Speaker 1: The Red Weather is a work of fiction.
Speaker 2: Any resemblance to actual persons or events reflects the adaptation
Speaker 2: of real, publicly available materials for creative and legal reasons.
Speaker 2: The content of this podcast is the sole responsibility of
Speaker 2: Red Weather LLC and does not reflect the views of
Speaker 2: responsibilities of iHeartMedia or its affiliates. Previously on The Red Weather.
Speaker 2: A few days before she died, I got a letter
Speaker 2: from Willow. Willow was my neighbor and one of my
Speaker 2: best friends as a kid. The central trauma of Willow's
Speaker 2: life had to do with her sister Anna. On Halloween
Speaker 2: night nineteen ninety five, Anna disappeared. Well, it was a
Speaker 2: little superficial, but I would love to.
Speaker 1: Say some of this stuff.
Speaker 2: I was reading the evidence catalog for Anna Trainer's case,
Speaker 2: like this book maybe, and then could I see the bullets?
Speaker 3: I always said that she made that take for somebody else,
Speaker 3: an older guy.
Speaker 2: You said this thing last week.
Speaker 4: He said, Oh, I'm glad you're sixteen at least, because
Speaker 4: I know it's because you just want me to drive.
Speaker 4: But then it all so it can't be true.
Speaker 2: That age is a matter. I think in order to
Speaker 2: get more information about that, I need to talk to Laney,
Speaker 2: because I know there's.
Speaker 5: Gonna be your worst conversion.
Speaker 2: I know I'm not looking forward to her writer.
Speaker 6: It's Lanie Traynor. I don't know. It's been years, decades.
Speaker 6: I'm in Colorado.
Speaker 3: Okay, call me back then, and I.
Speaker 1: Knew I had to go to Colorado.
Speaker 2: I was over a month into investigating the disappearance of
Speaker 2: Annah Trainer when I finally heard from her mom, Lane, I.
Speaker 6: Have lots to show you, things you need to see.
Speaker 2: We traded phone calls. She agreed that if I came
Speaker 2: out to Denver, she would tell me everything. We set
Speaker 2: a date, I got a flight. I was excited, but then.
Speaker 5: I cannot believe she's going to talk to you.
Speaker 2: My buddy Chris reminded me, you basically ran away with
Speaker 2: her daughter that one summer. What are you talking about her?
Speaker 5: Didn't you and Willow take that road trip up through Humboldt.
Speaker 2: I started this podcast because Anna's sister, Willow sent me
Speaker 2: a letter before she killed herself. Yeah, but it was
Speaker 2: like we were running away. Connor, our other friend, agreed
Speaker 2: with Chris.
Speaker 6: Oh, she'd already run away. She was living in the
Speaker 6: Hest building.
Speaker 2: The hest building was an abandoned building behind the coffee
Speaker 2: shop in our hometown.
Speaker 7: I mean, I just remember you had to go through
Speaker 7: like this little fence to get in, and then you know,
Speaker 7: it was all run down.
Speaker 1: The whole wall was open and you could.
Speaker 7: Kind of climb around a lot of different places, but
Speaker 7: that was the spot you'd go and smoke weed. And
Speaker 7: I mean it wasn't really a party place and never
Speaker 7: really like partied there, but that's where people would go about.
Speaker 5: I know she lived there for a while.
Speaker 2: In the years after her sister disappeared, Willow's life began
Speaker 2: to unravel a bit. Drugs, alcohol, She discovered raves in
Speaker 2: San Francisco, she dropped out of school. It was definitely
Speaker 2: a rough time, a dramatic time for her and me.
Speaker 2: You might remember the first episode of this podcast I
Speaker 2: mentioned there was a moment when Willow and I dated.
Speaker 2: I wasn't sure if I had ever talk about that.
Speaker 2: This was a podcast about Anna, after all, trying to
Speaker 2: uncover what happened to her, or at least get a
Speaker 2: better understanding of her story. After I talked with Connor
Speaker 2: and Chris, Though, I went back and found my last
Speaker 2: contact with Laney.
Speaker 1: It was an email she sent.
Speaker 2: Me in nineteen ninety eight. It was just a subject
Speaker 2: line in all caps. It said, writer, stay the hell
Speaker 2: away from my daughter.
Speaker 1: I am actor and filmmaker, writer strong. This is the
Speaker 1: red weather.
Speaker 2: In some ways, I was further along in Nana's case
Speaker 2: than I'd ever dreamed. I had found new evidence, a
Speaker 2: new angle, and a new hypothetical person who might have
Speaker 2: helped her run away, maybe even killed her. The catch,
Speaker 2: I had no clue who that person could be. Laney
Speaker 2: seemed to know what I was talking about, though. She
Speaker 2: knew all about the stalker, she said when we connected
Speaker 2: over the phone. She said she had plenty of evidence,
Speaker 2: but Sheriff Maldonado and his team ignored her. I couldn't
Speaker 2: confirm this, though, because the Sheriff's department was no longer
Speaker 2: talking to me.
