to the bench with an extra-large coffee in hand.

  Laura waved. “Hey, stranger.”

  Marlene was wearing a black dress, her typical attire which was usually either a long flowy skirt or dress, in one of her favorite colours, black, navy, or dark brown, and at a length that went to her ankles. She was tall like Laura, taller in fact, and probably 6’ 3” with the high heeled shoes and boots she insisted on wearing. Laura never wore heels; in fact, she rarely ever wore a dress. She was most comfortable in her jeans and t-shirts or baker attire. They’d had a good chuckle though about how men often find tall women intimidating, and how Marlene had upped her game by wearing a minimum three-inch heel, even in the summer she wore platform sandals. But body-wise that was where the similarities between the two of them ended. Laura may have been tall, but she was slim where Marlene was heftier, more like a female athlete with a little bit extra around the middle. With her size you would have thought she would have come off as intimidating, but she had a pleasant happy face and full cheeks that bunched when she smiled. Her eyes were big and bright, a light green colour, and she wore her pale blond hair pulled back in a bun similar to how Laura wore hers, though Laura’s hair was a dark strawberry blond similar to Gwen’s. Her voice had almost a musical quality to it and she had a soft laugh, more like a giggle, and not what you would expect from a woman of her stature.