Cold Cases and Hot Nights

The techs were able to collect DNA from the beer bottle, and found it to be from an unidentified male. Mack asked Mister Marks for a DNA sample which he readily agreed to, but his DNA did not match the DNA on the beer bottle.

When I read all the case details, I didn't have much hope. My money was on Mister Marks since Mack hadn't found any indication of a break-in and nothing in the home appeared to have been disturbed. Unfortunately, Mister Marks wasn't available for further questioning unless I'd been able to find someone who talks with the dead. He'd had a heart attack and passed away three years before. Most of Missus Marks friends and relatives who were old enough to remember her had also met their ultimate end. I did speak to those who were still living, but they either couldn't remember or said they didn't know anything more than what they'd told Mack in 1981.

Still, there were a few things Mack hadn't tried because they weren't available at the time. My first attempt was to submit the unknown male's DNA to CODIS, the FBI's Combined DNA Index System. Once DNA testing became common, most people convicted of a crime had to submit to having their DNA taken and that DNA profile was filed in CODIS. A computer program sifts through that database and compares each DNA analysis to the one submitted. It was a long shot, but it was possible my killer had also been convicted of something else and would have his DNA profile on file.

My second attempt, which I did at the same time, was one used by many law enforcement agencies for cases where they have little information. I called several newspapers and television stations across the state and asked them to run a short article about Missus Marks' murder along with pictures of her and of Ashley. What I was doing was reminding the community that a murder or murders had taken place in hopes it would jar a memory about anything that might be relevant. Sometimes, the key to solving a murder case is the person who saw something odd, but at the time didn't think it was important.

Both attempts fizzled. CODIS didn't have a match to the unidentified male's DNA and though I got a few phone calls from people who thought they had information, all but two didn't check out. Those two calls were tantalizing, but also didn't lead anywhere once I ran them down.

One caller claimed they'd worked with Mister Marks and he had a habit of going out for lunch every day. The company he worked for hadn't kept the time cards from that time, so there was no way to verify if he'd punched out or not, but that didn't really matter. The personnel clerk I talked to said that at that time, employees were given half an hour for lunch and they weren't required to punch out and then punch back in. If the employee left early or came back late, the department supervisor would have reported it, but the records for that time period had all been destroyed.

Just to check, I drove from the plant to the house where they had lived and it took me twenty minutes each way. That pretty much eliminated the possibility Mister Marks had gone home during the day, killed Missus Marks, and had then gone back to work. The driving time also eliminated the possibility that Mister Marks had killed her early in the morning and then disposed of her body on the way to work. He wouldn't have had time to drive fifteen miles in the opposite direction, put Missus Marks on the side of the road and then drive on to work.

I was mulling over what I'd learned and trying to think of some other way to attack the case when the Captain called me into his office. When I got there, he was talking with a woman who looked between thirty and thirty-five. I guessed that age because her figure wasn't the slender figure of a young girl, but she didn't yet have many lines in her face. She had long, dark brown hair and really striking blue eyes. She was dressed in a business suit, and smiled at me when the Captain introduced us.

"Rochelle, this is Richard Owens, the detective assigned to the case you're concerned with. Richard, this is Rochelle Roberts. Rochelle is a mystery novel writer who saw that ad you placed in the newspaper and she wants to write the case into a novel. She also thinks she might be able to help because she's researched a lot of cases already. She went to the mayor who went to the Chief who told me to give her all the cooperation we can.

"I'm inclined to agree with him because of the age of this case. No reflection on you, but we haven't gotten anywhere even with your fresh eyes, so maybe she can help. If not, we won't have lost anything because we don't have much of anything to lose."

By then, I'd run out of ideas and thought if there was any chance Rochelle could help, I was willing to give her the opportunity. Detectives learn how to solve cases by using the methods other detectives have used in the past. Usually that works very well, but in cases like Missus Marks and her daughter, sometimes they don't. I was ready to try anything.

