Detective Wade Jackson Mystery - 02 - Secrets to Die For (32 page)

Inside the old farmhouse, he followed the couple to the kitchen. Like Ryan, Scott was blond, blue-eyed, and good looking. His wife, Lisa, was a slightly smaller version of the same. They could have been brother and sister. Lisa offered to make coffee, which Jackson declined. He could have used the caffeine, but he never drank anything from an open container offered by a witness or suspect. Lisa grabbed three bottled waters from the refrigerator and they sat down at the kitchen table. The dog had been locked in the garage.

“Why are you looking for Ryan?” Scott tried to sound casual, but the crease in his forehead betrayed his concern.

“We think he may be out of control and hurting women. Gay women.” Jackson watched for a reaction. Scott was not shocked. Crushed was a more apt description.

“Oh God. I always worried that it would come to this. Once Dad died, it was only a matter of time.” His wife placed a gentle hand on her husband’s back.

“Do you know where Ryan could be?”

“Have you checked my dad’s old house? It’s where Ryan grew up. It’s home to him.”

“Another detective is looking into that possibility.” Jackson looked at his watch. Thirty minutes had passed since the taskforce left the conference room, plenty of time for Schak to drive out to west Eugene and look around an abandoned house. He would have called by now if he had found anything.

“Anywhere else you can think of?”

Scott shook his head. “Ryan doesn’t really have any friends. If he knows you’re looking for him, he’s likely to leave town. The five months he spent in jail were devastating to him. They didn’t give him the right medication, and they didn’t protect him. He won’t let himself be easily arrested.”

Jackson wondered if Ryan had been sexually assaulted in jail. “If he did run, where would he go?”

Lisa Bodehammer spoke up. “He’s talked about Alaska. About how free it is and how the people there are real Americans.”

Sadness crept into Scott’s eyes. “Ryan took on my dad’s attitudes and pushed them to an extreme. I think it’s because of his mental illness.”

“Who prescribes his medications?”

“He was going to a free clinic called Volunteers in Medicine. The one in the Fred Meyer parking lot. I don’t know the doctor’s name though.”

Jackson knew the building. It didn’t see a lot of vehicle traffic. “What about the blue van Ryan is driving? It’s not registered to him. Do you know who it belongs to?”

They shook their blond heads in unison. Scott said, “He likes to keep his name off of paperwork. He gets that from Dad. Keeping the government out of his business.”

Jackson thought of Bodehammer’s paperless apartment. Frustration made his muscles tense and his temples pound. How would they locate this guy if he went on the run? Jackson opened his bottled water and took a drink. “Can you think of anything else that might help us find him? Young women’s lives could be at stake.”

Scott leaned forward and put his head in his hands. After a moment, he looked up and said, “I’m sorry I can’t help you. Ryan and I have never been close, and I haven’t seen him since the funeral. I honestly don’t know where he is or how to find him.”

Jackson stood. “Do you mind if I look around here? Just to reassure myself that you’re not hiding him?”

“Go ahead.” It was Lisa who spoke up. Scott tensed, but said nothing.

Jackson headed down the hall. The house had three bedrooms: one was clearly occupied by Scott and Lisa, one was set up as a guest bedroom with no guest belongings in sight, and the other functioned as a laundry room and closet and was filled with neatly stacked storage items. Jackson peeked in all the closets just to reassure himself. Overall the house was immaculate and did not harbor any guests.

Back in the living room he handed Scott a card and said, “Call me if you think of anything.” Jackson walked out of the tidy little farmhouse and climbed into his car. He sat for a few minutes trying to get inside Ryan Bodehammer’s head. The photos in his apartment indicated that the suspect was sexually attracted to young blond women. At least, in theory, that’s who he liked to look at. Maybe he lacked the self-confidence to approach them. So he raped lesbians, who were not sexually intimidating to him. But psychologists and profilers agreed that rape was more about punishment than sex. Bodehammer was clearly punishing lesbians who took poetry classes from his ex-stepmother, a lesbian who had betrayed him.

So where did Jamie fit into this psychodrama?

She was young and blond and probably gay. Did that make her the ideal victim? A female Bodehammer was attracted to—who also needed to be punished? No one had seen her since yesterday. If Ryan had raped and killed her already, why hadn’t her body turned up yet? Bodehammer had left Raina at the edge of town, where she would be found the next day. Had he taken more time to hide Jamie’s body?

Jackson felt a stab of pain in his lower intestine—a stress stomachache coming on. He reached in the glove box for a Tums. He hoped he wasn’t making Scott and his wife uncomfortable. He would leave in a moment. He had the nagging feeling there was something else he needed to ask them. First he needed to work through the basics of this case to formulate the question.

Something about Raina’s scenario still bothered him. The fact that Ryan had tracked her out to Gorman’s trailer was a natural escalation of his stalking patterns with the first two victims. The excessive blows to the head, resulting in her death, were also an escalation of his rage and violence. The assault with the vibrator could have been an additional punishment or the only kind of rape Bodehammer was capable of because he was becoming impotent. Which happened sometimes when men were medicated or mentally messed up.

What still didn’t fit
?

The .22 bullet in Raina’s tire. Bodehammer would have had to carry the weapon with him in the van. A risky move for someone on parole, Jackson thought. Of course, so were rape and murder. It also seemed odd because Bodehammer’s criminal history didn’t include any possession or use of firearms. Acquiring a weapon could also be part of his escalating violence. Bodehammer was off his meds and paranoid, so maybe he bought or stole a gun.

