K is for Killer (2 page)

“You must have been young when you had her.”

“Twenty-one,” she said. “I was seventeen with Berlyn. I got married because of her. Five months gone and I was big as a house. I'm still with her daddy, which surprised everyone, including me, I guess. I was nineteen with my middle daughter. Her name's Trinny. She's real sweet. Lorna's the one I nearly died with, poor thing. Got up one morning, day before I was due, and started hemorrhaging. I didn't know what was happening. Blood everywhere. It was just like a river pouring out between my legs. I've never seen anything like it. Doctor didn't think he could save either one of us, but we pulled through. You have children, Ms. Millhone?”

“Make it Kinsey,” I said. “I'm not married.”

She smiled slightly. “Just between us, Lorna really was my favorite, probably because she was such a problem all her life. I wouldn't say that to either of the older girls, of course.” She tucked the picture away. “Anyway, I know what it's like to have your heart ripped out. I probably look like an ordinary woman, but I'm a zombie, the living dead, maybe a little bit cracked. We've been going to this support group . . . somebody suggested it, and I thought it might help. I was ready to try anything to get away from the pain. Mace—that's my husband—went a few times and then quit. He couldn't stand the stories, couldn't stand all the suffering compressed in one room. He wants to shut it out, get shed of it, get clean. I don't think it's possible, but there's no arguing the point. To each his own, as they say.”

“I can't even imagine what it must be like,” I said.

“And I can't describe it, either. That's the hell of it. We're not like regular people anymore. You have a child murdered, and from that moment on you're from some other planet. You don't speak the same language as other folks. Even in this support group, we seem to speak different
dialects. Everybody hangs on to their pain like it was some special license to suffer. You can't help it. We all think ours is the worst case we ever heard. Lorna's murder hasn't been solved, so naturally we think our anguish is more acute because of it. Some other family, maybe their child's killer got caught and he served a few years. Now he's out on the street again, and that's what they have to live with—knowing some fella's walking around smoking cigarettes, drinking beers, having himself a good old time every Saturday night while their child is dead. Or the killer's still in prison and'll be there for life, but he's warm, he's safe. He gets three meals a day and the clothes on his back. He might be on death row, but he won't actually
die.
Hardly anybody does unless they
beg
to be executed. Why should they? All those soft-hearted lawyers go to work. System's set up to keep 'em all alive while our kids are dead for the rest of the time.”

“Painful,” I said.

“Yes, it is. I can't even tell you how much that hurts. I sit downstairs in that room and I listen to all the stories, and I don't know what to do. It's not like it makes my pain any less, but at least it makes it part of
something
. Without the support group, Lorna's death just evaporates. It's like nobody cares. It's not even something people talk about anymore. We're all of us wounded, so I don't feel so cut off. I'm not separate from them. Our emotional injuries just come in different forms.” Her tone throughout was nearly matter-of-fact, and the dark-eyed look she gave me then seemed all the more painful because of it. “I'm telling you all this because I don't want you to think I'm crazy . . . at least any more than I actually am. You have a child murdered and you go berserk. Sometimes you recover and sometimes you don't. What I'm saying is, I know I'm obsessed.
I think about Lorna's killer way more than I should. Whoever did this, I want him
punished
. I want this laid to rest. I want to know why he did it. I want to tell him face-to-face exactly what he did to my life the day he took hers. The psychologist who runs the group, she says I need to find a way to get my power back. She says it's better to get mad than go on feeling heartsick and defenseless. So. That's why I'm here. I guess that's the long and short of it.”

“Taking action,” I said.

“You bet. Not just talking. I'm sick and tired of talk. It gets nowhere.”

“You're going to have to do a bit more talking if you want my help. You want some coffee?”

“I know that. I'd love some. Black is fine.”

I filled two mugs and added milk to mine, saving my questions until I was seated again. I reached for the legal pad on my desk, and I picked up a pen. “I hate to make you go through the whole thing again, but I really need to have the details, at least as much as you know.”

“I understand. Maybe that's why it took me so long to come up here. I've told this story probably six hundred times, but it never gets any easier.” She blew on the surface of her coffee and then took a sip. “That's good coffee. Strong. I hate drinking coffee too weak. It's no taste. Anyway, let me think how to say this. I guess what you have to understand about Lorna is she was an independent little cuss. She did everything her way. She didn't care what other people thought, and she didn't feel what she did was anybody else's business. She'd been asthmatic as a child and ended up missing quite a bit of school, so she never did well in her classes. She was smart as a whip, but she was out half the time. Poor thing was allergic to just about everything. She didn't have many friends. She couldn't spend
the night at anybody else's house because other little girls always seemed to live with pets or house dust, mold, or whatnot. She outgrew a lot of that as she matured, but she was always on medication for one thing or another. I make a point of this because I think it had a profound effect on the way she turned out. She was antisocial: bullheaded and uncooperative. She had a streak of defiance, I think because she was used to being by herself, doing what
she
wanted. And I might have spoiled her some. Children sense when they have the power to cause you distress. Makes them tyrants to some extent. Lorna didn't understand about pleasing other people, ordinary give-and-take. She was a nice person and she could be generous if she wanted, but she wasn't what you'd call loving or nurturing.” She paused. “I don't know how I got off on that. I meant to talk about something else, if I can think what it was.”

She frowned, blinking, and I could see her consult some interior agenda. There was a moment or two of silence while I drank my coffee and she drank hers. Finally her memory clicked in and she brightened, saying, “Oh, yes. Sorry about that.” She shifted on her chair and took up the narrative. “Asthma medication sometimes caused her insomnia. Everybody thinks antihistamines make you drowsy, which they can, of course, but it isn't the deep sleep you need for ordinary rest. She didn't like to sleep. Even grown, she got by on as little as three hours sometimes. I think she was afraid of lying down. Being prone always seemed to aggravate her wheezing. She got in the habit of roaming around at night when everybody else was asleep.”