Terry Anderson, another one of our detectives, was out on medical leave because he'd broken his leg and wasn't expected back for a couple of months. His desk was butted up against mine, so if Rochelle sat there, she'd be close enough we could talk without yelling across the room. I got an evidence box and put everything of Terry's in it, and then told Rochelle the desk was hers.

She spent two days reading all the files on the case before she said she had a lot of questions and asked if we could meet somewhere outside of the station to discuss them. I had a lot of questions for her too, and suggested we meet for coffee when my shift was over. At five, we were sitting in a booth at the local Denny's.

I'd expected her to start asking me questions, but instead, she smiled and said I probably wanted to know who she was and why she was there. She didn't give me a chance to answer before she told me.

"I grew up in a little town in South Carolina called Walhalla. My father was the only doctor, and my mother was his nurse. They were both in their forties when they had me and they both expected me to go to college and become a doctor and take over the practice when my father retired, but I wasn't really into the whole medical thing. During the summers, I used to go with them to their office and I thought what they did was just awful. I mean, being around sick people all the time didn't seem like a good way to stay healthy, you know, and the people who came in with deep cuts or broken arms or legs...I just couldn't deal with that.

"What I really liked was writing stories, and that's what I started doing to keep from getting bored when I was at my father's...well, he called it a clinic, but really it was just a waiting room and one treatment room. I'd watch the people who came in and then make up stories about them.

"After high school, I went to Clemson for a degree in English Lit. That involved a lot of research and writing, and I discovered I liked both. I got my degree, but I never used it to get a job. Instead, I got married."

She chuckled then.

"Boy, was that ever a mistake. He was an English History major and I thought we'd be a perfect match. Instead, he spent all his time at home with his nose buried in old books while I was bored. After two years of that, I told him I couldn't live that way anymore. He just shrugged and said I had to do what I had to do. I moved out and spent another two years writing. As soon as my first novel was published and I had an income of my own, I divorced him.

"That novel was based on a murder case in South Carolina in 1866, right after the Civil War. I updated it to 1960, but the plot was taken from the actual case. It sold well enough the publisher asked if I could write another murder mystery. I wrote that one and then another and then another, each based on an actual case from the past.

"I was looking for another murder case to write when I saw your ad in the Knoxville News Sentinel. That's where I live now, by the way, out in the country near Knoxville. My mother passed away six months after my wedding and my father the same year I got my divorce. That meant I'd inherited the practice in Walhalla. I sold it and used the money to buy a house on fifty acres outside of Knoxville. I wanted to be by myself so I could write without listening to city traffic and neighbors.

"Anyway, when I saw your ad, it looked interesting. All my other novels were about solved cases so all I had to do was spice up the details a little. I thought it would make a great novel if I could write the story and a possible solution at the end."

I asked her if she had gotten any ideas from reading the case file and she frowned.

"No, not really, although I think it was probably Mister Marks. I just haven't figured out a way he could have done it. I mean, he could have killed her at any time between the time he got home from work the day before and then done something with the body late at night when his neighbors wouldn't have seen him, but I didn't find anything that says that's what he did. I just think it was probably him because when a wife is murdered or a husband is murdered, it's usually the spouse who has a motive.

"Usually that motive is money, although sometimes, it's just rage for some reason. I didn't read anything about a life insurance policy on Missus Marks or the daughter. Was there any insurance involved?"

I shook my head.

"No, not that Mack could find, and that's one of the things he did check on. Mister Marks had a little life insurance through his job, but he'd never taken out a policy on his wife or daughter. Mack kept checking to see if Mister Marks started spending a lot of money for some unknown reason, but he never did. His brother William was the executor of the estate when Mister Marks died, and he told Mack Mister Marks had about a thousand in checking and no savings."

"Well, then it would have to be rage", she said, but I didn't see anything about them having trouble. Usually that's hard to hide, but nobody said they ever saw them mad at each other."

I nodded.

