I missed Serena. There was once a sense of magic in our intimacy. We’d stand in front of this window together, wishing the rest of the world could be as content. How could she walk away from that? My phone buzzed and, for a moment, I had a sense of hope.
I was greeted by the gruff voice of a police officer from the Minneapolis Second Precinct, “Remember that girl you had me run a check on about a month ago? She was just found dead in her apartment. I remember her because it was such an odd name.”
“Yesonia Hartman? Give me the address—I’ll be right there!” Panic and despair overtook me. I should have prevented this. I called Maurice Strock and told him our killer might be cleaning house, so he agreed to have officers find Nina Cole and keep her safe. I also asked him to make sure Maddy was protected. Culhwch’s strength was his ability to continue after others fell asleep, so I wanted everyone to be on guard. I called Ava and Angela Mayer. Ava was safe at home with security guards still in place. I called both Layla Boyd and Dale Taylor in Clear Lake.
When I arrived at Yesonia’s apartment by the University of Minnesota, a handful of college students milled about in the hallway. I turned to the officer on the scene and said, “Get all their names off their IDs and keep them in a room until we can interview them. If anyone has anything to offer you deem important, let me know right away.”
I stepped around them into Yesonia’s apartment.
A pretty Chicano woman with long dark hair lay dead on the couch. Based on her state of dress—an oversized t-shirt, the logo of which was “Empty Without Reason,” and just underwear—it appeared she had been tucked in for the night when she was attacked. My heart sank. It was so easy for people to be evil, and it was so hard to stop it. I made my way over to her for a closer look. Hematomas in her eyes and a red mark on her neck indicated that she had been choked to death. The killer had likely broken the hyoid bone in her neck. The hyoid was just below the chin and over the throat—it was the only bone in the body not connected to another bone. Fracturing the hyoid was the most common way a woman was killed during a sexual assault. The girl looked like Yesonia, but she wasn’t Yesonia.
I looked around, “Who called this in?”
One of the officers approached me and answered, “Her neighbor heard what she thought was a physical fight. She locked herself in her apartment, called the police, and hid until they arrived.”
Suddenly, a frantic Yesonia Hartman burst into the apartment, flanked by an officer who struggled to hold her back. Yesonia was screaming, “Where is she?”
Yesonia tearfully identified the victim as her older sister, Leah, age twenty-two. Leah had been staying with her to get away from her abusive boyfriend. Had he found her?
Investigator Sean Reynolds arrived at the scene. The BCA was taking this seriously, and Sean was one of our best. He was a clean-cut African American whose black slacks always held a crease, and his white shirt was crisply pressed. Sean told me he studied Maddy’s notes on this case and was ready to work. After viewing Leah’s body and briefly scanning the apartment, Sean approached me and pointed to Yesonia. “Get her out of here. Put her someplace safe. I’ll process the scene.”
I gave Yesonia a moment to look over the scene with her sister, so she would leave with me willingly rather than my having to force her out the door.
As we exited the apartment complex, Yesonia wept so hard her body went limp. I pulled her close to keep her upright. Once we made our way past the flashing blue lights of squad cars, we headed toward the darkness where my car rested. Cars were parked up and down the street. I helped Yesonia into the passenger seat, and she asked to lie down, so I put the seat all the way back and as flat as it would go. Yesonia turned on her side, facing me, and slumped into a fetal position.
I carefully observed approaching headlights as I pulled away from the curb. Concerned that this could potentially be the killer, I directed Yesonia to stay down, just in case. As I turned to her to make certain, a shot blasted through the passenger side window and out the windshield in front of me. Odd thoughts occur to me during stress. Gun it! was my immediate reaction, based on reading a forensic study of John Kennedy’s assassination. Our only Catholic president had been killed partially because his driver hit the brakes after the first shot, making the ensuing shots easier.
