Heart of Ice

Chapter Fifty-six

Dixon

Sometimes when investigators review the evidence in criminal matters they miss the most obvious clues and connections. Sometimes it takes a sharp young woman with a love of Google to find the answer that eludes the most seasoned investigators—even her own mother.

Jenna Kenyon had mourned the deaths of her sorority sisters Tiffany Jacobs and Sheraton Wilkes. She only knew Sheraton for a few hours, but she’d worked with Tiffany during recruitment for a new batch of pledges the season before.

Although Beta Zeta House had been cleared for the girls to return after 7 P.M., none did. Sororities across the Dixon campus opened their doors to the BZ sisters. Ten of the young women were too traumatized even for that kind of accommodation—they went home to their parents. The national office authorized a hotel room for Jenna and she checked herself into a Ramada Inn in downtown Dixon.

She got out her laptop and looked at the BZ message boards. Several sisters had offered “virtual” flowers in Sheraton’s memory. Bonita Rayburn of Tucson, Arizona, posted a message that chilled Jenna to the depths of her bones.

These are hard times for our BZ sisters. So much tragedy. First Lily Ann Denton, Tiffany Jacobs, and now Sheraton Wilkes. My heart goes out to their families.

Jenna stared at the laptop monitor. Lily Ann Denton? She knew Lily Ann. She and Tiffany Jacobs had worked with her for BZ recruitment at Cascade University.

She put “Lily Ann Denton” into the search field and clicked. One article came up.

SD Woman’s Body Identified

The body of a young woman found behind a rest stop near the San Diego County line was identified as Lily Ann Denton, 22, San Diego, the medical examiner announced today.

“I’m classifying this as a homicide,” Dr. Ken Jensen said. “But there are some irregularities that we’ll need to review.”

Dr. Jensen refused to deny or confirm police reports that Denton was murdered as a part of a black market human organs scheme out of Tijuana.

“I’m not going to go there,” he said.

Jenna looked at her phone for the time, and figured her mom would be home and probably getting ready for bed. She pushed speed dial number 1.

It rang and rang. Pick up. Pick up.

Finally, it clicked, and Emily answered. “Hi, honey. You caught me just as I was sliding under the covers. A nice way to end the day,” she said.

“Mom, I’m so glad you’re there. Something weird I wanted to tell you about.”

Emily could detect the concern in her daughter’s voice. Her words were tight, constricted. She’d had that kind of affect since she was a little girl. Jenna was tough, but when she was scared, her feelings could not be masked.

“Are you all right, Jenna? You’ve been on my mind all day.” Emily turned to look at Chris, who’d rolled over on to his side and snuggled next to her. He could feel her shift from romance to worry.

Jenna felt her heart start to race, as the fear welled up inside. She’d been unnerved a moment before, but the sound of her mother’s voice let her fear build. She let herself go, only in the way that a child can do for a mother she knows will always be there for her.

She fought tears. Something’s wrong. Something’s wrong. Only my mom will understand. She didn’t want to cry.

“I’m fine. But, Mom, I was online looking at the message boards and someone mentioned that another girl, Lily Ann Denton, had died. Murdered, mom. Tiffany was murdered. Sheraton was murdered!” Her words came machine-gun rapid, firing across the country, cell-tower to tower.

“Slow down,” Emily said, now sitting up in her bed. “Lily Ann Denton?”

“Yes. I’m reading about her online. Mom, that’s too much of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

A couple of BZ sisters walked past and Jenna turned. She didn’t want them to see her cry.

Emily was on her feet then, reaching for her robe. She wanted Jenna to get out of Dixon as soon as possible. “I’ll call the Dixon Police and tell them what you’ve told me. Get the first flight out in the morning.”

Emily could feel her hands tremble as she held the cell phone to her ear. “Nationals doesn’t open offices until ten and I can’t get a reservation.”

“You still have your dad’s Visa card? You know the one for ‘emergencies only’?”

Jenna looked over at her purse. “Yes, I think so,” she said.

“Fine. This is an emergency.”

Emily set down her phone and looked over at Chris, under the covers in bed but no longer in either a sleepy or romantic mood.

“What was that all about?” he asked, sitting up.

“I told you about the Jacobs girl. The bones the Idaho police found?”

“Jenna knew her, yes. You told me.”

“There’s another girl, another BZ sister who’s been killed.”

