by Ray Flynt
“Thanks, but I’ll try to reach him later.”
Brad tried the second number, and got a message that he recognized as Derek’s voice. “It’s Brad Frame returning your call,” he said, and left both his office and cell phone numbers.
A quick e-mail check brought no new responses from Carolyn Whiting, and he added her name to a list of calls he intended to make.
The office line rang, and he suspected it was Derek returning his call, and simply answered, “Hello.”
“Sharon Porter please, Detective Nelson calling.”
“Good morning, detective, this is Brad Frame. Sharon’s not here right now. I’d be happy to relay a message.”
“Sharon told me of your suspicions regarding Maple Grove,” Nelson began, “and I gave a heads-up to Detective Rachel Martin at Troop L that she might hear from you or Sharon.”
“Thanks, I’ll share the detective’s name with Sharon,” Brad said, though he still wasn’t ready to involve the police.
“Actually, Detective Martin would like to hear from you. She didn’t tell me the specifics, but it sounded like she’s already working on a case involving Maple Grove and felt you might have information that would be useful to her.”
Curious as to what Detective Martin might know, Brad said, “Then we’ll be sure to give her a call. I’ve got the main number for Troop L. Is there a specific number I should call for the detective?”
“She’s in the Berks County substation. Hold on and let me get that number.”
While he waited for Nelson to return, Brad weighed what, if anything, he should say to Carolyn Whiting about the State Police. It seemed clear she’d been holding back information, and perhaps Whiting already knew the issue on which Detective Martin was working.
Detective Nelson returned and provided him the number.
“Thanks,” Brad said, “I’ve got a couple questions for you, if you don’t mind.”
“I never mind the questions,” he said, “but can’t guarantee answers.”
“Fair enough. First, I wondered if you could call me when you have the autopsy results on Tim Shaw, and whether you have a better description of the location where he was killed. Sharon just said it occurred on the north side of Lake Nockamixon.”
“I think I can help you on both counts. I spoke to the coroner before calling you. The manner of death was homicide, and the cause was a severed aorta. The fatal wound nicked the 7th thoracic vertebrae, and the coroner estimates the knife blade was at least twelve inches long and approximately one and one-half inches wide. Let me grab the case file, and I can give you the location of the crime scene.”
Brad felt like he was batting two for two. Sharon’s conjecture regarding the fatal wound was correct.
“Got a pencil?” Nelson said.
“Sure.”
“Shaw’s body was found at 40° 29’ 02.75 N / 75° 11’ 30.01 W.”
Brad repeated the numbers to ensure he had the right information. He hadn’t expected GPS coordinates, and said so.
“Our cell phones have the app, and it accurately locates an outdoor crime scene. Better than the days when we had to record, for example, one-hundred twenty-three feet from the northeast fence post closest to Watson road, to a point fifty-five feet west of the large maple tree.” Nelson laughed. “We even record GPS coordinates now in cases where we have a traditional street address.”
“Makes a lot of sense,” Brad said.
“Let me ask you a question.”
“Shoot.”
“What’s the deal with the blind guy?”
Brad couldn’t tell where Detective Nelson was going with his inquiry. “He’s a friend of Sharon’s… not sure what you mean.”
“The guy’s got a sense of smell better than a bloodhound,” Nelson said. “The other night, I left the room for a few minutes and when I came back, I stood a couple of feet away from him. Oliver turned in my direction, called me by name and asked a question. I asked how he knew I was standing there, and he said he recognized my aftershave. Honestly, I only use a dab.”
“He might have recognized your footsteps, too.” Brad figured out that was one way Oliver would have known it was he who’d come to the office to wake him on Saturday morning.
“On carpet?”
“Oliver’s been blind since birth, so all his other senses are extremely acute. He told me about the body odor on Wanda Shaw’s gentleman caller.”
“Jesus, yes! You didn’t need any special skills to smell him; I’m surprised it didn’t put his nose out of commission.”
Brad laughed. “I think it almost did. Thanks for the information detective. If we get any leads, Sharon or I will give you a call.”
