“Very clever, so the caller wanted to disguise their voice,” she said, still scrutinizing the area once again. “The killer called it in, probably due to the fact that the creek levels are rising, wanting to make sure that the body was found where he left it. Couldn’t wait until tomorrow when a hiker might stumble upon it. The body might’ve washed downstream by then.” She took a step back, still troubled by the scene. “Why is this location so important to the killer and what does it have to do with the teen girl’s foster home at Elm Hill Mansion?”
McGaven didn’t immediately answer, but finally said, “I’ll put in more searches on the usage of hunter-gatherer, where it originated, books and movies that used the saying, and anything that refers to it.”
“I agree. Anything that would help to profile the killer.” She squatted down and looked at the restraints again. “Why these particular girls? What connects them besides the foster home? Too much trouble went into dumping the body here for it to be unimportant. If you can, maybe search notable crime scenes where bodies were found by water, like a creek, river, and even the beach. Might try other counties too.”
“Okay, that’s quite a reach but I’ll see what I can come up with.”
Detective Hamilton approached.
“Nice to see you, Detective,” said Katie cautiously, still not completely convinced that the detective didn’t have a bone to pick with her.
He nodded. “We weren’t able to find any other evidence around the scene aside from the body.”
“The body itself has quite a bit of evidence. Can you double the search area, and search again in the morning?” she asked. “That would mean someone would have to guard the area until sunrise for the chain of custody to stay in play.”
Hamilton started to object, but then agreed. “Of course.” He hurried towards the officers to make sure that they complied.
“At least right now, it’s not completely clear if it’s the primary or secondary crime scene. Given there are no signs of a struggle in the earth, I’d say she was dead when she got here and this is the secondary scene,” she said, more to herself, trying to get facts straight in her mind. Looking at McGaven, she said, “Did you find any other access points?”
McGaven said, “There are only two possible ways someone could have brought a body and disposed of it.” He gestured to the area where they had entered down the trail. “The way we came in or… a small back trail that intersects to another main trail. And I guess from the water too.”
“Is it easily accessible?”
“Fairly—depending upon how they transported the body or if she walked to her final destination. Anyone could use these stairs and it leads to another easy trail next to a parking lot. There are only eight stairs.”
Katie followed McGaven as he used a flashlight to illuminate the area to the far northeast corner where a set of stairs had been formed out of heavy four-by-fours with low bushes on either side. It had been heavily traveled which meant that, along with the rain, finding fresh, singular shoe impressions would be impossible. The stairs were in good condition even with the recent amount of rain.
Katie turned and called back to Hamilton, “Detective, please have this area searched and documented as well.”
“Will do,” he said.
It was unclear to Katie if he wasn’t happy about her taking over the investigation, but in the end, it didn’t matter. What mattered was finding the killer before another woman was murdered.
In a low tone to McGaven, she leaned in and said, “We need to look at the history of the girls who stayed at the Elm Hill Mansion.”
“How many years?”
“At least back ten years from the closure date. Rodriguez and Harlan were in their twenties.”
“I’ll get on it in the morning.”
“Oh, we need the names of people who worked in or around Elm Hill.”
“I’ll get on this right away, but it might be a waiting game to gather all the information.”
Katie sighed.
“What?”
“I don’t think this victim is going to be our last…”
Fifteen
I kept my head held low because I had to walk around the house to the backyard hoping a neighbor wouldn’t see me pass by their window. It would raise unwanted questions.
I pushed through the side gate and headed to the back door. Hesitating a moment, I opened it. Relief filled me. Quickly stepping inside the house and shutting the door behind me, I made my way down the hallway lined with expertly stacked piles of discarded boxes, newspapers, and magazines as high as the ceiling. The path was barely wide enough for me to slip my way to my bedroom. I moved as quietly as I could—tiptoeing in silence.
Hurrying past the bathroom, which hadn’t functioned in over a year, made me cringe with shame. The piles of clothes and various household items that covered every surface in every room weren’t mine, or my mother’s. I wasn’t sure who they belonged to, but they took up space everywhere, smothering us.
I finally made it to my bedroom. To the twin mattress on the floor in a corner where I kept two boxes filled with my only possessions. I cherished them. I quickly sat down and began to take an inventory of my books and homework as quietly as I could.
“There you are,” said my mother, standing at the doorway partially obscured by the haphazard junk towering around her.
“Hi, Mother.” I didn’t lift up my eyes to look at her. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to.
“Watcha got there? You weren’t going to share with me?” she sneered. Her voice, coarse and high-pitched, rattled me. I winced. She held a cigarette between her left index and middle fingers that were deeply stained a rust color by the nicotine—her nails were painted a horrible pink but it didn’t make them look any better.
Taking a long drag, she exhaled, allowing the smoke to swirl around her head like a fancy headdress, and finally dissipate somewhere in the cluttered room. “You think that your books are going to make you smarter? Huh? Do you? Why do you mock me with that attitude of yours?” she accused with her tone penetrating my brain—my soul.
