Chapter Eighteen Sloane
Chapter Eighteen
Sloane
Marsha Sullivan was in her garden yanking weeds when I pulled into her driveway. The house was a brick rancher with a long, narrow porch that stretched across the front. Baskets filled with ferns dangled as a rocker dipped back and forth as if someone had just risen out of it.
I shifted my sunglasses to the top of my head and grabbed my notebook and pencil. I’d spoken to Marsha a few days ago and told her about my project. It had taken some convincing to get her to agree to see me.
“Ms. Sullivan?”
She pressed the back of a garden-gloved hand to her forehead and rose.
When she faced me, it took me a moment to determine if I had the right person.
This woman, with graying hair and shoulders ripe with fatigue, didn’t look like the outraged teenager who’d advocated for the victims at the trial thirty-one years ago.
I’d read several profiles on Marsha. Almost all the headlines sounded something like, “Where Are Our Girls?”
“I’m Marsha Sullivan. And you must be Sloane Grayson.”
I extended my hand, finding a small smile and doing my best to appear approachable. “Thank you for seeing me.”
Sweat glistened on her brow as she nodded for me to follow her to the porch. On a small table between the two rockers were a pitcher of lemonade and two glasses. “I’m surprised. No one talks about the festival anymore or the girls.”
“That’s why I’m writing about it.”
“I heard your mother was Patty Reed?”
News traveled fast. “That’s right.” We both sat, and she filled two glasses with lemonade.
“You look like her.” She handed me a glass.
“You knew my mother?”
“We weren’t friends, but I saw her at the diner when I came in for breakfast before school. My mother wasn’t a morning person and didn’t like cooking breakfast. I also saw her with you at the trailer park. I think you were crying.”
“Sounds like me.”
“Babies cry.”
Sara used to complain I took crying to a new level. “What was Patty like?” My curiosity for my mother was a constant itch I’d never been able to scratch.
“Always had a smile on her face. She was a year older than Debra, and she was the one that encouraged Debra to leave home.”
Patty had left her mother’s home when she’d started dating Larry.
When my mother got pregnant, my grandmother had forbidden her to see Larry again.
Patty had refused. But as soon as Larry found out about me, he’d cut ties.
My sweet, loyal mother had gotten herself pregnant by a psychopath who would slaughter three random people in a bar fight two years later.
Larry’s genes swam in my body, and my grandmother blamed all my quirks on him.
I never hurt anyone like Larry had, unless they attacked a member of Team Outcast first. And even then, my revenge was nothing super violent.
I wasn’t the sweet, kind, or vulnerable girl my mother had been.
Nor was I a crazed psychopath like my father. I was somewhere in between.
“Why did Debra move out?” I asked.
“My mother married a guy who could be a real jerk. I went along to get along, but not Debra. She didn’t like Frank and never held back. Mom didn’t want to lose Frank, so she told Debra to move out. And she did.”
“How long did she live on her own?”
“Ten months.” As she sipped her lemonade, the muscles of her neck moved as if her throat hurt. “When she left the house, it all changed. Mom got weirder and Frank meaner. I spent my time hiding at friends’ homes or my bedroom.”
“Did you see Debra often?”
“At first yes. I’d stop by the dry cleaner’s after school. I’d bring us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and we’d talk. It was nice.”
“But that changed?”
“She got busy. Supporting herself, applying to colleges, and trying to be a teenager took all her time.”
“Debra dated a guy named Kevin, right?” Stored details from Taggart’s case notes rushed to the front of my brain.
“Kevin Pascal.” She set the glass down and rolled her shoulders as if shedding an old grudge.
“I’m assuming he wasn’t Prince Charming.”
“He wasn’t bad. He was attractive. Bought her flowers. Even flirted with me in a way that made me feel special.”
“Why did she break up with him?”
“Kevin didn’t like her spending so much free time on schoolwork. He got annoyed when she talked about going to college. He wanted a simple hometown girl who wouldn’t achieve much and thought the sun rose and set around him.”
“A witness testified that Debra and Kevin showed up at the concert together.” I didn’t need to reference my notes. “He was wearing his security guard uniform. They were seen going their separate ways.”
“She was meeting me at the festival. But her boss told her she had to close the store at the last minute. She called and said she’d get there when she could. I went ahead with friends. Kevin happened by the dry cleaner’s and offered her a ride.”
“Nice guy.”
“He liked to be the knight in shining armor.” A halting breath filled her lungs.
