Corpse in the Campus (6 page)

—What the hell is this! —exclaimed Davies, grabbing his head with his hands, and thinking that his capacity of amazement had just broken all known records.

—A cage, Ron. A damn cage to keep a young girl kidnapped and to be able to do whatever you want to with her —replied Stevens, with a voice charged with irony and disgust.

D
uring the next two days, several agents spent time reviewing the guard´s records, and they discovered, to their amazement, that he had tried to enter the police force on numerous occasions in several different states. Normally all of this seemed to go well, but all of these attempts had come across the same obstacle: the psychological evaluation. The result had always been negative, and therefore always invalidated him as a possible agent. Finally, Tom Campbell had resigned himself to be a security guard, which was something that didn´t require such strict testing and that also allowed him in a way, to be a protector and keeper of the law.

They  also discovered that it hadn´t been the first time he had been obsessed with a case, since at least on five occasions he had tried to cooperate with different county sheriff´s offices where he lived in order to clear up some or other murder. This fact from the start had provoked alarm at the police department, but they soon saw that all those cases were already solved, and that Campbell had had nothing to do with them. However, in criminalist matters it was well known that on numerous occasions the subject guilty of homicide tried to get involved in the investigation, faking cooperation: sometimes only to be informed on the progress of the investigation, and others, simply to block police work and to put the police agents off track.

Stevens felt euphoria for the first time since Sarah Brown´s body had been found. He felt strength to participate in all the meetings and talked excitedly with anybody that could provide the latest information on Tom Campbell. He knew that they had it. The autopsy on the cadaver had confirmed the initial hypothesis: suicide due to overdose of sleeping pills. Surely this guy had not been able to put up with the pressure, and according to his own investigation he had seen that they would catch up with him sooner or later. A sweet death, sitting at home was much better than facing a trial, and surely a life sentence to prison full of inmates anxious to take out their frustrations on a miserable creature like him that had murdered an innocent young girl that had all of her life before her. Even prisons have their own moral and ethic code that is put into practice according to unwritten rules that are applied unfalteringly.

In the meanwhile, the  Cedar Falls police department received the ballistics report for the gun that Aaron Stone had supposedly used to kill Sarah Brown. Negative. It not only did not match the bullet in the victim´s cranium, but that gun had not been fired for at least a year. There was no trace of Sarah´s presence in Mr. Stone´s station wagon that was what his son according to him had used to kidnap her. There were no hairs, nor blood, nor any trace of her DNA. This suspect was discarded. What had been a severe blow for some of the agents had been a confirmation for Gordon that through evidence his intuition had not failed.

A week after the appearance of Tom Campbell´s cadaver in his house, Philips and Stevens were making an all out effort in the
operations center 
due to their efforts to try to order documents and testimonies that turned him into the ideal suspect. Unfortunately, they still didn´t have any solid proof.

—It had to be him, Karen. All we need is to fit in another couple of the pieces of the puzzle and his macabre face will eventually appear to us.

The agent beamed back a twisted smile to her colleague. She wasn´t too sure about it. What´s more, as each day passed by, doubts seemed to attack her with more force. She just couldn´t manage to see that damn puzzle that Gordon seemed to think was so evident.

—We need more. At court we won´t get anywhere with what we´ve got. At the most we´d prove that Campbell was disturbed and obsessed, but not very much more.

—I know, and that´s why we need to work harder. We´ve got the fish biting the hook and we can´t let it get away. We owe it to Sara—replied Stevens with energy, as if he had taken something that stimulated his organism with a very unusual force.

Karen nodded, but not very convinced. In spite of everything, he kept on noting down what he considered could be important in face of the investigation in his notebook while he went over each record  that flooded the
operations center
desk.

For an hour, silence took over the room. Gordon was concentrated, and in a way he felt a kind of relief, as if he had just extracted a thorn that had been tormenting him for several weeks. Sarah deserved for justice to be done for her and he was already caressing that happy moment with his fingertips.

—I knew that I´d find you both here.

Ron´s unexpressive voice which was a little hoarse broke the silence that presided the
operations center.
Neither the tone of his words nor his body language forebode anything good for Karen.

—What´s the matter?—Bad news boys —answered Davies, sitting down among these colleagues.

—Don´t delay and spit it out for once and for all —mumbled Stevens, trying to prepare for the worst.

—Do you remember Mike Johnson?

—Yes, the security guard that was working with Campbell —answered Philips.

—Exactly. Well, we have a sworn statement in which he affirms that he was with him all the time during the whole of march 6
^th
precisely at the very time that Sarah went missing. What´s more, he assures that at the time that was most probably the time of the kidnapping they were at the other end of the campus.

—That doesn´t mean a damn thing! —exclaimed Gordon, in an indignant tone.

—Wait a minute. We´ve also found one of Campbell´s family members that assures that the cage had been there for years, and that it hadn´t been used for months. The guard´s father, who died in the middle of the previous year was senile, and when he wasn´t around the house, he used to molest the neighbors or walk around naked all around the neighborhood. The only idea Campbell, who we know was disturbed, was to build a cage to stick his father in whenever he was out. Total madness.

Stevens felt that the world was caving in on him. Another punch in the stomach. Another long and splintery thorn straight through his guts.

—We´ll have to wait and see the results of the DNA tests on the remains in the cell —mumbled Karen without much conviction, but trying to avoid Gordon coming down right there.

—Yes, we´ll have to wait. Maybe both the guard as well as the family member are lying, trying to protect the good name of someone they like, and who is no longer with us to be able to defend themselves —mused Stevens, shutting up and noting that millions of thoughts were bombarding his brain.

Davies didn´t want to deal the final blow to his colleague. However, he couldn´t remain silent any more, because that would be indignant.

