Chapter Three
The following morning, Campbell drove to work and was at his desk looking at his laptop as the forensic pathologist for the Eckerslin County Coroner’s Office, Doctor Jennie Napier, appeared on the screen. In her mid-forties, she had blond hair in a blunt cut and green eyes behind square glasses.
Eager to hear the results on the unnamed dead woman, with the autopsy completed, Campbell asked, “What can you tell me about her?”
Jennie cleared her throat and said evenly, “Well, for starters, the death was a real tragedy, given that it was entirely preventable but happened anyway…” She took a breath.
“The autopsy revealed that the decedent ingested a lethal amount of fentanyl that was mixed with carfentanil, a fentanyl analog—dying of acute fentanyl intoxication. The actual cause of death was fentanyl bromazolam—diazepam toxicity, to be exact.”
“So, she died of a drug overdose?” Campbell said.
“Yes,” Jennie responded surely.
“Self-administered?” he wondered. “Or, in other words, apart from whomever provided the fentanyl, could someone other than the decedent herself have given her the lethal dose deliberately?” He suspected the forensic pathologist would throw the ball back to his side of the court as the investigating police detective.
He wanted to put it out there anyway to get her professional opinion.
Jennie remained poised as she answered. “Insofar as the overdose itself, the victim could have ingested the fentanyl voluntarily—or unknowing of the deadly consequences. But there’s also good reason to believe that this wasn’t an accidental overdose—”
Campbell cocked a brow. “Oh…?”
“There were cuts and abrasions on the decedent’s arms, legs and feet, that had bloody blisters as well,” she pointed out.
“This would seem to indicate that she had been running while naked in the park in the wee hours of Founder’s Day—as though away from someone, rather than haphazardly in a drug-abuse haze—hitting branches and shrubbery along the way.
Before the fentanyl poisoning took its strongest effect and she lost consciousness, never to wake up. ”
“Meaning, we could be looking at outright murder,” he said matter-of-factly.
This included violations of Idaho state law regarding drug-induced homicide, making it a felony to supply fentanyl or any other illicit drugs that led to the death of a person.
And federal law that involved the distributing of fentanyl that caused serious bodily injury and death of the victim.
Jennie pushed up her glasses. “That’s something for you to determine conclusively, Detective,” she told him. “But it does appear that the decedent may well have been fleeing for her life when she died—and, as such, was already doomed.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” Campbell said, gazing at her.
Another was that she’d taken a wrong turn, figuratively speaking, putting her on the path in life that could have still been survivable under other circumstances.
Either way he sliced it, she’d died way too soon, and Campbell was intent on holding accountable the drug dealer or individual who’d ended the life of a young woman. “Was she sexually assaulted?” he asked.
Jennie shook her head. “There was no sign of a sexual assault.”
“Okay.” He had to ask, given the way the victim was found and how it could have been a factor in her death.
“Oh, something else caught my eye…” Jennie cut into his thoughts. “I couldn’t help but notice that the decedent had the initials KB tattooed onto her right forearm. A boyfriend, perhaps?”
“Perhaps,” Campbell went along for effect.
He certainly couldn’t rule out that the young woman might well have had a romantic relationship with cult leader Kenneth Braison.
But the bigger question was whether or not he or his group had anything to do with her death.
“We’ll see about that and its relevance, if anything,” Campbell told the forensic pathologist before ending the briefing.
* * *
CAMPBELL PULLED UP the digital case file from the department’s Cold Case Unit on Lynda Boxleitner.
Twenty years ago, in an investigation led by Detective Mason Sawyer, his father, the forty-one-year-old waitress and former cheerleader at Reston Hills High School was found dead and naked in Reston Hills Park on Founder’s Day.
She had a broken nose, and there were other signs of physical duress.
But what had killed her was poison.
According to the Eckerslin County Coroner’s Office, Lynda Boxleitner had died from ingesting thallium sulfate, a highly toxic poisonous compound used primarily as an insecticide and rodenticide. Her death was ruled a homicide.
Campbell noted that she had been branded on her right forearm with the letters WB tattooed on it, which were said to be the initials for Wendell Braison, the then-leader of the Braison Family before it was eventually taken over by his son, Kenneth.