“You made it your business later to talk to everyone who saw Debra at the festival.”
“I did. I wanted to account for every second. I wanted to find her. But piecing together the evening was easier said than done. Booze, crowds, and chaos swallowed up my memory.”
The value of original sources could never be underestimated. “What didn’t you tell Taggart that you thought wasn’t important at the time?”
She drew in a steadying breath as if still carrying a weight. “I hooked up with Kevin at the festival.”
That was a new tidbit that had never been discussed. “Can you expand on that?” I made sure she saw no judgment. I didn’t care that she’d slept with her sister’s ex. What I cared about was how new information would get me to my goal.
She held my gaze for a moment and then said, “I was near the stage, off to the side. He saw me and came over and said hi. I was wasted. And Kevin was Kevin, always charming. He took my hand in his and asked if we could go to a quieter place to talk. He’d missed seeing me.”
Kevin had seen an opportunity and taken it. “And?”
“We walked away from the crowds toward the farmhouse.”
“Did you go inside?”
“There was a large shed in the backyard.”
I’d stared at that shed from the kitchen window when I’d been in the house last night. “I’ve seen the pictures of it.”
“The shed wasn’t as bad as anyone would think. Or I was too drunk to notice.” She ran fingers through her graying hair. “He was gentle. Maybe because he knew me or because I was young. It wasn’t terrible.”
But he’d known she was young and drunk. She was Debra’s little sister. He’d taken advantage. “What happened after?”
“He said he had to get back to work. I stayed in the shed and lay there for a while. Then I went back to the concert.”
“I don’t mean to be weird, but I’m going to ask indelicate questions.”
“It’s okay.”
“Did he talk while having sex?”
“He called me Debra once. Later, after she was gone, I thought back on that and wondered why.”
“No violence?”
“It was uncomfortable, but I didn’t know what I was doing.”
She might not have been a virgin, but she wasn’t super experienced. “And you never told this to Taggart?”
“When I sobered up after the festival, it felt like a dream. For a few days, I convinced myself it didn’t happen. But you know the harder you try to forget something, the realer it becomes.”
“You were at the trial almost every day. The prosecution called Kevin as a witness to establish timelines. Did you two speak before or after the trial?”
“No. I was ashamed, and he was nervous. He sensed he could be a suspect.”
“Taggart questioned him hard. But the sheriff couldn’t prove Kevin had anything to do with anyone’s disappearance.”
“Kevin’s big crime was that he was a shitty security guard. For all his talk of wanting to be a cop, he was afraid of conflict.”
“He failed the police entrance exams twice.”
She smiled. “Yeah, he never tested well.”
I sipped my lemonade, finding it too sweet for my taste. “This is great. Thank you.”
“I like sugar too much.”
“It’s delicious.” To prove it, I took another gulp. “Where’s Kevin these days?”
“After the trial, he left the area for over twenty years. And then about ten years ago, he moved back to Dawson. He works as a security guard for the computer company that located here a couple of years ago.”
“What’s the name of the company?”
“PH Puckett Computers.”
“Have you seen Kevin since his return?”
“From a distance. I sometimes check up on him.”
Stalking? My kind of girl. “Why?”
“I heard killers sometimes visit spaces that remind them of their victims.”
She was right about that. Killers often experienced sexual excitement when they revisited the burial site. “Do you think he killed Debra?”
“I have no proof. But if he wanted to, the concert would’ve been the perfect place to do it.”
“Why kill the other women?”
She shrugged.
“Does Kevin have a favorite place to visit?” I asked.
“No. But he does like to drive at night.”
“Any consistent destinations?”
“Every time I’ve followed, he goes northeast of town. Turns east before reaching the festival site.”
“And PH Puckett. When was the Puckett Computer building built?”
“Fifteen years ago. It was a large vacant tract of land in 1994.”
“How close to the concert?”
“Ten miles south of the venue and ten miles north of town.” She hesitated as pieces of a puzzle connected. “All that land was out of the way thirty-one years ago. Unless you were farming or poking around the old gold mines, there was no reason to go up that way.”
“Gold mines?”
“Not really gold. A hundred years ago, some fool thought he’d found gold. It was pyrite.”
“Fool’s gold.”
“Yep. The mines collapsed in on themselves before any of us were born.”
“Why does Kevin still return to that area?”
She shook her head. “Do you think Kevin got a job on the very site where the women are buried?”
“Maybe. He wouldn’t be the first killer to obsess over unmarked graves. Any other construction that happened after the concert?”