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“DNA wasn’t around back then.”
“You got DNA? Is it definitive? There’s no wiggle room, right? Is there any way those three will get out of jail on a technicality?” Patty asked with genuine panic in her voice.
“No. The judge denied bail on the other charges. None of them will be going anywhere.”
“Great. Good,” Patty murmured while her eyes misted over with fat teardrops streaming down her cheeks. “It happened practically right in front of me,” she announced, wiping away the tears. “For the past forty-five years, I’ve been haunted by what I saw. That image has been burned into my brain. Then for weeks afterward, I kept seeing that poor girl murdered over and over again, too many times to count. Oh, the nightmares I had. Things got so bad I begged my parents to send me to another school.”
“And did they?”
“With a new school year starting? No way. But then a miracle happened. The next summer, when I was a sophomore, my dad got a new job in Santa Cruz, and we moved. I didn’t even mind starting over at a new school.”
“If I could just understand why you didn’t come forward when it happened and let someone know what you’d seen,” Brogan stressed.
“I knew you wouldn’t understand. No one does. If you’ve never dealt with a bully, then you have no idea what it’s like every day at school. Now multiply that times three. Tazzie, Dennis, and Richie were mean. They terrorized anyone who got on their bad side. Even though this was before social media, they found ways to torment people. They could be nasty and relentless.”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell us what you saw?” Lucien prompted, motioning for her to sit back down.
But again, Patty declined. ”I’m okay standing. That night, I’d snuck out of the house to meet up with an older boy I liked. His name was Jeremy Dixon, a junior who was two years older. We had geometry together. Jeremy played football and baseball. The guy was so handsome and charismatic—Mr. Everything at San Sebastian High School. But it turned out Jeremy was having a laugh at my expense. You see, I thought he’d asked me to the movies.”
“Do you remember what movie?”
Patty smiled. “Of course, I do—Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I couldn’t wait to see it. There was quite a crowd that night, too, because it had premiered the previous Christmas everywhere else, but it didn’t make it to Pelican Pointe until that summer. Even back then, small towns didn’t get the blockbuster movies until later.”
“So it wasn’t Jaws2 that was playing?”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely sure. It wasClose Encounters. It would’ve been my very first date. You don’t forget those kinds of details. The movie started at ten o’clock that night with a run time of almost two and a half hours. I’d calculated how long I could be gone before my parents might miss me. That means I would’ve been out way past my curfew. That’s why I had to sneak out of the house. A ten-thirty curfew would’ve ruined my chances of going to the movies with Jeremy. If my parents found out, they would’ve grounded me for sure.”
“But you didn’t get caught?”
“It was a miracle, but I didn’t.”
Brogan traded looks with Lucien. “There was only one theater in town, so Richie Plunkett got Jaws2 wrong.”
“Well, Jaws2 started playing the Friday before Labor Day,” Patty informed them. “All the movies were late coming to Pelican Pointe. I remember that one, too because one of my girlfriends tried to talk me into seeing it. But after witnessing that girl’s murder, I had no interest in watching all that blood. I could barely leave the house when school started. My mother wanted to know what was wrong with me. But I kept my mouth shut and kept the secret all these years.”
“Let’s get back to that Saturday night,” Lucien pressed. “You were on a date with Jeremy.”
“Well, that’s what I thought. Jeremy had talked up the movie. He wanted to see it. But I mistakenly thought he meant he wanted to see it with me. So when he showed up arm and arm with Carrie Summers, I was angry and hurt. I felt like I wanted to throw up. When I saw them standing in line together, holding hands, I felt humiliated like I’d had the wind knocked out of me. So, like any immature fourteen-year-old girl, I got out of there. I ran down Beach Street to the boardwalk and cried my eyes out for probably half an hour. By this time, the only businesses still open were the bar and the arcade. I wasn’t about to go into the arcade where someone from school might see what a mess I was, so I went for a walk on the beach. I walked all the way around the harbor and back again. By that time, it must’ve been around midnight when I decided to head home. That’s when I spotted them—Dennis Marshall, Richie Plunkett, and Tazzie Crossland. They always ran together, harassing somebody. That night, they picked on this girl I’d never seen before. Tazzie started accusing her of all kinds of stuff. The girl didn’t seem to know what they were talking about. She tried to leave, to get away. But those three wouldn’t let her. She kept saying how she didn’t want trouble. But then, Dennis grabbed her and ordered her to take off her top and shorts. She refused. That’s when Tazzie pushed her, and she fell to the ground. The sick feeling in my stomach came back. I couldn’t get my feet to move. I was that scared. The girl was scared too. She started crying when Tazzie jumped on top of her. Tazzie started pulling her hair, then used her fists to hit her in the face. Tazzie gave her a bloody lip and a bloody nose. For a time, I didn’t think Tazzie would ever move. She sat on top of her like that for a long time, even wrapping her fingers around the girl’s throat. But that was just the beginning. The boys let Tazzie beat her up some more before Dennis started removing his clothes. Richie too. I hid behind a tree for most of it. I couldn’t believe what was happening. Then after the guys finished, I watched Tazzie hold her down while Dennis strangled the life out of her. To this day, it was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen.”
“You must’ve been traumatized for years,” Brogan said, wrapping Patty up in a hug.
“I was. I started therapy in my twenties. That’s when I finally talked about it. I never did tell my parents what happened. But I never snuck out again. Not ever.”
“What was Richie doing? Did he participate in the murder?”
“Richie was the cheerleader. He egged Tazzie on to keep beating her. Then when Dennis took over, he was a willing participant in the sexual assault.”
“You’re willing to testify to this in court?”
“I am now. That could’ve been me that night. For years I couldn’t stand to look at myself in a mirror, knowing I’d stayed silent. I hated myself for that weakness.” Patty pointed to a green Outback parked a few spaces down the street. “I spent most of this afternoon confessing to my two daughters. I felt they should know what I’d seen and that I was ashamed of not coming forward sooner. They’re waiting in the car for me to provide emotional support. They’re the ones who urged me to contact you the second time and finally do the right thing. I’m here because of them. They gave me the courage to get out of the shadows and tell you what I knew.”
“How does it feel?” Brogan asked, waving to the daughters.
“It feels like someone lifted a two-hundred-pound weight off my shoulders. I’ve been carrying around this guilt for forty-five years.”
