Rhea took a quick shower and with a large bath towel wrapped around her torso, strolled back into her bedroom. She picked up her glass from the vanity, took another swallow then went to her large, walk-in closet. She opened the door to expose a full length mirror, loosened the towel and allowed it to drop to the floor.
Rhea took another swallow from the goblet and finished off the drink. Standing naked in front of the mirror she gave herself a reasonably objective review. She was certainly not bad for a forty-seven-year old woman. Her breasts were still fairly firm but like most women her age, her butt and hips were spreading just a bit. All in all, not bad, she thought.
She bent down to pick up the towel off the thick carpeting. Facing to her left, away from the mirror she began to wrap the towel around herself to go back downstairs to the liquor cabinet. Out of the corner of her eye something in the mirror caught her attention. She turned her head to look at the mirror again and that’s when she saw him, a strange man standing in her bedroom doorway.
Rhea turned and bolstered by the courage supplied by the alcohol, angrily said, “Who the hell are you and what do you think you’re doing in my house?”
The man merely smiled a sinister smile then said, “I’m hurt that you don’t remember me, counselor.”
When he said that, the light of recognition came on in Rhea’s mind and she immediately realized she was in serious trouble.
The intruder started slowly walking toward her, still wryly smiling at her. He was dressed totally in black including a tight Spandex skull cap and a slick, nylon windbreaker. His right hand was in the pocket of the light jacket, obviously concealing something.
Rhea took a step back to get away from him and backed into the mirror. She turned to her right and started to run but he was too quick. He jumped toward her, grabbed her left arm with his left hand and spun her around to face him. She started to scream but was abruptly cut off when he jammed the Taser into her left side and floored her with fifty thousand volts.
When Rhea came to, she was tied to a wooden armchair in her unfinished basement. Naked, her wrists were tied to the chair’s arms and her ankles to the chair’s legs. Still a little foggy, it took her a moment to realize where she was and remember what had happened. Seated on a similar chair, barely three feet in front of her was her obviously psychotic antagonist.
“I was only doing my job,” she shakily said when she again realized who he was. “Please don’t hurt me,” she sobbed.
He stood up and as he looked down at her she said, “Please, take anything you want, I promise I won’t report it. You don’t have to rape me, I’ll help you…”
“Sssshhhh,” he softly said as he leaned forward and covered her mouth with a strip of duct tape. Still leaning down, his nose barely three inches from hers, he quietly said, “I’m not going to rape you. That’s not my thing. But before I’m done, you’ll wish that was all I wanted.”
He sat down in his chair, leaned forward again, his forearms on his thighs, he continued by saying, “You see Rhea, you don’t mind if I call you Rhea do you?” he said to the horror-stricken woman. “You claim you were just doing your job, but that’s not really true,” he calmly continued. “If you had really done your job I wouldn’t have spent all those years rotting in prison. Your job should not have included using doctored DNA evidence.”
By now Rhea was sitting up as stiff as a board. She was trying to yell or scream, make at least some noise through the tape covering her mouth. Nothing but weak, muffled sounds could be heard as her wide-open, terror filled eyes darted about the cold room.
Her tormentor pulled his chair closer to her so that their knees almost touched. She watched as he removed a metal object from his back pocket and held it in front of her face. This was when she first noticed he was wearing surgical gloves and recognizing the metal object she tried to scream “no” several times. As she did he grabbed the index finger of her left hand and clamped the pliers on it and squeezed it, breaking the skin and crushing the bone. He smiled at the crunching sound the bone made as the pliers shattered it like an egg shell. Rhea tried to scream but it was muffled by the tape.
He waited for her to calm down then looked directly into her eyes and said, “That’s just the first one. Soon you’ll start passing out from the pain but don’t worry, I’ll wake you. I don’t want you to miss a second of this.”
Tricia Dunlop knocked softly on the door of the seventeenth floor corner office of Frawley, Markowitz and Kent. As she turned the door’s handle to enter a voice from within politely said, “Come in.”
Tricia walked into the well appointed senior partner’s office and said to the woman behind the glass-topped desk, “Jackie, I’m getting worried. Rhea hasn’t come in or called yet and she’s scheduled for a settlement conference in court now. I just got a call from Judge Halladay’s clerk that she hasn’t shown up yet.”
Jacqueline Neeley, Rhea Watson’s friend and immediate superior, took off her glasses and let them hang from the chain around her neck. A seriously worried expression came over her face and she said, “Have you called her?” Neeley immediately realized what a foolish question that was knowing how responsible and efficient Tricia was.
“Of course, several times. I have a key to her house and the code for her alarm. Do you think I should go check for her?”
“Yes, but wait a minute.” Neeley picked up her office phone and dialed 411. She asked for the non-emergency number for the MPD and had the call connected to them. A woman answered and Neeley took a minute to explain who she was and why she was calling.
“I don’t know that it’s an emergency but we have a key to her house and myself and Ms. Watson’s assistant are going to check. Could we have a patrol car meet us there?”
