Of Guilt and Innocence (19 page)

“So, do you think it's possible she did it? Out of spite, a scorned lover?” Andy asked as they settled into Jim's car.

“I doubt she did it,” Jim said as he drove, not really wanting to make small talk but indulging Andy with a short answer.

“Why is that?” Andy probed.

Jim sighed. “Because the little girl was raped before she was strangled. I would think that would be a difficult thing for this woman to do, although I haven't met her yet, so who knows. When you called I was on my way back from the M.E.'s office getting the autopsy report, so as you can imagine I'm in just a great mood to chit chat.” The manila folder Jim had placed on his desk was the medical examiner's report. Ashley's official cause of death was ligature strangulation. The object used to strangle her was most likely something soft like an article of clothing or pillowcase or anything that could be wrapped around her neck that wasn't abrasive enough to pierce the skin as it tightened. She had been sexually assaulted, but they found no DNA from her killer. Her short time partially submerged in the canal was enough to destroy any significant physical evidence her killer may have left behind. They did, however, find several small tan fibers on her body consistent with the material used to make quilts or comforters, which seemed to indicate she was most likely wrapped in some type of blanket and transported to the canal bank post-mortem. The medical examiner placed the time of death sometime around two a.m. Sunday morning.  

Andy looked embarrassed even though he had no way of knowing. He was desperate to redeem himself and not appear stupid in front of Jim. “Well, you never know, there have been several documented cases in which a woman will abduct another woman and fake a rape using a foreign object to divert suspi—”

“What the hell happened?” Jim interrupted, looking at Andy instead of the road. “You never said anything before.  You were always so quiet. But get you out of the office and you don't shut up. Just use this as a learning experience and let me handle this interview. OK?” Jim turned his attention back to the road and shook his head.

They pulled up in front of the modest, one-story yellow house and met Angela at the front door. The home was built in the Spanish style and appeared to be very old yet well maintained. It was not in one of the numerous gated communities in Boca Raton, but it was in a respectable area never the less.

Angela had been watching for them for over an hour. She was very anxious to tell her story. A short, very slender woman, Angela was very attractive. Her blonde hair was tucked back into a ponytail. Her blue eyes were deep and seductive. Despite it being her day off and her claim that she would just be lounging around the house all day, she appeared to be freshly made up. “Come on in,” she said as she held open her front door. Jim and Andy sat at the kitchen table across from Angela as they would in an interrogation room. “I just wanna say, first off, that I feel terrible for that little girl. So awful.” She shook her head side to side and pursed her lips together.

“What is your information for us pertaining to this case?” Jim said very bluntly.

“Oh, OK, wanna get right into it. I see.” Angela seemed annoyed that Jim wouldn't let her continue to express her feelings of sorrow for Ashley. “Well, uh . . . about two years ago . . . I wanna say two years ago, but it might have been closer to two and a half,” she raised her eyes to the ceiling as if it were helping her remember. “Anyway, we'll say two years ago, my computer busted and I remembered seeing this little computer repair place in the plaza where I get my nails done, so I stopped by one day. I talked to this really nerdy guy, what was his name?” She asked herself, again raising her eyes to the ceiling.

“I know who you're talking about, his name isn't really important,” Jim said, as calm as he could sound in his increasingly aggravated state.

“OK, I guess it doesn't matter,” Angela said looking at Jim, again seeming annoyed that Jim wasn't allowing her to tell the story the way she wanted to. “Anyway, he tells me that I can either bring it in and they can fix it there, or I can have the boss come to my home and fix it at my convenience. And just then, it was weird, Tom comes walking out, you know he's the boss and all, and says hello and introduces himself. He seemed really nice, like a nice guy, and so I ask if he can come by that night to fix the computer and he tells me he can. So he comes by and works on the computer and we are making small talk the whole time. I just felt like he was a really nice guy, and you know, he's good looking too, and, you know, I was drinking some wine and I guess one thing just led to another.” With that Angela abruptly stopped.

