KENNEDY:

  I think most people would assume the same thing, given the circumstances.

  FREYA:

  Agreed. Anyway, he got curious and looked out the window a couple of minutes later, and he saw his father being shoved into the back of a black car. That was the last time Silas was ever seen.

  KENNEDY:

  The second riddle showed up at the police station later that day. As with the previous riddle, it was long, cryptic, and referenced local landmarks in disturbing ways. It took the police eight days to solve it.

  By the time they arrived at the correct location in Corwin Bay National Park, nothing was left apart from some bloody scraps of clothing and a pair of shoes that Silas’s wife identified as his.

  FREYA:

  The third victim was Heather Voss, a forty-one-year-old stay at home mom and amateur writer. She was on a late-night gas run at Capeside Pump-N-Ride in Northwest Corwin Bay while her husband was at home with their daughter. The attendant inside saw a tall man in dark, hooded clothing dragging her away from the pump before shoving her in the back seat of a black car. He called the police immediately, but it was too late. The gas station surveillance footage was no help, because the plates on the black car were fake.

  KENNEDY:

  The Carver was seriously brazen in those early cases, wasn’t he? Almost like he wanted to be seen.

  FREYA:

  Yeah. And it doesn’t get much more brazen than the fourth case, where Brian Delgado, a forty-five-year-old lawyer at Henderson, Marks & Lowe, was snatched right in front of the downtown firm as multiple cars passed by.

  KENNEDY:

  He was working late that night, along with a paralegal identified only as ‘Teri’ by investigators, presumably to protect her privacy. Teri told the police that Brian left the office around half past eight. She stayed behind to finish some filing, and then she saw a strange flash of light.

  She went to the window and looked, and on the street, five stories below, was Brian. He was holding his cellphone and waving it around, clearly trying to attract attention from anyone in the surrounding buildings or passing cars. A man in black had him by the shoulders, yanking him away from his parked car and attempting to drag him into the car behind.

  FREYA:

  A black sedan, of course.

  KENNEDY:

  Yup. Teri called the police immediately and watched the harrowing scene unfold as she waited for their arrival. But within seconds, the hooded man finally overpowered Brian. He stuffed him into the back of the black car and took off.

  FREYA:

  The fifth victim, Christopher Miles, was a thirty-six-year-old psychiatric nurse at Corwin Bay Regional Hospital. He disappeared after a late shift. Hospital surveillance didn’t catch the abduction, because—as is the case with most hospitals on any given day or night—the parking lots were absolutely packed, so Christopher’s car was in the overflow staff parking across the road.

  KENNEDY:

  Where there were no cameras. No witnesses, either. But investigators can be confident that he was taken by the Carver, because—

  FREYA:

  —there was a huge blood trail leading away from his car, and then another riddle showed up the next morning at Corwin Bay’s main police precinct. It took the cops five days to solve it.

  As with the previous four victims, that was far too long. By the time they correctly identified the right spot in the vast woods to the northwest of the city, nothing remained but Christopher’s blood and hair, due to wildlife predation.

  KENNEDY:

  After that, the police got better at solving the riddles. The next eight victims were found within one to two days of their disappearances. Unfortunately, they were already dead.

  FREYA:

  Cut into pieces and left in piles around the spots identified in each riddle.

  KENNEDY:

  Those victims were: Lila Granger, a nineteen-year-old arts student at Corwin Bay Community College. She loved tarot cards, indie films, and documenting dreams in a blog. She was last seen walking home from a classmate’s apartment.

  FREYA:

  Then there was Marcus Cheung, thirty-three. HVAC repairman. Quiet, reliable, worked long hours to support his parents. Last seen on a house call in a residential suburb.

  KENNEDY:

  That was the point where the city started to feel like a pressure cooker. Seven victims in nine weeks. All people from different walks of life.

  FREYA:

  Yeah, the general vibe in Corwin Bay was horrible back then. Everyone was on edge all the time. Home security companies probably quadrupled their usual profits.

