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At approximately 1:48 P.M., Deputy Darrin Zudel of the Genesee County Sheriff’s Department (GCSD), while working district E-2 in the town of Genesee, Michigan, was dispatched to Fisherman’s Park at the northeast corner of Bray and Carpenter Roads. The dispatcher said it was a possible DOA (dead on arrival).

When Zudel got to the park, he found three men and one woman, all in their early twenties. They were the ones who had called in the “911”. It seemed that they had gone fishing in the park. On their way to the river, they had discovered a body.

Along with two EMTs who had just arrived on the scene, Zudel set out along the path the fishermen had been on only moments before when they made their discovery.

It didn’t really look like much, sort of like a package all bundled up in a blanket. Zudel pulled the blanket down from the face and noted that the subject was a woman with blood around the head and also bruising to the face and eyes. He reached down, pulled the blanket aside from her right arm, and put his hand on her right wrist. The body was very, very cold. He was not surprised when he didn’t feel any pulse.

Leaving the body with the two EMTs, Zudel went back to his car. By that time, Lieutenant Michael Becker of the Genessee County Sheriff’s Department had arrived. Becker had been on uniformed duty when he heard Zudel being summoned and had raced to the scene as fast as he could.

Zudel took Becker back along the trail; Zudel showed him the body. From Becker’s preliminary examination, it was clear the woman had been murdered. It was time to bring in a specialist.

Kevin Shanlian was in his office at the Genesee County Sheriff’s Department when he, too, heard Central Communication dispatch Zudel’s unit to the fishing site located at Bray and Carpenter Roads.

While the park was technically in the township of Genesee, it was located right next to Flint. Flint, Michigan, has one of the highest per capita murder rates in the country. Murders, though, didn’t just stop at the city line. They leached over. Unfortunately, homicides were anything but rare in Genesee. Commonplace was a more apt description.

Immediately a question of jurisdiction came up. While the park was in Genesee Township, the township was within the county of the same name. Therefore, who had jurisdiction? Actually, the answer was both, but the township’s police force had two detectives on leave and was understaffed. As a result, they made the practical decision to shift responsibility to the sheriff.

The next call Shanlian heard was from his lieutenant, Michael Becker, summoning him to the scene. The body dump job would be his case. Shanlian reached into his desk.

When he had first started as a rookie, he probably had eight guns on him and a knife in his boot. But the more experience he got, the more he realized how much you used your head on the job. He got to putting the gun in a drawer or in a glove compartment, having to remind himself to take it out when he went into the field.

Now he reached into his desk and took out his 45mm Sig Sauer automatic and snapped it in place in the shoulder holster under his jacket. It was a lot of firepower, but Flint was a high crime area and cops were always one step behind the bad guys when it came to firepower.

He drove quickly to the scene. By the time he got there, the temperature had risen to all of thirty-three degrees, a veritable heat wave in the late Michigan fall.

“She’s along that path there,” Lieutenant Becker told Shanlian, pointing behind him.

Becker was busy answering half a dozen questions from support personnel. Alone, Shanlian walked along the path and into the park.

The warmer air had mixed with the colder ground producing a fog that hung low to the earth, swirling around the body of the woman, who looked so warm and comfy wrapped in the flowered blanket that had become her death shroud.

Shanlian, a veteran detective at thirty-five, spotted Deputy Zudel, the cop who had first called the homicide in.

“Have the fishermen who discovered the body transported to headquarters, where we’ll take their statements. Then go check the trash containers around here and the roadway west of here,” Shanlian requested. “Let’s see if we can find any evidence that might help us.”

Turning to another cop, Officer Pilon, Shanlian asked him to check the trash containers and roadways east of the murder scene. Then he asked Detective Dwayne Cherry to work the death scene as a liaison between the investigating detectives and the Michigan State Police Crime Laboratory out of Bridgeport, Michigan. The latter had been summoned to collect physical evidence at the death scene. It was specifically labeled “death scene,” as opposed to “crime scene,” because while the body had been discovered there, they didn’t know yet where she had been murdered.

He sent a fourth officer back to headquarters to retrieve footwear and a tire impression collection kit. Maybe they’d get lucky and find that the killer or killers had left footprints around the body.

