The Body on Ortega Highway Read online

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Clarissa says, standing up to leave. “And no more walking by yourself, okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Chapter Six

  When Clarissa gets back in her car, she makes a call to Tustin High and tells the receptionist that she needs to talk to Desiree’s English teacher right away. She gives her phone number and drives over to Tustin High to talk to the librarian there. Clarissa used to work in the school library, so being there brings back lots of fond memories. She walks inside the library and searches for the head librarian. A woman behind the desk greets her. Clarissa shows her badge and tells her why she’s there. The librarian doesn’t recognize Desiree when Clarissa shows her the picture from the yearbook.

  Clarissa asks, “Are there any other librarians or aides I could ask?”

  The librarian introduces her to the rest of the library staff; but none of them recognize Desiree. Clarissa’s feels like she’s hit a brick wall. She sits down at one of the tables in the library and takes out her lap top to Google the English teacher, Mr. Turknette. She discovers that he’s a former priest who left the priesthood to get married five years ago. He’s been teaching Sophomore English and Creative Writing for five years at the high school. He finally returns her call and agrees to meet in the library.

  A balding and slightly overweight forty-year-old man enters the library. The librarian recognizes him and says, “How are you, Mr. Turknette?”

  Clarissa stands up to greet him. They sit down at a secluded table and she says in a quiet voice, “I’d like to talk to you about one of your students, Desiree Beauchamp.”

  “Yes. The poor girl who was murdered.”

  Clarissa reaches into her computer bag and pulls out “The Ballad of a Hooker.” He recognizes it and says, “Oh, yes. I remember that story. It was a creative writing assignment. I asked the kids to try to write a ballad. We were discussing ‘Ode to Billy Joe’.”

  Clarissa says, “I see. Weren’t you alarmed that she chose to write about prostitution?”

  “I was. But then I saw that she was trying to put a little humor in it. It’s kind of cute the way she put words together.”

  “Well, it isn’t very cute what happened to her.”

  “I’m not discounting that. You misunderstood me.”

  “Did she ever make any inappropriate advances to you?”

  “To me? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I’m dead serious.”

  “No. She was never like that.”

  “How was she with the other boys in class? Was she popular?”

  “She was quiet. Studious. And a bit of a loner. She was a very good student. She got ‘A’s on all of her tests and papers. She had so much potential. It’s such a waste and tragedy what happened. We all feel terrible about it.”

  “Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt her?”

  “No. Absolutely no one.”

  Clarissa gives him her card and says, “Take this. Call me if you can think of anything that might help us with our investigation.”

  She drives back to her office and goes over the interview notes that Detective Vente has already completed. Reading the interviews with Desiree’s friends, she learns that Desiree recently broke up with her boyfriend. Detective Vente interviewed him and wrote in his notes that he didn’t think the boyfriend was capable of killing her because he seemed genuinely shocked and upset about what happened to her.

  At about 4:00, she packs up her stuff and goes home to start making dinner. Ron has been working late all week. He promised to come home by 5:00 tonight. He has been spending a lot of time in the dockyards in Long Beach. He works undercover in the auto theft task force. Stolen cars have been packed up and shipped off to Europe and parts unknown. The D.A. suspects that organized crime is involved.

  She drives over to Von’s and buys a roasted chicken, some asparagus, and strawberries. She also buys a bottle of Columbia Crest Chardonnay. Dinner is ready and the table is set, all ready for him to come home. She waits and waits. The clock turns 5:00 than 6:00, and still he doesn’t call or show up. Usually, he’s really considerate about calling when he knows he’s going to be late, but not tonight. This is so unlike him. She worries that something may have happened to him. She calls him and he doesn’t pick up. At about 7:00, he finally comes home.

  He walks into the house and is greeted by a very angry wife. He tries to hug her, and she pushes him away. He says, “What’s wrong, honey? Aren’t you glad to see me?”

  “You told me you’d be home by 5:00. I’ve had dinner waiting for you for two hours.”

  “I’m sorry, honey. Some of the guys wanted to go out for a beer after we left the dockyards.”

  “You could have called.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

  “I never got your call.”

  “You better not have been to one of those stripper joints.”

  “Honey. I don’t do that anymore. Not since I met you.”

  Clarissa isn’t buying any of this. She sits on the sofa and pouts. Gumbo comes over and puts his nose on her knee.

  Ron says, “Gumbo wants his walk.”

  “Clarissa wants her walk, too.”

  “Then let’s go,” he says, trying to appease her.

  “Without Gumbo this time.”

  “Okay. Sorry little dude,” he tells the dog.

  They walk over to nearby Fisher Park and find a secluded spot under a tree. They both sit down on the grass.

  He tells her again how sorry he is for not calling. She won’t even look at him.

  “I will call next time, honey. This won’t happen again. I swear.” He tries to get her to look at him and lifts up her chin when she’s looking down. He tells her how much he loves her. He starts stroking her hair away from her face. She relents a little and they start kissing. At first it’s a chaste kiss, but then they kiss again for a longer time. Ron reaches under her blouse and unhooks the front clasp of her bra, releasing her large breasts. He starts caressing them, and she reaches down to the inside of his thigh to feel his hardness.

