Killer Notebook

PART ONE

MURDER

CHAPTER ONE

My name is Phillip Webber and, frankly, I am a frickin’ idiot. But we’ll dig into that a bit later.

Right now I want to tell you how it all began. I live in a small eastern North Carolina coastal town called Beaufort. A few years back I was in the real estate business. I had my own company and eventually became president of the local Board of Realtors. Like many small organizations the choices for president over time became more and more limited. Finally, I was the only untapped choice left.

I was married at the time and had three great kids and an antagonistic wife, Ainslie. Actually, I don’t really know what happened. Something distracted me. Perhaps it was the ubiquitous mid-life crises. In any event, I had endured the CSI onslaught on TV with the family and had actually found some of it interesting; so interesting in fact that I began investigating the field of Forensics on the Internet.

I was amazed. Site after site of information. At first it was overwhelming. Eventually I started searching for Universities with web sites offering degrees for at-home study. This was my cup of tea, I decided. At least I thought it was a good decision. Only time would tell how wrong I was. But, again, I get ahead of my story.

What truly surprised me was the number of subdivisions there were in the field. Thirty-four, thirty four different specialties of forensic investigation! I could focus on any one of them and get a degree. Of course, it would be useful to understand something of all the specialties. But that would be general knowledge I would make a point of absorbing along the way. I was excited and dove in head first.

Do you have to spend so much time studying? Ainslie said. It seemed we were having this discussion every night. You never spend any time with me anymore. Whine, whine. I had my job, my honey-do list, time with the kid’s homework, and Sunday’s with the family. Little time left to pursue my hoped for new career. But I did!

I was about three and a half years into my forensic studies and was engaged in an internship with the Catawba County Sheriff’s Department when Beth was murdered.

It was an overwhelmingly gray morning when I got the call. She had been surprised in the vineyard office and murdered. I couldn’t understand. The voice on the phone faded as the blood rushed into my head and pounded in my ears. I was forced to sit down. This could not have happened! Not to Beth. She had no enemies, only friends. I then called her husband Felix. He was not in town. I left word for him to call me when he returned.

Beth and I were both only children and had been close friends since childhood. We were actually more like brother and sister. Eventually, as life progressed, she ended up working at the American Title Company in town. In time our families became quite close. Beth and I confided in each other to keep our sanity, had lunch occasionally and had couples night out with our spouses every few weeks.

Felix is a dentist in town and spends part of his outrageous income nursing his vineyard. My wife, Ainslie, says I always say vineyard with a snarl. What can I say? The guy’s an arrogant ass! However, I suffer his snootiness because of Beth. And, honestly, I do enjoy a glass of wine now and again. Beth had even saved my life once.

We were in the seventh grade and it was winter. I had gotten a new pair of ice skates for my birthday in October, and had been anxiously waiting for the pond to freeze. Since we lived in the South freezing was rare, but it did happen once in a while. That year we were lucky and I was itching to try the skates out but didn’t wait long enough. Well, of course, I crashed through the ice into freezing water that was over my head. Beth found a stout branch on the shore and was able to drag it and shove it out for me to grab. I was lucky she had come with me.

We don’t get much criminal behavior around these parts, I mean real crime. Yeah, we have the dopers, and occasionally a Stop and Rob lives up to its nick-name and gets robbed. Oh, and we had what they called the RV Murders a year or so ago. But that was the first serious crime we had had for maybe ten years. So, what I’m saying is that Beth’s murder was big news. The experience of loss became a huge driving force for me to finish my degree.

Due to my forensic interest and studies, and my friendship with Beth, I followed the case closely. Since the murder happened at their vineyard out in the county, the Carteret County Sheriff’s Department covered the case.

A Detective, name of Jerzey Swift, caught the assignment. She had led the investigation of the RV Murders case which had held our community spellbound for several months. She was wounded during the final resolution and became kind of a celebrity and highly regarded in our town.

* * *

Yeah, I can do that. Jersey said to Phil. You know the way so I’ll meet you there in an hour. I need to go over the scene of the crime again. Another set of eyes won’t hurt. Especially since my partner, Ray, has retired.

Jerzey lit a rum soaked Moonshine Crook, her first cigar of the day, before she left the Department parking lot. Putting her unit in gear she drove slowly onto Broad Street. She had heard from her mother last night that her Dad was having heart problems and surgery was a possibility, and soon. She hadn’t taken it well and asked her Mom to call her as soon as they had a schedule. Jerzey and her Dad were close. Not so much now that they lived in Raleigh and she was busy in Beaufort. But they were still emotionally if not physically connected. Too many camping and fishing trips in their past, too many school science projects, too many father and daughter dinners and special movie nights together for them not to have a continuing closeness. She thought of him strapped to an operating table, vulnerable, helpless. Not the picture she wanted in her mind.

