The Price of Life (A John Santana Mystery)

Before driving to the park, he’d reviewed the crime scene photos in the murder book and had stopped by the Property Room, where he checked out the sealed evidence box marked with Madison Porter’s case number. The only names written on the sign-out sheet were the original two investigators who had rolled on the body call, Ellis Taylor and Darnell Robinson. Taylor had signed out the box again five months after the investigation began. With no solid leads or suspects since that time, the box had sat unopened, collecting dust.

Santana took a photo of the sign-out sheet and then cross-checked the contents of the box with the evidence list. Nothing was missing. Not satisfied with viewing the evidence list, he wanted to see the actual evidence first-hand, for the same reason that he’d come to the crime scene.

Now, as he stood in the park, he opened the three-ring binder and turned again to the section labeled Crime Scene Photos. He removed the photos from the plastic sleeve and set the binder in the tall grass at his feet. His jaw tightened as he studied the graphic photos once more, saw again what the perpetrator had done to her.

Madison Porter’s pale face was turned upward. Her white T-shirt with the reflective red stripes across the chest had been lifted up, exposing her breasts. Her red running trunks and underwear had been pulled down, displaying her genitalia. Her legs were spread open and her arms splayed above her head. Clutched in her hands were the handles of a long jump rope, the cord arcing above her head like a halo. Red rose petals sprinkled her hair and hands. Numerous petechiae congested her face, and a deep mark overlying her larynx encircled her neck, suggesting a thin, tough ligature, like a wire or cord, had been used. Forensics had found no prints on the jump rope or fibers on her neck and had determined that it wasn’t used to strangle her.

The crime scene photo reminded Santana of a stanza in the poem “El Dulce Milagro” by Chilean poet Juana De Ibarbourou, which he’d been taught as a child.

“What is this? Prodigy! My hands bloom, Roses, roses, roses to my fingers grow. My lover kissed my hands, and in them, Oh grace! Roses sprouted like stars.”

The scene triggered something else now, something from his distant past. But he couldn’t unlock the subconscious gate in his mind, couldn’t recall where he’d seen a similar image of the jump rope and rose petals before. Still the depiction lingered, like an amorphous cloud.

Santana’s thoughts returned to the evidence box and list. Madison Porter’s red running shorts, white shoes, cotton socks with the Nike emblem on the side, her T-shirt with the reflective red stripes, underpants, and sport bra had all been accounted for, as well as the gold chain and locket she’d worn. Inside the locket was a picture of her mother. The jump rope had been in the box along with samples of the rose petals found at the crime scene. Though stored in a dry, dark place inside the evidence box, the petals had begun turning brown.

When Santana decided to reopen the investigation into Madison Porter’s unsolved murder, he’d pinned her yearbook photo to the wall above his desk in the Homicide and Robbery Unit. Looking at the photo evoked, for him, the promises and the life that had lain ahead.

Now the photo gave him purpose and a new mission.

He would always remember her face, the brunette hair, crescent-shaped hazel eyes, smooth jawline, and slim nose. In the photo she’d worn braces and had a touch of acne on her milky skin. At 5' 8" tall she had the thin, gawky look of a shy teenager. But Santana knew that teenage awkwardness was often a stage before beauty blossomed. He could tell that once the braces came off and the teenage acne cleared up, the sixteen-year-old girl would have grown into a beautiful woman.

Someone had taken it all from her.

Glancing at the crime scene photo again, Santana noted the slight break in the furrow at the back of her neck, where a hand had grasped the ligature and tightened it at this point. The ligature mark initially would have had a yellow-parchment-like appearance. But the furrow had turned dark brown by the time her body was discovered. Cause of death was listed as ligature strangulation.

Santana knew that physical evidence could often explain what had occurred at a crime scene, but it didn’t always tell you everything you needed to know to accurately reconstruct the events of a crime. And the crime scene didn’t always put the weapon in the hands of the offender, particularly in this case where there was no ligature, DNA, or other physical evidence found.

A gust of wind scattered papers in the small dirt and gravel parking lot. The lot was more of a turnaround off Fish Hatchery Road, which led to the Minnesota Nature Store warehouse and a large, fenced-in area that held an assortment of state vehicles.

The road dead-ended at the northernmost part of the park, a small triangle of space that included an archery range with six targets, two picnic tables, an outhouse, and a small storage shed that looked like a large dollhouse. But to reach the park’s prairie and a 500-acre lake, visitors had to cross sets of train tracks or find the unmarked dirt lot miles to the south. Except for state natural resource officials, few people crossed from one side of the park to the other.

Santana sensed the solitude and the park’s isolation. Few people even knew it was a park and even fewer visited it. Forty-five years ago it was a landfill called the Pig’s Eye Dump, the largest Superfund site in the state.