“What exactly does that mean, one thing led to another? You need to be more specific.”

“We fucked, is that specific enough for you? Need to hear me say it? I'm not proud of it, you know. I don't regularly screw married men. It just happened.” Angela's eyes no longer seemed seductive; they now reflected anger, fear, annoyance, insanity.

Jim knew she did not kill Ashley herself. Killing a child would take a certain type of individual, and in Jim's experience, generally those individuals weren't women. He knew there were very highly publicized cases of mothers killing their children, but there were very few cases of women abducting and killing unrelated children. What he was trying to figure out was if she had hired someone else to do it or if everything she was telling them, though it may have been true, was a waste of their time as far as Ashley's murder was concerned.

“All right, I understand, so continue with your story.”

“So anyway, we saw each other a few times after that.  He would always tell me he was unhappy at home and he didn't like being tied down, stuff like that. I'm not saying he did it, but I'm just saying it wouldn't surprise me.”

“So how did the relationship end?” Jim asked, ignoring her insinuation.

“It just . . . ended. I knew he was married, and he wasn't going to leave his wife even though he was miserable with her. He used to tell me that all the time, that he hated going home at night.”

“It just ended? Just like that?” Jim prodded.  

“Yeah . . . yup,” she said as she looked down at the table.

“Come on, I have a hard time believing that. I know you don't like letting men walk away from you without some type of punishment.” Jim knew what was coming. He knew from the minute that he saw Angela that this interview would end badly. He looked her square in the eyes and awaited her response.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” She snarled, returning his glance with eyes that burned. She seemed to be on the verge of leaping over the table and attacking him.

“Where were you this past weekend? Saturday, specifically?” Jim tried not to smirk as he asked.

“You think I did this?” she shouted. “Oh, you are sick.” She tilted her head back as she made this statement, as if her body was slowly recoiling in disgust from the top down.

“I know you have a history of bothering family members of men that aren't interested in you anymore.”

“Get out! I want you out of my house!” Angela stood up and pointed at the door. “I try to help you people and this is how you treat me? Like a suspect? I'll sue your asses.”

On that note Jim and Andy exited the residence in the fashion Jim had envisioned they would.

“So what now?” Andy asked as the two got back in the car.

“Now we go see Tom Wooten.”

Andy was a little surprised by this, wondering what there would be to gain by confronting a man who had just lost his daughter with these seemingly unimportant allegations. But, he knew if Jim thought it was a good idea then there must be some merit in it, and so he decided just to sit back and observe.  

 

Jim pulled up in front of the Wooten home and shifted into park. Media outlets that had crowded the street and sidewalks surrounding the home just the day before had dissipated a little, but some remained. Andy reached for the car door handle, but Jim stopped him.

“Listen good. This is not going to be an interrogation. This is giving him a chance to come clean about mistakes he has made in his life that may help us catch his daughter's killer. We aren't going to push this, not today. Keep. Your mouth. Shut.” Jim let go of his grip on Andy's left wrist and the two exited the car amid questions from various reporters and the sounds of a few camera shutters. They were greeted at the door by Lisa's father, who shook Jim's hand and invited them both in. Many family members, most of whom Jim did not know, gathered around them waiting for some kind of news, which was why they assumed Jim and Andy had come. Tom was among them, but Lisa was not. “Uh, I'm sorry to intrude folks, but I just need to speak with Tom for a moment, privately, if you don't mind.” Mark looked at Tom as if to inquire if it was all right and if he was feeling up to it.

“Yeah, sure, let's uh . . . go on the back deck.” Tom said sounding exhausted, and led Jim and Andy outside to the deck area, shutting the sliding glass door behind them. “What's going on?” he asked as he placed both hands in his pants pockets.

“Tom, listen, I know you're going through a lot right now, and I apologize, but you need to come clean with us before I can do my job and find who did this. I think you know what I'm talking about.” Jim saw the look of fear in Tom's eyes. He saw his nervousness and guilt. “We spoke with Angela today.”

