by Karen Hayes
“I’ll fix breakfast, Harve,” she told him. “I don’t want to wait any longer.”
“Can you get Louise there, too?”
“No. She and Brandon drove into the city this morning to meet with Agatha’s attorneys. They’re going to find out just how rich Agatha made them.”
“Well, good for them. See you in five minutes.”
The sausage was cooked, the eggs were frying and the bread was toasting when Harve reached Copper’s apartment. The smell was enough to make him run up the stairs.
“I didn’t realize just how hungry I was until I got a whiff of that sausage,” he said. “Detective Jones ordered in some food while we were waiting for Sargent’s attorney to get there, but the attorney got there before the food did. So I haven’t eaten since the soup you fed me yesterday.”
“Okay. Three eggs instead of two,” Copper said as she reached into the fridge to grab another egg.
“Make it four,” Harve said. “I’m really hungry.”
Copper grabbed another egg.
“The DA really wants Sargent for all of these murders, include-ing the ex-wife,” Harve said, as he described for Copper the events of the previous afternoon. “He and Detective Jones are also look-ing into the cases of sexual impropriety that were filed against Don over the years. The cases were all brought before Judge Green, which suggests some legal impropriety. He’s the one that changed his mind about Ruby after she had her babies. He’s dead now, so they can’t subpoena him, but Sargent’s attorney is not very highly thought of, to say the least.” He thought for a moment. “The judge’s secretary is still around. I talked to her once before. Maybe I should call Jones and tell him to check her out. She might know something. But after breakfast.” He licked his lips at the plate of food Copper had placed in front of him.
“So you get to sit back and relax while they do the rest of the work?”
Harve smiled as he took a sip of orange juice. “I’ll be called upon to testify when the case comes to trial. You might be, too, since Agatha was killed in your store. But that’s about it.”
* * *
And that was about it for Sheriff Harve Blodgett on the case against Don Sargent. It was now in the hands of the PPB and the District Attorney’s Office. The Superintendent at Coffee Creek admitted to District Attorney Marvin Durham that Don Sargent had been transferred to Columbia River because of the numerous charges made against him by the female prisoners, even though the charges had never been substantiated.
“Some of the girls were lying, of course,” she said, “but there were too many of them coming forward for them all to be making it up.” Abby Taylor’s case was an obvious one, since she had become pregnant. However, since she had declined to name her abuser, they could not prove it was Sargent, although he was highly suspected. He also had a lot of complaints filed against him when he was at the old Women's Correctional Facility down in Salem. Of note was the fact that Ruby Stone had filed one of those charges, although she had later withdrawn it. The cases kept getting thrown out of court, of course, after being brought in front of Judge Green. That was something Durham decided he needed to look into. Sheriff Blodgett had called and given him the name of Lydia Friar, the judge’s former secretary. He was going to have to talk to her about that very unusual arrangement.
The Human Sex Trafficking Unit found three more women besides the one in Texas who were willing to testify that Don Sargent had sexually assaulted them while they were in prison. They also said he’d seen that they received early releases from their sentences in return for agreeing to have him pimp them out to certain men, who turned out to be government officials, judges (one of them being the afore-mentioned Judge Green), and high-profile attorneys (such as Jack Jackson). These women were a few of the lucky ones who got out. Some had died during their years of sexual servitude.
The case against Don Sargent was building.
The RCMP in British Columbia found the bones of a young girl, estimated to be about eleven or twelve years old, at the bottom of an old well on Rattlesnake Island. They sent them off to a forensic anthropologist in Vancouver who identified the bones as those of a prepubescent Down Syndrome female about ten to twelve years of age. A later DNA comparison showed it was extremely likely the girl was the daughter of Don Sargent. When confronted with the evidence, Sargent admitted he’d taken his daughter with him to Rattlesnake Island, but that she had just fallen in the water and drowned, so he’d panicked and disposed of her body in the well. He denied having killed his ex-wife. When he’d gone to Crescent City to pick up Donelle, something that he had, he said, already arranged with Mary to do, he’d found his ex-wife already dead, so had just taken the girl and run. Durham, of course, did not believe one word.
Sargent continued to deny having anything to do with the deaths of Agatha Lafferty, Ruby Stone and Abby Taylor. Durham didn’t believe that, either, and had warrants issued charging Sargent with those crimes as well. And the judge at the bail hearing also seemed not to have believed him. Bail was denied.
The DA called Lydia Friar and had her come in. She had worked for Judge Green for many years and was well aware of his constant dismissal of the ‘inappropriate sexual conduct’ cases that kept being brought against Don Sargent.
“The judge did not think very highly of women who were sentenced to prison,” Ms. Friar said. “As far as he was concerned, they deserved whatever treatment they got. And, of course, he and Mr. Jackson were golfing buddies. Mr. Jackson always won cases that were brought up before Judge Green—unless there was also a jury, of course, in which case he had to work a little harder. But the molestation charges brought up by those trashy women never needed a jury trial. The judge decided those cases all by himself. Of course the women would never win. As far as Judge Green was concerned, they were, after all, criminals.”