Brad pulled up Google Earth, a satellite mapping program, on his computer. With it he could look at terrain anywhere in the world, and zoom in on a site from as low as several hundred feet, like floating above it in a hot air balloon. Parts of the world had more recent—and higher resolution—satellite imagery, and he’d been able to make out details as small as his parents’ gravestones at St. Paul’s cemetery. He searched for Nockamixon State Park.
He enabled road markings on the program, and saw that Mountain View Road - State Route 563 - snaked along the northern edge of the park, close to the lake of the same name. The lake ran southwest to northeast for about ten miles, as Sharon had indicated, but appeared less than a mile wide at the broadest point. As he moved the cursor, GPS coordinates changed at the bottom of the screen. He found the seventy-five west longitude near the eastern end, adjacent to a finger of the lake that jutted north. Moving the mouse up and down he located the latitude Nelson had supplied. The coordinates put the crime scene very close to the lake shore, near a densely wooded area of the park, about three hundred feet from the nearest access road. A subsequent search of a map of the State Park revealed it was Old Hancock Road.
He had an idea, and returned to Google Earth to capture the coordinates for the narrowest point between Old Hancock and the crime scene.
A loud thunderclap drew his attention to the office windows where rain sliced against the panes of glass with a fury he hadn’t seen in months. He could hardly ask Sharon to visit the crime scene in weather like that, though he knew she’d want to regardless of the conditions.
He looked at the Regulator on his office wall, noting it was almost 11 a.m., and decided to give Sharon an update. She could determine how to proceed.
Sharon answered in a breathless voice after five or six rings. “Hello, Brad? Is this the first you’ve tried to call me?”
“Yes.”
“Good. My signal’s been erratic. What’s up?”
“How’s your morning going?” he asked, wanting to get a better gauge of her mood before telling her about the crime scene.
“It’s okay,” she said, sounding bummed. “This looks like one of those cases where the answer for every question leads to a new question. Natalie asked me to talk with a probation officer who recognized one of the pictures we sent.”
“Which photo?”
“Remember that anorexic looking guy dressed up in overalls standing in front of the barn? You mentioned him the other night.”
“Yes.”
“That’s who he recognized.”
“Great.”
“Well, not really. We still don’t know who it is, because the photograph wasn’t one of his clients. But he’s pretty sure he saw the guy when he visited Maple Grove because his client was playing ping pong with that kid featured at the XRatedSugarX site.”
“Let me guess,” Brad said, “he was in Reflection cottage?”
“No. The PO was visiting Achievement cottage.”
“That’s one we haven’t heard about before, but if the PO is right, then cottage parents at Achievement cottage ought to ID that same photograph,” Brad said, “and why haven’t we heard from Carolyn Whiting?” he asked rhetorically, then shifted gears. “Are you heading back?”
“I thought I might swing by the coroner’s office in
Warminster to get the results of the autopsy on Tim Shaw.”
“You don’t need to. Detective Nelson called. It’s definitely a homicide and you were right, a severed aorta. He also gave me the crime scene location. If it weren’t pouring rain, I’d ask you to go visit.”
“I could go,” Sharon said, “it’s dry here.”
“Does your smartphone have a GPS app?” Brad asked.
“Yes.”
Brad provided her the coordinates for the crime scene and the location along Hancock Road he’d identified as the probable spot where they’d parked their vehicle and walked into the woods. He asked her to call him when she arrived, to share her observations.
Less than an hour later Sharon called, sounding excited. “This is definitely the spot. I can see a few dried streaks of brownish-colored blood on the ground, right at those GPS coordinates you gave me. There’s been a lot of foot traffic; In addition to the victim and murderer, the detectives, paramedics, and forensic staff have trampled the area. I also doubt the story about a fisherman calling to report finding the body. It’s isolated here and doesn’t look like a fishing location to me. I took a few pictures and just e-mailed them.”
Brad opened his e-mail program and downloaded four pictures. “Okay, I’m looking at them now.”
“I’m going to do a wider search,” Sharon said.
