The Ghost Page 7

  He was waiting for her at the door of his office when she arrived there, steely eyed. He was trying to be cordial, standing with the door open. "Welcome Ms. de Leon, welcome to my office. How can I be of service to you?"

  "You can tell me who at the university initiated the attempt to cover up the death of Marilyn Cummings."

  "Why Ms. de Leon I am sure I have no idea what it is you are talking about."

  "All right Mr. Freeman. I will let you off the hook for now. I had hoped you would cooperate without a Grand Jury investigation of your autopsy report and how it became so blatantly a piece of medical malpractice. But I suppose you don't care whether the doctors who performed that autopsy get sued individually do you? I know the law suits are coming sir. The documents are being prepared now for the suits against the university, your hospital and your doctors. You will eventually be named as the person who arranged the statement in the autopsy report of death occurring as a result of an inconclusive event. When that happens, and I have your name from the lips of one of your doctors, I will come back, arrest you, book you into the jail for obstruction of justice, a felony, and I will request the federal authorities do the same in terms of your violation of the civil rights of the decedent. I had hoped for your cooperation in order to avoid all those consequences. But believe me when I say to you it will be a real pleasure to put the cuffs on you Mr. Freeman. Be assured you will be placed in general population in the jail.Now do you wish to change your stance at this point or wait until you are under arrest?"

  Manny's face had grown progressively more red as Jeanne talked. He stammered, "You can't do all those things really, can you?"

  "You bet your life I can Mr. Freeman. Now I will bid you good day. Oh one more thing I almost forgot, here is a subpoena for your telephone records related to this office phone only for the moment. If this does not give me the name of the person with whom you spoke about falsifying the autopsy, I miss my guess. Anything else you have to say sir?"

  "Please, please, sit down, please, give me a minute to compose myself. I did not expect any of this obviously. Please. I am so close to retirement I cannot possibly lose this position now and it would be the instant result of my being arrested. Please, can I arrange for some kind of assistance if I tell you everything?"

  Jeanne smiled inwardly, thinking to herself that if he really told the truth the entire thing was going to blow wide open. "I cannot promise you anything at this stage Mr. Freeman but I can tell you if your information proves to be truthful and useful I will see to it that the County Attorney is made aware of your cooperation and I will ask him not to proffer charges against you with the federal authorities."

  "You've got to give me something now Ms. de Leon. I cannot do this without your assurance I am not going to end up in jail and without a pension of any kind to support my family."

  "You know what Mr. Freeman, I have no sympathy for your situation. A woman died here. You received a request or orders to cover her death up. In doing so you participated in an attempt at a cover up of her death and the fact that she had been raped. For what? What caused you to do those things Mr. Freeman; friendship, money, what?Now Mr. Freeman the evidence which existed as a result of her death and the rape is gone. Someone stole it. And you know who took the evidence because the people who stole it are working with the same person or people with whom you are working as well." She looked at him carefully. She could see he was wavering, about to cave in, scared out of his wits, as he should be.

  Jeanne continued, "A woman died. Now another has died. Your attempt at a cover up may cause us great difficulty in determining who committed those two murders. If you go to jail it will be well deserved sir. And again I cannot and will not give you any assurances at the moment. What I will do I have already told you. If it is not enough for you sir, then goodbye and good luck!"

  "Two are dead? How can it be? How can it be true? Certainly there cannot be a serial killer working on Scalian campus? Can there? But then I guess you cannot yet categorize him or her as a serial killer can you? It does take three deaths or more does it not Detective?"

  "Yes, I think it does you prison bound punk. Your time there will be well occupied with avid lovers Mr. Freeman. It won't take two days for you to be raped. Well deserved, I might add," she said as she walked out the door.

  "Please wait," he shouted as he almost staggered to the door. "Please wait. I can't, I can't stand this, it was the president of the university who called me. He was the one who asked me to have the autopsy report results altered. The docs had already decided it was homicide and blunt force trauma which caused her death. I was the one who caused them to change the findings of cause of death."

  "What is the name Mr. Freeman. What is the name of this person?"

  "President Jefferson Wells. He was the one who called me. I would not have done anything to change the autopsy results otherwise. We are old friends and members of the same church. We have helped each other through the years many times."

  "Pull your phone records sir. Do it today. I will be back tomorrow to get the records. And tomorrow when I call and tell you I am coming to see you have those records ready and the doctors who did the autopsy here with you. Do you understand me sir?"

  "Yes. I will do all you say. Just don't have me put in jail please."

  "We will see Mr. Freeman, we will see. In the meantime, you remember what you have done here sir. A young woman died. And you were so callous about her death you tried to cover it up. I hope the damages against you in the lawsuit her parents are going to file go to the multiples of millions in punitive damages you simpering fool." Again she left.

  In the course of the next several days Jeanne interviewed several other people, then went back and got Freeman's telephone records. The records confirmed the timing of the conversations with Jefferson Wells. She was happy to report all this information to the private investigators working with the Cummings family. It was a group of former law enforcement people she had known before they left the department. She had been a young officer in homicide when Josie Du Puy was killed by a bomb. She knew Josie's husband pretty well.

