The Cold Case that Turned Hot

"The doctor said he was in the middle stages of Parkinson's Disease, and she should probably put him in a nursing home. That's where he's been since then. She was making enough money as a nurse to pay his bills, but she had to change to a smaller apartment to do it. That's how she's been living since then -- in a one-room apartment in one of the poorest parts of Ringgold.

"I called the nursing home and they confirmed he was there. Before I went down to arrest him, I asked Dr. Michaels to talk to their resident doctor about Victor's condition. When he finished the call he just shook his head.

"You can go down there and arrest him, but it won't do you any good. The Parkinson's disease has progressed to Parkinson's disease dementia. His doctor said the last couple years Victor didn't know who Samantha was even though she came to see him every day. From what I gather he just sleeps most of the time. They wake him up to eat and to change his bedclothes and undergarments, but mostly he just lies in bed doing nothing.

"They don't know what caused it, although they suspect it might have been something he was exposed to in Vietnam. Some of the effects of the defoliation chemicals are just now coming to light as the men who served there become older. Agent Orange is suspected of being one of the causes of Parkinson's and a lot of soldiers in Vietnam were exposed to it. His doctor doesn't think he has much longer to live.

"If you bring him back to Knoxville and charge him, any public defender will ask for a mental evaluation, and that evaluation will state that the man isn't mentally fit to stand trial. He'll probably just be sent to another nursing home until he dies. His doctor says he's comfortable there. I think you should just leave him in Georgia."

"I asked Dr. Michaels what he thought about Samantha. He said she has two different personalities. The one she shows to the world is pretty normal, but inside, she's extremely dependent on her father for love and praise. That's why she protected him for all these years. He said that probably originated when she found out her mother was sleeping with other men. Her mother had been telling her for years that she shouldn't do that. When Samantha realized her mother was doing what she'd told Samantha not to do, she figured her mother was just going through the motions and didn't really care about her.

"Her father always told her she was his special girl, so she learned to go to him anytime she felt bad about something. She still has that need and it's why she never married. He said there probably wasn't anything sexual between them, but in cases like this, the woman is truly in love with the father and won't look for another man."

Rochelle stroked my arm.

"So what did you do?"

"I talked to the DA about what I'd found out and I had him read Samantha's real confession. He said both Samantha and William were guilty of obstruction and he had to prosecute them. Then he said because of the age of the case and the fact that Samantha had confessed, he'd ask for a year in prison and then ask that that be suspended for her. William will stand trial for obstruction and still have to stand trial for spousal abuse. The DA will ask for a year in prison for the obstruction and twelve years in prison for the spousal abuse, both served concurrently. The DA hasn't made up his mind about Victor yet."

"How do you feel about solving the case?"

"Well, it feels good to solve it, not so good because of the people involved. Rhonda managed to screw up the lives of her whole family. She was sleeping around on Victor instead of helping him with his PTSD and that kept working on him until it finally triggered him to kill her and her lover. Dr. Michaels told me he'd read about similar cases.

"Samantha grew up with a mother who gave her probably the worst example any woman could give her daughter about relationships with men. That most likely caused Samantha's obsession with her father that led to what she did. Victor treated her like a princess and that was probably the only love she felt in the family. All she really did was choose to take care of the only person she loved more than anything else, including herself.

"William's an asshole and probably deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison, but Rhonda caused that too. Victor didn't love William like a son because he knew William wasn't his son. According to Samantha, William figured that out because he heard them fighting and Victor had said he knew he couldn't possibly be William's father. What William learned from Rhonda was that women couldn't be trusted and that caused him to abuse Deborah.

Rochelle smiled.

"Let's go to bed. You'll feel better after a good night's sleep."

It was two days later that I really felt better. Samantha went before a judge, admitted to what she'd done and was sentenced to a year in prison with that year suspended. She'll have to go to parole meetings for a year, but at least she won't be in a jail cell. She can't go back to Georgia to work, but her parole officer said she could probably help Samantha find a job in Knoxville because all the hospitals are short of nurses.

The DA decided to prosecute Victor in absentia for first degree murder. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in the medical ward at Turney. He'll be cared for and Samantha will be able to visit him when she wants.

William was tried and convicted of aggravated assault and sentenced to twenty years. I was at that trial because I had to testify, and after the judge announced the verdict and William's sentence, Deborah came up to me with tears in her eyes. She said I'd given her the courage to leave William and that she was in the process of divorcing him. She said her lawyer told her she'd get the house and both cars and any money William had. That was the only bright spot in the whole case.

The night after William's trial, I got home and found Rochelle sitting on the couch. She looked up and grinned.

"You look happy."

"I am. Things worked out with Samantha pretty good, William's going to prison, Deborah's getting a divorce, and Victor will die in peace at the medical ward in Turney. Samantha will be able to visit him every day if she wants."

She grinned again.

"You happy enough to let me take you out to dinner?"

We talked a little about the case and how it had been so hard to figure out. Then Rochelle asked me about Victor's insurance policy. I'd been so busy wrapping up the murder case and Samantha's and William's cases, I'd forgotten to tell her.

