by Ray Flynt
Just as I approached the entrance I felt rain drops. The forecast called for intermittent light rain; nothing that would spoil the day, but it was still nice to get under cover before rain arrived.
A server held the door open for me, cheerfully calling out “Welcome to Applebee’s.” I’d done waitressing during college, and I was never that jolly. A young woman at the podium joined in the welcome chorus. “I’m meeting a friend for lunch,” I said.
She pointed to a nearby booth. “Is that her?”
I turned and saw Karen waving at me from beneath a poster of Titanic with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet posed on the bow of the doomed ship. “Yep, that’s her.”
Another young man materialized to escort me to the table, and by the time I slid into the booth across from Karen I was feeling old, and about to share that observation with her when I noticed the sling she wore on her right arm. I gawked. “What happened to you?”
Karen rolled her eyes. “It’s a long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Last Friday I was visiting the mother of one of my clients in Perkasie.”
I remembered Perkasie, a working class community in the northern part of Bucks County, which stretched about forty miles from the Delaware River nearly to Allentown.
“They live in a duplex,” Karen continued, “and I was finished with the appointment and about to get in my car when I saw a toddler on the adjacent porch teetering near the edge of the steps. I raced back to keep him from falling, made the first step fine, but I didn’t see the knothole in the second step. I was wearing three inch heels that day, and my shoe caught in the hole, which sent me careening into the edge of the porch.” She grabbed her right arm with her left hand and winced.
“Ouch,” I said, feeling her pain.
“And you know what?”
I stared back at her, all ears.
“That little kid just laughed at me.”
A waiter came and took our drink orders, and announced, “I’ll give you a few minutes to look at the menu.”
I already knew what I was getting, a cup of their broccoli cheese soup. “Well, I’m glad you’re up and about, Karen. I see you color-coordinated the sling with your blue blouse,”
She looked down at what she’d worn. “I hadn’t planned to. I’m living on Percocet, which hardly puts a dent in the pain, but leaves me feeling spacey.”
I pointed at the menu. “See anything good?”
Karen sighed. “I don’t have much of an appetite.”
The waiter returned with our drinks, and asked, “Need another minute?”
“I’ll just have the Caesar salad,” Karen said.
I ordered the soup. A cell phone rang and we both reached for our purses at the same time. Karen won the incoming call derby. She glanced at the display screen on her phone and tossed it back into her purse. “It’s Natalie. I’ll call her back. She keeps bugging me about whether I’ll make a court hearing next week.”
Earlier in the week, when Natalie told me that Karen had been on sick leave, she chalked it up to “the crud” making its way around the office. Did Natalie not know about her work-related injury? I pointed at Karen’s arm and said, “I hope you filed a workers’ comp claim.”
She dismissed my concerns with an eye roll.
I shifted gears to the reason for my visit. “I came to talk with you about Bob.” I could tell immediately by her body language that was another sore subject. “I had the chance to visit Bob and Jill, and I wanted to ask you about his interest in astronomy.”
Karen jerked her head back. “You’re joking?”
“Yeah, astronomy. I saw an empty tripod during my visit. Jill told me that Bob has a telescope and is quite the amateur stargazer.”
Karen rubbed her forehead with her left hand. “You drove all the way up here to ask me that?”
I nodded.
“I haven’t seen him with a telescope in my life. Never heard Bob express an interest in astronomy. But I could have told you that over the phone.” Karen unfurled the paper napkin from around the silverware and spread it out on her lap.
This didn’t square with what Jill had told me. Could astronomy be a new hobby? Bob didn’t have a pellet stove or composting toilet until he lived in the woods either. Or maybe Jill was disguising the fact that the tripod was for a video camera?
Karen’s phone dinged. She looked at the screen, grimaced, saw that I’d noticed her reaction and said, “Now she’s texting me.” She clutched the phone before tossing it into her purse, and zipping it shut.
