Cold Cases and Hot Nights

Rochelle looked at me, I suppose because she was weighing her options, and then frowned.

"What do I have to do?"

The only living relative Rochelle knew who was old enough to remember what happened in 1981 was her Aunt Betty. The woman lived in Walhalla and Rochelle said her Aunt Betty was like her second mother. She agreed to talk to the woman, but only if I went along.

"I don't know what she's going to tell me, and if it's what you think happened, I might lose it. I want somebody with me who can keep things from getting ugly."

It was a six hour drive from Nashville to Walhalla, and I don't think Rochelle said two words to me the whole time other than to ask me four times to stop for a restroom. I could tell that she was struggling with what I'd asked her to do and I couldn't blame her. She knew as well as I did that DNA doesn't lie and that my theory was the most likely.

We'd started at six and we crossed a time zone, so it was almost one South Carolina time when we drove into Walhalla. I asked Rochelle if she wanted to stop for lunch before we drove to her Aunt Betty's, but she shook her head.

"No, I won't be able to eat or do anything else until Aunt Betty tells me one way or the other. Let's just get this over with."

It didn't take as long as I'd expected. When Rochelle's Aunt Betty answered the door, she took one look and held out her arms.

"Rochelle, I'm so glad to see you. What brings you back to Walhalla?"

After they hugged, Aunt Betty invited us in. She seemed happy as a clam until Rochelle introduced me. As soon as she heard the word "detective", Aunt Betty put her hand on her chest.

"I suppose this isn't just a visit to your Aunt Betty, is it?"

Rochelle didn't beat around the bush.

"No, Aunt Betty, it isn't. I need to know everything you know about my mother and father and when I was born. Before you answer, I already know they're not my birth parents. What I need to know is how they got me and how they were able to keep the secret all these years."

Aunt Betty pointed to her couch.

"You'd better sit down then. I promised your mother I'd never tell anyone this. I guess since they're both dead it doesn't matter anymore, but it's still hard for me.

"Rochelle, you need to understand something about your mother and father first. Your mother wanted children more than anything and so did your father. Sorry. I keep calling them your mother and father, but Rochelle, that's what they were.

"They tried for years and years to have a child but couldn't because your father was almost sterile. Back then, they didn't have all the fertility things they do today, so they couldn't do anything about it. When your mother was forty-six, she went through the change and that ended her hopes of ever having children of her own.

"Rochelle, she was so down in the dumps once that happened that I was really worried she might hurt herself. She needed a baby. I was the one who suggested they try to adopt. She said that would be an embarrassment to your father so they couldn't do that. Lord forgive me, but I told her how they could do it without anybody knowing.

"I knew a woman from work who got pregnant and she wasn't married. The man left town and was never heard from again so she was on her own. She left work to have her baby, but when she came back to work she said she'd given the baby up for adoption. That gave me the idea, so I asked her which adoption agency she used.

"She said a nurse at the hospital where she delivered told her she could sign the baby over to a man who ran a small adoption agency in Chattanooga for people who couldn't adopt through a regular agency. If she was willing, he'd give her a thousand dollars. She said she thought about it for a long time and finally decided to give her little boy the best chance in life she could, and she'd make some money for herself in the process.

"At the time, I thought it was just terrible that she'd basically sold her baby. After seeing your mother like she was though, I asked the woman if she'd kept the name and address of the man. She had, and she gave it to me. I gave it to your parents and said if they could afford to pay, they could have a baby with no questions asked.

"That was in October and your father had his office in Chattanooga. In December, your mother told me they were moving to Walhalla and your father was going to start a new practice there. When they moved, they brought you along with them. I was pretty sure they decided to move so nobody would question how they'd gotten you.

"Your mother was so different after that. She was happier than I'd ever seen her before and so was your father. Rochelle, they both loved you more than they loved life, and they raised you with that same love. They were as much your parents as if she'd carried you for nine months.

"I never asked how they got you or how much it cost, and like I said, I promised your mother I'd never tell you or anybody else. As far as anyone in Walhalla knew, your mother had you in Chattanooga two months before they moved. I hope you can forgive me, but a promise is a promise."