Though the elder Braison had long been thought to have been responsible for Lynda’s death, Campbell’s father had been unable to prove it, and Wendell Braison was never charged with killing her.
And neither was anyone else, Campbell thought, of the case that went as cold as ice.
He gazed at the photograph of Lynda Boxleitner, whom his father had dated briefly in high school before meeting and falling in love with Campbell’s mother, Alyssa.
The picture was of Lynda in a cheerleader outfit from her younger years that showed off her voluptuous figure.
Though he didn’t see any clear-cut physical similarities between Lynda Boxleitner and the still-unidentified woman killed at the park on Founder’s Day twenty years later, given the similar circumstances that befell the women, Campbell couldn’t help but wonder if the deaths weren’t connected in some way.
Perhaps the apple didn’t fall far from the tree where it concerned Wendell Braison, who died seven years ago, his son Kenneth and murder.
I’ll need to find out by paying the Braison Family compound a visit, Campbell told himself.
* * *
WITH HER HAIR in a high ponytail, Stefanie stood barefoot on a purple mat in the front of her studio on Haegadon Lane for a power yoga class, wearing an orange crop tank and brown high-waist leggings.
There were ten women in attendance for the physical and mental exercises, including Bella, who wore a red sports bra and white retro shorts on her toned, long-legged body.
With upbeat music playing, Stefanie took the lead in doing the intermediate routines, happy to lend her expertise to those in attendance.
She was still reeling over finding the dead woman at the park yesterday, and could imagine her being part of the yoga class someday had her life not been extinguished.
“Call me anytime,” Detective Campbell Sawyer had told her when handing her his card, with respect to the investigation.
I wonder if I should take him up on that?
Stefanie asked herself, anxious to learn more about the poor woman’s tragic death, as there had been no update on the case from the authorities.
Apart from that, it would be nice to get to know the handsome detective—though she realized that might well mean discovering he was married with two children or engaged to the love of his life.
Stefanie frowned at the thought while refocusing on the yoga routines, which everyone seemed to be enjoying.
After the session ended, Bella, wiping perspiration from her brow with a towel, said, “Wow! That was a great workout, mind and body.”
Stefanie smiled. “Glad you enjoyed it.”
“What’s not to like?” Bella grinned. “I’ll have to give your tai chi class a try.”
“You should,” Stefanie encouraged her. “You’d be a natural.”
“Hmm…maybe.” Bella flung the towel over her shoulder. “Heard anything else about the dead woman in the park?”
“Not yet.” Stefanie looked at her, knowing that she had the connections in town to get answers. “How about you?”
“Only that the autopsy has been completed, though the results haven’t been released yet to the public.” Bella wrinkled her nose. “Guess we’ll know when we know how she died and what to make of it.”
“True.” Stefanie decided at that moment to take the plunge and give Campbell a call to see what he’d learned, for better or worse. She headed to the locker room, pulled her hair from the ponytail and hopped into the shower.
* * *
THE brAISON FAMILY compound was located off South Petriss Road on around ten acres of rural land in an unincorporated area on the outskirts of Reston Hills.
It consisted of one big ranch-style house and a number of cabins, where many members of the cult lived.
Campbell wondered if this was where the OD victim had stayed before her death.
And had someone there supplied her with the lethal fentanyl, making them complicit in the woman’s demise?
As he walked past people—mostly in their twenties, thirties, and forties, but some children as well—who seemed almost oblivious to his presence, as though they’d been told to ignore outsiders, Campbell definitely felt out of place.
Just as he was sure his father had been when visiting the same compound two decades ago in the pursuit of justice for the victim he was investigating.
Observing a gathering of people surrounding a man whom Campbell recognized as the cult leader, Kenneth Braison, he headed in that direction. He wanted to speak with the one person most likely to give him at least some of the answers he sought.
As his followers parted the way like sheep, Campbell walked up to the charismatic leader. In his early forties and with blue-gray eyes, Kenneth was a couple of inches taller and firmly built, with long, wavy brown hair combed backward, thick brows and a circle beard.
Kenneth brushed his long nose and said curtly, “Detective Sawyer… What brings you to my neck of the woods this time?”