Murder at Willow Slough (6 page)

“And photographing the results,” Jamie growled. “The prosecution was almost deliberately incompetent.”

“Don’tcha just love politics?”

“Truth, justice and the American way.” Will you buy a commiseration ploy? “So, about this John Doe. Above-average height, not fat. Build?”

“Slender but muscled. He either had a strenuous job or worked out regularly.”

Jamie got an idea. “You’re an athlete; what sport might he have played?”

Kessler thought. Finally he said, “Basketball. What a great question, it humanizes the guy. Maybe he played in a league somewhere.”

“Maybe you can find out. Rectum dilated?”

“Six point two millimeters,” Kessler said coldly. “No evidence of semen.”

“Signs of a struggle? Contusions, lacerations, broken bones? Specifically the hyoid?”

Kessler plunked his elbow on the table, sank his chin onto his upraised fist, leaned toward his subject. “You’re quite a piece of work, you know that?”

Jamie put on his trust-me face and waited, saying nothing. But he wished he’d never had to learn about human neck bones.

Kessler eyed him a little longer, then sat back in his chair. “Why should I tell you?”

Now or never. “Because I’m someone you can use.

“Sergeant, don’t tell me anything that only the killer would know; but use me if I can help. Most officers have a hard time when they’ve got a Gay-related murder. You’re overworked to start with. The victimology is harder with Gay people. Parents may not know their kids are Gay, or who their friends are. Friends won’t talk half the time, all they know is ‘cops’ and they want zero to do with you.

“If this case isn’t Gay, isn’t related to the others I’m following, I’m history. But it does sound like the others a little, and one possible marker is that hyoid.”

“Hyoid was crushed. How did you know about that?”

Jamie recited them from memory. “Michael Cardinal, Shelby County, 1987. Strangled, hyoid broken. Riley Jones, 1988. Strangled, hyoid crushed. Four similar in Quincy County, Ohio, 1989 to 1995. Stillwater County, Ohio, 1995. Defiance County, Ohio, 1993; identified 1996, Barry Lynn Turner. Let’s see, who am I leaving out?” Jamie gazed at the video camera hanging from the ceiling. “Ah. Kelvin.”

“I get the picture. No other contusions, lacerations, no signs of a struggle.”

“Rats. My cases never show signs of a struggle. Yet they’re all young, healthy men who could fight back if they had to. If they were able to, that is. Which makes the drug screen all the more important.”

“I know.”

“Make sure the lab screens for all known animal tranquilizers.”

“Huh?”

If Jamie explained this he’d give out too much information. “You must screen for animal tranqs. If the victim is drugged, by something you wouldn’t ordinarily test for, it may be why he never fights back. The victims don’t have a chance, because the killer puts them to sleep surreptitiously. Easy to kill someone that way. Don’t stop screening if you come up positive for marijuana, keep looking. Marijuana didn’t put that guy out; something else did. Something fast-acting. Entice the victim with reefer, then five minutes later he’s sound asleep. Look for animal tranqs.”

“Gee.” Kessler made a note of it. “Were any other victims found to have something in them?”

“I know of six positive for marijuana. The animal tranq’s never been done, but it’s logical; everyone else let their tissue samples get away. Talk to Bulldog Sauer of the Quincy County prosecutor’s office. Here’s his card.”

Kessler had Xeroxed all the cards, so he checked off Detective Sauer. “I will. Thanks for the tip.”

“Sergeant, you might have Victim Number 13.”

“That’s why I’ve got this case.” Kessler looked him in the eye. “You wanted to know, I’ll tell you. I’m sorry for pussyfooting around before.” Jamie nodded, all ears. “We’re halfway between the crime scene and Indy, if there is any possible connection with these other murders, which is a big if. If there’s no connection, it goes back to Rensselaer for disposition. If there’s a connection, we get in some new blood, maybe a different investigative team can come up with something. Probably not, but it’s worth a shot.” And then the threat. “You tell anybody else that, much less put it in the paper, I’ll cut off your access to every trooper in this department.”