Cops hated body dump jobs. It was like someone just dropped the damn corpse from a plane and then it was the cop’s turn to figure out who it was and how it got there. It was a good thing Shanlian had a sense of humor. Otherwise, the body dumps he’d investigated over his sixteen years as a cop would have gotten to him. There were so many, he couldn’t count them up even if he had four sets of hands and feet.

Trying to deduce how the killer or killers had dumped the body, Shanlian immediately noted its location in a clearing and the two paths that cut through. Shanlian saw a narrow, maybe two-inch path of what appeared to be burned leaves leading from the parking lot, through the woods, stopping at the asphalt footpath. He went over to view the body and immediately smelled the gasoline on her. He looked back at the burned leaves. Shanlian figured they were trying to burn the body by setting a fuse made out of leaves.

If the flames had actually hit the body, they would have consumed it, throwing the identification process into a more difficult mode than it already was in. The problem for the killer or killers was that the flame went out when the fire hit the asphalt path. This left the body intact, along with hopes of a quick identification.

The cop came back to the death scene with the vehicle impression kit. Assisted by his partner, Chuck Melki, Shanlian made plaster impressions of an unknown vehicle tire impression in the parking lot. The two detectives photographed all the witnesses’ and officers’ shoe prints that had entered the crime scene. Shanlian also shot all the vehicle tires that had entered the adjacent parking lot. These photographs would later serve to eliminate police and civilian personnel as offering no significance to the commission of the crime.

Up to that point, the victim had remained where she was, no more than an insignificant part of the landscape. Now she became an active participant in her own murder investigation.

Taking care to pull on rubber gloves, so as not to “infect” the evidence, Shanlian carefully pulled the blanket down to examine her.

Her face was bloody and bruised. Over her left eye in particular, extending back to her ear and down to her cheek, was one reddish and bluish bruise, like a giant discolored birthmark. There were also multiple lacerations. The eye had received so much trauma, it appeared to have swelled shut as a result.

Around her neck was a necklace with a small cocaine spoon attached. Now that was interesting. Maybe this was a drug-related murder. Continuing his examination, Shanlian saw that the victim was wrapped in a bedspread, which was black in color with a green and pink flower design imprinted on it.

The woman wore black Chic brand pants pulled down and around her left ankle. Her socks were black in color. She wore only one left shoe, black Guess brand. The victim’s red underpants had been pulled down, wrapped around her left thigh near the vagina. They had certainly been pulled down for a reason; it was too early in the investigation to tell why.

Her stomach had two small brownish and blackish wounds, about three inches in diameter. Farther down, there was a small bruise on her right thigh, then another circular wound up near the vagina. Finally, on the inner side of the right ankle, Shanlian discovered a fifth wound, again about three inches in diameter, brownish and blackish in color.

The victim was wearing a maroon-colored, short-sleeved polo shirt with SOUTH BOULEVARD STATION emblazoned over the left breast. Neither shirt nor bra appeared to have been disturbed. If she’d been raped, the killer had not touched her breasts.

On her arms, right on top of the right biceps, was what appeared to be a burn mark. Had the woman been tortured before she died? Underneath the arm, in the arm joint, was a second burn mark, though this appeared more like a brownish or blackish wound. There was frayed skin and discoloration around her right wrist consistent with a ligature wound. That is, someone had bound her wrist before she died.

Shanlian picked up her right hand and noticed a gold-colored ring with a large sapphire on her ring finger. Underneath her fingernail was blood and something else. Forensics would take those scrapings; hopefully, they’d lead to something.

Shanlian didn’t see any injuries on her left arm, though her left fingernails had blood underneath them. Her left thumbnail and part of the tip of the thumb had a large cut on it. This was consistent with defensive wounds. But the cut appeared to have teeth marks on it. Had someone bitten her to get her to stop defending herself?

As with the right wrist, the left had a ligature wound, too. Unless forensics could offer another explanation, that meant she had been bound before she died.

There was no clue under her, no weapon, no anything except blanket and earth. They pulled up her shirt to examine her back.

Shanlian saw that it was a speckled shade of red indicating lividity; that is, a settling of the blood into that region. Since lividity had already set in, and rigor mortis, the stiffness that immediately accompanies death, had receded, it was safe to assume that she had been dead for over thirty hours. Unless, of course, someone had thrown her into a freezer to slow the whole “decomp” process down, which would completely foul things up.

