Speak for Me Read online

  “Yeah, locked in a small room in a state penitentiary with a vicious rapist and serial killer who’s already tried to kill you twice.” He pauses. “I wish you’d let me come.”

  “Ethan, I’ll be there with two FBI agents, an armed guard, and Rex’s lawyer. Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

  He takes my hand across the table. “I’m proud of you, Amelia. I really am.”

  I feel myself blush at his unexpected praise.

  “I’ve never seen anyone work so hard,” he says, giving my hand a kiss.

  *

  Later when we are in bed locked in each other’s arms, he whispers to me.

  “Call me if you need me. Any little thing.”

  “I will.”

  “Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  3

  It’s raining by the time FBI Special Agents Steve Novak and Laura March come to pick me up for the three-hour drive north to the Aken Correctional Facility. Raining and cold and dark because it’s still only 5 a.m. on this pre-winter November morning. I give Novak and March a wave through the windshield, mouthing for them to stay put while Ethan places my overnight bag and box of files into the trunk of the black SUV. I stomp my feet against the cold as I wait under the umbrella and feel an unexpected rush of excitement. I tell myself not to be perverse. I’m about to interview a cold-blooded rapist and murderer—my rapist and would-be murderer at that. But the thought of finally getting some answers about what exactly happened to those twenty-five women is exhilarating. I can’t help it. Almost fifteen months of planning and investigation and intense plea bargain negotiations are finally coming together.

  Ethan shuts the trunk and turns to me, his breath a steam engine under the lamplight. It looks like he wants to say something.

  “I’ll be fine,” I say.

  He pulls me into an embrace. Holds me a little tighter than normal.

  “Call me for anything,” he says.

  “You worry too much,” I say. “Now go inside before you end up in ER with pneumonia.”

  He doesn’t. Instead he stays on the street as we pull away, in the rain and the cold, standing there, watching us. I lose sight of him when we round the corner and think about how difficult this is for him.

  Novak yawns and looks at me in the rearview. “You okay with the backseat? We figured you could use the room.”

  Novak is always trying to joke about my pregnancy. I don’t know why. I understand he’s a perpetual bachelor type. He’s never mentioned a wife and there’s no wedding ring.

  Novak rubs his five o’clock shadow and yawns again. A big wide-open noisy yawn that makes me want to tell him to keep his eyes on the road.

  “Geez. Sorry,” he says. “We flew in from Oregon last night. I didn’t get much sleep at the crappy airport hotel. Then what do you know, March is banging on my door at the crack of dawn telling me it’s time to get up.”

  March maintains a passive face. “It’s a two-and-a-half-hour drive to Albany, sir.”

  Novak waves a hand. “Yeah, yeah. I get it, March. Punctuality is next to godliness.”

  If March is offended, she doesn’t show it. A strict southern Baptist, the twenty-seven-year-old special agent is as conservative as they come. She is the perfect picture of Christian modesty, with shoulder-length brown hair neatly tied back, white shirt buttoned to the top, and gold necklace complete with dainty crucifix. I’ve never once seen March lose her temper or curse or be absolutely anything other than polite and gracious. No small feat given Novak’s persistent attempts to provoke a reaction from her.

  Compared to March, Novak comes across as eternally untidy and disorganized. Standing over six foot three, he is an imposing figure when he stands his full height with his shoulders back. He is attractive in a jaded sort of way, with deep-set hazel eyes and dark brown hair going gray at the temples. My best guess puts him at late forties, although he could be younger given the stresses of the job.

  I first met them nearly a year ago when they were put in charge of the case after the Hawkins plea bargain had been reached. Although Hawkins had agreed to provide a full confession in return for the State of Oregon not pursuing the death penalty, it wasn’t simply a case of taking his word for it. We needed to be sure he confessed to all the murders he was responsible for. We also needed to be sure that he was providing us with the correct location of the bodies. That meant gathering as much material as possible about the missing and murdered women—to flesh out the details of what we already knew about them, as well as uncover any other possible victims.

