The Killer in the Woods

by Rick Van Etten

  “I realize that but I still don’t think she would have taken a chance with the asphyxiation stuff. I mean, she obviously enjoyed sex but she wasn’t the kind to keep pushing the envelope looking for bigger and bigger thrills. Especially if it involved something that was potentially life-threatening.”

  “You’re sure that’s not just a big brother’s biased perception of his little sister?”

  “Look, I adored Mandi. I always looked out for her when we were kids, and she and I shared a lot of secrets over the years. We had each other’s backs. She probably knew me better than anyone else ever has, including my own girlfriends, and I’d like to think I knew as much about her. I’m telling you; she just wasn’t wired that way. That son of a bitch Reynolds killed her.”

  “The medical examiner and the police said otherwise.”

  “That’s because it was an easy solution. Do you know how many murders there are in Chicago every year?”

  “No, I don’t. Maybe one a day?” I’m not a crime statistician and that seemed like a reasonable guess.

  “Think higher,” James Collins replied. “It’s over 600 a year. With those kinds of numbers, the cops are run pretty ragged. They’re not gonna spend a bunch of time looking into something that appears open and shut.”

  “All right, but you still haven’t told me specifically why you think Reynolds killed her, or even if you have any proof that he was there when she died.”

  “I’ll admit I don’t have any proof he was there that night. If I did, I’d have given it to the cops. The only thing that comes close is the fact that her door was locked but the deadbolt wasn’t. I have a key to both and when I let myself in I didn’t have to unlock the deadbolt.”

  “So you’re saying that when Reynolds left he locked the door but didn’t lock the deadbolt because he probably didn’t have a key for it.”

  “Right. And I know for a fact that Mandi was always very careful about locking both, whether she was home or not. You know, single girl in the big city and all that. It was another one of those things I always nagged her about. If she was home alone—and especially if she had been, as you put it, flying solo—I know she’d have locked the deadbolt.”

  I had to admit I couldn’t fault his reasoning. “The cops weren’t interested in your deadbolt theory?”

  “Not really. They were pretty quick to dismiss it as an oversight on Mandi’s part. ‘Oh, come on, everybody gets forgetful once in a while,’ they said.”

  “What about any kind of forensics?”

  “Again, I got the impression they weren’t real interested in going that route, spending a lot of time and effort looking for something they’d already made up their minds they weren’t going to find. The autopsy didn’t turn up anything to show she’d had a partner that evening…actually the word they used was ‘inconclusive.’ They said there was other DNA present—including my own, which isn’t surprising since I’m the one who found her—but aside from ours, they couldn’t match what they found to anyone in their system.

  “When I asked about fingerprints on the belt, they said they probably wouldn’t find anything because the rough texture of thick terrycloth doesn’t hold prints worth a damn. I’m guessing a couple of quick wipes with another piece of terrycloth like, say, a washcloth and there wouldn’t be anything left that was identifiable. Kinda like brushing the marks off a piece of suede.”

  “So you think Reynolds wiped down the belt afterwards?”

  “That’s my guess.”

  Again, I couldn’t fault his reasoning; contrary to what most folks believe because of what they’ve seen on television, criminals don’t go around constantly shedding DNA that makes identification a snap. Also, DNA samples are easily (and frequently) compromised or contaminated, rendering them useless as evidence. Plus, as Collins had already mentioned, the “other” DNA that was found didn’t match anyone in the system.

  “So it sounds like you were pretty well stonewalled by the cops,” I said. “Anything else that points to Reynolds besides the deadbolt?”

  “Well, I know for certain that he was really into the whole choking-during-sex thing.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I found someone else he’d tried it with.”

  Chapter 3

  That got my attention.

  James Collins had definitely done his homework, all right. That is, if what he claimed was true.

  “How’d you do that?” I asked.

  “I run my own computer consulting business,” he said. “In other words, I’m self-employed. I have two partners, both guys I went to school with, and we have three other employees. They were all very supportive after Mandi’s death because they knew how close she and I were. So they were willing to cover for me when I said I needed to take some time off.”

  “And you used that time to do what, exactly?”

  “I started stalking Frank Reynolds,” he said.

  “Stalking him?” That sounded a little far-fetched, even for a protective older brother.

  “Right. Of course, I already knew where his office was because Mandi worked there. But the only time I ever met Reynolds face to face was at the visitation before Mandi’s funeral. He attended and he shook hands with me and my parents and offered his condolences.

  “It was all I could do to keep from throttling him on the spot, the hypocritical bastard, because I was already sure he’d killed her, but I managed to stay cool. If nothing else I didn’t want to embarrass my folks—I never told them that Mandi had been having an affair with him—and I didn’t want to cause them any more grief than they were already feeling.”

  “Admirable restraint,” I said. “That couldn’t have been easy.”

  “Believe me, it wasn’t. But something told me I’d be smart not to confront him. And as it turned out, that was the smart move. Apparently I didn’t make that much of an impression on him, not enough that he’d recognize me again, anyway.

  “You saw him again?”

