A long, lean blond man carrying a rake came around the corner as we pulled into the parking lot.
Weber lifted his pointer finger off the steering wheel. “Huh. Looks like they got the leaf patrol stationed around the clock out here.”
I let Communications know our location, and then we got out of the car.
“Can I be of assistance to you, officers?” Leaf man asked.
“We have an appointment with Reverend Joos,” I explained.
“Very well. I will show you the way.” He rested his rake against the brick exterior, and we followed him through a double door on the west side, then a short distance to the church office.
“Reverend?” Leaf man said to get the minister’s attention.
Joos raised his eyes from the paper he was writing on, and set down his pen. “Come,” he said in a tone that was both wary and inviting. He stood, and offered us seats.
Weber and I walked over to join him. “Thanks. We don’t want to take much of your time, Reverend Joos. I’m Sergeant Aleckson, and this is Deputy Weber.” We each offered our hand, and he shook them.
I withdrew the photo from my shirt pocket and handed it to the Reverend. “Does this woman, and the children, look familiar to you? We have reason to believe this is the woman whose body was found this morning. She could be older, maybe by quite a few years, but we haven’t narrowed her age down just yet.”
Reverend Joos shook his head while he stared at the picture. “Such a sadness this is. If this woman is dead, where then are the children?”
Good question. “We don’t know. It appears they were in Georgia when this picture was taken.” He hadn’t answered my question. “Do you recognize them?”
“No, I do not.”
I had taken a copy of the handwritten names and glued it on the back. “Turn the photo over. Are those names familiar to you?”
He looked at the back. “Maisa, Lela, Sese. They are not Swiss names, and no, I’ve not heard them mentioned here in our community.”
Weber ended his silence. “Huh. We were hoping they were, uh, Swiss names.”
“Sergeant, you mentioned the way the woman was dressed led you to believe she may have been a member of our church community.” He waved his hand at the solid wood visitors’ chairs. “Please, have a seat.”
Weber was the first one down, I was a close second. I took the photo Reverend Joos handed back, and then answered his question. “Yes. The victim was wearing a dress that was just longer than calf-length. It was a button-down. And she had a sweater without buttons, or other closures. Both wool, as were her socks and clogs.”
“We didn’t find one of those bonnet things, however.”
If Weber’s comment had offended Reverend Joos, he didn’t let it show. He maintained his serious expression in keeping with our discussion. “Our female members do wear veiling over their heads, but it is mainly when they pray, and when they are in worship services.” He looked from Weber to me. “As far as how this woman was dressed. That is in keeping with our beliefs, based on a verse from the Bible, Deuteronomy twenty-two five, which states that women ‘shall not wear that which pertaineth unto man.’ So women wear skirts or dresses, not pants. We are in the world, but strive not to be of the world.”
“We had a few students from your church at Oak Lea High School, where I went. They had long hair, didn’t wear jewelry or makeup, and wore head coverings some of the time,” I said.
“Yes, that is in keeping with our beliefs.”
“Three more similarities our victim had in common with your church women. Very long hair, no jewelry, no makeup.”
“It is possible the woman was affiliated with a church of like beliefs, but I can assure you, she was not a member here.”
Weber stood. “We were hopin’. The sergeant here will be carrying that photo around with her until she finds out who she is.”
“Vincent Weber, did you have to tell Reverend Joos that I’ll be keeping the photo with me?” I asked when we were back in the squad car.
“I thought maybe it’d guilt him into saying maybe he did know her, after all. Him being a reverend and all, he should feel guilty if he’s lying. Why should you care, anyhow?” He started the engine and we were off.
“I don’t know. Maybe because he’s not in this line of work he might think it’s a little eccentric. He must already think I’m a sinner to the nth degree. After all, I wear pants, and makeup, and my hair is cut to just past shoulder-length. Not to mention the obvious fact that I carry a gun. A heathen woman in a man’s profession.”
“I didn’t get the impression he was trying to ram his church down our throats. So what if you’re an eccentric heathen? ”
“Gee, Vince, tell me how you really feel.” My phone rang. I read the display and pushed the talk button. “Hey, Smoke.”
“Any luck with the Rev?”
“None. He said he’d never seen the three of them before.”
“A shame. But it was worth checking. Two things. First of all, do you know there are one hundred and fifty-nine counties in Georgia?”
“You have got to be kidding. That’s nearly twice as many as the eighty-seven counties we have in our state. And Georgia is about half the size of Minnesota, isn’t it?”
“Not quite. About eighty-four thousand square miles to fifty-nine thousand square miles. I looked it up. But, no matter. I got two secretaries working late to get all the fax numbers together, so we’re good to go when Doc Patrick has that enhanced image of our victim done. We’ll send both the photo, and the image, to see if that shakes something loose down there.”
“I’m still trying to process that they have that many counties.”
“And the other thing. Doc Patrick rescheduled the autopsy for the day after tomorrow to give us a little more time to make an identification. They did a preliminary exam to check for visible signs of a struggle, et cetera, and discovered she’d had surgery. Right side, so the doc said it could be appendix, but given the length of the scar, and the location, it was most likely kidney.”
