When the news of the Lake Sammamish disappearances first hit the papers in 1974, Tina received a call from a woman named Gail Strafford, who at the time headed up the Forensic Anthropology Department at the University of Tennessee. She had met Ruth at the medical conference in Aspen and relayed for Tina the conversation they’d had outside her hotel room door—about Gail’s field of work, which was being used to help narrow down the timeline of Caryn Campbell’s death. Gail was stricken to hear that Ruth had gone missing less than five months later, that foul play was suspected in her disappearance too. If there was ever anything she could do to help, Tina should not hesitate to reach out.
Gail Strafford is retired now, but she sent a team here, to this slight hillside in Issaquah, and over the last few weeks, they have conducted extensive testing on the area where The Defendant confessed to dumping Ruth’s remains. They succeeded in zoning a medium-sized radius where the ground showed dynamic changes to the nutrient profile of the local ecosystem. They tagged locations and told us to plant any sort of hardy, shade-loving fern. In six months, they’ll come back and assess the reflectance of the plant’s foliage, which has been found to take on a reddish cast from soil containing human remains, even in places where a body decomposed decades ago.
* * *
For the next few hours, the two of us dig shallow holes, loosen the roots on a half dozen cinnamon ferns, pack them tight with native soil, spritz with root stimulant, ration our bottled water, and start again.
We site the last plant in the direction of the fading sun, and Tina leans hard on her shovel and closes her eyes. Her lips are moving silently around words I recognize. I carry you like my own personal Time Machine, as I put on my lipstick, smile, and head out to the party.
It’s a line by one of her favorite poets, a woman named Donna Carnes, whose husband went out for a sail in San Francisco Bay and has not been seen since. I love it too. How many parties have I gone to over the years, and laughed, and had a good time, while still managing to hold Denise close?
Something shifted for me after we got that guilty verdict. It was a bit like going to the chiropractor for a stiff back and regaining full range of motion. Long before my mother told me about the four days I went missing in the Florida swamplands, I’d sensed there was a part of me that was mislaid. I’d gone on a pilgrimage to Florida State to find it, not understanding why I needed to be there, only that I did. I’d cleaned and straightened and organized in an attempt to bring order to my surroundings because inside, I was in turmoil. I’d stayed home on nights when I should have gone out because kicking up my heels and having a few beers at a party did not feel fun for me the way it did for others my age. This was the wellspring of shame—the feeling that I was different, that I was somehow wrong. In the days and weeks after the trial ended, that conviction softened, then sloughed in phases, as life revealed to me that I’d been exactly who and where I needed to be, that I was the only person on the face of the earth who could have sent Denise’s killer to the electric chair.
Denise’s short life had meaning. She helped to fuse the parts of me with jagged edges, pieces that ergonomically should not fit together but somehow do. It was an alignment, a relief from pain that would have been chronic, and it was Denise’s lasting gift to me.
* * *
The sky is brushed pink and lavender as we pack up, roll our heads on our stiff necks, and head back down the hillside, pants ruined at the knees.
The hope is that when we come back in the fall, one of the ferns will flag Ruth’s final resting place. But I can do better than hope. I have faith, because nature is the very best example of integration. Things grow differently when they’re damaged, showing us how to occupy strange new ground to bloom red instead of green. We can be found, brighter than before.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, my profound gratitude to Kathy Kleiner for responding to my email in 2019 and generously sharing your story. I am blown away by your indomitable spirit, courage, and mostly, your capacity for joy. From one survivor to another, I see you, and you inspire me.
Thank you, Pauline Boss, a pioneer whom I have never met but whose book The Myth of Closure served as inspiration for Tina’s work with “complicated grief.” To anyone going through a hard time or struggling with past or generational trauma, I highly recommend this small but mighty read, which helped me find meaning in something I’d long considered meaningless and gave me a newfound sense of agency in my life.
Thank you, Marysue Rucci, my incomparable editor, who pushed me to the point of (nearly!) breaking. This book needed it, and so did I. Everything I write from here on out will be better because of the standard you held me to on this one.
Alyssa Reuben—friend, confidante, and extraordinary literary agent—I would not have this life without you. Thank you for the nudges, the gentle and the not-so-gentle ones, and for always telling it like it is so that when you tell me something good, I know I can believe you.
To the whole team at Marysue Rucci Books: Jessica Preeg, Richard Rhorer, Andy Jiaming Tang—thank you for the friendship and the support. Elizabeth Breeden, thank you for being you. I would follow you into a fire.
Bruna Papandrea, Erik Feig, Jeanne Snow, Casey Haver, Julia Hammer, Samie Kim Falvey—thank you for getting the band back together on this one. Let’s make something great.
Big thanks to Alice Gammill, my Pamela Schumacher-esque assistant, who dots every i and crosses every t, loves on my big fat bulldog like a second mother, and who procured hundreds of pages of transcripts and case files from the Florida Archives at the height of the pandemic—a painstaking and nearly impossible task that you never gave up on. I could not have told this story without you.
Michelle Weiner, Joe Mann, Cait Hoyt, and Olivia Blaustein, thank you for the wise advice, the nimble negotiating, and for continuing to make all my Hollywood dreams come true.
Christine Cuddy, you make sure all our bases are covered always. With you I have the security to be creative—thank you.
The team at Sunshine Sachs: Kimberly Christman, Keleigh Thomas Morgan, and Hannah Edelman. You three are worth every penny. Grateful for what you see in me.
Briana Dunning is the most talented hair stylist in Los Angeles and I have to thank her not only for a killer cut but for all her native Floridian wisdom. She is the one who taught me the saying that in Florida, the further north you go, the more southern it gets, which helped orient my understanding of the Panhandle. And to my Seattle shepherd, Bethany Heitman, thank you for dispelling me of the notion that Seattle is the rainiest city in the country just before the pages went to press.
Thank you to Tori Telfer, whose powerful 2019 profile of Kathy Kleiner in Rolling Stone got some of the wheels turning in my head, and who didn’t hesitate to share resources when I cold-emailed her. You remind me of how lucky I am to be a part of this writing community.
On the subject of luck, I have a bit of it thanks to you, the reader. Thank you for preordering, purchasing, reserving at your local library, and for your messages and Instagram tags. Without you, there is no this. I hope number three was worth the wait.