—There´s something that I haven´t told you, because I didn´t consider it important at the moment. We were all so excited with the idea that we had the murderer that I myself wished to expel him from my mind.

—The coroner that performed the autopsy on Sarah phoned me some days after finding Campbell´s body. He said that he had found out about the security guard´s strange customs, and about the damn and disgusting cage. He said that it was his own impression, but for us to forget about the girl being shut in there, and not even for a couple of hours, and much less for almost two days..

—How come that? —asked Karen, puzzled and longing for a reasoned explanation for that hypothesis.

—Sarah´s body, aside from the bullet wound didn´t has a scratch. Not even one small incision or bruise, or even a broken fingernail. It seemed inconceivable to think that a person´s body could have been shut in for hours in such a wearisome, meager and horrifying homemade cell without having a single scratch.

T
he results of the DNA testing for remains found in the cage that Tom Campbell had built in the attic of his house confirmed his intuition: the only people there had been himself and his late father. No one else. Not even a hair had been found in his whole house that could relate him to the Sarah Brown crime. They were in a dead end once again. The Cedar Falls Police Department had no suspects, nor testimonies to offer, nor the slightest traces on who could have killed the student. Just a little over a year after the body had been discovered the case had to be closed. One more to add to the list of unsolved cases in the United States of America.

Stevens was unable to overcome this blow. He had constant nightmares in which Sarah told him not to give up, and not to forget her. Under those circumstances it was impossible for him to go on with his daily routine, so he asked for a leave and he left for Waterloo to work on a family farm in Kansas.

Davies absorbed the blow a little better, and got a position as detective in Chicago, which had been a city, dreamed of for years. There homicides were a daily thing, so therefore the hard shell every good police officer had to grow came on quickly. His mentality which was by nature optimistic, allowed him to live with the worst of society every day without forgetting that the majority of people that lived in this world were fabulous, and that only a handful of delinquents worried about disturbing the peace in the community.  He was there to arrest them, in order to avoid the spreading of evil. And that is what made him feel good.

Philips stayed on in Cedar Falls. First she got a promotion to investigator. Years later, upon Patrick Thomas´ retirement she became local police chief. After considerable effort, she was able to park the horrible Sarah Brown case so that even that didn´t keep her from enjoying her job, family, or her precious city.

Life should go on.

A
decade had gone by since the crime at the University of Northern Iowa. Barely a handful of persons in all of the United States still got up each morning remembering Sarah Brown. It was a painful thing for them, but they couldn´t avoid it, and they couldn´t overcome it. The rest had been capable of setting that terrible event back and they remembered it only  now and then vaguely, and they tried to put out the coals with all their might so that it didn´t get out of hand.

Karen Philips was one of those people that had been able to find happiness and get a grasp on her memory, controlling its will to harass her with frightful memories that could only harm her. Nothing more than that. Her children were already grown adolescents, her husband adored her, and she had been able to get farther than she had ever dreamed of. And she was still in her dear Cedar Falls. However, suddenly, a television program jerked her out of her dream world. She was still hooked on series and documentaries based on criminal investigation. That day, the show narrator with a tone of put on sympathy reviewed the blood curdling case that had not been solved. This was that marvelous university student form Sheldon whose name was none other than Sarah Brown. Karen couldn´t believe what she was seeing on her plasma screen, and she couldn´t avoid uttering a moan that she held out for several seconds in the air.

—Calm down, honey. This program is dedicated to that kind of things. It was something that could happen —said Karen´s husband, who was seated at her side, and who understood what his wife must be going through.

—They haven´t even bothered to call me, at least for me to be able to give my opinion on the matter.

—They´ve asked for the family´s permission. They have already commented on it. Don´t torture yourself over it. Let´s just turn the TV off.

—No, please don´t! I want to see it; I want to see it all. I want to know exactly what they are going to tell.

For her relief, the description of what had happened was not done in a sensationalist manner, nor was it full of gory details. On the contrary, the tact and objective manner in which the report was covered was worthy of admiration. Despite everything, she was still annoyed and she didn´t understand why they hadn´t contrasted their information with her story. After all, she was now in charge of the Cedar Falls local police department. She thought about the family, and she felt tormented at the idea that Sarah´s parents had on more than one occasion criticized her in person for having closed the case, and they were the ones that had consented to the program but also would have demanded certain conditions. Among these that they not speak to any of the agents investigators or detectives related to the investigation having to do with the murder of their child.

When the program was over, Karen was agitated, as if she had run a 400 meter race, or were about to face a boxing bout. Her husband was worried.

—Would you like me to bring you a sleeping pill?

Philips stopped to think for a few seconds. The soft and pleasant voice of her husband relaxed her, but even at that, she knew that without a double portion of Lorazepam she wouldn´t be able to sleep.

—Yes. I think that it will be the most sensible thing to do. Thanks.

Karen had barely swallowed the two pills when the phone rang. Who the devil could be calling her house so late? There was only one possibility, and she told herself that she wasn´t in shape to face some emergency, and less of grabbing the car and going over to the police department. She was hoping with all her heart that it was her mother in law, and that she could spend a good while chatting with her husband about their grandchildren.

—Darling, a call from work —muttered her husband, while he brought her the wireless phone.

Philips sighed in a discouraged manner and took the phone hoping that it wasn´t anything really important.

—What´s wrong?

—Yes, we need for you to come. Someone has called us from Sheldon and has given us a public phone booth number. They say that they only want to talk to you.

The duty agent´s voice which was routine and monotonous could not cover up the extreme relevance of the information that they were giving her. Karen felt that her breast was swelling, and knew that it was her heart that was pounding like a wild horse against her sternum.