Rebecca Frost

Ollie Clark—Sunday, June 30, 2019

Esther looked around the apartment. “This is depressing. Are you staying through the whatever tomorrow? When we find out if he actually pleads guilty?”

“Arraignment,” Eli informed his mom, looking inside the bags from Taco Bell and starting to pass the food around. “At this point we figure we won’t leave until Tuesday, anyway, because we need to take some of the furniture to the dump.” That had always been the plan, but they thought they’d have another week to take care of all of that.

A week while Ollie hung out with Dad. So. She took a long drink of her Baja Blast and stopped at the ice pick headache from the cold. The trick was to warm up the roof of your mouth as quickly as possible, so she plastered her tongue to it and waited it out.

Mom taught her the ice cream headache trick. Usually it didn’t hurt her heart this bad.

“Your dad still hasn’t reached out?” Esther asked sympathetically.

“No.” This, Eli, was why you didn’t just keep water in the fridge. Room-temperature water helped warm your mouth back up. “I don’t expect to. Not after … everything. You hear from Serena?”

Esther tilted her head to say touché. “No. I don’t expect to.”

“Look at all of us and our utter lack of expectations,” Eli observed before biting into his Crunchwrap.

“Use a napkin,” his mom chided. “And I have a pretty good idea of what Serena’s going through.”

“Except,” Eli interjected, despite his full mouth, “her son actually did it.”

“Eli James, table manners! And I think, at this point, what I’m comfortable saying is that her son’s actually confessed to it.”

He grinned at her and grabbed some of the flimsy paper napkins. “That was good. You going to law school?”

“You and your sass,” she sniffed, but ruined it with a smile. “It’s good to see you acting more like yourself.” Except that made everyone recall that the entire reason Eli could relax was because Jared confessed to wanting to kill Ollie ten years ago. It wasn’t exactly a Disney ending. Esther delicately lifted her burrito. “Ollie, pick a topic.”

“Um. Elephants are the only animals with four forward-facing knees.”

“Sounds fake,” Eli countered before taking another huge bite.

“No phones at the table,” Esther reminded him, dabbing her lips with her napkin. “They don’t have elbows?”

Ollie shook her head. “Remember MindTrap?”

Eli nodded. “Sid Shady, Sam Sham … Detective Shadow …”

“One of the cards was basically the explorer guy, I forget his name, hearing that someone saw an animal come out of the pond and all four of its knees were wet, and he knew what animal it was.”

He pointed at her and turned to his mom. “We couldn’t actually play that game because she’d read the cards for fun and then read the answers and then remember all of them, so it was pointless. How many cards were in that thing? A couple hundred?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Ahhhh.” Esther nodded deeply. “That’s why you started getting all of those, what, logic puzzle book things?”

“Lateral thinking puzzles,” he corrected grudgingly.

“Out of the library!” She turned to Ollie with a knowing smile. “Because he was trying to beat you.”

Eli shook his head. “Because I thought they were interesting puzzles and if I had a book all to myself it didn’t matter if I had to flip to the hints or to the answers and get it wrong, because nobody knew I got it wrong.”

“Why did nobody else ever learn that, if you don’t react, Birdy stops trying to poke at something?” Ollie sighed.

“Because we all saw you,” he countered, “and how she kept trying to find other things to poke.”

“So I forced her to be creative and branch out.”

He grinned and leaned over to kiss her temple. “Sure, honey. Keep telling yourself that.”

“What about centipedes?” Esther asked suddenly.

Ollie blinked.

“As far as knees,” she explained. “I know they don’t actually have a hundred legs, but do they have knees? Do any bugs have knees?”

“This would all be so much easier if I could just pull out my phone and Google it,” Eli pointed out.

“Wait, so if you say something’s the bee’s knees, you’re actually saying it … doesn’t exist?” Ollie tilted her head as she sipped more reasonably at her drink.

Eli grinned at her. “Aren’t you a teacher? You should know this.”

“The whole deal about teaching secondary is that you have a specific certification, and mine’s English. There weren’t any questions about bug knees on my exam.”

“It could’ve come up,” Esther argued. “As a metaphor question. Does ‘It’s the bee’s knees’ mean a, it’s wonderful; b, it doesn’t exist, or c …”

“Very low to the ground,” Eli suggested. “Oh, knee-high to a grasshopper. Do grasshoppers actually have knees? They’ve got those giant thighs.”

“Aren’t the knees the highest part of a grasshopper?” Esther wondered. “Something knee-high to us is very short, comparatively, but with their legs all jacked up like that …”

Ollie laughed. “Do all sayings about knees involve bugs?”

“Again, if I could just get out my phone …”

“Mealtime is family time,” his mom responded, once again prim and proper. “Even if it’s Taco Bell for lunch at a rickety old table you’re taking to the dump tomorrow and there aren’t enough chairs.”

“Yeah, I don’t remember these rules from when I was a kid.”

She arched an eyebrow. “We’re allowed to grow and learn, Eli James. Even at my advanced age.”

Ollie smiled, because it sounded a lot like how she’d grown up. These were even things that she could see taking forward into the future, if she and Eli had kids of their own.

He caught her eye and shook his head, apparently reading her mind. “You’re no fun.”

“Hey, I just taught you elephants are the only animals with four knees,” she countered. “I’m tons of fun.”

Eli opened his mouth but nothing came out, so he ended up catching her hand and kissing the back of it as Ollie and Esther laughed.

---

Excerpt from the Keweenaw Report’s radio update, June 30, 2019

… and tomorrow, South Range resident Jared Chapman, thirty-one, will be arraigned for the 2009 murder of Wendy and Catherine Clark. Mother and daughter died as the result of a shotgun attack. Chapman’s cousin went to trial for the murder in 2009 but was acquitted. The case made headlines last winter when accused serial killer Sean Kelly was attached to the crimes but then, just over a week ago, Kelly was found to have an alibi. Chapman is the second person to be arrested in connection with the murders this past week, but his arrest follows a full confession. Chapman is expected to plead guilty tomorrow. We will explore the case more fully during Copper Country Today next Sunday when our host Finn Overton talks with retired attorney Clarence Neimi about the case.

---

Ollie Clark—Monday, July 1, 2019

Eli flatly declared that he didn’t even want to try to attend Jared’s arraignment, so they went through the rigmarole of renting a truck, loading up most of Eli’s furniture, taking it to the dump, returning the truck, and getting back to the apartment without mentioning that they were clearly keeping an eye on the time. Waiting for when it was reasonable to expect an update, even if they kept pulling out their phones under other pretenses. Esther said she wasn’t going, and Ollie really didn’t expect an update from Serena, but she had no idea what Dad thought, or if he’d go.

Len probably went, but even though he had Ollie’s cell phone number, she didn’t expect an update from him, either. Same with Roger Porvoo, although Ollie thought he probably already had his article written, even if nobody would read it until Tuesday. Late Tuesday, in most cases. There wasn’t really early delivery in South Range. At least the paper did come to your door, unlike the mail. It was usually a couple people in a car, one driving and the passenger tossing them out the window, instead of a kid on a bicycle, but the paper made it onto your property.

Most likely she’d get the news when a bunch of new messages came in asking about how she felt about the result. If she were lucky, the first one she listened to would actually tell her what the result was instead of just leaving it vague, like maybe the people calling had a standard recording and just had to add the right name to the intro, like an email list. And maybe all of this waiting and feigning nonchalance was doing odd things to her brain.

Eli told her to take the shower first once they got back because, even if they were going to start loading the cars later, they needed to cool off. When she came out, he passed his phone over so she could see a text from Len: Jared pleaded guilty. Sentencing is set for the 12th. Serena caused a scene. Randy was here at the back and didn’t say a word to anyone.

Wow. That was a lot of information.

“My turn,” Eli murmured, waiting for her to look up so he could give her a kiss. “You can check my other messages if you want, but I haven’t seen any from anyone I recognized until Len’s. Maybe you have one, too.”

There wasn’t a bedside table anymore—hell, there wasn’t a bed; tonight would be spent on an inflatable mattress borrowed from Harper and Brad—so her phone was on the kitchen counter. She checked it and found the same message from Len, like he’d copied and pasted it to each of them instead of just making it a group chat. That was weird, unless he had a whole list of people he sent it to and didn’t want any of them to know how many others got it. She gave the message a thumbs-up, because it was a half-step above leaving him on read, and took a slow breath.

Okay, Olls. This was further legally with Jared than it had ever been with Kelly. Jared said Guilty, so it leapfrogged a trial.

Well. In Michigan, at least. She hadn’t looked up what would happen if Kelly pleaded guilty in Ohio. On top of which, there probably wasn’t any reason for him to be moved to Michigan and plead. It was possible to get a death sentence in Ohio, even if it was a suspended death sentence. What would be the point of wasting the money to bring him anywhere else and go through a process that could end, at most, in more life sentences? Maybe—maybe—it would be worth taking Kelly to Indiana if they could prove he murdered people there, since they were still using the death penalty following the sentencing, but Ollie had tried to figure out the eighteen things that meant a case was really a death penalty case and her eyes crossed so … it didn’t matter. Rewind things back to June 20 and she never expected anyone to go on trial for Mom and Birdy’s murder, anyway. Anyone other than Eli, of course, but man, that felt like a lifetime ago. Now they had someone legally guilty of the murders, and … well. And.

Once they got back, she’d call Araminta and see if she could move up her next appointment. Especially if Dad was still incommunicado by that phone call. At some point Jared’s full confession would be made available to the public. Someone like Len, if not Len himself, would get his hands on it and incorporate it into a think piece, or a blog post, or … it probably wouldn’t just go up online in its entirety, but you could pay for copies of legal documents, right? So at some point she’d be able to read and … well, see if it made sense.

Except it didn’t make sense. She’d spent ten years living with it not making sense. Even Kelly and his traveling shotgun story didn’t really make sense. So why should it matter now, when the case was legally closed, if it didn’t make sense? There wasn’t just a suspect but a perpetrator, and even the schoolboard member with the mustache couldn’t say anything to her because it wasn’t Eli. Yes, it was his cousin, but she wasn’t marrying Jared.

Jared set out that night intending to kill Ollie.

That was something else for Araminta. She could shove it in a box and compartmentalize it as long as there was an open by date on the lid. Push it away for now and force herself to deal with it when she had Araminta to metaphorically hold her hand and literally pass her Kleenex.

So, right now … focus on getting Eli moved. On praying the inflatable mattress wouldn’t develop a leak and dump them on the floor in the middle of the night. On making the long drive and crossing the Mackinac Bridge with a car full of stuff blocking the rearview mirror when the construction meant she’d have to drive on the grate, guaranteed. And then on unloading the freaking boxes once they reached her apartment, although at least it was on the first floor. And they didn’t have to unload it all right away—Eli had a duffel bag to at least get him through tomorrow night without doing all that work. Right. That wasn’t exactly all positive, but she could concentrate on that and just get through the next couple days before she looked any further ahead.

---

Bury the Dead Epilogue – coming May 5

Ollie Clark—Saturday, June 29, 2019

Johnson didn’t like their answers. Well, no, Ollie corrected herself: he acted like he didn’t like their answers. It was probably a ploy, because if they kept insisting that yes, Jared could’ve done it … this could be true … then they were adding more bricks to the case. She really needed to get “The Cask of Amontillado” out of her head.

Exactly how much legal wrangling did they have to do if Jared confessed? And stood by his confession, of course. A lawyer, even a court-appointed, would probably try to talk him out of it. Try to get whatever he’d said thrown out, even if the Miranda Warning was properly given and he talked, anyway, just because he hadn’t said it in front of a lawyer. And obviously he’d given enough details for them to find a gun and the necklaces, which clearly nobody would’ve looked for without a nudge, but …

But. Ollie and Eli were still here, and so was Lieutenant Samuel Johnson, doubting everything they said.

“Mr. Chapman, you already went on trial for these murders.”

Eli gave a tight smile. “I remember.”

“So, if you thought we were wrong again … and we were going to put your cousin through the same thing …”

“Are you saying the case is just as circumstantial as the one Denomie built against me?”

Johnson winced. Ollie didn’t think the wince was intentional.

“If you think you have evidence against Jared in an open murder case, then yes, you should proceed along the normal tracks. Trial of his peers. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to go?”

