“No, not really,” Dan replied.
“No school books. I mean, as a pre-med student wouldn’t she have lots of books?”
“Yeah. That is strange,” the captain said, looking around like they might suddenly appear.
“So what happened to them?”
“We can get a record of what books she is required to have for her classes. Every faculty member has to file a syllabus that lists required books for the course,” Cox told us.
“If you would do that for us I would appreciate it. We need to go talk to the Dean. I don’t want to but it’s got to be done,” I said.
“You know where his office is and his office hours?”
“I do. Dean Vogel was kind enough to give us that information.”
“I’ll drop you off if you would like. It’s hard to find a place to park over by the medical facility.”
“That would be great. We had a hard enough time finding one the first time.”
~~
I walked down the hall like a person going to an execution, their own. I really, really hated this part of the job. I can take a shootout, assault or about anything else except having to tell parents their child has been murdered.
Even though I really didn’t want to we found Dean Harding’s office. An attractive young woman was behind the desk when we entered.
“May I help you,” she bubbled.
Oh please. Give it a rest.
“Yes. We are detectives from IPD. We need to speak with Dean Harding.”
“Oh. Well, let me see if he is in his office.”
“Wait. Is there a back way out of his office?”
“No.”
“So he has to go through here to leave, right?”
“Uh, yes.”
“And you don’t know if he is in his office? Does he have one of those invisible cloaks like Harry Potter?”
“Heaven’s no.”
“Then please tell him we need to see him ASAP,” I said, faking a smile.
Bubble that twit.
She stuck her head in his office and then said, “Please, this way,” and opened the door to escort us in.
Nice office except for the stacks of books, papers and assorted food wrappings a couple of feet deep. A white haired, stooped man, stood behind a mountain of stuff on his desk. His glasses were down on his nose. A second pair was perched on top of his head. No doubt he would be looking for them at some point.
“Dean Harding. We are with IPD.”
“IPD? Okay I guess. What can I do for you?” the Dean asked.
“Sir, there is no easy to say this. I’m sorry to tell you that your daughter Alice was found murdered. I am so sorry to...”
“No. No. That can’t be. You have made a mistake. My Alice is just fine. We spoke just a few days ago. You have the wrong person.”
“I know you want to believe that but we have her prints and DNA and it is Alice Harding. Dean Harding we are sorry for your loss,” I told him.
He wasn’t listening. He was just staring off into space trying to accept what we were telling him. It’s often this way. Denial that it could be one of their loved ones. Questions would come next then anger usually followed. Especially in a murder case.
“I just don’t understand. She was fine when we talked. Happy as could be. I mean, how could this happen? Why would anyone want to hurt Alice? Everyone liked her. She was so easy to be friends with. Alice. She was my baby girl,” he said.
He was talking more for himself than us.
When a female is murdered it is almost always ‘my baby girl’. With males, especially fathers it is usually ‘not my boy’. It’s a subtle difference but we see it all the time.
“Every murder is totally senseless and repulsive. Dean Harding my partner and I will do everything in our power to find out who did this and bring them to justice.”
I know. Platitudes. You have to give them something to focus on. Catching the person that took his child's life was a form of therapy. At least I liked to think so.
“Why? Why Alice? I don’t mean it like that sounds but why her?”
“We don’t know the why yet but we will.”
“Murdered. Oh my...was she...”
“No. No sexual abuse in anyway. She wasn’t molested.”
“Thank goodness. I mean. I don’t know what I mean.”
“It’s okay. That’s normal. Your world has just been turned upside down so it’s okay to be unsure of yourself.”
“What happened to her?”
“We don’t know much at this point. Her body was found at the stone dam just a few hundred yards from the Riverwalk Student apartments.”
“This happened on campus?”
“We don’t know that for sure but it is a real possibility.”
“Campus Police. Did you talk to them yet? Maybe they know something,” he said.
“We just came from Captain Cox’s office. They have nothing at this time but have started reviewing camera recordings to see if they could spot anything.”
“Where is Alice?”
“At the morgue. Dean. She wasn’t abused or tortured according to the pathologist.”
“Pathologist? She has been autopsied already? Without my consent?” he said siting up in his chair.
“Sir, you have to realize a couple of things. First until we did the autopsy she was simply a Jane Doe. We needed to find out who she was first. Second, it was a homicide. That by law gives the state the authority to perform the autopsy. Actually they are required to perform one. Consent is not necessary,” I explained.
“I want a copy of that report,” he said, his voice growing stronger.
“You can pick one up when you come down to the morgue to physically identify the body. It is ready to be released at this point. We spoke to her mother but she was unable to come for the identification.”
“I’m sure. She is such a bitter woman. She has never forgiven me or Alice and never will. Alice had a choice of who she wanted to raise her. She chose to live with me. Her mother considers her a traitor. She is a disturbed woman,” the Dean said.
