Girl With a Past

by Sherri Leigh James

  “I really could go get wood for you. You’ve got Mom. I’m not gonna leave her.” I might flag someone down on the road, tell them to get help, but I wouldn’t leave. “Scout’s honor.”

  “Fuck, you do fuckin’ think I’m fuckin’ stupid.”

  “I’ve gotta go to the bathroom,” I said. Maybe something in the bathroom would give me an idea how to get out of this. Maybe scissors or a razor stored in there could be a weapon.

  He grunted. “Tough shit.” He cackled. “I’m not untying ya.”

  He paced around the small dining and living rooms.

  Fatty came in shivering, shaking himself.

  “What’s he want us ta do wit ‘em?” Brawny asked.

  “Turn’em loose.”

  “But they can ID us.”

  “He says he can take care of that.”

  “Bullshit! I can take care of dat––” He pulled a gun out of his pocket.

  CHAPTER

  53

  Fatty held up a hand in the stop signal. “Yeah, it’s bull, but we won’t get paid if we don’t do as he says. He’s still pissed that we did anythin’ other than take the papers.”

  “But he was da one havin’ fits cause we missed important papers. We was just tryin’ ta do da job right. Doesn’t he appreciate dat?”

  “Fuck, no.”

  “If we do it his way, we won’t get ta spend any money. We’ll be in jail forever.”

  “I gotta think.” Fatty rubbed his head as though thinking were a painful process. “Can’t let’em go.”

  “I’m hungry, you take a turn in here.” Brawny picked up a jacket and poked a thick arm into a sleeve. “I’m getting food.”

  “You don’t think I wouldn’t rather be in here instead of freezin my balls off out there.”

  Brawny finished putting on his coat. “Dat one,” he said as he pointed to me, “has ta go ta da bathroom.”

  “Lock’em in the bathroom,” said the big one.

  “How’em I supposed to do dat? Da locks on da inside,” Brawny said smugly as though proud to have pointed out a fallacy in his boss’s plan.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake.” Fatty picked up the chair I sat in, and banged through the bedroom door on into the bathroom. He returned for Mom taking no care not to run into walls and doorframes. Mom’s chair was up ended into the tub.

  We heard the sound of a chair being wedged under the handle and furniture being piled in front of the door. Then came the sound of doors being slammed, a car starting.

  One of my feet was not securely tied to the chair. I pulled it lose and stretched my leg to push Mom’s chair upright. “Are you okay?” I looked her over; a little blood trickled from her eyebrow.

  I walked my chair by twisting the legs first one, then the other back and forth until I was against the door. I threw myself and my chair against the door. Nothing budged. I tried it again. God that hurt! But the door was not going to give.

  I slid my chair next to the back of Mom’s. I tried untying her hand with one of mine. It was slow going, maybe impossible.

  “Have they left before?”

  “No. Are you sure you want to undo me? They’ll just get angry. There’s no way out of this room.”

  True. There was only a slit of a window above the tub. Could I squeeze through there? Not likely.

  “We could open the window and scream for help?” I suggested still fumbling with one tied down hand to untie mom’s hand.

  “They’d probably be the only one’s to hear us.”

  “Worth a shot. Have you got a better idea?”

  “If you break the window open and they’re gone all night, we’ll freeze.”

  “Just hold still while I work on these knots.” I tried to pry a finger into the knot. “Who are these guys?”

  “No idea.” Mom sighed. “But I know they weren’t supposed to shoot you. They were supposed to get some papers before you read them, and when they didn’t, they took it upon themselves to kidnap me to keep you quiet. Then they got the idea to kill you so you couldn’t talk . . . all of which was way beyond what they were asked to do. They’ve been trying to figure out how to get back in the good graces of the person who hired them ever since we got here.”

  “Mom, the papers are Dad’s file on the Zodiac killer. When we get out of here, you’re gonna tell me everything you know about Lexi’s murder and a girl named Jennifer.”

  “O-o-oh.” Mom sighed, caught a sob.

  “I think . . . I’ve almost got one of your hands undone. Can you use your fingers to hold this piece of rope? Here, feel that?”

