“Please wait here.”
Brentwood moved quickly, giving him a look as she went.
Six minutes later, she was back. “I made a copy of the chart for her visit on Tuesday, October 19.” She passed him a single sheet of paper. “She was treated with liquid nitrogen for genital warts and offered birth control. She left without the birth control and without paying for the service.”
Jackson looked up from the file. “I thought you guys were free.”
Sheila stifled a sigh. “We offer services on a sliding scale. We do not refuse services to anyone for lack of money. But we bill everyone and hope that they pay. It costs money to run this place.”
“Of course. Uh, I don’t see a reference to her sexual partners.”
“There isn’t one. We don’t ask for names.”
“Even with sexually transmitted diseases?”
“No. The county requires us to report cases of chlamydia and gonorrhea, which are bacterial infections. County health agencies then sometimes contact those patients and request partner names if they think it’s part of a major outbreak.”
“But you don’t get partner names?”
“No.”
Jackson’s energy deflated. He itched to peruse Jessie’s entire file, but his search warrant didn’t give him permission, and he knew there was no point in asking.
“Thanks for your cooperation.”
“You’re welcome.”
After leaving the clinic, Jackson drove across the street to the Mongolian Grill. He figured he had time for one trip through the pick-your-own-stir-fry line. Sizzling meat smells greeted him at the door and made his empty stomach growl. He loved everything about this place except the mustard yellow walls.
In compliance with his doctor’s orders to cut back on fat, he loaded up on noodles and chicken and threw in just enough mushrooms and onions to satisfy the vegetable police. A few minutes later, cooked food in hand, he headed for his table. On the way, he spotted Kera Kollmorgan, the nurse who’d taken a fall the day of the bombing, sitting at a window table by herself. He wondered if—outside the clinic—she would loosen up and give him some information he could use.
Jackson stepped over to her table. “Hello. Kera, right?”
“Yes. Hello, Officer Jackson.” She gave him a warm smile.
Encouraged, Jackson said, “How are you holding up? I mean, after the bomb.”
Reflexively, she reached up and touched the small abrasion on her forehead. “I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”
A moment of silence.
“Would you like to join me? Your food’s getting cold.”
Jackson shrugged. “Sure. Thanks.” He slipped into the chair across from her and dug into his stir-fry.
They ate in silence for a moment, Jackson gulping noodles and Kera picking slowly at vegetables.
“Are you a vegetarian?” He had to start somewhere.
“Oh no.” She laughed at the idea. “I just ate all the beef first. I’m a protein burner.”
He liked her uninhibited laugh and the way her big hazel eyes lit up. “If I worked nearby like you do, I’d probably come here every day.”
“I’m a frequent flyer, for sure. The secret is to load the bowl properly the first time—meaning meat on the bottom—so you don’t have to go back through a second time.”
“Good strategy.”
She poured both of them some tea, and he noticed a faint white line on her left hand where a wedding ring used to reside.
“Detective Quince was asking questions at the clinic yesterday, and now you’re here today,” she commented. “Are you still investigating the bombing?”
“No. A homicide occurred, and that’s my main jurisdiction.”
“Jessie Davenport?” She put down her fork.
“Yes. Do you know her?”
“I’ve seen the news stories.”
“Your initials were on her chart. You treated her for genital warts.”
Kera leaned back. “So that’s why you were at the clinic. Did you get what you wanted?”
“Not exactly. I still want to know who her sex partner was.”
“Do you think he killed her?” Her eyes were intense, but Jackson didn’t sense that she was angry with him.
“He’s our number-one suspect, until we learn otherwise.”
“Any leads?”
“I couldn’t tell you if I did have one.”
She pushed her plate away, and Jackson dug back into his. In a minute, he would probe some more. He could tell she wanted to help. He just had to earn her trust. And he thought he knew how. “My daughter Katie loves this place,” he said between bites. “She’d be jealous if she knew I came here without her.”
