Murder! Too Close To Home (29 page)

Reaching into her bag one final time, she pulled out the sunglasses that would mark the finish of her look. Seeming to sense someone looking at her, she looked up and around the room before confirming that she was still alone.

Pulling the hood over her head, she zipped the bag closed and left the locker room, exiting the building through the employee entrance.

“The Devil is in the details,”
she said happily to herself with a smile on her face.

Chapter 80

April 2, 1997

We walked into the hospital with high hopes, the chance to start getting some answers foremost on our minds. Our hopes were again dashed however when, as the elevator doors opened, we caught sight of the mad rush of people in blue heading into our suspect’s room.

Making our way quickly to the window, we looked in on the melee developing within, doctors and nurses with machines fighting to bring life back into the ‘Ghost’.

My eyes involuntarily locked onto his which are wide open and slightly bulging. The lifeless eyes appeared to show surprise, even fear. Confused, I turned to the deputy and ask what happened.

His face is white as he started to explain that he didn’t really know. The monitors had starting blaring suddenly about four minutes ago.

Looking into the window when he had heard the noise, Wesley had already appeared dead. It had been like this since then, he continued, people running in and out and nobody saying anything. The doctors seemed very confused he added as an afterthought, like they couldn’t understand what had happened.

Frank tapped my shoulder, pointing my attention back into the room. The activity had suddenly ceased, with the medical personnel either standing around in defeat or shutting down equipment and cleaning up. Jacob John Wesley was still staring hauntingly at me, almost pleading it seemed. I tried to shake off the eerie feeling with little success.

Seeing a dejected looking doctor leave the room, we cornered him down the hall and asked him what had happened. He looked down at his shoes for several moments, seemingly deciding what to say before looking up at us with his answer.

“I don’t know,” he said, nervously licking his lips. “I just checked on him an hour ago, he was coming out of his coma. I made sure the deputy called in his status personally as soon as I knew you could talk to him. I suppose we could have missed something though, he was wracked up pretty good when he came in.”

Looking at Frank, I suddenly knew that we were both thinking the same thing. The timing and boldness of such an act was right up her alley. 

Turning back to the doctor, I asked him to do a tox screen on the body when they did the autopsy. A confused look crossed the doctor’s face for a moment before the realization of what we were asking hit him.

“You think someone got in here, passed the guard, and gave him something, like poison or something?”

“It’s a possibility,” I replied, “we think he was working with someone else on the murders. That person may have thought he was now a threat.”

Handing him one of my cards, I asked him to have someone contact me when the results were in. Nodding absently while looking down at the card, he turned to continue on his way down the hallway, stopping after a few feet to turn toward us once more.

“If there was anyone here that wasn’t supposed to be, you might catch them on the security cameras. Just had them installed three months ago, they don’t cover this hallway, but we have them on all of the exits.”

Turning to go once again, Frank and I looked at each other before quickly taking off to catch up with the doctor.

“Show us where your recorders are.”

Chapter 81

April 2, 1997

Two hours later, we were still looking at tapes of the various exits throughout the building, with nothing to show for our efforts save frustration. Our final tape was the employee entrance, which we had saved for last, feeling this was the least likely option a killer would have used.

A string of doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff came and went almost constantly in and out of the picture. We had been watching this tape for about ten minutes when Frank suddenly yelled, “STOP!”

“Rewind it about a minute,” he said with excitement. The hospital security guy did as requested, starting it again when he reached the correct time stamp.

“Get ready to stop it quickly when I say to,” he told the operator, “run it forward on slow.”

After running for another twenty seconds, he said, “THERE!”

The now familiar shape of a woman in sunglasses and hooded sweatshirt appeared fuzzily on our monitor.

“That’s her, the woman from the store!” Frank exclaimed.

It was indeed a familiar image, confirmation of our hunch showing blurrily on the screen.

“Think we can go back and find her entering the building?” I asked the security guy.

“No problem,” he said, starting to rewind the tape.

“I wouldn’t go back more than twenty minutes,” Frank said to him. “I doubt she was here any longer then she needed to be.”

Frank proved himself correct once again, as the image of her entering the building occurred only eighteen minutes before the time the tape showed her leaving.

I had another thought, asking Frank to wait and get a copy of the tape before I left to make my way back to Wesley’s room. Exiting the elevator, I almost ran into the deputy that had been guarding Wesley’s room. Pulling him aside, I asked him one last question.

“Who was the last person to enter the room before Wesley died?”

The deputy thought back, and then exclaimed, “There was a nurse that entered the room before it happened. I didn’t see her leave, but it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds before all hell broke loose after she did.”

“This is very important,” I said seriously, “what did she look like?”

“Oh, she was a looker,” the deputy started, a small smile spreading across his lips as he recalled her details.

“Really sweet girl, blonde hair, glasses, tight nurse’s outfit. Come to think of it, you never see anyone in a nurse’s uniform anymore, mostly wear scrubs now. Anyway, I had to turn away when I realized I was staring at her, didn’t want her to get the wrong idea, sexual harassment and all that.”

“Did she have a name tag or any other identification on her that you saw?” I asked, hoping for any other additional information for our case.

“She certainly did, I memorized it, hoping to maybe make a connection later, you know, after this detail was over.” His face was red as he retold his reason for knowing her name, trying to hide his embarrassment by looking down at the floor.