  KENNEDY:

  After another month passed without incident, people finally started to think the Carver might’ve stopped, The general mood started to lighten, just a little. But then, five weeks after Marcus Cheung’s death, Heather Doyle went missing. She was twenty-seven. A tattoo artist. She was abducted from her studio in what initially looked like a break-in… but nothing was taken.

  FREYA:

  A week after that, there was Jenna Roth, a thirty-eight-year-old third-grade teacher. She always organized the school's canned food drive and knitted scarves for every kid in her class.

  KENNEDY:

  Then there was Oscar Raines, fifty. Local radio DJ who hosted a late-night show called Dark Frequencies. The last thing he ever said on-air was ‘Stay safe out there, Corwin Bay’ after talking about the ongoing Carver case.

  FREYA:

  After that, there was Natalie Jagger, twenty-nine. Instagram fitness coach and former Miss Corwin Bay. Known for her pink boxing gloves and relentless positivity. Her followers noticed something was amiss when her usually-frequent posts suddenly stopped.

  KENNEDY:

  Sidenote: it still blows my mind how different all the victims were.

  FREYA:

  Yeah, me too.

  KENNEDY:

  After Natalie, there was Elliot Parr, sixty-one. Retired dock worker. His fishing boat was found adrift at dawn. He wasn’t on it.

  FREYA:

  And finally, there was Theresa Linwood, fifty-eight. Head librarian at Corwin Bay Library. She ran the city’s very popular book club for nearly twenty years. Her dog was found barking behind a locked front door. She never made it home to feed him.

  KENNEDY:

  [Long exhale] Twelve people. Twelve stories.

  FREYA:

  And just like Kennedy’s dad, they all deserved better.

  KENNEDY:

  In later episodes, we’re going to talk to the people who loved them. Who still miss them. Because maybe in those memories, we’ll find what the Carver saw in them.

  FREYA:

  That’s what this show is about. Trying to find the thread that ties everything together.

  KENNEDY:

  If that thread even exists. And we’re damn well hoping it does.

  FREYA:

  For now, we’re going to go over the connections that exist between the victims. As we said earlier, they’re generally considered to be coincidences, given the size of Corwin Bay.

  But maybe someone out there will hear this and suddenly remember something. Something that turns one of those tiny, tenuous connections into something bigger. Something with teeth.

  KENNEDY:

  Yeah, that’s something we’re really hoping for. Because, in my opinion, thirteen people don’t get chosen for no reason. I think there is a reason. We just haven’t found it yet.

  FREYA:

  I agree. There’s something in the victimology. Something everyone has always missed. Even the FBI, once they were called in to take over the investigation.

  KENNEDY:

  Some people might think we’re being a little arrogant—or even downright ridiculous—here. Just two unqualified young women who think they somehow know better than FBI agents and detectives. But that’s not it. We don’t think we know better.

  FREYA:

  It’s just like we said in our pre-launch episode: we want this to be a community effort. Not just us. Because we truly believe that there are people out there who know something, and they might not even realize they know it, because they’ve always assumed that it’s not relevant. But if we all come together, then maybe we can start to fill in the cracks.

  KENNEDY:

  Exactly. So, without further ado, here’s the known connections between the victims.

  Firstly, my father and Christopher Miles knew each other, as they both worked at the same hospital. But they worked in vastly different medical fields. My dad was a surgeon and Christopher was a psych nurse, so while they crossed paths from time to time, their relationship didn’t stretch beyond work acquaintances.

  FREYA:

  Then there’s Natalie Jagger and Lila Granger. They regularly attended the same gym on Seventh Avenue in downtown Corwin Bay. But we’ve had a look, and neither followed the other on socials. In this day and age, and especially with Natalie’s social media career, that means something. And if you ask me, it most likely means that they didn’t know each other, or at least weren’t friends. They may have never even crossed paths at the gym.

