Close To Home_A Sam Prichard Mystery Page 2

  A week after Carlos returned, he and Karen were called out on a new case that would prove just as frustrating. A little girl, approximately five years old, had been found in a dumpster on the south end of town. Despite every effort they could make, no one could identify the child, and Karen cried herself to sleep over little Janie Doe on many nights. A part of her wondered many times over the years whether little Janie had been one of the Samara girls, but no one had ever been able to identify her. Since the county wouldn’t pay for any DNA tests and Julie’s body had been released to her parents in California, anyway, there was just no way she could be sure.

  This case, just like the case of Julie Wesley, eventually was reduced to a cold case file, but Karen never forgot either of them.

  2

  Present Day

  “Detective Parks?”

  Karen looked up from her desk to see an obviously expecting young woman in a long skirt standing in her doorway. “That’s me,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

  The girl stepped inside and closed the door behind her, then took a seat in the chair in front of Karen’s desk. She opened her mouth to speak, but at first nothing came out. She tried again with a little more success.

  “Detective Parks, I found your name in some old newspaper stories, and I need to talk to you. My name is Melinda Davis, and you worked on a case about ten years ago that—well, it’s part of the reason I’m here.”

  Karen’s eyes narrowed and she focused her attention on the young woman. “Okay, I’m listening. Go ahead.”

  Melinda licked her lips before speaking again. “My maiden name was Melinda Samara,” she said, and something began to tickle the back of Karen’s mind. “I think you investigated the death of my mother. Her name was Julie Wesley.”

  Karen’s eyes shot wide open. “Of course,” she said, “I remember the case very well. Drove me crazy for years, still does sometimes. Samara, Samara—that means you’re Digger Samara’s daughter, right?”

  Melinda scowled. “Unfortunately, that’s true,” she said, “and that’s the rest of the reason I’m here. You see, I got married almost a year ago, and I’m going to have a baby in about six weeks. I just found out that my father is back in the Denver area, and I am absolutely terrified of ever letting him get near me or my child.”

  Karen stared at her, nodding slowly. “I’ve met the bastard,” she said. “I can completely understand.” She reached out a hand and turned on the video camera that was sitting on her desk, turning it slightly so that it was focused on Melinda.

  “Well, I talked it over with my husband,” Melinda said, “and we agreed that I should come forward. You see, when I was about ten years old, I saw my father murder my mother, and then he made me watch as he cut up her body. I had to hold open the trash bags so that he could put—so he could put the parts in them, and I have nightmares about that to this very day.”

  “I’m quite certain you do. Melinda, you actually saw him kill her?”

  “Yes. He had come home in a rage because something went wrong on one of his deals, I don’t know what, and my mother started saying something about how we didn’t have any food, and he just blew up on her. He hit her a couple of times, and then she fell and hit her head on the corner of a cabinet or something. He yelled at her to get up, but she didn’t respond, so he got down and looked closely at her, and then he started cussing. That’s when he went and got some kind of power saw, and started cutting her up.”

  “And you actually witnessed this?” Karen asked, her face aghast.

  “Oh, yes,” Melinda said, and Karen could see the tears threatening to overflow. “Me and my sisters, Ashley and Samantha, all three of us. And when he got done, he yelled at me to hold the bags open for him. I—I didn’t have any choice. I did what I was told, and then he set the bags aside and made me help him clean up blood.”

  “Oh, dear heavens,” Karen said. “Melinda, I know this has to be terribly hard for you, and I’m very sorry, but please tell me everything.”

  Melinda crossed her legs and fidgeted with her skirt for a moment, then looked up at Karen again. “I remember it all as if it was yesterday,” she said slowly. “After we cleaned up all the blood, he carried the bags out and put them in the car, then he made me and my sisters go get in the back seat. Whenever we rode in the car, we had to lay down and keep a blanket over us, because he said there were people trying to steal us away from him. We got in and he put the blanket over us, and then he drove for a little while and stopped. I heard the trunk open and I knew he was getting rid of the bags, but then he got back in and drove for a long time. We weren’t allowed to talk or anything when we were in the car, but finally stopped and told us to get out. We were at some house outside of Golden, where a friend of his lived. He said we were going to be staying there for a while.”

