by Elaine Viets
“I guess you saw a lot of that in Chicago.”
“It wasn’t in Chicago. It was in my family. My cousin, not much older than Juliet, was raped when her car died on a dark street in the middle of the night. We caught him, but she never got over it. Rapists are the scum of the earth. They deserve the death penalty, every one of them.”
Whoa. Jace had convinced himself that Dex had raped Juliet, and his hatred overrode his reason. Nothing I could say would change Jace’s mind. He needed the facts from Katie. I believed alcohol and extreme cold had caused this tragedy. They were a dangerous combination. A niggling idea was at the back of my brain.
Jace was still raging about rapists. “Like you said, you’re only a DI, not a pathologist, Angela. I’ll wait for the report before I charge the little scumbag. Dex killed that innocent little girl, and he’s going to pay.”
I wasn’t sure which was colder, the winter wind or Jace’s voice.
CHAPTER 13
Wednesday, December 28, 3:18 p.m.
A wild-eyed Prentice LaRouche confronted Jace and me in the middle of the street. Midge, red-eyed and wringing her hands, hovered near her husband like a lost soul.
“He did this! He killed our little girl.”
After the morgue transport van had left with Juliet’s frozen body, Jace and I had planned to go to the LaRouche home to tell the couple the sad news. Instead, their Range Rover tore down the street and squealed to a stop in front of us. I jumped back toward the curb to avoid getting hit, Jace grabbing my elbow to steady me.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Before I could answer, Prentice, nearly crazed with rage, vaulted out of the driver’s seat and marched over. Midge climbed slowly out of the luxury vehicle, holding onto the door post. She was so crushed and broken she could barely stand.
“I demand answers!” he shouted. “Why wasn’t I informed that you’d found my daughter? Why did I have to hear this from a neighbor?”
“We were on our way to inform you, Mr. LaRouche,” Jace said. “We’re sorry for your loss.”
“Sorry! You should have called me the moment you found her.”
“We make notifications in person, sir, and our first priority was to process the crime scene.”
“NO! You work for me! Your first priority is to tell me. I’m her father.” Prentice was spitting he was so angry.
“Mr. LaRouche.” Jace’s voice was gentle. “I’m a father, too. I can’t imagine the pain you and your wife must be feeling, but I don’t work for you.”
“I pay your salary!”
“Your taxes help pay my salary, but I work for the city of Chouteau Forest. For all the citizens. My job is to process the crime scene, then find your daughter’s killer and bring that person to justice.”
“I already know who killed her, and you do, too.” Prentice was shouting. His wife’s heart-wrenching sobs were a sad background for his tirade. “That son of a bitch Dexter Gordon murdered my little girl. We didn’t want her going out with that trash. We refused to let her see him, but she sneaked out of the house. If she’d stayed with her own kind, this would have never happened. Why hasn’t he been arrested?”
“He’s in a coma in the hospital. And I need proof, Mr. LaRouche.” The same detective who was ready to slap the cuffs on Dexter a moment ago was now a model of restraint. Maybe he didn’t like being ordered around.
Prentice’s voice rose to a roar. “I demand that you arrest him this instant. My daughter deserves justice.”
“And the best way to get justice is to have the evidence. The medical examiner has to do his job first.”
Midge screamed as if she’d been shot. “You’re going to cut up my baby?” She staggered back and landed in a snow pile. I rushed over and helped the weeping woman stand. “Why? Why do you have to cut up my baby?” Midge sobbed and I held the grieving mother and rocked her. Prentice stared at his wife, his face expressionless.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s the only way to know what happened to Juliet.”
“Is it true she wasn’t wearing any… she didn’t have on any…” Midge forced herself to say the next sentence. “Her clothes were gone?”
“Yes,” I said.
“That’s proof she was raped!” Prentice yelled. “How much more do you need?”
Midge collapsed against me, howling as if she’d been set on fire.
