Page 51 of The Girl from Devil's Lake
“I’ve got a call for you from Anna Rae Green in Denver, Colorado. She says she’s with the MMIV.”
Joanna started to point out that Anna Rae Green wasn’t justwiththe Missing and Murdered Indigenous Victims Task Force. She was the agency’s director in chief, but she let that pass. Knowing Jenny had used Anna Rae as a reference on her job application, Joanna assumed the woman was calling to see how things were going with Jenny’s new job at the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.
“Thanks,” she said, reaching for her phone.
“Sheriff Brady here, Anna Rae. Good to hear from you. If you’re calling about Jenny, Pima County Deputy Jennifer Ann Brady seems to be doing just fine, thanks in large measure to you.”
“I’m delighted to hear that, and I’m not the least bit surprised,” Anna Rae said, “but that’s not why I’m calling. I wanted to know more about our match.”
Joanna was mystified. “Match?” she repeated. “What match?”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Anna Rae said quickly. “The notification came in to us here in Denver a little while ago. I thought for sure the DPS lab in Tucson would have let you know as well.”
Joanna was astonished. “Wait,” she said. “Are you talking about the trash evidence we delivered to them earlier this morning? They’ve already created a DNA profile and have a match? How’s that even possible?”
“Who said anything about DNA?” Anna Rae asked in return. “The hit came in on AFIS. The DPS crime lab found a partial palm print on a soda can your detective pulled out of a suspect’s trash. Turns out it’s a match to a partial palm print from one of our cold cases—the 1962 murder of Amanda Marie Hudson, a Lakota from Devil’s Lake, North Dakota. What can you tell me about our suspect?”
For a moment, Joanna was too stunned to reply. Before she could, Kristin reappeared. “There’s a call for you from the DPS lab in Tucson. Do you want me to keep them on hold or will you call them back?”
“Hang on,” Joanna said to Anna Rae. Then to Kristin she said, “Transfer the DPS call over to Deb Howell.”
As Kristin retreated, Joanna turned her attention back to Anna Rae. “That was the DPS lab calling. I turned them over to the lead detective on our case. The suspect is a guy named Stephen Roper. He’s a longtime resident of Bisbee, Arizona—a retired schoolteacher with no priors that we could find. He was actually my English teacher when I was a senior in high school.
“He came on our radar recently after the body of a four-year-old boy from Naco, Sonora, Mexico—Xavier Delgado—was found floating in a duffel bag in the San Pedro River on this side of the border. The autopsy showed Xavier died of manual strangulation. Our suspect participates in a charity that uses a remodeled food truck to deliver food and other necessities to migrants stuck in Sonora waiting to cross the border. According to one of our sources, Xavier visited the food truck the day he went missing, making Roper possibly one of the last people to have seen him alive.”
“Have you taken him into custody?” Anna Rae asked.
“Are you kidding? We haven’t even talked to him,” Joanna replied. “At this point I don’t believe he has any idea that he’s under suspicion. Some of the details in the case make us suspect he might be a repeat offender. For one thing, the victim’s body had been dipped in a bleach solution, and his fingernails had been cut off down to the quick.”
“To destroy possible DNA?” Anna Rae asked.
“Exactly,” Joanna agreed. “That’s why I was hoping for a possible DNA match to evidence from somebody else’s cold case, but I never even considered a match might come through AFIS. If you don’t mind, I’d like to bring the lead detective on our case into this conversation so we’re all on the same page.”
“Fine with me,” Anna Rae said.
“Okay,” Joanna said. “Hang on while I call her.” Joanna was in the process of buzzing Kristin to have her summon Deb when the detective herself appeared in the doorway.
“Have you heard?” she demanded.
Joanna nodded. “Just now,” she said. “I have Anna Rae Green of the MMIV on the line. Turns out the match is to one of her Indigenous cases. I’m going to put her on speaker so she can brief us both at the same time.”
As Deb took a seat, Joanna pushed the speaker button. “All right, Anna Rae,” she said. “Go ahead. Detective Howell is here now. We’re all ears.”
Chapter 27
Bisbee, Arizona
Wednesday, December 6, 2023
“As you may or may not know,” Anna Rae Greenbegan, “most of MMIV’s cases come to us by way of other law enforcement agencies. Amanda Hudson’s case came to us through a relative—her younger brother, Luke Running Deer. Amanda’s mother never recovered from losing her daughter and passed away several years after Amanda’s death of cirrhosis of the liver. Luke was sixteen when Amanda graduated from high school. He wasn’t on the best of terms with his parents. He went to live with his maternal grandmother, Madeline Running Deer, about the time his sister left home to go to college. Once Luke became an adult, he ended up taking his grandmother’s last name.
“After graduating from high school, he did a hitch in the army before going back to school and earning a B.A. in business. He’s now a retired CPA living in Rapid City, South Dakota. Recently MMIV’s South Dakota field agent, Nadia Grayson, was able to close the long cold cases of two young girls, sisters from Pine Ridge, who were kidnapped and murdered in 1992. As a result of those cases, Nadia did several local television interviews, one of which Luke saw.
“When his grandmother died in the early nineties, he was the one who handled her final affairs and prepared her home for sale. Inthe process of clearing out the house, Luke came across an envelope addressed to his mother from the Grand Forks County Coroner’s Office. It contained Amanda’s personal effects—a pair of glasses, a beaded, deerskin-backed bracelet Madeline Running Deer had made for Amanda on the occasion of her sixteenth birthday, and a whetstone.”
“A whetstone but no knife?” Joanna asked.
“Correct. All three items were still sealed in glassine evidence bags from the coroner’s office, but the one that held the glasses contained a film of fingerprint dust. Over the years, Luke had forgotten all about those items, but seeing Nadia Grayson’s interview brought them back to mind and prompted Luke to go down to his basement and dig out the envelope.”