  She held up a finger to ask Karen to wait, and then she took a very deep breath. As she let it out, she visibly shuddered. “There were two men there, and he told them he needed to stay there but they wanted something. He didn’t have whatever it was they wanted, so he pointed at us. He said, ‘Hey, you can use them if you let me stay.’ One of them said okay, and then he took me…”

  Karen’s eyes were about to pop out of her head. “He let them use you sexually?”

  Melinda nodded, unable to speak. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and it took her a moment to get herself under control.

  “Yeah,” she said. “All three of us.”

  “How long were you there?” Karen asked.

  “I’m not really sure. A couple of weeks, probably. We were there up until Ashley disappeared.”

  “Wait a minute, let me make sure I got this right. Ashley was one of your sisters?”

  “Yeah, she was the youngest one. She was about four at the time, and Samantha was six. I remember it was kind of cold that day, and we were all wrapped up in our blankets on the floor. My dad came in from somewhere and told us all to get up but Ashley said she was too cold and wouldn’t come out from under her blanket. He yelled at her, then he yanked her up on her feet and backhanded her so hard she kinda flew across the room and hit the wall.” Melinda blinked, trying to control the tears. “She fell down and wasn’t moving, and I’m pretty sure she wasn’t even breathing. He yelled at her again and got down on the floor beside her, and then he just picked her up and threw her over his shoulder and walked out.” She dug into her purse for a handkerchief and wiped at her eyes. “Samantha and I never saw Ashley again.”

  Karen held up a hand. “Wait,” she said. She turned to the computer on her desk and started tapping on the keys, and a moment later, the printer beside her came to life. A photo came out of it, poorly printed on plain paper but still visible, and Karen looked at it for a second before passing it to Melinda.

  “Oh, my God,” Melinda said. “That’s her, that’s Ashley.” She looked at the Karen. “How…”

  “She was found in a dumpster on the outskirts of the city. We tried for years to figure out who she was, but we were never able to identify her.” Karen sniffled. “I’ve had many sleepless nights over her. We called her little Janie Doe, but it’s nice to finally have a name to put with her.”

  Melinda was still staring at the photo. “What—whatever happened to her?”

  “She was eventually buried in a pauper’s plot. The city keeps some for situations like that. I can get the exact location, if you’d like to visit her grave someday.”

  Melinda nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that.” She took a deep breath and folded the picture, but continued to hold it as she looked back at Karen. “Anyway, after Ashley was gone, he took me and Samantha and we left. For about a year, we went from one of his buddies to another, and it was always the same as it had been there. We did what we were told, and that way we didn’t get hurt too badly. The only problem was that there wasn’t much food around, so me and Sam, we were hungry a lot. We didn’t get to take baths very often, and the only clothes we had were stuff we could steal off other people’s
clotheslines. We got to go out in the mornings to hunt for food and stuff, and one morning this lady caught us digging in the dumpster behind her restaurant. Samantha was actually inside it, and she was passing out pieces of meat and half-eaten sandwiches to me.”

  “Where was this?” Karen asked.

  “Oh, this was in Grand Junction. The lady who caught us, she made us come inside the restaurant and fed us a good meal, but she kept asking us questions, like where we lived and stuff like that. It was such a relief to have some good, hot food that I didn’t even think about the fact we weren’t supposed to talk to strangers.” She smiled softly. “She had us in the kitchen, and she went out of the room for a few minutes and then came back. A few minutes later, one of the waitresses came in and had two police officers with her.”

  “Good job,” Karen said.