“Trials are expensive, Mr. Chapman.”

“Well.” The tight smile stayed. “Good thing he’s confessed, then.”

Johnson cleared his throat and shifted in his chair, but Ollie wasn’t sure if he was back on track and this was part of his act, or if Eli really just threw him. “A confession isn’t a guilty plea. He still has rights.”

“So you want to tread carefully this time? Move slowly?”

“We have faith in the system, Mr. Chapman.”

Right. That’s why they were so sure Eli wasn’t guilty after the verdict came back.

Eli just looked at him. “Type up his confession and ask him to sign it.”

A muscle in Johnson’s jaw twitched.

Ollie wanted to ask Johanna how iron-clad that would be, but not in front of him. Did you really have to go to trial if someone said flat-out that they did it? Or could you just run that past a judge somehow and skip straight to the sentencing? More questions for Johanna, but again, not in present company.

Eli shrugged. It wasn’t his usual easy and open shrug, but it wasn’t a tight jerk, either. “Was there anything else you wanted from us?”

“I understand you’re moving downstate.”

“I am.”

“I also understand the wedding’s off.”

“Is that relevant to this investigation?”

Johnson looked at him, but Eli blinked as usual and didn’t let himself get drawn into a staring competition. He just waited, apparently politely, for an answer, but when Johnson opened his mouth it was to tell them he needed their phone numbers and all possible addresses at which they might be reached over the next few weeks. Good thing they weren’t taking one of those all-expenses-paid destination weddings. Eli wrote down his apartment’s address, Ollie’s apartment address, and both cell phone numbers.

They already had samples of his handwriting. It had never been relevant to the case, but they had it. And somehow he was thinking shrewdly enough to conclude that they shouldn’t give a sample of Ollie’s, just because you never gave the police anything for free. Even if you didn’t think they could use it. Maybe especially if you didn’t think they could use it. Although Ollie couldn’t come up with suspicious writing out there that needed to be tied back to her. Seriously, how long could a person’s head ache before you had to start worrying about things like brain tumors? How much chronic stress could a body be under before something broke?

Okay and that was part of the problem: if it was Jared, then this could stop. Everything since Kelly has an alibi could disappear. Just get lost in the fog that covered so many of her memories from a decade ago, and why the hell did they all have to be brought up again so fresh and raw after all this time? If Jared really did it, then she could bury this once and for all.

Johanna accompanied them back out onto the street, but Eli sighed as he started toward his car. “I know that look. She has something else to say,” he informed Ollie. “But not something to say too close to …” He jerked his head back to the police station.

“The weather’s been nice,” Johanna said in a tone that sounded like this was a perfectly rational response to Eli’s comments. “Not too hot. I’m really not used the heat anymore.”

“Where are you from?” Ollie tried not to show how inane she thought the cocktail party question was.

Johanna smiled. “Albuquerque. It’s a dry heat.”

“How the hell did you get here from Albuquerque?” At least this was an honest question.

She shrugged. “My partner went to Tech. I met them in Seattle, actually, but they always wanted to move back here. Life is weird.”

Eli snorted at that, hands in his pockets as he waited for the light to change. “This far enough?”

“Let’s mosey on down by the water.”

“Perfect paranoia is perfect awareness,” Eli recited with a sigh, turning to head down the hill instead of waiting for the walk sign to change. “She’s still not really used to the small-town thing.”

Johanna shrugged and took the critique literally in stride. “Actually, I’m wondering if you might need to use the small-town thing. Did you see the news last night?”

“Yes.” Eli pulled one hand out of his pocket to reach for Ollie’s.

“And, unless you’ve buttered Porvoo up lately, it’s just going to get messier. Right?”

Ollie sighed. “Because he’s going to muddy the waters?”

“Sure. He’ll play up the fact that they tipped to your dad because of Len Wilcox, who isn’t a police officer, and then how Jared idolizes Randy, so of course he came up with an elaborate confession to free him. Meaning your dad’s still guilty and shouldn’t have been let out on the streets to kill again, even though with the scenario he’ll be painting, your dad hasn’t killed since. So.” Johanna’s heels clicked along the paved bike path at a steady pace.

“So you think we have to talk to Roger?” Eli made a face.

Johanna tapped at her lips with one perfectly polished light pink fingernail. “I wonder if you shouldn’t talk to Mr. Wilcox.”

Ollie stopped walking. “Johanna.”

“He’s got a larger platform,” she explained, although it sounded more like musing. Like she hadn’t actually thought this through, or she suspected Ollie might agree if she laid it all out. “He’s also got to publish some sort of mea culpa for being wrong about your dad, and that would be easier for him if he’s got you apparently on his side, right?”

“I am not on his side.”

“The internet’s full of lies. I’m thinking he shares the interviews he’s collected, you say something like well, sure, if you only saw my family from the outside, I guess you could reach that conclusion, and then …”

Her head shook like a metronome. “I am not sharing anything with that—”

“Language,” Eli admonished.

“Oh, so now all of a sudden you’re down with this? Collaborating with Len Wilcox?”

“Just to be clear, we’re talking fully clothed and with me as a witness. Not whatever else he’d like to collaborate on.”

She pulled her hand away from his. “What?”

“You use Len to shape your story,” Johanna argued. “Use him. His platform. He’s your springboard because he’s already connected, he’s here, and if he writes something and puts it on his blog, it’ll get picked up and everybody will run with it, because he’s already connected and he’s here.”

“I’m not saying you bare your soul, Olls,” Eli argued. “Just give him enough to push things in the right direction. And it’s not even about your mom or Birdy, not really—I can even help you, okay? We can figure it out and write it down and give it to him so you’re sure of what he’s getting.”

“But …”

“Media and public pressure,” Johanna agreed grimly. “I know you hate the phrase, but in this day and age …”

Eli shrugged when she turned to appeal to him. “Use or be used. Rock and a hard place.”

Scylla and Charybdis, and oh, God, seriously, when would this odyssey be over?

---

Excerpts from Randy Clark’s interview with Sergeant Glen Waara, Deborah Binkman present, Saturday June 29, 2019

GW: Mr. Clark, I need to ask you about Jared Chapman’s suicide attempt.

RC: Jesus.

GW: I reviewed the police report this morning—

RC: Great, so you’ve got everything.

GW:—but I would like to hear from you. It’s about more than just the facts, Mr. Clark. We need to know if Mr. Chapman is believable.

RC: Shit. You guys just pile it on, don’t you?

DB: Perhaps you’ll give Mr. Clark a moment. Some breathing room.

GW: I’ll go get you a bottle of water. Coffee? Pop?

RC: Water’s fine.

GW: All right. You ready?

RC: No, but … okay. We made it through that first year, yeah? All those first anniversaries that everyone braced for. First holidays, first birthdays, the first … you know, first June 19. But then it seemed like a lot of people forgot. Most of them didn’t want to talk about Wendy and Birdy, anyway, like they thought we’d forgotten and moved on, or maybe just like they wished we’d forgotten and moved on, but after the first year? Yeah, no. Crickets. Ollie checked in, sure, and maybe Eli checked in with her, but … well. We’re not here to talk about Eli. I was the one with Jared. I learned to text because of Jared—how’s that for …? I don’t even know. It’s not irony, but …

GW: Go on.

RC: It wasn’t like I thought the one-year thing was going to solve it. Like he should just buck up immediately and move on, you know? But I still kind of … I was hoping it would help. It doesn’t help everything—I don’t want to leave that impression. You’re further away from That Day, sure, but you also keep getting further and further from the life you thought you were going to live. That still hurts. And forgetting hurts—when you wake up and go about your morning whistling before you realize oh, shit, they’re still dead. So I thought I got it, you know? He was still moping and trying to figure out where his life was going without her.

GW: Yeah?

RC: I thought I got it. But then I get home from work one day, tired as hell, and there’s a note stuck through the letter slot. Which is a joke in South Range, you know? Because we get all our mail at the post office. Nobody carries letters around, so I knew it was weird, and it was from him. You’ve probably … you’ve seen it? Is it still in the file?

GW: Yes.

RC: Right, so …

GW: What struck you about it?

RC: What …? Jesus, man. It’s this handwritten thing, barely legible, where Jared says he’s sorry for everything because he’s the cause of all our misery. Something like that. Classic depressed person thinking. I didn’t need anybody to tell me that. And he’d been getting better, or looking like he was getting better, and we all know that’s a sign, right? Ever since that one case … what was it, senator’s son?

GW: I’m not sure what you’re referencing.

RC: Doesn’t matter. The point is, I knew. He looked like he was getting better, pulling out of it, but he only pulled out of it enough to have the energy to do something about it. I turned right around and got in my car and drove to his apartment.

GW: Even though it wasn’t that far away.

RC: No, but it seemed like time was of the essence. I had no idea when he’d left the note. Hell, I was lucky I had my cell phone on me. I pulled up to his apartment—it’s not the one he’s in now—and it was a good thing I had his keys on my keyring, you know?

GW: Did you call him?

RC: I didn’t even think of it. If he hadn’t been home, maybe, but my first thought was just “Get there.” I would’ve broken in if I didn’t have the keys. It just … I never for a second thought it wasn’t a suicide note, you know? I wasn’t sure what I’d find. Pills, maybe, but … God, the blood. It stopped me. Not for too long, thank God, but it stopped me. So I called 911, and put the pressure on, and … God.

GW: Was he conscious when you showed up?

RC: God, I don’t know. He opened his eyes and sort of turned his head, but I don’t know if he even realized I was there. Realized anyone was there.

GW: Did he say anything?

RC: No. He was too far gone. I thought he was going to die before the ambulance showed up, and I thought … Jesus.

GW: You thought?

RC: I thought he was going to die thinking he made it worse for me. You know? By being … by missing Birdy. That he blamed himself for so much, when … God. Helping that kid kept me going. Especially those first couple years. I wanted Ollie out and away. I didn’t want to pull her down. But … Jared? The kid was drowning. He was worse than me, and saving him meant … God, this sounds like some hippie shit. Saving him felt like saving myself, and I couldn’t let him die thinking he hadn’t done any of that. You know? Like … okay, I’ll say it: like knowing Jared needed help got me out of bed in the mornings when I wouldn’t have gotten out for myself. Okay? Because he was a kid, and he didn’t have life experience, not really, not even with the shit his dad pulled, so he needed help. He needed me. I needed Ollie to grow up, to grow into her life and actually have one, but Jared …

GW: So he didn’t say anything to you?

RC: That day? No.

GW: When did you talk to him next?

RC: Next? Geez, um … weeks later. They took him away. I don’t know if Serena signed something or if it’s standard, with an adult or whatever, but they took him away. It was a while later. Quite a while.

GW: Did you talk about the suicide attempt?

RC: No. He didn’t want to. He wanted to ignore it and just … move on. Forget it.

GW: And you were okay with that?

RC: I figured it didn’t really matter if I was okay with it. The question was whether he was okay with it. I didn’t want to push him. I didn’t know what he’d talked about, who he’d talked to, that kind of thing. I figured maybe they’d told him not to talk about it with me, you know? Like he had a therapist or whatever and he’d talk about it with him, and then I just followed Jared’s lead.

GW: And Jared’s lead was to not talk about it.

RC: Right. He’d tried, he failed, it was over, and we could move on. I thought that, maybe, he could finally move on.

---

Bury the Dead 33 – coming May 3

Ollie Clark—Saturday, June 29, 2019

Lieutenant Samuel Johnson wanted to talk to them. To both of them. Together was fine, but he really wanted Eli to know that he needed to talk to them. So. Eli called up his lawyer to explain the situation, and then Johanna called back to let them know what time the interview was scheduled.

It wasn’t quite long enough for Ollie to tackle all of the plates, and that just made her feel even grumpier. Push it back half an hour and she would’ve made it, but instead she had to shower and get dressed to talk to someone who looked familiar because he’d been there first to arrest Dad and then to find the shotgun walled up like Fortunato in the basement. Except it only lasted ten years instead of fifty. What if Dad sold the house and they did demo work in the basement and found that stuff? Drywall really wasn’t as solid as bricks.

