Why I Write

 I have taken up writing at a later age, because I have so many stories going through my head, I literlly can't sleep at night, I'm mentally working on them!

Epilogue To A Whisper In The Static

 That wasn’t exactly the last time I heard from Melanie. A couple of weeks after Elliott was nabbed. I received a package from Mark Taylor at the station. In it was a framed photo of a smiling Melanie and a note that said:

Thank you for getting justice for my sister. As long as people can see her, Mel will never be forgotten.

I hung the photo on the wall of my home office, along with photos of Christie, and my son Paul and his family. One night, while I was half asleep, I could have sworn that I heard playful giggling coming from my office.  The next morning, I went in to get some papers, looked at the wall, and on Melanie’s photo, in a handwriting that I didn’t recognize, was written a small note that said:

Thanks for helping! Love, Mel

These days, I’m back to normal police work, thinking that maybe I’ll put in for retirement in a couple years. I did take a week off to visit Paul and his family like I had planned, and it was very relaxing, after everything that I’d experienced.

One Saturday each month, I make a trek to the cemetery, bringing two bouquets of flowers. One I put on Christie’s grave, and  the other on Melanie’s. I’d like to think that they’re watching over me, with Christie going “I love you, you big lug,” and Melanie saying “my hero.”

I’ve never been much of a religious person, but maybe if there is an afterlife, I hope that when my time comes, I’ll see them again.

Chapter 11 Of A Whisper In The Static

  There was nothing but silence, not even the car radio, as Keith and I made our way back to New York, with Elliott secured in the back of the car. After we arrived at the station, Elliott was placed in a cell, and as it was getting close to midnight, we called it a day and went to our homes.

“So you got him?” Melanie asked as she formed before me in my living room for one final time. “And he killed me because I didn’t pay any attention to him?"

“Yes on both counts,” I told her. “But don’t think that it was your fault that he killed you. You can’t force yourself to like someone just because they want you to. Elliott has pled guilty to everything, and is never gonna see the light of day except through a cell window.”

“I want to see if something I’ve been trying to do works.” Melanie smiled while stepping back. She closed her eyes in concentration, and her form began to shimmer again, but this time, she became more solid looking. Her hand reached out, and it felt warm, almost lifelike. Then she hugged me.

“Thank you for everything,” she said. “I know that catching bad guys is your job, but you went way above the call of duty. If this is it, I’d ask you to tell Mark that his little sister misses him bunches, Tim that I will love him forever even from the Great Beyond, and Trisha that she was the best best friend a girl could have, but they’d think you’d lost your mind.”

“Fair enough,” I laughed. “If you see my wife when you pass over, tell her I miss her so much.”

“I will, but I think she already knows,” Melanie winked at me.

Then something happened that I will never forget as long as I live.

“OK, God, or whatever Superior Power in the Universe is there, I’ve been avenged. Where’s the light I’m supposed to walk into and head to Eternity?” Melanie asked, looking around for an answer.

Then it came: a growing portal of light, and two figures stepped out from it. Melanie immediately knew who they were.

“Mom! Dad!” she cried as she ran toward them and embraced them.

“Yes, baby, it’s us,” her father gently said. “It’s time to go.”

Mitchell and Sheila Taylor had returned to take their daughter to her long-delayed final rest. They walked hand in hand to the light, stepped through, and I never saw them again.

Chapter 10-The Killer is Revealed!

  “Any ideas on how we can get him to talk without giving away that we’re on to him?” I asked as we headed down the road.

Keith snorted. “Well, don't use the 'son's security clearance' line. The second civilian cops start asking federal questions, he’s going to clam up, realize something’s up  and call a lawyer. We need something closer to home.”

“How about we give him a bit of what we’re looking for, but not enough to get the  red lights flashing in his mind? Tell him we’re reviewing Melanie’s case, and say that we’re talking to everyone we can find who went to high school with her to see if they remember anything?”

“That might work,” Keith agreed.  “We get him to relax a bit, and he’ll probably say that he knew nothing, which is what we expect.”

“What I really want is something to get a DNA match. If we can distract him somehow to grab a cigarette butt or a drink can, we can sneak it out and take it to Tony and get confirmation that Elliott is our killer. I told Hartford PD what we’re doing, and they gave us the OK.”

