Murder in a Small Town: The Meeting

The Meeting

Jessica arrives at Sam’s Diner at 1:00 p.m. on the dot. It's a typical greasy spoon joint on the interstate where truck drivers stop on their way to wherever and gritty blue-collar locals hangout for their “usual” favorites. Jessica watches for Angela and sees her just getting her break. She motions her over and Angela comes out to the table.

            “Hi Angela, I’m Detective Jessica Reddit and I’m on a joint task force to solve cold cases across the U.S. Lancaster just happens to be my first assignment. I would just like to ask you a few questions if that’s okay?” “I have fifteen minutes before I have to get back to my shift”, says Angela lighting the first of many cigarettes, “and I want you to know up front that I am not changing my mind about anything”.

          “That’s fine”, says Jessica, but did your father ever talk to you about being married before, or about having any other children?” Angela looks at Jessica with a scowl and tells her, 

          “My daddy never told me about another woman or kids or anything else, but I do remember him talking to momma one time about being married to someone before her. He said it was a long time ago. I was little though, and I don’t remember him ever talking about it again”. 

          “That’s okay”, says Jessica, but before Jessica has a chance to ask another question, Angela speaks up and says, 

          “I loved my father. He was a good man. We used to play make believe together when I was little, and he always called me his little princess. He told me he would slay dragons for me and protect me from this evil world. This evil world where bad people want to dig up other people; good people. How many so-called good fathers do you know do that?” Jessica looks at her reflectively, remembering her own father and her childhood, how he had to work so many hours and was hardly ever home. 

          “Not many”, replies Jessica solemnly. “Okay Angela, Thank you for meeting with me today. I won’t waste any more of your time. Go finish your break and, if you can think of anything else give me a call at this number”. She hands Angela one of her information cards. Angela takes the card, folds it in half, and places it in the ashtray that has become increasingly full at this time. Angela gets up and leaves without saying a word.

            Jessica looks over her shoulder to make sure Angela was out of sight before producing a clear plastic baggie from her purse. She removes a napkin from the dispenser on the table and slips it between her index finger and thumb. She then uses the napkin to pick up one of the many cigarette butts from the ashtray and drops it into the bag. “There is more than one way to skin a cat”, thinks Jessica. “This cigarette butt will be my reverse paternity sample for a DNA comparison. I may not be able to get Walter’s, but this is the next best thing”. Jessica then pays the check and watches Sam’s Diner disappear in her rear-view mirror. Her next stop is the Sheriff’s department in Lancaster to put the finishing touches on the “evidence” collected and get it sent to the crime lab for analysis.

Murder in a Small Town: Walter Krantz

Walter Krantz

 Through her research, Jessica stumbles upon an interesting character by the name of Walter Krantz. Interesting because two weeks after the murders on Hansen’s farm, this man shows up at the Miller’s Farm, some fifty miles away from Lancaster, and gives the farmer a hard luck story about being away in Panama fighting against Noriega in the military. He tells the farmer that while he was away serving, his mother, father, and little brother had been killed in an automobile accident in Indiana. When he returned home, his family was gone and the house he grew up in was in foreclosure. Joseph Miller felt bad for him and agreed to keep him on as a hired hand. “So”, says Swarovski, “where is he now?”  “Well”, says Jessica, “Let me finish. This is what I’ve been able to find out from my research”.

Walter worked on the Miller’s farm for a number of years and married one of the farmer’s daughters. He had two children from this marriage, a boy, Caleb, and a girl, Angela.

His wife died from liver complications when the youngest, (Angela), was ten years old and then Walter died another ten years after that. He is buried in a family cemetery not far from the Miller’s farm”. “Okay”, says Dominik, “What’s the plan now?”

“Right now”, says Jessica, “I am pushing to get his body exhumed for DNA testing. If my theory is correct, he could be the missing link in the Hansen homicides. We’ve already had the little girl’s body, Rachel, from the farm exhumed. Her DNA has been processed and the results are at the Lancaster’s Sheriff’s station as we speak.

However, Walter Krantz was never a suspect in the slayings and there is a point of contention: That of “desecrating” his interred body- and it isn’t sitting well with his children. The motion for exhumation is being challenged by them and the local Judge refuses to sign off on it. But I have another idea that will be just as good if they continue to refuse”.

“Well, I have to admit that when I first met you at the station, I had my doubts about your ability to do anything with this case. Now I’m beginning to see what you’ve been up to these past few weeks and I must say… I’m impressed,” says Swarovski.