Shanlian surmised that the victim’s attire was consistent with that of a waitress, someone who probably worked for a business called South Boulevard Station. If the killer was trying to make sure that identification was difficult, he never should have left the shirt on. Then again, he probably figured quite rightly that if the body burned, there would be no shirt left.

Searching through her pockets, Shanlian came up empty. No identification whatsoever. She also had no purse, no backpack, no nothing. Considering that she still had her ring on, they could eliminate robbery as a motive.

Today was Friday, casual day, and Shanlian had dressed in an open-necked sport shirt with jeans. When he had gotten the call, he had thrown on his sweater and overcoat and had raced to the scene. Now, he pulled his overcoat tighter around himself, but it did nothing to keep the chill out. Maybe he was getting too old for this work. Or maybe it was just the viciousness of the murder he was trying to keep out.

Shanlian stopped his musings. That was a luxury for another time. He reached inside his jacket to his belt, reminding himself that he had brought his gun.

He pulled out his cell phone; he always carried it with him now. It was de rigueur police equipment, a Nextel phone, broadcasting over digital lines so slaphappy hackers couldn’t listen in on the scrambled channels like they did on scanners. Most surveillance these days was done the same way and for the same reasons.

His digital call was to the county’s on-duty medical examiner, Dr. Wilys Mueller. He gave him permission to move the body. When the techies and police photographer were finished, the body would be transported to the county morgue. He also called Sergeant Ives Potrafka of his department and requested he come to the crime scene as soon as possible. Then it was a quick call to the on-duty county prosecutor, David Newblatt, who authorized the autopsy for the following morning at 11:00.

Next up was a check of missing person reports. Shanlian called the Flint Police and Central Dispatch and requested a search of all recent missing W/F reports that matched the victim’s description.

That brought negative results quickly: he could find no one missing who fit the dead woman’s description. Shanlian responded with a Statewide Administrative message, what used to be known as an All Points Bulletin (APB), requesting information on any recent missing person reports. Trying to match those to the victim also proved a negative result.

Sometimes, bad guys are captured on videotape before they commit the murder. There was one case in Tampa, Florida, where a serial killer named Sam Smithers walked into a convenience store with his victim, bought some stuff, and less than a half hour later killed her. The tape allowed the prosecutors to put him together with the victim before the murder took place. Shanlian requested that detectives retrieve any video surveillance from area gas stations.

A few minutes later, Sergeant Ives Potrafka of the sheriff’s office arrived on the scene to assist Shanlian.

“Ives, I want you to maintain the crime scene in order to free up other detectives for further investigation.”

It was a boring but important job; Potrafka had to maintain the integrity of the scene, not allow anyone to contaminate it and make sure that any evidence gathered by the Michigan Police Crime Lab found its way to Shanlian immediately. Most importantly, Potrafka would be in charge of making sure the body got transported to the morgue after the crime scene was completely processed.

Looking down at the victim’s T-shirt, Shanlian knew he didn’t have to be a Ph.D. to figure out what was next. He asked a female deputy to call all the local area codes and see if she could locate a restaurant called South Boulevard Station. She came back a few minutes later with the answer. There was a restaurant by that name in Auburn Hills.

Auburn hills. That was only an hour’s drive south. Shanlian hypothesized that maybe she was killed down there and dumped in his bailiwick. He wouldn’t know for sure until he went down there.

Seated beside Shanlian’s desk at headquarters was Bobby Lee Locke. Twenty-three years old, he worked for a local cable company. Like most people, he had never been involved with violence, let alone murder. That all changed when he and his friends Del Crane, Alex Sexton and Dee Ryan had taken time off from work to go ice fishing at a county park set beside the Flint River in Flint, Michigan.

They got there a little before 1:00 P.M., he told Shanlian. As they got out of their van, their breath plumed out like smoke. The temperature was hovering just above freezing. The park was beautiful in the spring, summer and early fall. But by late fall, it was a dead place. Brown leaves that had not been covered by the white stuff lay lifeless on the snow-encrusted ground. Their boots crunched beneath them. They trekked east into the park, going toward the river, which was stocked with that delicious fish that would make an excellent dinner.

The pathway ran east from the parking lot, eventually terminating at the river. Trees bordered the trail, their naked branches hibernating against the coming winter. Across from them, running in the opposite direction, was a bicycle path, deserted and forlorn in the late-fall sun.

