Page 139 of The Sister's Curse
Still, Jasper was assumed to be at the root of the drownings. A collection of knives was found with his scuba gear in the trunk of his car. They tested positive for the blood of the Lister cousins.
I had a hard time believing Jasper had killed those people. Jasper had seemed so even, placid. Maybe he felt he couldn’t get at the Kings any other way. It didn’t explain Sims’s death, and I found no trace of Jasper in the Sumners’ pond, either. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t hung out at the bottom of it, waiting for hischance. He had tanks and a rebreather, which would’ve given him hours of air. His trailer was less than a mile from the Sumner house, and he could have traversed the wetlands to get there. No one knew of his whereabouts when Sumner’s uncle died, either. Maybe he’d stalked these people, watched them for years, and his patience finally ran out.
Since Sumner’s wife’s testimony was part of the official record, people assumed Fred Jasper had sought revenge on the Kings of Warsaw Creek for Dana’s death. He’d snapped on the twenty-fifth anniversary, abducted Sumner, and then lured Lister into the water, where he murdered them both. This assumption was backed up by records of a call made from Sumner’s cell phone to Lister that night.
An all-points bulletin had been put out for Jasper and Viv. It was assumed that Jasper escaped. Viv must have run off with Jasper in some weird romantic trauma bond.
—
Nick and I were discussing our future, slowly, the shape it might take.
“We have time,” he’d said.
I found him working in the garden one morning, trying to fix it with new plants. His mother’s memorial had been swept clean and decorated with chrysanthemums. I had slipped his ring on and come to dig with him in the dirt. He took my dirty hand and kissed it.
“We have time,” I said. “Do you want to spend it with me?”
“Always.”
I offered him a platinum ring, and he let me put it on his finger.
And we did have time. I faced no charges as a result of my actions. I filed a very watered-down and redacted report of my actions in investigating Dana’s death, and it stood.
My immediate boss, acting chief of the Detective Bureau Monica Wozniak, approved it without comment. She remained on bed rest for weeks after receiving her injuries, but then she had come to work, on crutches. She was thinner and paler, but rage spots burned in her cheeks. And I knew she was back.
One might think the families of the deceased would file suit against the sheriff’s office. But the evidence from Sumner’s house and Sims’s car was too much for them to overcome—the Kings of Warsaw Creek had killed Dana. The law firm of Cortland, Cortland, and Cortland was silent when it was explained that the assets of criminals could be seized for victim restitution.
Copperhead Valley Solvents had experienced a catastrophic flood as well as the church. The flood damaged the containment facilities and caused a total shutdown of the plant, as well as an uncontrolled release of Vapozene, which caught fire on a segment of the river. EPA had become involved in the cleanup, and they found evidence of a history of dumping. The plant was shuttered. Some locals bemoaned the loss of jobs, while others were relieved that the company’s pollution would cease. EPA was putting together a plan to mitigate environmental damage and research the effects of the pollutants on people, animals, and plants in the area. There was particular concern that exposure could cause acute leukemia in some individuals—the same kind of illness Viv might’ve had. I worried about exposure for Nick, Gibby, and myself, but there was nothing to do about that but to be watchful and wait.
Nick returned to the hospital from administrative leave, with the investigation dropped. Turned out that his supervisor, Dr.Floyd, who was leading the charge for his dismissal, had been on the boat with the sheriff on the Fourth of July. Dr.Floyd suddenly left town for Arizona, declaring that he wanted nothing to do with rivers ever again.
I wanted to forget much of what happened the night of the flood. Lister’s house burning down was considered a freak accident, but I wasn’t entirely certain that someone in Chief’s network wasn’t covering for me. I had to admit that the cops and fire department had their hands full from that night, and there weren’t enough resources to offer much scrutiny. Still…
Rod Matthews rolled over on his brother and the rest of the meth heads. They fessed up to doing Sumner’s bidding. Rod ducked charges and moved to Florida to start a used-car lot.
The church had been destroyed, and with the head of it cut off, it withered and died. The families who attended the church dispersed to other churches, or surrendered their faith entirely. At a local park one summer afternoon, I saw Leah, wearing shorts and a tank top, in the company of other girls and boys. None of them wore rings. Leah’s foster parents were seeking adoption.
I wondered about the girls. I wondered if they had something to do with the church’s burning down. I didn’t ask them if they did. I just kept quiet and observed from afar.
Sometimes I missed what I’d felt when the Rusalka stepped inside me. I’d felt her unfettered rage, her forcefulness, her power. I wondered if that was what it felt like to be my father. I wondered if I’d ever feel that way again, if I could return to it if I wanted to. Or maybe I wanted that part of myself to sleep.
Drema and Mason moved away, to Illinois, to be with her parents. Mason made a full recovery and asserted that he had no further memories of his near drowning, which was probably for the best. He’d regained his voice, and was reportedly silent only when he slept now. I checked up on Drema on social media and found her photography being shown in a gallery. Her work was fascinating: black-and-white photos of nude women posed like ancient works of art. Her Venus, climbing out of a seashell, was awoman with head lifted, staring down onlookers on the shore. A trio of women linked arms to represent Hecate, the three-faced goddess of witchcraft, gazing out into the night. And another woman gave the impression of the famous Minoan snake goddess, bare breasted and holding a snake in each hand.
Was Drema a witch? Was Monica? How many of the church girls were involved with witchcraft?
I didn’t know. I just knew that someone pulled me out of the river, out of Rusalka’s embrace. I wished I could thank them, whoever they were.
My heart ached for Ross, now fatherless. And hell, I’d burned down his house. He called me once, to tell me he was coming back to Bayern County to stay with friends while finishing out his senior year. I was glad to hear from him, but guilt washed over me when I heard his voice. I could’ve saved his father. I could’ve changed the direction of Ross’s entire life.
Maybe that was the difference between me as an adult and me as a child. My child self felt no guilt for directing the polluter’s death. But I felt guilt for it now.
The idea that I was responsible for the death of a man when I was a little girl bothered me. I wanted to leave it alone, to believe it was a hallucination, or maybe some memory of the Rusalka that had gotten tangled with mine.
Maybe that was what differentiated me from both my father and my mother: the guilt.
The coroner’s office determined that the bones found with Dana’s on the oxbow island belonged to a male subject, likely in his early twenties. The body had been heavily predated, and the set of bones was incomplete. Cause of death was unknown. Anthropologists at the local university had attempted to do a reconstruction based on the skull measurements.
I looked at the resulting clay face. It was thin lipped and angular, like the man I remembered.