As expected from an owner of a successful accounting firm, Walter Elliott’s house in downtown Hartford was fairly large, looking like maybe six or seven rooms, and a large back yard. We parked, and Keith reached into the center console and pulled out a pair of latex gloves and an evidence bag, stuffing them into his jacket pocket   “ In case he leaves something behind we can grab,” Keith muttered.

  We knocked on the door, and a tall, muscular middle aged man with curly graying hair greeted us. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“Mr. Walter Elliott? I’m Detective Jennings and this is my partner Detective Perry. We’re from the NYPD. Can we  come in and ask you a few questions? We’re reviewing the Melanie Taylor murder case from 1976, and looking through records, we’re talking to anyone who went to Lincoln High School with her. We won’t take up too much of your time.”

“Sure come on in,” he waved to the front entrance. “I’m working from home today, so I’m not in any hurry and don’t have anything on my schedule.”

We settled into the dining room, and he offered us coffee, which we declined,  and he got a glass bottle of root beer for himself from the refrigerator, popping the cap with an echo from the kitchen before he joined us.

“So what would you like to know?” He inquired while sitting down. “Melanie’s death was a real tragedy. The school was at a standstill for weeks, if I remember. I can’t remember her being in any of my classes, but she was one of the popular girls.”

“Do you remember anything specific?” I asked. “Hear anyone talk about any weird stuff going on?”

“No, I don’t remember anything like that,” he answered, while finishing up his drink.  “I wish I could help you more, but like I said, I had very little contact with Melanie.”

Then, right on cue, as if the  guardian angels of police work  or maybe Melanie herself had intervened, the phone in his office began to ring.

“I have to take this. I’m helping a client with his taxes— should take maybe ten minutes,” Elliott said, tossing the empty glass bottle into the small  dining room wastebasket.

We waited for the office door to click shut and for the low, muffled rumble of his voice to start up. I nodded toward the corner. Keith pulled the latex gloves from his pocket, the snap of the rubber sounding incredibly loud in the quiet house. He leaned over the bin, carefully fishing the bottle out by the rim to preserve the saliva on the neck and any prints on the glass. He slid it into the evidence bag,tucking the heavy glass bottle securely inside his jacket pocket just as the floorboards groaned down the hall."  Elliott returned to the dining room after his call ended. “Any other questions?” he asked while sitting back down.

“No, but thank you for taking time to talk with us. Here’s my business card, and if anything comes to mind, don’t hesitate to call me,” I told him while handing him my card. After handshakes, Keith and I headed to the car and began the trip back to New York , with our evidence in hand.

The silence lasted until we hit the highway. Keith flicked his eyes to the rearview mirror. “You know a defense lawyer is going to try to have our badges  for that, right? Taking abandoned property inside a suspect's domicile without a warrant is a massive legal gray area.”

“I know,” I said, staring out the passenger window. “But if it matches, it gives us probable cause. We’ll get a clean, bulletproof warrant for a cheek swab, and we'll let the DA figure out how to parallel-construct the chain of custody. Right now, I just want to know if we have our guy.”

Keith nodded grimly, pressing his foot harder on the gas. “Fair enough. We’re  gonna run that bottle down to the lab the second we hit the city and get Tony to put everything else on hold. If the DNA matches the sample from Melanie’s body, we’re gonna rudely break down a judge’s door to get that warrant signed, then call Hartford PD and have them pick Elliott up before he realizes his trash is missing.”

When we finally returned to the station, I bypassed my desk entirely and ran straight to the forensics lab, handing the bagged bottle off to Tony.

“This bottle has a fresh DNA sample from Walter Elliott,” I told him, breathless. “Run it. Let’s see if it’s a match with the scratch sample from Melanie’s body, and his son’s profile on file.”

“I’m on it,” Tony said while loading up his equipment with our sample. “Sit back and relax, guys, we’ll soon have your answers.” I pulled out my phone and got Judge Franklin’s number ready to dial to get our warrant if we had a match.

Two hours later, the lab door swung open. Tony stepped out, holding a fresh thermal printout, a tired but triumphant grin on his face.

