Maddy swore as she realized, “That’s Yesonia Hartman.”
I left Maddy and Clay, and made my way over to her. I planted my feet in front of her and introduced myself. “I’m Jon Frederick.”
She nodded, “I know.” Her voice was so soft and weak when she spoke, I had to lean closer to hear her over the din of the saloon. “I’m Yesonia.”
My interest peaked, I clarified, “Yesonia Hartman, daughter of Luke and Maria Hartman?”
A silken strand of hair had escaped from behind her ear. She swept it out of her face, and nodded.
“I’ve been hoping to get a chance to talk to you. The gun stolen from your home was used in a homicide. Who would have taken that gun? You must have some people you suspect.”
Yesonia had her foot propped on the brass rail across the bottom of the bar. She studied her camel-colored ankle boots with intensity and raised a shoulder, “How would I know?”
Her uncertain posture was reflective of her youth and of her underlying fear. I quickly calculated that she wasn’t even old enough to drink in this place, yet here she was, alone. “You were in high school when the gun was stolen. You must have some friends you suspected.”
Yesonia stiffened and looked squarely into my eyes, “My friends weren’t like that. You should be talking to my sister, Leah.” She held my gaze, as if trying to communicate something she could not speak aloud.
I pressed, “Why would Leah know?” I looked down the bar at Maddy, who was now sitting particularly close to Clay.
“Guys have always loved Leah,” Yesonia stated, as if it was common knowledge. “No one ever came over to see me.”
My phone buzzed. I held up a finger to Yesonia and turned away to answer it. I’d instructed Ava’s bodyguards to buzz me when she ditched them.
Ava Mayer’s bodyguard, Jeremy, reported in his clipped baritone voice, “Ava asked me to go home. She called her dad and talked him into ordering me out, so she could have some alone time. Feels she’s being smothered. I’m still down the block. You asked me to call, so here’s the call.”
“Stay where you’re at,” I tensed, my grip tightening on the phone. “I’ll stop over and see if I can talk some sense into her.” More often than not, Ava didn’t answer phone calls, and I wasn’t even sure she would answer the door. “Do you have any idea what the home security code is on their alarm system?”
“No, I haven’t been privy to that. I do know she makes some vague comment about ‘oral’ every time she enters the code.”
After hanging up, I turned back to Yesonia. She was looking at me expectantly. I wrote my phone number on a bar napkin and pressed it into her hand. “Call me if you have anything that will help with the investigation.”
As I was about to leave, I had an afterthought, and was about to gently touch her arm to get her attention, when I decided against it. I don’t like to touch anyone unless permission has clearly been offered. So, I awkwardly waved, and when she glanced my way, said, “Stay off line. Whoever is doing this is a computer master. Stay off Snapchat in particular, and tell your sister the same. People can use Snapchat to identify your exact location.”
Yesonia tucked her hair behind her ear and quietly said, “Thank you.”
I had planned to tell Maddy I was leaving, but as I approached, she slid off her barstool to her feet, so close to Clay that any space between them was erased. Maddy’s eyes met mine for a moment. She shrugged her shoulders in a why not? gesture.
I waved goodbye and left for Marcus and Angela Mayer’s home.
I tried calling Ava on the way, but not surprisingly, she didn’t answer. Knowing Ava’s trashy sense of humor, and being a man who has a history of making stories out of numbers to remember them, I began to work out possible, four-number codes for their security system. By the time I arrived, I thought I had it—“1812.” If you change the “1” to an “I,” and say the numbers out loud, you have, “I ate one too.” When I arrived and entered the code, the door opened.
As I entered the house, I heard the back door slam. I yelled, “Ava! It’s Jon!”
“I’m here,” Ava’s voice wailed faintly from the recesses of the hallway. Light spilled from the bottom of the bathroom door, so I made my way in that direction, tensing with apprehension. When I pushed open the door, the bathroom was full of steam. Ava was crumpled on the floor next to the shower door. A bath towel had been pulled down and draped over her body. Her skin looked scalded and bright red. I asked, “Are you okay,” as I ran some cool water over a hand towel.
