Detective Wade Jackson Mystery - 02 - Secrets to Die For (25 page)

As the others filed out, Evans said, “I’ll be at my desk, digging through the database for Bodehammer’s parents.”

Jackson nodded and headed down the hall to Sergeant Lammers’ office. He heard her voice from the hallway and knew she was in. She didn’t sound particularly happy. He waited for her to get off the phone, then knocked on her partially open door.

“Come in.”

Jackson stepped in and sat on the edge of the chair.

“You’re here to tell me we can announce to the public that we’ve caught the rapist and/or murderer and everyone can sleep better knowing their tax dollars are working hard to benefit them.” Lammers gave him a mocking smile. Even seated, at six feet and two hundred pounds, she was intimidating. She hadn’t made it to her position without crushing a few people.

“Almost. We have two new suspects. One is an ex-professor at LCC who had all three victims in his class at one point. He is also rumored to have had sex with a student and recently resigned from his position.”

Lammers lifted an eyebrow. “So you’re working on the assumption that these cases are connected. Do you have trace evidence to support that yet?”

“Not yet. But all three victims are gay, and they all took a class from the same teacher at LCC.”

“I like it. Who’s the other suspect?”

“An ex-con with a history of victimizing ex-girlfriends. His name is Ryan Bodehammer and he’s currently off his bipolar medication and hasn’t checked in with his PO recently.”

“What makes you think he might be raping and killing lesbians?”

“Last time he was in jail he wrote letters to his ex-girlfriend, calling her a dyke and expressing hostility toward gay women. The sheriffs intercepted and read the letters and did not send them out.”

“Not as interesting as the professor.” Lammers leaned forward and her voice took on an intensity that Jackson didn’t care for. “I need a case against one of these guys by the end of the week. The public funding vote is next Tuesday, and if we don’t get a bond passed, a lot of officers will lose their jobs. We need to look especially good to the public right now. And that is not easy to do with criminals being released from jail every day for lack of supervised space and with a rapist-murderer running free because we can’t catch him. We need this resolved, Jackson.”

He stood. “I’ll do my best.”

He strode back to his desk, irritation manifesting itself in every step. So now the department’s reputation and his fellow officers’ jobs were in his hands. As if he didn’t have enough pressure from the dead and the soon-to-be dead.

Jamie lay on the narrow bed and wished Ryan would just kill her. Strangely, it pleased her that she would die in the same way as Raina, at the hands of the same crazy man. Waiting for it to happen was excruciating. Jamie rolled on her side, dragging the heavy chain with her. The pressure of the bed against her cheek hurt. By now almost every inch of her body hurt. The first time he had raped her, she’d fought hard, striking him with her fists and trying to twist away. A blow to her face had momentarily knocked her out. After that, Jamie lay still. What else could she do? She was chained to the wall and inside a small bedroom. He could do whatever he wanted and she was powerless to stop him.

She had tried screaming for help when he first left her alone, but he had quickly come back in and tied a rag over her mouth. And left it on for hours. So now she stayed quiet. Jamie wondered what time it was. A heavy blanket covered the window, and it was hard to tell how much time had passed. She figured it had to be Monday by now.

Who would know she was missing? Paul thought she had gone back to her parents, and her parents thought she was still at Paul’s.

She heard the door open and her body tensed. Please, not again, she prayed to a God she wasn’t sure she still believed in.

“Are you hungry?” he wanted to know.

Jamie had not felt hungry since Raina was murdered. Her mother had forced a few peanut butter and honey sandwiches on her, but now she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. Her stomach growled, surprising her. Jamie rolled over but didn’t look directly at him.

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, lover.”

“Good girl. I’m making scrambled eggs with diced ham. It was my dad’s favorite.”

Jamie nodded.
Fuck you and your dad
,
you piece of shit
.
May you die a slow and painful death of syphilis
. Jamie was surprised by her unspoken rage.

“Do you want ketchup?”

Jamie shook her head.

“Go wash up. I’ll be back in a minute.”

She swung her feet down to the wood floor and sat up. The blanket slipped, but she grabbed it and pulled it tight around her. As she moved toward the bathroom her breath came in little white puffs. The pungent smell of mold made her think the heat had been off for a while. Every step reminded her of his assaults. Was she bleeding internally?

The bathroom was tiny but surprisingly clean. Jamie was grateful she didn’t have to pee in a can in the corner of the bedroom. She turned on the faucet and held a washrag under the cold water. There was no hot water and she tried to keep her hands, already half frozen, out of the cold water. She dabbed at the dried blood between her legs but the sting made her eyes water. Would the assaults become more bearable, she wondered? Or would he kill her first?

Jamie opened the cabinet above the sink and inspected its contents. A toothbrush, toothpaste, a small bottle of hand lotion, and a small box of tampons. Her stomach tightened. How long did he plan on keeping her?

She opened the small cupboard under the sink and found a can of Comet and a toilet plunger. Despair washed over her. She had hoped for a razor blade. Anything she could use to take her own life. Or his. Recently the news had carried stories of a woman in Austria who had been held captive in a basement for twenty-four years, giving birth to seven of her abductor’s children. Jamie would not let that happen to her. She would find a way to take her own life first. She examined the toilet plunger. If she pulled off the rubber thing, could the handle be useful?

