Detective Wade Jackson Mystery - 03 - Thrilled to Death (16 page)

“McCray, will you take the board? We have a lot to document.” Jackson glanced at his notes, which he hadn’t had a chance to process yet.
Where to start?
“We now have three suspects: Zoran Mircovitch, Seth Valder, and Eddie Lucas, with Lucas being our most viable.”

“What about the boyfriend, Brett Fenton?” Evans seemed to vibrate with eagerness. “Did you rule him out?”

“Make that four suspects,” Jackson corrected. “Mircovitch is spelled m-i-r,” he said to McCray. “In fact, let’s start with the boyfriend. He claims he broke up with Courtney on Sunday. She supposedly called him from the club Monday night. He says she was drunk, so he hung up on her. My instinct says he’s telling the truth.” He turned to Schak. “Did we get her phone records?”

“Not yet. Verizon was supposed to fax them to me this morning.”

“Call the company again as soon as we’re done here. We have to know if Courtney made any phone calls Tuesday night after she recorded that video in Valder’s basement. “

“Will do,” Schak said, sounding a little defensive. “The ex-boyfriends were a dead end. Steve Smith is in jail in Salem, and Tristan Chalmers has a new girlfriend and a solid alibi.”

“Great news. What’s your gut feeling about Seth Valder? Is he really agoraphobic? Or is it all bullshit?”

“I think it would be hard to fake that, but I’m happy to hang out at Lucky Numbers and see if he ever shows up in the club.” Schak flashed a grin, then turned serious. “I think he’s hiding something. The more he tried to be all open and honest about Courtney’s little adventure in his house, the more suspicious it made me.”

“I know what you mean. Like hiding in plain sight.” Jackson turned to Evans. “Did you get anything on Valder from Detective Quince?”

“Quince says he’s running prostitutes, but they can’t get any of the women to testify against him.”

“Let’s get a warrant for Valder’s phone records. I’d like to know who he’s been talking to lately. I don’t like the bastard, and even if he’s not directly responsible for Courtney’s death, I’d like to rattle his world a little.”

The district attorney rushed into the room, late as usual. Despite his hurry, Victor Slonecker looked immaculate in an expensive gray suit. His thick black hair and angular face gave him public appeal, and Jackson believed Slonecker’s controlled ambition would take him all the way to state attorney general.

“Thanks for coming,” Jackson said, rising to shake his hand. “This is an unusual case, and we could use your guidance.” He and Slonecker worked together well, but Jackson always felt a little unsure of how to address him.

“What do we know about how Courtney died?” Slonecker sat and put his briefcase on the floor.

“Not much yet,” Jackson answered. “I called Gunderson last night to see what he found under her clothes. He reported that Courtney’s body has no signs of trauma except the bruises on her neck and the minor abrasions on her wrists. No obvious evidence of sexual assault either. The autopsy is scheduled for early tomorrow, and we’ll know more then.”

Slonecker was still looking at Jackson. “What do you know about ThrillSeekers? Mrs. Durham called me this morning and she wants someone held accountable for Courtney’s death.”

Jackson was caught off guard. “When did Elle Durham find out about ThrillSeekers? Did she know about Courtney’s contract
before
the kidnapping?”

“I don’t know,” Slonecker said, sounding impatient. “I just know she’s angry and wants me to press charges against everyone involved. What did you find out about the company?”

“It’s located in Portland and run by Zoran Mircovitch. Courtney hired them to abduct her for thrills. She signed a contract and made a video verbalizing her agreement to be held in confinement for twenty-four hours. She had a safety word she could have used at any time to end it. At the end of her ordeal, her caretaker–if you can stomach that term–made another video in which Courtney again verbalized her consent and appeared completely unharmed.”

“Good God.” Slonecker looked stunned.

“Whether any of that is illegal, I don’t know,” Jackson added. “The Portland police are aware of our investigation and are keeping an eye on Mircovitch. Meanwhile, Mircovitch contracted with Seth Valder, owner of Lucky Numbers, to fulfill the contract. Valder, in turn, hired Eddie Lucas, owner of a business called Dirty Jobs, to do the actual kidnapping.”

“Where did they hold her?”

“At Valder’s. He showed us the room.”

“Do we have any of these men in custody?”

