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.
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