  “Only from a distance. I started hanging around his office at random times, especially late afternoons and early evenings. A few times I caught him leaving for the day and I followed him to a couple of the downtown bars that were within walking distance of his office. I watched him hook up a few times with the same woman.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “But are you sure he never saw you or recognized you?”

  “I blend in pretty well,” James Collins replied. “I look like any one of a couple million other young professional guys you’d see in Chicago. Besides, he was a lot more interested in this other woman than he was in checking to see if anyone was following him. I think once he knew he was in the clear concerning Mandi’s death, that the cops weren’t looking into it too closely, he thought he was home free and there was no reason to be concerned.”

  “How long after her death was it that he started seeing this other woman?”

  “A couple months, as far as I know. Like I said, I only did this at random; it wasn’t like I staked out his office building every afternoon for weeks. I tried to keep up with my regular job as well, and it was only when I’d catch a free afternoon that I could get over there—say, maybe a couple of times a week at most. And of course, a lot of times I struck out and didn’t see him at all.”

  “OK, so how long did all this go on?’

  “Oh, I kept at it for six months or so, long enough to catch him with her a few times. They had this one bar that they seemed to especially like, a place called Nell’s.”

  “You followed them into the bar?”

  “I followed him into the bar. It was always a busy place, you know, the after-work crowd, and he’d meet her there. Sometimes she’d be waiting for him; sometimes he’d get there first and have to wait for her. I always made sure I stayed out of his sight.”

  “So you saw them meet at this bar a few times. What then?”

  “They’d have a couple drinks and then they’d leave together. I didn’t want to push my luck and to tell yo
u the truth, I wasn’t sure what my next move should be. I knew he was married—Mandi had told me that, and I’d given her hell about it—but I knew that just because I’d proved he was a serial adulterer that still didn’t get me any closer to proving he’d killed her.”

  “Right. So what happened next?”

  “Then suddenly they weren’t meeting any more. I followed him a few more times but he stopped going to Nell’s. He’d leave work and head off in a different direction. A couple times I saw him go into a couple of other places and start hitting on other women. I figured that meant that, for whatever reason, he’d broken things off with the one I’d seen him with. Her name, by the way, was Susan Alderson.”

  “You found that out how?”

  “I’ll get to that. I realized I was spinning my wheels just following him around, and like I said, watching him hit on other women wasn’t getting me any closer to proving he’d killed Mandi. So one afternoon on a hunch I went back to Nell’s. Susan Alderson was there by herself, sitting at the bar, and I went up and introduced myself.”

  I had to hand it to James Collins; he had, as the saying goes, balls like Batman. It was a gutsy move. Or maybe a foolhardy one. But either way, it helped convince me that he was fully committed to seeing Frank Reynolds brought to justice for killing his sister.

  “You introduced yourself to this woman who’d been seeing Frank Reynolds,” I said. “What happened next?”

  “I asked her if I could buy her a drink and she said OK. I sat down next down to her and we started making the usual small talk. I’d already pegged her at about 35, so a little older than me. I kinda sensed she was flattered to have attracted the attention of a younger guy—I’m 28—and I just kinda went with it.”

  “She was receptive to your advances, in other words.”

  “You could put it that way. By the end of that first conversation I had her name and her phone number. I told her I’d call her, and I did, a couple days later.”

  “Don’t tell me the two of you became an item.” This was starting to sound a little too soap operaish.

  “Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it that. But yeah, we did get together a few times. She was another attorney, by the way, like Reynolds. And yes, I’ll admit we…uh…hooked up.”

  “You’re saying you slept with her.”

  “Right. I wasn’t involved with anyone else at the time and I wanted to see if she could give me anything on Reynolds that might be useful.”

  I couldn’t stifle a laugh. “How in hell did you broach that subject?”

  “Believe it or not, I didn’t have to. She volunteered something. I got lucky, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

  “How so?”

  “It was the second time we hooked up. We’d gone back to her place and we’d already started…uh…getting intimate when she suddenly pulled back and said she had to ask me something. She had this really concerned look on her face and she said something like, ‘Look, I hope this won’t put you off but I’ve just got to ask—you’re not into anything really weird, are you?’

  “I asked her what she meant by weird and she said, ‘Oh, you know, anything that might be…you know, dangerous.’ I said I didn’t think so but I asked her what she meant by dangerous. And she said, ‘Well, like…choking, or anything like that.’ I told her no, I wasn’t and then asked her why she asked. I said, do I look dangerous, and she said no, I didn’t. And then she dropped the bomb.”

  “I think I can guess.”

  “You got it. She said another guy she’d been involved with had suggested the choking thing to her several times, promising her it would make the whole experience a lot more intense. She told him no and she said he’d started getting more and more insistent. After a couple more times of this she’d finally broken things off with him and she said she still got chills thinking about it.”

  “She didn’t happen to mention his name?”

  “First name only. She said his name was Frank and that he was an attorney.”