It could have been the Percocet, I guess, but Karen seemed tense and kept glancing at her watch. The last time we’d met she’d been fun to hear as she dished about Bob and Jill in her uniquely bitchy way, and I remember laughing.
Karen’s shoulders slumped and she leaned back in the booth. “I’m so tired, and I’ve had a busy morning,” she said, as if she’d just read my mind and felt the need to explain.
The waiter arrived with our food.
Karen took a bite of her salad, and then mumbled, “I’ve been running around all morning. I had to pick up dry cleaning and get my car inspected.”
Her phone rang again.
“I’m through with that phone; I don’t care if it’s President Obama calling.”
That was a glimmer of the Karen I’d witnessed before. “I won’t keep you long,” I said. “This is my treat. I need to get back myself.” I almost mentioned my date, but since she’d recently broken up with Bob, I didn’t want to raise a sore subject.”
“You seeing anyone?” I casually asked.
She shook her head. “Not ready to jump back into the dating pool.”
We spent the rest of our time chatting about how challenging it is for a more mature woman to meet guys without hanging out in bars. “Honey, you’re better off dropping in on an AA meeting,” Karen cracked. “At least those guys are sober.”
Our chat was fine while we ate our lunch, but I wasn’t solving the issue of where we’d find Jeremy Young and his porn-making buddies.
The waiter brought fresh drinks, and tried to push dessert. Noticing that it was nearly noon, I said, “I’ll take the check.”
A muffled phone sounded again. Karen stared at me. “That’s yours. I turned mine off the last time.”
I rummaged in my purse, found my smartphone and looked at the screen. Brad had sent a text message: Enriqué at Courage when Karen and Bob started at Maple Grove.
I must have signaled my concern, since Karen asked, “Everything okay?”
“Oh, sure.” When I threw the phone back in my purse I realized I had the envelope with the still photographs from the porn videos. “I forgot,” I said, feigning surprise as I withdrew the envelope and pulled Enriqué’s picture out of the pile. “I wanted to ask you about another kid at Maple Grove.”
The waiter appeared with our check, and I laid the photo on the table while I fished for my detective agency credit card.
Karen gritted her teeth and once more grabbed her arm.
“There’s a guy named Enriqué Fuentes who was at Courage Cottage about six years ago when you and Bob started,” I said.
Karen looked surprised. “I remember the name, not sure if I recall what he looked like.”
I slid Enriqué’s photo in her direction. “I sent this to Natalie before as part of a group of pictures, and she said she’d pass them around at a staff meeting.”
Karen squinted as she peered at the photo. “Oh, Natalie did. I didn’t recognize anyone. This doesn’t really jog my memory. Maybe it’s the moustache; I don’t recall any of the boys having one.” She pushed the photo back and asked, “Did Bob recognize him?”
I sighed. “No.”
“He’s the one with the photographic memory,” Karen said with that-settles-it finality. It was the first I’d heard any mention of Bob Matthews having a photographic memory, and thought about his indifference when I was showing the pictures to him and Jill.
“H
ere you go,” the waiter said, putting the folder with the credit card slip in front of me, and winking at me as he said. “Come back and see us.”
I signed the receipt, deposited a copy in my purse, and started to slide across the bench. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well, Karen,” I said, “but thanks for seeing me on such short notice.”
“No problem,” Karen muttered as she struggled to get out of the booth wearing her sling. She stood and said, “I’ll see you. I’m going to visit the little girl’s room before I leave.”
I headed for the exit and my car. I’m sure it was my imagination, but my Civic looked even closer to the Malibu than I remembered, and I glided between them to open the driver’s side door. I noticed the dry cleaning, and thought about what Karen had said about picking up dry cleaning that morning. Could that be her car? Then I noticed the date-stamped receipt with the previous day’s date, and a crisply pressed men’s dress shirt. Nah, can’t be hers.
