by Blair Howard
“Angela Young, as we know, disappeared on September 27, 2011; Marcy Grove on November 20, 2013. They were reported missing when their parents called the school. After several calls that were not returned they were finally put in contact with one of the vice presidents, a Mrs. Edna Morgan. According to Miss Amanda’s research, it seems the calls finally triggered an in-house investigation that confirmed the girls had been gone for several days—in Grove’s case, six days. Morgan called in the local police and filed a missing persons report. Enter Detectives Hart and McLeish. Okay, so far so good. Um. The rest is off the record.” He reached for his cup and drained the last of his coffee.
“Off the record?” Kate asked.
Tim looked at me, eyebrows raised in question. I nodded. He cleared his throat, and continued.
“I… er…” he lowered his voice to a whisper, “I hacked the sheriff’s departmental computer.”
“You did what?” Kate almost shouted, and Tim jumped.
“I hacked their system. It was easy. I’ve done it before. I have access to their entire system. The passwords they’re using are a joke. Did you know that Sheriff Hands has a dog he calls Captain Flint?”
“Okay, Tim. That’s enough,” I said, frowning at Kate, who glared back at me. “What did you find?”
“About these two cases? Next to nothing. They’re both classified as cold. There are files for each girl with names, dates, and so on, just primary information. And there are records of several visits to the campus at Belle Edmondson, ostensibly to conduct interviews, but what few interviews are recorded are cursory. They lack any kind of detail, and were limited to two or three friends, mostly roommates. In short,” he looked first at me, then at Kate, “there was never an earnest investigation into either girl’s disappearance.”
I sat back in my chair and stared at him. I looked at Kate. She rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“Let me see those files,” I said, reaching across my desk.
He handed me the laptop, and I skimmed through the few pages that made up the files. Tim was right. There had been no investigation. They had just gone through the motions and shelved the cases, allowed them to go cold.
“Son of a bitch,” I said handing the laptop back. “What the hell is going on?”
“There’s no telling,” Kate said. “I think perhaps we should go talk to those two members of Hamilton County’s finest.”
“I agree,” I said. “When we’re finished here, we’ll head over there. In the meantime, why don’t you ask Johnston to request the files? We’re not supposed to know what’s in them, so if we go and pick them up, that will let Tim off the hook. It will also give us an excuse to talk to Hart and McLeish.”
She nodded, took out her phone, and called the chief. She explained what we wanted and why, nodded several times as she listened to him.
“That will work. Thanks, Chief. Let me know how it goes.” She disconnected.
“He said he’ll make the call right now. He’ll let us know.”
“Okay,” I said. “What’s next, Tim?”
“The two guys. Robin Lucas and Nicholas Kyper. I ran backgrounds on them both. They’re clean. Just a couple of local guys. Not even a parking ticket between them. You want their details, or should I hang onto them?”
“Just keep them handy. We may need to talk to them, but they’re not a priority.”
“How do you do that, Tim?” Kate asked. “How can you run backgrounds on people without their IDs, their Socials…?”
He grinned at her, “Sorry, Lieutenant Gazzara. It’s better that you don’t know.”
“Better for me, or for you?”
“Both!”
“Okay,” I said, shutting down what could become a very sensitive situation. “Let’s get on with it.”
Tim nodded. “Dr. Henry Jepson. He’s clean too—”
“No he isn’t,” I said. “He has a reputation as a womanizer. I need you to dig a little deeper. We’re looking for complaints. Something we can confront him with, and possible witnesses. If he’s been molesting women, maybe he’s taken things to the next level. Okay?”
He nodded. “Will do. Now, the chancellor, Victoria Mason-Jones. She seems to be everything you would expect in an academic of her standing. She’s forty-eight years old, educated at Cambridge, has a PhD in English Language along with a Master’s in Business Administration. She emigrated to the U.S. in 1992 when she was twenty-four. She’s an over-achiever and has been an administrator all her professional life, beginning as an assistant principal at a small private school in Florida where she taught English. She’s been chancellor at Belle Edmondson since the summer of 2007, nine years. She has good credit. Owns her own home. Takes two vacations a year. And that’s about it.”
“That’s about what I expected,” I said. “But there’s something about the woman I’m not getting. Kate?”
“Other than the funny accent, and that she didn’t tell us about the two missing women? Nope. She seems okay to me. I’ve met a few like her. She’s a well-educated professional woman, Harry. What do you expect?”
I didn’t have a good answer, because I didn’t know what it was that was bugging me. So I simply shook my head and gave Tim the nod to continue.
“So that brings me to the inimitable Captain Conrad Rösche.” He paused, clicked his mouse a couple of times, and then leaned back in his chair and looked at us. “This is one nasty son of a bitch, Mr. Starke. He’s fifty-two years old, ex-military, Special Forces. He did two tours in Afghanistan and was well into his third when he was investigated for war crimes. No charges were brought, but he resigned his captain’s commission soon after, so….”
“What war crimes?” Kate asked.
