Thou Shall Not Kill

Jake Reynolds was relieved as he saw the rain pouring down outside his office window. He had been listening to the weather forecast on the radio, and a spring storm was coming east out of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It would be moving out to sea today. Jake was watching the beginning stages of it, and knew it would be getting worse. Everything in the harbor would be washed away. It was a thing that a ghetto trash person would do, so Jake was regretting his actions that weekend, but he needed to fix the problem. He felt better knowing that noone had to know. All of the evidence that could ever get him caught was now washing out to the Atlantic where it would never be found. Jake thought about how big the ocean was and smiled.

He went back to work. He had a client who was filing a motion in a civil case worth about fifty thousand dollars in fees tomorrow, and Jake had to do the paperwork.

An hour or so later, John Brockton, another associate at Collins and Shay, the firm where Jake worked tapped on his door and entered.

“Hey man how’s it going?” said John cheerfully. He was twenty five and just out of college. John seemed to always be tapped in to an endless well of happiness and was constantly cheerful which was a welcome relief from the dull office-work that lawyers did.

“Hey,” said Jake, “I’m good except for this weather, how about you?”

John answered, “Man this weather sucks balls, but I hear your team won last night, that’s gotta make you happy. Did you have any bets on it?”

Jake responded “Yeah, actually I did. I forgot about that. I have about fifty bucks to pick-up.”

He smiled remembering placing the bet with Brandon Carter, a college kid who frequented the bar where Jake loved to go to relax. He had placed it the night before while everyone was betting against the Mets in their first game of the season. Jake would have some bragging rights at Sam’s now. There’d be some people who would be a bit sore about this one for a while.

“Hey, where’s Michel?” asked John.

“I don’t know,” replied Jake, “She didn’t show-up today, and she hasn’t called in yet.”

“She’s not the kind to have a long weekend out is she?” asked John.

“No,” said Jake, “it’s kind of got me wondering what’s going on, but I’m sure she’ll turn up before long.”

John agreed, “Yeah, she’s probably got that stomach bug that’s been going around, and she forgot to call you.”

“Probably so,” answered Jake as the phone on his desk rang.

Jake wished this wouldn’t happen now, because he liked to talk to John and hated to see him leave.

He answered the call, “Jake Reynolds’s office, can I help you?”

“Jake,” said a woman’s voice, “its Joyce, have you seen Michel anywhere. She didn’t come over for dinner on Sunday, and she knows we always get together for that.”

Joyce Miller sounded concerned. Jake hadn’t seen his secretary that morning at all, and he told her mother this while he looked over the briefs for the Hobson case. Joe Hobson was the C.E.O. of Hudson Liquors, a company that owned and operated fifty liquor stores up and down the eastern seaboard. He was being sued by a mother who claimed her two sons were sold a keg of beer at a store in Salisbury Maryland even though they were obviously fifteen and twelve years of age. The boys then took the beer home and had a party, because their parents had left on a business trip. The boys along with ten or eleven of their friends proceeded to get plastered and the two boys who had purchased the alcohol went playing in the woods behind the family’s house while the others went home. They passed out in the thirty to thirty five degree weather and froze to death. The mother claimed that in Salisbury it was widely known that the chain of liquor stores encouraged sales to minors because that’s where the money is.

Jake went about his normal business. The storm raged all morning and into the afternoon, but gave way to some spring sunshine by the time he went to his blue 2005 Lexus parked near the road in the associates’ parking lot. He went home.

Two months went by, and life proceeded normally for Jake. He never heard from Michel again, so he hired a new secretary. Her name was Joanne. She started work on June fourth.

Michel had been reported missing, but the police could find nothing that could lead them in any direction. They found out from a couple of her close friends that Michel thought she might be pregnant, but noone knew who the father might be. They all told the same story. She was too embarrassed and ashamed to tell anybody. Michel hadn’t however visited her doctor. Her car, a 1996 Saturn was also missing. The police finally closed the case assuming that Michel had simply decided to leave the area without telling anyone. Jake sent a sympathy card to her family when the police officially canceled their search for her. In July, Joe Hobson finally lost his case and had to pay the family of the victim a total of $250000.

