Echoes of Evil

By Eileen Bridgeman Biernat

When her entire family dies suddenly in a tragic car accident, psychology graduate student Susan McNealy is alone in the world. Five years later, now a respected psychologist, Susan meets and marries charismatic Steven Holmgren and becomes pregnant--on the outside, their life is a picture of domestic perfection.

But when Susan unearths a morbid and horrific pattern with children in Steven's family, she begins to question her life with him. Is Steven part of the pattern? Will Susan have the strength to save her family... or will a sinister family legacy destroy the life they've built?

Loosely based on a bizarre real-life crime, Echoes of Evil tells the story of a tempestuous family and a deadly tradition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781940014234

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Copyright

ECHOES OF EVIL © copyright 2014 by Eileen Bridgeman Biernat.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, by photography or xerography or by any other means,

by broadcast or transmission, by translation into any kind of language, nor by recording electronically or otherwise, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in critical articles or reviews.

Softcover ISBN 13: 978-1-940014-00-5

eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-940014-13-5

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2014930811

Manufactured in the United States of America

Cover and interior design by James Monroe Design LLC.

Wise Ink, Inc.

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To order, visit www.itascabooks.com or call 1-800-901-3480.

Reseller discounts available.

Dedication

For my husband, Joe,

from whom I have always heard

an encouraging word.

For my grandchildren (so far): Madelyn Michelle Biernat,

Logan Arthur Earl, Jake Joseph Earl,

and Elizabeth Marie Earl.

They bring smiles to my face and joy to my life.

Acknowledgments

I am most grateful to my two children, Dr. Joe Biernat and Bridget Marie Earl and their generous and loving spouses for their support and encouragement.

Special thanks to my daughter-in-law Michelle Hultman Biernat for her many investments in the publishing of this book. She supported my work from the very beginning and as one of my beta readers offered me loving reminders that my heroine’s voice needed to sound like a young woman. Michelle—you’re the best!

A loving shout-out to my son-in-law David Earl who introduced our daughter and our whole family to the beauty and charm of Annapolis, Maryland. David’s former home on Echo Cove Drive was the inspiration for the setting of this book. Thanks David—you’re my favorite son-in-law!

Thanks to my dear sisters-in-law, Barbara Biernat Schneider and Janet Biernat Hatfield for reading and editing my manuscript. I loved hearing that they can’t wait for the next book. Bless you both.

I want to acknowledge and thank my good friend Jim Daly, a retired Ramsey County Sheriff who contributed so much to my first book, Stalking Mary and advised me on the ballistics and ‘cop stuff ‘ that are part of this book.

Lastly, I want to thank my team at Wise Ink Creative Publishing, Amy Quale and Dara Beevas, and my designer, Jay Monroe of James Monroe Design. They guided me every step of the way. My success is their success. Their success is my success.

In the Ancient Greek myth, Narcissus was a hunter

known for his handsomeness. He loved himself so deeply that he stayed by a pool of water and fell in love

with his own image, eventually dying because he refused

to leave the beauty of his reflection.

–Greek Gods and Heroes by Robert Graves

1

SUSAN

When a party is in full swing and the doorbell rings at 4 a.m., it has an immediate and sobering effect on the guests. Conversations die on the last word spoken and confused glances are exchanged in the silence that follows. Someone usually breaks the tension with a nervous laugh and jumps up to answer the door remarking, with a laugh, that it must be the cops coming to warn about the noise.

It was just such a moment when I opened the door that night and found two police officers standing on the three-foot-wide doorstep of the townhome my college roommates and I rented in College Park, Maryland. The house must have been warm that evening, because I remember the misty rain felt cool on my face when I asked them to step inside.

Just before the knock on the door, I had been swaying to the soulful blues of Lou Pride, sipping a glass of cheap wine, and celebrating the end of the semester with my housemates and other good friends.

Earlier that evening, my mom and dad had driven up from our home in Chevy Chase to take us all out for a celebration dinner at Food Wine & Co. in Bethesda. We were celebrating the publication of my research paper in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy. My three roommates, Rob, Marie, and Molly, loved my family and we always had a wonderful time when we got together. An elegant dinner topped off with a champagne toast was manna from heaven for doctoral students who survived on cafeteria food and order-in pizza. Even my thirteen-year-old brother, Jack, tagged along that evening. He had a secret crush on Marie and he didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to see her—even if it meant spending Saturday night at a stuffy old restaurant with his mom, dad, and sister.

