Caryn

   A pretty, dark-haired girl in blue ski boots is waiting for the elevator. She turns her head and smiles at you. You smile back. The elevator opens its doors. The girl steps inside, shaking snow from her boots. You never see her again.

 Suppose you loved this girl. Suppose her body were found in horrible circumstances. How long would you spend trying to figure out what had happened? How long would it be before you stopped puzzling and worrying, before you went on with your life?
Six months?
Six years?
Forever?  

I was nine years old when it happened. My parents were divorced, and I didn’t get to see a lot of my dad, so I could hardly believe it when he asked us—Jason and me— if we wanted to go with him to Aspen. Dad was attending a cardiology convention, but Caryn, he said, could take us skiing. He said it would be a good opportunity for us to get to know her.

When we saw how it was, we felt ripped off. We’d only met Caryn a couple of times, and even though I could tell she was trying real hard, we couldn’t stand her. Mom said she was a gold-digger. According to Mom, she wasn’t the only one. Mom said that Dad had been sleeping with nurses the whole time he’d been at the hospital. Mom was a nurse, too.
 
  “Why does she have to go?”  Jason asked. Jason hated Caryn because Dad spent all his time with her. He never took Jason to the ballpark any more. He said he was too busy.
    “Because,” said Dad.
    “We don’t want to go if she’s going.”
    “That’s too bad,” said Dad. “You’re going to miss a great vacation. Most kids would love to go skiing in Aspen for the weekend. But if you don’t want to go, then fine.”
    He knew we were bluffing, and he was right; in fact, we took a strange kind of pleasure in hating Caryn. It was a kind of hate that had no basis, since we didn’t really know her. It was the kind of hate that could have easily flipped over into something else, something more like love.
    Jason, who was eleven, thought Caryn was planning to get pregnant.
    “She knows he’d have to marry her,” he said. “She’s not as dumb as she looks.”
   Caryn didn’t look dumb to me. In fact, I thought she looked pretty smart. She was young—a lot younger than Dad—with long brown   hair and what Dad, wide-eyed, called “a perfect figure.”

 

 ***

   We didn’t know it then, but 280 miles away, in Salt Lake City, a man was looking over a map of the ski regions in Colorado.  He was drawing a red circle around the Wildwood Inn.

***

   Unlike Mom, who was shy, Caryn talked a lot and sometimes said weird things. I never knew if she was doing it on purpose. Sometimes I wanted to laugh, but I wasn’t sure it was meant to be funny. For example, she was just getting over the flu, and on the plane from Lansing, she kept sniffing something from a small bottle.
“What’s that?” I asked her, finally.
“Eucalyptus oil. It’s a decongestant.” She smiled at me. “You have to be careful to use only really tiny qualities because if you take too much, it’s poisonous.”
   “I didn’t know that,” said Dad, who was sitting on Caryn’s right.
   “Yes, and you know what’s weird? For koala bears, it’s all they eat. A human being would probably die if they ate, like, six leaves”.
“No kidding,” said Dad.
 “Did you know that female koala bears have two vaginas?” she asked.
 “No, I didn’t”, said Dad, “And I didn’t want to know, either.”
    ***

   When we got to Aspen, Dad rented a car and drove us down State Highway 82, pointing out the mountains and the Roaring Fork River. He was sitting in the front, with Caryn, and Jason and me were in the back. Dad called Caryn “Cam” and she called him “Raymie”, which made me and Jason roll our eyes and gag. Yet the more time we spent with her, the more difficult it was to hate her. Even when we were on the plane, I could already feel my hate changing, twisting, becoming something else against my will.
Before long, we were up in the mountains, driving through wide meadows covered in purple flowers. I remember the road that took us into Snowmass: it was lined with aspens. Snowmass was a pretty village, smaller than I’d imagined, with nothing but a few stores, a post office, and lots of hotels and lodges. When we got out of the car I remember how different the air felt—fresh and icy. The air in Lansing was thick, in comparison.
This was thin air.
***