She listened for a moment then said, “Fifteen minutes. That would be great. Just a moment…”
She held the phone handle out toward Tricia and said, “Address.”
Tricia took the phone and told the woman Watson’s address.
Twenty minutes later the two women pulled up to Watson’s house. Neeley parked her Mercedes in the driveway and they both got out as a middle-aged patrol officer with the three stripes of a sergeant on his uniform sleeve, Norm Anderson, walked toward them. His patrol car was parked in the street and he was ringing the front door bell when the women arrived.
He introduced himself to them and said, “I walked around the outside and looked through the windows. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. You have a key and permission to enter?”
“Yes,” Tricia said handing the officer the front door key. “There’s an alarm system too. I have the code,” she continued holding up a small slip of paper.
They went through the front door and Tricia checked the alarm box and said, “It’s not on. Maybe she forgot.”
Anderson gently took both women by an arm and as he guided them back to the front door politely said, “I want you both to wait outside. I’ll do a walk through and check the place out.”
“But…” Tricia started to say.
“There may be something in here you don’t want to see.”
“Oh, God,” Tricia said biting a knuckle.
“And if there is,” Neeley continued the thought, “this could be a crime scene.”
“Let’s hope not,” Anderson said reassuringly. “Let me check first.”
He closed the front door and walked into the large foyer. When they had first entered the house, the veteran cop had noticed a very slight, coppery odor in the air. Understanding immediately what it came from was why he had hustled the two women out.
Anderson pulled his pistol from his holster, pointed it at the ceiling and started up the staircase. He quickly went through the four bedrooms and three baths. The only thing out of the ordinary he found was a damp bath towel on the floor of the master bedroom. Anderson also noticed the odor he detected was now gone. Back downstairs he moved methodically through the rooms. As he got closer to the kitchen the smell became a little stro
nger. Finally, he stood in the open doorway leading to the basement and knew for sure where it was coming from and what he was likely to find.
Owen Jefferson glanced at the crowd gathering across the street as he got out of his car. He then walked quickly across the large well kept front yard of Rhea Watson’s home. He looked to his right and saw an ambulance from the medical examiner’s office parked in the driveway where Jackie Neeley’s Mercedes was before she moved it. He noticed the two women being interviewed by a female homicide detective and saw Norm Anderson standing near them. The detective, a young woman recently assigned to homicide, introduced the women to Jefferson.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Jefferson said to the women. “Marcie,” he said to the detective, “when you’re done here you can let them go.” He turned back to the obviously distraught women and said, “We’ll be in touch. If you think of anything give Detective Sterling a call.”
“If there’s anything we can do, please let us know,” the older woman said.
Jefferson slightly nodded his head then turned to Anderson. “Hey, Norm, tell me what’s up,” Jefferson said as the two men stepped away from the women.
Anderson went over everything for the lead detective. When he finished he said, “Owen, it’s Rhea Watson. Remember her?”
“The lawyer from the county attorney’s office?”
“Yeah, that’s what her friends told me. At least she used to be with Slocum’s office. She went into private practice a few years back,” Anderson said.
Jefferson turned to look at the front door, silently thought for a moment then muttered, “No shit, huh? That’s interesting.” He turned back to Anderson and quietly said, “Keep this to yourself for now. I’ll go take a look.”
“Marston’s down there now,” Anderson said referring to Clyde Marston, a doctor with the medical examiner’s office.
The cop at the door took down his name and badge number then he entered the house and pulled out a pair of surgical gloves. There were already four CSU cops going through the house. One in the living room as Jefferson passed through. Jefferson went down the basement stairs and found the ME kneeling in front of the body. The instant he saw her the light in his head came on as he recognized the scene. He quickly walked over to her and stood staring at her for several seconds.
Seated on the bare, concrete floor of the unfinished basement was the naked body of Rhea Watson. Her legs were extended before her, her back against the bare cinderblock wall and her arms stretched out to her sides, the hands having been nailed into the wall. The nails in her hands had been driven into the cinderblock and on her head she wore a double strand of barbed wire as a crown. Her chest and stomach were covered in her own blood and her head was tilted forward, her chin covering the gash across her throat.
“I need to talk to you,” Jefferson said to Marston. “And you two guys also,” he told the CSU techs working the basement. “Come here a minute, please.”
“Have you ever seen this before?” Marston asked him.
“Listen,” he said to all three of them ignoring the question. “Not a word of this leaks out to anybody.” He pointed at the body and continued. “We need to put a lid on this. No details to the media, other cops, your wife, girlfriend or mom. You got it?”
“It’s going to get out, Owen,” one of the CSU guys said.
“I know, Rick. But we need to keep it quiet as long as we can. At least a couple days to give me a chance to check into some things.”
“Okay,” they all said.
Jefferson spent a few minutes walking around the basement. He examined the chairs where she had been tied up and her killer sat. He then turned back to the M.E. and asked to speak with him.
“Tell me about the fingers and the toes,” Jefferson said.
“How did you know…?”
“Just tell me.”