We enjoyed dinner in a private room. Everything was wonderful—the food was delicious, the wine was perfect, and Dad’s jokes were corny. As an anti-trust attorney, he said to everyone at the table, "I can’t even pretend to understand the concept of Susan’s thesis, but I’m damn proud of her. I’m also glad that she’ll get her PhD just in time for me to begin saving for Jack’s college tuition. Turning to the waiter, Dad continued, Did I mention that my daughter is now published? And it’s almost unheard of for a dissertation paper to be published!" The wait staff acted duly impressed and never even rolled their eyes in boredom, no matter how many times he repeated himself.

Mom didn’t sing my praises to anyone except me. She was her quiet and reassuring self, squeezing my hand several times. I’m so proud of you, she whispered. I knew from the minute you were born that you were smart as a whip. I’d heard this phrase from her all my life.

Even Jack had a good time, especially after he maneuvered his way around the table to make sure he was seated next to Marie. When Rob grabbed my camera for photos, Jack was only mildly interested in having his picture taken with me, but when someone suggested that Jack cozy up to Marie for a picture . . . well, he was all over that plan. My friends indulged my family by laughing at Dad’s jokes, making a big fuss over Jack, and telling my mom they could see where I got my good looks. It was such a great evening.

After my folks left the restaurant to drive back home, my friends and I went to one of the bars near campus. At bar close, we walked home in the rain and continued the party. It wasn’t until we heard the doorbell ring that we realized how late it was and how messy the house was. Every surface was cluttered with empty beer mugs, greasy pizza boxes, and plates. Glasses with oily fingerprints held vodka-soaked limes, shriveling and fermenting.

When I answered the door, I recognized one of the officers as Mike Bryant, who’d worked with me teaching a personal safety class at a local high school. I felt that kind of awkward bewilderment you sometimes experience when seeing someone out of the normal context of your acquaintance. Not knowing what else to do, I ushered the officers into the room. Come in, I said. I turned to my friends, Hey, everyone, this is Mike, we work together on seminars at the high school.

While guiding Mike and the other officer into the room, I turned to face my friends and noticed everyone staring at me in horrified silence. The joy and exuberance that had filled the room just moments before were gone. My friends seemed stunned. Molly’s face was contorted in shock; Rob had stopped mid-stride on his way to the kitchen. With everyone staring at me, I felt like a small child who didn’t understand the punch line of a joke. I mumbled, What? What’s the matter? When I swung back around to face Mike, I noticed the man standing behind him was wearing a Roman collar. I glanced back and forth between the two men, searching their faces for the message they seemed to share, but hadn’t uttered. Then I noticed the sad look on Mike’s face and saw that he was holding the evening bag my mother had carried at dinner earlier that night.

When he placed Mom’s evening bag in my hands, I was shocked to feel how heavy it was. It was rain soaked and muddy and the jeweled clasp was bent and twisted. Patches of silver beads had been shorn off leaving stray wisps of the threads that had held them in place.

Mike, where did you get this? It’s my mother’s purse. With breathtaking awareness, I realized they’d come with bad news. I whispered to myself, Mom . . . Dad?

Mike spoke softly, uncertain how to frame the words, Susan, there was an accident. Your parents . . . your family was killed. I’m so sorry.

My voice was unrecognizable to me as I repeated, They were just here . . . they were all just here . . .

He went on, explaining that the rain had been heavy, the roads were slippery, and a drunk driver crossed the median. The officers at the scene of the accident believed that my dad swerved to avoid a head-on crash, but with the road so slick, apparently he couldn’t maintain control and the car rolled several times before it came to a stop. It was over right away, Mike whispered.

The chaplain echoed, We’re sure they didn’t suffer, ma’am, it all went very quickly. I’m so sorry.

No, no, there’s some mistake, I whispered, more to myself than anyone else.

I’m sorry, Susan, there’s no mistake, Mike said. It’s your mother’s purse; we collected it from the accident scene. They identified the victims, no one survived.

No . . . please . . .

I turned to Mike, shoved him, and demanded that he tell me it wasn’t true. I stuttered a denial of what they’d told me. I jumped at the first explanation that occurred to me. Wait a minute, wait a minute, I stammered, I know what happened. I understand now. Can’t you see? Someone must have stolen my mother’s evening bag, and . . . and . . . and that person, that person, those people, they’re gone, not Mom and Dad. They aren’t dead. There’s been a terrible mistake. I’ll call them right now . . . someone at the restaurant must have stolen the handbag before we even left. Check that out! Have you checked that out?

