Bad Memory Page 3

  4

  JESSICA

  It was easy for Jessica to see why things had gotten so bad so quickly for Rue Hunter.

  It had begun with an anonymous phone call to the sheriff’s department, Rose told her. The caller had spotted a teenage girl walking along the side of the highway sometime after ten p.m. She was barefoot and covered in blood and appeared to be disorientated. The guy pulled up alongside her, rolled down his car window, and asked if she was okay. She gave him a weird kind of empty stare before telling him, “They’re both dead.”

  The guy was so spooked that he immediately drove off. A half mile down the road, he started regretting his actions, figured the girl probably needed help. So he made the call from the next pay phone he came to. Told the cops it was like a scene from a horror movie, right at the end when the main character is the last one left standing.

  Hundred Acres was the seat of the county that shared its name, and the Hundred Acres Sheriff’s Department was located not far from where the girl had been seen. The sheriff’s deputy, who was working the overnight shift and picked up the call, headed straight out in his cruiser to try to track down the “horror movie girl,” but there was no sign of anyone near the main highway. He would later testify at the trial how he had returned to the station after a short while, writing off the anonymous caller as a crank, unaware that the town had already been changed forever. A horror movie, indeed, he’d remembered thinking to himself with a smile. It might not be Halloween, but it was a holiday weekend, and that meant the crazies were still out in force.

  A little over three hours later, the sheriff’s deputy’s phone rang again. This time, a local resident, Patty Meeks, was on the line. She wasn’t one of the crazies. She was worried about her daughter, Megan, who had missed her midnight curfew. Patty had already tried phoning around to Megan’s friends. She had gotten the Hunters’ machine, while the Jameses weren’t overly concerned that their son Lucas hadn’t come home yet either. After all, he was eighteen, lots of parties were happening, and it was only one thirty a.m. They’d just returned home from a get-together with friends themselves. It was perfectly understandable for kids at that age to lose track of time, they’d pointed out. No need to worry.

  But Patty Meeks was worried. Megan never broke a curfew. Patty knew she was probably a little too strict with her daughter, but Megan was a good girl. By far the most sensible one out of the three friends. If she had planned to stay out later than agreed, she definitely would have phoned home to ask her mom’s permission.

  The sheriff’s deputy knew Patty Meeks, and he knew Megan, so he immediately picked up his car keys again, climbed into the cruiser, and followed the same route along the highway he had driven earlier in the evening.

  Only this time, he also decided to swing by Devil’s Drop, a well-known make-out spot popular with the town’s young folks.

  Just in case.

  Later, once the shock began to wear off and the crime scene was processed, the sheriff’s deputy remembered the phone call about the barefoot “horror movie girl.” A pair of sandals had been found at the crime scene that didn’t belong to Megan Meeks. The caller had said the girl on the highway was tall and slim and had long blonde hair. The description sounded a lot like Rue Hunter, a close friend of both of the deceased.

  The cops initially thought Rue might be a third victim, who had somehow managed to survive the attack. They hoped she might be an important eyewitness.

  Instead, Rue Hunter quickly became their prime suspect.

  The evidence stacked up against her pretty fast: her dress soaked in blood that tests later confirmed belonged to Lucas James and Megan Meeks; entries from Megan’s journal revealing she had been secretly dating Lucas behind her best friend’s back; the murder weapon covered in Rue Hunter’s bloody fingerprints found at the bottom of the laundry basket under an old bath towel that stank of bleach; the teenager’s unwillingness to tell the cops what the hell had happened at Devil’s Drop.

  Plus, the girl had been trouble for a long time, and everyone in town knew she had begun to go off the rails big time in the last year or two. Like mother, like daughter, they whispered behind cupped hands. Only Barb Hunter was nothing worse than a drunk who would open her legs to whoever was willing to buy her the most liquor, while her daughter wound up being a murderer on top of the booze and drugs.

  As far as local law enforcement was concerned, Rue Hunter checked all the boxes.

