Omens

Chapter Twenty-six

In that file were all the details of how the Larsens killed four couples. I know my phrasing would not please Pamela. I should say it contained the evidence used to convict the Larsens of killing four couples. I might be her last hope, and even my language choices refused to give her the benefit of the doubt.

The police had only found the Larsens because they were tipped off by an anonymous source—which formed the basis of every “wrongly accused” conspiracy theory to follow. They’d received the tip after the third set of murders. But they’d taken one look at the Larsens—the quiet carpenter husband, the sweet former-teacher wife, the adorable toddler daughter—and tossed the lead aside.

Then, after Jan Gunderson and Peter Evans were killed, someone running through the files had found an eyewitness account of a young couple seen hurrying from the vicinity of the first crime scene. A man and a woman. Midtwenties. Handsome couple. He had shaggy blond hair. She had long dark hair. Wait a minute … Didn’t that sound like the couple they’d received the tip about?

The year was 1990. A newfangled piece of crime scene technology was just starting to be used. Something called DNA analysis. The crime scenes had been almost pristine—generic footprints, no hair, no fibers, no fingerprints. The fact that the bodies were left outdoors made the technicians’ work even more difficult. But there had been a few drops of blood found on a rock by the second set of victims. The police speculated that the killer had nicked himself. He’d pulled back his hand in surprise. The first drops spattered on the rock. He bound the hand and didn’t realize he’d left something of himself behind.

Only it wasn’t a him. The DNA matched Pamela Larsen’s.

The eyewitness from the first scene picked the couple out of a lineup. A local sporting goods store clerk ID’d Todd Larsen as a man who’d liked hunting knives. He’d bought four, all in the year of the killings. Three of the four murders had taken place on Fridays. That was the Larsens’ “date night” when they left little Eden at Grandma’s house.

Then there was the witchcraft.

Investigators had discovered a cache of occult material in the Larsen home. A locked cedar chest filled with candles and dried herbs, a silver dagger and chalice.

That box sealed the Larsens’ fate.

“That was the evidence I used to argue for an appeal,” Gabriel said. “The box of witchcraft supplies. Pamela Larsen had admitted to being a practicing Wiccan and everything in the box supported her claim. Simple paganism. Burning incense and making herbal teas, not sacrificing cats in the basement. The jury had failed to understand the distinction. I hoped things would have changed.”

“They hadn’t?”

He paused. Stretched his legs. Considered the question. “Yes, they had,” he said, as if reluctantly admitting to a failure. “The overall distinction was recognized by the appellate court. The average Wiccan is extremely unlikely to commit ritual human sacrifice. However, the key words there are average and unlikely. Just because the tenets of a religion prohibit something does not mean none of its adherents ever break that prohibition. It didn’t help that Pamela was a solo practitioner, with no coven to support her claim to be a Wiccan.”

“What rituals did they think were being performed with the murders?”

“No two experts could agree. In the end, they decided they were chasing a classification where none existed. If you read the accounts of so-called occult murders, you’ll find that in most cases, the killers were following no recognized branch of anything. They pulled in aspects from old books and modern movies and everything in between.”

“In other words, they made it up.”

“Exactly.”

“So that was the basis of your appeal attempt? That a jury of that time was likely to be prejudiced against Wiccans? That’s flimsy.”

“Thank you.”

“I don’t need to be a lawyer to know it was flimsy. Pamela didn’t like it, either. She thought there were better grounds.”

“She did.”

“What were they?”

“You can’t tell? Clearly she expected the answer to leap from the file.”

I flipped through it again. “She said it was about the fourth pair of murders—Jan Gunderson and Peter Evans—that there was a reason Pamela and Todd couldn’t have committed them. There’s no alibi, which would be the obvious answer. All of the elements of the fourth pair were found in at least one of the previous ones.”

“So what is different?”

“Only the day of the week. This couple wasn’t murdered on a Friday.”

“Exactly.”

He settled back.

“Um, okay … It’s a minor deviation, sure, but hardly grounds for an appeal.”

“I said the same thing. If you asked Pamela, she would be shocked—appalled even—that you didn’t immediately see the problem. Why did the prosecution believe the others were committed on Fridays?”

“Because it was their date night. Their daughter—” I stopped. Cleared my throat. “Me, I mean. Obviously.”

Obviously.

Except it hadn’t been so obvious. While I knew I was the child in the file, I’d disconnected from that.

The adorable toddler the police met when they first questioned the Larsens? That was me. The child who’d stayed overnight at her grandmother’s while Mommy and Daddy butchered eight people? That was me. The girl described during the arrest, screaming for her mother, biting the social worker, howling and sobbing uncontrollably for hours?

That was me.

“I was at their—I mean, my grandmother’s that night.” I paused. “Is she—?” I shook my head. “Never mind.”

“Your grandmother passed away years ago.”

“Right. Okay.” I wanted to ask about other family, but Gabriel wasn’t the person to answer that.

“Take a moment.”

As at the prison, he said it with a veneer of empathy, yet he couldn’t mask a note of impatience.

“I’m fine,” I said. “So where was Eden—I mean, where was I on the night of the last murders?”

“No one knows. That is the crux of Pamela’s argument.”

A shadow passed overhead. I looked up. Just a sparrow.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Your grandmother was the only person your parents entrusted with your care, and she was out of town. Therefore, your parents could not have killed anyone that night.”

“No, they just left me in bed. Or in the back of the car.”

Sleeping in the car. While they murdered two people.

I continued, “At that point, the Larsens had already been questioned about the murders. It makes logical sense to shake things up.”

“Yes, but as Pamela points out, they weren’t actually questioned as suspects. The police spoke to them under the pretext of investigating a neighborhood break-in. Pamela’s argument is that they would never have left you alone, either in the house or in the car. And they certainly wouldn’t take you along to a murder. That would be irresponsible parenting.”

