The Nobody Girls (Kendra Dillon Cold Case Thriller Book 3) Page 5

  Wilma smiled; tears glistened in the corners of her eyes. But they did not roll out.

  Chapter 10

  The eyes, the breathing, the change in the air. These were all palpable things. They had an aura. He could almost see them. He could for sure smell them.

  There was usually a frenzy of negotiation too. That was amusing. They were very predictable. Sexual favors? Money?

  “Please, don’t hurt me.”

  The hurt, that was what he liked to observe. He didn’t want the conversation or the bartering. Willingness to do just about anything had gotten them into this mess, hadn’t it? Had they learned nothing? He could teach them a little before this was over. This lesson would be a tiny bit too late, or a lot too late, depending on how you looked at it.

  Sometimes they were loud, sometimes they were quiet. But he had to plan that they’d be loud. And he had to plan for more than one barrier. Number one, they were remote; you could scream like a banshee out here, and likely no one for half a mile or more would hear you.

  But that wasn’t enough planning. He was able to silence them other ways, just in case. So nothing was left to chance.

  He tried to use their own socks or sometimes their underwear or maybe something in their purses to jam down their throats. It was so effective because struggling to breathe was a full-time occupation. It put screaming for help way down on the priority list.

  This one had a stupid stuffed animal in her bag. He used it. Her eyes were wide as she struggled to accept the reality of the situation.

  The screaming wasn’t an issue at all. He managed it perfectly.

  As expected.

  Now, with the noise contained and the focus narrowed, he could enjoy the task at hand.

  Slowly inflicting whatever torture came to mind. That was where planning stopped, and his own creativity flourished!

  Planning allowed for spontaneity.

  He set his timer. It was easy for time to get out of hand. He didn’t want to risk a passerby or, God forbid, sunlight. He liked this part so much he could lie to himself that he had more time.

  When the timer went off, it was best he wrap things up, figuratively and literally.

  He focused intently on the task here, so he could get back to work, and no one would be the wiser about where he’d been or what he’d been doing.

  Unlike this woman, this thing, people actually did care where he was. They would notice if he was missing.

  But not her.

  No one cared about her. That’s what made her perfect.

  Chapter 11

  Wilma Kay’s interview was good. It had given them a picture of a Linda Kay. She’d been a good sister. And maybe a good friend.

  But she’d run away from a rough home and had landed with a rough crowd. Drug addiction had pushed her into a life that escalated risk and ended in violence. Shoop and Kendra found yearbooks, and Wilma had provided them with a few photos.

  The photo of Linda Kay Ellis in a bag, like she was the same as the garbage around her, was fading. A bit, anyway. Kendra crafted the episode in hopes that the most vivid impression left was that of the living, breathing person. She wanted people to see Linda Kay in her best moments as Wilma’s big sister.

  But that was one name. Only one episode of a show that would require at least six, maybe eight, to be a complete podcast season.

  Kendra got to work finding someone who remembered Sincere Anderson. Her first name was unique. Kendra hoped that would help.

  Some murders, some circumstances, for whatever reason, lived on. The brutality of the crime, the helplessness of the victim, or a dogged loved one, inspired people to post online theories in some cases or tributes in others.

  A group of well-meaning victim advocates had a Facebook page devoted to murders in Monroe County, Michigan. Monroe County was adjacent to Port Lawrence but over the state line in Michigan.

  It was there, in Monroe County, that twenty-year-old Sincere Anderson’s body was discovered. It had the hallmarks that Kendra and Shoop were looking for. Her body was dumped just outside a Welcome to Michigan travel plaza on North Bound I-75. It was discovered by a family pet, of all things.

  According to a newspaper clipping Shoop found, a family traveling into Detroit for a reunion from Georgia had gotten out to stretch their legs. This was their last stop before they would reach Detroit, the dad had said to the paper.

