Difficult Run (13 page)

“Now the database doesn’t list the park separately, so I’m just going to select Great Falls as the location,” Becky said and pressed “Enter.” Four reference lines appeared on the screen.

“Now you can highlight each of these and pull up an image of the report that was filed,” Becky said.
 
“If you want to print the report, just click on that box and it will come out on the printer over there in the corner.
 
When you’re finished with our system, just let me know and I’ll tie you into the Fire and Rescue database.”

M.J. highlighted the first entry and brought up the report.
 
It was for a missing teenager from Great Falls who had been found the next day.
 
The next entry was for a man who had disappeared in Great Falls Park in late April 2001.
 
She pulled up the report.

The man, James “Jimmy” Ferguson of Vienna, Virginia, had had an argument with his wife and left in their car, which was found the next morning in the parking lot for Difficult Run.
 
Fairfax County officers had searched the trail in the park and found an empty bottle of Jim Beam whiskey and a flashlight, but no Jimmy.
 
The case was marked as open.
 
She printed a copy of the report.

The next entry was for the elderly parent of a Great Falls resident who suffered from Alzheimer’s and had wandered off during the night, but was found within a few hours.

The last entry was for another incident at Difficult Run in early May 2003.
 
A young couple, Kenneth Young and Melissa Hampton, both in their twenties, had gone to Difficult Run at night for a romantic tryst.
 
Melissa had become angered and left to go back to her car in the parking lot, where she fell asleep, apparently suffering from the effects of alcohol.
 
When she awoke in the morning, her boyfriend had not returned and she walked back down the trail to find him.
 
The blanket they had been lying on was still there, as were two empty wine bottles and the flashlight they had used the night before.
 
Her boyfriend, however, was nowhere in sight.
 
She returned to the parking lot and called 911.

There was a supplemental report dated in late May which reported that a body, identified as that of Kenneth Young, had been found floating in the Potomac south of Washington.
 
It was presumed that he had fallen into Difficult Run stream and been swept away. M.J. printed the reports.

M.J. found Becky and had her bring up the Fire and Rescue database, which was similar to that of the police, but had a separate location for Great Falls Park.
 
She entered the same date range and highlighted “Accident” in the pull-down menu. Close to a hundred entries appeared.

M.J. sighed.
 
“This may take a while,” she said.

The majority of the entries were for river rescues by the Volunteer Fire and Rescue unit from Great Falls Village, which had two powerful boats for that purpose. There were also several entries for medical emergencies in the park.

About halfway down the list, she found an entry for an accidental death on Difficult Run.
 
A local amateur ornithologist—a “birder”, as they’re called—named Dewey McGarrity had gone there at night in early April 2004 to look for an owl species that he believed inhabited that part of the forest. An early morning hiker had found his body between some rocks below the trail. His camera, infrared flash and flashlight were lying on the trail. The EMS personnel from Great Falls Fire and Rescue responded to the hiker’s 911 call and determined at the scene that McGarrity’s neck was broken, presumably from the fall.
 
There was no further investigation of the incident.
 
M.J. printed the report.

She didn’t find any more entries from the database that were of interest.
 
She thanked Becky and headed back to Great Falls Park.

Dodd was in the conference room paging through the logs.
 
“Find anything?” he asked.

“Three incidents of interest,” she replied, and gave him a summary of each.
 
“How about you?” she asked.

“I found an entry for the birder in our log, but we got the information from Fire and Rescue, so yours is probably much more detailed.
 
There is one other that may fit what you’re looking for,” Dodd said.
 
He opened one of the log books that had a yellow marker sticking out.

“This is for the morning of April 8, 2000,” he began.
 
“A Hispanic woman showed up at the entrance gate nearly hysterical and unable to speak any English.
 
One of the rangers is bilingual and interpreted for us.
 
It seems that she had dropped her husband off in the parking lot for Difficult Run around sundown the day before.
 
He was going to fish in the stream and the river, and she was supposed to pick him up around ten that night.
 
