Threads of Suspicion

by Dee Henderson

  “That’s promising.” Evie wrote in the name. She added Candy Trefford on the list at number ten. According to her interviews, the ex-girlfriend of Steve Hamilton had a temper, a strong jealous streak, and was in the original police investigation as someone cops repeatedly returned to speak with.

  Evie added the name Mark Reynolds at number nine. “This one catches a lot of maybes. He’s a music major. He lived in the building next to hers. My interview notes have him dating one of Jenna’s friends, and that relationship breaking up in high-drama acrimony the month before Jenna disappears. He’s got a history of alcohol infractions, drunk-and-disorderly arrests, two DUIs, and I’ve got him in rehab twice after Jenna’s disappearance, according to prior police conversations.”

  “He’s worth a conversation,” Ann agreed. “Let me give you what may need to be number three on that list. Aggravated assault, rape charges stuck, tossed out of school, lived on her block, and did more jail time recently for sexual assault of a girl who looks a lot like Jenna. Adam Wythe.”

  Evie wrote in the name. “It’s not going to be a comfortable list when we’re done.”

  “It never is,” Ann said.

  Evie squeezed in another name at the bottom of the board, taking the list to twenty-seven. The number of guys with a history of trouble regarding women who lived in the area around Jenna’s apartment was disturbing, given this was supposedly the quiet side of campus.

  “We have our first volley of names. Thanks, Ann. It’s a good place to be for day two.”

  “A useful beginning,” Ann replied. She marked her lists with Post-it notes and handed them on to Evie. “There are a lot of names still to go through.”

  Not a surprise, as Evie was barely halfway through the music-majors list. “Tomorrow’s problem. We’ll see what the researchers come back with on these. I figure cops have looked at most of these names in the past, but they caught our attention for a reason. Looking at someone with the benefit of additional history sometimes reveals more.”

  “Finding a name on that list who’s now in jail for an abduction-type event or killing would narrow the search very quickly.” Ann gathered up her coat, stepped to the conference room door, said good-night to David.

  Evie walked her out. “I appreciate the help today.”

  “It’s a pleasure, Evie. I miss this work on occasion. Stack up whatever you most want to tackle tomorrow and I’ll help you move that mountain.”

  “I’ll do just that,” Evie promised.

  Returning to the office, Evie remembered she still needed to call Rob. She considered the time, made the call, and wasn’t surprised when his private number rolled over to his voicemail. “Hey, Rob. I was thinking about you and wanted to say hi. I’m about an hour away. Let’s meet up for dinner, whatever night works for you. I’ll come your way. Hope your day is going well. Mine is.”

  She pocketed her phone. He’d call her back, or text, depending on what was happening.

  Back at her desk, Evie sent an email with the twenty-seven names to her researcher at the State Police. He’d disperse them to others and funnel back the results of criminal and general background checks as they came in.

  David joined her to study the assembled names. “Think he’s up there?”

  Evie scanned the list once more. “I’d give it maybe a thirty percent chance,” she guessed, trying to be optimistic. “How’s yours coming?”

  “I’ve finished reviewing Saul’s closed cases. I’m at forty-two names with motives to want him dead. I’ll see which ones lie to me in interviews and hopefully narrow it down to a top ten. I have a feeling there are a lot of Everett types in that data with minor and major infractions.

  “I’ve been able to pretty much eliminate the other active cases,” he added. “According to people I’ve spoken with, Neil Wallinski was eventually located in Alaska. The VP position was filled four months later by a name not on the candidate list Saul was checking out. And the gambling husband died in an early-morning car crash a year after Saul’s disappearance; he’d been playing poker most of the night. No one seems to have benefited from Saul’s disappearance in those situations.”

  “It’s good to have at least those checked off,” Evie commented.

  David smiled. “It’s a start. There are a lot more I need to close with this one.” He gathered up the used coffee mugs. “You ready to call it a day?”

  It was after six p.m. Evie weighed her options. “It’s been a long day, but it’s still relatively early. I’ll put in another hour here with things I need to read. I’ve got an interview with Jenna’s boyfriend after he gets off work, and I’ll probably do that later from the hotel. And I still want to try to get through Jenna’s laptop tonight. What about you?”

  “I’m meeting up with one of Saul’s neighbors and a longtime friend, Dell Langford. I’ve got calls out related to Everett that hopefully turn into conversations. I’ve got others on my list who work nights—delivery package sorting, bartender, bouncer—so I may try for some late-night conversations. I’d like to end today with the same kind of movement you’re getting with yours.”

  “I’ve benefited from help. You are making progress, David.”

  “It’s that this case seems stuck. The way through that is to get out talking with people.”

  “How many people have you spoken with today?”

  David paused a moment, then said, “Ten. His sister, along with the woman who worked the answering service and handled his business calls, his two landlords for the business location and rented home, a friend of Saul’s from his newspaper days, his regular auto mechanic to see if there was anything about his car that might help me find parts if it had been stripped, a taxi driver Saul paid occasionally to help him out, Everett, Everett’s cousin, the other three active-case clients. Make that twelve. The rest of the calls were trying to track people down.” David smiled at the look she gave him. “Busy is not productive. You know there’s a difference.”

