quietly.
She was the only person who asked me this, and of course I did. Or rather, I remember what he was not wearing. He was not wearing jeans. He was not wearing a T-shirt. He was not wearing flannel. His clothes were gray or blue, but that may have been the light. Debra told me that “Bob” always wore matching Dickies, usually dark blue. “He liked people to think he was in uniform,” she said.
The airline pilot’s outfit came to mind.
“Do you remember what his cab looked like?”
“Meticulously clean.”
“That sure sounds like Bob. When I first saw his apartment, I thought I’d walked into the showroom of a furniture store. Even in jail, his shirt and pants were always ironed and pressed.”
In Martinsburg, West Virginia, where the truck stop should be is a massive Walmart stretching flat and endless along a parking lot the size of a lake. Five years ago the truck stop was demolished, along with its restaurant. The only thing they neglected to take down is a website with the words
Martinsburg
TravelCenter of America
™ flashing like a beacon online.
The whole thing seemed so uncanny. Everywhere I looked, evidence of these girls was disappearing. I hadn’t been able to get a copy of Shana Holts’s police report because I was told there was no official suspect. Lisa Pennal’s full statement, it turned out, had been destroyed for file space. Now the whole Martinsburg truck stop had been swallowed by a Walmart Supercenter.
I knew from talking to the Martinsburg police that the truck stop had been under the jurisdiction of the Berkeley County sheriff. I called the office. A chipper recorded voice told me to press 1 for taxes, press 2 for guns—“all other callers stay on the line!” I finally spoke to a woman and asked if they had a homicide record for a girl who may have been found in the Martinsburg truck stop during the summer of 1985.
“We don’t have any records,” she told me.
I thought she meant digitized.
“I can come down,” I said.
“We don’t have any records.”
In the 1990s the Berkeley County sheriff’s department’s computer crashed and burned. The paper records had been destroyed for file space, and so nothing from the 1980s remained. I asked to speak to any senior officer who might have been there at the time. She told me there was only one and he had gone fishing.
I spent a week on the road in Appalachia, visiting truck stops, interviewing the older truckers and waitresses. At first I would ask about the girl in the dumpster, but no one had heard of her, so I asked if there had ever been any women found in truck stops. Wherever I went, I was told nothing “like that” ever happened, which was remarkable given the numbers of bodies the FBI had tracked over the past thirty years. The newspapers were equally silent. It seems our profound fascination with serial killers is matched by an equally profound lack of interest in their victims. One library archivist explained that I was looking for the kind of news nobody wanted to read. The girl, he said, “wasn’t one of our own. She was a drifter.” I’d never heard the word
drifter
used in earnest. It touched a nerve I didn’t know I had. I had been a drifter. If what he said was true, the trail I was on had disappeared into a field.
Out of desperation I made one last attempt and swung by a smaller truck stop in Hancock, Maryland. I spoke to a woman who had worked there a long time and told her about the dead hitchhiker while she fingered the gold cross on her neck and listened. Had she ever heard about it? I asked. She shook her head; then her eyes clouded some. “Wait a minute. There was that one girl. She was a prostitute. They found her near a dumpster behind the restaurant at the Gateway Travel Plaza in Breezewood. She had a stocking down her throat, I think. That was way back in the early seventies, though.”
It wasn’t the early ’70s, it was 1987, and the woman killed was nineteen-year-old Lamonica
She was the only person who asked me this, and of course I did. Or rather, I remember what he was not wearing. He was not wearing jeans. He was not wearing a T-shirt. He was not wearing flannel. His clothes were gray or blue, but that may have been the light. Debra told me that “Bob” always wore matching Dickies, usually dark blue. “He liked people to think he was in uniform,” she said.
The airline pilot’s outfit came to mind.
“Do you remember what his cab looked like?”
“Meticulously clean.”
“That sure sounds like Bob. When I first saw his apartment, I thought I’d walked into the showroom of a furniture store. Even in jail, his shirt and pants were always ironed and pressed.”
In Martinsburg, West Virginia, where the truck stop should be is a massive Walmart stretching flat and endless along a parking lot the size of a lake. Five years ago the truck stop was demolished, along with its restaurant. The only thing they neglected to take down is a website with the words
Martinsburg
TravelCenter of America
™ flashing like a beacon online.
The whole thing seemed so uncanny. Everywhere I looked, evidence of these girls was disappearing. I hadn’t been able to get a copy of Shana Holts’s police report because I was told there was no official suspect. Lisa Pennal’s full statement, it turned out, had been destroyed for file space. Now the whole Martinsburg truck stop had been swallowed by a Walmart Supercenter.
I knew from talking to the Martinsburg police that the truck stop had been under the jurisdiction of the Berkeley County sheriff. I called the office. A chipper recorded voice told me to press 1 for taxes, press 2 for guns—“all other callers stay on the line!” I finally spoke to a woman and asked if they had a homicide record for a girl who may have been found in the Martinsburg truck stop during the summer of 1985.
“We don’t have any records,” she told me.
I thought she meant digitized.
“I can come down,” I said.
“We don’t have any records.”
In the 1990s the Berkeley County sheriff’s department’s computer crashed and burned. The paper records had been destroyed for file space, and so nothing from the 1980s remained. I asked to speak to any senior officer who might have been there at the time. She told me there was only one and he had gone fishing.
I spent a week on the road in Appalachia, visiting truck stops, interviewing the older truckers and waitresses. At first I would ask about the girl in the dumpster, but no one had heard of her, so I asked if there had ever been any women found in truck stops. Wherever I went, I was told nothing “like that” ever happened, which was remarkable given the numbers of bodies the FBI had tracked over the past thirty years. The newspapers were equally silent. It seems our profound fascination with serial killers is matched by an equally profound lack of interest in their victims. One library archivist explained that I was looking for the kind of news nobody wanted to read. The girl, he said, “wasn’t one of our own. She was a drifter.” I’d never heard the word
drifter
used in earnest. It touched a nerve I didn’t know I had. I had been a drifter. If what he said was true, the trail I was on had disappeared into a field.
Out of desperation I made one last attempt and swung by a smaller truck stop in Hancock, Maryland. I spoke to a woman who had worked there a long time and told her about the dead hitchhiker while she fingered the gold cross on her neck and listened. Had she ever heard about it? I asked. She shook her head; then her eyes clouded some. “Wait a minute. There was that one girl. She was a prostitute. They found her near a dumpster behind the restaurant at the Gateway Travel Plaza in Breezewood. She had a stocking down her throat, I think. That was way back in the early seventies, though.”
It wasn’t the early ’70s, it was 1987, and the woman killed was nineteen-year-old Lamonica
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