  Means. Motive. Opportunity.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  Like shots fired from a gun.

  Only instead of a smoking gun, Sheriff Charlie Holten had had a five-inch switchblade stored in a clear plastic bag that would be their key piece of evidence when charging the teenager with double homicide.

  That was until Rue Hunter’s confession had sealed her own fate.

  Jessica was silent for a moment after Rose had finished speaking.

  The story reminded her of the crime scene photos she’d seen of her own mother’s murder. A woman Jessica had never gotten the chance to know. Like Megan Meeks and Lucas James, Eleanor Lavelle had had her life cut short in a violent and horrific way by a killer’s knife.

  “I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” Jessica told Rose. “I can see exactly why the cops liked Rue for the murders almost from the get-go. I can also see why she was convicted. What does surprise me, though, is that it was a death penalty case. I mean, it was a terrible crime and all, but she was only eighteen. There was no rape or torture of the victims, no murder of a child or death of a police officer involved.”

  Rose nodded. “You’re right, but the prosecution put forward a case for murder along with several other special circumstances.” She held up a finger for each one. “Multiple murders. Lying in wait. Murder during the course of a robbery.”

  Jessica paused midway through the sentence she was writing and looked up.

  “A robbery? I thought the motive was revenge because Lucas and Megan were getting it on?”

  “It was,” Rose said. “But there was also some jewelry and cash stolen from the victims. The prosecution argued that Rue went to Devil’s Drop and killed them in a jealous rage. Classic crime of passion. Then, the prosecution said, she decided to rob their dead bodies in order to fund her drink and drugs problem. The jury at the sentencing trial bought it.”

  “Did the cops find the stolen jewelry and cash?”

  “No, they were never recovered.” Rose laughed bitterly. “Apparently, Rue was smart enough to stash stolen goods somewhere no one would ever find them but dumb enough to hide the murder weapon covered in her fingerprints at home.”

  “Uh-huh. Tell me about the confession.”

  Rose sighed and gazed out the picture window. There was still a steady flow of traffic on the highway. Folks who had clocked out for the weekend and who were heading to Vegas to try their luck on the roulette wheel or in the poker rooms or with the opposite sex or with the same sex. Whatever floated their fake Venetian gondolas. Nine-to-fivers who wanted to immerse themselves in the seductive neon desert and forget about the real world for a couple of days.

  Rose turned back to Jessica and gave a tiny shrug of her shoulders.

  “I’ve thought about it a lot over the years,” she said. “In a way, I can’t imagine why she would confess to something so terrible. Something, I’m absolutely sure, she didn’t do. Then I think about how scared she must have been. She wasn’t much older than a kid. She was hungover, in shock, traumatized. Her best friends were dead. The people she was closest to in the world. Even closer than she was to me. She was interrogated for hours in a small, stuffy room, first by the cops and then by the police psychologist. Asking her the same questions over and over and over again. In the end, I think she just told them what they wanted to hear so they would let her go home. Of course, that never happened. She never set foot in our house again.”

  “What about appeals?” Jessica asked. “I take it they all failed?”

  Rose hesitated. “Rue never
appealed her conviction. The defense attorney at her sentencing trial was woefully out of his depth. Later, plenty of so-called top lawyers came crawling out of the woodwork, all offering to take on an appeal on a pro bono basis, knowing full well it was a high-profile case that would guarantee plenty of free publicity in return. Rue turned them all down.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  Rose looked at Jessica, a challenge in her eyes.

  “Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

  “Huh? How?”

  Rose Dalton unzipped the white leather purse and pulled out a small clear plastic folder. She snapped open the fastener and withdrew several sheets of paper and unfolded them. Passed them across the desk to Jessica and tapped the sheet on top.

  “A visitation order to meet with Rue at the prison tomorrow,” she said. “The visit is already approved. All you have to do is call the number at the top of the page to confirm you’ll be there.”

  “That was quick. Don’t prison visits usually take a while to arrange?”