“We have a winner,” Tony said, tapping the paper. “The profile from the root beer bottle is an exact match to the scratch sample from Melanie Taylor’s body. And it’s a perfect fifty-percent familial match to the son's profile on file. Walter Elliott is your man.”

A heavy weight seemed to lift from the room. Keith and I exchanged a grim, satisfied look, the adrenaline surging all over again.

“I’ll call Judge Franklin and get the warrant signed,” I said, already pulling out my phone. “Then I’ll get a hold of Hartford PD to grab Elliott and hold him in a cell. Let's hit the road. It's time to bring this SOB back in cuffs.”

After interrupting Judge Franklin’s movie night to get our warrant signed, we called  the Hartford PD and immediately booked it back to Connecticut. By the time we arrived at the Hartford station, the senior officer on watch, Lieutenant Morrison, met us in the lobby. He escorted us down the hall to an interrogation room where Walter Elliott and his hastily summoned lawyer were already waiting for us.

The heavy metal door clicked shut behind us, cutting off the noise of the Hartford precinct. I didn't sit down. I walked right up to the edge of the table, looking down at the successful accountant who looked significantly less comfortable than he had in his dining room two hours ago.

“Melanie Taylor,” I said flatly.

Elliott blinked, shifting in his chair. “Look, Detective Jennings, I already told you at my house, I barely knew—”

“Don't talk,” his lawyer interrupted sharply, putting a hand on Elliott’s forearm. “Detectives, if you are charging my client, charge him. Otherwise, we are going to walk out that door.”

“You aren’t going anywhere,” Keith said, stepping into the room and tossing a copy of the DNA lab results onto the table. “Science is a beautiful thing, Mr. Elliott. It doesn't forget, and it doesn't care how many years you've spent pretending to be a pillar of the community. We have your DNA. It matches the sample taken off Melanie's body in 1976. Now, do you want to tell us your version of what happened that night, or should we let the DA write the story for you?”

The mask of the wealthy, respectable businessman didn't just slip—it shattered. The color drained from Elliott's face, his posture slouching as the fight went out of him, replaced by a cold, unsettling stare that shocked everyone in the room.

“You got me,” he said, his voice terrifyingly matter-of-fact. His lawyer opened his mouth to object, but Elliott raised a hand, silencing him without looking at him. “Back then, I did everything right. Got good grades, had a plan for my life. I was in love with Melanie from the first time I laid eyes on her freshman year. I tried to talk to her, tried to be friends, but it was like she thought I was garbage. She didn’t even acknowledge me, other than saying 'hi' once in three years.”

He let out a short, bitter laugh. “And then there was Tim. I don’t know what she saw in him. He was nothing but a popular football player. All the jocks at that school were total idiots—all they cared about was sports and girls. I tutored some of them, and most of them couldn’t add two plus two if you spotted them  the four.”

I forced my expression to remain neutral, masking my absolute shock at how easily his facade had shattered. I asked the question that had been waiting forty years for an answer: 

“Tell us what happened that night.”

“It was pure coincidence,”  Elliott mused while leaning back in his chair as if he were simply recounting an old college memory. “That night, I stayed behind in the office to do some work, and saw that the boss had forgotten to sign some important papers. I ran them down to the steakhouse, and Melanie was there taking  orders. Neither she nor Trisha recognized me or even said hello. But then it happened-Melanie bumped into me. The feeling of her skin touching mine as she  bumped me with her arm just triggered something. I went to the men’s room to calm down, and when I got out, I overheard Melanie tell Trisha that she wasn’t feeling good and was going to leave early, and Trisha gave her the car keys and told her to go lay down in the car, she’d be out at breaktime to take her home. I knew it was time to make my move.”

“Keep going,” I ordered, not knowing if I really wanted to know all the details, but it was a story that needed to be told for the record.

“I had been there before, so I knew about the employee parking lot out back,” Elliott explained. 

“I went to my car, found a ski mask I had forgotten to take out of my trunk after a vacation earlier in the year, quickly changed into a pair of sweats I had on my back seat, and made my way to the back, to Trisha’s car. I  kept low, so that it would be hard to see me, and I saw her lying  down on the back seat, eyes closed. She never saw me coming.”