I couldn’t get her voice out of my head…
Sixteen
Wednesday 0130 hours
Katie was on her fourth cup of lukewarm coffee and it didn’t seem to make any difference to her energy levels or performance at one thirty in the morning. Her body acted as if it was moving through waves of sludge as her mind whirred through the few leads they had at the moment. She wasn’t getting anywhere. At least not anywhere fast.
“Okay, I finally got it. I had to wake a few people up to be able to search the right county database, but I’ve got it now,” said McGaven, sleep deprivation weighing heavy in his eyes.
Katie stood up straight and waited patiently for the list.
“There are six names of the last girls who resided at Elm Hill Mansion before it was permanently closed two years ago.”
Katie leaned over McGaven’s shoulder. “Remind me,” she said sleepily.
“Okay.” He hit a few keys and a list appeared.
Candace Harlan
Mary Rodriguez
Tanis Jones
Heather Lawson
Terry Slaughter
Karen Beck
“And employees,” he said.
Shelly McDonald, house manager (live in)
Margaret Adler, housekeeper and kitchen manager
Elmer Rydesdale, grounds keeper and maintenance
Tatiana Wolf, tutor
“All girls given up for various reasons including deceased parents, incarceration, and repeat offending.”
“How sad for these young girls,” she said. “But now, we need to locate them.”
“It will take some time. Here are some notes I received from…” he looked at his notes, “Jerry Weaver, who was one of the child protective officers at the time. He remembered some details, but will have to follow up when he gets in to work.”
“Like?”
“Like the fact that Ma
ry Rodriguez was the most outspoken and most difficult of the group. She had been in juvenile detention for theft, prostitution, drugs, and a few other things, but the judge gave her another chance and, instead of jail, the opportunity to live at the foster home.”
Katie flashed back to the image of Mary’s lifeless body dumped by a rushing creek, to the pleading expression on her face.
“Also Tanis Jones and Candace Harlan were tight. They went everywhere together and always had each other’s back when one of them got in trouble at the house.”
“We need to talk with Ms. Jones and find out more information about the girls and see if her recollection is the same as the social worker’s.”
“Mr. Weaver will get us copies of their old files tomorrow.”
“Good.”
“He also said that the cops were called out to Elm Hill at least twice a week and there was one officer that seemed to take a special liking to one of the girls.”
Katie sat on the corner of her desk. “Let me guess, Candace Harlan.”
“Bingo.”
“And the officer was Hugh Keller?”
“Yep, just received the information now.”
“Anything else?”
“Oh, he did say that the girls regularly complained about the abuse from McDonald. They referred to her as a ‘she-beast’.”
“Can we find anything about the allegations of abuse? If the girls regularly complained, wouldn’t there be reports of arrests or anything? Even replacing McDonald? That seems disturbing to me,” she said. “It seems that money was an issue keeping the house updated and safe.”
“I don’t see anything referring to more information other than allegations, but I’ll keep digging.”
Katie read over the report quickly. “Ah yes, the so-called she-beast, Mrs. Shelly McDonald. Since she’s in jail, I guess I know where I’m going tomorrow.”
McGaven pushed his chair back and stretched.
“Take off. You’re exhausted and I’m spinning my wheels here. We’ll start again early tomorrow morning, which is only a few hours from now, with fresh eyes and fresh coffee.”
“I need to get out of this chair more often.” He smiled, trying to suck in his waist.
“Well, you want to go to the women’s correctional facility or the county basement of archives tomorrow?”
“That’s a tough choice.”
“We’ll have a nice little chat with Mrs. McDonald first and see what she has to say about her time as manager at Elm Hills Mansion—and who she has been talking to.”
Seventeen
Wednesday 0945 hours
Katie turned off the freeway and headed toward the correctional facility just outside Sequoia County. She had tossed and turned the entire night with the faces of both dead girls swirling in her mind. Their bluish lips and glassy eyes kept taunting Katie, blaming her for not having the answers and warning her that the killer was smarter and more cunning than anyone she had ever dealt with before.
It wasn’t the first time that Katie had dreamt of the dead. When she had witnessed a soldier die on the battlefield in Afghanistan, her first experience of death, his dying words would forever be burned in her memories—both in the daytime and dreams.
Don’t leave me… I don’t want to die…
“Have you heard anything I said?” asked McGaven who had been reading Shelly McDonald’s rap sheet out loud to her. He looked disheveled, drinking an extra-large coffee from a Styrofoam cup, and balancing several files and reports on his lap.
“I’m sorry. Do you mind repeating it again?” she said.
“At least we have one thing in common.”
“I hope we have more than just one,” she countered.
“We both look like something the cat dragged in this morning.”
Katie laughed. How true. “Keep reading about Mrs. McDonald.”
“She’s no stranger to the criminal justice system. She seems to love helping herself to other people’s things; jewelry, clothes, phones, food, and here it says she walked out of a superstore with a DVD player.”
