A Dead Sister (Jessica Huntington Desert Cities Mystery)

by Anna Burke

  The way Kelly’s body was found, Jessica was more certain than ever that Chester Davis had witnessed her death. The horrific photo made her more determined than ever to find who had done such a thing, accident or murder. Someone had hit Kelly hard enough to throw her clear of the car causing her to land with sufficient force to snap her neck, twisting her head in a grotesque way.

  Kelly Fontana had been dead about 10-12 hours when her body was discovered around 7:00 a.m. on Monday morning, January 11, 1999. That too fit what Chester Davis said he witnessed the night before about the timing of Kelly’s desperate dash into the hotel parking lot. According to the coroner, death would have been immediate. Jessica was enraged by the succinct conclusion. Immediate! What about the moments of terror before she was killed by that snap of her neck? And where had she been for days? What had she gone through before that frantic escape? Why was she being chased? Kelly was running from someone, and that someone would pay along with whoever had actually hit her.

  The coroner noted contusions and abrasions on the lower left side of Kelly’s body. Bones in her left leg and her pelvis were broken in several places, indicating she had been facing the car when it hit her, also horribly consistent with the story Chet Davis told. Although Chet said she moved to get out of the way, the driver still managed to slam into her. There was a blow to her forehead consistent with those sustained when a pedestrian hits the hood or windshield of a car before being thrown clear.

  The photos of Kelly at the crime scene also left no doubt about the fact that Kelly had needle marks on her arms. There was no way to tell how old they were from the photos, and nothing was said about that in the Coroner’s report. Jessica didn’t know enough about IV drug use to recognize scarring if it was there. Mostly it just looked like a lot of bruising on her arms, although she could see puncture marks too. She closed her eyes and recalled Kelly as she had been New Year’s Eve, before she started drinking that night. Laughing, bright and beautiful, she had no marks or bruising anywhere on her arms. Of course addicts chose other sites to hide their use. There was nothing in the coroner’s report regarding needles marks elsewhere on Kelly’s body, surely they would have checked. Jessica made a note to ask.

  Jessica’s blood boiled as she read on. There was bruising on Kelly’s right wrist indicating that she might have been restrained at some point prior to her death. Those bruises were several days old at the time of her death. Traces of seminal fluid were also found in Kelly’s body indicating sexual activity had occurred in the days before her death. There was no evidence indicative of rape, as specified in graphic detail. Her stomach was empty. Kelly had not eaten in the hours before her death, or may have vomited up what she ate. Small amounts of gastric fluids were found in her hair and on her skin.

  She could see how Art concluded that Kelly, party girl and addict, had been on one hell of a bender during the last days of her life. Even the evidence of restraints on her arms could have been construed as an artifact of consensual sex, albeit on the kinkier side of things. Without Chester Davis coming forward to cry foul, it would have been hard to make a case that her death was more than a tragic accident. Had the possibility of foul play even crossed anyone’s mind? Jessica made another note.

  The autopsy report and toxicology screen told the same story. Kelly, the addict, had taken a lot of drugs in the days leading up to her death. Both heroin and fentanyl were found in her system along with THC, benzodiazepine as well as traces of two substances Jessica had not heard of before: lamotrigine and risperidone. The last item on the list gave Jessica a jolt: chloral hydrate. She had heard of that before.

  It was the key ingredient in the infamous Mickey Finn, as in “being slipped a Mickey.” Like that scene in the Maltese Falcon where Joel Cairo knocks private eye, Philip Marlowe, on his ass by giving him a drink laced with the stuff. The technique was, supposedly, invented by Chicago saloon owner, Mickey Finn, who spiked patrons’ drinks before robbing and dumping them outside his establishment. Even the inimitable James Bond was a victim of such a ploy, his beloved vodka adulterated by the stuff. In her head she could hear Sean Connery uttering the words “choral hydrate,” as he passed out.

  Bernadette, of all people, had recently brought up the subject of chloral hydrate. They were talking about Jim and the skank he was running around with, who was regarded by some in Hollywood as a rising star. Jessica had made a snide comment about the woman having about as much talent as Anna Nicole Smith with “most of it residing in her double-Ds.”