I put the pedal to the floor, holding Yesonia down in her seat as my Taurus barreled down the block. I took a sharp left around an apartment complex and without looking at Yesonia, asked, “Are you’re okay?” The entrance and exit trajectory of the bullet made it clear she hadn’t been hit. When she didn’t respond, I added, “Be careful, but I think you’re safe now.”
Yesonia frantically shouted, “How can we be okay? You’ve only been driving for ten seconds!”
I reassured her, “Long chase scenes are for bad drivers. Unless he has a gun that can shoot through a three-story building, we’re good. The shot didn’t come from that oncoming car. The shooter was behind us. There was no car approaching us from behind, so he was on foot.”
“How do you know it didn’t come from that car?”
I pointed to the holes in the windows. “When a bullet first enters it still has its shape, but it flattens out with every object it hits, so the exit hole is bigger.” I was sure our killer was excited to use his new weapon with the night vision scope again. I studied Yesonia for a moment and considered the scenario. Yesonia’s seat was back, and she was still sitting so low she was basically invisible. That shot may have been intended for me.
There were no more shots. I called for assistance. My colleagues had heard the shot and were responding. I gave them our exact address at the moment the shot was fired. I could hear Sean yell in the background, “Get her the fuck out of here. We’ll deal with it! And don’t tell anyone where you’re taking her.” Sean had to have the same suspicion I had. The killer was close to our investigation.
Yesonia and I were both quiet as I headed north. After twenty minutes, she asked me to pull over. We were in a brief lull of traffic around us, so I complied. She stood on the shoulder of Interstate 94, demoralized, staring out at the freeway. The bright colors in her floral, off-the-shoulder blouse were incongruent with her misery.
I listened on the scanner as the police unsuccessfully searched for the shooter. I called Sean and told him I wanted the officers to find that bullet, as I needed to verify this case was related to the other two murders, and not simply the result of a jealous boyfriend.
Maybe I’d been thinking about this case wrong. Culhwch was trying to kill me. He wanted me off this case. Why shoot at me only when I was strapped in a car? For the same reason he sexually assaults bound women. Strapped in, I was no threat. If I stopped thinking of the break-in to my home as related to the killer, it made sense. He knew how to use a rifle, but was not a marksman—he’d missed me twice. He knew computers, but was not an elite expert as Zeke had suggested. If he was, he would’ve been showing off instead of destroying hard drives. The I-94 Killer was a college student or graduate (based on his cyphers). He wanted Maddy on the case because, like the other victims, she had engaged in something he perceived as shameful—infidelity. Like the others, she was argumentative and attractive.
I observed a flurry of headlights approaching in the distance, so I quickly exited the car and ran to Yesonia. I carefully guided her back to the car, brushing remnants of shattered glass off of the passenger seat before helping her in. I turned the scanner off when we turned onto Highway 25 to head north to Pierz. We were now driving into the darkness of rural Minnesota. No more streetlights and no more billboards, just the blackness of the night on a road that sliced through a forest of pine trees.
Yesonia turned on the radio. A classic rock station was playing, “Sharing the Night Together,” by Dr. Hook. Despite my frustration, a sad smile, reminiscent of past pleasantries, came over me, and I reached over and shut it off. This wasn’t the time.
Yesonia’s voice was weak when she asked, “Do you have a problem with light mus
ic? Because I’m feeling a little tense right now.” She looked it, too. She was rigid in her seat, hands clasped tightly between her legs. Yesonia looked haunted in the limited dashboard lighting.
I turned the song back on softly, and said, “Do you hear this tacky part, where the girl is whispering in the background, ‘Would you mind, sharing the night?’”
She nodded.
“My dad listened to Dr. Hook, so this song was on when a girl I was crazy about was over. She whispered along with the song, in that same tacky tone, ‘Would you mind, sharing the night?’ because she knew it embarrassed the hell out of me.”
“What was her name?”
“Serena. We have a daughter, but we’re separated now.” There was a method to my madness. I chose to share, because I wanted her to talk to me.