“I quickly opened the door, grabbed her and well, you know the rest. I took her, as I’d been waiting to do for three years. She was so unappreciative, trying to run away. But I made sure that Tim or anyone else could never have Melanie. It was almost like being high, feeling the life leave her as I squeezed her throat.”

“And the necklace?” I asked.

“ I took the cross off of it, I wanted something, a part of her, I was so in love with her. Do you know why my wife and I divorced, Detective? It was because I couldn’t stop calling her Melanie. She  thought I was having an affair, but it was more than that.” 

“Allow me a moment to talk with my client,” the lawyer requested.

Keith and I stepped out into the hallway, letting the heavy metal door click shut behind us. We stood there for a moment in silence, letting the sheer brutality of what we’d just heard sink in.

“So this guy ruined dozens of lives all because of petty jealousy?” Keith asked, shaking his head incredulously.

“Looks like it,” I shrugged. The adrenaline rush was finally starting to recede, leaving behind the heavy, hollow ache of exhaustion. The hard part was done. Now came the paperwork.

The interrogation room door swung open, and the lawyer stepped out. He looked like a man who had just watched his entire career flash before his eyes.

“Alright, detectives,” the attorney said quietly. “My client has admitted to everything on the record and waives extradition. He’s all yours.”

I stepped back into the room and pulled the handcuffs from my belt, the sharp click of the metal echoing in the small space. I was finally keeping my promise to Melanie.

“Walter Elliott, you are under arrest for the murder of Melanie Taylor,” I said, pulling his hands behind his back. “You have the right to remain silent...”

Elliott didn't flinch as the steel cuffs locked around his wrists. Instead, a faint, twisted smile touched his lips.

“In my pocket are my house keys, Detective,” he murmured, cutting off my recital of his rights. “The smallest one on the ring is for a locked drawer in my office desk. You’ll find something there that might interest you.”

His lawyer let out a defeated sigh and shook his head, but didn't stop him.

Leaving Keith and two local uniforms to handle Elliott's booking, I took the keys and drove back to downtown Hartford. The house felt entirely different now—cold, empty, and stripped of its respectable facade. I walked into his office, found the small key, and unlocked the bottom desk drawer.

Inside was a small, dusty wooden box. I opened it, and there it was: the gold  cross Elliott had taken from Melanie’s neck forty years ago.

I held it in my palm, feeling the weight of it, before slipping it into a fresh evidence bag. I knew exactly what I was going to do next. I would reunite it with the  chain sitting in our New York evidence locker, before finally returning it to her brother, Mark.

Chapter 9 Of A Whisper In The Static

 “Walter Elliott, of Hartford, Connecticut,” was our perp.

“We can't just roll up with an arrest warrant,” Keith mused, leaning back from the screen. “Coordinating an out-of-state arrest with the Connecticut courts will take days, and if a local patrol car idles outside his house too long, he might bolt. We go up there under the radar. We knock on his door with a bogus pretext—tell him we're doing a routine verification for his son’s Navy security clearance updates.”

I nodded, the gears turning. “We feel him out, see if he matches the physical profile from ’76, and maybe snag a discarded coffee cup or a soda can while we're at it. Get a direct DNA match to seal the deal.”

“Exactly,” Keith said, a plan forming in his mind. “Once we lock him down and the lab confirms the direct match, we drop the hammer with the Hartford PD. Let's go to Connecticut after we have a little bit more info on him.”

“OK,” Keith said while settling in at his computer. “Give me a couple of hours, and I’ll search and print out anything online about our guy.”

  I went home to pack a few things, and Melanie was waiting for me. “Melanie, we might have something,” I told her translucent  form. “Does the name Walter Elliott ring a bell?”

“It sounds familiar, but I don’t know what or where from,” the spirit said, a slight shrug rippling through her shoulders. “Is he the man that killed me?” 

“All the scientific evidence says it’s him,” I explained. “My partner and I are going to do a bit more research, then go to Connecticut and try to question him under the radar.” 