     The Wildwood Inn had a beautifully furnished lobby. There was a fire glowing in grate, a stag’s head above the fireplace, and mountain landscapes in ornate frames on the walls. An older gentleman and a handsome, younger man were sitting warming themselves by the fire, reading newspapers from the rack by the lobby.  A grandfather clock ticked loudly; it had just turned half past three.
   We were in room 210—all four of us. The room had a balcony, a gas fireplace and two bedrooms with two Queen beds. First I thought one was for the girls and one for the boys, but it turned out Dad and Caryn were in one room, and I had to sleep with Jason. The bedrooms were clean and spacious, with dressing tables that matched the wardrobes. When I saw the beds, I thought how perfect it would be if I could go to sleep right that moment. I imagined climbing into the clean bed, with its starched sheets and laundered pillows; I saw myself falling asleep there like Goldilocks, with the afternoon sunlight shining through the pale curtains.
 Jason was out on the balcony, and I went to join him. We could see a small river running through a meadow beyond the lawn. To the west, there were mountains, the ski lift, and a wide gravel path leading down toward the river. Everything seemed quiet and still.
“Well. What do you think, kids?” asked Dad, coming out to join us.
“Can we go on the ski lift?” asked Jason.
 “Not now,” said Dad. “Caryn wants to wash up and change.”
“Can we explore the hotel?”
“Sure. As long as you don’t go outside,” said Dad.
     We played in the elevator until some lady yelled at us, then we went down to the basement, along a hallway, and up some stairs into a big dining room with a long table surrounded by tall chairs. Through the window, in the snow, we could see stables, half-hidden in the woods.
    Back in the lobby, the woman behind the desk brought us some hot chocolate and started telling us about different kinds of trees. She was wearing cat’s-eye glasses. She said the trees were mostly elm and oak, and the woods contained four different nature walks.
“When you go outside, you should explore the grounds,” she told us, pushing up her glasses. “You’ll have the chance see some awesome trees—did you see the aspens when you were coming up the drive?”
“Um.. where’s the ski lift?” asked Jason.
“Oh, it’s not too far,” said the woman, turning away. She seemed disappointed that we weren’t more interested in different kinds of trees. She started chatting to the other guests.

***
That night, we ate dinner at the Gold Rush Grill. Dad chewed placidly on a steak while Caryn, who wasn’t feeling well, asked for soup and a salad. Sniffing a little, she told us about the patients on her ward. She was looking at Jason as she talked, but he wouldn’t meet her eye. I was starting to feel sorry for her. She didn’t seem discouraged, though.
“There’s this one lady who’s sixty-five but with a mental age of eight,” Caryn told us, as she waited for her salad. “She wets the bed every night. And there’s this other lady who forgets to put her teeth in, so we can’t understand what she’s saying.”
“Gross. How do you talk to her?”
“She doesn’t talk. Most of the time she just sleeps,” Caryn smiled. “Sometimes she snores real loud when we’re watching a movie, but if you poke her she quits. If she keeps doing it, you can just wheel her into the lobby. She won’t notice. The only time she’s a problem is when she starts to get loud and shouts. That’s how we know it’s time to up her meds.”
“There’s pie, hon,” said the waitress. She was a tall lady with big pile of black hair who reminded me of a magician’s assistant.
“Once I saw the body of a girl who drowned in a swimming pool,” said Caryn, when the waitress had gone.  “And guess what?—She was a swimming champion. But she wasn’t swimming—she was roller-blading. Her mom went inside for a few minutes, and when she came out, her daughter’s body was lying at the bottom of the pool. Can you believe it? She fell in the deep end, and of course, with her roller blades—she sank like a stone!”
I caught Dad’s eye.
 “Okay Cam. Enough horror stories,” he said.

