“Because we picked up a stolen Range Rover heading that way out of town. I thought you received an update from us?”
“I did. I just wanted to make sure I understood the lay of the land. Need any additional manpower?”
“Normally volunteers would be appreciated. But in this case, more would only crush the terrain and muck up the false positives on anything the drones pick up.”
“How many drones are out there now?”
“We had three yesterday,” Leo piped up. “We have two out there now. But by this afternoon, we’ll have four taking it grid by grid, five as soon as I get done here analyzing data.”
Josh nodded toward Leo. “Dave meet Leo Martin, our resident expert researcher.”
“So you’re the guy who pulls up obscure addresses and hard-to-find felons by hacking into databases?”
Leo winced. “Hacking is a very misused word often thrown around to describe those who steal data for financial gain or to advance their cause. I get paid a generous salary from Josh Ander to code games. I locate missing people for his wife because it’s the right thing to do. And since we’re on this topic, I prefer the term data mining expert.”
Dave held up both hands in self-defense. “The rate you guys solve cases speaks for itself. I’m here to ask for some of that expert mining data.”
“What did you have in mind?” Leo wanted to know.
Dave walked over and took a seat on the sofa near the whiteboard. “The department received an anonymous tip called into the station. But my superior doesn’t give it much credence and won’t allow me to pursue it. You guys, on the other hand, are under no such restraints.”
“Let’s hear the tip first,” Josh said.
“A woman called to say that before Emelia’s abduction, Emelia was sure she was being followed. She even told a co-worker that she had a stalker. Emelia complained about seeing a man hanging around the complex every afternoon for a week watching her apartment. We traced the call. The number belonged to Emelia’s neighbor, a woman by the name of Jessica, who lives in the unit directly across from the one Emelia shared with her cousin.”
“And?”
“We thought perhaps this Jessica might’ve been the original target, and he got the wrong woman.”
“I don’t see it,” Josh countered. “This guy was watching all right, but he wasn’t looking for your anonymous caller. Emelia was the target.”
“But how can you say that with any accuracy?” Dave charged.
“You forget that he must’ve known in advance which bus Emelia routinely rode home. He must’ve known which bus she would exit because CCTV picked him up, waiting in the stolen Audi at the parking lot used by the retail businesses next to the bus stop. Emelia might’ve been on foot once she got off the bus, but she had a lead time of several minutes. While he got hung up at the light to make a left turn, he wasn’t concerned about losing her because he already knew which apartment was hers.”
“Damn,” Dave muttered. “Maybe I don’t need Leo’s data mining, after all.”
“What exactly did you want me to mine?” Leo asked.
“I wanted you to see if this mystery man showed up a week ago in any of the other CCTV footage.”
“That’s easy enough to check if the apartment complex didn’t erase anything.”
“I told management not to tape over or remove their camera footage until law enforcement had finished with the investigation.”
“That warning only works about half the time,” Leo muttered as he shifted priorities, closing one browser, and opening another. It took him several minutes to locate the surveillance in question from the prior week. After he’d pulled up the footage in question, he pivoted toward the detective. “There’s your mystery lurker. As you can see, he drives a different SUV every time he appears within camera range, sitting in front of Emelia’s apartment. I’m assuming that’s on purpose.”
“How did you do that so fast?”
Leo grinned. “The first time you go through CCTV, you’re looking for a specific timeframe. But once you find your sweet spot, you bookmark that timestamp, then use it to refer to as a marker. In other words, I can use the bookmark as a guidepost to go back days because I know there are twenty-four hours in a day. That denominator, the clock, won’t change. You want to view this now or have me put it on a flash drive to look at later?”
Dave shook his head. “The homicide unit could use a man like you. However, you’d probably have to take a steep pay cut. Aren’t you guys curious to view it now?”
Josh exchanged looks with Leo. “Tell him.”
“Glad to,” Leo stated. “We’ve already viewed the apartment’s surveillance video from two weeks back, which by the way, is as far as it goes. Your lurker might be the right guy, but he never gets out of the vehicle, never gives us a clue to his identity. You never see more than he wants you to see.”
“Keep in mind, he wasn’t concerned about it, either,” Josh analyzed. “Our killer wasn’t intimidated by that camera. If he had been, he probably would’ve taken the time to disable it during any one of his prior visits.”
“I thought I had something,” Dave admitted, sounding dejected. “I admit it was nothing more than a nugget when what I needed was a breakthrough.”
“Yeah? Join the club. This serial killer is astute, aware, and dangerous. He’s also killing at an astounding rate. If we have ten victims that we know about found at or near his Ames Lake dumping ground and nine up on the board that’s still missing, that’s nineteen victims in five years.”
“He’s averaging four victims a year,” Dave calculated as he swallowed his disdain. “If you need an extra hand at running a drone, let me know. My Sunday is all yours.”