  They used the rest stop, walked around the green space, and let their dog take a little break too. The dog started barking and pulling and dragged the twelve-year-old trying to manage the leash to the garbage bag. When the boy got closer, he realized with horror what the garbage bag concealed.

  Kendra read all she could find. The clippings focused on the family that made the discovery. Not much was written about the victim. It was frustrating.

  Finally, after searching and searching, Kendra found a lead.

  In 2018, during National Victims’ Rights Week, a Facebook post listed Sincere’s name and picture.

  The post was put up by a woman named Ophelia Hoppings.

  Kendra finally had something. They’d struck out on relatives for Sincere Anderson. And the last name, Anderson, was making things worse. It was too common. There were too many Andersons.

  But Ophelia Hoppings, that was unique. Kendra could work with that.

  She spent an entire day looking for more on Ophelia Hoppings. Hoppings was on Facebook, but everything was set to private.

  Eventually, after going pages and pages backward in an internet search, a woman named Ophelia Hoppings was listed in a PDF of a Christmas program at Mt. Zion Baptist Church on Van Dyke, in Detroit.

  Aha!

  Kendra had found a picture. Ophelia was listed in a group photo of women on the Volunteer Banquet Committee. And again, there was Ophelia, in another picture online helping paint the nursery at the church.

  Kendra had no address, but she had a church, and so she called the pastor and made her request.

  It was a strange request, asking to have her name passed on to a congregant in hopes of getting an interview.

  The pastor was friendly and said he would give Ophelia Kendra’s name and number. But it wasn’t the same as having a face-to-face with the woman, where Kendra could make her case to convince Ophelia to consent to an interview about a decades-old murder.

  Kendra had no idea how her request would land.

  It took a day to find Ophelia and another day to wait for her Pastor to put the information in front of her. But when Kendra’s phone rang, three days after her interview with Wilma Kay, Ophelia Hoppings was on the other end.

  “Yes, I would be amenable to talking with you about Sincere.”

  “I’ll come to you if that is okay. I’m only about an hour outside of Detroit.”

  “Let’s meet at the church.”

  “Perfect. And if you have any pictures or mementos, that would be so helpful. All I have is this autopsy photo.”

  “Oh dear, I will bring what I have. It isn’t much. I will tell you that. But I will bring what I have.”

  “Thank you.”

  Kendra had worked hard to find someone who knew Sincere Anderson.

  Maybe this would work. Maybe she could tell the stories of these forgotten women known only, up until now, as victims.

  Kendra made the trip to Detroit. It was an easy drive from Port Lawrence, Ohio. When she got to Mt. Zion church, Ophelia Hoppings was waiting at the main entrance for her.

  She was tiny, shorter than Kendra. She wore a linen skirt, a modest navy blue cotton blouse, and a smile of welcome.

  “Pastor said we could use the sitting room, outside his office, if that works alright for you.”

  “I’m sure it will be perfect.”

  They sat down in a welcoming space. It had buttery yellow walls, tall windows, and the smell of dinner cooking somewhere in the church complex.

  “I’m baking a broccoli casserole. There’s Wednesday church this evening. And pastor likes to have some fellowship a
fter, in the rec room.”

  Kendra wasn’t sure if she’d ever met a nicer woman.

  “It smells lovely.”

  “You’re welcome to stay and pray with us.”

  Kendra smiled, and then she pulled off the band-aid. It was time to talk about the terrible past. A past that had nothing to do with church rec rooms, Kendra suspected.

  “I just want you to start where you want to, talking about how you knew Sincere Anderson.”

  Ophelia nodded and smiled sweetly. Then she began. “It saved my life, I think, what happened to her. That’s why I try to do the tribute. I lived the same life with her, and I was just lucky, or the pastor would say blessed. That’s where we debate. If I am blessed, does that mean Sincere was cursed? There was nothing she’d done differently than I had to deserve to be cursed.”

  “That’s quite a religious debate,” Kendra said.