“Not yet.” Jackson had a flash of doubt about his decisions. “Seth Valder is agoraphobic and says he hasn’t left his house in more than a year. A uniform officer is parked in his driveway to ensure Valder doesn’t have a miraculous recovery and disappear overnight. We’re looking for Eddie Lucas now. We were just getting to that when you walked in.”

Jackson glanced at McCray, hoping he would have something solid to report.

McCray cleared this throat. “We put out an attempt-to-locate for Lucas and a uniform officer is parked in front of his house.”

“What about his business?” Jackson tapped his notepad.

“He runs it out of his house,” Evans reported. “It’s a one-man operation. His ad in the phonebook says he will…” She looked down at her notes. “Crawl under your house looking for the leak or remove the dead squirrel from your attic.”

There was a moment of quiet while they thought about what it would be like to have that job.

“Mr. Dirty Jobs kidnapped Courtney and took her to Valder’s home, then picked her up again twenty-four hours later and dropped her behind Autzen Stadium. Is that the scenario?” Slonecker made it sound too stupid to believe.

“That is the story Seth Valder tells. We don’t have Lucas’ side of it yet.”

“I know you already know this, but finding Eddie Lucas is critical.” Slonecker grabbed his briefcase and stood to leave. “Meanwhile, I want a 24/7 watch on Seth Valder. I may place him under house arrest for criminal negligence.”

No one said anything. As much as they all wanted Valder to go down for his part in the charade, Courtney’s video, made at 9:17 Tuesday night, would make it hard to convict him of kidnapping.

After the DA left, Jackson looked back through his notes of their last meeting. Their focus had been so different yesterday morning. Still, they had to review what they’d learned. He looked up at Evans. “Did you track down the guy named Zack?”

“Zack Underwood is a musician. He says he and Courtney are friends. They danced together that night, but then she left. Other people at the club say they saw Zack there until closing.”

“Thanks, Evans. We now know Courtney was kidnapped, by arrangement, from Diego’s that night. According to Seth Valder, she was also dropped off in good health behind Autzen Stadium around ten o’clock the next night. The big question is: What happened then?”

A rap at the door, then the desk clerk stepped in. “I have a fax for Detective Schakowski.”

“About damn time.” Schak bolted to the door and grabbed the thick stack of papers.

While Schak scanned Courtney’s phone records looking for the narrow time frame between Courtney’s drop off and death, Jackson turned to Evans. “Did you run a background check on Lucas?”

“He was arrested for stealing a car when he was nineteen. It was his aunt’s car and she dropped the charges. He was charged with possession of marijuana a year later. That’s it. Other than a few traffic violations, he’s been a good boy–that we know of–for a decade.”

“Let’s get out there and find out everything we can about Lucas. We need to know if he has any family or friends he would stay with if he knew we were watching his house. Let’s get word out to our neighboring states to look for his van. If he heard Courtney died, he might panic and run.”

McCray nodded. “I already did that.”

“Let’s check Valder’s rental unit too.”

“I’ve got a phone number,” Schak said, his voice charged with excitement. “On Tuesday April 7 at 10:13 p.m., Courtney called 606-1330 and spoke for three minutes and forty-two seconds.”

“I’ll have the owner of that number in a second,” Evans said, pulling a small white laptop from her bag.

“That’s handy,” McCray commented.

“I just bought it. I think I love it.”

Anticipation hung thick in the air as they waited. After two minutes Evans announced, “Brett Fenton.”

Chapter 18

“He lied to me,” Jackson said, feeling neither surprised nor disappointed. “He told me the last time he spoke to Courtney was Monday night when she called from Diego’s.”

“He must be hiding something,” Schak said.

“What if he went down to the stadium after Courtney called?” Evans voiced what Jackson was thinking.

“He said he was home with his parents. Did we check his alibi?”

An uncomfortable silence.

Jackson stuffed his notes into his evidence bag. “McCray and Evans, stay on Eddie Lucas. I want him in custody. Schak, call Brett Fenton’s parents and see if we can pinpoint exactly where he is. We’ll bring him in for another round of questioning.”