  Thanks to March’s diligence, we found five more. After seven months of trawling through twenty-plus years of archives and missing persons reports, March identified Melissa Barton (22); Julia Peters (19); Barbara Mitchell (20); Louise Fellows (20); and Jana Smith (21). A mix of hitchhikers, runners, and trekkers, the women fit the same physical and demographic profile of Rex Hawkins’s other known victims and had vanished in similar circumstances. The commonalities were just too striking to ignore.

  I look out the window as we breeze down the I-87 and think about our list of twenty-five women. I feel like I know every single one of them intimately. I know all their names and faces by heart. I have even met most of their families. The responsibility weighs heavily on me. But if I do nothing else in my life but this, bring their daughters and sisters home and provide answers to what happened, I will die a happy woman.

  I feel pressure on my bladder and am reminded of my other responsibility. I look out the window for a passing gas station.

  Then Novak says, “I need food.”

  I’m relieved. At least now I don’t have to admit I need to stop for a pee, which would have no doubt unleashed Novak’s teasing.

  March glances at her watch.

  Novak rolls his eyes. “Don’t be such a nervous ninny, March. There’s plenty of time and you of all people know how fast I can eat.”

  We pull up at a truck stop and enter the restaurant, where I draw stares from gray-whiskered truckers as I waddle and clap my way to the bathroom; a pregnant disabled lady is probably something they don’t see every day. I get to the stall and do my thing and suddenly I’m hit with an unexpected wave of nausea. I pivot to fumble with the toilet seat and dry-retch into the bowl. The dreadful sound echoes off the porcelain back at me, which sets me off again. I heave painful, empty gasps. Over and over again until my sides ache and my throat’s about to cave in.

  Then, mercifully, it stops. I collapse back on my calves and try to catch my breath. I remind myself that pregnancy is not a permanent state of being and that one day very soon I will be holding a brand-new baby in my arms instead of this stone-cold toilet bowl.

  There’s a tap at the door.

  “Are you all right, Ms. Kellaway? Can I get you anything?”

  It’s March. I imagine her standing there looking at her watch, biting her lip.

  “I’ll be right out, Laura.”

  I hear the door close as she exits. I wonder how I’m going to manage the interview if I get one of these surprise attacks. Did I remember to pack my nausea tablets? I must not under any circumstances forget to take them. They aren’t always foolproof but usually help.

  I sit there for a few minutes longer to gather myself. When I’m satisfied the episode has passed, I return to find Novak and March seated at the counter.

  Novak looks at me, wiping his face with a napkin then dropping it into a plate smeared with egg yolk and remnants of sausage. He’s finished already? Was I in the bathroom that long?

  “Boy, you look like shit,” he says.

  “Thanks, Novak, just what I needed to hear.”

  “You sure you’re gonna be okay to do the interview?”

  I don’t sit down. Instead I turn and head for the door. “I take it you’re done stuffing your face, Novak. We don’t want to be late.”

  4

  We reach the prison just after 8 a.m. Located in the middle of nowhere behind a line of imposing firs, the
compound is surrounded by electric chain-link fences with razor ribbon, on the other side of which lay miles of desolate land overrun with brush. A distinctive gloom hangs over the place, helped in no part by the miserable overcast sky that promises nothing but more of the same.

  Built in the mid-1980s, Aken Correctional Facility was designed to house fifteen hundred medium security prisoners, and two hundred and five maximum security offenders. It is a sprawling complex of interconnected, windowless institutional blocks that could have easily been mistaken for a group of covert medical laboratories. I shudder as I look at it. There’s no mistaking the wretchedness of the place. Hopelessness hangs in the air like smoke.

  We reach a set of gates and Novak winds down the window to show the guard in the booth his identification. I glance up at the watchtower. Two guards, semi-automatics strapped over their shoulders, stare down at me unsmiling. Even from this distance, I can see one of the guards has a ghostly half-moon eye. I wonder if he’s a returned veteran, exchanging one theater of war for another.