  “Al, think of something else, we can’t get out of here.”

  “Please. Don’t give up so easily.”

  “So easily! What?” Mom twisted around to glare at me. “I’ve been tied up for four days. They let me go to the bathroom three times, gave me water twice, and I haven’t given up. I’ve fought to stay sane, but look at that window. Neither one of us can get out that thing, and yesterday, the last time they let me go to the bathroom, I could barely walk.”

  I looked around the room. “I’ll take the top off the toilet and use it to break out the window frame as well as the glass. These old walls aren’t that strong. Dad’s always complaining about the amount of work this place needs, how much dry rot there is in the wood. Maybe the walls will break.”

  I dropped the knot I’d been working on and fumbled to find it. “You can watch for them to come back. I’ll scream and break. Just help me get this undone.”

  “Lock the door. If we get in the tub, and put that toilet top on us, maybe we can withstand them shooting at us,” Mom said.

  “Mom, help me. Hold on to the rope and hold still.” I didn’t want to admit it, but Mom was right. Even if I could untie her hand, which wasn’t going very well, what then? The cord kept slipping from my fingers, and then I had to start over finding the piece to pull. If my hands weren’t shaking, it would help. I took a deep breath.

  I twisted my two fingers around the cord and tried to wedge my fingernail in between the sides of the knot. I persisted. I broke the nail but I kept pushing. Finally I felt a little give, I pushed harder, got it, and pulled another strand. I pulled Mom’s hand free.

  Mom shook her hand, bending and stretching her fingers.

  “Get your other hand. I’ll help. Then you do mine,” I ordered.

  “I need to get circulation going in this hand before I can do anything with it.” She wiggled her fingers faster. “Can you reach the drawer in that dresser?” Mom asked.

  “I can try, why?”

  “I think there’s a pair of shears in there.”

  “Now you tell me that.” I’d just spent what seemed like hours getting her one hand undone. Maybe not really that long, but at least half an hour. If they’d gone to eat, they shouldn’t be much more than an hour.

  I twisted my chair from leg to leg, scooted next to the antique dresser, and used my teeth to pull on a knob. I leaned my face into the drawer and tongued a pair of nail scissors. With my teeth, I held them up for Mom to see. I grunted to get her attention; she was concentrating on untying her other hand.

  “That’ll work.” She grabbed them with her free hand and used the small blade to saw at the cord.

  “Mom, do you remember a girl named Jennifer from Jamie’s farm around the time Lexi was killed?”

  “Sweetheart, I didn’t go to the farm until months after Lexi died.”

  “Why was Uncle Tom asked to pick a guy out of a line up?”

  She slipped from where she was sawing, groaning when she stabbed herself with the small blade.

  “Sorry, never mind. Don’t talk, concentrate.”

  “Got it.” Mom had two hands free.

  She untied mine, then we both undid our feet.

  “Now what?” Mom asked.

  I lifted the toilet top, swung it thru the window. Glass flew at us.

  The first couple times Mom tried to stand, her legs collapsed. I rubbed the circulation back into one leg whi
le she rubbed the other. Finally she succeeded in holding up a towel so that the next swing sent glass sliding down the wall, not at us.

  We used bloodied fingers to pull shards of glass, and broken wood frame from the opening and tossed them into the tub. Frigid air streamed into the room.

  “You better be right about this,” Mom teased. She stuck her head in the opening and we both screamed, “HELP! HELP! HELP!”

  “Get back, Mom.” I took a huge swing, and broke free a chunk of the pine paneling.

  “Stop. Hear that?” Mom asked. “I hear a car.” She pulled the towel away from the window.

  Time’s up already?

  I looked at the hole. Maybe I could get out, although I would do a lot of damage on the jagged bits. But Mom could barely stand. She’d never be able to get up and through there.

  CHAPTER

  54

  I looked out the window and saw Nancy’s Range Rover in the circular drive. Steven and Nancy, each holding a gun, crept towards the house.

  I screamed out the window. “Steven! Hurry! Get us out. They’ll be back any minute.”

  Steven ran to the house and burst through the back door.

