Their Last Secret

by Rick Mofina

  A long, intense moment passed with Emma staring at Rita. “Have you been threatening me and my family?”

  “Are you listening? We made a pact. We swore a blood oath to share with each other.”

  “We were stupid kids!”

  “It was real! What we did sure as hell was real, and our pact is real, too. So you either share your fortune, or you’ll share our pain.”

  Emma stepped closer to Rita. “Don’t threaten me or my family.”

  The two women stared at each other.

  “We’re not going to wait. We know how to reach you. And we will reach you,” Rita said before walking away.

  Emma was rooted to the pavement, her heart hammering against her chest, unaware that in the distance the sun glinted on the lens of a camera that had made a video recording of the entire exchange between the two convicted murderers.

  Sixty-Four

  Cielo Valle, Orange County, California

  Present day

  Slipping from Emma’s shaking fingers, the egg carton fell to the floor and splayed open with casualties. Four, to be exact.

  Emma stared. It had to be four broken eggs.

  She’d been putting the groceries away with such fury while processing the incident in the Trader Joe’s parking lot, she’d lost her grip. Seeing that girl—the ring, that woman, a ghost from her past —dragging her, and now her family, into a nightmare.

  Did it really happen?

  Emma wiped the floor vigorously, as if trying to erase an indelible stain, tossed the waste into the disposal.

  All these years. After all these years. Why? Why? Why?

  Her heart racing, she finished with the groceries, then went to her laptop on the counter and frantically searched for answers, starting with the name Rita Purvis—even though she was unsure of the correct spelling.

  Or if that’s really her new name now.

  It was hopeless. What’s the point? There were countless hits.

  Are they behind the notes? Were they working with Marisa? What am I going to do? She’s extorting me, made contact with me and threatened me. We could be sent back to prison.

  Emma would not survive having her past revealed like this. It would destroy her, destroy Ben and Kayla.

  Emma stared at her phone.

  She could call the police. But was the no-contact condition even enforceable here in the US? What about the Canadian Consulate in Los Angeles? She looked it up. The Consulate General of Canada was on South Hope Street. She could go there, request a confidential meeting, explain that Rita Purvis contacted her, threatened her. Demand they arrange to have Rita arrested quietly, make it all go away, for her family’s sake—for their safety.

  But the risk of this leaking out was too great. Police always tip reporters. The connection to Ben would make a sensational story, with overwhelming consequences.

  Rita said “we” want a hundred thousand dollars each, but Emma didn’t see the other skull sister, whatever she was calling herself now. Where was she?

  Her laptop chimed with a notification of a new email. The subject read Your Answer? She didn’t recognize the sender.

  Yes or no, sister? was all the email said.

  Shaking with rage, Emma typed a response.

  I’M NOT PAYING YOU ANYTHING! STAY AWAY FROM ME AND MY FAMILY!

  Emma pressed Send then thrust her hands into her hair.

  “I won’t pay. I can’t,” she said aloud.

  “Can’t pay what?”

  Kayla was standing in the doorway.

  Emma’s face turned ashen. She’d forgotten about Kayla.

  Kayla surveyed Emma, her computer, then Emma again. “What’s going on?”

  Emma cupped her face with her hands and took a breath. “There are things I have to take care of.”

  “What things? Can’t pay who? See? This is why I feel like you’re hiding something from me and my dad, Emma.”

  “I’m not hiding anything, sweetheart. It’s complicated financial stuff and it’s a little upsetting, that’s all.”

  Kayla assessed Emma again.

  “Financial stuff, really?” Kayla said. “Okay, Emma, but frankly, you look terrified.”

  Sixty-Five

  Eternity, Manitoba, Canada

  Present day

  The stench of death hung in the air.

  “That’s the slaughterhouse, still in full operation.” Bill Jurek, Eternity’s police chief, pointed a finger from the wheel as his SUV got closer to the railyards. “Not much has changed, still a sad side of town.”

  Ben, riding in the passenger seat, looked out to the decaying houses and run-down low-rise apartments before Jurek stopped in front of a duplex with curled shingles and worn frame panels that cried out for paint.

  “One of the girls lived here with her mother. The unit to the right.”

  Ben got out, taking stock of the mournful-looking half of a house. Standing there, he considered the news stories he’d read on the case. He imagined the life of the young girl growing up here, breathing in the stink of the killing operation nearby, enduring the clunking and clanging of the trains, feeling trapped in a prairie prison, resentful of those more fortunate, all of it boiling under the surface until something exploded.

  He took photos and made notes before returning to the SUV, his thoughts flashing to California.

  Upon arriving in Eternity from Winnipeg earlier that day, he’d received a message from Kayla saying their home alarm had gone off; that maybe someone was in their backyard; how the security people dismissed it as an animal. Ben had sent a message to Emma, who’d assured him that everything was fine. But he considered Cecil May’s revelation about private investigators and was uncertain what to make of it all.

  For a moment, he wished he was home. But he set his worry aside when he met with Jurek, who’d agreed to show him important locations in the case. “You bet, I’ll give you the twenty-five-cent tour of Eternity,” he’d said.