Jackson jumped out of his car and went back to the front door. The dog began to bark in the garage. The door came open as he reached up to knock. “Did you forget something?” Scott still looked worried.

“Did Ryan own a .22 rifle?”

Scott pulled back, surprised. “I don’t think so. I mean, I’ve never heard him talk about owning a gun. Did someone get shot?”

“No.” Jackson thought for a moment. “Did Ryan know how to use a gun? Did he ever do any target practice?”

“Not as a kid, not when I still lived at home. I didn’t see Dad and Ryan very often after I moved out, but in the last few years I saw them more often. They never talked about guns.”

“Thanks. I’ll get out of here now.”

Jackson headed for the highway and decided to let it go. Bodehammer was their best suspect, and the DNA linked all three crimes. Maybe he had developed an interest in guns while he was in jail. Criminals often called their time behind bars ‘school’ or ‘college.’ It was definitely a learning experience.

Out of habit, Ryan drove to the top of Skinner’s Butte. It’s where he always went when his mind was troubled. Calling it a butte was a stretch. The hill was just a little chunk of land that pushed up in the middle of Eugene. Ryan loved looking out over the city, seeing Willamette Street stretched out in front of him for miles until it climbed Spencer’s Butte on the other end of town. Now that was a real butte. But you had to hike uphill for two miles to get there and Ryan rarely had that much time or energy.

Would this be the last time he saw the lights of Eugene? The thought made him squirm. Ryan had never lived anywhere else. Except for a few trips to Portland and one visit to Disneyland when he was ten, he hadn’t traveled much either. Los Angeles was too big, too fast, and too crazy for him. Alaska was more his speed, but it would be harder to get there. Driving the whole way was out of the question. Gas was too expensive, and his old van might not make it through the Canadian mountains. He could drive until his money ran low or the van broke down, then hitchhike the rest of the way. Ryan was pleased with this idea. Coming to the butte always helped him think.

Now, what to do with Jamie?

Ryan wanted to take her with him, but he couldn’t see how to make it work. Especially once they started hitchhiking. It would be impossible to control the situation. Damn! Ryan slammed the heel of his hand against the dashboard. He had believed he would have more time to win her over. Seeing the cop watching his apartment had thrown everything out of whack. His impulse said,
Run
!
Don’t look back
. Ryan would kill himself before he’d let them lock him up for ten years. He couldn’t leave Jamie there in the house chained to the wall, either. He wasn’t that kind of person. If he let her go, though, she would send the cops after him with a full description. She would also be able to testify against him if they caught him. The other women hadn’t seen his face, so he was okay there. Could he make Jamie want him if he had just a little more time?

Just kill her and get it over with
.

The voice surprised him. Could he do that? Jamie was so beautiful. Ryan closed his eyes and tried to make a decision.

Ted Conner stared at the thick pile of paperwork in the green folder and braced himself for the search. Ryan Bodehammer’s father was in this mess somewhere. Not only his name, but his address as well. Instinct, memory—he wasn’t sure why he knew it was there—but it was and he would find it. Then he would find Ryan. If that bastard had so much as touched Jamie, he would kill him. Conner unlocked his bottom desk drawer and pulled out his county-issued Sig Sauer. He would kill Bodehammer either way, just to put an end to this thing.

Case notes, intake forms, arrest reports, court records. Page by page, Conner scanned each document. Panic, adrenaline, and fear pushed him to hurry through the pages. Periodically, he would stop and go back, worried he had missed something in his rush. David Bodehammer’s name came up a few times, but there was no contact information with it. Conner was anxious to get to the court documents. He had a feeling it might be there.

His cell phone rang and made him jump. He was the only person left in the building and the sudden intrusion in the stillness was startling. Conner looked at the screen, but it said ‘private’. He hated answering those calls because it was often a telemarketer. He picked up anyway. What if it was Jamie calling from a friend’s phone because her battery was dead?

“Ted Conner here.”

“It’s Paul Phillips. Returning your call. What’s up?”

“Have you seen Jamie?” Conner wasn’t crazy about Paul, with his long hair and environmental bullshit, but he wasn’t a bad person.

“Not today.”

“She’s still staying with you, right?”

“No. She said she was going home yesterday.” Paul’s voice took on an edge. “What’s going on? Is Jamie missing?”

“Did she specifically say she was coming to our place?”

“She had to go see that little girl in the CSA program first, but she took her clothes and said she was going back to your house after that.”

Conner’s heart missed a beat. “We haven’t seen her. Would you call around to her other friends, then get back to me?” Conner hung up. He didn’t have time for niceties. Jamie was clearly missing. Knowing his timid daughter, Conner didn’t for a second delude himself into thinking she had gotten an impulse yesterday and gone off and done something unexpected without telling them. Not Jamie.

Dread filled his bones and Conner fought the urge to bellow and curse. Was his beautiful little Jamie lying dead somewhere? Raped and bloodied and forever silent? Conner jumped to his feet, his breath coming in rapid bursts. He would kill the bastard. He would beat him senseless first, then cut off his cock and let him bleed to death. Conner hit the floor and did forty push-ups, muscles responding as they were trained to. The effort calmed him enough to sit down and continue his search of the paperwork. He willed himself to be cool and logical. First, find the address. Then go get Bodehammer. Twelve minutes later, he found an address where the court had mailed a bail refund to David Bodehammer. Conner was certain it was where Ryan had grown up, the home he had expected to inherit when his father died. If Ryan was not at his apartment, this is where he would be.

Conner could make it to west Eugene in another twelve minutes. He placed his weapon in his briefcase and exited the building. Bodehammer’s death would save them all a lot of trouble.