Alex didn’t answer. “Your sister wasn’t the first case I caught.”
“Before her, there was Beth Panin, an eighteen-year-old girl who vanished in 2004. I dug, I looked for witnesses, I checked every lead and found nothing. I wrote it off as a runaway.” He gave a bitter smile. “And then your sister, Mary, went missing. She was beautiful; I remember her photo.”
“And again, no trail. A witness saw a black SUV, but no plate. I tried to track the owners, but there were several in town, and none of them led anywhere.” “Did you check your father’s SUV?” Alex asked coldly. Garrett flinched. “No.”
“Not then.” “It didn’t even cross my mind. He was my father, a respected man. How could I suspect him?” He paused, then continued. “Three years went by.”
“I was a sergeant, looking at a promotion. And one day, in 2008, I found a journal.” “What journal?” “My father kept it in his safe. I went in there looking for some car titles. He’d asked me to take them for inspection.”
“I saw the notebook. Old, worn. I opened it out of curiosity.” Garrett closed his eyes. “It was all there. Names, dates, descriptions of how he met them, how he lured them into the car, how he…” Garrett swallowed, “how he finished it and what he did with their things.”
Alex felt a wave of nausea. “Your father is a monster.” “Yes.” The word hung in the air. Final. “He started in ’91,” Garrett continued. “The first was Susan Miller. She was twenty-five. He gave her a ride home from work.”
“She worked late at the factory. He offered a lift, she accepted. And then…” He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to. “Why?” Alex asked. “Why did he do it?” “I don’t know.”
“In the journal, he wrote about the ‘sinfulness’ of these women. About how they tempted him. That he was ‘cleansing’ the world. The ramblings of a sick man. But reading it… I just froze.” Garrett looked at Alex.
“I didn’t sleep for nights. I didn’t know what to do. Turn in my own father? I imagined the trial, the news, the shame on the family. My mother was still alive then. It would have killed her.”
“And he was my father. The man who taught me to ride a bike, took me fishing.” “How… how could you stay quiet?” Alex whispered. “Fourteen girls. Fourteen lives.” “I didn’t know the number then.”
“The journal went up to 2007. Nine victims. I told myself he’d stopped, that it was in the past, that I’d watch him and make sure it never happened again.” “But he didn’t stop.” “No, he didn’t.” Garrett went silent again.
Outside, it was pitch black. A streetlamp cast a dim yellow glow. “In 2013, Amy Bell went missing. I took the case myself. I hoped it wasn’t him, hoped it was a coincidence. I looked for other suspects, tried every other theory.”
“But there was no evidence. There never was. Because the evidence was in the church attic. I didn’t know about the bags then. I found out later, in 2015.” “How?”
“My uncle told me. Father Bill. I went to him to talk, I guess. I told him about the journal, about what I knew. I thought he’d be horrified, that he’d help me figure out what to do.” Garrett gave a crooked smile.
“He just listened and said, ‘I know, Jim. I’ve known for a long time. Your father has been confessing to me since the beginning.'” “The priest knew and said nothing?”
