CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

 

 

Mariella Vasquez was another one of the character witnesses who spoke against Samuel Fox at the trial. She’d also called in one of the Foxes’ domestic disturbance incidents when Samuel had refused to let Leann leave the house. We had to meet Mariella at her work, and she only had a few minutes to speak to us on her break. We met her at the back door of the local Dollar General store.

After we introduced ourselves, Baxter asked, “How long had you been friends with Leann Fox?”

“I knew Leann from way back in high school. Back before she met that dick Samuel,” Mariella said, sneering.

“Was their relationship always like it was near the end?” Baxter asked.

“No, not at all. If you can believe it, he was a real catch back in the day. College grad, good job, handsome. He was even nice to me and her other friends, which is usually a sure sign a guy’s a keeper. They made the cutest couple, and then when Justin came along, they were the perfect little family.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “That was, until she lost the baby.”

I tensed. “Baby? You knew she was pregnant?” I shot a look at Baxter, who seemed equally surprised by this news.

She smiled slightly. “Well, sure, she told her closest friends, but she hadn’t broadcast it or told her work yet. She was like three months along.”

At three months, Leann Fox’s belly would have begun to swell. And while it would have been easy enough to hide under baggy clothes, there was no way a coroner would have missed it—unless it was a pregnancy prior to the possible one at the time of her death. Mariella had said they were the perfect family until Leann lost the baby.

“When was this?” I asked.

“Um…a year, maybe two before she died. They were both in a dark place afterward. Samuel never recovered from it. Then when he lost his job and started drinking…” She shook her head. “That was it. Their marriage was over, but Leann refused to give up on it. She wanted things to go back to how they were before, and she wouldn’t listen to reason. I begged her to leave him, but she wouldn’t. She said the old Samuel was still in there somewhere, and if she stayed with him, he’d eventually come around.” Mariella lit a cigarette and took a long drag from it.

It was sad to hear that the heartbreaking loss of a baby was what had paved the path for their marriage to implode and the abuse to start. “Is that why you changed your story after placing a domestic disturbance call to the police two weeks before Leann died? Did she put you up to it to keep the peace?”

Frowning, she replied, “Leann asked me nicely to say I blew things out of proportion. Samuel, not so much. He said if I didn’t tell the police it was all a misunderstanding, he’d beat up Leann and then come after me.”

Baxter shook his head. “So you think he was the one who killed her?”

“I do. He’d turned into a monster.”

“Near the end, when things were so bad between them, did Leann ever tell you that she’d turned to someone else for comfort?” I asked.

“Like another man?”

“Yes. We’re thinking she was seeing someone else.”

She let out a sigh. “She was, but…I don’t think she would have told me about it if I hadn’t guessed. She was suddenly happy again, and I knew it had nothing to do with Samuel. When I called her on it, she was horrified that I’d figured out her secret. She said she felt so guilty about cheating, but that she needed it. It had been over a year since she and Samuel had sex.” Mariella shrugged. “I told her to go for it and not be ashamed, but she said she still loved her husband and wanted their marriage to work. She made me promise not to tell a soul. I haven’t until now. Her secret can’t hurt anyone at this point, right?”

I had begun trembling inside while she spoke. This could be exactly what we needed. “What was his name?”

“She wouldn’t tell because he was married, too. And don’t think I didn’t try to get it out of her.”

I felt myself deflating. I didn’t know how much closer we could get to Leann Fox than her best friend. If she didn’t know, then the secret had died with Leann.

Baxter asked, “Did it not occur to you to tell the police she had a secret lover? He might have been the one who killed her. Maybe she told him she was going back to her husband and he got violent.”

Shaking her head, Mariella said, “No way. She said this guy was a prince. They both knew their relationship wasn’t supposed to last forever, which was why I think she even agreed to it in the first place. It was just a fling, and they both knew it.”

Baxter shot a glance at me. “Do you know if she was pregnant at the time of her death?”

