The Sun Down Motel

by Simone St. James

“Cathy Caldwell was killed in December 1980,” Viv said. “She was twenty-one. She worked as a receptionist at a dental office. She was married and had a six-month-old son. Her husband was deployed in the military.”

I’m a true crime lover, but I didn’t base the murders in Fell on any real-life cases. That was intentional. Instead I made them an echo of the cases we’ve heard so many times, over and over again, so often that the details blend. I offset that feeling of sameness with Viv’s call to Cathy’s mother, which I think is a heartwrenching conversation about a woman who was deeply loved.