Instead, he simply fell into step beside me and said, “By the way, an officer checked out the van. It wouldn’t start, so that part’s true. It pisses me off that the deputies let them start the chores, unsupervised. Are you a computer expert?”
“No.”
“So you’re just a numbers-in-your-head guy. No superpowers.”
“Basically. Sean Reynolds will be here. He’ll have no problem finding what she’s been doing on the computer.”
Tony unconsciously reached to his shirt pocket for his cigarettes, but after realizing it was empty, stated, “Let’s take Al and the boy downtown for the interview, so we can record it.” He scratched his head. “Do you think she called the police pretty quickly?”
“I understand her panic. Brittany should have been home. It’s interesting that Jason initiated the search.”
Tony looked out over the road. “You never know where the break is going to come from, so you keep asking questions until you’ve asked the right one. Pay particular attention to the first contradiction in someone’s story.” Tony was now by his car. He asked, “How many cars have gone by this place since we’ve been here?”
Now I felt stupid. Tony had been observing much more than the interview during our time with Mary Brennan. He was testing me, and I had failed. Embarrassed, I reluctantly answered, “I don’t know.”
Tony smiled. “That’s a good answer,” he said. “Don’t ever pretend to know something you don’t.” Tony left me hanging for thirty seconds before he declared, “Not one car has passed by since we’ve been here. I told the police to let the traffic through, but no one has driven down this road.”
I added, “And if no one drives down this road, it has to be the people here.”
“Yeah.” Tony got on his cell phone and asked, “Where the hell are Al and Jason? They should have been accompanied by a police officer . . . Well, find them, and bring them back to the house.” As Tony listened, he motioned for me to get into his car. “Okay, all right. But let’s at least have an officer stay with them until they’ve been interviewed. I don’t want to give anyone an opportunity to destroy evidence.” When Tony hung up, he said, “We have cops stopping at all the farms in this area, to see if anyone’s noticed anything suspicious. An old farmer, Eldon Meyer, who has a farm half a mile north of here, said the bales of straw in his ditch had been moved. We’re probably the closest investigators to the scene, so we should stop there before the interviews with Al and Jason. The problem with going to people and asking them about suspicious activity is that they notice things that may have been changed weeks ago.”
Tony and I headed half a mile straight north, down the dirt road past the Brennans’, and stopped on the top of a small hill. We approached two BCA investigators standing in the middle of the gravel road by their unmarked, silver Crown Victoria. Tony swore in disgust, and then added, “Just what I need. Two more state employees to tell me how to do my job.”
I grimaced at the implication that I, as a state employee, was somehow already telling Tony how to do his job.
Officer Paula Fineday was in her early forties and slightly overweight. She had thick, shoulder-length dark-brown hair, heavy eyebrows, and Native facial features. She wore a navy-blue North Face jacket. I’d worked with Paula before. She was generally oblivious to fashion trends. I respected her effortless and unembellished style, as it contradicted her complex and labyrinthine processing of language. She was an articulate and observant woman, who gleaned information from casual conversations that other investigators often failed to catch.
Sean Reynolds was an African American man in his late thirties who maintained excellent physical condition. Sean wore his hair closely cropped and was meticulously groomed; his black pants always held a sharp crease. His attention to detail made him an excellent crime-scene investigator. Sean wore a black stocking hat and a designer black leather jacket. Sean and Paula worked very effectively as partners for the BCA.
Tony and I joined them and the four of us walked along the water-filled ditch, looking down at the bales of straw. Someone had broken a path through the bales on Eldon Meyer’s land, allowing the water to flow through and fill the ditch. A farmer would notice this the first time he drove by.
After the initial greetings, Sean asked me, “You grew up around here—can you tell us why they have these bales in the ditch?”
“When it gets above freezing, the snow melts and there’s a lot of water running from the fields into the ditches. The bales of straw help regulate the flow of water,” I explained. “They slow down the runoff, and this keeps the water from flooding the culvert at the bottom of the hill. If this happened, it could freeze water over the road.” I jogged down the hill while the other investigators followed, curious.