Jake didn’t know exactly what, but he knew that he had to have screwed it up somehow. The day after the judge awarded Miss. Bridget Collins her money, Jake sat in his office. Although he didn’t know what he’d done now, he knew he would have about a thousand of his mistakes picked out of the case by lunch time. He already felt bad enough knowing he got this negative. He felt stupid for not being able to control his feelings. He was a total screw-up. He couldn’t even keep himself positive. This was the fifth case he had lost in a year, so the worst part was that maybe the negative side of him was right. Maybe it kept rearing it’s ugly head so often because it was right. Maybe he was just not so good at this whole practicing law thing.

Jake was right about one thing though, by lunch he had found a million or so reasons why this case had gone wrong, and they were all his fault. He ate a cold sandwich with a tall cup of black coffee in his office and looked over the paperwork for another case. He kept questioning himself and second-guessing his opinions. He’d been doing that all day and was starting to get a headache by about two in the afternoon. At about three, he called his boss, Rick Harlan.

“Rick,” he said, “I think I need a week off. I’m just too stressed out and I need to get away for a while.

A wise old lawyer who knew just about every trick of the trade, Rick liked to counsel his associates, “What’s the matter?” he asked with genuine concern.

Jake answered, “Well, I lost the Hobson case, and I made some totally juvenile mistakes. I’m sure the judge was laughing at me when he went home. Now I’ve been pouring over the work for the James Dultry case and it’s just stressing me out. I can’t decide on anything.”

“Oh, well that’s nothing to worry about,” said Rick consolingly, “we all have those moments. I remember I lost a huge case back in 1987 for this guy who owned a used car lot. Someone said he was being crooked and selling cars that he knew were lemons, but I knew they weren’t. I had bought my very own car from him, but alas they got him on a technicality that I should’ve caught before it became a problem. I felt dumber than a box of rocks, and Scot, my client was very upset. He had to file for bankruptcy. It was a really sad affair. Then, I got this next case, and I couldn’t decide on anything. I was so worried about screwing up again.”

Jake interrupted, “Yeah, but this has happened a little too often Rick. Can I please have a week off to collect my thoughts and try to relax for a while?”

Rick answered, “Well sure, I can understand how this life is Jake. I’ve had to deal with it my self. I think a little rnr will do you some good.”

“Thanks,” answered Jake happily, “Do you know of any nice places to go this time of year?”

Rick responded, “Well, actually there’s this little house right on the beach that me and Rachel bought in our younger years. That was back when we thought we needed all of those things to be happy you know. It’s still there. I’m sure I could have them turn on the electricity for you if you’d like to go up there. It’s really a beautiful home.”

“You know,” said Jake, “I think I’d like that.”

“Good,” said Rick, “I’m glad the place is finally getting some use. I haven’t been there in about five years or so, so I don’t know how good of shape it is in, but I know a local guy, his name is Jerry, I can have him take a look at the place for you to make sure it’s not falling down.”

“Thank you so much,” replied Jake, over-joyed, “I wish I could pay you.”

“Nonsense,” said Rick, “just enjoy yourself and relax, but remember to only take a week. I will want you to get to work on that Dultry case on Monday, okay? Is that a deal Jake?”

“Yes sir,” Jake responded.

“Now what did I tell you about calling me sir?” scolded Rick.

“That it makes you feel old,” responded Jake, “Sorry Sir it won’t happen,”

He was cut-off by Rick’s laughter. “Don’t worry about it, just come back on Monday and have a good trip.”

“Thank you,” said Jake, “I will.”

That was on a Thursday. Rick agreed to let him have Friday off for the trip up to the house which was in rural northern Maine with it’s own private beach. Jake left in the morning and arrived at the house a short time after lunch which for him was a bologna sandwich with a can of Pepsi he had bought from a vending machine at a gas station. It was the last gas station Jake had seen. Rick had told him that the house was very secluded, but Jake didn’t know that he meant that it was this secluded. The house sat off the highway on a long driveway lined with tall trees. The large, two acre lot was wooded and it sloped gently back to the beach.

Jake pulled in and got out the key Rick had given him before he left work on Thursday. He opened the door and began bringing in his things. The furniture in the home was covered with sheets, but it took only a few minutes to move them aside. Jake was thankful for them, because they kept the dust away from the overstuffed chair which he sat in as he listened to the local news on the only radio station he could pick-up on the clock radio that Jake had brought with him. It was really only there to wake him up on the day he was supposed to pack up and go home, but he thought that maybe there wouldn’t be a radio in the house, so it may prove useful for that purpose as well. There wasn’t a radio anywhere in the small, two-bedroom home, so Jake was glad to have his am/fm clock radio.