“Ambitious.”
“She’s managed to have a lot of her sentences reduced or dismissed.”
“Interesting. Do you have a photo?” Katie said.
McGaven shuffled through papers. “She’s forty-nine, five foot eight, blonde hair, blue eyes.” He turned her booking photo toward Katie.
“Ah, makes perfect sense now,” she said.
“What?”
“She’s pretty—about middle age—but pretty nonetheless. Probably used to getting what she wants. Wonder why she took the job overseeing those girls?”
McGaven shuffled more papers. “The longest job she’s had… was about two years. She moved a lot. Maybe this job was perfect; a place to live, fairly remote and she’s in charge. She only had six girls to look after.”
Katie turned the police sedan down a narrow road leading up to the facility. It was only just wide enough for one large bus to pass. The overall landscape changed drastically. The endless razor cyclone fencing a bold contrast to the gentle sweeping slopes and pine trees they’d just passed. The land around the prison was barren, as if they had landed on the moon or some uncharted territory.
“Here we are,” she said.
“Yep, when I first started on the force I used to transport prisoners from the jail to here.” He studied the area. “Nothing’s changed.”
Katie followed the signs for visitors and law enforcement personnel. There were several police cars and a transport van already parked, but she managed to find a space. She grabbed her small notebook, but left behind her cell phone and personal items.
McGaven followed Katie’s example, emptying his pockets of personal items but keeping a file folder with notes and information.
They both exited the vehicle and adjusted their suit jackets, covering their badges and guns, before walking to the visitor entrance.
Standing at the first entrance waiting, Katie spied three cameras all focused on visitors and the parking lot. Goose pimples ran down her arms and the back of her neck; an alert system within her, warning her that she was entering a potential enemy territory and that several secure doors would be bolted behind her—with no easy escape if something went terribly wrong.
“Identifications, please,” came a voice.
Katie and McGaven showed their badges in the direction of one of the cameras.
“Detective Katie Scott and Deputy Sean McGaven are here to interview inmate Shelly McDonald,” she said.
There was a pause and then a loud buzz unlocking the first set of doors.
Katie pulled the door open and they entered. She expected it to be cooler than outside, but it was, in fact, warmer and the air was quite stale.
A correctional officer waited for them in a booth behind bulletproof glass. He barely looked up as he said, “Relinquish your weapons,” as he must have had said hundreds of times before to various visiting police officers.
Katie looked to her right to find a long row of locker-type storage units. She put her Glock 17 inside one of the cubbyholes, closed the small door, and retrieved the key. Putting it into her pocket, she waited for McGaven to do the same.
They waited for the next set of doors to open for them. There were several sets of metal detectors as a last resort before visitors moved deeper into the prison. As they walked through one set, briefly waiting to hear the loud metal doors secure behind them leaving an echo bouncing off the walls, they were immediately faced with another.
When they finally reached the area where the interview rooms were located, Katie concentrated on her breathing and ran questions through her mind. Thinking about McDonald’s character, she thought it best for McGaven, as a man, to take point on the interview.
Another correctional officer joined them and unlocked a door.
Katie put her hand on McGaven’s arm. She whispered quietly to him, “I want you to run the interview, okay?”
His eyes widened but his demeano
r told her that he understood. “You got it,” he said.
Katie would be merely an observer but would intervene if necessary to move things forward or to pose a question that hadn’t been asked.
They moved into the small room with a metal table stationed in the middle with two chairs on one side, and a single chair on the other.
The door closed behind them.
Katie took her seat next to McGaven and waited. She glanced around the room, which seemed unexpectedly clean. The four off-white walls appeared to have been painted recently.
They didn’t wait long to hear the door unlock and a guard entered, escorting Shelly McDonald in a prison jumpsuit. She looked a bit older than she did in her mug shot, but nonetheless, it was easy to see that she’d tried to hold onto her looks, even in prison. Her hair was neat and she wore some makeup.
The guard guided her to the empty chair, unlocked her handcuffs and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
Shelly looked at McGaven, smiled, and then brought her focus to Katie, scrutinizing her for a moment, before settling her attention back on McGaven.
“Mrs. McDonald,” he politely addressed. “I’m Deputy McGaven and this is Detective Scott. We’re working a homicide investigation.”
The woman’s eyes lit up and she dramatically leaned forward as if to hang on every word McGaven said. “What does that have to do with me, darlin’?” she said with a slight southern accent.
McGaven referred to his notes, but Katie knew that he already had memorized most of the information. He wanted to cut eye contact to keep the woman interested. “You were the managing caretaker for the Elm Hill Mansion home for foster girls? Correct?”
Her demeanor changed; leaning back, she stiffened her posture. “Yeah,” she said. “I never thought I’d hear about that place again.”
Last Girls Alive: A totally addictive crime thriller and mystery novel (Detective Katie Scott Book 4) Page 8
