Girl With a Past (29 page)

I sipped my cocoa and let him talk.

“When I went to work in the district
attorney’s office, I had access to police files. I was even allowed
to copy some of the reports. Lexi’s murder had never been
officially solved, but there was a suspect. I was determined to
prosecute the case, bring her the justice she deserved. She was the
reason I went into criminal prosecution.” He cleared his
throat.

“I found things in the file that seemed
strange. Lexi had been killed in Berkeley on Tuesday. Her date,
Derek, had never been located. Disappeared right off the face of
the earth. If he’d been shot or stabbed––as had all the others
thought to be Zodiac victims––there were no signs of it at the
site. The same week a Jane Doe body turned up in Marin. She’d also
been shot in the head, but hadn’t bled from the wound. That
indicated she was already dead when she was shot. She also had some
postmortem carving on her chest. Those two incidents were the only
ones in the entire file that were different from the others. These
were the only two people who were removed from the scene. It didn’t
make sense.”

“But how did you tie them to the farm?”

“Jane Doe was found just down the road.
There weren’t a hell of a lot of other things on that road in those
days.”

“And how did she get tied to the
Zodiac?”

“A chunk of hair had been cut from her head
with a knife, the carved chest, a shoe print; the bullet was
consistent with those found in the other Zodiac victims––and the
Zodiac claimed responsibility in a letter to the newspaper telling
them where to find the body. But there were the anomalies––she was
wearing a nightgown, that combined with the location on a creek bed
in the middle of nowhere, and lividity pointed to her having been
moved postmortem. And the bullet was fired from a shorter distance
than the other victims––”

“How did the lividity indicate she had been
moved?” I asked my father.

“You know, at death, the heart stops
beating, blood stops moving. Stagnant blood goes to where gravity
leads it. In this Jane Doe’s case, she evidently was lying on her
back, on a soft surface, after she died as she developed lividity
on her back and buttocks.”

“I had trouble understanding that in the
file. I didn’t get the significance of her being found on her
side.”

“It appeared that she remained on her back
for at least some eight to twelve hours after she died because no
secondary or shifted lividity was found. If she had been moved
within four to six hours of her death, a certain amount of blood
would have shifted to the new body position.”

“And she was on a soft surface for those
eight to twelve hours?”

“Yes, probably a soft mattress such as a
feather bed . . . or a water bed.”

“How did they know that?”

“Any part of the body that presses against a
hard surface appears pale and is surrounded by lividity. Her
lividity was uninterrupted.”

“Were there waterbeds at the ranch?”

“Of course. They were the latest thing
then.”

“Did you . . . was that one of the things
that had you worried?”

“Yeah.” He returned to the chair in front of
the fire. “That bothered me.”

“What else?”

“The ME estimated she had died on Sunday, or
maybe early Monday, and was moved as late as Tuesday. Or really
early on Wednesday. She was found on Thursday. It was clear that
she had not been exposed to the elements for more than a day or
two.”

“Because of the letter? A letter telling
where to find her body was mentioned in your notes in the file. But
I thought she was found by hikers.”

“She was, but the letter had been mailed the
day before. Seemed odd that the Zodiac was unusually active in
those few days. There were otherwise weeks, if not months, in
between incidents.”

“She wasn’t killed by the gunshot. The file
said they found lethal amounts of mono-acetyl morphine. She ODed on
morphine?”

Dad shook his head. “Heroin.
Monoacetylmorphine is what is found in the body after heroin has
been ingested.”

“They had a
heroin addict
staying
with them?”

“Probably not an addict. It’s not uncommon
for first time users to OD.”

“Where did she get all the
paraphernalia?”

“She didn’t need needles and so forth. She
ate the heroin. She wouldn’t have tracks; they might not have had
any idea she was using. Ingested toxins showed up in the stomach,
also the lividity color, deep purple, was consistent with asphyxia.
That’s what heroin OD’s die from, especially if they’ve been
drinking alcohol which is also a brain depressant. Opiates suppress
the respiratory center of the brain, the user falls asleep, slips
into a coma, stops breathing, dies from asphyxia.”