Speaker 8: So she has stough to show you.
Speaker 2: I was leaving home again at the worst time personally.
Speaker 2: My son had a play performance on a piece a
Speaker 2: recycal but my wife was understanding.
Speaker 9: I mean, it's not great timing, but yeah, it seems important.
Speaker 1: Do you know where my copy of The Subterraneans is?
Speaker 8: You're going for a few days. How many books do
Speaker 8: you need?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 6: No, no, it's not for that.
Speaker 2: I'm looking for this very specific copy.
Speaker 10: Yes, get a kindle.
Speaker 2: No, but I wasn't just looking for a casual reread.
Speaker 2: I was preparing to see Laney Jack Harrowax novel The
Speaker 2: Subterraneans was one of my favorites when I was younger,
Speaker 2: and I wanted to find a specific copy after seeing
Speaker 2: the stay away from my daughter email at check the timing,
Speaker 2: and Connor and.
Speaker 1: Chris were right.
Speaker 2: It was right after a very specific experience a road
Speaker 2: trip I took with Willow in nineteen ninety eight. Willow
Speaker 2: gave me The Subterraneans on this trip, and I found
Speaker 2: it wedged in my bookcase.
Speaker 8: Welcome to Hollywood Burk Airport, a reminder.
Speaker 2: For passengers on my way to Colorado. I flipped it
Speaker 2: was a copy that got passed around, full of little
Speaker 2: notes and underline passages. There were a few books like
Speaker 2: this in our friend group that we all read and
Speaker 2: handed off to one another fear and loathing in Las Vegas,
Speaker 2: east of Eden.
Speaker 3: I remember one of the first books that you lent
Speaker 3: me was was Wordsworth.
Speaker 5: It's a book of poetry by Wordsworth.
Speaker 3: Then we started getting really into the Americana stuff, right,
Speaker 3: so we moved into the beat generation, so it was
Speaker 3: like Kerouac and Burrows Ginsburg.
Speaker 2: I think you gave me my first copy of On
Speaker 2: the Road.
Speaker 11: I kept the copy with like your notes in it
Speaker 11: and my notes in it, and we put our names
Speaker 11: on the front. Like everybody that we passed this book
Speaker 11: along to we'd share. And I remember doing that with
Speaker 11: a few books.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember that Subterraneans is kind of crazy, overwrought, dense.
Speaker 2: It's about a week long love affair that ends badly.
Speaker 2: I looked at all the underlined parts, the notes scribbled
Speaker 2: in the margins. I found my own bad hand. But
Speaker 2: there were other notes too. Some of them were from Willow,
Speaker 2: I know, because she had a habit of putting stars
Speaker 2: next to passages she liked, but she was also responding
Speaker 2: to notes from someone else, like the one that said
Speaker 2: love makes men crazy, and Willow had written women too
Speaker 2: next to a section where Caroax narrator jumps on a
Speaker 2: street sweeper cart. The other person wrote lost cause these
Speaker 2: were from the guy who'd given her the book, mister wrong.
Speaker 2: Mister wrong was exactly why our road trip was such
Speaker 2: a disaster. I landed in Denver and got a rental car.
Speaker 2: Laney lives in a suburb called Commerce City. I checked
Speaker 2: into a hotel and pulled up to her house around
Speaker 2: five pm. I could see a lady on the porch.
Speaker 2: I decided to record from the get go.
Speaker 8: Hey, lady, Hi looks like a middle aged.
Speaker 6: That's what I am.
Speaker 2: Hi, Well, what are you a spy?
Speaker 3: I know?
Speaker 1: Is it all right if I recording?
Speaker 9: Of course, I told you just don't upload my brain
Speaker 9: to the mothership.
Speaker 2: So I really thank you for talking to me.
Speaker 10: Yeah, you know what, You're welcome.
Speaker 2: Lane had always been small, and she seemed even smaller now,
Speaker 2: but not fragile. She still looks like she could live
Speaker 2: in the woods.
Speaker 9: If you told me that we would get somewhere anywhere
Speaker 9: with Anna's case, let alone that it would be right
Speaker 9: or fucking strong, I would have told you were crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well you know it was a Willow's letter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry.
Speaker 10: I know, I know, honey, hair, let's let's have a sleep.
Speaker 1: She had on her porch. She had bourbon, a.
Speaker 8: Little of this.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, why not?
Speaker 1: Thank you?
Speaker 2: I got the feeling Laney might have already had a few.
Speaker 10: I need to tell you something, right. I was angry
Speaker 10: with you for so long, you.
Speaker 1: Know that, and here it comes.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a long story, but I had seen
Speaker 2: Willow a few weeks earlier. We ran into each other
Speaker 2: at a party in Santa Cruz.
Speaker 1: My road tripe with Willow was doomed from the starts.
Speaker 2: And I wasn't there for So why was I not there?
