by Lisa Regan
She took out her phone and took several photos before trying to find the least destructive way through the brush to the item she had spotted. As she picked her way through, a couple of female students came down the path from campus. “You okay?” one of them hollered.
Josie waved them off with a smile, pushing aside some goldenrod plants, as she worked her way closer to the thistle. A moment later, the object came into view. A black backpack. It looked as though it had been tossed there, rather than placed, as it rested unevenly on top of some partially snapped bull thistle plants. She looked back toward the path. It was feasible someone could have thrown it this far from there. Josie took several photos, carefully picked her way back to the path, and then called Officer Hummel.
“I think I found Nysa Somers’ backpack. Could you and Chan come process it?”
She gave them directions and a few minutes later, the two officers traipsed down the path from campus carrying their equipment. “I’m going to shoot my way in,” Hummel said as he pulled a large camera out of his equipment bag. “Chan can cordon off the area while I’m doing that. Once I’ve established the perimeter and checked the bag to see if there’s any indication that it’s Nysa’s, you can come over.”
Josie called Mettner and Noah as she waited on the path while Hummel and Chan got to work. Several more students passed by, each stopping to ask questions that Josie couldn’t answer honestly. A cool breeze drifted down from the direction of campus, drying the last few wet seams in her clothing.
“Son of a bitch,” Hummel said.
“What is it?” Josie asked.
“What the hell is this stuff?” He stood up straight and pointed down toward the thistles all around him. “It’s got thorns.”
“Bull thistle,” Josie said. “Looks like a dandelion while it’s growing, except it’s thorny. It grows tall and flowers pink and purple.”
Hummel held up a gloved hand and wiggled his index finger. A green thorn stuck out of it, and a drop of blood trickled from under it. “Hold on,” he said. “I’ve got to change gloves. I don’t want to contaminate anything here.”
Chan handed him a new pair of gloves and then both their heads disappeared into the thistle. A few moments later, Hummel hollered, “Jackpot.”
Chan’s arm appeared over the top of the greenery, her gloved hand waving Josie toward them. Once Josie reached them, she found Hummel squatting beside the backpack, holding it open. Inside, Josie saw a lanyard with a student ID attached to it. Nysa Somers’ face smiled at Josie from the photo. All innocence and enthusiasm for life. Josie sighed.
“What else have you got in there?”
As he riffled through the bag and listed off each item, Chan jotted it down on a notepad. “Two textbooks, a spiral-bound notebook, small cosmetic bag.” There was the sound of a zipper. “Lipstick, foundation, mascara, make-up blender, rouge.” He zipped the bag back up. “Pens, pencils, twenty-two dollars in cash.”
“Cell phone?” Josie asked hopefully.
“Just a second,” Hummel told her. He moved to the pockets on the outside of the bag. “Here. Cell phone.” He pressed some buttons, but nothing happened. “Looks like it needs to be charged. We can take care of that when we get this back to the station.”
“Great,” Josie said. A small thrill of excitement took hold in her stomach. For modern-day investigators, there was nothing more valuable in solving a crime than a person’s cell phone. People’s entire lives were on them.
“What about that?” Chan said, pointing her pen toward the yawning pocket from which Hummel had just removed the cell phone.
Josie leaned over and peered into it. What looked like a piece of plastic was poking out. Hummel reached in and teased its squished form from the pocket, smoothing it out. “A Ziploc baggie,” he said. “She must have had some kind of snack.” He held it up, looking at the crumbs in the bottom of it. “Looks like brownies to me.” He opened it and held it up to his nose, taking a whiff. “Yeah, smells like chocolate.”
Josie noted a small white sticker at the lower left corner of the baggie. “What’s that sticker?” she asked.
Hummel stood up and took a step closer to her so that she could see it. It was circular, black and white, about the size of a quarter with a crude hand drawing of a face. Its eyes were small ‘X’s, its mouth a toothy smile. Above the eyes, the forehead cracked open and squiggly lines jumped out in every direction.
“That’s weird,” Hummel said.
Josie nodded. “Move it around in the light. Can you see the impressions from a pen, or does it look like it’s a copy?”
Hummel moved the sticker this way and that as the three of them studied it. Finally, he concluded, “Looks smooth. Must be a copy. Looks like one of those weird skater stickers or something. Like the kind kids put on their skateboards?”
Chan said, “Something like that on a baggie? That’s not a skater sticker. Someone marked those brownies as edibles.”
“What do you mean?” Josie asked. “The sticker is to indicate marijuana in the brownies?”
“The last city I worked in, we had a couple of cases of these. Locals would brand their drugs before they sold them. Sometimes stickers, sometimes stamps. Usually hand-drawn, so it couldn’t be confused with anything else out there. Something cheap and easy so you remembered who to come back to for more. It’s not always the smartest practice because it makes it pretty easy for the cops to track you down and also figure out who you sold to, but some people do it.”
Josie took out her phone and took a photo of the sticker. “Have you ever seen this before?”