Jamie grew nervous about taking too long, so she shut off the water. She stepped out of the bathroom and wished, again, that she had dressed in something warmer than a cotton shirt yesterday. How could you know when you got dressed for the day that it might be the last clothes you ever put on? Raina hadn’t known. Jamie wondered what Raina wore the day she was killed. Jamie bet it was a green sweater. She was going to miss Raina’s funeral. Jamie fought back tears. She wouldn’t let the bastard see her cry.

That afternoon, the city editor assigned Sophie to cover the city council’s decision to spend some of the transportation budget repaving main artery streets instead of fixing a million and one potholes. “A lot of people are outraged. See if you can tap into that and get some juicy quotes,” the editor said as she walked away.

Potholes
.
Oh crap
. This was not what Sophie wanted to write about. She called the mayor’s office and made an appointment for a telephone interview. Afterward, she spent a few minutes online looking at Michelle Peterson’s website. The design and structure were simple, with a link to a page providing information about Michelle’s poetry workshops. One, called Lesbian Love, was scheduled to start the next day and run for six consecutive Tuesdays. Excitement buzzed in her fingers as Sophie registered for the workshop. She would write off the $120 as an expense of her languishing freelance business. After paying with a credit card number, the site informed her she would receive an e-mail with the location and directions.

Sophie killed a couple of minutes finding out when the city council was scheduled to meet again, then checked her Gmail account. The e-mail about the poetry workshop had come in and included not only Michelle’s address but a telephone number as well.
Score
! Sophie spent an hour reading the minutes of the last city council meeting but couldn’t concentrate and didn’t remember a damn thing when she was done. Boring, boring, boring. She suspected it was like that for most of the people who attended the meetings.

At 4 p.m., still wound up with the possibility of breaking this case and story, she left the building and dialed the poet’s number as she headed for her car. Michelle didn’t pick up, so she left a message: “Hello, this is Sophie Speranza. I’m registered for your workshop tomorrow and I have a few questions I’d like to ask you beforehand. Please give me a call at 337-9821.”

Sophie wondered if Michelle Peterson would recognize her name. If she was like most of the people in this town, Michelle probably didn’t even subscribe to the paper. As Sophie drove toward the campus area in search of the address on Alder Street, she planned what she would say and what she would do next.

Jackson called Whitstone, who was still sitting in her car outside the apartment on Jefferson and 23rd. “Any sign of Bodehammer?”

“None. Sorry. I think one of the houses on the other side of the alley is a drug hub though.”

“Don’t be distracted by it. Has anyone gone up to Bodehammer’s door?”

“No. Should I stay put?”

“Yes.”

Jackson was starting to think he was wasting his time with Bodehammer, but he drove toward his residence anyway. At this point Derrick Michelson, the college professor, was a much more likely suspect because he had the same direct link to each of the victims. So far he had only linked Raina to Bodehammer and it was just a possible chance encounter. Jackson wished he were headed out to Michelson’s right now to interview him. Quince had tracked down the lead and this was his case as much as Jackson’s, so he resisted the urge to pull seniority and take over that line of inquiry.

As he neared Lincoln Street, Jackson remembered that Loki lived around here somewhere. He pulled to the side of the street and scrolled through his phone contact list for the snitch’s number. Loki answered on the second ring.

“Loki, it’s Jackson. How are you?”

“I’m good. Can I call you back in a few minutes, Mom?”

Jackson smiled into the phone. “Sure.”

Jackson drove around the corner to the little coffee shop where they sometimes met and waited in the car for Loki to call. In a moment, the phone rang. “Hey Detective, sorry about that. My neighbor was over, and I can’t be too careful.”

“Do you have five minutes right now?”

“How much is it worth?”

“Same as always. Twenty. If I get something useful, forty.”

“Haven’t you heard of inflation? The clinic costs me $275 dollars a month now.” Loki was referring to the methadone program he was enrolled in. That was the only reason he was willing to sell information to law enforcement. The methadone kept him off heroin and out of jail, but it was expensive.

“I’m in my car outside the coffee shop. See you in a minute.”

Loki, a skinny man with a buzz cut and little diamond studs in his ears, was bundled up like a Mount Everest hiker. He hopped into the passenger seat and slumped low. “I’m gonna get killed one of these days, talking to you.” The smell of cigarettes and fruity gum filled the car.

Jackson drove up 18th toward Jefferson. “Do you know anybody dealing Vicodin to students at Lane Community College?”

Loki shrugged. “I can ask around. Nobody comes to mind though. It’s not really my crowd. Where are we headed?”

“To an apartment complex on the corner of Jefferson and 23rd.”

“Why?”

“Ryan Bodehammer lives there. Have you ever heard the name?”

“No. Who is he?”

“Just a guy I’m looking for.” Jackson reached in his bag and pulled out the file he’d printed from CODIS. He handed it to Loki. “Here’s his mug shot. It’s a few years old.”

“I’ve seen this dude.”

“Where?” Jackson suppressed his excitement. Loki was in this conversation for the forty bucks.

“Maybe at the park up on 24th and Polk.”

“What was he doing?”

“Watching some chicks play soccer.”

“What else?”

“I think he had a camera.”