The Murder of Janessa Hennley Read online

  “Tomorrow at noon.”

  Mickey thought about visiting a graveyard, and it tightened his guts. Still, it was the one place from which almost no sexual sadist could stay away. They wanted, maybe even needed, to see the pain their actions caused the victim’s family.

  “I’d like to be there.”

  “You can if you want, I guess. What for, though?”

  “Just a hunch.”

  16

  “I’m staying an extra couple days.”

  “What for?” Kyle said.

  Mickey sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his hand. “I think whoever did this knew at least the daughter and is still in town. The funeral’s today. I bet he’s going to be there. He wanted her to be a part of him, and I don’t think he can resist watching her family in pain over it.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem. Stay as long as you need to. Have fun.”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  He went down to the dining area of the bed and breakfast. Several people ate eggs and bacon with cereal and bagels. He took a bagel and a cup of coffee and left without speaking to anyone.

  Eating outside on the porch steps, he stopped several times to enjoy the air. Not a hint of exhaust to it. No chemical smells from factories pouring pollutants into it day and night. Invigorated, he remembered from his undergrad Intro to Philosophy class that when Friedrich Nietzsche grew ill later in life, he traveled to the Alps. Nietzsche thought fresh air and sunshine could induce healing.

  He finished his breakfast and drove down to the Sheriff’s Office. Suzan was pulling up as well, and they walked in together. She still held the knives from yesterday, and as they entered she handed the baggies to a deputy named Nolan.

  “Package them and send it to the state crime lab,” she said.

  “Yup. Um, what’re they lookin’ for?”

  “Anything. Prints, blood analysis, whatever info they can give me. And take a picture of them. Then head down to Mike’s Pawn and see if he remembers selling knives like that to anybody. Check the Wal-mart, too.”

  “You got it.”

  Suzan wore a dress and heels. Her hair was styled, and she was wearing make-up. Not a lot, but enough to be noticeable. Though in her mid-forties, she appeared far younger. And the way she looked now just cut a few more years off. It stirred desire in Mickey, and he had to push it back down and out of his conscious thoughts.

  “You look nice,” he said.

  “Thanks. You too. We might get thrown out on our butts from this thing, you know. The grandparents are more than pissed that we don’t even have a suspect.”

  Mickey moved out of the way for a deputy to pass by and head outside. “They need someone to blame, and right now it’s easiest to blame us.” He sat down at an empty desk. “Did Janessa have a boyfriend before George? There’s nothing in the reports about her sexual history.”

  “Why would we include that?”

  “Because it’s possible one of her former lovers did this to her. I’m not sure I believe it, but this could be jealousy and rage. There wasn’t any semen found.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Well, she dated a boy named Jason. I think they were high school sweethearts before she met George.”

  “Do you know where Jason is?”

  “Oh yeah. He’s the best mechanic in town.”

  Mickey noticed the screensaver of the computer he was in front of. A girl in a bikini holding a beer. “Can we go visit with him?”

  “Now?”

  “No time like the present.”

  “Let me grab a coat, at least.”

  The mechanic shop was nearly empty except for one minivan getting its oil changed. As they parked, a young man wiping his hands with a dirty rag approached them from the driver side, and Suzan rolled down her window.

  “Hey, Sheriff,” the boy said. “You need a change?”

  “No thanks, Jason. I’m actually here about something else. This is Special Agent Parsons with the FBI. He wanted to ask you a few questions about Janessa.”

  The boy paled. “I don’t know nothin’, Sheriff. She wouldn’t even talk to me no more.”

  “How come?”

  Jason looked to the street as a car sped by the shop. “Once she started datin’ George, she didn’t wanna see me. She said he was jealous and won’t let her.”

  “What was she like,” Mickey asked, “sexually?”

  Jason stared at him a moment. “What’chyu mean?”

  “Were you two in a relationship?”

  “Well, yeah. She was my girl.”

  “She ever cheat on you?”

  He paused. “Yeah, she fucked around behind my back. But I deserved it. I did it to her first.”

  “Who’d she cheat on you with?”

  He shook his head. “Some douche. Nathan McCarty. He owns a mortgage company in Homer. Total fuckhead. She said he smacked her around a little when she wouldn’t put out.”

  “Smacked her around how?”

  “Just like… was forceful. That’s why we broke up. She was scandalous.”

  “I thought you said she broke up with you ’cause she met George?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I meant. But even before that, I dumped her skank ass.”

  Unlike the rest of his clothing, the man’s shoes were clean and white, without a single stain. “Where were you the night she was killed?”

  “Hey, man, I got them cops to already talk to my boys. I was at a party playin’ Hold ’Em. Ten people was there, at least.”

  Mickey was quiet a moment. Jason grew impatient in the silence and began glancing around.

  “Can I get back to work now?”

  “Sure,” Suzan said. “But leave your cell phone on in case I need you.”

  “Yeah, I will. See ya, Sheriff.”

  “See ya.”

  When they were alone again, Mickey said, “He’s hiding something.”

  “He’s a good kid. Some of the widows and elderly in town that are on fixed incomes, he changes their oil for free. Rotates their tires and stuff. But he’s right about Nathan. He is a douche. I knew that kid back from my patrol days. He was always doing beer runs or selling pot at school. Bad apple.”