Jackson spent the next twenty minutes typing all his handwritten notes into a Word document and organizing them by subject. He’d taught himself to type, and over the years, he’d slowly gotten better despite his oversized fingers. This was an important process because it not only helped him stay organized, it reminded him of the little pieces of information that might otherwise get lost in the constant shuffle of new leads. Such as whether anyone had bothered to verify the main suspect’s whereabouts at the time of the victim’s death. Damn that was sloppy. Brett had told them about ThrillSeekers and sent them off in another direction. No point in dwelling on it. Self-directed anger was too distracting and he couldn’t afford another mistake.

Now that he knew Courtney had been alive at 10:13 and called her boyfriend, the idea that Eddie Lucas had dropped her off unharmed seemed plausible. In fact, Jackson now felt certain Courtney had died right there in the grass where the cyclist found her. She had probably called Brett to ask for a ride. Why would he lie about that? Unless he’d gone down there to pick her up, then for reasons still unknown, killed her.
How?
The bruises on Courtney’s neck didn’t appear as though they would be lethal. He’d seen hickies that looked worse. Hopefully tomorrow’s autopsy would tell for sure.

Jackson stared at the file on his monitor. Under
Physical Evidence
, he had listed: bruises on neck, abrasions on wrists, asthma inhaler under body, tar on shoe, missing earring. He had nothing.

He called the crime lab on Garfield and asked for Parker.

“Hey, Jackson. I was just going to call you before I left.”

“What have you got for me?”

“Not much. The search of the area around the body didn’t produce anything significant. Some trash, a couple of needles with heroin residue, a running shoe, a red bandanna, and a very weathered paperback novel. Sorry, no blood and no cell phone.”

“You were going to call me, so you have something.”

“The asthma inhaler found at the scene was empty.”

Jackson’s brain scurried to process the possibilities. “How do you know that?”

“I opened it up. It felt light, so I checked.”

“Do we know for sure it was Courtney’s?”

“Not yet. I extracted some saliva from inside the mouth mechanism and sent it to the state lab for DNA analysis, but I won’t get the results for a couple of days.”

“Assuming the inhaler was Courtney’s, it seems likely she had it in her hand sometime before she died.” Jackson was mostly thinking out loud.

“Seems likely.”

“Can a healthy twenty-one-year-old die from an asthma attack?”

“Children sometimes do, but with adults it’s rare. The pathologist should be able to tell you though.”

“How far was the red bandanna from the body?”

“Let me check.” After a pause, Parker said, “About twenty feet.”

“So it could have been around her mouth or her eyes at one point.”

“I’ll send it to the lab as well.”

“Thanks. Send the needles too. The victim was known to use recreational drugs.” Jackson tried to remember what else he had planned to ask. “What about the black substance from her shoe?”

“It’s roofing tar, so it didn’t come from the asphalt path itself. Unless you have another sample for me to compare it to, there’s not much else I can tell you about it.”

Jackson let it go. They knew where Courtney had been now. Where she picked up the tar hardly mattered. “Thanks, Parker.” He hung up and keyed the new information into his notes. He suddenly remembered what Elle Durham had said about Courtney’s asthma. That she mostly used her inhaler when she was outside and especially when temperature changes triggered the need for it.

Jackson played out a scenario based on the information he had. Eddie Lucas had dropped Courtney off in the grassy area behind the stadium. Courtney called her boyfriend to pick her up. While she waited, she got cold and had an asthma attack. She took out her inhaler, used it up, and dropped it like trash. Then Brett showed up and they argued about the kidnapping adventure. He lost control and killed her.

Or?

Courtney tried to medicate herself but the inhaler was empty or nearly empty. When Brett showed up, Courtney was already dead of an asthma attack. He panicked and left and later lied about getting the call. Had Courtney died there in the grass because she couldn’t get enough oxygen? How long would it take? Why hadn’t she called 911? Jackson didn’t buy this scenario.

Either way, it seemed as if her arranged kidnapping was only indirectly to blame for her death. Unless Eddie Lucas had hung around until after Courtney called Brett, then came back and killed her. Weird, but possible.

Jackson’s stomach growled, reminding him it was getting late in the day. A good father, he thought, would put this case aside, pick up his daughter from her afterschool drill team practice, then go home and have dinner together. Most of the time, he was that kind of father. Last night, he’d asked Renee to keep Katie for another day or so. This was not a case he could walk away from, even for a few hours. There was something inexplicable going on and it pulled at him with a force he couldn’t resist.