  “Processing times vary. I guess it’s a little faster when someone’s about to be executed.”

  Jessica didn’t know how to respond to that comment, so she scanned the document instead. Rue Hunter was being held at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. Jessica had no idea where that was, other than it was clearly somewhere in California. And California was a big place, as Pryce had reminded her. She flipped over to the next two pages, which were stapled together. It was Jessica’s copy of a contract.

  “Holy shit.” Her eyes widened. “Twenty-five grand?”

  Rose Dalton was offering $25,000 for Jessica’s services, and the fee would rise to a cool $150,000 if Rue Hunter was cleared of the murders and compensated by the state. Ed would be doing cartwheels across the office when he found out how much dough was involved. It would keep him in Cuba libres at Ruben’s for months.

  “Is it enough for you to take on the case?” Rose asked.

  For a week’s work? Hell, yes.

  The agency needed the money, but Jessica had to be straight with the woman.

  “It’s too much,” she said. “A lot more than our usual fee would be.”

  “But I’d need you to prioritize this case over all your other clients,” Rose said. “Start your investigation immediately. Work the case morning, noon, and night if need be. Is what I’m offering enough?”

  Jessica nodded. “It’s enough.”

  “I hoped that’s what you’d say.”

  Rose produced a thick brown envelope from her purse and laid it on the desk between them.

  “It’s all there. You can count it if you like.”

  Jessica was incredulous. “You brought twenty-five grand in cash?”

  No wonder the woman had been holding onto the purse tighter than a kid clutching a candy bar.

  “I withdrew the money from a couple of different savings accounts. I didn’t want to write a check. This way you know I’m good for the money.”

  Jessica jutted her chin toward the gold band on the ring finger of Rose Dalton’s left hand.

  “What’s your husband saying about you splashing out thousands of dollars on a private investigator?”

  “He doesn’t know.”

  Jessica had suspected as much.

  “And he doesn’t know you’re here in Hundred Acres either?”

  Rose shook her head. “Bob’s back home in Tucson. I hate airplanes, so he thinks I’m spending a couple of days driving up to Chowchilla. Which isn’t really a lie, to be fair. He just doesn’t know about the diversion to Hundred Acres. Bob and the boys will fly up for the, um, you know, the funeral. Rue has never met my sons, didn’t ever want them to see her in that place, and she’s adamant that she doesn’t want Bob or the boys at the execution. If there is an execution, that is.”

  The hope in her voice squeezed at Jessica’s heart.

  “Look, Rose,” she said. “I’ve got to be honest with you. What you’ve told me so far, it sounds to me like Rue did it. Even if she didn’t, it’s going to be a hell of a job trying to prove her innocence in such a short space of time.”

  “Yes, I know. But Rue didn’t want me looking into all this stuff before now. All I’m asking is for you to do some digging, ask some questions, get me some answers. There’s so much that we still don’t know about what happened that night.”

  “I don’t know,” Jessica said. “It’s a lot of money for a long shot.”

  “I owe her.”

  “You owe her? What does that mean?”

  “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  Jessica shook her head. Her own family history was almost as fucked up as Rose Dalton’s, but she wasn’t about to start comparing notes with a complete stranger.

  “Only child.”

  “So you couldn’t possibly understand. The money means nothing to me compared to my sister’s life. Our mom drank herself to death soon after Rue was sent to the row, so she’s the only blood relative I have left, other than my kids. I owe it to Rue, and I owe it to myself, to give it one last shot to save her. Especially now that she’s finally asked for my help.”

  Jessica glanced at the envelope stuffed full of Rose Dalton’s life savings. She felt a thrill of adrenaline course through her veins and realized she was excited. Six months of preemployee background checks and adultery cases and asset investigations had left her desperate for something that would get the blood pumping, spark her imagination, challenge her.

  But still, she didn’t pick up the cash.

