The Bodies Of Missing Girls Have Been Showing Up In Our Small Town, And The Locals Are Starting To Fear A ‘Time Traveling Serial Killer’

“That’s what would make the most sense.”

It didn’t take the locals long to find out Miss August’s story and to start forming their own theories like a small town conspiracy theory club. The best and most-common theory was that we had a time traveling serial killer on our hands. Why else would a body from 50 years ago show up in town? Another was that Miss August was abducted by aliens all those years ago and they finally dropped her back off after they had their way with her for more than half a century.

As much as I laughed at the theories, I could only giggle so much, I had no clue as to how a woman who disappeared in 1961 in the Bay Area ended up dead 55 years later next to a river in the most secluded corner of Washington. Most sobering, it was my job to figure it out.

My time to solely focus on Miss August would not last. A panicked phone call in the night plunged me deeper into the maddening nightmare.

“Gary. Gary,” I recognized the voice of Will Hoover huffing and puffing into his phone through the speaker of mine which was pressed against my ear at four in the morning. “Leigh and Peter found another one out by Lake Pearygin tonight. It’s another woman.”

The lights set up on the lakeshore made the crime scene look like a nighttime freeway construction project. I shielded my eyes against the searing lights when I walked up to the muddy banks of the swampy lake and tried to figure out who the few people milling about the scene were.

I knew one of the attendees was Tray. I could smell the burning Michael Jordan cologne that he wore before I could even make his face out in the blinding lights.

“High school kids out here fuckin’ found her,” Tray ran up to me and proudly announced.

“Tray, please try not to use the term ‘fuckin’ on a crime scene,” I grumbled back like a hibernating bear that had been rushed from its slumber.

“But they were,” Tray childishly retorted and tore a pink thong out of an evidence bag he had tucked underneath his arm. “We found these.”

I pushed Tray’s panty-filled hand back down as fast as I could.

“Jesus Christ Tray. Put that away. Tell me what happened here.”

I will translate Tray’s ramblings to you… there was a new body, similar to the last one, found on the shores of the lake. Similar age, somewhere around 35, long, straight dark hair, porcelain skin and a thin, but strong frame, the woman also had a tattoo, but this one was of an anchor, similar to the ones sailors got back before everyone in the country had a tattoo.

The woman’s name was Gloria Howser and I could have guessed almost every detail about her background before Beverly gave it to me the afternoon after we found her body. She was 34 when she died, had been missing from Berkeley, California since 1963 and grew up an orphan in Los Angeles. Tray gleefully informed me that this formed what they call a “pattern.”

Like Miss August, we could not find any additional details about Miss Howser other than that a missing person’s report was lazily filed in the summer of 1963. Other than that, she was essentially a ghost that showed up in my little rural heaven to ruin my life.

The conspiracy theories were blowing through the town like a stiff wind on a flat prairie now. You couldn’t go anywhere in the entire town without hearing some old timer gossiping about a time traveling serial killer. The guy even had a nickname that all of the town folk over the age of 60 didn’t understand – Marty McFly.

I saddled up at the only establishment in the county seat which served hot food, the Chevron by the highway, in plain clothes, in hopes of hearing some gossip which could provide some kind of lead. FYI, if you are ever trying to figure out the difference between a town and a city, it’s a town if the gas station serves hot food. The gauge used to be if the gas station rented VHS tapes, but even America’s tiniest burgs have turned their backs on VCRS at this point.