47 pages • 1 hour read
Stone Maidens
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Chapter 25-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the novel contains depictions of violence and gore.
Sheriff McFaron flies to Chicago to visit Prusik, who convinces him to help her investigate the condemned tenement buildings where Donald Holmquist once lived with his mother. They find evidence that someone has been at the apartment recently, including urine-soaked mattresses and large jars filled with something dark (implied to be human remains). They also find a photo of two young boys, whom Prusik identifies as Donald Holmquist and David Claremont. Prusik calls Thorne to report her new theory that Holmquist is the killer, but Thorne shuts her down, insisting that she focus on forensic evidence to pin the murders on Claremont.
Frustrated, Prusik decides to go above Thorne’s head to pursue the Holmquist lead. She calls the lead prosecutor in Weaversville and demands Claremont’s release, claiming that the FBI will take full responsibility for the fallout. Prusik explains that she believes Holmquist is watching the news and will attempt to contact his brother if he is freed. The prosecutor reluctantly agrees to the plan. However, Sheriff McFaron, horrified that Prusik would lie to her boss and break the chain of command in this way, decides to fly back to Indiana rather than support her. As Prusik leaves the airport, she finds a bloody red feather left on her car.
Chapter 26 Summary
Claremont is released to his parents’ farm on a $500,000 bail with police supervision. Dr. Walstein reluctantly agrees to conduct court-ordered therapy appointments for the duration of the trial. He approaches the barn where Claremont is working with a stun gun and a syringe of narcotics hidden in his jacket. Dr. Walstein is startled by the sound of approaching footsteps and falls, accidentally injecting himself with an overdose of narcotics. As he passes out, he sees a man who looks like Claremont (implied to be Holmquist, aka “Jasper”) standing over him. Half an hour later, Holmquist, dressed as Dr. Walstein, sneaks past police on the Claremont farm with the real Dr. Walstein in the trunk of his car and Claremont passed out in the back seat.
Shortly after Prusik confirms that the jars found at the Holmquist apartment are filled with human remains, she’s called to Thorne’s office. Thorne reveals that Claremont escaped police supervision and suspends Prusik without giving her the opportunity to explain. As Prusik packs up her personal belongings, her secretary reminds her that she promised to speak to a Girl Scout troop in Crosshaven and that her plane will leave shortly. Prusik arrives late to Crosshaven and is forced to walk when the town’s unreliable car breaks down five miles away from the Girl Scout camp.
Chapter 27 Summary
Claremont awakes in the back of a moving car with the sense that he is also driving the car. The driver (implied to be Holmquist) shares many of his tics and habits, and Claremont cannot shake the feeling that they are the same person. Suddenly, he realizes that this is the man who has been committing the violence in his visions. Claremont feels desperate to stop the man from committing more violence but struggles with the fact that Holmquist can hear his thoughts. Holmquist stops the car and gives Claremont a small stone to swallow.
Meanwhile, Maddy Heath, the younger sister of murder victim Julie Heath and one of the Girl Scouts waiting for Prusik, disappears into the woods. She finds a badly injured man and offers to help him, but the man warns her to run.
After Prusik has walked for miles, a car finally stops to help her. Prusik accepts a ride but quickly realizes that Holmquist is driving the car. She speaks to him directly, trying to provoke an emotional reaction so he will let her go. Holmquist loses his temper and attacks her with Dr. Walstein’s stolen stun gun.
Sheriff McFaron is called to the girl scout camp to find Maddy Heath. As he enters the woods, he finds a man with a bloodied face carrying her back to camp.
Chapter 28 Summary
When Prusik wakes, Holmquist is standing over her prodding at the scar on her abdomen. He threatens to stun her again, then resumes driving. A radio report announces that Claremont has been re-arrested near the Girl Scout camp. Prusik begins to panic, worrying that Holmquist plans to kill her. Holmquist reveals that he saw Prusik react strongly to the Papua New Guinea exhibit at the Chicago Museum of Natural History and began to believe that she was as fascinated by the stone charms as he is. He promises that he will give her a charm of her own. Desperate, Prusik secretly calls McFaron and loudly asks Holmquist questions about his driving, hoping McFaron will be able to determine their location from the conversation. Shortly after, McFaron appears in a large SUV and forces Holmquist’s car off the road. McFaron is pinned in his car, but Holmquist and Claremont (whom McFaron had arrested) both manage to escape into a nearby field. Prusik manages to shoot Holmquist in the stomach, but Claremont begs her not to kill his brother. Confident that Holmquist’s injuries will kill him, Prusik lets the two men run off together while she waits for reinforcements.
Chapter 29 Summary
The next morning, McFaron is called to a farmer’s field to investigate a disturbing sight. Claremont’s corpse has been found tangled up in vicious thorns, with birds pecking at his eyes and tongue. McFaron regrets Claremont’s death, knowing that he saved both Maddy Heath and Prusik. He’s also disturbed by the knowledge that Holmquist’s body was found in the same condition the night before.
Later, McFaron and Prusik have an awkward conversation about their relationship as they wait for Prusik’s flight to Chicago to resume her job with the FBI. Prusik admits that she is afraid she can’t form intimate relationships and explains her traumatic attack in Papua New Guinea. McFaron insists that their relationship is worth pursuing, and Prusik agrees. As they kiss, McFaron notices that Prusik has a high fever, and rushes her to the hospital.
