by Staci Hart
“Yes, sir,” Anne said with a salute.
The following afternoon, Josie walked up the stone steps of the library in Deer Lodge, Montana, and was charmed by the old building as she passed between stone columns to the deep mahogany door. An elderly woman sat behind the desk with her gray hair in a tight bun and her rosy cheeks companion to her smile. The name plate on the counter said Mrs. Herold.
“Well, hello, dear. What can I do for you?”
“Hello, Mrs. Herold. I was hoping to look back through some of your old newspapers.”
“Of course,” she said with twinkling eyes, and she adjusted her shawl around her shoulders. “We have every issue of the Silver State Post since its first publication in 1887. What are you looking for? Perhaps I could help you? I’ve lived my whole life in this town, seventy-two years.”
“Thank you. Actually, I could use your help.” Josie leaned on the counter. “Do you know the name Corey Rhodes?”
A shadow moved behind her eyes. “Yes, I do know that name. He was one of our star football players some years ago.”
“What can you tell me about him?”
“Might I ask who you are?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m an investigator in the New York metropolitan area, and Mr. Rhodes lives near where a girl went missing a few weeks ago.”
“Oh, my. Is he a suspect?”
“No, not officially.”
Mrs. Herold nodded. “Well, his mother and I were very close when he was young, and our husbands worked together at the prison before hers passed away. Diane did the best that she could with him, but something was always just a bit …”
“Off?”
“Yes, I suppose you could say that.” She shifted on her stool. “He went steady with Jane Bernard, and when she turned up after a storm dead, he was the only suspect.”
Josie’s thoughts went into overdrive. She knew she’d find something, but was entirely unprepared for the reality as Mrs. Herold continued.
“She was found in the woods by some hunters several days after she went missing. They said she’d been strangled to death, the poor girl.”
“When did this happen?”
“Well, let me think …” Her crow’s feet creased deeper as she recollected. “I believe that was in the fall of 1984. Corey was never arrested. The town rallied behind him and his story, that he had dropped her off at the Dairy Queen after they’d gotten in a fight. It snowed after she went missing, but half the town went out looking for Jane.” Her eyes were sad, her brow heavy. “So much promise. She was so young, the head of the cheerleading squad, if I remember right. My own son went to school with them at the time, though he was a few years younger.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Herold. This is all very helpful.”
“You’re welcome, dear. You just let me know if you have any other questions you can think of. You should call on Sheriff Jackson. He pressed for that boy to be arrested, but nothing ever came of it. I’m sure he would have some insight, if that’s the type of information that you’re looking for.”
“Maybe I’ll head over there after I have a look at the newspapers from that fall. Do you have a photocopier?”
“Yes, back by the office. I’ll show you the way, but first, let me have Troy get those papers for you.” She slipped off the stool and made her way to the corner, but jumped when she almost ran into a lanky man who waited there.
“Troy!” Her hand flew to her chest. “For goodness sake, you about scared the life out of me. Would you be so kind as to pull the newspapers from September to November of 1984 for this young woman?”
He eyed Josie but nodded. “Sure thing, Mrs. H.”
She turned back to Josie and smiled kindly again. “Have a seat, and Troy will be back with those papers for you in a snap.”
Josie spent hours at the library reading through the old papers and photocopying articles, all while a tall, skinny, middle-aged Troy stared her down from various points around the small building. Once she’d gathered her things and thanked Mrs. Herold, she made her way across town to the home of Sheriff Jackson.
She stood on the porch of his craftsman home and knocked, and the door opened to a man in a cardigan and button down, with salt and pepper hair to match his push-broom mustache, which quirked when he smiled.
“Sheriff Jackson?” she asked.
“I haven’t been Sheriff Jackson in fifteen years. Saul’s the name. And you are?”
“Josie Campbell. Nice to meet you, sir. I had some questions for you, if the name Corey Rhodes rings a bell?”
Surprise registered on his face. “It rings more than a bell, more like a firing squad. Are you a reporter?”
“An investigator.”
“Ah,” he said with a smile. “That would have been my next guess. Come on in.” He stepped back and pulled the door open wide, and she stepped into the foyer.
He closed the door and walked into the kitchen. “Coffee?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Please. Just sugar.”
“My kinda girl.” He nodded to a bar stool at the island, and Josie took a seat. “What can I do for you, Josie?”
“I’ve just come from the library and read through the newspaper accounts of Jane Bernard’s case.”
“And what would have you digging around that old story?” A hint of a challenge was in his voice as he poured her a cup of coffee.
“A young girl, a cheerleader, went missing a few weeks ago in New Jersey. Her body was never found, and Rhodes happens to live on her path home from school.”
“That doesn’t sound like much of a reason to fly all the way out here to read some dusty old newspapers.” He handed her the mug, and she accepted, meeting his eyes that held more knowledge than she knew he was giving up.
“Call it a hunch.”
Saul sat down across from her, amused. “I know the feeling.” He took a sip of his coffee and nodded. “What do you want to know?”
“Do you think he killed Jane Bernard?”
He looked at her for a long moment before answering, “I do.”
“But you could never prove it.”
