Posted by tina on October 10, 2005 at 20:51:56:
“The One that Got Away”
by tina
“And the Crime Solver Award goes to Detective Gerald Hammond.”
The Assistant Chief of Police stepped back from the podium as he joined in the rousing round of applause that accompanied the announcement as the homicide detective made his way to the dais. Gary had earned this honor by solving and closing 84 percent of his cases for the year. The twenty-year veteran barely heard the smattering of cheers or the clapping in his honor. His thoughts were of Jillian Johnson. Her murder was still in the “unsolved” column.
He could still remember the first time he had seen her. She was standing, waiting to cross Broadway as he and his partner had made a stop for coffee and Danish at Starbuck’s. Gary’s partner was doing the driving that day so Jerry’s gaze was uninterrupted. A tall woman, dressed in a short black sheath dress. The hem was just at the top of her knees. Gary had followed the curve of her leg down to sandals with a four-inch heel. Her sandal foot nylons were white and shimmered in the noonday sun. He had followed those legs as they crossed the street. The back slit of the dress showed an occasional display of firm thigh. Her long black scarf had trailed lazily behind her as she had walked briskly out of sight.
“What a classy dame,” he had thought at the time.
Less than twenty-four hours later he had seen the woman for the second time. He learned her name was Jillian Johnson and she was in town for a convention. She was still wearing the little black dress but the hem was now bunched up around her waist. Her black satin panty lay on the floor between the silk scarf and her high-heeled sandals. Her bare legs were slightly bent at her dimpled knees and the heels were spread wide. Her pubic hair was matted with dried fluids.
Jillian was also still wearing the sheer white pantyhose but the silky stockings were now tightly wrapped and knotted around her slender throat. Her gargoyle face stared at him. The dark brown eyes bulged from her purple face. Her tongue protruded from the left corner of her mouth. Her lips were drawn back from the force of the strangulation and he could see her lipstick-smeared teeth clamped down on her swollen tongue.
Hammond had seen his share of sex crimes. Usually the victims were prostitutes, mostly drug addicts who weren’t too picky about their clientele. He had solved the case of one high-class call girl who had made the mistake of letting her John tie her to the bed as he screwed her. This particular psycho had a fetish for plastic bags and sex. He had described graphically to Detective Hammond how he had slipped the bag over the lady’s head just before he came. The man had then climaxed as the whore sucked plastic. Of course he claimed he hadn’t intended to go too far. That part was an accident.
This was different. Jillian Johnson was in town for a seminar. She was an executive for a software company. She was high class but no prostitute. And of course this was no accidental erotic asphyxiation death. The pantyhose had been wound three times around the dead woman’s throat. They had also been pulled with such force that her hyoid bone was fractured. The white nylons were buried in her throat.
The neatly manicured nails were curled into loose fists on either side of her head as though she was still trying to ward of the attacker. Hammond noticed the nail polish matched the polish on the toes of her right foot.
Miss Johnson hadn’t gone without a fight either. The ME got tissue from three fingernails of her left hand. She had managed to mark her strangler even as she lost the battle with the killer. Unfortunately the DNA database had no match for the skin that the victim had claimed from her attacker. The other twist was that Jillian had not been raped. The sex had been consensual. A bellhop had also confirmed seeing a tall man accompany Miss Johnson onto an elevator. Just before the door closed he had seen them embrace and kiss passionately.
That too had soon become a cold dead end. According to the people who knew the victim, Jillian had not been intimate with anyone attending the conference. Detective Hammond did discover that she was not averse to meeting men for gratuitous sex. Her friends said she was always careful about these trysts. Jill Johnson was always careful about her sexual partners. Except this time her lover had strangled her to death with her silky stockings.
The picture that emerged after three weeks of investigation did not bode well for the homicide squad. The victim apparently met and was picked up by a stranger. They went to her room and had a vigorous session of lovemaking. At some point for reasons unknown the lover turned into a killer and brutally strangled the brunette to death.
Eight months had passed with no additional leads, no new clues and no suspect. The case was as cold as Jillian Johnson’s body the second time Hammond had seen her. There had also not been any homicides similar to Miss Johnson’s. A solution to the case seemed very remote indeed.
Detective Gerald Hammond held his trophy for solving crime, looked out over the audience and found all he could think about was Jillian Johnson and the one that got away.