The garden, p.1
The Garden, page 1
the garden
An Almost True Crime Story
Greta Boris
Copyright © 2024 by Greta Boris
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Parts of this book were previously published as The Scent of Wrath.
Cover Design by ambient studios
Print ISBN 978-1-957529-26-4
Ebook ISBN 978-1-957529-27-1
Library of Congress Control Number 2024942774
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locations, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental. Brand names are the property of respective companies; author and publisher hold no claim.
contents
Part I
1. season two; intro
Part II
2. season two; episode one
2.1.2
2.1.3
2.1.4
2.1.5
2.1.6
Part III
season two; episode two
2.2.2
2.2.3
2.2.4
2.2.5
2.2.6
Part IV
season two; episode three
2.3.2
2.3.3
2.3.4
2.3.5
2.3.6
2.3.7
Part V
season two; episode four
2.4.2
2.4.3
2.4.4
2.4.5
2.4.6
2.4.7
Part VI
season two; episode five
2.5.2
2.5.3
2.5.4
2.5.5
2.5.6
Part VII
season two; episode six
2.6.2
2.6.3
2.6.4
2.6.5
2.6.6
2.6.7
Part VIII
season two; episode seven
2.7.2
2.7.3
2.7.4
2.7.5
2.7.6
2.7.7
Part IX
season two; episode eight
2.8.2
2.8.3
2.8.4
2.8.5
2.8.6
If you enjoyed this book…
Also by Greta Boris
part one
MURDERS UNDER THE SUN
SEASON TWO; INTRO
MOLLY: Welcome to Murders Under the Sun, a podcast that explores a series of unusual crimes that have occurred in sunny Southern California.
I’m Molly Shure, your host. For the past five years I’ve worked as a journalist at a local news outlet. Stories of murder and mayhem come across my desk weekly, if not daily. However, one day I noticed something startling.
There seemed to be a connection between several crimes that transpired over a five-year period—seven crimes to be precise. What connected them? Location for one. They all took place within a twenty-mile radius of each other, but that alone wasn’t significant.
The thing that pinged in my brain was that many of the people at the center of these crimes knew each other. Not the criminals, which would be an obvious thread, but the victims. I know, I know, six degrees of separation. Didn’t I already say the crimes took place in a twenty-mile radius? But we’re not talking six degrees here. It’s more like one degree.
You’ll see if you stick with me for all seven seasons of the show, the crimes circle back around. The people you meet in the first season play a role in Season Seven’s story.
Am I imagining things? Is the connection real? Is there one mastermind behind the crimes? Or are they linked by some kind of social, psychological or even spiritual force? I’m afraid that’s something you’ll have to decide for yourself.
Each season, I’ll do a deep dive into just one of these stories. You’ll hear from the people who were victimized, journal, memoir, letters, and transcript entries from others who were involved—sometimes the criminals themselves—and behind-the-scenes information you can’t get anywhere else.
So, get out your sunglasses. We’re pulling back the curtains and letting the light shine on some of Orange County’s darkest mysteries.
part two
MURDERS UNDER THE SUN
SEASON TWO; EPISODE ONE
MOLLY: The crimes we are about to explore are very different from those in Season One, The Cliff House. In the first season, we watched a heartless narcissist bent on getting what he wanted at any cost, even if he had to commit murder to do it.
The motivation for the crimes in Season Two is almost a polar opposite. I won’t tell you what it is, though. No spoilers here.
You’ll experience this story as the people involved experienced it. You’ll be confused and frustrated when they are confused and frustrated, and your questions will be answered as theirs are.
In The Cliff House, we met Olivia Richards and Brian McKibben, a single mother and her son. It’s their lives we’re going to dig into in The Garden.
The majority of the entries I’ll be sharing with you come from Olivia’s point of view. I’ve done my best to tell her story as she related it to me.
There will also be diary entries that were written in the 1990s by a character who will remain a mystery until the second episode. Why wait? Because that’s when Olivia learns who she is.
I attempted to interview the diary-writer’s sister, but she refused, claiming it was too painful to rehash old events. Instead, she handed over the diary.
As in the last season, I won’t be reading the entire book, just the passages I believe will help you understand what happened and why.
Some mysteries are whodunnits. I think you’ll find this crime is more of a whydunnit. But enough of me, let’s hear from Olivia.
Was it him? An old panic rose in Olivia's chest. The man's head was bowed over a sheet of paper as he walked across the parking lot of the Mission Viejo Civic Center. His gait caught her eye first. Proctor had walked like that, bowlegged and slightly pigeon-toed.
