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
Rebecca Frost 