***
    When we got back to the room, we watched cartoons on TV while Dad and Caryn got dressed to go out with some of their friends. Sam Gellman came by to pick them up. Sam was Dad’s best friend from the hospital, and at first we were surprised to see him in Snowmass.
    “Hey Sam. What are you doing here?” asked Jason, when he opened the door.
    “Same as your Dad,” Sam told him, laughing. “I’m attending the cardiology convention.”
      Dad and Caryn got back early in the morning, and I could her them arguing. Dad was yelling. He was telling her to stop putting pressure on him, and that got Caryn upset.
     “I’m single, I can do what I want,” she yelled. “If we were married, things would be different.”
    “You know I’m paying Lynn through the teeth,” Dad yelled back. He always said, of Mom, “after what that woman’s put me through, marriage is for the birds” so I thought it was weird that Caryn’s Mom told the newspapers that Dad and Caryn were getting married in the spring. They kept calling Caryn Dad’s “fiancée. It might have been true, but it sure didn’t sound like it that night. Dad hadn’t said anything to us about marrying Caryn, and we hadn’t seen any ring.
***
       The next morning, Sunday, Dad got up early and went to the conference, leaving Caryn to get us up and ready to ski. We were going to be alone with her all day, and she was trying hard to be nice. In the morning, she ordered pancakes for breakfast, and when she was out picking them up, Dad came back. He said the conference was boring and he’d decided he’d go ski-ing with us instead. That was great. The lady at the front desk said Buttermilk Mountain had the best trails for kids, and dad bought us ski-lift tickets for the whole day, though we had to stand in line because it was pretty busy. The first time I rode the lift, I grabbed Jason’s sleeve and hid my face in his coat, but by the end of the day I was kicking my legs from side to side, make the lift swing until Dad yelled at us to stop, we were scaring people. We skied all day and had a great time. We even forgot to hate Caryn.
 At that age, I was very naïve about sex. When Caryn, dressed in her underwear, was helping me off with my wet ski clothes in my bedroom, I heard Dad’s voice and told her she could use my robe to cover herself, if she wanted to.
“Your Dad’s seen me in my underwear a hundred times, sweetie,” she said.
***
    That night, we went to a restaurant called the Stewpot and sat upstairs, at a table with a mountain view. Sam Gellman joined us for dinner. Caryn’s stomach had been bothering her all day, and when she asked for a glass of milk to have with her beef stew, Jason kicked me under the table, though I didn’t understand why. Dad ordered a bottle of wine, and let Jason and me have a small glass each, mixed with Coke. We finished dinner by eight and went back to the Wildwood lobby to sit by the big log fire. Sam Gellman came with us. It was so warm and cozy there, especially when you came in from the freezing cold outside.
***

   Upstairs, Sheila Pierce, a tourist from California, was walking down the second floor hallway when she noticed a handsome man coming towards her. He smiled at her, and she smiled back.
***

     Dad sat down in front of the fire, crossed his legs and picked up a copy of the New York Times from the table. Jason and I found comics to read. Sam had a copy of Playboy that he’d just finished; Caryn asked if she could read it. She said she’d trade it for her Viva, and asked Dad to go to the room and get the magazine for her. Jason kicked me again and rolled his eyes, grinning when Dad said he wanted to warm up by the fire, and she’d have to go get it herself. I watched her getting on the elevator. She was still wearing her blue boots and ski jacket, and she turned and smiled at me before the doors opened and she disappeared.
    She should have been gone ten minutes or less. We kept waiting for the elevator doors to open and for Caryn to step out, but it didn’t happen. After half an hour, Dad started to get worried. He went up to the room, knocked on the door, and waited. Maybe she was in the bathroom. He knocked again louder, shouting her name. There was no response. He thought maybe she’d got sick, maybe fainting or falling and knocking her head. He came back down to the lobby and asked the receptionist for an extra key. We all went up to the room. Everything was just as it had been when we’d left for dinner. Caryn’s purse wasn’t there, and her Viva was still on the magazine stand next to the bed. She hadn’t even been back to the room.
    Dad asked us if we thought she was mad at him for not getting the magazine.
   “No doubt,” said Jason.
   “She wasn’t mad,” I said. “I saw her. She was smiling.”
   “You’re right,” said Dad. He seemed relieved. “You know what? She probably ran into another group from the hospital. Sam, let’s you and me go check out the conference center and some of the other bars, see if we can’t find her. You guys stay here, in case she comes back.”
  “It’s freezing outside,” Jason reminded him.
  “I know. We won’t be long.” Dad was wearing his ski jacket, and he wrapped a scarf round his neck and pulled on his leather gloves. He didn’t seem worried, just a little annoyed.
    Jason and I turned on the TV, watched cartoons and forgot about Caryn.

***

    Later, we learned that Dad and Sam had gone from bar to bar, getting more and more worried. It wasn’t inconceivable that Caryn had joined some of the other doctors for a drink, but it didn’t seem likely. At least, she’d have come back and told us before she left—unless she was pissed at Dad, and wanted to worry him on purpose, but then, why would she do that?
     When Dad got back, he said three doctors had seen Caryn get out of the elevator and walk down the hall toward room 210. Dad thought she’d been kidnapped.
    Jason smiled.