If a ghost could look excited, Melanie did. Her form seemed to flicker with a sudden, sharp energy. “If it’s him, you’ll arrest him?”

“I’ll slap the cuffs on him myself,”  I assured her. “There’s no statute of limitations on murder, Melanie. If  this is our guy, he’s going away for life.”

“Then go get him ,”she grinned. “It’s not easy or fun being a restless spirit,” she laughed , then dissolved away.

“Hooo boy Bill, I hit the jackpot researching our Mr. Elliott,” Keith exclaimed, climbing into the passenger seat as we began our road trip a couple of hours later. “Our man was Brooklyn born and raised. And get this—he was born in 1960, and was class of 1977 at Lincoln High.”

“Holy crap, Keith,” I muttered, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. “That was the same graduating class as Melanie. They were the exact same age. That’s how he knew her.”

“And it gets better,” Keith said, tapping his folder against the dashboard. “Remember that VIP party that was going on the night Melanie was murdered? It was for Thomson and Associates, that accounting firm. They're still in business, and guess who was an intern there in the summers of ‘76 and ‘77 before he graduated with an accounting degree from UConn? One and the same!”

“So, I was partially right,” I said, a grim focus settling over me as I rubbed my chin. “She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But he didn't just stumble across her. He recognized her from school. If he was working that dinner, he probably saw her, maybe overheard her telling Trisha she was leaving early. He went out to the parking lot ahead of her and waited in the dark.” 

“Yeah,” Keith agreed. “He didn’t need to blend into the crowd, he was already part of it.”

Chapter 8 Of A Whisper In The Static

 For the next three weeks, nothing happened. I went back to my normal, present-day cases, and had no appearances from Melanie. Maybe the progress we were making was satisfying her spirit, and she was giving me a chance to relax and recharge. I had made the time to call Paul, and we made plans for me to meet up with him, his wife Ellen, and my granddaughter Erica one Saturday in the coming weeks, maybe visiting Christie’s grave before having lunch or dinner. I was really excited about this. I hadn’t seen them in the months since Christie’s funeral. Melanie couldn’t be reunited with her family, but I could, and for the first time in a while, the loneliness and depression that had hovered over me seemed to go away.

The call came in on a Wednesday morning.

“I’ve got something for you, Bill,” Tony Barrett excitedly exclaimed on the other end. “We got a hit out of CODIS. Not a direct match, but a familial one. We’re looking at a near-perfect partial profile match—enough shared alleles across the board to mean our 1976 perp is almost certainly the biological father of a Navy petty officer currently in the system.”

“Alright Tony, don’t leave us in suspense—who’s our sailor?”

“Our guy is Petty Officer First Class Brad Elliott,” Tony answered. “He’s thirty-three years old, so he’s definitely not our perp, but like I said, there’s a good chance his father is.”

“Tony, you are a genius! Thanks for everything. We’re gonna go locate our Petty Officer Elliott and ask him about his old man.”

“No problem, Bill. Good luck, hope this info brings a solution to your cold case,” Tony said, ending the call.

I slammed the receiver down and looked over at my partner. “We’re in business, Keith. Get on the horn to the local NCIS field office. We need everything they have on a Petty Officer First Class Brad Elliott.”

Keith’s fingers were already flying across his keyboard. “NCIS? What’s the Navy got to do with a forty-year-old cold case?”

“Familial DNA. CODIS flagged Elliott's profile. Tony says our killer is almost certainly the kid's old man.”

“Got the number for the NCIS duty desk,” Keith replied, pausing his fingers over the keyboard. “But Bill... if we go through official military channels asking about the kid, word might filter down to him. If he calls his old man to ask why civilian cops are digging into the family tree, our perp goes on the run before we even get a warrant.”

“Good point, buddy,” I said, mapping out our next move. “Let's bypass the kid entirely. If we pull his personnel files, they should list his dad as next of kin. We get a name and an address without ever making a wave.”

I grabbed my desk phone and dialed the number Keith pulled up. As with most government agencies, NCIS left me on hold for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, a click broke the static, and a young-sounding female voice answered the line.

