The Bad Sister

by Kevin O'Brien

  “Oh please,” Rachel said with a dismissive wave of her hand. She grabbed the champagne bottle and topped off their flutes, then headed toward the sofa. “C’mon, take a load off and tell us all about this half-sister thing. Or shouldn’t I ask?”

  “I’ve already fessed-up and told Hannah and Eden that we’ve googled them,” Alden said, sitting in an easy chair.

  “Why, yes, you do have a big mouth,” Rachel sighed.

  “It’s okay.” Hannah smiled. She sat down on the sofa, making sure not to crowd Rachel. “I checked you out online, too. Your hair was longer in all your photos.”

  Rachel pointed to her pixie cut. “This is Jean Seberg damage—from last week. I saw a double feature of her movies Breathless and Bonjour Tristesse. Next thing you know, I was going for the scissors. My stylist cleaned it up the following day.”

  “Well, I love it,” Hannah said. She meant it, too. In just a matter of minutes, she’d done a complete about-face on her first perception of Rachel. Her “big sister” wasn’t crazy at all. She was unique, stylish, sophisticated, and fun. Already, Hannah wondered if Rachel might sometime let her borrow that cute top or the Capri pants. She and Rachel looked about the same size.

  After only one glass of champagne, Hannah had become quite relaxed and didn’t mind telling them all about the half-sister thing—and how her family was affected by Eden moving in with them. She even explained how the thing that happened had wrecked her friendships at school. After her second glass of champagne, Hannah realized she’d been monopolizing the conversation. “Aren’t you sorry you asked about my sister?” she finally asked. “Listen to me. I didn’t mean to talk your ear off.”

  “Are you kidding?” Rachel said. “I read about what happened—with the murders and all. So I was curious. But hearing you tell it, well, suddenly, it’s not just some news story. It’s real. It happened to you and your family.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “God, I didn’t realize how late it is.” She turned to Alden. “If you still want to go to Lake Bluff, we should get cracking.”

  Hannah had a bunch of questions she wanted to ask them—mainly if they were dating each other. But suddenly, the two of them got to their feet. Alden collected the empty flute glasses and set them by the kitchen sink. Rachel switched off the music and then took her cell phone out of her purse. “We should let you unpack and get settled,” she said, staring at her phone as she texted someone. “Feel free to turn on the TV or the sound system. Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge. You’re probably dying for a shower. The bathroom’s upstairs . . .”

  “And remember while you’re in there, if it’s yellow, it’s not mellow!” Alden added as he and Rachel headed toward the door.

  “Gross,” Rachel said. She glanced over her shoulder at Hannah. “If you go out, don’t forget to lock up. See you later!” Then she stepped outside and shut the door behind her.

  Hannah went to the front window. Rachel and Alden walked to the curb, and a black Lincoln Town Car pulled up. Alden opened the back door for Rachel, and they climbed inside. Obviously, it wasn’t an Uber. The vehicle must have been waiting for them down the block. They’d left in such a hurry that Hannah couldn’t help thinking she’d talked too much. Or maybe they were just late for something.

  She watched the Lincoln Town Car head down the street. The living room suddenly seemed hot and stuffy again. And in an instant, she felt hopelessly lonely. Her eyes watered up. Was this how homesickness was going to hit her—in these awful, unpredictable tsunami-like waves?

  She wanted to phone home. But she knew she’d start crying as soon as she heard her mother’s voice—her mother, toward whom she’d been so critical and snippy these last few years. Everything her mother did had struck Hannah as stupid and embarrassing. Now, she missed her so much that her stomach ached. Or maybe it was the champagne making her over-emotional. She couldn’t call home now anyway. They’d want to talk to Eden.

  Wasn’t that just like her to disappear? Typical.

  Hannah went back into the narrow bedroom, opened her suitcase, and unpacked a few items. It was still smoky in there. She moved over to the window.

  She gazed out at the slightly unkempt garden next door and shuddered. She couldn’t help thinking about what had happened in the bungalow that had been there fifty years ago.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Thursday, 8:16 P.M.