Prusik wakes in the hospital to the news that a small stone figurine was removed from her abdomen. She realizes that Holmquist put it there when she was unconscious. Prusik calls Dr. Katz, confused as to why Holmquist didn’t kill her. Katz theorizes that Claremont’s appreciation for her overpowered Holmquist’s desire to kill. McFaron arrives and reaffirms his desire to pursue a relationship with Prusik, who finally feels safe.
Epilogue Summary
Newscasters arrive at the Blackie Nursing Home to interview Earl Avery, an elderly man who is suspected to be the father of David Claremont and Donald Holmquist. The reporters question Avery on the decades-old disappearance of two girls near the coal-mining camp where he once worked, assuming that Holmquist inherited his murderous rage from his father. Avery refuses to answer the questions, and the reporters leave.
Alone, Avery indulges himself in reliving the memory of one of the killings. While baling hay one day, he becomes overwhelmed by the scent of a girl nearby and follows her into a cornfield. His desire becomes so overpowerful that he passes out. When he wakes, he chases the girl deeper into the cornfield and kills her by snapping her neck. He then carries her into the mine where he works and removes her organs, which he eats. He then throws her body into the deepest part of the mine. In the present, Avery relishes the memory.
Chapter 25-Epilogue Analysis
In the novel’s climax, Richards converges each of his story threads as all three main characters meet face to face. The narrative pace increases and events progress rapidly as the action builds toward the final showdown between Prusik, Claremont, and Holmquist. In Chapter 25, Prusik’s theory about Claremont being a twin is confirmed, and the discovery of bloody jars in Holmquist’s home reaffirms her theory that Holmquist, and not Claremont, is the murderer. In Chapter 26, a man with “David Claremont’s face” attacks Dr. Walstein on the Claremont farm, and shortly after, Walstein’s car leaves the property with a “small swatch of fabric from Dr. Walstein’s jacket” sticking out of the trunk and “a rumpled blanket across the backseat” (281-82). Prusik’s colleagues refuse to take her information seriously, highlighting the novel’s thematic exploration of Gendered Prejudice in Law Enforcement. The fact that Prusik is suspended from the FBI before she can share her theories with her colleagues adds additional suspense here, requiring Prusik to overcome both material and bureaucratic obstacles to finally catch the murderer.
As Prusik races to catch Holmquist, Richards uses visual imagery that evokes the killer’s previous crimes, emphasizing the danger of the situation for his protagonist. For example, Prusik’s driver watches her “disappear around a bend, shaded by the dark boughs of overhanging hemlock” (291-92). In this passage, the use of the word “disappear” along with the imagery of dark trees suggests Prusik will be Holmquist’s next victim. The quick progression of action in these chapters, leading to the cliffhanger at the end of Chapter 26, points directly to the climactic confrontation between Holmquist and Prusik.
The long-awaited meeting between Holmquist and Claremont, who have only recently learned of each other’s existence, underscores the novel’s thematic interest in Nature Versus Nurture in Human Development. In Chapter 27, the deliberate use of vague pronouns (“he” and “his”) to refer to Holmquist rather than his name attempts to disorient the reader. The confusion around Holmquist’s identity mirrors Claremont’s own confusion, suddenly learning he has a brother. When Claremont awakes in the back of a car, he has no idea who “the driver” is: “to Claremont it seem[s] as if he himself were driving, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t” (293). The repeated use of the pronoun “he” in this passage emphasizes Claremont’s ongoing conflation of himself and his twin. This pattern is repeated later in the chapter, as a “disorienting sensation” causes Claremont to experience a “double vision” (297). In this double vision, Claremont “[sees] himself muttering up front, knowing it [is] this other, and yet, at the same time, from somewhere deep inside” he acknowledges that “Claremont’s very own shame [is] directing him” (297). Here again, the pronouns “him” and “himself” have unclear antecedents, demonstrating Claremont’s confusion about the boundaries between his identity and that of his newfound twin. These passages highlight the complex relationship between Holmquist and Claremont and frame Claremont’s eventual heroic turn as even more surprising.
In the Epilogue, Richards reveals that Holmquist and Claremont’s father, Earl Avery, was also a violent murderer who engaged in cannibalistic behavior, framing Holmquist’s violent tendencies as inherited behavior. In the final scenes of the novel, Avery reminisces on his first kill in language identical to the opening scenes of the Prologue. In both the Prologue and the Epilogue, the sight of a young girl in a sundress sends an unnamed man “tumbling down the wooden steps and out into the hazy August air” (7, 339). The man follows this woman “into the corn as if pulled by a ring in his nose” before “his skin began to crawl as if covered in a swarm of ants” (7, 339). Although the Prologue ends with the man passing out, the Epilogue shows Avery regaining his strength before killing the girl and eating her organs. By bookending these scenes of violence, Richards suggests that this violence is cyclical, passed from one generation to the next. Richard’s allusion to being pulled by a ring in one’s nose underscores the stigmatizing and inaccurate parallels he draws throughout the novel between the violent murders and cannibalism committed by Earl and Holmquist and the traditional, ritualistic practices of Indigenous communities in Papua New Guinea.
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