by Anne Hagan
Wordlessly, she turned to do as I'd asked. After she'd moved the door maybe a foot more than the man width wide the slider had been open, I told her, “Stop. I don’t know what all they can see from the porch and the front windows but the Harper kids are homeschooled. Noah’s sisters are probably inside.” They don’t need to need to see what Noah’s already seen and we’re about to.
I turned back around and looked up. Now it was clear that the form I'd seen hanging from above as I'd entered the barn was a man and there was no question for me that the man was Nevil Harper Sr.
The barn was his equipment barn; I'd been in it before, early in the Olivia Stiers murder case. There were work benches set around the perimeter, save one, leaving plenty of room to pull equipment in and park it or work on it but still have a work surface close at hand.
In the middle of the barn was a lone work bench that probably measured about 6 feet square that stood waist high. Harper was suspended from the cross beam of a steel roof truss above it. An aluminum folding ladder he'd probably placed on top of the work surface and then kicked away, lay leaning against the edge of the work top, upside down, on the cement floor.
Shane took multiple pictures of Harper, of the workbench and of the ladder. While he worked, I walked back to the door and found the light switch. Dusting for prints isn't necessary this time. It's plain what happened here.
###
Elizabeth Harper sat on the sofa in the front room of the house and continued to sob. Her three younger children sat quietly around her. The boy Noah, who'd found his father, remained stoic while one of his younger sisters sat expressionless, staring at the simple Christmas tree placed under the front window and the other one let tears roll down her face even though she remained silent.
I tried to separate them and talk to Elizabeth privately but the children, even after some coaxing by a seemingly reluctant Janet, wouldn't leave her side.
Shane came in and called out, “Sheriff, a word?”
I cautioned Janet to keep an eye on the whole group and then I stepped into the front hallway of the old, center hall design farm house.
He whispered, “They've cut him down. Kreske puts the time of death at about 10:00 or a little later.”
“I haven't gotten very far in here yet. Noah did say he found him when he went out to call him in for lunch so that matches up. I looked down the hallway behind me. It opened to the family dining room at the far end and I could see that their uneaten lunch was still on the table.
“Do they need you out there now?” I asked him, “Because I could sure use you in here.”
“No boss. They're almost ready to transport. What's going on?”
“We need to separate out Elizabeth Harper and interview her but the kids aren't cooperating and...”
“And Mason's holding back,” Shane finished my sentence for me.
I nodded. “I'll dig into that problem later. Let's go. I'll take her, you see if you can get Noah by himself and get his statement and Mason can babysit the two girls.”
We went back into the living room where there was still complete silence except for the now decreasing sounds of Elizabeth Harper's crying.
“Mrs. Harper,” I began, “I'm very sorry for your loss and I apologize for having to do this but I need to get a statement from you.”
She started to look up at me but, turned toward the entry way to the room when the sound of boots clattered across the porch and the front door swung open. Seconds later, Nevil Harper Jr. stepped into the room. Mixed emotions played out across his young face.
“You came!” Mama Harper stood.
“As soon as I heard.”
“I called him mama,” Noah told her.
Nevil Jr. looked at the two of them and then scanned around the rest of the room but he paused in his inspection when his eyes landed on Mason. “I suppose you’re here to arrest me?” he asked.
“You?” his mother and I both asked at the same time.
“Why do you think we’re here to arrest you?” I asked him back.
Jr. pointed at Janet, “She told me the other day that the DNA was back for Olivia and that it...it...I think her words were that it didn’t look very good for me.”
Elizabeth Harper wailed loudly and sank back onto the sofa.
I shot a look at Janet but stayed silent and let him continue while Noah left his seat to kneel beside his mother to try and comfort her.
“I didn’t do it. I swear I didn’t. I came out here that same day to talk to my father and we fought over it. He told me he’d take care of it but I was not welcome back here and he made me leave...now this. This is how he takes care of it?” He was yelling now. “He’s a coward, that’s what he is!”
The only sound in the room then was the sound of Elizabeth Harper sobbing.
My mind was racing. I looked from Jr. to Janet and then back again. His chest was heaving as if he were physically exerting himself. Mason meanwhile was ashen and looked to be on the verge of passing out.
“Nevil, you’re starting to hyperventilate,” I told him. “Sit down and try to slow your breathing down.” Shane went to him and spoke to him soothingly, trying to calm him and help him get his breathing under control.
I moved over to my misguided detective and steered her backwards into the chair that had been vacated by Noah and I pushed her head down. It was pointless to try and get anything out of her for the moment so I turned my attention back to Nevil Jr.
Once he seemed calmer, I asked him in a low tone that I hoped sounded non-threatening, “What else did your father say to you that day son? Anything else you can remember?”
“I did it, I did it. He was covering for me. Leave Junior alone,” Mama Harper choked out.
“What?” This time, Shane and I asked the question in unison. Mason raised her head up and looked curiously at Elizabeth Harper.
“I killed that girl.”
“Mama! Don’t say that! Don’t defend him!” Nevil said excitedly, as he spun, still in his seat, toward her.