We had now reached one end of the culvert that ran underneath the road. Sean bent down and peered into the deep water that had covered the culvert below. At the bottom of the hill, the ditch water was almost as high as the road. The temperature had dropped just below freezing, so a skin of ice had formed over the water. Sean punched his gloved fist through the ice and said, “It looks like someone deliberately moved the straw to flood the culvert.”
The thinness of the ice indicated this water had only recently frozen—perhaps in the last hour. I quickly walked across the road to look into the water on the other side of it. This side wasn’t frozen. As I bent down, I caught a glimpse of a pink-and-white tennis shoe floating in the murky water. “She’s here!” Without thinking twice, I jumped feet-first into the icy water. The three-foot-deep water quickly muddied around me, which made it necessary for me to submerge completely underwater and feel my way to the culvert opening. With my entire body now immersed, hands quickly going numb, I felt what I believed to be a child’s leg. The cold was so absolute, I could feel sharp pains radiating through my ears and into my lungs, like claws of ice piercing through me. As I felt around blindly, I noticed Brittany’s body felt somehow mummified. I carefully pulled her out of the culvert and lifted her stiff, lifeless body above the surface. She had been tightly wrapped in a red blanket. Dark hair spilled from the top of the blanket, and when we uncovered her face, there was no doubt we were holding Brittany Brennan—a pretty face devoid of expression, with lips tinged blue against her colorless skin.
Sean helped me gently set the small girl on the road, and I crawled out of the ditch. My teeth chattered as I told Sean, “We might be able to save her.” I had difficulty speaking, as shudders began to rip through my body. There is a phenomenon called the “mammalian dive reflex,” which emergency medical teams from cold climates are aware of. A body can survive in cold water for a long time, if the conditions are right. Mammals immersed in frigid water have an instinct which shuts off the bloodflow to the extremities, in order to preserve their hearts and brains. This can occur before they drown, and can help them survive cold water immersion. I prayed this was the case for the prone little form in front of us.
Tony had retrieved a dry blanket and spread it out on the gravel. Sean knelt by Brittany, carefully peeling away the wet blanket as he prepared to transfer her to the dry one.
I stood by, shivers convulsing through my body.
Sean cautioned me, “You’d better get in the car. We don’t need two bodies out here.”
“I need to know how she died first,” I said, clenching my teeth to still the chattering.
Sean carefully looked her over. “Let’s not decide she’s dead yet. I’m familiar with the dive reflex.”
Brittany was wearing a pink winter jacket and pink leggings. There was a large blood stain high on the left leg of her pants.
Sean turned her stiff body slightly as he told me, “It looks like she was shot in the leg. There’s an aperture wound clear through. But I don’t think she bled to death. And there are no ligature marks on her neck.” Sean opened up her jacket and pressed two fingers to her neck. “There’s no heartbeat. I need to start CPR on her. Now get in the car—I know what I’m doing.” Sean dire
cted Tony, “Help me with CPR. Paula’s getting directions from the hospital to guide us.”
I finally got into the Crown Victoria and cranked the heat up. Shivers seized my body in spastic jerks through my limbs.
I could hear Sean tell Tony, “She has to unthaw slowly.” I reflexively opened my mouth to correct his use of the English language, but now was not the time to educate him on the difference between “thawing” and “unthawing.”
Paula drove me to my car, which was at the Brennan farm, so I could change into dry clothes. My hands shook as I fumbled out of my frigid, saturated layers.
When I returned to the scene, Sean continued to rhythmically administer chest compressions. Tony looked exhausted from his efforts to breathe life into Brittany’s lungs. I stepped out of the car and nudged him gently aside as I took over for him.
Tony coughed and then spit on the ground as he stepped away. He muttered, “Just give me a minute to catch my breath.” Tony took out his phone and directed a police officer to bring Al, Mary, and Jason Brennan to the station to have their hands tested for gun residue.
