by Irving Munro
Jack Johnson was the quintessential Texan and most who knew him were convinced that he had been born with the police officer’s patch on his arm. He owned a ranch outside Giddings, a few miles east of Austin that he had inherited from his father. There he raised a few head of cattle and made significant money from oil extracted from the property. Jack owned all the mineral rights as well as the land. His word was his bond and if he shook your hand, his commitment was absolute.
Marie Mason was born in Tyler, Texas, the only daughter of a cattleman. Before taking a job in the Travis County police department, she had worked as a detective with the Smith County Sheriff in Tyler and cared for her very sick mother who eventually passed away from breast cancer. Her life partner, Shelly, would tell you that she could chug a beer faster than any man and would arm-wrestle you at the drop of a hat. She was smart as a tack and could sense when the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle didn’t quite fit. That’s what Bill Ross liked about her, being an old jigsaw man himself.
Father and son, Bill and Tommy Ross were more alike than either of them had ever thought. Tommy, once a Marine, always a Marine, had arms like a mixed martial arts fighter and owned a selection of guns that he kept under lock and key to ensure that nothing bad could happen accidently. The stash was sufficient to defend a small town from the zombie invasion, which Tommy was convinced could happen at any time. Tommy had moved on from his Jedi days to a protector of the innocents from the undead. Like millions of others, he was addicted to The Walking Dead TV series. Watching it was his Sunday ritual. Across his shoulders, he had a tattoo Made in Scotland and was intensely proud of his Scottish heritage.
His father was a fanatical Kilmarnock FC supporter while Tommy loved his Oakland Raiders. Even in sports, they had a lot in common; both of their teams were crap, losing more games than they won.
Tommy’s father was a cross between William Wallace, the Scottish freedom fighter and Sherlock Homes. He hated guns. Growing up in the UK in the sixties, he had seen what guns could do in the hands of the baddies, like the brothers Ronnie and Reggie Kray. The brothers enjoyed killing and they controlled the East End of London, inflicting the maximum pain on their adversaries while innocent bystanders were often caught in the crossfire.
Tommy was of the belief that guns never killed anyone. It was bad people who killed good people. Bill’s opinion was that guns helped the bad guys kill a lot of people. Some good and some bad, but the perpetrator most of the time couldn’t care less. Guns reinforced the power of evil and increased the probability that the use of said power would result in bloodshed. They certainly differed on the gun subject but their other underlying personalities made them two peas from the same pod.
An interesting team, united in a common purpose: the unrelenting pursuit of justice. If you were a baddy and these four musketeers were on your tail, you should be terrified, no question about that. The bastard who had killed a beautiful twenty something and left her in the backyard of a Riverside home was going down! All of them agreed that they would be present when the needle went in, the life drained, and the killer’s eyes went dark in their skull.
~
The following morning they were back at it. “OK, team. Divide and conquer and let’s be thorough,” said Jack as they wrote out their action plan on the whiteboard in the conference room. They had designated it as the “war room” following the approval of Chief Dunwoody to re-open the case.
“Firstly, we need to go visit with Stan Hardwick at Lake Buchanan. Bill and I will do that. Next, we should arrange a meeting with the HOA President Bill Larkin. Tommy, I suggest you take that one.”
Tommy looked up from his notes and nodded. Jack erased out a mistake on the board and continued.
“We should also talk with Dawn and Harvey Cohen again, separately. We need to know Harvey’s movements and if he really was at the convention in Vegas. We also need to track Dawn down and re-interview her. There was something in the file about her body language when the topic of Jim McCord was raised. You take this, Marie and please leave Dawn in one piece or at least with no visible bodily injuries,” joked Jack.
“Will do boss,” said Marie with a huge smile across her face, not able to contain her excitement at the prospect of grilling Dawn Cohen again.
“Last and not least, there is Jim McCord. Bill and I will interview him again. We’ll give him a few days to stew after we tell him that we have reopened the case.”
