A Welcome Grave (21 page)

“I know. And when that decision is made, it’ll be made in consultation with you, LP. You’re my partner whether I’m in that office or not.”

E
ight months out of high school, Andy Doran was arrested for the first time. He was in Cleveland then, a John Marshall High School graduate who got picked up for breaking into a house in Shaker Heights and making off with a few televisions and some speakers. Made it about three miles before he was pulled over for speeding by a cop who grew curious about the odd collection of used electronics equipment in Doran’s backseat.

Doran managed to walk away with nothing more than probation for that first offense, and he kicked around the city for another two years before joining the Army. There he lasted four years, earning a few commendations for his physical skills and marksmanship while completing advanced infantry training, airborne training, and some specialized urban combat training. The commendations didn’t mean his military career was off to a problem-free start, though—his personnel file grew thick with disciplinary actions before he was arrested for the second time. An MP investigation revealed that Doran, in connection with a couple of civilian buddies near Fort Bragg, had been selling stolen military equipment through local gun dealers and the Internet—military equipment that included night vision goggles, guns, and grenades. A dishonorable discharge was the prelude to a two-year prison stay for that one.

He made his way, as ne’er-do-wells usually do, back home. Six months after he moved into his mother’s house, she died, leaving her son a meager
inheritance and a larger mortgage. Doran promptly defaulted on the loan and moved out of the house to places unknown. Eighteen months later, he turned up in Geneva-on-the-Lake, where he was arrested for assault and battery after a bar fight. Doran walked away from the fight with some minor bruises and lacerations—all to his hands, which he’d used quite effectively on the other man’s face. For this offense, he served another six months in jail. The fight apparently stemmed from a territorial debate involving a redheaded waitress. While Doran won the brawl, he did not win the waitress, because he was single when he got out of jail, a problem he quickly sought to rectify upon meeting twenty-year-old Monica Heath.

By then Doran was driving a truck, albeit without a commercial driver’s license, engaged in furniture deliveries and whatever other local hauling he could land. One of those jobs was driving the catering van for Heath’s company. A short relationship flourished, apparently based upon a shared love of outdoor intercourse and marijuana. The couple remained together for about three months before Heath’s friends convinced her that Doran was trouble and she could do better. They made out in the van one last time, split a joint, and parted on what appeared to be amicable terms.

Seven weeks later, Heath was dead with her skirt pushed up over her hips, her underwear missing. She’d been strangled with the towel that she’d used to wipe down the tables. The towel was a problem—no fingerprints, no grip marks. The police interviewed Doran after the body was discovered, then returned the next day, this time with a search warrant for his trailer and orange Camaro, motivated by an eyewitness who could place Doran at the scene. Doran was high when they came for him, with a water bong sitting in his sink, but not so far gone that he failed to put up a fight when officers found a black garbage bag tucked beneath a stack of cinder blocks near one end of the trailer—with Monica Heath’s underwear inside. Doran stumbled out of the trailer spewing profanities and trying to fight the cop who’d made the find, screaming about being framed as he swung uncoordinated punches at the man’s head before being subdued.

The underwear was taken to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, where lab tests returned Heath’s DNA, but not Doran’s, or anyone else’s. Still, the black Victoria’s Secret thong made things grim for Doran, particularly when combined with his criminal history and the testimony of Heath’s friends, a half dozen of whom reported that Monica had frequently stated that sex with Doran—while good—was also rough, that he was aggressive and wild and, yes, prone to the occasional hair pull or maybe even a little choking.
None of them was firm in the memory of a choking reference, but two of the girls thought that, yeah, maybe, just
maybe
, Monica had mentioned it in the past.

Powerful evidence, made only more powerful by the addition of an eyewitness account placing Doran’s Camaro at the scene and a man matching his description involved with Heath on the winery’s deck.

That eyewitness, a Matthew Jefferson, of Pepper Pike, came forward in something of an unconventional manner. Jefferson had discovered the body and called the police. He had not, however, been able to pass along any details of the man on the deck—at least not at first. It was the following day when young Jefferson reappeared with an amended account of the night and his father at his side. In this meeting, the law student claimed that he’d been frightened by the police, who had apparently been aggressive in their questioning, and that he’d neglected to mention that he’d seen a car in the parking lot on his walk up to the winery. The car, he explained, was an older Camaro that had looked orange in the moonlight. Also, he’d had a better look at the man on the deck than he’d shared, a good enough look to tell him that the man was about six feet tall, with bristle-short hair and a tattoo of some sort along his left forearm.

Doran insisted he had an alibi: He’d spent the night with a man named Donny Ward, drinking whiskey and target shooting with a .22. When the police went to interview Ward, though, he claimed to have no idea what Doran was talking about. Said he hadn’t seen Doran since an encounter at a bar a few nights earlier.

Within days of Heath’s murder, Doran found himself facing an eyewitness account, hard evidence found at his home, and a useless alibi. He was broke, of course, and couldn’t afford a private attorney. His public defender, a man who had worked on exactly zero murder cases, managed to get a plea offer that reduced the charge to manslaughter, occurring during autoerotic activity,
consensual
activity, mind you. Two days before his trial was to begin, Andy Doran was offered a plea agreement for a twenty-year prison sentence, which meant he could be out in ten if he didn’t cause any trouble. Facing a life sentence if he was convicted, possibly even the death penalty if things really went bad, Doran accepted the plea.

