Run (2 page)

“I wrote some for my book today.” An easy and innocent start.

“Oh, that’s lovely, I was sure you would have written soon.” A mother’s eternal optimism.

“Actually
, my writing today reminded me of a news story from when I was little. Do you remember hearing about Emily Carmichael on the news? She was found in Cherry Hill. It’s such a horrible story a couple of kids found her body …”

“Oh darling
, I don’t know why you focus on such dreadful things - a murdered girl! It’s a wonder you get any sleep at all with all those ideas in your head. Really. Did I tell you that I spoke with Helen Roberts the other day? You remember Helen, her daughter Lindsey is a few years younger than you. Well Lindsey just had her second child, a boy …”

My mom’s vo
ice faded to the background. I have heard versions of this for years. Apparently, everyone I know or have ever had contact with is happily married with children. My mother’s message is subtle but received. (Okay, sometimes not so subtle.) I should be worried about my single status. I should be working on getting married and having children. Sometimes it is easier to just let her ramble on.

At the end of our dinner
, mother and I hug and I head home. The evening of catching up has exhausted me. When I get home I take Max out, shower, and then fall into bed. I dream of Emily.

Chapter 2: M
arch 16, 7:00am - March 23, 10:25pm

When my alarm went off the next morning
, the remnants of my dream hung on. I don’t remember much of what I dreamt that night. What I do remember was disjointed and confusing. Mostly I remember Emily’s face and someone chasing me. The dream left a bad taste in my mouth. I made a resolution … still in my bed with Max whining to go out … today I will focus only on the book. I will forget Emily. My dream showed that my research had become an obsession that was obviously unhealthy.

My resolution lasted until I was
sitting at my computer. I opened my book. I started to write and somehow I ended up back on the Internet. I ended up back in my research. I ended up with the dead.

______

Four hours later, my mind swirled with the names of girls who were murdered. Unsolved cases going back thirty years.

1982
Jane Snow, 16 years old … her body was found in a Mercer County park. She was beaten, raped, and mutilated. Witnesses remembered seeing a tall, dark-haired man talking with Jane the day she disappeared.

1984 Leslie French and Georgia
Layeen, both 15 … the girls were out for a walk on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City when they went missing … Leslie’s body was discovered in an alley a month after they disappeared. She was beaten and raped. There was evidence that she had been held and tortured. A few weeks later the remains of a teenaged girl were discovered. A bloody sweatshirt found near the body identified the remains as Georgia Layeen.

1988 Grace Oliver, 16
… found in a dumpster in North Jersey, there was evidence that she was beaten and raped. Her body had been mutilated and covered in bite marks.

1992 Emily Carmicheal

1997 Lorraine Wilson, 17 … found in a public park in Bucks County, evidence that she was beaten and raped … there was evidence of torture and mutilation.

1998
Cindy James, 15 … found in the Delaware River … there was evidence she had been tortured.

2003
Laura Mason, 18 … found in Cape May behind a convenience store … she had been beaten, raped, and mutilated.

2008
Samantha March, 17 … found in an alley in Philadelphia … she had been beaten and raped with her body so mutilated it was difficult to identify her.

Nine. Nine girls. A
ll teenagers, all small and slight 5’ to 5’ 3”, all weighing 90-115 pounds, and all with dark hair and eyes. All of them were beaten and raped. All of them were left in places where they would be found. Whoever killed them made no attempt to hide their bodies. I didn’t know if I was crazy. These girls couldn’t possibly be connected. I was reading into the situation, too many cop shows and too many mystery novels.

R
ight then I was thinking of
Criminal Minds
. This all seemed a little too much like an episode. I was imagining this. Right? Right, of course I was. I got up from my computer to take a break. I took Max outside to “blow the stink off” as a co-worker used to say. As Max and I did our usual circuit, I couldn’t forget those girls. They had been tossed aside like trash. As, I’m sure, Dr. Spencer Reid would note on
Criminal Minds,
the killer showed no respect or remorse by leaving their bodies exposed. It wasn’t right. They deserved attention. They deserved to have someone speak for them. I had to look at it again.

Back inside
, settled at my computer with my fur kids in their usual places, I looked over the information I had gathered so far. As always, I work and live best when I am organized. (Some might call me anal.) I needed to organize my information. I took down all the picture frames in my office. I ran a piece of string horizontally along one wall. At the left-hand side, I started my timeline with Jane Snow. I connected my laptop to my printer and printed out a picture of each girl. I put each girl’s picture and a piece of scrap paper with all the information I had gathered on it. When I was done, I stepped back. Dead girls stared back at me. I don’t know when I would have stepped away if my stomach hadn’t started growling loudly. That night when I went to sleep I dreamed of nine dead girls calling to me for help.

_______

Over the next few days, I lived, slept, and breathed murder. I expanded my search from the Delaware Valley area to nationwide. What I found was shocking. By Sunday, I had found 23 murdered girls in major cities across the United States. 23 girls that fit my criteria:  teenagers, petite, dark hair and eyes, tortured and raped, bodies left in places they would be quickly found.

When I stepped back and looked at the map of the U
.S. I had hung on the wall with red dots showing the location of my girls, I felt like I had gone crazy. This couldn’t possibly be true. This was a movie or television show. This was fake, a joke, right? It had to be. I obviously was watching too much
Criminal Minds
and
NCIS
if I thought I had found a serial killer that had killed 23 girls in the last 30 years.

I decided I needed more information. A short trip
to my second favorite website, Amazon (Google tops the list), and I had a book on forensic psychology and serial killers on its way to my house.