  Rose said, “Meet with Rue tomorrow and then decide. I’m driving up to Chowchilla tonight. This is where I’ll be staying, and I can be contacted on this number anytime, night or day.” She handed Jessica a sheet of lined paper torn from a notepad with the name and address of a motel and a cell phone number scribbled on it. “The money is yours once you sign the contract. Hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow, Miss Shaw.”

  Rose Dalton slipped the brown envelope back into the white leather purse, stood, and headed for the door. Then she stepped out into the desert dusk without a backward glance, leaving Jessica alone with her thoughts.

  She sat there for a while, the sky outside the window growing darker and the traffic becoming lighter. Then she opened the bottom drawer of the desk where she kept a glass tumbler and a bottle of Talisker. Jessica poured two fingers of Scotch into the glass. Then she added another finger.

  It had been a hell of a night.

  She fired up the laptop, sipped the whiskey, and realized she had already made up her mind about taking on the case. She pulled up Google and typed Rue Hunter’s name into the search bar. Figured she might as well get a head start on the investigation. She hit “Enter” and read the first result at the top of the page, and her fingers froze above the keyboard.

  Jessica stared at the screen.

  The Rue Hunter case had just gotten more interesting.

  5

  JESSICA

  The Central California Women’s Facility was one of the largest female correctional institutions in the United States. Even so, whoever had drawn up the plans hadn’t reckoned on quite so many West Coast women being unable to stay on the right side of the law. As such, its sprawling 640 acres weren’t enough to cope with the demand, and the current inmate population stood at around a thousand more than its intended capacity.

  The prison also housed all twenty-two of the state’s female condemned, including Rue Hunter, who had the dubious distinction of being the row’s longest-serving resident. Chowchilla, where the facility was located, was around 250 miles north of downtown Los Angeles and a four-hour drive from Hundred Acres, meaning an early start after a late night at the office.

  What had started out as a quick Google search had rapidly led to Jessica falling down an internet rabbit hole for several hours. There were the usual historical articles and sensationalist “killer women” documentaries on YouTube. Dozens of threads on true crime forums discussing whether Rue Hunter was guilt
y, if her confession had been forced or coerced, if she had deserved to be handed the death penalty.

  Right at the top of the search results were the breaking news stories about Rue Hunter’s impending execution—and why it was such a big deal.

  Jessica discovered California had not executed a prisoner since 2006. Even more striking was the revelation that a woman had not met her end in the death chamber in the Golden State since 1962. Which meant Rue Hunter would be the first female to be executed by the state of California in almost sixty years—and that made her big news as far as the media was concerned.

  For the first time since the late eighties, the notorious teen murderer was back in the headlines. Only this time, #DevilsDropMurders was trending on Twitter, and her old mug shot was being shared all over Facebook. Reporters from online news sites regurgitated details from old newspaper cuttings and tried to pass their clickbait stories off as real reporting.

  As she cruised north along State Route 99, Jessica glanced at her cell phone, charging in the holder on the dashboard, and sighed. She hadn’t heard from Dylan since she’d blown off their date the night before. She knew he’d be pissed that she’d put work ahead of him yet again. She also knew he wouldn’t stay mad at her for long.

  A roadside sign for the state prisons appeared up ahead. Jessica flipped on the blinker, eased into the lane for the off-ramp, and turned her thoughts back to the visit with Rue Hunter. She’d never been inside a prison before, and she was surprised to discover she was a little nervous about the whole experience. Jessica reached over, fumbled in her bag on the passenger seat, and found a pack of Marlboro Lights. She shook one out, lit it with the truck’s cigarette lighter, and rolled the window down halfway. She took a long satisfying drag and promised herself for the millionth time she would quit soon, even though she knew she wouldn’t.

  The gray clouds that had kept her company through Selma and Fowler and Calwa had finally given way to a clear blue sky, and the blast of cool, fresh air through the open window instantly made Jessica feel more awake and alert. The deafening roar of the wind drowned out a dull radio phone-in show broadcasting out of Fresno that, Jessica realized, had been contributing to her state of drowsiness.