Ruins

As the truth behind Dylan Holt’s murder finally comes into focus, Mags and Amy find themselves racing toward something already in motion. 

What begins as a last attempt to contain the fallout turns into a confrontation where buried histories surface, old alliances fracture, and the cost of knowing the truth becomes impossible to ignore.

In a town built on what survives the record, “Ruins” brings the mystery to its breaking point.

And when it’s over, nothing feels settled.

Transcript

Murder Girls is created, written, and produced by Eternal Teenager. Content Warning This episode contains depiction of a gunshot and non-graphic injury, references to murder and ongoing criminal investigation, discussion of past killings and orchestrated harm, themes of systemic corruption and cover-up, references to environmental contamination, references to marijuana use, discussion of familial trauma and hidden parentage, emotional distress and confrontation, and profanity throughout. Listener discretion is advised.

Previously on Murder Girls.

They're meeting again about everything Dylan touched and everything that's touched it since.

Whoa! Nora? I made it here. Why here?

Because Dylan told me to find you. There's a storage space.

They're watching it. If they're watching it, they're watching for us specifically. We need someone they wouldn't clock.

So who's not on anyone's radar?

Kathy, we need a favor. We need you to go to a storage facility.

Say more.

There's a unit there connected to Dylan Holt. You just be going in, accessing the unit, retrieving what's inside.

Okay, I'm in. There's something behind the duffel, a satchel.

That's it.

I've got it.

The photograph first.

Bella Harper, young and pregnant, and Victor Holt next to her, younger by decades, but already arranged the same way.

This must have been taken in the early 70s, probably 1972. There's a letter with it. I'll read it. Victor has told me what has happened. Victor does not lose things he has decided to keep. He does not lose things he has decided to let go of either. He decides. That is the whole of it. His legacy is not something he will ever allow to be complicated. Not by you, not by the child, not by anyone. Joanna Bergman Holt, Foster System Records. Transfers. It looks like it might be a private agency.

Not the state.

So someone made sure this kid ended up somewhere specific?

Not random placement, not the system doing its thing.

Placed. Dylan was getting close.

Private agencies in the early 70s had very limited oversight.

So someone could have used that system deliberately, to place the child where they wanted.

Yes. 50 years is a long time. And someone clearly knew how to make a trail go quiet. I want to move before they do.

Go to them directly, with legal backing.

You're not cornered yet, Nora. I know it feels that way. Just remember, people like Victor Holt only panic when something personal walks into the room.

Victor Holt. Bella Harper. A child born in October 1972, handed to a private placement agency.

It's a woman, 53 or 54, who didn't disappear. Who was placed? Who grew up knowing the system from the inside out?

Someone with legal literacy tidied this up, not once, twice.

Based on what we have here, seems like Dylan stopped researching before he found the destination.

Maybe he stopped because he didn't need to keep researching.

He found her.

That's why he was at the docks, to meet her.

Let me check the camera routes near the docks during the murder window. Not seeing anything, but there's a gap. This corridor, the route between Coastal Drive and the docks avoids every camera.

That's not an accident.

No.

Oh.

Oh my god.

Holy shit.

I know who killed Dylan Holt.

Fuck. It's Nora.

Answer it. Nora, where are you?

We're going to Victor.

Whatever they're planning, I want it in the open before that happens.

You don't do that alone.

We need to get to the cabin. Now.

Murder Girls, episode 29, Ruins.

So this is like an official deposition?

It's a formal statement. For the record, your account of the events as you observe them.

Like on Law and Order?

A little like that, though hopefully less dramatic.

We're on Law and Order. We're not on Law and Order. We're essentially on Law and Order.

So I'm just going over some of the things we discussed last time to make sure I have it correct. Why don't we start at the beginning? The night you first observed lights on the island.

Okay, so we'd been out at the campground and Mags wanted to go to sleep at like 9.30.

It was 11 and I wanted to go to sleep because we had been hiking all day.

And I saw the lights and I said, Mags, there are lights.

And she said, I said, we should tell a grownup.

Which respectfully would have been the wrong call.

It would have been the correct and responsible call.

They would have dismissed it entirely.

Oh God, absolutely, yes. But that's not the point.

Girls, one at a time. And let's keep it to what you actually saw, what you observed directly.

Right. Okay. We saw lights over the island.

At first, that was it.

We thought they were aliens.

We wanted them to be aliens. But then we noticed there were corresponding lights on the island.

And also from boats in the sound.

Repeated.

Like call and response and code. Over several nights.

Yes. Yeah.

So we went to investigate.

And when you say you went to investigate, we stole, we took the Henderson's kayak.

Borrowed the Henderson's kayak. We did ask, sort of. We left a note.

We left a very detailed note.

