Page 91 of The Change
“Are you talking about ESP?”
They’d discussed how to handle the subject of Nessa’s gift. Josh felt it was best to keep it vague.
“You can call it whatever you like. I’ll call it women’s intuition. Every lady listening right now knows exactly what I’m talking about. I had a feeling that I just couldn’t shake. I mentioned it to my daughters that night when I got home, and they reminded me that a girl their age had disappeared along Danskammer Beach two years ago.”
“A girl named Mandy Welsh.”
“My friends Jo and Harriett met Mrs. Welsh. She told them she was convinced her daughter had been murdered. But two years later, police were still writing Mandy off as a runaway.”
Josh turned to face the microphone. “We tried to reach Mandy Welsh’s mother for this podcast, but we were unable to locate her.”
“A few weeks back, Amber Welsh and her kids disappeared overnight,” Nessa said.
“Overnight?”
“Literally,” Nessa confirmed. “In less than twenty-four hours, a woman, three little boys, and an entire trailer disappeared withouta trace. When we found out they were gone, Jo and I went right back to the police.”
“And what did they say?”
“They said the disappearance wasn’t surprising, considering the Welshes’ background.”
“Which was?”
“In a word? Poor.”
“Nessa, what do you believe happened to Mandy Welsh?”
“I believe she was murdered by the same person who murdered the girl I found—and her body was dumped in the ocean off Danskammer Beach.”
“When Nessa first came to me with her theory, I was skeptical. So this afternoon, with the help of a local scuba diver, I was able to take some video of the ocean floor off Danskammer Beach. That video has been posted to our website. The entire area is littered with hundreds of old lobster traps that were abandoned back in the nineties. Most of the traps are empty. Two are not. Inside those traps are heavy black plastic bags like the one in which the first girl was found. When the diver cut those bags open, we were able to see what we believe to be the remains of two girls inside. A link to the video has been sent to local law enforcement and the FBI. Do you know what this means, Nessa?”
“Yes,” Nessa said. “It means there’s a serial killer at work on the island.”
“And you think you know who it is.”
“Yes, we do,” Nessa said.
“I’m going to turn now to Jo Levison, the owner of a popular gym here in Mattauk, and one of the two women who was with Nessa James the morning she discovered the body by the beach. Ms. Levison, news footage from that day showed you and your two friends down by the beach, is that correct?”
Jo slid forward in her seat and leaned toward the mic. “It is.”
“In fact, that’s how you and I first met, isn’t it? I saw you on the news, and the next day I approached you about doing an interview.”
“That’s right.”
“And you told me to go to hell.”
“That’s a nice way of putting it,” Jo said.
“So why have you decided to speak to me now?”
“Because no one else will listen,” Jo said. “We’ve gone to the police. We did all the right things, but we can’t get the authorities to take any action. We don’t want more young women to be killed.”
“You recently discovered a clue that you believe could identify the murderer of the three girls.”
“Yes. As you mentioned, I own a gym here in Mattauk. One of my clients was killed in a car crash on the sixth of June. Inside a locker I believe she’d been using was a nude Polaroid of the girl whose body Nessa discovered by Danskammer Beach.”
“And do you know who the locker belonged to?”
