by Anne Hagan
“What’s the approximate location?”
“Just north of the boat launch ramps and dock off of Newark Road.”
“Roger. Enroute.” I was shocked. A bad omen told me it was the still missing Terri Sweeting. Dana hadn’t heard back from her all weekend. I broke several traffic laws that I was sworn to enforce trying to get to the crime scene as quickly as possible.
The state boys from the Ohio Highway Patrol had closed off the boat launch parking lot. I was stopped at the gate by a baby faced OSHP Trooper.
I leaned slightly out the window of my official county SUV and addressed him, “County Sheriff Melissa Crane.”
“Sheriff,” he touched the brim of his hat and tipped his head in greeting. “How can I help you.”
“Can you admit me to the crime scene please?”
“This is state property Sheriff so this investigation is state jurisdiction.”
“I’m aware of that Trooper. I believe I may have information about the victim and, if she hasn’t been identified, I believe I know someone who can ID her.”
The young officer nodded and stepped away to make a radio call. A minute later he nodded to me and moved the gate to allow me to pass into the parking lot. I headed toward the knot of State Highway Patrol vehicles and troopers that were near the launch ramp.
As I dismounted my vehicle, a Trooper stepped over to greet me. “Trooper France, Sheriff.” He stuck out his hand.”
I took it, “Sheriff Crane.”
“How can we help you today Sheriff?”
“An associate of mine, a U.S. Customs Agent, was here Saturday to meet with a woman who represented to her that she was in some sort of trouble and that someone was trying to kill her. When my associate got here, she only found the woman’s car.” I turned and looked down the lot.
“It’s the white foreign job – Hyundai, I think – with Illinois plates that’s parked near the end of this row with a distress flag hanging from the window.” I paused and then continued, “Funny, I would have thought the rangers would have had that removed by now.”
“They probably haven’t noticed it Sheriff. This time of year the gates to this lot still close at dusk but boaters stay out on the water all night. Their vehicles would remain parked here.”
“Good point and probably a lucky break for you guys.”
“Who’s the vehicle belong to?” He took out a note pad.
“Her name is Terri Sweeting.”
“And what’s the Agent’s name?”
“Dana Rossi.”
“Customs, you said?”
“Yes.”
“What’s her connection to the floater? Is she potentially part of an investigation?” His look was skeptical.
I tried to quickly think about the best way to frame my response, “Agent Rossi is assigned in the area. If your victim is who I believe it might be, she knew Agent Rossi in the past. She came down here from the Chicago area to ask for her help with a personal problem. They spoke on Friday but they weren’t able to connect yesterday.”
The officer nodded. “How do I contact this Agent Rossi?”
Before I could respond, his attention was drawn to a Park Ranger’s patrol boat approaching the launch ramp and the temporary tie off dock. We watched as the boat eased to the dock and was tied off. A Trooper wearing Lieutenant’s brass stepped out and motioned to two other Troopers near the ramps to assist. A Ranger and a Trooper strained to lift a body basket with a closed body bag out of the boat as the three men on shore reached to take it.
Once the body was on the dock, the Trooper I was speaking with approached his Lieutenant and showed him his notes. The LT motioned me over.
“Lieutenant Nichols Sheriff,” he said by way of introduction. “There was no ID on the body. Can you possibly identify her yourself?”
“If it’s who I believe it might be, no; I’ve never actually met her. I’m assisting Agent Rossi who came to me with concerns.”
He eyed me for a minute then jerked a thumb toward the body bag, “Are you willing to take a look anyway? I have to warn you, it isn’t pretty. She’s pretty bloated...been in the water a couple of days and, I’m sorry to say, I’m officially ruling this murder investigation.”
I swallowed hard, “I’ll look LT but no promises on an ID.”
The Lieutenant stooped down and unzipped the top of the bag. I stooped too and peered at the face...or, at least, what was left of it, that was revealed. I didn’t recognize the woman but she fit the general description Dana had given me of Terri, other than that her head looked like it had been badly bludgeoned.
I shook my head, “I don’t recognize her but she appears to be a match for what I’ve been told about her.” I looked away until I heard the sound of the zipper being pulled back up. The smell of death began to permeate the air after just that brief opening of the body bag for a glimpse. My stomach churned. There were two parts of police work that I hated: recovering bodies and notifying loved ones.
The Lieutenant was speaking again, “I’ll be the lead on this case Sheriff. My men and I are going to have to start combing the area for evidence. If you’d give Trooper Shay your contact information and the contact info you have for Rossi, it would be much appreciated.” He nodded toward the younger Trooper who’d been interviewing me previously.
I gave the state boys what they required and then I went home to break the news to Dana. I was reasonably sure the body the Troopers had recovered was the missing Terri.
###
Dana
Mel called and filled my in on what a boater had apparently found floating in Dillon Lake while attempting to fish near the shaded and wooded shoreline on the east side of the lake. When she described the face she’d seen to me, I was sure they’d found Terri too.
