Chapter Two

Police Lieutenant Jason Hargors visits the murder scene.

Dappled Police Department Lieutenant Jason Hargors was a man of deep religious faith. He could always tell right from wrong, he liked to say, by looking at what it says to do in his books: the Good Book first, the law books second, and the procedural manual of the Dappled Police Department third.

Hargors trusted the Good Lord to take care of him and he regularly prayed that someday he might become McNielsen County Sheriff. The Lord worked in mysterious ways, but Hargors knew exactly the process that could make his prayers come true. Sheriffs were elected. Every resident of McNielsen County knew who the sheriff was, but few knew a lieutenant in the Dappled Police Department. Hargors did what he could do to make himself sheriff material. He kept his nose clean, he was active in the right church, he kept his political views private except in rare circumstances when he had to say something and then he toed the conservative line, and he prepared by taking all the necessary and appropriate educational classes.

What Hargors couldn’t do alone, he prayed that the Lord would do for him. The Lord would need to find a way for the good people of McNielsen County to learn about Jason Hargors. As soon as the call came in from the patrol officers for the investigator on duty, Hargors knew immediately that his prayers may have been answered. It was usually years between homicides in Dappled and, even then, the most common murders were domestic disputes, a bad bar brawl outcome, or transients fighting over who got the last swig of cheap wine; these weren’t the types of homicides that people paid much attention to and, if they did, police work was an afterthought. In contrast, a young girl murdered at Central Minnesota Hospital could be a gold mine.

When he arrived at the hospital, there was a patrol officer at the reception area waiting for him. That officer guided him down the stairs and then through the hallway to the door of the room where the girl’s body had been found. There, Hargors met Sergeant Jake Conroy who had taken command of the crime scene. The sergeant told him that a doctor had identified the girl as Tiffany Lindenfeld, a patient from the mental health unit. He then opened the door so Hargors could enter.

Hargors stood just inside the door, absorbing a broad overview of the scene before honing in on the details. It was a large room, with perhaps ten feet of space to the left, ten more to the right, and about fifteen across. It had the smell of cleaning supplies mingled with singed electronics and old trash. As the sign on the door indicated, it was a building management room where building management and custodial staff assembled, tools were kept, and trash stored. To the left as he entered the room was a long workbench with tools hung above on pegboard. Beside it were four custodial carts with brooms, mops, buckets and other janitorial supplies. Straight ahead filling up a good portion of the far wall was an overhead garage-type door. To the right, there was a desk with a gooseneck lamp, an old fashioned ink blotter, a telephone, and “In” and “Out” baskets. An electronic timeclock for checking workers in and out hung on the wall. There was a desk chair and two straight back chairs. Leaning in the right hand corner and hanging from the wall on right side were more brooms and mops, as well as rakes, shovels and other tools then, further on, a half dozen trash bins. Between the last two trash bins sprawled the body of a girl.

Hargors strode over to look at the body more closely. She was young, wore no makeup, and had jet black hair with a white stripe. She lay face-up with her head partially propped in the corner of the cinder block walls. The left side of her face had a deep and bloody trough in a straight line from the hair above her left ear across her right eye socket and ending at the bridge of her nose. Someone had hit her very hard. The blood had flowed down her cheek and left ear and formed a small pool on the floor; it was dark red in the center where it pooled and crusty black along the edges. Looking closely, Hargors saw seepage of brain tissue in the deepest part of the wound between where her eye and left temple had been. He also noticed piercings on her uninjured eyebrow, and her earlobes. There may also have been piercings on her nose and lips, but it was hard to tell with the splattered blood and tissue.

Hargors swallowed and looked away from the wound to observe the rest of her body. Her right arm was raised across the front of her face with her wrist across her chin and hand resting on her cheek as though raised to thwart the blow. He noted sadly she was just a girl, almost to womanhood, but just a girl. She was of medium build and maybe a bit shorter than average height. She wore a black tee shirt and black jeans. The clothes looked intact; there were no obvious signs of sexual assault. She lay sprawled with her back arched and her left leg bent so far that her left foot was under her butt; it appeared she was moving backwards when the fatal blow fell. Her right leg splayed towards the center of the room, partially covered by an overturned trash bin.

He turned and looked again at the rest of the room. On the workbench to the left of the door where he had entered was large heavy looking pipe wrench. He stepped closer without touching anything to look more closely. There was blood on it. Partially wrapped around the handle was a rag. This would be the murder weapon.

Hargors walked back out of the room and spoke to Sergeant Conroy, “Jake, you got this room sealed off, nobody comes in until the Crime Scene Unit gets here, right?”

“Exactly, Loo.”

“Okay, who found the girl?”

“A kid named Kyle. We’ve got him next door in a conference room.”

Hargors strode into the room. Kyle was sitting nervously, looking pale and fidgety when Hargors entered. He was a young guy, maybe mid-twenties, with blond hair cut in the current “cool” style: stubbly on the sides, long along the top and crown. Hargors frowned.

Hargors introduced himself and asked, “What’s your name, son?”

“Kyle MacKenzie,” Kyle gulped.

“Tell me what happened, Kyle.”