She had been driving on auto-pilot and almost missed a stop sign. Shit, she thought, I better pay more attention. I don’t need a wreck on my record. Her Mom had always been there for her too. She would never forget the time she had inadvertently scheduled two dates for the same night, and another boy showed up also. Three guys sitting in their living room when she came in after getting ready. The look on her mother’s face was priceless, but only in retrospect. She always sought out her Mom for affairs of the heart problems. And her Mom had always been right-on with her advice. Jerzey had felt special as an only child and she knew now that they had worked hard to give her a loving childhood. They were very patient with her outrageous personality. Mostly after she had gone to college, majoring in Criminal Justice. Her Mom, as was the custom then, was a housewife and her Dad flew a desk at the airport. Her reminiscing ended as she pulled into the vineyard parking area.

The vineyard buildings were about fifty yards to the right and behind the large brick Georgian styled house where Beth and Felix lived. There was a double-wide cobblestone driveway into the property, with the house to the left. On the south side of the drive a flagstone path led to a cluster of three pecan trees with a picnic table set underneath in the shade. Across the road, overlooked by the tall, white pillared front porch, were rolling acres of vines interspersed by an occasional grove of more pecan trees. Rose bushes were blooming at the beginning of each row.

The vineyard office building is set low to the ground. It had a rough plastered stucco exterior, painted a light-cream color, contrasting well with the hand-hewn, dark stained timbers forming the entrance and outlining the structure. Half-round terracotta roof tiles undulated above the eaves across the front. The first layer, laid side by each, cupped the second layer, also laid side by each and upside down to block the weather. The roof swept down close to the

ground along the sides of the structure. It is very inviting with window boxes filled with red geraniums and overflowing with white petunias.

The working part of the winery is housed in a large two story barn painted fire-house red with white trim, and set at an angle to the side of the office, another fifty yards away. There is a wide, tan-colored pea gravel path that sweeps between the two buildings and a narrow dirt road leading from the rear of the barn to eighty acres of grape laden vines.

The barn had been added onto over the years, both to the rear, which now burrowed into a hillside, and to the sides. The rambling additions lent an attractive, comfortable feeling to the whole structure. Large sliding doors open the front of the structure, with a person-sized smaller door built into the front of one of the sliders for easier access to the interior.

Jerzey had just ducked under the yellow Crime Scene tape stretched over the front and was unlocking the office door when Phil drove into the parking lot. It was Wednesday, and Jerzey’s unit was the only vehicle there. Normally they were open every weekday with tastings scheduled Friday through Sunday. Phil guessed as he pulled in, Hawk’s Aerie Vineyard wouldn’t be reopened for tasting anytime soon.

C’mon in, Phil, Jerzey greeted him. Let’s see what we can make of this.

Jerzey preceded him into the room. She had on a white long sleeved shirt and khaki pants. She was about five-nine and had shoulder length blond hair pulled back with a dark brown, tooled leather retainer pierced with a short wood dowel.

Jerzey had first met Phil when he came to the department almost a year before to meet with Sam Pierce, Captain of the Investigations Unit. Apparently he had made a good impression and Sam ended up introducing Phil around the office. He said he had about a year left for his Forensics degree and was hoping to get some on scene experience to enhance his studies. Phil was just shy of six feet tall and solidly built. He had receding sandy hair parted on the left, watery blue eyes and a good tan. Jerzey had not been surprised when he called shortly after Elizabeth Boyland’s murder.

The office was sunny with the afternoon sun angling in through windows that faced the vineyard.

You take that side of the room and I’ll start over here. CSU has already been through here and taken their photos so we don’t have to be particularly careful. Just don’t add anything to the scene. I want to try and reconstruct the murder, if I can. It helps me to be on site to get a better feeling for the incident.

That’s quite a blood-stain on the workbench, Phil said, and look at the floor. Was she dead when the EMS got here?

Yes. Mrs. Boyland had lost a lot of blood. The ME said she was bludgeoned multiple times which was the cause of death. Does that tell you anything?

Mm, let’s see, uncontrolled anger. I know she had no family locally other than the husband.

Closest lives in Sonoma, California.

Wine country, Phil said.

Yes, and that leaves the husband, Felix, or someone else very close.

Phil looked at her closely. I was a close friend.

You got an alibi?

Yes! I have an alibi! Phil said with exasperation.

Good. We’ll check it out. And, I’ll have some questions for you later. In the meantime why don’t you check the door to see if it looks forced?

Phil checked the door carefully. "Damn, the casing looks tore to hell to me. Looks like a large tool was used. Larger than a screwdriver.