  “Don’t speak ill of the dead, Jessica. It’s disrespectful.” Bernadette had said.

  “I don’t mean to be disrespectful to the dead. I’m trying to disrespect the living. Anna Nicole Smith wasn’t exactly a pillar of the community, I might add.”

  “Dios mio, Jessica,” Bernadette said, crossing herself. “The poor woman died in a terrible accident. Let her rest in peace. Too much prescriptions and chloroform to help her sleep. You oughta be blaming the doctors who gave it to her.”

  “The doctors didn’t give her chloroform, Bernadette. What are you talking about?”

  “I read it in one of these magazines. They were talking about it again after Michael Jackson died.”

  “That wasn’t chloroform, Bernadette. Propofol killed Michael Jackson...” Jessica was about to give up hope that she could sort this out. What was she doing arguing about something Bernadette found in a tabloid anyway?

  “Here it is, right here. ‘High amounts of chloral hydrate metabolites were found in her system.”

  “Do you mean chloral hydrate?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said.” Bernadette was getting annoyed and held out the magazine. “Read it for yourself.”

  She could have pointed out that Bernadette had said chloroform not chloral hydrate but that wouldn’t have mattered so she let it slide. Jessica had glanced at the article in the magazine Bernadette held out for her. Sure enough, Anna Nicole Smith had been taking chloral hydrate to help her sleep. At the time it was just one more on a long list of ingredients in a drug cocktail that killed the buxom blond. Who knew the drug was still being used as a sleep aid? Jessica hadn’t really cared, until now.

  Why would Kelly have that drug in her system? Could it have been prescribed as a sleep aid? Why not Halcion or Ambien? Weren’t they available by the end of the 90s? Of course that begged the question about why Anna Nicole Smith was using it as a sleep aid when she could get anything she wanted. Jessica put it on the list of questions she was forming, this one for Laura, along with questions about all the other substances found in Kelly’s system. Of course, that meant getting Laura in on what was going on, saddling her with more bad news about someone close. Someone close who turned up murdered, like her poor dead husband.

  Jessica gulped as she came upon the traffic collision report. Uncle Don’s signature jumped out at her. He and other investigators at the scene asserted that there were no skid marks. No indication that the car had tried to stop or otherwise made an effort to avoid hitting Kelly. The report also concluded that there were no apparent hazards or obstacles in the area that would have prevented a driver from seeing a pedestrian in time to stop. Don Fontana had even gone back to the area to check on lighting at the presumed time of death, somewhere between eight and midnight. He concluded there was adequate lighting in the area for a driver, under normal circumstances, to have seen a pedestrian.

  As Jessica had presumed, paint chips were found on the ground nearby along with fragments of chrome and glass from a headlamp. The chrome and glass shards provided no helpful information but a paint data query run on the paint bits revealed the car that hit Kelly was a midnight blue, 1999 S class Mercedes sedan. That certainly fit Chet’s notion that the car that hit her was a big, new, four-door sedan. The accident report also suggested the car was travelling at about 35-40 miles per hour when it made contact with “the pedestrian”. That fact set Jessica’s teeth on edge. It was hard to imagine a car going that fast in a parking lot, unless, as Chet clai
med, the driver was intentionally trying to run someone down.

  The small amount of paint collected from Kelly’s clothes and wounds matched those found at what investigators determined to be the point of impact. Kelly’s case file also contained information about other evidence retrieved at the scene, including that hypodermic found near her body. It had her fingerprints all over it, but also contained a partial print from an unknown person. The investigators ran the print through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System—AFIS—but produced no match.

  The hypodermic was loaded with both heroin and fentanyl. Jessica paused long enough to look up information about fentanyl online. Used in operating rooms as an anesthetic, some addicts also used it to augment the high from heroin. It was, apparently, a dangerous mix. If Jessica decided to pull Laura in on the latest episode of murder and mayhem, she would ask about that, too, when she saw her on Friday. As a surgical nurse, Laura would certainly be familiar with the substance. Maybe both the on and “off label” uses for the stuff.

