“Hey,” he said. “Isn’t this your day off?”
“I wish.” She rolled her brown eyes. “Or maybe not. Ted had to work today, so I figured I might as well come in.”
Ted Peñaflor was a deputy sheriff with the Eckerslin County Sheriff’s Department and Georgina’s longtime boyfriend. Whenever Campbell had broached the subject of marriage, Georgina, having once been stood up at the altar, had taken the position of not wanting to rock the boat. Or, in her words, “If it ain’t broken, why would I want to fix it—possibly ruining a good thing?”
Campbell had hardly been able to argue the point, considering that his previous relationship with Naomi had ended before he could ever put a ring on her finger. Meaning that they probably would have ended up in divorce court. But that didn’t deter him from wanting to get married—should someone come along who could put that fever in him.
Georgina was saying, “Just got through taking a statement from a woman who accused her on-and-off-again boyfriend of abusing her—and had the bruises to back it up.”
Campbell frowned. “Is he in custody?”
“Not yet. He’d fled the scene by the time officers arrived.” Georgina sighed. “He won’t get far. We’ve got a BOLO out on his Ford Bronco Sport Big Bend.”
“Good.” Campbell hated the thought of any kind of domestic violence. “If he’s guilty, he needs to answer for his actions.”
“I agree wholeheartedly.” She sat at her nearby desk. “Heard you’re investigating a naked body found in Reston Hills Park…”
“Yeah.” He paused and thought about Stefanie, who’d come upon the corpse. “The dead woman somehow ended up on a trail near the river. Unnamed, for the time being. The death could certainly be described as peculiar—givenboth the location and lack of any clothing or identifying materials in the vicinity.”
“Hmm…” Georgina made a face. “Looks like you have your work cut out for you.”
“What else is new?” Campbell tossed at her sardonically. “The answers will be forthcoming soon enough.” His only real question at this point was just how satisfactory those answers would be. And where they might lead.
When his shift ended, Campbell headed out in his take-home vehicle. He lived in a two-story, four-bedroom modern farmhouse on Charliss Lane. He’d purchased the place when returning to Reston Hills three and a half years ago, getting a good deal on it from the previous owners. Sitting on three acres of pristine land, he envisioned a place to raise a family someday and enjoy each other’s company.
After parking in the driveway in front of the two-car garage, Campbell left his vehicle and walked up to the house. Striding onto the covered porch, which had a natural wood porch swing, he unlocked the door and went inside.
The main floor had high ceilings, a spacious great room, formal dining room, den and primary bedroom—all set on parquet hardwood flooring, with double-hung windows covered by vinyl vertical blinds—with rustic hickory furniture. The gourmet kitchen had granite countertops, its own eating space and all the modern appliances for cooking. Upstairs were two nice-size furnished bedrooms with their own en suite bathrooms, and an extra room that was currently used for storage. There was a wraparound back deck, with lots of room to roam free on the grassy spaces.
Basically, it was everything Campbell could ask forin a home. Well, almost. He wasn’t particularly happy living all by his lonesome. Sharing the space with a significant other was high on his wish list. He imagined a beauty like Stefanie Nguyen would fit nicely here. First, he had to get to know her better and see if she was available and had any interest whatsoever in getting to know him—and take it from there.
Turning his thoughts to what to do for dinner, Campbell chose to take the easy way out and got on his cell phone to order a Philly cheesesteak pizza. It would go well with a bottle of beer that was in the side-by-side refrigerator. He could use the time to contemplate why a young woman would end up dead in Reston Hills Park on Founder’s Day, of all days.
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 forensicpathologist 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, figurativelyspeaking, 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.