“No,” said Chan. “I could be wrong. I’m just tossing out ideas. Maybe she made brownies at home and someone in one of her classes gave her a weird random sticker and it ended up on the baggie.”
“I doubt that,” Josie said. She wondered if marijuana would have put Nysa Somers into such a state that she would have gotten into the pool and drowned—either by falling asleep or by simply being in an altered state. Or maybe it had been laced with something stronger. Perhaps whatever was in the brownie had had more of an effect on her than she’d anticipated since, by all accounts, she didn’t normally do drugs. But if she’d done drugs the night before, why? Why start taking them now? Josie knew that the university had drug testing requirements for all of its athletes. There was no way that Nysa would have been able to carry on a regular drug habit. Even a one-time thing would have been problematic for her since drug testing for university athletes was random unless drug use was suspected. Why would she risk it? Or maybe she hadn’t known the brownies were laced with drugs. Had they come from the mystery friend she’d met up with? Perhaps she had trusted that person not to give her something with drugs? Or the friend had convinced her to let loose a little and try them? There was no way to know without finding the friend.
Josie said, “You can mass-produce your own stickers?”
Chan shrugged. “You can get blank stickers from any office supply place and run them through your printer, or you could upload your design to a website and have them print and send you a bunch.”
To Hummel, Josie said, “Bag that up and get it to the state police lab, would you? I’d like to know what’s in those crumbs. Also, print the bag.”
She worked her way back to the path and then climbed up the rest of the way to the campus. Once in the parking lot, she called Christine Trostle. “You told me that Nysa never used drugs,” she said to the girl. “Were you telling the truth?”
“Well, yeah, why?”
“She never tried anything?”
Christine made a noise in her throat. “Well, I never saw her try anything or heard her talk about trying anything, but I wasn’t with her twenty-four seven. Maybe when she was at home she did, but it would have been really out of character for her. She drank sometimes, but drugs scared her.”
“Scared her in what way?” Josie asked.
“She used to say that she knew what she’d get with alcohol. It was predictable,
but with drugs, she didn’t know what things would do to her body. In high school, one of her friends tried cocaine thinking it would be just fine, but it had PCP in it and ended up killing the girl. Heart attack, I think Nysa said. I guess the kid Nysa’s friend got the coke from didn’t even know about it. Nysa always said street drugs weren’t regulated and you couldn’t trust anyone, but if she had a beer, she knew exactly where it was coming from and what was in it. Plus, you know, ’cause she’s on the swim team, she’s subject to random drug testing.”
“Okay,” Josie said. “What about you? Do you or any of your and Nysa’s mutual friends use edibles?”
“Like pot?”
“Or any food with drugs baked, cooked, or mixed into it.”
“No,” Christine said.
“You’re not going to be in trouble if you or your friends use edibles,” Josie told her. “I’m just trying to figure out what happened to your roommate.”
Christine laughed. “I’m afraid that Nysa and I just weren’t that cool, Detective, and like I just said, Nysa was an athlete and no way was she risking her body by putting crazy shit into it.”
“Was there someone she might have risked taking drugs for?”
“What does that mean?”
“It means is there anyone you can think of who could have offered her drugs and, for whatever reason—peer pressure, or she liked the person—she wouldn’t turn them down?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What about brownies? Did she like brownies?”
“Who doesn’t like brownies? Yeah, she liked them. She had a weakness for sugary stuff.”
“Had you two made any recently?”
“No.”
“Bought any?”
“No.”
“Had anyone brought you any brownies?”
“No. I promise you, Detective, we haven’t had any brownies in this place since school started. Come back and look.”
The autopsy would show stomach contents—if any—for the eight hours that Nysa was missing before her death. “That’s okay,” Josie said. “I believe you. I’ve got to get up to campus police headquarters. For now, I’m going to text you a photo of a sticker. I want you to tell me if you’ve ever seen it before.”
“Why?”
“Just have a look, and then we’ll talk.”
She took the phone from her ear and quickly texted Christine a copy of the photo she’d taken of the sticker. Several seconds ticked by and then Josie heard an audible shudder. Christine said, “That’s creepy as hell. What is that? Some kind of creepy doll with its head cracked open?”
“We’re not sure yet,” Josie answered. “I just need to know if you’ve seen it anywhere.”
“No. Good God. I’d remember that. Where was it?”
“We located Nysa’s backpack,” Josie told her. “In the woods behind Hollister Way. There was a baggie with that sticker on it. There were crumbs in the bag. We believe from brownies.”
Silence. Then, “Are you sure it was her backpack?”
“It had her student ID in it.”
“Well, I’ve never seen the sticker before. I would definitely remember. I have no idea how it ended up in Nysa’s things.”
“Okay,” Josie said. “If you do see this anywhere or hear anyone talking about it or even if anything else occurs to you that you think I should know, call me.”
