Detective Wade Jackson Mystery - 03 - Thrilled to Death (12 page)

The cashier grinned. “He’s good looking too. He’s in the cantina.” She gestured with her thumb toward the back of the store.

Kera felt a thump of excitement in her chest. She hadn’t expected to actually see or talk to Chad, but she couldn’t think of any reason not to. She headed toward the wonderful smells in the back of the store. It wasn’t noon yet so there was only one customer seated at the tables. A young man matching Chad’s description had his back to her as he chopped tomatoes at the counter.

“Chad?”

He turned and looked her over thoroughly. “Why do you want to know?”

Kera refused to be intimidated by his dark-eyed stare. “I’m Kera Kollmorgan. Danette Blake is my daughter-in-law. Have you seen her?”

“Danette is married?” His suspicion turned to anger.

“No. Sorry. I just say that for convenience. I’m her baby’s grandmother.” Kera couldn’t help but notice the knife in his hand.

He saw her looking but didn’t put it down. “I haven’t seen Danette in days, so I can’t help you. I need to get back to work.” Chad started chopping again.

“What’s your last name?”

“None of your business,” he said, keeping his back turned.

“I’m trying to find Danette and I’d like your help. Will you at least tell me if you saw her on Monday?”

He turned to face her again, his free hand clenched into a fist. “We were together last Saturday night, and I haven’t seen her or talked to her since. I called once and she didn’t answer. So I’m moving on. It’s not like I planned to get serious about a woman with a baby.”

“Did Danette ever talk about leaving her baby?”

He widened his stance and put his hands on his hips. “Not exactly, but she was freaking out about being a mother.”

A customer took a seat at a nearby table.

“Now leave me alone. I can’t help you.” Chad walked over to greet his customer.

Kera left the store with mixed feelings. If Danette had run away from her baby, then she was probably safe and would call eventually. It also meant Kera might end up raising Micah, a prospect that both excited and scared her.
Would Micah be so much like Nathan it would hurt just to look at him? What would it mean for her future with Jackson? Was he prepared to start over as a parent?

Before leaving, Kera picked up a package of sturdy tacks and double-stick tape for putting up posters, then headed for the young cashier’s checkout stand. As she reached for her wallet, Kera said, “How do you spell Chad’s last name? I need to send him an invitation.”

“Whitehorse? It’s spelled just like it sounds.”

“Makes sense.” Kera pulled Danette’s picture out of her shoulder bag and showed it to the cashier. “Have you seen her?”

“No. Why?”

“She’s missing. Can I put up a poster in your parking lot?”

“Sure.”

After tacking a poster to the light pole, Kera climbed in her Saturn and called Detective Zapata. Not surprised that he didn’t pick up, she left him a message with Chad’s last name and hoped he would at least run a background check.

Evans and Schakowski were already in the small conference room when Jackson arrived. They had both been at the department, waiting for his call. His stops at Diego’s and the Durham house had taken longer than he’d expected. Jackson took a seat in one of the folding metal chairs. “I ordered a ton of Chinese food, so I hope you haven’t eaten yet.”

“Even if I had, I’d still eat my share,” Schak said. “Is it just us three? I thought Mrs. Durham would have demanded the attention of everyone in the Violent Crimes unit.”

“I called McCray too.” Jackson dug out his notepad. “We’ll bring in more detectives if we have to. Right now, we don’t even know if this is a homicide. If it weren’t for the other missing woman, I’d bet money Courtney Durham overdosed.”

“What missing woman?” McCray asked as he walked in. Ed McCray had been on the job long enough to earn his gray hair and weathered face. He was also tenacious and levelheaded, and Jackson always called him in on puzzling cases.

“Thanks for coming. Danette Blake, age twenty, disappeared Monday morning and has not been seen since. She dropped off her baby with her mother-in-law, went to an appointment with a psychiatrist, then vanished.” Jackson looked at the other two detectives to see their reaction. It was not news to them. “While we investigate the death of Courtney Durham, we’ll also keep Danette in mind. On the surface, these women have nothing in common, except they both disappeared on the same day.”

“What do we know about Courtney Durham?” McCray took out a notepad and a stick of gum. He’d recently quit smoking and was trying not to outgrow his skinny brown corduroy pants.

