I am starting to understand what I might see in him.
I see a vinyl deck in the other corner; no i-pod for this man. Hundreds of albums are crammed into a sturdy pine bookcase, and I sift through them, learning about the man I slept with. John Coltrane’s revolutionary 1965 album, A Love Supreme. The masterpiece Time Out by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Ellington at Newport, with Gonzalves’ 27-chorus saxophone solo. The relaxing bossa nova of Getz/Gilberto. Dozens more, a collector’s collection. There are classical albums here and there, a few blues, some country, a little rock. But it’s clear that jazz is Ben’s passion.
My hand strokes the albums, fingers tracing the covers. I’m beginning to get some more of an idea of Ben Taylor, Chief of Police. Loneliness is the first word that comes to mind. A chair he sits in to eat his meals, listening to jazz by himself, maybe heading over to the piano to practice a few bars of his own from time to time. Losing himself in the music. My heart beats a little harder in my chest; I try and ignore the sensation.
I would guess loneliness is typical of a divorcé who’s moved from his home town. I wonder why he got divorced. Work? A common problem with cops – they work terrible hours, and even when they do come home, they often bring it back with them. When you see some of the things people do to each other, it can make normal family life hard to cope with.
So if Ben is a police “lifer”, will he bring his work back here with him? It’s possible. I enter the kitchen, fill the kettle and turn it on; aimlessly leaf through a stack of mail by the bread bin. Through the windows I see it is still dark outside, although what little light there is gets reflected off the crisp layer of snow which must have fallen overnight.
I remember the coffee table and wander back to the living room, ignoring the dining area. The coffee table is littered with papers, and I sit down on the sofa to look through them. Strange really – I’m able to check through Ben’s private papers with almost no guilt at all, but I’m loath to violate the sanctity of his leather recliner.
On the top there is a copy of the Anchorage Daily News, yesterday’s edition. Open at the sports pages. I leaf back through it, examining each page closely. I find it all too quickly; five days on, and the poor girl still makes page two.
I read on, nervous.
Enquiries are ongoing into the death of a young girl on the grounds of a farmstead in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley. The authorities have yet to release the identity of the victim, but she is believed to have been in her teens, and to have died of injuries sustained through assault, aggravated by exposure.
Ex-New York District Attorney’s Office prosecutor Jessica Hudson was released without charge two days ago after helping the Alaska Bureau of Investigation with their enquiries. Ms. Hudson relocated to Alaska after an organized crime shooting left her in a coma for six months back in New York. It is not believed the death is connected. However, Ms. Hudson’s father – prominent Boston defense attorney Charles Hudson – has recently been in Palmer, and it is suspected that he negotiated his daughter’s release after she was initially charged in connection to the girl’s death.
Even more interestingly, Ms. Hudson’s ex-fiancé, Paul Southland, was also detained and charged in connection to the girl’s death, although he too was recently released. He travelled to Anchorage from New York ten days ago, apparently in order to seek a reconcilement of some sort with Ms. Hudson. It is not known whether Mr. Southland and Ms. Hudson have seen one another since their release, but it is believed that Mr. Southland has now flown home to New York, although he is not allowed to leave the United States, pending the outcome of the ABI investigation.
The ABI has been quiet about the case, but it is believed that Captain De Nares, who is heading the investigation, has called in behavioral analysts from the FBI’s Investigative and Operations Support Section, a unit of the National Centre for the Analysis of Violent Crime. This is often done in cases of serial murder.
Unconfirmed reports of the state of the dead girl’s body may indicate that she was kidnapped and tortured, and parallels have been made with several outstanding cold cases where bodies of young girls were discovered dumped in wilderness areas in the locality, including Chugach State Park. Remains of several victims were discovered in 2010, although it is unknown how long ago they had been dumped there.
When asked about a possible connection between the cases, Captain De Nares said “At this stage, we are keeping an open mind about the case. It is being treated as a standalone crime, and any attempts to link it to previously unsolved cases are inaccurate, misleading, and seriously unhelpful. We are viewing this as a local crime at the moment, and have absolutely no evidence to suggest it is anything else. But I can assure the public that we are exploring every avenue available to us, and we will do everything in our power to bring justice to this girl and her family.”
At the time of printing, it is believed that another non-local is helping the ABI with their enquiries and is currently being held at Palmer Police Precinct, where the investigation is based. Patrick Jenkins, a resident of Seattle, Washington, was visiting his brother Arthur when the girl’s body was discovered at a nearby farm. He is apparently of interest to the investigation due to previous misdemeanor convictions of an unknown sexual nature. Authorities have refused to comment further on his involvement.
I put the paper down, run a hand through my hair. Well, damn. Great reporting. I didn’t do a thing, I’ve been released without charge, and they still manage to make it look as if I’m involved in some way.
My mind turns to the other things suggested by the article, specifically the involvement of the FBI. Is this the work of a serial killer? I consider the state of the girl, her injuries. What De Nares told me, the fact she had been raped and then had her labial lips sewn closed. I wonder if there was any evidence of similar mutilation on the remains found in Chugach State Park. I know it would depend how long they had been out there; it’s possible there won’t have been a lot left. But the involvement of the FBI’s IOSS suggests that someone in the investigation suspects there’s more to the case than they’re letting on.