Ava nodded weakly, “Yeah.”
I handed her the cool towel. “Here—this will feel good against your skin. I’ll step out and find you some clothes.” Back in the hallway, I called nine-one-one, and then Jeremy, the bodyguard, to look for the person who had just exited ahead of me. Jeremy told me he hadn’t seen anyone leaving, which didn’t surprise me, as he was parked in front of the house. He agreed to look around.
I returned to Ava with sweat pants, socks, and underwear for her, and one of her dad’s extra-large Tommy Bahama t-shirts. She wouldn’t want anything that clung tightly to her scalded skin. Ava appeared to be experiencing heat exhaustion. She was shaking uncontrollably, and stuttered, “H-he stood there ready to sh-sh-shoot me. I was in the shower and had n-no place to go!” She clutched at the cool towel and continued, “I turned the water as hot as I c-could, to steam up the stall. I planned to move as f-far as I could to one side, right before he pulled the trigger—I h-hoped he’d miss—but he heard you come in and didn’t shoot.”
I set her clothes on the counter and held her towel in place as I extended a hand to help her up. I very intentionally maintained eye contact with her and said, “You found a way to survive, with almost no resources, and that’s amazing! Who was it?”
Ava sighed, “I don’t know. He was wearing a black stocking cap, black gloves, and all black clothes.” Ava was still shaking.
“Are you going to be okay to dress if I step out?”
Ava nodded. “Thank you.”
I called Maddy, and then Zeke, but neither answered. I couldn’t abandon Ava to search. I had to give her credit for making a decision to obscure the shooter’s view with steam. The fraction of uncertainty the shooter had, over whether he would deliver a kill shot, might have been enough to keep him from firing. He couldn’t risk verifying she was dead if he planned to escape the scene alive.
I RODE WITH AVA IN THE AMBULANCE to the hospital. She spoke little during the commute, and I let her have peace. After her parents and armed guards arrived, I called Sean Reynolds, who was working the scene of the crime. I was blessed to have Sean arrive, as he was one of our best investigators. He been occupied handling the fallacious killing of Philandro Castille. Sean knew part of the reason he was assigned to the case was because he was an African American investigator, and the public demanded to have a black BCA agent working the case. Sean reported there were no prints from the intruder at the Mayer home, and no video footage. I drove to the Mayers’ and we finished working the scene together.
18
JON FREDERICK
2:00 P.M., SATURDAY, MAY 6,
EDINA
LIKE A GHOST, AVA’S INTRUDER had come and gone without leaving a trace of evidence. On Saturday afternoon, I called Jada and offered to buy her a calzone at Broders’ Pasta Bar in Edina, if she’d be willing to talk a little shop with me. Broders’ has a quaint café with spices and jars of spaghetti sauce for sale on shelves when you enter. Jada’s mustard yellow blouse contrasted pleasingly against her dark skin. We ordered at the counter and took a small table by the window. It was almost seventy degrees, and the sunshine beaming through the window gave her coffee-colored eyes a warm glow.
When I asked about being in the bar with Maddy on March 6, Jada groaned, “I remember that night. El was upset that three transgendered women had been killed in New Orleans in the past month. While El and I were at a table commiserating with some of the local reporters, Maddy was going on and on at
the bar about her terrible ex. By the time I was ready to leave, Maddy was in bad shape.”
“Any idea who gave her a ride home?”
Jada laughed, “She doesn’t remember?”
The waitress delivered our calzones. Our conversation was on hold until we could assure our waitress we were fine.
Jada still made me wait a moment before revealing, “I did. When I went to the parking ramp, Maddy was passed out just inside the entrance. Her lipstick was smeared all over her mouth.” She shook her head, recalling the image. “She’d only left the bar a couple minutes before me. I was thinking, Girl, what the hell were you doing?”
I asked, “Do you think she was assaulted?” I thought about the redness and considered it may not have been smeared lipstick.