“She went drinking at Diego’s on Monday night. She was with a group of young women.” Jackson flipped back through his notes. “I have the names Madison Atwell and Zoey Kingsley.” He looked at Schak. “Your turn to take the board.”

Evans jumped up. “I’ll do it. Schak’s handwriting would make a kindergarten teacher cry.”

On the long, dry-erase board, Evans wrote
Courtney
at the top on one side and
Danette
on the other, drawing a line down the middle. They waited while she filled in the details Jackson had just verbalized. Under Courtney’s side, she wrote the friends’ names, then turned to Jackson. “Want me to interview them?”

“Yes, and anyone else who was in the drinking group that night. Also, ask about a guy named Zack, who was seen dancing with Courtney.” Jackson glanced at his notes, wishing he’d taken time to key them into a Word document before the meeting. “Courtney called Bailey’s Taxi & Limo Service at 11:40 p.m. They sent driver Stan Morris to Diego’s to pick her up. She had already left the nightclub when he arrived.”

“Have you talked to him?” McCray asked.

“No. Put him on your list, along with The Pancake House, that all-night place on Franklin. Courtney’s sister says she might have gone there after leaving the club. I have photo prints of Courtney being made now, so you can all pick some up when you leave.”

“What have you got for me?” Schak wanted to know.

“Find out who Courtney had cell phone service with and get a subpoena for her records for the last two weeks. We need to know who she called between Sunday and Tuesday night, and we need to look into the ex-boyfriends. Start with Steve Smith, who is also known as Skeet. And there’s Tristan Chalmers from last June. There may be others in between. Courtney’s sister, Brooke, might be able to give you more names.”

Evans turned from the board. “What kind of young woman are we talking about here?”

Jackson tried to keep his voice in a just-the-facts mode. No matter what she had done, Courtney was still someone’s daughter. “Her sister called her a wild child. Courtney had a habit of disappearing while partying. It apparently started in high school. She’s also been arrested for shoplifting, public drunkenness, and indecent exposure.”

“The Durhams are obscenely rich, why would she steal something?” Schak looked more puzzled than disgusted.

“Maybe just for kicks.” Jackson had to flip back to his notes from that morning. Was it only this morning he’d first been out to the Durham house, not knowing Courtney was already dead? “Her mother said Courtney had recently joined a mountain bike riding club. Maybe she’s an adrenaline junkie.”

The door opened and the desk officer came in with a cardboard box loaded with cartons of food. “Dinner is served,” he said with a mock bow.

After he left, Jackson picked it back up. “I’ll interview her current boyfriend, Brett Fenton, and hopefully have something to go on from there. Let’s get back out there as quickly as we can.”

Evans jotted the boyfriend’s name on the board, looked at Jackson. “What about Danette? Is she anything like Courtney?”

“Not at all.” Jackson reached for a carton. “Full disclosure here. Danette is Kera’s daughter-in-law. I first learned about her disappearance from Kera. I’ve met Danette and spent a little time with her. What I know is she was a student at Oregon State until the baby was born and she has no criminal history.”

“You ran a check on her?” McCray made a little tsk-tsk sound.

“We all do it. It’s one of the perks of the job.”

No one argued.

“So what do these two young women have in common?” Schak voiced what everyone was wondering.

“Probably nothing. But if they are connected, we have to find it.”

Brett Fenton was playing basketball under the Washington Street Bridge with a group of other twenty-something young men. As soon as the weather warmed every spring, the outdoor court was in constant use, often by players who just dropped in for a pickup game. Not that you didn’t see people out here in the winter, just not nearly as often. The uniform age of this group made Jackson think the game had been arranged in advance.

With the sun dropping in the sky, Jackson stood on the grass at the edge of the court and tried to see if he could pick out Brett, who apparently was blond, lean, and good-looking, similar to the man seen dancing with Courtney Monday night. Jackson pegged the guy in the white shorts and t-shirt, who seemed to be in better shape than the others.

When one of the players noticed him watching and called a time out, Jackson moved toward the group. “Brett Fenton?” He’d called Fenton after leaving the Durhams and arranged to meet him here.

The blond guy in white jogged over. “I’m Brett.”

