by Gregg Olsen
“Sherman, please,” Violet said, her tone as sweet and kind as always. “You’re being dramatic and you’re upsetting yourself. It was a long time ago. Time to move on and make a new life for yourself. You just have to stomp the mud off your shoes.”
He hated when she used a crappy analogy. But he hated something else more.
“I don’t like to be called Sherman,” he said, dissolving into that little boy who resisted everything his mother told him to do. “You know that. I’ve told you that.”
Once more, Violet shook it off. She patted him on the shoulder. The gesture was meant to be calming. He didn’t take it that way.
“I love you, Sherman. And I’m your mother. That means I can call you what I want to call you.”
Sherman Wilder could feel his blood pressure rise at the thought of how she stonewalled him over the removal of the pictures. But that was then. This was now. He removed the portrait of his wedding with Susan from its place of dubious honor on the wall. The frame was an expensive one. Probably an antique. He bent the little wire tacks on the back of the frame, popped off the glass, and took out the photograph. He stared down at the pebbly finish of the photographic paper.
She was very pretty. He had to admit that. Not the prettiest woman he’d ever seen. That was for sure. She’d plucked him out of the warren of IT cubicles at Microsoft and brought life and love to his world. When she left him for the pastor, she’d made him feel that he’d never be worthy of love again. He dated. He tried to, anyway. He really did. It was only in the last year that he’d had any hope for something better.
Sherman Wilder was moving on. He didn’t want to jinx it. He just knew that things were going to happen for him and that love had finally returned.
Carrying the photograph, he made his way to the bathroom. Piece by piece, he shredded the portrait and dropped it into the toilet. The shreds of photographic paper fell like confetti at a Fourth of July parade. Each tear brought pleasure. He was picking at a scab. Itching a bug bite. Feeling something good for a change.
Sherman reached over to flush and then thought better of it. He unzipped his fly, planted his feet in front of the bowl, and urinated. He aimed his stream at a portion of Susan’s face, torpedoing it under the yellow, foamy water.
Then he pressed down on the lever. Water swirled and sucked Susan down into oblivion.
* * *
Fall had stripped the leaves off the apple trees that the Wilders had planted the first year they’d moved in. They’d been a mix of varieties in the orchard, though Violet’s favorite was the fruit of the trio of Jonagolds, which had been quite a novelty at the time they were planted. It had been a couple of years since they’d made cider, even longer since the family harvested the crop for sale. Rotting orbs of yellow and pink hung stubbornly on the upper reaches of the branches. Deer foraged for whatever fell to the ground and whatever they could reach by stretching upward on spindly hind legs.
Violet slid past the window and made her way to her son’s office. He’d told her that she could clean in there if she insisted, but not to fiddle with the electronic equipment. Violet laughed at the very idea. She could barely deal with the new vacuum that Denise got her for Christmas the previous year. Her daughter told her that it was one quarter of the weight of her old Kirby vacuum and “It’ll make things so easy for you.”
That was a joke. She loved her Kirby. She’d had it for almost forty years, and she highly doubted the new machine, with its fancy technology and big ball front that supposedly maneuvered like a dream around corners and piano legs, would last one-tenth the time.
Plastic is just crap, she thought.
Sherman’s office had once been Timothy’s room, though the only remnant that indicated its history was a series of tears in the plasterboard from the skiing posters that had long since been removed. It now was computer central. Sherman’s love of electronics had started young. He built his first computer from parts he’d ordered from a catalog and picked up at Radio Shack in Port Angeles. He was sixteen. In another lifetime he might have been the next Paul Allen or Bill Gates. Violet wondered if she and his father had failed him, making their son work on the farm, attend public schools, and participate in sports.
“Playing around in your room all day with a bunch of power cords and dealy-bobs isn’t going to make you a well-rounded man, son,” Alec had said on more than one occasion. “A steady job means a solid future.”