“They’re all broken, probably with a pair of pliers of some kind. Owen, he tortured her. From the look of the coagulation of the blood on her fingers, I’d say he took at least a couple of hours. Sadistic bastard. She probably passed out a few times then he would wake her to do some more. Look at this,” Marston continued pointing a gloved finger at two marks on the left hand side of the body. “Taser burns. That’s how he took her down.”
“Okay,” Jefferson said while staring at the spots. “For now, this is a burglary gone bad. You got a time of death?”
“I’d guess the TOD was between ten and two last night. I can nail it down a little better when I get her back to the lab.”
“Okay. Give me a call when you know more.”
Jefferson hurried up the stairs and back outside. He found Norm Anderson again and gestured for him to come to him.
“Norm, have you told anyone anything about this? The body or what you found or didn’t find in the house?”
“No, Owen. I told you before; I called it in as a homicide but no details. Why, what’s up?”
“For now, this is a burglary gone bad, okay? You keep the condition and posture of the body to yourself. Nothing to the media or anyone else.”
“Sure,” a puzzled Anderson said, “whatever you want.”
The woman detective who had interviewed the two women approached the two men.
“We’ll start canvassing the neighborhood. Do you have a time frame?” she asked Jefferson.
“Last night. Probably between eight and two,” he shrugged. “Listen, Marcie, I want you to do something. You go gather up the guys to start the canvass and as you do it, casually make a call to Stan Abramson in burglary. You know Stan?”
“Yeah, sure,” she answered.
“Tell Stan we have a burglary gone bad homicide here. Make sure the uniforms hear you.”
“Okay,” she said with a puzzled look.
“I want one of them to leak that to the media. I don’t know which one will and I don’t care. I just want that story to get out through the back door. Tell Stan I’ll call him later.”
“You’re the boss,” Marcie said then turned to carry out her instructions.
Jefferson shook hands with Norm Anderson and walked back across the lawn to his car. When he got there, just before he got in, he took a quick look over the crowd of seventy or eighty people who had gathered across the street. Among the many faces he glanced at one that he should have noticed was out of place in this upscale neighborhood. Looking back at the detective through large aviator sunglasses and wearing a decent disguise was the brutal man who spent the previous evening being entertained by Rhea Watson’s fear, pain and death.
EIGHTEEN
“What do you think?” Selena Kane asked her subordinate, Owen Jefferson as he lowered his long frame onto the seat in front of her desk. It was three days after the murder of Rhea Watson. Due to scheduling conflicts, this was the first chance the two of them had to discuss the case. “You think we have a serial on our hands?”
“Too soon to tell,” Jefferson answered her. “Watson and Judge Smith were almost certainly killed by the same person or persons. The crime scenes and the way the bodies were staged are exact. The only difference being, Watson was naked and Smith was fully clothed.”
“No evidence of sexual assault?”
“No. There was a damp towel on the floor of Watson’s bedroom suggesting he caught her coming out of the shower. We’re looking for a connection between the two victims. So far it doesn’t look like they even knew each other.”
“What about a professional connection. He was a judge, she was a lawyer?”
“Yeah,” Jefferson continued nodding his head a few times. “We’re looking into that too. But he was on the court of appeals and was never on the trial bench. Rhea Watson did trials but never handled appeals. As far as we can tell, they never even met each other.”
“What about appeals that he handled of cases she tried? Guilty verdicts that were appealed and he was the judge that upheld the verdict?” Kane asked.
“Shit,” Jefferson quietly said as he sat up thinking about what his bo
ss had suggested. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Have Jeff Miller, the department’s computer whiz, see what he can find.”
“There could be a ton of them,” Jefferson said. “But it’s a place to start. Good catch, Boss.”
“Did you look at her ex-husband?” Kane asked.
“Sure. He was the first one on the list. I took Bob Hagan with me,” Jefferson answered referring to another detective. “The husband was pretty shocked and upset. He seemed genuine. We talked to her co-workers, especially her secretary. They all agreed, as did the ex that the divorce was amicable. Plus, he’s remarried.”
“What about money? Who inherits?”
“The son and he was in school at Northwestern in Chicago. Chicago cops verified it for us. He’s alibied.
“When the story and her picture hit the news, we started getting calls from men who had met her recently through a dating site. We’ve interviewed all of them and they all said the same thing. They met her for one date, they didn’t hit it off and that was that. No hard feelings. Plus none of them even knew her last name. The only way they communicated was online by email. She was out on such a date the night she was killed.”
“Oh,” Kane said, her eyes opening wider as she leaned forward on her desk.
“Forget it,” Jefferson said seeing her reaction. “He came forward too. I got his name and information but we checked it out. They were at a restaurant for about an hour. He went to the john and she left when he did.”
“That’s kind of cold. Didn’t it make him mad?”
“You would’ve run out on this guy too. Besides, the bartender verified the guy stayed until midnight,” Jefferson replied.
Marc Kadella Legal Mysteries Vol 1-6 (Marc Kadella Series) Page 149