It was about five o’clock, and Jake was getting hungry, but he wanted to relax for a while before making dinner.

After the sports scores the announcer said, “Now here’s fox 20’s Dan Merchant with your NexRad forecast brought to you by Broomfield Electronics in Machias, selling new and used vcr's tv’s camcorders and other gadgets and goodies as well as doing repairs on anything you can bring in to the store since 1958.”

Another man began speaking through a telephone line which was recorded then played over the air.

“Well, those storms that we were watching just off the coast this morning look like they’ve turned toward us, so you know what that means, we’re going to have to batten down the hatches tonight and early in to tomorrow morning, but then we should see skies clearing with a high tomorrow of about eighty five and a low tomorrow night dropping down to around sixty. Then, for your Sunday, it’ll be another sunny clear day and the high should again make it up to about eighty five degrees. Some showers are expected as we move in to next week, but only some light rain in the evening or at night as our daytime highs will drop in to the upper seventies.”

Jake left the radio on for some background noise, but he put it in the kitchen as he brought out the food he had bought at a small grocery store along the highway about an hour’s drive away. He stocked the refrigerator and brought out some pasta for his dinner.

He didn’t see any clouds out the window over the kitchen sink, but the air was getting a bit stickier as he finished his spaghetti, so he closed the windows. Jerry, a local handyman that Rick knew, had come by to open them. He had left a note saying that it should make the house less stuffy and take the musty odor out of it.

Jake walked around the grounds and down to the small beach. It was a nice place to be alone. He sat and skipped rocks for a while like he had when he was a kid living with his parents on Longue Island. The beach was on a small bay where the water was relatively calm, and Jake could see some small fish splashing in the water a short distance out. Surprisingly, he didn’t hear the sound of any boat motors, nor did he hear children playing. This reminded him of how out there he really was. There weren’t even any other summer houses nearby. The sun went down, and it started getting dark. Jake could see clouds off in the distance and decided to go inside. He hated to admit it, but the woods were starting to feel a little creepy. When he faced the water, he felt as if someone were watching him from the shadows which deepened and lengthened as dusk wore on.

Jake went back to the house and locked both the front and back doors. He laughed internally at himself for being afraid of the dark and the woods, but he still didn’t want to take any chances. Besides, he rationalized, if there are any homeless people in this part of nowhere, they’ll think this place is empty and try to get in away from the storm. He looked around for a door to the basement and realized that it was probably outside. Yes, it was. He now remembered seeing a door next to the back patio which had to lead to a cellar. Wonderful, thought Jake, I have to go back out there if it gets too bad. He made sure that he knew where every phone in the house was. There was one by the bed in the master bedroom, and there was one on an end table in the living room. Along with the overstuffed armchair, there was also a couch in the living room which sat across from it. In the corner opposite the chair was an entertainment center with a tv in it. Jake hadn’t seen it before, but logicly he should’ve known that there would be one. Laughing at himself; He turned it on and watched the Simpsons on a local tv channel as the sky outside darkened. The clouds moved in, and Jake could hear the wind picking up.

Along with his groceries, Jake had bought some popcorn. He put a bag of it in the microwave over the stove in the home’s small but nicely equipped kitchen. He filled a glass with water, and sat on the couch watching as the Simpsons gave way to That Seventies Show. At one point a weather bulletin appeared saying that there was a severe thunderstorm warning for a list of about five or six counties. Jake didn’t know which one he was in, but a map appeared in the corner of the screen with radar data displayed on it. He knew the station had to be out of Machias, which was the closest city of any size, and he remembered driving through it on his way up, so he was north of there. He assumed the dot in the middle of the map was Machias, so from that he concluded that the storm was headed right for him. He could see at the current moment that his area was shaded in red. He knew this meant heavy thunderstorm activity.

When That Seventies Show ended, a meteorologist appeared in front of a weather map with a pointer. He began explaining the various aspects of the storm to the viewers. He showed an image from the station’s camera which sat on the roof, but Jake never got to see it. He was throwing his popcorn bag in the trash can in the kitchen when the power went out.

Disoriented by the sudden darkness, Jake spun around. He still had the bag in his hand. After a minute or two, his eyes began to adjust. He sighed with relief. He was sure someone was behind him when the lights went out. He could feel them. He didn’t want to sound like one of those weirdoes that talked about ghosts all the time, but he could only describe it as feeling a presence.