Jamie wrote, kept eye contact. “You should go off the record before you say things I can legally use.”

Kessler glared at him, ticked off, stirred up.

Jamie relaxed, got smaller. “I’m here to help, sergeant, as well as to get a story if there is one. I understand you need confidentiality, and I appreciate getting a straight answer. Do your work, I won’t use the quote till you’re ready. Meanwhile I’ve seen every one of these crime scenes, talked to every investigator on every case. Think about it; it’s my readers who are getting hammered. My paper’s got a stake in this. We want these cases solved, that’s all. If I can help, I will. You tell me if I can help.”

Kessler backed off, glanced at the mirror on the opposite wall. He knew Campbell was watching; so did Jamie. “It’s very, very preliminary. No one’s calling it serial yet. I want to emphasize that. We don’t know nearly enough to begin to say that, and we don’t need you scaring people.”

“But you’ve already notified the FBI.” It was a guess, a stab in the dark.

Kessler gaped at him. Training said he was already giving this reporter a lot of information. Why was instinct telling him to keep risking it?

Because no other reporters were asking about Doe; they didn’t know how important this victim might be. “Quantico’s overnighting the forms. You’d think I could download them, but the Feds want paperwork.”

“Jeez, have you ever seen those forms? You’ll be working overtime just on that.” Do you go for sympathy?

“Tell me about it,” Kessler wagged his head.

“Who did the crime scene? Are you satisfied with it?”

“The naturalist called Rensselaer. They came out and said, ‘yeah, that’s a dead body, all right,’ and notified headquarters. I got a call, and they assigned Sgt. Warnecke in Lowell to assist me. He and I did it together. I’m very satisfied, we work practically the same.”

“Who assigned you? Major George F. Slaughter?”

Kessler stared again. “Major Slaughter, yes. Deputy Chief for Investigations.”

Jamie’s heart speeded up. George is on this. That makes Kessler his hand-picked man. “By any chance are you or Sgt. Warnecke certified as crime scene technicians?”

“I am, last year. But my specialty is homicide. I figure by taking a case from start to finish, it helps me solve it.”

“Fantastic. Certification is a rigorous program.”

“Yeah, not that many troopers have completed it. We don’t have a crime scene unit at our beck and call like they do on TV, this is rural Indiana. So I learned all I could about it.”

“You’re very dedicated.” They exchanged looks. “So, what physical evidence? Tire tracks, clothing, trash, a weapon? Metal detector results? Carpet fibers? Crushed grass, the body dragged from a car? What do you have?”

“I don’t have a darn thing. That’s what worries me.”

“Fingernail scrapings? Latent prints on the body?”

“Nothing. Zero. The killer must have worn gloves.”

And a rubber. “Still, there’s a needle in that haystack. Where’s the haystack exactly?”

“Shallow water on the edge of the campground, next to a woodpile, directly accessible by car. They have sixty or eighty campsites, never used this time of year. The killer could have driven to the exact spot, popped the trunk and dumped out the body, then driven away with no one seeing a thing. The park rangers only work till 3 p.m. Anybody can come in, day or night. There ain’t even a front gate.”

“Sure makes it easy on law enforcement.” Sympathy does work with you.

“With the rain lately, there are no tire tracks, no crushed grass, not even fibers. Just a body in the water behind a woodpile. That’s the sum total of what I’ve got.”

“Tough case,” Jamie frowned.

“Listen, if you find anything, I want you to know you can come to me. Will you do that?”

The preliminary close. “Sure. These are my readers. I’m a confidential informant for seven departments. I don’t work for the government, I work for my readers. All I want is the crime solved. If it’s part of this pattern, I’ll gladly work with anyone who will help to solve it. I’ll go beyond anyone who stands in my way. Fair enough?”

Kessler’s jaw set. “Fair enough. I won’t stop till I’ve got the guy. Or guys. I don’t care what the victim did with his personal life, he didn’t deserve to die. It ain’t no crime to be Gay. Therefore he’s a citizen. I investigate the murder of citizens.”