I sputtered a laugh, then looked at his expression. “You’re serious?”

“She is. To her, the fact you were not with a sitter proves they couldn’t have committed the murders. Oddly, she has trouble finding a judge—or a lawyer—to agree with her.”

“And it’s not grounds for appeal anyway. So you based yours on prejudice against Wiccans?”

“No, I attempted to base it on this.” He took folded papers from his breast pocket. “Your mother refused. We settled on my backup—the Wiccan business. Which I expected to use in conjunction with this.” He waved the folded sheets. “On its own, the Wiccan defense was, as you say, flimsy.”

“So what’s that?” I pointed at the sheets.

He unfolded them. The papers were part of a police report. Withheld until he could present it with the proper degree of drama.

I read the sheets. Then I put them into the folder and set it on my other side—away from Gabriel.

“The answer is no,” I said.

He feigned confusion. “I believe I missed the question.”

“You held back those pages because they offer the strongest proof that the Larsens may not have been the killers. You also know if I go to these innocence groups, they might not take me seriously—I’m just a spoiled rich kid who wants someone to make all this nastiness go away. So you’re going to offer to investigate for me. I just need to stop this silly charade and go back home to my family ATM so I can hire you.” I glanced over. “Close?”

He considered the question. “No. I suspect you have no intention of going home until you’ve found your place in the world. Or until you see a pair of Jimmy Choos you can’t live without. Your current lack of funds, though, will make it difficult to hire me. But I have a solution.”

“Of course you do.”

“I will accept promissory notes due one month after your twenty-fifth birthday, when you receive the trust fund set up by your adoptive father. The extra month should allow you ample time to access the funds.”

“Done your research, I see.”

“Of course.”

“Why do you want this case?” I asked. “Yes, you can probably soak me for some serious cash, but your firm isn’t struggling for business. I’ve done my research, too. You’re successful enough that you don’t need to shill for clients.”

He opened his mouth.

I lifted my hand. “No, let me guess. Anything I can deduce is infinitely more trustworthy than anything you’re going to tell me.”

“Careful, Ms. Jones, you might offend me.”

“I owe you one for the Jimmy Choo jab. By the way, I’m a Louboutin girl, and their new line isn’t out until fall, so I won’t be going home for money until then.”

The faintest quirk of a smile. “I stand corrected.”

“As for why you’d do this? If you freed Pamela Larsen, your professional star would ascend into the stratosphere. That’s why you took her appeal. Except she didn’t like your strategy, so you lost your chance. This evidence isn’t good enough to pursue without a paying client. I can be that client.”

“You could be.”

“No, Mr. Walsh. I’m not that gullible. Or that desperate. Bill me for this morning, as per our original agreement.”

So what was in those pages Gabriel had removed from the file? That most valuable and elusive prize for any defense lawyer: a plausible alternate suspect. Jan Gunderson’s older brother, Christian.

On paper, Christian Gunderson was ideal. Midtwenties. A loner. Socially awkward. Anger-management issues that had led to three arrests for assault. Two charges had been dropped, probably because they’d been against family members—his father and his sister, Jan.

The police had zeroed in on Christian as soon as Jan and her fiancé were killed. Shortly before the deaths, Christian apparently had a huge fight with his sister, and Peter had interceded, whereupon neighbors swore they heard Christian threatening him.

But that didn’t explain the first three pairs of murders. You could suggest Christian had killed only Jan and Peter and then made it look like the other deaths, but the pattern fit too well, including details never released to the press. There was no evidence that Christian had access to those details.

Then investigators found a link. Christian and the first female victim, Amanda Mays, had both attended City College. The police theory was that pretty, vivacious Amanda rebuffed an advance from Christian. Maybe she said she was engaged, which she was. Maybe he’d stalked her, watched them together. Then he snapped and killed them both and tried to make it look like an occult murder.

Police found a more tenuous link to victim number two, Lisa Tyson. She’d worked within two miles of Christian’s job. Police postulated he’d seen her. Maybe he asked her out. Or maybe after his experience with Amanda, he just stalked her. Then he killed Lisa and her husband, Marty.

There was no obvious connection to couple number three, but police didn’t care by then. He’d killed four people and decided he liked it.

Then came his fight with his own sister, and he decided to make it four. After all, he’d gotten away with it so far. It was like being his own copycat killer.

So why wasn’t Christian Gunderson arrested? Because within hours of the police questioning him in his sister’s death, he hanged himself. The family—the parents and their remaining daughter—closed ranks after that. They could not recall why Christian and Jan argued and the neighbor who heard the threat was angry with the Gundersons for refusing to contribute to a new fence. Amanda Mays? Never heard of her. Not Lisa Tyson, either. And besides, Christian had been home every time a couple was murdered. Friday was family movie night. Check with the corner video store—Mrs. Gunderson rented a movie every Friday.

The police kept trying but found no solid evidence to link Christian to the crimes. Then they processed the blood that linked the second murder to Pamela Larsen and left the Gundersons to their grief.

The evidence against the Larsens still held. Of course they’d explained it away. The blood? The Larsens did a lot of hiking with little Eden. They’d been to that patch of woods before the murders, and Pamela vaguely recalled cutting her hand on a fruit salad lid. The knives? Again, they were outdoorsy. Todd fished. He also had a bad habit of leaving his knife uncleaned in the tackle box, until Pamela found it and swore the smell would never come off, so she made him buy new ones. The eyewitness? Everyone knew eyewitnesses were notoriously unreliable.

The jury didn’t buy it.

The Larsens were tried and convicted. The public had their monsters locked up where they belonged.