I don’t think people fully appreciate how law enforcement officers put their own health in jeopardy to save others. Brittany had aspirated her stomach contents through her mouth, which is typically the case with CPR, but Tony had cleaned most of it out. I breathed air into her lungs, and Sean followed with five chest compressions, over and over. This is the standard CPR for a child of Brittany’s age. “Come on, Brittany,” I panted, “come back to us.” I’d rather facilitate the breathing (even though it’s gross) than the chest compressions, as you had to be careful not to break the ribs of children. There was no doubt in my mind that Sean’s compressions were exactly one inch, as they were supposed to be. I wasn’t sure if it was wishful thinking, but I thought I felt an independent breath. I was tremendously relieved when the ambulance crew arrived and took over.
After a brief conversation with Tony, Sean, and Paula, I headed to the hotel. Sean thought Brittany’s heart had started beating on its own, as well. We gave Brittany a chance, and I prayed for her recovery.
I checked into a room at the AmericInn and stood under a hot shower until my chills subsided. Maurice Strock called and told me he was setting up a news conference. I told him I knew a reporter for WCCO, and he said he didn’t care who I spoke to, as long as I followed his guidelines. I decided to do an old friend a favor. I called WCCO and requested to speak to Jada Anderson.
Tony stopped by to pick me up. We went to the sheriff’s office to make our statements, then to complete our paperwork at our BCA makeshift headquarters, which was still in the process of being set up in the basement of the Morrison County courthouse.
Jada Anderson arrived at the courthouse with a camera crew, and quickly worked to set up the interview. Jada’s mocha brown eyes, slightly curved nose, and bright smile were camera-friendly. Her thick, black hair was combed back, and her dark skin was flawless. Her gray suit jacket, gray slacks, and red sweater fit her perfectly. We hadn’t seen each other since our break-up, so after some awkward greetings, we addressed the press conference. Jada confessed she was a little nervous, but excited for the opportunity. She excelled in the limelight, and I had no concerns over how this would go.
Jada interviewed me on the steps of the government center. She gave me a quick, friendly wink before we started, and then was all business. As instructed, I said nothing of Brittany’s aperture wound or of her being wrapped in a blanket. I stated that we were optimistic for a full recovery for Brittany, and that the doctors had indicated she was showing promise. The truth was the doctors told us that, at this point, she had about a fifty-percent likelihood of surviving. Maurice wanted people to believe she would survive, because he wanted the perpetrator to sweat over the possibility that Brittany could identify him. He thought it might get someone who had information to come forward. I didn’t like doing this to the family, but it wasn’t my call. I stated that the quick discovery was made possible by the BCA working closely with local law enforcement. This allowed everyone to receive credit. As anticipated, Jada was at her best, both genuinely concerned for Brittany and appreciative of the work of law enforcement.
When my interview was done, Jada continued to speak to the camera while I snuck out. I was exhausted, cold, and had a headache. Maurice ordered me to take Sunday off. I returned to my hotel room. Numbers began swarming around in my brain like angry hornets, and it took me a minute before I realized the timeframe of Brittany’s disappearance and discovery was tormenting me. I wasn’t aware of any cold-water immersions where someone had survived after being submerged for hours on end. The paramedics confirmed that we got her heart beating. It was faint, but it was there. This meant her body had been submerged for fewer than thirty minutes. If this was the case, Brittany didn’t go into that culvert until after the police arrived at the Brennan farm. Someone had wrapped an eleven-year-old girl in a blanket, entombed her in a culvert, and then flooded the culvert, less than a mile from where I was standing. It was disturbing, and my soul ached for Brittany.
SUNDAY, MARCH 30
I AGREED TO MEET MY PARENTS at St. Joseph’s Church in Pierz. I loved driving into the town. In 1888, early Pierz settlers erected an enormous brick Catholic church on a hill in the middle of town. The community then grew around it. The result was a beautiful view of the church, rising above the houses from every direction. It was a common practice in Germany to make the church the highest structure in the community.
