by Diane Capri
“But she had time to put her book down so as not to lose her place,” Gonzalez said.
“A knock at the front door, perhaps?” Jess said.
She walked back out into the hallway. The security chain had been ripped off the doorframe. The lock looked intact. “She opened the door.”
Alison nodded. “Could have been someone she knew.”
“But not well, because she had the chain on.”
“So, someone she recognized. Like a police officer,” Gonzalez said.
Jess stared. “If you mean Charlene, she was in the car. I asked her to wait. I thought Norah Fender might talk more easily to a reporter than a police officer.”
Gonzalez nodded.
Jess turned back to Alison. “Either way, he definitely came in through the front door.”
Jess led the group upstairs.
Two techs were crammed in the bathroom. Several boxes and machines were on the landing. Jess eased past the open bathroom door and into the main bedroom.
Alison pointed to the clothes bunched up at one end of the rail in the closet. “Did you move the clothes like that?”
Jess shook her head. “It was like that when I arrived. Someone searched roughly. The drawers are the same.”
“You touched the handles.”
“I did.” Jess drew their attention to the alarm clock. “Five minutes fast.”
Alison nodded. “The woman was a neat freak. Advancing the time on the clock goes along with that need for control and rule-following.”
Jess looked under the bed. There was a power supply strip plugged into the wall. “She has a computer.”
“No sign of it, nor her phone.”
Jess looked around the rest of the room. “I can’t remember if he was carrying anything when he ran outside.”
Gonzalez said, “Are you sure?”
Jess frowned. “It wasn’t a robbery gone wrong.”
“How do you know?” Gonzalez asked.
“Because he forced me to shoot her.” She shivered involuntarily. “It’s not the sort of thing a robber typically does, is it?”
Alison and Gonzalez said nothing.
“I told you this already.” Jess shook her head.
Gonzalez nodded. “The computer had been connected to the internet. But it was turned off two streets from here.”
Jess scowled. “So you know there was someone else here.” She waved her arm, pointing out of the window. “The man who ran off.”
“Unless he was your accomplice,” Gonzalez said.
“Seriously? You think I’d let an accomplice beat me up and then get away if I had a choice?”
Alison smiled. “She’s right. I don’t see that happening.”
Gonzalez blew out a lungful of air. “All right.”
Jess sighed. “One last thing.”
Alison raised her eyebrows.
“Tell me your preliminary determinations about the body,” Jess said.
Alison led them to the bathroom. The two techs shuffled out of the way, moving their equipment with them.
Jess stared at Norah Fender’s body from the doorway. “Can I get closer?”
Alison shook her head. “We’ve got enough trace evidence to deal with already.”
“She was lying there when I first saw her. I had my gun out.” She mimicked holding her Glock ready to shoot. “There was a man behind the door. He grabbed my hands, twisted the gun down, and pushed my finger into the trigger.”
“How many times?” Gonzalez asked.
“Twice. He pounded my face against the door.”
“How do you know it was a man?” Gonzalez said.
“He was wearing a man’s coat, and I saw him running out.”
“Distinguishing features? Could you identify him?”
Jess shook her head slowly. “I was on the verge of passing out. I could barely see him.” She touched her face carefully. “What about Norah’s body? Any forensics that might identify him?”
Alison took a half step into the bathroom. “It’s too early to say for sure, but we didn’t find skin or blood under her fingernails.”
“So she didn’t fight her attacker,” Jess said.
“People fight like hell when their lives are on the line if they can. It appears she didn’t fight.” Alison pointed to Norah’s neck. “Those marks are consistent with her being dragged to the bathroom. There is only slight bruising around the neck, which could mean she was close to death at the time.”
“She was strangled?” Gonzalez asked.
“I don’t think so,” Alison said. “I’d expect more evidence of a struggle if she’d been strangled.”
“Blows to the head?” Jess asked.
Alison shook her head. “And the blood loss from the gunshots is limited. Consistent with gravity causing the drainage after the heart stops pumping.”
Jess looked at the bloody corpse. “You’d call that mild blood loss?”
“Compared to what it would have been if her heart was pumping at the time, yes. She didn’t lose much from the gunshots.”
Jess tried to process this new evidence by talking it through. “So she was already dead?”
Alison nodded. “Autopsy will confirm it, but that’s my best guess based on what I see now.”
“So he didn’t use me to kill her. He wanted to set me up.”
“Possibly,” Gonzalez said. “But why? It implies that he knew who you were, doesn’t it?”
Jess nodded. “And I only heard Norah Fender’s name for the first time about an hour before I arrived here.”
“Who told you about Fender?”
“Doctor Nepovim, at Kid’s Own Medical Center. He showed me a printout with her name on it.” Which was only half true. He had shown her the computer printout with Norah Fender’s initials on it. But she didn’t want to get Oscar Platte in trouble. He was a source. She couldn’t be compelled to name him.
Jess spelled Nepovim’s name.
“Maybe he didn’t want her reputation to damage his hospital and thought you might help to publicize that.” Gonzalez wrote Nepovim’s name down in a small notebook. “Hospitals are big business these days. Could be a lot of money at stake.”
