Friday, December 27, 2019

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. 

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