Jack turned from the whiteboard and faced the team. Everyone looked eager to launch back into the investigation.
“Team, today is Friday, August 29. The next full briefing and update on progress will be one week from today at 10:00 a.m. I’ll have Celia put it in the calendar and tell her that this room is now off limits to everyone other than members of the Riverside murder team. From now on, it is under lockdown, with the four of us the only people with access. Also, Marie, can you get these windows blacked out? I don’t want people walking down the hallway staring at us like goldfish in a jar or taking notes that end up on the front page of the Statesman.”
The cold case team was now fully engaged. As they all left the room with their assignments, Bill thought, “Unleash the hounds.” It was time to find the scent and follow it to their prey.
Chapter 17- Stan Hardwick
2014 - The Cold Case Investigation
It took Jack Johnson and Bill Ross ninety minutes to drive to Stan Hardwick’s place. They had gone east on Highway 620 to Highway 183 north and then Highway 29 west to Lake Buchanan. When they drove up the driveway, Stan was sitting on his front porch in his shorts and favorite fishing shirt, tying flies and other lures ready for his next excursion on the lake.
“How are you, Stan?” bellowed Jack as he got out of the car.
Looking up from his fly tying, Stan replied, “Good to see you, Jack. You look in fine shape for an old curmudgeon!”
“This is special reserve detective Bill Ross,” said Jack as he and Bill climbed the stairs. “He came on board a couple of weeks ago to help me with the cold case I talked to you about on the phone.”
Stan shook Bill’s hand and said, “Very pleased to meet you Bill. Why don’t you fellas come on around to the back deck? Y’all want some iced tea? I’ve been off the booze for some time now, so no beer in the place if you had had an inclination for a brew,” said Stan.
“Iced tea would be just the ticket. Thanks, Stan,” said Jack.
Stan went to get the tea as Bill and Jack admired the view out over the lake.
“Quite the Shangri-La he has here,” said Bill as he took in the view over the lake. “What an idyllic spot.”
Stan overheard Bill’s comment as he walked back with the tea. “We liked it the first time we saw it. Doreen and I bought the land back in ’95 and we got Garrison McMullen to build us a dream home for our retirement. Unfortunately, Doreen only got to enjoy a couple of years in the place as she passed away from breast cancer in 2009,” said Stan, putting the tea down on a wicker table by the matching wicker chairs.
“So, you’re opening up the case again?” asked Stan.
“Yup, we got the approval from Bill Dunwoody yesterday,” replied Jack. “What are your memories of the case, Stan? Why did it stall?”
“In all honesty, we couldn’t connect the dots,” replied Stan. “No one in the neighborhood saw anything other than the woman who thought she saw a Ford Explorer. No one else saw the vehicle and we couldn’t make any connections to trace it. There was the Cohen woman, who was drunk most of the day, so she was of no help. Why would Jim McCord kill a girl and then leave her in his own backyard? Then there was Jim McCord’s son and his friends who had the house cleaned after they returned to Oklahoma. Unlikely that they were going to forget one of their friends and leave her dead at the side of the pool with a bottle of wine!”
Stan paused, took a sip of tea and continued. “We couldn’t even ID the girl! We ran fingerprints through the databank, we had a sketch made up and circulated it to other Police Departments
and Sheriff’s Offices in Texas with no response. Even The Austin Statesman ran an artist impression sketch with an editorial piece, The Lady by the Lake. All we got was a sea of crap responses that we had to wade through. One guy who lived on the hillside overlooking Riverside swore on a stack of bibles that he saw a spacecraft hover over the neighborhood that night. According to him, a beam of light shone down from it and deposited the body on a lawn chair. His account was the only one that made any sense and matched the evidence!”
Jack laughed and took a sip of tea. “Yes, it sure is a strange one, Stan.” Jack felt the need to put his friend at ease. He didn’t want Stan to think they were there to beat up on him.