As I backed my car out of the tight space, and glanced left toward the Malibu, I found myself eye-level with the words Ramsey’s Dry Cleaning Emporium imprinted on the plastic bag covering the laundry. I didn’t have a photographic memory, but thought that was the name of the cleaners where Brad said Christa Anderson—Annabelle in the porn videos—had performed work release while in the Lancaster County Jail.
I straightened my car, about to pull forward, when I saw Karen emerge from the restaurant and walk toward the Malibu, where she pulled open the driver’s door and climbed in. Karen didn’t seem to notice me. I circled the building, found a parking space on the far side, and pulled out my smartphone.
Time to call Natalie and check out a few details in Karen’s story.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Brad returned to his Bryn Mawr office at 2 p.m. that Friday afternoon and found his phone blinking with five messages. He’d missed a call from Beth, “just to chat,” and she promised to catch up with him later that evening. Oliver Reynolds was hunting for Sharon and would “call her cell.” Next came messages from three different people claiming “news” about Christa Anderson.
He returned Nick Argostino’s call first.
“I got your message,” Brad said, when Nick answered. “What’s going on?”
“I’m trying to find out more information,” Nick said, “but since we’d called probation recently to inquire about Christa Anderson, they gave us a heads-up that she’d been ID’d as a homicide in Bucks County.”
Brad could barely breathe. “Did they say how?”
“Garroted.” Nick emphasized the three syllables.
Brad felt his stomach churn; he thought it a horrid way to die. She’d have had time enough to realize what was happening, but be powerless to stop the inevitable.
“I got messages about Christa from Dede Watkins at the Lancaster County Jail and Detective Nelson of the State Police,” Brad said. “I’ll see what they have to say.”
“Let me know if I can be of any help.”
Nick signed off, and Brad cradled the phone.
In the face of the devastating news Brad needed a minute to collect himself before making any more phone calls, but when he stood, found himself fighting light-headedness. He walked over and grabbed the edge of the white board, steeling himself to study Christa’s photograph. Next to the photo, with her usual efficiency, Sharon had taped images of two tattoos—the crude LOVE on the fingers of Christa’s left hand and the more elaborate, multi-colored butterfly tattoo. Even though he’d never met the woman, her death and its impact on the case deeply affected him.
Why had she been killed? Had she become a liability to the video endeavor? Based on what they had learned in their investigation, Brad suspected Christa of being a key recruiter for the porn; including Jeremy Young and her own brother, Tanner Jankowski, as well as the other women involved. So who would want to kill her?
Brad returned to the desk and decided to call Dede Watkins next. She picked up after two rings.
“Dede, it’s Brad Frame returning your call.”
She sounded breathless. “Mr. Frame, I wasn’t sure you’d heard, but Christa Anderson was killed this morning.”
“I got a call from the Philadelphia police,” he said.
“Oh… Philadelphia…,” Dede stammered, “we heard it was up in Bucks County.”
“It was.” Brad was more anxious by the minute to learn details from Detective Skip Nelson. “Had you or Kevin Baker heard anything from Christa since our meeting the other day?”
Momentary silence on the other end of the line, before Dede said, “I haven’t. I doubt Kevin did, or he would have told me. He doesn’t know about Christa’s death yet. I tried to get in touch with him, but his mother’s hot water tank sprung a leak and he had to leave. That’s when I figured I should give you a call.” After a pause, she added, “This is awful.”
“Yes it is. If I hear anything more, I’ll give you a call.”
It took a few minutes, and two intermediary conversations before Brad finally connected with Detective Nelson.
“You left a message for Sharon Porter about Christa Anderson,” Brad began, “but Sharon’s at a meeting so I wanted to call you back.”
Nelson exhaled. “I got Christa’s name from Sharon during our investigation on Tim Shaw’s murder. I wanted her to know that Christa’s body was found late this morning at Nockamixon State Park, not far from where Tim was murdered.”
Brad glanced at his watch and thought about the timing. “That’s a fairly quick ID. You’re sure it’s Christa?”
