Weeks had passed, but still she could not bring herself to face the letter’s contents. She considered simply tossing the letter in the recycling so she wouldn’t have to think about it again. Stabbing the back of her hand with the letter opener would have been less painful than reading the last communication written to her son.
Kera set the letter aside for another time. Some day she would have to take the plunge and sort through Nathan’s stuff. She would try again this weekend. If she succeeded, she would call St. Vincent DePaul’s and ask them to come pick up everything of Daniel’s too. It would be a clean start. Then she could move her car out of the driveway and back into the garage.
After putting stamps on the bills, Kera headed for the den to get online. She checked a couple of news sites, then went straight to militaryfamilies.com. The website hosted a chat room where she could converse with and draw comfort from other parents who had lost their children in the war.
But as soon as she typed in her screen name, kikoll, Kera thought about the e-mail she had received from blowgirl_jd. She was sure it had come from Jessie. And if Jessie was like other kids, she spent plenty of time on the Internet. Out of curiosity, Kera opened up another browser and typed in blowgirl_jd.
A full page of search listings came up. Kera clicked open the top link and landed on a chat room page called Girl2Girl at girlsjustwanttohavefun.com. The site was clearly the work of an amateur, but what it lacked in design finesse, it made up for in color and enthusiasm. Bright lime green and pink lettering punctuated with exclamation marks shouted at her to come on in. Kera hesitated briefly, then logged in as blowgirl_jd. The unsophisticated site did not require a password but probably limited its access to certain user names.
Kera had no desire to engage anyone in chat, especially using a dead girl’s screen ID, but she thought it might be informative to read some of Jessie’s postings. In a moment, a menu of chat subjects presented itself in the middle of the screen.
From a list that also included Dirty Gossip, Disgusting Guys, Hot Guys, and Parties, Kera clicked a button that said Sex Talk. She searched around until she found an exchange, dated October 5, between chatters named blowgirl_jd, perfectass, and freakjob37. Kera scanned through it, hoping to find a reference to Jessie’s sex partners. The postings started out with a catty conversation about a girl who had missed a lot of school recently, then abruptly turned sexual.
freakjob37: My dad has a new video called Candy Strippers. It’s really hot. Lots of butt sex.
blowgirl_jd: Cool. I like it up the ass, I mean, if I’m ready for it. And no worries about pregnancy.
perfectass: Despite my screen name, I’m not that crazy about anal encounters, but neither is TJ so we’ll hook and let you guys do the nasty stuff.
blowgirl_jd: Like you can get through a “meeting” only doing one guy. Hah!
freakjob37: I think it’s time for little miss perfectass to start doing girls too.
perfectass: I’m working up to it. I made out with RG last time. The guys got really hard for that session.
blowgirl_jd: Talk about hard. My new guy “on the side” can stay up forever! He wears me out. Seriously. He is a fuck machine.
perfectass: Why won’t you tell us who he is? It kills me not to know!
blowgirl_jd: I can’t. It’s too unreal. Too dangerous for him. But I will tell you what we did last time.
And she did, in graphic detail. At first, Kera was compelled to read, in the same way she couldn’t turn away from news stories that shocked and sickened her. But then she quickly felt overwhelmed and voyeuristic and had to click off the site.
It wasn’t the sex that bothered her. She had done most of it herself at least once. But never in a group. And never with another female. And these girls were still in middle school. Her biggest concern, though, was that they weren’t using condoms or birth control with any consistency. At least according to the charts she’d seen at the clinic. One of these girls would end up pregnant. And even though Kera supported a woman’s choice to have an abortion, she wouldn’t wish the experience on anyone.
Then it hit her again. Jessie was dead. Found naked in a dumpster. Had her sexual fun and games gone too far? And who was Jessie’s “guy on the side”? Jessie had called him Mike in the e-mail she sent, and her reference to his sustained erections made Kera wonder if Mike was older—maybe old enough to have access to Viagra.
Had Jessie ever told her friends who he was? Kera wondered if she would be able to figure out who he was by reading other chat room conversations. She realized that she could probably identify most of the kids once she finished sorting through the files. Kera jotted down the screen names and initials mentioned. GM could be Greg Miller, and RG could be Rachel Greiner. Was Nicole either freakjob37 or perfectass?
It didn’t matter. Kera was not going to contact them personally or name them to anyone. But she would schedule some time tomorrow afternoon to visit Kincaid Middle School. She would talk to the principal, ask about the sex ed curriculum, and suggest they set up an outreach program. The sex club needed an intervention before anyone else got hurt.
Wednesday, October 20, 8:10 p.m.
The interrogation room at the jail was even smaller than the one at the police department. After twenty minutes of back and forth with Grady, the gray-green walls started closing in on Jackson.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes. Would you like a Pepsi?”
“Sure.” Grady looked grateful.
Jackson headed for the vending machine in the sheriff’s lounge and bought two cans of soda, with and without sugar. He carried the drinks back to the interrogation room, which was not far from where wives, mothers, and girlfriends visited the worthless men in their lives through plexiglass windows.
“Did you like being a teacher?” Jackson asked when he sat down.
