“Because I think she did things to keep herself safe but not others.”
“Maybe,” Doreen agreed cautiously, not sure where this conversation was going. “But I guess it depends on what she was keeping herself safe from.”
“Prosecution,” Nelly stated in a hard tone. “She helped Bob, and, when he took off on her like that, she was devastated, but she still wouldn’t turn him in.”
“Ah, that’s an even harder thing.”
“Maybe, but she had no right to let him get away with what he did.”
“And yet you think she knew?”
Nelly pondered that. “I want to say she knew, but I don’t know how the sister I knew and loved could have helped this man if she knew.”
“And, to be clear, what is it that you think Bob Small did?”
Nelly stared at Doreen in surprise. “You know he’s a serial killer, right?”
At that, Doreen nodded. “I just wanted to make sure we were talking about the same Bob Small.”
“Oh, yeah,” she muttered, still with a smile. “We’re definitely talking about the same man.”
“Did you ever meet him?” Doreen asked, looking over at Nelly.
“Sure, decades ago. Not since then. My sister didn’t want me to meet him. She said I was already prejudiced against him.”
“Were you?”
“Oh, absolutely,” she admitted, “and I did try to talk to the police about him back then, but I didn’t have anything outside of my so-called crazy suspicions.”
“Right, and suspicions are not anything that the police can work with. Circumstantial cases are a nightmare for prosecutors.”
“So they kept telling me, but they also didn’t make it easy to find out more information.”
Doreen pondered that. “Maybe they couldn’t have. Maybe they needed more from you.”
“Maybe,” she muttered. “I don’t know. Just so much was wrong with so much back then that it’s really hard to say.”
“Just out of curiosity, did Ella mention a man by the name of Pullin?”
Nelly grinned. “Oh, yeah. He fell for her bad. She went out with him for quite a while, during the same time as she was seeing Bob, but then Bob was around for decades. Pullin wanted to marry her, and it took Ella a long time to decide, but it was a no in the end. She couldn’t leave Bob on a permanent basis.”
Doreen tucked that away in the back of her mind. It confirmed what she already knew. “And what does this journal say?”
“I only read the first part, and then I didn’t want to read anymore.”
“Why is that?” Doreen asked.
“Because my sister knew,” Nelly stated. “She knew, but she didn’t ever really admit it out loud.”
“Does it share anything that would help us find this Bob Small?”
She frowned at Doreen. “Do you think he’s still alive?”
Doreen thought about it and shrugged. “I don’t know for sure, … but I guess a part of me wants to confirm one way or another. If he isn’t, that’s fine. We can still close a lot of cases. However, if he is alive, I really don’t want him around, causing trouble.”
“No, I wouldn’t want that either.” A look of horror overtook her features. “That wouldn’t make me very happy.” She pondered that and added, “He was older than Ella.”
“And that’s another thing. Your sister wasn’t very old,” Doreen noted, “so, if this Bob Small guy had taken care of himself, no reason not to suspect that he’s still alive.”
“Right,” Nelly agreed, pondering that. “In which case we really need to ensure he stopped.”
“Do you think he’s still killing?” Doreen asked her. “We haven’t heard of any other cases.”
“He traveled a lot,” Nelly shared. “He was a trucker and moved through the States and all across Canada. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he hasn’t been active the entire time. You know that he’s good at what he does.”
“That’s not a reassuring thought, is it?” Doreen held out her hand.
Nelly gave her the journal. “This is it. I feel as if I’m still betraying my sister, but she’s now dead and gone. I don’t know, but maybe this man didn’t kill her.”
Doreen stared at her in shock. “Are you saying Bob Small could have killed her?”
“I’m saying that I saw a man not very long ago, and I wondered if it was him. I even asked Ella about it, and she laughed and told me there was no way. But she looked disconcerted, so maybe there was a chance that Bob is alive and kicking.”
Doreen’s hand closed around the journal, as she slowly pulled it toward her. “Now I feel as if I should go home and scan this in, so that, if it disappears, we still have a record.”
Nelly stared at her, then nodded in gratification. “Could you please do that?” she asked. “I’ve hung on to this for a long time, even though my sister used to come in and search my room for it.”
Doreen winced at that. “Wow, obviously some hard feelings were there.”
“A lot of hard feelings,” Nelly declared, “but none quite so much as the fact that I knew my sister was harboring all this herself.”
“Right, … and you feel very strongly that you saw Bob Small recently?”
“I do,” she confirmed, “and, if that’s the case, he could easily have been the one who shot my sister. I didn’t do right by her at the end. So, if you can scan this in, keep it safe, and use it to capture her killer, please, please do so.”
“I understand.”
“I am sure you do, but the guilt will always be with me,” she murmured. “It’s something I need to do for my sister.”
“Do you really believe she’s had no contact with him all these years?”
“She was devastated when he disappeared. They’d been fighting, and I guess she was really sorry at that point in time because a life without him was not what she wanted either. I can’t imagine how anybody with the brainpower of my sister, with that intelligence, knowing what Bob was like, that she could still stay with him.”
“But that is your assessment,” Doreen pointed out. “You must keep in mind that it may not have been what Ella understood to have been his actions.”
Nelly looked over at Doreen. “You give her too much credit, too many good qualities. She’s dead, and I shouldn’t say anything, but there was an awful lot to not like about my sister.” And, with that, Nelly shut up and wouldn’t say anymore.
Doreen wasn’t sure what to do with that information, but she tucked the book into her pocket. “I’ll go scan this in right away.”
She nodded. “And then you’ll need to give a copy to the police.” She winced. “I’m not looking forward to the conversation coming up, but it is needed.”
Doreen looked at her questioningly.
“I knew. I knew about Bob Small, and I held that book over my sister. Even when I had the book, I didn’t take it to them. So maybe”—Nelly shrugged—“maybe I’m just as guilty as Ella was.” She lay her head back on the couch and closed her eyes.