Johanna Aho had always liked Ollie and had been as gentle with her as possible during the trial. It was the prosecuting attorney that really hurt, all things considered, but Johanna still didn’t have to be as nice as she was. Part of that might have been a show for the jury to contrast her with Denomie even more, but it didn’t matter if Ollie met her inside the courthouse, in front of cameras, or alone. She was young, so it was more of a big sister thing than a mother thing, but she was clearly protective, and she’d bring teeth and claws out if she had to. Ollie really hoped she wouldn’t have to, but she was glad Johanna was there in case teeth and claws were needed.

The uniformed man introduced himself as Samuel Johnson, purposefully leaving off his title, which Ollie suspected made him one high-ranking muckamuck. He wouldn’t have functioned as the lead in the investigation into Dad if he was just a nobody. “Can I get you some water? Pop?”

“No, thanks,” Ollie answered as she took her seat, mentally cursing Mom for making that thanks automatic.

“I understand that this is a very difficult time for you,” Johnson—he didn’t look like the kind of guy you called Sam on short notice—offered when Eli didn’t respond.

“Well. It’s not the worst week of my life, but it’s second worst, so that’s saying something.” Asking him outright about his role in Dad’s arrest would likely be deemed needlessly antagonistic and make Johanna clear her throat. Ollie didn’t mind being needlessly antagonistic, but that would just eat into their time and make this whole ordeal last longer.

Johnson did a good job of looking honestly uncomfortable with her response. “Well, let’s get you out of here as soon as possible, then. Ms. Clark, Mr. Chapman … you are aware that Jared Chapman has confessed to the murders of Wendy and Catherine Clark on June 19, 2009?”

For God’s sake, just call her Birdy. That’s what was on her tombstone: Birdy Clark, no middle name, because that’s who she’d been. Birdy, Birdy, Birdy.

“Yes,” Eli answered.

Johnson nodded. He didn’t mind playing the prolonged silence game. “Is there any reason you can think of that Mr. Chapman—Jared Chapman—would have wanted to murder you, Ms. Clark?”

Oh, well. Straight to the heart of it. “He didn’t give you a reason?”

“We like to confirm our evidence from multiple angles.”

So, what, if she gave a reason different from Jared’s, they wouldn’t believe him? But it wasn’t like confirmation from her was proof. “I inherited Birdy’s college fund. If I’d died, she would’ve inherited mine.”

“The amount in each individual account was not actually enough for a single person to attend an in-state school without assistance such as scholarships.”

The amount in each individual account was trotted out for the world during the trial, thank you, as well as Ollie’s scholarships and work-study package. “That is correct.”

Johnson shrugged. “It hardly seems enough motive for a double murder.”

Eli sighed. “Are you local?”

“Sorry?”

“Did you grow up around here?”

“No.” Johnson smiled. “I’m from downstate.”

“Yeah, see, grow up around here, any number with a comma seems like a lot of money. Take a peek at Jared’s paycheck back then. Hell, maybe even now. And if you’d asked him what cost of living meant ten years ago? Or cost of living in California?” He shook his head. “People like to throw around that quote about how money can’t buy happiness, but if you have enough of it, maybe you can stop worrying and get a good night’s sleep.”

Johnson nodded slowly like this was profound. “So you believe that your cousin would have murdered your fiancée, then girlfriend, in order to get her college money.”

“Yes.”

“Because he’s the kind of person who sees murder as a solution to his problems.”

“Because he and Birdy had the kind of toxic relationship that brought out the worst in both of them.”

He tapped a pen on his pad of paper, which was out and open even though he hadn’t written a word on it yet. “That sounds awfully close to blaming Birdy for her own murder.”

“Really?”

Johnson turned to Ollie, one eyebrow raised politely.

“You didn’t read anything anyone else ever said about my sister? I get accused of looking at her with rose-colored glasses, but they don’t. Whiny bitch, right? Nothing’s ever good enough for her, she has to be the best, her home life sucks … if she found the right person, she could’ve easily wound him up enough to where he’d want to save her, even if she didn’t realize. It’s plausible, Mr.—Officer. It sucks, and I don’t like it, but unlike your other possible suspects, this one’s plausible.”

“And he gave you something, right?” Eli prodded. “That’s why you came out to Randy’s house and found the gun and the necklace. Jared told you where to look.”

“The purported murder weapon was still in your father’s house, Ms. Clark. We can’t rule out the possibility that Mr. Clark told Mr.—Jared about it.”

“Because a forty-year-old man would totally leave cheap couples’ necklaces behind and carve the initials of his younger daughter and her boyfriend on the gun?” Ollie didn’t really want to use the word shrine in front of this guy, but le mot juste was le mot juste.

“We do not currently have proper insight into the mental states of either Mr. Chapman or Mr. Clark, much less what they may have been a decade ago.”

Yeah, which was why this guy was asking them, but he didn’t have to come across as so skeptical.

“Look, Officer.” Eli leaned on the table over his crossed arms. “First you all thought I did it, and I knew you were wrong. Then you arrest Randy, and I knew you were wrong again. Now that it’s Jared?” He shook his head slowly. “This one could be right. That’s the scary thing, you know? This one could be right.”

---

Excerpts from Serena Chapman’s interview with Sergeant Parker Dennis, June 29, 2019

SC: I want you to know that you’ve made a mistake.

PD: Well, we want to be sure it’s not a mistake, but we’re not the ones who made it, ma’am. Your son came to us yesterday and gave us a detailed confession of the double murder.

SC: This past week has been very hard on him. The same way it’s been on all of us. They told us last winter it was solved. It was that serial killer, Sean Kelly. Jared could finally relax. It would have been better if there was a reason to go with the name, and not just “because he’s a serial killer,” but there you go. Randy even went down to Ohio to talk with that lawyer. He took Ollie and Eli with him. It was solved.

PD: I understand your frustration.

SC: Do you really? Because you weren’t the ones who solved it? All these years later, and it stopped being a cold case by accident. And then they walked it back. Oh, no, sorry, he had an alibi for that evening. And now they’re looking for alibis for all the other evenings and you’re after my son. It’s an outrage!

PD: Was it an outrage when your nephew was arrested?

SC: That’s the distant past. We’d really rather not think about it.

PD: I believe we have you on record saying you were shocked and saddened, but you never spoke up for Eli’s innocence.

SC: Well, did he need me to? Seems to me that all worked out just fine. Even though I heard the wedding’s off … it doesn’t matter. Eli’s not my concern.

PD: Because he never was?

SC: Mr. Dennis, I was a single mother with my own son. I tried to help my sister-in-law as much as I could, but human beings have limits. To both their resources and their patience.

PD: Do you recall how Jared reacted on Saturday June 20, 2009, when he saw Olive Clark at your sister-in-law’s apartment.

SC: How could I? I wasn’t there.

PD: But you got a phone call.

SC: Well, yes. You would expect one if your son’s been hauled off in an ambulance.

PD: You met him at the hospital?

SC: Once they allowed me back, yes. They said he was in shock, and … I don’t remember all the terms. They’ve got it on file, I’m sure.

PD: I’m sure they do, but what do you remember of that day?

SC: Well, I was worried. I can’t say I was thrilled he was dating Birdy, but he did actually seem serious about her. And this whole thing … the collapse … we’d been through a lot, what with his father being … who he was … and then leaving us, but this … this was bad. No one expects an eighteen-year-old girl to be brutally murdered in her own house, right there on the front steps where all the neighbors could see. Of course, we all thought it was Ollie, but a nineteen-year-old isn’t any better. And he was in shock. Medically, not just how we say that about people.

PD: Did he say anything?

SC: Well. He tried.

PD: Can you remember what he said?

SC: I suppose … the things you’d expect. “I can’t believe it.” Maybe even “I can’t believe it was her.” Things about how she was supposed to be at camp. That was the main thing we all thought, though. It shouldn’t have been Birdy dead because that would be the first time anyone knew where the sacred weekends were disrupted. Randy was always a tyrant about those. Jared couldn’t see Birdy, you know, on her weekend with him. I never understood it. It was like a divorced family, and he never let Wendy leave the house, poor thing. Of course she died in it—she never went anywhere else.

PD: Back to your son in the hospital …

SC: I really can’t remember anything else. I was worried, but it’s not … it’s not like he suddenly grabbed my wrist and looked me in the eye and told me he shot her.

PD: It’s not?

SC: No, of course not. How could you even suggest such a thing?

PD: Mrs. Chapman …

SC: He was in shock. He was upset that Birdy had died. He even—well.

PD: He even?

SC: It’s gossip. I’ve never seen it confirmed. She probably lied to him.

PD: Mrs. Chapman, if it’s something he said at the hospital that way …

SC: Fine. Under duress. I don’t want you spreading this around. He said something about Birdy being pregnant. And that it was his. Which would have been terribly irresponsible of both of them, and they weren’t even together that long, so I really doubt it could have been, considering her track record, but he was very upset because she’d told him she was pregnant and he …

PD: How did he react?

SC: Well, he’d been calming down, but then all the monitors started going off and people came in and had to give him something else.

PD: That seems to indicate he believed it was true. Even if it wasn’t.

SC: Right, so, not only was Birdy dead, but she’d lied to him and ruined him for any other relationship in the future. Did you know that? Ten whole years, and he’s never so much as dated anyone else. Hasn’t even met women for drinks, and sometimes I think that’s all he’s good for these days. Drinking. But she lied and told him she was pregnant, he was going to be a father, and then she got killed before he could find out the truth. It ruined him.

PD: He was also in the hospital when he made that comment about waking up and Eli wasn’t there.

SC: Yes, and then he explained that he meant “in the bedroom” and not “in the house.” Honestly, you shouldn’t even have been allowed into that room. Questioning him while he was still in the hospital, good Lord. How reliable is a young man supposed to be when he’s just learned his girlfriend, possibly pregnant, was shot in the face and killed for no reason?

PD: So you think he was far more reliable yesterday than ten years ago.

SC: I have no idea what he told you yesterday, but you’d just arrested Randy Chapman for the murders, and the one good thing that came out of all of this was Randy. Jared barely had a father when his father was around, and he didn’t get a dad until Randy showed up. And kept showing up, because that’s what dads do.

PD: Mr. Clark’s the one who realized your son attempted suicide.

SC: Yes.

PD: Can you tell me about that?

SC: I’d really rather not.

PD: Mrs. Clark … it’s a delicate situation, but your son did confess yesterday. If you can provide us information that he’s not …

SC: Not entirely stable?

PD: Not entirely trustworthy, then … you’ll help him.

SC: Well. You should really ask Randy.

PD: We will. I believe Sergeant Waara is talking to him as we speak. But … the more perspectives we can get …

SC: Yes, of course. Well. For me it started with another phone call.

---

Bury the Dead 33 – coming May 3

Ollie Clark—Saturday, June 29, 2019

When Ollie woke up, it was still the most recent text from her stepmom: He doesn’t want to see you. Granted, it came after Your dad’s home, but it wasn’t exactly an uplifting end to her Friday. They showed them the photos from the basement, removed all the evidence, and then Cindy said it would probably be a good thing if Ollie and Eli left before Randy got home. It was part optimism, the idea that he would be released and come home, and part … well. Defensiveness? A need for space so Cindy could start to cope with this new information? A request to handle whatever Randy’s reaction was on her own, without outside interference?

It didn’t matter. Eli went down to clear their stuff out from the bathroom, Ollie went upstairs to throw things back into the suitcase, and they returned to his apartment for more packing. What else was there to do? He didn’t have a TV, so they watched the news on Eli’s phone, eating some of the last things from his freezer in a weird buffet of nearly-expired dishes. Houghton didn’t have its own news station, and the paper wouldn’t be out until Saturday afternoon, but Marquette picked up the story. Their reporter didn’t mention Len Wilcox at all.

Ollie supposed she slept better either because she’d finally been able to relax certain muscles or because she knew Eli’s bed and didn’t have to worry about Cindy being in the next room over. Eli had neighbors, sure, but that wasn’t the same. They could talk about Dad, for example, in normal voices without worrying she had her ear to the wall or something.

Eli leaned over to check her phone screen and then kissed her bare shoulder. “We could go,” he offered. “If we really buckle down, we could probably get the cars packed today. Tomorrow at the latest. Leave my key with Brad, head downstate … just go.”

“So, like, completely eliminate the possibility of some kind of reunion?”

He shrugged. “Take the pressure off. He doesn’t have to decide now. We just have to figure out how to pack the freaking plates.”