It was thorough.

And just to be clear, you visited the island before Roscoe Wilkins murder. Is that correct?

Yeah, that's right.

We knew he'd been on the island. They found plants on him that only grow there.

How did you know that?

We had seen them on the island. And then we asked my dad about them.

How did you know about the plants on his body? The police didn't release any of that information.

Uh, well, not officially.

Okay, we'll come back to that. There's one part of your account I want to return to. You mentioned in your initial statement to Deputy Nichols that you believed you recognized one of the individuals involved based on...

Based on his truck and his jacket and the way he walks, actually. He has this very specific...

And you're confident in that identification?

We're fairly confident.

We're very confident.

We saw him from 30 feet away, in the dark, for maybe eight seconds.

Eight very clear seconds.

What I'd suggest for the purposes of this statement is that we focus on what you can confirm directly. What you saw, what you documented. The identification, if we include it, should be noted as...

But that's what happened. He was there. We saw him. That's important.

I understand, and it may be very important. But what matters in a formal statement is what can be proven.

So we say what we can document.

Yes, what you can document, what the evidence supports. The rest, the rest doesn't disappear. It just doesn't go into the record.

Okay.

You've both done something genuinely extraordinary. I want you to know that. What you documented, what you found, that's what's going to matter.

Thank you. Yeah, thanks.

I'll need you back next week to review the final draft before it's signed. Your parents will need to be present for that.

Our parents.

Right. We're going to have to tell them the kayak part.

We were always going to have to tell them the kayak part.

I know. I just keep hoping it'll somehow not come up.

What you say here matters. Make sure it's the part that lasts. You should be proud of yourselves. Be careful out there, girls.

Genuinely extraordinary.

She said it. She said it. We are professionals now. We are not professionals.

We're 12.

Professionally 12.

That's not a thing.

We have official depositions on file. That's a thing. That is technically a thing. Told you. Oh, hey. Did you hear someone wants to write a book about us? About the case?

What?

No.

Do you think I would shut up about that if I knew?

Good point. Good point. Her name is Minerva. Cool, right? She called my dad yesterday. She wants to interview us.

Us?

Me and you?

Mags and Amy? Specifically?

Specifically us. About the case. We should do it. Obviously, we should do it.

When?

She said whenever. She's very flexible, apparently. I'm not sure she has a job.

I think we should be very professional about it, very measured, very-

Oh, totally.

Just stick to what we can document, what we observed directly.

What can be proven?

And we can't say anything about the boat.

What? Why not? That's an awesome part of the story.

Marion literally just told you not to.

In the deposition, not for the book. Those are different records. Amy. Fine. I won't say anything about the boat.

An author wants to write our story.

The truth about us. Minerva.

She sounds so cool.

Right? Oh my god. It's happening. It's happening.

This is the best day of our lives.

Call her again.

Voicemail.

Shit.

We need to tell her.

Not like that.

There isn't a better way to say.

Yeah, there is. It's called not blowing everything up before we get there.

If we're right?

We are right. We just don't know how bad it gets when we say it out loud.

She thinks she has leverage.

She does have leverage.

She doesn't have the last piece. No. I'll try her again. Voicemail. How far?

Less now.

The access road ends at a line of pines that haven't decided if they're a forest or a wall. Into the Holtwood, end of the track, Victor's land, Victor's cabin, and underneath it, beneath the cleared ground and the clean stone foundation, what was left of Calhoun Manor. He built on it, which told you everything you needed to know about the kind of man who could do that and sleep fine. Three cars.

Thomas, Victor, Marion.

We smelled it before we saw it.

Fire.

Behind the cabin.

Go.

We just ran. Toward the light, toward whatever it was, we were already too late to stop.

That's not what I was expecting.

It wasn't a structure fire, it was a fire pit, a controlled burn. Leaves and split wood in a ring of old stone, throwing orange light against the cabin's back wall. And there he was, Victor Holt, in a heavy coat, unhurried, feeding branches to the fire like he had nowhere else to be and nothing pressing on his mind. Which of course was exactly what he wanted everyone to see. Nora was there, standing with her arms folded across her chest, not cold, braced. Marion was slightly behind her and to the left, the way a second stands at a duel. Thomas was on the far side of the fire, not close enough to be part of the conversation, close enough to end it. No one had seen us yet. Ruins, the burning earth, the flames buried in the ground. Kenzie's vision. We were already inside it.

You came all this way to tell me something I already know.

I came to make sure you understand what happens next.

Then tell me.

The Niseka Council has the contamination reports, the full run, not the version that went to county. The acreage, the water table proximity, the chemical breakdown. They have Dylan's annotations on the environmental filings. They have the override documentation. We can't let this keep going. Let's go.