There was a slight wind. It made them pull their collars up and huddle down inside their coats. Over their shoulders they carried their poles, the party looking like some late-twentieth-century version of Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher out for a little fishing and partying. And just like Mark Twain’s heroes, they ran into trouble.

Fifty feet in front of them was something wrapped up in a blanket. They stopped. Del thought it looked like a body. Dee thought it was a deer or a dog. They continued hiking but stopped when they got to it.

Bobby kicked out and struck it with his foot. His face turned a ghostly pallor when he realized he had kicked someone’s leg. They all freaked and ran back to the van. When they got there, they discussed what to do. Bobby and Del decided to go back and check to make sure they weren’t crazy.

They weren’t. They wound up gazing down at a body. They ran back, found a phone, and dialed 911.

“Thanks for your statement,” Shanlian said. “If we need you, we’ll call you.”

He watched as the dazed young man wound his way through the room, tightly packed with desks and chairs and detectives on phones, and disappeared down the stairs at the far end.

Shanlian looked up. It was Melki. While Shanlian had been conducting the interview with Locke, Melki had called the restaurant South Boulevard Station in Auburn Hills. He discovered that a waitress named Nancy Billiter had not shown up for work the previous night. She was usually a punctual person, so the restaurant manager was worried.

The manager supplied a description of Nancy Billiter. It matched that of the “Jane Doe” discovered in the park in Flint.

Shanlian and Melki felt a bit cocky. Who could blame them? They’d just beaten the odds. It wasn’t very often you could establish the identity in a body dump case with a few phone calls, but it looked like they had. But as quickly as he’d gone up, Shanlian came down.

He knew that the body was only the beginning. Its discovery was just the end of a long set of circumstances that led to murder. Where it really got interesting was the discovery of the killer and, hopefully, the motive. Motive isn’t necessary to convict, but it sure helps the jury convict the bad guy if they can understand why the crime was committed.

There was, of course, no guarantee there would be a trial. Or, an accused. District attorneys don’t like to talk about it, lest the voting populace kicks them out of office, but the fact is that every day in America, the perfect crime is committed. Many killers are never identified and are free to kill again.

Shanlian and his partner, Melki, knew all this. No cop likes to admit that a bad guy can outwit him or her and get away with murder, but they all know it happens. Shanlian just hoped that this wouldn’t be one of those times.

Shanlian and Melki bundled into their topcoats. They got into their unmarked Ford Taurus and headed south on Interstate 75. Their destination was the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills. Shanlian gazed out into the night that had seemed to fall so fast in late afternoon.

He wasn’t thinking that someplace out there in the towns where lights were just coming on to illuminate the encroaching darkness there was a bullet with his name on it. Sure, once in a while there was that mortal chance of encountering a murderer who was packing and who decided he didn’t want to be taken in to face a trial and a life sentence, who pulls that weapon and fires. Like anytime he went into the field, Shanlian just hoped that no one would be firing any weapons.

No, what he was really concerned about, what he was really thinking about, was the case itself.

The biggest danger to a homicide cop was that the job would seep through that barrier he’d built up in his brain between his professional and personal life. What was to be feared on a regular basis was not the murderer’s bullets but the grief of the loved ones the victim left behind; it was not the knife of the murderer but the rage behind the blade, the anger that propelled the crime and caused a human being to abandon all civilized behavior and instead resort to deadly force.

Grief, rage, anger. It was only so long, only so many years of visiting crime scenes, before the brain went toxic from it all.

Kevin Shanlian and Chuck Melki got to the Auburn Hills Police Department at 6:50 P.M. They had called earlier to say they were coming down and working a murder case. Since it was still not clear who would have venue in the case—because no one yet knew where the suspected victim Nancy Billiter had died—Detective Scott Edwards of the Auburn Hills Police Department had been assigned to the case.

“Look, I have a contact at South Boulevard Station,” he told Shanlian and Melki. “I already called over there.”

Edwards had gone ahead and questioned the people over at the restaurant and found out Billiter’s last-known address and her physical description.

“Okay, let’s go over to the restaurant,” said Shanlian. “We still need a positive ID.”

They drove through the wind and cold, through the air filled with moisture coming off Lake Michigan. The car’s heater wasn’t the greatest in the world; the cold air seemed to go right through them, chilling their bones. But when they got to South Boulevard Station a few minutes later, they found it warm and comfortable inside.

