by N L Westaway
Gwen moved to the next letter in the pile, opening it to find the same, Dear Mother and signed Love Rachel. She opened the rest without reading them and verified they had all been addressed and signed the same. She swiftly read through the next three letters in the order. “Who the hell is Rachel?” she said, out loud.
“What?” she heard Scott ask from the couch. When she didn’t answer, he prompted her again. “What are you reading?” He paused the game.
“Letters,” she said, still scanning the fourth and fifth letters. “I found them in a trunk at my mother’s place—thought they might be letters from my father to my mother, but no. Then I thought they were from my mother to my grandmother—looked like my mom’s handwriting, but they’re from someone named Rachel.” Gwen only recognized the last name on the envelope and had made the assumption this Muriel was her grandmother, but now it was unclear who this person was.
“Does your mom have a sister?” Scott asked, coming over to the table.
“If she did—she never told me,” Gwen said, examining the post marks from the first four letters.
Scott picked up the first of the letters, the one Gwen had set to the side of the pile on its own.
“That one is all about this Rachel person’s father, her abusive father. Says he sexually abused her until she hit puberty, then he just beat her on a regular basis. It talks about her mother’s indifference to it all too,” Gwen said, tapping the edge of the letter Scott held with her finger. “It mentions how she went to the police to report the abuse, but they didn’t believe her. Her father beat her after he found out what she had done. She felt her only option was to run away, the only way to be free of her father. The last part mentions how when she’d called her mother from the next town, that her mother had not cared where she was, and she had told her that after she’d run away—that the father had gone looking for her, had gotten in a car accident and died, and that the mother blamed her for his death,” she added, glancing up at Scott.
“That’s harsh—seriously messed up. But why would your mom have these letters?” Scott asked, setting the letter back on the island.
“No idea,” Gwen said. “But here’s the thing, the name on the envelope—the last name, it’s the same as my mother’s maiden name. But the kicker….” She picked up the stack of letters. “… these other ones, they don’t talk about this Rachel’s parents, they’re all about her being stalked, and not just by some nut-job—no, she writes that he’s a killer. How he always seems to find her in each town that she moves to. She’s constantly moving, but he finds her. This one….” Gwen held up the second letter. “… it talks about her being in Hanover, New Hampshire and hearing about some professor of Art History being killed. This is where it all started—with the stalking. Each town she moves to, some professor at the local college or university, gets killed. These next four—after the one about the parents, they all reference the same towns your dad told us about. Hanover, Brunswick, Middlebury, and Clinton. This letter, the Clinton, New York one, ends with, ‘If you’ve sent someone after me, you’ll never find me’.”
Scott took the letter from her hand and scanned the page. “How many letters are there?”
“Thirteen,” Gwen said. “I don’t know if the date on the postmarks match, and there are no return addresses on the envelopes, but these first towns match the movements of the serial killer your dad’s been tracking, Scott.”
“Who the hell is Rachel?” Scott asked, picking up the next in the pile.
“That’s what I said,” she responded, sickened by what she had read, yet slightly excited at what she may have uncovered. “This guy isn’t just stalking this Rachel person; he’s killing people in each town she goes to, like a warning to her or something, maybe.”
“But the serial killer disappeared six years ago,” Scott said, as if pondering the facts.
“Ya—but he’s back. Where the hell has he been all this time—and where is Rachel now?” Gwen slid the first letter back into its corresponding envelope.
“If this Rachel is still alive, she must be here—somewhere in Michigan,” Scott said. “If not, why would he be here killing again—if he’s doing it for her that is?” Scott reached over to grab another cookie from the open container on the counter.
“Look at these,” Gwen said, pushing the next small stack of opened letters his way. “My mother and I lived in some of these same towns, and your dad mentioned these too, the last time we talked; Asheville, Morgantown, Gambier, and Greencastle.”
Scott pulled out the other stool from under the small island and sat. “Why didn’t you say anything about it to him then?”
She shook her head. “The names rang a bell, but I wasn’t sure of all the places—I was just a kid, but like I mentioned then at the diner, we lived in Charleston, Illinois—the place of the last murder before the case went cold. I asked my mother today if she had ever heard of the serial killer—and she said she had. She remembered that officer who was just killed too—from her hometown—didn’t know him but knew his name.” Gwen watched patiently as Scott scanned the next two letters.
“There isn’t much in here,” he said. “I mean, she says someone is following her—feels like she’s being watched all the time. She mentions the professors being killed—but there're no details on the killer. She doesn’t really state there’s any proof that these killings are related to her, other than the corresponding cities, and she doesn’t seem to know who he is.” Scott pushed the letters back towards Gwen.
Gwen sighed. “Don’t you ever get a gut feeling about something? These letters feel like something, Scott.” She bent and pulled a pen and a small pad of paper from the inside pocket of her knapsack. Then she set the pad next to the stack of letters and began going through each one again, writing out the dates from the postmarks and the corresponding city mentioned in each of them.