  Ned Markham and his firm, including Eduardo Ontiveros and Jim Cade as well as Jaime Ontiveros and their wives were private investigators for many lawyers. The information she provided would eventually be given to the attorney for the Cummings family. She wanted no one to know she was doing that. There were ethical questions of course. But she wanted the attorneys and the Cummings to have any information she could give them. She wanted the bastards who had tried to cover up Marilyn's death to pay dearly.

  She decided against interviewing Jefferson Wells. By the time she could have interviewed him she had all the information she needed to get a conviction on him for obstruction of justice and possibly a civil rights violation in federal court as well. She went, after interviewing the doctors at the hospital, to the Campus Police Department. She was ready to serve subpoenas on both Jason Montague and Lt. Jim Whalen as well as the chief of the department.

  When she arrived at the department she found a very contrite Jason Montague. With him she found a little less contrite but cooperative lieutenant Jim Whalen and a close mouthed chief. She took Jason Montague to a nearby diner to interview him in order that she would not and could not be watched or recorded by the other two officers. "Are you ready to talk to me Mister Montague?"

  "Please Jeanne can't we be friends?"

  "I told you about our past friendship the last time we met. You are not my friend. You are a felon. I am interviewing a felon. Am I totally clear as to your status here?"

  "Yes, Detective."

  "Tell me who it was, the person who ordered you to stand by and watch to see no one took notice of the search and removal of items from Marilyn Cummings' room the night she died."

  "It was the chief."

  "Who was with him at the time?"

  "Lieutenant Jim Whalen and Vice President of the University James Preston."

  "Who went into the room?"
<
br />   "The three of them."

  "How long were they in the room?"

  "I don't know exactly. It took them a while to clean up blood which was all over the place and to gather up her clothing and some other stuff."

  "What other stuff?"

  "We took her lap top in the hopes we could find some pictures of sex scenes or something which would give us a hook to condemn her. But we didn't find anything except study materials and work product for her classes. I guess the lack of anything bad led the president to find and hire a hacker to put some stuff onto her computer."

  "Where is her computer now, do you know?"

  "I think it is still in the president's office. He was going to save it for use in a civil suit if he had to."

  "He will. I guarantee it."

  "Why are you so hell bent to hurt the university Detective?"

  "I have no vendetta against the university Mr. Montague. But I do stand against rapists. And you not only have a rapist who is working your area, probably your campus, but he is a murderer as well. My intuition tells me your department and the university, since they tried to cover up this rape and murder, have done the same thing before. So one of my questions for you is how many rapes have there been on campus in the last year or so which you are holding as unsolved cases?"

  "I honestly don't know. I have heard some rumors about a campus rapist but I have not seen any statistics or heard anything about any cases actually being filed."

  "Is your ignorance because you are uninformed or because you are part of the cover up of those rapes, or maybe it is just plain stupidity. What do you think Mr. Montague?"

  Jason turned red at the last comment. This was a woman with whom he had shared intimacies and she was ripping him to pieces. He could not take it any longer. He angrily said "I have said the last thing I will say to you without the presence of my lawyer."

  "That is fine with me Mr. Montague. Since you have already confessed to the cover-up you are under arrest sir. If you move your hand toward that gun, I will be forced to shoot you where you stand." As she said those words she raised the gun she had drawn from behind her and pointed it directly at his face. "Stand very still now Mister or I will shoot you in the head and kill you right here, right now. You will not any longer be available to add to the rape of women on this campus. Put your hands against the wall. You know the drill. Back up with your feet only until I tell you to stop."

  Jason knew that Jeanne was a crack shot and that if she fired her gun it would be fatal to him. He complied with her every order even though he was increasingly angry at her.She took his gun, his taser and his handcuffs off his belt, and then searched him and found his little hide out gun in a holster around his right leg. After disarming him she ordered him to the ground and again he complied. She ordered him to put his hands behind his back and handcuffed him with his own cuffs just as another Campus Police Cruiser pulled up.

  Lieutenant Jim Whalen came out of the cruiser, asked what the hell was going on and found himself in the same position as his officer within minutes. And within a few more minutes the Chief of the Campus Police was also on the ground, handcuffed and under arrest.

  Before shipping the cops off to the jail she left them to stand out in the open quad area of the campus while she went into the administrative offices in search of Vice President, James Preston, and President, Jefferson Wells. The three cops were tied up to a bike rack so they were going nowhere. After spending twenty minutes or so looking for the administration officials, who were conveniently gone, she went back to the cops.

  There was at least a dozen or so students gathered around the three of them as they stood, uncomfortably chained to the bike rack and handcuffed. One of the students asked her what was going on? She replied, "These three men were complicit in a cover up of the death of Marilyn Cummings after she was raped on this campus. Have any of you heard anything about Marilyn Cummings being raped and murdered?”