The chaplain lowered his head and whispered, There’s no mistake, Susan. We’re all so sorry. I can pray with you if you wish.

I don’t want to pray, I want to talk to my family! Trying desperately to convince them that my explanation was right, I said, You don’t understand. We were all together earlier tonight—I waved toward my friends for confirmation—all of us. Mom and Dad were with me, right next to me. Jesus, they were with all of us, don’t you see? I pleaded. Wait, I can show you, I have pictures in my camera.

Turning to my friends, I ordered, Find my camera, someone! Someone, find my goddamn camera! Not knowing what else to do, everyone jumped into action, digging through my purse, my coat pockets, even going into my bedroom to search. Rob finally found my camera and I grabbed it out of his hands and searched the tiny screen for proof of the existence of Mom, Dad, and my little brother.

The camera did not betray me. There we were in the tiny lens, laughing and hugging each other, leaning close to each other to fit into the frame. There was Jack, not a boy, not a man. Dad stood next to me, proud and smiling. Mom sat at the table holding Dad’s hand, which he’d placed affectionately on her shoulder. I was seated next to Mom, our hands entwined on the table next to the evening bag that now lay heavy and muddy on my coffee table—evidence of the awful truth of my family’s violent deaths.

After several silent minutes that I wouldn’t recall later, reality began to set in. Jesus, what happened? How? I had hugged and kissed them just hours earlier, expecting to see them during Christmas break. Please God, I said to myself, please let me go back in time.

As despair took over, my futile pleas weakened. I went to the bathroom to be alone and curled up on the floor, simply unable to stand under the weight of my grief. My hair spilled over my face. The bathroom tiles felt cold against my cheek as I moaned, Please, don’t let this be true. Please. That’s when I suddenly thought of my brother, and irrationally thought I had to go to him, to take care of him, forgetting or not having fully comprehended the words the officers had spoken. There were no survivors. Fleetingly and irrationally, I thought if Jack and I could just sit down together, we could somehow sort this out, find the truth that Mom and Dad were still alive.

By this time, Officer Mike had come into the bathroom to make sure I wasn’t going to hurt myself, though I hadn’t noticed him come in. Where’s Jack? Where is he? I demanded, clutching Mike’s arms. Mike, I have to go to him. He must be terrified. Where is he?

Mike bowed his head and murmured, Susan, he’s gone too. I thought you understood that they were all in the car together. No one survived. Jack’s gone too.

Defeated by this fresh horror, I blocked out the world around me. I immersed myself in my own silence. If I uttered one more word, I knew I would burst apart. I would disintegrate from pain. I kept thinking to myself, Please, God, take me back to yesterday. Let me touch them one more time. Please God, let me tell them one more time how much I love them. Don’t take them away from me. How could I go on living in this new and painful world?

I looked around the small room, searching the faces of my friends. They all stood outside the bathroom door, ready to help, but recognized there was nothing they could do. They were like strangers to me now. I was an orphan. They still had families who would wake up in the morning thinking about them, loving them, eager to share their lives. I had no one. My family was gone. I was someone different from the person I’d been just a few hours before. I was an alien, even to myself.

When they asked me what they could do to help, I could only plead for them to do the impossible. Please make it not be true, please make it not be true, I begged.

With my family dead, I felt my own existence fade. I wondered, Does a family have one collective breath? If the life we shared is over, what remains of me? I couldn’t find the answers within me, but I understood that the woman I was before my family died was gone forever. Susan the daughter and Susan the sister was now Susan alone.

2

SUSAN

Five Years Later

Every Friday night since grad school, my friends and I had appropriated the same two tables in a corner of McGarvey’s Pub, a historic watering hole in downtown Annapolis. We called our meeting place the POETS corner, which stood for Piss On Everything, Tomorrow is Saturday! When people learned our Friday nights were spent at the POETS corner, we sounded like poetry aficionados. Actually, it meant we would drink beer and relax from a long week of listening to other people’s problems.

Every Friday, we would have our POETS corner debriefing and complaint session. Our rules for the evening were simple. We’d each take a quick turn to whine about the events of the past week. No one offered judgment or advice. Everyone just listened. And the final rule—we allowed a total of only ten minutes for the whole group to grumble. It’s amazing how much complaining a person can get done when they’ve only got about two minutes to vent. After we’d finished our nitpicking, we would order another round of drinks and move on to enjoying the rest of the night.

On one of those Friday nights, I met Steven.

That particular night, I was even more exhausted than usual. That morning, I’d given my final presentation on workplace violence with my friend and associate, Tim Dowse, and spent the afternoon counseling individual couples in my office. My final appointment ended sometime around 5 p.m.