“Pregnant? That would be news to me.” Mariella thought for a moment as she puffed out a plume of smoke. “Although…she did mention the day before she died that she thought she had something that would fix their relationship for sure this time. I was hoping it was a divorce, or at the very least some anger management for Samuel. She said she wanted to tell him before she told me, but then…” She wiped away another tear.

I asked, “How close were you with Justin? Have you had any contact with him since Leann died?”

She shook her head. “I tried to get social services to let me look in on him now and again, but I was told the foster families wouldn’t allow it. I don’t know if that was a line to make me quit harassing them or what. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of the kid until I saw his picture on TV this week. Wouldn’t have known him if they hadn’t given his name. But when I took a closer look, I noticed he has those same big eyes he always had.” She chuckled. “One look from him, and Leann was putty in his hands. She loved that kid.” Pausing for another drag, her face twisted into a frown. “It’s a shame he’s so screwed up now. Leann would roll over in her grave.”

Baxter nodded. “I know you have to get back to work, so we’ll wrap this up. What do you know about Leann having a cellphone?”

Mariella smiled and flicked her cigarette butt onto the ground. “Her boyfriend gave it to her so they could plan their little romantic trysts. I know you have your suspicions about him, but trust me, he was good for her.”

I stood there, speechless.

Luckily, Baxter kept his head. “You’ve given us a lot to think about, Mrs. Vasquez. We appreciate you meeting with us.”

Once she’d gone back inside, Baxter said, “Holy shit. The boyfriend gave her the phone? No wonder they never found it. Because he took it after he killed her.”

“Yes, absolutely. Also, if Leann and Samuel supposedly had zero sex in the year before she died, who tied her up buck naked the day her boss alerted the police after she was late to work?”

“Are you thinking it was the boyfriend instead, so she lied to the cops?”

“It kind of had to be if what Mariella said is true. Leann could have made up the whole story. Maybe her husband left for the day and she dropped her kid at school. Then her boyfriend booty calls her, she blows off work, he comes over, and they lose track of time. If they got interrupted by the cops knocking on the door, maybe he ran for it so no one would find out about their affair.”

“Unless her husband was enough of an asshole to tie her up for no apparent reason.”

“That’s still a valid point.” I ran my hands through my hair. “I can’t believe we’re so close, but we have no name. Anyone who could have told us definitively who the boyfriend was is dead. This sucks.” I kicked a plastic bottle that had been tossed on the ground.

Baxter placed a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll find him. Maybe Manetti’s DNA results will be all we need.”

“If and only if the guy is in CODIS, which is a serious long shot.” I heaved out a sigh. “I think at this point our best option is to forget this case and work on finding Justin Fox before the deadline.”

“Okay. If you want to switch our focus to trying to find someone who knows his whereabouts, I’m all in. We can start on that list of foster families and go ask around at the businesses listed in his employment record. I want to end this son of a bitch as much as you do, and it makes no difference to me how we do it.”

***

We drove over to meet Courtney Kapinski at her workplace in Carmel. She was a server at one of the nicer restaurants in the Carmel City Center. The restaurant was all but deserted in the mid-afternoon, so she was able to show us to a table in the posh bar and sit down with us.

Although normally it would have been a chill place to be, I was anything but calm. I’d become increasingly anxious and shaky on the drive over, and I was afraid I knew the cause. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since I’d had my last drink, and as much as I hated to admit it to myself, I’d been drinking daily for the better part of three months. I’d not taken even a sip since last night, wanting to stay clear-headed for this case, but I was becoming more frightened of what might happen if I didn’t keep at least a little alcohol in my system. I couldn’t go into full withdrawal and do what I needed to do in the next forty-eight hours.

I struggled to keep my mind off the rows and rows of glittering bottles behind the bar and on the conversation as Baxter began asking Courtney about the time she spent living in the foster home with Justin Fox. As he built a rapport with her, he very carefully avoided the direct question of whether or not she’d had any contact with Justin lately. With people who were acquaintances of Justin’s, it was imperative that we didn’t tip our hand, keeping the guise of working his mother’s case as he’d asked. If one of them figured out we were trying to find Justin and told him, chances were he’d get pissed off and send us another angry video. Then at least we’d know we were close. At the same time, I hoped that didn’t happen, because I didn’t want to risk Rachel’s safety by enraging him.

