Chapter 29
Bloch
The sun was disappearing behind the black trees when Winchester had finished telling all he knew of the Teresa Chase case to Bloch and Lake.
The window behind him framed the sunset perfectly.
A row of fields stretched to the horizon and the distant tree line.
So involved in telling his story, Winchester hadn’t seemed to notice the dying light.
The small kitchen was now dark, and only when he had finished, and picked up his empty coffee cup, did he flick on the light switch as he made his way to the machine for a refill.
Bloch was glad of the light. The tale was dark enough, and so perhaps it had been fitting for Winchester to tell it while the light faded into dusk.
He was convinced the body that had been found in the woods by a father and son hunting had been the body of Teresa Chase.
Absent her head, of course. The discovery had been made some months after Teresa had reportedly been swept out to sea.
Ordinarily, when a partial body is recovered, there are procedures and investigations that in most cases lead to a positive identification.
The fingerprints taken from the body were not in the system.
Dental records were no help here.
There were no distinguishing marks of any kind. No tattoos. No scars.
The DNA profile of the body was not in the missing person’s database.
Teresa’s apartment had been cleared out by her landlord, and the place deep cleaned, as was his usual method.
So there wasn’t even an identifiable hair fiber on a hairbrush that they could tie to Teresa to be used as a base sample of DNA for comparison to the body.
Following an MRI scan, there were no signs of any old fractures or evidence of surgical procedures that can sometimes be used to identify people – particularly any metal plates, which usually have a serial number that can be linked back to an individual, the surgeon and the hospital where the surgery was undertaken.
Nothing.
Well, there was one thing that could have been done, and this is what caused Winchester serious problems.
Teresa Chase had no living relatives that could be traced.
She had a half-sister, on her father’s side, named Willow Chase, but apparently she was a drug addict who had fallen so far off the radar that no one knew how to trace her.
Cousins were not good enough, and Teresa’s parents had both been deceased more than five years.
Winchester had asked permission from Captain Landry to obtain a court order for exhumation of her parents, Steven and Deanna Chase, so that their DNA could be compared to the unidentified body.
Landry had refused, point blank. Said there was no evidential basis for obtaining an exhumation order. He didn’t care that the partial body was roughly the same age as Teresa, and had been dead around the same amount of time Teresa had been missing.
There was nothing more Winchester could have done.
Now, Bloch replayed his story as she sat in his dark kitchen.
Bloch felt Lake nudge her knee with his. He flicked his eyes to Winchester. Bloch came out of her reverie and followed Lake’s gaze. Winchester leaned over the kitchen counter. His eyes shut tightly. His shoulders jerking.
Tears fell on the oak countertop.
‘We’re sorry to have upset you, Paul,’ said Lake.
He took in a huge breath, wiped his face with meaty hands.
‘It’s alright, it’s just me being stupid . . . It’s . . . It’s ah . . . I failed her. I failed that girl. I know it’s Teresa.’
‘You did everything you could,’ said Bloch. ‘You can hold your head up. Can’t say the same for Landry.’
‘He’s scared,’ said Winchester. ‘That’s why he canned me when I went behind his back to the judge for the order.
Goddamn judge refused me straight out, and told me he’d already spoken to Landry about how there was no evidence to exhume Teresa’s parents.
They don’t want the truth coming out. I think that son-of-a-bitch Patrick Vanderpool killed her, either in a rage or by accident.
I just know it. And they’re protecting him because of who his father is.
You know how much the Vanderpool’s donate to the local police fund? ’
Bloch shook her head.
‘Neither do I, but I know it’s more than the five hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars Vanderpool paid for a fleet of new police cruisers.’
Winchester suddenly spun round, sprang to the window and stared out. Bloch began to say something and Winchester raised his finger to his lips. He was listening.
Bloch and Lake exchanged looks.
Some of what Winchester had told them sounded outlandish.
Bloch was not a great judge of liars, but she was aware that for some people it is much easier to believe there is a conspiracy and a cover-up when perhaps the actual problem is merely incompetence.
This can be a particular problem for those who have lost something.
In Winchester’s case, going behind Landry’s back to the judge had been the final straw.
He had been told to take medical retirement and forget about Teresa Chase, or be fired.
He took the retirement package, but he had not forgotten about Teresa.
The tears, just moments ago, were testament to that, but perhaps more.
Bloch got the impression that Winchester had been one of those rarer breeds of police officer who not only cares about victims, but feels a moral compulsion, something akin to a personal mission, to see that they have justice.
Yet, he was hearing things. Bloch and Lake shared a highly developed sense of danger. She could admit that Lake’s was more finely tuned than hers. And neither of them had heard or sensed anyone outside Winchester’s property.
He had been a good cop. And he may have had a point about Teresa Chase. Or he may have been mistaken.
Bloch had failed to mention that they were currently working on the defense team for Patrick Vanderpool’s wife, who stood accused of murdering and beheading another young woman named Molly Green.
One thing was fairly certain in Bloch’s mind.
‘Thank you for everything you’ve told us,’ said Lake, getting up.
Winchester didn’t take his eyes from the window, not until they were almost at the front door.
‘I probably should’ve closed the door in your faces, for all the good it’ll do me,’ he said.
‘Thank you anyway,’ said Bloch as they left. The heavy door slammed shut behind them and Bloch listened to two separate bolts slotting across the door, and then the rattle of a security chain.
Once safely inside Bloch’s Jeep, Lake asked, ‘What do you think?’
‘I think he may be on to something.’
‘You sure?’
‘Nobody cans a detective with his rep, experience and clearance rate unless you want to cover something up. It’s what happened to him because of the Teresa Chase case that makes me think he’s right. I do know one thing for certain – he’s paranoid.’
As they drove out of the street, they passed a Land Rover Defender with blacked-out windows parked at the curb.
It was parked sufficiently far away from Winchester’s house to be barely visible due to the bend in the road, but it was still in a position to notice everyone coming and going from the property.
The Land Rover had not been there when they’d arrived.
Bloch would have noticed. She saw Lake checking out the side mirror, keeping the Land Rover in view as they headed out toward the highway.
‘I think you’re right about the cover-up,’ said Lake, ‘but I’m not sure you’re right about Paul. Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.’