With more information on its way
, I decided I could use a break. For the last five days I had done nothing but research murder. Phone calls and e-mails had been unanswered. I was done. I needed a break. A quick call to my BFF and Max and I were headed to the park to meet up with Kathy.

I have been friends with Kathy
and her husband for years. We met at the age of 18. I remember thinking she was cool and together, plus she worked with horses – automatic awesome. Years later, we laughed together to hear she was thinking the same thing about me. Kathy has a way of grounding me; helping me see past myself. When I met her and her beautiful baby, Susanne, at the park I should have brought up what I had been doing for the last five days. Instead, we talked about work and family. My latest disaster date. Those girls, my girls, seemed far away while Kathy and I chatted and walked. Kathy knows me well so she knew something was up, but like I said she knows me, and she knows sometimes I just need to process. Being the good friend that she is she gave me space.

For the next fe
w days I went back to normal life. I met my friend, Tammy, at the gym. I had cancelled on her the last couple of days. We Zumba’d and kick-boxed. I had dinner with Kathy, and called my friend Liz twice. My friends must have wondered what was up … I am not usually so available. While my weeks usually include four or five workouts, I was working overtime to keep my social calendar full and my office door closed. I wanted to ignore the faces I had hung on my wall. I wanted to believe I was crazy. I wanted to believe that there couldn’t possibly be a serial killer who had killed 23 girls over the last 30 years. It just wasn’t possible.

______

My evasion technique may have worked if I hadn’t turned on the news Tuesday night. I am usually not a big news watcher. I generally get my news from the Internet as I am writing, but since I was in avoidance mode, I had not even opened my laptop, and I was feeling a bit disconnected. I turned on the news and my murdered girls rushed back into my mind.

I was multitasking while watching
, not at all unusual for me, when the newscaster said the words guaranteed to get my attention: “murdered girl.” Everything else ceased to exist. A 16-year-old girl’s body, identified as Vanessa James, was found in Philadelphia by a homeless man. She had been beaten, raped, and left in an alley. According to the news, the police were “looking into leads.” I was frozen. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be related. It had to be a coincidence. Then the news showed a photo of the murdered girl. She was small, slight, with dark hair and eyes. I don’t know why, but I just knew. He was back.

Aft
er the news story I’m not sure what I did. I don’t remember turning off the TV, I don’t remember walking through my condo, but the next thing I do know is I was standing in front of my closed office door. I stopped with my hand on the door knob. If I went in, there was no turning back. I was scared, so scared. If I knew then what I know now, maybe I wouldn’t have opened the door or maybe the point of no return was much earlier. Maybe it was when I first saw Emily’s picture. Either way, I opened the door and entered the room.

Chapter 3: March 23
, 10:25pm – March 24, 11:00pm

I stood there looking at those faces and names. The lost ones. The ones who had never gotten justice. I didn’t sleep at all that night. I typed up everything I knew. All the girls. The common threads. I copied pictures. I listed the police stations responsible for each case. I put down every piece of information I had gathered in the last week. I finally finished and went to be
d at about 6 am. Three hours later, I was awake and in the shower. I had to do something.

A quick
Internet search gave me a map of the Philadelphia Police Districts as well as the local FBI office. I didn’t know for sure which one I should go to, but my television watching told me that since I suspected there was a killer responsible for deaths across the United States, I should go to the FBI. By 10:30 I was ready. After taking care of Max and Kitty, I got in the car and took the Ben Franklin Bridge into Philadelphia. By 11:00 my GPS had led me to Arch Street and the glass front of the Philadelphia FBI office.

I sat in my Rav4, black of course,
for a good fifteen minutes before I worked up the courage to go inside. The entire building was intimidating as though the brick, mortar, and glass themselves were authority. If it were not for the picture of Emily burned into my mind, I doubt I would have had the courage to enter.

With the thought of Emily pushing me on
, I gathered the documents I had so painstakingly put together the night before and organized them in my shoulder bag. With the bag over my shoulder, a light jacket on my arm, and a determined spirit, I climbed the steps and entered the FBI building. My courage, of course, abandoned me. I may have stood there frozen forever if the receptionist had not asked if she could help.

I asked to speak with someone about Vanessa James, the girl from the news last night. I think she thought I was crazy. It took some
convincing, but I eventually was led to a small room with a table and chairs and told that someone would be with me shortly. It wasn’t at all like TV. The room was actually quite welcoming. It was decorated in warm browns and reds, and the chairs were quite comfortable. I expected the room to be cold and gray with uncomfortable metal chairs.

I sat in the room by myself for probably twenty
minutes. Each minute that passed I grew more and more nervous. My palms were so sweaty I was afraid to touch anything. My hands were shaky and I felt like my heart was going to pound right out of my chest. When a middle-aged man with a beer belly opened the door, I about jumped right out of my skin. He introduced himself as Agent Bruce Clarke. Agent Clarke looked tired, fed up, and not very happy to be sent in to talk to a crazy person. He took the seat across from me, and placed a notebook and pen down in front of him.

“What’s your name?
” Okay, right to business. Apparently we weren’t doing any polite small talk.

“Charlotte Marshall
.”

“
Well Ms. Marshall, you said you have something to share.”

I couldn’t tell if it was a question or statement. Despite all my preparation
, I never thought how I would launch into this explanation. I guessed the best way would be to just jump into it.

“I think that the murder of Vanessa James is related to several other murders in this area as well as across the country.”

There was silence. He didn’t really look shocked so much as constipated. I don’t know what he had expected me to say. I guess that wasn’t it.

“What makes you think that?”

This time the question was clear.