  She tells him, “I think we’d better go home before this goes any further.”

  He says, “That’s a very good idea.”

  *******

  They are basking in the afterglow and Ron says, “It’s a good thing we stopped when we did. Can you imagine the headlines, ‘Two cops arrested for lewd and immoral conduct’?”

  “We’d never hear the end of it from our coworkers,” Clarissa says, laughing.

  Ron’s phone rings. “Now what?” he says.

  The call is from his boss, who wants Ron to go back out to the docks because the cars are being loaded right this minute.

  He tells Clarissa, “Sorry, honey. They want me to go back out. I’m might have to stay there all night.”

  “Damn! At least eat your dinner first before you go.”

  “I will.”

  He finishes his dinner and kisses her goodbye. “Be careful out there!” she tells him, as he is walking out the door.

  *******

  After he leaves that night, she is propped up in bed watching Sherlock Holmes with Gumbo snuggled next to her when the phone rings. She picks up the phone, and is greeted by silence. “Hello?” she says again.

  A man on the other end of the phone says, “I’d give you any amount of money if you’d do to me what you were doing to your husband at the park.”

  Clarissa is terrified and slams the phone down. Her hands are shaking. She gets out of her bed and checks the door and windows to make sure they’re locked. She looks for Gumbo and starts calling out for him. She finds him still in bed where she had left him. She hugs him and says, “I need you, little guy. I’m scared.” She calls Ron and tells him what’s happened.

  “This is so creepy, Clarissa. I’d like to beat the crap out of this pervert. I can’t believe he was watching us and we didn’t even know he
was there.”

  She says, “What I don’t like is that he knows our phone number and where we live. I’m going to speak to the people in the Sexual Assault Unit tomorrow to ask what all I can do.”

  “Please do. I wish I was with you now.”

  “Me, too.”

  “You got me on speed-dial, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Call me. Please if anything more happens tonight or tomorrow.”

  “I will, honey.”

  “Take care. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Chapter Seven

  Clarissa didn’t sleep very well last night, and when the alarm goes off at 6:30, she feels like throwing the clock across the room. Gumbo is asleep under the covers at the foot of the bed.

  She crawls out and he follows her into the kitchen. She puts his dog chow in his bowl, mixes it with some chicken broth, and grates some Parmesan cheese over it--just the way he likes it. “You are so lucky, little doggie,” she says, as she gives him some extra cheese. She makes him sit and shake her hand before she puts the bowl on the floor. “We miss Dad, don’t we?” she asks the dog.

  She pours herself some Raisin Bran and dices half a banana on top. She puts on her bathrobe and slippers, and pads out to the driveway to pick up the newspaper. When she opens the front door she looks out both ways to see if anyone’s watching her. ‘I hate being so paranoid!’ she tells herself.

  The headline in the paper says, “Still no leads on the Hillside Chopper.” The article shows a picture of the victim’s single mother who says how frustrated she is that it’s taken so long to find the killer. “What if he strikes again?” she plaintively asks.

  Clarissa sets the newspaper aside and goes to take a shower. After she’s dressed, she calls her friend, Raylene, who works in the D. A.’s Sexual Assault Unit. She asks her friend, “Can I buy you a cup of Starbucks and ask you some questions about some disturbing phone calls I’ve been getting?”

  “Sure. Let’s meet at the Starbucks on Broadway.”

  *******

  As Clarissa walks over to downtown Santa Ana, she notices all of the teenagers walking around with cameras taking pictures of each other. ‘Why aren’t they in school?’ she wonders. Then she remembers that the students are probably from nearby Orange County School of the Arts, a very expensive private school and training ground for all the ‘Glee-Wanna-Be’s’. Next to Starbucks, she walks by an outdoor shrine in front of a night club, where candles are still burning and flowers are still being laid in memory of a teenage girl who recently had been beaten to death by other girls there. ‘What’s wrong with girls these days, anyway?’ she asks herself. ‘It’s bad enough that boys do this kind of crap.’

  When she opens the door to Starbucks, she sees that her colleague is already sitting at a table drinking coffee. Clarissa says, “Hey! I was supposed to be buying you coffee.”

  “Next time,” her friend says.

  Clarissa orders a Café Latte and sits down with her friend.

  “I was so sorry to hear about your cousin in Savannah dying, Clarissa.”

  “Thanks. She was a great person. I wish I could have spent more time with her.”

  They’re both quiet while Clarissa stirs her latte.

  Her friend says, “So, you wanted to tell me about some telephone calls you’ve been getting.”

  “Yes. They are really starting to freak me out.”

  “Tell me everything that happened.”

  “Well, it started out innocently enough. He said he was doing a brief survey for his sociology class at Chapman.”

  “Survey, huh? That’s classic. They love the fact that you are willing to stay on the line because you want to help them with their homework.”

  “Yes. It started out all innocent-like. He wanted to know when I went to college and where my last vacation was.”