When she finished, Rochelle looked at me and asked if that was enough. I just nodded. There was no reason to tell Rochelle's Aunt Betty the rest. I did ask if she remembered the name of the man, but she didn't.

We stopped to eat after we were back in Tennessee. Rochelle didn't say anything before that, but if I looked over at her, she was usually crying. She wasn't sobbing or anything like that, but there were tears streaming down her face.

When we did stop for a late lunch, I put my hand on Rochelle's and asked how she was doing. She didn't give me a good answer.

"I don't know. Up until two days ago, I was a writer looking for my next novel. Now, I'm a woman whose mother was murdered when I was two months old, I was stolen from my father, and then I was sold to another couple. I don't know how I'm supposed to feel."

My attempt at making her feel better probably didn't help.

"Well, what I've found is it never helps to keep looking backward. From what I've seen of you, you could have turned out a lot worse, probably would have if you hadn't been adopted. One thing I know for sure is that Mister and Missus Marks could never have given you the opportunities the doctor and his wife did. That doesn't change anything, but it's something you should keep remembering.

Rochelle eased her hand away from mine, fished a tissue out of her purse, and then dabbed it at the corners of her eyes.

"I've thought about that since we left Aunt Betty's. I know my adoptive parents loved me. What I don't know is what my real mother was like. I've been trying to remember her, but I can't."

"Well, you shouldn't expect to remember her. You were only two months old at the time. The best you can do is read the case reports for what other people said about her. I think she was probably a very nice woman."

Rochelle sighed.

"It's going to take me a while to figure this out. I think I'll go back to Knoxville, buy a case of wine, and just sit by my fireplace and try to make some sense out of my life."

I said if she needed help, she could always call me. She said she'd keep that in mind.

She left the next morning. That same morning, I got Rochelle's birth certificate, her Certificate of Adoption, and the original birth certificate of Ashley Marks in the mail. As I'd expected, all the information including the certificate number on both birth certificates was identical except for the child's and parent's names.

I didn't try to verify the County Clerk's signature on the Certificate of Adoption. It was probably a forgery. There was so much publicity about the murder at the time, no County Clerk would have approved an adoption of a baby girl with the same name as the missing Marks baby. The only way that could have happened is if someone working at Vital Records had forged the clerk's signature and slipped it through the system.

That person had to be Mister Marks' brother. The clincher was that the signature of the Notary Public who certified the revised birth certificate was William Marks. I didn't know he was a Notary, but when I asked Vital Records to check, they confirmed that he had been.

When I wrote up my final report and took it to the Captain, I explained Rochelle's circumstances and told him that given the age of the case and the fact that almost all the people involved were dead, there was no reason to release everything to the press. He agreed, and let me read the press statement before he released it.

The statement just noted the fact that the case had been solved by using the most modern techniques available and that there were no charges filed because the killer was deceased. It also said that because there were family members of the killer who were still living, the name of the killer was being withheld out of respect for them. The release also contained a statement by the Chief of Police and the Mayor of Nashville praising the people who had worked so hard for so long to solve the case.

I expected there would be some complaints from the media about the lack of details, but there were none. I suppose since the case was so old, nobody in the media really cared. The story appeared on page three of one edition of the newspaper and was just a filler story on the six o'clock news.

For the next five months I kept working on cases, a couple of which were cold cases. The new cases all turned out to be fairly simple, a robbery that resulted in a murder when the victim showed up unexpectedly, half a dozen gang related murders and the like. I was also able to solve one of my other cold cases by using forensic genealogy. That case resulted in the arrest of a man nobody had ever heard of, much less suspected.

He'd stabbed a hooker in her bedroom at a little after four in the morning and he'd done about everything right. He wore latex gloves and coveralls the whole time he was in her bedroom. When he got to his car, he took off the coveralls and put them in a garbage bag along with the knife and buried it all as soon as he got back to his farmhouse. The one mistake that got him caught was he tossed his latex gloves in a dumpster behind the apartment building, probably because they were covered with blood and he didn't want to get any on his clothes when he took off his coveralls.