  By the time Eden reached the parking lot of the Sunnyside Up Café, she was exhausted.

  She’d explored the campus. Most of the buildings were closed up—except for a couple of dorms and the student union, which didn’t look too interesting. She wanted to check out the recreation center, which included an indoor pool, but a sign on the locked door (she’d tested it) said the rec center didn’t open until tomorrow.

  Eden also checked out the surrounding neighborhood. A street of old mansions along the lake bluff had been converted to housing for upperclassmen, up to twenty students per house. At least that was the story Eden got from a gabby middle-aged woman walking her Irish setter. Closer to town, large, graceful private homes occupied the lakefront property. Alongside the driveway to one of them, Eden discovered a trail down to the beach. Both the pathway and the beach were probably private, but that didn’t stop her.

  Taking off her shoes, she must have walked at least a mile along the shoreline, sometimes in the hot sand, sometimes with her bare feet in the cool water. Though it was late, the beach was still dotted with swimmers, mostly kids screaming and laughing. If not for them, Eden would have stripped down and swam in her panties and T-shirt.

  She hadn’t slept much last night, and it started to catch up with her. Still, she kept walking. That was Eden’s trademark. “You’re always pushing things to their limit,” her stepmother, Sheila, had told her. This criticism usually came up when Eden was driving. She never stopped for gas until the needle was on empty. And she rarely moved into the right lane to exit until the very last minute. It was a game she played, staying in the fast lane for as long as she could. It made life more interesting.

  So Eden kept walking—even though she was tired and hungry and had to pee. She told herself that it wasn’t really an emergency yet.

  But by the time she’d found another trail up from the beach and back to town, it had become a definite emergency.

  The Sunnyside Up Café was half-full with customers, and nearly all of them looked up and gaped at her as she staggered in. She spotted a sign for the restrooms and made a beeline toward them.

  It wasn’t until she came out of the bathroom and sat down at the counter that Eden got a good look at the place. It was definitely a dive. The ramped-up air-conditioning couldn’t diminish the strong smell of fried onion rings and bacon. The walls were decorated with framed, sun-faded vintage ads for Coke, Canada Dry, Jell-O, Hunt’s ketchup, and the like. The battered pressed-wood and avocado Formica tables looked like hand-me-downs from a Denny’s that had closed. The cushioned seats in the booths were covered in orange Naugahyde that was cracked and taped in places. At least the red tape almost matched. “Working My Way Back to You” by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons was playing over the sound system.

  What a surprise, an oldie, Eden thought. The place was from another decade. But she liked it. And the menu had several vegetarian items that looked decent. She could imagine parking herself here at a table for hours in the evening, drinking gallons of coffee while toiling over her homework or maybe chatting with some of the locals. The town probably had some interesting characters.

  The waitress was a skinny, tall, sixtyish woman with short gray hair and a dimpled smile. The nametag on her mustard-colored uniform read ROSEANN. “What’ll you have, hon?” she asked.

  Eden ordered lemonade, a veggie burger, and fries. She guzzled down the entire lemonade a minute after it was set in front of her, and the waitress gave her a refill.

  While she waited for her food, Eden dug the freshman orientation packet out of her purse and looked it over. There really wasn’t m
uch for her to do tomorrow. She had to report back to Emery Hall to get her photo taken for her student ID and her cafeteria card. There were tours of the campus and sign-up tables for various clubs and activities—none of which interested her even remotely. She’d already registered for all of her classes. It didn’t seem worth it, coming in four days early just to have her stupid picture taken. But at least she could sleep in tomorrow. Maybe she’d take the train to Chicago. She could have her picture taken another day. It couldn’t be the only day they were making ID cards.

  While Eden ate her burger, the waitress asked if she was a student at the college. Eden told her yes, she was a freshman—from Seattle. “I just arrived today,” she said. She glanced around. “You must get a lot of students in here, being open twenty-four hours.”

  “Yep, keeps us in business,” Roseann replied. She was behind the counter, making a fresh pot of coffee.

