Song: In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins
Title: Uncle Stan
Her uncle Stan always had time for her. This is something
she can recall from early days, time spent together during birthday parties, enjoying
cake and ice cream and silly games. Occasionally this went further, when her
mother had errands to run and begged Stan to watch Laura for an afternoon.
Laura’s mother would drop her off in Uncle Stan’s driveway and she’d run to the
front door, held open by a smiling Stan, coffee cup in hand. They’d spend the
afternoon with paper dolls, or watching a movie, content in each other’s
company.
When the photos of stolen objects first appeared in
magazines and online, she didn’t think much of it. She was a People magazine
devotee and read each and every article. But seeing two items that seemed to
come straight out of her past gave her pause. When the FBI decided to share photos of items that the killer/rapist had stolen, they were essentially asking the public to become armchair detectives.
Her cell phone rang at precisely the right or wrong time, depending on how one would look at it. In any case, she forgot the article; it became a nagging feeling in her mind; not anything to really worry about.
Her cell phone rang at precisely the right or wrong time, depending on how one would look at it. In any case, she forgot the article; it became a nagging feeling in her mind; not anything to really worry about.
Until.
A friend had asked if she had seen the article. Commented on
how the case was coming back into the public eye, after that woman’s book came
out. The nagging feeling returned, took center stage, and pushed all other
thoughts out of the way. She needed to check again. She needed to force herself
to pull up the articles on her computer, take a look.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t heard of the Buckeye State Killer.
When she was younger, around age ten, she recalls her mother talking about how
close to home it was. She was uneasy for a long time, Laura remembers, but
Uncle Stan and dad always reassured mom.
“We’re here to protect you, Lois,” they would console.
“Nothing’s going to happen.”
These platitudes were just that, oft-repeated and meant to
reassure but were essentially meaningless, because, hadn’t the other victims
had family and friends to protect them as well? A couple was killed while
parking on a dirt road. Why couldn’t the man save the woman? No one was safe,
Laura decided.
And then, time would pass, and she and her mother would
forget about it. Until another crime surfaced. Now, after DNA testing has made
long-dead crimes alive again, and that book had renewed interest, the Buckeye
State Killer’s case was in the forefront.
Laura watched an online video where the son of a rape victim
was interviewed. This man was just a little boy when his mother was raped. He
was quiet in his high chair, unnoticed by the rapist, until he heard sounds
that made him start to whimper and fuss. His mother told him later, when he was
a young man, that he had probably saved her life, simply by being a distraction.
When told of this long ago crime to which he was essentially a witness, the
young man insisted he recalled bright blue eyes and a feeling so sinister that
he was certain this memory was of the rapist.
After watching the video, the shaking began. She shivered
and couldn’t sit still. It started when Laura put these pieces together, even
before she knew why she was shaking. Bright blue eyes, the china set, the red
ring. She shivered as if it were the dead of winter, and couldn’t stop.
That china set was Uncle Stan’s pride and joy at
Thanksgiving. He would get it out each year, proclaiming that when one has good
china, one should use it, not let it languish in a cabinet or on a shelf. Since
Thanksgiving alternated between Lois and her brother Stan, Laura got to know
this china well. The gravy boat, so unusual because it wasn’t a part of
everyday meals, was an essential at Thanksgiving. The platter, beautiful on its
own, proudly held both white and dark meats on Thanksgiving as well.
So when Laura sees duplicates of this set on the magazine’s
pages, she doesn’t think Uncle Stan has anything to hide. On the contrary, her
first thought is: wow, just like Uncle Stan’s! As if his taste had been copied,
or the particular pattern was so popular that perhaps everyone of a certain era
purchased Haviland Oasis.
The ring was different. Uncle Stan never wore it, but it sat
on the top tier of his watch box. Its gold band and ruby stone sparkling, it
appeared that Uncle Stan polished it frequently, but never wore it. Once Laura
asked about it. Uncle Stan was dismissive, “Oh, that old thing?” he shrugged.