Saul shook his head and let out a resigned sigh. “I couldn’t. There was no DNA then. Hell, we’d barely heard of it in ’84, and it wasn’t until almost ten years later that we had resources for DNA testing in Helena. Unfortunately, those hunches that we’re so fond of don’t hold up all to well as evidence in the judicial system, and I didn’t have anything else to go on.”
“From what I know of him, I’m not surprised he didn’t give anything up.”
“Never. The kid was stone cold, and the town wanted to hear none of my babbling about it. You have to understand that the boy was a star player on the football team. He seemed normal, whatever that is, but a few of us picked up on there being something more to his story. No one seemed to care, though. I had no evidence either way, only his word, and that was enough for the town.”
“I wasn’t able to find record of this in any of the databases I have access to.”
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t. We didn’t get a full on database system until the mid-nineties. Up to that point, all of our records were paper copies, and in 1992, there was a fire in the courthouse. The records room was destroyed, along with all of the case files.”
Josie set her coffee down and ran a hand over her mouth. “Shit.”
“Well,” he said with a spark in his eyes, “I may have a bright spot on your horizon. I’ve got something you’ll want to see.”
Saul stood and motioned for her to follow him, which she did, into his office. He opened the closet and knelt down to pull out a small storage box with the name Bernard written on it.
He set the box down on his desk and pulled off the lid. Inside was a mass of information: crime scene photos, case files, interview cassette tapes. She shuffled them around, and saw the edge of a copy of the suspect’s fingerprints. Her fingers went numb as she lifted them out of the box. She looked up at Saul.
He stuffed his hands in h
is pockets. “Now, don’t gimme that look. None of this is admissible, you know. I’m fairly certain that a box in the bottom of my closet will somehow not stand up against chain of custody requirements. All of these are copies or duplicates of the originals, but you’re welcome to them if they’ll help you. They’re not doing anybody any good collecting dust here, not when this case has been dead as a doornail for thirty years.”
“Saul, this means the world to me, and maybe to the parents of Hannah Mills.”
“That’s her name?”
“It is.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to light a candle for the girl. And I hope you find the bastard who took her.”
On the flight back to New York, Josie read through Jane Bernard’s case and autopsy report. Jane had been raped and strangled, but no evidence was found, not after she had been left in the elements. Josie spent a long while looking at a photo of Jane, a blond-haired, blue-eyed girl with an air of confidence about her, though not quite innocence. Her physical features were close enough to Hannah’s that it was unnerving.
She was exhausted as she trudged up her stairs with the box of clues and stacks of articles. The look on Anne’s face when she saw what she’d found was priceless, and Josie wondered how close it was to the look she wore when Saul gave the box to her. Her mouth hung open, her eyes big like they’d discovered the holy grail of evidence, though it was all still a stretch.
It was then that Josie’s phone rang, and her exhaustion left her instantly when she saw that it was Denis, the lead detective on Hannah’s case.
Josie hit accept. “Denis, I have news.”
“Me too, but … it’s not good, Josie.” He paused for a second, and she held her breath. “We found Hannah’s body.”
“Oh my God.” Josie sat down heavily on the couch. She realized then that she’d been holding out some small hope that Hannah was still alive, hope that left her in a rush. “Where?”
“Delaware Water Gap, in the National Park. She was found by some hikers, washed up on the river bank. We just got a positive ID.” He waited through a stretch of silence. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.” She took a deep breath. “I just got back from Montana with a box full of case files on the murder of a sixteen-year-old cheerleader, the girlfriend of Corey Rhodes in 1984.”
“Oh, shit,” he breathed. “What did you find out?”
“The old Sheriff believes he did it. I have fingerprints, Denis.”
“Willing to share?”
“Of course. But I want to see her body.” She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees.
“Josie …”
She laid her forehead in her palm. “I know. I just want to see her.”
He paused, and when he spoke again, he was resigned. “All right. They took her body to the Sussex County Coroner’s. I’m here waiting for her family. Meet me in an hour.”
She looked at her watch. It was seven, plenty of time with no traffic. “Okay. Anne will get everything scanned, and I’ll bring you copies tomorrow.”
“Okay. I’ll see you.”
“Good luck with the Mills, Denis.”
The sadness in his voice echoed in her ears. “I tried to convince them not to come, that they don’t want to see her like this, but they wouldn’t hear it. They never do.”
“I know. I’m sorry for all of it.”
“Thanks, kid. I’ll see you in a bit.”
She hung up and turned to Anne, who had paused to listen to Josie’s half of the conversation with her lip between her teeth.
Josie nodded, and Anne hung her head.
“I’ve got to get going if I’m going to get to the Coroner’s in time.”
Anne looked solemnly down into the box. “I’ll get all of this scanned, and we can start the real dig tomorrow.”
Josie peeled herself off the couch, her body heavy from exhaustion and the weight of knowing that Hannah was dead. She wanted to see Hannah with her own eyes, to have her own perspective to compare the case files to in the hopes she could find some connection, some parallel.
“I’ll be back,” Josie said as she grabbed her keys.
“I’ll be here.” Anne gave her a sympathetic smile and ran a hand down Josie’s arm. “Good luck.”
