The Ophelia Killer

by Valerie Geary

  The door to his editor’s office swings open at that moment, and Thaddeus Crosby III, Tadd to those who know him, pops his head out. Tadd is a middle-aged man with a full head of jet-black hair that sticks out in all directions because he’s in the habit of tugging on it anytime he’s trying to concentrate. A five o’clock scruff darkens his square chin. He scans the press room, then points a finger at Jimmy. “What do you got for me?”

  “A woman’s body was found near Crocker Creek.”

  A frown teases the corners of Tadd’s mouth. “Got a name?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Get me a name, or the story’s not worth anyone’s time.” Tadd turns to go back into his office.

  “I think she’s another August girl,” Jimmy says, trying to hold his editor’s attention.

  Tadd pauses with his hand on the door. “You’re going down this rabbit hole again?”

  “It’s not a rabbit hole, Tadd. Three women, now four, all strangled, all left near streams, holding bouquets of wildflowers.”

  “And?”

  “They’ve all had their tongues cut out. That’s more than a simple coincidence.”

  “Are the police connecting the cases yet?”

  Jimmy knows he’s lost the argument, but he tries anyway. “They aren’t paying attention. But I am, and I know exactly what I’m looking at here. We’ve got another serial murderer preying on young women, and if we don’t start warning the public—”

  “Do you know why Ted Bundy is so interesting?” Tadd asks, interrupting him. “Why the public can’t seem to get enough?”

  In 1976, Bundy was convicted of aggravated kidnapping and later charged with the murder of a nurse in Colorado. He escaped from prison before he could stand trial. One year after his escape, he was arrested again in Florida and charged with the murder of two college students. On July 24, 1979, after a month-long trial in Miami, Bundy was convicted and sentenced to death row.

  His trial was the first to be nationally televised. Like most of the nation, and any crime reporter with half a brain, Jimmy has been following Ted Bundy’s story closely. He’s a different kind of killer, horrifying in his relatability. Handsome and charismatic, educated and organized. His crimes, multiple arrests, escapes, and subsequent trials have turned him into a sensation. People love to hate him. Some women simply love him, despite, or perhaps because of his violence. Ever since his conviction three weeks ago, Ted Bundy has been all anyone wants to talk about. Put his name in bold and a picture of his charismatic smile on the front-page and papers fly off the rack.

  Tadd doesn’t wait for Jimmy’s answer. “It’s because he’s handsome, sure. Everyone likes a good-looking villain. But it’s also because he killed promising young women, girls who were beloved, cherished, missed. As awful as it may be, it’s how this business works. We sell more papers when people are afraid they could be the next one killed. If your man, if he even exists, if he’s just killing prostitutes, then what do the rest of us have to worry about?”

  Jimmy cringes at his editor’s callous dismissal of the victims. He hasn’t been working in the newspaper business nearly as long as Tadd, but he understands that certain stories hook readers faster than others. Demographics come into play, so does relatability. What he doesn’t understand, what he may never understand, is how virtue, or the lack of it, determines whose life is worth writing about and whose gets discarded.

  Tadd sighs and shakes his head. “Look, I know this story’s important to you, so how about a compromise? Do you know what the New York Post is calling Bundy now? The Love-Bite Killer. If you can’t dig up a name for the girl, then at least come up with a clever moniker for your killer. If you can do that, I’ll make sure your story’s on the front-page tomorrow.”

  Jimmy nods. “Gimme ten minutes.”

  “Bring it to me in five.” Tadd steps into his office and slams the door shut.

  Jimmy bends over the typewriter again.

  Ted Bundy didn’t kill the August girls, but it isn’t a stretch to imagine someone with a similar vile nature. Another man who hates women, who blends in and changes his appearance to appear harmless. Another chameleon who would be hard to track down, harder still because, right now, no one but Jimmy is looking for him. But maybe Tadd’s right. Maybe what people need is something to sink their teeth into, a monster to hunt down with pitchforks and flames.

