It was the first snow fall of the year, fairly symbolic considering the circumstances: There was finally a break in the Farlow case. Supposedly.
There’s been a lot of false cracks in the cold case from whacko’s and those looking for fifteen minutes of fame that lead nowhere.
You see, the story is a bit of a local Dyatlov Pass but with evidence far more conclusive towards murder.
Everyone is obsessed with the case in this town. To be honest, it’s the reason I’m a detective now. When I was a teen, I wanted to know every detail. I wanted to know exactly what the police did.
Everything.
But what crime obsessed kid wouldn’t? The case is puzzling, and not just because of its brutality.
A family of four is stranded in their car in a blizzard, they make it three hundred feet to an abandoned house just off the road and the next morning their bodies are all found inside grotesquely mutilated.
I mean horrendously split open. Literally eviscerated.
The problem?
There are no footsteps leaving the house.
So, it’s a murder-suicide, right? The father was a family annihilator. The stress of the snowstorm and crying kids set him over the edge. Easy. Case closed.
The bigger problem?
No murder weapon. None. The guy didn’t rip his family apart with his bare hands. And trust me, during the autopsy they checked his wrists for razors. He wasn’t Wolverine.
So, imagine my interest— No, imagine our town’s interest, when a man mails a bracelet to the police station along with a letter saying he was with the Farlow’s when they died.
As I’ve said, plenty of people vying for some sick publicity had tried to interject themselves into the case. But this bracelet. It was worn by one of the daughters. Kacey. Age 7.
Friends and family attested that she never took it off and confirmed that the one the police station received was the same.
It was simply assumed that it was lost in the snow.
The case should’ve been handled better. But after all this was a small-town police department in the early 2000’s. They didn’t take flame throwers to the snowbanks. There was a lot of speculation that the murder weapon was hurled into the snow, too. Very possible. The police didn’t come back to canvass the area until spring thawed everything three weeks later.
By then there was no knife. But maybe some kid took it home, or it was still in the grass and had simply been stepped over.
I was watching the snow fall as I walked out of the police station. I wanted to cross my arms and shiver my shoulders in the cold but instead took on the stoic face of tough detective. The man had said in the letter that he’d arrive at the police station at noon on the 22nd and for some sum of money that info had been leaked, and I stood next to muttering throng of local reporters. Their cameras clicked madly when a man stepped out of a taxi.
He was old. And not your parents approaching their sixties and forgetting shit old but old.
80, 85. He was last legs old. He wore a three-piece suit and when he stood from the taxi, he deftly buttoned his jacket and pulled a cane from the back of the cab. Then he went tip taping the concrete on his way to the steps.
I mean the bastard’s outfit was bespoke. I don’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t the monopoly man.
My partner, Sara, came out and stood next to me. We were the lucky ones set to interview Mr. Mystery. I wanted to help the old man up the stairs, but everyone was under the impression he was a murderer. I didn’t want some photo of me shaking the hand of the Farlow family killer biting my ass one day.
When the man reached us, we shook hands. No smiles. Very serious.
“Arthur,” he said. “My name is Arthur Crow.”
“Mr. Crow, please, come inside.” I held the door and he and Sara stepped in. It was a small police department and none of the other officers bothered pretending to be busy. They stared at us as we went into the kind of room you see in TV shows.
It used to be the records room before we went digital. We made it look like a classic interrogation room almost as a joke. Metal table. Metal chairs. All cast in dark yellow light, the color of a chemo patient’s piss.
Sara and I went to the far side of the table and we all sat.
“So, Arthur, I’m Detective King and this is Detective Rosovsky with the State PD.” I pulled out a plastic evidence bag with the bracelet in it from my pocket and put it on the table.
We’re assuming you’re the individual behind mailing this bracelet and the letter?”
“You assume correct.”
“You’re here to share your story?” He closed his eyes and nodded. “Ok, we’re going to start recording,” Sara stood to turn on the little camera sitting on its tripod and I held my breath for a moment, hoping he wouldn’t protest over the video. If this were a confession of any kind, I wanted to pin him.
He said nothing and I sighed as silently as I could in relief. “Ok, Arthur. Can you tell us about the day of March 11th, 2002 and what you know about the deaths of the Farlow family?”
He cleared his throat, adjusted his tie and tilted his head toward the ceiling as if the memory were projected there. “I was driving south to Cincinnati. It was for a meeting as a member of a board of directors that I didn’t want to be a part of. Shit company. Shit profits.”
Sara and I looked at each other.
“It was a favor for a friend. I run Crow Industries. We’re the multi-million-dollar manufacturer of cleaning products out of Lansing. You almost certainly have some of our products at home, they’re just marketed differently. For example, many big brands will purchase our product and then slap their own label on it. Our products are even used in—”
“Sir,” I held out my hand but before I had to ask if this were relevant, he understood and apologized.
