Geri
By Joyce Faulkner
www.joycefaulkner.com/books.htm
I met Geri at the University of Arkansas in the fall of 1966. You couldn’t miss her. Her carefully constructed hairdos sported tiny clip-on bows in the oddest places…over one ear or just above springy bangs or in the curl at the top of a French twist. She was a quirky beauty – one that made people pause and reflect on how the room changed when she arrived.
She dated my boyfriend’s buddy and I saw her at parties almost every weekend for two years. I can’t say that we became close but she made me laugh when she imitated the Supremes – or when she slow-danced by herself, eyes closed and face upturned like a sunflower seeking light.
When I eloped, she wore her prettiest dress and snapped pictures and ate cake and toasted us with cheap champagne. I remember her waving as we drove off to enjoy our new life when my husband graduated in June 1968. It was the last time I saw her.
She was in love, but that relationship didn’t work out – nor the next or the next. While we traveled the world, she finished school, got a job, and moved to Tulsa.
I was in the hospital having a baby when Geri disappeared in 1975. We waited – pretending she was okay. Three weeks later, I held our infant son on my shoulder, clutched my husband’s hand — and cried when a friend called to tell us that they’d found her in an abandoned apartment building – raped, mutilated, and murdered.
Over the years, I tried to visualize her face but could only bring those silly bows into focus. Lying in the darkness with my husband snoring beside me, I thought about how scared Geri must have been – and how alone. I’d get up and blow my nose and stare out the window – watching for the glint of a knife in the shadows.
When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I started reading – first about Ted Bundy, then Gacey, and a host of other monsters. True crime magazines soon turned into tomes by Ann Rule and Robert Ressler. I began volunteering at a rape center – and moved on to textbooks to further my knowledge of psychopathy and serial rape.
In 2000, I began writing about a predatory ghoul who kidnaps young women and hurts them. Terrified of John Walsh and Larry King, my villain is a rambler – moving from town to town, taking a victim here and another there – driving a truck or working with an airline. He is aging but still dangerous – using the internet to lure his prey.
I finished the book that I called USERNAME — and put it away in a drawer. “Goodbye,” I whispered to my almost friend. “I wish…” Actually, I didn’t know what I wished…that she was alive? That I’d figured out who killed her? That I wasn’t so damned afraid?
Then our son turned 30 — and we heard.
They found Geri’s murderer! He was old — sick from drugs and drink and debauchery – and a truck driver. They matched his DNA to her rape kit and he confessed. In fact, he’d killed several times before Geri. Exhilaration gave way to more horror – Geri died in 1975. Since then, Clyde Carl Wilkerson had traveled to every state in the continental US. There had to be others. Unknown others.
“The bastard never knew how special she was,” a friend said when he heard.
“He didn’t care,” I murmured. “He can’t.”
I still cry at night when it’s dark and my husband’s sleeping – and Geri still haunts me. A book, it seems, is not enough. I guess I knew that all along but I had to try.