"I've been down both paths and I've come up empty. That and the fingerprint and DNA evidence is why I think it was somebody else. You did read that none of the DNA collected matched Mister Marks and neither did the fingerprints, didn't you?"

She waved her hand.

"Yes, but that's easy. All Mister Marks would have had to do was pick up a beer bottle someplace and leave it for you to find. That's what I'd have done if I wanted to confuse the police. I've seen that trick used before when this guy followed a drunk, homeless guy until he dropped a wine bottle. The guy picked it up in a newspaper so he wouldn't leave his fingerprints on it, and left it at the scene after he stabbed his wife. It took the police a month to identify the homeless guy, and when they did, they found out he'd been in jail when the murder was committed.

"People who commit murder sometimes do a very good job of covering their tracks. It's easy to not leave DNA or fingerprints if you're careful. The police wear gloves when you're at a scene so you won't contaminate evidence with your own prints and DNA. Anybody else could and has done the same thing.

"I researched one case where a woman killed her husband, but initially they didn't find her fingerprints or DNA on any of the evidence. What they did find was tiny little particles of steel and leather on the shower curtain she wrapped him in when she buried him. The police were convinced she'd done it and searched the house twice before one of the officers noticed the house had a crawl space.

"When he looked there, he found a pair of the husband's welder's gloves. Those gloves had something on them that sparkled, so they checked them inside and out for DNA and anything else they could find. The sparkles were the same particles of steel they'd found on the shower curtain. The outside had the husband's DNA on them. When they swabbed the inside of the gloves, they found the husband's DNA and her DNA too as well as some little flakes of the nail polish she always wore.

"She confessed after the police presented her with that evidence. She'd poisoned him and then worn his welder's gloves when she disposed of the body. If she'd have burned the gloves or even just tossed them on the side of a road somewhere, she'd probably have gotten away with it.

"Of course, she was the prime suspect because she had a million reasons to kill him. That's how much the insurance policy was for. If there was no insurance and they were getting along, I have no idea why Mister Marks would have wanted to kill his wife."

I shrugged.

"I've tried a dozen theories, but given what I know from the interviews, none of them fit. I haven't been able to find any possible motives for another killer though. Nothing was taken from the house and there was no indication of a break-in, so it probably wasn't a robbery gone bad."

Rochelle chuckled then.

"Well, there's always one other common cause of murder. That's sex, either lack of sex, too much sex, kinky sex, or one spouse is having sex with someone else."

I said I thought that would have come out in at least one of the interviews but Rochelle shook her head.

"In 1981 it wouldn't necessarily have. Even though in the 60's the hippies made it all right for women to like and want sex, not very many married women were open about their own sex lives. They were taught by their mothers to keep their marital problems to themselves.

"The report said Missus Marks was only wearing a bra and panties when she was found. Why would a woman be wearing just a bra and panties in the middle of the day? Maybe she had a boyfriend and was waiting on him. Maybe Mister Marks found out and decided he wanted out of the marriage without having to pay alimony and child support. Maybe the killer was the boyfriend and when he went to have sex with her, she told him she couldn't do that anymore and he got mad and killed her. Maybe the little girl was really his so he killed her too. I've seen all those things in my research."

It was close to six by then and I was really enjoying the conversation. Rochelle did have a different way of looking at things, and she was making me think as well.

"Rochelle, I'd like to continue this conversation, but I'm starving. Would you like to go somewhere for dinner?"

Rochelle smiled.

"I think your wife would probably rather I didn't."

I held up my left hand and wiggled my fingers.

"If we were still married, she probably would, but I doubt she cares now."

At dinner, we mostly talked about me at first. Rochelle wanted to know how I got into law enforcement and why I'd chosen that for a career. I'd sometimes wondered that myself, but I tried to explain it without seeming to be too conceited.