“Mr. LaRouche, let’s get your wife home and call a doctor for her,” I said. Jace and I guided Midge to the Range Rover. I was surprised how light Midge felt. The sturdy, vigorous woman of Tuesday morning was now old and shrunken. She lay back in her seat, tears flooding her cheeks.
“Where do we go to identify my daughter?” Prentice asked.
Jace opened Prentice’s door for him. “She’s been formally identified, sir. Please, take your wife home and get her the medical attention she needs.”
“I’ll ruin those worthless people! I’ll destroy his greaser father. I’ll take his business. He won’t have a nickel to his name when I’m through with him. The Gordons’ lives will be over, just like my daughter’s.”
He turned to Jace. “And you. I’ll have your job.” With that parting shot, Prentice drove the short distance to his home.
I watched the LaRouches’ wrought iron gates slide open and swallow the distraught parents. I sighed and reached for my DI suitcase. “That was purely awful.”
Jace helped me lift the suitcase into my car trunk. “I still believe that boy raped and murdered her, Angela, but I need the DNA evidence before I can charge him. And he’s going to be charged as an adult. I expect Prentice will call the police and make my life a misery.”
“It’s going to take about two days to thaw the body,” I said. “I still don’t think he’s guilty. If he’s not, can Dex be charged with manslaughter because he didn’t make sure Juliet was safely home?”
“No, but I might get him on culpable negligence. And Dexter’s family can be charged with impeding an investigation and lying to the police. They’re the ones who ordered him to go to his grandparents’ house in St. Louis. I can get him and his parents on obstruction of justice and false information. And I see a civil suit because if his family had been honest, the girl might have been found and saved.”
I thought the girl was probably dead by the time Prentice LaRouche pounded on the Gordons’ front door.
“Juliet’s family is equally guilty,” I said. “The LaRouches withheld important information, too. They never told you she snuck out to go to the party with Dexter. And what about the kids who got drunk at Bella Du Pres’s house and possibly used drugs? What about charges against her parents? They definitely knew alcohol was being served and they may have turned a blind eye to drugs.”
“Uh, I’ll have to think about that. You going to file your report?”
“Heading home now to warm my fingers and then send it in.” Jace slapped the side of my Charger like a horse’s rump and waved good-bye.
I drove home, disappointed that the new detective was going to give in to the Forest’s first families like everyone else. I was worried about Dex, a blue collar boy in a rich man’s world. Soon the news would be all over the Forest, and the first families would turn into a lynch mob.
I dragged myself up my driveway, then took a long hot shower to warm up. I wrapped myself in my comforting brown robe, fixed myself a hot chocolate, and settled in to write Juliet’s report. It took me longer than usual. Images of Juliet’s frozen beauty played in my mind on an endless loop, and I cried as I e-mailed her photos to the ME’s office.
I was too involved with this case. I knew that, but I couldn’t believe Dex killed Juliet. Not yet. Not until all the possibilities were investigated. Did an angry Brock follow Juliet to the path and kill her in a jealous rage? What is that mystery bag of white powder? Juliet had been drinking all night. Did she die of alcohol poisoning? It was too easy to blame a Toonerville kid. We’d already lost Juliet. Did Dex have to be another victim?
I remember
ed Rick DeMun talking about the system of shortcut paths used by the Forest teens. Maybe they held the answer.
I called Rick. “How’s your little sister?”
“She’s in bad shape. This is the first time someone her age, someone she knows, has died. At sixteen, dying is something that happens to old, old people, like our Great-Aunt Violet, and she was all fixed up in a casket. But poor Daisy saw her best friend stark naked in a frozen creek. She can’t stop crying. Mom wants her to see a counselor, and that may be the best way to handle it. Daisy definitely needs help.”
“How much trouble is she in?”
“Believe it or not, the kid got off easy. Mom had already heard about Juliet and she was so glad Daisy was alive she practically carried her inside. She fussed over her for hours before she got mad and punished her.”
“Is she grounded?”
“No, Mom hit Daisy in the wallet. Daisy has to pay for her car repairs with her own money. That’s about five hundred dollars.”
“That’s gotta hurt.”