As the song ended, I shut the radio back off and said, “I can’t ignore the fact that the killer came to your apartment. Who is trying to kill you?” With my lights on bright, I habitually scanned both sides of the dark road for deer or other creatures that ventured out on rural Minnesota roads at night.
“I’m not sure. I’ve had this creepy feeling that somebody’s been watching me lately.”
“Did you get a glimpse of who it was?”
Yesonia shook her head, “No.” She took a deep labored breath, as if she could burst into tears at any moment. She quickly forced out, “I first noticed it about an hour after you left Republic that night.”
I was uncertain of her honesty, until she said, “He has an odd smell. It was in the bar tonight, again. I wanted to make sure no one followed me home, so I stopped at a friend’s apartment before I went to mine. When I got to my apartment, you guys were there.” She covered her face. “It’s my fault! I didn’t know Leah was there. I would have warned her. She comes over when she’s arguing with her boyfriend. It’s happened so much lately, I just finally gave her a key. Leah had this love-hate thing with every guy she’s dated. They’d treat her like crap and she’d hate them, but all they had to do was apologize, and she was back in love again.”
Yesonia was unintentionally describing Maddy Moore, Layla Boyd, and even Ava Mayer. It occurred to me that it wasn’t a physical type this killer was after. He was talking online to these women and was attracted to the antagonistic and crisis-seeking characteristics of Borderline Personality Disorder. Borderline Personality Disorder involved serious instability in interpersonal relationships and alternating between extremes of idealizing and criticizing lovers. They struggle with chronic feelings of emptiness, and an unstable sense of their own identity.
The night was overcast, dark. I dimmed my speedometer lights so my eyes would adjust and see further into the night. I let Yesonia experience her grief uninterrupted, until she emitted a sad laugh.
“Everybody loved Leah. She was so beautiful. Even that dick of a boyfriend was envious of the fact that people loved talking to her. People are going to blame me because she was killed at my place—like maybe I had something to do with it. I was just thinking the one positive thing is that I was shot at. Maybe if people realize he was trying to kill me too, they’ll forgive me.” Yesonia propped her elbow on the door’s armrest and rested her chin dejectedly in her hand.
I softly consoled her, “You didn’t do anything wrong. Don’t for a moment think that anyone, beyond that psychopath who killed her, is responsible for this. If it was up to you, she’d still be alive.”
Yesonia closed her eyes and whimpered with haunting grief that cut right through me. She loved her sister. She finally spoke again. “James Cider was such a jealous prick. He knew nobody could ever love him like everyone loved Leah. He was destroying her. It wouldn’t surprise me if he killed her. If he did, I’ll kill him …” Her voice trailed off into inaudible words.
I asked, “Why did Leah pick abusive men? People who do this usually have a past trauma. What happened to Leah?”
Yesonia took a little too long to answer, “I don’t know.”
I had struck a chord, and I decided to play off-tune and make her correct me. “It happened to you. Leah’s been hiding a secret for you.”
Yesonia became defiant, “I would never ask her to live with that.”
I considered her response, “But Leah asked that of you.” When no response came forth, I revealed, “The other murder victims were shot. She may have been strangled because the killer wanted information—like who she might have told. There is no secret to keep for Leah now.”
Yesonia’s head was bowed for a long time before she nodded, and seemed to come to an agreement with herself. “Two years ago, Leah invited over some guy named Cully she had met online. He tried to rape her. She had one leg in a cast, and she still fought him off. That’s what she was like. I was upstairs peeking down the steps—too afraid to move. I didn’t do a damn thing. I didn’t even get a good look at him. The stair railings were in the way.”
“And that’s the night the gun disappeared.”
Yesonia nodded.
I had to wonder how differently things would have gone if she would have just told someone back then. Buckman was a close-knit town. Someone would have identified his car. The rapist went to using ether after Leah defeated him. He wasn’t going to risk losing another fight with a victim. I offered, “Thank you for sharing. Please tell me anything you can remember.”