Oh, Amy, wait! Uh, oh, hello, it's us. Just us, Mags and Amy.

Oh my god.

Of course. We might as well do this properly.

Girls, you shouldn't be here.

It changes nothing. They'll tell you too. The Omnia deal is dead. That's already done. What we're deciding tonight is what happens after.

And what do you think happens after?

You can see the expansion.

All of it.

The southern acreage, the Niseka adjacency. You don't contest the council's claim on the remediation liability.

Is that all?

And Threshold makes a public statement acknowledging the contamination discrepancy before the regional board meeting on the 14th.

It was me. You want to talk to me. The expansion. The handling.

All of it.

That was me.

What?

The expansion call. The way the land records were processed. Victor didn't authorize the specific handling. Richard didn't know about the scope.

You expect me to believe...

I don't need you to believe it. I'm telling you how it is. When this goes to depositions, that's what the record will show.

And the threats, the intimidation?

Jake Mitchell? My father?

I handled what needed handling. Mitchell made a fool of my family. That was personal. Your father... Your father... That was business. I liked Johnny. Everyone did.

Right.

Thanks for confirming that.

You expect me to believe he acted alone on all of it?

That you didn't sign off?

Thomas is speaking for himself.

Dylan found all of this. He started pulling on it.

The contamination, the overrides, the land records.

He wasn't guessing. He had it. And then he ends up dead. You had him killed.

You think I would let something like that continue?

Like your wife? Like Johanna?

You're drawing conclusions.

You didn't lose her.

You decided.

Dylan was trying to document what happened to that land, what your family did to that watershed, what you buried, what you knew. He was building a case. Then he pulled it more and more threads.

He found out so much.

More than he wanted.

About his family. About you. About what you built this place on. About who you destroyed to do it. He stopped documenting. He started looking for someone. Someone who could prove it all. Because she was the proof. But he never found her.

No, he did. He met her.

He found her. There was just one hurdle standing in the way.

A legal one.

That's why Dylan stopped digging.

He didn't need to anymore.

Did he? Marion.

No. He didn't know. He had everything else.

Just not that.

He just didn't know who I was. Not in time.

You.

He trusted you. Marion.

Whoa. Hey.

Oh my God.

Put that down.

He came to me.

Didn't tell anyone.

Mistake.

Tragic mistake. He had the whole story laid out.

Like it meant something.

Like it was enough. Maybe it was. For him. But not for me. I thought, I thought if I took something from you, if I made you feel it, that would be enough. All these years here, and I had never gotten that close.

And did it work?

No. Nothing works.

So I'm going to do it properly this time. Don't.

Marion.

Stop.

Look at me.

Look at me.

I am. No.

Holy shit.

I'm.

I've got him. Nora, pressure here.

Okay.

Okay. Tell me what to do. Move, Amy.

You missed.

You don't even see it. All of it.

What you built.

What you buried.

I thought it would matter. I thought if I took something from you, you'd feel it.

Anything.

Marion, you already tried. You said it didn't work.

This is different.

No, it's the same. He's still not going to feel it. It won't work.

Then what does?

Nothing. That's the point. Dad.

Stay with me.

You're okay.

Nothing.

Marion, give me the gun. It's okay.

Nothing.

That's it. Good.

Are we finished?

You don't get to decide this one.

It's not yours anymore.

None of it is.

We'll see.

I'll call 911.

Gunshot wound, upper torso, left side. He's conscious. Bleeding but controlled.

Got it. Hi, yes. I'm at Victor Holt's cabin off Logging Access 7. We've got a gunshot wound. Adult male. He's conscious. Bleeding. We need paramedics now. There's a version of events that gets written down. It has a sequence, a timeline. By the time we called 911, the night had already decided what it was going to be. The EMTs got there first, then two deputies I didn't recognize from the Cedarbrook rotation, then Carter. By then, Thomas was on a gurney, Marion was at a cruiser, and Victor Holt was standing near the treeline with Deputy Lucas like they were discussing the weather. Lucas, not Carter, not anyone with rank enough to push back. Lucas, who once spent two hours getting subway.

You two, you want anyone to take a look at you?

We're okay.

We're good. Thank you.

Alright.

Lucas has been with Victor since he got here.

Yeah, saw that.

Carter's coming.

You two okay?

We're okay.

We're fine.

Good. You can give your statements tomorrow, formally.

Okay.

Thomas.

He's alive.

How bad.

He's stable. They're transporting him to Cedarbrook General now. He gave a statement before they moved him.

Holy shit. Already?

He was coherent. He wanted to. He's claiming full responsibility for the land expansion decisions, the contamination handling, all of that. And he also made statements regarding certain incidents, intimidation, pressure applied to individuals over the years as I'm sure you know.