Kathy had made it protocol that the dumpsters and trashcans outside of any building where a murder had occurred were to be searched. Her guys found the gloves and pulled the DNA from both the outside and the inside. The DNA on the outside was a match for the victim. The DNA on the inside led us through a forensic genealogy investigation to a man who had never been convicted of anything. It also led the police in Bowling Green to solve two more cold cases once his DNA was in CODIS.

Evidently the guy had a thing for prostitutes when he was younger but was worried they'd tell somebody his name. Killing them was his way of preventing that from happening.

I was writing up that report at ten 'til five one Friday night when Rochelle walked up to my desk and sat down in my visitor's chair.

"Hi, Richard. Did you miss me?"

Well, actually, I had missed Rochelle. While she was working with me, it was great having her there to bounce ideas off of. After she left, I realized it was more than just that. I'd started to like having dinner with her, and in general, just liked seeing her every day.

"Hi Rochelle. Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. What have you been doing with yourself?"

Rochelle reached into the big purse she was carrying and pulled out a package.

"This", was all she said.

I unwrapped the package and found a book inside. The title was, "The Ice-cold Case of Roberta James". The picture on the cover was a man who looked a lot like me and a woman who looked a lot like Rochelle. When I opened it, there on the inside of the cover was a handwritten note.

"To Richard, the man who helped me see that the good is always better than the bad."

When I looked up at Rochelle, she shrugged.

"It's kind of lame, but it's the best I could think of."

I smiled.

"I take it you came to grips with your situation?"

Rochelle nodded.

"Yes, thanks to you. I spent about two weeks living in my jammies and polishing off that case of wine I told you I was going to buy. I can't recommend that approach. The wine made me forget, but the next morning I remembered again and this time I had a huge headache too.

"I finally decided that the only way to understand everything was to write the story, so that's what I did. It's not exactly the same because I didn't want to identify either of us, but it's pretty close. It was as I was writing it that I started thinking about what I'd have been if all this hadn't happened. Then I realized I was sort of blaming myself for not knowing sooner. I have you to thank for helping me see that I didn't have any control over what happened to me."

I said I thought she was giving me a lot more credit than I deserved but she shook her head.

"Remember that day when we were driving back from Walhalla? You told me that it never helps to keep looking backward. Well, that's not entirely true. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why this happened to me. You have to admit that there were situations there with totally unrelated people that nobody would predict in a thousand years. It had to be something that brought them together.

"What I decided is that there really is a thing called fate, and that fate decided I'd be better off with different parents. I know, that's kind of like saying your astrological sign determines who you are and who you'll turn out to be, but it was the only way I could explain it to myself.

"Anyway, you're the one who helped me figure that out so I thought I'd bring you a copy of my book before it hits the shelves. I'd also like to take you to dinner tonight if you're not too busy. I know this place called Denny's. I'm not sure how the food is, but the coffee and the company I had there once was really great. I didn't rent a car this time and took a cab from my hotel to here, so could you drive?"

Dinner was...well, it was Denny's so what else is there to say. I didn't pay much attention to what I was eating anyway. I was just really enjoying being with Rochelle again, and it looked to me like she was enjoying being with me too.

When I pulled into the parking lot of the hotel Rochelle touched my arm.

"Richard, I want to thank you again for everything you did. My agent says this book will probably be the best selling book I've ever written, and you're a large part of the reason that will happen."

I chuckled.

"You keep saying that, but I didn't really do anything."

Rochelle moved her hand down to mine.

"In my mind you did. All my books have a happy ending, but this one was so sad I was having trouble finding one. One night I was thinking that maybe if the detective and the woman decided they really liked each other, they'd end up staying together. If they did, I could end my book on a happy note instead of leaving the reader in tears over what happened to the little girl. Instead of being really sad about her life, she'd be happy that she found a man who understood all that and still liked her for who she'd become. That's what the last chapter is about.