Yesonia’s voice hardened in determination. “He was fat—he wasn’t in very good shape. And when Leah and I hugged after he left, there was this smell—not a strong smell, but a unique smell. I hadn’t even thought about that until I caught the smell again in the bar, but it was there again tonight. I immediately panicked and left. I didn’t want to know—I just bailed.”
“Did it smell like ginger?”
“No. Sweat and something industrial.”
He must have added the Blvgari after he met Maddy. He wanted the investigators to turn on her. Now that Maddy was no longer a suspect, he had no reason to keep wearing the perfume.
I handed Yesonia my phone so she could call her parents. They had already received the devastating news and were on their way to Minneapolis. After their long, painful conversation, Yesonia sat in silence, still holding the phone.
I asked, “How badly do you want to live?”
Yesonia looked at me as if the question was absurd. “Bad.”
“Bad enough to surrender your cell phone and all your internet use? You’d have to live with my conservative parents and schizophrenic brother for a couple weeks and not tell a soul.”
She didn’t agree, but she didn’t say no.
“It’s the only way I can guarantee you’ll stay alive. Maybe my dad will even teach you to fire a gun. But Yesonia, you can’t contact anyone—not even family—not over the internet. I’ll get you a burner phone so you can call them. This guy is tracking everyone over the internet. If you go online, he’ll find you.”
We drove through Yesonia’s hometown of Buckman, and her tears started flowing more freely as we passed St. Michael’s church. She sobbed, “I love the Buckman choir. They’ll sing at Leah’s funeral, and the church will be packed.”
I shared, “There’s a stained glass window in St. Michael’s, titled The Descent of the Holy Spirit, which features Mary in turquoise blue and pure white that glows when the sun shines. To me, it exudes grace.”
Yesonia bitterly replied, “Why Leah? She was a drama queen—there’s no denying that. But she excelled in every aspect of her life, aside from her relationships. She always had to have the bad boy.”
I shook my head, “I’m no expert, but I have a theory. I think some people who have experienced trauma divide the world into victims or offenders. Victims don’t want to be with someone who is as anxious and afraid as they are. Because of this, they pick partners with vices they think they understand. They don’t trust healthy people because they’ve forgotten what it’s like to be healthy.”
Yesonia processed all I’d said. She returned, “It makes sense. I briefly dated a good friend, when Lea
h was dating James. When Mom told Leah she should find a guy like the one I was dating, she told our mom, ‘At least I know what James’s vices are.’” After a pause, Yesonia asked, “What are your vices?”
“I’m obsessive, and I’m beginning to realize I’m also arrogant. I think I deserve Serena, who is beautiful and kind. I don’t stalk her or threaten her like James Cider, but it’s still a little arrogant, isn’t it?”
Yesonia’s bitterness quickly dissipated, and she murmured, “You love her. Love is something.” I was having a hard time keeping up with her shifting moods but attributed them to her grief.
“It’s something painful when it isn’t shared.”
Ahead of us, an unexpected orange glow seeped into the blackened sky. My first thought was a farmer was burning a brush pile.
Yesonia, resigned, said, “I’ll stay with your parents, but could you bring some of my clothes?” When she noticed the intense light out of place in such darkness, Yesonia pointed. “Maybe it’s a sign.”
As we came over a hill, Yesonia gasped at the fire surrounding us. The ditches had been set ablaze and generated a bright orange, hellish glow on the charred black prairie around us.
Yesonia shrieked, “We’re trapped!” She frantically began looking out all sides of the car.
I soothed her, “We’re okay. It only appears we’re surrounded. The road curves ahead. The farmers around Pierz burn the ditches every spring. The theory is that the land will be productive more quickly, but honestly, I think they just like burning things. Controlled burning prevents large fires from spreading, since it eliminates the dead brush.”
Yesonia stared at me incredulously, looked around at the fires again and muttered, “Jesus,” under her breath. “This is where you’re from?”
The I-94 Murders Page 16