Tuesday, October 7, 2003
When Detective Winston Radhauser’s phone rang at 12:15 a.m., he rolled toward the nightstand with a groan. It could only mean one thing—something terrible had happened in Ashland. Not wanting to wake his wife, Gracie, he silenced the phone, then hurried into the hallway to answer. Even though the door to the nursery, where his newborn twins were actually sleeping for a change, was closed, he spoke in a whisper. “Radhauser. What’s up?”
Hazel, the police dispatcher, gave him the details. A man who claimed he was homeless and didn’t have access to a phone banged on the police station door around 11:45 p.m., demanding to see Radhauser. The man was out of breath from running the three blocks from the Food Co-Op, and nearly hysterical. He claimed there was a dead woman behind the grocery store. “I radioed Corbin and Perkins and they were on the scene in less than five minutes,” Hazel said. “Corbin estimates the victim’s age to be between twenty and thirty.”
Radhauser knew how unusual it was for a homeless person to contact the authorities about a dead body. They feared blame. And rightly so. He thought about Corndog, Banjo, and the other men he’d met in the homeless camps last year while investigating two murders in their community. He felt proud he’d connected with those forgotten people. Honored that one of them was trusting enough to ask for him by name.
“Are you holding the man for questioning?”
“Corbin picked him up here at the station and has him at the scene in the back seat of the patrol car. But apparently, he won’t speak to anyone but you.”
Somewhere in the back of Radhauser’s mind he wondered if, or hoped, this death could be from natural causes, a heart attack or an accidental fall in the darkened parking lot—or even a drug overdose. Those were happening more and more, even in small, relatively affluent towns like Ashland. “Does Corbin think she was murdered?”
“Given the location they found her and the condition of her body, he’s calling it homicide.”
“Call Heron and tell him to meet us there. I’m on my way.” Radhauser dressed, left a note for Gracie, grabbed his gun and backpack, and drove toward town.
The night had laid claim to Ashland, the streets eerily quiet and empty. Burglar alarms winked their red eyes from the walls of slumbering shops on Main. Stars dotted the sky, the moon an icy-white wafer.
Ten minutes later, he pulled into the gravel lot behind the Food Co-Op to find Perkins’ and Corbin’s patrol car, still running and parked near the dumpster. Red and blue strobes pulsed arteries of light into the sky. Through the rear window, Radhauser saw Corbin sitting in the back seat with a bearded man, presumably the one who’d found the body.