  KENNEDY:

  Jenna Roth, Elliot Parr, Heather Voss, and Christopher Miles all attended the same church. St. Bartholomew’s on Marigold Avenue. So that’s a connection between four of the victims. But police looked into it and found nothing concerning. The church is just a run-of-the-mill Anglican congregation in the heart of Corwin Bay. It isn’t some sort of weird cultish organization, as a few people have theorized over the years.

  FREYA:

  Yeah, I actually went to that church as a kid, and believe me, they’re not hiding anything. It’s just a regular church, and the congregants were hit really hard by the disappearances of their fellow members.

  KENNEDY:

  So does that mean you actually knew some of the victims personally? Apart from my dad, I mean.

  FREYA:

  No, my family only went to church on really big days, like Easter and Christmas Eve. So we weren’t familiar with most of the congregants. Just a few.

  KENNEDY:

  Ah. But still, that must have scared you as a child; knowing that these people had a slight connection to you.

  FREYA:

  Oh, yeah. It freaked me out really badly. Especially because I was friends with you, so we were already terrified and traumatized about what happened to your dad. Then, with four church members vanishing in the months after that…. it just added another layer of fear. Like… when is this going to stop happening? Is it even going to stop?

  KENNEDY:

  I remember that feeling really well. I still feel it sometimes.

  FREYA:

  Yeah, I think all our local listeners can understand that. It’s a horrible feeling, and it never really goes away.

  [Brief reflective pause]

  For now, let’s get back to the bigger picture. We were talking about the connections between the victims, weren’t we?

  KENNEDY:

  Yup, that’s right. Let’s get back to those now.

  FREYA:

  As a lawyer specializing in IP and cybersecurity law, Brian Delgado occasionally consulted at Silas Boone’s tech company. Silas was also in the same PTA as Heather Voss, as their children attended Corwin Bay Grammar School together. So Silas was quite closely associated with two of the other victims. But again, they weren’t friends. It was purely tangential association.

  KENNEDY:

  Theresa Linwood’s book club had a large number of connections. At least seven of the other victims attended her club over the years before the Carver case began. My father, Brian Delgado, Oscar Raines, Silas Boone, Christopher Miles, Heather Doyle, and Heather Voss were all members at some point.

  FREYA:

  But it was a hugely popular book club. Six sessions per week, split into multiple smaller sub-groups to discuss different books from different genres. Over five hundred members at its peak. So once again, police put this down to small-city coincidence.

  KENNEDY:

  Some of you may have already picked up on the fact that two of the victims shared a first name. Heather Voss and Heather Doyle. Over the years, many people have speculated that this might’ve meant something to the Carver. But no one knows for sure except the Carver himself.

  FREYA:

  Some of you may have also put something else together while listening in. Marcus Cheung shared zero known connections with any of the other victims, whereas the other victims all shared something, even if it was tiny. Like Natalie and Lila attending the same gym, for instance.

  KENNEDY:

  And there are other victims who had a lot of connections with the others. Like Christopher Miles, who was vaguely acquainted with a whopping eight victims through his work, church, and the book club.

  FREYA:

  But that’s the frustrating part. There was no universal link. No single victim knew everyone. And when you zoom out… there’s just nothing that ties all thirteen together. At least nothing that we currently know about.

  KENNEDY:

  We're going to take a quick break now. But when we come back, we’ll dig into what the local police believed those scattered connections might mean, and what the FBI had to say when they finally stepped in.

  We’re also going to talk to someone who was followed home by a black car the same night Heather Voss disappeared. Was this a near miss for a potential victim? Or yet another coincidence in an already-long string of coincidences in the Carver case?

  [Music fades out into a brief transitional sting for mid-episode break]

  [End of partial transcript]

  5

  Kennedy

  As I finally left Dec’s house, I spotted a large yellow envelope tucked under my windscreen wiper. I rolled my eyes, instantly knowing who’d left it there.

