I easily found Rock’n Ron on social media sites but it was obvious he’d made no appearance on those pages since Ava went missing. All his pictures were selfies taken in forested areas and rocky beaches. This connection between me and Ava’s supposed killer had me very curious and changed my entire perspective on the case. I’d liked Rock’n Ron in school. Had a secret crush on him even.
I delved deeper into some of the interviews and articles, paying special attention to things people had to say about Ron. His parents, of course, cried foul because their little boy would never harm a fly. They even offered a reward for clues leading to his whereabouts. His boss at a sporting goods store and coworkers and friends all said he was a stand-up guy who liked women and hiking and not necessarily in that order. By all accounts Ron was the same guy from my high school. A good guy who wouldn’t kidnap and murder his ex-girlfriend.
And yet he apparently had.
And it certainly wouldn’t be the first time a “good guy” got into a heated exchange with a girl and killed her. The ransom thing stumped me though. By all accounts, Ron had a simple life. Shared a house with a friend and owned his own car. He worked at a job that gave him the freedom to take off time when he wanted to hike. Why the sudden need for a hundred thousand dollars from Ebba Johansson? Even though evidence proved Ron wrote the ransom letter from his own laptop that was found inside his own room in his own house, my gut said it wasn’t that cut-and-dried. Maybe the roommate...
My fingers tapped some more as I researched the roommate, Joon Kim. He’d left the country around the time Ava went missing. Police talked to him while he was in Korea visiting his sick grandmother and he gave police permission to go through the house and do whatever they needed to do to find Ava and Ron. Once he was back and all hell had broken loose, he was interviewed frequently in the media and he seemed just as baffled as everyone else. Mostly, he only said Ron was a cool guy who got along with everyone. When pushed, the most negative thing he could come up with was that Ron was a bit of a womanizer and liked to talk about his conquests and was also a bit of a slob. Joon said he’d met Ava a number of times while she dated Ron and he’d remained friendly with her even after the split. The ransom drop and snatch of the money all occurred when he was still in Korea, leaving him off the suspect list.
Sure the roommate had only positive things to say to the press about Ron and Ava, but I wondered what else Joon Kim would say if he was talking to one of Ron’s former classmates instead of the police or the media. He wasn’t hard to track down. Joon managed an electronics store in Bellingham Mall just a few miles from where I used to live, and his contact information was on the store’s website. I typed up a simple email asking if he’d mind chatting about the Ava Johansson case and included my phone number. Then I shut down my laptop and went to the fridge for a Coke. My phone rang in my hand before I could even fill my glass.
“I know you,” Joon Kim said by way of a greeting. “You’re the girl who grew up around here. The one everyone talks about who finds bodies using magic.”
I cringed. “I’m Julie Hall.”
I was going to correct him. Maybe even launch into an entire spiel about how dowsing rods weren’t magic but I was never given the chance because Joon Kim liked to talk and he was already filling my ear with a long dissertation on Ron so I just listened. He confirmed all the things I already knew; that he’d been in Korea during the time Ava was supposed to be murdered in the woods, and that Ron had been an all-round good guy with no hint of craziness and no secret stash of hunting knives dripping with blood.
“But I guess he must’ve done it, right? I mean, if you’re innocent you don’t just stay away forever, right? Also, he never came back from his hike at Oak Lake even though he’d promised to bring me to the Bat Caves when he got back. He promised and he wouldn’t’ve just said that if he didn’t mean it, right?”
“He promised to take you where?”
“You know...the Bellingham Bat Caves near the Oyster Dome. It was the last thing we talked about. He said he’d take me there because I had a new camera and wanted to take some pictures but I’m not much of a hiker, right? He’s been there a lot and it isn’t a hard hike but great for pictures. He was going to show me the way. He promised.”