“Let’s go sit at the picnic table.” Jackson wanted to watch Brett’s face as they talked. He also wanted him to be sitting down and away from his friends when he heard the news of Courtney’s death.

“What’s going on with Courtney?” Brett wiped a drip of sweat from his temple. Jackson sensed Brett was trying to sound more casual than he felt.

“Someone found her body this morning behind Autzen Stadium.”

“Oh no.” Brett’s hands flew to his face. “Oh shit.”

“I’m sorry for your loss. I’m also sorry to pressure you at a time like this, but I need to ask a lot of questions.”

Brett shook his head. “Give me a second.” He got up and walked a few feet away. Jackson gave him a moment.

When Brett came back, his eyes watered and his breath came in short gasps. “What happened? I knew Elle hadn’t heard from Courtney, but I wasn’t too surprised.”

“Why weren’t you surprised?”

Brett’s eyes flashed with guilt. “It’s complicated. Courtney’s complicated. I kind of broke up with her Monday morning.”

“Why?”

“She’s crazy.”

“Party-til-you-drop crazy? Or alternate-view-of-reality crazy?”

“Spoiled-rich-girl crazy.” Brett’s shoulders shook and he let out a sob. “I can’t believe she’s dead.”

“When did you see her last?”

A small pause while he thought. “Sunday night. I was over at her place.”

“Has she called you in the last two days?”

Brett rubbed his forehead. “No.”

Jackson was sure he had just been lied to. “I can get your cell phone records in less than an hour.”
Maybe
.

Brett calculated the possible scenarios. Finally, he said, “Courtney called me from Diego’s Monday night. She was drunk and I told her to leave me alone.”

“What time?”

“Around eleven.”

“Did you hear from her yesterday?”

“No.”

“Were you worried?”

“Not until Mrs. Durham called and said Courtney hadn’t come home. Even then, I wasn’t really worried. If you knew Courtney, you’d understand.”

Jackson was starting to feel like he did know Courtney. The table began to vibrate and Jackson realized Brett’s legs were shaking. “You seem nervous. What are you holding back?”

“Nothing.” Brett opened his eyes wider in an attempt to look sincere. “This is just freaky. I told her on Sunday I wanted a break from her. Now three days later, you tell me she’s dead.”

“Can you think of anyone who would want to harm her?”

“No.”

Jackson stood. “Let’s go down to the department and document an official statement. I want to know everywhere you’ve been since Monday night.”

Brett choked back another sob. “Please don’t arrest me. I think I know what happened.”

Chapter 14

The interrogation room’s pale gray walls and cheap overhead lighting made everyone look a little ill, but Brett was devoid of color. The young man from an upper-class family had never been inside a police station before. Seated at the table in the windowless room he looked smaller and younger than he had on the basketball court. Jackson knew better than to let himself have any compassion. Brett was a viable suspect. Age no longer mattered when it came to murder. Two weeks before, an eight-year-old boy in another state had shot two men, one of whom was his father.

“This conversation is being recorded.” Jackson didn’t mention the camera. “The purpose is to simply get your statement on record. You are not under arrest, you are here willingly, and you have declined the presence of a lawyer.”

Brett nodded.

“First, let’s get your timetable nailed down. When was the last time you spoke to Courtney Durham?”

Brett cleared his throat. “Monday night around eleven o’clock. She called me from Diego’s. She was drunk, so I told her I didn’t want to talk to her.”

“Where were you all day Tuesday?”

“I went to classes at the University of Oregon, then had dinner with some friends at Pegasus Pizza around six. Afterward I went home to study. I live with my parents, so they can confirm that.”

“What are their names?”

“Sherry and George Fenton. They both teach at the UO.”

This was mostly formality, which was why he hadn’t called another detective in for the session. Jackson’s instinct was to believe the kid, especially knowing what was coming next.

“What do you think happened to Courtney between late Monday night when she left Diego’s and late Tuesday night when she died?”

“I think she was picked up by a company called ThrillSeekers. Courtney told me she had hired them to kidnap her.”

“Why would she do that?” When he’d first heard Brett’s story, Jackson had been stunned. Sometimes living in Eugene made him feel naive.

“She did it for the adventure. Courtney likes to live on the edge and she’s tried everything else.” Brett shifted, looking even more uncomfortable. “I also think she wanted her mother’s attention.”