“Murder. Apparently three Taliban prisoners escaped, and it was said that he either gunned them down himself or ordered his men to do it. It was suggested that he allowed them to escape so that he could kill them. All three were armed with M16s, but no ever could find out where they got them. Anyway, no one talked and nothing was ever proved. So, if he did it, which is the general consensus, he got away with it.” He paused again, then continued.
“And there’s more. A fourteen-year-old Afghan girl reported him to a medical corpsman. Accused him of raping her. She was found two days later in a gully with her throat cut. He had a rock-solid alibi for that one, and that investigation ended with no charges being brought against him. He left the military in 2005.” He hadn’t even finished speaking before he was standing up and heading for the door. “Excuse me. I’ll be back.”
I watched him leave, then turned to Kate. “Sorry, what was that?”
“I said, what do you think?”
“I think we already knew what he was.”
“Sorry about that,” Tim said a few moments later, coming in and sitting down again. “I um… needed a drink of water. Sorry. Now. Where was I?”
“Rösche had just left the military.”
“Oh yes. From there he went into private practice, and by that I mean he hired himself out to the highest bidder, which was Destrex Security, a very tough outfit. Destrex was hired to run security at Belle Edmondson in September of 2007, which is when he arrived there. His finances are murky, to say the least. His credit is excellent. He has one bank account that I can find, with a balance of just $18,730. That, I think, is total BS. I’d say most of his assets are located in offshore accounts. He lives alone in a rented apartment. One more thing. Since he’s been at Belle Edmondson, he’s been clean, and by that I mean there have been no complaints against him or his operatives. He runs a tight ship.”
It was at that moment that Kate’s phone rang. She answered it, listened for a moment, then said, “Good. Harry and I will head on over there in a few minutes. Thanks, Chief. I’ll keep you up to speed.”
She disconnected, looked at me, her eyebrows raised in question. I nodded.
“Okay, Tim,” I said. “Good work. I need to wrap this up for now, but I need you run a background check on Erika Padg
ett—yes, I know she’s dead, but her past isn’t, and she’s a priority, so please get right on it….”
He started to rise to his feet.
“Tim, for God’s sake sit down and let me finish. I want to know everything there is to know about the Kalliste website too. I want to know who owns and runs it. I want to know who the girls really are, everything about them. Can you hack the thing? Get at the files?”
He looked at Kate, then back at me. “Of course not. That would be illegal.”
We all smiled at that one, even Kate.
“As soon as you can, please, Tim. Now you can go.” And he did.
I waited until he’d closed the door, and then turned to Kate. “Before we leave we need to strategize a little. There are a lot of questions that need answers. You want to take notes?”
She opened her iPad and raised an expectant eyebrow.
“Before we get started,” I said, “you must have some thoughts, ideas….”
She sat quietly for a moment, her forehead creased in concentration, but eventually she shook her head. “It’s too soon, Harry. The list of suspects is almost nonexistent. Who do we have? Just her friends, all of whom seem harmless, Conrad Rösche… and maybe… nah, that’s too fantastic.”
“You’re thinking the chancellor, right?”
“Yeah, but, no. No way.”
The thought had crossed my mind too, but she was right. The idea was probably a non-starter. Or was it?
“You said friends….”
“Well. We always figure the prime suspect is likely to be someone close to the victim: husband, boyfriend, girlfriend. Jessica, maybe. They were close.”
“It’s a thought, I suppose. I don’t know why, but I’m liking Rösche, mainly because I can’t think of anyone else. How about Jepson? He’s a player. We can’t rule him out, not yet anyway. So we have maybe four persons of interest, sort of, not counting the sheriff’s department. They are Victoria Mason-Jones, Jessica Henderson, Conrad Rösche, and Dr. Jepson. Damn, Kate. There must be more than that. I don’t feel good about any of ’em.”
“How about alibis?” she asked. “Since we don’t yet know what happened to Emily, and when, any alibis we got would be good only for Erika. But if we think the two are linked, an alibi for Erika’s murder would eliminate that suspect from Emily’s, right?”
“Only if we can prove the two deaths were linked.”
“That’s what I said, Harry, damn it.” She was as frustrated as I was.
I shook my head. “I know, I know. It’s just…. Look, let’s ask ourselves the questions and see where they take us.”
“Go for it,” she said.
“One: Where the hell was Emily between the early morning hours of October second when she left the Sorbonne until she was dumped around ten o’clock on the evening of October eighth? She was alive until sometime on the seventh. We know that. So where was she?
“Two: Where did Emily and Erika go that night after they left the Sorbonne?
“Three: We know they knew each other before the night at the Sorbonne, but how and where did they meet? At the school or online?
“Four: Unless Erika had a place other than her home, she could not have hidden Emily and that probably means she didn’t kill her either. So the question is, who abducted Emily and how?
“Five: Why was Erika killed? Was it because of her connection to Emily, or something else? And where did she go the night she was killed? We know from the neighbor that she didn’t get home until almost midnight. Where was she?
“Six: Why was Emily on the Kalliste website? Was it for money? Was it for fun? Was she coerced?
“Seven: What about the other two missing girls? Are their deaths connected? If so, how? And yes, we have to assume they’re both dead.
“Eight: Why were those two cases not properly investigated? Does the sheriff, and his acolytes, have anything to hide?
