could barely move her limbs, but she could see and her mind was processing it like the world’s slowest computer.
An old rolltop desk like the kind she’d seen in a museum had been placed on the other side of the room. It was like Emma was looking through a tunnel and she saw nothing else but the desk and the photographs that hung in a crisp row above it. Black and whites. A series of them that at first all looked the same. Young women. All Caucasian. All with long dark hair, parted in the middle. They were old photographs, like the kind that came out of high school yearbooks before color printing was readily available. The girls were pretty. Who were they? Why displayed in a row like that? As her stomach undulated and her now bloody knees ached, she lowered her head and summoned the strength to try to press onward. She heard the TV going again and the sound of footsteps above.
Where was she?
Who had taken her?
Emma told herself that this moment might be her only chance. She had to get out of there. She inched closer to the door and looked upward. A window. It was one of those basement openings that was narrow and cut into the earth by the foundation. It was the source of the beautiful streaming light. The light that was her pathway to freedom, her way to Elizabeth Smart.
The eyes of the eight photographs appeared to look at her. The young women with the dark hair all seemed to speak to Emma, telling her to run as fast as she could. To get out of that horrible place before it was too late for her… as it had been too late for them.
Who are those girls?
A shadow fell and a fast-moving figure eclipsed the light from the window. Emma looked up, groggy and terrified, and she started to lunge toward the brightness.
“You like my collection, do you?” he said, shoving her so hard she fell backward, her head barely missing the bed frame. She looked up at him, trying with all she had to see his face, to see if there was something about him that she could recall. There was something in his voice. Something… what it was she wasn’t sure.
He slammed the door shut with such force that the air in the room pummeled her as she tried to stand.
And then the terrible sound of the lock made her prisoner once more.
Peg Howell opened drawer after drawer. Her eyes popped in anger and her gnarled fingers poked like hooks through the contents of a junk drawer-which was most of the drawers in her decidedly unkempt kitchen. Where are my goddamn cigarettes? She pawed through sewing bobbins, rubber bands, golf balls, and a bunch of other useless stuff. Where are they? For a second she was slightly distracted by a copy of a book on tape that she’d once listened to relentlessly. It was a former FBI behavior psychologist’s take on serial killers. She was fascinated by the book because it could not have been more wrong. The female author’s pseudo analysis traced the origin of Bundy, Gacy, and Ramirez and their ritualized killings to some psychosexual trauma that occurred when they were young.
This is not to say that all serial killers are victims of sexual abuse any more than it would be fair to characterize each major serial killer as a bed wetter…
That line always made Peg laugh out loud when she played the cassette tape in her car on the way to work. Ted was no bed wetter. She’d asked him directly during one of those phone conversations when he was in jail in Colorado.
“Baby,” she said, “I’ve been reading a lot lately.”
“Reading is good, Peggy. I’d like to read more, but the crap they have here in jail is an insult to my intelligence. Only a person dumber than a bag of hammers would want to put up with the likes of Reader’s Digest and the same four Louis L’Amour adventure novels.”
“Can I send you something?” she asked, letting go of what she’d wanted to share about her own reading.
“No,” he said. “They’d probably just steal it. Bunch of thieves in here.”
She winced at the irony. “Were you abused? You know sexually?”
“Whoa! Where did that come from?”
“My reading. Just some FBI perv thinks that a lot of people like you, you know, have been abused.”
It was his turn to let it slide. The “people like you” comment was made without judgment.
“Wish I could be with you. I’d like to take you for a drive. Maybe up in the mountains.”
“I’d love that, Ted. More than anything.”
“Guard says that I have to go now. Guy’s an asshole. A couple of the jailers aren’t so bad. Gave me access to a typewriter. I’m thinking of writing to my congressman to see if I could get a little consideration. Maybe even the president. Bet he’d like a letter from Teddy Bundy.
“I’d like a letter, Ted,” she said.
“Okay. Will do.”
And then the call was over. Peg Howell didn’t know it, but it was the last phone call for a very long time that she’d get from the guy she’d fallen in love with.
The first letter came four days later. It was stamped by a jailer that it had been opened and reviewed for content. Peg wondered what it was they were looking for in the letter. Ted was an eloquent, thoughtful writer. He wasn’t going to put anything on paper that wasn’t in keeping with his very important stature. He was also a lover, the gentlest she could imagine.
Dear Peg,
You probably have a little idea about how lonely I am. Because judging by your last letter, you are too. I sit in my cell all day-except for one fifteen-minute stretch where they let me go out into the so-called yard for exercise. It is a total joke. The “yard” is about the size of a Ping-Pong table. I walk around it about a hundred times and then my time is up. I am glad that you are in my life. I think about you all day-and all night. If you were in the yard with me, I’d bet we’d figure out real fast what we could do in fifteen minutes. Are you blushing? I bet you are.
Hey, I’m about out of cigarette money. Can you send me some? Same as last time? The food here is crap too. I wish you could fix me one of those sausage and peppers dinners you were talking about in your last letter. Sounds good.
Tomorrow I have a psych evaluation with the county-appointed shrink. I’ll ask him if I’m supposed to be a bed wetter!
Love, Ted
She answered back right away. In fact, Peg Howell never put off writing back to Ted. A man like him-refined, charming, handsome-was not the kind of man a woman should ever keep waiting. Peg always wrote in longhand and she sprinkled some Jontue on each of her love-laced missives. She was fascinated by him and so very much in love. There was no way that she could explain to anyone that she’d fallen for Ted Bundy, because no one could ever understand. Their love for each other was epic, beyond all reason. She knew it. He knew it. No one else in the world mattered.
Dear Ted,
I was thinking that when you get out we should move far, far away from Tacoma. It holds nothing but bad memories for both of us. Maybe we could go to Idaho or somewhere where no one would know who you are. That sounds dumb now that I’ve committed it to paper. I don’t think there is a person on this planet who hasn’t heard of you. I want them to know the Teddy that I know-the smartest, most handsome man that ever walked the earth. I mailed a check for $100 for your canteen. I wish that you’d quit smoking, babe. It isn’t good for you. You’ll die of cancer or something, and then where will I be? I’m letting my hair grow out like you want me to. It is getting longer and longer by the day. I’ll be ready to send you a photo in a couple of weeks. Well, that’s all for now. Have got a lot of things to do.
Love, Peggy
Peggy Howell hurried inside, the package held tightly in her arms. She spun around the kitchen looking for a knife to unzip the clear plastic tape that sealed the box shut. The outside of the box was emblazoned with the logo W IGS BY G ABOR. Her heart pounding with anticipation, she pulled the two facing pieces open. Inside, under a blanket of cellophane, was shiny swirl of hair; a wig with a style name of SUSAN. There was no saying who Susan was, but when Peggy saw the photo in the back of the National Enquirer she was sure it was styled after the actress Susan Dey, who played Laurie, the eldest daughter, in the ABC TV series The Partridge Family.
She lifted it out as if it was a treasure beyond every expectation. Gently. Respectfully. She held it on her balled-up fist and shook it carefully, letting the genuine synthetic locks fall around her upright arm.