The man's hair was cropped close to his head and threaded with gray. Proctor's had been brown and had hung in greasy locks to his shoulders. This man was shorter, not as imposing as the man of her memories. But, of course, she'd only been a child when she'd known Proctor.
He glanced up from his reading, and her throat constricted. The eyes. They were the washed-out color of old denim, cold and predatory. Could two men have those same eyes?
Olivia stayed in the car and watched him pass. She didn't think he'd recognize her. It had been so many years. She was an adult now, not a girl. But, still, the idea of those eyes fixing on her made her skin crawl.
She waited until he disappeared into the library before exiting her car. It might have been her imagination, but when she stepped out into the warm evening, she could've sworn she smelled the familiar scent of him—cigarettes and stale sweat mixed with the mineral odor of chalk. She'd never forgotten it.
She was ten minutes early for her parenting class, but even if she'd been late, she would have waited until he was safely inside the library. Allowing him to pass only feet from her without some kind of protection, a barrier between them… She couldn't have done it. Not even twenty-two years later.
Olivia hurried across the tarmac feeling exposed and vulnerable, and ducked into City Hall. Why would he come here? Her mother had released another book recently. He was a parasite, a man who lived off the fat of other people's land. But why now? Sarah Richards’s name had been in the media for years.
Maybe it was just a horrible coincidence. Tumbleweeds went wherever the wind blew, and it often blew west. Since its Gold Rush days, California had drawn drifters and opportunists. Proctor had been both.
Regina, the instructor, beamed at Olivia when she entered the community room where the class was held. Olivia walked to the third row and slid into a seat next to Nanette.
Nanette snapped shut the laptop she'd been working on and glanced up. She was a single mother, a CPA with a busy client load, and had no time for frivolity, but she and Olivia had bonded over their similar circumstances. Her smile of greeting withered when she saw Olivia 's face. "Are you okay?"
Olivia was still in a state of shock, and it must have shown. "Yeah, I'm fine."
"You don't look fine. Brian okay?"
"Brian's great." Nanette looked at Olivia over the top of her glasses with doubt in her intelligent, brown eyes.
"I thought I saw somebody I hadn't seen in years. That's all," Olivia said.
"Must be a real charmer."
Regina called the room to order and began taking attendance. But Olivia's thoughts remained with the man in the parking lot. His walk, his eyes, they were what she'd remembered Proctor's to be. But those were the perceptions of a young girl, filtered and blurred by twenty-two long years. The idea that he would show up here, now, or that she would recognize him if he did, seemed more and more unlikely. Reality was, the man she saw had triggered memories, some very bad memories, but he probably wasn't Proctor.
If dreams didn't come true, and in her experience they didn't, she had to believe the same rules applied to nightmares.
2.1.2
On Monday afternoon, Ol
Olivia wandered into Father Serra Chapel. Its walls wrapped around her like a cocoon, muting the voices of the children and the rumble of a distant train. She'd come in for a moment of peace. A statue of Father Serra saluted her from his recess in the gold leaf altar as if to bestow a blessing on her decision. But she sat in a pew close to the door anyway. She was nervous about leaving Brian.
The cool air was redolent with frankincense and myrrh—the oils of life and death. She couldn't remember where, maybe National Geographic, but she'd read that physicians in ancient times prescribed frankincense as frequently as modern doctors do antibiotics. Sweet smelling myrrh was used for embalming. The word made her shudder.
Stop it. She was being morbid. Fearful. There were plenty of adults outside tasked with watching the students. They’d had nearly six weeks to learn Brian’s routines and needs. She could take a minute for herself. But there were a lot of students to watch. The saints in the retablo's niches and nooks seemed to condemn her through painted eyes. She didn't know their stories, how they’d managed to achieve sainthood. They couldn't have put more effort into it than she had, she knew that. There was a chill in the air of the small chapel. Olivia left, hurrying out into the fading heat of the day.
Brian's class had been let loose on the central courtyard. Their teacher, Mrs. Margolis, and the two parents who should have been on duty were gossiping in the shade of the portico. The days were growing shorter. The mid-October sun hung low in the sky and reflected off the old stone and stucco walls into Olivia's eyes. She shaded them with a hand and scanned the area for her son.
All she could see were silhouettes, nothing more. But she knew Brian's outline, the curve of his hyper-extended knees, and the funny way he hitched up his shoulders when he ran. She knew the exact spot his cowlick shot up off his head and the pitch of his ski slope nose.
She knew all these things, and she didn't see them.
