CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I headed for the library right after saying goodbye to Dan.

Mona had found that articles about Derek Brownlow trailed off about two weeks after his death, and stopped there. I hadn’t thought to ask Tom how long it took the police to learn about Brownlow’s background, and he probably wouldn’t have remembered anyway. So I started where Mona had left off—the beginning of November 1985.

After about an hour of microfishing, I started to find the events to which Tom had referred:

Claxton Daily News

DECEMBER 12, 1985

KILLER IN OUR MIDST?

Deceased man had a criminal record
and a history of attacking women

CLAXTON — Derek George Brownlow, the victim of a gruesome murder in Freeman Park in October, may not have been a victim at all, according to new details released by police yesterday. Brownlow might have died while attempting to abduct a woman, police are now theorizing.

“We found some items in Mr. Brownlow’s car and apartment that forced us to reconsider our thinking on his death,” said Sgt. John Polaski, who’s leading the investigation. “And we’ve been working with several out-of-state law enforcement agencies to confirm Brownlow’s criminal record.”

Brownlow, who moved to Claxton just four months ago from Fitchtown, Pennsylvania, served seven months in county prison there in 1983 for assaulting a young woman, whom police said he had been stalking. According to court documents, Brownlow broke her arm and knocked out several of her teeth when he attempted to abduct her outside the office building where she worked.

In Brownlow’s Highland Street apartment in Claxton, police found a collection of “disturbing” pornography and evidence that may link Brownlow to other crimes, Sgt. Polaski said.

“Over the last few days, we’ve been working very closely with law enforcement officials in Mr. Brownlow’s last known residence, Wittburg, Pennsylvania. They’ve been investigating a death there, which occurred in 1979, and evidence we found here may be helpful to them,” Sgt. Polaski said during a press conference at police headquarters.

In that case, police are trying to link Brownlow to the murder of an ER nurse whose remains were found in a wooded area only a few yards from the state highway. Evidence indicated the woman had been bound with duct tape before she was stabbed to death. Hospital records indicate the woman had treated Brownlow for minor injuries just months before her death.

Claxton police found two rolls of duct tape in Brownlow’s car, Polaski said.

“Knowing that Mr. Brownlow worked for a hardware store, we didn’t realize the importance of the rolls of duct tape until we spoke with police in Wittburg,” Polaski said.

According to past reports, two witnesses told police that a young girl, probably teenaged, was walking in Freeman Park at dusk. She entered the path just as they were leaving the park. She was described as fair-skinned, average height, with light hair.

“If that young woman saw what occurred or, heaven forbid, was involved, we would hope she would come forward and give us any details of the event,” Polaski said. “It would certainly help us in this case, but possibly also in others.”

As I neared the end of the article, a freezing sensation crept up my arms. After finishing it, I had to stand up and walk around the library for a few minutes. I paced up and down the current periodicals, scanning the magazine covers. A copy of Bon Appétit caught my eye, with a nice-looking shrimp scampi on its cover. But upon reaching for the magazine, I discovered my hand was shaking too hard to turn its pages. A woman in a sparkly pink sweatsuit peered up at me as I fumbled it back onto its shelf.

I sat back down but didn’t read the article again. The details were already burned into my memory, and I had trouble determining which was the creepiest of them. Probably the poor dead Pennsylvania nurse. But then there was the duct tape—that was a close second. Also Mary Anne herself, creeping by in the second-to-last paragraph. Surely she was the blonde girl in the park. Mr. Phillips had never said she was pale, but he’d mentioned she was delicate and strawberry blonde. Close enough. It was disconcerting to see her like this—just a glimpse of a girl someone barely saw. Just whispering by, and then gone.

She was so candid and emotional on paper. Why did she choose to make herself a ghost in real life? Could there really be anything at play here but self-defense? Could their encounter have been planned? Maybe they’d developed some connection as a result of Samuelson correspondence? Maybe Brownlow had tried to trap her somehow? Or perhaps Brownlow had done something to her, and she was traumatized into silence. But then, if she wanted to stay silent, why confess at all? Even if only to the cit files?

I made a copy of the article for Mona. I’d be arriving at her place Christmas Eve with this article tucked under one arm and a bottle of red wine under the other. Now all I needed was a gift.

Once, in college, I found myself standing behind a guy at a grocery store who was buying only two items: a dozen pink roses and a box of condoms. There’s something to be said for knowing exactly what you want to say with a gift. When it came to my obligatory gift for Mona, I had no such clarity. I wandered the mall for a couple of hours, considering and discarding gift ideas. Some little animal earrings might say, I think you’re cute, but not in a romantic way. A small framed Edward Hopper print might say, I recognize your simple but sophisticated tastes. Body Shop products could have any number of sticky possibilities, such as I like to imagine you naked in a steaming tub of bubbles.

I gave up and got her a couple of CDs. I’d noticed she had a pretty meager selection of music that first time I’d gone to her apartment. My final selections were Johnny Cash’s Greatest Hits and Buena Vista Social Club. Something for each Mona.

After seconds on apple-cranberry pie (my father’s recipe), we sat together on Mona’s fancy black couch. She’d framed one of her windows with a string of twinkly lights, so we got to unwrap each other’s gifts in its cozy white glow. Mona was looking pretty festive, with her soft red cardigan and her hair twisted up into a beaded clip. It looked like she might have been wearing eye shadow, but maybe it was just the way the light was hitting her eyelids.

After unwrapping my CDs, Mona thrust a flat, silver-wrapped box into my hands.

“I almost had a T-shirt made up for you that said Coed Naked Wordsmithing,” she said. “For casual Fridays.”