  “You never know where the right answer is until you locate that lead going somewhere. Don’t work too late is my advice, but I’ll likely be going until midnight so it would just sound foolish. We’re both sprinting when we should be doing a more settled jog.”

  “Any idea how Sharon, Theo, and Taylor are faring?”

  “I was going to ask you that. I really don’t want to be the last unsolved case in the county.”

  David laughed. “We’re sprinting for a reason. It’s called ‘fear of looking bad.’ Or ambition. Or just plain stubbornness. These cases have remained unsolved for too long, and justice needs to be done. Take your pick.”

  “Probably all of them. On that, I’m going back to work,” Evie decided, turning back to her laptop.

  “I think we’re well-suited for these cases.” He turned to take the coffee mugs back to the break room. “I’m fixing another pot of coffee.”

  Eight

  Working at night was mentally more laid back, and Evie didn’t mind putting in the extra hours. She pulled out police reports from the first box and started reading again, looking for additional facts for her board. She liked the style of the cop who had written most of these reports—clear without being verbose. He had been putting in the extra effort to find out what happened. It showed in the depth of the questions he’d asked, the number of interviews conducted.

  She turned the page, saw the next report had been misfiled with a date earlier in the search. Jenna’s driver’s license is missing from the wallet. Evie read that, stopped, shook her head at her own oversight—she’d walked right past this when inspecting the wallet’s contents herself.

  She picked up her pad, added it to her Facts list and circled it twice.

  20. Jenna’s driver’s license is missing

  Evie leaned back in her chair and let the information play through her mind. First, could it be a fact unrelated to the disappearance? There were reasons Jenna might have taken her license out. She could have slid it into her pocket as proof of age, was dashing out fo
r a quick trip and didn’t want to take her purse. But her car keys were still in her apartment, so she wasn’t driving somewhere, and she wasn’t a drinker according to the interviews.

  How often did someone actually need to get out their driver’s license? Evie ticked off five possible reasons: after being stopped for speeding, ID when writing a check, at bank tendering a check for cash, entry to a club with an age restriction, proving age for buying alcohol. Maybe a number six with TSA ID requirements at the airport. Jenna likely hadn’t used her driver’s license in months, probably wouldn’t even have noticed it gone. This could be a months-earlier crime. How many other drivers’ licenses were reported missing among college students that year? If it were an identity-theft ring, it wouldn’t be just hers getting lifted. Evie flipped the page and wrote a note to look into this further.

  The security chief at the Fifth Street Music Hall had shown her video of pickpockets working the concert crowds, security’s own variation of a top-ten tape since it was such a routine problem for them. Jenna’s license could easily have been lifted the night she went missing, or at any concert she attended before.

  If whoever took Jenna’s license did so to find out where she lived, that would answer a major question regarding who and would eliminate anyone who already knew the address—the boyfriend, the ex-boyfriend, most of her study group, her girlfriends and their boyfriends.

  If you were a stranger, but had the license, there was no need to follow her home. You could get there ahead of her, study the neighborhood, decide where you would park, how you would get away after the crime.

  It fits the case. She tapped the pencil against her notepad as she thought it through.

  If there were a lot of missing licenses around that time, it pointed to a crime ring involved in identity theft. But a smattering of licenses lifted, someone was hunting information for a type of girl, would only pursue it if where she lived looked like a reasonable place to wait for the victim’s return.

  Evie started making phone calls, glad some officers were still at their desks. She asked for missing licenses in the years around Jenna’s disappearance—those reported stolen, those replaced as lost. Cops would have pursued this back then, and the records they pulled at the time should be in the electronic archives. Yet it never hurt to request records a second time.

  David came in, carrying coat and gloves. He paused by her desk as she hung up the phone. “You’ve got something. I can hear it in your voice.”

  “Her driver’s license was missing from her wallet.”

  He considered that statement, grinned. “Another one of those key facts leading to an answer has just landed. You don’t have the name yet, but it’s there. It’s sitting just out of sight.”

  “I think you’re right. He trolls concerts for girls he likes, or knows ones from campus who share his love of music, lifts their drivers’ licenses to scope out where they live, and acts when he thinks he can get away with the crime. Music is his thing, his passion, and that’s going to give him up.”

  “When’s your next interview, or are you done for the night?”

  She glanced at her list. “Ten minutes. Then another in an hour and a half.”

  “Come take a walk after this next interview, divert for half an hour so your brain can let it simmer there for a bit.”

  She smiled at his suggestion. “Sure, I could use a break. But I’m bundling up like an Eskimo for this walk and hanging on to you. These are dress boots, not for hiking. And from the looks of you, snow is coming down again.”

  David smiled. “Maggie’s not the jealous type. We’ll find hot chocolate or something. You owe me the story of your guy, since I’ve told you mine and Maggie’s.”

  “Rob Turney. My guy.” She saved them some time and punched in the website for the firm where he worked, brought up his bio. “Read. I’ll never get the job details right,” she said, motioning toward the screen.

  David came around the desk, started reading. “You’re hanging out with ambition of its own kind,” David mentioned as he finished.