I gave her my badge number, keeping my story as bare-bones as possible. I told her we were working a cold case and needed the next-of-kin contact information for a Petty Officer Elliott to help clear up an old lead. I held my breath, waiting for her to ask for a formal subpoena or supervisor sign-off, but after a few minutes of heavy keyboard clacking, she came back on the line.

“Alright, Detective. I’ve pulled up Petty Officer Elliott’s next-of-kin info. I can email the file over to you now.”

“Thanks, I appreciate the help,” I said, rattling off my department email address before she could change her mind.

I hung up and looked at Keith, a grin breaking across my face. “That girl must be a green recruit. She never asked for a warrant, a case number, or anything.” I gave a soft laugh, though a small prick of guilt hit me. “Hopefully she won’t get into any trouble. But if she does, I’ll vouch for her and tell the powers that be the whole story. Assuming this lead pans out.”

Fifteen minutes later, the email hit my inbox. I clicked it open. Keith leaning over my shoulder. There on the screen printed in bold type was the name and address of our killer.

Chapter 7 Of A Whisper In The Static

  Arriving home, I took a  shower, popped dinner into the microwave, and tried to watch some TV. When 9:30 PM got there, the lights began to dim, and that feeling of cold enveloped me again. From my home office, I could hear the unmistakable sound of sobbing, and I knew who and what it was. 

“Melanie, is that you?” I called out as I entered my office, and her shimmering form was there, and for the first time, in a voice I had only imagined what it sounded like from looking at her in photos, she finally spoke. Her voice echoed, like it was from a distance, but it was clear..

“I remember everything that happened that night,” she cried, hands over  her face .” I remember going into work, not feeling good, and telling Trisha that I was gonna clock out early. She gave me her car keys, told me to go lay down in the car and she’d take me home at breaktime.  I got to the car. Unlocked it. I just wanted to sleep.I was lying down on the back seat for what must have been a few minutes. Then the door opened. A hand over my mouth. I couldn't see him... he had a mask. He dragged me into the woods,shoved  me to the ground,  pulled up  my skirt, pulled down my underwear, and…took me. God it hurt so much..I felt like I was being torn up,” Melanie cried. “After he finished, I got up and tried to run away, but he caught me. He put his hands around my throat, squeezed and squeezed, everything went black, then..nothing. I could feel myself leaving my body, that must have been the moment that I died.” 

Normally, I’d have  pulled out a pen and paper and taken notes, but how would I explain getting testimony from a dead person? Over my 20 plus years as a cop, I’ve held the hand of  rape victims, and delivered news the families of murder victims, but how the Hell do you comfort someone who is simultaneously a rape victim and a murder victim?

“Please find who did this to me,” Melanie pleaded. I could see 40 years of pain and tears on her face. That made my heart break even more than what it was already, and that made my determination to find justice even stronger.

“I saw you looking at my grave after your wife’s funeral, something or someone gave me the feeling that you could help me. I’ve just drifted around so lonely. I want to find peace, Heaven, whatever you want to call it. I watched my parents die, I want to be with them wherever they are.” 

“Melanie, I’m going to do whatever I can to help you,” I said. Out of reflex, I reached my hand towards her, but there was nothing to touch.  The air began to warm, as if my attempt at comfort had calmed her. “I swear it.” With that, she dissolved away into mist once again.

“You’re not the only one who’s lonely,  Melanie,” I said while looking at my favorite photo of Christie on my office wall. It was taken during our delayed  honeymoon in Hawaii. She was so beautiful, glowing, and healthy then- the way I kept her memory in my heart. She was five months pregnant with Paul at the time, and her forming baby bump made her the very definition of happiness, something that this home was in immediate  need of.  When and if this case was finally solved, I was definitely going to call my son and maybe take some time off to spend with him. I went back to the kitchen to warm up my now cold dinner, but somehow, I didn’t feel very hungry. I went to bed that night knowing that this was very real, and that Melanie wasn’t the only one who wouldn’t find peace till  the case was solved.