Violet surveyed the room. Her eyesight wasn’t nearly as sharp as it had once been, but even so she could see that it was possible that Alec’s advice had been in error. The world ran on computers. The room was filled with old PCs, video equipment, and cobra-esque coils of cables that connected one nondescript box to another.
Violet ran her ostrich feather duster from the top of each surface to the bottom, sending the tiniest particles to the floor where she’d suck it all up with the stupid plastic vacuum.
“Hey, Mom,” Sherman said, appearing in the doorway. “I see you’re spreading the dust around again.”
She looked up and smiled.
“You caught me,” she said. “Sorry. I just want to be useful.”
“Mom, you make it sound like you’re on your last legs,” he said.
She looked down at her walker. “In case you haven’t noticed, I am.”
They both laughed. It wasn’t an uncomfortable laugh, the type people engage in when embarrassment needs a way out. It was genuine laugh. The real thing.
“I’m doing what I can to get ready for Vanessa,” she said, her smile radiating from her face.
Sherman reached over and gave his mother a little tug on the shoulder.
“You don’t have to clean up anything for Vanessa. She’s not the type to run around with a white glove and then tell you that you missed a spot. Not her. Not at all.”
“Oh,” Violet said, “I didn’t mean it that way. It has been a while since we’ve had anyone over, you know.”
Sherman did. “Yeah, you mean, since Susan.”
Violet swiped the feather duster over a stack of books. “I always liked her. At least I thought I did. I guess I didn’t know her at all.”
“She was a slut, Mom,” he said.
Violet’s expression hardened. “That may well be, but remember you have a child with that slut. It doesn’t do anyone any good to have those kinds of words bouncing around your brain. You never know, sometimes ugly pops out when you really want to keep the lid tight on the jar.”
Sherman laughed. “Is everything a canning analogy with you, Mom?”
“I guess the farm has been on my mind. I know that I can’t do the things that I want to do anymore. Just kind of dealing with that.”
“Vanessa will help you,” he said. “She grew up in the country, too.”
Violet gripped the walker and started toward the kitchen. “In that case, I’ll make sure the pantry is tidy, too. I don’t want to have another woman poking around in there and think unkindly of me.”
“She wouldn’t,” he said. “I promise.”
Sherman slumped into the tattered folds of his black leather office chair. He could feel his heart race a little, but in a good way. He felt alive. Energized. He’d been so happy in the past few months. He’d wanted an opportunity to find love that second time and he was all but certain that “Vanessa” was the woman of his dreams. She wasn’t like the others. She had spunk. Charisma. She was drop-dead gorgeous too, but that wasn’t what captivated him. It was her spirit. She’d been through so much and she refused to let it get her down.
She was invincible.
Sherman Wilder needed that feeling right about this time in his life. He wasn’t a mogul like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. He was just a man, and a man needed love.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Violet thought back to her son’s reappearance on the farm, how he’d come to help her when she had needed it most. The livestock had become more than she could really handle, and she knew that deep in her bones. The realization h
adn’t come overnight, but slowly. Her friends fading away. Her body weakening. Her handyman Seth Jupiter had been the final warning of what was to come. He’d told her that his mother was dying and he needed to head over to Spokane to be with her.
“Until,” he said, “you know, the end.”
Yes, the end, Violet thought. The end is coming for me too.
When her son Sherman showed up, it was the right time. She had no one else. He’d stepped in where his sister had refused. Her life was too busy. She was too important. Violet understood that. And yet it bothered her when Sherman told her he’d canceled the Port Angeles Daily News.
“Just a bunch of wire service stories,” he’d said. “Nothing local anymore.”
“But I like the news,” she answered back.
He told her not to worry.
“I’ll keep you updated on what you need to know, Mom.”
She didn’t like that, but she figured Sherman had his reasons. Maybe her money was running out faster than she’d realized? After she fell and hurt her hip, she’d signed over power of attorney to him. She was better, but it felt unkind to ask for it back. Besides, she reasoned, “He’ll take care of me. He loves me.”