“Who'd she hang out with? Did she have friends or just ramble on her own?”

“Other night owls, I'd guess. An FM disc jockey for one,
the guy on that all-night jazz station. I can't remember his name, but you might know if I said it. And there was a nurse on the night shift at St. Terry's. Serena Bonney. Lorna actually worked for Serena's husband at the water treatment plant.”

I made a note to myself. I'd have to check on both if I decided to help. “What sort of job?”

“It was just part-time . . . one to five for the city, doing clerical work. You know, typing and filing, answering the telephone. She'd be up half the night, and then she could sleep late if she wanted.”

“Twenty hours a week isn't much,” I said. “How could she afford to live?”

“Well, she had her own little place. This cabin at the back of somebody's property. It wasn't anything fancy, and the rent on that was cheap. Couple of rooms, with a bath. It might have been some kind of gardener's cottage to begin with. No insulation. She had no central heating and not a lot of kitchen to speak of, just a microwave oven and a two-burner hot plate, refrigerator the size of a little cardboard box. You know the kind. She had electricity, running water, and a telephone, and that was about the extent of it. She could have fixed it up real cute, but she didn't want to bother. She liked it simple, she said, and besides, it wasn't all that permanent. Rent was nominal, and that's all she seemed to care about. She liked her privacy, and people learned to leave her pretty much alone.”

“Hardly sounds like an allergen-free environment,” I remarked.

“Well, I know, and I said as much myself. Of course by then she was doing better. The allergies and asthma were more seasonal than chronic. She might have an occasional attack after exercise or if she had a cold or she was under
stress. The point is she didn't want to live around other people. She liked the feel of being in the woods. The property wasn't all that big . . . six or seven acres with a little two-lane gravel road coming in along the back. I guess it gave her the sense of isolation and quiet. She didn't want to live in some apartment building with tenants on all sides, bumping and thumping and playing loud music. She wasn't friendly. She didn't even like to say ‘hi' in passing. That's just how she was. She moved into the cabin, and that's where she stayed.”

“You said she was found at the cabin. Do the police think she died there as well?”

“I believe so. Like I said, she wasn't found for some time. Nearly two weeks, they think, from the state she was in. I hadn't heard from her, but I didn't think much about it. I'd talked to her on a Thursday night and she told me she was taking off. I assumed she meant that night, but she didn't say as much, at least not that I remember. If you recall, spring came late last year and the pollen count was high, which meant her allergies were acting up. Anyway, she called and said she'd be out of town for two weeks. She was taking time off from work and said she was driving up to the mountains to see whatever snows were left. Ski country was the only place she found relief when she was suffering. She said she'd call when she got back, and that was the last I talked to her.”

I'd begun to scribble notes. “What date was this?”

“April nineteenth. The body was discovered May fifth.”

“Where was she going? Did she give you her destination?”

“She mentioned the mountains, but she never did say where. You think that makes a difference?”

“I'm just curious,” I replied. “April seems late for snow.
It could have been a cover story if she was going somewhere else. Did you get the impression she was concealing something?”

“Oh, Lorna's not the kind who confided details. My other two, if they're going off on vacation, we all sit around poring over the travel brochures and hotel accommodations. Like right now, Berlyn's saved her money for a trip, and we're always talking about this cruise versus that, oohing and ahhing. The fantasy's half the fun is the way I look at it. Lorna said that just set up a lot of expectations and then reality would disappoint. She didn't look at anything the way other people did. At any rate, when I didn't hear from her, I figured she was out of town. She wasn't one to call much anyway, and none of us would have any reason to go to her place if she was gone.” She hesitated, embarrassed. “I can tell I feel guilty. Just listen to how much explanation I'm going into here. I just don't want it to seem like I didn't care.”

“It doesn't sound like that.”

“That's good, because I loved that child more than life itself.” Tears rose briefly, almost like a reflex, and I could see her blink them away. “Anyway, it was someone she'd done some work for, who finally went back there.”

“What was her name?”

“Oh. Serena Bonney.”

I glanced at my notes. “She's the nurse?”

“That's right.”

“What kind of work had Lorna done for her?”

“She house-sat. Lorna looked after Mrs. Bonney's dad sometimes. As I understand it, the old fella wasn't well, and Mrs. Bonney didn't like leaving him by himself. I guess she was trying to make arrangements to leave town and wanted to talk to Lorna before she made reservations.
Lorna didn't have an answering machine. Mrs. Bonney called several times and then decided to leave a note on her front door. Once she got close, she realized something was wrong.” Janice broke off, not with emotion, but with the unpleasant images that must have been conjured up. After two weeks undiscovered, the body would have been in very poor shape.

“How did Lorna die? Was there a determination as to cause of death?”

“Well, that's the point. They never did find out. She was lying facedown on the floor in her underwear, with her sweat clothes strewn nearby. I guess she'd come back from a run and stripped down for her shower, but it didn't seem like she'd been assaulted. It's always possible she suffered an asthma attack.”

“But you don't believe it.”

“No, I don't, and the police didn't, either.”

“She was into exercise? I find that surprising from what you've told me so far.”

“Oh, she liked to keep in shape. I do know there were times when a workout made her wheezy and kind of short of breath, but she had one of those inhalers and it seemed to help. If she had a bad spell, she'd cut back on exercise and then take it up again when she was feeling better. Doctors didn't want her to act like an invalid.”

“What about the autopsy?”

“Report's right in here,” she said, indicating the paper bag.

“There were no signs of violence?”

Janice shook her head. “I don't know how to say this. I guess because of putrefaction they weren't even sure it was her at first. It wasn't until they compared her dental records that she was identified.”