“I didn’t harass him.”
“I didn’t think you did either, but it shows that he was getting nervous and you were in the middle of my investigation-yet denied me access to a key witness.”
“I’m just trying to protect my niece,” Julia said.
Will rubbed his face with both hands. “Right. I understand that. But we’ve now come to full disclosure time. I’m eager to talk to Emily.”
Dillon nodded. “You can talk to her. But I’m still her physician and if I cut off the interview, no more questions.”
“Fair enough,” Will agreed.
“And you should know some other things.”
Will sat down, took out his notebook. “Finally.”
Julia told Will about Jason Ridge’s Deferred Entry of Judgment and Bowen’s role as his psychiatrist recommending the leniency.
“Who was the judge? Don’t tell me Victor Montgomery?”
“No. Vernon Small.”
Will stared at her. “Small? He never met a criminal he didn’t like.”
“He’s dead.”
“I guess I heard that, but how?” Will asked.
“I don’t know. I assumed old age.”
Will made a note in his notepad. “I wouldn’t assume anything right now.”
“And there’s another thing, but I don’t know how it fits in,” Julia said. “Jason’s ex-girlfriend is Michelle O’Dell. She’s at Stanford now. But apparently they both knew a girl who committed suicide, Shannon Chase. She hung herself.”
Will straightened. “Hung herself? Just like Bowen supposedly did? Far too many coincidences,” Will concluded. “Now I need to ask Emily about these people.”
Julia and Connor observed through the window as Dillon and Will went into Emily’s room. For Will’s benefit, Emily recounted her story, though it was now a much calmer version than on the day after Victor’s murder. Still, she stayed true to the facts as she’d stated them before.
As Julia heard Emily recount Victor’s rape and subsequent sexual abuse, a tear escaped. Connor wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulled her into the nook of his arm. “She’s going to be okay, Julia,” he said. “She’s strong, just like her aunt.”
“Thank you.”
Will asked about Jason Ridge, but Emily didn’t know him. Nor had she heard of Michelle O’Dell or Shannon Chase.
Dillon took up the questioning. “How long have you been a member of Wishlist?”
“A couple years, I guess. Ever since the vandalism.” She looked down, embarrassed. “I’m really sorry I did that.”
“I know you are,” Dillon said. “Wishlist is supposed to be confidential. So maybe you didn’t know Jason by name. What about anyone who talked about football, someone who isn’t around anymore?”
“I really can’t remember. Some of the guys talk about sports, but I don’t really pay attention to that.”
“Do you know Judge Vernon Small?” Will asked.
Emily rolled her eyes. “What a weasel. My mother made me go to his funeral. He and Victor were great friends, but I thought he was creepy. He looked at me like…like Victor did.”
“When was his funeral?”
“I don’t know, before Christmas last year.”
“Did anyone on Wishlist talk about Judge Small?”
“No, we rarely mentioned any names. But Judge Small is the one who put me on probation after the graffiti. I get three years for some stupid spray painting, but he lets some rapist off with a warning.”
Dillon asked Emily, “How do you know about that?”
Emily frowned. “I–I don’t know how I know.” She leaned back and thought. “Something I read maybe?”
“Something on Wishlist?”
“Maybe. I really don’t remember, but I know I heard it somewhere. And I remember thinking he was as big a hypocrite as Victor.”
“Emily, have you ever been approached by someone who asked you to help them mete out justice?”
She shook her head. “No.” Then her eyes widened. “But I did get a weird text message on my phone a couple months ago.”
“What did it say?”
“Could I meet at Starbucks Wednesday afternoon.”
“The Wednesday Victor was killed?”
She shook her head. “No. Long before. Like in January.”
“Who sent it?”
“I don’t know. I responded and asked who wanted to know.”
“And did you get a message back?”
“Yeah. It said, ‘A friend from Wishlist.’”
“Did you meet the friend?”
“No. This was right after I sent that message to the list about wanting to castrate Victor. It sort of freaked me out. I didn’t think anyone knew me on the list.”
“Why didn’t you tell us before?” Will asked.
“Because I just remembered. Honestly, so much has happened this week, that stupid message wasn’t on my mind.”
Outside Emily’s room, Dillon handed Will a tape of Emily’s first interview, the day after Victor’s murder. “You’ll see her comments today and her comments then are the same.”
“Would you have given this to me if they differed?”
Dillon shrugged. “So now what?”
“I have a helluva lot of legwork in front of me,” said Will. “I have Emily’s cell phone records, and haven’t had a chance to search through them further back than the last couple weeks. And I want to verify her statement.” He shook his head. “This case is like an octopus of victims with no body. And what does this Jason Ridge have to do with it? He’s dead.”
“He was a patient of Bowen’s,” Dillon said.
“And he raped a girl and was given a Deferred Entry of Judgment by Judge Small, who’s also dead,” Julia said. “Ridge’s slate was wiped clean so he could play football.”
She turned to Dillon. “Did you ever get Montgomery’s campaign reports?”
“They’re in my office. I haven’t had a chance yet to go through them.”