“Maybe she did have cancer and had to have her kidney removed.”
“No use speculating. I’m heading out to see if I can catch more people at home. It’ll be close to four thirty by the time I get to anyone’s house.”
“That’s a good idea. I think I’ll do the same when we get back.”
We hung up, and I told Vince what Smoke had relayed then phoned Chief Deputy Mike Kenner to see if I could keep driving the squad car I had, or if it was needed in a rotation.
Kenner’s voice held an upbeat cheeriness. “I got you covered. I’ve already worked you into a squad rotation with two deputies that didn’t have a third one.” In a normal rotation, three deputies shared two squad cars for a six days working, three days off schedule.
I hadn’t expected a squad rotation assignment for a week or two. “That was fast.”
“Solving crimes and locking up bad guys is in your blood, Sergeant. You took your time after your critical incident, which was good. Worked out things as best you could. But when you took that call this morning, we figured you were in the game again.”
“Thanks, Mike.”
When we got back to the office, I went in search of my new squad car in the lot. I climbed in the driver’s seat, and it hit me that I was, in fact, on the road again, working a case. And dealing with any number of other law enforcement issues I’d be responding to in the course of my duties.
As soon as I’d let Communications know I was “ten-eight,” I phoned Smoke to see if he’d made any progress with the neighbors. “Only one lady, a Miss Gimler, thought she’d seen the woman walking early one morning—about five a.m.—this past summer. She thought it was mid-June, if memory served her correctly. Gimler said she was thinner than the woman in the photo, but she would not describe her as anorexic-looking, either. Just very thin.”
“Where’d she see her?”
“Near the edge of the woods, sounds like not far from where our Jane Do
e was found. Gimler was on her way to work, commutes to a hospital in Minneapolis. She said something about the woman struck her as strange at the time, but she didn’t mention it to anyone, and pretty much forgot about it. Thought maybe the woman was visiting someone in the area because she never saw her again.”
“Hmm, well, that’s something. It means Ms. Doe was here this past summer.”
“And likely has been residing here at least since then.”
“Did Gimler say how the woman was dressed?” I said.
“That’s what made her take a second look. She had on a simple dress and was barefoot. That, and the fact she was out for a walk by her lonesome at five in the morning.”
“Maybe she made her way into the woods from time to time to add cash to her stash.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me, given the fact the money was in different bags.”
“And since she knew she was ill, maybe went back to retrieve it, but died instead,” I said.
“Another possibility. It’d be nice to find someone who could shed some light on the subject.”
“I’ll finish up with my list of neighbors and let you know if I get a lead.”
“Thanks. And we’ll have that image of our victim tomorrow, Doc Patrick figured, so we’ll be able to get that out for public view.”
I patted the shirt pocket that held the photo. “I’m pulling into a driveway, so I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Copy.”
A half hour later, shadows expanded as the sun dropped below the horizon, but sadly, no more light had been shed on Jane Doe’s identity. None of the individuals I’d interviewed remembered seeing her anywhere, ever.
3
My English setter, Queenie, went into a barking frenzy when she heard me pull into the driveway, and remotely open the overhead garage door. After I’d pulled in, I got out of my car as quickly as possible, and freed her from her kennel behind the house. Even though the four-foot-by-eight-foot space gave her running room, I felt a twinge of guilt I’d been gone more hours than usual. I knew she was lonely. As I bent over to give her a hug, she gave me a quick licking kiss on the cheek then ran around the back yard to run off some energy. When she returned, she barked to tell me something she thought I should know about in her own special language.
The temperature was dropping, and the evening breeze cooled me, and covered my body with goose bumps. A reminder that winter was on its way. “Okay, Queenie, time to go in.”
She took one last lap around her normal running path, and fell in behind me as I walked into the garage, hit the button to close the overhead door, then headed into the kitchen. The light on my answering machine was flashing. Three messages.
“Hi, dear.” My mother. “Denny told me you went out on a case today. I’m so happy. I think. Talk to you later.” My overprotective mother, widowed since before I was born thirty years ago, had surprisingly fallen in love with Sheriff Dennis Twardy the previous year. They were engaged to be married.
“Corky, your cell phone went straight to voicemail, and I didn’t want to call your work cell, so call me when you get this. I can’t wait to hear about your day.” My best girlfriend Sara. She was a probation officer for Winnebago County, and had obviously heard I had actually left the safety of the office to work on a case. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket, and turned it on. I’d forgotten I’d turned it off earlier.
The third message was a hang-up. Most likely somebody selling something, or calling for money to support a cause, worthy or not. I checked Caller ID. They were the only calls I’d gotten that day. The hang-up came from a cell phone in the same area code, but I didn’t call back to see who it was. They’d call again if it was important.
“Well Queenie, your supper is easy.” I opened a bag of her food and poured it in her bowl then refilled her water dish. “Now what should I eat?” I opened the refrigerator and found a piece of leftover pizza whose shelf life was about to expire. “You realize you eat better than I do most of the time, don’t you?”