It was pouring down rain outside by then, and Jake decided it was time for bed. He wasn’t really tired, but he thought that maybe this crazy storm would be over in the morning. He went to the guest bedroom. He stretched out on the bare mattress of the twin-size bed and tried to fall asleep, but he kept hearing something in the house. It sounded like rain falling, as if a window was open, but Jake was sure that he’d checked all of the windows.

Finally, Jake got up and went in to the living room to see what was going on. He noticed immediately that the window behind the couch was open. Droplets of rain were striking the sill as they came in through the screen. He went over and closed it.

That was odd. He didn’t remember seeing it open before. Had he just not been paying attention? He had been kind of scared when he got inside. Maybe he hadn’t made sure all of the windows were closed. Still he thought he would’ve noticed the open window. He had however, gotten distracted by the tv and the popcorn, plus he had quite a scare when the lights went out, so he thought it might be possible that he would miss the window.

Jake got a flashlight from under the kitchen sink, and used it to illuminate his way around the house. He made sure all the windows were closed in the house again and double-checked all of them. A small hallway connected the living room to the home’s two bedrooms, the bathroom and a closet with assorted household items in it. Jake had never noticed the closet, but as he passed it on his way back to bed, he bumped the doorknob. The door must’ve been ajar, because it fell open and something fell on to the floor. Jake turned and shined the light on what had fallen. It was a large book. He focused on a passage of text.

“Thou shall not kill,” read the book. It was a bible. Jake picked it up and placed it in the closet. He closed the door securely wondering why it was left partially open in the first place.

Jake lay in bed reflecting on the odd coincidences of the evening. What a scaredy cat he was. He had gotten spooked down at the beach for no apparent reason and again when the power went out. He guessed it was the storm. He was alone in a strange place, and it was storming, that could drive anyone a little batty. He laughed internally at the bible falling on the floor. He hadn’t even noticed the closet when he arrived, but Jake guessed that maybe Jerry had to get in there for something and hadn’t closed the door enough.

He remembered the passage he had seen when the light shown down on the bible. “Thou shall not kill,” Jake didn’t believe in God, but it was coincidences like that that sent a chill up his spine. It was like someone was watching him, and knew everything about him. It was almost as if they were playing with him to rattle his nerves. Jake knew that this logicly couldn’t happen, but he couldn’t help feeling a little watched as he lay in the darkness. He lay still for a few more minutes, and finally fell asleep as the thunder crashed outside.

It was a bright sunny day. A breeze was blowing out of the southwest, and the temperature was somewhere in the upper seventies. Jake left the house planning on spending the day by the ocean just relaxing. His clock radio could run on batteries, so he took it with him as well as some sunscreen and a towel. He changed in to his trunks and walked down the sloping backyard. As he looked down the hill, he was surprised to see someone coming through the water toward him. They looked to be holding something. It was a small bundle wrapped in a blanket, a baby.

“Ma’am,” called Jake wondering if she might be lost or maybe homeless and using the beach as if it were a public place.

The figure crossed the beach and began climbing the hill toward him. That’s when Jake noticed who she was. Michel Miller walked slowly but steadily toward him.

“Hi Jake,” she said as she came closer.

At a loss for words he stammered, “How did you?”

He noticed blood on the backs of her legs and vaguely thought that it had to have dripped from the back of her head before she said, “I’m still here Jake. I have something for you.

She approached him and handed him the baby. He took it reflexively.

“His name is Moses,” Michel commented.

Jake looked down. The baby’s eyes were rolled back and the skin on his face was pale and bleached. The blanket he was wrapped in was drenched in blood and the body was bloated. Jake staggered backward in disgust. Michel laughed as if the look on his face were priceless, like it was some hilarious prank. The odor that wafted up from the corpse made Jake gag and he awoke feeling nauseous. He ran to the toilet to vomit.

His clock radio said 3:05 A.M., but he didn’t get anymore sleep that night. The storm had passed, and the air was cool. It felt good outside, so he went out on to the back patio behind the home and sat in a lawn chair after removing the tarp from on top of it. He drank a diet coke to take the acrid taste of bile out of his mouth, and tried to relax. He was beginning to get a headache, and the coke tasted nasty at this hour of the morning. He switched to a glass of water with two aspirin. The early-morning hours were surprisingly relaxing, and Jake found himself wondering why he got so upset about this place. The storm made it look kind of scary, but it was really a beautiful landscape. The flowers were all in bloom, and the birds were starting to wake-up as the sun rose a couple of hours later. Jake could see the tide coming in down at the beach and gulls soared overhead. Jake didn’t think there were very many up there though. He was used to Coney Island with crowds of birds that tried to eat your food when you had a picnic.