“We should pull Small’s, too. They’re online through the county elections department,” Julia said. “Small, Montgomery, Bowen, all dead.”
“Montgomery didn’t have a connection to Ridge.”
“Not that we know about,” Julia said.
Will slammed his notepad shut. “You need to look at the facts, not conjecture.”
“The fact is that Small, Ridge, and Bowen were all involved in Ridge’s DEJ and they’re all dead,” Julia said. “I don’t know how Victor fits in, but he does. Maybe just as a smoke screen.” She nodded, convincing herself as she said it. “That’s it. A fakeout. To lead the police down the wrong path. What about Paul Judson? He was shot in the eyes after the Wishlist message from Billy Thompson suggested he needed his eyes examined.”
Connor put up his hand. “Billy came to me this morning. I forgot about it when Julia was run off the road. But it’s important.” He told them about a girl, eighteen or nineteen, who had approached Billy, gave him a sexual favor, and asked him to become part of a special group. “Billy has solid instincts and walked away from the situation, but after I talked to him about Judson and Wishlist he remembered the girl and thought it might be connected.”
“Are you suggesting that maybe someone in this group was trying to recruit him?” Will asked.
Dillon said, “It makes sense. They must have some method of recruitment. People in Wishlist are the perfect recruits. They all have anger management issues. Most probably have other mental problems as well-ADHD, sexual abuse, kleptomania-it’s the perfect recruiting ground. And someone like Bowen who knows all their weaknesses, knows how to manipulate them, could turn them into killers.”
“You believe that?” Will said.
“I do,” Dillon said.
“But Bowen is dead.”
“Maybe they turned on him,” Dillon said.
“Or maybe,” Connor interrupted, “he was one of their intended victims all along.”
Will jumped up. “I need to meet with
Bowen’s next of kin. If we’re on the same side again,” he said pointedly to Dillon, “do you want to join me?”
“Sure, but why?”
“Bowen’s son is a psychiatrist-in-training. And he stands to inherit a few million bucks.”
“People have killed for much, much less.”
Eric Bowen didn’t seem terribly distraught when Will and Dillon met him at the Coroner’s Office.
“You don’t have to identify the body,” Will told him. “We’ve already made a positive ID from fingerprints.”
“I just want to see him,” Eric said.
“They’ll arrange it.” Will nodded to the coroner’s assistant to prepare Bowen’s body for showing. “Do you mind answering a few questions?”
“Not at all.”
“Were you close to your father?”
Eric shrugged. “Yes and no. He was a hard man to get close to, but we had an okay relationship.”
“Did he seem upset about anything recently? Did he seem different than usual?”
“At his party last night, he was his usual self.”
“Which is what?”
“Arrogant, generous, and solitary.”
Dillon asked, “What do you know about his online therapy group, Wishlist?”
Eric’s jaw tightened. “I told him he was opening himself up to lawsuits. He didn’t like my advice, so we never talked about it again.”
“Do you know how the group started? Where the list of members might be stored?”
“There’s no list. Dad wanted it to be truly anonymous. He kept no records of who said what. He didn’t want people using their real names or talking about specific people. He intended it to be a forum for kids to talk to each other and learn that they’re not alone with their fears and problems. Good in theory, I suppose, but Dad didn’t want to see the problems. He only saw the potential for recognition. He wanted-needed-to be recognized in his field.”
Sadness crossed the son’s face.
“He told me he started the group for teenagers who self-mutilate,” Dillon said.
Eric nodded. “Yeah, he did.”
Will changed the course of the conversation. “Your mother died of cancer many years ago, before Wishlist.”
“Yes.” His voice cracked.
“I’m sorry, Eric,” Will apologized. “I’m just trying to understand what happened to your father.”
“When you called me, you said he committed suicide.”
“Additional evidence has come to light that indicates your father’s death may have been made to look like a suicide.”
“What does that have to do with my mother?”
“Today is the anniversary of her death, correct?” Will looked at his notes. “In your father’s appointment book, it indicated that he planned to go to the cemetery this afternoon.”
“My mom died in November,” Eric said. “He was probably visiting his sister’s grave.”
“His sister?”
“Aunt Monica. She died of cancer seven years ago today.”
“Was he attached to his sister or distraught over her death?”
“I always thought he was more upset about Aunt Monica dying than my mother, but maybe just because I was more upset about Mom than he was.” Eric shook his head. “Dad kept his emotions buried. For a therapist who told everyone they needed to talk about their fears and anger, he never talked about his own.”
Julia and Connor were in her home office. She was looking at contributor reports online and trying to make a connection between Montgomery and Small, other than their apparent friendship. She had all the files and articles stacked and sorted and went through them meticulously.
“Okay,” she said to Connor. “Let’s go through this step-by-step. Open up that cabinet. Over there, in the bookshelf.”
He did, revealing a white board. She tossed him a marker.
“Here’s what we know,” she began. “Jason Ridge was arrested for rape, pled no contest, and was given a DEJ a few months later. This was nearly two years ago.”
Connor made a notation. Then Julia’s house phone rang. She picked it up.
“Hello.”
“This is Tom Chase. Is Julia Chandler there?”