CHAPTER TEN
We spent the next hour and a half with Dean Harding while he rode the emotional roller-coaster. It ran the full gambit as it usually does. He didn’t spend much time on IPD but he did rant about the lazy Campus Security. All pretty much typical behavior in such a case.
We obtained a list of friends that he knew about but she wasn’t seeing anyone seriously that he knew of. The list was fairly extensive but they were mostly her girlfriends. While we couldn’t totally eliminate them, chances of them being the killer were slim to none.
It was pretty quiet on the ride back to headquarters. Neither one of us felt much like talking. I have always maintained that it is the victim’s survivors who suffer the most. They never have the chance to forget. Parents are especially hard hit. They usually blame themselves. They feel they should have done something to protect their kid.
Murder is an ugly thing and yet I don’t see any end in sight as long as perps can plea bargain their way out of hard time. By hard time I mean life with absolutely no chance for parole.
~~
He knew he wasn’t going to make it in Med School. He simply wasn’t smart enough or dedicated enough to jump through all the hoops that were required. His only chance to make it big time was to invent something unique that could be sold for enormous profit to the medical field. Cost was never a real factor. They postured and huffed and puffed but in the end they paid up.
He had been working on his prototype chest drain for over a year. Designing and redesigning it until he felt he was at a point where he could try it on a live subject.
Finding the right person had been much easier than he had ever expected. In fact, it wasn’t even very well planned. Things just sort of fell into place and the next thing he knew, he had someone to try his invention on.
He had been sitting on the White River bank, just looking up at the stars when he heard someone humming
on the sidewalk just above him. He lifted his head and could see a figure walking towards where he lay. Her head was down and she was wobbling a little. He figured she had just come from a party or one of the bars nearby.
Looking around, he saw that there was no one about. Not a single soul seemed to be anywhere near where he was lying. Sitting up he could see she was wearing one shoe and carrying the other. She had to be drunk, he thought.
What the hell. There was no time like the present he decided. The rented garage he had converted into a workshop was just a few minutes from the campus. If he could grab her fast enough and knock her out he could drive his car right onto the side walk and dump her in the trunk.
He was hesitant nevertheless. He didn’t have anything to tie her up with and there was the chance someone would happen to be looking out of one of the apartments that face the river.
Looking around once more he decided if he screwed up he would just take off running. She would never get a good look at him if he moved fast enough.
Crouching down, he waited until she was just a few yards past him before the jumped up and sprinted towards her. She staggered and started to turn around but he slammed into her knocking her to the ground. He fell hard on top of her. The breath was knocked out of her and before she could even try to scream he smashed his fist into the side of her face. She went down on her knees her head resting on the sidewalk. Lashing out with his foot he kicked her in the side of the head. She let out a gasp, fell over, and then didn’t move.
Still standing over her he shoved the toe of his shoe against the side of her head to see if she was faking. She wasn’t moving. Bending over he grabbed her ankles and dragged her down the bank towards the water, her face bumping up and down on the rutted turf. Unsure of what to do next he felt her pulse. It seemed strong but she was still out. If he left to get his car and she came to he would have to think up a good story.
Finally he reached down and grabbed her hair, pulled her head up and pounded her head on the hard ground. By the fourth time he was fairly certain that she wouldn’t be waking up for quite a while.
Not wasting any time now he jogged to his car that was parked about a quarter of a mile away. He panicked when he couldn’t find his keys but forced himself to calm down and search all of his pockets. He still couldn’t find them. They must have fallen out when they were struggling. Now what?
The spare was in a small magnetic box under the front fender. He felt around and almost panicked again when he couldn’t locate it. Then he remembered he had moved it to the back fender.
He started the car and drove over to the river. Looking around once more, he turned his lights off and drove up on the sidewalk. He ran down the bank and found the girl moaning. The only thing he could think of to do was pound her head on the ground again.
She quit moaning and he picked her up with a great amount of difficulty. If it hadn’t been for the adrenalin rushing through him he doubted he could have accomplished such a feat.
He opened the back door and shoved her in, half on the floor and half on the seat. He didn’t want to take any more time so he just slammed the door and quickly drove back down off the sidewalk.
It was all he could do to force himself to drive normally. He stayed at or just under the speed limit, making sure to use his signals every time he made a lane change. His nerves were shot by the time he finally pulled into the garage.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
There were thirty of us searching both sides of the river bank from the rock damn back to the Riverwalk Student Apartments. It was darn cold and I for one am not a big fan of cold weather.
“Over here,” one of the officers yelled. I broke off and went over to where she was pointing.
“Keys.”
“Yeah. Strange place for them to be,” I said taking out a pair of gloves and blowing into them before slipping them on. I decided to wait until we had a picture of them as they lay before I disturbed them. A crime tech came over and snapped several pictures.
“All done?” I asked.
“Got 'em.”
I carefully picked them up and looked them over. No identification badge or even a key with the type of car it fit. I placed them in an evidence bag and numbered it. I went ahead and filled out a chain of evidence card just in case they were of any value. I seriously doubted it. Most likely someone just dropped them. Still.
