Don’t Look Behind You

it, but she had been in the water for too long before she was discovered for Dr. Wilson to determine if she had been raped or molested.
    The postmortem made one thing patently clear: somethingthe victim had said or done had enraged her killer to the point of maniacal fury. Ironically, despite her grievous wounds, Bethany Stokesberry had not succumbed to the multiple head injuries. Her cause of death was drowning.
    Her lungs were completely filled with water and death would have come quickly, as it always does with freshwater drowning, as the human bloodstream, with a higher salt content than lake water, actually sucks water into the blood.
    Dr. Wilson determined that the victim had died at about 2 a.m. on the morning of July 4—with an hour’s leeway in either direction. A test of her blood showed no alcohol or drug content at all.
    Bethany Stokesberry had fought her attacker, as nail scrapings taken from beneath her broken fingernails revealed.
    Detectives observing the autopsy preserved and labeled strands of her hair. If they found her killer, he might have some of her hair on his clothing or person. DNA as a forensic tool was unknown at the time.
    The burning question for the detectives was, Why? What had transpired in an hour and a half on July 3–4 that had ended in the death struggle on the shore of Echo Lake?
    Shortly after the autopsy on Bethany Stokesberry was completed, Nolan and Detective DuWayne Harrison checked the Frontier Tavern and found the owner had finally returned.
    “Sure, Bethany was in here Saturday night,” the owner-bartender replied, after explaining that he had been out oftown since closing his bar that night. “She sat right there,” he added, pointing to a stool at the bar.
    “She was alone?”
    The bartender nodded. “Bethany used to come in often—usually on a Friday or Saturday night. Used to talk with whoever was here. Sometimes she left with a gentleman—could have been her husband—sometimes with another couple.”
    “And Saturday night?”
    “Well, we’re usually pretty busy on Saturday nights. I can give you the names of several people who sat at the bar. Bethany talked to all of them—but she left with Long-tall-Paul* and another couple.”
    “Long-tall-Paul? Do you know his last name?” Harrison asked.
    “Nope. He’s been in maybe eight or ten times. All I know him by is ‘Long-tall-Paul.’ He’s a really tall fellow with a beard. He comes in to play pool. About the only other thing I could tell you is that I hear he works part-time at Melby’s Tavern down the road.”
    “Did Mrs. Stokesberry seem to have known this Long-tall-Paul from before?” Nolan questioned.
    The bartender shrugged. “Maybe—but I don’t think so. He was trying to get her to go to another tavern with him and I guess she must have agreed because, as I say, they left a little before midnight with this other couple who were sitting there.”
    Asked about Bethany Stokesberry’s clothes, the tavern keeper mentioned that she had been wearing some kind of hot-pants outfit. “She got up once and twirled aroundbeside the bar and asked everyone how they liked her new outfit. She was very outgoing and cheerful.”
    The detective duo next went to Melby’s Tavern, where Long-tall-Paul was supposed to have a part-time job. Entering this tavern, which was only a block or so down the street from the Frontier Tavern, Detectives Nolan and Harrison nodded to its lone occupant. The man identified himself as the part-time bar manager and explained that he was principally occupied with his duties as owner of the Echo Lake Motel.
    “Do you know a guy called Long-tall-Paul?” Harrison asked.
    “Sure do,” the man responded amiably. “He’s not here now. He’s probably over at the motel.”
    The investigators exchanged glances.
    “Long-tall-Paul lives at my motel—upstairs with Al and Cindy. He works here some of the time, but I’m not expecting him in this morning.”
    After days of frustration in attempting to find anything that might lead back to Bethany Stokesberry’s death, the officers were now being handed the name and address of the last person seen with her. They headed back to the motel building whose main entrance is a few scant feet from Aurora Avenue. The unit number given by the owner was on the second level at the far end of a narrow hallway.
    Detective Nolan knocked at the door. When it opened slowly, he found himself looking at a giant of a man who stood before him with a