Speaker 2: You were already back east, But actually I guess you
Speaker 2: would have been home for the summer. Chris had already
Speaker 2: transferred to a boarding school in Boston. One thing leads
Speaker 2: to another, and we find ourselves in this room at
Speaker 2: this party making out.
Speaker 5: But that was not the first time my friend.
Speaker 9: Was it.
Speaker 2: No, she was my first kids, But context is everything.
Speaker 2: That first time we were nine, and it was a
Speaker 2: game of truth or dare.
Speaker 1: Then she stops kissing me and tells me she can't.
Speaker 1: I can't do this. She's seen someone brutal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm like, I'm all hurt and embarrassed, and
Speaker 2: because here we've finally taken this leap from friends to
Speaker 2: oh yeah, maybe we're going to date and then just boom,
Speaker 2: like immediately shut down. Of course there's someone else. This
Speaker 2: was the first time I heard about mister Wrong. But
Speaker 2: a few weeks later, Willow called me from the Oakland airport.
Speaker 1: She wanted me to pick her up.
Speaker 2: She was supposed to be getting on a flight to
Speaker 2: some kind of summer camp or retreat.
Speaker 1: I wasn't totally clear, but she didn't want to go.
Speaker 1: She wanted us to hit the road. She wanted to
Speaker 1: see if we can be together.
Speaker 2: I was free, and I did want to see if
Speaker 2: we could be together. There was a big part of
Speaker 2: me that had been in love with Willow from the
Speaker 2: moment I met her.
Speaker 1: So I drove to Oakland.
Speaker 9: There were years, years right where I could not say
Speaker 9: your name.
Speaker 10: I wouldn't you know when you picked up Willow that summer. Yeah,
Speaker 10: and you guys just took off your van.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I thought, I you know, I thought
Speaker 1: it was fine.
Speaker 2: Really, because she she called me, asked me to come
Speaker 2: pick her up because she didn't want to go to
Speaker 2: the camp a camp, you know that thing in Montana
Speaker 2: wherever she was.
Speaker 10: Going camp you mean, like a like a summer camp. Yeah,
Speaker 10: it was rehab.
Speaker 1: Writer, I should have known.
Speaker 9: Oh god, yeah, we we found her.
Speaker 10: Willa had shed bottles. She had all these pills, just
Speaker 10: a whole bunch of pills. I mean Charlie. You remember Charlie, Yeah,
Speaker 10: kind of kind.
Speaker 2: I actually didn't think I ever met Charlie, but I
Speaker 2: knew that was Laney's boyfriend for a couple of years,
Speaker 2: a pseudo stepdad to Willow.
Speaker 10: She wasn't going to school, wasn't coming home.
Speaker 9: So Charlie had found the place, a place for her
Speaker 9: to you know, get treatment.
Speaker 10: We'd already paid for it.
Speaker 1: It was like I had no idea.
Speaker 10: Really, you had no idea.
Speaker 2: I should have known within minutes of making Willow up
Speaker 2: that she was lying that she didn't want some soul
Speaker 2: searching road trip. This was not a romantic getaway. She
Speaker 2: was all distracted and emotional and manic totally.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: She just wanted to listen to music and find places
Speaker 2: to camp where no one was around, smoked cigarettes, and
Speaker 2: she just like burst into tears.
Speaker 6: Suddenly.
Speaker 2: We spent a week driving north up into Humboldt, and
Speaker 2: despite what she'd insinuated over the phone, everything was strictly platonic.
Speaker 2: I could tell she was going through something, but I
Speaker 2: didn't want to pry. But I also was confused and
Speaker 2: had a lot of my own feelings. It wasn't until
Speaker 2: about five days into the trip that she finally told
Speaker 2: me what was going on.
Speaker 5: She was pregnant.
Speaker 10: For three weeks, I didn't know where my daughter was.
Speaker 5: Didn't tell me.
Speaker 9: I hope you know now that you're a father, you
Speaker 9: understand I can't, but just let me just get this
Speaker 9: out right, or please. For three weeks I didn't know
Speaker 9: where she was Moonbean.
Speaker 10: I thought I had lost her. It was Anna all
Speaker 10: over again.
Speaker 9: And she finally called when you left her in San
Speaker 9: Francisco and she never went over that writer by the way,
Speaker 9: I'm I'm.
Speaker 10: Not gonna lie.
Speaker 9: That's a wound that did not heal. I had to
Speaker 9: drive down to the city and she was a mess.
Speaker 9: She was crushed.
Speaker 2: This was tricky because in my mind I hadn't left
Speaker 2: Willow in San Francisco. In fact, I wanted to stay
Speaker 2: at first, but Willow had decided to have an abortion,
Speaker 2: and she told me that the father, mister Wrong, was
Speaker 2: coming to help her. But I didn't want to sit
Speaker 2: here and get into that with Laney for two reasons. One,
Speaker 2: I thought there was a good chance Willow had lied
Speaker 2: to her mom that she told Laney I was the father,
Speaker 2: And two I thought that was a lie not worth correcting.