Jessica looks at him and smiles. “Thanks Dominik”, she replies and for the first time in her career, Jessica feels a genuine camaraderie with a fellow coworker. Maybe she had been wrong about him after all. “But this thing is far from over”, she thinks. “Now I have to get a sit-down with one of the Krantz kids. How hard could it be, right?”

Murder in a Small Town: The Investigation

The Investigation

Over the next few weeks Jessica calls living relatives of the murdered victims and follows up on eye-witness descriptions of what was going on in Lancaster at the time the killings took place. There were plenty of suspects that were eventually weeded out over the course of the original investigation. There were always alibis, or other inconsistencies that never led to any conclusive results.

During this time, Detective Swarovski was proving to be a great resource for Jessica. She relies on him frequently to find addresses in the area and to locate lost geographical data because the original farm had been torn down after the murders and some of the archived city records were sketchy to say the least. The only thing that was left of the old farm was a wooden pole with the land tract numbers on it.

She traces the family lineage starting with the two-year-old and working all the up to the senior Hansen’s themselves. She leaves no stone unturned and has come up with a compelling argument based on witness accounts and the family lineage.

Gradually, Jessica begins to view Dominik as a valuable partner in her research of the crimes. He has abandoned “Allie’s Pub” for the most part and is spending more time with Jessica, helping her navigate the area. Then too, she is also valuable in helping him solve one of the town’s “active” murder cases. (It turns out that it was an accidental death that was viewed as “suspicious”). She begins seeing themselves as a “real” team working together to solve a brutal crime that has Jessica obsessed. Dominik endears himself to her even more by telling her where a decent gym can be found in the neighboring city of Daukin and the two go regularly. Optimistic, Jessica is hardly missing her friends these days and her cozy one-bedroom apartment on the lake. She is also given news of the Internal Affairs investigation of her co-workers in Cleveland. They have been dismissed from the force after being found culpable in the sexual harassment charges. 

Murder in a Small Town: The Confrontation

The Confrontation

Along with the pictures of the crime scene, Jessica finds handwritten notes from the original detectives. “Ok so, according to the original police report, the first four bodies were found in the barn - Carl, his wife Eula, Vicki his daughter, and the seven-year-old granddaughter Rachel.

            “Correct”, says Swarovski. “The other two were found in the house. These were the live-in housekeeper Olga, and the two-year-old grandson William. All of them had been bludgeoned with a blunt weapon, supposedly some farming implement that was never found”.

            “And, the theory at the time was that the first four had been lured to the barn under some pretense and dispatched one at a time starting with Vicki, correct?”, asks Jessica as she continues reading the original report.

            “Yes”, continues Swarovski. “After Vicki, it was her mother, then the old man Carl, and Rachel was the last victim”.

            “But Rachel’s body was the only one hidden under some hay, right?”

            “According to the original report, yes,” says Swarovski. “Then the killer went to the main house and did away with the housekeeper and the two-year old. The baby’s bassinet was totally destroyed during the assault.”

            “It just doesn’t make sense,” says Jessica. “Why would the killer attempt to hide Rachel’s body in the hay and the other three are laid out like tuna on the barn floor? Unless, she was actually the first one killed”, Jessica says and begins to formulate her first hypothesis of the murders. “This may have been an accident, but after it was done, the killer knew the others would come out to investigate. If this is accurate”, Jessica says, “the original investigators may also have been way off on the motive for the crimes”. Jessica feels her adrenaline surge as the idea gains momentum.

            “I don’t see what difference it makes”, says Swarovski skeptically. “Six people were horribly murdered on this farm over 30 years ago. Determining who was killed first just doesn’t make any difference. And, the odds of solving these crimes are next to impossible as far as I’m concerned. We’ve had our best detectives go over this with a fine-tooth comb- several fine-toothed combs as a matter of fact, and none of them have been able to draw a definite conclusion on the matter. We have no leads, no new evidence, and all the suspects have either died or can’t even remember what they had for breakfast this morning. At this point all we do have is conjecture!”

            Jessica looks up from the case file for the first time since opening it and stares Dominik square in his eyes. “It makes a difference to these people,” she says pointing at the file. “They didn’t deserve to be slaughtered like cattle. But, they do deserve justice just as much as anyone else-regardless of the time frame.”.

“Okay, Okay says Swarovski. I’m not the bad guy here. And honestly, I want to get the sonofabitch who did this just as bad as you do. I’m just saying that the odds of being able to clear these homicides after 30 years is a shot in the dark, a long shot in the dark. Seems like a waste of time to me when we have other “active” murder cases that need to be solved”.