“Detective Bartoni,” another shout came from down near the river bank.
“What do have?”
“Looks like blood. Not really sure.”
I jogged further down to the bank and looked at the dark spot on the ground. It was hard to tell if it was blood. It was just a rust colored blotch.
“Get the crime team over here. I want to know if it’s blood and if it is human,” I told Roberts.
It did look like a struggle had taken place and whatever it was; there was a pretty good amount.
“What ya got?” Bill Parsons, one of the best crime scene techs I have ever met, asked.
“Could that be blood?” I said pointing.
“Yep. It’s blood alright,” he said stooping down to examine the area.
“You could tell by just looking?”
“Hey, I’m a professional. Give me a break here Bartoni.”
“Sorry, my bad. Human?”
“Ah, that I don’t know for sure yet, but we will in a second.”
Thirty seconds later he held up the swab.
“Human. We’ll get pictures and then take soil samples along with the blood. I'll have the results sent to you. We can run a DNA check and if they are in the system we can find out who it belonged to,” he said, more for Dan than me. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Bill was like a bloodhound, literally. He was down on his hands and knees looking for a blood trail.
“This way,” he said, “The trail goes up the bank towards the sidewalk.
We followed along as he inched his way along, stopping every once in a while to take another sample.
“They struggled down by the river bank and then if it was our victim, she was dragged up here. The trail stops here,” he said pointing to a spot just beside the sidewalk.
“A small pool of blood right here,” he told us, pointing to another dark spot.
“After that, nothing. He either picked her up and carried her off which doesn’t make sense, or he placed her in a car.”
Bill is tenacious. He was scouring the sidewalk looking for anything out of place. He spotted a small drop of fluid and sent for the photographer to take pictures of everything including the liquid on the sidewalk.
After the photographs had been taken he took a sample.
“Oil,” he pronounced.
“So maybe he drove up here and loaded her into his vehicle,” I replied.
“Possibly. Seems risky. If anyone had come along they would have spotted him immediately.”
“Still, it seems more likely than him carrying her off someplace.”
“Good point,” Bill conceded.
The rest of the afternoon turned up nothing of value until Bill came to tell me they had found another blood patch further down the way on the sidewalk. He had pictures taken and a sample bagged as well. He would run it all through the grinder and get back to me with the results.
“If I had to guess, that’s where the initial attack took place. He then dragged her down by the river so no one would see them. He somehow loses his car keys during the attack. She starts to struggle and he subdues her. Once she is under control, he drags her back up here and places her in his vehicle,” I said.
“Sounds about right to me. If the blood is Harding’s. And if the keys are his. And if the oil is from his car.”
“Gee, you’re a big help.”
“So, how did he drive his car if he lost his keys?” Dan chimed in.
“I don’t like you guys. Here I had it all figured out and you shoot holes in my brilliant theory.”
“Yeah, brilliant,” Bill
muttered, walking away.
He was right really. We didn’t have a lot to show for thirty people working for almost eight hours. All I could do was hope that we would get lucky with the keys.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Alice moaned and stirred. He quickly came to her and rolled her over. He almost passed out. It was the first real look he had taken. He couldn’t believe his eyes. It was Alice Harding, Dean Harding’s daughter.
He started to freak out. Why her? Of all the girls on campus why did she have to be the one walking along just at that minute? He looked down at her again hoping that somehow it really wasn’t Alice but it was.
Her face was bruised and bloody but there was no mistaking who she was. Now what was he going to do? Dean Harding of all people. He paced back and forth, holding his head, trying to think of a way out of this nightmare.
Had she seen his face? Could she recognize him? Should he take a chance that it was too dark? He just didn’t know what he should do. He paced back and forth until she finally opened her eyes and tried to speak.
“What...where am I? What’s going on? Oh, my face hurts. Who are you?” she finally asked, looking at him.
She started to try to get up but he shoved her back down.
“What are you doing? I don’t feel well. I need help,” she said.
It was hard to understand her because of her swollen lips.
“Shut up. I need to think,” he yelled at her.
She tried to get up again but he slapped her, knocking her back down.
“Hey you bastard. What do you think you are doing,” she said, starting to struggle more.
He knew he had to do something before she started to scream or started fighting back. He grabbed some bailing wire on the work bench and jumped on top of her. She tried to fight back but he managed to roll her over. He grabbed her ankles and wrapped the bailing wire around them so she couldn’t get up.
“Get off me,” she yelled.
Frantically looking around he saw a roll of electrician's tape. He jumped off her and quickly grabbed it. He rolled her back over and stuffed a dirty rag in her mouth and started wrapping the electrical tape around and around her head while he was sitting on her chest. She could do nothing but try to shake her head but in the end it didn’t work.
FROSTBITE -Angie Bartoni Case File #2 (Detective Angie Bartoni Case Files Book 1) Page 4