Speaker 2: Because I had a bad feeling about mister Wrong. Did
Speaker 2: you ever tell you who it was?
Speaker 5: No, no clue, Right, that's the thing.
Speaker 2: She just told me that she shouldn't be with this guy,
Speaker 2: And honestly I had to start like maybe it was
Speaker 2: her mom's boy.
Speaker 5: Holy shit, Charlie, Seriously, Yes.
Speaker 2: I know. It's incredibly fucked up. Yeah, why else wouldn't
Speaker 2: she tell me who it was? Would tell you, would
Speaker 2: tell any of us.
Speaker 5: Okay, I get that you didn't want to upset Laney.
Speaker 2: But why does any of this matter? Yeah?
Speaker 6: What does this have to do with Annett?
Speaker 2: Well, because of what lady showed me in the house.
Speaker 2: Did you know that I wrote a short story about
Speaker 2: that road trip with Willow?
Speaker 5: Was it called friend Zone? Don read sixty six?
Speaker 2: It was the first story I published. I fictionalized a lot,
Speaker 2: the characters were older, and I gave the girl a
Speaker 2: different name, Opal, but the plot was the same. A
Speaker 2: man and a woman go on a road trip to
Speaker 2: run away and give being together a shot. Then she
Speaker 2: reveals she's pregnant with her ex boyfriend's child. I went
Speaker 2: back over the story for any clues to who mister
Speaker 2: Wrong was. So in the story, I'm trying to get
Speaker 2: her to tell me who the father is. And this
Speaker 2: is what I wrote. She wasn't going to say. I
Speaker 2: wanted to scream, I wanted to leave. I wanted to
Speaker 2: kiss her.
Speaker 5: Oof right, strong, more like writer weak.
Speaker 2: I hated him whoever he was. With nothing to go on,
Speaker 2: he grew monstrous and perfect in my mind.
Speaker 5: Oh no, that is a good line. Friend.
Speaker 2: He was rich, he was cool, he was taller than me, older,
Speaker 2: listened to better music. None of that might be true,
Speaker 2: but I knew one thing. He made her happy at
Speaker 2: one time. He made opal happy, older, richer, taller, Right,
Speaker 2: But see that's me being insecure and paranoid, right, So
Speaker 2: like that's just speculation. In real life, I dropped Willow
Speaker 2: off at a hotel near a planned parenthood and drove.
Speaker 1: Off confused and sad.
Speaker 2: In the story, the narrator turns back around, he picks
Speaker 2: her up, and they decide to stay together.
Speaker 1: I left it ambiguous if they kept the child or not.
Speaker 2: Anyway, So here I was on the porch with Lane,
Speaker 2: who's like still in mourning.
Speaker 5: This woman has lost two daughters, yeah right.
Speaker 2: And all I can do is sort of lamely defend
Speaker 2: the fact that I didn't abandon her pregnant daughter to
Speaker 2: get an abortion by herself.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I really didn't want to leave her.
Speaker 1: That was not my intention. I mean, we thought about it.
Speaker 1: I wanted to stay.
Speaker 10: Okay, all right.
Speaker 2: I could tell Lane didn't believe me, and I couldn't
Speaker 2: blame her, because no matter how I described it, no
Speaker 2: matter how I spun it, I did leave Willow, and
Speaker 2: I honestly can't remember how it went down exactly. I
Speaker 2: remember crying, I remember her crying, and I know she
Speaker 2: told me to go. But why did I listen? Was
Speaker 2: it because I was respecting her wishes? Or was I
Speaker 2: hurt and pissed off? Was I jealous of mister Wrong?
Speaker 2: Was I mad that she wouldn't tell me who he was?
Speaker 2: Was I mad that she didn't want to make out
Speaker 2: with me? Yes, I think yes to all of those things.
Speaker 1: Is it better if I leave?
Speaker 10: I know, I need to show you what I have.
Speaker 10: It's too important.
Speaker 2: But we stayed on the porch. Laney smoked, she poured
Speaker 2: more whiskey. Eventually she began to talk about the tender hearts.
Speaker 10: Oh yeah, man, we were going to change the world.
Speaker 10: It was radical. It was a radical change. And with
Speaker 10: the kids. We thought it was perfect. Let the woods
Speaker 10: be schooled, a nature, you know, be their teacher.
Speaker 2: But the reality was the kids, the Gramets got older.
Speaker 9: God damn Liam was out of hand, what a snot?
Speaker 9: And him and his mom left when he was.
Speaker 10: Like nine or ten. And then Jones's son started going
Speaker 10: to Twin Hills.
Speaker 2: Before they knew it, Laney and and the other moms
Speaker 2: were driving to three different schools.
Speaker 9: Suddenly our like free flowing, groovy thing became about who
Speaker 9: was picking up whose kid, who had the keys to
Speaker 9: who's car?
