by Bob Mayer
Chase checked his notebook. "What's chlorhexidine gluconate?"
Hanson gave a ghost of a smile. "I should have known better than to use big words with cops. Finding that was another reason, I don't think she was raped. I've never heard of a rapist who used KY jelly in the commission of his crime."
Another piece of the puzzle that didn't fit. Chase felt much better about his decision last night. If Rachel hadn't been raped, and robbery had already been tentatively ruled out, then all they had was that she'd been killed. In a way, they had been using the rape as the motive for the killing. If they took the rape away then why was she killed?
It could have been a random killing, but she was taken out of that parking lot. It almost made Chase think someone was waiting for her specifically. He could have been wrong. But the theory of four men snatching her, raping her (with KY jelly), then killing her and making the drive to the park all inside of an hour had a lot of holes in it too in his opinion. The wound and the lack of tracks near the body also bothered him. A lot.
Chase felt the need for an objective opinion. He told Hanson about the cab and the timing and all the other little pieces that made it a confused picture.
Hanson summed it all up from his perspective. "I don't deal in motives. I deal in physical evidence. She had sex, Detective Chase. Unprotected sex. With four different men. She stood sometime after having sex. Then she was killed by one man. The others might have been there, but it was probably only one set of hands that made the wound on her throat. Those are the facts that I have."
“There’s another thing,” Chase said.
“Yes?”
“The baby from last night. And the parents.”
Hanson grimaced. For the first time Chase saw an emotion cross Hanson’s face. “I don’t like doing autopsies on babies. Especially those that die because of violence.” He shook his head. “It’s—“ he searched for words. “It’s looking into the soul of the devil. It’s profane.”
“I was told the bullets that killed the baby and wounded the father weren’t fired by the wife’s gun.”
“All three were shot by the same weapon-- barring your fatal shot into the father--” Hanson amended. “Seven point six two millimeter by thirty-nine.”
“Soviet AK-47.”
Hanson nodded. “Most likely, although some other Russian weapons fire the same round. The SKS was the first rifle that used that size round, but I agree it’s most likely an AK-47.”
Chase let that sink in. AK’s were pretty common, even in America. In fact, he knew it was the most widely manufactured gun in the history of mankind. But the neighbor had told the shift sergeant that she heard automatic firing. That meant an AK illegally modified to fire on automatic. Chase knew an AK like that was used just a couple of days ago.
Could the Patriots have been involved? Someone had gone into that house, shot both the husband and wife, the baby, then been gone by the time the cops got there. It would have been easy to escape. Out the back door, into the Open Space and freedom.
Were the Barnes hooked in to the Patriots? But they had gone back to Wyoming and the local authorities and Feds had that place sown up tight so they couldn’t have come back, could they? Chase had no doubt though, that the Patriots could circumvent any sort of ‘blockade’ that was in place with their four-wheel drive vehicles as they knew the terrain and all the trails in the area. The same way the Taliban could cross the Pakistan-Afghan border with ease. Or had someone been with the Barnes that night and that same person set the Patriots up to be picked up and that person was still in Boulder? A lot of questions with not much to start on.
And Chase knew that he couldn’t count on whomever the chief had assigned to the case to have a snowball’s chance in hell of catching whoever had done this or connecting two dots, never mind the half-dozen this situation seemed to call for.
“You all right?” Hanson asked.
“No. I’m not.”
“Detective Chase--”
Chase looked up. “Yes?”
“Even if EMT got to him, Tim Barnes would have been dead in ten minutes. Your shot just saved him some misery and pain.”
“Yeah, I’m a regular angel of mercy. Tell the chief that.”
Hanson looked at the door, then at Chase. “There’s something else. Actually a couple of other things that are strange.”
“What?”
He pulled a file folder from his out-box. He opened it and slid a couple of photos across to Chase. “They’d been tied up. The parents. Check out the ligature marks on their wrists and ankles. A smooth, thin, nylon cord.”
That didn’t make any sense. “Like 550 cord?” 550 cord was a bunch of strings wrapped inside a green nylon outer-shell that was used extensively in the military. It was the same cord used on the risers for parachutes.
Hanson nodded. “I would say that fits the marks.”
Chase didn’t have time to dwell on it as Hanson continued.
“And the baby--” Hanson shook his head at a loss for words. Chase knew what was coming was bad. Hanson passed Chase another photo. Chase stared at it without comprehension. It was a close-up of pink, jagged flesh. Chase wasn’t sure whose body or what part of the body he was looking at. He’d never seen anything like it.
“Someone did something to the baby’s mouth. That’s the interior. I’d have to say somebody used a hand-held dental drill to cut into its gums, into the base where its teeth were forming.”
Chase dropped the photo on the table. “Why?”
“To hurt it,” Hanson said.
“Why?” It was the only thing Chase could say in the face of his shock.
Hanson shrugged. “That’s getting to motive again, detective. I can only give you the physical evidence.”
Chase tried to think. The Barnes had been tied up and someone had drilled into their baby’s mouth. To make them talk? But whoever it was had untied them. Then shot them. Or shot them and they got untied after the intruder left? Trina Barnes made it to the front door and died of her wounds. Tim Barnes stayed with the kid. She’d been half-undressed. Nothing fit.