“You too.”
Josie hit no traffic, and the city fell behind her as she drove through rural New Jersey with her windows down and radio blaring, her hair whipping around her face, her mind rolling over and over everything she’d learned. When she reached the coroner’s office, she hauled herself inside and found Denis in the waiting room looking rumpled. His tie was a little loose, his coat hanging on his sloped shoulders as he sat low in his chair. He looked tired, his mocha skin ashen with dark circles under his eyes.
He looked up at her and raised an eyebrow, shifting to sit up straighter.
“I cannot believe I’m about to let you in there.”
“You said that last time.” She sat down in a chair next to him. “How did it go?”
He leaned forward, shaking his head as he looked down at the linoleum between his feet. “It never gets easier, and when they’re so young …”
She laid a hand on his shoulder. “I know.”
Denis glanced at her. “You ready for this?”
“Can anyone be ready for what I’m about to see?”
“Not a single person,” he said as he stood.
They walked down the long hallway and through a set of double doors to the morgue. Metal walls lined one side of the room, marked by a grid of compartments with handles on each. The only sounds were their footfalls, underlined by the hum from the refrigerated wall and the buzzing from the fluorescent lights. Goosebumps broke out up and down her arms when they came to a stop in front of a metal door, and Denis laid his hand on the handle. He gave her an apologetic look before he slid the compartment out.
The musty smell of damp leaves hit her nose, and Josie took a step back when she saw the girl on the slab. Her skin was dark and tight, pulled over her bones and cracking like leather, a shocking contrast to the life of her crimson cheerleading uniform. Her hair, which was once blond and bright, was dull and yellow, thin and sparse.
Denis handed her a file. “It seems she was in the water for about thirty-six hours before she washed up. We didn’t have much rain after that, and the dry conditions combined with the plastic she was wrapped in did this to her. The Coroner’s report says she died of asphyxiation, determined by a crushed hyoid bone.”
Josie went numb. “Strangled?”
He nodded. “There was nothing to suggest a garrote was used. She was likely strangled by hand.”
Her hands were cold as it clicked together. “Denis, Rhodes’ high school girlfriend was killed the same way. Raped and strangled, with a broken hyoid.”
Denis stood still. “We believe Hanna was raped.”
“Oh my God,” she whispered with her eyes on the girl.
Denis hung his hands on his hips. “I need those files, Josie. Can you bring them to me first thing? It’s still circumstantial, but it’s a lead.”
“Absolutely. I’ll even bring them to you tonight.”
“Tomorrow’s fine. You look like you could use some rest.”
Josie couldn’t take her eyes off Hannah. “I have a feeling I won’t sleep much tonight.”
“I know what you mean,” he said as he looked down at the girl’s body.
Josie read through the autopsy file and looked over Hannah, feeling the gravity of it all, shrugging off her anger and focusing on what she could change. She could help find who killed Hannah Mills.
It was almost eleven by the time Josie trudged up the stairs of her apartment wanting nothing more than a long, hot bath and a tall, stiff drink. She unlocked the door and opened it, pausing in the door frame as her eyes caught every detail.
A lamp laid on the ground, shining light at wrong angles, casting long, odd shadows against the wall. She scanned the room, noting that Anne’s laptop wasn’t on
her desk and neither was the case file box. Josie pulled her gun and silently made her way through the living room with her heart thumping in her chest. She spotted a small pool of blood on the floor and stared at it for a moment with her mind running through scenarios. It was then that she heard the shower running and moved toward the bathroom.
The sound was so familiar that it convinced some corner of her brain that the common noise meant everything had to be fine as she walked toward the door where a slit of light showed through the crack. She pushed it open with her foot, and her arms fell when she saw what was inside.
Anne lay in the claw foot tub with one arm draped over the side, and her face was turned to Josie, but her blue eyes saw nothing. The bathtub was spilling over the brim, and Anne’s auburn hair hung out, dripping on the tiled floor as the stream of water rained down on her.
“Annie,” Josie whispered and was by her side. She touched Anne’s cold, wet face. “Annie, wake up,” she said, the words like fire in her throat. She laid her trembling fingers at Anne’s neck that was bruised and purple, but could find no pulse, and she glanced down at Anne’s body. Her shirt was torn, her bra exposed. Her panties were gone, her leggings shredded and hanging off her ankles.
Josie climbed into the tub, the cold water spilling out, seeping into her bones. Her tears mingled with the water that rained down her back, through her hair as she pumped Anne’s chest, knowing it was futile but trying to save her all the same.
★★★
Josie’s legs and lungs burned as she stood in front of the river with her hands on her hips, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath. Tears rolled down her sweaty cheeks, but she didn’t even bother to wipe them away, just turned and sprinted back toward her apartment.
There wasn’t a single, official lead on who killed Anne. There were no fingerprints. No DNA. But Josie knew who it was. She just couldn’t prove it, and that was the worst kind of hell she could live.
By the time she reached her place, she was exhausted. She unlocked her door and closed it behind her, then lay out flat on her living room floor, panting and aching. Ricochet slinked up and climbed onto her chest, purring like a little motor.