One of the most obvious is Andrew Cave, Warren’s father and Melanie’s cuckolded husband. Countless people have told me that Andrew discovered his wife’s affair on the same day Chuck was killed, giving him a possible motive. He also owned a registered handgun, giving him access to a weapon—although ballistics testing later determined this was not the murder weapon. Furthermore, on the day in question—allegedly after leaving his wife—Andrew Cave drove upstate to his hometown in the Chicago suburbs. A dozen people saw him in a local sports bar that night, and he got into a fistfight that landed him in the emergency room.
As long as we’re considering spouses, you might say, what about Erin Buhrman? Like Andrew Cave, Erin had an alibi for the night her husband was killed. She was staying with a friend who was recovering from oral surgery, and the friend’s neighbors confirmed Erin’s car was parked in front of the house all night. Unlike Andrew Cave, Erin did not know about the affair between Chuck and Melanie until after Chuck’s death. She testified that she first learned about it from the newspaper. Moreover, she was clearly crushed by the death of her husband, so distraught that she ended up joining a cult. Again, I understand that gut feelings are not evidence, but it seems unlikely that she could’ve been cold-blooded enough to commit the murder.
While Chuck was generally well liked by both colleagues and students, there were a couple of professional skirmishes that engendered ill will. In the spring of 2002, Chuck caught a student cheating during a final exam and reported her to the administration. She was expelled, and left several angry voicemails on Chuck’s office line. Could the student have been so angry over this that she came back months later and killed him? It seems like an outlandish theory, but my initial examination into this student has turned up a sealed criminal record. I’m still digging, and I’ll keep you updated when I learn more.
In another academic dustup, the year before Chuck was killed a fellow history professor was up for tenure. Chuck opposed granting it on the basis that this professor had published a paper espousing a controversial position that Chuck felt would reflect poorly on the school. Other members of the Elm Park College History Department, none of whom would consent to being quoted on the record, told me that things became heated. The other professor did not receive tenure and immediately thereafter left the school. I understand he now teaches at a community college in Iowa. Is that the kind of grudge that’s serious enough to kill? I don’t know.
Here’s what else we’re not sure of: Chuck’s former colleagues also mentioned some rumors that Chuck had been carrying on with students and possibly other professors, but no one had anything to substantiate these claims. No one could even produce a name. If he was indeed carrying on multiple affairs, he was being discreet. Could one of Chuck’s paramours have been behind his murder? After all, they say hell hath no fury like a lover scorned . . .
chapter 7
I switched off the podcast, but not before memories of my father’s murder began running on an insistent, horrifying loop through my head. That day had started so well: It was a beautiful Saturday in late fall, the sun shining and the air crisp. Our mother went out to help her friend, and, as she had been going through an unusually dark period even by her standards, I was joyful, believing this outing to be a harbinger of good things to come. Our father was cheerful, and Lanie and I spent most of the day outdoors with him, raking leaves and playing tennis at the park. We ordered in pizza for a special treat, and then Lanie and I turned in early, worn out from the day’s activities.
“Today was really fun,” I said to Lanie as I snuggled underneath my covers.
“Yeah,” Lanie said, sounding distracted. “Do you hear that? Is Dad on the phone?”
“I think it’s just the TV. Why?”
Lanie was silent for so long that I almost dropped off to sleep, but then she said, “Josie? Can I tell you something?”
“Of course.”
She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I read Mom’s journal.”
“What?” I said sharply, sitting up and sending my sister a glare that she couldn’t see in the dark. “Lanie, that’s private. She’s going to be really mad.”
“Do you know why it’s private?” Lanie said, her voice sharpening a bit. “She’s been keeping things from us. She wrote that—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” I insisted. Our mother had always been very clear that her journals were strictly off-limits, for no one’s eyes but her own.
“Fine,” she hissed, clicking on a flashlight.
“Lanie,” I protested. “Come on. If you want to read, go read downstairs or something. I’m really tired.”
“No, I want to read in bed. Just close your eyes.”
I sighed loudly to signal my displeasure and rolled onto my side as Lanie reached under her mattress and grabbed a tattered paperback copy of Interview with the Vampire. She had bought the scandalous book for a quarter at the library book sale, sneaking it underneath approved copies of The Odyssey and Little Women. I knew she kept The Vampire Lestat and Stephen King’s It in her hiding place behind the sink in the playhouse, and I briefly considered using that knowledge as leverage to get her to turn off the light, but I was too tired to argue.
Sometime later, I awoke with a start, images of bursting fireworks in my head. Disoriented, unsure how long I had been asleep or what had awoken me, I sat up and looked at Lanie’s bed. It was empty. Downstairs, the back door slammed. Fear pricked through my veins, and, scarcely daring to breathe, I listened intently for other noises. The house was eerily silent.
Suddenly, footsteps pounded up the stairs. I clenched my blankets to my chest, nearly blacking out from terror. Was someone in the house?
The bedroom door banged open, and a scream tore through my throat before I realized it was just my sister.
Lanie, face ashen and eyes wild, gestured frantically for me to be quiet as she raced to the window. Pressing her forehead against the glass, she squinted into our dark backyard. A small moan escaped her lips and she muttered something that sounded like “first the girl.”
“What did you say?” I squeaked out.
She whirled to face me, dark braids swinging as if electrified. The expression on her face—cornflower eyes dark, pale cheeks hollowed by shadows, jaw bulging with clenched teeth—stopped my heart.
“Lanie, you’re scaring me,” I said when she didn’t immediately say anything. “What’s going on? Should we get Dad?”
“Dad’s dead,” she said hoarsely.
I gaped at her. Dead? Even as my stomach dropped, inappropriate laughter burbled up in my throat. Our father—our strong, vital father, the man who had earlier run us ragged on the tennis court—couldn’t be dead. The very idea was absurd.
“What?”
“He’s dead,” she repeated, her voice wavering.
“No,” I said, climbing out of bed. “No, that’s not true. We’ll just go downstairs and—”
“Don’t!” she shrieked, lunging at me and catching me by the arm. Her fingernails bit into my skin, causing drops of blood to rise to the surface. I barely felt it—I was too preoccupied with my sister’s naked terror. My sister was the most fearless person I knew, and she was scared out of her mind.
“You can’t go down there,” she said, squeezing my arm more tightly.