  “I suppose it is. We both had troubles. I’m not proud of some of my time then, but I’m not running from it either. We had troubles, we came from troubles, and we did the best we could, Sincere and I did.”

  “How?”

  “Turning tricks for money. We both did. We didn’t have to say it, but we both knew the other had been abused coming up. An uncle in her case. In mine, a series of my mother’s deadbeat boyfriends.”

  Kendra listened, and Ophelia opened up about her shared past with Sincere.

  “We both worked on the Cass Corridor at spots, sometimes this street we’re on now. But things got more dangerous, or so we thought.”

  “Did something happen?”

  “Our pimp, he’d beat up one of our friends, bad, then me, and we thought, well, if he’s doing that to us, why should we keep working for him? We thought we were really smart. So, we took a bus out of here.”

  “To the highway?”

  “Yes, we got the idea to work the travel plazas and truck stops. It was safer than the downtown back then—or, well, I guess it wasn’t. But we thought it was safer.”

  Kendra had a sense of Ophelia, bright, bold, and honest, but still didn’t know about Sincere.

  “What was Sincere like?”

  “She was funny, she was so funny. She did an impression of Cher that was better than a comedian on Carol Burnett.” Ophelia put her hand on her hip and let the other hand go limp, like Cher. “She’d put her tongue on the side, you know?”

  “That’s perfect,” Kendra said.

  “Yeah, she was funny. That’s the thing I miss the most. How funny she was.”

  “How long were you friends?”

  “From the time we both started working for a Jimmy, and then we both were doing so well that Coco Tone came in and took over. He was the one that beat me within an inch of my life.”

  Kendra winced at the thought of anyone hurting this sweet woman.

  “They’re all dead now. Good riddance to the two, but sweet Sincere didn’t get to see the good that what was possible in this life.”

  “What else should we know about her?”

  “That she was a good friend to me. That was a big part of why we both decided to strike out on our own. I wish it wasn’t what had killed her. I still carry guilt about that. Pastor says it is not my burden, the evil of others, but it feels like it still.”

  “What happened the last time you saw her?”

  “We took the bus to the truck stop. We had three different ones that we picked out. We could loiter around without getting kicked out. Anyway, we went out there. That part is sort of a blur. We’d done it a few times, so my mind can’t remember the last time as any different than the other times. So, there’s nothing different about it. I expect that means nothing stood out. Other than how nice it was to ride the bus and not walk all the time and not worry about tripping on my platform shoes. We got to Wolverine Fuel Stop, it was called. It’s gone now, a Flying L now, big chain. Anyway, we got there. Sincere hugged me. I remember that, and I hugged her back. She said, in the middle of the hug, ‘I call the backlot.’ See, she tricked me with that hug. We usually both wanted backlot because you stood less of a chance of getting shoed out of the place. Less weaving and dodging a nosy manager or a state policeman looking to trade but not looking to pay. I called her a brat then for tricking me with that hug. And I went to the front.”

  “Was that it?”

  “No, it wasn’t. I saw her one time more, talking to one of the regulars.”

  “Regulars?”

  “We weren’t the only ones that worked that spot. There were a lot of different trades, truckers, delivery people, salesman that brought in that gas station’s food, drug dealers, beer distributors, the guys that worked the counter, and just lizard types that slithered in and out.”

  “She was talking to a regular. It wasn’t a client.”

  “No, no, not a client. I wish I did see who she went off with. Maybe I could have helped.”

  “What happened then, the rest of the night?”

  “I did my job, to not be more specific, you get the idea. I don’t remember those details, or I don’t choose to spend my emotions on those moments. I needed a short memory for those things, or else I’d drown in all of it.”

  “Did you look for her after?” Kendra said as delicately as she could.

  “I did. We usually rode back into town on the morning bus, but sometimes we didn’t, so it wasn’t that unusual that I couldn’t find her.”

  “What then?”