“Was Trina Barnes raped?”
“No evidence of that.”
Even in war, Chase had never seen a baby that had been tortured. Died of neglect-- yes. Abused-- yes. But nothing like this. He felt a chill pass through his body. Chase thanked the Doc for his time and left. It was a long drive back to Boulder and he used it to try to get his composure back.
* * * * *
Chase pulled up to the hangar and parked off to the side. He could see Masters sitting on top of the Huey, a cowling off one of the engines, his hands buried inside the machine. Jefferson County Airport sat on a high plateau between Denver and Boulder and the foothills, white-capped peaks behind them, loomed a dozen miles to the west.
Chase got out of the Jeep and walked over to the chopper.
“What’s the good word?” Masters called out from his perch.
“No good news,” Chase said.
Masters shook his head. “Man, you are one grim motherfucker.” He got up and climbed down a ladder on the side of the bird.
“If you’d just seen what I did, you’d be pretty grim too.”
“I heard about last night,” Masters said, leading him into a cluttered office on the side of the hangar and pouring them both a cup of coffee.
“You didn’t hear all of it.” Chase quickly relayed to Masters what Henson had just told him.
When he was done, Masters put the mug of coffee he’d been cradling in his hands onto his desk. “You’re talking about evil.”
Chase frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Pure fucking evil,” Masters said. “You and I both seen some bad shit in combat. But torture a baby? That’s evil. That’s someone who’s operating on an entirely different level. A fucking sociopath.”
Another psychobabble term, Chase thought, but he knew what it meant and it fit. “Same kind of evil that would rape a woman and garrote her?”
&nbs
p; “Could be, but it seems like a different sort of act.” Masters shrugged. “How the fuck do I know. I’m just a pilot. You’re the cop.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Hey.” Masters leaned forward in his chair. “You are a cop, Chase. You carry a fucking badge.”
“Should I have killed those men in Wyoming?”
Masters didn’t seem surprised at the abrupt question. “It was your call. No one can answer that but you. I know Fortin’s probably got his boot knee deep in your ass, but he’s gotta respect that.”
“Think he’s going to?”
“No.”
Chase nodded. “That’s what I thought.” He took a sip of the coffee. Masters sat quietly, letting the silence play out.
Finally Chase spoke. “You know Colonel Rivers?”
“Heard of him,” Masters said. “Why?”
“I heard he might be messing around with the Patriots.”
“You run that by Fortin?”
“Fortin ran me over, I’m not about to disturb any more shit.”
The phone rang. Masters picked it up. “You call, we haul.” He listened, checked his watch, then said bye. “Got a job, Chase.” He headed for the hanger. “You need anything, give me a call.”
* * * * *
Chase had a lunch date with Sylvie. He thought about calling to cancel, in no mood for either sex or food, but he figured she’s prepared something and didn’t want to be rude.
When he entered the apartment, he could smell food cooking. Sylvie came out of her bedroom, dressed in the same outfit she’d worn on stage the previous evening, including the whip. She gave Chase a wicked smile, which slowly faded as she sensed his mood.
“You all right?”
Chase shook his head. “No.”
Sylvie turned around and went back into the bedroom, reappearing a few seconds later wearing her thick white robe. She came over and gave him a hug.
"Smells good," Chase said.
"Me or the food?"
"Both."
"Thanks." She went into the kitchen turned up the heat. "Put some plates out."
Sylvie didn't cook fancy stuff, but it was good basic food. Today it was some sort of noodles with Sylvie's homemade sauce. Chase tried to eat but he didn’t have much appetite. He also noticed Sylvie wasn't eating. She was just sitting there watching him. He put the down the utensils. "What?"
“I heard about what happened last night. I thought I could get your mind off it.”
“I appreciate the thought. I’m dealing with it.”
“I don’t understand you, sometimes,” Sylvie said. “You seem to need me at times and other times you don’t. You killed a man last night, Chase. Yet--” she ran out of words and shrugged.
“The coroner says the man I shot would have been dead in ten minutes anyway,” Chase said. “I guess you might say I did him a favor.”
“A favor?”
“Hey--” Chase put his hands on the table, perhaps a bit too hard but he was tired. “He begged me to shoot him. I had another shot I could have taken the--” Chase caught himself. “Listen, Sylvie, I appreciate your interest in my work but can we talk about something else?” Chase picked up his fork and forced a smile. But his fork paused halfway to his mouth and he realized he couldn’t eat. He thought of the baby’s mouth and knew he could never say anything about that to her.
Sylvie put down her fork. "This woman's death is really getting to you isn't it?"
Chase felt on safer ground discussing Rachel’s case because everything else made even less sense. "It's the whole thing, Sylvie. Something doesn't fit, and I can't seem to figure out what it is."
Chase told Sylvie everything he had learned in the last day and a half about the case. It took a while, but she was right; this case was definitely affecting him, like an irritating itch deep inside a wound that wasn’t healing.