“Speaking, Mr. Chase. Thank you for returning my call.”
He grunted. “What do you want?”
“I’m doing some follow-up on Jason Ridge’s death and-”
“Who are you with?”
“The District Attorney’s Office.”
“And you have the audacity to call me about him?”
“I’m sorry, I-”
“Your office fucked up the investigation, gave the punk a clean slate, and because of that, my daughter killed herself. My daughter is dead and all you care about is this rapist? God, I can’t believe you people.”
Julia’s face flushed. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Chase, I’m trying to get to the bottom of something.” She lied off the top of her head. “I’m doing an internal investigation on corruption in the judiciary and I believe the judge who let Jason Ridge off was bribed.”
“Of course he was! But no one would believe me at the time. And after Shannon killed herself, I didn’t have the will to fight. I had to take care of my family. My wife.” His voice cracked.
“Anything you can tell me about Jason’s case will help me.”
“It no longer matters.”
“It matters to me.” She took a deep breath. “My niece was raped and I think there’s a connection.”
He didn’t say anything for a long minute. “Jason Ridge raped my daughter. The boy I took into my own home for meals, who I thought was a good kid from a good home, the monster raped my little girl on the football field. She was so brave-pressed charges. She was ostracized at school. Humiliated by her friends. It was supposed to be secret, right? No one was supposed to know. But someone did know and spread the word, making Shannon feel like trash. Then the damn judge gives him a deferred judgment! Why? Because he was the star quarterback. The team needed him. Needed a rapist.
“Shannon was so upset and became depressed. We were with her all the time. But-If I had known she was suicidal, I would have done something. Anything to save my baby girl.”
“Is Mrs. Chase there?”
“I don’t know where Laura is. She divorced me.”
“I haven’t been able to find her in San Diego. Do you know where she’s living?”
It was as if Tom Chase no longer heard Julia. “You don’t know. You don’t know what it’s like to lose a daughter. A beautiful, smart, sweet baby girl who had everything ahead of her. Because one evil creep wanted to get laid. She said no. She screamed it, dammit. No one heard. He hurt her so bad she couldn’t walk for two days.”
“Do you know where Michelle O’Dell is? She hasn’t returned my calls.”
“No. And I don’t care. She knew what Jason did to Shannon and she still went to his funeral. She’s a Judas as far as I’m concerned.”
“And you don’t know where I can find your ex-wife?”
“I already said no! I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” His voice was thick with emotion. “Don’t call me again.” He hung up.
Connor walked over to her desk. “You okay?”
“The system failed Shannon,” she said.
“It’s not perfect, but it’s the best we have.”
“Tell that to Tom Chase.”
Her doorbell rang and she frowned. “Who’s that?”
“Probably my brother.”
“Dillon? I thought you said he was out with Will.”
“No, Patrick. You need to beef up your security here.”
Connor let Patrick in. “Thanks for coming.”
“No problem. Thought you might want to know what I just learned. You know that e-mail sent to Emily that asked what she would do to the person who hurt her?”
“What about it?”
“Bowen didn’t send it.”
“Are you positive?” Connor asked.
&nbs
p; “Absolutely. I’ve been through every message he posted to the group and he didn’t send it.”
Tom Chase couldn’t imagine that after nearly two years anyone would care about his dead daughter or the kid who destroyed her. He’d tried to figure out how a judge could do something like that-just let the rapist go-and when he learned how the system worked, he just walked away. He had no wife left-Laura had turned in to herself and was inconsolable. He couldn’t concentrate on work. He could barely get out of bed in the morning.
Laura had been through so much he couldn’t stand the thought of an insensitive government bureaucrat dredging all this up again. He’d lied, he knew exactly where Laura was. She was getting on with her life and he loved her too much to stand in the way.
I’ll always be here for you, Laura.
He dialed her cell phone.
“Tom?”
Her voice was incredulous.
“How are you, Laura?”
“I’m fine. Why are you calling me? I thought I told you never to call.”
She had. Call me only in an emergency. A real emergency.
“Some attorney called me and was asking about Shannon. And asking about Jason.” He could barely say the boy’s name without red rage blinding him.
Silence. “Who?”
“Chandler. Julia Chandler. I think she said she’s with the District Attorney’s Office.”
“I have to go,” Laura said.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked. “Do you need money?”
“I’m fine.” She hung up before he could ask any more questions.
Of course she didn’t need any money. She had half the money from the sale of his construction company and the house they’d shared for nearly twenty years. He had the other half collecting interest in the bank. He didn’t need anything. He didn’t want anything.
But he’d give every last cent for his old life back, to have Shannon alive and Laura happy. Together as a family. It wasn’t going to happen.
He opened a fresh bottle of Jack Daniel’s and sat on the porch. It was cold, even now in April, but he didn’t care. And after a few shots of booze, he wouldn’t feel a thing.
TWENTY-THREE
“You’re secure,” Patrick Kincaid told her after he checked out her security system. “It’s a good system, though I improved it, of course.” He blew air on his fingers and wiped them on his T-shirt.
See No Evil e-2 Page 22