“Nine: Conrad Rösche is a killer, a rapist, and an ass. I’d say that makes him suspect number one, right?”
Kate shrugged, and continued typing.
“Number ten: How about Emily’s friends? Are they somehow involved, especially Jessica?
“And then there’s Jepson? I don’t see how he could be involved, but you and I both know that nothing is ever as it seems.” I thought for a minute. There were too many questions, and we had answers to none of them.
“Kate, I think we need to meet one of the Kalliste girls. What do you think?”
She looked sideways at me. “I think we should. I also think we have more than enough to work on for now.”
“More than enough,” I agreed. “And I think we should begin with Rösche and the sheriff’s people.”
Chapter 18
The Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department on Market Street was less than five minutes away from my offices. We could have walked, though we didn’t. Detective Anthony Hart met us at the front door.
“Well, well. If it ain’t Lieutenant Gazzara,” he said. “And her lapdog, Harry friggin’ Starke. You ain’t welcome here, buddy. Here, take these and go.” He handed two thin files to Kate and turned to leave.
“Whoa,” I said. “That’s not going to cut it, Tony. We need to talk to you and your buddy, McNasty.”
He stopped, turned slowly to face us. “Screw you, Starke. I don’t have to talk to you.”
“That’s so true,” Kate said, taking a pair of handcuffs from her jacket pocket. “You certainly do not, but you’d better, because if you don’t, I’m going to haul your ass over to Amnicola. Now. What’s it going to be?”
“Now I ain’t sure you have the legal right to do that, but,” he said, obviously trying to save face, “I have a couple of minutes. What is it you want?”
“Just to talk. We have a few questions,” Kate said, “for you and Detective McLeish.”
“Yeah, well. I’m here. Alex ain’t. So come on back. I’ll give you five minutes.”
He took us to a small conference room, where he sat down on one side of the table and we sat on the other.
“Okay, so let’s get on with it. I don’t have all day.”
“Harry,” Kate said. “You want to take it?”
“Shee-it!” Hart said under his breath.
She handed me the two files. I made a pretense of looking through them; I already knew what was in them. I flipped through the first and then handed it off to Kate. I scanned the second file, and then looked at Hart.
“What the hell?” I said. He didn’t answer.
He sat there, arms folded, grinning, rocking gently on the back legs of his chair.
“You can’t be serious. Is this all you have?”
“That’s it,” he said.
I flipped through the file again, making a show of reading the first couple of pages.
“This file documents what is supposed to be an investigation into the disappearance of Angela Young on September 27, 2011. There’s almost nothing in it, for Christ’s sake.”
He continued to rock and grin, but said nothing.
“Kate?” I said.
She nodded. “This one’s the same.” Her voice had a hard edge to it.
“You want to explain?” I asked him.
“Nah. That’s department stuff. Those cases are ongoing and I ain’t at liberty to discuss them.”
“Is Hands here?”
The smile left his face. “Yeah. Why?”
“Maybe he can explain this incompetence.”
“No need to involve him. I’ll tell you what I can,” he said. His eyes were narrowed, and he looked as if he wanted to shoot someone.
“You just said you couldn’t,” Kate said.
The grin was back, and the rocking began again, “Well, Lieutenant. In the interests of interjurisdictional cooperation and good will….”
Good will, my ass. You’re scared the sheriff will bust you.
“So why,” Kate asked, “are these investigations so… so… let’s say superficial?”
“I dunno what yo
u mean. We went through the motions, interviewed a number of contacts and potential witnesses and we came up with nothing. Those two ladies vanished off the face of the earth. We opened the files once in a while, asked a few more questions, but there weren’t nothin’ new, ever. They just went cold. Hell, you both know how it is in this part of the world. People disappear all the time. Sometimes we find a body months or years later, but most times we don’t. It’s the way of things around here.”
I was dumbfounded by his attitude, by his lack of feeling. Something like this would tear at my guts until I figured it out. I sat and stared at him, slowly shaking my head.
“What?” he said, an offended look on his face. “You’ll couldn’t have done any better. Weren’t nothin’ to go on. Still ain’t.”
“So you interviewed Rösche, the chancellor, Michelle Scott, all three both times, and the roommates, friends, and the parents. That’s all?”
“Yeah, that’s all.”
“You interviewed Scott both times. Why was that?”
“She knew the girls, worked with them. They was into that ’questrian shit an’ all.”
“Both of them?”
“Yeah, both of ’em. They spent most of their spare time at the horse barn, doin’ whatever, screwin’, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“You’re a piece of crap, Hart,” I said, as I got up from the table. “How the hell you keep your job beats me. There were no investigations.” I waved the file in his face. “None. You went through the motions all right, and that’s all you did.”
“Screw you Starke.”
“You ready, Kate? Or do you have something more you want ask this piece of garbage?”
She shook her head and rose to her feet. We left Hart sitting there, grinning and rocking.
“Just one more thing,” I said to him, just before I left. “You recovered her car, Emily Johnston’s car. What did you find?”
“Not a thing, Harry. It was as clean as the proverbial whistle.”
-----
“Well,” I said, when we got outside. “That was an eye opener. What do you think?”