I took a bite of the cold pizza that resembled Italian-flavored cardboard then picked up the phone and dialed Sara’s number. “How’d it go today?” she asked in place of “Hello?”
“I was honestly terrified when Smoke called me to help, but I’m glad I went.” I filled her in on the day. “And we can’t seem to find anyone who knew the poor woman.”
“Very sad for her. But I have to tell you how proud I am of you for bucking up. I know how you’ve struggled since Eric died.”
“Thanks.” I paused a moment. “I think one of his friends called me.”
“What do you mean you think one of his friends called you? Why would you not know?” I told her about the “you killed my friend” message. “Corky, you have become a weird-person magnet, I swear.”
“The message actually gave me the chills. And made Smoke pretty upset.”
“Ah, yeah. Your personal protector.”
“He doesn’t have to be. I do carry a gun and have tools and tricks to defend myself.”
“It never hurts to have back up.”
“You’re right there. So how is everything in probation?”
“Not too bad. Smiley Matthews got sentenced today. Three years in Stillwater. So I’ll have a nice break from weekly meetings with the toothless wonder.”
I laughed. “I thought he was your favorite client.”
“Oh my gosh. I will not miss his erratic behavior, or his arguments, that’s for sure.”
“Any plans for the weekend?”
“Casey and I talked about going to a movie Friday because he works the Saturday evening shift. You want to do something?” Casey Dey was an officer with Oak Lea Police Department.
“Possibly. Let’s talk about it later in the week.”
“Sounds good.”
It was freeing to get out of my uniform and into a hot bath. I soaked for a while, staring at the wall as I thought of Jane Doe, and wondered why she had died in a woods that belonged to a man who said he didn’t know her. That may be true, but there was something about the woman in the photo that made Kevin Lionel pause. Maybe it was because she looked like his ex-wife. Or maybe I was making something out of nothing because I wanted answers and nobody seemed to have any.
When I’d put on some flannel pajama bottoms, a tank top, and a zip-up hoodie, I went to the kitchen and made a cup of instant cocoa, and then headed into my den office to do some research on the computer.
I was astounded when I read there were 40,000 cases of unidentified remains in the United States alone. Some had died of natural causes, but most were victims of homicide. I searched The Doe Network, a volunteer organization that helped law enforcement agencies with missing people around the world. I spent nearly two hours searching the files of missing persons. Some cases went back decades. Most were last seen many years before.
When I felt overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of people who had fallen off the face of the earth, as far as their loved ones were concerned, I started looking at the files of those who had been found and identified. There was always the hope that an unidentified man, woman, or child would turn up someday on their own, or be recognized by someone who’d reported their whereabouts. Or when remains were discovered, they were occasionally identified by DNA, or other evidence in the cold case files.
Queenie rested patiently at my feet until I shut down the Internet for the night. I moved to the couch. Queenie jumped up, and sat next to me while I petted her and thought about Jane Doe alone and cold, lying on a bed of leaves that concealed the disturbed earth and what was buried beneath it. “Who are you, and what is your story?” I quietly asked. Queenie uttered a breathy whimper in response.
We sat in the quiet for some time until I heard a noise that got my attention. Something was off. “What is that? It sounds like water running.”
I got up, and it took Queenie an extra second, but she joined me in my search. I checked the main level half-bath, thinking the toilet must be running, and I had
somehow tuned out the sound when I was caught up in my research. No, it was quiet. I went to the laundry room and it wasn’t there either, so I headed to the basement to see if it was the furnace or water heater. Halfway down the steps, I saw water running down the block wall from the windowsill.
What in the world? I didn’t wait for Queenie when I ran up the stairs, through the garage, and out to the back of the house where the outside water spigot was turned on all the way for maximum flow. I turned it off then stood up straight in the dark, my senses awakened for anything out of the ordinary. The sky was overcast, covering the stars and thin slice of moon. A faint light from the lamp in my living room produced little illumination in the dark night. I could see nothing ten feet out.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as a faint breeze mimicked someone breathing on me. I backed up to the house, and crept along until I reached the corner of the garage. I turned around, pressed my chest against the building, and stuck my head out just far enough so my left eye could see around the corner. The light on in the garage spilled from the south window. I saw no one was in the immediate vicinity, sprinted the fifteen feet to the door, flew inside, and then closed and locked the door behind me.
Queenie was barking then wagged her tail and yipped when I stepped into the kitchen. “Okay, I know I didn’t turn on the water. And I know you couldn’t turn it on, even if you had a mouth of steel. So who did?” My house was in the country in the middle of acres and acres of pastures and fields. My nearest neighbors were my mother and grandparents, Grandma and Grandpa Aleckson, who wintered in Arizona, and Gramps Brandt who didn’t get out much. There were no prankster teens that lived anywhere near me, and even if there were, why would they want to flood my house?
A Death in Lionel's Woods Page 4