The first image showed an area of matted grass that Brad assumed was where the body was found. The blood wasn’t visible in the limited resolution of the picture. While the cuts on Tim Shaw’s chest might have bled, once the aorta was severed and the heart stopped pumping it wouldn’t have been an especially bloody crime scene. The second shot was an expanded view of the area, and he could see that there was only a narrow strip of ground, less than ten feet wide, between the tree line and the lake shore. The third photo showed the lake and the far shore line, where the trees were mostly green, dappled with early fall reds, ambers and yellows. He was surprised to see blue sky in the photographs, with the occasional puffy gray cloud.
He heard Sharon’s energized voice and put the phone back to his ear. “I found a four foot long tree limb at the lake shore about twenty-five feet south of the crime scene. Only a foot of it was sticking out of the water,” she explained, “but the end of the branch looked like it had been freshly broken off a tree.”
Brad heard the tone signaling another incoming call, but decided to let it go into voice mail.
“When I pulled it out of the muck, there were a few gashes along the side, and I think Tim may have used this limb—about two inches in diameter—to fend off his killer. One of the cuts was deeper than the others; maybe where the attacker succeeded in jerking it away from Tim, which would explain the bruising I saw on the palm of his right hand.” Sharon added, “I’ll send you a picture of what I’m talking about.”
She sent three pictures, and Brad counted at least six places where it looked like a knife had pierced the bark of the limb. He took a moment to scrutinize the remaining photo from among the original ones Sharon had sent him, which showed the trees, many with low hanging limbs from which the ‘Park Ranger’ shirt could have been hung. He could also picture the type of tree from which Tim might have broken off the limb to defend himself.
“These are all good,” Brad said into his phone. “Since we have the photographs, you might want to call Detective Nelson and arrange to deliver that tree limb.”
“I thought about that,” Sharon said. “If it hadn’t been in the water, forensics might have been able to match microscopic metal dust from the knife.”
“They still might,” Brad said. “I’ve got another assignment for you, if you’re willing,”
“Sure.”
Brad told her about Detective Nelson’s conversation with Detective Rachel Martin, and her raising an issue about Maple Grove. “She’s in Berks County,” Brad explained. “See if you can arrange a meeting, and then we’ll be armed with that information when we meet with Caroline Whiting.” He gave Sharon the number. “Keep me posted.”
He signed off the call and immediately received a signal that a voice mail message was waiting. He recognized Derek Young’s voice, brimming with anxiety: I need to talk with you. Now!
Chapter Sixteen
Derek’s phone had already rung six times, and Brad figured it would soon go into voice mail, when he heard, “This is Derek.”
“Brad Frame here,” he announced.
“Thank God,” Derek said, breathless. “There’s people around. Gimme a minute.”
The line went silent as Brad waited.
“Okay, I’m here. I’ve only got a few minutes on my lunch break till I have to be back.”
“I got your message about wanting the DVD,” Brad said. “I can bring it to you this afternoon, and then you can tell me what’s going on.”
Brad could sense relief in Derek’s voice. “That’s great. I get off work at 4 p.m. There’s a Home Depot on Route 30, just outside of Downingtown, do you know it?”
Brad didn’t, but could easily find it, and said, “I’ll see you there at 4:30 p.m.”
Detective Rachel Martin was all business when I called her. I tried to sound chipper and act like a member of the police fraternity (after all, my dad was a cop) as I gushed, “Hi, this is Sharon Porter, Skip Nelson suggested I call you.” Maybe referring to him as Skip was over the top?
Thirty minutes later I was cooling my heels in the small lobby of the Berks County substation of the Pennsylvania State Police. Government buildings aren’t known for their décor, and their offices are no exception. Detective Martin had a deep voice when I spoke with her over the phone, and I anticipated seeing Tarzan’s sister walk out to greet me, so I was surprised by the diminutive blonde with short curly hair who strolled through the double doors. She wore a burgundy suit and white blouse. “Ms. Porter?” she said, aiming for my chair, hand extended. Her grip was firm. “I’m Rachel Martin. Come on back.” She turned on her heel and I followed her through the doors and into a small interview room. The concrete block walls were painted mint-green. She sat on one side of a sturdy wooden table, with me opposite. I’d seen similar rooms on episodes of The First 48, with the perp’s face blurred out as he’s methodically interviewed by a wily detective, and I scanned the ceiling for a lipstick camera but saw only the fluorescent light fixture.
