Girl With a Past

by Sherri Leigh James

  The sheriff entered the room. “Doc has given Mrs. Nichols a clean bill of health. She’s got just some mild dehydration. She’s eaten, had water, and is in warm clothes. Ready to head out?”

  We drove back to the cabin in a caravan of Sheriff’s SUVs. I showed the authorities around, pointed out where one of the men had slept on the sofa and the door they had both touched. I couldn’t remember if Fatty had touched anything without his gloves, but Mom showed them a glass in the kitchen that he had used.

  Steven got boards out of the boathouse and used them to close up the bathroom window. “Wow, Sis, you really did some damage.”

  I shivered to think of the close call if Steven and Nancy hadn’t been nearby.

  “How did you guys happen to be close enough to hear us scream?” I asked.

  “Despite your doubts about my use of voicemail, I checked my text messages when you didn’t come back. Then I called Detective Schmidt and Dad. Dad arranged for Uncle Dave’s plane to pick up the detective near where he was in Oakland so he could coordinate a rescue. Guess Dad didn’t have much faith in local sheriffs pulling off a rescue without Mom getting hurt. Nancy and I parked on the road behind bushes, against the wall. We saw Mom’s car drive out with two guys in it, but we didn’t know how many were involved, and if there was anyone in here with you.”

  “And you had guns!” I said.

  “Yeah, Elliott keeps a few at their place.” Steven’s face reddened. “I doubt we had the safeties off, but they looked good, huh?”

  Tires on gravel announced a new arrival. Dad jumped from a sheriff’s vehicle, ran to enfold Mom in his arms, and without letting her go made his way to where Steven and I surveyed the bathroom damage, gathering us all in a family hug.

  Detective Schmidt held back for a few minutes, then spoke to us. He shook Dad’s hand but refused to take any credit for our rescue. “Your family took care of themselves and each other. Come to think of it, it was all over by the time I got here. Wherever you are staying tonight, two sheriffs will keep watch. I’d rather you didn’t stay here, though.”

  “They’re staying with me,” Nancy volunteered.

  “When you’re through here, Detective, at some point tomorrow hopefully, Steven and I need to check out the winterizing,” Dad said.

  “I’ll give you a call later this morning. And I’ll send a stenographer over to the Burns’ to take statements from Alexandra and Mrs. Nichols in the afternoon.”

  The sun was peeking over the snow covered mountain’s on the far side of the lake as Dad, Mom, Steven, Nancy and I loaded into two Sheriff’s vehicles and were driven to Nancy’s. As soon as we arrived, Mom went to soak in the tub. After hot drinks, Steven and Nancy headed off to bed.

  Flickering flames from the living room fireplace cast a golden glow on Dad and I as we sipped hot cocoa laced with brandy.

  “Okay Dad, time to come clean.”

  CHAPTER

  56

  “Sweetheart, time to get some sleep, we’ll talk in the morning.”

  “You’re not getting out of it. You’re talking to me now.”

  “You just got out of the hospital. You’ve had a very strenuous few days––especially the last twenty-four hours. Off to bed with you.”

  “NO!”

  The look Dad gave me used to scare the shit out of me when I was little.

  “Not working Dad. I can’t go to sleep with all this on my mind, and I think you know the answers to some of the questions that won’t stop running around my head.”

  Dad sighed and squirmed farther into the down chair. “What do you want to know?”

  “How long have you known that your friends living at the ranch had a connection to the Zodiac killer?”

  “No. No, I didn’t know.” Dad took a deep breath. “But I suspected. I’ve always suspected there was a link. I was freaked to think it might have been one of my friends who was the Zodiac. But it wasn’t. I know that now.”

  “Did you ever ask?”

  “Of course, Christ! Al, I am an officer of the court, I take my responsibilities quite seriously. Do you think I would knowingly let murderers run free no matter who they were?” Dad stood, paced in front of the window that overlooked the lake. Dawn sun sparkled off the snow and the water.

  I pretended that was a rhetorical question and said nothing. I didn’t want to admit I had suspected the worse of my father, who was once my best friend.

  “I was in a state of shock when Lexi was killed. It was years before I realized that Tom, Jamie, Elliott, and Ron had acted strangely afterwards. They came to the funeral, I think, then stayed for the week, but then they stayed away for months. Lauren and I went out to the ranch some weeks later. I wasn’t sure if it was because I had Lauren with me, or because Lexi’s death had changed the dynamics of our relationships in some way, or what––but it wasn’t the same. We only went there one more time. They were not the comfortable, easy friendships they had once been.”

  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 thin
gs 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.”

  CHAPTER

  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.