  A note in Kelly’s file suggested the contents of that hypodermic, if injected, would most likely have resulted in death. Begrudgingly, Jessica acknowledged Art Greenwald was correct in asserting that Kelly might have ended up dead that night even if she had not been run down. True, only if she was an addict on the run, planning to inject the contents of that hypodermic. That was still an impossible scenario for Jessica to accept.

  Lab tests revealed trace amounts of seminal fluid on her underpants and streaks of vomit on her shirt. In addition to vomit, the shirt had several small round droplets of blood. No DNA was obtained from the seminal fluid, but DNA from the blood indicated the donor was male. Several strands of hair found in Kelly’s right hand also came from an unknown male, the DNA from hair follicles matching that contained in the blood droplets. That aspect of the investigation soon reached a dead end, too, since there was no match to anyone in CODIS—the Combined DNA Index System. Nor did the hair and blood come from her boyfriend, who supplied the police with a sample of his own DNA.

  Jessica searched for information in the report referencing the type of DNA testing used back in 1999, but could find none. More recent improvements made it possible to test samples previously regarded as too degraded or too small to yield results. She made a note to ask Art about the possibility of retesting any seminal fluid that might still be obtained from Kelly’s clothes, presuming they were still in the possession of the police. She would also ask about running new samples or rerunning the 1999 samples through CODIS again. New DNA evidence from offenders and arrestees was always being added to that database. There were also a number of fibers on her body. Not helpful since they were commonly found in towels and carpets, and could have come from the hotel and spa where she worked or her apartment.

  In Kelly’s apartment, investigators had found a small amount of marijuana, a few bottles of beer, some wine and liquor. In her medicine cabinet, they identified ordinary OTC items, but none of the prescription drugs found in her system. Nor was there anything in the report about finding a sleep aid, no chloral hydrate or anything else like that. No mention of barbiturates, heroin, fentanyl or any illicit drugs other than the marijuana, and nothing in the report about needles or other drug paraphernalia in her apartment. “Odd for a flaming addict,” Jessica muttered, resisting the urge to hurl the file and its contents into the fountain.

  Jessica looked through the list of Kelly’s personal effects logged in by the police. Nothing out of the ordinary there either: a large handbag, hairbrush, keys, lipstick, tissues, hand cream, gum, a wallet containing her driver’s license, employee I.D., grocery store club cards, a library card, a few dollars cash, coins and a couple casino chips retrieved from the bottom of the purse.

  Where was her cell phone? She had one, Jessica was sure about that. She had called Kelly to coordinate events on New Year’s Eve. Perhaps she had left it at home. Jessica checked again, but found no record of a cell phone anywhere in the investigators’ notes about evidence collected at her apartment. She presumed the police would have checked calls to or from Kelly during the last week or so of her life, even if they had not found a phone. Jessica noted yet another question for Art Greenwald when she called him on Monday.

  Police investigators had made the rounds, interviewing a lot of people about what went on that night. In addition to Kelly’s supervisor in the Spa, Bridget Potter, police interviewed those on duty at the front desk, a night manager, the supervisor of hotel security, the hotel food and beverage manager, and supervisors at the restaurants and bars in the hotel and casino where Kelly sometimes worked. Kelly had taken her regular days off from the spa Wednesday and Thursday. As Jessica already knew, that included Thursday night, New Year’s Eve. She had been penciled in on schedules for Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights in different locations at the casino. She had picked up extra shifts each evening in addition to working her usual shift at the spa.

  Bridget Potter said she regarded Kelly as a good worker, and had last seen her on Monday, January 4th. She hadn’t notice anything unusual that day about Kelly. The next day, Tuesday, Kelly had called in sick. Since Wednesday and Thursday were Kelly’s usual days off, it wasn’t until Friday that Ms. Potter had any reason for concern. It was out of character for Kelly to miss work, especially without calling as she had done on Tuesday. But Ms. Potter concluded that she was, after all, only 19, and a lot of her counterparts had lapses like that. By Sunday, she became concerned enough that she placed a call to Kelly but was unable to reach her. Jessica made another note: “What number did B. Potter use to call Kelly on Sunday, January 10th?”