Edwards flashed the tin and asked the bartender where the manager was. The bartender motioned to a back office, where they found Eddie Grant.

“Well, she’s about forty-five, about five three, one hundred thirty pounds or so.”

“What about her work uniform? Could you describe it, please?” Shanlian asked easily.

“Uh, it’s a pullover shirt that comes in three colors—green, tan or burgundy.”

According to Grant, Billiter had volunteered to come into work on her day off, Wednesday, but she did not show up. He called her house several times to see what was going on but got no response. When he thought about it, Grant realized he actually hadn’t seen her since she left work on Tuesday night. Shanlian asked if he had her time card handy. Grant quickly came up with it and handed it over.

Gazing at the machine-printed notations, Shanlian saw that Billiter had punched out of work on Tuesday, November 11, at 9:09 P.M., after working the second shift.

“Actually, the time clock is off by an hour,” Grant added, “so Nancy actually worked until nine after ten.”

Shanlian knew that sometime after that and before this afternoon, someone killed her. The detective reached inside the breast pocket of his sport jacket and came out with a picture.

“Mr. Grant, that’s a death scene photograph of a victim in our county we are trying to identify.”

Grant took a deep breath and held it in his hands like some valuable relic. He gazed at the picture of the bloody face wrapped up in the flowered blanket and then looked up. He had a confused, shocked expression on his face.

“Nancy’s friend, Carol, had called a little while ago. She said she hadn’t seen Nancy since Tuesday and she was worried,” Grant replied.

He looked in a filing cabinet and came out with Billiter’s file, which had her phone number and her address. She had lived only a few miles from the restaurant. He copied it onto a sheet of white paper that he gave to Shanlian.

“She lived with her mother. Look, I should also tell you,” Grant said reluctantly, “that Nancy was using cocaine. She was a good waitress and everything, but she had a problem with the drug.”

“Yeah, she was friends with Kip Selbach, one of the waiters. I’ll get him for you.”

A few minutes later, Grant came back with Selbach, a tall, good-looking man in his early thirties. He said that he’d known Billiter for a few years and they’d become friends. Shanlian showed him the crime scene photograph and Selbach identified Billiter immediately.

Shanlian asked him what was she wearing the last time he saw her. He was trying to determine if she had time to go home and change. Or, did the murder take place before she got home?

Selbach was certain that the last time he saw her, Billiter was wearing her burgundy work shirt, black jeans, jeans jacket and black tennis shoes. That was an exact match to the clothing the “Jane Doe” had been found in.

“Nancy had waited at the restaurant for about an hour after punching out on Tuesday. Four of the regulars had offered her a ride home, but she turned them all down.”

They had just cut two hours off the time frame, from 9:00 to 11:00 P.M. Two hours less to figure out what had happened before Nancy Billiter died. But they needed to get even more specific.

Shanlian wondered if there was anyone else she was friendly with, and Selbach recalled she was friendly with Yvonne Craig, the receptionist. A few minutes later, Grant brought in a petite blonde with a knockout figure.

“I only knew Nancy a couple of months. I met her here at work,” said Yvonne somewhat defensively.

“Around ten o’clock on Tuesday, when Bill Bernhard drove her home.” Bernhard was a regular at the restaurant. “I loaned him my car to drive her home. He came back around eleven and gave me the keys and then Bill stayed until closing time.”

Craig figured closing time for about one o’clock. She didn’t know Bernhard well, only from the restaurant. She had no idea where he lived.

“How was Nancy acting in the last week?” Shanlian asked. “Was everything all right with her?”

“Well, Nancy was upset last week because her roommate, Carol, was accusing her of stealing from her. Nancy had told Carol that someone had broken into her house, but Carol was suspicious. She didn’t believe that.”

Yvonne wasn’t sure what Carol’s last name was, but she thought it might be “Giles.” She thought that Carol lived on Orchard Lake Road in Bloomfield but couldn’t be sure.

Edwards told the Flint cops that West Bloomfield was the next town over. He went out to the pay phone and called Information, trying to get an address for Bill Bernhard. But Bernhard wasn’t listed with Information and Edwards didn’t want to take the time right then to check with motor vehicles. Besides, it didn’t sound like Bernhard had had anything to do with the murder.

On his second call to Information, Edwards was able to locate an address for a Carol Giles. She lived on Walnut Lake Road in West Bloomfield Township.

