Page 49 of Red Snow
Detective Jarrod Granger
“HIS NAME ISJeffrey Lee Chapman, and I’m convinced he’s our guy,” I tell Danielle as Marcus and I storm into her office and sit down. I’m completely focused on this Jeffrey guy, but in the back of my mind, I’m hoping Danielle doesn’t give me any shit about us hooking up last night.
“Okay, as much as I’d like for you to be right about the Snowman Killer, we need proof. So, what do you got?” Danielle answers as she faces forward in her chair and gives us her full attention.
“Alright, so the first thing is the video from Koot’s,” Marcus starts it off. “We have him right there on camera leaving the bar with the victim only an hour before the medical examiner says she was killed. When you factor in the amount of time it would’ve taken them to drive from Anchorage to Eagle River, it puts the victim in his trailer about ten-thirty at night. Approximately thirty minutes before Brenda Cox was killed.”
Danielle nods her head in approval. So far so good. “Okay. We can start with that. What else?”
Marcus looks over at me. My time to shine.
“So, we go to question this asshole first thing this morning, and when we ask him about Brenda, he gets all smug about it. Defensive. We ask him what they did when they got back to their trailer, and he says they had sex, and she left right after. He says he didn’t drive her back, she took a cab. When we asked what time she left, he said around eleven, maybe later. Now, as Marcus said, Krista the M.E. already told us Brenda was killed between eleven and midnight. How could she have left his trailer at the same time the medical examiner says she was dead?”
Danielle nods again as her eyes bounce around the office like she’s thinking hard. She flips her wavy brown hair over her shoulder and rubs her chin, the gears in her head spinning like a hamster wheel.
“Okay,” she finally says. “The video of him leaving with the victim, and his lack of an alibi are a great start, and I fully support your decision to make this guy the number one suspect. However, there’s still a hang-up.”
“What?” I ask defensively. As far as I’m concerned, Jeffrey Lee Chapman is our guy.
“How does he fit with the second body?” Danielle asks. “How do we peg him for the ABC snowman?”
Fuck.
I hadn’t thought about the second murder. We have no proof that Chapman was even at Alaskan Bush Company the night Britney Cruz was killed thanks to Donald Blasick deciding not to replace his broken camera pointing at the parking lot. We have absolutely nothing on him for the second murder, and there’s no way in hell that there are two, unrelated people out there killing women and propping them up as snowmen. Brenda’s killer is Britney’s killer, so if we’re going to pin Brenda on someone, we have to find the connection to Britney.
“I take it from your silence that you don’t have anything on him for Cruz’s murder,” Danielle says when Marcus and I don’t have a response. “That’s a problem. Like I said, I think you’re on the right track with Brenda’s death, but without Britney’s murder, we’re still not there. So, keep digging. What’s your next move?”
“We need a warrant,” I answer quickly. “If Brenda Cox was in this guy’s trailer less than an hour before she died, we need to get in there and do a thorough search of the premises for evidence and DNA.”
“We need to question his neighbors, too,” Marcus chimes in. “If we’re making him the main suspect, we need to go one hundred percent on him. While we’re waiting for the judge to sign the warrant, we need to look into his neighbors, his friends, and his family. We need to know everything about him and who he is—who he ever has been. We need to give him all of our attention.”
Danielle smiles and nods her head some more. “Good. That’s what I want to hear. Jeffrey Chapman was the last person to see Brenda Cox alive, and that’s huge. Now find the missing pieces of the puzzle so we can lock him down on Britney Cruz. We need motive too. When we make an arrest, I don’t want him walking afterwards. Once we tap him, he’s the guy, and we’re not going to lose it in court. So make sure there’s no doubt left. I’ll put in the call to Judge Bartow in the morning, and in the meantime . . .”
Out of nowhere, my phone chimes and cuts Danielle off. She looks pissed as I pull it out of my pocket and glance at the screen.
Brandi:Do you eat?
“I’m sorry, am I fucking interrupting something, Detective Granger?” Danielle snaps. When I look up, she’s glaring at me with fire in her eyes, and I realize I’m holding the phone high enough for her to see. There is it, the crazy I was hoping to avoid. The crazy I knew would come out if I fucked her.
“My bad. I apologize, Danielle,” I reply as I put the phone back in my pocket.
“I’m your sergeant, Detective,” Danielle fires back. “We’re knee deep in an investigation, and I need you to give me your full attention when we’re having a meeting, instead of giving your attention to the whores texting your phone. Got it?”
I want to go off on her for being so ridiculous after telling me that times had changed and she wasn’t going to be crazy, but it would only fuel the fire. So I just nod my head and play along.
“I got it, Sergeant. Sorry.”
“As I was saying, I’ll put in the call to Judge Bartow in the morning, and you two can start talking to his friends and neighbors. See if you can get some dirt on him before we even get inside his house. We on the same page?” Danielle directs the question to both of us, but she only glares at me, waiting for us to answer.
“Got it, Sarge,” Marcus says.
“On the same page,” I say, just as my phone chimes in my pocket again. This time, I don’t even think to look at the screen. I already know it’s Brandi, and there’s no need to set off the dragon lady any more than I already have.
“Good,” Danielle says as she turns her chair and picks up her cell phone that was resting on the desk. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to call my boyfriend, Ethan. That’ll be all, Detectives.” She puts the phone to her ear and ignores us until we get up and walk out.
“Wow, good job, bro,” Marcus says as we walk to our desks. “I know you’ve gotta be regretting fucking her again. You really should’ve known better.”
“Don’t fucking start with me, you’re gonna ruin a good investigative day,” I reply, rolling my eyes. “She’s only pissed because she saw the screen. The text was from Brandi.”