What about Nora?

Ms. Chen is no longer a suspect in Dylan Holt's murder that's been formally revised as of tonight.

The stolen gun report? The framing?

We're looking at the full picture now. Yes.

She's been on the run for days.

I'm aware of that.

Yeah. She's probably gonna need that in writing.

And she'll get it.

Dude, you know that's not everything, right?

It's what I've got.

There's more. You know there's more.

There usually is.

Marion.

She cooperated fully, walked to the cruiser herself, made it easy on us.

Yeah, sounds about right.

And Victor?

We're working through it.

Working through it.

There will be charges. Some of this will stick.

Some.

Some.

Not to Victor, though.

Let's just wait and see.

We know what happened out here tonight.

Yeah. Well, unfortunately, it's not always the same thing as what gets written down.

The record is not the truth. The record is what survives the truth. Avalon Falls knows that better than anywhere. Dylan Holt figured that out and it killed him. My father figured it out and it didn't save him. Dee Dee figured it out and tried to change the outcome. I think it only really changed her. And Victor Holt was standing 40 feet away in the dark, talking quietly to a deputy who owed him something. While the woman who spent 30 years trying to make him feel anything, his own daughter, sat in the back of a sheriff's cruiser. Marion walked herself there. I keep thinking about that, the walking, the choice of it. She got there first, she always got there first, and it still wasn't enough. The Ruins don't care who owned them, they don't care who built on top of them, they just stay there, older than all of it. We stood there until someone asked us to move. Then we moved.

There isn't a playbook for what to do after you solve a murder. We learned that the first time, so we just stood there by the car in the cold.

Thomas stepped in front of it.

Yes.

He also signed off on my dad.

Yes.

Both of those things are true.

I don't know what to do with that. Don't know if I ever will.

You don't have to.

Well, I'm really starting to hate that. Oh, hey, what do you say we light this little gentleman here up and, you know...

Dude, do not. What?

Why?

Because we're standing in an active crime scene. That's why, why do I have to fucking explain that to you? Come on.

Come on, man. We're all torqued up, and I thought, Amy. Oh, fine. Okay.

The Omnia deal is dead.

Definitely.

And all the rest is, like, just...

Yeah, this is muy loco.

Yes, I mean, see.

If it didn't just happen right in front of me, I would not believe it.

I know, but we lived it.

Yeah, we did.

We were right.

We were right.

Again.

Again.

Great.

Really great. Nora, okay?

She's not hurt. But...

Yeah.

She's still in it. She'll be in it for a while. Marion was right about most of it.

She was.

Just, you know, not like, not that part.

Yeah, just not that part. You know what's gonna happen.

Town's gonna lose its mind.

Again.

We blew up a huge development deal that was supposed to set the town up for decades.

While actively investigating a murder, we were definitely told to stay away from.

Multiple times.

By multiple authority figures. We are going to be so hated.

Again.

Again.

Great.

Really great.

At least this time we're older.

So we get to be hated as adults. That's the upgrade.

The full grown up experience.

It felt different this time though.

How do you mean?

Osprey Island. We were 12. We didn't know what we were doing. We just thought we were solving it.

We were. We did.

Yeah. But this time I knew. The whole way through. I knew what blowing it open would cost. And we kept going anyway.

We did.

I think that's different.

I think so too.

Okay.

Okay. For the record, I'm telling everyone we were incredibly calm and professional tonight.

Obviously.

Textbook, really.

Not a single moment of chaos.

Very measured response to an extremely normal situation.

We should put that on the business card.

Murder Girls measured professional available for hire. Reasonable rates, light chaos, occasional arson adjacent.

We have never committed arson.

Amy, come on.

Not yet, anyway.

Amy.

Never on purpose. You were calm, though.

What? When?

Dude, when Thomas got shot, you ran into the middle of that and helped him. You went full doctor mode and I went full Amy melt mode.

Well, it's what any almost doctor would do.

I don't know any other almost doctors for a comparison, but it was still amazing.

Hey, you want to grab some late breakfast for dinner at Lula's and see how fast it takes for the town to hate us?

I mean, obviously.

Sweet.

Oh, we can park on beach and have a quick little conference with that little gentleman I was talking about earlier. Remember the thing I mentioned from earlier, like when we first got back here? The little gentleman, remember?

No?

The joint. I'm talking about the joint.

Ugh, fine!

It's funny, because it's cannabis.

We were different. I knew that standing there. We'd been right, we'd been scared, and we'd done it anyway. I wasn't sure what that made us. I wasn't sure it mattered. The access road back through the Holtwood takes 11 minutes. Amy made it in seven. I didn't say anything about it. Some things you just let happen.