Jada shook her head, “I don’t think so. I was only minutes behind her. After she stumbled out, I wanted to make sure she wasn’t driving. She was so limp, it was all I could do to get her into my car and home. I felt like I’d lost a wrestling match when I was done.” Jada cut into her calzone and steam and red sauce oozed from it. “I left her fully dressed on her living room floor. I locked her house and mailed the keys back to the address I got off her driver’s license. I didn’t bother to write a note—what do you say? It was fun?” Jada chuckled without humor, “Well, that explains why she never thanked me.”
Jada closed her eyes in appreciation of the warm sun shining through the window. She opened them and looked seriously at me. “Jon, you’re being paid by the Mayers. I don’t know how you eluded an investigation into that, and I don’t particularly care. I’m not going to tell anyone about it, but you’re not going to stop me from covering this case. I was the one who opened the door to this media circus with Ava. Don’t ask me to stop doing my job. You saw what happened—when I backed off for one second, Jack Kavanaugh stepped in and filled the void. I could have had those interviews. Ava is a career-making story. I can’t abandon it.” Jada softened, “Nothing personal. This is my chance.”
“I understand.” I smiled. “I’ve always felt you deserved to be on the national news. I’m just trying to keep Ava alive.”
Jada took a sip of tea before responding, “Maybe there’s a good reason she doesn’t fear for her life. She’s still the only one who’s seen the killer—or claims to have.”
“Ava didn’t kill Alan.” When she looked at me doubtfully, I continued, “I’m right on this.”
Jada gave a half-smile. “First, it was a guy with a small dick, now it’s a woman—maybe even an investigator. Is there any evidence to suggest she isn’t guilty?”
“We have DNA indicating another man had been in the bed where Ava was assaulted. A masked predator broke into her parents’ home last night when she was there alone. I heard him leaving when I entered the house. Fortunately, Ava wasn’t hurt.”
I wasn’t going to give up the evidence we had about the cutting, as this could ultimately be important to prosecuting the killer, but I wanted to give her something. We needed some fresh information on this case, and we weren’t going to get any if everybody assumed Ava was the killer. “Remember Ava’s story that there was a third person at the scene?”
Jada brightened, as visions of another breaking news opportunity flashed through her brain. “You’re going forward with the DNA study.”
“I’m still trying to talk the Mayers into funding the study. I want you to write about the algorithm I’ve created. I haven’t been able to convince people how significant this DNA study could be. I would be creating an outline of genetic patterns in Minnesota we could use for every future crime involving DNA. I’ve been trying to convince Marcus Mayer this study could be a lucrative private business.”
Jada furrowed her eyebrows, “Why isn’t the BCA paying for this?”
“It’s expensive. I’ve been told we simply don’t have the funding.”
Jada took out her notepad and said, “Please explain the process again.”
I explained, “It involves a series of DNA tests. I’d go to a variety of ethnic areas and get sample DNA tests. I don’t need a lot of people to volunteer—just some. There’s nothing illegal about it, since it involves volunteers. The process keeps narrowing down potential suspects until it could only be a handful of candidates. Then we just have to confirm alibis. It may take as long as a year to get this done, but I’ll get this killer. My goal is to catch him through another means before then, though.”
Jada savored the rich traditional sauce in the calzone as she pondered, “So who’s your best suspect?”
“Honestly, I don’t have a decent suspect.” I thought about Kub Kuam Peb. “We do have a suspect we’re trying to match the DNA to, but I don’t know that he’s our guy.” It seemed odd that a killer this intelligent would use “thirteen” for the code if it was his last name. But, Kub had also refused to give a DNA sample.
Feeling it was too early to implicate Kub, I diverted the conversation to some information I received from Tony Shiletio. “There’s surveillance tape from a neighbor down the road from Alan Volt, indicating two cars pulled out of that driveway after the murder, as Ava suggested—first the murderer, then her in Alan’s car. Unfortunately, the video wasn’t clear enough to even identify the vehicle.”
“I owe you!” Jada leaned into me and kissed me on the cheek, wrapped up her calzone, and then took off to prepare her story.