Twelve
Back on campus, Josie followed the directions that Christine had given her to find the campus police building. It was the smallest building on campus, Josie thought. Just a square, brick thing with four parking spots alongside it and two steps leading to the front door. Inside, a uniformed campus officer behind a metal desk waved Josie through the reception area down a short hallway. Only one door was open, and inside Josie saw Mettner and Chief Hahlbeck sitting side by side at a desk, their eyes glued to a laptop screen. Noah stood behind them, peering over their shoulders. Josie knocked lightly on the doorframe. The Chief waved her over.
Josie took up position beside Noah and reported on what she had found at Nysa’s apartment—which amounted to nothing beyond the fact that her swimsuits and swim bag were still there—and more importantly, what she had found in the woods. She pulled up the photo of the baggie and sticker and showed each of them.
“Some kind of drug marker,” Mettner said immediately.
“That’s what Chan said,” Josie told him.
“Yeah, when I was in college, we had a guy who sold stuff on campus. He marked all of his stuff with a drawing of a bluebird. It was a stamp though, not a sticker. Like his drugs were the bluebird of happiness or something stupid like that.”
“No shit,” said Noah. “We have no shortage of drug activity in this city. Hell, we’re down under the East Bridge a few times a week, but I’ve never seen this. Chief, you ever see this drawing on campus?”
Hillary took a closer look at Josie’s phone screen, her upper lip curling. “No, I haven’t, but that doesn’t mean much. I haven’t been here long. Send that to me, and I’ll start asking around, checking files.”
Josie texted her the photo and pointed to the laptop on the desk. “How about you guys? What did you find?”
Mettner motioned to the laptop and asked Chief Hahlbeck, “Do you mind?”
She shifted her chair over a bit to give Mettner more room. “Not at all,” she said.
He clicked around until he pulled up a screen showing the outside of the library. “Here we see Nysa leaving at nine thirty-two, alone.”
Josie watched as a flurry of students exited the library, identifying Nysa immediately since she was wearing the same clothes as she was when they found her in the pool. A black backpack slung over her left shoulder, she walked off in the direction of lower campus. Mettner clicked out of the library footage and brought up several other screens showing the exteriors of various campus buildings. The footage was dim, since by that time of night it was dark and the outdoor lighting that presided over campus walkways wasn’t very bright. Still, they could easily identify Nysa in the videos. Foot traffic was relatively light. Nysa moved alone, one of the only students out and about whose eyes weren’t glued to her phone. She didn’t greet or wave to anyone else. Another screen showed the exterior of the Ervene Gulley Arts & Humanities building.
Josie said, “The cut-through to her housing complex is behind that building.”
Mettner nodded. “Yes, we found that.” More clicking, and then another screen came up, this time from a camera set high up on the back of the building, taking in the parking lot and wooded area. They watched as Nysa walked through the parking lot and found the cut-through, disappearing through the trees. Alone.
“But we know she didn’t make it home,” Josie said.
Mettner held up a finger. “Here’s where it gets interesting.”
Josie and Noah watched as he fast-forwarded through the footage, each hour passing in a matter of seconds. No one used the cut-through during the night. Then at 5:57 a.m., a figure emerged from it.
Nysa Somers.
Dressed exactly as she had been the night before, but without her backpack, she walked steadily and seemingly with purpose. When she was out of the frame, Mettner closed out the window and opened another one. This showed the front of the Ervene Gulley building which was just across from the natatorium. The parking lot beyond it was empty, and no other students lingered in the courtyards as far as the camera showed. She walked straight ahead toward the natatorium until she was out of the frame.
It had taken her roughly five minutes to cover the distance from the cut-through to the pool building lobby. At 6:02, she had entered, said good morning to Gerry Murphy, and then gone to the pool. And what? Jumped in and never came out?
Noah said, “So she left the library alone at nine thirty, walked into the woods but didn’t make it home. Then she comes out of the woods at six this morning wearing the same clothes but without her backpack. Roommate got a text saying she met up with a friend. Where?”
Mettner looked up at Josie. “You sure the roommate is telling the truth?”
“As sure as I can be,” Josie said. “I saw her phone, looked through the apartment, and the backpack was in the woods along the path.”
Mettner said, “What if Nysa did go home? She and the roommate had some brownies laced with drugs. Things got a little crazy and Nysa took off?”
“Why would Christine lie about that?” Josie countered.
“Because her roommate ended up dead.”
Noah said, “That doesn’t explain the text from Nysa to the roommate saying she met up with a friend.”
Mettner was silent.
“We need to find the friend she met up with,” Noah said.
“Maybe we’ll get something when Hummel charges up her phone. That’s the real jackpot. There could be texts or calls to and from the mysterious ‘friend,’ and it if has GPS enabled, we could see where she was during those missing hours.”
Mettner tapped away on his note-taking app as they talked through all the leads they’d need to run down.
“We should also canvass the houses in Hollister Way to see if anyone saw her last night, or noticed anything suspicious,” Noah added.
Chief Hahlbeck said, “My officers are rounding up as many members of the swim team as they can find and bringing them back here. Coaching staff, too.”
Mettner said, “You mind if we conduct interviews here?”
“Not at all,” Hillary said. “We’ve got two rooms I can set you up in. If you’ll excuse me.”