Sometime around  midnight, not being able to sleep, I went to my desk, and started thinking and writing. One possibility that no one seems to have thought of was since it was Trisha Moore’s car , could it have been a case of mistaken identity? Was our perp a stalker who had finally been able to strike his target? Was Melanie in the wrong place at the wrong  time? Tomorrow, I would call Trisha, ask her if there had been anything strange going on in her life at the time, and then I’d head to the evidence locker, go over it again with a fine tooth comb, and  take one more look at the crime scene photos, taking a better look at the ones of the car. I spent the next few hours at my desk, chasing shadows on paper until exhaustion finally pulled me toward the bedroom. Sleep was close to impossible, even in my comfortable bed.

Getting into the office at 7:00 the next morning, I hit the evidence locker, and took its contents back to my desk.Keith had called in and said that he’d be late, because his granddaughter was sick. Using the alone time, I looked over the crime scene photos. Looking at the car, the rear passenger door was open, as the officers at the scene had noted. The keys were in the ignition, the  rear passenger’s side window was rolled down, and Melanie’s purse was lying on the left side. “So, it looks like Melanie was right. The perp could have opened the door and  grabbed her,” I thought. That didn’t totally remove the mistaken identity theory, but it didn’t maintain it either. Looking further into the reports, I got a closer glimpse at the necklace  that was found under Melanie’s body. It matched the one that I saw in the photo from her brother’s wall, but the cross pendant was missing. The first time I looked, I thought maybe it had been ripped off her neck, but all the links were intact. Could  the perp have taken the cross as a sick souvenir?  

At 8:30, Keith arrived at the station. After apologizing for his tardiness, he saw that I had been at work. “Anything catch your eye?” he asked. 

“Yeah, look at the necklace.” I handed him the photo and the magnifying glass I had been using. “Tell me what you see–or don’t see.” 

“There’s not a single broken link on it,” he exclaimed. “The bastard must have taken it off her neck and removed the cross, taking it as a trophy.”

“Also, Keith, I was thinking that it might be mistaken identity, but after thinking about it, I’m not so sure. Melanie and Trisha looked nothing alike. Our victim was blonde, and the friend is a redhead, and a pic from Melanie’s funeral shows that Trisha had red hair at that time too.. We might be able to take that off the board, unless our killer just saw the car, a woman in it, and snapped..”

“I agree, “ Keith replied. “To cover our tracks, maybe we should call Trisha Moore again  and ask her if anything strange had been going on in her life in the time leading up to the murder.” 

“ You must have read my mind,” I laughed. “ I was thinking about that myself while looking through everything.”

At 10:00 that morning, I made the call to Trisha. “Ms. Moore, this is Detective Jennings again. I have a quick question for you,” I said. “Sure, go for it, if it’s something that you think may help catch Mel’s killer,” she enthusiastically replied.

“Ok, during any time during the run up to Melanie’s death, did you see anything strange happening in your personal life? Like phone calls at weird hours with nobody saying anything, maybe things moved around in your house, or even a feeling that you were being watched? If you can remember anything, please tell us. We’re trying to determine if you were the target because it was your car, or if Melanie was a random victim.”

Taking time to think, Trisha responded. “No, nothing weird like any of those things you listed happened to me. Everything was nice and quiet. I had just had a breakup, but it was mutual.”

“Ok Trisha, thanks for talking to us. Please, if anything comes to your mind, no matter how small it might be, let us know.”  

“I will,” she said, and ended the call.

“What do you think?” I asked Keith. “Well, it's seeming more and more to me like the mistaken identity theory is off the table. Like you said, the two girls looked nothing alike. But, if the guy was totally in a rage, I don’t know. On the one hand, he was jacked up enough to drag Melanie out to the woods and do the deed, but on the other, he was calm enough to unclip the necklace, unhook  the pendant, and take it with him. So what I’m seeing is he killed her, took the necklace off her, took the cross, and then laid it on the ground then put her body on it. This guy is both enraged and  calm enough to know what he’s doing.”

“Ok, now I’m starting to think that Melanie was the target,”  I said while shaking my head. “The necklace is personal. He didn’t take it all, like he wanted just a little part of her.”

This could be something I’ve heard of, but had never seen: a stalker that was good at covering his tracks, one who melted into the background and left nothing behind but chaos. That thought made me shudder. Somewhere, that cross was on someone or in someone’s box, and if it took me years and years, I would find him.