So, forced entry. Jerzey talked to herself out loud. Perhaps she was able to fight some. And maybe the item used to brutalize her was the one used on the door, ya think?

If you say so. I’m just the student here.

Best to check with the Medical Examiner

Did Radcliffe fix the time of death?

Yeah. He thinks it was between midnight and Three AM the morning she was discovered.

There were four four-drawer file cabinets along one wall. Let’s see what these files hold, Jerzey said. You take those two and I’ll get these.

After a while Phil said. All of these drawers hold grape and harvest records. They’ve been in business for quite a while.

Yeah. Boyland bought the vineyard about ten years ago and the then-owners had worked it for, I guess, twenty years. I have something here - business records. I’m taking these with me. Help me unload these drawers will you?

Yeah, sure. They going to fit in your unit? Phil said.

I think so. If not I’ll have the rest picked up later.

Now, let us take a look at the blood spatter, Jerzey said. They spent time going over that evidence carefully. Beth had been bludgeoned to death and the spatter not only confirmed this but gave them insight as to how the crime was committed. Phil’s stomach felt queasy which was quickly replaced by outrage as they recreated the action.

It appears she was standing here when the first strike occurred. Jerzey said. The ME believes she was hit first in the head, then at the base of the neck. This spatter on the ceiling would account for the first strike. She must have fallen against the bench then, leaving this blood smearing there. Her attacker must have struck her in the neck as she was falling. Norman said the first blow killed her instantly. It looks like her back was toward her assailant. That makes sense since the impact was to the right rear quarter of the skull. The perp was probably right handed.

Phil said, Would they have taken photos of this spatter?

They better had. And from many angles. Why?

I’d like to study them if possible.

I’ll see to it you get that chance, Phil.

Now, the safe was open when the officers arrived and no money was found in the office. Her chair was pushed back and the calculator was on. There was a tape in the machine with a column of numbers on it. She must have been totaling something when the killer arrived at the door.

How do you know all of this.

I have read the first responders report. He was very thorough.

He missed the door.

Yeah, well, I‘ll be speaking to him about that. Now, that leads us to the conclusion that this was a burglary gone wrong, or at least staged as one. There’s something not right here but I can’t put my finger on it. No signs of any kind of struggle, maybe. It seems like she was not even aware of the danger. Look at these papers spread out on the bench. Aside from the blood, they don’t appear to have been disturbed. I wonder if she had been bent over them, studying them, when she was attacked from behind.

Look at the spatter here, Jerzey. There is a definite void to the right in the spatter. Like something kept the blood from reaching the right side of the paper and part of the window. Good point, Phil. We’ll see if the forensic guys agree. If so, that says to me again that she was not at all threatened by the killer."

Uh oh.

What?

Something else they missed, Phil said, carefully lifting some of the pages with the point of his ball point. I’ve got some hair here

Bag it for the lab. Let us take a closer look at that door and lock

Phil leaned over, evidence bag in hand, to look at the door again.

Ah, Phil said, the jamb is damaged, but there is no indication that the tool was used to actually pry open the door itself. It was a large tool, possibly a pry-bar..

Yeah. So……whoever did this used a key, or… Beth opened the door herself for him, and then he later damaged the jamb to simulate the break-in.

Looks that way to me.

Let me get my camera. We need another picture of this.

CHAPTER TWO

It is impossible for me to express to you how angry I had become about Beth’s murder. And my anger was growing. I’m afraid it might have been turning into an obsession. There was no understandable reason for this to have happened. She was a good soul and in no way deserved to have her life ended in this way, or in any way. I was looking forward to the capture of this person and I wanted to be there when justice was meted out.

While all this was going on I continued to pursue my degree in Forensics. Less than a year to go now I had decided that the blood work was not for me and chose the field of tool marks and weapons identification, and fragment and soil identification But, you know, I continued to be consumed by the agony of Beth’s death. Thank God they had no children. That would have been excruciating.

I heard the only fingerprints at the scene were those of Felix and Beth, which was not surprising since it was their office. Jerzey confided in me that Felix was the prime suspect. Actually, that was procedure and I was aware of that. The only problem was he had an alibi and there didn’t seem to be any motive. I was determined to help Jerzey in any way I could. But this case promised to take forever.

In the meantime I continued my studies, listing and selling properties, and nagging Jerzey for the latest on the case. She was as forthcoming as she was allowed to be.

My life went on: study; work; argue with Ainslie; help my kids; read novels for relief, study.

* * *

Any headway? Sam Pierce asked Jerzey who was seated in the conference room with files spread over the table.

"Not yet, Capt’n. There are a lot of documents here and I ‘m just