Five years passed, and Doran stayed in prison. He behaved well in custody, gave the jailers no trouble, kept his mouth shut. Behaved well enough, in fact, that he was trusted with some sweet prison jobs, simple, yawn-while-you-work tasks like cleaning up after meals, mopping the floors, and taking out trash.

It was a tough fiscal year, state and federal budget crunches being felt in almost every agency, including the correctional facilities. Jobs were lost, and employees who left of their own volition were not quickly replaced. Reduced manpower was a challenge in every jail, and with that challenge Doran and the rest of his cleanup crew were given a new responsibility: running the trash compacter, a task previously supervised by a corrections officer. All trash leaving the jail was compacted both for efficiency and to ensure that any inmate hoping to escape in a garbage bag would be properly flattened before finding his way to the truck.

One day in late September, not all of the trash was compacted. Andy Doran and two others hid in a heap of refuse, were loaded into the back of a garbage truck, and were driven out of the gates and back into freedom. Within forty-eight hours, the other two were arrested at a truck stop on I-70, where they were attempting to purchase hot dogs and Red Bull energy drinks even while their pictures were being displayed on the television set just over their heads. Andy Doran wasn’t with them when the cops came, though, and, according to his fellow escapees, the last time anyone saw him he was walking through a muddy wheat field, heading north.

All of this, Joe and I learned through several hours spent in the Ashtabula County Courthouse reading hundreds of pages of depositions and transcripts in Doran’s case. While I went through the case file, Joe made a trip to the library and came back with a dozen more articles relating to Doran’s escape from prison and the subsequent—and unsuccessful—manhunt.

“Can we really believe,” Joe said, “that when this guy broke out of jail the first thing on his mind was settling a score?”

“Why not? If he’d done five years for a crime he didn’t commit—”

“He might have murdered that girl. Can’t be sure he didn’t, not yet, at least.”

“Right. But playing out the thread here, we’ll say that he didn’t, and that for some reason unknown to us he held Jefferson responsible. Five years is a long time to spend in prison for something you didn’t do. A long time to build a grudge. Ever read
The Count of Monte Cristo
? Besides, the guy’s a fugitive now. Where’s he going to run? And on what cash? He needed money, and Jefferson had it.”

Joe wore a deep frown as he continued flipping through documents, but he was also nodding. “Jefferson never went to the cops. He tried to hire Thor to
kill whoever was threatening him. Doesn’t exactly smack of legitimacy, you know? So maybe we’re right. Maybe the reason he had to try to handle it with someone like Thor was because he knew Doran had him—and his son—by the balls.”

“His son’s testimony was absurd. Showing up with his father to change stories a day after he found the body?”

“It is weak, which is why it wouldn’t have convicted Doran. The girl’s underwear—”

“Which could have been planted easily enough.”

“Yes, but it was still more convincing evidence than anything Jefferson’s son said. Although he did point them in Doran’s direction, I suppose. He got it all moving.”

“That time reference . . . it’s too clear. Paying the price for five years, he said—and then he comes after Jefferson and the son as soon as he gets out of prison. It’s also the exact same time Jefferson and the son developed their rift. I bet Jefferson pulled the son out of the fire and then cut him off. He wouldn’t want his image tarnished by a son who was a murderer, but he also wouldn’t want the kid around. Out of sight, out of mind.”

“Maybe you’re right when you say it’s too clear, LP.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why would Doran make that reference to you? Seems like he establishes his identity a little too easily with that. Anybody who knew what happened with Matt Jefferson in that situation, or even looked into it on the surface like we have, would roll to the same conclusion.”

“What does Doran care? It’s not like he has anything to lose—the day he runs into a cop, he goes right back to prison. He couldn’t give a shit if I turn more police attention onto him. He’s already a fugitive.”

Joe thought about that and nodded.

“If this guy
isn’t
Doran, I’ll be amazed,” I said.

“I think I’m with you. Right now we’re guessing, though. No real reason to suspect he came after Jefferson other than that remark about the five years.”

My cell phone vibrated in my pocket, interrupting us. I slipped the phone out, checked the display, and saw my gym’s number looking back at me. Odd, considering the gym was closed. I answered and got Grace.

“Lincoln, I think you’d better get down here. There are some, um, people here to see you.”

“I’m in the middle of something important,” I said, thinking that she was with the insurance company, an ordeal I didn’t want to tackle right now. “Why
don’t you have them call me to set up a meeting instead of just showing up like that?”

“It’s the police.” She had dropped her voice.

“What?”

“They’re at your apartment, and it looks like they’ve got a warrant.”

I
t took us an hour of fast driving to make it back, but they were still there when Joe pulled into my parking lot. I saw Targent’s Crown Vic and two squad cars. The door to the stairs was open, and Targent came through it as I got out of the car, rage boiling through my veins. There was a warrant in his hand.

“This is bullshit,” I said when he gave it to me.