At 9:00 P.M., the cops left the restaurant. The Slocum address Grant had given them, where Nancy Billiter lived with her mother, was only a few blocks from the restaurant. They pulled up to the modest house at 9:07 P.M. The name on the curbside mailbox was BURKE. Shanlian figured that must be the mother’s name. Walking up the tree-lined driveway, they felt the chill wind picking up.

It was Phyllis Burke, Nancy Billiter’s sixty-four-year-old mother, who answered the doorbell. She opened the door and looked at three tall, burly-looking men in overcoats.

Edwards flashed the tin. He explained that they were police officers investigating a crime and that her daughter might be involved. The three men stepped inside; Burke had enough presence of mind to close the door behind them. Immediately, Shanlian asked her if she had a photograph of Nancy Billiter. His tone was gentle, considering the urgency of the circumstances.

Not saying a word, with a creeping dread in her heart, Phyllis Burke went into the living room and came back with a framed snapshot of a smiling middle-aged woman. Shanlian pulled the picture from his pocket and compared them.

Burke began sobbing, great heaves of grief. She called her two daughters, Susan Garrison and Karen Clason, and told them, “The police are here. They say Nancy has been murdered.” The girls said they’d be right there.

They had had a big argument and she had asked her daughter to leave. Shanlian figured it must have been one hell of an argument.

“Early October, I think it was the ninth. Even though Nancy was the legal guardian, I been taking care of my great-grandson since.”

“Oh, Mom,” she said, and ran to her mother and put her arms around her. They hugged for a long, interminable moment, the cops shuffling their feet awkwardly, until they broke the embrace and the woman introduced herself.

Shanlian sized her up as a woman in her late thirties or early forties. A moment later, the door opened and another woman ran in, looking a lot like the other two in the room. She, too, embraced Burke and then introduced herself as Susan Garrison, Nancy’s other sister.

Shanlian suggested that while Melki and Edwards talk to Mrs. Burke, the sisters and he go into another room to talk. The two sisters followed him into a bedroom, where they began to talk about their sister.

Nancy Billiter’s partner, the one she lived with day and night, thought about, and worked her ass off for, was cocaine.

Sober, Nancy could function at work, but as soon as she was off, she craved that hit that made her forget her troubles and put her into another, safer, warmer place.

Susan Garrison was aware that her older sister Nancy Billiter had a problem with drugs, but Billiter had reassured her that that was in the past. Garrison had no reason to doubt her.

Nancy and her siblings, Susan, Karen and Doug, had grown up as part of a close-knit family in the middle-class Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills. Headquarters for the Chrysler Corporation, the town was a combination of upper- and middle-class families. The former were the executives, the latter the workers, either in the auto plant or the various businesses that fed off the business of building cars.

Growing up, the Burke children were happy. Then, when Nancy was eight years old, their father was killed in a car accident. At twenty-six, Phyllis Burke was left a widow with five kids. She didn’t work.

Garrison recalled that they lived off SSI and from people helping out. The siblings became very self-sufficient in helping out their mother. They became even closer knit.

Perhaps because of the trauma involved, Susan, who was six years old when her father died, didn’t remember that time of life. What she did remember was sharing a room with Nancy.

Susan and Nancy were into Barbie dolls. They shared the same clothes. It was the 1960s and they listened to the same music—the Beatles, Kinks, and Stones. Later on, when they hit their teens, if Nancy had a boyfriend, she’d introduce Susan and they would double-date.

The two-year age difference meant they were in the same high school at the same time. Nancy did nothing to distinguish herself there; she was just an average student who was into boys. But she had aspirations of being a nurse, and upon her graduation from high school, she began looking into the health profession. Life, though, threw her a curve.

Nancy got pregnant out of wedlock and had a baby she named Stacy. She decided to raise Stacy on her own and support her herself.

Nancy became a waitress. She was a personable, good worker and had no trouble finding jobs. For the next twenty years, she supported herself and her child with eight- to twelve-hour shifts. She was on her feet so much, it wasn’t uncommon for her to come home with swollen legs. But she kept going—she had to. Her kid was relying on her, and nothing was more important to Nancy than her family.

In those years, the only real means of self-expression she had was sports. She was a great softball player. It was after high school that she got into sports, particularly softball. Nancy played shortstop and first base. She batted right-handed.