“Wrapped in newspaper, on their sides. And this is far from over. Jared confessed and they’ve got him in custody, but there are still so many steps.”

“Which I’m sure Serena will be there for, but you and I don’t have to. And I mean it—maybe Randy just needs the pressure off so he doesn’t have to feel guilty that he’s not bridging the gap when it’s so small. Downstate isn’t off the map, but it’s not like he can just walk around the corner and try to blurt out an apology when all he means is ‘Stop being ridiculous.’”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “So when I moved to Traverse City away from you …?”

Eli grimaced a little sheepishly. “I didn’t like it. I thought you’d be better off, going away and meeting someone else, but yeah. I mean, you know it took me a bit, but I got over myself.”

“So you think Dad’ll get over himself, too?”

He shrugged again. “I have no idea. He might not, ever. But, if I may point out: you’re the one who made those calls and canceled everything he’d paid for. Told him he didn’t have to save the date. So that kind of looks like you’d already accepted that he just wasn’t going to be in your life, anyway.”

Ollie sighed and leaned against him. “Do you think we’re allowed to leave? When there’s crimes and stuff, don’t they usually ask people to stay in the area?”

“First, we’re not exactly fleeing the country. They’ve got our phone numbers. And I can call and ask one of those detectives just to make sure. While you start packing the plates.”

“You know we don’t even really need your plates, right? I’ve got plenty.”

“We’ve both got plenty for a single person. I think we’d get really tired of running the dishwasher or doing them by hand.”

She nodded slowly. “Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“How are you doing with this?”

Eli took a slow breath and locked his arms around her, maybe partly to keep her from being able to see his face. “You mean the news that my cousin was prepared to kill my girlfriend and actually thought he had, because of the whiny rants of her annoying little sister, which no one listened to but him because everyone else realized they weren’t the truth?”

“Yeah. With that.”

He sighed and nuzzled her neck, seeking the warmth. “It’s pretty shitty, actually. I try to stop myself, but I keep replaying parts of the trial in my head. What his face looked like. Which is pointless, because you were all sitting behind me and I wasn’t supposed to look at you when I was on the stand, but I’ve seen some of those video clips, you know? All the body language experts back in the day, trying to read all of you, saying he’s clearly tense but arguing he didn’t want to have to face that his own cousin killed his girlfriend. Even though …”

Even though. There was a lot of even though.

“And then after, like, did he only start hanging out with me because he was sorry for me? Sorry he’d put me through that? And then I go and just blab about Birdy all the time thinking man, that must suck to have nobody to talk to about her. And I’m telling him all this stuff you’ve told me, or sharing some of your emails, you know? Like the one where Birdy told you that you could narrow down bridesmaid’s dresses to three, but then she’d pick one of the three, and how you were allowed to look better but she still had to look hot. All that teasing where you threatened to put her in polka dots and she said you had to give her three color options, too, and they couldn’t all be shades of pink. All the stuff she never told him because it was easier to turn you into one of Cinderella’s wicked stepsisters.

“And I guess part of me gets why he slit his wrists that night, carrying all that around, these two things that just couldn’t be true at the same time, but then also, did he ever think of killing me just to get rid of that? Of killing you, but the real you this time? Because he couldn’t have just been so stunned by the whole thing that the thought of violence totally went out of his head, right? A guy whose response to his girlfriend’s complaints is to track down a gun, carve their freaking initials on it, and shoot two of her family members isn’t just going to drop that approach, right? Especially because he got away with it.”

Ollie tilted her head. “If he’d killed me, he would’ve gotten away with it. But he killed Birdy. She was pregnant—he knew she was pregnant. Whatever else apparently went right that night, he killed the two people he so desperately wanted to save. You don’t think that would be enough to make every other choice self-destructive?”

He grumbled a little, but she thought he was honestly thinking about it. “Just because all we saw was the drinking and slashing his wrists—which he only attempted the once, by the way. And that was years ago. So if he was really that upset about it … I’m just saying. Neck’s surer than wrists.”

She shuddered because he said it so casually in a way that meant he had this information so close at hand for a reason. “They’ll probably force him to do some kind of therapy now. Maybe they’ll figure it out.”

“Therapy only works if the person going wants to put in all the effort. Lead a horse to water …”

“He kept it to himself for a freaking decade, but Dad’s arrest got it out of him. And come on—isn’t one of the AA steps confessing everything you’ve done? So, like … now that it’s out … what’s stopping him?”

“He wasn’t drunk when he killed your mom and Birdy.”

“How do you know? We don’t even know what he said. We just know they found a freaking murder shrine in Dad’s basement.”

Eli played with the edge of the sheet, still not moving anywhere she could see his face. “I don’t think it was a shrine to the murder. I think it was for Birdy.”

“He hid it.”

“Yeah, the way he had to hide exactly what he was so upset about. Just … I don’t know.” With a sigh he finally pulled back to look at her. “I don’t even know which side I’m arguing right now, except I wouldn’t mind getting the hell out of here for a while. And we do really need my dishes.”

Sighing, she checked the time. “You call. I’ll pack.” But first she caught his chin and pulled him in for a kiss.

---

Excerpts from Randy Clark’s interview with Sergeant Glen Waara, Deborah Binkman present, Saturday June 29, 2019

RC: What, Johnson and Dennis didn’t want to do this today?

GW: They thought you might be more comfortable with an unfamiliar face.

RC: You going to be dragging my daughter in for some of this, too?

GW: We’ve reached out to both Olive and Eli to ask if they could answer a few questions, yes.

RC: You mean explain it to you. Solve your case for you.

DB: Randy—

RC: Look, I know why you’re here, and it’s not to protect him, okay? We’re talking about the murders of my wife and my younger daughter, and they arrested me for that earlier this week, so come on. Let the record show I’m pissed off, because I am.

GW: I understand, Mr. Clark. You’re here because we’ve received a confession to those murders—

RC: Jared.

GW:—and we’re trying to determine if he’s telling the truth.

RC: Fucking Jared. You found that gun in my house and you still think he’s lying?

GW: The timing is … less than ideal.

RC: Oh, that’s a good one. Ideal would’ve been, what, June 19, 2009 at 11:45pm? Right after? Or, no, if we’re dreaming, he would’ve told somebody his plan before he did it and you would’ve stopped him. I’d be a grandfather. My wife would be a grandmother. Ollie’d be an aunt. Less than ideal? Jesus.

GW: Do you have any evidence to support his confession?

RC: To support …? I’m doing your job for you again?

GW: Mr. Clark, in order to properly prosecute the charges of murder against Jared Chapman—

RC: Yeah, yeah. I just … you know why it’s now, right? Because you arrested me, and that kid is so messed up he couldn’t handle it. His own cousin, fine, who cares? But me? That’s what did it. There’s your why for your less than ideal timing, okay?

GW: He did seem most concerned with making sure we let you go, but you can understand our confusion about why he would care about you when …

RC: God, we keep doing this. That was ten years ago. I barely knew the kid ten years ago. He’d stop in and say hi when he picked her up, and I knew his sports records, but we didn’t spend time together. We weren’t friends. God, like we’re friends now? This whole … Did he tell you why? About them. Did he give a reason why?

GW: He did, but we were wondering if you had any ideas of your own before we told you.

RC: You’re all backward, do you know that? No, I’ll answer, just … I’ve spent more time this past week thinking about that night than I have in years, okay? Add in the fight with my daughter, a couple nights suffering your happy hospitality, and this is just not a good time. Okay, so, you’re saying Jared’s the one who shot them, yeah?

GW: That’s his confession, yes.

RC: So he thought he was killing Ollie and Wendy. Do I have to go over all that again?

GW: No.

RC: Good. Okay. What else do you need? Birdy was pregnant, he was the guy dating Birdy, babies need money … and that kid … God. Birdy. She wanted to be gone. Grown up and out there. Just fast forward a couple years. I think … her mom and I settled young, you know? It happened fast with us. Then she saw Ollie and Eli, together forever, just that solidity … she wanted out. And Jared’s the kind of guy … I’m not saying he’s stupid, but if he’s confessing, then I’d guess he did it for money. Because he thought killing Ollie and Wendy would mean Birdy inherited their money. It’s childish reasoning, but they were still kids.

GW: Jared Chapman was twenty-one at the time of the murders.

RC: The legal definition’s your business. He was still living at home, working a part-time job, not supporting himself, and he still thought like a kid. Magical thinking. You telling me they didn’t see any of that yesterday? Hey, can I read it? What he said?

GW: We’d like to get—

RC: My opinion, yeah, sure, but after. Look, you know what’s happened since then, right? How I’ve … he’s like my kid now. Or was, I guess, but he just … he looked worse than I felt, you know? There I was, without my wife, without one of my daughters, and I told Ollie to go back to school because that was the plan, you know? The plan her mother and I had for her. First in the family. Go to school, get a good life … a better life than we have around here, and that’s … well. That’s personal.

GW: Mr. Clark? If it’s relevant …

RC: You don’t even believe his confession. Can you tell me what’s relevant?

GW: At this point in an investigation we don’t like to narrow things down too far. In case that means we miss something important.

RC: Ah. The way focusing on Eli made you miss Jared.

DB: Mr. Clark is a grieving husband and father who’s had a very stressful week. I suggest you allow him to draw his own boundaries in this interview and come back with more specific questions later, should you have them.

GW: The main concern is whether we have the right person. RC: This time. Stop kicking me, Deborah. I’ll talk. It’s the only thing I’ve been able to think of. My wife, Cindy … she didn’t know Jared before, so she’s having a harder time of it than I am, but we still talked it through. Things that make me think Jared’s story is real? Number one, he was in the hospital when he gave you that line about Eli being gone, and he was there because he saw Ollie and had a serious breakdown. Maybe the medics caught him saying some weird things. I mean, I lost both my wife and my kid and I didn’t need medical intervention, you know? Number two, he went and hid away from everyone, me especially. I figured I knew what the kid was going through, you know? He didn’t have twenty years with Birdy, but she was still the person he figured he’d spend tomorrow with, right? Then he tried to kill himself fast by slitting his wrists, and he’s still drinking a lot, and he’s still single because he only goes out to work or to drink, and he’s completely fixated on Ollie and Eli getting married. And I know, because before yesterday I would’ve told you, that it all just seems like a grief reaction to his first serious girlfriend’s violent murder. Hey, who am I to judge his mental and emotional whatevers? Just because he looks like Mr. Strong Sports Star, so on and so forth. But I can tell you, and still would’ve before all this, that it really looks like Jared’s life stopped on June 20, 2009. The moment he saw Ollie alive, nothing else mattered. Not even his own life.

---

Bury the Dead 31 – coming May 1

Ollie Clark—Friday, June 28, 2019

The funny part—sadly, ironically funny and definitely not the cheerful chuckling kind—was that Ollie thought Cindy had a long-running internal debate about whether to offer the police coffee. It was long-running because the warrant was for the basement and the basement alone, so they hadn’t been kicked off the property or even asked to move to the backyard. There was one officer posted at the top of the basement stairs and one more at each door, and they were the two Ollie was pretty sure caused Cindy some grief. Like they were guests in her house and hadn’t shown up with a fancy bit of paper saying they had to do some demo work.

The group that actually went downstairs carried things like crowbars, so Ollie was also pretty sure Dad was going to be pissed about whatever happened. He’d spent a lot of time down there getting things just right. More than necessary, some might say, spreading out the work to take up his time and let him focus on creating a space his wife and younger daughter had never occupied instead of focusing on why they’d never use it. Dad and Cindy hadn’t really used it, either.

Cindy wanted to play proper hostess and offer her guests coffee when in reality the guests were there to make sure the work going on down there wasn’t disturbed. That no one suddenly made a break for it as a declaration of guilt, and no calvary rode on up the hill to prevent the impending discovery. If there was actually anything to be discovered. The clock on the microwave said they’d been at it for an hour.

Why the basement? Did Len have some sort of Gacy fixation, too? Nothing happened in the basement. Seriously, Mom and Birdy maybe went down the original creepy steps a half dozen times between the two of them. The Christmas decorations and out of season clothes got stored in the attic, and the basement was off-limits for games of hide-and-seek because it was damp and dirty and dark and the floor was uneven and Dad always said he didn’t need some neighbor kid twisting an ankle and the resulting lawsuit.