“What stopped you?”

“Eh. That whole ‘Coed Naked’ thing is pretty old.”

“Not for some.”

Mona tapped the box. “Well, in any case. You’re not getting one. Not from me, anyway. Open it.”

Inside the box was a pair of soft black woolen gloves. I wasn’t sure how to react to this gift. It seemed a little like the sort of thing my mother would buy for my father in an off year when she couldn’t come up with something more creative.

“I wish I was a knitter,” Mona said. “Then this present would seem a lot more thoughtful.”

“And you’d seem a lot dorkier,” I said, picking them up. “They’re nice.”

Mona watched me for a moment before asking, “Do you know why I got you these?”

“No,” I admitted.

“Because I’ve never seen you wear gloves. Even on our park bench lunches. You always look like you’re struggling to hold on to your sandwich.”

“That’s true.”

“Is it a macho thing, or—”

“No,” I said. There was no real explanation besides absent-mindedness. As the temperatures dropped, I’d meant to buy a hat and gloves, maybe a scarf. In the strained effort to transform myself into a functioning workaday adult, I hadn’t gotten everything in order yet. It was hard enough to get up at six every morning and put the garbage out on Thursdays. Details were often overlooked: flossing, hygienic storage of leftovers, getting my emissions checked. I didn’t know whether to regard Mona’s observant eye with gratitude or irritation.

Johnny Cash serenaded us. I admired my woolly black hands.

“I have something else for you,” I told her. “Not exactly a present, though.”

I went to the kitchen and got the article out of my jacket.

“Our mystery’s just about solved, I think,” I said, handing it to her.

Mona read through the article, punctuating nearly every paragraph with a little gasp.

“Wow,” she said, looking up. Her face had gone pale. “Probably Mary Anne did it.”

“It sure sounds like it,” I said. “But then why didn’t she come forward? I mean, if it was self-defense?”

“Lots of reasons, probably. Remember how she said she didn’t trust policemen? Maybe she didn’t think they’d believe it was self-defense.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Can’t you just see the headlines? ‘Word Nerd Defines “Vigilante Justice.” ’ I mean, maybe she was terrified of a media circus.”

“But if she was just defending herself, then she had nothing to be ashamed of,” I pointed out. “Right?”

“I guess we don’t really know that for sure, do we?” Mona said softly. “We don’t have all the pieces yet. Maybe there’s a piece that makes her culpable in some way. Maybe just some small piece that made her doubt she could plead self-defense.”

Johnny Cash was crooning a sad song now. I squinted at the square of Christmas lights around Mona’s window. Some small piece. Seemed reasonable, but I didn’t see where such a piece would fit in with everything we already knew. Everything we knew pointed at self-defense.

“But then, maybe she just didn’t see it as anyone’s business,” Mona suggested. “Brownlow was dead. He couldn’t hurt anyone else anymore, whether Mary Anne went public or not. What would be the point of confessing?”

“I guess there wouldn’t be a point, sure. It just seems like what most normal, law-abiding folks would do. Help the police out. Get it off your chest. Put everyone’s mind at ease. Then try to move on with your life.”

Mona sighed, tossed the article onto the couch next to me, and then started picking nervously at the cuff of her elegant red cardigan. “I don’t know. This whole thing is crazy.”

We sat in silence. After a few minutes, I started to hear a gentle tearing sound. She was yanking at a knotted thread on the edge of her cuff.

“You shouldn’t do that,” I said. “You’re going to rip a hole in your sleeve. Is that cashmere?”

“Billy.” She stopped her fiddling but didn’t look at me. “How come you waited all night to show me that article?”

“It just seemed like we should have dinner and presents first. This Brownlow murder isn’t a very Christmasy story, you know?”

Mona finally looked up. Her eyes looked dark and grave. I wasn’t sure if it was the seriousness of her expression or the dim lighting, but for a moment, she looked much older than usual. “Neither was Ebenezer Scrooge weeping at his own sorry grave. Neither is Jimmy Stewart contemplating suicide.”

I folded up the Claxton Daily article and slid it onto Mona’s coffee table.

“You know what’s the least Christmasy thing, really?” This was a subject I could really get into. “That song ‘Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.’ I heard it on the way home from the mall yesterday.”

“I kinda like that song,” she protested. “I liked it when I was little, anyway.”

“I used to like it too. Until one Christmas Eve when I was about thirteen. It came on the radio while we were sitting around my grandmother’s living room. She was like, ‘What is this? Is this supposed to be funny? I’ve never heard anything so asinine.’ Then she started ranting about how grandmothers are always treated like some kind of joke. My grandmother was a little like you, actually. It was often a little surprising what would offend her.”

I was afraid Mona might be put off by the comparison, but she just grinned.

“But what really depresses me about that song,” I continued, “is not the lyrics so much as the fact that it survived my grandmother. She died four years ago, but that stupid song keeps going on. On and on, year in and year out. My grandmother in all of her dignity and intelligence is gone, but that song’s still jingling its way into eternity. That stupid song will bury us all.”

Mona sat back and closed her eyes.

“Oh wow,” she said. “That takes the cake. Pour me another glass of wine.”

I picked up our wine bottle and filled her glass.

“Christmasy …,” I said, feeling I should somehow lighten the mood. Her eyes were still closed. “I wonder if that’s in the dictionary?”

Mona sighed and opened her eyes.

“Surely it is,” she said. “But frankly, does anyone care?”

For that, I leaned over and kissed her on the side of the head, just behind her ear. Her hair was stiff with gel or hairspray or something.

“Merry Christmas, Mona,” I said.