“Hey—remember when we had to transport that psych patient from the police station to the mental facility? It was your first ride-along.” Scott leaned the stool back far enough that he could rest his back against the kitchen counter.
“How could I forget Crazy-Eyes,” she said, blowing a breath through her lips.
“Ya the eyes don’t lie. Mania can affect the entire eye, from changes in the distance between the brow and eye, changes in the lids, to pupils changing size and the iris changing color.”
Gwen paused her writing and shook her shoulders as a shiver ran down her spine.
“They taught you how to recognize mania in the eyes, didn’t they?” He brought the stool forward again.
“Ya—first year,” Gwen said, tapping the end of the pen on her bottom lip. “If the person is in euphoric mania, you might see a shimmering quality to the wide-open eyes, but if they are in dysphoric mania, their eyes narrow and can appear to turn black.” She shuddered again. “Crazy-Eyes was definitely in dysphoric mania.”
“It’s the adrenaline that makes the pupil take over the eye,” Scott said, adding to the already freaked out feelings she was experiencing.
Needing a bit of comfort, Gwen reached over and took a cookie from the container. Then she nibbled the edge, contemplating her options. “Let me do some research on the dates and these other places,” she said, switching gears. “Then I’ll call your dad.
Chapter 14
After a little online research on the towns and universities and the corresponding postmark dates from the letters, Gwen felt there was no doubt in her mind that these letters from this Rachel, this information, all corresponded to the same serial killer Detective Franklin had been tracking all these years. She probably should have called him last night, but she wanted to be clearer of what she believed she had. Scott had given her his dad’s cellphone number before he had left last night, and early first thing this morning she had texted him with,
Hi, Detective Franklin. This is Gwen, Scott’s friend. Do you have any time to meet this morning? I have something I need to talk to you about.
He had written back saying, for her call him. So, she did.
Setting her knapsack now next to the coffee table, Gwen sat down on her comfy couch, crossed her legs and leaned back, and then dialed his number.
He picked up after the first ring. “Hello—Gwen, funny you should message me—I have some questions for you,” he said, but before Gwen could respond he asked. “Jamison, is your mother’s married name, yes?”
“Yes,” Gwen said, caught off guard by the directness.
“Sorry,” he said, as if sensing her shock. “I’ve been going over the case files—I’ve followed up on all my leads and revisited all the people interviewed, and I came across a list of names of people interviewed in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. And Gwen, it appears your mother’s name was on it.”
“My mother’s name?” Gwen said, sitting forward on the couch.
“Do you remember living in that town?” he asked then.
“Uhm no—I don’t know—what year was that?” Gwen shot a glance at the stack of letters now sitting on her coffee table. She had planned on going over them with him.
“2002—January,” he said into her ear.
Doing the math, she said, “I would have been only turning four that year.” She turned to look at the bouquet of construction paper flowers on the side table.
“Right… do you think there’s a chance the two of you could have lived there at that time?” he asked.
They had lived in several of the other cities he had mentioned, she knew that already. Could they have lived there too? Could they have been in the same towns as Rachel, at the same time, at the same time as the killer? A tingling sensation ran across the back of Gwen’s neck. These letters she had, they had something to do with this case, she knew it.
“You mentioned that you had lived in the same town as the last murder—before it went cold, I mean,” he said, pulling her from her thoughts.
“Detective, how long would it take you to get to the diner? I think we need to meet,” she said then, grabbing up the letters and shoving them into her knapsack she had set next table.
Gwen sat alone in one of the booths, during the early morning breakfast rush, twisting the wrapper from the straw that had come with her glass of ice water. It was another hot day, and Gwen had worn her cut-off shorts paired with a white t-shirt, but she welcomed the cold air of the A/C at the tiny diner. Despite the chilly air, she was anxious and sweating, and the back of her thighs were sticking to the vinyl seat. Detective Franklin had confirmed on the call, that he could be there within the hour, and she turned then to look over her shoulder as the hour hit and just as he was entering in through the main door.
“Gwen,” he said, sliding into the seat across from her. He always dressed very nice and was wearing navy dress pants and a short-sleeved dress shirt, though he was already sweating through it at the armpits. “I’m sorry if my questions upset you. I know it might be a stretch, but I had to ask.” He gave a wave to the waitress when she looked over from across the diner.
Gwen shook her head. “That’s the thing, I don’t think it’s a stretch.” She balled the wrapper up and tossed it next to her empty glass. Not sure where to start, she said, “Rampton… my mother’s maiden name was Rampton.”
“Rampton—really?” he said, his words hinting at surprise and a touch of confusion. “I knew of a Rachel Rampton, but not a Laura.”
“Rachel?” Gwen said, stunned, but then she should not have been surprised at these details leading back around.
“She was a girl from my hometown—her father was a professor at the college. She was a troubled girl—ran away, apparently.” He rubbed his chin as if remembering something more. “Did your mother have any cousins?”
“It’s possible—but she never talks about her family,” Gwen said. Could Rachel and her mother be cousins? Was that why she had these letters?
“You asked me to meet you—is everything okay? Is Scott okay?” He dabbed at his sweaty forehead with one of the paper napkins.