“But murder? To keep her quiet about crimes that took place at least a decade ago? That’s pretty extreme, isn’t it?” Jess said.
“I agree.” Alison nodded. “Setting you up seems a crime of opportunity. The killer thought we wouldn’t notice that she was already dead before you shot her.”
“Assuming the autopsy agrees with your preliminary assessment,” Gonzalez said. “This seems personal. Like he knew who you were and he wanted to get you as well as Fender tied up in one neat package.”
“Did anyone else know you were coming here?” Alison asked.
Jess took a deep breath. She didn’t want to open up that Pandora’s Box, but she had no choice. “Charlene Mackie was the only one.”
Gonzalez scowled and cocked his head. “You think your friend is responsible?”
“Charlene didn’t do this. We were working together,” Jess said. She shook her head and stopped abruptly when the pain pierced her skull. “She’s been looking for her daughter for fourteen years. We found a link that led us to Norah Fender. Charlene wouldn’t have killed Fender without finding out what she knew first, at the very least.”
“How do you know she didn’t find out that Fender did something to her daughter?” Gonzalez gave a flat smile. “Mothers have killed for less.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Alison’s techs took fingerprints from Jess and Charlene. They used a portable machine that read the results straight into a computer. The computer brought up both of their names with the word “matched” in a bright red font.
Gonzalez recorded Jess’s and Charlene’s mobile phone numbers in his notebook and pushed it into his pocket. “We’ve got enough evidence to release you now. But if we come up with something new that implicates either of you, we’ll use those consent forms you signed to have you
picked up no matter what jurisdiction you’re in.”
“It won’t be necessary to come after us, Gonzalez. We didn’t kill Norah Fender, and you know it,” Charlene said.
“You know where to find us if you need testimony against the killer or anything,” Jess said.
“I do.” Gonzalez nodded. “And your lawyer, Miller? He’s assured me that you’ll cooperate to help us prosecute the killer when we find him.”
“You bet I will,” Jess said, shaking hands all around.
When they’d returned to the car, Jess fired off a message to Miller, thanking him for his help, and informing him she was headed back to Randolph. He replied a moment later with a smiley emoji and the words I’ll be ready for the next time.
Charlene drove the Crown Vic back to the highway and settled into a seventy-mile-an-hour cruise, north to Randolph.
Jess waited until Portland was twenty miles behind them before she spoke. “Tell me about your daughter’s disappearance.”
Charlene seemed lost in her own thoughts.
“If you want,” Jess said. “Maybe I can help.”
Charlene cleared her throat. “Last time I saw her was about a week before she disappeared. She was pregnant like I said. Living with her no-account boyfriend. We had a big fight. Total blowout.” She took another lungful of air. “You have to understand. Crystal and I, we didn’t get along. I loved her. I loved her from the moment she was born. But she…she was difficult. We had a hell of a time through her teens. But we came out on the other side, basically undamaged. Until she got pregnant. And me? I wasn’t the best for her. At times, you know? People in Randolph would be only too happy to tell you that if you asked.”
Jess nodded. It was a familiar story for runaways. Particularly girls. Too often, they left because home wasn’t a great place to be. The trouble was, they usually learned that home was a better place than living on the streets. Pride kept them from going back.
Charlene bit her lip. “She didn’t tell me who the father was, either.”
“Where was she going, after that big fight?”
“Don’t know. Her so-called boyfriend went after her. Didn’t find her. He says.” She paused while she passed a slow-moving truck in the right lane. “He didn’t know. He didn’t even realize she’d come home or left again. So he says.”
Jess looked at Charlene. “You don’t trust him?”
“I wasn’t the best of people at the time, but he’s nothing but trash. Hated him then, hate him now.”
“Why?”
Charlene snorted. “He was a bum. Still is. Booze, drugs, and a temper.”
“Why did she stay with him?”
Charlene shrugged. “I asked her that question a thousand times.”
Jess changed her approach. “When the neighbor saw Crystal that last time, was she on foot?”
“Don’t know.” Charlene shrugged again. “Two months later her car was found in a remote lot at a Greyhound station in Seattle.”
“She was heading through the neighborhood, though? Meaning she was going from one place to somewhere else?”
“Her house was the first turn on the left as you go into Sunshine Estates. Crystal was walking toward the back. Toward the woods along Meisner’s place.”
“Could she have gone anywhere else if she walked along that route?”
“Sure. There’re lots of options. She could have walked along the lane and out the other end. Could have gone to see someone else living at Sunshine Estates. Could have done a lot of things.” Charlene turned her head to look at Jess. “But she didn’t. All of that was checked out at the time.”
“Where was her car? When the neighbor saw her, I mean.”
“The houses have communal parking. Her car wasn’t parked there by the time we started looking for her.”
“But her car could have been there that last night?”
“Could have.”
“When did the police get notified that Crystal was missing?”
“A week later. She worked up at the Meisner’s place. They reported she hadn’t been into work.”