Jake had seen quaint little places like this on tv, and always thought of some day settling down in one of them, or maybe on Longue Island where he grew up. There were some nice suburbs there that still felt like small towns without being really rural. They also didn’t have those unsophisticated people that you often found in real small town America. Jake was pretty easy-going, but drunk hillbillies next door keeping him up at night wasn’t something he could deal with. He wished he could move out to a far-removed place like this though. Not everybody was a drunken hillbilly. He heard somewhere that many of the people in rural Maine were very nice.

Jake wondered what he would do with his life. Would he get married, maybe have some kids? He didn’t love Michel, she was just there, and there had been others like her too. Michel had been working her way through college at his firm as a secretary. Before her, there had been Courtney, an intern, and Heather, another intern. Neither of them had gotten pregnant. Boy what a mess that had been. Michel wanted to keep the baby, and Jake, of course, couldn’t handle something like that. Maybe once he made partner, and had some money in his pocket. Maybe once he could push some of his work off on paralegals and had the authority to take less hours instead of the long workweeks he was pulling now. It wasn’t unusual for Jake to have eighty hours on the clock, and that didn’t account for the hours he spent at home working on cases. Maybe he could slow down and have a kid then, but not now. He needed to make partner.

Something caught Jake’s eye. It was floating in the tide and nearing the shore. It was white. It was probably storm debris. He had always enjoyed finding things on the beach after a storm when he was a kid, so he stood up and headed through the backyard. He wondered if it might be part of the sail off of a boat, but it looked more off-white than white, and wasn’t shaped right. Jake pushed through the underbrush and came out of the trees to see a human skeleton splayed out before him on the beach. He reeled, slipped on the steep incline just before the beach began and fell on his butt in the dirt. What the hell was this? As soon as he thought the Scare Tactics episode was over, this came floating out of the bay. A smell of decay wafted up from the body, and it was exactly the smell he had detected in his dream. This was too weird, too much of a coincidence. The passage from the bible appeared in his mind, glaring out at him from the page, “Thou shall not kill.” What the hell was going on here? He looked all around him feeling watched again. He shook himself. He had to get his shit together. He needed to think and panicking would only succeed in making his brain unable to function properly. He had to call someone, the police maybe. Yes, if they weren’t the ones to call, maybe they could tell him who to call.

Jake dashed up the hill to the house. He went inside and found the phonebook. He flipped through it until he found the number for the Machias Police department. He didn’t know what this area was called, but he thought maybe they could tell him. He picked up the phone and heard no dial tone. The lines must’ve been taken down by the storm.

He didn’t know what to do. He went back out. When he got to the body, he noticed that the tide had come in further. It looked like it was going to cover the beach for a while. He wondered if he should just shove the body back out to see. Looking down, he noticed something on the wrist of the skeletal remains. He examined it closer trying to ignore the smell. It was a faded id bracelet. He noticed it, because Michel wore one. She was a diabetic. This couldn’t be her though, it just couldn’t. He had thrown her in to the Hudson. He read the name. It said, “Michel Miller.” It had her address, but it was blurred. It was Michel. How did she get up here? She must’ve floated in to the harbor, and a current or something had to have brought her up this way. Then, she was washed ashore by the storm. He remembered the storm that swept across the New York City region when he had gone back to work after killing her. It would’ve taken her past the harbor and further out. This was all too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence, but who could’ve orchestrated it? Did the government have the power to manipulate weather like that. That didn’t make sense though, because they would’ve had to have seen him dump the body. He had wrapped her in a blanket from her bed. For some reason, it wasn’t here, and all of her was visible. He again thought about pushing her out to sea. He wondered how possible it would be, and reached for the skeleton’s arm. He tried to lift it, but it was limp, and he was afraid that the arm might come off in his hand. Plus, it was slimy and as he picked her up. Something that Jake hadn’t noticed before appeared from beneath her flowing blond hair which was now a sickening brown color. It was still stuck to her skull matted there by something that Jake didn’t want to speculate about. Stuck in it was the gun Jake had wrapped up with her.