Speaker 10: And god, my girls hated it, and I hated it.
Speaker 9: She wanted diet coke and Cheetos, she wanted pom poms
Speaker 9: and you know the fucking Sandie Hawking's dance. Oh God,
Speaker 9: there's a girl in town, Bailey Bam bam whatever. And
Speaker 9: she would be dropped off by her mom and she
Speaker 9: would pull up in the front of the school and
Speaker 9: she had this like white jeep, you know, and the
Speaker 9: blonde hair and on the clothes. And Anna turns to
Speaker 9: me one day and she says, why can't we be
Speaker 9: like that? And I was like, honey, stardust, love of
Speaker 9: my life.
Speaker 10: That is death, that is hell.
Speaker 9: You want to live like that. You gotta take the
Speaker 9: whole thing. You're gonna You're gonna have a job you hate.
Speaker 10: You're gonna have some man telling you what to do,
Speaker 10: breathing down your neck.
Speaker 1: Lady saw tender hearts as a rect.
Speaker 9: I was protecting them, my girls. They had no idea
Speaker 9: how much I was protecting them. I was coming from well,
Speaker 9: I'm gonna tell you, I don't care.
Speaker 10: I was raped when I was fourteen.
Speaker 9: Oh god, yeah, by my dad's best friend, Davis Cooper.
Speaker 10: Davis, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 5: That's so awful.
Speaker 9: And for my parents, for Cooper, there was something normal
Speaker 9: about it, you know, it was like expected first week
Speaker 9: of summer.
Speaker 10: Landy's fourteen. Laney has a new bathing suit. So sure
Speaker 10: Cooper couldn't help himself. I'm fucking believable.
Speaker 4: Cool.
Speaker 9: You know what my dad did, He went and he
Speaker 9: had a talk with him. My mom's a mess, My
Speaker 9: brother Jacob doesn't know what the hell is going on.
Speaker 9: My dad goes to Cooper.
Speaker 10: The men had their talk and everything's fine, just right
Speaker 10: back to the rug. They have their talk. Cooper comes
Speaker 10: to dinner the next week. Fuck you want to smoke?
Speaker 9: Yeah, thank you?
Speaker 10: You gotta quit this shit, writer, I stopped. I made
Speaker 10: it almost five years of spring. You wait till you
Speaker 10: have a teenager? What do you have a girl son?
Speaker 10: Oh my god, thank god?
Speaker 2: You better.
Speaker 10: Thank god. Every day you take him to the woods,
Speaker 10: you give them treat time.
Speaker 5: Didn't Actually I try.
Speaker 2: Anna turning away from the tender hearts wasn't just a
Speaker 2: lifestyle choice or a philosophical betrayal. It brought real consequences.
Speaker 9: She goes off for the all American life and wanted
Speaker 9: to get her It got her shitty friends, the mall girls.
Speaker 9: I called them, a boyfriend who thinks he owns her,
Speaker 9: and some other fucking guy she won't say who it is,
Speaker 9: and her notes was constantly bugging her.
Speaker 1: Okay, so this is the stalker.
Speaker 2: At first, Anna complained about a guy who wouldn't leave
Speaker 2: her alone, but then things changed all of a sudden.
Speaker 10: She's missing school, late nights, taking the car out.
Speaker 2: He wore down.
Speaker 10: That's not of a bitch, wore down.
Speaker 1: And she never said who it was.
Speaker 10: No, because by then you know she lost her tender heart.
Speaker 10: She barely talked to me anymore.
Speaker 5: Well, hold up, is this where you tell me Anna's
Speaker 5: stalker was Charlie.
Speaker 2: No, no, because Charlie and Laney didn't meet until nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety seven, and he was stationed overseas in ninety five.
Speaker 2: But you're on the right track. Laney was convinced that
Speaker 2: she had evidence that could solve Anna's case, but Maldonado
Speaker 2: and his team wouldn't listen to her.
Speaker 9: The pull it fucking bullets out of trees, Jason Parking tickets,
Speaker 9: going after oh Rick.
Speaker 10: They destroyed that man, They destroyed him. You lose your daughter,
Speaker 10: you know.
Speaker 9: But if you care about that, you want to actually
Speaker 9: do the work, well, then I'm a crazy lady, right,
Speaker 9: I'm hysterical. Miss miss calmed down.
Speaker 10: You know what that means.
Speaker 9: You know, know your place, Keep your mouth shut, Let
Speaker 9: the men work, Let the men do their thing.
Speaker 5: Cooper comes to dinner next week.
Speaker 10: Goddamn, look at you.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 10: You listen. You're open rider. Okay, let's hit aside.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Sure.
Speaker 2: Walking in, though I wished we'd stayed outside, I couldn't
Speaker 2: see the floor close. Everywhere she had rows of paper bags,
Speaker 2: brown paper bags that looked like they were filled with rocks,
Speaker 2: and there was insulation rolls and strips of pink wall
Speaker 2: insulation piled around. You need to go through stuff, blankets, baskets,
Speaker 2: and figurines. She had a huge collection of Kachina dolls,
Speaker 2: traditional hopie figurines. I didn't know where to walk, where
Speaker 2: I could walk, so I focused on those.
