by J. A. Jance
“Her purse was in her desk, and her cell phone was inside it. There was nothing out of place in the room, and no sign of any struggle. But her car keys weren’t in her purse, and her car wasn’t in the parking lot.”
“Surveillance tapes?”
“Yup,” Ian said, “and I was able to obtain copies of the applicable footage.” It took a few minutes and some help from Casey Ledford to get the footage on his computer locked and loaded into a PowerPoint presentation. “Here’s where it starts.”
Joanna studied the blurred images on the screen. The time stamp dated 8/23 at 4:45 P.M. showed a single male wearing what appeared to be a hoodie walk onto the school grounds making sure his features were obscured from the camera lens.
“A little hot to be running around in a hoodie, don’t you think?” Joanna observed. “But the hoodie does exactly what he intended it to do—it hides his features completely.”
Once the man entered the school grounds, he sheared off to the right and disappeared from view.
“The cameras are located at the school’s front entrance,” Ian explained. “Ms. Nelson’s classroom, however, is off on the right in one of five portables. Unfortunately, none of those are equipped with surveillance cameras.”
Ian fast-forwarded, stopping the film at 4:47 P.M. “Here’s what happens next.”
Two people appeared in the frame—a man and a woman. Joanna surmised that most likely the man was the same one they had seen before. He still wore the hoodie. The woman was dressed in a tank top, skimpy shorts, and a pair of tennis shoes. The man walked to the woman’s left, gripping her upper arm with his right hand while keeping his left hand out of sight in the pocket of the hoodie.
“So the perp’s left-handed,” Casey Ledford observed. “I’m guessing he’s holding a weapon of some kind in his left-hand pocket.”
“If it was a kidnapping,” Ian said, “why no demand for ransom?”
“Speaking of weapons,” Ernie interjected, “Jaime and I came here straight from the autopsies. I have Dr. Baldwin’s preliminary results. According to her, both victims died of blunt-force trauma from a fall. No gunshot wounds. No stab wounds. So here’s what I don’t understand. If the perpetrator used a weapon in the course of the kidnapping, why not use it again as the murder weapon once he got her on top of Geronimo?”
“Good question,” Joanna said. “Maybe the perp thought that if there was no indication that a weapon had been used, we’d be more likely to write it off as an accident rather than a homicide.”
“What kind of weapon are we talking about?” Casey asked. “Remember, it had to be threatening enough to hold not just one but two women captive.”
“Another good question,” Joanna agreed. “Go on, Detective Waters.”
“On the basis of what we’re seeing here, Chief Montoya said he would go ahead and notify the FBI that we’re dealing with a suspected kidnapping. By now he’s most likely done so.”
Joanna wasn’t overjoyed at the idea of working with the feds—locals never were—but over the years she had developed a better track record of working with the local agent in charge than she’d had in the beginning.
“Any ETA on when the feds will swoop in?” Joanna asked.
“Not so far. In the meantime, Chief Montoya wants you to know that he’ll personally handle the process of obtaining Susan Nelson’s phone records. He said to tell you he’ll be glad to run point in obtaining the other victim’s phone records as well.”
Frank Montoya’s uncanny ability to obtain phone records in a hell of a hurry had always been one of his best tricks. That was something else that, as yet, was way beyond Tom Hadlock’s skill set.
“Thanks, Detective Waters,” Joanna said as Ian resumed his seat. She looked around the room. “Questions or comments?”
“Can you zero in on that hoodie for us?” Casey asked.
It took the better part of three minutes for Ian to find a frame of the two people walking away from the camera and then enhance it to the point where the lettering on the back of the hoodie finally came into focus: SVSSE.
Joanna felt as though she’d taken a blow to the gut. “Most likely a student, then,” she breathed. “How many kids at that school?”
“Two hundred and fifty or so,” Ian answered.