  “Yeah. They took us to the social services people, and we got lucky for once. We got placed in a foster home together, and the people who took us in were wonderful. The cops went after my dad, of course, but he was gone, like always. As far as I know, he never did find out where we were and that’s probably the only reason we survived. Our foster parents put us in counseling and therapy, and they say I came through it all fairly well, but Samantha—she had it rough. She was in and out of trouble for a few years, and she was finally institutionalized when she was fourteen.”

  “Why was that?” Karen asked.

  Melinda let out a deep sigh. “She got busted the first time for using marijuana when she was twelve, and then several more times over the next couple years. The last time, I guess she tried to run from the cops that caught her and she stole a car. The judge said he was going to give her one more chance, and put her in an institution for troubled kids instead of jail.” She grimaced. “If you ask me, she was lucky. She doesn’t think so, of course, and she hasn’t even spoken to me in the last three years. When I would try to go to visit her, they’d just tell me that she was refusing to see me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Karen said. “Melinda, do you know where your father is?”

  She shook her head. “Not exactly, no,” she said. “All I know is he’s back in Denver. My husband, he grew up on what they used to call the wrong side of the tracks, you know what I mean? He knows quite a few people from the dark side of Denver, and he put the word out back when we got married that if Digger ever turned up, he wanted to know about it. Well, somebody sent him this.”

  She took out her phone and called up an image, then passed it to Karen. Samara’s hair was grayer, and there were wrinkles and creases on his face, but Karen had no doubt it was the same man who had laughed in her face ten years earlier.

  “That’s definitely him,” she said. “Any idea where this picture was taken?”

  “It was supposedly down by Castle Pines,” Melinda said, “but several people say he’s been seen all over town. From what I hear, he’s been coming back here off and on for the last few years, but he’s always managed to avoid getting any serious charges, so nobody really does anything about him. I’m hoping maybe you can help change that.”

  “You bet your ass I can,” Karen said. “Tell me how I can get in touch with you. You do realize you’re going to have to testify against him, right? I can’t do anything without your testimony.”

  “Yes, I know, and I’ll do whatever it takes. Ms. Parks, please understand that I would rather die than ever let that man near me or my baby. You don’t have to worry that I’ll change my mind, because I won’t. I want him put away, and I want him put away as far and as deep as possible.”

  Karen smiled at her. “Honey,” she said, “that puts you and me on the same page.”

  Melinda gave her a nervous smile. “I hope so,” she said. “The thing is—something I need you to understand is that my father terrifies me. I’m not here because I want revenge against him; I’m here because I’m terrified he’s going to find me. If he does—there’s no way I can fight him, no way I can get away from him. I meant what I said. I’d rather be dead than have to be under his control again.”

  “I won’t let that happen, Melinda,” Karen said firmly. “I promise you, I won’t let that happen.”

  She took down all of Melinda’s information and the girl left, after which Karen began typing up a report. The case had never been closed, but it was so old that she’d have to make a convincing argument to get it assigned to her. She spent the rest of the day typing it up and going over it, looking for anything she could add that would help her finally bring Daniel “the Digger” Samara to justice.

  When she was finished, she printed out the report and took it directly to Captain Barnhart, who was in charge of the homicide division. He happened to be in his office, which was unusual at that time of day, and invited her in. She handed him the report and then spent the next hour explaining it in detail.

  “Let me get this straight,” Barnhart said. “You got a witness who’s come forward after ten years on a cold murder case, and you’ve heard a rumor that the perpetrator is in the area. Based on that, you want me to make this your priority assignment?”

  “Yes, sir,” Karen said. “Sir, I had this man back when it happened, but he was so slick we couldn’t pin it on him. Now, with the witness who was actually forced to help dispose of the body parts, we can finally close that case and put away a man who is guilty of at least two murders, and one of those was a five-year-old girl that was his own daughter. I think it’s absolutely essential that we devote whatever time and resources are necessary to bring him down.”