Speaker 1: Oh these are great.
Speaker 10: Oh yeah, oh my little warriors. Yeah, let's let's go
Speaker 10: to the kitchen. About these three boxes here, Wow, it's
Speaker 10: my Anna collection.
Speaker 2: One box was full of early childhood stuff, her first.
Speaker 10: Little hair cutting.
Speaker 9: Yeah, look at this dress she made, not good, purple
Speaker 9: and white, my stardust child will it was my moonbeam.
Speaker 10: But Anna was all stardust.
Speaker 2: It was a lot of homemade trinkets. There was a
Speaker 2: dream catcher. Then there was a box of stuff from
Speaker 2: when she was older.
Speaker 10: Yeah, this is the makeup box she made me by her.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was a collection of books Ed Ground, Poe, The
Speaker 2: Dow of Pooh, The Secret Language of Birdays It. Yes,
Speaker 2: And there was a copy of Stephen King's It. It
Speaker 2: was the same edition I remembered reading, and I.
Speaker 10: Liked all that gothic stuff. But here, this is this
Speaker 10: is the real stuff.
Speaker 2: Here she pulled out big folded papers and leather notebooks.
Speaker 10: So, okay, the first thing. The most important thing is
Speaker 10: the fire. Right Willow's rage.
Speaker 2: Laney unfolded a map of Sonoma County.
Speaker 9: So when Anna didn't come home the next morning, I
Speaker 9: knew that we were dealing with vindictive forces.
Speaker 2: She also had a page of tracing paper with lines
Speaker 2: and symbols, and I started to get worried.
Speaker 10: Yeah, these are here, take up the hand this candle.
Speaker 1: I realized too late. I had backed myself into a corner.
Speaker 10: This is the constellation Pleiades. You know you're stars, No Pleiades,
Speaker 10: the Seven Sisters.
Speaker 8: Right, yes, so that's key.
Speaker 2: Okay, Now look at this. Do you see this?
Speaker 8: Look at this?
Speaker 1: Oh you know, they line.
Speaker 10: Up, they light up exactly. Look burn here, no, burn here,
Speaker 10: burn here.
Speaker 9: Willow started that fire, but there were there were spirit
Speaker 9: guiding it, spirit stopping it.
Speaker 2: I knew that if I said the wrong thing, I'd
Speaker 2: be one more person telling Laney she was crazy and hysterical.
Speaker 10: Okay, okay, but the real breakthrough of you okay later.
Speaker 10: Now this is this is my journal.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 9: I tracked every session I had with mary Anne.
Speaker 1: Oh, who's Who's mary Anne.
Speaker 9: Marianne was the medium I met in two thousand and two.
Speaker 9: By the way, I met her on October twenty third,
Speaker 9: at two thousand and two, yeah, Anna's birthday.
Speaker 10: I found her in Monterey. She was working with the
Speaker 10: Piscali group. She was trained by Piscali himself.
Speaker 1: Okay, lady, I don't I'm sorry. I don't want to.
Speaker 1: I don't mean to cut you off.
Speaker 8: Now.
Speaker 2: You need to be open, right, Oh, I need you
Speaker 2: to look at this.
Speaker 1: You have to be open. But I'm trying to be
Speaker 1: I just want I think I should just be very clear.
Speaker 1: I'm an atheist and i'm, you know, diehard skeptic.
Speaker 10: You know you don't believe me.
Speaker 1: I believe that you. I don't doubt that you had
Speaker 1: an experience.
Speaker 10: I had a series of experiences, right, But I you know.
Speaker 1: I'm looking. I'm trying to find some evidence that this is.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I can really do with this.
Speaker 2: It's not like I tried to get her attention back
Speaker 2: to the first couple of boxes.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking more like, do you have any journals or letters?
Speaker 1: If she box right here? Okay, yeah, so the books.
Speaker 4: And what is this?
Speaker 1: Is this what I was flipping through the copy of it?
Speaker 1: Is this Anna's handwriting?
Speaker 5: Who?
Speaker 1: Well, who gave her this?
Speaker 5: Book.
Speaker 2: I don't know, because I have a book from Willow
Speaker 2: and I swear it's it's the exact same camera handwriting.
Speaker 2: There was a note in the margin of one page
Speaker 2: lost cause mister wrong. I remember the book in evidence
Speaker 2: at the Sheriff's department too, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior?
Speaker 1: Did it have notes in it? Book from It's I
Speaker 1: have it back in my hotel or if I could,
Speaker 1: can I keep this?
Speaker 10: That was anas?
Speaker 5: Okay?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Okause Willow? Do you know who was giving her books?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 10: Who giv writer friends? Teachers?