“Are there any other things of any significance that you felt at the time didn’t quite fit? Anything stick in your craw? Maybe people that you suspected were not being straight with you?” prodded Jack.
Stan stared into the distance and mumbled something that Jack and Bill could not quite understand.
“What was that, Stan? What did you say?”
After a long pause, Stan sighed and said, “Not my finest hour, fellas. I think I may have missed a lot of things.”
Stan stared over the calm waters of Lake Buchanan and the tears began to well up in his eyes.
“Doreen’s illness took its toll on us both physically and financially. It was a very aggressive form of cancer and she had to have both breasts removed. The combination of the mental stress and the chemo treatments transformed a beautiful, vibrant woman into a shadow of her former self. Depression set in and she lost the will to continue the fight. A year after the initial diagnoses, she passed away.”
Stan paused and reached out his hand trying to control the shaking and took a sip of tea to steady himself. Jack got up from his chair and put an arm around his old partner.
Stan continued on, “I may have fucked up and not been as thorough as I should have been. To be honest, there is a lot of it I can’t remember because of the booze. Tommy did the best he could, but he was just a rookie and Marie tried hard. I don’t think I gave her all the support she needed. As you know Jack, sometimes the breakthrough in a case comes when you just sit and talk together. I failed to live up to my side of the bargain on that with Tommy and Marie. I just wanted to get home to the bottle.”
“Tommy is my son, Stan,” said Bill, interrupting the monologue trying to stop Stan’s downward depressive spiral.
“Good guy, Tommy and a good officer. He’ll go far one day,” said Stan, almost as a side comment not fully realizing what Bill had said.
They stayed with Stan for another hour until he regained some composure. Jack was genuinely concerned about Stan’s mental state as he stepped outside to call Bill Dunwoody.
After Jack explained Stan’s mental state, Dunwoody said, “I know some groups that provide help to retiring police officers as they try to make the transition from being a cop. I’ll reach out to some folks I know who are involved with these support groups. It can be really tough for these officers, especially those who have spent their entire life in law enforcement. They can have difficulty adjusting and many experience deep depression. I will ask them to reach out to Stan,” said the Chief.
Jack and Bill said their good-byes to Stan and made their way back to Austin, no further forward on the Riverside murder case.
~
On they way back to Austin, while Bill drove, Jack Johnson called Jim McCord on his cell phone. It rang twice before Jim answered.
“Mr. McCord, this is Detective Jack Johnson of the Travis County Police Department. Would it be possible for us to come visit you at your earliest convenience?”
“What is this about?” Jim McCord asked with an irritated tone.
“We are reopening a murder case, Mr. McCord. The one concerning a young woman who was found deceased in your backyard in 2005,” continued Jack.
There was a long pause before Jim McCord responded.
“That terrible event was very disturbing for my wife, Mary, and I, Detective Johnson. It took us a long time to recover from the shock and get our lives back together again. Mary went through almost two years of therapy and still has emotional issues. Why has the case been reopened, has there been a new development?”
“We will explain everything to you when we meet, Mr. McCord,” continued Jack.
“Do you need to involve Mary?” asked McCord.
“Not at this time. If we could meet with you as soon as possible, sir, that would be great. Where are you, Mr. McCord?” pressed Jack.
“We’re back in Austin. We came home from Colorado a couple of weeks earlier than normal this year. Would it be OK to meet at your office, Detective Johnson, rather than here at our home? Again, I’d like to do whatever we can to not disturb Mary.”
“Of course and please call me Jack. When would be a good day and time for you?”
“I am available now and could meet later today, Jack, if that would work for you?” said McCord.
“Great. We are on our way back from Lake Buchanan. Would 5:30 this evening work for you? We can meet at the Hudson Bend Office. Do you know where that is Mr. McCord?”
“Yes, I know where that is. I’ll be there at 5:30. See you then, Jack,” and with that, Jim McCord ended the call.