After the last couple had left, I wandered into the small kitchen at the back of the office and peeled the last slice of cold pizza from the cardboard box it had been delivered in several hours earlier. Because I hadn’t eaten anything all day, even the congealed mozzarella and rubbery green peppers tasted good.

With pizza in hand, I dashed up the back stairway of the clinic to my apartment, my beloved private space. I was blessed to own a nineteenth-century Georgian style home in the historic district of Annapolis.

After my family died, I knew that I couldn’t live in the house where I had grown up—there were too many memories. I sold the home and purchased a two-story home in Annapolis. I had the first floor renovated for clinic offices and the top floor remodeled for my apartment. I named the clinic McNealy Family Mental Health Clinic in honor of my family. The beautiful old house was the perfect place for people to come and heal; its atmosphere was warm and welcoming, and you could almost feel the presence of all the families and friends who had lived and laughed inside its walls over the last century.

Settling in for a few hours of much-needed relaxation before walking over to McGarvey’s, I filled a tumbler with ice cubes and doused them with an ice-cold Coke. As my beverage spilled over the top of the glass, I grabbed a paper towel, plopped down on the couch, and hit the remote, and Dr. Phil’s face popped up on the screen. I was all too happy to let Dr. Phil cure the rest of the world’s ills—I was off duty until Monday.

The members of the POETS corner—Molly, Marie, Rob, and I—had been together since we began the doctoral program in psychology at the University of Maryland. We practiced together in the family therapy clinic I established in honor of my departed family. We were a close group of diverse personalities who had blended together to create a successful practice and deep friendships.

Marie was one of those amazingly beautiful women who seem to be unaware of just how gorgeous they are. She was tall, shapely, blond, and quick to flash her genuine smile. When she walked into a room, heads always turned—both sexes appreciated her good looks and were drawn to her natural charm.

Marie worked magic with her clients. Her specialty was counseling twins and their families. Marie’s life experience as a twin provided her with intuitiveness about the relationships between twins and the family dynamics in households with twins. The bond between twins could create real challenges to their other siblings and parents; Marie helped them sort out the pieces and often guided twins through their painful adolescent years when they naturally wanted to become independent of family, and sometimes that meant distancing themselves from their twin.

Marie also worked with adolescent girls. Many times I witnessed adolescent girls walking into her office who lacked the natural graces that Marie had so deftly mastered herself. Her clients were often gangly young girls with flat chests and mouths full of braces. When one of these girls would come in for a session, I used to think to myself, This girl is going to take one look at Marie and hate her. But without fail, most girls would come back for another session, and another, and after many sessions they would often leave Marie’s office smiling with newfound optimism and self-confidence.

Sometimes, I needed Marie’s magic too. When we roomed together in grad school, she was my go-to person when I was feeling unhappy, unmotivated, and longing for my family. Lying on her bunk, she and I would share a bottle of wine, while Marie provided me with her own special version of unconditional positive regard. To this day, I would call on Marie whenever I need a best friend or counselor. Her quick response to my bad mood would always be, Hey, after we close the clinic, c’mon over to my place for dinner and we’ll chat. She’d fix me a delicious meal and we’d share a glass or two of wine. While stir-frying fresh veggies into a fabulous meal, Marie would just listen. Once I’d aired all my frustrations and listed my personal shortcomings, she would proceed to inventory my many attributes. Before the last bean sprout had been eaten, I would once again feel strong and capable. It was the same transformation I so often witnessed in her clients.

Nutritionally speaking, Marie’s healthy, vegetarian meals were the polar opposite of those prepared by our friend Molly, another former roommate and present counselor at our clinic. While Marie had never met a fresh vegetable she didn’t want to chop, roast, or sauté, Molly had never met a bag of corn chips she didn’t want to devour. Molly believed that jalapeño-flavored Doritos counted as a vegetable in the food pyramid, that gummy bears were actually a fruit because of their natural flavors, and that Diet Coke was nature’s most perfect chemical compound. When we lived together during college, Marie promised Molly’s mother that she would make sure that Molly ate at least one nutritious meal a day. Marie kept that promise—usually by making a wholesome breakfast for all of us. We all thought Molly was a freak of nature. She could consume thousands of empty calories in an evening while watching TV, and yet she weighed about a hundred pounds.

Molly was also a human dynamo who threw herself wholeheartedly into everything she did. She was fun and passionate, and always kept us entertained with her wild humor. Molly’s practice specialty was grief counseling. She’d become renown for her work with individuals who had lost a loved one as the result of violence.