  “Hurry! Hurry, they’ll be back,” I screamed.

  We heard them both struggle to pull furniture away from the door.

  I heard the chair scrape away, the door shook.

  “Unlock the door Al!”

  Shit!

  Steven picked Mom up in a fireman’s carry; we piled into Nancy’s car just as Mom’s car pulled into the drive.

  “Get down,” Steven yelled. He gunned the motor down the circular drive and screeched through the gate without checking the traffic.

  Mom’s car was right on our tail.

  CHAPTER

  55

  “Go to the sheriff’s station,” I yelled. “It’s just off North Lake Boulevard.”

  “Where are they?” Steven asked.

  Shots hit the rear window frame, then the tailgate.

  “Get down! Lie down on the floor back there,” I screamed at Mom and Nancy. “Right behind us,” I told Steven. “The guy on the passenger side has a gun trained on us.”

  “Not stupid enough to follow us into the sheriff’s substation are they?” Steven asked.

  “Just drive.”

  “Where is it?” Steven asked.

  “Turn left off of Lake Boulevard just past the road to Ron's condo,” Nancy said looking at the map on her iPhone. “I’ve seen it before, it's way past the golf course.” She dialed 9-1-1.

  “It’s the same place you go to pay traffic tickets. It’s the courthouse and substation all in one building,” Mom said.

  Steven screeched the car into the asphalt parking lot. The building looked like a ski chalet with its steep roof and dormers covered in gray horizontal siding and white trim. One closed door displayed the traffic court hours on a hand painted wood sign.

  “Other side,” Mom said.

  Steven hit the brakes next to a Sheriff’s black SUV. Nancy and I jumped from the car and jerked open a wood door. Steven carried Mom into the building. I slammed the door to the station closed behind us.

  “Uh, this is not a public area. The court is closed for the day.” A frowning middle aged woman behind a desk stood to shoo us away.

  “Get out of the way!” we all yelled at her at once. “Where’s the sheriff? We’re being chased by killers. They have been holding our mother captive.”

  “The sheriff is expecting us,” Nancy said.

  Steven got on his phone, “Detective Schmidt, we couldn’t wait for you. The bad guys left, then we heard Mom and Al screaming. We have Mom and Al. Now we are at the Tahoe City Sheriff’s Sub Station on North Lake Boulevard. How far away are you?” Steven listened, then hung up the phone. “He thinks he’s five minutes from Tahoe City, coming in from the Reno airport.”

  A petite woman in a sheriff’s uniform rushed out of an inner office. “Detective Schmidt is on the phone with my boss. He says to keep you secure.” She ushered us through a doorway to a hall, then into an office.

  A heavyset uniformed man, with hair too black for the wrinkles and sags in his face, came from behind a desk to shake our hands. “Detective Schmidt has had us on standby, ready to go get you upon his arrival. Glad to see you’re ok.”

  “The guys who were holding Mom and Al followed us here,” Steven said. “In Mom’s Lexus.”

  Three uniformed men in the room jumped to attention, pulled their guns from holsters, and ran out to the parking lot.

  “Actually, the last time I saw them was when we crossed Fanny Bridge,” I yelled from inside the doorway.

  Steven gave the sheriff the make, model, color and license plate of Mom’s car, which was broadcast to patrol cars with instructions to approach with caution, suspects armed, dangerous.

  “They were right behind us as we came across Fanny Bridge into Tahoe City. I was looking for the turn off into your parking lot and stopped watching’em then. I didn’t see them once we got into the lot,” I explained.

  “Would they have another car in the area?” the sheriff asked Mom.

  “I don’t know. They were both in my car on the drive up here from Berkeley. I was tied up in the back seat. I didn’t see another car when we arrived at our place up here.”

  A sharp rap on the office door announced the arrival of Detective Schmidt. He nodded at me, then his eyes lit on Mom. “Mrs. Nichols, I’m glad to see you. Are you okay?”

  “Mom, this is Detective Schmidt. He has been heading the search for you,” Steven explained to Mom.

  Mom extended her hand, “Thank you Detective.”