Finally looking up, he sighed dreamily before uttering, “Jasmine, her name was Jasmine.”

Chapter 82

April 2, 1997

Jasmine! The mastermind was cleaning up her mess?

I felt good only about the fact that we seemed to be on the right track. Jasmine was behind the murders, and was not only stepping up her activities, but she was also closing up any loopholes that she felt threatened by.

Frank was elated by our discoveries at the hospital, and by elated I mean he had a degree of a smile on his face.

We didn’t feel the same level of commitment for victim or family as we usually did in this particular case, but the brazen attack on the ‘Ghost’ in broad daylight and at a public place gave us another look into the psyche of the brazen woman.

It was incentive enough to find her very quickly, as if we didn’t have enough of that already.

Back at the office, we found Betty and updated her as to our findings. She was pleased that it was coming together so quickly now. For her part, she and Allen had made contact with the State Police, who had agreed to send their polygraph operator down with the pertinent records the next day.

We were about to wrap up for the day when Ellen buzzed in looking for Betty, saying she had a call. She walked over and picked up the receiver, asking Ellen to transfer it. She seemed surprised by whoever had called; the surprise turning into seriousness after the caller started talking.

“Really?” she said as she grabbed a note pad and pen.

“How long ago?” she asked, studying her watch for a moment before furiously making more notes on the pad.

“Driving…?”

“Did you see which way…?”

“Ok, thanks a lot, Ben, I really appreciate it. Sure thing, I’ll let you know how it turns out; bye now.”

Hanging up, she quickly ripped the sheet off the notepad before adding, “She picked up the package!”

***

I quickly grabbed the box with the tracking device and we all headed out of the building, Betty indicated she would drive. Getting in, I powered up the device and let it warm up while Betty squealed out of the parking lot, hitting my head on the roof when we went over the speed bumps in our parking lot. I quickly recovered and lock in my seatbelt, amazed I had forgotten it so soon after the wreck.

“Ben said she turned right on US 50 in a small white car after she left the Post Office’s lot. That sends her east, right past us if we can get to the highway soon enough.”

She hit some switches and the siren started blaring as we quickly make our way through city streets. We made it to the highway in record time as Betty turned off the lights and noise right before entering the intersection so as not to arouse suspicion.

Nothing was showing upon the screen yet, and I was at a loss as to which way to go from here.

“How long ago did she leave the Post Office?” I asked Betty, keeping my eye on the screen as I talked.

She quickly checked her watch, “Six and a half minutes,” she stated succinctly. “She’s probably ahead of us by now if she hasn’t turned off the highway.”

“Agreed,” I stated, looking up briefly to take in the traffic. ”Let’s go east and see if we can overtake her.”

Betty eased her foot down on the accelerator, jumping into traffic before increasing our speed enough to merge into the flow of traffic in the high-speed lane. We were making good time at this point, but it would be useless if she was also a match for our speed or if she had turned off.

“I’m not picking her up!” I said with discouragement, “maybe you could try speeding up some more.” Betty took charge and punched down on the pedal, weaving in and out of traffic to make up time.

“We’re almost to the state line,” Frank chimed in from the back seat. “Do we follow over the line if we pick her up by then?”

“If we pick her up before crossing the line, we are in pursuit,” Betty stated as she continued to weave in and out of traffic brashly, moves that would have drawn attention if she wasn’t piloting a police cruiser.

“Besides, we can always call for backup once we pick up the signal.”

“Ping…ping.”

Recognizing the noise from my training, I looked down and see the blinking fluorescent green dot at the far edge of the screen.

“Gotter!” I yelled when I saw the indicator, “straight ahead!”

Betty grabbed her mike off the dash and started calling for backup for our pursuit.

Once again adding power to try to overtake our suspect, the dot continued getting closer by the minute. I was mesmerized, watching the dot getting closer to the center of the screen with each passing second.

“She’s right in front of us now!” I yelled as excitement overtook my caution.

“I can’t tell which one it is,” a frustrated Betty said as we tried to pick out which little white car of the five in sight we should be following. Looking down again I saw the dot…behind us.

“Pull off, pull off, she’s behind us.”

Instead, Betty whipped it into the grassy median, grass and mud flying in the air behind us as the car fought for traction in the spongy spring turf.

The dot again headed for us, before sliding by us once again. Looking up quickly, I spotted a truck stop to our left.

“She’s at the truck stop!” I exclaimed as I excitedly pointed out the location behind us. Betty now slowed the vehicle, crossing sanely at one of the left turn accesses built between the lanes.

“We got her now,” Frank said with satisfaction, pulling his weapon out of the shoulder holster beneath his coat.

Betty pulled into the huge lot, trying to appear as normal as possible as we try to discern which vehicle was our target.

“Over there, center section,” I coaxed as I stared at the screen. I rattled off directions as we navigated between trucks and cars that were scattered throughout the lot, pulling finally behind a white Honda with Ohio plates. The dot was now centered on my readout.

“Bull’s-eye,” I stated matter-of-factly, dropping the device to the floor and pulling my Glock out of its holster.

We exited the car quietly, leaving the doors open as we approached from the rear.

Betty took the driver’s side, with me on the right and Frank covering us from behind.

As Betty got to the driver’s door, a man with a big wad of tobacco in his cheek stuck his head out the window, ready to let fly his mouthful of tobacco juice.