  The police spoke to several of Kelly’s co-workers, including a couple of spa attendants, as well as several servers in the bars and restaurants who wore the same outfit Kelly was wearing at the time of her death. None of them had seen Kelly that night or any night that week. She was someone they called on to fill in or trade shifts if they were sick or had an emergency of some kind. None of them had tried to track her down that week. They generally regarded her as friendly and outgoing, but did not know her well. No one seemed to have an unkind word about Kelly. Well almost no one.

  The police identified Robert Simmons as Kelly’s boyfriend. He was also a co-worker at the time, a dealer in the casino. An interview revealed that he had last seen Kelly on the first Monday of the new year. He admitted they weren’t getting along. She had “ditched him” on New Year’s Eve to party with her “snooty friends,” and had gone to work on Friday as usual. He complained that she had “ditched him” all weekend, in fact. She had picked up evening shifts, on Saturday and Sunday, in addition to her daytime shifts at the spa. On Monday when she was about to do the same thing again, he grew angry.

  According to the boyfriend, some guy, a “whale,” as he referred to him, gave Kelly a big tip at the spa that day. “The whale says he’s going to have dinner that night at the hotel casino so there’s another hundred dollar tip in it for her, maybe more, if she shows up to work that night.” The same thing had happened on Saturday and Sunday, and Bobby, as he called himself, was more and more upset about it. Monday, when Kelly came home just long enough to change from the spa attendant outfit to the garb worn by servers, he was waiting at her apartment to confront her face-to-face. That led to a shouting match, and she stormed out, leaving him alone in her apartment.

  Bobby Simmons claimed that was that last time he saw her or spoke to her. When she didn’t call or answer his calls, he figured she was really “pissed” and was giving her time to cool off. When officers conducting the interview asked if he had looked for her at work, he said “Hell no! I wasn’t that hard up.” Besides, when she was angry, he never knew what she was going to do, and he didn’t want to run the risk of getting into it with her on the job. “She might’ve accused me of stalking her or something. Kelly Fontana was trouble when she was mad at you. I didn’t want that kind of trouble on the job, or in my life.”

  In addition to individuals at the hotel and c
asino, police investigators had canvassed neighbors who lived in the complex where Kelly was renting an apartment. The landlord with the Desert Cities Property Management Company indicated she was a good tenant. She had no credit to speak of, so her parents were co-signers on the lease. Kelly had not missed a rent payment in the six months since she moved in; she had been late a couple times, but never more than a couple days. There had never been any complaints about Kelly Fontana. No reports of loud music, parties, or quarrels that got out of hand. None of the issues management companies sometimes encountered with tenants, especially young adults.

  Something was still nagging at Jessica. It wasn’t just the missing cell phone, even though she wondered again where it might have gone. Why didn’t she have it on her, in her purse or a pocket of her clothes? Jessica went back to take another look at those awful photos.

  Kelly was sprawled on the ground. Her purse, and its contents, lay nearby, along with that hypodermic. Then it struck her. Kelly was wearing a soiled white shirt, short skirt and black tights, but no vest. According to the boyfriend, Kelly had been dressed for work in the restaurants or casino. A neighbor who recalled passing Kelly also noted she was wearing the white shirt, black tights, skirt and a vest. The neighbor had seen Kelly dressed that way on a number of occasions since she moved into the apartment complex. Jessica went back over the evidence log carefully, and there was nothing about a vest or that cell phone. Another question to ask of someone involved in that investigation. As much as she disliked the idea, it was increasingly clear they were going to have to talk to Uncle Don.

  The first thing Jessica did, once she had been through the file, was to create a timeline from all the reports she read. Kelly was last seen by her boyfriend on Monday evening, January 4th around six when he says she headed back to work. The last anyone had any contact with her was Tuesday morning January 5th, when she called her supervisor at the spa to say she was too ill to work. Her body was found early Monday morning, January 11th. That left several days in which Kelly’s whereabouts were unaccounted for. Had she spent that time partying her brains out somewhere, screwing around and loading her body with drugs? Where? Had she been at the hotel all that time, or had she shown up there that night before she was chased from it by two men? Had the two men chasing her been trying to deliver her to the man waiting behind the wheel of the midnight blue Mercedes sedan that killed her? Where were the cell phone and vest?