She’s not a mystery to me.
How gratifying to be the only person alive who knows her name. And how amusing to find that the accompanying article shares so few specific details about the crime. The authorities hold them back, hoping to eventually trap the culprit into revealing things only the killer would know.
They won’t trap me.
Casey settles at the table with the newspaper and takes great care to cut out the article with freshly honed scissors. On the reverse side is an article about the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor bombing.
Ah, today is December 7—-the date lives in infamy, right up there with September 11.
And November 30.
Casey smiles contentedly. The second scrapbook is coming along as nicely as Vanessa’s, filled with precious relics of a productive and cathartic year. A time capsule, if you will.
Really, the collection rivals the archival exhibits at the Mundy’s Landing Historical Society. It might even, when all is said and done, compete with whatever lies buried in the vault beneath the marble floor of Village Hall.
Casey thinks back to a rainy summer afternoon when the museum was packed with visitors. They were so stupidly oblivious, caught up in dusty old murders when a modern mastermind was right there in their midst, scheming something far greater.
One day, these scrapbooks will be part of just such an exhibit. -People will travel from all over the world to see it.
They’ll try to solve the case, try to figure out who I am—-but of course, they won’t be able to. I’ll always be one step ahead of them, just like the best of the best: the Sleeping Beauty Killer and Jack the Ripper and the Zodiac . . .
Casey flips chronologically through the pages of the scrapbook. So many memories. So many beautiful girls. I’ll never forget them.
Ah, here’s the blank page. This is where Julia Sexton’s story will begin—-and end.
First, the proper tools: a ruler to measure the page and then the clipping, three times. That’s the rule. You measure once, twice, thrice, and then you use a pencil to mark the spot. It has to be a number two pencil, because it brings back the memory of the yellow cardboard cutouts taped on to the wall outside each classroom at Mundy’s Landing Elementary School.
I want the one that says Ms. Mundy, Casey decides. I have to have it, for Rowan’s scrapbook.
Like Vanessa, Rowan has her very own volume. Already, hers is filled with souvenirs. Some were gleaned from Casey’s excursions through her house; others were relevant items picked up here and there along the way. The latest addition: the customer copy of the dinner check from Marrana’s last Monday night.
The quest to get the pencil cutout will present a bit of a challenge, but nothing insurmountable. In fact, another visit to the school would present the perfect opportunity to deliver another little gift.
Contemplating the new plan, Casey pastes the newspaper article precisely in the center of the page, then reaches into a drawer where the rest of the relics are waiting.
Julia’s wallet, minus its meager contents, was discarded in a Dumpster a few blocks away from where she died. Sooner or later, it’ll find its way into the landfill or into the hands of the NYPD. Either way is fine.
They’ll never suspect me.
Even if, by some bizarre turn of events, Casey’s tracks aren’t covered as well as they should be, it won’t matter.
A whole new life will be under way very soon, far from New York City and far from Mundy’s Landing. Julia Sexton will be nothing but a distant memory, albeit a pleasurable one. For the police, she’ll represent yet another unsolved homicide.
Now who’s the authority?
Positioning her driver’s license, MetroCard, and five--dollar--bill on the page, Casey feels the edgy compulsion beginning to take hold again.