47 pages • 1 hour read
Stone Maidens
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Chapters 16-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the novel contains depictions of violence and child abuse.
The similarities of the case to her experiences in Papua New Guinea trigger a traumatic response in Prusik. She begins to worry that her bosses will consider her incompetent and fire her, as her mother was fired before being hospitalized for depression. Prusik theorizes that the killer adopted the practice of implanting the amulets in his victims after seeing the museum exhibit and that he adopted the ritual to reinvent his sense of self. She interprets the urine found near Julie Heath as evidence that he struggles with shame. Brian Eisen calls with news that Betsy Ryan’s corpse shows evidence of throat damage consistent with the other victims. However, he believes the stone was rough and made of local stone, suggesting that the killer did not use one of the amulets stolen from the museum in Chicago.
Chapter 17 Summary
Two days after attacking the girl at the farm store, Claremont feels anxious and agitated. He waits outside of a church in Weaversville and chooses a teenage girl to follow. He believes the girl is signaling her desire to him as she walks by. Claremont drives erratically past her, then pulls over and begins chasing her through the woods. In his agitated state, Claremont is unable to catch her. He’s stopped by local police for erratic driving, and they question him about spending nearly an hour in the woods. In his wallet, they find a recent ticket to the Chicago Museum of Natural History. Recognizing his face from Joey Templeton’s sketch, the police ask Claremont to follow them to the station. Claremont agrees.
Chapter 18 Summary
Sheriff McFaron escorts FBI Agent Bruce Howard to the Crosshaven crime scene. Howard is rude and condescending to McFaron and quickly dismisses him from the scene. McFaron receives a call from police in the nearby town of Parker about a young girl named Sarah who believes she was chased by the suspected killer after soccer practice. McFaron is shocked that the killer would be working so close to the site of his last kill and arranges to interview the girl with Prusik. He asks Prusik to have lunch with him first, insisting that she needs to eat. Prusik is shocked to hear that Howard is in Crosshaven and has not contacted her, despite the fact that she is leading the case. She calls Howard and pretends not to be bothered but does not share the news about the new witness, Sarah.
Chapter 19 Summary
Prusik receives a call from Thorne through Howard, who interrupts her lunch with Sheriff McFaron. Thorne shares that Howard has questioned Claremont in connection to Julie Heath’s murder and that, as a result, Howard is being promoted to lead investigator over Prusik. Prusik is humiliated by Howard’s smug response and the fact that Thorne didn’t call her directly. Although Joey positively identifies Claremont as the man he saw near the spot where Julie Heath disappeared, Prusik is not convinced that Claremont is the killer. She believes Claremont’s attack at the farm store is out of character for a killer who usually works deep in the forest. Despite her concerns, Claremont is publicly arrested for Julie Heath’s murder. Claremont insists on his innocence and refuses to work with a lawyer.
Chapter 20 Summary
A young man (implied to be Jasper, the true killer) drives to the outskirts of Chicago, frustrated by the fact that his most recent intended victims have escaped. He buys a number of large glass jars to complete a canning project in the now-condemned building where he was raised. The visit brings up difficult childhood memories. When he was younger, he frequently wet the bed. His mother punished him ruthlessly, forcing him to swallow pieces of gravel as punishment. Shortly before his mother’s death, she sent him to the Chicago Museum of Natural History. He had been fascinated by a display of stone amulets from Papua New Guinea and believed the New Guinean tribesmen were calling him to continue their tradition.
In the present, Jasper feels pleased that someone has been arrested for the murder of Julie Heath and begins to grow obsessed with the FBI agent he sees on TV. He panics when he sees a sketch of the subject, who bears a shocking resemblance to himself. Meanwhile, Prusik and McFaron go on a date.
Chapter 21 Summary
Prusik convinces Howard to let her interview Claremont. During the interview, Claremont agrees to have his blood tested and an impression taken of his teeth. Prusik discovers that a bite wound on the back of Claremont’s hand is self-inflicted. Claremont maintains his innocence, insisting that seeing a crime is not the same as committing it. He describes his visions as a demon in his head but resists Prusik’s suggestions that the crimes are being committed by someone he knows. Prusik grows increasingly anxious during the interview and struggles to maintain composure. As the interview progresses, she becomes convinced that Claremont is innocent and that someone who looks similar to him is committing the crime. She convinces Claremont to write down the details of his visions in the hopes that it will help the investigation.
Chapter 22 Summary
Howard and Thorne dismiss Prusik’s suspicions that Claremont is not the killer, insisting that the forensic evidence will prove his guilt. Prusik reluctantly returns to Chicago to complete the forensic work as ordered. Before leaving, she and McFaron make plans to continue to see and get to know each other. Prusik remains convinced that Claremont is innocent: he is lefthanded, and forensic evidence suggests the killer is right-handed. He is also a confirmed homebody, besides two known trips to Chicago, and Prusik doesn’t believe he’d drive four hours to commit a murder. After arriving in Chicago, Prusik drives one hour to the lake dunes near a truck stop where Betsey Ryan was believed to be killed. Prusik is watched from a distance by the killer (implied to be Jasper), who followed her from the FBI office in Chicago out to the crime scene.