“Thank you, sergeant, very much. Gay Indiana thanks you.”

“So you’re the famous CI. Man, you sure work fast.”

“The famous one?”

“When I got this assignment I was told there was a very interesting informant. I sure never expected you to walk into my post before I even found out your name. Jamie, it was only one inch in the newspaper.”

“It’s happenstance that I’m here; any Gay reader might have wondered, with a naked male victim. Now then, you’ve got photos?”

“I’m Mr. Kodak.” Kessler pulled out eight-by-ten glossies, laid them on the table.

This was the part of the job Jamie hated the most. Looking at murder victims, Gay murder victims, made him feel vulnerable, a feeling he loathed.

When he was a rookie, the victims haunted his dreams. Now he slept okay, but still, he knew he over-empathized with them.

He hesitated a minute, steeling himself, spacing out. This part meant having Casey on his back, arguing facts and phrases, libel and space limits; and Louie too, bitching about budget. While Jamie got to examine popped-out eyes, decomposing bodies.

I know you weren’t a sweet little kid, Kelvin, but you sure looked that way in the photos.

God, help me get through this. I’m stalling. Jamie picked up the stack of photos, swallowed, started to study. John Doe’s skin had a slightly bluish cast—except for his neck, where he had black, even bruises an inch wide on both sides of his windpipe, an eye-burning, horrific sight.

Jamie remembered Dr. Steve Helmreich, the serial murder expert, making him look at pictures of multiple gunshot wounds, dismemberments, splayed brains, poisonings, strangulations, heads bashed in, shaken baby syndrome. “Cops have to look at the gore to comprehend the evil that people inflict on each other, and how they did it in this case. Jurors, too. And reporters, if you’re going to get good at this.”

Jamie was such a sissy about violence he couldn’t even watch the Indy 500.

Mr. Doe was sprawled on his side with his eyes closed, in water and weeds, legs tilted to his left, where he fell probably. The socks and sneakers looked ratty as hell.

The biceps were large, chest and shoulders well-defined. Good abs, small of waist, thinner in the thighs and calves. Nice tan line, bikini boy. You’re Gay, all right.

He studied Doe’s face. Young, but not hustler age anymore. Mildly handsome, in a Midwest farmboy kind of way. It was hard to judge whether he was poor or prosperous; muddy, matted hair splattered every which way, the mouth closed, no evidence on dental care. The hair wasn’t hustler-long, though.

In a third photograph he noticed an untanned line where a wristwatch had always been.

He searched more pictures until he got a good angle on the left hand. Another little untanned stripe, the width of a missing wedding ring.

He rubbed his forehead, wondering how much death he had to go through. He handed the pictures back. “He’s Gay. I can tell you several things about him.”

“You can figure out his sex life from a photo?”

“Tan line.” Jamie traced it as Kessler watched. “European-cut bikini. It shows a bit of the buttocks. That’s not considered proper for men in this country, it glorifies the male body too much. It’s a definitive

marker, because the only Americans who wear them are Gay men.”

“Gee,” Kessler said, staring at the photo. “I never even noticed that.”

You weren’t looking at his ass. “The tan line on his wrist says he always wore a watch, so he’s middle-class or higher. The two facts together suggest where he may have lived. Look for an upscale home near downtown Indy: Lockerbie, Chatham Arch, those apartments on the canal; or Riley Towers, I know it’s got a pool.”

Kessler made more notes. “Where do you get all that?”

“He sat around the pool all summer in those little bitty trunks. Could have owned a suburban home with a pool, but downtown near other Gay people is more likely.”

“What makes you think that?”

“There’s no theater in suburbia.”

But the cop looked blank. Jamie said, “Look for a place within walking distance of the entertainment district, the galleries and nightspots and Gay bars.”

“Gee,” Kessler said again.

“Either he was heterosexually married, or he had a lover he was committed to. The killer stole his wedding ring. Call Indy P.D., missing persons. The wife or lover probably filed a report. If not, the significant other probably did it.”