"Well, as it turns out, Samantha didn't file a claim for the insurance. She told me that would have been fraud. It's still with the insurance company. She hasn't been making the monthly payments but she'll still get the cash value of what Victor paid for it plus a little interest."

As we walked back to my car, Rochelle put her arm around my waist and gave me a hug.

"Richard, you wouldn't ever find another woman besides me, would you?"

I laughed.

"Rochelle, I don't know what I'd do with another woman. One woman like you is all I can handle."

She kissed me on the cheek and then whispered in my ear.

"You've been too busy to handle me very much for the last couple of weeks. I need to be handled and I need to be handled a lot. Think you could do that for me?"

Well, if there's anything I love more than solving a case, it's handling Rochelle, not that I always do the handling. I figured I'd just get things started and then see what happens. It's usually more fun that way.

Oh, one other thing I left out. The DNA analysis didn't make it in time for the trials, but I was happy it didn't. We didn't need it anyway and what it showed would just have made things worse.

By using PCR technology, the TBI was able to get enough DNA to analyze from the samples Morgan took from the two bodies, and they were able to sequence it. They also sequenced the DNA from Samantha and William and the DNA sample from Victor the nursing home in Ringgold sent up a day after Samantha was extradited to Tennessee. That's when things got worse. We knew that Victor's DNA wouldn't match the DNA from the male victim from the Suburban. We didn't expect the rest.

What we expected is that Samantha's DNA analysis would be a match to Victors and William's would be a match to the male victim. As it was, neither was the case. Victor wasn't Samantha's father and William wasn't the son of the man in the Suburban or Victor.

Apparently Rhonda was sleeping around on Victor from the day they met, and Samantha was the result. I suppose Victor didn't suspect since they'd only been together for a month or so when Rhonda told him she was pregnant. He married her because that's what his mother probably told him he should do. It was also evident that she'd had at least two other lovers during her life, William's father and the man in the Suburban.

I didn't tell either Samantha or William about the results of the DNA analysis. William probably wouldn't have cared and it would have hurt Samantha more than she'd already been hurt by life.

I did put in a request to NDIS in hopes of identifying the unknown male, but after six months of not hearing anything, I put the reports of the analysis in the closed file and took it to records. I figured if the guy was missing, some other detective was already working the missing persons case and since his DNA was now in NDIS he'd eventually be found.

Rochelle didn't write this case into a novel because she couldn't figure out a way for it to have a happy ending. All the people involved were either dead, went to prison, or were so old and infirm they probably wouldn't live much longer.

Instead, we've started working on another of my cold cases.

Back in 1981, a body was found by a deer hunter partially buried in some woods. The body had decomposed to just a skeleton, what looked to be two gold nipple barbells and two gold rings between her thighbones. There was no way to identify her and though Harry had searched through the missing persons files for Tennessee and the surrounding states, he couldn't turn up any missing women with both nipples pierced. That wasn't unusual because in 1981, most women who had their bodies pierced were part of the BDSM culture and were a pretty small and basically hidden minority, not like it is today.

Rochelle started her fact board the other day, and when I got home she was explaining it to me when she stopped and grinned.

"I wonder what it feels like for a woman to have her nipples pierced. I've read that it makes your nipples more sensitive."

"You thinking of getting that done?"

"Oh God no. Mine are pretty sensitive already. If I got pierced, I'd probably be excited all the time."

I grinned.

"I thought you already were that way."

"No, not all the time. It depends upon which bra I wear. That black one you like so much sort of tickles me when I walk and that gets me started.

"Do you suppose those rings were in her lips down there? Her hands weren't anywhere close to her thighs, and the rings were too big to be finger rings and too small to be bracelets. I can't think of any other reason for the rings to be where they were. I've read that rings there can be really exciting too because they pull on the skin over your clitoris when you have sex."

"Well, as I remember, you don't need to be more sensitive there either."

Rochelle smiled and pulled her T-shirt over her head. She was wearing that same black bra that I like so much.

"Just so you don't forget, think you'd like reminding yourself a couple times tonight? I think I've forgotten too, so I could use being reminded."

Well, if Rochelle hadn't taken off her bra then, I might have told her no...well, no, I couldn't have. What she'd said about that bra was true. Her nipples stuck out like strawberries and that always starts to raise my cock.

"I think I could manage that. I'm not sure about the other though."

Rochelle grinned as she took off her shorts. She wasn't wearing any panties.

"Maybe if you just pulled on me a little down there..."

Well, I already knew what pulling on Rochelle's lips was going to do to her because I'd done it before. If I did it long enough she'd be lurching up off the bed and pulling me between her thighs. If I didn't stop, she'd ended up being reminded that way the first time.

I didn't mind, not at all. Her first is usually pretty strong, but the ones that come after that are...

Well, it's like Rochelle writes in some of her books. For a few seconds, I can't think. All I can do is feel Rochelle holding her breath and writhing under me or on top of me or beside me while her passage massages my cock until I can't hold back any longer. It doesn't hurt at all to be reminded of how that feels.