“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?”
“Yes. She hadn’t officially rented it. But I know the locker belonged to my deceased client because she’d given me the combination to the lock. My client’s name was Rosamund Harding.”
“The Olympic diver?”
“Yes.”
“And you say she gave you the combination?”
“She gave me an apple with the word FAITH carved into it. At the time, I had no idea that the letters were the combination to a lock.”
“When did you figure out that’s what it was?”
“After Rosamund died. The same day, the police came to empty out a locker she rented by the month. There was nothing in there but her gym clothes and supplies.”
“Wait—the police came to clear out her locker?”
“Yeah, I thought that was unusual, too. Why would it be so important to empty her locker the same day she died? I wondered if they were looking for something specific. When they left, it occurred to me that Rosamund could have had something hidden in another locker—one of the day-use lockers that wasn’t rented under her name. So I took a look, and sure enough, there was an unrented locker with a five-letter combination lock on it. I almost went out to buy a pair of bolt cutters until I remembered the apple. I tried the word FAITH, and the lock opened right away.”