After the flight crew announcements and the emergency procedure demonstration, he turned to Jensen. “How are you doing today?” After the question was out of his mouth, he winced inside.Wow, that was as smooth as sandpaper!Thankfully, she didn’t seem put off.
“I’m glad to be heading home. I think I got the last seat on this flight. Any luck finding Crystal Benton?”
“Not on the island. We’re guessing she’s back in Long Beach by now. Just like your brother-in-law.”
At first, Ben felt like Jensen wanted to stay quiet. Her stiff posture and the way she played with her Kindle made him think she was struggling with an inner demon. Or maybe she simply wanted to read. He would not be the one to bug her. If she wanted to engage in conversation, he would.
She fidgeted for a few moments. “How long has the Bureau been investigating Dallas Vine?”
“The larger aspect of the investigation, in other states, has been ongoing for over a year. My partner and I were assigned to the Long Beach part about six months ago. Vine has proved himself slippery.”
“I think that I know that better than anyone. I’m certain he murdered Daphne Sparks fifteen years ago, but no one could prove it then. Are you guys poking into that case at all?”
Ben sighed. “No. The scope of the multistate investigation concerns federal crimes, not local ones. The Sparks case is cold and up to LBPD to solve. I’m sorry it’s not a priority for us.”
“I hate to hear that. I still think about that poor woman.”
Was there a catch in her voice?
“She was only twenty-three years old, well-liked, and trying to make a life for herself when she was murdered. She should never be forgotten.”
“She’s not forgotten...” Ben felt her pain.
“But not a priority.” She turned to face him, her voice vibrating with hurt. “Her mother broke down at the first press conference, when detectives asked for the public’s help in solving the case. She had to be hospitalized, and she never recovered. She died shortly thereafter. It broke my heart then, and it continues...” Jensen paused, turned away, and swallowed. “They both deserve justice.”
“I confess I don’t know as much about that case as I should. What can you tell me?”
She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. “It’s a stone-cold case, but it still twists my gut in knots. Daphne had just moved to Long Beach for work. She was hired down at the harbor as an office manager. Back then, Vine was heavily involved with the longshoremen’s union and active in the harbor. That’s where I think he met her.”
“I don’t recall any connection between the two of them noted in the reports.”
“No one admitted to a connection. But there was evidence that Vine often visited the building where Daphne worked. He was involved in an import-export business at the time. For him to say that he never saw or interacted with Daphne in the time she worked there defies logic.”
“Sounds like you have a theory.”
Her whole countenance perked up. Ben bet that thinking about something other than her sister was therapeutic.
“There used to be a bar on the west side of Long Beach, the Barn. A lot of people from the port and the harbor offices frequented the bar. We discovered that that was where Vine was drinking the night I arrested him. He’d been kicked out at closing time, or so they said.”
“You don’t think so?”
She shook her head. “Closing time was two a.m. I stopped him around six thirty a.m. If they kicked him out at two, where was he between then and six thirty? He was drunk when I stopped him. Blood alcohol was .20.”
“Was that time ever accounted for?”
“No. In court paperwork he claimed to be driving home from the Barn when I stopped him. He never had to explain further. He had no record at the time, hired good lawyers, and got a sweet plea deal. You know he killed another man about five years before Daphne?”
“I do. He was acquitted; the jury saw it as self-defense.”
“They got it wrong,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Maybe, but that case never would have been mentioned, even if Sparks’s case had gone to trial.”
“I know you’re right. It still cements the idea in my mind that he is a killer.”
“So, back to the night Sparks was killed. Either the bar let him stay there and drink, long after it was legal, or Vine was doing something else.”
“I think he killed Daphne and was on the way to dump her body. She’d been deceased a couple of hours at least when I stopped him,and most of her blood volume was gone—she bled and died somewhere else, not in the back of that car. I think...”
