by Kathi Daley
Alex nodded. “Ryan told me that not only had Gina shared memories of being beaten with a belt but of being locked in her room for days at a time if she so much as wore a facial expression that her father found irritating or disrespectful.”
“And are we sure that Gina hadn’t been fabricating these stories to win Ryan’s sympathy, in much the way I suspect that Ryan might be playing up his concern for the child to garner your sympathy?” Brit asked.
Alex frowned. “I have no reason to believe that Gina lied to Ryan, or that Ryan lied to me. Is there something specific that is bothering you about this?”
Brit shook her head. “No. I just want to be sure we have our facts straight before we decide that Gina’s parents are child abusers.”
Alex frowned again. “I plan to confirm everything that I have been told by all my sources.”
Brit nodded.
“Did Gina seem like the sort of person who was raised in such an environment?” I asked. “Was she meek and timid?”
“No,” Alex admitted. “According to Ryan, she was outgoing and confident, with a definite wild side. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t have a very restrictive upbringing. Some people are able to shed the shackles of their past and go their own way when they become adults. Ryan seemed to think Gina’s wild side was actually the result of her rebellion against her upbringing. It didn’t seem to me that Ryan had reason to doubt that Gina was raised in very strict circumstances. In fact, despite the fact that she put him through the ringer in terms of Hannah’s custody, he seemed to have maintained a great deal of empathy for her. I think he loved her. My gut tells me he didn’t kill her.”
“So, it sounds as if you are asking the group to work to prove Ryan’s innocence,” Garrett said.
“Yes.” Alex nodded. “That is exactly what I would like to have happen.”
“Okay, before we decide whether we want to get involved, perhaps you should walk us through the investigation into Gina’s death and the elements behind Ryan’s conviction,” I suggested.
Alex nodded. “I’d be happy to share what I know, which, as you’ll see, is not as much as we will need to figure this out.”
“That’s fine,” I encouraged. “Just tell us what you can.”
“At the time Gina’s body was found on January 12, 2016, the homicide detective who was assigned to the case, a man named Nolan Girard, was able to come up with very few leads. The body was dumped into the marsh, where scavengers made sure that very little physical evidence remained, the actual crime scene was unknown, and there were seemingly no witnesses to what happened to Gina on the night she was last seen. Then, in April 2016, a man named Donald Drummond, who lived across the street from her at the time of her death, came forward and told Detective Girard that he’d lied when he said he hadn’t seen anything when he was initially questioned. He had seen something on the night of the murder but hadn’t wanted to get involved.”
“Sounds suspicious,” Brit said.
“Perhaps,” Alex acknowledged. “Or maybe he really just didn’t want to get involved. Either way, it was his testimony that led to Ryan’s arrest. Drummond told the detective that he had been heading up to bed at around eleven o’clock on January 8, which was the night Gina was believed to have been murdered because of her absence from work the following day. He said he saw a car he recognized as belonging to Ryan Spalding pull into the driveway. At the time, Drummond said he wasn’t aware that the couple had broken up, and that Gina had in fact been seeing someone else. He told Girard that he shrugged off Ryan’s presence as a normal occurrence and went up to bed. After he had changed into his nightwear, however, he realized he hadn’t remembered to bring a glass of water upstairs with him, so he headed back down to the kitchen. It was while he was in the kitchen that he saw Gina and Ryan through the window. They were in her living room and appeared to be arguing. Drummond said he paused to watch until Ryan left the house and returned to his car. Drummond said that Ryan sat in his car for a few minutes and then left. Drummond told Detective Girard that once Ryan drove away, he went up to bed and slept soundly until around two a.m., when the sound of a car on the street woke him. He got up and looked out the window. He saw Ryan return, assumed he had come back to make amends with his girl, and went back to bed.”
“Okay, wait,” Brit said. “Where was the baby during this time?”
“Hannah was with Ryan’s sister, Vivian, on the night Gina most likely died,” Alex answered.
“Oh, that sounds like premeditation to me,” Brit said. “Get a sitter for the baby, then take out the mother who is trying to take that baby away from you.”
“Ryan said he had plans with friends on the night Gina was last seen, which was why Vivian volunteered to keep Hannah overnight,” Alex answered.
“Were the friends he had plans with able to verify that?” Brit asked.
“No. It turns out that Ryan changed his mind about getting together with his friends and instead spent the night just driving around.”
It was at this point that I could see the doubt on everyone’s face.
“Ryan changing his plans doesn’t make him a killer,” Alex insisted.
Brit raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.
“I assume that Ryan was interviewed after Gina’s body was found?” asked George Baxter, a friend of Garrett’s, a writers’ retreat resident, Brit’s uncle, and a successful author of traditional whodunits.
“He was. He told the police officer who first interviewed him that he had been going through some personal stuff, so he canceled with his friends to try to think things through. During that initial interview, he said that he hadn’t seen Gina in weeks, although when Drummond came forward and provided a statement regarding what he’d seen, Ryan changed his statement and admitted to being at Gina’s home on the night that she most likely died.”
“He sounds guilty to me,” Brit said. “Otherwise why would he lie?”
