A month later, a second sketch. It was paired with the same demand, to confess or die. And it went viral. A brooding woman with short hair tucked behind her ears, a down-turned mouth, narrow eyes, and a prominent nose. This time, way more press. Several big influencers in the true crime arena started discussing it.
By the end of that week, a woman looking a lot like the second drawing turned up murdered in Santa Monica, California. The police were vague on details.
By the third sketch, which dropped sometime in mid-July—another man, with one angled-down eye—viraltook on a whole new meaning. Worldwide attention. All law enforcement agencies went on high alert in every town in America, especially in the West.
But after the days passed, no one turned up dead.
“Everyone’s obsessed with it,” Jess says with more energy than I’ve heard from her in a long time. “Social media is buzzing. Everyone’s wondering if there’s some dead body out there rotting away that they haven’t found. Or,” she adds, “the man dished out the correct confession and wriggled off the hook.”
I may not be into social media as much as she is, but I’m fully aware of the frenzy.
“All these frantic confessions from people who think they’ve been sketched keep popping up all over the place,” she continues. “Guess there are more than a few slightly cockeyed men out there. Who knew?” She pops a hunk of broccoli in her mouth. “Did you hear about that guy from Hamilton?” She points her fork at me.
I did. A well-known businessman with uneven eyes from a town not three hours from us, who sort of resembles the sketch, fessed up to poisoning his neighbor’s trees so he’d have a better view of the mountains. It made the local paper, and the city fined him, but noone besides him really seems to think he—some nobody from an afterthought state like Montana—was the actual target.
“Jess, we already have our flights booked,” I say. “You know money is tight for me. And I was looking forward to spending some time with you.”
She looks at the open kitchen window as if she longs to be somewhere else. The evening has cooled with the storm, and the sharp smell of wet pine steals in and mingles with the smell of garlic from her cooking.
“And Patrick’s already lined up to watch Sam. Come on, how often does that happen? And he’s looking forward to spending time with his dad.”
She half smiles.
“It’ll be fun. We don’t even need to stay for the entire conference. We can cut it short, go for just a night instead of two ... grab a nice dinner out. I’ll change our flights right now.”
“You really don’t think that sketch is you?”
“I don’t.” I grab her hand. It feels bony. Small.
“It is a crazy thought, isn’t it?”
“Yes, absolutely crazy.”
Jess presses her tongue against the inside of her cheek. When she turns back from the window to look at me, the lurking worry has momentarily sneaked away. “I’ll go finish my packing.”
A Confession
Facebook: Sara Johns—I can’t believe I look like the sketch, but OMG, enough of you guys think it looks like me even though I have a little mole under my right eye and the woman in the sketch doesn’t. Still, I’m scared. And I do have a confession to make ... I hope you guys understand and don’t hate me, but when I was 18, a friend and I set our friend’s uncle’s car on fire because he’d raped one of our friends. The car was in the driveway, and we didn’t know there was a small child sleeping in the house. The house caught fire, but the child was rescued and was okay. We were never caught, but I do regret being so reckless even though he was an awful, awful person. And man, this already feels better to get this off my chest. We could have killed a child!
Chapter 6
Five Days
I’m in need of caffeine and Jess informs me that she needs alone time to get her bearings before her talk, so I seize the opportunity.
Patrick showed up on time for Sam at 8 p.m. yesterday. Sam’s excitement to see him sent a lump right to my throat. I heaped praise on Patrick for getting it right for a change, hoping the positive reinforcement would carry over for future visits. I changed our flights so we’ll only stay the one night, rushed home to pack, and Jess and I caught a red-eye out. We stored our luggage with the hotel concierge since we were still too early for check-in when we got to the hotel around noon and have already attended a panel featuring relatives of the victims of the Interstate Killer.
Now it’s late afternoon and she’s due to speak in fifteen minutes. She’s nervous and frazzled, but I reassure her she’ll be fine, that she’s done this dozens of times before.
After swearing that I’ll return by the time she goes onstage, I leave the ballroom and walk through the broad conference halls toward the main lobby. It hums with the participants’ energy, united in the questionable faith that tragedy and violence can be tamed with observation and exposure, like a great cat in a zoo.
It’s my first time at one of these conventions. And probably my last since Jess is the only reason I’ve come.
The fact is, even though I became obsessed with crime in college and studied criminology before eventually becoming a police officer, I’m feeling a little silly to be among the hundreds—hell, thousands—of women and a few men milling through this convention center, ravenous to learn anything and everything about investigations, bloody scenes, and psychopaths.
The hunger for true crime books and podcasts and movies and TV series has fueled a booming industry. It’s mind-blowing. Everyone now feels like a trained expert in the field, no matter if conjecture and supposition rule the day. Behind every murder, people assume there’s something secret and mysterious, something stemming from grand plots and plans, when it’s usually shitty, unremarkable people allowing themselves to give in to their rages and their perversions.
Theirrages . . .
