by Larry Darter
The detectives walked back to the apartments. The attendant’s story was helpful because the description he had given matched that of Narek Hovnanian. That put Hovnanian in the apartment complex around the time of the murder, weeks after his mother had moved out of her apartment. The fact that he had climbed the back fence when leaving was also suspicious.
“And then there were two,” Drew said.
Ortega laughed. “Yeah, it’s either the Armenian or the Jamaican,” he agreed.
“I’m curious to find out if Teddy ever got on that bus to New York,” Drew said.
The detectives loitered inside the apartment until the fingerprint team finished. A technician told them they had had no luck with the ninhydrin but had lifted several identifiable prints using the conventional method. He said they would run the prints through AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, to see if they got any hits.
As they were leaving the apartment, Drew glanced around the living room one last time. “It’s kind of sad she died here like that,” he said. “All alone in this apartment, with no family around.”
Ortega and Drew drove back to West Bureau. When they got to their desks, Ortega had a phone message from the Greyhound representative he spoken to earlier. He picked up the phone and called her back.
After hanging up, Ortega looked at Drew. “Hamilton did take the bus to New York,” he said.
“Maybe he did the murder and decided skip town for a while until he thought the heat was off,” Drew said. “He told Cooke when she talked to him he was probably coming back to Los Angeles.”
“Yeah, well, we can worry about him after we find Hovnanian and have a talk with him,” Ortega said. “Other than that, we’re kind of in a holding pattern waiting for the evidence analysis to come through. There’s not much we can do for now.”
“I still have more reports to go through to see if I can find any cases that parallel the Henry murder,” Drew said. “Guess I’ll go back to that.”
“Okay, I’ll run down the street and get us some coffee,” Ortega said.
After Ortega had left the squad room, Drew’s phone rang. When he answered, it was a New York investigator out of the Westchester County prosecutor’s office that Drew had spoken with and shared information about William Hurst a few times. They had both agreed to call the other anytime either of them had any significant information to pass on that might be related to the other’s case.
The investigator told Drew that the county prosecutor had impaneled a grand jury and had subpoenaed William Hurst to testify about his wife’s disappearance and suspected murder. He said that instead of appearing before the grand jury, Hurst had fled the state. Hurst’s attorneys claimed they did not know their client’s whereabouts and could not contact him.
“The reason I called is we got a tip that he may have headed your direction,” the investigator said. “He owns a house up near San Francisco.”
“Yes, he mentioned that the first time I talked with him by phone,” Drew said.
“This is where it gets interesting,” the investigator said. “We contacted Humbolt County to ask them to check Hurst’s house occasionally to see if he was living out there. They told us that Hurst is a person of interest in the disappearance of two teenage girls out there that occurred in 2016.”
“Are you kidding me?” Drew said.
“Nope, it’s all on the level,” the investigator said. “I thought you might want to call a detective I just talked to in Eureka, California. That’s the agency investigating the disappearance of one of the girls. I mentioned Hurst is also a person of interest in your murder case. He told me he has evidence that proves Hurst was in California at the time of your victim’s murder.”
The investigator gave Drew the name and telephone number of the Eureka detective. They spoke for another minute and then hung up. Drew dialed the number he had been given and reached Detective Jordan Mitchell. Drew identified himself and told Mitchell an investigator from Westchester County in New York, had given him Mitchell’s name and number.
“I was told you might be able to share evidence with us that puts William Hurst in California at the time of a murder we’re investigating,” Drew said.
“Yes, I can,” Mitchell said. “Hang on and let me grab a file.”
Mitchell came back on the line a few minutes later.
“We have a manifest from a private jet charter outfit out of New York that shows they flew Hurst from New York to Arcata-Eureka airport on December nineteenth of last year. Airport records show he picked up a car he owns from long-term parking there. We also have records from his cell phone provider where tower pings put him in Garberville the next day. Garberville is about a nine-hour drive from Los Angeles.”