“Mrs. Mac described the girl. Her
description fits the description of the Jane Doe from what I read
in your file. She also said the girl, Jennifer, who had been
staying there, had been having sex with all four of the guys. Could
they exhume the body for semen samples?” I asked.

“No need. Samples of vaginal swabs would
have been taken at the autopsy. They’d be dried and stored.”

“So when you read the file, you wondered if
there was a connection to the farm?” I watched my father’s
face.

“I remembered Mrs. Mac complaining about a
girl she called a slut who had been there, unusual for Mrs. Mac,
she isn’t usually critical. And she had mentioned something about
the girl’s freckles being the ugly kind, or something,” Dad said.
“I went to see her; she did indeed describe the Jane Doe. Years
hadn’t dulled her memory––she was pretty shocked by the girl and
her behavior.”

“So what did you do then?”

“I went to see each of my friends, much like
what you’ve been doing for the last two days.”

“And?”

“The bottom line was, I was convinced they
hadn’t killed her. The statute of limitations had long since run
out on any crime the four of them may have committed. Failing to
report a death, even a suspicious one, is a misdemeanor. But I did
get Tom to look at a line up with the hopes he could ID Allen. He
couldn’t pick anyone. He said the man he’d spoken with wasn’t there
even allowing for the passage of time.” Dad sighed, pushed back
against his chair. “I still had insufficient evidence against
Allen, and at the time, I was convinced he was the Zodiac.”

“And now you’re not?”

“DNA from postage stamps on the Zodiac’s
letters, wasn’t Allen’s.”

“Right, I remember reading that,” I
said.

“When Derek came to the Berkeley police,
years after the Zodiac was inactive, with this story and said he
had evidence, but that his dad was dead, I was contacted. The law
enforcement agencies in the Bay Area knew I had spent years on the
cases. I advised leave it be, don’t dredge it all up again,” Dad
grimaced, rubbed his forehead. “I was worried about what might
happen, if evidence linking my friends would be included. It would
only be damaging to their reputations at that point. I thought
there was no justice to be served. That it was time to move
on.”

“How could you?” I’m pretty sure I failed to
keep the disappointment out of my voice.

“Sweetheart, I’m sorry not to live up to
your expectations.”

Tears ran down my face. “How could you still
be friends with them?” I rebuffed Dad’s effort to put an arm around
my shoulders.

“We all make mistakes.” He sat back down.
“They panicked. They didn’t want to be tied to a scandal. They had
nothing whatsoever to do with her obtaining, having possession of,
or taking the heroin. She didn’t shoot up. They had no idea what
she was up to.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Dad sighed, looked at me with disappointment
evident on his face. “We were not any of us heavy druggies. I can’t
imagine any one of them even knew how to buy heroin. Or that they
would want to. No, I’m certain she brought the drug with her when
she arrived.”

“Okay, whatever . . . I’m still not clear
why the Berkeley police ignored Derek’s efforts to help with their
investigation.”

“That was almost two decades later.”

“But Dad, Derek said he sent letters to the
police while he was still in Italy. That was early on.”

“Sweetheart, you can’t imagine the flood of
letters about the Zodiac that were received by every police
department in the Bay Area. It was impossible to follow up on all
of them––especially one from Italy.”

“You knew he was in Italy?”

“After the fact.” Dad stood up, held out a
hand to help me from my chair. “Can we get some sleep for a couple
hours at least?”

“Which of my uncles was on the phone the day
I asked for the file?” I held my position in the chair.

“Tom.”

“Did he hire the kidnappers?

“We’ll find out who did, I promise.”

57

I woke up a few hours later in a panic until
I remembered that Mom was safe. I drifted back to sleep. When I
dragged myself out in the afternoon, I found Dad and Detective
Schmidt involved in an intense conversation in the living room. It
seemed that Detective Schmidt had spent the morning interviewing
Ron and Jamie; Tom and Elliott were slated for the late afternoon.
Tom had already been picked up by SFPD.

“It’s possible that Jamie and Ron had no
prior knowledge,” Dad said.

