Allison (A Kane Novel) (11 page)

Donning a pair of reading glasses, Long lifted a thick, three-ring binder with block letters on the spine reading “French.”  Known in departmental jargon as a murder book, it was an LAPD compilation of all records pertinent to the case.  At present it included only Kane’s death report and his preliminary entries in the crime report.  Other items relating to the investigation would soon be added, including Peyron’s initial investigative work, detailed measurements of the abduction scene and dump site, pictures, autopsy findings, field-interview summaries, notes and regularly updated follow-ups, search warrants and their returns detailing material taken as evidence, surveillance reports, arrest warrants, and any other relevant documents.

Long opened the book without comment.  Finding what he wanted, he continued.  “Your crime report states that the access road had locked gates at both ends.  Neither gate looked disturbed.  You think the guy carried in the body?”

“It would have been a long haul over rough terrain,” Kane said doubtfully.  “But maybe.  Besides the gates, there are a number of other possible points of entry.  Washed-out culverts under the outer chain-link fence, for instance.  A preliminary canvass of neighborhoods around the area got us zip, although a lot of residents weren’t home.  I contacted the Van Nuys watch commander and requested that he send out another squad tonight.  It’s possible somebody may remember a strange vehicle being parked in the area.  We also need to run down anyone with a key to the gates.  I’m putting Deluca and Banowski on that,” he added, referring to two fellow detectives on the homicide unit.

“Good idea.  Speaking of which, who
does
have keys to the fire road?”

“DWP, Southern California Edison, and the Fire Department.  And LAPD, of course.  I hate to even
think
a cop was involved, but I’m having Van Nuys detectives make discreet inquiries in the ranks to see whether anybody out there lost his keys, or had them borrowed or stolen.”

“What about the autopsy?”

Kane shifted in his seat, resting his forearms on his knees.  “A couple of things turned up.  Like I said, Jordan was dead when she went into the reservoir.  No water in her lungs or stomach.  The coroner is listing her cause of death as a subdural hematoma resulting from a fractured skull.  He thinks the bleeding into her brain developed over a period of hours.  There was no tearing of the scalp, so the skull trauma was caused by something blunt.  She also had welts on her back and buttocks, probably inflicted before death by something flat and flexible.”

“Like a belt?”

“Maybe.  The coroner also found a focal area of erosion on the anterior wall of her vagina.  Except for a residual annular ring, the hymen was absent as well.”

“Had she been raped?”

Kane shrugged.  “That’s up for grabs.  I had the sexual-assault unit take vaginal, rectal, and oral swabs.  The reports came back negative:  no sperm or seminal fluid.  But sperm often begins deteriorating within an hour, and sometimes elevated acid phosphatase in the vagina doesn’t last more than a few days—so the negative results aren’t definitive.  Although rape or sexual abuse could be a factor, there were no signs of disfigurement, strangulation, or tearing of the genitalia typical in a crime of sexual rage.  Which leaves abuse.  I’m withholding judgment on that until we get the results of the microscopic tissue exam.  Incidentally, the gastric contents showed that Jordan’s last meal, pasta with some sort of red seafood sauce, had undergone a digestion period of three to four hours.”

Long nodded.  “That may help nail down the time of death.  What about the lab tests?”

“Toxicology, vaginal sections, and microscopic slides of the welts are under way,” said Kane, still continuing from memory.  “We’re also checking for the presence of any sexually transmitted diseases.  I’ll be talking with her family doctor about that, among other things,” he added.

All three men knew that statistics showed childhood sexual abuse was usually done by parents or a close family member, and that when a parent or parents killed a child, they usually staged an abduction and reported their offspring missing.  At that point it was a possibility no one wanted to mention, but it hung in the air like a rotten stench.

“I don’t have it all figured yet,” Kane continued, reading the question in Long’s eyes.  “What I do know is that we have evidence of vaginal penetration, although in a fourteen-year-old a missing hymen could have other explanations besides rape or sexual abuse.  On the other hand, the strap marks on her back and buttocks indicate she had been nude when beaten, suggesting a sexual angle to the crime.  The cause of death taking hours to develop could mean the killing was unplanned.  The body being placed in water implies a killer who wanted to eliminate forensic evidence that could tie him to his victim, even if the corpse were found.”

