Murder at Willow Slough

by Josh Thomas

  Kessler’s eyes narrowed. “Rensselaer just does traffic, drugs and lesser felonies. They don’t do homicides.”

  It was a lie and Jamie knew it. Every state police post handled every type of crime. First thing out of the guy’s mouth is a lie.

  But it was such a handsome mouth. Kessler’s hair framed a tanned, unlined face of deep-set brown eyes, a narrow, straight nose, tucked-in ears, a strong chin. The features by themselves weren’t so remarkable, but there was something about the eyes that made the total package dazzling. They took on a look of smoldering emotion Jamie had never seen in a man, much less a cop. Jamie shook his head, tried to focus on the lie.

  “I’ve heard Lowell does some of Rensselaer’s homicides. Why do you have it? They’re much closer. You’re an hour south.”

  Kessler leaned forward, put his arm on the table. “You’re asking a lot of questions, little man.”

  Jamie eased out a chuckle; he was not a little man. “That’s what we both do for a living, sergeant, ask questions. Maybe I can help you with this. If it does turn out to be Gay-related, you need access to the Gay community. They’re not always friendly to cops. If it’s not Gay-related, I’m out of here. If it is, I’m your access card. You think his girlfriend overpowered him, choked him, stripped him and dumped him?”

  Kessler eyed him conspicuously, then opened a red file marked JOHN DOE and the date. “No. What do you want to know?”

  “I’d like to know why West Lafayette has this case and not Rensselaer or Lowell.”

  “Whoa, you’re getting ahead of yourself,” Kessler said, chopping his head down. “I don’t know you’re a reporter yet. Heck, I don’t know you didn’t kill him yourself.”

  The Big Challenge: but Jamie had heard it all before. He shrugged to let the guy know he wasn’t fazed. Kessler said, “All I know is I’ve got somebody here who says he’s Jamie Foster, says he works for some paper in Ohio, says he’s interested in a murder in Newton County. Ain’t that all I’ve got?” His eyes bore right through Jamie. Those eyes were thoroughly convincing at the authority game.

  Jamie reached for his wallet. “Sergeant, my business card. My driver’s license with social security number. My press badge is in the car, I’ll be happy to get it. Here is the card of Detective Homer Sauer of the Quincy County, Ohio prosecutor’s office, and one for his partner Sgt. Barry Hickman. Here is one for Lt. Phil Blaney of Indianapolis P.D., homicide investigator. I’ve got enough of these to play 52-card pickup. You want Jasper County, Hamilton, Hancock, Shelby? Stillwater, Defiance, Kickapoo? Give any one of them a call. Check me out.”

  Kessler studied Jamie’s card with the color mug shot, blond hair swooped perfectly. He stood. “Please wait here,” he said, scooping up Jamie’s license and the cop cards.

  “Or I can get my press badge from the car,” Jamie thumbed toward the parking lot.

  Kessler moved to the door. His teeth looked like a sales poster for orthodontists—straight, shiny white, perfect. “Sure. You show me yours, I might show you mine.”

  Jamie didn’t watch him leave. Instead he walked out of the air-cooled building into heat and humidity. He unlocked the passenger door on the Acura. The sun was already scorching its interior. He reached into the glove compartment, poked around among roadmaps, napkins, insurance papers, shampoo samples, condoms in case he got lucky some year; found the badge on its neck chain. There was no need to lock his car at a state police post, so he lowered the windows, then looked back at the building, steeling himself. It’s the eyes. Professional but open. Masculine, intelligent, sensitive. Will you marry me?

  Jeez. Be a reporter! He strode back up the sidewalk, trying to get a grip.

  He stopped at the front desk, caught Trooper Campbell’s eye, showed his press badge. “Sergeant Kessler wanted to see my ID.”

  “Okay, you can go back in. To conference room 1 only.” She buzzed him in, then stood in her doorway and made sure he went to interrogation room 1 only.

  Kessler reappeared a minute later, pulled out his chair and sat down, six-feet-four and 225 pounds of muscular grace and narrow hips. Jamie forced himself to look away.

  “IPD says they know you, they’ve worked with you on some murders, you were helpful. Very helpful, in fact.” Kessler crinkled his eyes a little. “And also a pain in the butt. Thanks for the ID. You look like you’re 19, not 26. Where are your corrective lenses?” He tossed the cards back to Jamie.