“A whole week before they contacted anybody?”
Charlene snorted. “The Meisners? They couldn’t care less about the people who work up there. Hired someone to replace her right away. There’s always a line of workers.”
“And the boyfriend? Didn’t he care enough to report her missing before she’d been gone a whole week?”
“He doesn’t care about anything that he can’t drink or shoot up.” Charlene’s tone was full of disgust.
“But he went after her, that last time? When she came back?”
“Depending on how much credibility you put in the testimony of a heavy drug user. I’ve seen him on days when he couldn’t even speak.”
Charlene drove on in silence for a while. They passed a sign stating ten miles to Randolph.
“Why was Norah Fender killed?” Charlene finally asked.
“My theory is that someone is trying to cover something up. Like the hospital, or someone else involved in Norah Fender’s baby-selling operation. She can’t have been working alone. She had to have help.”
“There aren’t many motives for murder, according to the police academy manuals. One of the limited choices is to conceal a crime. So I guess you could be right. It’s happened before.”
Charlene pulled into The Montpelier Hotel parking lot and let Jess out by the front door.
Charlene lowered the window. “Do you think Crystal is still alive?”
Jess blew out a long breath. “We haven’t found anything that indicates she isn’t.”
Charlene gave a long slow nod. “So you don’t know either.”
“No. But now isn’t the time to give up.”
Charlene nodded and drove away.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Blackstake arrived at the gate to Meisner’s estate after midnight. His entire body ached. He’d walked a long way to a bus station in Portland after torching the big white Chrysler. He’d taken a bus to another small town. A taxi and another long walk to another bus. The final leg of his journey backtracked to Bamford and a third bus that dropped him in Randolph. He’d walked the final distance from there.
He had made no phone calls since leaving the Fender house. Along the way, he’d disposed of his burner phones, a few destroyed pieces of more than twenty plastic components deposited in trash barrels as he came to them. No one would find the pieces or attempt to reconstruct the phones.
The boss wouldn’t like it, but Blackstake had decided to wait until the morning to deliver his report.
The men at the gate said little to him. He’d arrived in unusual ways at odd hours many times before. They offered him a ride from the gate to the manor house. He accepted.
The driver dropped him at a side entrance. The door led to a corridor that led to his apartment. Four elegantly appointed rooms, one overwhelmed by his king size bed. He was getting too old for his chosen profession. His bed beckoned.
But the phone rang before he made it to oblivion.
Blackstake sighed and straightened his posture and blinked himself awake. Tomorrow, he would have made a more circumspect report. The boss craved plausible deniability for all of Blackstake’s projects, and he made it a point to deliver what the boss required. But he couldn’t muster the energy for clandestine ops tonight.
“I found a nurse who sold Crystal Mackie’s baby,” Blackstake said. “Eliminated her and framed Kimball for the murder. Got rid of my car and phone and…you get the picture.”
“You’re sure?”
“Kimball’s hand was on her gun when she shot the nurse. Even those bumpkins in Podunk, Oregon, should be able to arrest her and keep her until she’s convicted with that evidence.”
“Well, well. And the baby?”
“A boy. In fact, the boy who fell from the tree. Peter Whiting.”
“Hell.” There was a long silence. “Better not be any blowback on this.”
“There won’t be
.” Blackstake shook his head and swiped a palm over his face. “It means nothing. You’re fine. There is nothing to lead from him to you. Docs in Randolph say the boy isn’t going to recover, anyway. Bad head injury. The Whitings don’t want anyone to know, and the nurse is dead. Kimball was the one causing trouble. But now she’s out of the picture…”
“Kimball was snooping around the tree where the boy was found. Security confiscated a couple of drones from her. No computer chips or anything in them. Nothing remarkable. One of the guys has them if you want to take a look.” A deep sigh traveled across the line. “We’ll discuss this in the morning. Call me.”
The line went dead. Blackstake hung up thoughtfully. A drone. So that’s what the kid had been doing. Flying a drone around the area. Some of those drones had cameras in them. The kid’s drone could have snapped some damning photos. But if it had, where were the photos?
He shook his head. He couldn’t deal with it tonight. He’d follow up with the security staff tomorrow.
He wasn’t worried. Everything was under control. He was a professional. He’d handled the situation. Appropriately. Finally.
He would sleep easy tonight.
He’d sleep a lot easier than Jess Kimball that was for damn sure.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Randolph, Washington
Thursday, September 29
8:00 a.m. Pacific Time
Jess woke to the sound of birds at her window. She’d slept fitfully. Her muscles ached. Her lips were puffy, and the side of her face was tender to the touch. She lay still, listening to the sound of nature, hoping the soreness would fade.
She reached for her phone. One missed call from FBI Agent Henry Morris. She didn’t want to try to talk to him right now. Whatever he wanted to talk to her about had nothing to do with Peter Whiting. She’d deal with him back in Denver. No other messages. Probably not a bad thing.
She pried herself out of the hotel’s soft white sheets and moved into the shower. The water was hot. She breathed in the steam and let the heat work on her aches and pains.