Jessica turns her attention back to the file. “I tell you what”, She says, “I’m here only for the cold cases, but you can work on the others while I do research on these. If I need help, I know where to find you. Agreed?” 

“Agreed”, says Swarovski. “Well, I’ll leave you to it then”.

Murder in a Small Town: The Peeper

The Peeper

           

“I think someone is coming”, the man says to himself. The sound of human voices echoes across the yard from the main house. This shadow man conceals himself stealthily behind the slat-boards in the barn.

            This spectral figure is witness to some of the most horrific acts of incest by the owner of this farm and his 30-year-old daughter one could imagine. Fornication, fellatio, sodomy, and other acts of perversion are just some of the practices witnessed by this hidden spectator. Sometimes the farmer’s wife is present and watches the incestual debauchery with coveting eyes.

On other days the stranger watches the innocence portrayed by the seven-year-old granddaughter imagining tea times with stuffed animals and kings and queens of made-up lands.

He enjoys these times and imagines himself playing along with her as she pretends to cook for royalty, hand out refreshments, and provide grandiose entertainment, such as drama and amateur ballet. 

He wishes to be her king. She would be his beautiful princess to slay dragons for and shelter from the evil world. His head throbs and he starts to rub it but stops suddenly as he catches sight of the live-in housekeeper walking towards the barn with the baby. He looks with loathing at the plain-faced woman with the large, bulbous nose and child. Particularly the child. He discreetly massages his temples. A chill wind blows through the slats.

Murder in a Small Town: The Case

The Case

They enter a dank room on the bottom floor of the building with Swarovski still apologizing.

“Well, Ms. Reddit, here’s everything we have at this location”, he says. Jessica looks in amazement at the rows and rows of boxes on shelves. All of the boxes have numbers on them that, she assumes, correspond to each file folder. The smell of wet paper and mold assails her nostrils. “I hope none of this mildew has corrupted any of the evidence”, she thinks. The room resembles more of a dungeon than anything else. It’s dark, dimly lit, and stinks.

“Are there any files here that are considered priority as far as you know”? she asks Swarovski. Still stinging from their introduction, Swarovski begins to speak, “Well, I’m not sure what you mean by priority”, he says sarcastically. “But I guess the oldest one we have is this one”. Swarovski walks over to the filing cabinet, opens it, and pulls out a brown manila folder labeled “Hinterland Homicides” with a number 12131989 on it and hands it to Jessica. “Oh, the number on the file is the date the homicides occurred”, he says. “It’s over 30 years cold and nobody has been able to figure it out. Six people were killed on the old Hansen Farm just south of here, over three decades ago, bludgeoned with some type of farm tool. They named it “Hinterland” because of its similarities to some famous murders in Germany”, he says. Jessica opens the file and peers into it as though it was a type of time capsule. Intrigued and not looking up, she walks over to the only table in the room and places it gently in the middle.

In the folder were five black and white pictures of the crime scene. Two pictures of four bodies in a barn, one of the dead housekeeper in her bedroom, one of the slain two-year-old and the overturned crib, and the other picture was a view of the yard from the outside. Jessica had never seen a crime scene like this; The bodies, the blood, the heinousness. “Is there any water around here?”, she asks.

Murder in a Small Town: First Contact

First Contact

The next day Jessica returns to the sheriff’s office. She is still irritated about her lost luggage and wasn’t looking forward to the encounter with Detective Swarovski. She had gone to Allie’s last night for a quick bite and had learned a few things about the wayward detective.

One: he was, of course taller than she thought he would be - Probably in the six foot three to four range and maybe two hundred-twenty-five pounds. He wasn’t totally unattractive in a backwoods kind of way. Ironically, he reminded her of the survivalist guy on one of her Dad’s favorite TV shows. Two: He likes to play billiards. Three: He likes to get loud after a few drinks and run his mouth about some “Bitch detective from Cleveland coming to show him how to do his job” . And four: He likes to drink.

Jessica parks around back of the station today and enters through the service door. She slowly pulls herself up the steps and navigates an empty maze of cubicles, finally to the desk of “Detective Dominik Swarovski”. She knows this by the cheap brass name plaque that sits on top of it. The same kind ordered from most cut-rate Chinese mail-order businesses. “Tacky”, is all she could think. Swarovski is on the phone when she approaches. He turns, sees her, and gazes at her five-foot-two-inch form from head to toe in a lewd way. Her olive-complexion is as exotic to him as it is enticing. He turns away from her quickly and speaks quietly to the caller on the phone, “Hey man, I gotta go. Something’s come up that requires my undivided attention. I’ll give you a call back when I can”.  Jessica doesn’t say a word but sits in the chair facing his desk.

