It was Saturday, we were at the Greer mansion, and Beth was sitting on the sofa. She was wearing black full-length yoga pants and a black tee, her feet bare. She was lithe and elegant, ageless. She looked like a movie star—Meryl Streep, perhaps—graciously submitting to an interview. “Why?” she asked me. “I think you’ve read the trial transcripts.”
“More than once,” I said. The house was silent around us—no pipes or electric hums, no far-off barking dogs. Except for the sound of a clock ticking on the wall, the Greer mansion was the quietest place I had ever been. My eyes kept traveling to the shadows in the corners, and my ears kept straining for any kind of sound.
I hadn’t wanted to come back here; I’d dreaded it. But after seeking me out for lunch, Beth wouldn’t meet me anywhere else. It was either come, or give up the chance to talk to her. In the end, I couldn’t stay away.
At least I was rested. I had started to sleep properly for the first time in ages—Winston Purrchill liked to take half the bed, and I spent every night with his warm, solid presence beside me. I woke every morning with his calm face looking into mine as he pawed my cheek, insisting on breakfast. I’d never been as comfortable sleeping beside my own husband as I was sleeping beside that cat. I had no idea what that said about me.
“Then you know what the evidence was,” Beth said.
“There was enough evidence to bring an indictment,” I said. “It wasn’t nothing.”
Beth shrugged.
I glanced down at my notes, though I didn’t need to. I knew everything by heart. “There was the handwriting analysis. Comparing your handwriting to the Lady Killer notes.”
“That wasn’t a match,” Beth said.
“Actually, the results were inconclusive.”
She jangled the ice in her glass. “Which isn’t a match.”
I nodded. Handwriting analysis had been seen as gospel in 1977, but these days it had come under a lot of scientific fire. “What if I offered to pay for a new analysis?”
“It still wouldn’t be a match,” Beth said.
She was unreadable. I was far out of my league, dealing with someone who had been believed a killer for forty years. Still, I said, “The witness, Alan Parks, saw you leaving the second scene.” Parks lived in Alaska now, and he’d refused every one of my attempts to talk to him.
“He saw the back of a head with red hair,” Beth said. “For all we know, it was Ransom in a wig. And Alan Parks was drunk.”
“But he identified your photo. He admitted that he’d had two whiskey sours before leaving the house to walk his dog. It wasn’t exactly the kind of intoxication that would make someone hallucinate.”
“As an alcoholic myself, I think I can give expert testimony on this one. Two whiskey sours isn’t sober.”
“So if he didn’t see you that night, then what did he see?”
“I have no idea what he saw. It was forty years ago.” Beth’s voice went softer as she watched me. “Do you think you’re scaring me with this line of questioning, Shea? I don’t scare easily.”
“I’m not trying to scare you.”
“Then what are you trying to do?”
“Get your perspective on things. Like I said when we first met, I want to know what it’s like to be you.”
“All right, then. Do you want to know the most exciting day of my life? It was the day they arrested me.” She looked at my expression and said, “I’m being serious. I didn’t say it was a good day. I said it was exciting. You can’t read an accurate account of that day in any of the newspapers of the time, because none of them printed the real story. They only said I’d been arrested, and they ran that photo, the one with my tits in it.”
Her description was crude, but not entirely off base. She was talking about the photo of her in front of this very mansion, being led down the driveway with Detective Black on one arm and Detective Washington on the other. The photo in Who Was the Female Zodiac? in which she leaned toward the camera, her lips parted as if she were speaking. The pose and the angle, with her hands bound so tightly behind her, outlined the curves of her body, even beneath the trench coat. If she was a killer, she was the most sexual killer anyone had ever seen.
“It’s kind of a famous photo,” I said.
“Nothing about that photo is as it seems,” Beth said. “But then again, it made me look like a bitch. It played into the narrative that I was a serial killer. And it sold papers.”
“The gun,” I said, trying to stick to the topic of evidence. “There was the ballistics report that said the same gun killed your father and the two Lady Killer victims. How do you explain that?”
Beth looked at me evenly. “Do you think I killed my father?”
I stared back at her. “The truth?”
“Of course.”
I bit my lip, thinking. “I think it’s unlikely. You were nineteen, and it was a very violent crime. You didn’t need his money—you were already his heiress, and you had all the money you wanted. You told me Julian wasn’t abusive.”
Beth took a sip of her drink, listening. She looked tense, but if I had to guess, I thought part of her was enjoying this.
“The thing is, though, it’s possible,” I went on. “Your childhood wasn’t happy—you admit that. You were left alone a lot. You had no close friends. Most serial killers who have been studied can trace their tendencies back to childhood, and yours was definitely isolated. You’ve never been psychologically examined by court order, so no one knows if you’re a sociopath or not.”
“Gosh, you’re a charming date,” Beth said dryly.
I gave her a shrug that was pure Beth, the one that said, Maybe you have a point, but probably not. “You asked. What I come back to when I think about it is that if it was you, then it was almost the perfect crime. Because who was going to suspect the grieving teenage daughter?”
There was a moment of silence, both of us watching each other in the silent living room.
“The person who committed those murders,” Beth said, her voice low and calm, “was dangerous. Someone with no conscience and no fear. Someone who wanted to see people die. Someone who wouldn’t have stopped.” Her eyes met mine. “You’ve been asking about my parents, my childhood. Why don’t you go upstairs and see my childhood for yourself?”
“Upstairs?”
“Yes. The second door on the left was my childhood room. It’s been left as it was, so you can see what I saw as a little girl. My father’s study is up there—his papers are still there if you want to read them. My parents’ bedroom—now my bedroom—is at the end of the hall. My mother’s clothes are still in the closet. Look at anything you like.”
Sick dread settled in my stomach. “You still have your mother’s clothes?”
“I can never quite seem to get rid of them,” Beth said. “I get so far, and then . . . well. Not all of the answers you want so desperately are going to come from me. Some of them are going to come from this house.”
The air was still, as if the house were listening, waiting. I didn’t want to go upstairs, but I’d made a decision when I came here in the first place. I’d decided that despite whatever I’d seen the last time, despite the voice I’d heard on my phone, I wanted to risk it. I was tired of being so safe all the time. I was tired of being so afraid that I never lived my life.
I wanted to see what was upstairs.
I picked up my phone from the coffee table and turned off the recording. I was going to bring it with me and take pictures. I didn’t ask Beth’s permission.
I stood and walked to the stairs. They were worn hardwood, with a runner placed down the middle that was well cared for but obviously as old as the rest of the house. I put my hand on the hardwood banister and climbed.
The Greer mansion looked large from the outside, but the upstairs was a single hallway with a row of doorways on each side. The air was still, and there was carpet, a thin nap of dusty roses. There was no artwork on the walls, no family photos lining the hall. The boards beneath the flowers creaked softly under my feet.
The doors lining the corridor were all closed. I opened the second door on the left.