  “He’s kind of like Ann. He keeps introducing me to famous people in business and finance, but I don’t have a clue who they are, what they do, why I should know them.”

  David laughed.

  “He’s a dealmaker. That’s what I think best describes him. And he’s trying to close the deal on marrying me.”

  “I wondered,” David said with a smile.

  “Yeah. It’s kind of nice and also kind of awkward—his parents don’t think I’m good enough for him. He does. And I’ve stumbled into realizing I care more about their view of me than I probably should.”

  “Finish this next interview, then we’ll walk, find hot chocolate. You need to shift over from figuring out a case to figuring out your life. And I just need a break. They were good interviews, but it all needs to meld for a while.”

  “If only solving my life was that simple.”

  He tapped the pad of paper on her desk. “Where’s the sheet with the two columns outlining your personal decision?”

  “I’d have a lousy time living with myself if I reduced it to yes-or-no columns.”

  “It’s how you think, Evie. Sometimes putting it on paper is what digs up the truth so you can look at it squarely.”

  He had a point. The alarm on her phone sounded. Her next interview with the boss of Jenna’s boyfriend at the newspaper shouldn’t take long. “Give me a few and then let’s go for that walk.”

  Evie finished her notes as David reappeared in the doorway. “Learn anything useful?” he asked, putting on his coat.

  “Jenna did some work for the newspaper—student opinion pieces, that kind of thing—published under ‘Anonymous.’ They sourced out various subjects to different students. I’ll be able to read more of her own words now that I know which articles she authored.”

  She bundled up, scarf over her lower face, and they headed out. The street was well lit. David pointed to a coffee shop on the next corner. “So tell me more about Rob.”

  “I have no idea where to start.”

  “Do you love him?”

  Evie glanced over at David, wondering how to put her situation into words that would make sense to a guy who was head over heels in love with his girl. “I like him. A lot. I think at times I love him. But I have a history with canceled weddings that tends to make me jittery when the subject comes up.”

  “Define jittery.”

  “Three engagements that didn’t make it to I do.”

  David winced. “Ouch.”

  “Yeah. All were ages ago. As I described recently to a friend, they were good guys, and any one of them would have made a fine husband. But I didn’t fight very hard to keep a wedding in view once the relationship began to go south. I was looking for something I thought a guy could give me . . . to fill the void I was feeling, make me complete. I grew up, and grew out of that stage in my life.

  “Rob is different. He’s more . . . what? Aware of us, of me? I’m different too. I run stretches where I’m certain it’s not him, then it rolls back toward he really is the guy. We’re at the point there’s a marriage proposal on the table if I want him to ask, want to say yes. It’s already bedrock certain on his side. He wants a future together.”

  “You’re uncertain what you want.”

  “Uncertain more about the idea of marriage than about Rob, I guess.” She struggled to find the right words. “I want something in my life that is a contrast to my work, something that isn’t what crime scene I walked into recently. Cold cases are actually easy compared to my day job. My phone is going to ring tonight, tomorrow, and it’s going to be some police officer in a small town dealing with a double murder, asking for state help to sort out the scene. Or it’s going to be an arson fire that leaves people dead, matching a string of them across the state. Those weighty phone calls will always keep coming, and I’m good at solving those critical cases. But to be able to shut that door for a while, have another life—it’s something I need.
And maybe it’s why I actually do love Rob. There’s not a single crime-scene detail that’s going to be part of our dinner conversation. He’s ‘normal life,’ if someone of his standing in the financial world has a normal life. I’m making a decision about marriage, about Rob, but it’s also what he represents. A life outside of being a cop. And I don’t want to choose Rob merely out of a desire to balance out my life. That just wouldn’t be fair to him.”

  “You sound like you don’t expect others to understand that heartfelt desire for a life different from being a cop,” David said. “I get it, Evie. I certainly understand. But for a cop to have a life outside of the job, it’s you who has to be able to ‘turn it off’ when you leave work, as much as the other person needs to be a safe place. What you want to find is as much about you as it is Rob.”

  Evie thought about the last couple of days, nodded. “I read Jenna’s journals late into the night—rather than watch some movie or read a book. I spend evenings adding new ideas to my master list of theories. And I know—just for a moment in time—I would resent the phone ringing, interrupting that work, even if it was Rob on the other end. Work is this chase, this ongoing puzzle that grips at my time and thinking until it’s resolved and I can put it back in its box. After that, until I open a new box, I can be as lazy about work as anyone would like, totally leave it behind. But when a case is open and the details are soaking into my head, it’s ‘How can I get this solved? And please don’t distract me.’”

  “Which do you want to tame?” David asked. “The desire to do the job or the impulse to be annoyed with the interruptions?”

  Evie smiled at the question. “Ann and I have had the conversation whether God just wires some people to be cops. I can’t help it, really, this habit of wanting to run real-life puzzles to the ground. It’s not that I want to be this single-track person, but it actually does matter to me to figure things out. And when it’s a real-life crime, doing it fast matters to people. I don’t have an easy way to tone down that intensity—it seems to spring up of its own volition.”