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MAGGIE KENNEDY-O’KEEFE
Monday, June 22, 2020
All weekend I waited for Nola to approach me and accuse me of being in her basement but she never did. Maybe I cleaned up well enough that she has no idea I was there. I’m sure my dad was in her house though. He got it in his head that he needed to talk to Charlotte about Eve and wandered over there in the middle of the night. I think Nola was working in her basement and found him in her house and I think she led him out and toward the bluffs just like she did with little Riley Harper thirty years ago.
At my insistence, Shaun and I spent most of Sunday at my dad’s house, keeping a close eye on things. He seemed okay. Tired but had no recollection of the night before. I kept waiting for him to bring up the scarf again, but he never did. At one point during the day, I pulled Colin aside and asked him if he could take my dad to visit his sister in Wisconsin. He balked, of course, giving all the usual excuses how it’s too far, how Dad doesn’t do well with change. In between my Braxton-Hicks contractions I managed to convince Colin to go after explaining that I thought the fire at our barn was intentional, that investigators were looking into whether I was targeted and by association, my family.
That finally got his attention and he agreed. They’re leaving this morning. At least I know they will be safe until I figure out what to do about Nola. I’m thinking an anonymous call to the police will do the trick. I’ll let my colleagues come into Nola’s house, find the bones and go from there. Hopefully, Nola will have no idea that I’m involved.
I come into the station extra early this morning to finally pack up the evidence in Eve’s case and personally deliver everything to the state lab in Des Moines. As I sit at my desk and review the evidence list I think of Nola and what she’s asked me to do.
I think of Nola’s determination to pin Eve’s death on Nick Brady.
I don’t have the proof that Nola is responsible for our barn fire and for posting lies on the Wrecked Nest website but I do know that she is intent on destroying my life. How stupid was I to think that she wanted to help me, to protect me? I’m just another person Nola wants to enact revenge upon. Not that I can blame her. I don’t. I killed her sister.
What I am sure of is the house of horrors that Nola lives in. The makeshift surgery setup; the scalpels and knives. The bones.
I pull up the Missing Person Information Clearinghouse website and see that there are three hundred and fifty-six individuals that are considered officially missing in the state of Iowa. In the Operating Agency search box, I enter Grotto and get zero results. This isn’t a surprise to me—if there were any open missing-person cases in town I would know.
Nola is a big animal vet and her work takes her all over the county so I expand my search to Ransom County and thirty-two names pop up. To my untrained eye, the bones did not look like they belonged to a young child so I narrow the search to individuals thirteen years old and up. That brings the number to thirty. Not much help. With a sigh I log off my computer and push my chair back from the desk. It’s time I get on the road.
I sign out each piece of evidence and with the help of another officer load up my car. Before leaving I go into a storage closet and find an old box of evidence labels and envelopes. I pull out several of each and stuff them into my pocket. Back in my office I reach into my bottom desk drawer and stare down at the three items each stored in their own individual evidence bag: the needle filled with Nick Brady’s DNA, the cigarette butt I got from the Harpers’ backyard and the shard of glass from the broken picture frame that Nola cut herself on.
It’s time to a make a decision. I grab all three bags and drop them into a larger manila envelope. All I would need to do is insert the manufactured evidence into one of the old envelopes, slap on a label and forge my dad’s signature and date it as December 1995. It would be so much easier than I thought. I’ll decide on the road, I tell myself. Besides, I don’t dare tamper with the evidence here.
By noon I’m ready to leave. I drive for an hour and just before I hit the interstate I pull off onto a gravel road. I step from my car, pop open the trunk and remove the lid to the cardboard box holding the evidence.
I keep an ear out for any approaching cars and pull out the large sealed paper envelopes that hold the boot and jeans that Eve was wearing the day she died and I climb back into the driver’s seat. In a few hours all the evidence in Eve’s case will be back in the hands of the state crime lab where decades of advancements in forensic testing await it.
I stare at the three items I’ve spread out on the passenger’s seat. A needle, a cigarette butt, a shard of glass. This is it. The last chance I have to make sure I’m never implicated in Eve’s death. I have a decision to make. It might not work, but this may be the only way that I have to protect my family. Do I follow Nola’s orders and inject a smidgen of Nick Brady’s blood into the envelopes that hold Eve’s boot and her jeans? In high school I got adept in forging my dad’s handwriting. It would be easy to fill out an old label and sign my dad’s name to the evidence list. Do I add the broken glass or Cam’s cigarette butt into the box? All I have to do is choose one.
Here I go again, playing God. With tears streaming down my face I take a deep breath and make my choice.
Therapy Transcript
Client Name: Nola Knox, 13 years
Therapist Name: Linda Gonzalez, LMHC, NCC
Date of Service: April 16, 1996
LG: Good morning, Nola. How are you doing today?
NK: Today’s my last session. So pretty good.
LG: I wanted to talk to you about that...
NK: It is my last day. The court order was for fifteen sessions. This is the fifteenth.
LG: Yes, that’s true, but I think we are making some really good progress together. I think that if we continue to work on strategies that you can use to help handle challenging situations...
NK: But this is my last session. I’ve done everything you’ve asked. I even apologized to Nick Brady. I said I was sorry. No. This is our last session. I’m fine now. Everything is fine.
Notes:
4/16/1996
In my assessment, Nola would benefit from long term therapy in order to address anger issues and coping skills. I approached Charlotte Knox encouraging her to continue sessions and she agreed.
4/23/1996
Nola did not show up for today’s session. Phone calls to the mother went unanswered.