Grady looked wary. He’d given up on being charming. “Yeah. I did.”
“What did you like about it?”
“I liked working with kids. All right? Isn’t that what you want me to say?”
“Did you know you were sexually attracted to children when you started teaching? Or did you become sexually attracted to kids while you were on the job?”
“It’s not like that.” Grady shook his head.
“What is it like?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“I might.” Jackson took a drink of soda. “Tell me about it.”
Grady leaned forward. “I’m not sexually attracted to children. I became attracted to one girl. A young woman.” His eyes misted as he spoke. “We had a connection. Whenever Amy and I were near each other, the energy just sparked. We smiled at the same things. We knew what each other was thinking. I never meant any of it to happen. It just did.”
“How does Amy feel about you now?”
Bitterness flew out of Grady’s mouth. “I don’t know. I’m not allowed to see her.”
“Have you found a girlfriend since you got out?”
“No.” Grady’s eyes jumped around.
“Bullshit.” Jackson slammed the table and stood up. “Guys like you always have someone. I think you’re working a new girl right now. Just like the way you worked Jessie. Poor Jessie wandered by the Recovery House one day after school and caught your eye. You befriended her, then seduced her. When things got out of hand, you killed her because you’re afraid of going back to jail.”
“No. No. No.” Now Grady’s leg thumped wildly under the table.
“I have your DNA swab.” Jackson leaned down into Grady’s face. “When it matches the trace evidence we found on Jessie, you’ll go away for homicide. The only chance you have of making a deal is to tell me what happened right now.”
“I don’t hurt girls. I love them.” Grady’s lips started to tremble. “And they love me.”
Jackson laughed. “They don’t love you. They just need attention. And when they grow up and learn to love themselves, they start to hate you. Don’t they? I’m sure Amy finds you revolting now
.”
Grady begged, “Don’t say that. Please don’t say that.”
“Did Jessie try to break it off? Is that why you killed her?”
A tear rolled down the ex-con’s face. “Don’t do this to me. Please. Just leave me alone.”
Chapter 11
Thursday, October 21, 7:38 a.m.
Jackson hated the first half of the drive to Portland. It was flat and straight and crawling with huge trucks. But at eighty miles an hour, it went quickly. The sky was dark and all the commuters had their headlights on, but the clouds were expected to burn off again today. The last twenty miles of the trip were even worse as traffic congealed and slowed near the Portland metro area. But for every homicide on which he was lead investigator, he made the trip. This time he was headed to the new state medical examiner’s building on 82nd Street near the Clackamas Town Center.
Jessie’s autopsy was scheduled for 9:45 a.m. in unit C, and he had only a few minutes to spare. Inside the pale green room with the stainless steel countertops and harsh florescent light, the medical examiner was gowned and waiting for him. Jackson had called ahead to let Hillary Ainsworth know he was coming. It would be their seventeenth autopsy together, but Jackson had seen her only once without a surgical mask and goggles. He had been surprised at how soft she seemed. Her fuzzy gray-blond hair and pink chubby cheeks didn’t match the woman with nerves of steel who cut open bodies and picked glass out of smashed-in skulls.
“You’re cutting it close, Jackson.” Today, the mask and goggles obscured Ainsworth’s expression and he couldn’t tell if she was teasing. He suspected not. Her small crew processed dozens of bodies a week, and she liked to keep things moving. Jackson grabbed a mask from the shelf by the door. The gown was optional, and he didn’t usually stand close enough to get bloody.
This time was even more difficult than his very first autopsy. Jessie’s young body on the table made him think of his daughter, and the emotions he normally kept locked up tight during homicide investigations threatened to break loose. Jackson focused on Ainsworth’s hands and voice.
The ME started near the top of Jessie’s head with a visual exam that included trace evidence collection. The first point of interest was that Jessie had fibers in her nose. Ainsworth extracted them with a long pair of tweezers and bagged them for the lab to analyze.
“My guess is cotton, similar to that used in sheets and pillowcases.” Ainsworth turned back to the body.
After a few minutes, she noted the marks on the girl’s wrists, which had deepened into thin postmortem bruises. “I’d say they were most likely caused by restraints made of fabric. Metal or plastic would have caused lacerations.”
After noting an old scar on her knee and a tiny fresh scratch on her left big toe, Ainsworth finally began an examination of Jessie’s genitals. After a moment she said, “This is interesting. See these small red, burn-like marks?”
Jackson nodded but did not look.
“I believe they were made from cryosurgery, the application of liquid nitrogen. It’s commonly used to treat genital warts.”
“A sexually transmitted disease?” Jackson wondered if Grady, his suspect, had any sign of it.
“Yep. They’re caused by HPV or human papillomavirus. The most common form of STD. There’s something like five million new cases every year just in this country. We’ll test her blood for it.”
“She was definitely sexually active?”
“Yes. But at her age, it could have been an abusive situation.”
“Any indication of rape?”
“There is no bruising or tearing around the vagina or anus, although there are signs of recent sexual activity in both orifices. No bruising on the inner thighs or anywhere, for that matter. No semen in the vagina, but a fair amount in the anus. And a vaginal discharge, indicating orgasm. I won’t know for sure until I get it under a microscope.”