Speaker 2: Laney said it so casually, but I suddenly had a
Speaker 2: very strong sinking feeling a teacher. Yeah, because Willow gave
Speaker 2: me a book, and uh, it was from the guy
Speaker 2: that she was seeing in uh in ninety eight, the
Speaker 2: guy that she called mister wrong.
Speaker 1: Mister wrong. Yeah, he was. I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know who he was, but he was. He was the father.
Speaker 1: Who's father, you know, baby Willow's baby Lane what.
Speaker 2: Laney never knew Willow was pregnant, never knew she had
Speaker 2: an abortion. She was understandably upset. She asked me to leave.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it was awful. I called my wife
Speaker 1: after I drove away.
Speaker 8: Well, I mean it sounds like she's still grieving.
Speaker 2: Yes, I know, but I mean, how was I supposed
Speaker 2: to know that she didn't know this?
Speaker 1: There was no way I could know that.
Speaker 8: I don't think I knew the whole story I told
Speaker 8: you about Willow. Maybe, but isn't this podcast about her sister?
Speaker 2: Yes, it is.
Speaker 8: Right. I didn't think you're gonna be spending all your
Speaker 8: time talking about an next girlfriend.
Speaker 2: She's she's a friend. It was just like this one
Speaker 2: you know, this one moment when we're teenagers.
Speaker 8: Right, who you were in love with and who you
Speaker 8: what drove to get an abortion.
Speaker 1: That's not what this is about.
Speaker 8: It's kind of becoming about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, look, I gotta I gotta get to
Speaker 1: the hotel. I'm still kind of.
Speaker 2: Reeling right now.
Speaker 1: So can I just call you later?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I went to the hotel.
Speaker 2: I wasn't sure if I should stay in Denver and
Speaker 2: try and call Laney the next day or what.
Speaker 1: I felt horrible here.
Speaker 2: Lanny thought I was coming to help her, that I
Speaker 2: was somebody was finally going to take her seriously and
Speaker 2: maybe help give her answers.
Speaker 1: Instead, I brought more doubt, more.
Speaker 2: Questions, maybe even made her feel betrayed by her other daughter.
Speaker 5: Hold on, you think, mister wrong. The guy who got
Speaker 5: Willow pregnant and Anna's killer are the same person.
Speaker 2: I called Chris and Monica to go over things exactly
Speaker 2: because of a note in a book. No, it's more
Speaker 2: than that, it's more.
Speaker 1: It all fits.
Speaker 2: Just stay with me here, Okay, Anna has a stalker.
Speaker 1: She complains to her mom, but.
Speaker 2: Then at some point Anna stops complaining about him and
Speaker 2: she actually starts dating him, and.
Speaker 6: She makes the tape for him. But she doesn't say
Speaker 6: his name on the tape.
Speaker 2: Because it's a secret relationship. She can't tell anyone, her mom,
Speaker 2: her sister, Mick, anyone.
Speaker 6: She doesn't want anybody to know who this guy is.
Speaker 2: There's something wrong or inappropriate, maybe illegal about their affair,
Speaker 2: and they have a plan, Operation van go And from
Speaker 2: the tape we know he's scared of what society thinks
Speaker 2: of him. He's told her age doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: There's also this moment.
Speaker 4: Van Goes suffered from severe emotional and psychological problems and
Speaker 4: died in France at the age of thirty seven. Thirty seven.
Speaker 2: That makes me think that he was thirty seven or
Speaker 2: I don't like about to turn thirty seven, and maybe
Speaker 2: he's married, maybe he would lose his job, maybe he's
Speaker 2: a teacher. Halloween night, Anna and Mick have their fight.
Speaker 2: The mean girls are mean, and Anna makes a decision
Speaker 2: it's time for Operation man Go.
Speaker 6: But she still pages Mick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know about that.
Speaker 2: Maybe she's torn, should should get back together with Mick
Speaker 2: or run away.
Speaker 1: With this other guy.
Speaker 2: Maybe she's hedging her bets because the guy might not
Speaker 2: go through with Operation van Go. Either way, Yes, she
Speaker 2: pages Mick, but then she changes her mind and she.
Speaker 6: Meets up with this other guy.
Speaker 12: He picks her up before Mike gets to the payphone,
Speaker 12: or they meet somewhere else.
Speaker 2: Entirely, and maybe they start Operation van Go. Maybe he
Speaker 2: helps her get to the airport to fly away somewhere.
Speaker 2: Or they fight and she threatens to tell everyone about
Speaker 2: their affair.
Speaker 5: Which would ruin his life.
Speaker 6: Maybe he kills her to cover up the affair.
Speaker 2: He hides her body, he drives Tony down to the
Speaker 2: celty lot. Makes it plausible that Anna just ran away.
Speaker 2: Now all that is pretty much what I was thinking
Speaker 2: anyway when I was focused on Mick.
Speaker 5: But here's what's new.
