Detective Wade Jackson Mystery - 02 - Secrets to Die For

by L. J. Sellers

  Two dark blue patrol cars and the forensics van were already on the scene when Jackson pulled in. Rain arrived with him, so he considered calling for the mobile command post, a big white RV that gave detectives at a scene a place to keep dry while they interviewed witnesses and suspects. A quick look at the situation changed his mind. The only civilian car in the lot was an old forest-green Volvo. The only likely witnesses were in the comfy dry homes on the hill across the road. There wasn’t much he could accomplish here, and his gut instinct told him this was a secondary scene, a dump zone, not the kill spot.

  Jackson grabbed his crime scene bag and rain jacket from the back of the Impala and climbed out. He had stopped by headquarters, four blocks from the restaurant, to trade vehicles. He never took the GTO to crime scenes or anywhere it could get damaged. Two patrol officers stood guard near the Volvo. The young male officer stepped forward and said, “I’m Officer Chang, and this is Officer Whitstone.”

  Whitstone, forty-something and too cherub-faced to look like a cop, nodded and said, “I checked for a pulse even though she looked deader than anyone I’ve ever seen. Other than that, we haven’t touched anything but the door handle. And I wore gloves.”

  “Good work.” This was why he taught the crime scene protocol class—so patrol officers didn’t ruin the only prints he might get from a scene.

  “We didn’t put up yellow tape,” Whitstone said with a slight hesitation. “It seemed like it would just get in the way. And there aren’t any onlookers here.”

  Jackson nodded. “Who reported the body?”

  “A woman who lives over there,” Chang said, pointing to the lights on the hill across the road. “She saw the car here this morning, then again when she got home from work. It made her suspicious, so she called it in.”

  “I was the first one on the scene,” Whitstone reported.

  “Did either of you talk to the woman who called it in?”

  They both looked sheepish. “We thought it best to stay with the body,” Whitstone offered.

  The door on the white forensics van swung open and Jasmine Parker glided out. Jackson was relieved. Tall, thin, ageless, and mostly expressionless, Parker was the best tech in the department. She had an uncanny knack for zeroing in on the little details and objects that turned out to be important. She also never lost anything. None of the other techs could make that claim.

  Jackson lifted his hand to acknowledge Parker, then strode toward the Volvo. The witness on the hill could wait. He quickly zipped his jacket. Why were his crime scenes always dark and wet? Sergeant Lammers never assigned him the bodies in the dry apartment buildings with the roommate standing by with a bloody baseball bat.

  As Jackson pulled on gloves, floodlights illuminated the area. Parker was already making his job easier. “Thanks,” he called over his shoulder. A small dent near the front of the car on the driver’s side caught his attention. It looked recent, and close examination with a flashlight revealed tiny flecks of orange paint. “Bag and tag this dent,” he called to Parker. He would look over every inch of the car tomorrow in the evidence bay, but right now, the body called to him.

  Jackson stood and moved to the driver’s side door. A dark blood smear at the top of the car made him rethink his assessment that this was not the primary crime scene. Had she been killed right here? Right where he stood? He pointed to the smear. “Tag this blood for DNA analysis.”

  The victim was in the back, on the floor. The green plaid blanket covering her body had been pulled back to reveal her face. In the glare of the floodlights, her skin seemed luminescent white. Jackson tried to see past the dead, slack flesh and lifeless eyes to what the girl had looked like on a good day. She had been pretty in a pixie-like way. Dark curly hair, upturned nose, cupid lips. Then he saw the scar, a long pink ridge that paralleled her hairline on the left of her face. It was old news for this young woman, but he was curious nonetheless. He jotted down a note to ask her family about the scar.

  Jackson pressed a gloved finger to her throat out of habit. The gruesome bloody dent in the side of her head screamed corpse, but he had to check anyway. In police lore, there were stories about corpses that suddenly started chatting with the medical examiner on the way to the morgue. The chill in her skin seeped through his glove. This girl had been gone for a while. A quick look at her hands told him she had not had a chance to defend herself. There was an old burn scar in the web of her thumb, but no recent scratches or bruises.

  Who was she? Jackson needed to know right now. This young woman had a name; she was not just another dead body. He leaned farther into the car and lifted the blanket to see if she had a wallet in her pants pocket. She wore no pants. Or panties. Only a dark smear of dried blood on the inside of both legs. A hot rage filled his stomach. Jackson forced himself to breathe slowly, to focus on the facts. There was something odd about the blood. It seemed to have rolled across the top of her legs instead of down her thighs. She had not stood up again after she was assaulted.

  Jackson looked away from her wounds and searched for a purse or wallet. He found a brightly printed fabric bag stuffed between the front seats. It looked like something she might have bought at Saturday Market from a local artist with dreadlocks. The print was mostly green, as was her turtleneck, the blanket, and the car. He made a note that the victim liked green, then snapped a picture of the purse in its location.

