Janet
Tuesday, December 16th, 2014
Muskingum County Sheriff’s Department
There were no new burglaries over the weekend. To top it off, just as with the previous robberies, we didn't get a single useable fingerprint from the Powers' crime scene. The Coroner had let us know too that we shouldn't expect anything useful from his detailed autopsy of Lorene Jarvis. Her killer didn't seem to have touched her.
Thumbing through the four files we had now, I looked over each report. I shook my head at the sheer lack of a single useful clue. “These have to be related,” I said out loud to the empty squad room. “They have to be...but how?”
Frustrated, I pushed the stack of files to my left and folded my hands on the desktop while I continued to wrack my brain.
Across from me, Shane's desk sat empty except for a few files he'd left out in a little stack when he stepped out for a dentist appointment. After staring at them for a good minute, I half raised myself and reached across the desks to tug them toward me.
The top one was the 'Yuletide Ewe' file. I slid it off the stack and didn't even bother to look at it. Next was the file Mel had been keeping on the dog napping cases. Shane and I had spent part of the morning calling kennels and groomers and such, trying to get some sort of a lead there.
Mel had made it a point to remind me that, in the county, the Amish are responsible for a lot of the dog breeding and they don’t have phones, per se. She said I needed to get out and talk to those people. I set that file aside too. I had no desire to go farm to farm talking to Amish men who wouldn't really give a woman the time of day.
I want to get out there and really shake something big up...show Mel that she picked the right woman for the job.
The third file caught my attention. It was the one on the Stiers case. I opened it and paged through it slowly, reading it more thoroughly than I had the day Shane first showed it to me.
It's all right here in black and white. I tapped the pages. We know who the killer is...we just have to get him to talk.
I wrote the Harper's address down and then replaced Shane's files as he'd left them.
It's time to go shake a tree!
###
“Ma'am,” I dipped my head in greeting, “I'm Detective Mason with the Muskingum County Sheriff's Office.”
“Elizabeth Harper,” she said, ignoring my outstretched hand. “How can I help you Detective?” She stayed framed in the doorway but I noticed her lip tremor slightly as she asked.
“I'm just following up on an old case. I was wondering if Nevil were around that I might chat with him for a minute?” I was vague on purpose.
“Junior or Senior? My husband isn't here right now and...Nevil Jr., I...I rarely see him anymore...we rarely see him.” Her nervousness was becoming even more obvious.
“Oh, something wrong there?”
She looked away from me in the classic textbook maneuver of someone about to lie. “There's been some sort of rift between him and his father...I don't know what all about but they've barely spoken in months. Junior only comes around when he knows for sure his paw won't be here.”
“Any idea when your husband will be home?”
“No, sorry.” She looked away again, “He's at the livestock auctions. He could be gone all day.”
Since I couldn't get past his wife to talk to Nevil Harper Sr., I decided to pay Nevil Jr. a quick visit at the Toyota dealership where he worked.
When I introduced myself this time, the boy took my hand confidently. He told his manager he was going to take ten and then lead me into the employee break room to chat. Just 19, he had the air of confidence of a man with nothing to hide.
As we took seats, I said to him, “Look, I know you're working so I'm going to get right down to it.”
He nodded his consent.
“I took over your girlfriend's case. You have my condolences on your loss.”
Looking surprised, he thanked me.
“I've got all the files but I'd like to hear your story directly from you.”
“Sure, detective. No problem.” He proceeded to take a couple of minutes to tell me the same story Shane had relayed before, almost verbatim.
I interjected a few questions here and there but he didn't waver. He also didn't offer up any more information about his father other than to say that he saw him at the scene.
“Are you and your father on speaking terms?”
“No ma'am. I have nothing to say to him.”
“You're convinced he killed her?”
“Yes.”
“There isn't anything else you can tell me about that day when you found Olivia?”
This time, the boy shook his head no.
Hoping to get him to say more, I played my ace. “Nevil,” I leaned across the little break table and spoke low, “the DNA evidence is finally back and it doesn’t look good.”
His eyes flared briefly. “Good how, ma'am.”
“It doesn't look good for you.”
“Me?” he almost shouted. Lowering his voice, he pleaded, “I didn't kill her, I swear. I loved her.”
“The DNA says different.”
“DNA from what...she wasn't...wasn't...?” He couldn't finish the sentence and his eyes started to tear up.
“No; she wasn't raped, if that's what you're asking. She did try to fight off her attacker. That's where we got DNA.”
“It has to be my dad's!” He wasn't trying to hold his voice down anymore.
His manager stuck his head into the room and asked if everything was okay. Nevil Jr. waved him away.
“Ma'am, wouldn't my DNA be sort of like my dad's?” he quizzed me. “They must not have read it right...they couldn't have.”
I just shrugged and let him simmer.
“He's not going to get away with this anymore! I'm not going to jail for something he did. I'm going to go and talk to him today; that's what I'm going to do. I'll get him to admit to you all what he’s done! You'll see!”
I took my leave smiling inwardly. I lit a fire and fanned the flames, now I'm going to watch it burn and be there to put it out.
I watched the garage discreetly from my unmarked for the rest of the afternoon. When Nevil Jr. left, I followed him. Instead of going to his boss’s house, where I knew he was staying, he drove out to his family’s farm with me tailing behind.
I pulled off the road at the crest of a hill just up from the farm and watched as Junior parked, got quickly out of his car and headed toward the biggest barn, his fists balled. He never even looked my way, so intent was he on confronting his father.
I didn't have a viable vantage point to see anymore so I turned around and headed back down the road a little way then pulled off. I hoped to see the younger Harper going back by.
Only ten minutes went by before he sped back by me. I could see him gripping the steering wheel, his anger evident even in the slight glimpse I got of his face. Satisfied with the havoc I'd wrought, I headed back to the station.