  “Your husband sent his friend’s plane to bring me up here from Oakland. I believe the plane returned to the city for him. So come to think of it, he should be here in less than an hour.”

  “Thank you,” Mom said with a nod.

  The Sheriff explained that he had deputies looking for Mom’s Lexus and confirming that the kidnappers were not at our compound.

  “Are you up to returning to your place?” Detective Schmidt said to Mom, “It would be helpful if the two of you,” a nod indicating Mom and me, “could show us where best to check for fingerprints and so on.”

  “I need to stretch my legs a bit, get my circulation back before getting back in a car. Can you give me a few minutes?” Mom had been limping around on Nancy’s arm; although Nancy was so slight she couldn’t possibly be holding Mom up. Steven finally noticed and offered his mother his arm.

  “We’d both like to use a ladies’ room. Mom needs water and food,” I said. “And warmer clothes.”

  “Of course,” Detective Schmidt said. He turned to the Sheriff. “Is there a hospital nearby, or a medico who could check out the ladies? Make sure they’re okay.”

  “I’ll go to my place and pick up clothes for Lauren,” Nancy offered.

  “Thank you Mrs. Burns. Sheriff, please have two deputies take Mrs. Burns to her place. Be on alert. The kidnappers could be lurking around there,” Detective Schmidt said.

  We excused ourselves, used the facilities, and splashed water on our faces. When we returned to the sheriff’s desk, a doctor waited in the office. He checked Mom’s vital signs, then mine. I left the office closing the door behind me to give Mom some privacy while the doctor further examined her.

  I turned to speak with the detective. He ushered me into an adjoining office.

  I told him what I knew, not telling him exactly how I knew some of it. I hoped I’d never have to testify to any of this.

  I explained that one, if not all of my so-called “uncles,” had probably hired these guys to get Dad’s file. The hired guys had failed to get every piece, so they decided on their own to kidnap Mom, and when that didn’t seem like it would shut me up, they shot at me. Or at least, that’s how I saw it.

  “How do you think they knew you were still on it?” Detective Schmidt asked.

  “Maybe someone had an intercept on my phone, heard me tell Dad I knew what was
going on? Dad warned me to get rid of my phone. So maybe that’s also how they knew where to find me. Also, one of my “uncles” was on the phone with Dad when I asked for the file. We need to find out from my Dad who he was talking to. Whoever that was probably hired the guys.”

  “Why’d they want the file?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “Something to do with a girl named Jennifer. Maybe she was the Jane Doe. The one body thought to have been moved by the Zodiac.”

  The detective raised his eyebrows. “I looked over the Zodiac case. Your dad thought there might be a tie-in.” He stopped speaking and looked at his shoes. “As it happens, I know a little about the Zodiac case. I was in the vicinity the night the taxi driver was shot in San Francisco. I got the call and was first on the scene. Wasn’t my case, but I did follow it closely after that.”

  I wondered why he hadn’t mentioned that before. I hesitated, but then went ahead and asked him. “You worked on the Zodiac case?”

  “No.”

  “But you . . ."

  “I was a brand new detective. My wife was a nurse at UCSF hospital. I used a police car to pick her up and we were on our way home. I was embarrassed to have her in the car. That was a long time ago.”

  I nodded, not sure what that story had to do with him not mentioning his connection to the Zodiac much earlier, but so what?

  “Is it possible to exhume that body? The Jane Doe.” I asked, “Would it still have DNA in semen? I mean, how long does it take for DNA to degrade?”

  “They have technology that can use mitochondrial DNA. That’s a more stable component to at least demonstrate familial relationships, perhaps not DNA fingerprinting, not always enough to tie a suspect beyond a doubt, but thirty-six year old semen was used to eliminate a suspect in 2000.” Detective Schmidt said. “But, I don’t get something. The Zodiac wasn’t known to rape his victims. Why check semen?”

  “I think, from overheard conversations, that Jane Doe was actually a girl named Jennifer who possibly, just prior to her death, had sex with four of my uncles.” I hoped he would assume the conversations to which I referred had perhaps taken place while I was captive, definitely more recently than forty years ago.