Page 91 of Everything She Feared

Ryan had learned of Julie through a colleague at theL.A. Times, who knew of his pursuit of Magda.

“She was a freelancer based in Billings, and my wife’s distant cousin,” Dan Morden, anL.A. Timesreporter, had told Ryan at the time over the phone from California. “She’d written for us, for everybody. She’d started working on a feature when Magda and her husband were arrested. Julie located nearly everyone in the region who knew them and was hoping to sell her article to theNew York Times Magazineand turn it into a book.”

“I got an email from her once, but we never talked,” Ryan said. “You said shewasworking on a feature, past tense?”

“Several months after she got going, Julie was hiking in Glacier National Park when she was killed by a grizzly.”

“Oh, man, that’s awful,” Ryan said.

“Yeah, so she never wrote the piece. But she’d done massive research, it’s just boxed up. I thought of you and that maybe I can help you get access to it.”

Dan contacted Julie’s dad and set things up for Ryan to talk to him. After hearing Ryan recounting how Carrie, and her friend Willow, died, Julie’s father agreed to give him Julie’s research.

A few weeks later, Ryan pulled his rental up to a modest home in Billings. Julie’s dad, Butch Carter, a semi-retired welder who looked like a beat-up prizefighter, took him into his garage. He raised the door and in the center sat two plastic storage bins containing court records, statements, transcripts, notebooks, documents, USB keys, newspapers and more, all on the case.

Carter helped Ryan place the bins into his rented Jeep. Then he shook Ryan’s hand while clamping the other on his shoulder. His face was creased with grief, but he attempted a smile.

“Julie would’ve wanted someone like you to carry on her work. You see this through, son. By God, you see it through.”

For years, Ryan drew upon Julie Carter’s files, and added his own, in his search for Magda and her daughter, for any links to where they may be.

Now, taking the last bite of his sandwich, he went over everything in his head.

Okay, I’m not sure yet about Sherry Evers at the pharmacy in Tacoma. It’s not uncommon to have scars removed. And I’m not sure yet about Sara, the server at the Jet Town Diner. Maybe it’s because I’ve struck out so many times before. And I still need to follow up on the woman in Redmond. I’m not done here yet.

Finishing his milk, Ryan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then, being a former reporter, he did a quick scan of the local news, to see what was going on. He saw that officials were considering a plan to build a Seattle-to-Vancouver high-speed train. Scrolling further, he saw that the Seahawks were seeking a new quarterback. There’d been an engine fire on a ferry. Thankfully no injuries. Then: that case he’d been following of the Seattle teen who died taking a selfie in the park east of the city. A photo of the victim, Anna Shaw, seventeen, accompanied the story, along with file photos of emergency units, police and families in shock at the park.Does that woman look like the server from the Jet Town Diner?It was hard to tell. He couldn’t be certain. He stared a second before dismissing it. He read the short update, which said that Shaw’s death was believed to be accidental but the investigation was ongoing.

Interesting, he thought before he returned to Julie Carter’s files and her interview with Stephanie Leal, who’d gone to high school with Magda.

“I’ll never forget that day,” Leal said. “We were in our first gym class, sitting on the floor, twenty-five girls. Miss McCoy, our gym teacher, says, ‘Everybody listen up carefully. When I blow my whistle, everybody jump up and touch all four walls the fastest way you can, then sit back down.’

“She blows her whistle, and the class tears around the gym, slapping the walls, everyone except Magda.”

“What’s she doing?” Julie asked.

“She’s running diagonally, touching two walls in one corner, then running diagonally to the opposite corner and touching two walls. Then she sits back down alone, waiting and watching the rest of us trample around slapping walls.”

“What did the teacher say?”

“After we finished, we’re sitting on the floor, panting, gasping. Miss McCoy smiles right at Magda and says, ‘There’s one in every group.’ I’ll never forget Magda sneering at us with an air of superiority.”

“What did the teacher mean byone in every group?”

“Someone asked her later, and Miss McCoy said it meant Magda had genius-level intelligence or something. But when I think back on it, and how I used to sit next to her in class and how she went on to kill those people, I mean, God, it turns my blood cold.”

A moment later the recording ended, and Ryan clicked on another video Julie had made with another former student, Sandra Hinson.

“It was a high school dance in our senior year,” Sandra said. “I was dating this cute boy, Jake. It was a starry night, so pretty, and we left the dance for the slope.”

“The slope?” Julie asked.

“Our football field was in a valley. We called the grassy hill next to it the slope. We watched the games, from the slope. But this was at night, totally dark, no one there, if you know what I mean?”

“Got it,” Julie said.

“After we got there, we saw someone alone, lying on their back, not making a sound. We thought maybe they were hurt, or passed out? We walked over quietly. That’s when we saw it was Magda Kurtz. She was lying on the ground, staring at the stars. She knew we were there but didn’t move or speak. Jake nudged me and I said, ‘Magda, are you okay?’”

The recording hissed for a moment.

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