Santana had wondered about the name when he first lived in the city. He’d forgotten who’d told him that before St. Paul was established, it was called “Pig’s Eye” after the nickname of a Frenchman who was blind in one eye. The Frenchman had built a shack and operated a tavern near Fountain Cave along the Mississippi River, becoming the first inhabitant of what would eventually become the capital city of St. Paul.

Several feet of organic soil had been dumped on top of the landfill and its worst contamination excavated after the turn of the millennium. No solid structures could be built here. There were no immediate residential neighbors, only barge traffic along the river and train yards.

Picking up the murder book, Santana squared the edges of the photos and placed them in the plastic sleeve once more. Then he flipped back to the Chronological Record of the investigation in the beginning of the murder book.

All homicide investigations contained a chronological record of events that documented the investigation and provided information needed for any future investigation. The chrono referenced where in the murder book a report or notes could be found. Each entry provided a description of the detective’s actions, what was investigated, and what might need to be further investigated at a later time.

As per department policy, Ellis Taylor and Darnell Robinson had recorded the date and time of each entry, as well as the name of the detective who authored the entry. Done well, any detective reading the chrono should have a clear picture of how the investigation had progressed.

It was evident that Ellis Taylor had completed much of the paperwork. This wasn’t unusual as one partner often exhibited better writing skills. Though English wasn’t his first language, Santana had lived in the US since fleeing Colombia at the age of sixteen and was fluent in both Spanish and English. Still, given a choice, he’d rather his partner complete the reports. As he was often lead detective now, he could assign the task to his younger partner, as more experienced detectives had once assigned the task to him. But he had no partner on this case. He’d have to write all the reports. That could slow or stall the momentum of the case, which was why, he knew, he shouldn’t be working cold cases alone.

He also knew that in reopening a cold case file, he’d have to determine, at least in his own mind, if Taylor and Robinson had conducted a thorough investigation. From what he’d read so far in the murder book, he thought they had. Known throughout the department as “The Blues Brothers” because of their love of blues music and lengthy partnership, they were experienced detectives.

Unless a suspect confessed or was caught committing a crime, there were only two courses a detective could follow in pursuit of a resolution and eventual conviction. He or she either follows a chain of evidence to the suspect, or the detective begins with a suspect in mind and follows the evidence back to the crime.

In the first twenty-four hours Ellis Taylor and Darnell Robinson had collected the evidence, made death notification to the mother, and interviewed the hiker who had veered off the path to investigate a foul odor and had come across the decomposing body. Santana wondered for a time if the hiker was the perpetrator.

Some perps liked getting close to cops, liked helping out. Made them feel better about what they had done. Cops called it the Good Samaritan complex. But Santana saw nothing in Ellis Taylor’s notes that indicated either detective suspected the hiker of murdering Madison Porter.

Information about the murder had been released to the press, but specific details of the crime scene, such as the jump rope and rose petals, had been purposely omitted to eliminate publicity seekers who confessed to the crime. Only the perpetrator would know those details.

Because relatives or acquaintances kill the majority of homicide victims, Santana knew that the identity of the victim was the starting point of any investigation. The victim’s identity, along with her background and character, indicated possible suspects.

Over the course of the following weeks, Taylor and Robinson had traced Madison Porter’s movements, personal habits, and daily-life routines. The detectives ran routine computer checks on the residents living in the vicinity of her neighborhood. They studied her cellphone records and interviewed and re-interviewed all family members and known friends and associates.

They hit a wall.

No one they talked to had a clue as to why someone would want to kill Madison Porter. This led the two detectives in the direction of a random attack, indicating a crime of opportunity and a possible sexual predator. Madison Porter had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But this crime scene wasn’t the kill site. Taylor and Robinson had come to the same conclusion after they found one of Madison Porter’s running shoes in Battle Creek Park, a two-mile, three-minute drive. Her body had been transported here after the murder.

Five months in, the two detectives were still at a dead end. With each passing day, the probability of clearing the case was weighed against the need for them to work other cases and help shoulder the Homicide and Robbery caseload.

Then, six months after Madison Porter’s murder, Ellis Taylor had been shot and killed during a robbery attempt at an ATM while off-duty. A year after his partner’s death, Darnell Robinson had retired from the department.

The case went cold.

Santana closed the murder book when he heard the rumble of thunder. Dark clouds overhead cut the last cords of sunlight, leaving him enveloped in shadow. Heat lightning pulsed like a beating heart in the black clouds along the horizon. He could feel the barometer dropping and smell sulfur and distant rain.

Santana was reminded of the Colombian saying he’d learned as a child. Entre cielo y tierra no hay nada oculto. Between heaven and earth there is nothing hidden.

Whatever it took, he would find justice for Madison Porter.