"When I graduated from high school, most of my friends were headed to college. I did apply to a couple schools and got accepted at MTSU, but Dad didn't have the money. I didn't want to take on a school loan because I wasn't sure of my major then or what kind of job I'd be able to get once I got a degree. Instead, I enlisted in the Army because the recruiter said I could get my college tuition paid for after I got out. I figured four years in the Army would give me time to decide what I was going to do in life.

"I put down that I wanted to be in the infantry because I always liked camping and I figured that's where I'd end up anyway. It was after I went through basic training and got my school assignment that I learned the military isn't particularly logical. Instead of infantry school, I got sent to military police school.

"That was a pretty tough school, but the more I learned, the better I liked it. I graduated from MP school in August of 2001, and a month later, the terrorists took down the Twin Towers. I got sent with the first wave of troops to Iraq. I spent a year over there being more of an infantryman than an MP, but when I was reassigned to Fort Campbell, I was doing what I'd been trained to do and I loved it. Hauling in some private who drank too much at a bar in town and then got arrested for drunk driving wasn't all that great, but the murder case I worked on completely absorbed me until we solved it.

"When it came time for me to either get out or reenlist, I did some serious thinking. I liked everything about my job except for all the rigid discipline of the stateside Army. Knowing I'd probably be headed back to Iraq if I reenlisted, I decided to take my chances and get out. I applied for the Nashville Police Academy and got accepted.

"The Academy was a lot like Army basic, but I'd stayed in good shape so the physical part wasn't hard. Learning all the state laws and city ordinances was a challenge, but I worked hard and passed. I didn't graduate at the top of my class, but I passed. After that, I spent six years in a patrol car before taking the detective test and then getting promoted. I've never regretted the path I took."

Rochelle smiled.

"Sounds like you're where you're supposed to be. You said you had an ex. What happened there?"

I sort of frowned then because I didn't like talking about that part of my life.

"Looking back, I think Janice liked the uniform and being able to say she was married to a cop, but she didn't like the weird hours and worrying that I might not come home some day. We lasted three years before she moved out. The divorce was final about five years ago."

Rochelle smiled.

"Sounds like we both picked the wrong person. You've never tried to find another woman?"

I shook my head.

"No. After the first one and knowing what I'm like when I'm working a case, I figured another wife would just be another mistake and I'd regret it more than I do the first one. How about you?"

Rochelle laughed.

"Richard, I'm a writer who writes about murder cases. My agent thinks I'm great, but I'm pretty sure he and the guy he lives with aren't just roommates. Once men learn what I do, they lose interest really fast. One guy told me I must be really weird to like reading all the gory details about a murder case. Another guy said he'd be afraid to ever make me mad since I know all the ways to kill a person and not get caught."

I chuckled then.

"Ever thought about seeing if you could get away with it? I can promise you that you wouldn't. Most cases aren't as hard as the one we're working on. The bad guy always leaves something behind and most take something with them. It still takes some work, but ..."

A thought flashed into my head as soon as I'd said that.

"Rochelle, what you said about the welder's gloves. Maybe the killer did leave something behind that we missed, evidence left behind that we just didn't find because we didn't know how at the time. I'm going to send that blanket and the woman's underwear back to our lab to see if they can find anything we missed on the first go around."

I took Rochelle back to get her car at the station, but I didn't go home. Instead, I walked down to the evidence locker and checked to make sure the blanket and bra and panties were still there in the evidence box. They were so I went home, but it took me a while to fall asleep.

The next morning at seven, I signed the evidence bags out of records, carried them down to the lab, signed them over, and asked if they could give everything another going over looking for anything that didn't belong on them. Kathy, the lab supervisor, said she'd get right on them.

Rochelle came in about eight, and it looked like she hadn't slept very well either. She was wearing makeup and her brown hair still fell in waves over her shoulders, but she looked really tired. She confirmed that when she dropped her purse on the desk and then sat down and sighed.

"I usually write about cases that were solved. Is it always like this with cold cases? I couldn't sleep last night for thinking about this one."