* * *
Violet drew herself a hot bath. She’d taken to showering the last few weeks because she wasn’t sure if she’d have the strength to hoist herself out of the old claw-foot tub. Things, she hoped, were better. Her son was there, and while she’d rather die than call him to the bathroom to help her in such a private time, she knew that in an emergency both of them could live through the embarrassment of such an occurrence.
Steam wafted into the air, and the light fog of condensation on the mirror lessoned the impact of how she looked naked. She tied up her hair. Growing old was completely natural, she knew, but it was unyielding in its cruelty. Everything that had been so firm years ago now drooped, sagged, and otherwise just hung there. She dropped a lavender sachet into the water and the divine floral scent permeated the room. She’d grown the lavender herself. Sewed the sachet too. She wondered if she’d still be there on the farm to do it all over again the following year. Everything was so uncertain.
Violet grabbed the towel bar next to the tub and lowered herself. The sudsy water warmed through her Chinese lantern, paper-thin skin to the depths of the creaking points of her bones. Wonderful was the word that came to mind. It felt wonderful. She stayed in the hot depths as long as she could. She smiled when she thought how her skin was pre-pruned before the soak.
After she got out, toweled off, and dressed, she passed by the bedroom that had all the computer equipment. It was all gone. She wondered where Sherman had taken it. She also wondered why he’d done so.
“Honey,” Violet called out after him, when she saw him heading out the kitchen door for the barn, “where are all your things?”
“Don’t worry about it, Mom,” he said. “I didn’t want to clutter up the house.”
A few days later, Violet turned on the TV to watch Jeopardy! She loved the host with or without his mustache and she thought that show and, to a lesser extent, Wheel of Fortune, kept her mind sharp. When the TV didn’t come on anymore, she went to Sherman to ask him to fix it.
“I don’t want to miss Jeopardy!,” she said. “This is teachers’ week.”
“Sorry, Mom,” Sherman said. “I canceled the satellite service. It was getting way out of hand, cost-wise. Plus, nothing but trash is on TV these days anyway.”
“You shouldn’t have done that without asking me,” she said, feeling a little silly that she was fighting for a couple of ancient game shows hosted by men who, while no longer young, were still attractive to her.
She’d never tell him that. She was no longer young, either.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Sherman said. “You’re absolutely right! I should have asked you. I didn’t want to bother you. You have enough on your mind.”
She wasn’t sure what he was referring to, but she accepted his apology. Sherman was always a quiet, good, honest boy. He’d only wanted the best for her.
As Violet’s world continued to shrink, she counted her blessings one by one. She was reasonably healthy. She could still read. She had a son who loved her. She could knit and crochet. She had so much for which she could be thankful. She knew all of that. And yet she was unhappy. She felt alone. Even a little trapped.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Kendall Stark parked her car in the parking lot adjacent to the correctional facility in Monroe, less than an hour north of Seattle. She was tired. Hungry. Restless. The idea that convicted serial killer Jerry Connors could help her was, she was sure, an indicator of her own obsession with the woman who’d murdered and tormented the people of the Pacific Northwest.
The sun was low in the sky, and a haze from a house fire not far from the prison complex only served to darken her mood. But there she was. In front of her like some kind of beat-up courthouse stood the pillars to the entryway of the 1910 structure that had started as a reformatory but had morphed into that do-gooder euphemism “correctional complex.” The superintendent, Jayce Chatfield, had the day off. His deputy, a man with scribbled-on, thinning hair, and thick pepperoni stick lips greeted the detective.
“Detective Stark,” Gary Cline said, “Mr. Chatfield is really sorry that he couldn’t be here today. He wanted to tell you that you could have as much time with the inmate as you need. Janie Thomas was one of our own, you know.”
Gary’s remark was more kind than true. Janie Thomas was the biggest black mark against the state’s corrections department in its more than a century of existence.
