Jan Burke - Kidnapped

“She died-she was murdered near the beginning of the year. Sad case.”

I fell silent, trying to take in all the implications.

“Irene? You there?”

“Yes. Sorry. Wasn’t expecting that answer. Did she live in the Chicago area? Did the Trib cover the murder?”

“Yes to both. Several articles. I think we ran an obit on her, too. I didn’t know her, really-she was involved in SAR, so her agility work was related to that, but people say that she and the dog were a great team.”

“You know what happened to the dog?”

“I can’t help you much there. I remember hearing that some relative might take him, and there was gossip that the SAR community wasn’t all that happy about that. Felt he should go to someone who knew how to work with him.”

She woke up enough at that point to ask me why I wanted to know, and I simply said that I thought I had met the relative with the dog and was trying to get some background. She seemed skeptical but settled for an assurance that I’d call or e-mail her if anything connected with Chicago came up. We spent a little time catching up with each other after that, but between her illness and my deadline, we couldn’t talk for long.

The name Chula Dolson brought up forty hits, mostly from Illinois papers and television stations. I used the Tribune obit as my starting point.

It was dated January 18. A photo of a woman with her arm around Altair was included with the story. The dog in the photo looked exactly like the one I had met earlier in the day. But the woman next to him was at least twenty-five years older than Sheila Dolson.

Chula Dolson had the face of a prizefighter who hadn’t won many rounds. She might have been a handsome woman before her nose had been broken and healed crooked, before someone had given her a rope of scar tissue that ran diagonally across the left side of her face and pulled at one eyelid.

She died at the age of fifty-one. She was the founder of the nonprofit Forensic Search Associates of Illinois, Inc., and according to the article, a beloved trainer who had shared her expertise with hundreds of other dog handlers.

She had established what she referred to as “an interdisciplinary search team,” using dogs, forensic anthropologists, a helicopter pilot, and a wildlife specialist, and a variety of other experts. She talked corporations into funding their equipment, travel, and other costs. The organization helped various law enforcement agencies throughout the state and had received honors from a number of civic groups. The article noted that she avoided the spotlight and always made sure the group’s sponsors received glory in exchange for their generosity.

I stopped and reread that line. It would have been enough to assure me that I was dealing with a different person, even if the photo and the age of Chula Dolson hadn’t run with the obit.

The obit included a number of tributes to her from those in law enforcement, who spoke of the help they had received from her work with Altair.

There were also tributes from groups involved in fighting domestic violence, which she also supported, again in a quiet way-mostly by talking to women in shelters. Chula had been severely abused by her ex-husband, Derek Mansfield. She had seen him successfully prosecuted for his abuse, divorced him while he was in prison, moved from California, changed her name, and started life anew in Chicago.

Derek Mansfield was being sought in her murder.

I found the person I was looking for a few paragraphs down the page.

“She is survived by a daughter, Sheila.”

OTHER stories revealed more about the murder.

Released from prison after serving time for abusing his ex-wife, Derek Mansfield violated his parole and traveled to Illinois. No one knew how he had learned of her whereabouts, but using false identification, he had checked into a nearby motel and apparently spent several days studying Chula’s movements. One evening, as Sheila took Altair for a walk, Mansfield entered Chula’s home, shot her, and set fire to the house.

Neighbors were able to give a good description of the man they saw fleeing the house after hearing the shots.

A follow-up story, two weeks later, said that police had received a tip that he was staying in a rural motel. His body was discovered in his room; he had apparently shot himself before he could be captured. The gun he used to kill himself was believed to be the one he used to kill his ex-wife.

One story about Chula came from the local paper of her small town outside Chicago and had a little more to offer about Sheila. Chula’s neighbors were quoted as saying that one source of great joy for Chula was that she had been recently reunited with her daughter.

In California, almost thirty years ago, Chula had complied with her then-husband’s demands and made arrangements for a private adoption of Sheila at birth. Her husband had gladly pocketed the fee the couple had paid. Over the years, Chula had mixed feelings. On the one hand, she was relieved that Sheila had not grown up with Derek Mansfield’s abuse, and had not witnessed the domestic violence Chula suffered, violence that had disfigured her. She knew that the couple who had adopted Sheila had taken good care of her. But Chula was also haunted by her separation from her only child.

I CALLED John over and showed him what I had found out.

“Kelly, you saved us. I knew this one didn’t smell right. Taking credit for her murdered mother’s work. Ugh.”

“I wonder why she didn’t just tell me the truth…”

“Some people have a constitutional dislike of it.”

“But it would have been so much easier. Why not just come here legitimately, saying she inherited the dog?”

A shout from the City Desk interrupted us. “Is Mark here? It’s that Sheila Dolson again.”

John started to answer, looked at me, and shouted back, “Tie her up on hold for a minute, then transfer the call to Kelly.”

To me, he said, “Go ahead and find out what you can, but keep anything about Ben out of it. I’ll still send Mark by to talk to her, so don’t ruin that if you can help it.”

“John, how the hell am I going to not ruin it if I tell her what I know?”

He frowned, then said, “Okay.” He looked around the newsroom, and with his unerring eye for this sort of misery, spotted the one person I really didn’t want to work with: Hailey Freed.

I said, “Oh, no…” just as he shouted to her.

“Take Ms. Dolson’s call,” he said to me. “If she wants to talk to you in person, tell her you’re bringing another reporter.”

“Just send her, why don’t you?”

John looked at me in totally faked amazement. He leaned close to my ear and said in a low voice, “Why, Ms. Kelly, you’re Hailey’s mentor, and last I heard, you don’t think she’s ready for anything big.” He straightened up and smiled as Hailey approached. “I think the story of a search dog handler faking her credentials-and perhaps her finds-could be big, don’t you, Hailey?”

She glanced at me and warily agreed.

If nothing else, maybe she was learning that John’s smile is not necessarily a sign of goodwill.

Monday, April 24

8:40 P.M.

717 POPLAR STREET

LAS PIERNAS

THIS neighborhood gives me the creeps,” Hailey said.

We were sitting in Hailey’s Toyota Camry at the curb in front of Sheila Dolson’s house, neither of us too eager to walk through the downpour between the car and the house. This was Hailey’s work car, as she had once told me. Her other car was a BMW.

“Not everyone can live on Rivo Alto,” I said. Hailey resided in a million-plus-dollar house-owned but not occupied by her parents, who just wanted to make sure baby was safe-in one of Las Piernas’s most pricey neighborhoods, a man-made island with canals and private docks.