Chapter 3 Nicola
If my life were normal, I’d grab my keys and go for a long walk. However, last time I checked, there were so many news vans parked up and down the street that the police had been called in for crowd control. I’m trapped in this house, with this television, and this clock. With myself.
I resist for as long as I can before seizing the remote control.
The opening credits for To Catch a Killer have already started.
One by one, photos of my father’s victims appear onscreen.
The last is of a young woman with sun-bleached hair, pulled back in a scrunchie.
Her nose is wrinkled; the photographer caught her in the middle of a laugh, and not a small one, either.
Not the kind of laugh you’d expect from a girl like her, but one that blasts from her nostrils and makes her tumble back into the grass until her sweatshirt’s stained with dirt and chlorophyll.
It’s my favorite photo of Claire. I gave it to the producers when they asked for one, and now, I regret it.
Cut to Greer Woods bent over a steel table in the prison visitation room, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, tattoos covering her arms from wrist to god-knows-where.
Her black curls have been pulled back in a jawbone clip, presumably to keep them out of her eyes as she closes the case file in front of her.
The bars on the prison windows cut shadows across her face.
“The Ellicott Creek Ripper has gone quiet for twenty years,” her voice-over says, “leaving everyone to wonder, when will he strike again? We’re here to make sure the answer to that question is never.
This season, join us as we hunt down the Ellicott Creek Ripper, because sometimes… ”
A cell door clanks open, and the camera pans from canvas shoes striding down the corridor up a dark blue jumpsuit to hands cuffed and chained. Finally, it settles on the face of Tom Woods, one of our country’s most notorious serial killers. That’s when Greer delivers her catchphrase:
“To catch a killer, you need a killer.”
Cut to black. Title card. Boom.
Greer Woods made us a promise: She would do whatever she could to catch the man who’d terrorized our small town, then gone unpunished for all these years.
She was a prolific defense attorney who understood the criminal mind.
She had all the resources of a television network at her disposal and one other important tool that law enforcement didn’t: her father, Tom Woods.
In the pilot episode, Greer, stymied by the case, visited her father on Montana’s Death Row, where he provided her with insight into the murderer.
“Look for someone these girls trusted,” he advised.
“A teacher maybe, a coach, a classmate’s parent, even a store clerk that everyone knows—someone from the gas station or the 7-Eleven.
Serial killers usually hunt close to home, and sometimes they’ll try to insert themselves into the investigation so they can keep tabs on what you know. ”
On her first day in town, Greer visited my family’s hardware store looking for help. I’d been the last to see Claire alive and, with all the turnover at our local police department, knew almost as much about the case as they did. Over the course of the investigation, we grew closer, became friends.
Or at least I thought we became friends.
I can’t pinpoint exactly when Greer started suspecting my dad.
For weeks, months maybe, she pretended that everything was fine.
Every weekend, she came over to our house for dinner—praised my dad’s home cooking, laughed at his jokes, then excused herself to the bathroom, so she could scavenge through closets and AC vents and toilet tanks.
Onscreen, Greer examines the loose tile in our upstairs bathroom wall with her iPhone camera.
“I think I can…” She digs into the seams with her fingernails and pries it off.
It clatters onto the floor. Switching her flashlight on, she aims the beam into the dark crater beyond the pipes.
A shimmer. Her hand stretches inside and when it reemerges, she’s gripping a clump of jewelry.
“Oh my god,” she gasps, holding up an earring to the camera: a little gold hoop. “I think this belongs to Claire Tenenbaum.”
I reach for my glass of wine while onscreen-Greer sneaks into the hallway, turns the corner, and runs straight into me. The shrill scratch of violin strings. Jesus Christ. A jump scare. They’ve turned me into a jump scare.
If her silence regarding her suspicions hadn’t been bad enough, when the series aired months later, I was blindsided by an even worse betrayal.
The first few episodes of To Catch a Killer went as expected; they followed our investigation as we trekked to each crime scene, questioned anyone who had known the victims, scrutinized suspects the police had identified—then dismissed.
But around episode five, something changed.
