The Bad Sister. Kevin O'Brien

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      Slightly dazed, Eden couldn’t help wondering about this baby-murder from fifty years ago. In which bungalow did the girl give birth and kill her baby? How could she have not known she was pregnant? She imagined the girl now, seventy years old and still locked up in an insane asylum.

      She heard a rumble outside—like a big truck passing by, or maybe it was thunder. When she turned to glance out the window, Eden noticed a man sitting alone in the booth closest to her. He had a half-eaten sandwich on the plate in front of him. He was about thirty and sinewy-looking with a deep tan, receding brown hair, and a thin mustache. Eden couldn’t decide if he was borderline handsome or kind of slimy. He winked at her, then reached around and showed her a crinkly paper bag that obviously held one of those twenty-four-ounce cans of beer. She wasn’t sure if he was offering her a sip or just letting her in on his little secret.

      Slimy, she decided, turning forward again.

      As the waitress swung by the man’s table carrying a tray of dirty dishes, Eden noticed him hide his contraband beer.

      Roseann ducked into the kitchen and then emerged again empty-handed. “Did you save room for dessert?” she asked, taking away Eden’s plate.

      “Just coffee,” she said. “Earlier, you mentioned some things that happened before the first girl was strangled. Was there something else?”

      Roseann set a cup in front of her and poured the coffee. “A few days after the girl killed her baby, another girl at the college disappeared. People weren’t sure if she’d been abducted or if she’d run away or what. But a couple of days later, her sister got a letter from her saying she was okay. And people stopped worrying for a while—until they found the strangler’s first victim in a ravine by the college library.”

      “Was it the missing girl?” Eden asked.

      Roseann shook her head. “A different girl entirely. The missing girl was actually being held prisoner by the strangler. He and his mother lived in an old farmhouse outside Waukegan. The girl was locked up in a little shack in their backyard.” Roseann’s voice dropped to a whisper again. “I guess he was torturing her and doing all sorts of nasty things to her. She was the last one he killed. He strangled four or five girls, the last two together on the same night.”

      Eden nodded. “Yeah, I heard about that. It happened in a bungalow that they later tore down. I moved in right next door today. You said the killer lived with his mother? How did he keep everything he was doing a secret from her?”

      “He didn’t,” Roseann answered under her breath. “The old bitch was behind a lot of it, pushing him to kill those girls. At the trial, she said it was her son’s ‘sacred mission’ to kill the ‘holy sluts.’ Talk about crazy. I guess she and her lunatic son were pushed over the edge when that girl had the baby and killed it.”

      “Was there a trial?”

      Roseann nodded. “After he killed the last two girls, he left a witness. The police caught up with him pretty quickly. At the trial, he and Mama were found guilty as sin, of course. She was an accessory. She died in prison less than a year after they locked her up, cancer or something. Sonny Boy got the electric chair a few months after she went. That’s what she kept calling him during the trial: Sonny Boy.”

      Eden grimaced.

      “Say, you’re pretty good with all these questions,” Roseann said. “Are you studying to be a reporter or something?”

      Working up a smile, Eden nodded. “As a matter of fact, I’ve signed up for a couple of journalism classes.”

      “That’s nice. Excuse me again,” the waitress said hurriedly. “Duty calls . . .”

      Eden noticed two middle-aged couples had just come in and taken a table by the door. Roseann fetched their waters and menus.

      “Hey, girlie,” someone whispered.

      Eden turned toward the slimy man in the booth and found him smiling at her.

      “It was six,” he said.

      Her eyes narrowed at him. “What?”

      “He killed six women,” the man said, “not ‘four or five.’ There were the two girls he strangled, and a teacher he killed. Then he did the two in one night, and finally the girl he had locked up in the shack. That’s a total of six.”

      “Well, thanks for clearing that up,” Eden muttered, starting to turn away.

      “Are you signed up for Ellie Goodwin’s journalism class?”

      Eden scowled at him again. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

      “A lot of good people went to jail because of her. She’s a fucking busybody and a liar, writing all those stories full of fake news. Stupid, conniving woman, she’ll get hers someday . . .”

      He slurred his words a little, and Eden figured he was drunk. She turned forward again and sipped her coffee.

      “Rachel Bonner, she’s your housemate, isn’t she? The rich bitch. She’s bad news, too.”

      Eden glared at him. “Are you following me or something?”

      He grinned. “You said you lived next door to where both those girls got it back in 1970. So I figured you’re in bungalow twenty. That’s where Princess Rachel lives in the lap of luxury in her spacious second-floor bedroom meant for two girls. And I’ll bet she’s got you and some other poor girl crammed into that little closet of a bedroom off the kitchen.”

      “I don’t see how that’s any of your business either,” Eden said. It was damn creepy that he knew so much about the setup of their bungalow.

      “Well, take it from me,” he said. “You just give it a week with that Bonner bitch as your roommate and that Goodwin skank as your teacher, and you’ll know you should have listened to your old friend Lance. They’re both bad news. You want another tip?”

      “Not particularly.”

      “If you’re heading back to your bungalow after this, you can save yourself about six blocks by taking the shortcut through the woods. Just hang a right when you step out the door here.”

      With a sigh, Eden faced forward again.

      “Are you listening?” he said, raising his voice a little. “Hang a right, go to the dry cleaners on the corner, take another right, and you’ll see the woods across the street—and a little trail. It takes you directly to Saint Agnes Village. You’ll save yourself at least fifteen minutes. Are you listening to me?”

      “Stop annoying the other customers,” Roseann grumbled as she approached his booth. She slapped a check on the table in front of him. “She’s too young for you anyway, lover boy.”

      “Looks like it’s about to rain out there,” he said. “I’m just telling her about the shortcut back to her bungalow.”

      And I was just about to tell you to fuck off, Eden thought. But she didn’t even look his way. He gave her the creeps. Glancing in the opposite direction, she could see his reflection in the restaurant’s darkened plate glass window.

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