Arriving home, I took a shower, popped dinner into the microwave, and tried to watch some TV. When 9:30 PM got there, the lights began to dim, and that feeling of cold enveloped me again. From my home office, I could hear the unmistakable sound of sobbing, and I knew who and what it was.
“Melanie, is that you?” I called out as I entered my office, and her shimmering form was there, and for the first time, in a voice I had only imagined what it sounded like from looking at her in photos, she finally spoke. Her voice echoed, like it was from a distance, but it was clear..
“I remember everything that happened that night,” she cried, hands over her face .” I remember going into work, not feeling good, and telling Trisha that I was gonna clock out early. She gave me her car keys, told me to go lay down in the car and she’d take me home at breaktime. I got to the car. Unlocked it. I just wanted to sleep.I was lying down on the back seat for what must have been a few minutes. Then the door opened. A hand over my mouth. I couldn't see him... he had a mask. He dragged me into the woods,shoved me to the ground, pulled up my skirt, pulled down my underwear, and…took me. God it hurt so much..I felt like I was being torn up,” Melanie cried. “After he finished, I got up and tried to run away, but he caught me. He put his hands around my throat, squeezed and squeezed, everything went black, then..nothing. I could feel myself leaving my body, that must have been the moment that I died.”
Normally, I’d have pulled out a pen and paper and taken notes, but how would I explain getting testimony from a dead person? Over my 20 plus years as a cop, I’ve held the hand of rape victims, and delivered news the families of murder victims, but how the Hell do you comfort someone who is simultaneously a rape victim and a murder victim?
“Please find who did this to me,” Melanie pleaded. I could see 40 years of pain and tears on her face. That made my heart break even more than what it was already, and that made my determination to find justice even stronger.
“I saw you looking at my grave after your wife’s funeral, something or someone gave me the feeling that you could help me. I’ve just drifted around so lonely. I want to find peace, Heaven, whatever you want to call it. I watched my parents die, I want to be with them wherever they are.”
“Melanie, I’m going to do whatever I can to help you,” I said. Out of reflex, I reached my hand towards her, but there was nothing to touch. The air began to warm, as if my attempt at comfort had calmed her. “I swear it.” With that, she dissolved away into mist once again.
“You’re not the only one who’s lonely, Melanie,” I said while looking at my favorite photo of Christie on my office wall. It was taken during our delayed honeymoon in Hawaii. She was so beautiful, glowing, and healthy then- the way I kept her memory in my heart. She was five months pregnant with Paul at the time, and her forming baby bump made her the very definition of happiness, something that this home was in immediate need of. When and if this case was finally solved, I was definitely going to call my son and maybe take some time off to spend with him. I went back to the kitchen to warm up my now cold dinner, but somehow, I didn’t feel very hungry. I went to bed that night knowing that this was very real, and that Melanie wasn’t the only one who wouldn’t find peace till the case was solved.
Sometime around midnight, not being able to sleep, I went to my desk, and started thinking and writing. One possibility that no one seems to have thought of was since it was Trisha Moore’s car , could it have been a case of mistaken identity? Was our perp a stalker who had finally been able to strike his target? Was Melanie in the wrong place at the wrong time? Tomorrow, I would call Trisha, ask her if there had been anything strange going on in her life at the time, and then I’d head to the evidence locker, go over it again with a fine tooth comb, and take one more look at the crime scene photos, taking a better look at the ones of the car. I spent the next few hours at my desk, chasing shadows on paper until exhaustion finally pulled me toward the bedroom. Sleep was close to impossible, even in my comfortable bed.
Getting into the office at 7:00 the next morning, I hit the evidence locker, and took its contents back to my desk.Keith had called in and said that he’d be late, because his granddaughter was sick. Using the alone time, I looked over the crime scene photos. Looking at the car, the rear passenger door was open, as the officers at the scene had noted. The keys were in the ignition, the rear passenger’s side window was rolled down, and Melanie’s purse was lying on the left side. “So, it looks like Melanie was right. The perp could have opened the door and grabbed her,” I thought. That didn’t totally remove the mistaken identity theory, but it didn’t maintain it either. Looking further into the reports, I got a closer glimpse at the necklace that was found under Melanie’s body. It matched the one that I saw in the photo from her brother’s wall, but the cross pendant was missing. The first time I looked, I thought maybe it had been ripped off her neck, but all the links were intact. Could the perp have taken the cross as a sick souvenir?
At 8:30, Keith arrived at the station. After apologizing for his tardiness, he saw that I had been at work. “Anything catch your eye?” he asked.
“Yeah, look at the necklace.” I handed him the photo and the magnifying glass I had been using. “Tell me what you see–or don’t see.”
“There’s not a single broken link on it,” he exclaimed. “The bastard must have taken it off her neck and removed the cross, taking it as a trophy.”
“Also, Keith, I was thinking that it might be mistaken identity, but after thinking about it, I’m not so sure. Melanie and Trisha looked nothing alike. Our victim was blonde, and the friend is a redhead, and a pic from Melanie’s funeral shows that Trisha had red hair at that time too.. We might be able to take that off the board, unless our killer just saw the car, a woman in it, and snapped..”
“I agree, “ Keith replied. “To cover our tracks, maybe we should call Trisha Moore again and ask her if anything strange had been going on in her life in the time leading up to the murder.”
“ You must have read my mind,” I laughed. “ I was thinking about that myself while looking through everything.”
At 10:00 that morning, I made the call to Trisha. “Ms. Moore, this is Detective Jennings again. I have a quick question for you,” I said. “Sure, go for it, if it’s something that you think may help catch Mel’s killer,” she enthusiastically replied.
“Ok, during any time during the run up to Melanie’s death, did you see anything strange happening in your personal life? Like phone calls at weird hours with nobody saying anything, maybe things moved around in your house, or even a feeling that you were being watched? If you can remember anything, please tell us. We’re trying to determine if you were the target because it was your car, or if Melanie was a random victim.”
Taking time to think, Trisha responded. “No, nothing weird like any of those things you listed happened to me. Everything was nice and quiet. I had just had a breakup, but it was mutual.”
“Ok Trisha, thanks for talking to us. Please, if anything comes to your mind, no matter how small it might be, let us know.”
“I will,” she said, and ended the call.
“What do you think?” I asked Keith. “Well, it's seeming more and more to me like the mistaken identity theory is off the table. Like you said, the two girls looked nothing alike. But, if the guy was totally in a rage, I don’t know. On the one hand, he was jacked up enough to drag Melanie out to the woods and do the deed, but on the other, he was calm enough to unclip the necklace, unhook the pendant, and take it with him. So what I’m seeing is he killed her, took the necklace off her, took the cross, and then laid it on the ground then put her body on it. This guy is both enraged and calm enough to know what he’s doing.”
“Ok, now I’m starting to think that Melanie was the target,” I said while shaking my head. “The necklace is personal. He didn’t take it all, like he wanted just a little part of her.”
This could be something I’ve heard of, but had never seen: a stalker that was good at covering his tracks, one who melted into the background and left nothing behind but chaos. That thought made me shudder. Somewhere, that cross was on someone or in someone’s box, and if it took me years and years, I would find him.
