Nice Girls(97)

I preferred my distance.

Before leaving for work, Dad would lock the doors. He’d even test the door handles afterward to make sure. Neither of us needed to discuss what was happening.

The police then reported that human remains had been discovered at the cabin site. They didn’t comment any further, but online, people could already guess what was happening:

I’m calling it now: Olivia Willand and DeMaria Jackson in the cabin.





They found the missing girls!!





Damn, I can’t believe this stupid city has its own serial killer lol





why is it always a dude with a cabin





A day later, the police confirmed that several of the remains belonged to Olivia Willand and DeMaria Jackson. Their immediate relatives had verified the body parts. But the report suggested that there had been more. And I wondered who else had been hidden in the ice.

Within a week, there were two separate memorial events held in the city.

The Willands held a second funeral Mass at St. Rita’s. The group of attendees was small, and Dad and I weren’t invited. Neither of the Willands made a statement. Someone had snapped a picture of them rushing into the church, their coats pulled around them, their faces haggard. They’d grown tired of it all.

Leticia Jackson held a vigil and a funeral service at her own church, the Holy Winners Congregation of God. The entire church seemed to show up. They held candles and glowing cell phones. A few people gave speeches about justice and death. Leticia Jackson didn’t speak until the end.

The crowd watched as she slowly made her way to the front. She was made up, her cheeks dewy and soft. She wore a baby-blue scarf around her neck. But Mrs. Jackson had a far-off look in her eyes—she seemed to look past the crowds and the cameras and the lights. At the podium, she pulled out a neat stack of index cards.

Mrs. Jackson took a deep breath, her eyes focused on the words. Her face went slack. And she wept.

I read the news coverage of the memorial events, and I watched the livestream of DeMaria’s vigil. I was glad I didn’t go to either of them—I couldn’t stomach the spectacle or the questions that now haunted them.

The Willands and Mrs. Jackson wanted answers—why had their daughters been murdered by Johnathan Stack? Why their girls, of all people?

The answers I had, they didn’t want.

The only person who might have known was Mrs. Willand. She had seen Doberman Productions on Olivia’s phone. She was close enough to John Stack to sense that something had happened between him and her daughter. She could have pieced things together.

But I doubted that she would do anything. She didn’t want to know. Olivia had been found and put to rest. In her mind, Olivia had a legacy that would transcend her death. And Mrs. Willand had her own memories of her daughter. She wouldn’t tarnish all that with the truth.

A few days later, someone posted the text of Mrs. Jackson’s proposed speech. Among her family and the supporters that she thanked, Mrs. Jackson apologized to Dwayne Turner:

My anger blinded me. But now I see. You made your mistakes and I made mine. But you are not a murderer, Dwayne Turner.



The Internet seemed to be in an uproar after that, demanding that he be released from prison. When I signed an online petition for him, there were already over forty-six thousand signatures.

In mid-January, Dwayne was released from the metropolitan corrections facility. News cameras followed him as he entered a tan car. Dwayne wore a dark suit, and he kept his eyes focused on the ground. Jayden was in the driver’s seat, looking grimly at the cameras all around them. Before driving away, Jayden rolled down his window and flipped the middle finger.

After that, Dwayne seemed to disappear. His social media accounts were set to private. He’d unfriended me or blocked me completely.

I owed him an apology. I obsessed over it, thinking about the different things I needed to say, the different ways that I could say them. I had accused an innocent man of murder, and it had been my mistake. I was sorry.

But an apology wouldn’t cut it—I had effectively ruined Dwayne’s life. His name would be forever linked to the murders in Liberty Lake. His personal histories with Olivia and DeMaria—no matter how messy they were—had now been aired out for the whole world to see. He’d received death threats over the murders. Now he had an online conspiracy theory against him—people were convinced that he’d framed Johnathan Stack for the killings.

Dwayne needed a solution to all of this, not an apology. I could only give him the latter.

And distance.

In late January, the Liberty Lake Police Department held another press conference. Chief Todd Johnson was not in attendance. A female officer spoke instead and shared a few developments on the case.

City records showed that the cabin had been registered in 1997 by Johnathan Stack. Police were combing through his home and his additional properties in Liberty Lake. They were also investigating mutual connections between the girls and John Stack.

It meant that the police planned to reinterview the Willands. John Stack had been their family friend. But Olivia’s mother was in a hard position—she’d had an affair with her daughter’s killer. She had other information that she hadn’t shared with law enforcement.

And Mrs. Willand would keep her silence. I knew it instinctively.