Ollie actually thought Dad was afraid of the basement. There’d been a similar one where he grew up.

Eli had the pad of paper from the fridge and, despite her apparent lack of interest, kept making new grids and playing Dots and Boxes with her, even making some obviously nonstrategic moves just to goad her into drawing more than one line and putting an O in a bunch of squares. It wasn’t annoying, exactly, and true, she didn’t have much in the way of concentration or brain power just now, but … okay, and it wasn’t like he was cheerful about it, but even the grim determination felt off-putting. He had enough energy to keep pushing back against her, and that just didn’t seem fair.

There were footsteps on the new non-creepy stairs, which were still wood and therefore made the boots sound very loud indeed in the small space, and a man emerged holding an iPad. “I’m wondering if I could show you a few things,” he asked, sweeping his eyes around to make it clear that the pronoun was plural. “Get your reactions.”

Oh, God. Police, especially those with as many extra things on their uniforms as this guy had, wanting your reactions was not good. And it was surreal that he held up the iPad to show them a photo—surreal enough that Ollie frowned before she caught herself. It was a very clear, starkly lit photo of a shotgun leaning against a wooden stud, partly visible thanks to the drywall that had been pulled away.

“Oh my God, is that downstairs?” Cindy asked, both hands going to her mouth.

“Cindy, maybe you shouldn’t say anything,” Eli said quietly.

The officer kept his eyes on Cindy and swiped for another photo. This time all the drywall was gone and the shotgun looked like a modern art exhibit.

Cindy shook her head slowly, eyes wide. “The basement was all finished before I ever saw the house.”

“Cindy.” Eli’s voice was still quiet, but harsher.

“It doesn’t make any sense. That’s not …” She turned to Eli, apparently deciding he was the proper audience for this appeal. “Randy’s never owned a gun. It doesn’t—it doesn’t make any sense!”

Silently, the officer swiped again and obligingly brought the iPad closer to the table, since this shot was darker and just generally harder to make out. There was something on the horizontal strut.

“What is that?” Cindy asked, hands no longer by her mouth because confusion had overridden the shock.

Gamely, he swiped again.

Now spread out next to a ruler, the jumble turned out to be two fake gold necklaces, turning green, with pendants that fit together to form a heart. They didn’t say best friends forever—they didn’t say anything—but the heart was filled in with red glittery stuff that had dried and cracked, because it was the cheap sort of jewelry you could buy at, say, Claire’s at the mall in Marquette and give half to your sweetheart while you wore the other one. Cheap jewelry. The kind a teenager, or someone dating a teenager, would buy.

Cindy just shook her head, and Ollie felt a bit of pity for her. For her innocence, or naiveté, or whatever it was that couldn’t last much longer.

The man swiped again, and this time the view was the gun laid out on a cloth, showing the other side. There was something on the stock—carved into it, maybe. Before Cindy could say anything, possibly that she couldn’t see it very well, he swiped again to show them a close-up. There, crudely hacked into the wood, was J + B 4eva.

---

Excerpts from Jared Chapman’s interview with Lieutenant Samuel Johnson and Sergeant Parker Dennis, June 28, 2019

JC: There was a lot of work to be done on that basement if it was going to be livable, which I think was the point. Randy had his job, sure, but he also had nights and weekends and he’d already run Ollie out of the house and back to school, so what else could he do? Plus it was inside, so as long as he didn’t mind tromping all the stuff in and hefting it down the stairs, he could work on it as long as he wanted, never mind the snow. And that’s what he did. That’s what he told me he wanted me to help with.

SJ: So you worked on it together?

JC: Sometimes. Other times he’d have work but I didn’t, and he gave me a key to the house. I could come and go whenever. He didn’t even care if I, like, made dinner in his kitchen and put the leftovers in the fridge. Plus, since it was construction, it wasn’t too weird for me to bring up a duffel bag with a change of clothes or some tools I found at a yard sale or something. Which I really only did so it wouldn’t be the first time someone saw me go up with a duffel bag.

PD: The time you took the gun up.

JC: Yeah. I had to time it—Ollie kind of threw off my timing again, but … well. I’d been so wrong about her, you know? Eli and I got to talking, really talking, after his trial, and the things he told me … just the way he talked about Birdy … he didn’t like her. A lot of people didn’t like her. But he loved Ollie, and she loved Birdy, and I could just tell. You can’t fake that, man. Birdy lied about her. She loved her, wanted the best for her … and I was going to kill her. Ollie. Because of what Birdy said.

SJ: How did Ollie mess with your timing?

JC: Well. Put a deadline on it. She was coming home for Christmas, right? After exams? So I wanted to get it in before then. Even if Randy wanted to stop work over Christmas, while she was home, I wanted to get it out of my room. And this one other—it’s so stupid.

PD: Go on, Mr. Chapman.

JC: I’d bought us these cheap necklaces. Me and Birdy. You put them together and they made a heart. She wasn’t wearing it when I shot … when I shot her. It was upstairs in her jewelry box. Ollie’s actually the one who gave it back to me. See what I mean? It was just this cheap thing, and I hadn’t even been with her sister for long, but once she went through Birdy’s stuff and she found it, she wanted me to have it. Because she said Birdy would’ve wanted me to have it. And I couldn’t wear it, either hers or mine, not after … so I took those up with me, in my pocket, and they went with the gun.

SJ: Into the basement.

JC: Yeah, in one of the walls. We had all the studs up and the first part of the floor in, so I figured I could start the drywall one day while Randy was at work and make the gun disappear. There weren’t any wires or anything in the spot I picked, just the stone, and it wasn’t one of those places where the mortar wasn’t solid and you might be able to peek through from the outside. Just leaned it against the stud, tossed down the necklaces, and started putting up the drywall. I had to be very careful—it had to be perfect, with a level and everything, so Randy wouldn’t see it and say I had to do it over, but I did it. And that was something I could Google, too. Not like shooting a gun. Randy thought it looked so good he had me do all the drywall in the whole basement. Not that it’s big, but it was a huge compliment, coming from him. A huge compliment, and he didn’t know I used it to hide the murder weapon.

PD: So if we go into the basement in the Clark house …

JC: It’s the corner opposite where the stairs end. Not under the stairs—that was going to be trickier and I didn’t want to bite off more than I could get done in a day. Here, you got some paper? Okay, thanks. So the door here is in the kitchen, and the stairs come down … the bathroom’s over here … it’s this one. I can’t remember exactly how many studs from the corner, because the whole point was that I’d never have to use the damn thing again, but if you go into that basement, you’ll find it. And …

SJ: And? Something more than the shotgun and the necklaces?

JC: No, it’s on the shotgun. Another childish … God, it feels so stupid now. Knowing how much she lied, and then … I carved our initials into it. So childish. I didn’t know what I was doing. J plus B 4eva.

SJ: Forever?

JC: No. It was a lot harder than I thought. The wood. Or maybe I didn’t have a good knife. So it’s a plus sign between the initials, and the number four, and then e, v, a. 4eva. Which probably should’ve been a sign, right? If you can’t even write the whole word out … J plus B 4eva. Except I used the gun, what, two days after finishing that, and I shot her. Killed her. And our child. So 4eva was two whole days. I think about that a lot.

---

Bury the Dead 30 – coming April 30

Ollie Clark—Friday June 28, 2019

Cindy retreated for her phone call and hadn’t come down by the time someone pounded on the front door, but this time it wasn’t followed by an authoritative voice declaring himself as a member of the police. This wasn’t a policeman. Len Wilcox didn’t even have a press pass he could hold up, like he depended purely on his face to get himself in.

Ollie opened the main door but left the screen door between them and then waited.

“What the fuck’s going on?” Len demanded in a low voice, leaning in to get that air of intimacy despite the wire mesh. “Roger Porvoo just called me to say Jared’s downtown talking to people? Like they took him back and everything? And his contact said to hold off on printing anything about Randy.”

She raised an eyebrow and continued to wait.

“I went down there and I don’t know how many coffee shops are right around the police station, but I tried too many of them. I walked that block I don’t know how many times, but he hasn’t come out yet. Nobody’s come out. Jared’s been in there for hours, and that wouldn’t happen unless they thought they had something.”

Well. Jared could be in there alone in a room, sitting and waiting for people to come back and finally interview him. No matter what Roger’s contact said, they didn’t have to be listening to him. Just … keeping him, maybe to see how serious he was about what he had to say.

“Ollie. What’s Jared doing? He’s ruining everything.”

She licked her lips and considered before speaking. “What’s ‘everything’?”

“What?”

“Well, the thing is …”

Eli came up behind her and paused, quietly, with his hand on the small of her back.

“My ‘everything’ was ruined ten years ago, so whatever Jared’s up to is small potatoes. But, if you want something even more recent, how about a week ago? Sean Kelly has an alibi. Everyone seemed to think that was supposed to make it okay, you know? Because we had a name? Even though it didn’t undo a darn thing from ten years ago. So you’ve got Jared down at the police station and who knows what he’s saying?” She shrugged. “What do you even think he can do?”

“Look, Ollie, it sucks but I know your dad’s guilty. He did it. And now Jared’s going to ruin it because you get the police academy washouts and they don’t even have the single brain cell God gave all orange cats.”

“And that’s going to ruin what, exactly? Outside of your tell-all book about how you single-handedly solved this cold case and renewed my family’s tragedy for money.”

That made him straighten up. “It’s justice. And people deserve to know.”

People deserve to know? No, people were all too greedy for news updates in bite-sized pieces they could chew and forget until the next one came along. They thought they somehow deserved to witness grief in real time as people tried to process the horrific thing that happened to them and were now expected to externalize that process so strangers who’d never had anything worse than a splinter could think they understood the pain. And anyone with access to a recording device thought it was their job to charge in and shove it in someone’s face to catch every incoherent word.

Len freaking Wilcox, honestly. The University of Wisconsin should rescind his journalism degree.

This time he waited for her to break the silence. “If it’s justice, then you can attend the trial, same as anyone else. I have nothing more to say to you.”

“But—”

“We have your contact info, Len. If Cindy has anything, she’ll call. Otherwise …” Ollie lifted her chin to indicate the rental car parked in the street. “Get out of here.”

“Is that Len?” Cindy called from upstairs, followed by the thump of bare feet on the risers.

The man in question smiled smugly and raised his voice. “Yes, it is!”

“Good. Okay.” Cindy waited for Eli and Ollie to move out of the way, but she didn’t open the screen door. She just faced him through it. “You’ll be hearing from Deborah, but just so you know, we’re rescinding all permissions to use anything either of us has said to you, recorded or otherwise, in any works of any kind, including but not limited to written. Just so you know.”

Len blinked. “But …”

“She’s already gone over the contract Randy signed. Which he only did sign because you have that way out written into it. She said it’s probably so you can get what you want and then guilt them into letting you keep it, but you’re not keeping anything from us. So.” She crossed her arms. “That’s all. You may leave now.”

He bristled. “It’s your one chance to—”

“My overflowing inbox says otherwise. Good day, Mr. Wilcox. You’re trespassing.” She closed the door firmly and threw the locks.

Ollie raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t clear that with Dad.”

“If he balks, Deborah’s going to make it an order. Tell him it’s a condition of her continued service.”

“What, lawyers can lie to you now, too?” Eli asked wryly.

“She doesn’t have to hold on to a fool for a client. If Randy’s not going to act in his own best interest, she doesn’t have to go down with that ship.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t have to go down with it, either,” Cindy said archly. “I haven’t started packing, and I’ll see how this all shakes out, but if the scales tip and ‘I told you so’ feels like the better future …” She sighed and closed her eyes, rubbing at her temples. “I’m sorry, Ollie. That came out a bit harsher than I meant it, but he’s going to such lengths to protect your mom without seeing …”

“What it’s doing to you?” Ollie finished.

Cindy shrugged. “To me, to him … to both of you … I don’t know. I want to flip ahead and peek at some of the pages in the future to figure out if this book is worth reading.” Then she sighed. “It’s probably not a good day for me to try talking about any of this.”

“There’s plenty of moose tracks left,” Ollie reminded her.

“I haven’t had anything today but coffee. Is moose tracks a good breakfast?”

She shrugged. “It’s probably got less sugar than a lot of the cereals Mom wouldn’t let us buy.”