  “A day or two went by, and I had a feeling, just the worst feeling of my life. I knew that it wasn’t some lark or some Pretty Woman situation, you know what I mean? I knew evil had been done to her and that I was next. It wanted me too if I kept walking in its path. That’s what we did, walked where it was, and it found us.”

  “When did you hear about what happened to her?”

  “It was Coco Tone that came to the place I was staying, hoping to rub my face in it, maybe get me back working for him. He was telling me that’s what happened if you did it on your own.”

  “Did you think he killed Sincere?”

  “I didn’t know, didn’t rule it out, but it did change my life, that’s for sure.”

  “How so?”

  “I came here—well, I came to Paster William’s smaller church, when he was planting it in the YWCA. I stayed there at first and then found employment. I worked at Van Dyke Dry Cleaners too”.

  “Did you ever talk to the police about this, the FBI?”

  “No, I hid. Ashamed to say it, but I hid, mostly. I was so afraid that Coco Tone was the one who did it. And then I started to worry that it was the—what you call it? Yeah, the client. How was I going to know? Eventually Pastor got me in for a job working on the nutrition staff at the elementary school. I didn’t have a record, so that was good. A blessing. I never went back to that life. She saved me, Sincere did.”

  “And Sincere didn’t have a family?”

  “She did, long gone now, though. Did you see the photos? Of the way they found her, I mean?”

  “I am waiting on the official FBI files.”

  “Let me know when you get them. I think I’d be ready to see them.”

  “This could be a big step. You knew her. Maybe something would stand out differently than what the investigators saw. But once you see it, it may be very difficult to forget. Maybe it’s for the best you haven’t seen any of the crime scenes.”

  “It can’t be worse than what my mind has conjured or the devil has created in my head.”

  “I’ll call you as soon as they release them to me. You can decide then.”

  Ophelia considered Kendra’s offer and changed her mind. “On second thought, I’ll remember her whole. Pretending to be Cher. I just I wish I would have helped more, then.”

  “I’m not sure you could have done a thing differently. And what you’ve done with your life is impressive. You’re an amazing woman. I have it on good authority from your pastor.”

  Ophelia smiled.

  Kendra finished the interview. Kendra felt like
she had gotten way more than she’d ever expected. Thanks to Ophelia’s sharp mind. And her refusal to forget a friend.

  Chapter 12

  Kendra and Shoop combed through everything they could find that was publicly available about bodies found along I-75.

  Kendra and Shoop logged the sound on the interviews with Wilma and Ophelia. This list of each soundbite helped them quickly find specific passages in the long recordings as they edited the program.

  “They were great interviews, good people. That makes me feel like Linda and Sincere were too,” Shoop said. They’d listened to both interviews several times. They verified what they could and cross-checked against what was already know about Linda Kay and Sincere.

  “I think, if nothing else, this might be the podcast.”

  “The victim’s stories,” Shoop said.

  “Yes, we have four now, all in the same time frame, all murdered—or found, anyway—the same way. What if we just go back in time and do our best work for them, to make them real, living, breathing people, not thruway stats?”

  “Okay, but we got lucky with the sister, and I gotta hand it to you. Finding Ophelia was brilliant, but that’s two. We don’t even know where to begin with the body at High Timbers or Susan Hodge.”

  “Let’s write two episodes,” Kendra said. “Let’s write about Linda and then Sincere, and we can just do it and trust that we’ll find more. I know we will find more.”

  Shoop cracked her knuckles over her computer keyboard like she was about to start playing a piano concerto. They got to work.

  They used the facts of High Timbers and the facts of Linda Kay Ellis to create their episode.

  By the end of the week, Kendra felt they had two solid episodes of The Cold Trail. They had unearthed two compelling stories of women who’d been forgotten by the rest of the world. It was a testament to the victims, how much of an impact they’d really had. Decades later, they were still being mourned, quietly to be sure, but powerfully, by two good women. That had to mean something.