  “Line 1 of my job description says, ‘Be a pain in the butt,’” Jamie smiled. “I wear contacts in lieu of goggles. Here’s my press badge.”

  Kessler picked it up, measured Jamie’s face against it, returned it. “How long have you been lying about your height?”

  Instant raw nerve. Jamie had lied about his height for so long he now believed it. “I’m five-ten.”

  “You’re not even five-nine.”

  “I’m every bit of five-ten.” He had to be, would never have gotten jobs without it.

  “We’ve got a height chart in the other room. Want to stand next to it?” Jamie’s eyes got big. Was this cop throwing his weight around over height? “No, didn’t think so,” Kessler smiled.

  “I’m five-ten. It says so right on my ID.”

  “Uh-huh,” Kessler chuckled. “Just teasing you, man. You lie a little about your height. So what do you want to know?”

  Jamie pulled on his earlobe in frustration and embarrassment; he was at least five nine and three-quarters—and could always stretch tall. Besides, it had been years since he’d measured, maybe he was five-ten now. He glanced down at his notebook. Start over, stay on the good side of this cop. I’ll get nowhere if he categorizes me as a pushy faggot. I am not short, I am five feet ten! “Let’s start with the basics, shall we? White male, between the ages of 25 and 35?”

  “Correct.”

  “Body recovered in the woods near Lake Murphey in Willow Slough, nude except for white socks and athletic shoes?”

  “Right. The name of the lake wasn’t in the newspaper. How come you know it?”

  “I’m from there, the Slough’s my old stomping grounds; I was born in Rensselaer, lived in Morocco and Kentland, moved to West Lafayette when I was 12. Do you have autopsy results back yet on a cause of death?”

  Jamie knew that by admitting familiarity with the area, he’d just given Kessler another reason to suspect him.

  “We have a probable cause, strangulation. Medical examiner is still waiting on drug and alcohol screens, blood work, the usual. Those take awhile.”

  Jamie made notes,felt his own sweat.“Is Dr.Webster the pathologist?”

  Kessler hesitated, raised his head to look at Jamie. A beat. “Yes, Dr. Webster. This is getting interesting.”

  Thank you. Webster was internationally known, he’d been the first to connect the dots on Schmidgall, and he’d worked all the Strangler cases in Indiana. He’d also said he’d come to Jamie’s cop conference fiasco and not shown up. Still, he was a great forensic pathologist, a source to cultivate. And if he had the autopsy there was a reason. “You were pres

  ent for the autopsy?”

  “Of course.”

  “Last meal?”

  “Pasta salad, lots of vegetables, possibly for lunch. He was ready for another meal.”

  “Pasta salad,” Jamie frowned. “That isn’t right.”

  “It’s what he had in him.”

  “Okay, but it doesn’t fit. All the other victims have been poor. The poor don’t eat pasta and vegetables, they eat burgers and fries.”

  “Good point.”

  “Condition of the liver?”

  “Smooth, no scarring. But he’d had a couple beers.”

  “Who discovered the body?”

  Kessler returned to the front of the paperwork. “A conservation officer at the park, Officer Suzanne Myers. She was cataloguing the early geese migration when she found something at the edge of a woodpile. It wasn’t a goose.”

  “Height, weight, condition of the body? How long had he bee
n there? Was it directly in the water? If so, water should have helped preserve him, though it might also wash away possible evidence.”

  “It’s been awful hot up there lately, so we’ve got a combination of waterlogged and, uh, slightly cooked. Again, all we have is an estimate. We’re putting it at possibly two weeks but I bet it’s only a day or two, he wasn’t that cooked. To the other questions, six feet, 190 pounds, some of which could be water weight if he was killed on-site.”

  “Two weeks. That would include Labor Day weekend.” Does this make six murders over Labor Day?

  “Right, we’re calling it August 25 to September 7, but it’s all preliminary.”

  Jamie wrote that down. “Okay, you said he was strangled. Ligature? If so, what type, and was it still on him?”

  “Ligature, yes. Not found on him. Waiting results on what might have caused those marks.”

  “Neck? What about hands and feet?”

  “Hands and feet were clear. You’ve done this before.”