“Yeah, okay. Moose tracks for breakfast. If you can’t do that while your husband’s being held for murder …” She took one more look out the front to make sure Len was really gone, nodded, and then headed back to the kitchen.

---

Excerpts from Jared Chapman’s interview with Lieutenant Samuel Johnson and Sergeant Parker Dennis, June 28, 2019

JC: I couldn’t really see much inside the house, but that was fine. I was jumpy and I felt like I might faint if I relaxed at all, anyway. I just figured, you know … Ollie and Wendy were about the same height, and I didn’t have to aim properly, anyway. Buck shot.

SJ: At such a close range—

JC: Sure, it wouldn’t have much of a chance to spread, but it didn’t need much, did it? And the first one, that first person, came right up to the door. She opened the inner door and she was right there, but I’d backed down the steps a bit so I could plant my feet and raise the gun, and I’m not sure she even saw me. Just blam, and there was a hole in the screen. She took a step back and went down.

PD: And you got her in the face so you didn’t even know—

JC: Man, I couldn’t have told you where I shot her. All I knew was she was down and the other one was coming. I—okay, this is how little I knew, you know? I still don’t even know the right words. I popped the thing out and brought the gun up to shoot again, and you already know I was kind of an idiot, because you found both shells and all these experts were asking why I didn’t just leave the second one in, you know? I don’t even remember all the steps. I just saw the one shell lying there on the pavement, so I bent down and grabbed it, and I kind of straightened up again and tried to look in, but they weren’t moving. Two women, down, check. So I circled the house again, on the uphill side, angling away toward the neighbor’s back yard to keep out of the motion sensor’s range. I’d been doing good up until then, nothing more than a fast walk, but once I hit the alley I panicked. That’s why I tripped and fell and dropped the other shell near the Harrisons’ backyard. It was dark enough I couldn’t be sure if it was theirs or the Vedders’, but it was that side of the alley and about that far up. Then I reversed my path earlier: top of the hill to 1st, Globe to Trimountain, and back across the highway.

PD: And nobody saw you?

JC: You tell me. Nobody stopped me, and nobody reported seeing me. And I would’ve looked guilty as hell by then. I was all stiff-legged, like some sort of zombie speed walk, and my eyes felt like they’d never close again. The adrenaline, man. It didn’t matter that I still had the gun—if anybody had stopped me, they would’ve realized something was wrong. And I felt like the world’s least graceful water buffalo when I came back into the apartment and took off my shoes, but Eli didn’t wake up. He hadn’t even moved. I’d done that, just killed two people, and he hadn’t even moved. I went back into my bedroom, put the gun back under the mattress, and … man, I was so jacked up. I didn’t want to turn the light on in case anyone outside saw it and said oh, yeah, Jared was up all night, isn’t that weird? Because I wasn’t supposed to know yet. It would be hours before I was supposed to know. If anyone came banging on our door before dawn it wouldn’t mean the end of the world, since someone would’ve gone to Esther’s to find Eli and then figured he was with us if he wasn’t there, but it would be bad. Because the scene was bad, you know? And officially they’d want to tell Randy and Birdy first.

SJ: Even though you’d just—

JC: Man, you’re stupider than I was, okay? How many times does someone have to point out nobody knew about the switch? From what Ollie’s told me lately, it went down the way Randy always said it did: Birdy asked him to take Ollie so they could talk about Eli. Which has never made any sense whatsoever, unless you wanted it to support the story that Eli was the killer, which was just fucked up. I really thought you guys were going to nail him for it, all because she told another lie. Birdy Clark, man, always telling fucking lies. Except this time you were the ones who fell for it.

SJ: Mr. Chapman—

JC: Just hold your horses. The way I figure, I’ve told you maybe two things that weren’t made public: the shells weren’t found together, and the sensor on the garage was knocked out of true. Did they find that, by the way? Did anyone notice?

PD: It’s in the official report, yes.

JC: Okay. And I told you how I got the gun, but it’s untraceable. That thing bruised the fuck out of my shoulder, by the way. It would’ve been so obvious if anyone looked at me, but you didn’t. I was terrified you would, but I also didn’t think I could move the gun right away, and then … you talked to the paramedics who came to my aunt’s house, right? The ones who couldn’t sedate me enough with what they had on hand?

PD: Denomie interviewed them, yes.

JC: And still nobody caught out. You all thought I was just freaking out because some whack job killed Birdy and here was my proof, and not … not …fuck. I did it. I was so sure, so confident, that I was doing the right thing, and then I see Ollie, still breathing, and the dominoes fell. Because I shot two people in the Clark house, and if she wasn’t one of them … shit.

PD: Take your time.

JC: Yeah, because I haven’t taken long enough? The point is, that gun was under my mattress for weeks. First when they released me from the hospital I had people watching me just about twenty-four/seven in case I cracked again. About the only good thing was that my mom had stopped doing my laundry or cleaning my room when I was thirteen, so nobody was going to find it. I figured maybe I’d drive it out to the Portage and throw it in, but that never seemed like a good enough idea. And then …

SJ: Then?

JC: Then Randy Clark decided that renovating the living room wasn’t enough. He wanted to tackle their janky basement. You couldn’t even keep anything down there before without putting it on a table so it wouldn’t get wet, and he wanted something livable, which means he had a lot of work to do. And, unlike the living room, he wasn’t so set on doing it all himself. In fact …

SJ: In fact?

JC: He wanted me to help. He paid me to help. Something to get me out of my apartment and off my ass where he thought I was grieving Birdy and totally blameless. Like it wasn’t my fault. Randall fucking Chapman has spent the last ten years telling me to my face that it isn’t my fault while trying to keep Eli away from Ollie, and how’s that for irony? Excellent judge of character, my ass. I killed his wife and daughter, just blew them away, and the dude breaks into my apartment and freaking pays me to help renovate his basement.

---

Bury the Dead 29

Ollie Clark—Friday, June 28, 2019

Ollie tried a deep breath. “Are you supposed to get him a lawyer?”

“No. He specifically said not to. Only if the court appointed can’t ram this all through, but we’re supposed to just sit and wait for someone to call and tell us we can pick Randy up.”

Cindy shook her head. “They don’t have to let Randy go just because they believe Jared.”

Eli raised an eyebrow at her.

“You heard of Making a Murderer?”

“Heard of. Never seen it.”

“They put two different people on trial for the same murder, with two different stories about how the murder happened, and both of them are still in prison.” Then, at Ollie’s frown: “Seriously. I don’t know if the uncle actually did it, but the kid certainly didn’t.”

“But the kid confessed, right?”

Cindy shrugged. “He did. It should’ve been thrown out. It was coerced. The point is, they used the kid’s confession to nail the kid, but they didn’t bring it up at all in the uncle’s trial. If they think they’ve got something on Randy, they might still arrest him and say they worked together but Jared’s trying to save Randy by saying he did it alone. Jared confessing doesn’t mean Randy will be released, and it certainly doesn’t mean they’ll believe him.”

“Even though they believed the kid?” Eli prodded.

“You’d better hope whatever Jared says doesn’t go like that interrogation. The two guys doing it fed the kid the information. If Jared’s going to convince them, he’s got to tell them stuff he could only know because he was there. Nothing they tell him first and nothing someone like Len could’ve found. And then whatever he says should line up with the evidence, which didn’t happen in the show.”

Ollie pinched the bridge of her nose because she wasn’t sure her brain was doing a good job of keeping real life separate from Cindy’s description of the show. That was also real life, but not real life here, and not real life with people she actually knew. She either needed more coffee or a very long nap, and right now a nap seemed out of the question.

“Jared’s stupid,” Cindy declared, getting up and carrying her mug over to the coffee maker. “I don’t think he’s telling the truth, anyway, and even if he is, he didn’t think this through. They’re just going to both end up in custody, and he doesn’t even want a lawyer? Stupid.”

Eli’s lips pressed together but he just looked at Ollie instead of trying to protest, and hey, they’d known each other since they were five. Without saying a word, he told her She only thinks that because she never saw him before.

Although, truth be told, Ollie herself had almost forgotten Jared Before. Prior to dating Birdy, Jared was just an upperclassman, two grades ahead, a God on the football team and not too shabby in his other sports, either. It was Serena more than Jared who put Eli up—or put up with him—when he needed the escape, and Eli stopped trying to tag along with his older cousin before he was out of diapers. It was clear Jared didn’t want him, so Eli got used to plunking down somewhere with his book and coming to the dinner table when called but otherwise not being an annoyance. In his formative years, Eli was trained not to be an annoyance.

Eli closed his eyes. “Damn.”

“What?”

“I just thought to myself that I’d like to know how much Len thinks he knows because then it would help us try to figure out what else Jared would have to say to convince them.” He shook his head. “There’s no evidence. That’s the whole problem. There wasn’t any back then, and what’s he going to say now to convince them? There’s nothing to check it against. The entire living room’s been redone, your mom and Birdy were cremated …”

Ollie shuddered and waved away his apology. Dad took care of all that without consulting her, although it wasn’t like Birdy could’ve had an open casket funeral, anyway. Anyone who’d seen Birdy’s body wouldn’t have been able to tell for sure it was Birdy. All the Clark women looked so much alike. They knew Mom, because that shot got her in the chest, but, until they saw Ollie still whole and walking around, everyone just knew she was the other dead body. There were plenty of reasons her brain shrouded that time of her life in mist.

Cindy shook her head. “Jared needs a lawyer.”

“It’d be on your own dime,” Eli cautioned. “And you’re already paying for Deborah.”

“So your cousin’s panicked and delusional and maybe drunk and you just want to leave him in jail?”

Eli shook his head. “If he’s drunk and delusional, they won’t believe him. They think it’s Randy, so they’ll be focused on that. The only way they’d believe Jared, whatever the breathalyzer shows, is if he can tell them things only the killer would know, and even then they’d have to be sure he didn’t find out just because Randy told him. I guarantee that right now they’re sitting there thinking Jared’s wasting their time to distract them from whatever they’re putting together about Randy.”

“Wait, so then I need to call Deborah and tell her …?”

“To tell Jared to keep up the good work?” Eli suggested. “If he’s distracting them, let him distract them, right?”

Cindy frowned. “You think Jared did it.”

“I think it’s one possible explanation for stuff we’ve been giving him the benefit of the doubt over for the past decade, yeah.” He shrugged. “Everyone’s been all oh, you poor thing, you lost your girlfriend, but Jared spiraled hard. Birdy was pregnant when she died, okay, that’s an extra blow, but …” He spread his hands. “Jared ended up killing his pregnant girlfriend by mistake and only afterward learned any other perspective about her family? That’s plausible.”

“You think your cousin committing a double murder is plausible?”

He just shrugged again. “Everyone was convinced it about me. It’s amazing how your mind can work to connect the dots.”

Cindy shook her head again, this time disgusted. “I’m calling Deborah.”

---

Excerpts from Jared Chapman’s interview with Lieutenant Samuel Johnson and Sergeant Parker Dennis, June 28, 2019

JC: I bought a gun in Wisconsin. You won’t be able to trace it—that was the point. It was outside a gun show, so not one of the people who actually paid to be there, and the guy made sure the license plate of his truck was covered up. With a confederate flag. He didn’t offer his name, I didn’t give mine, and I paid him cash. I didn’t even haggle. I didn’t want to Google a bunch and have you all suspicious of my search history, so I picked a shotgun because I figured the whole scatter thing would mean I didn’t have to aim all that well.

SJ: So you can’t prove—

JC: I took that day off from work. It was a Tuesday. Not the Tuesday the same week—the week before.

PD: So … June 9th.

JC: Sure. Check with them down at Econo. I pissed them off enough. I think Brock was gearing up to fire me when it happened, and instead I got a whole bunch of bereavement leave. More than I was supposed to get, and I didn’t really go back, anyway, but Brock’s got a long memory. Even if they don’t have the paperwork anymore, he’ll tell you.

PD: Go on.

JC: I hid it under my mattress. I didn’t even want to test fire it, because I figured I’d get caught doing that, and then I couldn’t help her. I’d take it out whenever I was alone and just try to get used to it. Dry firing, I think you call it. And then, each time, I’d wipe the whole thing down, you know? Like someone would find it under my mattress and believe I didn’t know it was there if it didn’t have fingerprints on it. Stupid, you see? I was so stupid back then.

SJ: So you planned it all for the nineteenth.