“We’re going to need to interview all of them and the teachers as well,” Joanna said. “I’d like to do that on a full-court press basis, and it’ll be easier if we do the interviews at school in a group-grope situation rather than tracking everyone down at their individual homes. So here’s another assignment for you, Ian. Let the school authorities know that we’ll be coming in tomorrow morning and will need access to enough rooms for my three detectives and you as well as anyone else Chief Montoya can spare to conduct private interviews, one after the other, with both students and school personnel.
“Our goal will be to sort out anyone who may require additional screening. Since these are preliminary discussions only, I think simple audio recordings of the interviews will suffice. Even so, the school will have to work out a tentative schedule and then notify parents in writing so they can be on hand when their child is being interviewed. The students are juveniles. We won’t be able to talk to them without parental units actually in attendance unless we have written permission to do so in their absence.”
“Interviewing that many people is going to take time,” Ian said.
“Yes, it certainly is,” Joanna agreed, “but the sooner we do it the better. What time does school start?”
“Eight thirty.”
“Let the school know that we’ll be on hand at eight thirty sharp. Got it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ian said. “Will do.” He glanced at his watch and frowned. “School gets out at three thirty. If you want interview rooms set aside for tomorrow morning, and if you want those parental notices to go out today, I should hit the road. I can either work on that end of things, or I can stay for the rest of the meeting. Which do you prefer?”
“By all means go,” Joanna urged. “We can always bring you up to speed later.”
CHAPTER 7
IAN HURRIEDLY GATHERED HIS EQUIPMENT IN ADVANCE OF LEAVING. As he approached the door, it opened from the other side, letting Dave Hollicker into the room. He stopped off at the back table, loaded a pasty onto a paper plate, grabbed some plastic silverware, and poured himself a cup of coffee before taking a vacant seat next to Casey.
“Thanks for joining us, Dave,” Joanna said wryly. “I trust you were working.”
He had already taken a bite of the meat pie, so at first he could only nod. “Sorry, Sheriff Brady,” he said, “I was. I’ve been out at the crime scene dismantling Desirée’s campsite and bringing everything I could find back to the lab.”
“Did you find anything interesting?”
“Not so much,” Dave replied. “She had a really cool solar-powered fridge, but it didn’t have a single crumb of food in it. All it held was slides, hundreds of them, all of them apparently containing DNA samples from individual hedgehog cactuses that she had been collecting all summer long. Each sample is labeled with a date and a GPS coordinate. I can’t imagine why someone would be that crazy about hedgehog cactus that she’d decide to spend the whole summer out in the wilderness tracking them down.”
When Joanna had first heard about Desirée’s research, she had wondered if the victims’ deaths might be due to some kind of professional jealousy. Maybe Desirée Wilburton had been doing some piece of groundbreaking research and someone else in the same field wanted to steal the credit. Or maybe her studies had infringed on something another researcher was already doing. In any of those scenarios, Desirée would have been the actual target, with Susan Nelson little more than collateral damage. Now, though, having seen the security tapes from the school, Joanna was pretty sure that the situation was reversed. Susan was clearly the target. Did that mean Desirée Wilburton had simply showed up at the wrong place at the wrong time?
“Aside from that amazing cooler,” Joann
a said, “anything else of interest?”
“Let’s just say that Desirée wasn’t exactly doing luxury-style camping. I know there’s been some theorizing that maybe there was some kind of romantic entanglement between the two victims. From what I saw out at the campsite, I don’t think that’s likely. There was nothing there that would have been suitable for a romantic roll in the hay. Desirée had a tent—a small pop-up tent—capable of sleeping one, not two. Her cot was a fold-up, old-fashioned wooden sling/canvas-style affair, topped by a single bedroll, a grimy one at that.”
“What about provisions?” Jaime asked.
“As far as I could tell, she used plastic milk containers to haul water to the campsite from her Jeep, a gallon at a time. I went through her garbage bag. Looks to me like she survived mostly on MREs and instant coffee. Oh, and there was only one set of tin camping dishes—one plate, one bowl, one cup, and one set of silverware.”
“So she wasn’t set up for hosting visitors,” Joanna said, “overnight or otherwise.”
“Not at all,” Dave agreed. “The campsite was strictly a solo undertaking.”
