Chapter 9 Nicola
OUTSIDE, ALL THE club members have gathered in a circle around the bonfire.
“Is that everyone?” Imogen asks, then does a quick head count, even though there are only seven of us, including her.
She smiles with all of her too-large teeth and says, “Welcome back. A lot has happened since last year. We have a new member joining our family.” Zach bumps his shoulder against mine, and I smile, too.
Family. “But we’re also remembering those who have moved on.
” The mood in the circle subtly shifts as everyone sneaks sideways glances at Zach.
What’s that about, I wonder? “However you came here today, honor that. Honor where you are in your life, honor what your dreams are for the future, honor what’s been left behind in the past.”
She opens a pouch and removes strips of paper and pre-sharpened golf pencils.
“This bonfire ceremony is a way of cleansing our lives of any negativity that may have slipped in while we were apart.” She walks around, handing each of us paper and a pencil.
When she reaches me, she shuffles through the strips of paper until she finds one with a red dot in the corner.
I’m suddenly reminded of the end of “The Lottery.” I look up to make sure the others aren’t readying their stones, but they’re all jotting things down on their own papers.
Relax, Nicola. You’re not in Oliante anymore. No one here’s out to get you.
“Take a few minutes to write down anything you want to let go of before this weekend begins. Anything that may be causing you distress or anger or fear.”
Zach scribbles something down before folding his paper into a tight accordion. I stare at my own blank strip, mulling over what I want to let go of. Greer Woods immediately comes to mind. My former coworkers. My father. But instead, I carefully write out a single word:
CLAIRE
Then fold the paper in half.
“One at a time, we’ll step forward, take the talking stick.
” Imogen gestures to a crooked walking stick with leather and feathers braided around it, propped against a nearby tree.
“And then I was thinking we could do something a little different. Most of us have watched To Catch a Killer—let’s not pretend we haven’t—which means we know all about Nicola.
But she doesn’t know anything about us. That leaves her in a vulnerable position, so I was thinking that, to make her feel more welcome, we could share a bit about ourselves. About our parents.”
A log in the bonfire cracks. Sparks spit into the air.
“I’ll start.” Imogen picks up the talking stick.
“When I was in middle school, my grandma was diagnosed with dementia. My mom was already working long hours, so she begged her siblings for help. But they always had excuses: They lived too far away, they were busy, they couldn’t stand seeing her like that.
Besides, since my mom was a hospice nurse, she was the one best qualified to take care of Grandma.
So, she was stuck picking up the slack.” Imogen reaches up to rub at the metal disc of her earring.
“It’s not like I was much better. As soon as I graduated from high school, I was out the door and onto bigger and better things.
When the police called and told me she’d been killing her patients, overdosing them with morphine, it almost made sense.
She’d been struggling so much, taking care of Grandma; she didn’t want her patients’ families to go through the same thing.
She thought it would be easier if they slipped away in the night, peacefully, quietly. ”
She swallows, then looks around the circle, making eye contact with each of us. “I wish I’d been there for her. I wish I’d stayed home and helped out more. But I’ve learned from that mistake. I wasn’t there for my mom, but this weekend, I am here for each and every one of you.”
She tosses her paper into the bonfire and yields the talking stick. “Kemy.”
Kemy steps forward, the strip of paper balled in her fist. “My father is Marcus Jerome.”
She waits for me to recognize the name. I’m a little embarrassed when a quick search of my mental true-crime library returns nothing.
“She’s never heard of him,” Kemy says—not to me, but to the other club members. “Wonder why.”
“C’mon now, we don’t need to make this about politics—” Ros starts, but Imogen says, “Respect the space.”
Kemy continues. “He was a cross-country truck driver who was always ‘getting into trouble’—that’s what my mother called it.
They never married, and apart from the occasional birthday card, he stayed out of our lives.
When he was arrested for selling narcotics, the police discovered his DNA was on file in a number of homicide investigations.
” Her fist constricts around her paper. “It should’ve been major news.
My mother sat in front of the television, night after night, waiting for them to report anything about the case.
‘All those girls,’ she used to say. ‘All those girls, and not a single minute spent talking about them.’ That’s why I decided to focus on sociology—on how economics and politics—” She stares straight at Ros, who lowers her gaze.
“Intersect with the criminal justice system. I received my PhD from the University of Chicago, and now I’m up for tenure at Harvard.
” Kemy chucks the paper ball into the bonfire.
“There’s a lot of pressure from the committee.
That’s what I want to leave behind this weekend. ”
“Hannah,” Imogen says.
The talking stick passes. Hannah doesn’t meet any of our eyes; instead, she stares at her paper. She opens her mouth, ready to say something, but then her jaw clicks shut, and she shakes her head, bangs sweeping across her forehead.
“It’s all right,” Imogen concedes. “You don’t have to share. You can just throw in your paper if you want.” She gestures to the bonfire, and Hannah weakly tosses her strip of paper in before returning the talking stick.
“Ros.”
Ros steps up to the bonfire. She’s wearing a puffer vest and hiking boots, even though I feel like the farthest we’re venturing into the great outdoors tonight will be the backyard. “My dad was the Paper Bag Butcher—I know, dumbest name ever, and to make it worse, he picked it himself.”