“It will cut into her plans to buy more clothes, but she’ll sweet talk Grandma into getting them for her for her birthday in March. Mom said Daisy could go out with her friends, but there are more restrictions – she made Daisy promise that she’d tell her when she left the house and she has to take a selfie wherever she is so Mom can check that she’s really there.”
“So, not too bad.”
“That’s the advantage of being the baby of the family. I would have been grounded until I graduated. But I think it’s a good idea to let Daisy go out with her friends. Maybe she’ll stop crying. If she asks you to drive her to the Olive Garden, will you take her?”
“Your mom will let her out this soon?”
“Don’t worry about Daisy. She’ll know how to persuade Mom to let you drive her. She’ll look all sad-eyed and Mom will cave. So promise me you will.”
“Deal. Now I have a question for you, Rick. You said there was a network of paths in the Forest that the kids took. Could you show them to me? I’ll buy you lunch.”
“You don’t have to bribe me, Angela. I’ll be happy to show you if you give me enough hot coffee and more of that banana bread. But can you walk in the woods on slippery, snowy paths?”
“I did fine walking the path during Juliet’s death investigation. If I don’t have to roll a suitcase, I can make it, though I may lean on you if it gets too icy.”
“At your service.”
“And I’ll not only feed you coffee and banana bread, I’ll give you your own loaf to take home.” I knew the gentle pothead had a perpetual case of the munchies.
“Totally not necessary, but I’ll take it. It’s supposed to warm up to thirty degrees tomorrow. I don’t have a job until eleven. I’ll be at your house at nine o’clock. Dress warm.”
After Rick hung up, I settled into my living room and clicked on the evening news. The main local story was almost unbearable: Juliet’s death, with photos of the lost girl’s otherworldly beauty, followed by footage of the lonely path where she died, and a high school photo of Dexter that made the boy look like a scowling thug. A reporter tried to talk to the LaRouches but couldn’t get past their black wrought-iron gate covered with a huge black silk wreath.
Another story showed warmly dressed picketers gathered outside the hospital entrance, some holding candles, others with signs that said, JUSTICE FOR JULIET.
“Arrest the killer now,” demanded a solemn-faced senior newscaster on a “TV-torial” following the news. “Let Dexter Gordon wake up in custody and be tried as an adult. His punishment needs to start now.”
I switched off the TV in disgust, and heard a vehicle rattling up my driveway. I looked out the window. Katie!
My friend burst in with a flash of cold, a box of chocolate truffles, and a hug for me.
“Want some wine?” I asked.
“Make it coffee. Juliet’s my case and I have to go back and check on her in another hour and a half.”
I measured out coffee and poured water into the coffee maker. “I thought the boss would want this high profile case.”
“Too much work. I have to check on her every two hours. Besides, he doesn’t want to be the guy who carved up the LaRouches’ beautiful girl.”
“How are you going to get any sleep when you’re checking on the body every two hours?”
“I’ll find a cot in one of the doctors’ lounges at SOS. Monty’s nephew is still here, so it’s not like I’m missing anything. And by the way, you don’t look much better than some of the folks in my cooler.”
“It’s this old robe.”
“The hell it is. You’re pale and exhausted – and you look like you’ve been crying. You’re too wrapped up in this case.”
I was grateful the coffee maker gave a final hiss. I poured two mugs of black coffee and brought them into the living room.
“Have a chocolate,” Katie said. It was a command, but the sugar and caffeine rush helped restore me.
“Did you see the news, Katie? Dex is being railroaded for rape and murder, and there’s no evidence he did it. You haven’t even started. No one’s looking for reasons why Juliet died. She was probably drunk when she ran out of Dex’s car into the woods. We found what looks like vodka near her body.”
“I haven’t done a blood alcohol test. She’s not defrosted enough.”
“And you haven’t done a tox screen. The lab hasn’t tested that big bag of white powder found in the bushes. Juliet got in a fight with Brock Sedgwick. She could have been sexually assaulted by him.”
“Except there don’t seem to be signs of assault.”