  The guard waves us around to the left to the visitor car park and we pull into a space closest to the entrance. The rain starts, pelting noisily against the roof of the car. We shrug into our jackets and dash outside to retrieve the files and recording equipment from the trunk, doing our best to shield them from the rain battering our heads. I look down. The gravel parking lot is turning to mud.

  Novak faces me and raises his voice over the noise. “Wait here! I don’t want you slipping.”

  Before I can object, he and Marsh sprint inside the building with the boxes of hardcopy files and the hardcase with the portable interview recording system.

  Novak returns to take my arm. “Don’t get any ideas,” he says, gingerly escorting me across the muddy parking lot and into the building. “I don’t need another girlfriend.”

  Once inside, we go through the security check. First our personal bags are searched, then the individual components of the recording equipment—the mics and cords and camera and hard drive unit—every single piece is taken from their foam compartment and scrutinized closely. Next the hardcopy files are leafed through in detail. Even the boxes they came in are examined thoroughly.

  Once that’s done, a male guard takes Novak to a side room, and March and I are shown to another room where a female guard is waiting for us—a heavyset woman with a buzz cut and khaki trousers straining over big hips.

  She breaks into a grin when she sees my belly. “You look like you’re about to pop.”

  “Tell me about it,” I say.

  She asks me to starfish, and I stand there, arms out and legs astride, as she pats me down.

  “As long as you don’t got no bomb in there, you’re good to go, hon.”

  I thank her and wait until March is given the all clear and we return to the reception area to find Novak waiting for us. We gather our things and follow a guard through a secure door and down a brightly lit corridor with badly scarred linoleum. The black baton attached to the guard’s belt knocks against what looks like a canister of chemical spray and I wonder if he’s ever had to use either.

  We turn left and continue on. The further in we go, I more I experience the strange sensation of being underground even though we aren’t. There’s a mustiness to the place, and the noises of the prison, the clank of metal against metal, a cough or a shout or an abrupt cheerless laugh, seem flat and far away.

  Finally we reach a cluster of rooms. A unisex staff toilet to the left. Three rooms to the right. Victor O’Leary, Rex Hawkins’s lawyer, is waiting outside the middle room, thumbing through his phone. In his mid-sixties, the wolfish Texas native is blessed with a luscious full head of steel gray hair that he wears in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. Today Victor is dressed in his usual attire—a broad-brimmed, cream cowboy hat and button-up shirt complete with a leather bolo tie and silver turquoise slide. A death penalty expert, Victor is at the tail end of his career, and only takes cases that interest him. I suspect that representing one of America’s worst serial killers was too big an opportunity to miss.

  “Oh my, how you’ve grown, my dear,” he says when he sees me.

  “Good morning, Victor.”

  “Brought the cavalry, I see,” he says, eyes passing over Novak and March.

  “You’re early,” snaps Novak. “You’ll need to wait outside until we set up the equipment.”

  Victor smiles. “Whatever you say, Special Agent Novak. I’ll just play Candy Crusher on my phone.”

  I don’t want the proceedings to become antagonistic this early on so I give Victor a gracious nod. “Thank you, Victor. We shouldn’t be long.”

  The guard unlocks the door to the interview room and a wall of heat hits us. It’s so hot the cinderblock walls are sweating.

  “Could you turn down the thermostat, please?” I say to the guard.

  I glance around. The room is small and plain and windowless. Beige-painted walls. Air conditioner duct snaking overhead. Overly bright fluorescent strip lighting. In the center of the room is a large table with four plastic chairs. I turn to March.

  “Laura, can you find another two chairs? We’re going to need them for Victor and the guard.”

  March disappears out the door and Novak lays the hardcase on the table and he and I set up the recording equipment.

  Twenty minutes later, we are all set to go. There is water and plastic cups. The equipment has been tested and works. My notes are in front of me. I have taken my nausea tablets. Everyone is clear on their roles. As I survey the room like some sort of nervous wedding planner, I realize I’m shaking.