JC: Yeah. Yeah, even though—yeah. The previous weekend was Ollie’s weekend, so I couldn’t do it then, hey? And … shit, okay. That day, after lunch?

PD: June 19, 2009?

JC: Yeah. Birdy stopped by and asked me to go for a walk with her, and she told me … she told me she was pregnant. She waited until we were out in the woods a bit, nobody else around, and broke down. Started crying, and I was, like, worried she was breaking up with me or something, right? Like maybe her mom finally worked on her and told her to break it off. But it was just hormones, I guess, because she said it, told me she was pregnant, and then kind of … well, left it open for me to figure out what was next.

PD: What do you mean?

JC: I mean she said “Jared, I’m pregnant,” and then just stared at me. Face all blotchy. Snot coming out. A total wreck. She didn’t know what to do, okay? It was … it was weird. She’d spent all this time being a little spitfire about how unfair things were and listing off what she’d do if she could, but then … I mean, it wasn’t the end of the world. Not entirely in the plans, but come on, everyone knew Wendy was pregnant when she married Randy. I guess she only turned Puritan after having two kids in two years, you know? Because I didn’t—okay, Birdy told me she was pregnant.

PD: Yes.

JC: And I was already thinking about how to help her, right? And I’d already planned for that weekend, anyway. Birdy would go off with her dad after dinner, Ollie and Wendy would sit around eating chocolate covered cherries or whatever and gloating how they were both better than Birdy, so on and so forth. So I start reassuring Birdy that we can still do it. She can still do college in California, get in the fall semester at least, take spring off, I’ll get a job and we’ll have an apartment. And she’s calming down, so I ask her to marry me, and she bursts into tears again. Which I guess a lot of women do in that situation, anyway, but she also has to get back for dinner. That’s fine, because that’s what I need: Birdy to go off with Randy so Wendy and Ollie are alone, you know?

SJ: With you so far.

JC: I get back to my mom’s place and Eli’s there, but whatever. He doesn’t say anything to me, like usual, so that’s fine. Mom’s got dinner, we all grab plates, it’s fine. I go into my room at the normal time, and that’s fine, too. Mom goes to bed early. Eli didn’t come in, which had me nervous, but when I got up and looked out, he was passed out on the couch. Snoring. The works. So I took the gun out from under my mattress, slipped into my shoes, and left.

PD: What were you wearing?

JC: You say that like I had a huge wardrobe. My sneakers, blue jeans, black t-shirt, my gray windbreaker, and those cheap thin knit gloves you can get at Walmart. Basically normal except for the gun. I thought about trying to put it up my sleeve or down my leg or something, but I figured I’d rather be able to run if I had to. And I wanted to look normal—just me, going for a walk and carrying something. It wasn’t dark dark, but it wasn’t light, and I could avoid the streetlights. You know where my mom lived back then, right? Other side of the highway, kind of across from where Eli lives now?

SJ: Yes.

JC: Avoid the streetlights, hang back until there’s no one on the highway … then I went all the way up the hill first, Trimountain as far as it goes and then over to 1st. I’d thought it all out, you know? So even though my heart was pounding so hard I couldn’t hear anything else, I had the plan. Up to the top of the hill, then down the alley to their house. I should back up—you know they had that motion sensitive light on the garage? Earlier in the week I’d nudged the sensor. To me it looked like the thing was way off, but nobody fixed it by Friday night, so I could go from the alley to the garage and get in the normal door without setting the light off. I left the gun there, just propped up inside, and circled back the same way to the alley. Then I went back up to the top, using the alley, and took a stroll down 2nd just to make sure. If there was anything suspicious … but there wasn’t, so I got to the bottom, went over to the alley, and came up again.

PD: But the light would’ve caught you in the driveway.

JC: I didn’t use the driveway. I was overcautious, maybe. Get the gun out of the garage, close that door again, back up enough so I could get around the house without activating the light, and come around the uphill side to the door. It didn’t go on at all while I was there. All those people who said they saw it? They added that in later. Whoever said he saw someone running downhill got into everyone else’s head and they all added in the light, but I did the whole thing in the dark.

SJ: So you circled the house on the uphill side …?

JC: And then I rang the doorbell.

---

Bury the Dead 28

Ollie Clark—Friday, June 28, 2019

Cindy shook her head firmly. “He’s had a breakdown, he’s probably been drinking, and he’s lying because he thinks they’ll have to let Randy go.”

“Hmm,” Eli said.

She blinked and drew back. “You don’t think he could actually have done it? Shot Wendy and Birdy? You said they were toxic, maybe, but … mutually, right? So …?”

He shook his head slowly. “Olls pointed it out, though. There were only four people in the world who knew it was Birdy here and Olls at camp.”

Ollie shook her head once, violently, even though she still wasn’t sure her lungs were working. She felt … well, not frozen, but … in stasis, maybe. Like any moment now her heart would start beating again and she’d hear it in her ears, and feel her breath pull at her muscles, and just … get back to living.

“Birdy complained about everything,” he said slowly, feeling his way along a crumbling ledge at night. “It didn’t matter to her if her complaints could be backed up with empirical evidence—she just complained. And she was either the best of the best or the one being wronged, every single time. Right? So … unless they were having sex every single second they were alone together … she probably complained to Jared. Right? And we all knew the words.”

That made her nod slowly because yes, it was a familiar song. On the record, even, because everyone wanted multiple voices saying that Birdy was a whiny brat.

“She complained about money that year, and it ramped up because you were gone. Clearly there was enough for you, because you’d escaped. You weren’t stuck negotiating your parents’ rules anymore, and it didn’t bother her that your dad doesn’t like me. She never saw when things were even in how they treated you, or when things weren’t good for you. You were always a year older, a year ahead, so you got the license and the car and the boyfriend before she did, and it wasn’t fair. She wanted to get out, to get away, and it wasn’t fair. Over and over and over.”

“Broken record,” Ollie murmured. Birdy was the reason so many kids their age knew what a broken record was.

“But she’s also the girl who cried wolf,” Eli continued, still slowly, but now more sure of himself. “She fought with your mom because it got her attention, and she fought with your dad because he did always treat the two of you differently, even if you each thought the other got the better end of the deal. She tried to fight with you, but you just backed down and let her have her way, except that wasn’t what she really wanted, either. She had her friends who would do or not do whatever she said, and maybe she slept with all those guys or maybe it was just rumors, but …”

Cindy shook her head slowly and continually but didn’t try to say anything.

“Along comes Jared,” Eli mused. “And why not? Ollie’s off at college, but Birdy knows we’re still going strong because Ollie says so. She knows we’re talking marriage. Ollie’s ahead of her again. It doesn’t even matter, maybe, that I’m not the good Chapman, because the point is that Ollie’s got something she doesn’t. But there is another Chapman, and he’s older. Old enough to buy beer. And maybe he’s got the same sort of reputation, so maybe it starts with sex and booze, but …” He looked up at Ollie. “What if he listened? What if he was the first person to ever actually listen to her complaints … and he believed them?”

Ollie shook her head in small, tight jerks. “He’s the one who stood up to Dad and told him he either accepts you or loses me. He’s been our biggest champion. He’s pissed you didn’t propose earlier! Move in with me earlier! He’s been rooting for us!”

“Only after.” Eli’s voice was still calm. He didn’t raise the volume or the pitch, and it made her take a breath and actually listen. “Jared didn’t care about you before. He barely cared about me before. After the trial, when we did start hanging out, I’d reminisce with him about Birdy. I’d tell him things you’d told me, you know? The rose-colored glasses things, because you were the only one who really saw her that way, and he was just shocked. Like he couldn’t believe that you didn’t hate her. Even with all the emails and everything that came out, and even with you being there for the trial and never backing down. Except, no, that’s wrong,” he interrupted himself. “He wasn’t just shocked that you loved her. He was shaken.”

“You make Birdy sound like an absolute terror,” Cindy protested.

Eli raised an eyebrow at Ollie.

She let her head fall back against the wall. “She was an entitled, spoiled teenager who never got the chance to sort all that out and find more productive ways of navigating the world, okay? A lot of teenagers can be terrors. That wasn’t what made her special.”

“Honey, the fact that you thought other things were special about her floored him. It did. I thought it was just because I was willing to talk about her, you know? Because so many people don’t want to talk about the dead, so he was just surprised it didn’t bother me. That he was reacting to the fact I was talking and not the kinds of things I was saying, but maybe it was, Olls. Maybe when I thought I was being kind, I just kept steamrolling over whatever thought of you. The person Birdy painted you to be.”

Ollie lifted her head and opened her mouth to protest, but it hung there for a long moment. “Eli.”

“Yes?”

“The twentieth.” She swallowed, but it hurt her throat. “At your mom’s place. When Jared showed up.”

Eli’s face went slack. “Oh, God.”

“What about the twentieth?” Cindy almost snapped. “When Jared showed up where?”

“Dad took me to Esther’s because he couldn’t drop me here, and then Jared showed up. And, when he showed up …”

“He had a breakdown.” Eli cleared his throat. “A complete breakdown. Really horrible. Mom had to call an ambulance, but it wasn’t like in the books. They took him away. He really, completely had a breakdown when he saw you. Because …”

Ollie closed her eyes. “Because that’s when he realized he shot Birdy instead of me.”

---

Excerpts from Jared Chapman’s interview with Lieutenant Samuel Johnson and Sergeant Parker Dennis, June 28, 2019

PD: Do you understand your rights as we’ve explained them to you?

JC: Yes. And I don’t need a lawyer except to make sure this happens as quick as possible, okay? Randy didn’t do it. I did. And fuck, he’s one of the people who needs to know. He thinks he can read people …

SJ: You’re not currently under arrest, Mr. Chapman.

JD: Yeah, and that’s your mistake. Can I start?

PD: Please.

JC: Okay. I started dating Birdy right after her birthday. She turned eighteen on May 6, and we had sex for the first time on the eighth. And then just about every day up until the … you know. We were together a lot. I didn’t have a job, and she didn’t really care about school, so … point is, we spent a lot of time together, and she spent a lot of time complaining about how things were in her family, which was kind of surprising to me, because I figured hey, she’s got two parents, and they’re doing well enough her mom doesn’t have to work. I knew Randy didn’t like Eli going with Ollie, but I avoided him back then, anyway, and, like … well, I thought it meant Randy had taste.

SJ: What—?

JC: Let me get this out the first time through, okay? We can go over it as many times as you want, but right now I just need to get it out.

PD: Continue.

JC: The point is, I didn’t know Birdy or her family before then, so I was a … a blank slate. Everything I knew came through her, but I didn’t think about it that way back then. I just knew she wanted to spend time with me, naked, which wasn’t anything new, but she also wanted to talk to me, and that was. She told me about her mom being strict and overbearing, like a Puritan, except Ollie was somehow perfect, so I figured Eli was too much of a wimp to try anything with her, and her dad kept putting his foot down on … everything. Just awful.

SJ: You never went over—?

JC: A few times, sure, but they never asked me to stay for dinner or anything. I wouldn’t have wanted to, anyway. And I guess when Ollie got back from college she took Birdy out for a birthday dinner, but I didn’t know about that until later. Much later. Birdy gave me some story about her mom for that day, so I didn’t know. Look, it’s not an excuse, but it’s the truth: I didn’t know. Birdy told me her parents were awful and they liked Ollie so much better because she did everything they wanted, and then her parents gave Ollie the money to get out and away, except it didn’t matter because she was perfect, anyway, so … you know this part. Carrie and them all talked about it at the trial.

PD: Yes.

JC: Well, Birdy told me more than she told them, and I felt honored. Like she trusted me when she couldn’t trust her girlfriends. And even though Ollie was home, she kept wanting to avoid the house, avoid her sister. I asked her once if she wanted to double-date with Ollie and Eli and she just shut me down with a look, like I wouldn’t get any ever again if I insisted on it. And I thought … I thought it was because Ollie was awful to her. Like I figured if I was there, too, then Ollie would have to be on her best behavior, right? She’d have to play nice and maybe we could have a good dinner and get a … there’s a French word. Not a reunion, but a …?

PD: Rapprochement?

