Member Mondays: Audrey Webster

She got the call on a Monday near midnight. The body was found face-down in the creek outside the old woman’s cottage. It had been a couple of young kids crossing through the trail behind the home who found her. The woman first reported thinking it was a mannequin. Pale limbs stuck at odd angles and a head cocked to the side like someone had yanked it right from the socket.

Detective Audrey Webster nestled into her rain boots and jacket, throwing on a beanie for extra warmth. It was raining, but Audrey had made her way cross-country from the Oregon coast, so she took this as a good sign. She tossed a handful of treats to her cat and headed out the door.

The victim, Sally Henson of Queens, NY had been strangled. Audrey kneeled beside the body, notepad in hand. Dirt caked the underneath of the woman’s fingernails. She was barefoot, wearing a plaid cotton dress. Mud was seeping into the fabric of her skirt. The body had long since passed into rigor mortis. On any other occasion she would have passed it off as a general homicide, but there was one exception: the pristinely preserved braid running down her spine. It was a greeting from an old friend.

“Is this your guy?”

Audrey stood. Detective Ricky Shelby approached from behind. She brushed the dirt from her pants and sighed.

“This your guy?” he asked again.

“Have you checked the freezer?”

“No,” Ricky said. “Why?”

“Follow me.”

Together the detectives made their way inside to the freezer. Audrey suctioned her hand in a plastic glove and opened it. If there had been any contents inside prior to the murder, they were gone. All that remained was a thumb. Frozen, painted a deep green and with a red bow tied around its center. But it didn’t belong to the women in the creek. While her thumb was gone, this one would belong to the previous victim — a man, roughly the same age as this victim, found in his bedroom in Pittsburgh.

“Is that…”

Audrey called for an evidence bag. She dropped the thumb inside.

It was true, the Douglas Fir Killer had found his way from a small town on the Oregon coast to New York. Audrey had several long nights ahead of her.

However, by day Audrey occupied her hours differently. She was a Media Editorial Assistant at Macmillan Learning. When she wasn’t working that job she liked to fill the time running, reading, writing, listening to true crime podcasts, and adoring her cat, Theo. Recently, she had also started a new gig as the Social Media Manager for the NYC Chapter of the Women’s National Book Association. A role she took on so she could share her love of literature with the other members.

By Audrey Webster

Audrey is the Social Media Manager for the NYC chapter of the WNBA.