“Yes, sorry—Scott is fine. It’s not about him,” she said, unsticking a thigh from the seat.
“Are you okay?” He leaned in.
“Ya—sorry,” she said, trying to find the words to start again. “It’s not about me—not really, it’s about my mother. That’s why I was so caught off guard when you asked about her.”
“What about your mother?” he said, just as the waitress finally came by to fill his coffee cup. She placed another ice-water on the table in front of him.
“Uhm, well—I guess it’s not really about her specifically, it’s about these letters I found at her house.” The detective frowned. “My mother had these letters—in a travel trunk. I’ve been through that trunk many times, but I’d never seen them before. I thought they were from her to her mother—my grandmother, but they weren’t. I brought them with me,” she added, patting the knapsack beside her.
“I’m sorry—but you’ve lost me here,” he said, leaning back in his seat again. Then he picked up his coffee.
“They’re from Rachel,” she said, as if ripping off a band-aid. “To her mother.”
The detective stopped mid-sip, the coffee cup inches from his mouth. “Why would these letters be of interest to me?” he said, before completing the sip.
“The first letter mentions Rachel’s father,” Gwen said. “The letters span years and mention her moving—a lot.”
“The Rachel I knew disappeared,” he said, frowning again, his eyes going to the glass of ice-water. Condensation was dripping down the side onto the table. He lifted it up and put a paper napkin under it. He looked back at Gwen, then took in a deep breath, and said, “I had gone out with the search party—trying to find her, her father went out searching too—not very hard, mind you. Guess he wanted to look like a concerned father.” He rubbed a hand over his chin. “The guy may have been an English professor, but he’d been just a drunk that night. Practically drove me off the road. He died that night—crashed his car into a ditch. Rachel had gone to the cops the day before she disappeared, to report that he beat her.” He glanced back over to the glass of water.
“I know,” Gwen said. “It’s all in the first letter.” Gwen went on then to tell him about how the first letter talks about Rachel being sexually abused and that the numerous beatings came later after she had reached puberty, and how Rachel’s mother had blamed her for the father’s death. “But there’s more,” Gwen said. “The rest of the letters, they mention some man following her from city to city as she moved.” Gwen then broke down the contents of the other letters, the places and the dates, the stalking and the killing, and the research she had done. She also explained that unfortunately, there wasn’t really anything in the letters that could help him to identify this killer. And she had managed to get it all out and uninterrupted, she had noted.
The detective had appeared dumbfounded by what she had relayed to him, and he had barely looked up from staring at his coffee cup or that dripping water glass. “I don’t understand why my mother had these, but they could be cousins—like you said,” Gwen added, squirming a bit in her seat, unsure what else to say.
“I went out with the search party—like I said. But I’ve read the file.” He glanced up at her then.
“Was there something more to Rachel’s story?” Gwen asked, leaning forward to put her elbows on the table.
Detective Franklin took in a long slow breath, letting it out even slower. He turned to look out the large window, staring at nothing in particular, as people walked by, then said, “After she made her report to the police, they sent a cop to her home to investigate. The mother had given the police some story about her being a runabout and a liar, so the police didn’t believe her statement.” He paused and looked back to Gwen.
“What aren’t you telling me? I’m guessing they never found her. Do you think the killer was after her then, was that maybe why she ran away?” Gwen asked. Her heart was pounding in her throat.
He looked away, then back at her again and visually swallowed. “That officer that went out to the house to investigate Rachel’s claims… was the same officer who informed Rachel’s mother that her husband was dead.”
“And?” Gwen said, anxious to the tenth degree.
“That was Officer Stinson—the cop that we just found murdered.”
Gwen’s head was bursting now with all this information, yet she still had questions for her mother, as did Detective Franklin.
She gave him the letters to review, and he said it was imperative that her mother contact him as soon as possible, but he had also agreed to let Gwen speak with her mother first, and that was where she was headed now.
When Gwen got to her mother’s house, she wasn’t greeted this time by the scent of freshly baked cookies, and when she called out for her mother, all she heard in response was the sound of the A/C unit pumping out extra hard due to another hot scorcher of a day. She had wanted to speak to her mother, but she had also wanted to examine that trunk further, so she ran up the stairs to get another look.
Lifting the lid, Gwen found that the textbook, the one she had noticed last time labeled Understanding the Classic American Novel, was now wrapped in an old worn leather belt. She picked up the book and gasped. The author’s name on the book read ‘Professor Michael Rampton’. Detective Franklin had said that Rachel’s father had been an English professor, this had to be him. The appearance of the old belt cinched around the book was unnerving and Gwen set the text back in the trunk. She pulled her phone from her knapsack’s front pocket and checked the time.
She did not have a lot of time and needed to get back to town to get ready for her shift. Not wanting to wait any longer, she dialed her mother’s cell phone. It went to voicemail. “I have the letters, Mom—and I want to know who Rachel is. Call me,” Gwen said, frustrated, leaving her mother a message. She checked the time on her phone again.