  Jimmy can do that. If it means more people paying attention and demanding action from the police, he’ll play the game the way Tadd wants it to be played. He’ll give this devil a name.

  * * *

  Jimmy Eagan stumbled into the crime beat after the man assigned before him quit without notice on Jimmy’s first day at the Statesman Journal. He didn’t have a press badge yet, didn’t even know which desk he’d be working at. He was still wearing his rain jacket, standing in the middle of the press room, feeling a bit baffled by all the commotion, when a man with a red pen tucked behind his ear, and another tucked in the pocket of his striped shirt, grabbed his elbow.

  “You better be our new cubbie.” These were the first words Tadd ever said to Jimmy, and Jimmy, newly graduated from Harvard with a Master’s Degree in English, squeaky with bright-eyed idealism, nodded, eager to get started on whatever story his new editor assigned.

  “I’m looking forward to—”

  But Tadd cut him off. “You’re younger than I thought you’d be.”

  Jimmy heard that a lot. He was twenty-four but barely looked a day over eighteen. After graduation, he’d spent three months in Europe touring art museums, eating too much food, and trying to grow a beard. The chin hair grew in patchy and clearly did nothing to make him look older. He would give it two more weeks before he shaved it off again.

  Tadd laughed and cuffed his shoulder. “No, that’s good, that’s good. Young means I can teach you how to do this job right from the beginning, unlike these other dummies who can’t tell their gerunds from their assholes. Now. Tell me, kid. Have you ever covered the crime beat before?”

  There hadn’t been enough crime at Harvard to merit a designated reporter. Even if there had been, Jimmy wouldn’t have wanted the assignment. Crime was base. Crime was people living through their worst moments. Jimmy didn’t want to write about that. He wanted to write about people changing the course of the world, fighting the good fight, and living their best moments. When he returned to Oregon after six years in academia and accepted the position with the Statesman Journal, he imagined himself starting small with local politics.

  Salem was the Oregon State Capitol. There would be plenty of stories to cover. He pictured himself walking into that marble-domed rotunda in a suit and tie, asking hard-hitting questions, making sure the politicians answered to the people. Eventually, after gaining experience on the state level, he would start reporting on international matters. Wars and peace talks, trade deals, the UN, anything and everything that had to do with the flux and flow of world politics. Crime was not something he ever considered. It was not something he understood enough to write about.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Tadd dragged Jimmy into his office and handed him a press badge with someone else’s name on it. “You’re my crime guy now. You know where the Capitol Street Bank is? Get Ava to draw you a map on the way out. Some idiots tried to rob a bank, and it ended in a shoot-out. A couple of cops got injured. I need you down there five minutes ago to find out what the hell is going on and who the hell’s responsible. Get it right, and you might even get your first front-page story in the morning. Think you can handle that?”

  Five hours later, running on three cups of coffee and adrenaline, Jimmy turned in his first piece as a crime reporter for the Statesman Journal. He felt immensely proud when he set the two-page article on Tadd’s desk. Even prouder when Tadd slashed red pen through half of it and told him to write it up again, but shorter. Another hour and finally, he was ready to go home, but Tadd stopped him on his way out the door. He shoved what looked like a handheld
radio transceiver at Jimmy.

  “It’s a portable scanner,” Tadd explained. “It’s already programmed to the stations the police use. You listen to their chatter. Anything sounds interesting, you jump in your car and go get the story. Questions?”

  Jimmy took the scanner and tucked it into the pocket of his messenger bag.

  “That’s your new best friend,” Tadd said. “It’s on whenever you’re awake. Take it with you wherever you go. Always carry a spare battery.” He laughed and thumped Jimmy on the back. “Don’t look so scared, kid. As long as you deliver the goods and stay on top of your deadlines, you’ll get along just fine here.”

  It took Jimmy six weeks to learn the scanner.