Another former roommate and current partner in the practice was Rob Glyndon. He was every woman’s dream guy friend. While straight, he was definitely one of the girls to us. He was smart, funny, and sexy in a rumpled, unpolished, faded-Dockers-and-broken-in-loafers kind of way.

Having grown up the only boy in a big Irish-Catholic family, the middle kid who was blessed (or cursed) with two older sisters and two younger sisters, Rob said that he and his dad only survived life in a house full of women by taking lots of weekend fishing trips and creating a guys only zone in their basement family room. Even his mom was banned from that space unless she was bringing them a bowl of popcorn.

Rob went to Catholic school from kindergarten through high school and was an altar boy throughout grade school. Apparently, one day when he was about thirteen, he showed up ready to serve mass, but the priest sent him home. He told Rob that he couldn’t concentrate on saying the mass while standing next to an altar boy who was six inches taller than him.

Rob’s mom harbored the dream of many Catholic mothers, that her only son would become a priest. Hints were dropped—both subtle and otherwise—but Rob never bought it.

After a couple of beers, we could usually get Rob to entertain us by impersonating one of his mother’s more overt attempts to steer him toward the priesthood. With his eyes raised to heaven, and his hands clasped in prayer, Rob imitated her falsetto voice, crooning, "Oh Rob, just think of it, you could be Father Glyndon, Father Robert Glyndon, or even Bishop Glyndon! Rob’s dad would usually burst her religious bubble by laughing out loud and declaring that Rob was not priesthood material, that his interest in girls, revealed by literature" his father found in the back of Rob’s closet, was too strong for Rob to consider a life of celibacy. Rob’s mother would react by gently slapping his dad on the head and calling him a letch. Rob’s sisters would scream with laughter, demanding to know more about the magazines in Rob’s bedroom.

Coming from a family overrun with females, it seemed natural that Rob would end up rooming with three women while pursuing his doctorate in psychology. As a roommate, Rob was one of the neatest, most considerate guys you could find. He always put down the toilet seat and the lid. As a coworker, Rob was completely genuine and caring, a best friend to everyone who’d ever known him—including his friend since childhood, Steven Holmgren.

Rob mentioned he was bringing an old friend to the bar that night, and for once he didn’t upsell the guy. As a matter of fact, in our lunchroom earlier that week, when we asked more about his friend, Rob was dismissive. Well, Steven’s fine, I guess. Not really any of your types, though, said Rob.

Throwing a wadded napkin at Rob, Molly said, What do you mean ‘our types’—like he won’t like us?

"Oh, he’s cool enough, and he’ll like you all, of course . . . I just, I don’t know, I don’t see him with any of you. Steven is a nice guy . . . and he’s a really good-looking guy, but I don’t want you to just see that . . ."

"Oh, like we’re all too ugly for a ‘really good-looking guy’?" Molly said, indignant.

No! Of course, you’re all beautiful—

So what’s the problem? Marie cut him off.

He’s just . . . dated a lot in the past, that’s all, Rob said.

Mmmhmm, Marie said sarcastically.

So . . . just how cute is he? I asked.

Rob rolled his eyes. Here we go . . .

By Friday night, we were all mildly curious about Steven Holmgren, the man Rob was bringing to our intimate POETS night.

With an hour to go until we met at McGarvey’s, I turned off Dr. Phil, showered, and spent the next thirty minutes trying my best to duplicate a Brazilian blowout on my thick, dark auburn hair; my efforts sometimes came out great and other times I ended up looking like the bride of Frankenstein. Fortunately, that night it was closer to Brazilian blowout than blow-up. I took extra time with my makeup and slipped into a peach-colored, sleeveless silk top with a scoop neckline that showed off my tan. I zipped myself into a great pair of dark skinny jeans and slipped on my hot new sandals.

Since we always met at McGarvey’s on Friday nights, and I lived nearby, I would walk over early to save places for my friends. I loved McGarvey’s Pub, and I never minded going there early. It gave me a chance to enjoy a solitary glass of wine and absorb the history of the place.

Molly called me on my cell just as I was walking out the door.

"So, Rob is bringing his ‘really hot’ friend tonight, right?" she asked.

"Yup, that’s the rumor. He could be date-worthy, or we could all be home by nine watching 20/20 on ABC."

I’ll wait to meet this guy, and then I’ll decide if I’ll order the garlic jalapeño poppers, or bruschetta with fresh mozz and basil, Molly said.

"Molly,