The last two words came out on a whine and then Joon was off again talking about photography but I was only half listening because I was remembering high school. There’d been lots of girls to go hiking with Rock’n Ron in their senior years. They’d go to see the Bat Caves and come back with grass stains on their backs. I’d never gone myself, of course, but I had to admit my little crush on Ron did involve a fantasy around seeing those caves and coming home with leaves in my hair.
Joon had paused to take a breath.
“I’ve taken up hiking myself,” I told him. “So did you ever go to the caves and take pictures like you wanted?”
“No. They blocked off most of the trail and closed the parking lot after a small mudslide right after I left for Korea. I just read that it’s been reopened this week. Maybe I’ll go now.”
His tone was wistful and I had a feeling that Joon would never go anywhere without someone like Ron to lead the way. He said he had to go so I thanked him for his time and ended the call. I continued looking through articles online about the case. There were lots of pictures of search parties and one in particular caught my eye. I enlarged it and, there in the back of a crowd of maybe fifty people, stood Ron’s mother and father. To my surprise, next to them was Wes, Abel’s grandson, with his arm around another young man with a shaved head who I didn’t recognize. I imagine a lot of people in the community went out searching but Wes didn’t strike me as that kind of guy. Guess I was wrong.
A little more online research brought me to a website Ron’s parents had launched to find their son. There was a large grainy picture showing Ron on the day he went missing. The picture was from a convenience store just up the road from his house where he’d stopped before disappearing off the face of the earth. He’d been wearing a fluorescent yellow Seattle Marathon T-shirt and a casual smile that did not imply a mind filled with the kidnapping and bloody murder of Ava Johansson.
After I closed my laptop I settled in front of the TV with my cola and Wookie. A sitcom played canned laughter but my head was elsewhere. I was thinking of the caves. My psychiatrist told me that hiking was good for me. She encouraged me to find peace in nature because, up until recently, nature and I had an adversarial relationship. People died in nature and one of those people had almost been me.
Although the great outdoors and I weren’t always on the friendliest terms I did agree to try the new hobby as a way to keep sober, clear my head and heal my broken mind. I have to say that now that I’d done a few moderate trails I actually enjoyed myself. It was a way to be in tune with nature that didn’t involve skeletal remains. There was a lot to be said for that.
The next morning was a lot cooler than the previous days and perfect weather for hiking. After feeding Wookie I took him for a run down our street as far as the next driveway, which was a quarter mile away, and then back home. He sniffed every tall weed and shrub and left his mark on all to claim them as his own. When we got back, I showered and ate a handful of dry cereal as I tossed some water bottles and granola bars into my backpack. As I climbed into my Jeep I set a reminder on my phone to stop later and buy coffee, milk, bread and a few other staples. Before long I was driving North on I-5. The closer I got to my old hometown, the more anxious I became but I pushed on.
After all, I was going to be a good thirty or so miles from the farm and, even if I was closer, the land had been sold, and the house and sheds torn down. Nothing there but farmed fields and dust.
I turned off my audio self-help book in favor of music so loud it rattled the windows. Didn’t help though. The very air in the vicinity of my old home was toxic and the closer I got the harder I had to work to ignore the memories. Even the exercises Dr. Chen taught me weren’t helping but hopefully a hike
would help clear my head.
Finally I veered off I-5 away from the direction that would’ve taken me home. I’d done my research on a hike to the caves so I knew what to expect. Mount Blanchard was part of the Chuckanut range and you got great views from a cliff area known as the Oyster Dome. Hiking to the caves could be arduous but you could cheat and cut the hike in half by driving up Mount Blanchard and parking at the lookout where the hang gliders launch. From this location it would be three miles round-trip. Easy peasy.
I pulled into the lot and turned off the Jeep. Then pulled out my phone and texted Garrett.
Going for a 3 mile hike on Mount Blanchard. I’ll message when I’m back at the car.