  Now, after leaving the duplex where the first killer had lived, they didn’t go far before they rolled into a neighborhood of small houses and mature shade trees. The air was better here. Most of the homes had well-tended lawns, pretty flower beds. Then Jurek parked in front of a bungalow that had fallen into disrepair. It looked abandoned. Neglected, uncut grass and weeds grew wild in the front yard. A sun-faded For Rent sign peeked from the corner of a cracked picture window.

  “Another one of the girls lived here with her parents,” Jurek said.

  Ben got out. He stepped through the overgrowth around the property, surveying the house, the yard, gaining a sense of the desperation the young girl who’d lived here must’ve felt before succumbing to the evil in her troubled heart.

  As he took photos and notes, he noticed the curtains move at a neighboring house and sensed he and Jurek were being watched.

  Ben planned to come back later, to all the addresses, to talk to neighbors. Given that most people in small towns stayed put, he figured his chances were good that a lot of the same people were living here at the time of the murders.

  “On to the next one,” Jurek said.

  Jurek drove through several more streets, taking them south of the railyards to a group of apartment buildings.

  “This is the White Spruce Estates. Used to be three, now there are five buildings, mostly people on assistance. We get a lot of calls to The Estates.” Jurek nodded to the second building. “The third girl lived there with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend. The second-floor corner. To the left. That’s where we arrested her.”

  Ben looked at the apartment from the car. A handful of little girls were playing jump rope in front. Ben likened the rope slapping the sidewalk to the pressure increasing in the young killer’s mind before she lost control. He took a few pictures and notes.

  “How about some coffee before we move on?” Jur
ek said.

  * * *

  As they drove across town, Ben reflected on his meetings with the lawyers in Winnipeg. How they were reticent while hinting that the full story of the case was unknown.

  I’ve got to dig deeper into that.

  “All right, here we go,” Jurek said as he parked the SUV.

  Mary’s Prairie Kitchen, a cozy downtown diner, smelled like cooked bacon, had a checkerboard floor, swivel stools at the counter and high-back vinyl booths. A woman in her fifties brought them coffee.

  “Who’s your friend, Bill?”

  After Jurek introduced Ben and explained why he was in Eternity, she rested one fist on her hip and looked him over.

  “Come to think of it, I think I saw you on TV once.”

  “That may well be.” Ben sipped some coffee. “This is good.”

  “So you’re going to do a book on those girls?”

  Ben nodded as he lowered his cup.

  “Those little monsters got off easy for what they did,” she said.

  “You think so?”

  “Everybody does. Did you know they killed more than four people?”

  Ben threw a glance to Jurek.

  “I’m talking about their mothers,” the woman said. “All three women died not long after. Let’s see.” The woman counted on her fingers. “Accident, cancer, suicide. But I tell you it was the murders. They were too much for them. And every one of the women buried in the same cemetery as the people their daughters killed. The whole mess left a scar on Eternity. Put that in your book. Now, what can I get you, or is it just the coffee?”

  “Well,” Ben said, “would you happen to know the names of the girls?”

  The woman’s face whitened. “I do. But we’re not supposed to say. There are laws protecting their identities—isn’t that right, Bill?”

  “It is.”

  “Yeah, well it’s been twenty years and I say, damn it to hell, I’ll give you their first names, Janie, Nikki and Marie.” She glanced at Jurek. “Gonna arrest me, Bill?”

  “Need a formal complaint.” Jurek turned to the window.

  “Thank you,” Ben said to the woman, noting the names.

  “You didn’t get that from me.” Jurek smiled.

  A half hour later, before they left the diner, Jurek checked with his office again, made calls, then turned to Ben.

  “Lou Sloan’s on her way back from Brandon to Winnipeg and she’s got time to swing down here and meet us at the Tullocks’ house.”

  Sixty-Six

  Eternity, Manitoba

  Present day

  Ben was surprised that he was going to see Louella Sloan, the RCMP’s lead investigator on the case.

  In her last message to him, Lou, now a superintendent, had indicated a meeting was unlikely because she was busy preparing for a six-month assignment with Interpol in Lyon, France.

  “I put in a good word for you.” Jurek winked. “Lou made some adjustments, the timing worked, so there you go.”

  The Tullock property on Old Pioneer Road was not that far from town and not far from the streets where the girls lived.

  “So they walked to the Tullock place that night,” Jurek said, giving Ben a timeline of events. “First, they finished off their vodka by that grove.” He stopped, pointed. Ben made notes. Then Jurek resumed heading down the winding tree-lined driveway, just as he had that awful day.

  “The Tullock family still owns the house. Don’t ask me why. They rent it, usually to executives. It’s empty at the moment. They gave me permission to show you around.”

  It was a beautiful house. The grounds were meticulously maintained. A solitary sedan was parked in front of the four-car garage. Jurek stopped beside it and a woman got out and greeted them.

  She was in her late fifties, Ben guessed, with short gray hair, wearing jeans and a polo shirt.