The orgasm threw his sexual abuse theory off base. Jackson tried to wrap his mind around the idea that this almost fourteen-year-old girl had been having consensual, satisfying sex. Maybe with Oscar Grady. Was Grady’s perception realistic? Were his victims really more like sexual partners?
The ME took multiple swabs of Jessie’s genital area, vagina, and anus, then bagged and labeled each.
She reached for her scalpel. “Ready?”
Twenty minutes later, Jackson finally had a cause of death: asphyxiation, or lack of oxygen to the brain.
“Considering the fibers in her nose, it’s most likely she suffocated,” Ainsworth said.
“Suffocated? Or was suffocated?” The distinction was critical.
“I’m not certain yet. Very few people over the age of five suffocate accidentally. It does happen, but it’s not common.”
“Are you ruling it a homicide?”
“Don’t rush me. Of course, you should treat it as such for now, but I can’t make a final determination until I see the lab results.”
“When do I get them?”
“We’ll prioritize. That’s all I can promise.”
Jackson could feel a serious headache coming on. Very little sleep, too much caffeine, and now a squishy death ruling. It was obvious that this was not the work of a stranger rapist. But still, sometime after consensual sex, the girl had been suffocated and dumped in the trash.
On the way out of the autopsy, Jackson called the Lane County jail and asked to speak to the nurse.
“Detective Jackson here. I need you to check Oscar Grady for genital warts. He’s in C-block on an investigative hold.”
“Do you want just a visual check or should I get a blood sample?”
“Both please.”
Halfway down the Willamette Valley corridor on Interstate 5, a connection occurred to him. Where would a young girl get liquid nitrogen treatment for genital warts? She couldn’t go to her family doctor without her mother finding out. Either Judy Davenport knew about Jessie’s sex life or the girl had gone somewhere like a Planned Parenthood clinic.
Chapter 12
Thursday, October 21, 12:35 p.m.
Cranston was in court for the day, so Jackson went down the hall to Judge Marlee Volcansek. She was a lifelong Democrat, a member of the ACLU, and not fond of small talk. Jackson was not optimistic.
The judge looked up from her computer without smiling. “What can I do for you, Detective Jackson?” Her razor-straight black hair was pulled back from a face that could have been thirty-eight or fifty-eight; the Botox made it impossible to tell. Without the robe, she seemed smaller than he remembered from court.
“I just witnessed the autopsy of Jessie Davenport, a young girl who was found dead in a dumpster. The medical examiner says Jessie was recently treated for genital warts. I need to confirm that with medical records.” Jackson presented the search warrant he’d crafted.
The judge didn’t even look at it. “How exactly is this relevant to finding her killer?” Her dark eyebrows arched even higher.
“If we can prove she had genital warts, and later, if we arrest someone who also has the disease, it’s one more connection.”
“Circumstantial evidence at best. Not good enough.”
“The clinic may also have a record of the girl’s sexual partners.”
“And if it does?”
“One out of three female homicide victims is killed by someone they’ve had sex with.”
Volcansek gave that some thought, then said, “Can’t you find out who she’s slept with by simply interviewing her friends and family?”
“Not this time. Everyone says Jessie didn’t have a boyfriend, that she was a good Christian girl. But the autopsy says she was sexually active. So either they’re all lying to me or Jessie was very secretive about this guy. I have to find him. And connect her to him. This is the only way I have.”
The judge shook her head. “I don’t want to set a precedent. With medical records, there’s the overriding issue of protecting the patient’s privacy.” Her argument lacked passion.
“She’
s dead,” Jackson reminded her. “Jessie’s privacy is less important than bringing her justice.”
Volcansek pressed her lips together. She scanned the paperwork. Finally, she made a small notation, then signed the document.
“This is a very limited search. You can access only the parts of her file that refer to the recent treatment of genital warts and any record of her partners’ names. You will not go browsing around in personal medical information that is irrelevant.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Jackson thought about stopping for lunch on the way over to the clinic, but he was too keyed up. The heavy noon traffic on West 11th nearly drove him crazy. He needed a break in this case. Now. And he needed the old people in the car in front of him to get the hell out of his way.
By the time he reached Commerce Street, his heart was pounding with anxiety and caffeine overload. He had to settle himself down before entering the clinic or he would scare someone. Jackson stepped out of the car and paused for a moment to watch the construction workers rebuilding the wall around the clinic’s front window. Then he strode into the foyer, flashed his badge to the receptionist, and marched down to Sheila Brentwood’s office. The door was open, so he stepped in without knocking. The director had a deli sandwich in her hands.
“Ms. Brentwood. I’m sorry to interrupt your lunch, but I’m investigating the death of Jessie Davenport.” Jackson handed her the paperwork. “I have a search warrant that entitles me to see the record of Jessie’s last visit here.”
Sheila’s shoulders sagged. “What makes you certain she was a client here?”
Detective Wade Jackson Mystery - 01 - The Sex Club Page 9