JC: Yeah, that sounds right. I figured Randy liked me, the real man-to-man thing, so I had an in. Even if Ollie complained, Randy would have my back. And then I could work on Randy, too. Maybe not make him realize what he was doing to Birdy, but pressure him into … I don’t know. Supporting her better, I guess. God, I was so … I had this idea I could talk him into the money for her freshman year at college, but I didn’t know, like, anything about timing or having to pay to secure your spot or just anything. The way Birdy talked, money would solve it, so, if I could get her the money …

PD: Ah.

SJ: Continue.

JC: Yeah, so … day in and day out: I don’t know what I’m going to do, Jare. I’m going to be stuck under their thumbs forever, Jare. I can’t just move out and get a job, Jare. Well, she figured she could if she stayed in the area, because she could find an apartment for cheap, but it would be too close. And she’d looked into apartments in Marquette, because maybe she could mooch off Ollie if times got tight, but then she told me she didn’t want to be that close to Ollie, either. So, if I wanted to do anything for her … if I wanted to help her at all … she needed money.

SJ: How did you know that killing Wendy and, uh …

JC: Well, the family was weird about money, right? So one of the things Randy made them do is write their own wills. Not even once they turned eighteen—he took them to a lawyer and had them do it when they were younger. I thought it was weird. Death obsessed, maybe. His dad died when he was young, you know? Stupid accident. And Wendy’s parents went in that car crash. I don’t know. But the thing was, Ollie’s will said everything, one hundred percent, should go to Birdy. Which meant her college money, because she was over eighteen, yeah? I figured that was all hers, so then it would end up in Birdy’s account, and bingo.

SJ: Even though …?

JC: That’s what Birdy suggested would happen. Yeah. She didn’t out and out tell me to kill Ollie, but she had a lot of if scenarios: if Ollie got hit by a car … I guess the whole family was kind of death obsessed. But if Ollie died in a way that had nothing to do with Birdy, then her money would become Birdy’s. Unless Ollie decided to change it and leave it all to Eli, which Birdy figured she’d get around to any second because Eli was going to propose. I never asked him, but Birdy was sure: Eli was going to buy Ollie a giant rock and propose, and then the two of them would be legally entwined and he’d have access to her money.

PD: How was Eli supposed to afford a huge rock?

JC: Well, I guess the plan was he’d get a big loan or something, buy the ring, get Ollie’s money, and … I don’t know. Birdy had it all figured out, okay? She knew what was up, and she knew them all better than I did, so that’s what I had. That was the scenario. Everything was awful, and unless Birdy had some money and got away from them, it was all going to continue to be awful. If it went on for too much longer, Eli would get Ollie’s money instead. And Randy liked me, so I figured if I kept him around, he wouldn’t mind me comforting her, you know? In her grief. So I formed a plan.

---

Bury the Dead 27

Ollie Clark—Friday, June 28, 2019

Cindy sighed as she counted out paper money. “You know, when we were kids, we used to rob the bank.”

“Pretty sure there’s something against that in the rules.” Eli scooped up the pile of fake cash and started organizing it by color.

“If everyone playing agrees, the rules can be whatever you want. The only one that always applies is you can’t change them in the middle of the game.” She pushed the dice over to Ollie.

“Your childhood sounds lawless and exciting,” Eli observed.

She shook her head. “It actually meant we rarely played because there was no way all six of us were going to agree on anything. Split into smaller groups and it limits your options.”

Ollie nodded. “Yeah, that’s why we’ve got what we’ve got.” She landed on one of Cindy’s properties, but the bills she handed over didn’t make up for what she’d just lost to Eli. “A bunch of them had to be okay for two people. Dad’s not a board game kind of guy.”

“Your mom’s the one who taught me to play most of them.” Eli owned a nice long stretch of the board so his turn was highly unexciting. “She was nice about it, though. She didn’t act like it was something every kid from a happy, healthy home should know.”

Cindy winced. “Did a lot of parents do that?”

“Well, I can’t really say a lot because I wasn’t exactly invited many places, but there were enough pity faces. And you’d think teachers would know not to do that kind of thing, but …” He shrugged. “I guess it’s better than them acting like they didn’t expect any better, but by the time I was six I knew Jared was the golden boy who rose above his situation instead of … whatever I was doing.”

“Reading beyond your grade level,” Ollie offered. “Annoying Ms. Meindertsma because you knew what negative numbers were and she wanted us to tell her you can’t do subtraction and end up with something less than zero.”

“Library cards are free,” he reminded Cindy. “We didn’t have a tv, but I borrowed all kinds of books. Compared to this one, though”—he tilted his head at Ollie—“my speed is abysmal. Thank God for audiobooks.”

Cindy chewed on her lip and then looked up from the board to meet Eli’s eyes. “I don’t get it. Your dad left, but so did Jared’s. And they were brothers, so it wasn’t like Randy knew one better than the other. And your moms …”

Eli raised his hand. “Mine’s the slut. In case that clears things up.”

She frowned and looked to Ollie like she expected the younger woman to correct him, but he’d accurately represented public perception. “That’s it?”

Eli licked his lips and looked at Ollie, but she wasn’t sure what he wanted from her. Permission? Intervention? Then he turned back to Cindy. “I know you only met him like five years ago, but before? Jared was popular. Confident, charming … sassy without stepping over the line. He had the wordplay and the grin down. His grades weren’t great, but they weren’t awful, and teachers loved him. He’d raise his hand and try at least half the time. And he was good at sports—just naturally agile. He came by those records honestly. He’s big, but he could move. Put him on that football field and after freshman year the other schools just trembled in their cleats. He had a reputation, and he kept smashing it. He was friends with everybody in his grade and the grade below, which meant he didn’t have to be friends with me, and I think he was fine with that. He was going places. Not college, but … places. And then …” He looked at Ollie again, passing it off.

Sighing, Ollie shrugged. “Publicly he dated Birdy all of six weeks, but she was eighteen years, six weeks, and two days old when she died, so maybe they had a thing before then.” She closed her eyes because Eli backed her into a corner, and maybe it wasn’t entirely accidental. “They looked good on the outside, but they were really toxic together.”

Eli’s hand went to her thigh, gave it a squeeze, and rested there.

“Toxic?” Cindy echoed.

“Okay, so.” Ollie sighed and held out her hands like she was weighing something in them. “On the one hand you’ve got Birdy, who always needed to be the center of attention. She had to have the best stuff, or the worst weekend, or just … I think she struggled with how much attention Mom got inside our family, how everything seemed to be based on what Mom could or couldn’t do, so she just needed someone to focus on her. And then you get Jared, who had it easy for so long and then left high school and was all ‘Now what?’ She was very clear in what she wanted from people, and he could give her the attention she wanted.”

“I think …” Eli rubbed his mouth, looking at something only he could see. “I think Jared was used to saving people. Making them look good. I know the football thing makes it sound like he liked the spotlight, but he was never entirely comfortable with that. He was always like hey, we’re a team. He’d rather support someone and let them shine.”

“Birdy thrived on people wanting her to shine?” Cindy suggested.

Ollie shook her head. “She thrived on people telling her she was shining.”

“And what did you thrive on?” her stepmom wanted to know.

Ollie winced and looked at Eli, who leaned over to kiss her forehead. “You thrived on going off to college and not having to think about your sister every waking minute,” he said with an apologetic shrug.

“I loved her.”

“Honey.” Eli caught her chin in his free hand and gently forced her to look at him. “You know that doesn’t mean you had to like her. You liked Birdy better from a distance. She was a better sister from a distance. And you didn’t abandon her, but you put up those boundaries. Email once a day, call once a week … it’s okay to grow apart from someone. To admit you need the space and they’re not your responsibility.” Then he raised an eyebrow and cocked his head. “Which is what you’ve been thinking about me and Jared, right?”

“Okay, except you get to pick it. I didn’t get a choice.”

He started to lean in and land his next kiss on her lips, but his phone buzzed. Sighing, he pulled it out. “Speak of the devil. Hey, Jare. What’s—?”

Ollie couldn’t hear what Jared said, but his voice was higher than usual and the cadence much faster. Eli tried to say a couple things, but he only got out single syllables because Jared simply didn’t stop. He finally said “Yes” and “Okay” and “I will,” but when Eli tried asking “Are you sure?” he took the phone away from his ear because the phone ended.

Cindy smiled sympathetically. “Trouble?”

Eli shook his head slowly and ever so gently placed his phone on the table. “That was his one phone call. Jared went down there this morning and confessed to the murders.”

---

Initial conversation, Jared Chapman and Lieutenant Samuel Johnson, June 28, 2019

JC: You’re the lead or whatever? The one going after Randy?

SJ: I am, Mr. Chapman, and I’m very busy, so—

JC: You need to hear this. Cindy said you guys found a gun? Somewhere?

SJ: Near his cabin in Covington, Mr. Chapman, but I don’t think—

JC: That’s not the gun that did it. I don’t know if you can tell that, but it’s not. I’ll tell you where the real gun is, but the thing is, I’ve got to tell you a lot first.

SJ: Mr. Chapman …

JC: I’ve done a lot of research since then, and I figured I’d never be caught, because you can’t match the gun. Even if you find it and my prints are on it, you don’t know it’s the right one. And where I put it … it seemed like a good idea at the time, even though now … But Randy didn’t do it. You have to believe me.

SJ: Mr. Chapman … we know you have a close relationship with Mr. Clark. We also know that there are no firearms registered in your name. I know you’re upset at this turn of events, but confessing to this horrendous crime in an attempt to clear his name—

JC: You only found one shell there by the door. The second one was in the alley. I only grabbed the one, because I didn’t see where the other one landed, and then I dropped it when I fell. I figured it didn’t matter, because I wiped them down and wore gloves when I loaded it, but that part didn’t make the papers. Or the trial. Everything said they found two shell casings, and you figured the guy didn’t care because he left them, but you didn’t say they weren’t close together.

SJ: Individual casings—

JC: Can fly different distances from the same gun, yeah, sure, but we’re talking behind the house, in that foot traffic alley, two houses up. I had the shell in my left hand and it flew out into those bushes, the scratchy ones. I tried to find it but I figured someone would’ve heard, so I grabbed the gun and kept going. I actually stashed the gun under my mattress again that night, and I was afraid you guys were going to find it before I had the chance to move it, but you didn’t. You didn’t even look at me.

SJ: Mr. Chapman, you’re making some very serious declarations.

JC: Confession. I know it’s a confession. You figured out it wasn’t Eli back then, but I don’t trust you to figure out it wasn’t Randy, either. He doesn’t deserve that, and he—God, he’s shit at judging people. Do you believe it? Saves my life, keeps dragging me in, keeps trying to care about me. Fuck, I didn’t mind when it was Kelly. He’s done enough, so what’s two more? And then I’d really be okay, nobody’d be after me, but nobody’s been after me, do you understand? Randy and Ollie and Eli all … all circled the wagons. Sorry, that’s racist, but that’s what they did, you know? And Ollie? Fuck, she’s an absolute sweetheart. Did you know? Because I don’t think Birdy did. She told me Ollie was stuck up and little miss perfect and all this but God, the emails between the two of them? All the stuff that came out? I feel … God, he should’ve just let me die.

SJ: Mr. Chapman, am I to understand that you’re confessing to plotting and carrying out the murders of Wendy and Catherine “Birdy” Clark?

JC: Plotting? No. You don’t understand. Birdy was supposed to be in Covington that night. She left me right before dinner, and she was going to eat and then get in her dad’s car and go. Right? So it was supposed to be Wendy and Ollie at home, and they were both bitches. Do you understand? The mom being all overbearing and controlling and just unfair, because Ollie got everything and Birdie got the shaft. And I’m not the only one who believed her, right? Kendra and them … they got on the freaking stand and told everyone, right? And I had even more than that, because Birdy just told me everything. All these rants, all these hours of how her parents were freaking Nazis and her sister’s farts were perfume, and I just … I believed her, you know? So when … when I actually got to know Ollie …

SJ: Mr. Chapman, I’d like to get a stenographer in here so you can start from the beginning.

JC: The beginning? Shit. The whole thing’s a tangled mess. Can I make a phone call first, though? I still get one phone call, right, even if I’m confessing to murder?

SJ: Yes, you can make a phone call. JC: Good. And then I’m going to need a glass of water, and you’ll have to send someone to check on the gun, and … well. You’ll have to let Randy go. He doesn’t deserve this.

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Bury the Dead 26