“Thank you for that,” she said. “I don’t really know how much time I’ll need or how much time Connors will give me.”
“He’s got all the time in the world,” the assistant said. “Lifer, you know.”
Kendall followed him to the metal detector. The guard asked her if she was carrying a weapon, and she said she was.
“We’ll secure it,” said the guard, a young man with a thick neck and steroid-pumped forearms.
“Yes, of course,” Kendall said, handing her Glock to him.
Passing through the security checkpoint and down a long corridor, the scenery shifted from the old-school grimness of the original building to a section that seemed more akin to a corridor at South Kitsap High School than a prison—though she was pretty certain that some kids would beg to differ with her on that assessment.
“Right in here,” Gary Cline said, pointing to a large, well-lit visitation room with an overhead ceiling fan, bolted-to-the-floor table, and permanently affixed chairs.
“Thanks,” she said, taking a seat, as the superintendent’s right-hand man turned to leave.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “He’ll be in full restraints. A guard will be right outside. Of course, you’re completely welcome to have the guard sit in here with you.”
“No, thanks,” Kendall said, “I’m sure I can manage.”
Without so much as a hello, inmate #394321 slid into a chair across from her. Jerry Connors no longer looked like the affable boy next door who cajoled unsuspecting women into his apartment before raping and murdering them. Such a baby face. Such pretty eyes. Never could he ever do anything so absolutely horrific as killing fourteen young women. But that’s what he did.
His hands were chained and his feet shackled. He wore street clothes, not an orange jumpsuit. On his feet, however, instead of shoes, were flip-flops that looked brand new. Kendall nodded coolly, once he was settled in.
She identified herself and took out a small notebook and the typical prison-issue implement for note taking, a stub of a pencil.
“Look at you,” he said. “Getting all ready. You’re here to find out about my pen pal, Brenda?” he asked.
“Yes, Mr. Connors,” the detective said. She couldn’t bring herself to call him by his first name. Her favorite dog growing up was a Sheltie named Jerry. “You know that’s why I’m here.”
He drummed his finger
tips on the dull surface of the tabletop.
“World’s pretty fascinated by her,” he said. “Even I never got the kind of press she did, and let’s face it, I deserved it.”
You, sir, are a disgusting piece of garbage, Kendall thought.
“The media can be fickle, Mr. Connors,” she said.
“Tell me about it,” he said. “Now they want me. Once they found out she was pouring her heart out to me, they came a-running. Just like you.”
“Look, Mr. Connors,” Kendall said. “I’m not here for the media. I’m here because you said you’d talk to me about Brenda Nevins.”
“You don’t know where she is,” he said. His tone was flat.
“No, I don’t,” Kendall said. “Do you?”
He looked right through her. “Dunno. Could be that I know. Depends on what you’ll do for me.”
“There isn’t anything that I can do,” she said. “You have a life sentence without the possibility of parole. That’s the end of that. I’m a detective working a case. You said you’d talk to me. That’s why we’re here.”
“You can be a tough one,” he said. “I’ve encountered others like you who thought they were tough too.”
Kendall kept her face stone. “We’re not talking about you. I know you would love to go on and on and relive all the things you’ve done, but that’s not going to happen. Not today.”
Jerry Connors fabricated a pout. “That makes me a little sad,” he said. “I hate being sad. Don’t you?”
“I hate being led on,” Kendall said, getting up.
“Wait,” he said, rising up a little to meet her eyes. “Don’t go. I want to tell you what I know. I’ve done a few bad things of which I’m not proud, and you know, I have a mom out there and maybe she’ll forgive me. Come and see me. You know, everyone deserves a second chance.”
Everyone but you, Kendall thought.
“Agreed,” she said. “Then let’s talk. What did Brenda say to you in her letters?”
“Sex stuff mostly. I mean, she didn’t use the real words for things. She substituted. Said she found a great candy store at the prison, and they had lollipops that you could suck all day.”