She went back and he hadn’t shown up, so she waited there until around midnight.
 
When he still didn’t show up, she went home—she had left their two young children with her sister—and came back in the morning to look for him.
 
He wasn’t in the lot, so she walked down the trail and found his fishing rod, lunch bucket and flashlight, but no sign of her husband.
 
That’s when she came to the gate.”

“I didn’t see any missing person report for that in the Fairfax County records,” M.J. said.

“Well, it says here that we told her to call the police, but my guess is she never did.
 
If she’s an undocumented alien, she would have been afraid to involve the police in anything for fear of being reported to the immigration authorities,” Dodd said.

“It makes me wonder how many other incidents there may be that were never reported.
 
Not just undocumented aliens, but people without any family to file a report,” M.J. said.
 
“In any event, the ones we’ve found seem to establish a pattern.”

“What’s that?” Dodd asked.

“They all occurred in the spring, they all occurred at night and they all occurred on Difficult Run—just like the boys and Doc,” M.J. replied.

M.J. drove back to Anacostia Station and did a preliminary report on Doc’s murder.
 
She went online and searched the archives of the two weekly papers that served Great Falls,
The Sun Gazette
and
The Connection
.
 
Although she found several stories involving Great Falls Park, none of them involved suspicious accidents or disappearances.
 
She also searched the Metro section of the
Washington Post
, but the only story she found was the one from the year before about the boys’ murders.

It was late and she was exhausted.
 
She went to her apartment, put a frozen dinner in the microwave and opened a beer.
 
She took one sip and all of her repressed emotions from the deaths of Doc and Lola came bursting forth.
 
She began to sob uncontrollably and didn’t fight it at all.

M
.J. GOT UP EARLY THE NEXT MORNING and drove to Great Falls Park.
 
She changed into her running clothes and set out on a different route, one that did not take her near Doc’s camp.
 
Her emotional release of the night before had been cathartic, but she was aware that she also needed to establish a new routine for her runs without Lola.

She ran as fast as she could, not slowing for uphill climbs on the trails and staying focused on her stride and her breathing.
 
By the time she returned to the Visitor Center, she had done close to six miles.
 
She was breathing heavily and sweating profusely, but she also felt cleansed.
 
Running had always had that effect on her.
 
She remembered doing the same kind of intense run when she learned of her grandmother’s death.
 
In a sense, it had provided the punctuation to that unhappy episode in her life, much as today’s run had for the loss of Doc and Lola.

She showered, changed into her work clothes and stopped by Dodd’s office.

“I didn’t find anything else in the logs,” he said, standing up from his desk.

“By the way,” he said, “I started the paperwork to have Doc buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
 
I talked to the folks at the mortuary—I know them from when they handled the arrangements for my wife—and they said they’d be willing to fix Lola up too and put her in the casket with Doc.
 
They’re not supposed to do that but . . . ” His voice cracked and she could see tears forming in his eyes. “ . . . she’s a hero too, trying to protect Doc and all, don’t you think?” Dodd asked.

“Yes, I do, and I know Doc would want it that way and so would Lola,” M.J. replied, feeling tears forming in her own eyes.
 
She walked over to Dodd and hugged him.

They both sat down and remained silent for several minutes.
 
M.J. was the first to speak.

“Thanks for doing that, Dodd,” she said, “and thanks for helping me with the investigation.”

“Have you found out anything else?” he asked.

“I should get some forensics back this afternoon and I’ll let you know what we find out.
 
I went through the archived articles in the local papers last night and didn’t find anything, but I have the feeling there may be more unreported incidents out there.
 
Is there anyone local that might know something?” M.J. asked.

Dodd thought for a moment and said, “There’s an older woman who lives in the village.
 
Her name is Olive Coppin and she’s lived here all of her life.
 
I’ve met her several times at community meetings. She’s in her late eighties, but still very sharp and knows just about everything that’s ever happened in Great Falls.
 