“Yes, that could easily have put him here in L.A. on December 22, the last day our victim was seen alive,” Drew said. “According to the time of death estimate, we believe the shooter killed our victim late the evening of December 22 or the early morning hours of December 23.”
“Okay,” Mitchell said. “Then, according to the airport and the charter airline’s records, Hurst returned his car to long-term parking at Arcata-Eureka airport the evening of December 23 before taking a flight to San Francisco International. There he boarded a 10 P.M. flight back to New York’s JFK.”
“That’s extremely helpful,” Drew said. “Hurst told me he hadn’t been to California since the summer of last year, around seven months before the murder. Now we know he lied to us. And we can reasonably assert he was in California and had more than ample time to murder our victim before heading back to San Francisco for the return flight to New York.”
“Have you guys interviewed him about your case?” Mitchell said.
“No, I’ve only talked with Hurst by phone two times,” Drew said. “His lawyers won’t let us interview him.”
“Same deal here,” Mitchell said. “He isn’t technically a suspect, but a person of interest we can’t clear in the disappearance of a Eureka girl who was sixteen at the time. We’ve tried getting him to talk to us, but the New York law firm representing him has stonewalled us.”
“What brought him to your attention?” Drew said.
“Hurst owns a house in Trinidad, a neighboring town twenty-three miles from my city. The day the girl disappeared, she had volunteered at a homeless shelter in the area, a place where witnesses have spotted Hurst before. After the girl left the shelter, she went to her aunt’s shoe store here in Eureka. After leaving the shop, she vanished without a trace. We have witnesses that say Hurst used to frequent the aunt’s shop while dressed in drag. Our composite artist sketched a man witnesses saw the girl with, and it’s the spitting image of William Hurst.”
“So you don’t have enough for an arrest warrant?” Drew said.
“Not at the moment, and he won’t talk with us,” Mitchell said.
“The New York investigator said that there are two missing girls,” Drew said.
“Yeah, the other one, an eighteen-year-old, disappeared five months before our victim,” Mitchell said. “She disappeared from San Francisco. SFPD has that case. Hurst was living in San Francisco at the time of her disappearance, and they have some circumstantial evidence showing he might be connected. Anyway, Hurst left Northern California right after our victim disappeared three years ago. We’ve been keeping track of him, hoping to catch him back out here so we can talk with him.”
“Can you fax me copies of the documents you guys have?” Drew said.
“Sure, no problem,” Mitchell said. “I’ll fax them now. And If you guys can arrest Hurst, I’d like to come to L.A. and interview him.”
“Deal,” Drew said. He gave Mitchell the fax number, and they hung up.
Drew felt euphoric. It now seemed a distinct possibility William Hurst was not only their suspect but maybe a serial killer. New York authorities believed he killed his wife. Drew felt even more certain Hurst had killed Fiona Silverman. And now he had just learned the police in Northern California sus
pected Hurst in the disappearance of two teenage girls. The information Mitchell had provided wouldn’t be enough for LAPD to get an arrest warrant. Still, it was another important piece of circumstantial evidence that moved them a step closer to clearing Silverman’s murder.
Ortega arrived back in the squad room with paper cups of Starbucks coffee only minutes after Drew had hung up with the Eureka detective. Drew quickly filled in his partner on the fresh development in the Silverman case.
“Since we’ve reached a sort of standstill in the Henry case, waiting for evidence analysis and the opportunity to interview our two suspects, we should have some time to work the Silverman case,” Ortega said.
“What we need is the chance to interview Hurst,” Drew said. “But I don’t see that happening.”
“No, maybe not,” Ortega said. “But we can go back to work on Nelson Welch. He’s still a viable suspect we can’t ignore until we can eliminate him. We need to talk to his friends and acquaintances to get more of a feel for the guy. Until we’re able to eliminate Welch, we can’t just put all our focus on Hurst.”
