Bella finished off her drink and said, “Next round’s on me.”
“You’re on,” Stefanie agreed, more than happy to take her thoughts off Jasmine and the sad way she’d ended up—dead in the park.
Chapter Fourteen
On Monday morning, Mason took his favorite quarter horse, Dodge, out for a solo ride. Sally was at work, but probably wishing she was away from her desk at a local publishing house on the south side of town and riding with him as she loved to do. He loved spending as much time with her as possible. Maybe they would get hitched someday. Or maybe it was best not to mess up a good thing while still holding on to the memory of his late wife, Alyssa.
As he rode down the trail with his well-worn Stetson hat on tightly, Mason couldn’t help but wonder about his son’s love life. He wouldn’t mind seeing Campbell settle down and marry someone who could appreciate what he had to offer, and vice versa, while maybe bringing children into the world to keep the bloodline going and making him a doting granddad.
His mind turned to the cold case that the murder of Lynda Boxleitner had turned into after all these years. It still bugged him that he hadn’t solved the case. He was sure that the answers were staring him right in the face. Only he had been unable to visualize what he was seeing.
He imagined the same was true with Campbell, who was busy trying to piece together his own cases of strangedeaths involving naked young women. The latest one that was found at Reston Hills Park with similar characteristics was obviously patterned after the OD death of Mia O’Dell. What was that all about? Were both women simply drug addicts who were given a bad batch of drugs? Or was something more sinister at play here?
And did either death have anything to do with what happened to Lynda and the commonality involving the Braison Family? Or had the passage of time meant that the similarities were just strangely coincidental rather than someone with an agenda in mind to bridge the gap in the deaths?
As he headed back toward the house, Mason intended to take another hard look at his case files on Lynda’s murder and, once again, see if anything stood out that might give him a new sense of direction. Perhaps he could help Campbell in his current investigation.
* * *
CAMPBELL WAS AThis desk, with Georgina standing over him, as Jennie Napier, the forensic pathologist, was visible on the screen of his laptop to provide them with the autopsy results on Jasmine Roxburgh.
“What do you have for us?” Campbell asked intently, sensing what she might say.
Adjusting her glasses, Jennie responded evenly, “Similar to the recent autopsy on Mia O’Dell, the decedent, twenty-five-year-old Jasmine Roxburgh, died from acute fentanyl intoxication—or fentanyl bromazolam, diazepam toxicity—the result of overdosing on a lethal amount of fentanyl mixed with its analog, carfentanil.”
Campbell’s brow furrowed, though she had confirmed his suspicions. “I have reason to believe that Ms. Roxburgh—afriend of Ms. O’Dell—was not doing drugs. Much less, fentanyl or carfentanil,” he said, leaning on Stefanie’s observation and intuition regarding the cult member. “That suggests to me that someone may have knowingly given Jasmine the fentanyl concoction for the purpose of killing her…”
Georgina pitched in, “It’s hard to fathom that someone who just lost a friend to fentanyl would willingly follow in her footsteps by OD’ing herself.”
“I understand where you’re coming from.” Jennie twisted her lips thoughtfully. “I’m assuming you share the same suspicions about Ms. O’Dell’s fatal overdose being a case of outright murder?”
“How could we not,” Campbell replied matter-of-factly, “given the similarities in the way they died—naked and in the park…” He peered at the forensic pathologist. “What can you tell us about the external condition of Jasmine’s body?”
Jennie responded levelly, “The decedent had some scratches on her arms and legs, and blisters on her feet—as well as some bruising on her upper body, suggesting a physical struggle with someone in the process.”
Campbell interpolated, “Someone that Jasmine may have been trying to escape from, but failed before, during, or after the fentanyl went to work on her system—in what amounts to, at the very least, a drug-induced homicide?”If not cold-blooded murder, he thought.
“Yes, that would be my thinking on the decedent’s final minutes of life,” Jennie said solemnly.
“Were there any signs of sexual assault?” Georgina asked interestedly.
“No—none that we could ascertain during the examination,” she said.
Campbell took note of this, which lined up with the same confirmation in Mia’s autopsy—that she hadn’t been raped or otherwise sexually victimized. This indicated to him that neither Braison Family member was targeted for sexual criminality. But may well have been targeted for their common association with a cult and any attempts by the women to reject the teachings or conformity to the status quo.
When the conversation on the autopsy results ended, Georgina looked at Campbell and asked, “So, what do you think?”
He held her gaze and took a breath, before answering bluntly, “Someone obviously wanted both Jasmine and Mia dead for one reason or another…” Campbell mulled this over. “We could be looking at a serial killer—inside or outside the Braison Family.”
Georgina’s brow shot up. “You think so?”
Knowing that the FBI defined two killings at minimum—with as many as three when counting Lynda Boxleitner’s death—as constituting serial murder when certain characteristics were present, which this qualified as in Campbell’s book, he responded. “It’s certainly something we need to consider, given the manner of death and discovery of Jasmine and Mia in less than a week—as though a serial killer’s modus operandi—as an indicator that this is just getting started.”
“Hmm…that’s a scary thought,” Georgina uttered, jutting her chin.
“I know, right?” Campbell sat back in his chair, pondering the concept. “While we need to keep an open mindon all possibilities, Kenneth Braison remains at the top of the list of suspects as the killer—serial or not—for either directly supplying and/or administering the lethal drugs or through his powerful reach with loyal and obedient followers as the head of the Braison Family.”
Georgina sighed. “Meaning, whichever way we slice it, we still have our work cut out for us if we’re to prevent more lethal overdoses…and homicides.”