  At first, he leaped into action every time the dispatcher’s voice broke through the static to call out a code. He didn’t understand the strings of numbers and letters, but the dispatcher always gave an address or cross-street. So he scratched that part on a piece of paper, jumped in his car, and headed to the scene. He got lost a lot those first few weeks and often showed up after the cops had already come and gone. But a few times, he got lucky and arrived on scene at the same time as the responding officers. When that happened, he felt a rush of adrenaline as he stepped out of the car. But rarely was it anything interesting. Windows smashed, kids tagging a wall, a drunk man wandering into the middle of the street. Once there was a fight outside a bar, but the cops broke it up quickly and sent both men home with a warning.

  When he brought the stories to his editor, Tadd would read the first few lines, then tear the paper in half and throw it in the trash.

  “I don’t care about any of this stuff, and neither do our readers. Do you know what kinds of stories sell papers, Jim-boy?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Murder, political scandals, anything that has to do with sex. And do you know what all those things have in common? People. No one cares about broken windows and vandalized fences. People want to read about people.”

  Tadd was a good editor. Tough but patient. He knew Jimmy was still new to the work, still trying to figure it out. “But you’d better figure it out quicker than this,” he said after the second week of bad articles. “You’ve got one week to bring me something more interesting than kids throwing beer bottles off the overpass, or else.”

  Tadd didn’t say what the ‘or else’ would be, but Jimmy had a pretty good idea. If he wasn’t contributing, then he was dead weight, and dead weight got cut.

  So Jimmy started to listen for keywords. Shots fired, suspect on the run, possible dead body, respond with sirens. Anytime the police needed to rush to a scene with lights and sirens blaring, the odds were high that someone’s life was probably in danger.

  Tadd started reading Jimmy’s articles all the way through to the end. Then he started editing them from five paragraphs down to three lines. “This is good content, Jim-boy. This is the kind of stuff I’m talking about, but we don’t need all this extra fluff. Tell the people how many bodies and if those bodies were famous. Tease them, keep them coming back for more.”

  As Jimmy became more familiar with the scanner's jargon, he realized he could tune out most of it and respond only to the codes he knew would bring him a good story.

  He no longer startles when the scanner crackles to life and the familiar voice of the dispatcher calls out a code. His heart no longer races at the thought of what might be coming next, if this will be it, his next big story. Usually, it isn’t. Sometimes it is. But he can tell the difference now. When to go, when to stay, when to brace himself for the worst. The voices through the scanner are family now; the white noise crackling in the background has become the soundtrack to his dreams.

  The scanner is sitting on the corner of his desk now, quiet, waiting. He types the final sentence in his article about the dead girl at Crocker Creek and tugs the paper from the typewriter, adding it to the stack to give to Tadd.

  His eyes scan the paragraph where he describes how all four women were posed.

  The first time he saw a photograph of the second victim, he was reminded of a painting he saw in one of the museums he visited when he was in Europe. A young woman floats on her back in a dark river. Her mouth is open, her hands lifted above the water’s surface, offering a final prayer, or maybe she’s giving someone the chance to grab hold and pull her to safety. Weeds and flowers tangle in her hair and fingers. The tragic drowning of Ophelia. The August girls may not have drowned, but their expressions in death were the same. Ruin, despair, the empty gaze of misspent hope.

  THE OPHELIA KILLER STRIKES AGAIN.

  Jimmy thinks Tadd will be happy with a headline like that. As he pushes his chair back, the desk phone beside his elbow rings. He answers, not letting it ring twice. “Jimmy here.”

  “Oh, good,” the voice purrs. “I was hoping I’d catch you before you left.”

  “Hello, Annabeth. You’re working late today.”