“Okay,” Drew said. “I’ll start working up a list of Welch’s friends and acquaintances. I can start setting up interviews tomorrow.”
Ortega’s phone rang. He picked it up and talked with the caller for less than a minute before hanging up.
“We’ll have to wait a day before getting back to the Silverman case,” Ortega said. “That was the ME’s office. They’re doing the cut on Henry tomorrow morning.”
Chapter 24
The room smelled of disinfectant and decomposing flesh. It seemed to Drew to be another indignity heaped upon indignity. A deputy coroner named Sandoval hunched over the steel table, his bloody gloved hands deep inside the gutted torso, working with forceps and a scalpel. Sandavol was not tall, and he stood on his tiptoes to reach down and inside the open chest cavity.
What bothered Drew about the grisly scene was that someone had already violated the body so horribly. The autopsy seemed almost to add insult to injury. The young woman’s mouth was open as if in a silent scream. Her sightless eyes directed upward as though begging some unseen deity for mercy.
Deep down, Drew knew the dead were dead. They no longer suffered the cruelties of life. Even so, it took every ounce of his self-discipline to not grab Sandavol by the arm and scream—enough is enough. Shouldn’t death be a time of peace and release from the torments of life?
But Drew said nothing. He stood mute beside Ortega and watched. More important than his indignation and the desire to speak out against the continued outrage inflicted on Bailey Henry was Drew’s need for evidence that might help him get justice for her. Justice, that was the best way he could keep the sacred trust—to speak for the dead.
Sandavol dropped back on his heels to rest. He blew out his breath, temporarily fogging his spatter shield. “Almost done,” Sandavol said, reaching for another sterilized tool.
Drew nodded imperceptibly. Sandavol had removed all the organs and intestines, weighed them, and bagged them, leaving only the husk formed by the upturned ribs.
“That’s it,” Sandavol said, dropping the instrument in a stainless-steel sink where the running faucet kept the water level to the overflow drain. He then stripped off the rubber gloves and tossed them into a bin beside the sink before removing the spatter shield and turning and facing the detectives.
“Ms. Henry died because of violent mechanical asphyxia caused by manual strangulation. I am listing the cause of death as homicide,” Sandavol said. “There were petechiae in the eyelids, sclerae, and gum line because of ruptures of the microvasculature, along with hyoid bone and laryngeal fractures. There were patterned contusions and abrasions of the middle and anterior neck caused by fingernails and finger touch pads.”
“Sexual assault?” Ortega said.
“Yes,” Sandavol said. “There were abrasions and bruising on the labia majora and labia minora, along with tears of the fossa navicularis and the posterior fourchette. We’ll have to wait for the analysis of the specimens to be sure, but I found no evidence of semen suggesting the assailant wore a condom.”
“How about the head injury?” Ortega said.
“Contusion and a minor laceration resulting from blunt force trauma,” Sandavol said. “Non-life threatening, but the force may have stunned the victim. My best guess is the assailant punched Ms. Henry in the back of the head with a closed fist, and the laceration likely resulted from a ring the assailant wore.”
Ortega nodded. “Thanks, doc.”
“You’re probably looking for a male with large, powerful hands,” Sandavol said, holding up his right hand with his fingers bent like a claw. “I think he got her like this, with one hand, right below the vocal cords. It was very quick, and the liquidity of the blood bears that out. She died quickly. There was no clotting.”
“Can you narrow down the time of death for us?” Ortega said.
Sandavol said, “I’ll be able to tell you more later, but based on her stomach contents, she had a full meal only a few hours before death. A meal like that would take six to eight hours to digest fully.”
Ortega nodded again. “That helps,” he said. “It means it’s more likely she died Friday evening than early Saturday morning.”
* * *
Back in the squad room, a detective yelled across the room to Ortega that Henry’s father was calling from Texas. The detective ran his fingers under his eyes to show the man was crying. Drew had been unable to find a phone number for the parents to make the death notification. As a last resort, he had phoned the Round Rock, Texas police and asked them for help in tracking down Henry’s parents.