“So if Desirée was camped out there on her own, and if Susan was brought there under duress,” Joanna mused, “what’s the connection between them? Did the two women know each other from some other time or place? Did they maybe go to school together somewhere along the line? Are they longtime friends or acquaintances?”
Deb Howell rose to her feet. “Not that I’ve been able to discover,” she said, “and not according to the background checks I ran on both of these individuals this morning. As we learned yesterday from Roberta Wilburton, our one victim’s mother, Desirée came to Tucson from New Orleans for her freshman year at the University of Arizona, and she hasn’t gone anywhere else. She earned both her bachelor of science and her master’s there, and was close to finishing her doctorate.
“Susan Nelson, on the other hand, came to Arizona at age thirteen when her father was transferred to Fort Huachuca with the US Army. She dropped out of high school during her freshman year—at age fourteen approximately. The next official record on her that I located was two years later at age sixteen when she went to court to obtain the status of an emancipated adult. She married Drexel Nelson immediately thereafter. Susan earned her GED at age nineteen before enrolling first at Cochise College and later at the University of Arizona, but she did all her classwork at the U of A’s branch campus in Sierra Vista. So, although both women may have attended the University of Arizona during the same time frame,” Deb added, “I don’t see that many places where their paths would have intersected.”
“Was Susan’s father ever stationed in the New Orleans area?” Dave asked.
“Not that I could find.”
Joanna made a few notes before raising her head and asking, “What else do we know?”
Ernie Carpenter immediately lumbered to his feet, handing Deb Howell a stack of multipage handouts for her to distribute.
“As I mentioned earlier, Detective Carbajal and I came here directly from the ME’s office, where we witnessed the autopsies,” Ernie said. “These are Dr. Baldwin’s preliminary findings.”
Deb stopped next to the spot where Detective Waters had been sitting. “What about Ian’s copy?” she asked, nodding toward his empty chair.
“Give Kristin a copy, too,” Joanna said. “She can fax copies to both Chief Montoya and Detective Waters. Right, Kristin?”
“Will do,” Kristin said. “Glad to.”
Joanna spent a few moments examining her own copy of the report, including the line drawings and notations that laid out the multiple injuries found on Susan Nelson’s body.
“Can you cut to the chase and summarize these for us, Ernie?” she asked.
Ernie nodded. “Both victims suffered multiple injuries, but in both cases the ME says the cause of death is blunt-force trauma to the head, consistent with a fall that she estimates to have been at least twenty to thirty feet. In addition, both victims suffered multiple contusions and abrasions, as though they had rolled for some distance before landing on a hard, rocky surface.”
“Any sign of sexual assault?” Joanna asked.
“None,” Ernie answered, “although Ms. Nelson showed signs of recent sexual activity. Dr. Baldwin obtained what she hopes is usable DNA evidence from that. In addition, the ME’s examination revealed that Ms. Nelson was about eight weeks pregnant with a male fetus at the time of her death.
“That’s interesting,” Joanna said, “especially considering her husband had a vasectomy years ago. Last night, he told us that was when the marriage really came to grief—when he found condoms hidden in Susan’s bedside table.”
“Maybe she should have used some of ’em,” Jaime suggested with a wry grin.
“Hey, you guys,” Deb Howell objected. “I happen to have a son named Ben who is living proof that condoms are not one hundred percent effective.”
“Okay,” Joanna said, trying to put an end to what had turned into a free-for-all. “If Susan Nelson was pregnant, most likely the father isn’t her husband, but the fetus should prove to be an invaluable source of DNA. What about Ms. Wilburton? Did she show any signs of sexual activity?”
Ernie shook his head. “No, she did not.”
“Was there any other possible DNA evidence present?”
“The ME took scrapings from under the fingernails of both victims,” Ernie answered. “What she found was mostly dirt under Ms. Wilburton’s nails, which would be consistent with her being out in the desert, camping, and tracking down cactus specimens. The dirt and debris found under Ms. Nelson’s fingernails would be consistent with someone trying to reach out and grasp something to break her fall. But no human DNA was found.”
