AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Lakin: Now
As with an author of fiction, every true crime writer has their own style, their own voice, along with their own story to tell. We strive in our research on the case, the killer, the victims. We endeavor to reveal, essentially, our path to the truth.
Whether or not the case is solved, whether or not the killer is caught, varies. Every book is different just as every person is different. Like a fingerprint, each book is unique.
Some writers lay the facts out and lead readers on a quest for that truth with one major theory, expounding on the details until they’ve made their case, like a lawyer arguing before a jury. In the end, the writer hopes to prove their theory and convince readers.
For me, it wasn’t enough to investigate and hammer down a theory. I wanted—needed—a resolution. I craved to look into the eyes of the killer once caught. To know he had stolen life for the very last time. He had met his finality.
Of course, this must happen from a safely removed distance. Poring over Internet images of perpetrators in handcuffs from my dark living room. Watching clips as officers walk them through the doors of a jailhouse. This is also why writing under a pseudonym is important. The “bad guys” can’t have access t
o the author. It’s dangerous, but it’s also…
Succinct satisfaction.
Then it starts all over again.
I’ll pull out my box of files and start the dig. Seeking the next case.
It’s a drug. Once I experienced that first moment of completeness after we closed the Patterson case, it didn’t take long before the hunger returned, more ravenous than before. I have an insatiable desire that I fear will never be sated, no matter how many murderers we catch.
I’m not oblivious. My major in psychology gave me a pretty healthy insight into myself; not allowing me the excuse of denial. My own unsolved case is sitting on the backburner, boiling over, demanding attention.
It won’t let me experience relief for very long.
Not every case becomes a book. But every case must be solved. That’s the unspoken promise Rhys and I made to each other after we shut my file permanently.
The USB drive on my key chain feels weighty in my pocket. The incomplete book a heavy burden to constantly lug around.
I’m an open ending.
I hate open endings.
The only thing in my control is the next case. The next victim. Like Joanna Delany. She deserves my complete focus, not my pity, or self-pity. I’m here and she’s not.
Lucent Lake West is muggy. Mosquitos already abuzz before noon. I spray my arms with repellant and hand the bottle to Rhys. Just another thing I don’t miss about living in Florida.
“I remember when the mosquito truck used to drive down our street,” I say, staring out over the flat lake top. The wind picks up briefly and feathers a current of ripples across the surface. “My mother would scream at me to run inside, or else I’d die from breathing the fumes.” I smile at the memory, though it’s rather morbid.
Amber and I had been playing in my backyard one day, climbing the orange tree, when we spotted the mosquito truck. We raced each other down the tree. She let me win. I know this, because she was faster, more agile.
I fell and broke my wrist trying to beat her, anyway.
That was the moment I absolutely acknowledged I could not win against the Ambers of the world.
As Rhys puts the bottle of spray in my bag, I slip my sleeve up and snap the band around that wrist.
“I didn’t realize there was such a thing as mosquito trucks,” he says as he pulls up the crime scene photos on his tablet.
I raise an eyebrow. “Lucky you.”
A tight-lipped smirk rims his mouth. Rhys once told me he grew up on the northwest peninsula. It rains in that part of the country more than any other, and the winters are cold and harsh. Must be what gives him such a warm personality. I deliver my own knowing grin in return.
He hands me the tablet. “Medical examiner placed the time of death around eight p.m. This isn’t the most secluded spot.” He glances around the marsh scenery. “Yet she went unnoticed for over twenty-four hours before the dog walker called it in the next evening.”
Sometimes it’s difficult to follow his train of thought, but I latch on to his theory in this instance. “Someone familiar with the victim’s schedule or the area, to know she’d be alone, and that they’d have enough time. Her mother said she used to walk in the evenings almost every day. She used it to decompress after work.” Part of the victim’s extended sobriety program as a recovered meth addict.
Ms. Delany was hesitant to go into details, regardless that she knows it’s already in her daughter’s file. Drug addiction is a storm that tears through a family. Time doesn’t heal all wounds.