“I’ll take the call,” Drew said to Ortega and signaled the detective on the phone to transfer the call to him. Drew’s phone rang, and he picked up the receiver.
“Is it true my daughter, Bailey Henry, is dead?” Robert Henry asked in an anguished voice after identifying himself.
“Yes, sir, she is,” Drew said softly into the phone. “I’m terribly sorry for your loss, Mr. Henry.”
“Dear God,” Henry sobbed. “What happened?”
“I know how hard this will be for you to hear,” Drew said. “But I don’t want to hold anything back from you. Someone strangled Bailey, but please keep that to yourself.”
“Oh, my God,” Henry said. “Do you know who killed here?”
“Not yet,” Drew said. “We’re still in the early stages of the investigation, but we’re following some promising leads. I’d like to ask you a few questions if you feel up to it.”
After finishing the call, Drew briefed Ortega.
“The parents are flying out tomorrow,” Drew said. “I told them the ME wouldn’t release the body for a few days, but they felt they needed to come out right away.”
“Understandable,” Ortega said. “I can’t imagine how tough it is to lose a kid, especially under the circumstances.”
“Yeah,” Drew said.
“I just finished going through Henry’s bank statements and the contents of her purse,” Ortega said. “The bank is two miles from the apartments. Let’s run over there and see if she deposited money on Friday. That could explain why we didn’t find any cash in the apartment.”
* * *
Henry’s bank was on North Vermont, less than a five-minute drive from her apartment. The detectives contacted a bank officer inside who agreed to help them. The woman pulled up Henry’s account on her desktop computer. She told the detectives that Bailey Henry had almost eleven hundred dollars in her checking account and that Henry last made a deposit on the Wednesday before her death.
“Did she have an ATM card?” Ortega said. “We didn’t find one in her purse or inside her apartment.”
“Yes, she did,” the woman said. “No one has used the card since the date of her death. But of course, we’ll freeze the account now that you’ve let us know she is deceased.”
Ortega nodded. “Her parents will arrive in L.A. tomorrow,” he said.
“We’ll put them in touch with you.”
On the way out of the bank, Ortega said, “You were right. The asshole who killed her must have pocketed her money afterward. We should have found some cash in her purse or inside the apartment since we know she worked a shift the night before she died. The receipts I found in her purse didn’t add up to over fifty bucks.”
“He must have taken the ATM card too,” Drew said.
“Yeah,” Ortega said. “Too bad he hasn’t used it. That might have given us a lead.”
Drew nodded. “Yeah, lots of places you can use a debit card as a credit card without having to supply a PIN. He just couldn’t have withdrawn cash with it from an ATM.”
“So, now we have a robbery charge to go with murder,” Ortega said. “But we know that wasn’t the motive. That was just an opportunity crime.”
Drew stared out the window, studying the smoggy horizon while Ortega drove them back to West Bureau. He thought about the open jewelry box he’d seen in Baily Henry’s bedroom and wondered if the killer had taken anything from it. He made a mental note to ask her parents if Bailey had owned any unique or especially valuable jewelry pieces when he met with them.
Chapter 25
On Friday afternoon, the watch sergeant brought Bailey Henry’s parents to the squad room. Both Robert Henry and his wife Lisa looked dazed. Lisa Henry clutched a handkerchief she used to dab her red-rimmed eyes frequently. Ortega and Drew ushered them into the lieutenant’s empty office to allow them privacy.
“It will help our investigation if you can tell us more about Bailey’s personal life and habits,” Ortega said.
“I’m not sure we can tell you much about Bailey’s life here in Los Angeles,” Robert Bailey said.
“We tried to dissuade Bailey from moving out here,” Lisa Bailey added. “We wanted our daughter to follow her dreams, but we felt Bailey underestimated the difficulty of becoming an established actress.”