Sylvie was sipping the coffee she had brewed during the course of his monologue, and paying very rapt attention. After he finished and asked her what she thought, she continued to stare silently at Chase.
Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. "Are you upset? Why aren't you saying anything?"
She put down the mug and stood up. At first Chase thought, she was leaving the room, but she began clearing the table. "Chase, tell me about Rachel."
He started to rehash the facts of the murder, but she cut him off.
"I know all the stuff about her death."
This time Chase interrupted, "You don't know who killed her."
She put the dishes down and motioned for Chase to follow. She perched in the big wicker rocker that seemed to be her favorite spot; aside from the bed. Chase took that as a sign that she just wanted to get comfortable, and made his own spot amid the dozen pillows on the bed. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. She had a nice mattress with a down comforter and it felt so good, he was afraid he might just fall asleep.
"You're right, Chase. I don't know who killed her, but neither do you. And I have to admit that although I find it interesting to speculate on who killed Rachel Stevens, what I'm really interested in is who was this woman? Her life is as much a mystery as her death. I want to know about her life. Who she was."
Chase rubbed his eyes with both hands and tried to stifle his yawn. "Sylvie, I know you want to get at the psychological core of this, but right now I'm still at the basic shit level. What I need to find out is where she was while she skipped class. But even if I find that out, I still won't know who killed her. I need to know what she was doing so I can go some place with this." Chase turned his head and looked at her.
Sylvie nodded. "My point exactly, except I think you're going about it backwards. You want to know what she did, but unless you ask everyone in that neighborhood in Broomfield where she was during those hours you're never going to know.
"Hell, she could have been sitting in a closet chilling out every third Wednesday night, unseen by human eyes. I'm just trying to tell you that you need to know who Rachel Stevens was. When you understand her as a person and, more importantly, as a woman, you might be able to sit down and figure out where she would go.
"Think about it Chase: here's a woman with a husband, lots of social obligations and a very demanding academic career. Time was the most valuable asset she had. There has to be a very good reason why she spent three hours every three weeks so mysteriously. Especially if she took it out of her school time, which her husband says was important to her."
Chase nodded in Sylvie's direction to let her know he understood. What he wanted at that moment was to hide in a closet himself and think about everything. Maybe that's what Rachel had needed: to just get away for a while. But he had started all this and Sylvie wasn't going to give up that easy. She asked Chase if anyone else had been absent the night Rachel was killed. When Sylvie first brought this up at the New York Deli, Chase had thought it was a good question. But other events had set Sylvie's idea on the backburner.
Chase told Sylvie that finding out who Rachel had been with was still critical, but as she had just said, he needed to look at Rachel's life differently to understand where she had been that Wednesday.
"Chase, quit focusing on where she was, what she was doing, and with whom. Put your attention on the part of the puzzle that will give you the answer. Why was Rachel Stevens’ hiding a part of her life?"
Then she looked at Chase very calmly and asked something he should have thought of a long time ago. "Did she go some place every third Wednesday for three hours before she entered the program at the University of Colorado?"
Chase had gotten so used to thinking of Rachel's class as a ruse that it had never occurred to him to wonder if the secret extended any further back.
Chase made another mental note to talk to Doctor Stevens as soon as possible. If Rachel had only started disappearing in the last year and a half, then Sylvie was right about the CU connection. But Chase had a feeling that even if Sylvie were right, there was still something very wrong.
CHAPT
ER THIRTEEN
Chase had called on his cell phone and found out the doctor would be in his office at three. He then checked in with Porter on his street crusade, arranging to meet him downtown. His partner was in his element, stalking downtown and hitting all the out-of-the-way places scumbags hung out. He hadn't found squat, but he was happy. He felt something would break soon. Chase met his partner and filled him in on what he had learned from Hanson about Stevens and a little bit about the direction he was headed in.
They were standing outside of Custard’s Last Stand, a hot dog joint on Broadway. Porter was wolfing down something dripping with all the trimmings that Chase was trying not to look at as it made his stomach rumble.
“You’re showing a lot of good initiative,” Porter said. “I agree with Hanson. I don’t think this murder was about a rape. And I still think the husband was involved.”
Chase didn’t want to disagree with Porter. “Could be,” he said. “I just need to know more about Rachel.”
Porter paused with the over-loaded hot dog halfway to his mouth. “’Rachel’?”
“Mrs. Stevens.”
“You sure you don’t have too much going on?” Porter asked. “I haven’t seen you since last night, but that must have been a hell of thing.”
Chase shrugged. “It was pretty much over by the time we got there.”
“You killed someone Chase.”
“He was already dying. I just hastened it.”
“I suppose that’s a way of looking at it, but the word is your ass is in a sling.”
“I don’t know what the hell went down in that house before we went in,” Chase said. “No one does.”
“But a baby.” Porter shook his head. “Jesus.”
Chase knew better than to share the information from Hanson about the baby with Porter. His partner would go crazy with it.
Chase waited, knowing he had to follow his partner’s lead on the case. Porter finished the hot dog. “There’s something going on in this town, Chase.” Porter began walking toward the Broadway Bridge over Boulder Creek.