Alex answered. “I asked him why he lied about being at the house in his first interview, and he said that he was afraid that his presence at Gina’s home on the night she died would make him look guilty.”
Vikki glanced at Brit and they made eye contact, and then Vikki spoke. “I guess it does make him look guilty. Are you sure he isn’t?”
“Am I sure the man is innocent? No, I guess I wouldn’t go so far as to use the word sure. But I do suspect that he is innocent. I think that before we get into my reasons for asking you all to take a look at this case, I should first finish filling you in, and then you can decide for yourselves where you stand.”
“Fair enough,” Vikki said. “Go on. I assume the prosecution had more than just a single witness statement from a man who had lied in the first place.”
“They did,” Alex said. “After Drummond told the detective what he’d seen from his window, proving Ryan had visited Gina, Girard was able to obtain a warrant to search Ryan’s house, as well as the outbuildings on his property. During the search, Girard found muddy boots with Gina’s blood on them, a blanket also covered in Gina’s blood, and a roll of the same brand and color duct tape used to secure her feet in the toolbox. When you add that physical evidence to the fact that Ryan admitted that he had gone to Gina’s house that night, and that they were witnessed arguing, the DA felt there was enough to arrest and prosecute him.”
“What exactly does Ryan say occurred that night?” I asked.
“Ryan told me about the battle he had been having with Gina over physical custody of Hannah. From what he said, Gina had wanted nothing to do with the baby until her new boyfriend decided it would be fun to play daddy, and he had no doubt that once Gina broke up with the man she was currently seeing, she would be back to not wanting a baby in her life. Ryan was fine with Gina having visitation, but he wanted his daughter to be brought up in a stable environment, so he was fighting her on custody every step of the way. He wasn’t overly concerned about maintaining the upper hand in their battle until Gina hired an attorney with whom she
planned to argue the case in court.”
I glanced at Jackson Jones, a brown-haired, blue-eyed, New York Times best-selling novelist, local newspaper owner, and my live-in boyfriend. The deep frown between his eyes indicated to me that he didn’t like the direction Alex’s story was taking any more than I did.
“Okay, wait,” Brit said. “Despite the fact that Ryan was involved in a custody battle with the mother of his baby, he leaves Hannah with his sister so that he can go out with friends, who, it turns out, he never did get together with. He said he needed time to think, but what he really did was visit the home of his child’s mother to confront her. At some point on that same night, she ended up dead in a marsh, yet he claims not to know how her body got there.”
“I know how it sounds, but right now I am going to ask you to bear with me,” Alex pleaded.
Brit shrugged. “Okay. Continue.”
Alex paused and took a deep breath. He seemed to be struggling with something, which was very uncharacteristic of a man who was known for maintaining a cool detachment much of the time.
“Ryan said that he went to Gina’s home to try to make her see reason, but she refused to even discuss the matter,” Alex continued. “They had a huge fight and he left. After that, he drove around a bit and realized that he’d probably just made things worse, so he returned to Gina’s to try to make amends, but she wasn’t home. He tried calling her cell, but she didn’t answer, so he picked up a lamp that he found lying on the floor, set it on the table where he knew it belonged, and left.”
“He didn’t think it was odd that there was a lamp on the floor?” Brit asked.
“According to Ryan, Gina had been drinking when he had been by earlier, so he figured she knocked over the lamp on her way out of the house. Her car was still in her garage, but he just thought that the man she had been seeing had picked her up. Ryan said that after he left Gina’s the second time, he drove out to the beach and just sat in his car until the sun came up. He swears that he didn’t kill Gina and that neither the boots nor the blanket found in his garage were his and must have been planted there.”
“Were they ever able to prove the boots and blanket belonged to him?” George asked.
“No.” Alex answered. “Girard was never able to definitively link the boots or the blanket to Ryan in any way other than the fact that they were found in his garage. Apparently, they were found stuffed behind some boxes, but Ryan has maintained from the beginning that they weren’t there when he cleaned out his garage in March of 2016. He also pointed out that the boots were a size larger than he normally wears. The prosecutor argued that individuals often buy outdoor boots in a larger size so that they are able to wear two pairs of socks while hiking and hunting.”
“That explanation for the difference in size seems like a stretch,” I said.
“I agree,” Alex responded.
“I’m surprised the guy was even brought to trial with so little evidence,” Brit said.
“I think part of the reason that Ryan was convicted on such circumstantial evidence was due to several factors,” Alex answered. “First of all, the investigation into Gina’s murder was going nowhere, and I think the police as well as the DA were desperate to close the case and get the family as well as the media off their backs. Additionally, Ryan did lie when he was interviewed the first time, and he did admit that he and Gina had been involved in a pretty intense argument involving custody of their child prior to her murder. Ryan has maintained from the beginning, however, that while he was angry and upset with the way things worked out that night, he did not kill Gina or harm her in any way. In the beginning he wasn’t overly concerned about being charged with this heinous crime. His attorney assured him that the evidence was circumstantial and he was certain he could convince the jury of his innocence. The actual crime scene was never found, and it was determined that Gina had most likely not been killed in her home because they didn’t find any blood or other physical evidence there. It was also determined that Gina most likely did not die at the location where her body was found. The defense attorney argued that Ryan was a caring and loving father who just wanted the best for his child. A child, he reminded the jury, who most likely would never have been born if he hadn’t accepted physical and financial responsibility when he learned of her mother’s pregnancy. Ryan’s attorney suggested a scenario in which Ryan went to Gina’s home to try to reason with her, but when she refused to discuss Ryan’s assertion that he should continue to be the one to raise Hannah, he left, only to return later to make things right. When he arrived at the home the second time she was gone. The attorney postulated that Gina must have left with her killer at some point between Ryan’s first and second visit.”