“May I join you?” I asked and plopped on the
sofa. “Jamie wasn’t at all surprised to see Steven and me show up
with Ron.” I was willing to bet that Jamie was the recipient of the
phone call Ron had stepped away from us to make.

“Word must’ve gotten around that you and
Steven were looking for Lauren," Dad said. "I had called all four
of them to see if they could be any help. Not all of them returned
my call immediately. They probably spoke with each other as
well.”

“Dad told you that Tom knew I had the file?”
I asked.

“Yeah,” Detective Schmidt said. “And we
already know that one of the men who kidnapped your mother, and
presumably shot at you, is occasionally employed by Tom O’Connor’s
law firm as an investigator. That’s why Mr. O’Connor is now in
custody. Just a matter of time until we’ve also picked up the two
men, the investigator Mr. Samuels and his accomplice, a Mr. Bubbal.
Their fingerprints were on file. Mr. Bubbal has a criminal
record.”

“So it’s over?” I asked, “We don’t have to
worry about anyone’s safety?”

Detective Schmidt nodded. “Just a couple of
loose ends. We want to see if anyone other than these three perps
could be involved. So we’ll be keeping you safe until this is all
wrapped up in a neat little package.”

“Cool. I’m down with that,” I said. “What
about the hair in the box?”

“DNA testing is not complete on all of the
samples, but from what has been done, looks to be from the Zodiac’s
victims. And the rifle Derek Hamilton gave us, is one of two guns
used by the Zodiac.”

“You know, there were some things about the
Zodiac file I had questions about. Dad explained a couple of things
last night. Maybe you could help me with the others?”

“Shoot,” Detective Schmidt said.

“We’ve explained one thing that didn’t fit;
the moving of the bodies, cause one wasn’t a body at all. He was
taken away, and the other, the Jane Doe, wasn’t a Zodiac victim,
although it seems he––that is the Zodiac––was enlisted to move the
body. But what about the other changes in his MO, the modus
operandi?”

“Yeah?”

“The earliest victims were shot, right?”

“Yeah.”

“But later sometimes he shot them, sometimes
he, supposedly the same ‘he’, stabbed and cut them with a knife.
Carved them to be more accurate. Now using a knife is really
something different from using a rifle and shooting from a
distance. A knife is up close and personal, way different.”

“You’ve got a point, young lady.”

“There’s also the fact that serial killers
tend to operate close to where they live, especially at the
beginning. The first killings confirmed as the Zodiac were in
Benicia, and the letters were mailed from there, too. The later
attacks at Lake Berryessa, Lake Herman Road in Benicia, Vallejo,
even Modesto and Berkeley are fairly close especially as
chronologically those attacks came later, but Presidio Heights is
in San Francisco, then Half Moon Bay, the Sunset district again in
the city, Noe Valley, in the city. Those in San Francisco don’t
follow a pattern that profilers would expect. And the ones in the
city all involved a knife.”

“Except the taxi driver. Keep in mind MO’s
have been known to change; signatures don’t.”

“Signature? The hair?”

Detective Schmidt nodded at me, but his body
language clearly said he was not anxious to re-open the Zodiac case
with all the attendant publicity and public hysteria. “Yeah, the
hair was always cut with same kind of knife in the city . . . and
that was a closely guarded secret.”

The front door of the house slammed, Elliott
Burns stomped through the entry hall and into the living room where
we sat. Detective Schmidt stood. Dad introduced them.

“I thought I’d better come see what the hell
is going on up here. Nance has told me some wild tales,” Elliott
removed his trench coat, exposing his usual stodgy three-piece
suit.

I looked at Elliott with new eyes,
remembered that he had been sturdily built in college. Now he was
bloated, paunchy.

“We’ve had some excitement, but it seems to
be all under control now. I’m glad to see you, Sir. This saves me a
trip to Oakland. Is there someplace private where we could talk
briefly?” Detective Schmidt asked.

“Sure, right this way.” Elliott showed the
detective into the den off the entry and closed the door.

Shit! I would’ve loved to have heard that
conversation. I headed to the kitchen and some breakfast.