“So she was conscious as she went over the edge?”
“Yes.”
“Still,” Tom Hadlock grumbled from the back of the room, “this is all a whole lot of nothing.”
“Not exactly,” Ernie replied, “because here’s where it gets interesting. Dr. Baldwin found tiny traces of an adhesive of some kind on one item of Ms. Nelson’s skin—on both her wrists and her legs.”
“Adhesive?” Joanna asked. “Like from duct tape, maybe? You’re saying she was restrained then?”
“Most likely at some point,” Ernie replied.
Joanna looked at Dave. “Did you find any remnants of duct tape at the campsite?”
“Not a smidgen.”
“So Susan may or may not have been restrained in the course of whatever sexual act occurred, but she wasn’t restrained when she fell to her death,” Joanna concluded. “The problem is, from what we saw in the video, Susan Nelson appeared to leave the SVSSE school grounds without putting up any kind of fight.”
“In addition, her attacker knew exactly which of the portables was assigned to her,” Jaime suggested. “He also felt confident enough to approach her on the school grounds in broad daylight, so he must not have expected anyone to question his presence on campus.”
“Was anyone else at the school that afternoon?” Deb asked.
“Not that we know of now, but that’s one of the things we’ll be trying to ascertain tomorrow in the course of interviewing school staff as well as the students,” Joanna said. “What about toxicology, Ernie? Is there a possibility Susan was given some kind of knockout drug to sedate her?”
“Toxicology tests take time,” the detective replied. “I’m sure Dr. Baldwin will let us know the moment she has something definitive.” With that, Ernie sat back down.
Joanna glanced around the room. “So what do we have here?” she asked.
“Susan was pregnant by someone who most likely wasn’t her husband. She was abducted, had sex—forcibly or not—and now she’s dead,” Jaime concluded. “One thing is certain. Nobody carried her up that mountain. It’s too steep. She would have had to make the climb under her own power, and she wouldn’t have been able to do that if she was restrained in any way.”
“So did she leave the scho
ol voluntarily or not?” Joanna asked.
“After looking at the security footage, I’d say not,” Jaime said. “I believe Susan Nelson was force-marched off the school grounds by someone threatening her with a weapon of some kind. It’s also possible that both homicide victims were force-marched up the mountain the same way, possibly at gunpoint. What I don’t understand is, why didn’t they fight back? If it was two against one, why did they just do as they were told?”
“Who knows?” Deb supplied. “When someone’s holding you at gunpoint or knifepoint, it’s a lot easier to do as you’re told than it is to do anything else.”
“Was Dr. Baldwin able to ascertain if the victims jumped or if they were pushed?” Casey Ledford asked.
“Without knowing their exact launch point, there’s no way to tell,” Ernie replied. He turned to Dave. “Any information on that?”
“Like I said, I spent most of the morning dismantling the campsite. This afternoon I plan to climb up Geronimo itself to see what I can find. Last evening’s storm was ferocious enough that I’m sure there won’t be any footprints visible, but there may be trace evidence—shreds of torn clothing or strands of hair—that will tell us something about what went on during the actual confrontation.”
“I’ve been to the top of Geronimo,” Joanna said, “and it’s a mother to climb. Don’t make that trip on your own, Dave. Take someone with you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Dave said. “Will do.”
“Did the Padilla boys give us anything?” Joanna asked.
“Not much,” Jaime answered. “They’ve gone swimming at the water hole at the base of Geronimo at least once a week since the rainy season started—without their mother’s knowledge, by the way. She was pretty pissed when we brought them home. They were able to give us some help with the timeline, though. According to them, Desirée Wilburton’s campsite wasn’t at the water hole last week when they went swimming, but it was this week. Other than that, nothing useful.”
“This is where we are, then,” Joanna summarized. “We’ve got two homicide victims who died at the same place at approximately the same time, but we have been able to establish no connection between them. We know that one of the two was kidnapped from her place of employment by a perpetrator who was most likely armed and who is also most likely left-handed, someone who may or may not be a student or an employee at the school where the victim worked. Does that sound about right?”