He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, so the mention of the daughter surprised Kera. “How old is she?”
“Thirteen. Middle school. Oh boy.” Jackson gave her a pained smile.
“It’s a tough age.” Kera didn’t want him to inquire about her child. Nor did she want to be rude and change the subject, so she asked, “How does your daughter feel about your being a police officer?”
“She’s okay with it. In fact, I think she’s kind of proud of me,” Jackson said.
Names and ages suddenly slammed together in her head. A thirteen-year-old girl named Katie Jackson was one of the students on her sex club list. Kera fought to keep the information off her face and out of her voice. “Where does Katie go to school?”
“Kincaid.”
Kera took a gulp of tea. Maybe his daughter’s last name wasn’t Jackson. Maybe it wasn’t the same girl. But she knew it had to be. Eugene was not that big. And Kincaid Middle School didn’t have two Katie Jacksons.
Oh great. Now she not only had information about a murdered girl that she couldn’t share with the detective, but she also had inside information about his daughter. Kera decided it was time to leave. She reached into her purse for her wallet and found Jessie’s cell phone instead. It occurred to her that she could give it to him now. He already knew that Jessie had been to Planned Parenthood.
She held out the phone to Jackson. “This is Jessie’s. She left it at the clinic.”
Jackson seemed stunned. Then angry. “You’ve had it since Tuesday?”
“I didn’t find it until yesterday morning,” Kera said, feeling defensive. “I planned to put it in the mail to you today, but I just now realized that I could give it to you without violating Jessie’s confidence. I mean, now that you already know she was treated at the clinic.”
His face softened, but he didn’t smile. “Thanks. This reminds me that I’m expecting a fax from the phone company, and it should be here by now. I need to get back to the department.” He looked around for his waitress.
Kera felt inexplicably sad and guilty. “I’m sorry about the delay in getting the phone to you. But we promise our clients confidentiality, and we honor that promise.”
“I understand.” He signaled the waitress to bring his check.
Kera didn’t think he really did understand. “In states where minors need a parent’s permission to get birth control, teenage pregnancy rates are nearly double what they are here.”
“I can see why.” Jackson stared at her. “Do you know who Jessie was having sex with? She may have been the victim of abuse. And he may have killed her.”
“I don’t know. We never ask our clients for that information. But I did ask her if the sex was consensual, and she insisted that it was.”
“Good. I’m glad to know you ask about that.”
Kera grabbed her purse and stood to leave. “Good luck with your investigation.”
“Thanks.” He didn’t smile.
As he drove back to the department downtown, Jackson regretted the way he’d acted. Kera was a nice woman. And he could tell by the compassion in her eyes that she cared about Jessie. About all her clients.
Nice woman. He let out a short laugh. Kera was more than nice. She was also smart and attractive and under different circumstances, he would have considered
asking her out. But his divorce was still a fresh wound, his daughter was not ready for him to be a swinging single, and he had a killer to track down.
The fax of the phone records had come in, and someone had put it on Jackson’s desk. Its arrival saved him the hassle of scrolling back through Jessie’s call history one number at a time. Jackson labeled Jessie’s phone and took it to the fingerprint techs in the department’s small lab. Maybe the killer had handled it.
Back at his desk, he rummaged around for the cheap reading glasses he kept handy, then began to scan the list of numbers on the phone records. It took a minute to pick out Jessie’s phone number from the others. After twenty minutes, Jackson had found five phone numbers that had connected with her—either in or out—at least ten times in the last billing cycle. He circled two more numbers that appeared five and seven times each.
Starting with the most frequent contact—twelve outgoing and fourteen incoming connections—he punched the number into LEDS, the law enforcement data system. The phone line was registered to Joanne Clarke and was part of a cluster of three numbers, all of which had cell phone prefixes. Nicole Clarke was one of Jessie’s friends, and Joanne was probably Nicole’s mother and the one who paid the phone bill. He opened his electronic note file, added the name and the number of calls, then moved back to the records.