  Deirdre.

  She lived directly across the street from my mom and Ethan’s place, and she was a grumpy, territorial, full-time Karen who had a habit of leaving aggressive notes on any car she didn’t recognize, as if she personally owned the curb. Legally, anyone could park on the street, but she didn’t seem to care about the law. Only her personal feelings.

  Last time she was annoyed with me, she left me a large envelope filled with grass clippings, dirt, and even a dried-up slug from all the gardening she’d done that day. Enclosed with that was a note telling me that my ‘old eyesore’ car was unwelcome on ‘her street’, and next time she’d call a towing service to have it removed.

  Wondering what lovely gift she’d left for me today, I plucked the envelope from the windshield and tossed it onto the passenger seat. I planned to read it to Freya when I called her back later. She’d been on the receiving end of Deirdre’s wrath before too, so she’d probably laugh her ass off when she heard this one.

  When I got home, I grabbed the mail on my way in and added it to the envelope from the car, both tucked under one arm as I kicked the door shut behind me.

  Inside, I tossed everything on the kitchen counter and finally called Freya back.

  “Hey, sorry I took so long to call you! I’ve been helping Dec move all day,” I said when she picked up.

  “Yeah, he told me. It’s all good,” she replied, voice light and breezy. “I just wanted to see if you’d read that contract from Konnekt yet.”

  “Yup. I think you’re right. It looks pretty solid. But it would probably be a good idea to get a lawyer to look over it, right? Just to be safe.”

  “Already done. My cousin’s boyfriend is a lawyer, remember?”

  I let out a light laugh. “I keep forgetting how many connections you have.”

  “Too many to keep up with, honestly. But yeah, he read it, and he said it looks good.”

  “Cool. Oh, and speaking of reading things… Deirdre’s at it again.”

  Freya groaned. “Oh god, what now? Did she leave another envelope full of lawn trimmings?”

  “She’s definitely left something,” I said, eyeing the sealed flap. “Wanna place bets? Snails? A hairball from her cat?”

  “Five bucks says it’s moldy bread this time. She's feeling creative.”

  I laughed and reached for the envelope. “I’m opening it now. My money’s on the hairball.”

  “Oh, wait a sec!” Freya said hurriedly. “While we’re on the topic of crazy letters, there’s something I’ve been meaning to run by you.”

  I dropped my hand, brows rising. “What is it?”

  “I’ve been thinking… since the podcast’s doing so well, maybe we should start planning some extra episodes,” she said. “One of the first topics that came to mind is all the trolling that the Carver victims’ families have had to deal with. Yours included.”

  My lips pressed into a thin line at the reminder. For years after the Carver murders, the families of the victims were hounded by crank calls and sick, taunting letters from assholes who thought it was funny to mess with grieving people.

  For example, Silas Boone’s wife had received dozens of phone calls from someone claiming to be the Carver, describing in grotesque detail how they’d ‘sliced and diced’ her husband. She’d collapsed the first time it happened. Thought it was real. But when the calls were eventually traced, they led back to a group of high schoolers who thought it was just a hilarious prank.

  My family wasn’t spared from the trolling either. We got it for years. Calls in the middle of the night from blocked numbers, with someone breathing heavily on the line or whispering things like, ‘I know where his bones are buried’. We had to change our number to an unlisted one in the end. But even then, the letters didn’t stop.

  They came in all forms. Some typed, some neatly handwritten, some scrawled in childlike lettering. Most of them pretended to be the Carver, saying stuff like, ‘Miss me?’, ‘I remember how your father screamed’ or ‘I’m still watching’. Some of them also tried to emulate him by including riddles or codes.

  The police told us the same thing they told all the families: that this kind of harassment happened all the damn time with high-profile cases. That there were always going to be people out there who got their kicks from inserting themselves into tragedy. It was just a sad, shitty fact of life.