“I’m not defending him...he was protecting me.”
Jr. started to get up. I put out a hand and motioned him back down. The two youngest children both were crying now.
“Noah,” I said, I need you to do me a favor. I need to talk to your mother and your brother. Would you please take your sisters to the kitchen and sit with them? Get them some water.”
Wordlessly he got up and did as I had asked. He beckoned to the girls and they followed him, unquestioning but still crying.
Once the younger children were out of the room, I took out my notebook and addressed Elizabeth Harper, “Tell me what happened that Saturday, ma’am.”
She started out slowly with, “I was upset about this woman...this 28 or something year old woman...trying to...trying to pin fathering her child on my 19 year old son. I didn’t even know at the time that he’d been seeing this woman.” She looked at Jr. and shook her head.
Eyes downcast, she continued, “When I found out who she was for sure, I asked around and found out where she lived. I went over there to see her late that Saturday morning. When I got there, there was a cleaning woman there. She was...she was leaving, carrying her supplies out to her car.”
“I asked the woman if I had the right place. She didn’t seem to want to tell me. Then I remembered Junior saying, in one of the few conversations we'd had about her, that Olivia had lost her mother when she was young and it was just her and her dad. I told the cleaning woman that I was an old friend of her deceased mother’s and she sort of stepped aside to let me in but she told me Olivia wasn’t feeling well and she’d gone to lie down.”
“It took some doing but I convinced her that I’d just be a minute and that Olivia would be happy to see me. I got the feeling she wanted to hang around there but Olivia called out to the woman in Spanish and she went to her room briefly then came back and told me I could go in. She was out the door and closing it before I even got to Olivia’s room.”
“What did
Olivia say to her,” I asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t speak Spanish.”
“Go on.”
“Did you get the cleaning woman’s name?” Shane interrupted.
Harper shook her head no. “Anyway,” she continued, “when I got to Olivia’s room she really was lying down. She was dressed except for her shoes. They were right there by the bed and...and a scarf she’d apparently been wearing was tossed at the end of the bed but, otherwise, the room was spotless.”
A scarf...
“That woman...Olivia...she seemed to be in a daze. I think she was on something. I tried to talk with her about Nevil Jr. and the baby but the girl just told me to go away and leave her alone. Once she realized who I was, she didn't want to talk to me. She was so out of it, I thought, being pregnant she shouldn't be taking drugs...”
Mama Harper stopped talking and looked at the three of us as if she was looking for confirmation of her opinion. When none was forthcoming, she began speaking again.
“I got mad. I flat out asked asked her how many men she’d been sleeping with and did she really love my son. I got nothing out of her but a blank stare. I demanded to know who the father really was. Nothing...she just flipped a hand at me. Finally I asked her why she was ruining my son’s life.”
“Mother!” Nevil Junior cried out.
Elizabeth Harper didn't look at her son, she just stared straight ahead as she said, “The girl just demanded to be left alone.”
I was waiting for her to continue but she didn't and Shane, pen poised over his own notepad, prompted her, “Tell us what happened then Mrs. Harper.”
“I...I was angry; angry about what she was doing to Junior, angry that she seemed like she was high with a baby in her belly...I lost control. I...I grabbed the scarf on her bed, jammed it under her head and then...then I pulled it tight around her neck.”
She fell silent then and just stared straight ahead.
“Did she fight Elizabeth?” I was using the familiar to keep her talking.
She nodded. “Yeah, a little...she did a little. She was so out of it.” A tear slid down Elizabeth Harper's cheek.
“And then?”
When I realized what I’d done, I raced out of there. I still had that scarf in my hand...It was so slippery, I couldn't even get the door closed right...I just...just wanted to get out of there. I came straight back here.”
“Mama...no!” Nevil Jr. cried out. He was half way out of his seat, moving toward her. Shane took hold of him and pulled him back.
“No baby, let me finish.”
“No mama, I won't. Don't you say another word. Father did this!”
“No Junior, he didn't. I did.”
“When I got home,” she went on, “Nevil was here. I told him what happened Sheriff. He told me not to leave the house and not to call anybody and he left. I didn’t know where he was going. About an hour later, maybe longer, he came back. He told me he checked on the girl and she was...she was dead. He told me he left her as she was and he didn’t touch her. I said I was going to turn myself in.”
“Why didn't you?” Mason asked, finally finding her voice.
“He forbid it. He said I'd go to jail and that wouldn't work, that children needed their mother and he told me we were never to speak of it again. He said, if anyone came around asking about her, he would handle it.”
“I’ve been walking through hell every day since that day. I lost my son and my husband and I took another life...It was made all the worse when Junior came back here once and told me that you told him she wasn’t even pregnant.”
I shook my head no, “The coroner found no evidence of pregnancy.”
“My husband and I have hardly spoken since that day. Tuesday, after dinner, he told me Junior had been here.” She eyed her son. “He said Junior told him there was DNA evidence found that matched him. Look, I don’t know a lot about that stuff, but if you have DNA evidence that matches him, it only matches because he’s my son. It came from me! I’m to blame, not my son...take me...” She started to sob again.
