Chapter 21 #2
But on that Sunday night eight years ago, the creek had been full and moving fast, Riley said, and she was carried off by the current. Her assailant might have assumed he’d never catch her. Maybe he didn’t know how to swim and was afraid of being carried off himself.
As I start to retrace my steps, I catch sight again of the nearest picnic table. Against my will, I’m seeing Riley on the table, clawing at the leash around her neck. And then, to my horror, I’m picturing Mel as well—with the life being strangled out of her.
I race back to the park entrance, and when the Uber app shows that a car will take fifteen minutes to get here, I phone Cartersville Taxi, and the owner, Craig, handles the order this time, too.
“I’ll be there in five,” he says, and thankfully he is. I nearly hurl myself into the back seat.
“You been checkin’ out the local sights?” he asks once we’re moving.
“Sort of . . .” I say, trying to settle my mind. “Do—do you know much about the water here?”
“Pebble Creek? I know it as well as anyone, I guess. I fish it for rock bass, but farther upstream, where it’s not as populated.”
“It looks really low right now.”
“Ha, just how I like it. That way you can see the holes where the bass are hidin’.”
“But does it get much higher sometimes—and move really fast? So fast that it could carry someone away?”
“Oh yeah, sure, depending on the rain. A buddy of mine lost his dog that way last year. One of those little ones that looks like a fox.”
Still another detail confirmed. So far, Riley’s story has checked out, though I still have no proof her assailant was Ruck.
I’ve cut things a little close this morning, but I arrive at the inn just in time for the call with Halligan.
I dash up to the room to pee and drop off my trench coat, and as I’m about to hurry back downstairs, my phone rings.
I answer right away, thinking it might be Chip, but to my shock, it’s Morgan Kroll.
“I hope I’m not interrupting you,” she says.
“Not at all. Is something up?”
“I just had my follow-up appointment with the state police today.”
“How did it go?” Surely she’s told Halligan I went around him.
“Well enough. I’d found the notes I made after Riley left the English department that day, and I went over them with the detective—and he seemed to accept that my hands were tied about taking any action . . . There’s one thing I wanted to mention, though. The detective, Harrington, or—”
“Halligan,” I say and then hold my breath.
“Right. He asked that I keep everything to myself, and I made a split-second decision not to admit the two of us had talked. He seemed so by the book that I was afraid he might be seriously miffed. I wanted to give you a heads-up.”
She obviously has more heart than I gave her credit for.
“Thank you so much for that, Morgan.”
“And now, I guess, we just try to move on from here. Are you headed home soon?”
“Yeah, in a couple of days.”
“Well, best of luck.”
“Same to you.”
I’m running slightly behind now, and by the time I locate the meeting room, Logan already has his phone on the polished wooden table, and Halligan’s voice is droning through the speaker.
“Hold on a sec, will you?” Logan interrupts. “Here she is.”
I quickly apologize and take a seat catty-corner from my ex.
“We were just getting started,” he explains. “Detective Halligan was saying that he’s spoken to two people who’ve helped corroborate Riley’s story. One is the woman from the Carter English department who she mentioned to us.”
Logan’s phrased his comment to indicate that Halligan doesn’t seem to know I beat him to the punch. I’m tempted to confess, and yet if I do, my transgression will not only cast me in a negative light but Morgan, too, since she kept quiet about it. So, I just listen.
“The first person I spoke to actually was Riley’s gynecologist,” Halligan says. “She said that Riley became a patient about a year and a half ago and revealed that she’d been raped and wanted to make sure it hadn’t affected her ability to conceive or carry a child once she married.”
I wince at this revelation. Riley’s concern was probably heightened because of her engagement, but she may have been tormented about the issue for years.
“But of greater significance,” he adds, “was the interview with Morgan Kroll. She confirmed that Riley reported the rape to her the next morning, along with details about how she escaped. And she showed her the bruising on her neck.”
“This is very helpful, Brian,” I say after giving his words a moment to sit in the air.
“And though I admit I had some reservations yesterday, I accept that Riley was attacked exactly as she said she was. But how can we be sure the man who did it was really Ruck? It was dark, she was terrified . . .”