  Hearing this one girl said, "She wasn't the only one to get raped. There are at least ten of us that they have covered up. We are all in counseling together. I would bet there are others as well." Jeanne took the girl's name and the name of the counselor. She would come back later and interview both of them, probably together, and see what shook out of that tree. As she put the three campus police into the back of a squad car she had called the women who had gathered around the scene applauded. She smiled and waved to the girls.

  After securing all the three cops as prisoners, and while waiting for a transport vehicle, she read them their Miranda warnings from a card she carried with her. After doing so, she asked each of them individually if they would talk with her. Each said no, they would not do so without the presence of an attorney. She called for a transport vehicle to come and pick them up and take them to the jail in Phoenix for booking on charges of Obstruction of Justice.

  Since all these events took place on a Friday afternoon late she knew that none of them would be able to appear before a judge and be bonded out or released on their own recognizance until Monday morning. That gave her time to have the polygraph examiner for the Phoenix P.D. set up to do "lie detector" tests on each of them on Sunday.

  When it came time for the lie detector tests the only one who gave a test willingly was Jason Montague. He knew if he obstructed the lie detector test he would be subject to permanent removal from the rolls of those licensed to be peace officers in the State of Arizona by the so-called POST group. Since the other two refused the polygraph their licenses to act as a peace officer were first suspended and then permanently revoked within a couple of weeks (after their refusal). Only Jason remained as a certified officer among the three of them. A felony conviction would end his status the same day as the court order convicting him was entered, if indeed it ever happened.

  Jason would not be able to go back to work for the university but if he was able to work out an immunity deal with the prosecutor he might be able to retain the opportunity to find another police position. His position led him to tell the truth in response to all questions concerning the events of the night and the next day when Marilyn Cummings was raped and died. His statements also led to the issuance of arrest warrants for Manny Freeman, James Preston and Jefferson Wells.

  he heard of all the mess with glee...

  his next victim had been chosen...

  she paid him no heed...

  he followed her for days...

  he knew her schedule, her habits...

  it would be easy, just as before...

  but he would have to be careful...

  they were aware of him now...

  then he decided, care be gone...

  so what if they know of me...

  they don't know who I am...

  but they will...

  they will...

  yes, they will know the ghost rapist...

  The smallest of samples of human tissue, if it comes from the right place on the body, or if it is some body fluids, can allow the construction of a DNA profile of a rapist, a murderer, whatever. As the various items of evidence were tested, some of them by the Department of Public Safety Labs in Phoenix, from the second rape and murder victim, a small white or pale colored substance was being tested as well. It turned out to be semen. It was immediately sent to the DNA specialist who started the three-week long process of creating a DNA profile out of the material she removed.

  When she was being raped and murdered the rapist had sat over the top of her nude body and removed his condom. Then he proceeded to kill her by the use of the plastic bag. As he was doing so he got another erection and a couple of tiny drops of his semen, left as residue from his ejaculation during the rape, dripped onto the area of Rachel's vagina. He didn't notice the semen. This was the material tested in the Department of Public Safety labs and on which a DNA profile was being prepared.

  When Jeanne found out DNA was being tested she was ecstatic. But then she realized, sobering from the reality of her life, there might not be a DNA record on
the guy yet. He might not have been arrested anywhere in the past where he would have been required to furnish DNA. So even though it was a positive step toward the end of the guy's reign of terror it was just one step. There would have to be others, lots of others.

  One of the ways in which Jeanne would begin to look for the rapist, to find him and arrest him, bring him to justice, was to talk with the other women who had been raped. She went back to the campus for the purpose of meeting with the other rape victims, as well as looking for the VP and the President.

  She met first with the woman/girl who had spoken out to her, who had said she had been raped. The girl's name was Melanie Campbell. She found Melanie in the Student Union Center of the University. Melanie was not alone. There were several other girls with her. Jeanne took each of their names dutifully and began with Melanie.

  "Do you mind talking about this guy with all these other people present?"

  "No."

  "How did the rapist first come onto you Melanie?" Many times in a police officer’s pursuit of a perpetrator the identification of an M.O. or Modus Operandi, will be of great help.

  "I was on my way home from the library. It was late, after eleven o' clock at night, much of the campus was dark. He stepped out of some shadows behind me and slipped a plastic bag over my head. It was tightly around my face before I could move. He told me to take off my pants and panties. After that he told me to put my hands behind my back and he put some kind of twist tie on them. Then he bent me over and shoved it in me. He didn't last for more than a few seconds at most but I think he wore a condom because there was no, you know, residue left after he was done."

  "What did he do after that?"

  "He said something to me like you cunt you caused this and then he started hitting me and kicking me. He hit me in the jaw and I went down hard. I stayed still. He kicked me a few times and then he cut off the twist ties and disappeared into the night. I went back to the dorm. My girlfriend and I went to the campus police right away. They told us to forget about it and go back to our normal routines. They told us they were working on it. I heard nothing more about it until one night I overheard another girl talking. She said something about being raped, and we talked. And as we talked several other girls came and sat down with us and talked as well. As you can see many of us are here today. We put out the word on campus. We had over fifteen responses and think there are more. There are eight of us here today."