Page 57 of Husband Missing

Eva laughed. “In my generation, if you didn’t learn about it from other girls at school—the ones mothers referred to as ‘loose’ and forbade you from hanging out with—you didn’t learn about it at all. Thanks to Kathy Glander, I didn’t get the shock of my life on my wedding night.”

“Roe was isolated. If she didn’t go to school, she only saw her father,” Josie said.

“Yes,” said Eva. “I don’t think she ever understood what was happening to her or to her body. All she knew—at least with her father—was that it hurt.”

Trinity said, “She must have grown up thinking that it was normal for men to hurt her in that way. There was no such thing as consent. It was just a fact of life.”

“So when she came across other men,” Josie said, “she wasn’t prepared to tell them no. That would explain why shecouldn’t answer your question as to whether the encounters were consensual or not.”

Eva nodded. “I tried to explain things to her. Gave her an anatomy lesson, talked to her about sexual assault. She shut down. I think she did grasp what I told her—and what it meant—and that it deeply upset her. Her father hurt her, and I don’t believe that her pregnancies were the result of consensual encounters. How can you consent when you don’t understand what’s happening and you don’t know that you can say no? Listen, nothing can excuse what she did, but we have no idea what drove her to such a dark place. We have no idea if she truly understood the full gravity of her actions. How can you look at the sickening facts of the case and not want the complete story? Those babies certainly deserve a full accounting of everything that led to their terrible ends.”

“You want to fill in the blanks,” Trinity said.

“Yes,” Eva sighed. “I think that Roe feels…remorse. I asked her if she was sorry for what she did and she answered yes. I asked her if she wished she could take it back and she answered yes. As she gets older, I think it bothers her more and more. She cries a lot. Sometimes, she simulates holding a baby in her arms, like she’s rocking it to sleep, and she just wails. It’s a dreadful sound.”

THIRTY-NINE

A chill ran up Josie’s spine. Goosebumps erupted all over her skin, despite the fact that her extremities were covered.

“That’s more than Lila Jensen ever felt,” Trinity remarked.

That was true. Lila was incapable of feeling remorse. Or any human emotion that might have put the brakes on her boundless cruelty.

Eva folded her hands in her lap. “It just bothers me that even with as much as I’ve been able to learn from Roe, there are so many unanswered questions. It’s enough to drive a person mad. I’d like to know where she came from and her father’s identity. Really, anyone who hurt her should have been held accountable too.”

Men being held accountable for hurting women was challenging in the present day. Josie couldn’t imagine how low-priority it would have been back when Roe was arrested. She wouldn’t have been able to testify against anyone who had harmed her.

Men.

In the recesses of Josie’s mind, a theory took form, pushing its way forward.

“Lila was a girl,” she blurted.

Eva and Trinity stilled, waiting for her to say more.

“What if the other children were boys?” Josie said. “Roe might not have understood what sex was or what it meant but she would have known there were differences in anatomy—particularly if she was abused. She would have seen it with her own eyes. If we’re right about the things that happened to her, then the one thing she knew without a doubt was that men hurt people.”

Trinity sucked in a breath. “You think she let Lila live because she was a girl?”

“By the time the remains were found, the sexes of the babies couldn’t be determined,” said Eva. “Not back then, anyway. It’s possible that you’re correct.”

Josie and Trinity shuddered at the same time.

“To think,” Eva said in disgust. “Her father started a chain reaction with his abhorrent abuse. I’d like to know his name just so I could drag it through the mud!”

“Have you ever tried having her do one of those mail-in DNA tests to try to trace her genealogy?” asked Trinity.

“I’ve wanted to but the superintendent claims I need a court order and since there’s no urgent or pressing legal need for her to take the test, the prison won’t allow it. Plus, there is the challenge of getting Roe to do it. I’d need her permission, which means she’d need to understand what I hoped to accomplish by having her do it. I’ve brought up the idea with her several times and she doesn’t seem to grasp it at all. I thought if I could get her to do an at-home DNA test, I could trace her roots that way.”

Lila carried Roe’s DNA but even if she was still alive, she’d be in prison, subject to the restrictions Eva had mentioned. There would have been no getting a test from her either. Josie wasn’t sure it mattered. Given Roe’s advanced age, her parents were already dead. If any descendants of their distant relatives were alive today, linking Roe to them would depend entirely onwhether any of them had also submitted a mail-in DNA test to one of the many genealogy sites. Josie understood Eva’s need to discover Roe’s actual name. She also understood Eva’s curiosity, shared it even, but at this late stage of Roe’s life, finding relatives wouldn’t answer the most burning question they all had, which was how she had come to live in the shack in the mountains.

Eva went on, “About fifteen years ago, a reporter contacted the prison and asked to interview Roe. We met for coffee. She said she’d read about the case while looking through old newspapers and wanted to do a story on Roe. After I talked with Roe, she agreed to put the reporter on her approved visitors list so they could meet.”

“What happened?” asked Josie.

“I don’t know. She went to the prison once. I have no idea what happened during the meeting, but I never heard from her again. Her number was disconnected. Couldn’t find her on the internet either although I suppose I should have looked her up when she first tried to contact Roe.”

The scar on the side of Josie’s face tingled. “What was her name?”

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