  “People can change. I was rebellious in my youth as well. Do we have time to get to Homer and back before the funeral?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure. You want me to call him first and let him know we’re coming?”

  “No, I want to surprise him.”

  17

  Dry Creek Mortgage was in a strip mall near a 7-Eleven, with a series of apartments that looked like storefronts.

  Homer appeared quaint and charming, though Mickey couldn’t tell why; he’d been to a dozen other similar small towns. The stores carried no billboards or frontage signs. He asked Suzan about it.

  “I’ve heard from folks that anything that makes the city uglier is actually outlawed. Look at the businesses. All their exteriors are wood. They all have to have that.”

  They parked and went inside. A secretary behind the desk spoke on the phone, and she didn’t stop for them. Suzan cleared her throat. The secretary rolled her eyes and kept talking. Suzan took out her badge and placed it on the desk, then reached down and hung up the phone.

  “Hey,” the girl said, “that was important.”

  “This is important. Please go get Nathan.”

  “And who the hell are you?”

  “I’m the sheriff and I need to talk to him.”

  “You ain’t the sheriff. I know the sheriff. And you can get the hell outta here before I call him.”

  Mickey pulled out his badge. “FBI. Go get your boss, or I’ll place you under arrest for obstructing a murder investigation and go get him myself.”

  The girl opened her mouth as if to say something then closed it. Instead, she stormed into the back, stomped back out, and sat down. She crossed her arms. A moment later, a man in jeans and a white polo walked out.

  “Sheriff Clay?”

  “Nathan.”

  “Wh
at’re you doing here?”

  “I needed to speak to you really quick. You got a sec?”

  He stared at Mickey. “Um, yeah. Come on back.”

  Wood paneling decorated the office. Posters of cars hung in metal frames: two Ferraris, a Porsche, Mercedes, and several Bentleys.

  “I’m Agent Parsons with the FBI. I’m assisting Sheriff Clay in her investigation into the death of Janessa Hennley.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know about that. It was just fucking sad. She was smart and wanted to do shit with her life. She wanted to be an actress, I think.”

  “Were you dating her at the time of her death?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “We have information that you may have had sexual relations with her shortly before her passing.”

  He took a sip out of a bottled water on his desk before answering. “She was sixteen. I would never do that. But I heard she was wild.”

  “Wild how?”

  “You know, talkin’ dirty the whole time, tryin’ out new things, lots of different guys… That’s just what I heard, anyhow.”

  “And how did you hear that?”

  “We’re a small town. You hear things.”

  The screensaver on the man’s phone, lying out on the desk, portrayed a nude blond bent over at the waist. “Were you ever physically aggressive toward her?”

  He grinned. “Jason told you that, didn’t he? That fuckin’ spic. He was just pissed ’cause he wanted her to himself, and she didn’t play that way. Why don’t you ask him about last summer and see who’s physically aggressive.”

  Suzan asked, “What happened last summer?”

  “She was pregnant, and he forced her to get an abortion. She didn’t want one, but he roughed her up ’cause he knew he’d be in the shit since she was fifteen. So he dragged her down to Anchorage and they got one. She would call me up cryin’ about it for months after.”

  “You still didn’t answer my question,” Mickey said.

  “No, I never laid a fuckin’ hand on her.” He looked from one to another. “That it? ’Cause I’m real busy.”

  “Where were you the night she was killed, Nathan? July twelfth,” Suzan said.

  “I was over at my girl’s. You know her. Bonnie Streadbeck. With her the whole night. Call her and ask.”

  “I will.”

  Mickey rose. “Thanks for your time.”

  As they exited the building, he spotted Nathan looking out the window. He stared unblinkingly and didn’t wave goodbye.

  “Well that’s interesting about Jason,” Suzan said.

  “If it’s true. I’d like to go back and talk to him again. Maybe bring him in to the precinct for a formal.”

  “Let’s pick him up on the way back, I guess. I’m gonna get an earful from his mom, though, I’m telling you.”

  Back at the mechanic shop, Suzan waited for an old man named Dick with a handlebar mustache and a Dodgers baseball cap to come up front.

  “Dick, I need to talk to Jason again.”

  “Just missed him, Sheriff.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  “I don’t know. Just said he had to leave for the rest of the day and took off.”

  Suzan took out her cell phone and tried him. It went straight to voicemail. “Thanks, Dick. If he comes back, tell him to gimme a call, huh?”

  “No problem.”

  She walked out and sat in the Tahoe while Mickey popped his pills. “He took off.”

  “Where?”

  “They don’t know.”

  Mickey took the last pill and watched Dick working the stereo in the shop. “We’ll have to come back later. I want to get to that funeral.”

  18

  Kodiak Basin City Cemetery lay at the foot of a small mountain. Nothing more than grass speckled with a few trees. It was the kind of small-town cemetery Mickey pictured in The Andy Griffith Show.

  The parking was limited to a few spaces, so he and the sheriff parked across the street and walked over. A gathering of people on the northeast end headed that way. Two people said “Hello” to Suzan. Most offered sidelong glances, and then turned back to the grave as a few people recited remembrance speeches.