*** 

      Just after ten, Dad called the Aspen Police Department and they sent a patrolman over to our room. The officer filled out a missing person report, then told dad to call him in the morning if Caryn hadn’t come back. She’d be back, he said, once the bars and parties broke up. He virtually guaranteed it.
     “No,” Dad told him. “It’s not like that. I’m telling you, she was sick.”
   “Alright,” said the patrolman, taking out his radio. “We’ll run a search, see what we can do.” He broadcast Caryn’s description to all the other patrolmen out on duty that night in Snowmass and Aspen. A twenty-three year old woman, five feet four inches tall, brown shoulder-length hair, parted in the middle, wearing blue ski boots, blue jeans, and a light brown wooly jacket. The police found were a lot of women in Aspen answering that description, but none of them were Caryn.  
    We didn’t get a lot of sleep that night. Dad was up late, talking on the phone. I don’t know all the people he called, but I know one of them was Caryn’s mom in Farmington.
“She wasn’t dressed to go outside,” he kept saying. She didn’t have a scarf, or gloves, or anything.” He sounded frantic.
    The next morning, the police came round and asked us lots of questions about Caryn—when we’d last seen her, what she was wearing, what kind of mood she’d been in. We told them everything we knew. Dad described her to four or five different policemen—he mentioned her “perfect figure” every time. Then they interviewed us one by one. By the time they’d finished, Jason and I were sick of it. We were tired and upset. The whole trip was ruined.
       That day, the police interviewed every single guest at the Wildwood, and all the hotel staff. When that didn’t provide any clues, they went to every car rental agency, ticket office and travel bureau in town. Remembering that she’d been feeling sick, they checked all the local hospitals; then, in case she’d been upset or suicidal, they checked out ministers, churches and counseling centers. We were supposed to be flying back to Lansing that evening. Dad told us he was going to stay in Snowmass and help the police look for her. We begged him to let us stay with him but he said no, we had to get back, because of school. Then we begged him to come back with us. I said I didn’t want to fly on my own.
   “You won’t be on your own,” Jason said. “You’ll be with me.”
   “I want dad to come with us,” I said. I was in tears by then. Finally, Dad talked to the police and they told him should probably leave with us. They said there was nothing more he could do. They said they were going to get a search party out to go up into the mountains, and they’d call him the moment they learned anything.
      So we flew home to Michigan without her. I don’t know how we he could have done it, but we did. I sat next to Dad on the plane, in what would have been Caryn’s seat.
     Jason, sitting behind us, put his head against the crack between me and Dad, and told us that he remembered watching TV show about missing people, and he said anyone who left home without their coat, especially if they’re missing for more than a few days, has almost no chance of being found alive.
    “I know that, Jase,” said Dad. “That’s why I’m so worried.”
     When we got back to Farmington, Dad came home with us and told Mom what had happened. He called the police in Aspen to see if there was any news. They told him that, after we left, they searched the entire hotel—every guest room, every kitchen, even the elevator shafts and crawl spaces, but there wasn’t a trace of Caryn to be found, not even a hair clip.
    The next day, we learned, they started a full-scale search. The mountain rescue team was called in, and they drafted all available ski patrolmen and volunteers. Even the FBI were involved. The team spent the whole night searching the mountain, but they found nothing but snow.
   People die suddenly and inexplicably all the time, it’s true, but when it happens to you, it’s not something you ever forget.
   When they finally found Caryn’s body, they discovered than she’d been murdered less than an hour after we last saw her.  
   Everyone said that was something to be thankful for, but I didn’t see why.




    On January 12, 1975, 23-year-old Caryn Campbell left her boyfriend in the lobby of the Wildwood Inn in Apsen, Colorado, to get something from the couple's room. She was seen walking down the second floor hallway towards the room but she never returned to the lobby. On February 18, a recreational employee working along the Owl Creek road a few miles from the Wildwood Inn noticed a flight of birds circling something in a snow bank twenty-five feet off the road.  It was Caryn Campbell’s nude body. She had died of repeated blunt instrument blows to her skull, and had also suffered deep cuts from a sharp weapon. In January 1989, before his execution, serial killer Ted Bundy confessed to the crime.