Chapter 23 Summary
Prusik meets with Dr. Emil Katz, an FBI behavioral scientist. She shares her theory that Claremont is innocent and that Joey identified him based on his reflected image, not his true face. Brian Eisen interrupts with news that Claremont’s dental records are not a match for those found on the victim and that his prints are the inverse of those found at the scene. Katz suggests that Claremont may be a mirror twin, a rare twin type in which one egg splits to produce individuals who are mirror images of each other. In such cases, twins may sense when the other is in danger or excited. Katz theorizes that Claremont is picking up on his twin’s errant behaviors, making Claremont’s claims of seeing crimes but not participating possible. Prusik arranges to find out if Claremont was adopted or has a twin he’s never known.
Chapter 24 Summary
Prusik confirms that the Claremonts adopted Claremont from Chicago when he was eleven months old. She visits the adoption agency to learn as much as she can about the adoption but quickly discovers that the task may be impossible. Claremont was adopted from the Crowder Agency, a small, private agency that was later purchased by a larger conglomerate called Loving Home. The Crowder records are very sparse, and Prusik is forced to go directly to the president of Loving Home in order to obtain them. She eventually discovers that Claremont’s birth mother was a 38-year-old Norwegian immigrant named Bruna Holmquist and that Claremont did in fact have a brother named Donald, who may have been his twin. Prusik orders Brian Eisen to circulate a reverse image of the Claremont sketch and develops a plan.
Chapters 16-24 Analysis
In this section, containing the novel’s falling action, Howard’s promotion over Prusik emphasizes the novel’s thematic exploration of Gendered Prejudice in Law Enforcement. Richards describes the circumstances of Howard’s promotion as “beyond demoralizing” to Prusik, and the fact that Managing Director Thorne (with whom she had a previous affair) promotes Howard without telling her adds insult to injury, leaving Prusik feeling “thoroughly humiliated” (185). This loss of power contributes to her growing unease about the case and exacerbates her unresolved emotional trauma triggered by memories of her past. Prusik’s loss of control and the deterioration of her emotional state signal the falling action of the novel as the plot moves toward the climax.
Claremont’s loss of control and increasing psychological duress in these chapters escalate both the emotional and material stakes of the plot as he and Prusik become progressively aligned in their goals. Claremont’s detainment in Chapter 17 signals a literal loss of control when he becomes the lead suspect in Julie Heath’s murder investigation. His interrogation in Chapter 21 suggests that, in addition to his literal arrest, he’s also lost control of his mental state as the distinction between himself and his visions of his twin brother’s murderous actions becomes more and more blurred in his mind. During the interrogation, Claremont admits that although he “can’t say exactly where he comes from,” he believes that the killer resides inside him, “right there inside” (218). Richards underscores Prusik’s intuition in this scene, framing this confession and the “depths of the man’s despair” visible on Claremont’s face as evidence not of guilt, but of severe mental distress. Claremont’s arrest and Prusik’s dismissal by Thorne and Howard act a ticking clock, motivating Prusik to do whatever is necessary to find the truth about Holmquist before an innocent man is convicted.
Richards uses cliffhangers to build suspense, presenting conflicting information in quick succession that deepens the mystery of the killings. For example, Chapter 17 ends on a cliffhanger after police officers ask Claremont to accompany him for questioning rather than arresting him outright. At this point in the novel, Richards has led readers to believe that Claremont is the killer. The officers’ assessment that Claremont is “not a flight risk” (174) and their certainty that he “ain’t going nowhere” (175) is ironic in this context and may lead readers to worry that Claremont will, in fact, escape. Crucially, Richards moves away from Claremont’s storyline in Chapter 18, leaving his arrest as a tantalizing cliffhanger. This cliffhanger adds to the existing tension in the novel.
Richards also builds tension by multiple pieces of conflicting information in quick succession. Claremont’s arrest in Chapter 19 for “the malicious and wanton killing of Julie Heath” (192) is immediately followed by the revelation in Chapter 20 that Claremont is not the killer, as an unnamed man reflects on the killings in a condemned apartment in Chicago. As the killer gloats about the fact that “an innocent dumbshit [had been] arrested for what he’d done” (200), the reader is led to believe that Claremont and the killer are unknown to each other. This idea is quickly contradicted by the killer’s strong reaction to the resemblance between himself and Claremont, which had “shaken him to his core” (200). The quick revelation of details here has an equally destabilizing effect on the readers, who understand why Claremont was mistakenly arrested, but cannot identify the connection between the men.
These chapters introduce the recurring motif of bad mothers as Prusik grapples with the lasting effects of her mother’s behavior during her childhood. Prusik’s increasingly fragile emotional state reminds her of her mother, who struggled with mental health issues throughout her life. Prusik claims to have “learned tantrums young watching her mother’s wild ones” (165). Later, when McFaron teases her about homemade breakfasts, Prusik sadly reveals that her mother “wasn’t that kind of mother” (180). These passages suggest that Prusik feels the fallout of her mother’s emotional turmoil long into adulthood, underscoring The Last Effects of Traumatic Events.
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