  Annabeth Falco has been working as a secretary for the Salem Police since Jimmy started this beat six years ago. From the beginning, Jimmy made sure that whenever he stopped in at the downtown precinct, he brought something for Annabeth. Never anything fancy. A muffin. A candy bar. A hot cup of coffee. He still brings her things and makes sure to compliment her hair, too, even if it’s the same drab brown bun every time. It isn’t bad hair, but it’s nothing very special either. He tells her she looks nice. He smiles at her when he asks for favors. Says please and thank you. He treats her like a human being because he knows damn well that the men she works with treat her like a glorified copy machine. A little bit of human decency, that’s all anyone asks for, and that little bit of decency, those simple things Jimmy does to make Annabeth feel seen, they’ve paid off for him. She’s come to like him more than she likes the men she works with every day. So when something important happens at the precinct, Jimmy is the first person she calls.

  “It’s chaos down here,” she says in a hushed whisper like she’s got her hand cupped around the phone so no one else will hear.

  There’s commotion in the background, people shouting, then it gets quiet again, and in a breathless rush, Annabeth says, “She has a name, Jimmy. The woman we found at Crocker Creek this morning? We know who she is this time.”

  Chapter 5

  The Statesman Journal’s Thursday Edition lands on porch steps and driveways before sunrise the morning of August 16th. By breakfast, everyone in the greater Salem area knows about the Ophelia Killer and the name of his fourth victim.

  Cherish Spalding was nineteen years old, a nursing student studying at Willamette University. Her father is a dentist. Her mother is a homemaker. She has a younger sister, Trina, and an Irish Setter named Chappy. She grew up in Portland. Her family still lives there. Her school of choice was far enough away for her to feel independent and still close enough to go home on the weekends if she needed to do laundry or missed Sunday dinners. She lived with two other girls in a rental house near campus. That’s as much as Annabeth knew last night, as much as she was willing to tell Jimmy over the phone anyway. Out of respect for the family, he didn’t put every detail into the article. He wrote enough to get people interested and to get them to feel something more than indifference.

  It works.

  Tadd grabs Jimmy as soon as he walks into the press room. “Your Ophelia Killer piece is blowing up, kid. It’s big news. Huge. The entire city’s in a frenzy over this. You think you can get a follow-up piece written by deadline today?”

  He nods. He already has half of it written.

  According to Annabeth, the family was informed late last night about their daughter’s death, but the police are waiting to hold a press conference until later today.

  Jimmy won’t be attending. He knows what they’re going to say. Detective Rausch will ask for the public’s help. He’ll parade the grieving parents in front of the cameras. He’ll say they aren’t taking questions at this time. The whole thing will take less than ten minutes, and Rausch won’t tell the gathered reporte
rs anything Jimmy doesn’t already know. It will be a waste of his time. Not to mention Rausch will want to know how he broke the story first, who gave him Cherish Spalding’s name, and there’s no way in hell Jimmy’s throwing Annabeth under that bus. Not after everything she’s done for him.

  Instead, Jimmy grabs a cup of coffee from the breakroom and checks his messages in case there’s new information about Cherish from Annabeth. There isn’t, so he finishes his coffee and heads out again, driving to the address Annabeth gave him last night.

  The house is a single-story rectangle with a garage on one side and concrete steps leading to the front door. Jimmy knocks. It takes a minute, but finally, the door cracks open. A young woman with frizzy blond hair, puffy eyes, and red-streaked cheeks peers out at him.

  “You wouldn’t happen to be Emily, would you? Or Tina?” He offers a close-lipped smile, wanting to put her at ease without coming across as a salesman. Annabeth told him the names of Cherish’s roommates but didn’t have details about what they look like.

  “I’m Emily.” The girl wipes her sleeve across her nose. “Who are you?”

  He shows her his press badge. “I’m trying to find out what happened to Cherish.”

  Emily lets out a loud sob, then claps her hand over her mouth as if embarrassed to display such emotion. After a second, she opens the door wider and invites Jimmy inside.

  As she leads him into a living room, where a brunette lies curled under an afghan on a couch that’s sagging badly in the middle, Emily says, “Her dad called us last night. It still doesn’t seem real. It can’t be real.”

  The brunette sits up when they enter the room but keeps the blanket pulled tightly around her shoulders.