  “And then he went on to more personal things.”

  “Yes. That’s right. It got bad after he asks me if I was married.”

  “Classic. Go on. I bet he asked for your opinion on premarital sex?”

  “Yes! That’s exactly what he did.”

  “It’s like these guys have scripts or something. They are so predictable.”

  “Then he asked me if I’d ever watched X-rated movies.”

  “Is that when you hung up?”

  “Yes. I don’t know why I even stayed on the line as long as I did.”

  “Probably because you thought you were helping him with his ‘homework assignment’. I know you. You’re so Minnesotan. You don’t want to appear rude and you put up with all sorts of obnoxious behavior that other people would never allow.”

  “I do? Nobody’s ever told me that I’m Minnesotan.”

  “I mean that with the greatest affection.”

  “Thank you…I think.”

  “Did he call again?”

  “Yes. And here’s the creepy part. Ron and I were sitting at the park and we got into an argument. He tried to get me to make up with him and started touching my face and stoking my hair.”

  “Uh-Oh. Here we go.”

  “It was getting dark. We didn’t think anybody was around.”

  “So, you guys started making out like a couple of horny teenagers.”

  “Well we are newlyweds, after all.”

  “You got to watch those hands, honey.”

  “Okay. You get the picture. I won’t bore you with the details.”

  “You got a fine looking husband, girlfriend. I don’t blame you if you got a bit carried away.”

  “There’s nothing like make-up sex.”

  “Been there; done that, honey.”

  “So anyway…Last night, when I was all by myself, I get another phone call. He said that he’d give me any amount of money I want if I’d do to him what I was doing to my husband at the park.”

  “He was watching you?!”

  “Yes. He knows where we walk and probably where we live. He seems to know when Ron’s gone, too.”

  “And he has your phone number.”

  “What should I do? Change my phone number?”

  “There are a number of things you could do. You could change it, or just let the answering machine answer. He wants to hear your voice live, and may eventually give up if can’t talk to you directly.”

  “You said there are a number of things. What else?”

  “You could go ahead and answer and simply hang up if the caller doesn’t identify himself after you say ‘hello’ two times. Or you could report the incident to the telephone company and/or the police.”

  “Okay. I tried doing ‘Star 69’ for call return, but all I got was a ringing phone on the other end.”

  “I assume Caller ID didn’t show anything?”

  “No; it didn’t.”

  “Well, calls are logged by the telephone company, so his phone number can be discovered. However, many people who regularly do this kind of thing often use payphones or prepaid cell phones.”

  “I’m going to get tracing turned on.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Why do guys do this?”

  “A lot of these guys started doing these types of calls when they were teenagers with their friends. They’d do it and start giggling if the girls played along or got upset. Most guys outgrow it. But some start doing it by themselves, without their friends. It’s very addicting for them. They’re often isolated and have problems with their own personal relationships. Or they’re overweight or think they’ll ugly, so they feel safer behind a telephone receiver. And who knows? They might just get lucky.”

  “But are they dangerous?”

  “It depends on a lot of things. But mostly, they like being anonymous and don’t want to see the girl on the end of the line in person. They like the fantasy aspect of it. That’s what gets them off.”

  “I see. Well, I think I’ll start with the phone company and see if they have a record of the call.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

&
nbsp; “Okay. This is really starting to freak me out. I’m scared.”

  “Try not to be. You’re a strong person. Don’t let him get to you.”

  “I’ll try. Thanks for all your help.”

  “You’re very welcome. You take care and let me know if you have any more questions, okay?”

  They both stand up and hug each other; then Clarissa watches her friend go out the door. Clarissa calls the phone company to see if they have any record of where last night’s phone call came from, but, unfortunately, it was from a pay phone in Santa Ana.

  Chapter Eight

  That night, Clarissa and Ron are in bed asleep when their home phone rings at midnight.

  Ron wakes up and says, “Who the hell is calling at this hour?!”

  Clarissa hears him and says, “Don’t answer it.”

  “This has got to stop,” Ron says and climbs out of bed. He goes to the kitchen and gruffly answers, “Hello?”

  The man at the other end of the line says, “Are you two having sex right now?”

  “Listen, you bastard. I am going to find you and beat the living crap out of you.”

  The line goes dead. Ron looks up to see Clarissa and Gumbo standing in the kitchen with him.

  “What did he say?” Clarissa asks.

  “He wanted to know if we were having sex right now.”

  Clarissa says, “Ron! Oh, my God! This has got to stop!”

  “I know, honey. I know.”

  She picks up the phone and dials “Star 69”, but the phone line on the other end rings and rings. “I don’t know how much more I can take of this, Ron.”

  “Me, neither. Come here, honey.”

  She walks over to him, nuzzles his neck, and starts to cry.

  Ron says, “Come on, honey. Don’t let the bastard get you down. I want you to order call tracing. Speak to the District Attorney’s office about getting a subpoena to record the calls. I’ll speak with the sheriff’s high tech guys and we’ll get an inline recorder. We’ll catch him. I promise.”