  “Did you ever hear of Roger Schmidgall?”

  “Schmidgall? Did you work on Schmidgall’s cases?” Kessler’s eyes widened, his voice went higher.

  “I just caught the tail end of him, when he pleaded guilty in the Barlow case four years ago and tried to blame the veterinarian. I’ve visited his crime scene in Newton County, those four men on the abandoned farm next to the Kankakee River, which he confessed to through his lawyer when he died 18 months ago; and the Red-Haired Boy in Jasper County whose name he forgot.”

  “Ah yes, the absent-minded veterinarian. Couldn’t remember slashing that guy to ribbons, could he?”

  “And photographing the results,” Jamie growled. “The prosecution was almost deliberately incompetent.”

  “Don’tcha just love politics?”

  “Truth, justice and the American way.” Will you buy a commiseration ploy? “So, about this John Doe. Above-average height, not fat. Build?”

  “Slender but muscled. He either had a strenuous job or worked out regularly.”

  Jamie got an idea. “You’re an athlete; what sport might he have played?”

  Kessler thought. Finally he said, “Basketball. What a great question, it humanizes the guy. Maybe he played in a league somewhere.”

  “Maybe you can find out. Rectum dilated?”

  “Six point two millimeters,” Kessler said coldly. “No evidence of semen.”

  “Signs of a struggle? Contusions, lacerations, broken bones? Specifically the hyoid?”

  Kessler plunked his elbow on the table, sank his chin onto his upraised fist, leaned toward his subject. “You’re quite a piece of work, you know that?”

  Jamie put on his trust-me face and waited, saying nothing. But he wished he’d never had to learn about human neck bones.

  Kessler eyed him a little longer, then sat back in his chair. “Why should I tell you?”

  Now or never. “Because I’m someone you can use.

  “Sergeant, don’t tell me anything that only the killer would know; but use me if I can help. Most officers have a hard time when they’ve got a Gay-related murder. You’re overworked to start with. The victimology is harder with Gay people. Parents may not know their kids are Gay, or who their friends are. Friends won’t talk half the time, all they know is ‘cops’ and they want zero to do with you.

  “If this case isn’t Gay, isn’t related to the others I’m following, I’m history. But it does sound like the others a little, and one possible marker is that hyoid.”

  “Hyoid was crushed. How did you know about that?”

  Jamie recited them from memory. “Michael Cardinal, Shelby County, 1987. Strangled, hyoid broken. Riley Jones, 1988. Strangled, hyoid crushed. Four similar in Quincy County, Ohio, 1989 to 1995. Stillwater County, Ohio, 1995. Defiance County, Ohio, 1993; identified 1996, Barry Lynn Turner. Let’s see, who am I leaving out?” Jamie gazed at the video camera hanging from the ceiling. “Ah. Kelvin.”

  “I get the picture. No other contusions, lacerations, no signs of a struggle.”

  “Rats. My cases never show signs of a struggle. Yet they’re all young, healthy men who could fight back if they had to. If they were able to, that is. Which makes the drug screen all the more important.”

  “I know.”

  “Make sure the lab screens for all known animal tranquilizers.”

  “Huh?”

  If Jamie explained this he’d give out too much information. “You must screen for animal tranqs. If the victim is drugged, by something you wouldn’t ordinarily test for, it may be why he never fights back. The victims don’t have a chance, because the killer puts them to sleep surreptitiously. Easy to kill someone that way. Don’t stop screening if you come up positive for marijuana, keep looking. Marijuana didn’t put that guy out; something else did. Something fast-acting. Entice the victim with reefer, then five minutes later he’s sound asleep. Look for animal tranqs.”

  “Gee.” Kessler made a note of it. “Were any other victims found to have something in them?”

  “I know of six positive for marijuana. The animal tranq’s never been done, but it’s logical; everyone else let their tissue samples get away. Talk to Bulldog Sauer of the Quincy County prosecutor’s office. Here’s his card.”

  Kessler had Xeroxed all the cards, so he checked off Detective Sauer. “I will. Thanks for the tip.”

  “Sergeant, you might have Victim Number 13.”