  A small black wallet held her driver’s license. He used his penlight to read the name: Raina Hughes. Her birthday put her at age twenty. Damn. She wasn’t even old enough to buy alcohol, and she had never had a chance to vote. An image of her parents standing in the doorway of their home as he tried to tell them what had happened to their daughter played in his mind. He could see the anguish on their faces as they realized their world had crumpled. For a moment, the body under the blanket was Katie, and Jackson was paralyzed with his own anguish. Oh, he dreaded telling her parents.

  “Hey Jackson, want to step back and let me do my job?” Only Rich Gunderson, the medical examiner, talked to him like that. Purse and wallet clutched tightly in gloved hand, Jackson backed out of the car.

  “Might as well, since you finally got here.” He gave Gunderson a grim smile. The man was dressed in his usual black-on-black Johnny Cash look. Cash would not have approved of Gunderson’s gray ponytail though.

  “What did you mess with this time?”

  “Peeled the blanket back. Touched her neck and hands.”

  Gunderson grunted, then stuck his head into the Volvo. Jackson started for his cruiser, as a place to sit and look through the purse, but Parker called him over. “This dent is new, and this orange paint is an aftermarket color. I’ll call all the body shops tomorrow and try to track it down.”

  “Thanks. Anything else notable on the exterior of the car?”

  “The front left tire is a spare and doesn’t match the others.”

  “Time to look in the trunk.”

  The original tire had been tossed carelessly on top of an assorted collection of blankets, jackets, sweaters, and other warm clothing. None of the items looked new nor as if they belonged to the same person; it was more like a collection on its way to a charity organization. Jackson stared at the strange configuration of stuff. Then he pressed hard against the tire, which gave way under his thumb. Of course, it was flat, that’s why it was in the trunk. He took pictures, then made notes. Blankets, jackets for charity? Homeless shelter? Why the tire on top? When did it go flat? It seemed odd that someone who was thoughtful enough to collect blankets for needy people would also mindlessly throw a dirty flat tire on the pile. Who was this young woman? Jackson took her purse to his car, climbed in, and turned on the engine for heat.

  Raina Hughes carried little besides a wallet. A hairbrush, lip balm, a packet of tissues, and a small notepad with a short list of things to do: schedule haircut, study for psych exam, drop off/Shelter Care. Jackson looked for names and phone numbers but didn’t see any. Where was her cell phone? Where were her
pants?

  A rap on the window startled him, and he looked out to see Detective Lara Evans. On most occasions she was an attractive woman, but tonight was not one of them. She was scowling, had no makeup on, and her short, light-brown hair was tucked under a wool cap. Jackson joined her in the cold parking lot. “Thanks for coming out, Evans. You okay?”

  “I’m fine, but I think I’m catching a virus. What have we got?”

  “Twenty-year-old female with a major head injury and possible sexual assault. She’s on the floor in the back seat, covered in a blanket, but naked from the waist down.” Jackson tucked Raina’s purse into a brown paper evidence bag. Where was Schak? And the assistant DA who usually came out on homicides? Had they turned off their phones because it was Valentine’s Day?

  “Let’s go see if Gunderson has anything to tell us.”

  The medical examiner was laying a tarp on the asphalt beside the Volvo. Parker had climbed into the backseat and positioned herself for the lift. There was no easy way to do it. Her end of the body transfer would be challenging.

  “Can I assist?” Jackson asked, hurrying over.

  Gunderson grunted. “Maybe support the middle as she comes out.” He handed Parker a large flat brown bag. “Fold it gently, please.”

  “Always.” Parker didn’t look up or smile as she carefully removed the plaid blanket and placed it in the bag.

  As Gunderson lifted and pulled under the victim’s shoulders, Jackson slid his arms under her buttocks, careful not to touch her with his hands. He wore gloves, but still, he didn’t want to dislodge any potential evidence. Parker quickly let go, unable to squat and crawl from the car while holding the weight of the body. Jackson held the bulk of her weight as they laid her down.

  The sight of her small pale figure against the black tarp gave Jackson another bad moment. Ever since he had seen one of his daughter’s friends lying dead in a dumpster, he kept visualizing and internalizing Katie’s death. Now all he could think was, Oh God, it could have been Katie.

  “Jackson?” Evans nudged him. “Where would you like me to start?”

  After a moment, he said, “Find the car’s registration, insurance information, anything of interest. Search the glove box, under the seat, everywhere. I want her cell phone.”

  As Gunderson plunged a sharp thermal probe into the girl’s hip flesh in search of a core temperature, Jackson looked away. He spotted a pair of faded jeans on the floor of the Volvo’s back seat. The pants had been under the body. A quick check revealed nothing in the pockets, except a gas receipt. Jackson jotted down the day and time, February 13, 4:45 p.m., and made note of the station, which was just down the road on the corner of Greenhill and Highway 126. The jeans had no stains, no semen that he could see. Jackson put each piece of evidence into its own bag, filled in the preprinted labels, and handed both to Parker. All the evidence, except DNA, now went to the new forensics building for processing. He remembered the blood on the girl’s inner thighs and turned to Gunderson. “Was she raped?”

  “Violently.” Gunderson shuddered and clenched his jaw. “But I don’t see any semen. I think he used an object. Look for it in the car.”