“I’m assuming that the prosecution had a different story to tell,” I said.
Alex nodded. From the deep crease in his forehead, I was willing to bet that the story was just about to get a whole lot more complicated.
Chapter 2
“The DA argued that when Ryan returned to the house the second time, Gina actually had been home and not away, as Ryan had stated,” Alex continued. “Because it did not appear that Gina was killed in her home, he argued that Ryan had convinced Gina to go somewhere with him. Maybe to get a drink or just for a drive. At some point, both parties probably exited the car because no blood was found inside Ryan’s vehicle. The DA claimed that he strangled Gina, causing her to fall to her hands and knees. She thrashed around, which created scrapes and abrasions, which is where the prosecution argued the blood on the boots came from. Once Gina was dead, Ryan wrapped her in the blanket, put her in the trunk of his car, and drove her to the marsh.”
“There is no way someone is going to strangle another person without DNA or physical evidence ending up on their clothing,” I argued. “Were the clothes Ryan had on when he supposedly killed this woman ever found?”
“They were not,” Alex answered. “Only the boots and blanket were found.”
“So Alex kills this young woman and then has the presence of mind to get rid of the clothing he was wearing, though he keeps the boots he had on, along with the blanket he used to transport the victim?” I said.
“The prosecution argued that Ryan simply washed the clothing,” Alex said, “but rather than disposing of the boots and blanket, he hid them. In my opinion, that is a pretty weak explanation for why the two items were found in Ryan’s garage in the first place.”
“I agree.” I nodded. “How about physical evidence on the victim’s body?”
“Due to the fact that she was in the swamp for several days before she was found, there was very little physical evidence left on the body, but they did find red fibers under the cuffs of Gina’s sweater. Unfortunately, the crime scene guys were never able to match the fibers to anything.”
“You said Gina was strangled. Do we know if the killer used his hands, a rope, or perhaps some other tool such as a sash or tie?” George asked.
“Based on the amount of decay suffered by Gina’s body after spending days in the marsh, it is difficult to tell for certain what happened to her exactly. Based on the evidence left behind it appears that Gina was strangled by the killer using his or her hands.”
“So we are talking about someone strong,” I said.
The room fell into silence. Garrett was the next to speak. “It seems that finding the real killer, assuming Ryan isn’t the one who killed Gina, is going to be tough at this point.”
“Yes,” said Clara Kline, a self-proclaimed psychic and writer of paranormal mysteries, who entered the conversation for the first time. “It will be tough but not impossible.” Clara looked at Alex. “Can you get me something personal of Gina’s? Something that she would have come into contact with on a frequent basis or, even better, something she was wearing at the time of her death.”
Alex frowned. “I’m not sure. I guess I can ask Ryan’s sister if she has anything, but I sort of doubt it. Still, she may have access to the things that were in Ryan’s home at the
time of his arrest. I suppose it is possible that he had something belonging to Gina. I’ll try.”
Garrett added, “In addition to whatever Clara might need to try to get a reading, we need to know everything that happened: who the police looked at as potential suspects, other than Ryan; who the witnesses were; what evidence other than the boots and the blanket was used to convict Ryan.”
“And it might help if you could go over the facts and witness statements presented at the trial,” Brit added. “I assume you have access to the court transcripts and the report filed by the arresting officers?”
“I don’t have the detective’s report, but I do have a summary of what occurred at the trial,” Alex informed Brit. “We’ll need more, but this is a starting place.”
“Okay.” Brit nodded. “Go ahead with what you know.”
Alex took out a stack of papers and began to scan through them. I couldn’t help but notice tight lines around his mouth. If I didn’t know better, I would suspect that there was more going on than met the eye, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure what that could be.
“During the trial, the prosecution presented seven witnesses in addition to Donald Drummond,” Alex began. “The first witness to be called to the stand after Drummond was a man named Homer Sorenson, who worked as a laborer at the construction company Ryan owned. He testified that Ryan’s mood had soured after Gina challenged him for custody of Hannah. He said that initially, Ryan didn’t seem overly worried about Gina’s request for physical custody, but once she hired an attorney, he became agitated and despondent. Sorenson said that when Ryan left work on January 8, which was a Friday, he told him that he was going to have things out with Gina and get her to drop the whole custody thing one way or another.”
“Sounds damning,” Vikki said.
“The jury seemed to think so,” Alex said. “Sorenson also testified that Ryan had shown a tendency toward violence in the past when things didn’t go his way and had actually punched a building inspector who refused to sign off on a foundation they had recently poured.”