After hanging up, the detective then turns to address Jessica, placing his elbows on the desk and resting his chin on his hands. “Well, hello Miss”, he says with a sideways grin. “What can I do to assist you today”? The sideways grin never leaves his face. She looks him coyly in the eyes, “Well, as a matter of fact there is something you can do for me, uh Mr. Swarovski, is it”?

“Uh, no need for formalities here, Miss”, he says as he leans closer, “You can call me Detective if you want. You must be new to Lancaster because I know just about everyone in town, but I don’t think we’ve ever met”. Unflinching, Jessica leans in even closer. Close enough to whisper in his ear, and says, “That’s because I’m the bitch detective from Cleveland here to show you how to do your job”. Swarovski turns white as a sheet, his mouth gapes open, and he quickly stands straight up. So quickly in fact that he smacks his thighs on his desk and stumbles backward over his chair. “I’m Detective Reddit from the Cleveland joint task force on cold cases. Now that we’ve been properly introduced, can you please show me where these files are located so I might get to work”?

 Swarovski stumbles to his feet apologizing and embarrassingly leads Jessica down the narrow corridor, down some stairs, and to the storage room where cold-case evidence is kept. The accompanying files are also kept in this room in a separate filing cabinet than the “active cases”. 

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Murder in a Small Town: Jim's War

JIM'S WAR

              

After an eternity, Jim tries to open his eyes. He is disoriented and a raging torrent of pain floods his body. It starts in his head and pulses through his chest and limbs. He tastes grit and blood in his mouth; tries to spit, but only mud comes out. His left eye won’t open, and the left side of his face is matted with dirt, sand, and blood. Through his confusion, Jim remembers flashes of light, gunfire, a firefight, and that he had been hit in the head. “I’m not dead”, he tries to say, but nothing comes out. “Where is everybody? Did they leave me?” He can hear people speaking, but not his language. Surreal ghostly figures pass over him without stopping. Without raising his head, he slowly looks to his right and sees the bodies of three other soldiers from his platoon. The sun, haloed by spectral refraction, is nearing the horizon and casts long, peaked shadows that seem to waver rhythmically and radiate from the lifeless bodies. His severely injured brain tries to shut down, but not before offering him images of a daring plan. 
           Like beads on a wire, fragments of awareness are strung together in glimpses of one possible future. Coming to sometime later, Jim begins to put in motion his new blueprint for life. Not hearing any voices or movement as before, he slowly and with overwhelming pain, drags his shattered self to the nearest body, regurgitating blood-tinged yellow bile along the way. With much difficulty, he removes the dead soldier’s dog tags and places his own on the ground next to the sniper victim. The dead soldier is now Jim Wilson and Jim is instantaneously transformed into Brandon Smith. He can already hear the distant “whomp-whomp-whomp” of an American chopper getting closer. His platoon buddies will swear Jim Wilson was killed by sniper fire that day. The chopper finds him and his fallen comrades in the last hour of light.

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Murder in a Small Town: Mainstreet Gym

Mainstreet Gym

The Mainstreet Gym was her home away from home growing up in Cairo. Here she would wait for her dad after school, do her homework, and watch people workout. The Gym was run by a friend of Jessica’s dad, Tom Danski, and this is also where Jessica met Diane Hopper. Jessica was just ten years old at the time and Diane was a police detective in a rural city just over the border in Ohio. Diane was the surrogate mother Jessica needed at a time in her life when things were not going so well.

Diane was instrumental in getting Jessica into the Ohio police academy and a huge advocate for her professional development. “I really need to call her”, thinks Jessica. “I haven’t talked with her in ages”.

She scans the one stop-light intersection and notices the more modern conveniences that are inherent in many small towns - the fast food restaurants. McDonalds, Kentucky fried Chicken, and Arby’s were located on the south side of main highway running through town.

She smiles with kind of a sad grin and shakes her head. “The hotel is just a few blocks away”, she thinks. She is tired.

A faint smell of barbeque wafts through the air and immediately catches Jessica’s attention. She glances in the opposite direction down the street and spots a sign outside an establishment, “Allie’s Pub”. The unmistakable red and blue neon buzzes and blinks above the entrance.