  Jackson shut down the horrific images of what had happened to this young woman and tried to be clinical. Just looking for evidence, he told himself again and again, like a mantra. As he searched under the Volvo’s seats, he thought he heard a faint whisper of Raina’s cries.

  Evan’s voice broke through from her search of the front seat. “The car is registered to Raina Hughes and Martha Krell.”

  So the car belonged to the victim, Jackson reasoned. Did her attacker follow her here? Or did he come with her? A date perhaps? If so, a very bad date, indeed. In that case, the killer walked away from the scene. Or was his first instinct correct, that she had been killed elsewhere and brought here.

  He poked his head out of the car. “Parker, get prints off the steering wheel, please.”

  “I tried. It’s been wiped down,” she called back from her photographic examination of the trunk. “I’ll do the rest of the inside of the car tomorrow in the big evidence bay.”

  As Jackson processed that information, he found a bloody vibrator under the driver’s seat, wedged between a multiple-CD case and a tire jack. Making minimal contact, he bagged and tagged the hard pink shaft. He wondered if there was any chance of locating the retailer that had sold it. In addition to the several ‘adult’ stores in town, there had to be hundreds of Internet sites where anyone could buy sex toys. Hell, people could buy vibrators at parties with their friends, like they were handy kitchen appliances.

  “I found a bloody vibrator,” he said as he squatted down next to Gunderson.

  “Impotent freak,” Gunderson muttered. “She was dead or near dead when he used it on her.”

  “When was that?”

  “Her body temp is only thirty-eight, so she’s been dead, out here in the cold, for at least twenty-four hours. But her skin hasn’t started to discolor yet, so it hasn’t been much longer than that. I’d say your window is roughly between 5 and 8 p.m. last night. The pathologist might be able to narrow it down. But don’t count on it.”

  So Raina had been out here all night and all day, and no one had seen her. In February, even the most devoted birdwatchers took a break. High headlights briefly illuminated the parking area. Rob Schakowski’s top-heavy body climbed out of his truck. Schak, as everyone called him, could be obnoxious at times, but he was dedicated and thorough. He would complain about how tedious an assignment was, but he never took shortcuts.

  “Shit, it’s cold out here,” Schak grumbled as he pulled on latex gloves. “Why do you always get the outside, winter victims? Lammers must still be pissed at you.”

  “You think so?” Jackson meant to be flippant but his voice fell flat. He could participate in crime scene humor when the victim was an adult male, but not with a woman or child. Was that sexist? Or just human? “In summary, what we have here is a twenty-year-old female, sexually brutalized and bludgeoned to death. I need you to interview the people across the road to see if they saw or heard anything.”

  “Do you think it might be the serial rapist Quince is tracking?”

  “Could be. But we have new elements, one being that this victim died from the beating. If it is the same perp, his anger is escalating and his MO is changing.”

  Evans backed out of the Volvo and said, “Nothing interesting in the car. A few photos in the glove box, most of the same young woman. The name Jamie is written on the back of one.”

  “No cell phone?”

  “Sorry.”

  Damn. A person’s entire social life was often in their cell phone. Especially young people, who liked to text-message, take photos, and listen to music on their phones. Jackson hadn’t moved to that tech level yet. Occasionally he responded to his daughter’s text messages with a cryptic no or call me, but that was it. Talking was way easier than typing.

  “Track down next of kin for me, please. Start with Martha Krell, the car’s co-owner.” Jackson reached out to take the pictures in Evan’s hand. “Raina’s wallet is in a bag in my car. There may be contact information there.”

  Jackson felt his stomach tighten—as if he had swallowed something he couldn’t digest. This scene was off kilter; the crime had layers that would need to be peeled back one at a time. With these kinds of cases, the whole truth didn’t always emerge. Sometimes he had to settle for simply finding the perpetrator. He hated settling. Once he had examined a crime scene, he wanted to know every detail of what had transpired.

  Jackson took more photos of the Volvo, even though Parker had already done the job thoroughly. He liked to have his own set to work with so he didn’t have to drive over to the evidence lockup and check the prints out. Eugene’s Public Safety Department was finally getting all the tools it needed to do its job in-house, but the buildings were scattered and chasing evidence still wasted a lot of time. Even though there was nothing else to be gained at this scene, Jackson s
talled, waiting for Schak to report back from his neighborhood canvass.

  As Gunderson and Parker loaded the body into the ME’s van, Jackson heard a vehicle speeding along Greenhill Road. He looked toward the sound out of habit. Suddenly, in rapid fire, two shots exploded in the parking lot.

  Chapter 4

  One of the bullets whizzed past his head and smashed through the back window of the Volvo. Jackson dropped to a squat and pulled his Sig Sauer in one motion. The vehicle, a small SUV, screamed past the parking lot, but no more shots followed. Jackson took assessment of the crew. Gunderson, a Vietnam vet, was flat on the ground. Parker had pressed herself against the side of the van. Both patrol cops were in squat mode, weapons drawn. Where was Evans?