Three of the other frequently called numbers belonged to Angel Strickland, Ruth Greiner, and Katrice Jahn. Angel Strickland was one of the girls he’d interviewed, and Ruth Greiner was the mother of Rachel Greiner, the third member of Jessie’s clique. The name Katrice Jahn was new to him. But she was probably the mother of Tyler Jahn, the surfer boy from the Teen Talk group. He plugged the address into the database just to check. Katrice was listed at 3460 Potter Street, which was in the Kincaid neighborhood.
Jackson sipped his cold coffee from that morning and punched the next number into the database. This one had eleven total calls and a 206 area code, which Jackson recognized as Seattle, Washington. The computer came up with Paul Davenport, Jessie’s father. Jackson had met the man once, two years ago at a soccer game. Had he moved to Seattle? Even so, with a cell phone, Paul Davenport could be calling Jessie from anywhere. Schakowski was already tracking him down, and a father’s calls to his daughter didn’t trigger Jackson’s suspicion.
He kept moving down the list. A local number with only seven connections belonged to George Miller, the first name in the group that sparked Jackson’s interest. A classmate? A boyfriend? He ran him through a second database.
Miller lived on Friendly Street, worked for the county as a building inspector, and had three kids. One was a fourteen-year-old boy named Greg Miller who attended Kincaid Middle School. The boy had been picked up for shoplifting in a convenience store when he was twelve. As Jackson made a note to interview Greg Miller, he realized that the kid was also one of the Bible study group. He wondered if Evans had interviewed him yet.
Jackson punched in the last number he’d circled, which also had a 513 cell phone prefix. A moment later, a familiar name came up: Miles R. Fieldstone.
The mayor again? A tingle went up Jackson’s spine.
He quickly scanned for the address associated with the number: 27575 Blanton Heights. Yep, that was the mayor. Jackson glanced back at the printout. The calls were evenly split both ways, four incoming, three outgoing. Now the hairs on the back of his neck were standing at attention. Why would the head of the city chat on the phone with a thirteen-year-old girl seven times in thirty days?
To arrange get-togethers at the apartment he rented near her school—right next to where her body was found.
A surge of adrenaline rushed through his torso, and Jackson bolted out of his chair. Now he had a suspect with a direct link to the victim.
But that charged feeling—like a bloodhound that has picked up the fox’s scent—was overshadowed by a more sobering thought. Fieldstone was the mayor. He played golf with the chief of police. This would not go down easy.
Chapter 13
Thursday, October 21, 1:05 p.m.
Nicole sat in the back of her fifth period class, waiting for Mr. Abrams to show. She hated math, especially negative integers, and she really wanted to leave. She was having trouble concentrating. Around her, the unsupervised kids buzzed with animated conversations, lewd laughter, and occasional bursts of music from forbidden iPods.
Next to her, a loud sharp thump burst through the noise. Nicole turned to see Pat Kelly’s math book on the floor. One row over, David Turner laughed like the idiot that he was. Nicole was not amused. Pat was a small, moon-faced boy with thin, white grandpa hair who had no friends and got picked on all the time.
Without a word, Pat retrieved his book and placed it back on his desk.
Moments later, David knocked it on the floor again. A few kids laughed. Most did not even notice. What a jerk, Nicole thought. She wanted to get up and punch him in the chest. Or at least, tell him off. But of course, that would focus everyone’s attention on her. They would probably even make fun of her for being a nerd.
Pat picked up his book, still not looking at David or showing any expression, and set it back on his desk. This time, he kept his hands on top of it.
Good, Nicole thought. Now it would be over and she could stop worrying about Pat and–
Thunk. The book was back on the floor.
Without thinking, without realizing she was even going to do it, Nicole yelled at David across two rows of desks, “Leave him alone!”
The room went silent. Every pair of eyes stared directly at her. Nicole grabbed her backpack and fled.
