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”.
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