“Sorry. I’m sorry. So, I was driving south all in a hurry and very unaware of the weather when it starts to snow. I’m not dressed for the cold but I turn on the wipers thinking no big deal. Well, not more than 10 miles later I realize this actually is quite the big deal.
It’s coming down so hard I can hardly see. But I was late,” he sighed. “And angry, so I drive on until my tires spin and I’m stuck. I’m on some country road and my odds of getting picked up by a snowplow seemed slim. So, I walk, and I walk without a house in sight. Five freezing miles later I see a building, seemingly abandoned, on the side of the road.”
He started to cough a horrible wheezing bark. Sara offered him water and he held up a hand as if to say he was fine and flushed red as he held his breath.
“Quite alright,” he coughed once more and shook his head. “At this point the idea of making it to the hotel on time is long gone. I just want to survive so I walk off the road and into the building, and wouldn’t you have it, inside is the famous family all huddled in the corner like something has spooked them.”
“Just for the camera,” I said and pointed. “You’re referring to the Farlow’s?”
“Of course,” he said annoyed. “Anyway, the woman starts yelling at me. And yelling just madness! The husband is trying to get her to calm down while she’s saying I’m a devil. That I’ve been following them and had even brought the storm. I take off my hat, hold it to my breast, and as pleasantly as I can I introduce myself. She seemed skeptical of her own accusations afterward. She seemed to believe that I was in fact, Arthur Crow, founder and fine president of Crow Industries Incorporated and not Satan himself. The little girls, what were their names?”
“Kacey and Mia,” said Sara.
“Right. They seemed as perturbed as mama. They hid behind her legs, but they settled down and the whole family chipped in explaining their situation like one of those cutesy answering machine messages where each kid and parent gets a part.
They told me they were also in a hurry, underdressed and unaware of the weather when their car got stuck just a stone’s throw away. Then the mom starts talking.”
Arthur frowned at the memory. “She said there was a man following them and that he flew next to their car like those legends from Point Pleasant. She said he was here for her soul and those of the little girls. Daddy’s soul wasn’t mentioned. Anyway, I was beginning to get very cold. I asked if they’d seen any houses in the last few miles. They said no, it was all woods and then all white. There could be homes certainly, even ones close by, but it was simply impossible to see.
A couple hours later when there was already more than a foot of snow fallen the father got up and came over to me. I stood and he leaned in my ear and said he was sorry, but his wife had a mental disorder exacerbated by stress. Stress that came from situations like the one they were in now.
I told him not worry about it and he looked at me a little funny and went back to his family. I don’t remember much more until it was night. I had nodded off a little, expecting everything to be better when I woke, but when I did it was still snowing and beginning to get very, very cold.
The wife was still looking out the window expecting that any second the devil might walk up. This is when I began to see things… clearer. You see, it was possible this woman’s mental illness was genetic and that her girls would likely take after their insane mother. That’s not much of a life at all, is it? Loony bins and countless prescriptions with all sorts of pills.
It was clear that without rescue we weren’t going to make it. The temperature had dropped even more. I kept expecting the snow to stop, to freeze completely, while still in the clouds. But down it came.
Now,” Arthur leaned forward, and his chair creaked. “I’m a man of numbers. Always have been. I was an actuary long ago. Not insurance, but enterprise risk management. I look at things from a pragmatic perspective.”
He smiled ever so slightly and now my blood ran cold. “So, you have one insane woman, two girls who may grow up to be crazy too, a man and me. And yes, in that cold and at that rate we were all going to die. I had a buck knife on my belt buckle, under my coat,”
He stared off into the distance. “They say firewood warms you twice. Once when split it and again when you burn it. With that family it was quite the same,”
“Are you saying you—”
“Quiet!” Arthur banged the table with both fists and Sara and I both reached towards our holsters.
“I’m telling my story here. It was a messy affair lots of screaming for mommy and daddy since, of course, the kids had to go last. I still remember well all that warm viscera. Those stinking coils smoking in the cold. How lovely it was to be warm again.”
I leaned back with my eyes shock wide.
“I want it to be known that I’m not sorry for saving my own life. I would’ve certainly frozen to death. We couldn’t have all lived. I took the initiative,” he pointed at himself furiously. “I did the necessary thing! And I continued to create jobs and wealth. I contributed tenfold to society since their deaths.
Of course, there was a chance they’d put me away for it. God forbid one of us did what it took to survive. I expected to be caught or still freeze, but it warmed overnight and when I hid under the floorboards in the crawlspace those backwater cops never even looked there.”
Sara and I were both somewhat in shock but suddenly I heard her speak. “Arthur Crow, are you confessing to the murders of John, Katherine, Kacey and Mia Farlow?”
“Murder?” Arthurs face scrunched, appalled. “Have you heard nothing I said? This wasn’t murder. No.
This was just business.”