I turned my phone off before I was inundated with his concerned motherly questions about whether or not I had enough water, proper shoes, a hat, sunscreen... Damn. I forgot my sunscreen. I snagged my backpack from the passenger seat and put on my Mariners ball cap. I also took out the canister of bear spray Garrett had given me, attaching the neoprene holster to the belt loops of my shorts to keep it handy.
It was beautiful here. The sky was the liquid cerulean blue of oceans or a bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin. I breathed in the clean air as I adjusted the pack on my back. The Oyster Dome trailhead was to the west of the parking lot. After about half a mile downhill I came to a junction in the trail with signs that pointed the way to the Oyster Dome, Talus Trail and a nearby lake. There was no mention of the Bat Caves but I knew from what I’d read that I just had to stay to the right for a mile and then I’d find a sign for the caves.
The trail was rocky and, in some places, quite steep. You could see mounds of earth and debris that had been part of the slide that caused the trail closure. I paused a couple times to catch my breath and suck on a water bottle. Just when I was beginning to think I’d missed the marker, an aluminum sign screwed into a massive cedar announced Talus Trail and Bat Caves. To be cute someone had taken a Sharpie and drawn a Batman symbol and someone else had drawn a frown face and scribbled no bats under Bat Caves. It wasn’t a shock to me since I’d already read that the bats hadn’t been in these caves for years.
Finally I reached a field of massive rocks banked by thick brush and skyscraper cedars. Google had shown me that the caves weren’t really holes in the mountain like you’d expect. Instead, they were humongous boulders that had piled up and stacked in such a way as to make crevices and caverns. Many of the giant slabs were worn smooth. Walking on them and near them would be dangerous so I chose to sit my tired butt down on a smaller rock under a tall tree off to the side. I still had a clear view of some of the caverns. I had no desire to climb inside any of the caves because I had a feeling all I’d get was a hair full of spiders and a sore back from crouching over.
No spider wigs for me, thank you very much.
I breathed deep and enjoyed the sound of birds around me and a chattering squirrel.
While I drank water and munched a granola bar I thought about bats and nature and my actual existence on the planet and whether or not I was happy yet. That was the thing about being alone in nature. It had a way of forcing you to navel gaze so much you got belly lint in your eyes.
I tossed the bar wrapper and empty water bottle into my bag and, as I did so, I felt a distinct movement from the satchel containing my dowsing rods.
“No-o-o,” I moaned.
Saying the word didn’t change anything though. Reluctantly, I pulled the rods from the satchel to see if I’d mistaken the movement for anything else like a hand tremor or a localized earthquake. No such luck. The second I was on my feet with the rods in my hands, they swung right.
“Double damn.”
Hoisting my pack onto my back, I walked to the right away from the caves, following where the rods indicated. It was a lesser traveled trail but not so tight in the brush that I wouldn’t find my way back. However, maybe twenty yards from where I’d been sitting even that thin trail was swallowed by woods and I entered a dark and dank forested area. It smelled of earth and moss and, thankfully, not at all like a dead guy.
But the rods insisted a body would be found, and who was I to argue with a pair of copper wires that had never lied?
Maybe some poor spelunker got hit by the landslide a couple months ago. I pushed branches aside, and the massive tree trunks provided me leverage to lean against as I wound my way downhill. In a small clearing the rods led me across a chunky and uneven rock bed and, just as I stepped from a large boulder back onto the ground, the rods crossed. I took a deep breath and slowly turned to face another of the cave-like crevices. There was a large void made between the boulder and the scrabble of hard earth, a four-foot-high space as black as Satan’s heart. Even though I couldn’t see inside the blackness I knew someone was dead inside.
Cursing under my breath, I searched my pack and found a small but powerful flashlight that was a gift from Garrett.
Casting light under the rock illuminated scratch marks from various critters at the entrance. Swinging the beam from the flashlight revealed the tattered remnants of a bright yellow Seattle Marathon T-shirt on the badly decomposed remains of Rock’n Ron.