She ran down the open breezeway, flip-flops squawking, and ducked into the school’s computer center. Only a few kids were in the room, and the supervisor was nowhere in sight. Where were all the teachers?
Nicole picked a PC in the corner, dropped her heavy pack on the floor, and wished she could just disappear. A year ago, her life had been happy and simple. Now she and her friends were fornicating like crazy, Jessie was dead, and she had just screamed at another student in front of the whole math class. She didn’t care what David thought of her, but she did like to have more control of herself than that.
Nicole closed her eyes and tried to pray, but she became so filled with guilt, she couldn’t continue. Why should God help her? She had been self-involved and unconcerned with His feelings for a long time.
Nicole tried again. This time she prayed for Jessie. She prayed that God would welcome Jessie into heaven and keep her safe for eternity. But the prayer gave her little comfort. Nicole could not visualize what the afterlife looked like. She could not believe that Jessie was really gone. Nicole kept seeing Jessie’s body in a dumpster and imagining the horrible things that her friend had suffered before she died. Why had God let that happen?
One thought kept coming back to her. What if God didn’t just let it happen, but actually made it happen? Nicole could not let go of the idea that God had punished Jessie as a warning to all of them. That He had picked Jessie out of the group to make an example of because she had gone too far. Fornication was one level of sin, adultery was another.
Nicole knew what she had to do. She thanked God for sparing her life, then logged into her Hotmail account. Without even checking her messages, she opened an outgoing message box and typed in two addresses: [email protected], [email protected].
Rachel and Angel
I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you guys. I’m not mad or anything. I’m just pretty freaked out about Jessie. I don’t think I’m coming back to Teen Talk. I’m not sure the sex is OK anymore, and I don’t like living the lie. I have a lot on my mind, and I need some time to figure things out. Don’t take it personally. You’re still my friends.
Love Nic
Nicole quickly pressed send before she could change her mind.
As soon as the message disappeared, she regretted it. She should have told them in person and reassured Rachel and Angel and the guys that the secret was safe with her. Just becau
se she planned to stop going to the meetings didn’t mean she would tell anyone about their activities. But she had been thinking lately that telling someone, maybe even her parents, about the sex would make her feel better. She loved her parents deeply and hated keeping this secret. But she also hated the idea of hurting them with the truth. They said they wanted her to always be honest with them, but they couldn’t handle the truth about Teen Talk. They would be devastated. Nicole didn’t know what to do.
To distract herself from the jumble of thoughts, she opened her e-mail. Tyler Jahn wanted to know if she wanted to hang out with him at the dance this Friday night. Nicole hit reply and told him her parents wouldn’t let her go. The rest was junk mail, so she clicked on her favorite blog by a guy named Jimmy in Hawaii who surfed and painted and talked about spirituality. But today the words just swam in front of her.
She kept thinking about Teen Talk and how it had started so innocently, or at least, so easily. One day last March, Angel had announced at the start of a meeting that she had a surprise. “I found this tape in my dad’s study,” she’d said with a strange little laugh. Dad was Reverend Strickland, the First Bible Baptist preacher, and the tape was a porno film with group sex. The Teen Talk kids had been transfixed, intensely curious to witness the activity their parents were so intent on suppressing. And, as Greg Miller had commented, “If the Reverend watches, it must not be a sin.”
At first, Nicole had been disturbed by the close-ups, the slapping of flesh on flesh. But she had also been fascinated, then eventually, very turned on. Everyone had been turned on. And there was no stopping a roomful of teenage hormones. Only Jessie and Greg had gone all the way that first time. But after a few more meetings, during which they viewed more of the Reverend’s collection, everyone hooked up. Once Nicole let her body relax and feel what it was supposed to feel, the sex had been great. Finally, she understood what the obsession was all about.
The small group of kids had sworn—on their lives, with a mingling of blood from pricked fingers—to never tell anyone about the sex. Katie Jackson had stopped coming to Teen Talk soon after, but she swore she would keep their secret.
The Sex Club Page 10