I placed Elizabeth Harper under arrest.
Once the real reality of the situation set in for Nevil Jr., he refused to let us separate his younger siblings out to friends and family.
“I'll take care of my brother and my sisters,” he said. “Right here. This is where they belong.”
“I can’t let you do that. Not yet. Not with...” I tipped my head toward the door in the direction of the barn. “There's the matter of wrapping up this investigation too.”
The boy nodded his understanding.
“Is there someone we can call where you can all go, just for a little while, until we get this all sorted out?”
###
“What the hell were you thinking?” I was livid and I was letting it fly. I'd never been so mad in my life. I didn't even bother to wait for an answer.
“We got a solved case today but an innocent man died in the process and four kids are now without either parent or a home and at Christmas time to boot! I don't know where you learned that lying and manipulation were ways to do police work but that's not the way we do things here! Not ever! I can't have this!”
I was standing in the narrow space between my Government Issue desk and my visitors’ chair which was occupied by a clearly very scared Janet Mason. “You better come clean with everything you've done right now; right this minute, or there's going to be hell to pay,” I warned her.
Mason took a deep breath. “I'm so sorry Sheriff...”
“Sorry? You're sorry? That doesn't cut it Mason. A man is dead because of some stupid grandstanding move you pulled. Sorry is just the tip of the iceberg!”
“There's no excuse Sheriff...I...I know that. In all honesty, I wasn't getting anywhere with the burglary case...cases. I thought I needed a big win to impress you...show you what I could do. It was dumb...way beyond dumb.”
“You bet your ass it was dumb!”
Mason reached into her coat pocket and took out her wallet. She removed her badge and held it up to me. I'm resigning. I won't be a disgrace to this department. You deserve better.”
At that she broke down. Still holding the badge, she sank back into the chair and sobbed for several seconds while I just stood there, looking down at her, still mad beyond measure and not feeling the least bit sorry for her.
Through her blubbering, she started to speak again. It wasn't very intelligible at first but then I realized she was telling me that she'd actually been trying to impress me on a more personal level too.
At that revelation, I took the badge she was still holding and placed it on the edge of the desk then I rounded it to my chair to put some distance between us.
“I've never been a home wrecker...stayed far away from that,” she was saying. “My partners have always complained that I was too focused on my work and not on them. I always told them I had to be...it's so hard to be a femme and a lesbian in a ‘man’s’ profession...”
“Look, the only home you're wrecking is this station house. I knew what you were doing that night on the stakeout. I don't play those games. I'm married. You're my employee, period!”
“You're not going to make me resign?” Her voice held a tiny edge of hope.
“Frankly, I don’t know what to do with you.” I dropped my head and shook it but then I looked directly back at Mason, glaring. “Your record, your police record, up until now, has been exemplary...here, at your former department...everywhere.” I half groaned. “I should fire you.” I shook my head, “At a minimum, I should suspend you without pay. I don’t want to do any of that. I don’t want to let you go and I don’t want you to resign.”
“I’ll do whatever you think is best...”
“You’re damn right you will!” I stood then and leaned over the desk, putting my hands down to brace myself. “Damn it Mason, you’re a good investigator when you get your head out of your ass! Stuff like this can’t happen ever again. This is it. Everybody gets one mistake. This was you
rs. Got it?”
“Got it!” she’d been holding her breath during that tirade. It all came out in a burst.
“Get your stuff and clear out of here for a few days. I need to figure out what I’m going to do and that means talking with the DA and probably even with the Harpers and with Olivia Stiers' father.”
She stood. “Okay...I understand.” Her voice was small, like that of a cowed schoolgirl.
I waved her toward the door as I started to take my seat again. She turned to leave and took a step toward the door.
Looking back over her shoulder at me, she said, “And, Sheriff?”
I looked across my desk at her, watching her closely. I nodded just slightly, letting her know she could speak.
“I’m sorry about the...well about everything but...you know what I’m talking about.”
I just nodded again.
She left my office without another backward glance. I caught the words “Thank you” as she passed through my door.
Merry Christmas to me...
Chapter 16 – Hannah in the House
Dana
7:45 AM, Saturday, December 20th, 2014
Morelville, Ohio
I was sitting on the little bench at the front of the store, just under the windows. I was feeling down in the dumps, missing Boo terribly, but I had promised Mama I'd be here to help for the opening so here I was.
For her part, Mama was flitting about, doing this and that, a nervous wreck in the last few minutes before the door opened to customers. Dad was in and doing his best to try and calm her but, in the end, he joined me on the bench because she told him he was just getting in the way of her pacing.
A sound outside drew my attention. Turning slightly, I saw an Adornetto’s catering truck parking at the curb. Once it stopped, a man came around from the driver's side and tried the front door. I got up to unlock it.
“Can I help you?”
“I have a delivery for you. I knocked at the back 'cause that's where I figured you wanted it...”
Mama came scooting up the aisle. “Yes, yes come right on in! Coming to the front is fine; it all goes right up here anyway. I'm so glad you could make it down here on such short notice.”