“Maybe it was consensual,” I said. “Revenge sex because she was mad at Dex. And then she laughed at Brock or they had a fight and he murdered Juliet or left her to freeze in the woods.”
“It’s happened before, especially with teenagers. That fifteen-year-old who was strangled in the woods last summer laughed at her boyfriend when he couldn’t get it up, and he killed her.”
“Daisy also said Bella’s mother made Juliet cry. She claims she doesn’t know why, but there’s more to that story. Bella’s mother gave Juliet some kind of gift that calmed the girl but still made her unhappy. What was it?
“And what goes on along the secret network of paths in the Forest? Rick is going to show me some tomorrow.”
“Be careful, Angela. This is a hot topic in the Forest and it’s not your job to investigate Juliet’s death. You could lose your job for this stunt.”
I stared into my cooling coffee. “I know. It’s bad enough that Juliet is dead. I have to stop another tragedy. A blue-collar kid like Dex will be ruined if he’s even charged with Juliet’s murder.”
CHAPTER 14
Thursday, December 29, 9:10 a.m.
“Man, this banana bread is good.” Rick spread half a stick of butter on his third thick slice.
The Forest’s handyman was praising his snack in my coffee-scented kitchen. “It’s way better than my mom’s. What makes it so good?”
“It’s a secret.” It was, too. I’d bought six loaves at a charity bake sale. I defrosted the last loaf this morning so Rick could take it with him.
He finished the buttery banana bread in four bites, then took a final gulp of coffee. “Ready for our path tour? We can take my truck. I cleaned it in your honor.”
“Sure.” I shut the door and stepped into the bright morning sunshine. “After several bone-chilling days,” I said, “it feels almost like spring.”
Rick wasn’t wearing a hat, and his long brown hair was pulled into a ponytail. “It’s twenty-eight, according to the radio. Much easier for us to go walking. The snow won’t melt but you won’t freeze your ears off.”
“Did that yesterday.” I was surprised when I climbed into Rick’s blue truck. Not only was it neat, it smelled like a bakery.
“Do I smell vanilla?”
“Yep. Ozium.”
I laughed. From my work, I knew Ozium was the potheads’ preferred air fr
eshener.
“Didn’t want you to get a contact high while we’re working.” Rick carefully stowed his loaf of banana bread under his seat, put the truck in gear and rolled down my drive.
“How’s Daisy?” I asked.
“Cried all night. Mom stayed with her – she’s worried sick. She offered to take Daisy out, but she won’t be seen with Mom.”
I smiled. “At least that’s normal behavior for a teenager.”
Rick shrugged. “I guess. I was gonna give her a toke to help her mellow out, but Mom would kill me. When Daisy’s not crying she’s on the phone to Bella. They actually call each other.”
“You mean talk instead of texting? That’s really old school.”
“Guess you can’t cry together when you text. I wish the LaRouches would hold the funeral. The kids need an outlet for their grief.”
“Poor Juliet isn’t even defrosted yet,” I said. “That’s going to take maybe two days, and then there’s the autopsy.”
“I know. They all know why there’s the long wait. That makes it somehow worse. I hate to sound like one of those stupid advice doctors, but once Juliet’s buried, they can get on with their lives.”
“Maybe they shouldn’t, Rick. Not yet. It’s a terrible lesson, but it’s how teenagers learn death is real.”
End of lecture, I told myself. Rick knows this.
“Don’t be surprised if Daisy texts you this afternoon and wants to go to the Olive Garden,” he said.
“I’ll be more than glad to take her.”
“Any word on the Toonerville kid they’re blaming?”
“Last I heard, he’s still in a coma,” I said.
“Do you think he offed Juliet?”
“No, I think he’s guilty of being a Toonerville outsider, and his parents gave him incredibly stupid advice. When Juliet’s dad showed up at their door, they made Dex hide in the basement and then told him to run to his grandparents’ home in St. Louis.”
“Why?”
“They believed because he was a Toonerville kid, he’d get blamed.”