The camera started lingering on my profile, cataloguing every suspicious wince, every uncharitable sneer.
Strange, but it wasn’t until they edited Tom Woods’s voice-over to match one of these reaction shots that I finally understood what they were suggesting: “They’ll try to insert themselves into the investigation, so they can keep tabs on what you know. ”
This after Greer approached me, begged me, to be part of her stupid show.
Not only did she leverage our friendship to conduct a surreptitious investigation into my father, now she was painting me as an accomplice in front of millions of viewers.
She cost me my friends. She cost me my job. And now she’s costing me my home.
All because I trusted her.
I watch as, onscreen, law enforcement inspects the jewelry. A warrant is secured, and an arrest becomes imminent. Greer excuses herself and ducks out the back of the station. Pacing back and forth, clearly distressed, she dials the number for Montana State Prison.
“You did the right thing,” her father reassures her.
“I just…” She sighs. “I just didn’t want it to end like this.”
“I know. You caught him, though. I’m so proud of you.”
There are only a few minutes left in the episode. The police file up our front stairs, battering ram held at the ready. Next thing you know, my dad’s being hauled out in handcuffs, and I’m shambling behind them. “He’s a good man!” onscreen-me calls from the front porch.
I slug back the rest of my wine. Goddamnit.
The camera follows me as I jog down the road after the police car, then stagger to a stop.
“That’s enough,” Greer shouts from somewhere behind the cameraman.
The lens swings toward her. Her mouth’s pinched in a tight line.
“C’mon,” the cameraman gripes. “This is your big moment.”
“I said”—and here, she reaches out, and the camera shakes—“that’s enough.”
That was the last time I saw Greer Woods. Almost every night since, I’ve tried calling her, but not once has she answered. “Please call me back, I don’t know what to do” gave way to “Why aren’t you picking up? Are you all right?”
And then when the show started airing, when I realized I’d been discarded, tossed aside having outlasted my usefulness, “Fuck you.”
A quick tap on her number, and the phone starts ringing. What would I do if she answered? Yell? Cry? Hang up? Hang up, probably. It doesn’t matter; she doesn’t answer. The call redirects to voicemail.
“Hey, Greer. Just finished watching your finale. So, quick question: When exactly did you stop giving a shit about me? A few days before the arrest? A few weeks? Was any of it real, or were you using me the entire time? Because that’s what it feels like.
” I switch off the television, unable to watch another moment of her bullshit.
“I swear to god, if I ever see you again—”
When my phone chimes, I almost drop it. A message lights up my screen:
Did you get the letter?
It’s from Greer Woods. Disconnecting from the ongoing call, I pound her number again and again until the ringing starts. “Come on,” I mutter. “Pick up.” It goes straight to voicemail.
I text her back:
Greer? Are you there?
I wait for a response. Nothing.
What letter? I dash over to the sideboard, to the stack of envelopes waiting there, and start rummaging through them. Tossing aside all the PAST DUES and LAST NOTICES, I find a nondescript white security envelope without a return address. My thumb edges its way under the flap, ripping it open.
Nicola,
Welcome to the Death Row Club. You are invited to our annual retreat. Please visit the website below for more information.
There’s no additional information, only a seven-digit code. This must be the letter she was asking about. I grab my laptop from the kitchen table and type in the website address. Seven blank lines appear onscreen. Seven lines, seven digits. I type in the code from the letter.
A red notification circle materializes above my email icon.
The message in my inbox comes from what looks like a disposable account and contains another code.
Again, I type it in, and in response, my phone buzzes with a text message.
Whatever this is, they are not messing around with security.
Finally, I’m redirected to a website with a few paragraphs of text.
You have been invited to join the Death Row Club, an exclusive social club for the children of serial killers.
I stare at that sentence for a long time.
An exclusive social club for the children of serial killers.
My daydreams of a TLC household come rushing back with so much force, I sink into the pillows at the end of the couch.
I might not have siblings who stood alongside me while our father was dragged away in handcuffs, but if this letter is for real, then there are others out there who’ve lived the same experience. Others who might want to meet me.
I keep reading.