  “That’s why I’ve got this case.” Kessler looked him in the eye. “You wanted to know, I’ll tell you. I’m sorry for pussyfooting around before.” Jamie nodded, all ears. “We’re halfway between the crime scene and Indy, if there is any possible connection with these other murders, which is a big if. If there’s no connection, it goes back to Rensselaer for disposition. If there’s a connection, we get in some new blood, maybe a different investigative team can come up with something. Probably not, but it’s worth a shot.” And then the threat. “You tell anybody else that, much less put it in the paper, I’ll cut off your access to every trooper in this department.”

  Jamie wrote, kept eye contact. “You should go off the record before you say things I can legally use.”

  Kessler glared at him, ticked off, stirred up.

  Jamie relaxed, got smaller. “I’m here to help, sergeant, as well as to get a story if there is one. I understand you need confidentiality, and I appreciate getting a straight answer. Do your work, I won’t use the quote till you’re ready. Meanwhile I’ve seen every one of these crime scenes, talked to every investigator on every case. Think about it; it’s my readers who are getting hammered. My paper’s got a stake in this. We want these cases solved, that’s all. If I can help, I will. You tell me if I can help.”

  Kessler backed off, glanced at the mirror on the opposite wall. He knew Campbell was watching; so did Jamie. “It’s very, very preliminary. No one’s calling it serial yet. I want to emphasize that. We don’t know nearly enough to begin to say that, and we don’t need you scaring people.”

  “But you’ve already notified the FBI.” It was a guess, a stab in the dark.

  Kessler gaped at him. Training said he was already giving this reporter a lot of information. Why was instinct telling him to keep risking it?

  Because no other reporters were asking about Doe; they didn’t know how important this victim might be. “Quantico’s overnighting the forms. You’d think I could download them, but the Feds want paperwork.”

  “Jeez, have you ever seen those forms? You’ll be working overtime just on that.” Do you go for sympathy?

  “Tell me about it,” Kessler wagged his head.

  “Who did the crime scene? Are you satisfied with it?”

  “The naturalist called Rensselaer. They came out and said, ‘yeah, that’s a dead body, all right,’ and notified headquarters. I got a call, and they assigned Sgt. Warnecke in Lowell to assist me. He and I did it together. I’m very satisfied, we work practically the same.”

  “Who assigned you? Major Geor
ge F. Slaughter?”

  Kessler stared again. “Major Slaughter, yes. Deputy Chief for Investigations.”

  Jamie’s heart speeded up. George is on this. That makes Kessler his hand-picked man. “By any chance are you or Sgt. Warnecke certified as crime scene technicians?”

  “I am, last year. But my specialty is homicide. I figure by taking a case from start to finish, it helps me solve it.”

  “Fantastic. Certification is a rigorous program.”

  “Yeah, not that many troopers have completed it. We don’t have a crime scene unit at our beck and call like they do on TV, this is rural Indiana. So I learned all I could about it.”

  “You’re very dedicated.” They exchanged looks. “So, what physical evidence? Tire tracks, clothing, trash, a weapon? Metal detector results? Carpet fibers? Crushed grass, the body dragged from a car? What do you have?”

  “I don’t have a darn thing. That’s what worries me.”

  “Fingernail scrapings? Latent prints on the body?”

  “Nothing. Zero. The killer must have worn gloves.”

  And a rubber. “Still, there’s a needle in that haystack. Where’s the haystack exactly?”

  “Shallow water on the edge of the campground, next to a woodpile, directly accessible by car. They have sixty or eighty campsites, never used this time of year. The killer could have driven to the exact spot, popped the trunk and dumped out the body, then driven away with no one seeing a thing. The park rangers only work till 3 p.m. Anybody can come in, day or night. There ain’t even a front gate.”

  “Sure makes it easy on law enforcement.” Sympathy does work with you.

  “With the rain lately, there are no tire tracks, no crushed grass, not even fibers. Just a body in the water behind a woodpile. That’s the sum total of what I’ve got.”

  “Tough case,” Jamie frowned.

  “Listen, if you find anything, I want you to know you can come to me. Will you do that?”

  The preliminary close. “Sure. These are my readers. I’m a confidential informant for seven departments. I don’t work for the government, I work for my readers. All I want is the crime solved. If it’s part of this pattern, I’ll gladly work with anyone who will help to solve it. I’ll go beyond anyone who stands in my way. Fair enough?”