“Let me elaborate,” Detective Nelson said. “Did you visit Shaw’s murder scene?”
“No. Sharon did, but I saw photographs.”
“Two hundred yards to the north, on that finger of Nockamixon Lake where Shaw was killed, there’s a boat launch with parking. During a routine patrol, a park ranger noticed a couple of vehicles and their boat trailers in the vicinity of the ramp. With the rain today, only a few diehards had ventured out on the lake.” Nelson cleared his throat. “At the opposite end of the parking lot the ranger spotted a rusty car. Every once in a while they’ve had problems with vehicles abandoned in that location, so he went to check it out. He drove around to the driver’s side and saw a woman behind the wheel. At first he thought she was sleeping. He tooted his horn, and when he got no response, got out of his vehicle and approached. That’s when he noticed the ligature marks on the woman’s neck and no signs of life, and we were called.”
“What time was that?”
“The 9-1-1 call came in at 11:03 a.m., and we had officers on the scene within fifteen minutes.”
“Were you there?”
“I arrived before the coroner’s office removed the body, and my men were still processing the scene and arranging to tow the car when I left.”
“How was the body ID’d?” Brad asked.
“They found the driver’s license in her purse with a Philadelphia address, and the car was registered to Christa with the same address. There was eighty bucks in her purse, so robbery doesn’t appear the motive for her death.”
“What kind of car?”
“1994 Oldsmobile Cutlass… I mentioned the rust. We did a computer search on her ID and found that she was an escapee from the Lancaster County Jail, and that Philadelphia probation had tagged her for an inquiry. Both of those agencies were notified. We haven’t made contact with next of kin.”
“She has a brother,” Brad explained, “whose name is Tanner Jankowski, and who also appears to be involved in the porn video business.” Brad could hear the detective writing that information. “You mentioned ligature marks, was a rope found?”
“Not a rope, but we found the weapon, a garrote fashioned from a lawnmower throttle cable—I should say a used throttle cable—investigators said there was oil and fine blades of dried grass caked on the cable. Investigators spotted it on the floor in the back seat of the car; the cable ends were tied to two sticks cut from saplings. He—the killer—got her from behind, an
d I doubt she saw it coming.”
“You’re confident the assailant was a man?”
Detective Nelson scoffed. “In this business, I’m not confident about anything.” After a pause, he added, “I do see connections to this and Tim Shaw’s murder.”
“How so?”
“When I was at the scene, I observed a man return from a fishing trip, and after he got his boat re-hitched to his car, the man approached the crime scene. He was naturally curious, and I told him that there had been a tragic death and asked if he might have seen anything,” Nelson explained. “He told me that there had been a black Ford Expedition with tinted windows parked at the end of the parking lot where he saw our investigators. The witness said that he saw a man get into the vehicle about the time he was launching his boat. You had given me a heads-up about one of Wanda Shaw’s neighbors who described a similar vehicle picking up Tim Shaw on the morning of his death.”
Wanda’s shotgun toting neighbor Jake; Brad remembered it well.
“Did the witness get a good look at the man?” Brad asked.
“No. Just the back of his head above the far side of the vehicle.” Shifting gears, Nelson asked, “Have you had any progress in locating where the porn is being filmed?”
“None. There are too many loose ends in our investigation,” Brad admitted. “It’s important to find these people before anyone else is killed.”
“What color was the man’s hair that the guy saw getting into the Expedition?” Brad asked.
“He described it as dark. I’ve got to run,” Detective Nelson said. “The coroner wants to do the autopsy later this afternoon, and I’d like to be there.”
“Thanks for the update, Detective. By the way, I know they take precautions, but you might want to mention to the coroner that Christa Anderson is HIV positive.”
A long silence on the other end of the line before the detective said in revulsion, “And she’s been filming porn?”
Brad saw Sharon’s car pull up outside the office.
“Yep. If we develop any leads,” Brad said, “we’ll give you a call.”