She strode across the grass to the closest group of boys. She recognized one of Brian's classmates, Noah Wilson. "Hey."
Noah looked up, guilt on his face. He was at that age when all discussions with adults started with trepidation whether he was doing anything wrong or not.
"Have you seen Brian?"
Noah looked at the other boys. They all shrugged in unison. Even if they knew where Brian had gone, betraying him if there was any possibility it would get him in trouble was out of the question. Frustrated, Olivia wound her way toward Mrs. Margolis and the attendant mothers.
Olivia felt the familiar burn in her gut. Brian hadn't wanted her to chaperone the field trip. Mrs. Margolis, a newlywed with no children of her own, had assured her he was in good hands. Olivia had come anyway. She acknowledged her tendency to hover. She had reason to. Brian wandered.
As soon as he'd learned to use his chubby little legs, he'd wandered out the front door and to the neighborhood park. Alone. He'd been on the run ever since.
And now Brian was a brain-damaged wanderer. Since his accident, he'd become impulsive, easily distracted and had memory lapses he filled in with bits of dreams and recollections from other days. The doctor called it "confabulation."
Parents of normal children didn't understand. They made fun of mothers who leashed their toddlers, even though children were arguably more important than family pets. They invented derogatory names, like helicopter parents, for those who kept close tabs on their children's whereabouts. Olivia didn't care. She leashed and hovered proudly. The last time Brian wandered; she'd almost lost him forever.
“Mrs. Margolis. I hate to interrupt…” This wasn't true. Olivia didn't hate to interrupt. The teacher should have been minding her flock.
Annoyance furrowed the woman's usually unlined brow. "Yes?"
"Do you know where Brian is?"
"Isn't he with the other boys?"
"No." Would I have asked you if he was? Olivia thought but didn't say.
Mrs. Margolis adjusted her face into more pleasant lines. "He's probably in the gift shop."
He wouldn't be in the gift shop. As far as Brian was concerned, shopping was right up there with broccoli and long division. But that heavy, desperate feeling that accompanied motherhood these days thudded onto Olivia's chest, reason fled, and she ran across the central courtyard toward the museum gift store.
She wanted to scream. Mrs. Margolis knew Olivia was on probation with CPS. Oh, they didn't call it probation, they called it a "Safety Plan," but it was probation. The County of Orange had given her six months to get her act together and prove she deserved to keep Brian. That six months had ballooned into a year because of Brian's health problems.
Olivia not only had to prove she wasn't neglectful, but she also had to prove she was a model of conscientiousness if she were to be deemed a fit parent for a child with Brian's needs. But he'd been doing so well, Fred, her caseworker, was sure the doctors would sign off at the end of the year.
Having Brian under the watchful eyes of a responsible adult at all times was a part of the Safety Plan she was so close to being released from. Mrs. Margolis knew that. Why hadn't a parent accompanied the children to the shop? Yes, stone walls encircled the Mission, but the shop was next to the exit. The exit that led to downtown, busy streets, train tracks.
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light in the museum store. When they did, she could see he wasn't inside. She trotted through the aisles of books, rosaries, and all the items adorned with miniature missions anyway. When the panic was on her, standing still was impossible.
Back outside, she searched the grounds with her eyes and tried to calm the wind whipping up horrible scenarios in her mind. Where would he have gone? Please, God, not out the exit. She walked toward the museum, struggling to let intuition guide her. Brian liked the living history exhibits. He might have returned to the rooms decorated with period furniture.
She darted in and out of the Padre's dining room, bedroom, and living quarters. She didn't see him, and there was nowhere for an eleven-year-old to hide in the ascetic furnishings. Outside, near the chapel again, a sob rose in her throat. A prayer, to Mary, to God, to anybody who'd listen, formed with it.
She wasn't Catholic. She'd been raised by an Earth Momma in true ecumenical hippie fashion, but she'd heard Mary's story. Mary, she'd thought, would understand both the joy of having her son returned from the dead and the crushing responsibility it brought.
No answer came. No heavenly finger pointed the way. But she saw the marker for the cemetery. Brian had become fascinated by cemeteries after visiting Disneyland's Haunted Mansion last year.
Olivia followed the signs into the graveyard. It was small, and she searched it quickly. He wasn't there, in front, or behind the one large tombstone. Turning right, she took the path that led to the Sacred Garden and the Bell Wall. If she couldn't find him here, she'd go straight to the administration office and demand they close the exits. If they thought she was an overprotective, hysterical mother, so be it. Better to be labeled overprotective than neglectful. She'd learned neglect had terrible ramifications.