“Thanks for coming,” she said, and laid an unopened file folder and pen on the table. “I understand you’re working on a case that involves sexual misconduct by employees at the Maple Grove Youth Center.”
So much for preliminaries.
I laughed, which drew a stern glance from the detective, and I sobered up my act. “No. At the request of his family, we’re hunting for a young man—Jeremy Young—who ran away from Maple Grove in early July. He turned eighteen in August, and has appeared in explicit web-based adult videos. We don’t know if child pornography is involved, since we can’t determine if the videos were made before or after he turned eighteen.”
Detective Martin’s blue eyes drilled into me, as if she possessed X-ray vision. “But you discovered a second boy from Maple Grove in similar videos?”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure what Skip told you,” I said. But I’m sure it was either wrong or you’re misinterpreting it. “We found a second young man, age nineteen, involved in porn, whose younger brother is at Maple Grove.”
Rachel gave me an intent look, and I figured she thought I wasn’t telling the whole truth. Time to elaborate.
“Unfortunately, the nineteen year-old was brutally murdered Friday night. I ID’d the body. I use to work at Bucks County Juvenile Probation, and the victim, Tim Shaw, was one of my cases a few years ago.” The detective didn’t make a move to write the name, so I figured she already had it. “The fact that a runaway from the youth center, and the brother of a kid in the center are making porn, suggests a connection to Maple Grove, but we haven’t been able to establish one yet.” Thinking that a little good old fashioned name-dropping never h
urt, I continued, “Skip told me that you’re working on a case involving Maple Grove. You’ve got more resources than we do, so you might want to check out XRatedSugarX.com if you think it might help your case.”
Detective Martin opened the folder, and on a blank piece of paper wrote the web URL I’d just given her. I guessed our meeting would be ending soon, so she could rush back to her office and surf the site.
“We’ve been getting cooperation from the staff at Maple Grove,” I added, bending the truth, “sharing still images of the young men featured in the videos, and so far they haven’t recognized anyone other than Jeremy—the runaway we’re looking for.” I left out any mention of my morning conversation with the Bucks County Juvenile PO who thought he recognized one of the boys from a visit he’d made to Maple Grove. “As to child porn,” I shrugged, “we just don’t know. Distinguishing age on sight can be tricky. I remember working with a fourteen-year-old client once who had a full beard and routinely got served in bars without being carded. And then we had a case of a twenty-two year old man who was arrested for burglary but told the police he was only seventeen to avoid being sent to the county jail. They put him in juvenile detention, and it took two days to sort out his real age.”
The detective closed the folder, and I figured we were done.
Detective Martin laced her fingers in front of her on the table and calmly said, “There’s a registered sex offender working at Maple Grove.”
If she intended to surprise me, she’d succeeded. I gulped and my jaw slacked as I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. I felt spasms in my gut and wanted to wrap up our meeting so I could alert Brad. We felt that Carolyn Whiting had been holding back, but I hadn’t expected a bombshell like this.
“Can you share any details?” I asked.
“A woman called 9-1-1 late Friday night and reported that Elias Porterfield, who she said runs the auto body training program at Maple Grove, is a registered sex offender in the State of Missouri. She also told the operator that Hank Torrance, the principal at Maple Grove, is Porterfield’s uncle. I got the message this morning and not long afterward heard from Detective Nelson asking me what I might know about Maple Grove, and that’s when he told me about your case. I’ve verified that there’s an Elias Porterfield on Missouri’s sex offender registry but don’t have a confirmation as to whether it’s the same person. Since the principal is allegedly a relative, I put a call into the administrator at Maple Grove,” Rachel consulted her notes. “Her name is…”