“Right,” Logan interjects, “What’s to say she wasn’t influenced by the photos she later saw of him.”
“Well, her description of him that morning couldn’t have been closer,” Halligan says.
“What description?” I blurt out.
“Morgan Kroll showed us the notes she’d made after Riley left her—she’d jotted things down in case she ended up speaking to the police herself.
Riley told her the assailant was late thirties or early forties, tall, heavyset, clean-shaven, and with very short brown hair.
And she made a point of mentioning that his eyes were set weirdly far apart. ”
Eyes set weirdly far apart. I can see those loathsome weasel eyes even now, not only looking out from Ruck’s mug shot but also staring at me from across the courtroom.
I’d never thought to ask Morgan if Riley had described her attacker that morning, only if she’d been sure it was him once she saw his photo.
“That definitely sounds like Ruck,” Logan says. He glances over to check my reaction. I nod in agreement—because the description is dead-on.
“I agree,” Halligan says. “And since we know now that Ruck assaulted another woman that weekend, it would be an extraordinary coincidence if Melanie had been attacked two nights earlier—and a mile and a half away—by someone with the same MO but who wasn’t Ruck.”
“So?” Logan says. “You’ve decided that Ruck killed Mel, just as we’ve always believed?”
“Yes,” Halligan says soberly. “I managed to speak to the analyst late yesterday, and she’s of the same mind.”
It’s what I’ve been praying for since I boarded the plane from Uruguay, but before I can stop them, David Schmidt’s words about Ruck echo in my mind: “He wanted credit where it was due and not where it wasn’t.”
I lean in toward the table. “And he lied to his lawyer about Mel because . . . ?”
“As the analyst pointed out, even when these bastards do confess, they sometimes try to manipulate investigators.”
“But what about the inconsistencies you brought up on Monday?” I say. “How do we now explain those away?”
“As the three of us discussed, Ruck might have been interrupted by a noise when he was attacking your daughter, but the woman I spoke to offered an additional theory. Serial killers like Ruck generally keep a homicidal fantasy going in their heads, and they need everything they do to match it. But something might not have gone as planned for Ruck in Pebble Creek Park and so he abandoned parts of his MO. That would explain why there was no sexual assault and no postmortem bite to any of Melanie’s fingers.
It might even explain why he felt compelled to attack another woman two nights later—so he could make things right this time. ”
My pulse is racing now. I long to surrender the doubts Halligan raised on Monday, but for some reason, I’m still resisting, still hearing Schmidt’s words.
“And there’s no chance at all that Ruck attacked Riley but someone else killed Mel?”
“Like I said, it would be such a huge coincidence.”
“But what if—what if it wasn’t a total coincidence? What if someone Mel knew had gotten wind of what happened to Sailor Abbott and tried to make Mel’s murder seem like the work of a serial killer? And that person got lucky when Ruck was arrested.”
I’m thinking about Jack, the rejected boyfriend. And even Handler, who might have been Mel’s lover.
I see Logan straighten in his chair. Does he think I’m sounding like a lunatic, or at the very least beating a dead horse?
“A copycat is always worth considering, but I double-checked with Plattsburgh, and the crime scene details from Sailor Abbott’s case—like the use of a dog leash—were kept tightly under wraps until well after Ruck’s arrest.”
I sigh, sinking into my chair. So I am beating a dead horse—into a bloody pulp. And I’ve got nothing else to add. Logan drums his fingers on the table.
“That’s it, then?” he asks.
“I’d say yes. It might not bring a lot of comfort, but I believe your daughter’s killer was apprehended and died in prison.”
“Okay, thank you, Brian,” Logan says. “We appreciate everything you’ve done.”
“Do you think Riley will be okay?” I ask. I don’t want to lose sight of her in the middle of this.
“I hope so,” Halligan says. “I think she’s felt good getting the truth off her chest.”
He signs off then, wishing us the best. For a few seconds I sit motionless in my chair, absorbing what I’ve learned. I came here for the truth, and Halligan says we now have it.
Which means it’s time to go home.