I think about Pat Jenkins. Prior convictions for sexual felonies don’t surprise me; he seems the type, unfair as that might be. But I know he only arrived in Palmer the night before the girl died, which – bearing in mind De Nares told me the girl would have been kidnapped and held for several days – must mean that he’s got nothing to do with it. Unless Artie already had her, and waited for his brother to come and play his part? Or else Pat was here longer than Artie was letting on, maybe covering for him. Still, the ABI would be able to find that out pretty quickly.
What seems obvious is that the girl was kidnapped, tortured, but then managed to escape somehow. She was staggering across the fields towards my house though, in the opposite direction than if she’d been escaping from Artie’s farm.
I think back to the poor girl’s quivering arm as it raised up, her finger extending in defiance of the cold that was slowly killing her, to point towards the distant woods. I remember the name Ben’s deputy mentioned, Doug Menders. I wonder what, if any, role he might play in the proceedings. His name isn’t mentioned in the paper, at any rate. Although maybe he featured on another day; I’ve missed four of them.
I look at the article again, seeing Paul’s name. I wonder why I didn’t let my thoughts settle on him straight away. Instead, I’ve left him for last. Him and my father.
It appears that Paul’s gone back to New York, and the implication is that my father’s also left. It figures; his work here is done. And Paul would want to get back as soon as he could, to engage in serious damage limitation. He wasn’t charged in the end, but he’s unable to leave the country, and the residual stain on his reputation just by mere association with this case won’t do his chances of making partner any good. I try not to feel happy about this.
But perversely, I’m a little bit upset that Paul has gone. A part of me, I suppose, wanted to see him. I sigh, wondering if I’ll ever grow up.
I put the paper back down and my eye is instantly drawn to something else, a sheaf of white foolscap paper nestled under a dog-eared copy of Sports Illustrated.
I glance towards the stairs, nervous I will see Ben there watching me as I go through his things, but it is quiet, nobody there. I reach forward, pulling the papers out.
Jackpot.
I can see Ben is definitely the type of man who takes his work home with him, even when he’s not even on the case. What I have in my hands is the ABI case file, or at least significant parts of it; interviews and depositions, victim profile, autopsy report, VICAP entry, crime scene analysis along with photographs. I wonder where to start, but it’s really no contest.
With one last look up the stairs, I open the file at the victim profile. Despite the newspaper report indicating otherwise, the ABI knows who the girl was.
And now, at last, I will too.
4
The girl’s name was Lynette Hyams.
She was only fifteen years old. But from the little information the police have on her, it seems her sixteenth birthday would have been far from sweet. The profile is thin, but manages to draw a tear from my eye nevertheless.
The last place she was officially registered as living in was Seattle, which immediately suggests a link to Pat Jenkins. But then again, Seattle is also the last major city on the mainland, and plenty of people arriving in Alaska come from that area. Especially those escaping from something, and although the police don’t have the specifics, it definitely looks like she was running.
The first time she appeared in connection to Alaska was when she was picked up for soliciting in Anchorage, a little over six months ago. It’s suspected she worked for Dennis Hobson, a pimp working the Spenard red light district. I wonder if he’s been questioned yet.
One of the first jobs I had for the DA’s office was working cases for the Special Victims Bureau, Child Abuse Unit. I’ve seen the pattern before; an abused girl finally breaks and runs, finds herself in a new city where she doesn’t know anyone, and immediately becomes the target of predators who know exactly how to use them. Offer them comfort, security, hope, sometimes even love; often get them hooked on drugs, make them dependent; and then force them into prostitution. Often at this stage, they believe the pimps are doing them a favor. It’s a cliché for a reason; it is so often true.
I can see poor Lynette’s life, destroyed before it had ever truly begun. I wonder if her death was linked to the industry in which she worked; was she tortured by Hobson for some sort of infraction, as an example to his other girls? Or did whoever she was running from back in Seattle finally manage to track her down, her past catching up to her? Was she running from Patrick Jenkins?
Her mother is listed as Kim Gaskell, her father as Sydney Baker. Stanley Gaskell, Kim’s current husband, is her fourth. Lynette’s surname came from her mother’s third husband, Bill Hyams. I guess she was fed up with changing her name by the time Stanley rolled by, and decided to keep it as it was. Although, as I look through the list of dates, I see it more clearly now – Lynette’s mother reported her missing just over a year ago, just after she’d married Stanley Gaskell. But the truth was that Kim hadn’t seen Lynette for six months prior to this – just before her fourteenth birthday – and it was only when pressured by her daughter’s school liaison officer that she admitted that Lynette had run away.
So she hadn’t been around for her mother’s fourth wedding, not lived with them, and not taken Stanley Gaskell’s last name. I wonder if there is some connection. Did Lynette run because she couldn’t face living with this new man?
