Detective Wade Jackson Mystery - 02 - Secrets to Die For (31 page)

Jackson was embarrassed that he had failed to ask. “I don’t know. Will you call Michelle Peterson and find out?”

“What do you want me to do?” Schak asked.

“Check out a house in west Eugene. It belongs to Bodehammer’s father, who died a few months back. His ex-wife says it’s locked and uninhabitable, but it’s worth checking.” Jackson found the address in his notes, recopied it on a separate page, and handed the paper to Schak.

His cell phone rang and McCray’s name came up on the screen. “Are you coming in, McCray?”

“If I do, I’ll miss Judge Cranston. I’m sitting in the lobby of the Valley River Inn waiting for him to finish dinner. As soon as I told him Bodehammer had a criminal record, he said he’d sign the body standard subpoena. But he wanted to finish eating first.”

“So wait. After you get it, come into the department and help Quince track down the names of the women in the photos we found.” Jackson closed the phone and looked up at his team.

“What’s the theory on Jamie’s status?” Quince asked the question no one else wanted to bring up.

Jackson was blunt. “She’s either fine and will turn up any moment, or she’s already been raped and bludgeoned to death.” Jackson stood, ready to move. “Call me if you come up with anything or need any more manpower. We need to find Ryan Bodehammer now, before he hurts anyone else.”

Schak headed toward the Bodehammer house on Pondview Street. He wasn’t optimistic about finding the suspect there, but it was better than following Butch Seltzer around. He’d been on the outside edge of this investigation from the beginning. That’s the way it played out sometimes. Every lead had to be investigated.

The address was in the Barger neighborhood in west Eugene, on the other side of the industrial area. Not in the massive new development with two-story homes on postage-stamp lots, but on the north side among the older single-story homes with backyards and breathing room…and low-brow renters.

David Bodehammer’s small house was on a dead-end just off of Dakota. Huge sequoias lined the front yard, casting a wall of privacy on the residence. In the dying daylight, Schak could see the gravel driveway was overgrown with weeds, the windows were covered with dirt, and no light escaped the house. No one had come or gone from this driveway in many months. Bodehammer’s van was certainly not parked on the gravel or in the single-car garage that had been boarded shut with long 2x4s. Schak started to drive on by, then decided to take five minutes and be more thorough. He parked on the street and walked up to the front door, a white solid surface that didn’t allow him to see in. He knocked hard and waited. No response. He turned the knob but it was locked. A deadbolt above the doorknob was also locked. Schak stepped off the cement step and onto the dirt patch that had once been lawn. A heavy curtain covered the front window, not even leaving a tiny crack to peek through. Another window in the front, probably a bedroom, was also draped and impossible to penetrate. Schak thought that was odd. Were the curtains pinned closed? That would be a sign of something to hide.

His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Schak flipped it open and saw
Tracy
illuminated on the screen. It was his wife and he almost didn’t answer. On the last ring before it kicked over to voice mail, he picked up. “Hello, Tracy. Is this important?”

“You tell me, Rob. He’s your son. Is he important?”

Schak let out a long sigh. “Of course, Brad is important. That’s why I’m trying to keep him from making this mistake.”

“He doesn’t see it as a mistake. He sees this trip as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You really need to support his decision. It’s important to your relationship.”

“But I don’t support it. He’s letting go of a great future with the best employer in this town to go hiking, for Christ’s sake.” Schak’s teeth hurt and he realized he was grinding them. He tried to relax.

“It’s just a job. He’ll find another one when he gets back.”

Schak heard a familiar tone in Tracy’s voice. She was digging in and ready to go to the mat over this. Schak turned and headed for his car as he talked. “The economy is going to hell. Having a six-month gap in his work history will make it hard for Brad to find a decent job when he gets back.”

“Goddammit, Rob. He’s only twenty. He wants to travel and see something of the world. You have to accept the idea that he may not want to spend his whole life here in Eugene.”

Schak climbed into his car and leaned back against the seat. That was the thing. He didn’t want to lose the boy. He didn’t want Brad to be thousands of miles away.

“Rob, are you still there?”

“I’m here. Tracy, I know you think we have to let him go, but what if he doesn’t come back?”

“He will.”

Schak wasn’t so sure. He started his car and pulled into the street. “Okay. I’ll support his decision. Now what is it going to cost us?”

Jamie could tell Ryan was gone because the cigarette smoke stopped drifting into her little bedroom prison. The after-stink still hung in the air, but at least her eyes had stopped burning. Now she was worried. What if he didn’t come back? Would she slowly starve to death, chained to this wall? How long did it take to starve? There was water in the sink so she could stay hydrated, but she had no body fat to live off of. Would starving be painful?

She heard her father’s voice say, “Stop whining about the problem! Find a solution.” His military mode had not been easy for a timid little girl to grow up with. Sometimes his efforts to toughen her up had made her feel even more worthless. Or had made her rebel and refuse to take any action. Today, her father’s command brought Jamie to her feet. At first she was unsteady, as the pain from the last assault made her legs tremble. She felt lightheaded too. Jamie shook it off and looked at the chain looped around her waist. It was thick, padlocked to itself and unbreakable. Where was the key? Did Ryan keep it in his pocket, or was it somewhere in this house? If he kept it with him, could she get to it the next time he forced himself on her?

Jamie looked around for something to strike him with. She had performed this same search before, but she was trying to think differently now. The effort filled her with despair. She had never been in a room this barren. Besides the bed, there was a tall dresser, a little table with a single slim drawer, and an empty closet. The off-white walls held nothing but stains. Could she break one of the legs off the table? Jamie easily lifted the pale pine table and turned it over. She stood on the table’s underside and pushed hard against one of the legs. She tried to use her weight, but the legs were too low to the ground to get much leverage. She pushed harder with her hands, which ached from the cold. The leg didn’t budge.