I attempted to call the local OSHP Post to offer to come in and do an ID. I was routed to Trooper Shay who informed me the investigation in the area was still ongoing. Meanwhile the unidentified victim was being transported to the Muskingum County Coroner for autopsy given her rapidly decomposing state. It was too risky to chance taking the time to move her to the state crime lab.
While I waited for them to summon me, I found a Zanesville pharmacy that would sell me a single crutch.
Chapter 13 - Evidence
Tuesday, late morning, June 17th, 2014
My wait for the victim to be autopsied wasn’t long. In my mind, I knew it was Terri anyway. Where she’d been hunting me over the weekend, I’d spent the past 24 hours hunting her. While I waited to hear from the OSHP, I made several calls to past contacts trying to get a line on Terri. I’d come up with nothing, even after calling a couple of ghosts from my past that I would rather have remained forgotten.
Lieutenant Nichols met me at the Muskingum County Medical Examiner’s Office. I felt slightly uncomfortable as he looked me up and down when I hobbled in on crutches. I caught his eye and put on my best official law enforcement expression.
“Lieutenant Nichols, I presume?”
“Yes ma’am.” He finally looked me in the eye, “Are you Agent Rossi?”
“Dana Rossi, yes. If the body I’m here to view is whom I expect that it is, it’s someone I’ve known personally, in the past and not someone I was dealing with in my official capacity.”
“I see Ms. Rossi. I need to ask, have you ever done this before?”
“ID’d a body? Fortunately, no. Deaths and murders don’t normally fall under the jurisdiction of Customs.”
“Then I have to warn you, what you’re about to see will not be what you see at an open casket funeral.”
“Point taken. Lead on Lieutenant.”
The Coroner himself pulled out a drawer and lowered the sheet from the head of the victim. Even distorted, I only had to glance at the face to know that it was Terri.
“It’s her. It’s Terri Sweeting.” I made a half turn away from the head with a skull that was obviously crushed in the back.
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
I didn’t turn back to her.
“I’m going to need you to come over to the Patrol Post and make a formal statement.”
“No problem. I can do that now if you like.”
The Coroner spoke up, “Lieutenant, I need a word with you first.” The LT nodded.
“I’ll just wait outside.” I showed myself out the door as fast as a pair of crutches could carry me. I didn’t want to spend any more time in the chamber of death than I had to.
###
Tuesday, early afternoon, June 17th, 2014
“Thanks for coming in Ms. Rossi.”
“Dana is fine Lieutenant.” He didn’t respond.
I’ve never really been on this side of the desk... I started talking nervously like I had no idea how a police interview is supposed to work. “I’ll tell you everything I know but I’m not sure how much help it will be.” He remained silent but met my eyes. It was unnerving. I began to get the impression this wasn’t an interview at all but an interrogation.
“Look Lieutenant Nichols, I’m going to level with you right up front, Terri and I weren’t on the best of terms. I’m not sure exactly why she came to Ohio or what her real problem was and I really didn’t care to know.”
Nichols put up a hand to stop me and he finally spoke, “How about we start at the beginning?”
“That’s fine.” I was relieved to have him jump into the driver’s seat.
“How did you know Ms. Sweeting?”
I grinned nervously. “Once you get going, you cut right to the chase don’t you?” He didn’t answer again; he just watched me with a blank expression.
“Okay well, to be completely frank, we were romantic partners at one time.” I watched his face for a reaction or even a slight change in his expression. There was none.
“We broke up, badly I’ll admit, about three and a half years ago. We’d been living together at the time but I worked a private security and investigations job that had me on the road a lot. I moved out one day in between assignments, while she was at work. She didn’t take it well. To make a long story short, she stalked me and hounded my employer over me. I ended up getting fired because she was out of hand and my employer had a reputation to uphold.”
“Did you confront Terri?”
“No. I avoided her. I just wanted to be completely free of her. After I lost my job, I didn’t have any reason to stay in the Chicago area. I had no ties there. I went home to stay with my folks in Pennsylvania for a while to lick my wounds and put everything behind me. In the end I changed my phone number and my life.”
“I got an investigative position with Customs a little over three years ago. I never saw or heard from Terri after I left for Pennsylvania or even after Customs assigned me to the Chicago Field Office until this past Saturday when she called me out of the blue and when she started texting me, as I said.”
“If you changed everything and you hadn’t heard from her, how did she get your number?”
“I asked Terri the same question. She said she got it through a mutual friend. I haven’t kept in contact with any of the people we associated with at the time that we were together so I don’t know who she would have actually gotten it from.”
He leaned back in his chair and gave me a skeptical look, “Did you ask her to come to Ohio to see you?”
“No, I didn’t.” I tried to sound matter of fact and not defensive. “She was already here when she started calling me and texting me asking me to meet with her. Here, let me show you.” I took out my phone and showed him the call log and the texts from her.
He made some notes. “We’ll pull her phone records. Would you be willing to let us download a transcript of the texts now? It will save us time.”
“Of course. No problem.” I laid my phone on the desk. He didn’t pick it up.
“So, when did you first meet with Terri?”
“The only time I met with her was on Friday afternoon at Putnam Hill Park in Zanesville.”
“Why did you agree to the meeting?”