"The only thing is, I'm not sure what I wrote is what would actually have happened. I was wondering if you could tell me if I got it right."

I said I'd be glad to read the book and then tell her, but Rochelle squeezed my hand.

"Richard, I'm not talking about reading what I wrote. I'm talking about what would really happen if we..."

It dawned on me what Rochelle was really saying.

"Rochelle, if I put on my detective hat, I might think you're trying to seduce me."

Rochelle leaned over the center console and whispered in my ear, "A good detective would come up to my room and find out if he was right, wouldn't he?"

It didn't take much detective work to find out. When Rochelle closed and locked the hotel room door behind us, she smiled.

"I'm going to get comfortable. Why don't you do the same?"

She was unbuttoning her blouse as she walked to the bathroom, but I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. I figured maybe she'd change into sweats or something else that fit loosely. I took off my jacket and tie, and then settled down in a chair to wait.

When Rochelle came out of the bathroom, I found out what she considered comfortable. What she was wearing was exactly the clothes she was born in, except I knew she wouldn't have had the breasts and thick, brown bush when she was born.

Rochelle stopped a couple feet from me and grinned.

"I'm pretty comfortable now, but you don't look like you are. Stand up so I can help you get that way."

About all I could do was stand there while Rochelle unbuttoned my shirt and then pulled it off my arms. The sight of her soft breasts gently swaying as she undid the buttons were the only thing I could look at.

Once my shirt was on the floor, Rochelle put her arms around my neck and pushed her nipples against my chest.

"Mmm", she whispered. "This is a lot better. Do I need to help you with the rest of your clothes?"

What she did then didn't help me get my clothes off. In fact, she delayed that process because she lifted herself up on her tiptoes, pushed her breasts into my chest and locked her lips to mine. I'd started undoing my belt buckle, but when she pushed her little tongue into my mouth, I stopped and put my arms around her.

Rochelle dragged out that kiss until I had to breathe before she eased back down.

"You get out of those clothes. I'm going to turn down the bed."

It was easy for me to get my pants down, not so easy to get my shoes off. That was because Rochelle bent over to pull down the blanket and sheet, and when she did, she treated me to the sight of her hair-fringed lips nestled in the little diamond at the top of her thighs.

She turned back around just as I was pulling off my pants, and crooked her finger at me.

"Come show me how a detective makes a woman feel really good."

She sat down on the bed and then rolled into the middle on her back. I pulled my underwear off, not an easy task because my cock was already standing tall, and then joined her. When I laid down beside her, she grinned and circled my cock with her small, soft fingers.

"I hoped I could do this to you. It looks like I did. Now, show me what you can do to me."

It had been a while since I'd touched a woman's breasts, but the feeling came back to me. Rochelle's were soft, but firm, and she caught her breath when I stroked her right nipple. I watched her nipple bed wrinkle up and her nipple start to grow a little longer. When I kissed the tip and then closed my lips around it, Rochelle made a tiny little moan.

She moaned again when I kissed her left nipple, and then gently pulled my face to hers. It was easy to kiss her, and even easier to gently fondle her left breast until that nipple was standing tall and taut.

I'd mostly forgotten how soft a woman is. Rochelle was soft curves that made me tingle as much as my caresses made her breathe a little faster. I stroked down her side to her hip and gently squeezed it. Rochelle moaned into my mouth and spread her thighs open.

Her outer thigh felt great under my hand. Her inner thigh was pure silk and satin, and the higher my hand went, the more Rochelle spread her thighs. When my fingertips touched hair, she caught her breath again.

Up until I slipped a finger up and down over her outer lips, Rochelle didn't stop kissing me except to moan and then suck in another breath. When I did that though, she stopped and made a little gasp and then pushed my face down to her left breast. I sucked in her stiff nipple at the same time I slipped my fingertip between her soft, puffy outer lips, and Rochelle pushed her body up into my hand. My fingertip felt the velvety soft little ripples of her inner lips, and Rochelle gasped again when I pushed that fingertip down to her entrance and slipped it inside her.