It took a little more investigation, of course, but a few months down the road Jack Jackson was disbarred—before the murder cases against Don Sargent even came to trial. Sargent was informed that he would need a new attorney.
Detective Evan Jones obtained a search warrant for Sargent’s apartment. In the ex-warden’s closet he found several incrim-inating items. One was a jacket with a tiny speck of blood that Sargent himself may not have noticed. It was sent through to the forensics lab to be matched with Agatha Lafferty’s blood, from the sample provided by the Misty Valley sheriff. A shirt balled up and tossed in the back of the closet had more bloodstains which proved to match Ruby’s blood. Leaf-encrusted dried mud was taken from hiking boots—the mud was a close match to the soil in the area of The Pond, where Abby’s body had been found.
When Celine Webb returned from Boston and heard about Don Sargent’s arrest, she was very angry with the sheriff, and with Copper.
“He’s a good man, I know it!” she said. “He’s handsome and charming and very good company. He treated me like a lady. He could not possibly be the monster you have made him out to be.”
She said the same thing to Detective Evan Jones when he came to interview her. “You are making a big mistake,” she told him. “I am willing to be a character witness for him. Give me the name of his attorney.”
The only attorney who had been willing to take Sargent’s case after Jackson was disbarred was a young firebrand who thought for sure this would make a big start for his fledgling career. He was wrong. In spite of Celine’s character witness testimony, the evidence (DNA testing showing the blood on the jacket and shirt as belonging to Agatha Lafferty and Ruby Stone, respectively), plus the testimony of Lydia Friar and of six women who were willing once and for all tell the State of Oregon what they had gone through at the hands of ‘hat man,’ Don Sargent was found guilty of all three murders.
Sargent showed no emotion when the jury’s verdict was read. When a newspaper reporter asked for a comment, he simply said that the women in prison were just animals, anyway. What difference did it make what he or anyone else did to them.
In a subsequent trial, held in absen
tia in Peachland, British Columbia, he was also found guilty of the murder of his young daughter, although there was insufficient evidence to convict him of the murder of his ex-wife.
When the news of Sargent’s conviction and confession (which is what his comment to reporters was deemed to be) reached Celine, she collapsed. “And to think I was ready to marry him,” she said. Evan Jones attempted to comfort her by taking her to dinner.
Louise went on her trip to Australia in January with Carol Roberts and came back beautifully tanned. In June, she and Brandon went on their trip to Europe, arriving back in Oregon just a few days before Don Sargent’s trial ended with convictions on all charges. So Brandon was able to be there to see his mother’s killer brought to justice.
“It’s sad,” Louise said. “Not sad that Sargent was convicted, but sad that such men exist. What will his sentence be, I wonder? On the one hand, I hope the governor will lift the moratorium on the death penalty. On the other hand, I’d like to see him suffer for years in prison.”
“I think he deserves the death penalty for what he did,” Harve said. “We’ll just have to see what happens at his sentencing.”
Louise wanted to take everyone out to dinner to celebrate the fact that the dreadful killings were now solved. She and Brandon made reservations at Paul Webb’s lovely Bistro and invited Copper, Cindy, Ron, Tiffany (Brandon’s receptionist), and Wendy and Ryan (who were planning an August wedding). The sheriff was also invited, but declined. He said no offense to Paul, but he’d rather have a double bacon-cheeseburger and onion rings at the Rainy Day than the fancy stuff served at Paul’s Bistro.
Brandon ordered champagne and even non-drinker Cindy agreed to try it. But the first time she put the glass to her mouth and took just a sip, she immediately put it down.
“It bit me!” she said, and asked for a coke instead.
“I’m really glad these murders are behind us,” Copper said. “It’s been really hard on our little community.”
“It has,” Ron agreed.
“I heard that the last murder in Misty Valley was just over fifty years ago,” Ryan said.
“That’s true,” Copper said. “I was too young to remember it, but it was at the Cabot Lodge.”
“Then maybe it will be fifty more years before there’s another one,” Louise said.
“Louise, you’re doing your math wrong,” Copper told her. “We just had three murders, so it should be a hundred and fifty years before we have another one.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Brandon said and lifted his glass. The others followed suit.
Author’s Bio
Sharee Hughes was born and raised in British Columbia, Canada, but moved to the U.S. after she graduated from high school. She spent several years in Hawaii and got her university degree there. She started on her Victor Keolanui mystery series while still living in Hawaii.
Her Copper Penny series (published as authored by Karen Hayes, a character in Killer Whale, the second book in the Victor Keolanui series), takes pace in a small fictional town in Oregon.
She now lives in Utah, but tries to spend as much time as possible each winter in Florida, because it’s warmer. Her Chantelle McBride mystery series is based in Palm Beach County, Florida.
Besides writing, Sharee enjoys watercolor painting and beading, especially with shells, pearls, and gemstones. Her jewelry can be found in her Etsy store, JewelryBySharee.
Readers may contact her at [email protected]