He took the paper and frowned down at it.
“I talked to them about the summer Marilyn had an ‘older boyfriend,’” I said. “He was in his late twenties-although who knows if he told her his real age-and she was fifteen when they met. She was in full-on rebellion mode with her parents. She had been secretive about the boyfriend, but her girlfriends were curious. So one night, they watched when she sneaked out of the house, and followed her. They saw the young man she met.”
“And twenty-some-odd years later,” Pete said, “happen to remember that the guy they saw in the distance in the dark was one of America’s most notorious serial killers. Give me a break!”
“Pete,” Reed warned.
“They didn’t just see him from a distance. He caught them spying.”
Pete sat back.
I told them the story as it had been recounted to me.
Marilyn’s family lived near a park, and that was where she had her assignation with her boyfriend. It was after closing time, and she met him near a tree-lined path. A perfect place to spend time with a lover, with lots of concealing shrubbery. The girls followed the couple, hanging back a little, trying not to be seen.
They passed a lighted area near a bench, but Parrish and Marilyn didn’t stop there. The path twisted and turned, and they thought he was with Marilyn, so when each girl felt a hand grip the back of her neck, they screeched simultaneously. He held them hard, painfully, just below their skulls, and controlled them as if they were puppets. He told them to shut up, but they had already fallen silent.
He marched them back to the lighted area and turned them so that they were facing him. They said-independently-that he didn’t say another word, just stared at them, then smiled. It had the same effect on each of them-he might have been smiling, but they felt certain that he was damned angry, and if they didn’t get out of there, he’d hurt them worse. He released his grip, and they ran home.
I took a breath and let it out slowly, pushing aside my own memories of having Nick Parrish take hold of me.
“Even though it was more than twenty years ago, if you heard them talk about that night-the intensity of his stare, the way he stood, the painful bruises on their necks-you’d believe they haven’t forgotten that man or how he made them feel.”
“You’re sure it was Parrish?” Reed asked.
“Not from that, no. I thought of showing them a photo of Parrish, but I don’t have one of him from that time, so…”
“Thank God for small favors,” Pete muttered.
“Go on,” Reed said.
FIFTEEN
So I told them about gathering all the information I could from the women about Marilyn Foster and that time. How she had shown up the next day with bruises on her face and arms, and completely stopped talking about her boyfriend. Not long after that, she learned she was pregnant.
“She never considered trying to contact the father for help, and infuriated her parents by refusing to name him. She went to an adoption agency that could cope with her special medical needs. After a difficult pregnancy, she gave birth to a boy, whom she held for only a few minutes before he was given up to an adopting couple. It was much later that she began her search for him.”
“With adoption laws as they are, she couldn’t find him?”
“Not at first. She had told Dwayne that at the time of the birth, she was afraid the child’s father would try to find him by looking up any records that mentioned her, so it was a closed adoption, and she kept her records sealed. Even when her son turned eighteen, when he could begin the process of letting his birth parents know he was seeking them, she didn’t start her own side of that process.
“Yet suddenly one day, she seemed to decide that it was safe to start looking for her child.” I pushed a piece of paper across the desk. It was a copy of a form Marilyn Foster had filled out online, signing up for an organization that helps adoptees and their birth parents locate one another.
“Father is still listed as unknown,” Pete said.
“Look at the date. Recognize it?”
They both glanced at the date, then looked up at me, puzzled.
“September twenty-seventh…” My voice trailed off. “Could you open that door?” I asked. “And could I get a glass of water?”
“Sure,” Reed said, eyeing me with concern.
A few minutes later, I continued. “That was the date he was injured. Parrish. Early in the morning on the twenty-seventh of September. At the time it seemed likely he’d be a tetraplegic for the rest of his life. When that turned out not to be the case-still, he was captured. If there was some small chance he’d ever get out of his bed in the prison hospital, there was no chance he’d ever get out of prison.”
“Should have gone for the death sentence,” Pete said.
“The district attorney might do that yet,” Reed said. “Especially now that Parrish won’t have to show up in court in a wheelchair. They’ve got DNA on other cases.”
I stayed silent. It brought Reed’s attention back to me. “So you’re saying that she filed this form because she felt safe from him.”
“But it doesn’t even mention Parrish by name!” Pete objected again. “And while I know that date means something to you, why should she remember it? Irene, face it, there is such a thing as coincidence.”
I let that go. I put a small stack of printouts on the table. Reed picked them up and studied the first page.
“E-mail from someone who says he thinks he might be her son.”
“It’s not e-mail, really, it’s a set of private messages on an Internet message board. Which is why you wouldn’t find it if you looked through her e-mail. I don’t know how far your computer guy has gotten with his efforts.”
“Not far,” Pete said. “He’s swamped. He’s due to testify in some other cases and hasn’t had much time for anything else.”
Reed frowned, his attention still on the papers. “No names. Just a bunch of numbers.”
“For the protection of both parties, the service keeps real names hidden until they agree to release identifying information to each other.”
“Not too anonymous-he’s giving his birth date and the name of the adoption agency.”
“It matches her son’s birthday and the agency she used.”
“‘After reading your post, I am fairly sure I’m your son,’” he read aloud. “‘Do you by any chance have type 1 diabetes? I have it. I am told it is hereditary, so that might be one thing we have in common. If you don’t, I might have inherited it from my father.’”
He read her response and the next few messages to himself, then said, “It looks as if she was careful.”
“Yes. She was clearly excited but didn’t just hand over her address and phone number. Keep reading,” I said. “Look at the last two.”
“‘We haven’t discussed this yet,’” he read, “‘and forgive me if it is painful to you, but I’m kind of anxious to find out if a man who now says he is my father really is. Can you tell me, is my birth father in prison? Maybe you gave me up for adoption because you thought I might become like him. I don’t want to meet him, really, but I have been contacted by someone who thinks he is my half brother. He said his dad told him about me a long time ago. If none of that make sense to you, that’s actually a relief to me. Otherwise, it’s kind of the orphan’s worst nightmare, if you know what I mean. I just don’t know what to do, and if you are my mother, maybe you would be willing to give me advice. Here’s the Web site about the guy he says is my dad.’ And there’s a link.”
Reed looked up again.
“Yes,” I said. “The Moths.”
It didn’t take more convincing. Even when Frank and Vince arrived, Reed and Pete managed to get Vince steered away from his anger toward me (and Frank) and onto the scent of a new line of investigation.