  “Have you worked here long?”

  “Only since 1992. I’ve lived in Delmar practically my whole life, born and raised here.”

  Eden felt a bit sorry for her, but didn’t let on. “Did you go to the college?”

  “Nope, no college degree. Guess you could say I graduated from the school of hard knocks.” She started wiping down the counter.

  Eden wiped her mouth with her napkin. “Were you living here when those murders happened on the campus?”

  “I certainly was.” Roseann nodded. “Boy, do I remember that. Y’know, I don’t get many kids asking about the strangler, not anymore. The college has kept that chapter of their history under wraps. Where did you hear about the murders?”

  “My new roommate’s boyfriend told me,” she explained. “What was it like back then—I mean, suddenly having all these murders happening right here in your neighborhood?”

  The waitress set down her dishcloth. “I was seventeen at the time, in high school. I know it’s hard to imagine me at seventeen, but believe me, I was once. Me and my friends, we were terrified. Our parents were terrified. This used to be one of those towns where no one locked their doors at night. But all that changed. None of us went out after dark. We were all so scared. And when we did go out—during the day—we took all sorts of precautions. I carried my grandfather’s old straight razor in my purse. And my best friend kept one of her mother’s knitting needles in her bag. I remember walking by the park with her after school. No one dared walk alone, not with that maniac loose. I remember not being able to figure out what was so different, and then it dawned on me. It was the silence. There wasn’t any laughing and singing, because the kids weren’t there. The swing set, jungle gym, and the slide—they were all empty. It was eerie.”

  She leaned in close to Eden. “But you know, it didn’t happen all of a sudden. It sounds weird, but I was sort of braced for something awful. Before the first girl was strangled, some strange, disturbing things were going on at the college . . .”

  Eden stopped eating and pushed her plate away. “Like what kind of things?”

  “Like a freshman girl in one of the cottages in Saint Agnes Village,” Roseann whispered. “The school was all-girls back in 1970. The girl had managed to keep it secret that she was pregnant. The story goes even she didn’t know. She just thought she was sick and getting fat—right up until she went into labor. Can you believe it? She had the baby right there in one of the cottages. She didn’t want anyone to know about it, so she choked the baby to death with the umbilical cord.”

  “Oh my God,” Eden murmured, wincing.

  Roseann nodded glumly. “It was a boy, the poor little thing. The mother, the girl—I guess she was out of her mind—she tossed it in a laundry basket with all her bloodstained sheets and things. Then she tried to set it on fire. I guess she wanted to destroy all the evidence, but she didn’t do a very good job. The fire alarm went off . . .”

  Eden kept shaking her head.

  “The school did its best to cover up the whole incident. I hear the archdiocese even got the local newspapers to play it down. But everyone knew.”

  “What happened to the girl?” Eden whispered.

  “They locked her up in Elgin, the state asylum for the insane.”

  “Is she still there? Do you know?”

  “That’s not very likely, since they tore down the hospital in 1993,” Roseann answered. “Maybe they transferred her to another place. Or maybe she’s out. Chances are pretty good she’s still alive. She was only a couple of years older than me, and I ain’t dead yet.” She glanced over toward some customers at a table on the other side of the restaurant. “Excuse me, hon . . .” She came out from behind the counter and hurried to the table.

  Slightly dazed, Eden couldn’t help wondering about this baby-murder from fifty years ago. In which bungalow did the girl give birth and kill her baby? How could she have not known she was pregnant? She imagined the girl now, seventy years old and still locked up in an insane asylum.

  She heard a rumble outside—like a big truck passing by, or maybe it was thunder. When she turned to glance out the window, Eden noticed a man sitting alone in the booth closest to her. He had a half-eaten sandwich on the plate in front of him. He was about thirty and sinewy-looking with a deep tan, receding brown hair, and a thin mustache. Eden couldn’t decide if he was borderline handsome or kind of slimy. He winked at her, then reached around and showed her a crinkly paper bag that obviously held one of those twenty-four-ounce cans of beer. She wasn’t sure if he was offering her a sip or just letting her in on his little secret.