It seemed the next time Laura visited it was relegated to the back of the box,
nestled in the dusty velvet lining.
Laura re-read the online article, then decided to buy the
book. The shaking had stopped, and she was sure that all of these coincidences
would be put to rest once she read the book.
Two days later, after a trip to the bookstore, Laura’s
shaking returned. Not only was the list of objects stolen confirmed, but
several hints as to the killer’s identity matched Uncle Stan’s life,
appearance, personality. Laura didn’t know what to do. On the one hand, she
needed to tell someone. On the other hand, telling someone would make it real,
and then steps would need to be taken. Some small part of Laura still believed
that she would find out that every single thing was a coincidence, and would
prove how silly and dramatic she was being. She decided to tell her mother.
Stan’s sister would surely be able to shed some insight.
In the shower that morning, and later at work, a voice in
her head kept repeating: What to do, what to do, what to do. This refrain
nearly drove her crazy, like a musical earworm, and Laura believed it was
telling her to bypass her mother and go straight to her father. Her mother
would probably deny the knowledge as well, and Laura needed someone who was
somewhat objective. Not as closely linked to Stan as his own sister.
Her father laughed at her. Admittedly, she chose a poor time
to tell him, but still. They had sat down on her parents’ patio on a Friday,
happy hour time of day, with gin and tonics. Her dad’s favorite, and he always
loved the end of the week. He loved his backyard, too, and maybe he just wanted
to enjoy life on a Friday night instead of contemplating darker matters. Lois
was still at work when Laura decided to hint at Stan’s potential secrets, see what
her father had to say. She wouldn’t come right out and say she suspected her
uncle was a cold-blooded killer, she’d just feel out her dad’s awareness of not
only Uncle Stan, but his thoughts on the serial killer as well.
She didn’t do well at being subtle.
“What?” Laura’s dad asked, staring, distrusting her judgment.
“You’ve been watching too much Law and
Order.”
Laura was silent.
She dropped the subject with her father, wondering who else
she could tell. Her days were spent alternating between wanting to tell someone
and a strong sense of denial. She started to drink in the evenings, just a
couple of glasses of wine to take the edge off of the what-to-do refrain still
playing in her head. Becoming an alcoholic was not an option, so Laura knew she
needed to do something.
After a week, Laura decided to confide in her cousin,
Abigail. Abigail was the daughter of her mother’s only other sibling, Bonnie.
Bonnie had raised Abigail essentially as a single mother, far from Ohio, in the
wastelands of North Dakota. Laura and Abigail weren’t especially close, but
they certainly had shared a lot before the move to the plains.
“Do you think Uncle Stan may be keeping secrets from us?
Like, do you think he may be leading a double life?” The sentence sounded absurd
as she uttered it, and a nervous laugh almost slipped out. The phone line was
still for just a moment, and then, “What?” Abby echoed Laura’s father.
Instead of feeling relief that both her father and cousin
doubted her, she only felt frustration. This is how she knew her instincts were
on track.
“I’m speechless. What clues are you talking about?”
“The FBI has released photos of some of the objects stolen
from people’s homes. People he raped, or killed. You know the china set that
Uncle Stan loves, with the green border? And there’s a ring he has, in his
watchbox. I remember seeing it as a little girl.”
Abigail sighed, then huffed. “You’ve got to be kidding. What
are you going to do, turn him in? Call 911? Ask him is he’s a murderer?” She
listed these things as if this was a game, a trick Laura was playing on her.
Laura thought of that little boy, sitting in his high chair,
now an adult. She thought of how finding the Buckeye State Killer would bring
peace and justice to his family. She then thought of how it might bring chaos
and strife to her family, if Uncle Stan were found to be the killer. She
thought a bit more about it, then realized that she’d need to trust her father
and cousin. Two outnumbers one, right?
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