Tom rubbed his forehead roughly with his right hand.  What little color had been there rapidly disappeared from his face.

“We are not here to judge you, or rat you out, but we have to know, is there anyone else that may have reason to be upset with you? And it doesn't just have to be from an affair. For any reason.”

Tom folded his arms at his chest and looked at the wooden slats of the deck. It was only three days ago his little girl had stood where he stood, then had run around in the yard just beyond it. He took a deep breath. “All right, I'm not perfect. I'm not even a good guy, I guess. I love my family, I do . . . I did. I just wasn't very strong. Angela was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. She was beautiful and she was sexy and she was . . . absolutely insane. She would show up almost daily at work and I would have to scramble to explain to Rick and Kurt why she was there. Finally, I ended it, or tried to. She threw two kitchen plates and a glass at me as I ran for the door. She would call my cell phone, she would wait for me in the parking lot. I didn't know what to do. I had to try my best to keep Lisa from finding out, which was hard.  She isn't stupid.  One time she must have been watching the shop from the parking lot and she saw Lisa and Ashley come visit me, so she came inside. I was terrified. And that's exactly what she wanted. She just made up some bullshit story about needing someone to come to her house and fix her computer, which thankfully Rick and Kurt didn't call her out on because I'm sure they remembered she had been in there for the same thing not too long before. She even talked to Ashley,” Tom swallowed his tears as best he could, “telling her what a great dad she had.” His voice cracked and softened to a breathy tone. “Then one day, about six months ago, maybe ten, she just stopped. I figured she found someone else and finally decided to leave me alone. But maybe she was planning something.” He paused then started again, “If she did this, I don't think I can live with myself. My daughter was innocent, why not punish me directly?” For the first time he looked up at Jim, as if waiting for Jim to give him an answer.

“All right, we need to know of anyone else. Here's a notepad and pen, write down names and addresses if you remember them. And if you have had other affairs, even if things ended amicably, still write the names down. We still need to speak with them.” Tom nodded and began writing.  

 

The work day was quickly drawing to a close and everyone was finally back at the station. Dan's interviews had yielded no productive information, though he still described each of them to Jim. Jim relayed the details of the medical examiner's report, as well as his interviews with Angela and Tom. He then tossed the notebook Tom had written in on Dan's desk.  

“Wow, I guess you were right. He was hiding something. So is it likely this Angela was involved?”

“I don't know,” Jim said leaning back in his chair. “She is crazy . . . I mean like certifiably nuts. But to go this far, I don't know. I mean, I guess it's possibly she found some pedophile willing to do all this for money, but it just seems so unlikely. I just don't know. I'm leaning away from her, but as of now, she's the only suspect we have.”

“That may not be necessarily true,” said Paul Bedard as he walked into Jim and Dan's desks. “On the mall security video there is a guy, big fat guy, who bumps into and knocks Ashley to the ground. It looks like he apologizes and exchanges pleasantries with both Ashley and her mother before they leave and he sits on a bench.  That in itself might be nothing because it looked like Ashley was actually more at fault than he was. But I kept looking in the other video frames for this guy, and sure enough, he shows up in quite a few. He's never too close, but he always seems to be lingering behind. He leaves about twenty minutes before they do, but out of the same exit. Unfortunately there is no video of him getting into a car, so we lose him there, but there is something else.”

“What is it, Bedard?” Jim said rolling his eyes.

“I was able to zoom in the best I could to get a somewhat clear image of his face. Still kind of blurry but it's visible. I compared him to the stack of Palm Beach County sex offenders I had and he didn't appear to match any. But then I tried to compare him to some Broward County sex offenders and he seems to fit the physical description of this guy, Louis Bradford.” Paul handed Jim a printout of Louis Bradford's sex offender registry, which had his picture, height, weight, address, and a description of what crime he had committed to be deemed a sex offender. “He lives in Davie. I thought we could speak with Lisa Wooten tomorrow and see if she remembers him and if she saw him again, maybe in the parking lot area or outside of the mall, then head down to Davie to interview him.”