  Slimy, she decided, turning forward again.

  As the waitress swung by the man’s table carrying a tray of dirty dishes, Eden noticed him hide his contraband beer.

  Roseann ducked into the kitchen and then emerged again empty-handed. “Did you save room for dessert?” she asked, taking away Eden’s plate.

  “Just coffee,” she said. “Earlier, you mentioned some things that happened before the first girl was strangled. Was there something else?”

  Roseann set a cup in front of her and poured the coffee. “A few days after the girl killed her baby, another girl at the college disappeared. People weren’t sure if she’d been abducted or if she’d run away or what. But a couple of days later, her sister got a letter from her saying she was okay. And people stopped worrying for a while—until they found the strangler’s first victim in a ravine by the college library.”

  “Was it the missing girl?” Eden asked.

  Roseann shook her head. “A different girl entirely. The missing girl was actually being held prisoner by the strangler. He and his mother lived in an old farmhouse outside Waukegan. The girl was locked up in a little shack in their backyard.” Roseann’s voice dropped to a whisper again. “I guess he was torturing her and doing all sorts of nasty things to her. She was the last one he killed. He strangled four or five girls, the last two together on the same night.”

  Eden nodded. “Yeah, I heard about that. It happened in a bungalow that they later tore down. I moved in right next door today. You said the killer lived with his mother? How did he keep everything he was doing a secret from her?”

  “He didn’t,” Roseann answered under her breath. “The old bitch was behind a lot of it, pushing him to kill those girls. At the trial, she said it was her son’s ‘sacred mission’ to kill the ‘holy sluts.’ Talk about crazy. I guess she and her lunatic son were pushed over the edge when that girl had the baby and killed it.”

  “Was there a trial?”

  Roseann nodded. “After he killed the last two girls, he left a witness. The police caught up with him pretty quickly. At the trial, he and Mama were found guilty as sin, of course. She was an accessory. She died in prison less than a year after they locked her up, cancer or something. Sonny Boy got the electric chair a few months after she went. That’s what she kept calling him during the trial: Sonny Boy.”

  Eden grimaced.

  “Say, you’re pretty good with all these questions,” Roseann said. “Are you studying to be a reporter or someth
ing?”

  Working up a smile, Eden nodded. “As a matter of fact, I’ve signed up for a couple of journalism classes.”

  “That’s nice. Excuse me again,” the waitress said hurriedly. “Duty calls . . .”

  Eden noticed two middle-aged couples had just come in and taken a table by the door. Roseann fetched their waters and menus.

  “Hey, girlie,” someone whispered.

  Eden turned toward the slimy man in the booth and found him smiling at her.

  “It was six,” he said.

  Her eyes narrowed at him. “What?”

  “He killed six women,” the man said, “not ‘four or five.’ There were the two girls he strangled, and a teacher he killed. Then he did the two in one night, and finally the girl he had locked up in the shack. That’s a total of six.”

  “Well, thanks for clearing that up,” Eden muttered, starting to turn away.

  “Are you signed up for Ellie Goodwin’s journalism class?”

  Eden scowled at him again. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

  “A lot of good people went to jail because of her. She’s a fucking busybody and a liar, writing all those stories full of fake news. Stupid, conniving woman, she’ll get hers someday . . .”

  He slurred his words a little, and Eden figured he was drunk. She turned forward again and sipped her coffee.

  “Rachel Bonner, she’s your housemate, isn’t she? The rich bitch. She’s bad news, too.”

  Eden glared at him. “Are you following me or something?”

  He grinned. “You said you lived next door to where both those girls got it back in 1970. So I figured you’re in bungalow twenty. That’s where Princess Rachel lives in the lap of luxury in her spacious second-floor bedroom meant for two girls. And I’ll bet she’s got you and some other poor girl crammed into that little closet of a bedroom off the kitchen.”

  “I don’t see how that’s any of your business either,” Eden said. It was damn creepy that he knew so much about the setup of their bungalow.