Stanley Gaskell has something of a rap sheet on him, but nothing that would overtly suggest child abuse. Larceny, assault and aggravated robbery don’t make him a nice guy, however.
Kim Gaskell has quite a sheet of her own. Mostly narcotics misdemeanors, but also driving under the influence, being intoxicated in public, supplying alcohol to minors, shoplifting, and even grand theft auto. Most had been pleaded out, but she’d spent two years in the Washington Corrections Centre for Women when Lynette was just six years old.
It’s different people, different places, but I’ve seen it so many times before that Lynette’s lifestyle in Anchorage was almost inevitable. Some kids manage to rise above the horrors they see, but most just get sucked into the same kind of abusive lifestyle they’ve known all their lives. Still, I can never get over the sadness of such situations, the gross wastage of human life. I wonder what sort of life I would have had in Lynette’s place, and doubt I would have done any better.
Whether Lynette travelled directly to Anchorage after she ran away from home, nineteen months ago at the age of thirteen, is unknown; until her first arrest for prostitution six months ago, she could have been anywhere. Done anything. Met anyone.
Did she cross paths with Pat Jenkins?
I shake my head; I won’t find that out just by reading this brief profile. It’s something to bear in mind though, definitely.
The list of suspects is growing, slowly but surely. I think I can rule out Paul, but don’t; you can never be sure. Pat Jenkins, and his brother Artie. Kim Gaskell, Stanley Gaskell, and Kim’s three ex-husbands; who knows how many ex-boyfriends, who will also need to be investigated. Dennis Hobson, and any associates. Doug Menders, whoever he is.
There is also the possibility that Lynette’s murderer is a serial killer, unconnected to her in any way. Perhaps she appealed as a victim due to her age, appearance, or vulnerability; or perhaps some other factor we will never know. The fact that Lynette was working the streets is problematic; prostitutes are the most popular choice of victim for serial killers for good reason. They are already on the edges of society, they often have no fixed address, their colleague are reluctant to talk to the police, and it is part of their job to get into cars or go to unspecified locations with men they don’t know.
I hope it is not a serial killer. I know that criminal behavioral profiling helps, and the FBI’s VICAP program is first-class, but the sad fact is that most serial killers are caught by accident. Police stop drivers for traffic violations and find rape kits in the trunk. The killer catches his leg on a nail and leaves a trace of blood, which is found to correspond with a DNA record for someone previously charged with a drink driving offence.
They keep on doing it until they die, get arrested for some other offence, or run out of luck and get caught. The careful ones are sometimes never caught at all.
Again, I hope it’s not a serial killer.
I go to the kitchen and make myself a coffee, return to the sofa with the mug warming my hands.
I pick up the autopsy report, ignoring the attached photographs for now. She was petite, I see immediately from the statistics. Barely over five feet, and under a hundred pounds. Just a little girl. Living the life she was, I’m sure she could present a street-tough persona when she needed to, but deep down she was just a little girl, lost and alone.
I see the formal identification was made by Lynette’s mother. I wonder how she felt when she saw her daughter lying on the cold metal table in the morgue. Did she feel any responsibility for what had happened to Lynette? Or did she not see any causal link, did she just blame her daughter for being too headstrong, for running away?
I scan the report, fixing on the external examination. It’s not long before my blood runs cold, the clinical language of the coroner only hinting at the hell the little girl must have seen in her final days on this earth.
Severe head trauma, including three indentations of the cranium consistent with the repeated heavy impact of a blunt instrument such as a ball hammer. The nose has been broken recently, and the left cheekbone is fractured in three places. Bleeding is evidenced from the ears, consistent with brain trauma. The lateral incisor, canine and first molar of the left side of the victim’s upper jaw are all missing, and residual damage of the gums indicates that this was a recent injury. They appear to have been forcibly removed. There is a hairline fracture to t
he lower jaw. Swelling underneath both eyes, on the cheeks, and across the forehead are indicative of impact injuries, either with the fists or some other hard object. Traces of semen have been found between the victim’s teeth, under the tongue, and inside the throat. Samples have been removed for analysis.
A ligature mark is visible on the victim’s neck, crossing the anterior midline, just below the laryngeal prominence. The skin above and below the dark red ligature mark shows petechial hemorrhaging. Severe abrasions are also present, indicating that the ligature was perhaps used to drag the victim from one place to another.
The victim’s right collarbone is fractured adjacent to the midline, and there are fourteen separately identified bruises on the right arm, sixteen on the left, again indicative of being struck with fists or other hard object. Ligature marks are also present around both wrists, with abrasions. Fingernails of all ten fingers were short with unidentified dirt underneath, indicating the victim had been scratching something hard, such as the floor or walls. The foreign material has been removed and sent for analysis. The distal phalanges of the last two fingers of the right hand are fractured.
In addition to impact injuries, there are twenty-two incisions on the victim’s lower trunk, covering an area from the genitals to the navel and from hip to hip. The deepest cut pierced the lower intestine, causing internal bleeding. The wounds are consistent with a sharp-bladed weapon such as a razor-blade or box-cutting knife.
Red Moon Rising Page 9