Jack’s bed was gone, and the sturdy oak dressers had been replaced by a heart pine desk and a stiff rosy armchair I’d picked up at Goodwill when I rearranged the room. Nearly ten years he’d been gone…
Head still throbbing from the whiskey earlier, I stared at a picture of Dennis Alinsky online.
Dennis was on Facebook and Twitter too, but he didn’t make many posts and his friends list was tiny. A welder by night and motorcycle enthusiast by day (according to his bio), he was originally from Pittsburgh. His family was from there; even his job and motorcycle pals were there.
But Dennis had moved to Austin, Indiana six months ago, renting the empty trailer on Willow Run Road. The question was: why?
It took a while to make the connection, but online court documents provided some clarity. The rough and tough biker had no legal problems, but that wasn’t the case for his sister Alison.
Alison was his only connection to Indiana, as that was where she was serving her own life sentence. Unlike Chrissy, hers was without parole.
Alison Alinsky, age thirty-four. She had served four years already—her lifelong sentence only just beginning. According to the brief charges listed on the crime database and the more detailed news accounts online, Alison had killed her four-year-old son, Toby.
Alison had held his tiny, unsuspecting head underwater. I pinched my eyes closed and massaged my temples, trying to squeeze the intrusive images of it away.
Alison had denied responsibility. According to her, a shape-shifting demon had entered her home and killed him. A long history of mental health issues and a decent lawyer weren’t enough to save her. The jury reached its verdict in little more than an hour.
Because a search of Alison’s internet history revealed the truth: that she’d been researching methods of getting rid of her son that ranged from suffocation and poisoning to black market adoption. For his sake, I wish she would have chosen the latter.
Despite the grisly details and eerie appeal of reading up on Alison’s case, I couldn’t find any connection between her and Chrissy except that they had spent four years in the same maximum-security Indiana prison. Had they been friends behind bars? Is that how Chrissy came in contact with Alison’s brother, Dennis? Did Alison play matchmaker, hooking up her brother with another killer?
I jotted down a few notes. I will ask Chrissy about him in the morning and find out what the connection is to Alison.
I also wanted to know why she was back. Why not move to Pittsburgh with Dennis if they were dating? Why choose here, the place where all the horror began?
And her statements to the press claiming her innocence … why change the story now? Why not file for an appeal or get another lawyer while still behind bars? Why not fight the charges from the get-go?
I minimized news articles about the drowning of Toby Alinsky and pulled up the same news video I’d watched a dozen times already.
The angle was different—instead of viewing Chrissy from behind, making her wild statements on my front porch, I saw her from the camera’s point of view. Head held high, shoulders thrust back defiantly, she looked straight into the camera and announced our plans of writing her story before we’d ever even discussed it.
A story of innocence, one they’d all have to read if they wanted to know the truth…
It sent chills down my spine, but for some reason I couldn’t stop watching. She shimmered in the spotlight, transforming from belligerent social deviant to pitiful, then transforming again to this beautiful, polished, in-control, determined woman who preached from the front steps of the farm where her victim’s body had been found.
The strange orange hair actually suited her.
Chrissy’s face wasn’t the only one in the news. I couldn’t bear to watch or read too much … seeing myself on camera, hearing clips of my name and history and connection to the case were overwhelming.
Yes, I wanted the story. But I didn’t want the spotlight. And I thought I’d be better prepared.
The media interest wasn’t only local either. Sandy Jonas, the host of Crime Times International, had reviewed the case on air tonight and mentioned my name. I loved her podcast, but not anymore. I cringed just thinking of her words; they pierced right through me like a knife, twisting my gut pretzel-style and threatening to make me upchuck for the third time tonight.
Sandy, with her sassy know-it-all southern drawl, had said: “At first, I thought: who is this no-name wannabe writer who’s been tricked into using her mediocre talents to shine a spotlight on a manipulator like Chrissy Cornwall? But then I made the connection: Breyas. I know that name. Guys, you know it too! Chrissy’s victim was discovered on the Breyas farm. And who is this amateur with no writing credits to her name? None other than Natalie Breyas herself. Natalie was only nine years old when Jenny Juliott’s body was found on her family’s farm. As far as I know, there’s been no correspondence between the two women over the years. Yet Natalie still resides in Austin, Indiana. And get this: she still owns the family farm. As someone who is obsessed with crime, it makes sense to me that this young unemployed woman would be fascinated by Chrissy … by this boogeyman from her youth. She has a degree in creative writing, people! But she’s never wrote a book. What the hell does she know about investigative writing? I have some serious concerns. Natalie, honey, if you’re listening … don’t be fooled by that monster. Chrissy is a sociopath, through and through. She killed that girl and ruined her family’s entire life. Hell, in some ways, you could say she ruined yours too. If I remember my history, the brother offed himself many years ago and the mother ran off and skipped town too…”
I turned it off then, my body shaking with