“Meaning he knew her?”

“Maybe.  At least it makes you wonder.  As for the dump site, the inaccessibility of the reservoir tells me the guy’s a local.  He knows his way around.  Even if he drove in, he still had to cross difficult terrain carrying a body, so he’s probably a strong male.”  Kane paused thoughtfully.

“What?”

“I don’t know, Lieutenant.  There are a couple of things that don’t add up.  The ransom angle, for instance.  People who kidnap children usually do it for one of three reasons:  profit, sexual gratification, or because they’re lonely and want a child.  Suspects belonging to the second and third categories
never
send ransom demands.  If this is a sexual crime, as it appears to be, why the ransom demand?”  Kane turned to Peyron.  “Is there any chance this could have been a burglary-gone-wrong?”

“Unlikely,” said Peyron.  “Nothing was taken.”

“On that note, this might be a good time for you to summarize your investigation into Jordan’s abduction, Carl,” suggested Long.

“Sure, Lieutenant.”  Peyron pulled a notebook from his pocket, opened it, and found his place.  After referring briefly to the notebook, he cleared his throat and began.  “On Saturday morning, July first, my partner and I responded to a call from Mrs. Elizabeth French, who telephoned nine-one-one to report that her daughter was missing and had apparently been abducted from her bedroom sometime during the previous night.  When we talked with the Frenches at their home in Mandeville Canyon, Mrs. French stated that Jordan hadn’t felt well on Friday and had stayed in bed most of the day.  Both parents looked in on her before retiring at around ten-thirty.  The next morning she was gone.”

“And no one heard anything?” asked Kane.

“No.  The parents’ bedroom is on the second floor; Jordan’s is on the ground level in the back.  No one else was in the house.  Apparently the guy jimmied her window.  We found footprints in a flower bed outside.”

“How about the neighbors?  Any of them report seeing or hearing anything?”

“No, but the Frenches’ estate is huge,” noted Peyron.  “The nearest house is halfway down the block and obscured by a ten-foot hedge.  Nobody recalled any strange cars being parked in the area, either,” he added, anticipating Kane’s next question.  “But anyone with five bucks for a movie-star map could’ve found his way up there.”

“Signs of a struggle?”

“Not much.  The sheets were messed up; a lamp was knocked over.”

“Any dirt on the windowsill or in the room?”

“Nope.”

“Hmmph.  Where did the guy exit?”

“The parents say all the downstairs doors were locked when they got up, so we’re assuming he left the same way he got in.”

“So the guy slips back out the window without making a sound, carrying the kid?”

“Seems that way.”

“What about forensics?”

“Not much there,” Peyron replied regretfully.  “No unmatched prints, no blood, no loose hairs on the bed sheets.  We took casts of the footprints in the garden.  They were made by size-eleven boots or shoes with a Vibram sole, but so far we haven’t been able to match the pattern to a particular brand.”

“Back up a second, Carl,” said Kane.  “Are you saying there were
no
hairs in the bed, or just none that didn’t belong to Jordan?”

“There were no hairs at all.  I thought that was peculiar.”

“Like the sheets had been washed?”

“Yeah.”

Kane leaned forward.  “Tell me about the parents.”

Peyron hesitated, aware of the direction Kane was headed.  “I don’t know, Dan,” he said.  “Initially I considered them, of course, but they both appeared genuinely upset about their daughter’s being missing.  Mrs. French, especially.  They’re both upstanding citizens.  She’s on the L.A. County Museum board and belongs to numerous charities; Jordan’s stepfather is the senior vice-president of some high-tech software company in Orange County.  Plus, they’ve been cooperating fully with the investigation.  I just don’t see them doing it.”

“Stepfather, huh?”

“Jordan’s biological father died in a car accident when she was two,” Peyron explained.  “Mrs. French remarried four years later.  Her new husband, Crawford French, legally adopted Jordan at that time.”

“Any other suspects?”

“One.  A gardener named Javier Peña who works for a Santa Monica landscape company.  He was at the Frenches’ estate two days before Jordan disappeared.  When I ran a check on anyone who had been employed recently by the family, his name popped up on the Megan’s Law database,” Peyron explained, referring to a criminal register that enabled law-enforcement officials to keep track of paroled sex offenders, as well as notifying local residents of their presence.  “Years back Peña was convicted of molesting his six-year-old nephew in East L.A.  Peña’s been out of jail since January.  Because he lives in Inglewood, none of his customers in Mandeville Canyon knew his history.”