“At first, she said she just wanted to talk to me. When I wouldn’t take her calls, she started texting. I ignored those too until she told me via text that she was in Zanesville. You’ll see it there,” I pointed at the phone.
“So, because she was in Zanesville, you agreed to meet with her?”
“Not exactly; I only agreed to meet with her after she said the reason she wanted to talk to me was because someone was trying to kill her and she needed my help.”
“Kill her?” This time his face actually showed a little emotion.
“Yes. It’s there in the texts.”
“Who did she think was trying to kill her?”
“That’s not in the texts. It came out in our meeting.” I told him the story that Terri told me. When I finished, he was quiet for more than a minute while he scribbled notes.
I felt more at ease after getting everything about our meeting out and I thought I sensed a change in Nichols. I sat back in my chair and relaxed a little while I waited for his next question. I figured we’d move on to the events of Saturday. When his actual question came, it took me completely by surprise.
“How long have you been on crutches?”
I held my hands up to him in confusion. “Um, I was shot in the line of duty in April. I was laid up for a few weeks but I’ve been on them since.” He raised one eyebrow in the biggest show of expression I’d seen from him since the interview started. “I have severe muscle and nerve damage to my left leg. It was exacerbated a little over a week ago by an unrelated incident.”
“So you’re on convalescent leave right now?”
“Sort of. I’m in the process of being medically retired.”
“I see.”
“Do you? Why the questions about my status?”
He changed direction, “Do you carry off duty?”
“Usually, a small 9mm. Don’t you carry out of uniform?”
“Were you carrying Friday or Saturday?”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. “What does whether I carry a weapon off duty or not have to do with anything?”
He ignored my question and continued, “Are you carrying now?”
“Do you want to frisk me and see?” I was beginning to get annoyed with his interrogative line of questioning but then in my brewing anger a thought suddenly occurred to me, “Was Terri shot?”
“You tell me.”
“You’ve answered my question. Obviously she was. It occurs to me that, that’s what the Coroner probably held you back to tell you.”
He leaned forward and looked me right in the eye again. I returned the favor. I wasn’t going to let this guy get the better of me.
“Terri Sweeting was hit with an aluminum crutch that was found in the wooded area not far from the shoreline area where she was found floating. According to the Coroner, the blow didn’t kill her, at least not immediately. She was killed by a small caliber round fired into her chest at close range, probably after she fell. She was then drug into Lake Dillon.”
“And you think I killed her?”
“Whose fingerprints do you suppose we’ll find on the crutch?”
“Mine, no doubt. One of my crutches was taken from my car on Saturday while I was looking around the boat ramp parking lot for Terri.”
“That’s awfully convenient don’t you think?”
“Did you listen to a word I said?” I raised my voice in my own defense. “Terri came to me with a problem she seemed to think I could help her with. I haven’t had anything to do with her in years. Why would I kill her even if I were physically able to? What’s my motive?”
I stood up and gathered my cell phone and my crutches. “If you’re not arresting me, we’re done here. I didn’t kill Terri Sweeting. Pull the phone logs and check them. Talk to my doctor. Talk to the authorities in Joliet and Chicago. Figure out who was really after her. Conduct an actual investigation and quit trying to take the easy route.” I walked out of the interview room. Nichols didn’t stop me.
Chapter 14 – Breaking Amish
Wednesday Morning, June 18th, 2014
Mel and I talked well into the night about my run in with the OSHP Lieutenant. I felt like Nichols was looking at me as his primary suspect. Mel tried to convince me that the state cop was just trying to cover all of his bases. I prayed she was right. I just didn’t need the aggravation of trying to mount a criminal defense and prove my innocence right now, on top of everything else, and Mel’s campaign didn’t need the sort of publicity a murder investigation centered on her girlfriend would bring.
It was shaping up to be another pleasant day. The dog days of summer weren’t too far off but, for now, the humidity was low and the temperature was tolerable. I decided today might be as good a day as any for me to go and hang around the park and see if I could engage Hannah Yoder in conversation.
Before she left for work, Mel rustled me up one of the kids abandoned school backpacks. I carefully chose a book from her shelf that I’d actually be willing to read and then I packed that, a couple of bottles of water and some snacks in the backpack. I headed out to overtly stake out Putnam Hill Park.
My trip to the park was uneventful this time. No one appeared to be following me but then, my mind was running a million miles an hour over all of the events surrounding Terri’s murder and I didn’t keep as close a watch on traffic surrounding me as I probably should have under the circumstances.
I decided to park in the northern parking lot because it was closer to the gazebo where I’d seen Hannah hanging out on Friday while I was waiting for Terri to show up. I slung the backpack over my shoulder, positioned my crutches and worked my way carefully over to it.
The little park was quiet on a Wednesday morning. Soon the mothers and preschoolers would come to hang out and then, a little later, there’d be teens playing basketball but, for now, I could enjoy the peace of the morning.
I negotiated the two steps to get into the gazebo with a little work. Dr. Welle and I hadn’t talked to me about steps in a while. I’d been banned from trying to negotiate them, even on crutches, at first and now I could see why.