  Mickey identified the grandparents almost immediately, even if they weren’t the ones closest to the grave. The grandmother wasn’t crying; that was in the movies. In real life, at the sudden death of a child, most parents were catatonic. They developed a stare that saw through things, and though they ate, breathed, showered, and worked, they didn’t exist. Sometimes they would come back and learn to cope, and other times they would be lost for the rest of their lives.

  The grandmother stared, unblinking, at the grave. The grandfather lowered his head and twirled between his fingers some grass he had ripped out of the lawn.

  A young woman reminisced about a time she had been on a bad date. She’d come home crying, so Candice had ditched the date she was about to go on and took her out for ice cream and to the mall instead.

  Few places in the world made Mickey more uncomfortable than cemeteries. His guts were in knots, his chest tight, and he wondered if he should go to an ER and get something to calm himself.

  In his yoga meditation class, they taught him breathing exercises. He did them now, taking in deep lungfuls of air through his nose, letting his belly rather than his chest rise, and then exhaling through the mouth.

  As he turned back to the grave, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. A slight discoloration on a tree, like blue and orange paint. Insecure about the signs of age, he looked around to make sure no one was watching, and then took out the prescription glasses he carried in his breast pocket. He put them on.

  He could see the outline of a baseball cap, then the jeans and white shirt with the red sleeves that went along with it. He couldn’t distinguish a face. Casually, he stepped away from the funeral. He planned to walk to the perimeter and come up behind the figure.

  He glanced over once. The figure started walking away.

  Too late for subtlety.

  Mickey walked quickly to catch up with him. The figure looked back and took off running. One slip and he’d blow out his knee, so Mickey, running in dress shoes through grass, had to slow his pace. He made a beeline for the pavement and then burst into a full sprint.

  At the edge of the cemetery, the man dashed into the road. Mickey was about twenty yards behind as the man headed for Main Street.

  Mickey had to wait for a car to zip by. Another blared its horn as he ran in front and held up his hand. The figure was almost thirty yards away now. He was losing him.

  Acid burned in his legs, and fatigue overcame his calves and thighs. They felt rock hard and his circulation was poor. But he didn’t slow down, not until the man tried to cross another street. A car swerved to miss him and an SUV nicked the man’s leg. He flew through the air and spun, then hit the pavement hard.

  Ten yards away now, Mickey pushed with everything he had. Sweat poured out of him, and he was short of breath. His throat was dry and closing up. But he didn’t slow.

  The man was Caucasian, but Mickey could establish nothing else. No distinguishing features. The man was limping away. He turned into an alley between a hamburger joint and a gas station. Mickey followed. As he rounded the corner, he saw only a blur before a board impacted against his face. He flew off his feet onto his back, the blood exploding in a massive spray out of his broken nose.

  The man dashed for a fence and began to climb. When he saw Mickey still on the ground, unable to move, he flung himself over and turned around to face him. He stuck his fingers through the chain-link fence and watched Mickey. The cap and the shade of the alley made it difficult to see his face. On top of that, Mickey saw double.

  “I see you,” the man rasped.

  He ran in the other direction.

  Nauseated from the amount of blood he’d swallowed, Mickey attempted to get up but instead hunched over and vomited.

  19

  Mickey placed an ice pack on his nose
in the waiting room of the ER. When he was finally taken back, he was given a painkiller as they reset his nose.

  He didn’t remember much after that other than needles and shots. He did recall a male with gray hair standing over him, and the loud crunch that sounded like it came from inside his skull.

  The familiar tingling of Demerol flooded his system. He drifted out of consciousness for a time and remembered his wife. A picnic somewhere with their daughter, still a toddler, running around them with a toy airplane. That memory came to him at least half a dozen times.

  The cool air from a fan above him hit his forehead. Sweat saturated him. His throat hurt, and he wanted water but wasn’t sure how to find somebody.

  A nurse’s aide walked by the open door, glanced in, and shouted, “Doctor Lloyd.”

  A man with gray hair came in. He was smiling with warmth that comforted Mickey almost immediately.

  The doctor sat down on the bed and lightly touched Mickey’s arm. “How you feeling, Mr. Parsons?”

  “Like I fell off a building,” he rasped.

  “You took a rather vicious blow to the face and suffered a concussion. You’ll experience some memory loss of the event. That’s perfectly all right. You also have a broken nose. What was more concerning is the ulcer that’s developed along the lining of your stomach. Were you aware of that?”

  He shook his head.

  “It’s perforated the lining. That’s why you vomited blood. Normally I would have just taken you in for surgery, but I wanted to speak to you first. We can repair it here. We simply cauterize it with a small scope we put down your throat. We don’t even have to put you out for it, if you don’t want.”

  Mickey touched the bandage on his nose. “Can I think about it?”

  “Sure. But it’s bleeding right now. I wouldn’t wait longer than a couple of days to decide. And no more heavy exertion. That’s what aggravated it.”

  “I appreciate it. Thanks.”

  After the doctor left, Mickey took out his cell phone. He had two voicemail messages, the first one from Kyle.