  “Lou Sloan,” she said as she shook Ben’s hand.

  “Thank you for making time for me.”

  “Not a problem. But I want to be clear.” Quick, sharp eyes drilled into his from behind her frameless glasses. “Whatever I say is not to be attributed to me. Don’t use my name in your book.”

  “I understand.”

  “I can point you places but much of this case is still sealed and protected. As for Bill—” she smiled at him “—he can take care of himself.”

  “I sure can.”

  Resuming with the timeline, Jurek led them along the side of the house toward the pool in the rear, but stopped at a basement window.

  “The girl who babysat and claimed the Tullocks owed her money left this window unlocked prior to that night.”

  They returned to the front door, Jurek unlocked it and they entered.

  The air smelled of cleaner. The house was unfurnished. Light streamed through the windows. As quiet as a mausoleum, Ben thought.

  “The family arrived home early,” Sloan said. “The girls used steak knives from the kitchen to attack the parents downstairs here.”

  Ben shook his head, then took pictures and made notes.

  “Connie died in hospital later,” Sloan said.

  “In Alden, not far from here,” Jurek added.

  “Upon witnessing the attacks, the two children, Neal, aged six, and Linda, aged five, fled upstairs,” Sloan said.

  Jurek led Ben and Sloan up to the next floor following the path of the murderers, leading them to a bedroom closet.

  “They chased Neal and Linda, killing them here,” Sloan said.

  Ben nodded as he took photos and made notes.

  “You can get it all in the autopsy reports and court transcripts,” Sloan said. “They’re not sealed.”

  Jurek led them to the hall and touched his fingertips to the wall.

  “Here they wrote ‘Kill Them All’ with the blood of the victims,” he said.

  Ben took a breath and let it out slowly, took another picture.

  Jurek led them to the basement, showing Ben how the girls fled, going back to the basement window.

  Back to the main floor at the inside entrance, all three looked around the empty house and let several funereal moments pass in silence before Jurek spoke.

  “Two of Roy’s employees, Marv Lander and Fran Penner, made the discovery,” he said. “Dustin Meyer was the first officer on the scene. He’s with Vancouver city police now. I can connect you with everyone.”

  After another few moments, they stepped outside into the sun.

  “People actually rent this place?” Ben said. “Aren’t there disclosure laws?”

  “Not for murder,” Jurek said. “Most people are from out of the province, even the country. They’re told there were deaths here but they fall in love with the place. Rumor is that when the last family learned the grisly details, the mom had nightmares and that’s why they cleared out.”

  “I can understand that,” Ben said.

  “I don’t mind telling you,” Jurek said, “I will never ever be able to shut out the images of Roy, Connie, Neal and Linda, how we found them.”

  Ben turned to Sloan: “And how about you?”

  Biting her lip, she shook her head and looked at the horizon. “I carry it with me every day.”

  Then Ben said: “I talked to the lawyers for the girls and get the feeling that the whole story about what happened here has never been told.”

  Jurek and Sloan shot him icy stares.

  “Those lawyers,” Sloan started. “They tried all kinds of strategies, concocting the self-defense thing. They tried cutthroat defense, pointing fingers at who was responsible for what, as a way to clear each other. That didn’t work. The fact was their fingerprints were on the knives, in the Tullocks’ blood, their clothes were stained with the Tullocks’ blood and we had a journal containing threats to kill Connie.”

  Jurek nodded. “The case ag
ainst them was solid.”

  “And they were released in their twenties to start new anonymous lives without anyone knowing about their pasts,” Sloan said.

  “But they did their time under the law,” Ben said.

  “They did,” Sloan said. “But listen, Ben, I was there for much of the trial, the sentencing and their release. A lot of experts debated the findings of the correctional psychologists and caseworkers.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Any or all of the girls could’ve hoodwinked the court into believing they were fully rehabilitated. It could have been just an act, and it’s possible that whatever disturbing forces they had that drove them to do what they did will never go away and that they could kill again.”

  Sixty-Seven

  Eternity, Manitoba

  Present day

  That evening a gum-chewing server at the Tel-Star Café brought Ben his order—a club sandwich, which was good.

  After eating alone and watching the sunset, he walked across the street to the Snowberry Motel, where he’d checked in earlier. A Good Night’s Sleep at a Great Rate, the motel sign promised. His room was spacious, clean and quiet. As night fell, he worked, studying his research material, rereading his newest notes and creating new files in draft form while thinking about the case.

  The lawyers had indicated that the full story of the murders hadn’t been told, while the investigators held that the case was solid, suggesting the girls, now women, were free to possibly kill again.

  Where are these women now? What’s become of them? I need to find them, talk to them.

  To do that, Ben needed their full names, which were sealed. He already had their first names. He’d talk to people, check property records of the addresses, school records, whatever he could. There were ways to get the names and sooner or later, he’d have them. He’d get photographs, too, to see what the faces of the young killers looked like then compared to what they look like now. If he could find them and they agreed to be interviewed.