Jake wished he could say that they had gotten in to an argument and he had just lost it, but it was worse than that. He had called her, and said he wanted to talk about the baby. He took her out to dinner, then in to the woods north of town. They went to a small park outside the city. They talked for a while, but then, as Michel was reaching in to her purse for a stick of gum, Jake brought out the Colt 9 millimeter pistol that he now saw tangled in Michel’s hair and shot her once in the back of the head. He knew people had to have heard the shot, so he hurriedly picked up her body and took it to his car. He put it in the trunk. They had hidden their affair well, so there were no questions except routine ones from the NYPD. Jake told them he had gone for a drive that weekend, and had decided to go camping to get away from it all. He was feeling stressed. He had checked in to a camping area north of the city on Saturday morning to establish an alibi. This was after driving to Michel’s apartment and using her key to get inside. It was after ten at night by this time, and most people were in bed. He could hear a television next door as he took a blanket off of her bed to wrap her in. He wrapped her up and drove to the Hudson. He through her in, and went home to sleep and think of how he was going to keep himself out of trouble. Early in the morning, he took her car to Jersey City and parked in front of a liquor store near the docks. He left the windows open, the keys in the ignition and the motor running. Someone had taken it and ran for the border for all he knew. After that he went to the camping area and checked in. He stayed there till Monday morning when he came home at about five A.M. he got dressed for work and showed up as normal. Jake knew he couldn’t call the police. He had to do something else. He went to the small tool shed which sat in the backyard not far from the house. Inside he didn’t find anything he could use to lift the body in to the water. He decided he would just have to try lifting it with his arms.

Jake went back to the beach moving quickly. The tide had come in even more, so when he stepped on to the beach, his foot landed on the face of Michel’s body. His ankle twisted, and he went down. He saw a large piece of driftwood seconds before his forehead hit it. He landed face-down and unconscious in the water that was only a few inches deep.

The Machias Mariner

Body found next to prominent New York attorney identified

Tuesday, August ninth, 2007

Robert Peterson, Staff writer

The body found alongside New York attorney Jake Reynolds was identified today by the Washington County Coroner’s office. It was the body of his 24-year-old secretary, Michel Miller, who disappeared from the New York area in May of this year.

On the morning of August sixth, Jerry Hullman, a contractor in the Machias-Kashwok area, went to the home to check on Reynolds after a storm the night before had knocked out electricity and telephone service to that part of the county. He found Mr. Reynolds and the body of Ms. Miller lying face-down on the sand. He immediately went back to his truck where he made contact with local police Officer Joe Buford via a cb radio.

Officer Buford then responded to the scene along with the Washington County sheriff’s department.

“The man I thought just might be passed out, but the woman I knew had been dead for quite a while,” said Officer Buford in an interview with the Mariner yesterday. He said that Miller had a handgun tangled in her hair.

Washington County Coroner Debby Price said in a televised press-conference today that Jake Reynolds died when he fell on a piece of debris during the morning tide and was knocked unconscious. He then allegedly fell in to the water and drowned. Ms. Miller was reportedly shot in the head once. The bullet was never recovered, but Detective Scot Malone with the state crime lab at Bangor said, “The hole makes it look like she was shot with the gun that ended-up in her hair. We’re thinking the body and the gun were dumped together, and that’s why this occurred.”

Authorities believe it is possible that Ms. Miller was transported to the northern Maine area before or after she was shot, and dumped in the ocean, then washed up during the storm that occurred late on August fifth leading in to the next day. They speculate however that she was killed in the New York area and dumped in a waterway in or near the city. Her body was then pulled out to see and floated north on currents until the storm moving in from the west that hit the region on Friday dragged her now skeletal remains toward shore. Police don’t know what lead up to Mr. Reynolds’s death, but they believe that it had something to do with his finding of the body. The Washington County Sheriff’s department searched the home, owned by a Rick Harlan, of NY who stated in a phone call from Mariner Staff that Reynolds was taking some time off at the home, and Jerry Hullman was asked to assist him with anything he may need.

“He was a good attorney, and a valued employee,” stated Mr. Harlan, “it’s a sad thing that he’s gone.

After searching the home officers found an open closet door and a bible that had apparently fallen out. They didn’t say why this might be important to their investigation, but they did say that it was open to the Ten Commandments.