~
When Jim McCord hung up the phone he stood and stared out into space. He had thought that the events of 2005 were all behind him, but it wasn’t so. A saying popped into his head, “Sometimes the past comes back to haunt us!” As a cold fear crept over him, he realized this might be more than a haunting. This could become a nightmare.
Chapter 18 - Stephanie Lake
2014 - The Cold Case Investigation
“Who was that on the phone, honey?” asked Mary McCord as she lay in her bed resting.
“We need to talk, darling. Can you come into the family room?” asked Jim.
A few minutes later, Mary sat down in her normal chair and pulled her robe around her. She stared at her husband with a look of concern on her face.
“You look worried, Jim. What is it?
“They’re reopening the case of the woman in the backyard, honey.”
Mary gasped, “Oh God, no! We don’t need to go through all of that again, do we? I’m not sure that my nerves can stand it. They didn’t find out who the girl was when Stan Hardwick had the case back then and he told us that there was nothing much they could do without an ID. They ran the artists impression in the Statesman and that didn’t get them anywhere. What makes them think that there might be more information after all of this time?”
As Mary rambled and got more excited, Jim McCord felt his mind drift away. Jim noticed this and snapped back into the present.
“You need to keep yourself together, Mary. We had nothing to do with this and I will try to shield you as best I can. Don’t go talking to your friends about this and if they ask, say that I am dealing with the Travis County police and that because of your condition, there is no reason for you to be involved.”
Mary looked to be on the brink of tears. “What new information can they possibly have? I hate when the police get involved in our lives. They make you feel that you have done something wrong even when you’re totally innocent. It’s just like what happened with that business in Colorado. They kept pressing and pressing and wouldn’t stop. I’m really scared, Jim. I think I need to take another Valium and go lie down.”
After Mary had left and the bedroom door was closed, Jim stared out of the window at the backyard pool.
“The scene of the crime,” he mumbled.
As he looked out onto the pool, all of the questions of nine years ago resurfaced. What mad fucker had done that to him back then? What was their possible motive? Jim had his suspicions but kept them to himself. When the cops dig up one pile of shit, there is always the chance that they will find another stack close by. Jim knew that there were multiple piles on this one and it would take all of his skills to keep the police focused on the woman in his backyard. He also needed to
keep Mary together so that she didn’t lose it and start blabbing about stuff she shouldn’t talk about.
He needed to prepare for the meeting with the Travis County detectives. He needed to be mentally strong. No throw away comments that might give them an opening to dig further. He needed to keep it together.
~
While Jack and Bill were driving back from Lake Buchanan and McCord was having his quiet talk with Mary, Tommy Ross was meeting with the Riverside HOA President Bill Larkin.
A retired banker, Bill Larkin had bought one of the first houses built in Riverside. They met in Bill’s home office. He sat behind a huge oak desk and peered over the top of his gold half rim reading glasses, his long grey hair flopping over as he did. Tommy felt like he was in a meeting to ask for a loan and that Bill Larkin was already pre-disposed to refusing the request.
“Thanks for agreeing to meet with me, Bill,” said Tommy. “You spoke with my dad, Bill Ross, a week or so ago and he told you he was doing a survey. I have to come clean, it’s not a survey. We are actually reopening an unsolved murder case. You might remember the body that was found in the backyard of the McCord’s residence back in 2005?” said Tommy apologetically.
“Oh, I see,” said Bill Larkin, more than a little offended by the deception. “If you had just been honest with me initially, Detective Ross, I think that that would have been more professional.”
Tommy could sense Bill Larkin’s tone and could tell the rouse had touched a nerve with him.
With the initial tense exchange over, Bill Larkin attempted to take control of proceedings. “I was not the HOA President back then. Stephanie Lake, our current treasurer, was the HOA president in 2005. Would it help if I asked her join the meeting if she is available? She only lives around the corner on Angel Way.”
“I think that would be very helpful, Bill,” said Tommy.