If you want, I can give her a call and set up a meeting for you.”

“I’d appreciate that.
 
Any time tomorrow would be fine,” M.J. said.

“Will do, Dodd replied.
 
“I’ll let you know the time when I talk to you tomorrow.”

M.J. drove to Anacostia Station.
 
The message light on her desk phone was blinking.
 
There were two messages: one from Zerk, the other from Dr. Martin, the Medical Examiner.
 
She called Zerk first.

“Hi Zerk.
 
What do you have for me?”
 
M.J. asked.

“Got the results back from the DNA lab on the blood on the dog’s teeth,” he said.
 
“No matches in the database.
 
Oh, and the technician said that the blood sample looked like it might have been corrupted somehow, maybe from the dog’s saliva.”

“Damn!” M.J. said. “Anything else?”

“Not much,” Zerk said.
 
“Took a lot of pictures.
 
I’ll send you a set for your file.
 
Got some fingerprints off the bottles lying on the trail, but they’re all the same and I’d bet they match those of the victim.
 
No footprints; same as last time.”

“Thanks, Zerk.
 
Let me know if you come up with anything else,” she said.

She called Dr. Martin.

“Hello Doctor, this is Detective Powers. What did you find?” she asked.

“Well, we did the autopsy this morning.
 
The victim died from the same kind of trauma that killed the boys last year,” he said, “the ‘hangman’s fracture’, if you recall.
 
Also the killer was most likely right-handed, same as before.
 
There were some marks and abrasions where the killer grabbed the victim’s head, but nothing very useful.”

“What about the dog?
 
Was her neck broken too?” M.J. asked.

“No, she died differently.
 
I had a veterinarian come in and take a look.
 
It appears that she was picked up and thrown into the rock wall with such force that it broke her spine,” he said.

“Would that be a quick death?” M.J. asked for her own sake.

“Definitely.
 
She wouldn’t have known what hit her.
 
We saw some blood stains on her teeth and the report says you took a DNA sample.
 
Any luck?” Dr. Martin asked.

“Unfortunately, no.
 
The lab said there was no match and that the sample may have been contaminated with the dog’s saliva,” M.J. replied.

“Well, that’s certainly possible,” Dr. Martin said. “Anyway, I’m going to release the bodies today.”

“The mortuary will be picking them both up,” M.J. said.
 
“Oh, and Doctor, I have another question not related to these murders but to the case in general.”

“Sure. What is it?” he asked.

“I’ve got two deaths that were called accidental at the time, but I think they may have actually been homicides.
 
Would your office have performed autopsies in such cases?” she asked.

“We generally don’t do autopsies unless the cause of death is suspicious,” Dr. Martin replied.
 
“If these were treated as accidental, it’s very doubtful that an autopsy was requested.
 
If the bodies were buried, you could always try to get an exhumation order.
 
If you’re looking for neck trauma like the other cases, we could probably still make some type of determination if the bodies are in good enough shape.”

“I’d have to check on that, but one of the bodies was in the Potomac for two weeks,” M.J. said.

“Probably better take that one off the exhumation list,” Dr. Martin said. “After being in the water that long, we’re lucky to even be able to identify a body as being human remains.
 
Between the catfish and the snapping turtles, there’s just not much left to examine.”

“I see,” said M.J. “Thanks again for your help.”

Next, she called Dodd and filled him in on the results of the autopsy and DNA test.

“Doesn’t sound very encouraging, M.J.,” he said.

“Well, it does pretty well confirm that we’re dealing with the same killer, but I think we’d already figured that out,” she said. “By the way, the M.E. has released the bodies, so you might want to let the mortuary know.”

“I’ll do that. Also, I got in touch with Olive Coppin.
 
She can see you tomorrow morning around nine.
 
Stop by here in the morning and I’ll give you directions to her house,” Dodd said, adding, “She wanted to know what it was about and I just told her you were investigating some things and I thought she might be able to help.”

“I’ll see you in the morning,” M.J. said.