Jamie heard a thumping noise and froze.
Was he back already
? She quickly turned the table over and pushed it to the wall under the blanketed window. He would likely hit her for even thinking about it. Then he would take the table out of the room. She plopped on the bed, heart racing.

The house was quiet. What had she heard? A tree branch against the siding? The odd thing was that when Ryan left, she hadn’t heard the van start up or the sound of it rolling across a driveway. Had he walked away? Did he park the van somewhere else? She vaguely remembered being carried in over his shoulder.

Jamie waited a few more minutes, then shuffled over to the dresser and yanked the top drawer completely out. It came so easily she almost lost her balance. The chain weighed her down and kept her in place. She set the drawer down on the bed. If she broke out the back side of it, she could put the drawer back and he wouldn’t know it was damaged. Then she could hide the panel under the bed and wait for an opportunity. She visualized herself grabbing the slim piece of wood and hitting him on the head as he went into the bathroom to fill her glass of water. Then she saw Ryan turn back, eyes blazing, and knock her to the ground.

The drawer sides were only a quarter-inch thick and didn’t even look like real wood. She couldn’t kill a mouse with one of them. Jamie put the drawer back and shuffled to the closet. She slid the panel door to the side, knowing the small space would be empty. Despite the mold, another bitter odor prevailed. Jamie held her breath and ran her hand to the back of the shelf above the clothes bar. Nothing. She got on her knees and examined the floor. A crack around the perimeter gave her heart a little surge of hope. It was an entrance to the crawl space under the house! With the right tool, she could pry up the chunk of plywood.

Then what?

She was still chained to the wall. Jamie fought the tears threatening to overwhelm her. After a moment, she forced herself to stand. At eye level in the open closet was a metal bar that normally would have held hangers. The bar was more than an inch in diameter and could definitely be used as a weapon. Would it come out?

Jamie looked at the ends and discovered that one end fit loosely into a round piece of metal, while the other lifted right out of its half-circle resting place. She held the cold metal bar in her hands and nearly cried with relief. She could hurt him with this. Jamie knew she would likely die anyway, but she owed it to her father not to go down without a fight. She would make him proud…for the first time in her adult life.

Jackson drove south on the interstate. Monday night, middle of February, and dark as a night in the woods. He had the road almost to himself except for a few long-haul trucks so he pushed his cruiser to eighty. Jackson tried to think like his suspect. If he was having a meltdown, he would seek out family. If he had raped and killed another woman, he might be clearing out of town.

Had Bodehammer already killed Jamie Conner
? The thought made his stomach heave. He’d seen the damage to Raina’s dead body. Jackson didn’t want to believe another young woman had suffered a similar fate. Looking at the situation from the outside, it seemed the women Bodehammer interacted with fell into two camps: the blond girls he took pictures of and the lesbians he raped. Except for Jamie, he didn’t know yet who the blonds were or what, if anything, had happened to them.

Maybe Bodehammer just liked taking pictures of pretty girls, Jackson speculated. Perhaps he happened to notice Jamie one day when she was at the parole and probation office to see her father. Ryan may have never approached her—or any of the women in the photos.

They didn’t know for sure that Jamie Conner was missing. Maybe she wasn’t. Jackson wished Ted Conner would call and tell him he’d heard from Jamie or from her friend Paul. Yet if it wasn’t Jamie, some other young woman was in danger. Bodehammer’s behavior was definitely escalating. Each attack was more violent and now he was AWOL. Jackson pressed the accelerator and made the seven-mile trip to Creswell in five minutes. It took him twice as long to find the home of Scott Bodehammer, who lived a few miles out of town on a rural road with no streetlights.

A yard light was on in the driveway of the renovated farmhouse, but no vehicles were visible and the home seemed dark. Jackson’s chest tightened. Damn. He had really expected to see the blue cargo van sitting in the driveway. He shut off the engine and once again called the number Michelle had given him for Scott Bodehammer. No answer. Jackson left an urgent message, then pondered his next move.

Could Ryan be inside the house? Maybe he had ditched the van to keep from getting caught. Jackson decided to get out and walk around the perimeter. He reached for his Sig Sauer on the seat next to him. As he opened the door, a big black dog rushed out from between the house and the garage, barking loudly enough to wake the neighborhood. Jackson slammed the car door shut. He had planned to wait for Scott Bodehammer to call or come home, but now that a hundred-and-fifty pound dog was barking next to his car and blowing out his eardrums, he had to rethink his strategy. If Ryan was in the house, he was now aware of Jackson’s presence and had time to hide or run.
Damn dog
. Jackson touched the scar above his left eye. In his second year on patrol, a Rottweiler had taken a chunk of his flesh when Jackson tried to revive the dog’s drunken-stupor master who was on the brink of rolling into the Amazon canal. Being a good guy didn’t always work out well.

Jackson endured the barking for two minutes while he watched both sides of the house to see if anyone was running for the field out back. Not that he could see much in the dark or concentrate with the ungodly noise. He started the car and headed out, thinking he could wait somewhere else down the road.

As he drove away, the barking subsided. A quarter-mile away, a car passed going the other direction. On instinct, Jackson slowed and watched the vehicle in his rearview mirror. It slowed, brake lights glowing, and turned into the driveway he had just come out of. Jackson found a place to turn around and head back. Maybe this would be the break he needed.