Speaker 2: Three years later, nineteen ninety eight, the guy got away
Speaker 2: with it. Anna's gone, The case is cold. Life has
Speaker 2: moved on for everyone.
Speaker 5: But he's still in he is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's still potentially in the lady's life. He could
Speaker 2: be a friend of the family.
Speaker 5: He's still teaching.
Speaker 2: And lo and behold, here comes Willow, a new young
Speaker 2: Trander girl. This is a grass, I know, but it's
Speaker 2: a pattern, right. This guy's got a thing for grooming
Speaker 2: young girls. What are the chances that he would do
Speaker 2: it more than once?
Speaker 9: Hi?
Speaker 2: I guess now. It's nineteen ninety eight and Willow, like
Speaker 2: her sister, is in a secret relationship. And Willow can't
Speaker 2: tell anyone, not her mom, not us.
Speaker 6: Why not the same reasons Anna didn't tell anyone. He's older, he's.
Speaker 2: Inappropriate, he's maybe still a teacher, still married.
Speaker 5: Jesus. Do you remember Jacob Wyman? No, the English teacher.
Speaker 5: I never had him, but there were kids who loved
Speaker 5: this guy.
Speaker 2: He was one of those dudes that was like one
Speaker 2: of the kids to call him by his first name,
Speaker 2: not mister Wyman, but Jacob.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 2: Was he the one that took kids camping?
Speaker 5: Yes, exactly, exactly the senior trip. Jacob's senior trip.
Speaker 6: Okay, he was a teacher at Annelie. Did he ever
Speaker 6: come up? No? But hold on, I'm going to search
Speaker 6: the archives.
Speaker 2: Monica still had access to the back articles of the
Speaker 2: Press Democrat.
Speaker 6: Oh there's a lot. I mean these are boring mentions, assemblies,
Speaker 6: football games, direct school play one year. Oh, okay, there's
Speaker 6: an article about Harry Potter. He's quoted.
Speaker 1: It was two thousand and one.
Speaker 2: Remember there was a backlash to Harry Potter that the
Speaker 2: books were promoting witchcraft.
Speaker 6: We don't give kids enough credits.
Speaker 12: As Jacob Wyman, an English teacher at Annelie High School,
Speaker 12: I'd rather kids explore things dark or.
Speaker 6: Risky things in fiction. I encourage them to read whatever
Speaker 6: they enjoy, horror, crime, any genre.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Anna had a copy of Stephen King's Hit.
Speaker 6: His stance, though, isn't without controversy.
Speaker 12: Wyman landed in hot water last semester when several parents
Speaker 12: noticed he had included the novel Damage by Josephine Hart
Speaker 12: on his fall reading list.
Speaker 6: I could see their concerns and said he ended up
Speaker 6: dropping Damage from his syllabus.
Speaker 2: I don't know what is this book?
Speaker 5: Damage?
Speaker 12: Yes, Damage by Josephine Hart is a psychological thriller centered
Speaker 12: on a respectable British politician, doctor Stephen Fleming, whose life
Speaker 12: spirals when he becomes obsessively and destructively involved with his
Speaker 12: son's fiance Anna.
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me? The character's name is Anna Forbidden Desire,
Speaker 2: secret affair, an older man.
Speaker 1: And a younger woman.
Speaker 8: I haven't read it.
Speaker 1: I haven't read this, but it sounded familiar.
Speaker 2: I thought maybe because it was a bestseller, because there
Speaker 2: was a movie made, But actually it was familiar for
Speaker 2: another reason.
Speaker 1: What's this other note?
Speaker 6: Here?
Speaker 2: Weeks ago, I had been requesting items one by one
Speaker 2: from the evidence catalog at the Sheriff's Department damage heart
Speaker 2: spelled ha rt.
Speaker 5: There might be a note that the book is damaged
Speaker 5: or could be a type damaged art.
Speaker 1: I needed to see that book.
Speaker 2: That night in Denver, I could barely sleep. This felt
Speaker 2: like enough to bring to Greer and Lachlan. They could
Speaker 2: open up the evidence locker and see for themselves. I
Speaker 2: compiled my clips so I could call the Sheriff's department
Speaker 2: in the morning, But when I woke up, I got
Speaker 2: a call.
Speaker 1: From my brother, Hey, what's going on?
Speaker 2: Hey?
Speaker 8: Uh?
Speaker 2: So the Sheriff's department is here.
Speaker 1: He was calling from my parents' house.
Speaker 8: What.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they have a warrant and they're searching the house.
Speaker 1: They're going through all the closets and outside.
Speaker 2: It's the whole.
Speaker 6: What are they what are they looking for?
Speaker 2: Guns? The Red Weather is an iHeart podcast hosted by
Speaker 2: River Straw. Sound engineering, editing and mixing by bou milkis
Speaker 2: produced by Tess Bartholomey. Executive producers at iHeartRadio Trevor Young
Speaker 2: and Matt Frederick. Associate producer bou milkis original score by
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Speaker 5: Thanks for listening.