10:45 A.M., MONDAY, MAY 8,
BUREAU OF CRIMINAL APPREHENSION, ST. PAUL
ON MONDAY, MAURICE STROCK CALLED me into his office and told me Maddy had filed a complaint against me. By sharing information supporting Ava’s innocence, I had poked a mama bear who had lost her cub. In chemistry, they say for every action, there’s a reaction. I was about to get mine.
Maurice directed me to be seated, then stood in front of me, his wild, white hair swaying as he waved a finger at me. “Maddy believes you’re being paid by the Mayers to provide them information relevant to our investigation. Do you understand the seriousness of this allegation?”
“Maurice, I told you from the onset that the Mayers asked me to look into an assault on their daughter. Since I’ve accepted the role as lead investigator on this case, I have not taken even one red cent from them.” The twist of words didn’t make the deceit easier to voice.
Maurice railed, “Jada Anderson’s report on the news last night sure supports Maddy’s claim that you’re working for the Mayers. She spoke of the DNA of a man, other than Alan, being on the bed where Ava was assaulted. I told you it could have come from another time.”
I interjected, “We also have a video of two cars pulling out of the driveway, as Ava reported.”
Maurice’s aging hands trembled with frustration as he argued, “We don’t talk to the media at this stage of the investigation.”
In an attempt to de-escalate Maurice’s angst, I asked, “Do you think it’s fair to crucify Ava Mayer in the news when Kub Kuam Peb is currently our best suspect? We kept the murder of Asher Perry and the attempted attack on Ava out of the news to help our investigation. It’s left a troubled rape victim with a big target on her back.”
Maurice ran gnarled fingers through his too-long white hair. “You should have run it by me first.”
I countered, “Who referred to Ava Mayer as the next Jodi Arias? I didn’t. It was all over the news.” We both knew it was Maddy. “Ava needs a reprieve from being in the spotlight. It’s not good for her, and it could get her killed.”
Maurice ignored the comment. “Maddy and Zeke are following Kub, waiting for him to rub his DNA on something they can grab as evidence. We’ll get him.” Maurice’s face scrunched in perplexity. “Maddy said you think Zeke broke into your apartment and plugged your toaster in.”
I had shared with Maddy that I had concerns about Zeke, that my apartment had been broken into, and that someone had plugged in my toaster. Somehow, that went from being three separate events to one thing, but I elected not to argue.
Maurice softened paternally, “Are you
losing your mind? Have you spoken to Marcus separate from this investigation since you took over the case?”
“I have. After you told me the BCA wasn’t going to fund the DNA algorithm I created, I went to Marcus and asked if he’d fund it.”
In resignation, Maurice finally flopped into his desk chair. “The algorithm you developed is genius. I’d love to say we’ll pay for it, but I can’t find the money. We both know that a private lab will do this and ultimately we’ll pay through the nose for their results. It’s damn near impossible to get people in the state system to fund an idea that won’t show a payoff for a year.”
Maurice took a deep breath. “I made a mistake by asking you to interrogate Maddy over how she arrived at Alan Volt’s body so quickly. It created unnecessary friction between partners. But I’ve known Maddy for a long time, and she isn’t vindictive. I’m taking this seriously. You need to take some time off, away from this investigation. That is not a request—it’s a direct order.” Maurice proceeded to tell me I was suspended pending further investigation.
I wasn’t as nervous about losing my job as I should have been. Nothing mattered as much as my longing for time with my daughter and Serena. Typically, when someone vilifies me and they’re right, I’m angry because their criticism exacerbates my own shame. But I wasn’t upset at Maddy. She expressed a legitimate concern. This meant I was either maturing or simply falling apart—maybe both. It did help that it was paid leave. I offered to open all of my financial affairs to the investigation, and Maurice suggested this was wise.
WHEN I LEFT THE BCA BUILDING, I called Marcus Mayer and told him I couldn’t be around to protect Ava until my investigation was cleared. I’d be in further trouble at work if anyone knew I was talking to the Mayers when I was told to be off the case.
The I-94 Murders Page 12