  The guard pokes his head around the door at exactly 9 a.m. “Want me to go get him, ma’am?”

  I nod.

  We sit there and wait.

  5

  I spent five sessions with an FBI criminal profiler to prepare for the plea interview. John Liber, my boss, had insisted.

  “You’ve already been to hell and back with this son-of-a-bitch, kiddo, and I want you to be prepared for any mind games he might play.”

  I didn’t object. I needed all the help I could get. So this September I began my fortnightly four-hour Amtrak train trips to see Jane Duffy at the FBI Academy in the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia. Originally a psychoanalyst specializing in couples’ therapy, Jane had switched to criminal profiling in the early 1980s. Now world renown for her encyclopedic knowledge in the field, she has run the FBI’s profiling department for the last twenty years.

  When I arrived on the first visit, Jane was there to greet me at reception.

  “Hello, dear,” she said, taking my hand in hers. “You must be the famous Amelia Kellaway. It’s such a pleasure to meet you.”

  I was surprised by her warmth and genuine smile. A bird-like woman with very tiny wrists, Jane was dressed in a black turtleneck and black tailored trousers. There was a timeless elegance about her, and if I hadn’t known she was seventy-three, I would have put her at late fifties. It was difficult to picture this soft-spoken woman interviewing some of America’s worst serial killers. More difficult still to think of someone holding onto their own humanity when their daily life involved traversing the darkest corners of the human mind.

  She opened a door to the left. “Shall we?”

  I followed her outside and we took a winding pathway toward her office, Jane patiently keeping in step with me and my cane as we went. Looking around as we walked, I took in the sprawling campus. It was a beautiful place and bordered by magnificent oaks, poplars, and maples. The morning air was fresh and taut. In the distance, shots rang out from a firing range.

  We reached her office and the first thing I noticed when we entered was Anthony Hopkins’s demented face glaring down at us from a large framed poster of Silence of the Lambs.

  “A gift from my students,” said Jane, eyes twinkling.

  I took in the rest of her office. Wall-to-wall bookcases were populated by her own works and those of other notable experts. Carl Jung. Sigmund Freud. Vikto
r Frankl. John Douglas. Robert Ressler. Roy Hazelwood. To the left there was a flat-screen TV. Above that, shelving full of DVDs. To the right, a large floor-to-ceiling window overlooked a grassed courtyard area and provided a good dose of daylight onto what would otherwise be a dark corner office.

  “Please sit,” she said, gesturing to the comfy-looking armchair.

  She poured us both a coffee from the sideboard and lowered herself into a well-worn executive chair.

  “They gave me a file to read,” she said. “About you.”

  I felt a sting of betrayal. “Okay.”

  “They were concerned about your psychological welfare. Whether you could cope with what’s being asked of you.”

  I tried to keep a neutral face but inside I was humiliated. “John means well. But he can be overprotective,” I said.

  She nodded. “I agree.” She laced her delicate fingers together. “The very fact that you’re here with your shoulders back tells me you more than survived. You came through the storm and went on to thrive. I’m not here to give you therapy, Amelia, I’m here to teach you how to get every last drop of information you can from Rex Hawkins.”

  “That’s what I want, too.”

  She smiled. “Good. Then let’s get started.” She slid a thick file across the desk. “The three psychiatric reports Hawkins has undergone in the last twelve months.”

  I’m surprised. “He agreed to that?”

  She shrugged. “By all accounts, he’s been cooperative and open and highly motivated.”

  I frowned. “Isn’t he just trying to manipulate things?”

  “Oh, undoubtedly, my dear. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t valuable insights to be gained from the reports.” She tapped the file. “He’s fairly typical of his cohort, actually. Rich interior fantasy life—rage and sex mixed together. Early life of neglect, abandonment, and abuse. Delusions of grandeur. ‘I’m all powerful. I know things no one else does. I’m smarter than all of you put together.’ His mission is to seek out and destroy the feminine archetype.”