Driving into Pierz always made me think of Serena Bell— sharing an ice cream cone with her at Sue’s Drive-In or just walking Main Street in the small town, which consisted of a handful of houses and businesses. I considered that the best-case scenario today would have Serena married to a nice Christian man, and mother to a couple of healthy kids. She would be the kind of loving parent who always put her children first. She had probably put on a few pounds and had let herself go a bit; she would talk about her children incessantly. The worst-case scenario would be that she was still a thin, available, ravishing beauty, because it could mean some other factor might have kept her single, like gambling, alcoholism, or sex addiction. By the way, this is what obsessive folks do. If we fear rejection, we convince ourselves that we never really wanted to see them anyway (rather than accepting that most single women are healthy and stable). Serena could be all kinds of wonderful, but for my own purposes, I reduced her to two potential scenarios: married and frumpy, or beautiful but deeply disturbed.
St. Joseph’s had large, arched stained-glass windows of saints all along the sides, and when the sun was out, as it was today, the windows glowed in a glorious display of colors. As I turned to make the sign of peace in church, I spotted her two rows back. Worst-case scenario. Serena’s long, brown hair flowed with a natural curl past her shoulders. Her green eyes were radiant, framed by her olive skintone. At a diminutive five-foot-three, she was still petite, but was now a stunning twenty-eight-year-old woman who instantly took my breath away. Her black wool coat was open, revealing a peasant-style blouse, decorated around the edges with colorful embroidered flowers. Serena had a classy, if a bit folksy, style.
Serena was waiting on the steps as I exited the church. With a combination of heart-hammering excitement and disbelief, I blurted, “What are you doing here?”
She bit her lip, and I was transported back to high school, fondly remembering how that little mannerism used to make my stomach flip. “This from the man who used to tell me religion should be a way of life, not something you attend.”
The Shakespeare sonnet, “If I could write the beauty in your eyes, and with fresh numbers, number all of your graces, in days to come they’d say this poet lies,” came to mind. Like Shakespeare, I found this woman unbelievably ravishing. But instead of saying anything along those lines, I clumsily said, “I didn’t realize you still lived around here.”
Serena smiled. “I don’t. My parents were renting out their old place, but now that they’ve lost the r
enter, they’ve decided to sell it. I drive back to Pierz from St. Paul, when I have time, to make it look nice for them. So, I’m staying at our old house tonight.” She cocked her head to the side and added, “You look good, Jon.”
“You look amazing.” I was a little embarrassed over how easily the words left my lips.
She hesitated for a second, then extended her arms for a hug.
I savored her warmth and felt my spirit recharge. It felt wonderful to hold Serena. Her presence and clean scent felt as fresh as the air after a much-needed summer rain. Without conscious awareness, we held hands for a moment after the hug ended, before we both glanced down and awkwardly let go.
I swallowed nervously. “I’ve been thinking about you,” I admitted. “I’ve often wondered how your life turned out. I imagined you were married and had a couple kids by now.”
“Well, I haven’t been married and I have no children. I have business management and psychology degrees from St. Ben’s, and I’m managing a clinic for Fairview now. The MNsure insurance stuff is a huge headache at the moment. This system doesn’t work, and, instead of making IBM fix the crappy system they created, the state has simply hired more people to answer the phone and apologize to people who can’t get help.” She stopped herself. “But I enjoy most of my work, and the people I work with are great. I was living in Eden Prairie, but I let my lease end and moved in with my parents in St. Paul until I find a house. I’m ready to buy.”
“I knew you would do well.” If she was ready to invest, she didn’t have gambling issues.
I invited Serena to dinner at my parents’, then spent the day with her at her parents’ old farmhouse.
10:30 P.M
PIERZ
LATER THAT NIGHT, we were sitting on the floor in front of her parents’ old brown couch playing Scrabble. We had quickly lapsed into comfortable conversation, and it felt as if no time had passed since we last saw each other. She had been working on the same glass of wine all evening, so she wasn’t an alcoholic. I loved the way Serena’s eyes lit up when she shared stories about her family. She had always made me feel like I was an important person, even though I’d honestly never been one. I reveled in her affection and did my best to reciprocate it. Suddenly, our conversation reached an awkward silence.
Murder Book Page 4