  Well, all right, then. James Collins had indeed, as he’d said, gotten lucky. Sure, it was still all circumstantial, but the stars were definitely lining up. He’d established that Frank Reynolds was into erotic asphyxiation and not hesitant about trying to force the issue if the woman balked. That, plus James’ conviction that Mandi would not have been trying it herself, made for a pretty compelling argument.

  “What happened between you and Susan Alderson?” I asked.

  “We got together a few more times and then agreed to part as friends. I didn’t just dump her after I found out what I needed to know, if that’s what you’re asking. I think she began feeling that the age difference might be a problem and I sort of went along with that, acting like I understood she might be a little embarrassed to be seen with a guy so much younger. I also kinda played up the whole computer geek thing…you know, like that was pretty much my whole life so she’d get the idea we didn’t have that much in common.”

  “Clever.”

  “Well, I can’t deny she was attractive, and I did enjoy those times we got together. Do I feel a little shitty about it, using her like that to get something on Frank Reynolds? Yeah, I suppose so, sure. But again, we parted on friendly terms and breaking things off was mostly her idea, so I don’t think any harm was done.”

  “No, probably not.”

  “So…where does that leave us? Do you believe now that Frank Reynolds killed my sister?”

  “I’ll say you’ve made a pretty convincing case, yes. But based on what you’ve found out, you could still take this back to the police and ask them to take another look at it. They could talk to Susan Alderson themselves and that might get them a little more motivated.”

  “I don’t want to go that route. I couldn’t get them interested the first time around and after all this time has passed, I can’t believe they’d suddenly change their minds and decide to investigate Mandi’s death after all. And even if they did, then what? They might or might not ever come up with enough to charge Frank Reynolds, and if they did…the guy’s an attorney, for Christ’s sake. He’d know how to play the system and this could drag out forever.”

  I had to hand it to James Collins. He’d given this a lot of thought and put a lot of time and energy into running Frank Reynolds to ground. And he was probably right about the futility of trying to get the cops interested at this late date.

  “All right then,” I said. “You’re sure you want to proceed with this and have me get involved?”

  “Absolutely. That bastard killed my sister and then just hung her in the closet like a piece of old clothing. I want you to do the same to him. Except I don’t care if you put him in a closet afterwards.”

  Chapter 4

  “Mr. Vance, is there anything else I can do for you today?” The drive-up teller’s voice snapped me out of my reverie just as the carrier containing the receipt for the deposit of my check from James Collins arrived in the kiosk with a loud clunk.

  “No, that should do it,” I replied, reaching out for the carrier and removing the receipt.

  “Then you have a very nice day,” the teller said, smiling at me from behind the large tinted window.

  “Thanks. You too,” I said, replacing the carrier and hitting the automatic window button for the driver’s door of my SUV. I pulled on through the drive-up lane and headed for home.

  After my first phone conversation with her brother I had gone online and done a quick search for Mandi Collins. I found her obituary in the archives of a Chicago funeral home’s website and while there was no specific cause of death listed—her family had obviously chosen to omit those details—everything else matched what James Collins had told me. So far, so good…his story checked out.

  I had subsequently spoken to James Collins several more times to nail down the details and finalize a plan to kill Frank Reynolds. Ordinarily, having accepted a job, I do most or all of the legwork myself—it’s much safer, I’ve found, if the client is kept out of the loop and does not know the p
articulars—but James Collins was a resource I’d have been foolish not to utilize.

  For one thing, he’d already convinced me of his commitment to see this through, and that he wouldn’t be satisfied until Frank Reynolds was dead. Also, he’d shown himself to be fairly resourceful in his own right and willing to take on a certain amount of risk. Getting cozy with Reynolds’ latest squeeze was, I thought, a pretty ballsy move, and he’d apparently played that whole scenario very well. Plus, he was right there on Reynolds’ home turf, which would save me having to make one or more recon trips to Chicago.

  And finally, the fact that he’d sought me out showed good judgment on his part. In the immortal words of Dirty Harry Callahan in Magnum Force, “A man’s got to know his limitations.” James Collins apparently realized that killing Frank Reynolds called for a degree of expertise he lacked, and though he might have been willing to do it himself, he was smart enough to turn that part of the exercise over to someone who would know how to get it done more cleanly and efficiently.

  All of which led me to believe that I could trust him.

  That might sound a little foolhardy on my part—make that very foolhardy—but I’ve been doing this for a quite a few years now, and I’ve become very good at spotting the fakes and the faint-of-heart. The bogus ones rarely make it through the first series of email blinds. The others—those people who get cold feet at the last minute and decide they just can’t be a party to a killing after all—are summarily discarded.

  I have their phone number but they don’t have mine—well, except for the number of the disposable from which I called them, and—you guessed it—that phone was indeed quickly disposed of. I change my P.O. boxes often enough that there’s very little chance of further contact if they should change their mind a second time and decide they do want to go through with it. That kind of waffling I don’t need—if they’re that uncertain at the outset, there’s a good chance they’ll be hit by a major attack of the guilts later, after I’ve completed the assignment—so having bailed on me once, they don’t get a second chance.