  Barnhart was holding a file folder with her report in it and glancing through it, but he suddenly closed it and tossed it onto his desk. “Karen, I don’t entirely disagree,” he said. “The trouble is, this isn’t even our case anymore. It got transferred to Cold Case Division five years ago. I’d have to go all the way to the chief and beg to get it back, but we’ve got enough to do as it is. I think what you need to do is take all of this information down to Cold Case. Talk to Ryerson down there, I’m pretty sure he’d be glad to get it. This is their case, so we’ve got to let them have all this.”

  Karen grumbled in disappointment. She had known this was likely going to happen, but it didn’t make her feel any better. She tried weakly to argue for a few minutes, but then picked up the file and went down to where the Cold Case squad kept their offices and asked for Ryerson.

  “Ryerson ain’t here anymore,” she was told by a new detective named Borden. “He got offered some cushy job down in Santa Fe a few weeks ago and split. What’ve you got?”

  Once again, Karen explained the whole story and handed over the file. Borden flipped through it, then turned around and put it under a huge stack of other folders. “Okay,” he said, “we’ll take a look as soon as we get around to it.”

  Karen’s eyes bugged out. “Around to it? This man is a killer, and I just handed you everything you need to put him away.”

  “And we appreciate it. The problem is we got orders from on high that we are supposed to clear the oldest cases first.” He pointed at the stack of folders on his desk. “See those? Some of those go back thirty years. Yours is only ten years old, do the math. It might be a year or two before we get to that case, and there ain’t nothing I can do about it. You want it changed, you go convince the chief to get his head out of his ass, all right?”

  Karen stormed out of the office, but stopped in the doorway to look back at Borden. “This son of a bitch murdered his kids’ mother and one of his own daughters,” she yelled. “Maybe you won’t do anything about him, but I damn sure will. Digger Samara is a despicable parasite, a piece of crap who deserves exactly what his victims got!”

  3

  “Detective Parks,” Karen said as she answered the incoming call. It had been almost two weeks since Melinda had come to see her, and she had all of her sources working on trying to find Digger Samara. Every time the phone rang, a part of her hoped it would be a lead that would help her put him away for good.

  “It’s Snake,” came a
voice. Snake was the street name of the guy who ran the Denver Devils, a local street gang that had a tendency to stick to very minor crime. They sold a bit of pot and hustled some black-market liquor, and they could be as tough and violent as any of the other gangs when it came to protecting their turf, but they managed to stay out of trouble for the most part. Snake had been providing occasional bits of information to Karen for quite some time. Out of all of her sources, he was undoubtedly the most reliable.

  “Tell me you got something,” she said. “Anything on Samara.”

  “Yeah, well, that could be why I’m calling you. Digger showed up this morning needing a place to stay, rented one of my efficiencies. Him and some other guy, but he said they’ll only be here a few days. Thought you’d want to know.”

  Karen’s eyes swelled wide. “Seriously? Is he there now?”

  “Was twenty minutes ago,” Snake said. “I woulda called sooner, but this was my first chance to be alone.”

  “No problem, I’ll take it. I’ll be down there in twenty minutes.”

  Two years earlier, Snake had found himself with a moderate chunk of cash. Rather than blow it on things that wouldn’t last, he’d surprised Karen by being smart enough to invest in real estate. He had bought himself an apartment building down in LoDo, the lower downtown area that seemed to be a hotbed for gang activity and street crime. He had been tough enough to stake out a territory, and when he started the Devils to help keep the other gangs out, it had actually reduced the crime rate in the city by a good ten percent.

  The rent that he made off the building gave him enough to live on, and he was handy enough to do the repairs himself. Quite a few of his tenants were members of the gang, but as long as they paid their rent on time, he was okay with that. Others were some elderly folk and a few that were handicapped, whose rent was paid by the government and always came in like clockwork. Since he didn’t owe any money on the building, it gave him a decent living.