Chris wasn’t really getting it and the puzzled look on his face made it clear he needed more information to connect the dots that Emily was firing at him. “You mean Sheraton Wilkes, right?”

Emily shook her head. “No, Jenna just found out that there’s been another of her sisters killed. This time a girl in San Diego.” She told herself to be calm. Jenna’s fears had become her own.

“Well, it’s got to be nothing more than a tragic coincidence,” Chris said.

Emily shivered. “I hope so. But, Chris, I have a bad feeling about this. You see, Jenna knew two of the three girls.

“Tiffany and Sheraton, right.”

Emily’s eyes suddenly widened in fear. “Sheraton was the only dead girl she didn’t know well. She knew the San Diego girl.”

That night, Jenna Kenyon packed her bags. She wanted to get out of Dixon as soon as first light. She was going to a place she felt safe—home.

The Sorority Killer, as the perpetrator was first dubbed by a Dixon Chronicle desk editor, was immediate fodder for discussion by talk radio hosts and psychologists with a lust for the red light of a TV camera. All agreed that the killer had sought a type of girl—young, pretty, privileged.

“Look,” one of the experts told Nancy Grace on her true-crime talk show, “I have no doubt a serial killer is at work, stalking young women all over the country. If I were a father or mother of a young pretty girl, I’d arm them with pepper spray and tell them to keep an eye out.”

The host batted her eyes and shook her head, asking the guest, a criminal profiler with a dubious curriculum vitae, what exactly they should be looking for.

“White male, very strong, probably in his twenties. I’m sure of it.”

That very thin description, of course, was the problem. The police knew just about as much. That description could fit half the men on college campuses across the country.

Dixon Police Detective Kellie Jasper had the case with the greatest hope for resolution. The Jacobs girl was nothing but bones and the Denton girl found near San Diego had likely been killed somewhere other than the rest stop. But the crime scene at the BZ house was Tupperware fresh. The detective was hopeful there would be some DNA or fibers found at the house.

The big problem was there was so much of it. The FBI combed through the scene of Sheraton’s murder and carted out a mountain of evidence. With more than fifty girls—not to mention all of their friends, family members, and support staff—it was apparent that it would take months to go though the evidence to decide who left what. It was easy to exclude the girls living there, but not every person that came and went and left prints, hair, and fibers.

It’s almost one of those cases that once we know the killer, we can dig into this stuff and build a case against him, she thought.

That, of course, only worked if the perp was known. But as far as anyone could tell, the only connection the women had with each other was the sorority. Lily Ann and Tiffany knew each other from Cascade University. That was well documented. But while Sheraton Wilkes was a BZ girl, she didn’t know either one. At first, it was thought they’d been to the same Pan-Hellenic conference in Washington, D.C., but it turned out that Lily Ann had boyfriend problems and had stayed home.

Was it a coincidence that Jenna Kenyon knew well two of the three dead girls and just happened to be at the scene of the third girl’s murder?

Kellie Jasper didn’t think so. She got Jenna, now home, on the phone in Cherrystone.

“There has to be something here with you and Sheraton. Think. Think.”

“I’ve told you, we just met.”

Kellie pushed harder. She had to, there was nothing else. “But she’s in your sorority. You must have met her. You must have been connected.”

“There are three thousand girls nationwide who have pledged BZ.”

“Think. Please. We need to catch this guy before he kills again.”

Jenna could feel her blood pressure rise. “You think I haven’t thought of this, Detective Jasper? This is all I think about.”

“Fair enough. I’m sorry. But I’m counting on you.”

After the call ended, Jenna found her mother in the kitchen. She was making a chicken dish with olives and diced dried tropical fruits.

“It smells really good in here, Mom.” There was a flatness to Jenna’s voice.

Emily picked up on it and her smile faded when she looked up to see her daughter’s worried expression.

“What is it?”

Jenna let out a long sigh, one she meant to help her relax and lessen the stress of the call.

“The detective from Dixon called again,” she said. “She thinks that I must know something about Lily Ann, Tiffany, and Sheraton. There really isn’t anything to know, Mom. I don’t know what connects the three of them, beyond their pledge to Beta Zeta.”

Emily set down her spoon and put the lid over the chicken sautéing on the gas range. She lowered the heat, bending down to check the level of the blue flame.

“There’s a link,” she said. “Let’s talk some more at dinner.”