Now there’s a serial killer I know. The Paper Bag Butcher committed his crimes with a paper grocery bag over his head to conceal his identity.
He took photos of himself in his trademark bag, nylon rope stretched tight between his hands, and mailed them to the police—but he was caught when the technician from CVS’s one-hour photo called to report him.
“We’re traveling to Van Buren next month to visit my brothers,” Ros continues.
“Lord, those boys have taken years off my life. We’ll be eating dinner, discussing my daughters’ college funds, and Josh’ll say something like, ‘Yeah, when Dad remarried, it was murder on our FAFSAs.’ And then Chris’ll chime in, like, ‘Yeah, U of A choked off half my financial aid.’ And they’ll be high-fiving each other under the table, like they think that’s funny. Do you think that’s funny?”
It takes me a moment to realize she’s waiting for a response. I shake my head.
“No, of course it’s not funny. There I am, stabbing my chicken like I’m the goddamned serial killer and praying my husband won’t catch on.
He thinks my dad stepped out with his secretary, has a second family somewhere in Mexico.
Little does he know, dear old Dad’s about an eight-hour drive away at the Iowa State Penitentiary. ”
Zach shakes his head in disapproval.
“Oh, cut it with the sanctimonious attitude. Just because you shared your identity with the press doesn’t mean we should, too. I have two little girls to think about.”
“Yeah,” he says, “and how do you think they’ll feel when they figure out you’ve been lying? I think we can all agree that discovering a parent, someone you’re supposed to trust, has a secret life can really fuck with your sense of reality.”
“Respect—” Imogen starts to say, but Ros steamrolls right over her.
“And what, you think I should come clean? ‘Hey, Lillie, Brooke, just thought you should know: Your granddaddy strangled women, then jerked it over their dead bodies. Time to get ready for school.’ I love you, Zach, but you know jack shit about raising kids.”
“I just think you should consider telling them the truth. In case someone else finds out and tells them first.”
“It’s been almost thirty-five years. No one’s going to find out.”
“But what if—”
“Respect the space!” Imogen calls out. Zach starts to snap back, but Connor’s firm “Stop” makes everyone fall silent.
“Connor,” Imogen says, thankful to move on.
He steps forward, dodging the talking stick entirely, and throws his paper into the flames.
“Connor,” Imogen tries again.
His jaw clenches, but then he says, “I was raised in Willowland, an intentional-living community in Northern California.”
“Nice way of saying cult,” Zach mutters. So, I was right about him.
“It wasn’t like that,” Connor insists. “Willowland was dedicated to radical inclusion, income sharing, and ecological sustainability. Religious services weren’t even offered.
” Zach raises his hands as if to say fine, you win, but he doesn’t look convinced.
“My childhood wasn’t all that different from anyone else’s.
Until one night, when my mother kissed me on the forehead, made me promise to be good, and, along with all the other adults, drove away in an unmarked van.
The next morning, the police arrived and told us what they’d done.
She was arrested after beating eight people to death with a tire iron.
It was supposed to be a statement against capitalism, something like that.
” He mumbles this last part like it’s embarrassing.
“Thank you,” Imogen says, then she offers the talking stick to Zach. As he advances, the air seems to grow thicker. The other club members fix their stares on the dirt, the pines, the fire—anything that’s not him.
“My mom left early on,” Zach begins. “My dad managed a small motel off I-94, and worked really hard to give me a great childhood. He put this blow-up mattress at the bottom of the laundry chute, so I could slide down it again and again. He let me watch whatever I wanted on pay-per-view, and whenever I picked a horror movie, he’d cut the electricity to the room and play creepy sound effects on a boom box outside the door.
I’d be all like, ‘Dad! Dad! It isn’t funny!
’ But, like, it really was funny.’ ” He smiles, but it’s clearly a private smile, just for himself and his father.
Ros folds her arms across her chest. “Are you getting to the part where he locked guests in the walk-in freezer and let them die of exposure?”
“Ros!” Imogen glares at her. “Respect the space!”
“Oh, please, it’s not like any of them are winning Parent of the Year awards. Might as well be honest about it.”
Now I know who Zach’s father is. Back home, there’s a copy of Cold Case: Hunting the Ice Box Killer on my bookshelf—annotated with seven different colors of highlighter, sticky flags bookmarking almost every page.
I specifically remember a passage about how the police discovered fingernails broken off in the frost that built up around the vents.
He used to watch them trying to escape on the CCTV monitors.
How could a man like that have owned a crested gecko named Linda?
“Look,” he says, “I don’t really want to talk about my dad. I came here for good times and strong drinks. Let’s leave it at that.” He flings his paper into the fire and retakes his place beside me.
“Nicola?”
Imogen holds out the talking stick. Its feathers catch in the wind and flutter, like a sparrow that’s taken flight.
I’m about to step forward when the sound of an engine breaks the silence.
A vintage car, with a sleek black hood and sharp angles to its bumper, crashes through the woods and bumps down the dirt road toward the lodge.
“Jesus,” Kemy mutters under her breath.
The car lurches to a stop, and the driver’s-side door opens.