Baxter asked her, “Did he speak about any people who might have had a grudge against his mother?”

Courtney shook her head sadly. “He never talked about her. He couldn’t. We all knew he’d lost his mom. The one kind thing the Reubens—our foster parents—ever did for him was warning the rest of us never to bring up the subject of his mother.”

“We met with Wyatt Churchill earlier. It seemed that the abusive nature of that household helped him and Justin form a quick bond. Was that true for you as well?”

“It was. I was a little older than them, and it bothered me to watch them get slapped around. I tried to intervene a few times, but I only ended up making our foster dad angrier and making it worse. I felt terrible sitting back and watching them suffer, but it was over faster if I did.”

Baxter got at call, and he excused himself to take it, leaving me alone with Courtney.

She regarded me for a moment. “You look unwell, Ms. Matthews. Can I get you some water?”

I swiped the back of my hand over the sweat beaded on my upper lip. “No, thank you. I’m fine. It’s…all the running around in the cold…in and out of heated buildings with this big coat on…” I wrestled to remove my coat, only succeeding in making myself sweat more.

Baxter rushed back over and said, “Ellie, we need to go. Ms. Kapinski, we’ll have to continue our discussion some other time. Thank you for meeting with us.”

I grabbed my coat and followed Baxter out the door. I had to practically run to keep up with his long strides. He didn’t say a word until we were in his vehicle and speeding north, lights and siren on.

“Look, Ellie, I don’t want to get your hopes up…but the Chief said he found a farm property in Jolietville that belongs to a brother of Tim Flynn, Justin Fox’s first foster dad. The guy also owns a 1985 Ford F-150. They thought it could be a strong lead, so they didn’t do the initial canvas—they went straight for a warrant to search the property.”

My breath caught in my throat. “This could be it,” I whispered.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. In fact, the Chief didn’t want me to tell you about it.”

“Why?” I demanded.

His only answer was to cast a worried glance at me.

I muttered, “I wish people would stop trying to protect me.”

“I gathered that. And that’s why I told you. I thought you had a right to know.”

The drive to Jolietville was the longest ten minutes of my life, with me waffling between the excitement of possibly having found Rachel to the sheer panic of not finding her, or worse, happening upon something horrific that I would never get over.

When we arrived at the Flynn farm, the area in front of a ramshackle barn was packed with police vehicles, lights flashing. I hopped out of Baxter’s vehicle before it even came to a stop and raced toward the barn, disregarding shouts from various officers to stay back. Martinez grabbed me before I reached the barn doors. I struggled against him, but he had me in some kind of hold I couldn’t get out of.

Just then, Esparza and Manetti, wearing Kevlar vests and deep frowns, exited the barn.

When their eyes landed on me, I demanded, “Well? What did you find?”

While Esparza threw a disgusted glare in Baxter’s direction, Manetti came my way. Martinez released me to Manetti, who took my arm and guided me away from the circus in front of the barn.

His voice rough, he said, “I’m sorry, Ellie, but we didn’t find Rachel here. The interior of the barn looks nothing like the one in the video. This isn’t it. Again, I’m sorry. I was hoping to have it checked out before you were made aware of the situation, but I guess that didn’t happen.”

Tears sprang to my eyes, and I snapped, “I am so done with everyone else making decisions on my behalf. Baxter is the only one around here who treats me like an adult.”

Manetti’s jaw clenched. “Chief Esparza and I discussed it, and we thought it would be best not to take your focus off your investigation. It wasn’t as personal as you’re assuming. We need you not to get bogged down with the things that you can’t be a part of, anyway. Even if you’d gotten here sooner, you couldn’t have gone in there with us. You know that. And now you’ve wasted time running all the way out here.”

Incensed, I sputtered, “You… You don’t need to tell me… Damn it! I… Shut up, Manetti.”

I brushed past him and stalked back toward Baxter’s vehicle. Not having found a better outlet for my rage, I slammed my fists down on the hood.

Baxter appeared next to me and said quietly, “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”