Chapter Three
This wasn’t my first rodeo when it came to body discovery. I knew what would come next. The hordes of law enforcement and the countless questions that would leave me explaining how I’d managed to discover the body of a guy who’d probably been on the Most Wanted list for weeks.
So I didn’t immediately make the call. Instead, I took a moment to center myself. If I chose to share with Dr. Chen at our next appointment, she would be so proud. I did the mindfulness exercises that were supposed to stop me from wanting to chugalug a gallon of wine in one sitting.
It didn’t work. I still wanted wine.
I took deep, calming breaths and reminded myself of the feel of the hard earth beneath my feet and the scent of cedars and tall grasses. Thankfully, I was far enough away that there was no scent of Rock’n Ron. Then a fat fly buzzed my right ear causing me to smack myself upside the head. It slapped the inner peace right out of me but it also made me laugh.
After a few more minutes I released a long, slow sigh and I got out my cell phone and dialed Garrett’s phone number.
“You okay?” he asked by way of a greeting.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
“You usually text me after a hike but you’re calling me instead so I thought something might be wrong.”
Even though he’d been working on a case that kept him busy night and day the past few months, he always took my calls and returned my texts.
“I’m okay but...”
“But what?” His voice held that serious FBI all-business tone.
“I found Rock’n Ron.”
“Who?”
“Ron Low. The guy who killed Ava Johansson. I found his body in the Bat Caves in sort of an out-of-the-way area that probably was blocked by that landslide a couple months ago.”
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. I could visualize him rubbing the back of his neck as he often did when he was simultaneously worried about me, exasperated by my line of work and also trying to balance his own work obligations. “But you’re okay?”
“Yes.” I explained how and where I found Ron.
“I thought you weren’t going to take the Ava case?”
“I said I’d think about it but I didn’t find him because I was looking for him. Well, not really.” I explained about talking to Joon Kim and how it gave me the idea of hiking here. “So Ron and I went to school together.”
“Really? That’s a coincidence, isn’t it?”
“I guess.” I chewed my lower lip and a pause stretched out between us.
“You’re thinking about looking for Ava’s body, aren’t you?”
“Well, we’ve got the guy who killed her, right? He probably couldn’t live with the fact that he killed Ava so he hiked down here and killed himself. So looking for where he dumped Ava would be a nice way to wrap this up for her mother.�
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Garrett didn’t reply.
“I just feel connected to the case now that I’ve found Ron.” I felt the need to explain.
“Her body could be anywhere.”
“True,” I admitted. “Obviously, I’m not going to make this my life’s work. I’ll do a few outings and see if I can’t find her.”
He sighed.
I gave Garrett the directions to the parking lot where investigators should start their hike and then I asked, “Should I hike back up to my car or do you want me to hang out here with Ron?”
“If nobody’s found him before now I’m sure it would be safe to leave the scene alone, but I can’t take that chance. I didn’t work the Johansson case so I’ve got to make some calls. Either way it’s going to take me and whoever a couple hours to get there with a crew so I’ll notify the local law to meet you there in the meantime. Once there’s an officer on scene, why don’t you leave and I’ll call you later for more details. You probably haven’t eaten so go have a bite.”
I’d shed some weight after dealing with stress in the past year, and it always felt like Garrett was on a mission to fatten me up. I was going to argue but then my stomach growled loudly in protest. Apparently a granola bar didn’t cut it after a hike. Garrett advised me that he’d give the officer my number and get him to call me once he was hiking down the trail.
I sat my ass back down on a nearby rock and my hand went reassuringly to the bear spray that was attached to my hip. I cracked open another bottle of water while I stared into the dark abyss that housed Rock’n Ron. A swarm of gnats danced in a shaft of light that pierced the tall trees and bounced off the boulders that hid the body. I pulled my T-shirt away from my chest and blew air into my cleavage as I thought about my former classmate.
“What happened, Ron?”
A Grave Search (Bodies of Evidence) Page 4