“I take it he didn’t pan out as a suspect.”

“No,” said Peyron.  “He claims he was staying with his mother on the night Jordan was abducted—something Mrs. Peña confirms.  They could both be lying or he could have slipped out without his mother’s knowing it, but Peña strikes me as the kind who can barely tie his own shoes, much less pull off a high-risk abduction.  All things considered, the chances of his being our man are about as likely as me winning a yodeling contest.”

Kane smiled.  “I still want to talk to him.”

“What do you have on the ransom demand, Carl?” asked Long.

Again, Peyron referred to his notebook.  “It arrived in the mail on Monday, July third, along with a gold locket belonging to Jordan.  The postmark on the letter was from Santa Monica, dated the Saturday Jordan disappeared.  The Frenches’ address had been snipped from someplace and glued to the envelope; words on the note were cut from a magazine or some other glossy publication and pasted to a single sheet of typing paper.  The message read, ‘$750,000 for your daughter.  Details to follow.  Notify the police and she dies.’”

“And there was no follow-up message?”

Peyron shook his head.  “Nope.  Nothing in the mail.  We monitored calls to the Frenches’ phone twenty-four hours a day, too.  Nothing came in.”

“Which could indicate that the ransom demand was simply meant to throw off investigators,” said Kane.

“It’s possible.  Or maybe when Jordan died, the kidnapper got cold feet.”

Again, Kane spoke up.  “What’s the status of the forensic exam on the note?”

“No latent prints,” answered Peyron, flipping forward in his notebook.  “No residual writing imprints were found on the envelope or the typing paper.  As I said, the cutout words in the text had been scissored from one or more glossy-style publications.  The glue used was an ordinary mucilage paste.  Mrs. French opened the envelope with a letter opener, so we were able to test the envelope flap as well as the stamp for saliva.  No saliva on the flap, so whoever sent the letter didn’t lick it.  The stamp was the self-stick kind, so no saliva there either.  The lab did a transillumination analysis to check for a possible print on the back of the stamp, without removing the stamp from the envelope.  No luck there, either.  They did see what looked like a smeared partial print, which may mean that the sender touched the sticky side.  If so, we might be able to get a Touch DNA analysis,” he added hopefully, referring to a DNA testing method that required only the presence of a few cells to complete.

“Is the DNA testing being done?” asked Kane.

“Not yet.  At the time we thought it would be better to wait until—”

“Maybe we should get that going,” Kane interrupted, addressing Long.  “If we do come up with a suspect, it would be helpful to have testing done, or at least underway.”

“Agreed,” said Long.  “You have anything else, Carl?”

“That’s about it,” Peyron answered regretfully.

Long thought a moment, then shifted his gaze to Kane.  “So how do you want to proceed?”

Kane unconsciously began cracking his knuckles.  “As I said, we need to recanvass the reservoir neighborhood.  We should take another run at the dump site, too—extend the ground search to see whether we can locate where the guy got in.  And have divers continue hunting for whatever was used to weigh down the body.  I also want another shot at the Frenches’ house.  This time we should go in behind a warrant.”

“I’m sure the parents wouldn’t object to another search,” noted Peyron.  “They’ve been cooperative.  Why a warrant?”

“Because if we find anything implicating them, I don’t want it kicked out of court on a technicality,” answered Kane, punctuating his reply with a crack of cartilage.  “Furthermore, I’d like to put a surveillance team on the Frenches’ residence.  If it
was
a nutcase who snatched the kid, sometimes those psychos like to come back and gloat.  Besides, I want to keep an eye on the Frenches.”

“I’ll set it up with Metro,” said Long.  “They’ll take the PM and morning watch; we’ll need somebody from our unit out there during the day.  Anything else?”

Kane rubbed his chin.  “It’s a long shot, but we could check for strangers showing up at the funeral.  Jordan’s being a TV star complicates things, but you never know.  We might ask the Frenches to leave a personal item of Jordan’s at the grave, too.  A stuffed doll, something like that.  Maybe the guy will try for a souvenir.”