****
Once Skye verified that Sierra had been safely deposited in the care of Travis and Lena, she shifted her energy back to finding Emelia. Although she never liked to lose hope, the notion they’d find Emelia alive dissipated with each day that passed. What had been earmarked as a rescue two days earlier, now looked like a recovery mission. Every hour that ticked by without finding the eighteen-year-old meant bad news for the Navarro family.
While she considered their next move, it was hard to miss that the dogs seemed lost without their pack leader. Atka, Bella, and Cody moped around the house, searching for Sierra. Skye couldn’t take the sad faces for long and decided to round them up and bring them with her on the afternoon’s activities.
However, Josh came up with another idea. “Dave reminded me that they created a tip line. It went live Friday afternoon. While the number hasn’t exactly been inundated with calls, he did give me access to the logs. While the others are continuing the drone searches out in the field, I thought we could take the time to go through the log, follow up on the callers, and if it warrants face to face, we hit the streets to do an interview.”
“And here I just wanted to get the dogs out of the house,” Skye acknowledged. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
“By Dave’s own estimate, there are approximately two-hundred-and-fifty calls in the database. Luckily for us, it’s all in spreadsheet format. I thought we could filter the names by description using keywords like ‘tall’ then apply that same thing to whatever vehicle description the caller reported, if any.”
“So if the caller used the word ‘tall’ to describe the driver, and includes the word ‘SUV’ seen in the area around the same timeframe, we connect the two and see if we get a match?”
“Yup. Those that come to the top are the ones we earmark for a personal follow-up visit. I’ll make a copy of the log and email it to you. That way, we can perform dual tasks.”
“Works for me.”
They hunched over their laptops, weeding out the calls that offered nothing of value. Over the next few hours, they put together a comprehensive list where the caller mentioned seeing a tall man standing near or getting out of an SUV around the shopping center across the street from Woodbridge Terrace. The pared-down list now con
tained only six names. Once they’d finished, Josh hit the print button.
“I hope these six saw the same man,” Skye reiterated. “It would make life so much easier if they did.”
“You want to make the call, or should I?”
“This was your idea. Go ahead. But be sure to ask if tipster could come up with a better description. And be sure to ask them if tonight is okay for an interview.”
Josh rolled his eyes and handed her the list. “You do the calling. That way, you’ll be certain to get your concerns answered.”
“Since that’s a polite way of telling me to put up or shut up, I’m happy to oblige.” Snatching the paper out of his hand, she picked up her cell phone.
Forty-five minutes later, she had a better idea of how she’d be spending her Saturday night. “Saddle up, partner. We’re headed to Bellevue to meet Betty Thomasina, who’s almost certain the tall man with blond hair she saw getting out of an SUV was picking up a package at the mailboxes in the retail shopping center before 4:30.”
“Those mailboxes you rent for six months at a time?”
“The very same. And those are traceable. I say we get Dave to persuade the owner to go through the rental contracts. There can’t be that many people who rent a box.”
“Wanna bet? Our guy probably has twenty boxes all over town using fictitious names.”
“Okay, but what else do we have? It’s the only lead so far that panned out from the tip line. I say we let Dave start going through those contracts. Tonight. He has the authority to get a warrant. We don’t.” Skye cocked a brow. “Unless you feel like getting adventurous and break-in, bypass the cops altogether and go through the paperwork ourselves.”
Josh chuckled. “Your idea of getting adventurous is a lot different than mine. As tempting as breaking in sounds, it’s a bad image for the Foundation if we get arrested. Picture the headlines now. Not only that, what good will the info do us if we don’t match it to a known suspect?”
“He had to produce a driver’s license with a photo ID to get the box. Even if it was phony, it still might look similar to our suspect. We could take that photo, use facial recognition, and see if it matches any of the juveniles Leo has.”
“It’s worth a shot. But let’s let Dave do the grunt work. The guy did offer to help us out flying the drones on Sunday.”
“I’m telling you Dave’s time would be better spent at this mailbox place, at least stake it out.” She ran a hand through her long, dark hair. “I’ve gotta get out of here. Maybe take the dogs for a walk and get outside. A nice, long walk will give me time to think.”
“Let’s go get a burger, bring the dogs with us and eat our food in the park.”
“Even better. Give me five minutes to change into a pair of shorts.”
“Meanwhile, I’ll call Dave, let him know what we found.” He snatched her around the waist as she walked by him. “Need any help changing out of your clothes?” he asked with a devilish grin. “See, that’s my idea of getting adventurous. We do have the house to ourselves tonight.”
“I might. Why don’t you call Dave and meet me upstairs, in say, ten minutes?”
“Give me five. I’ll make it a quick call.”
Ten
Like the other members of the team, Skye and Josh started their Sunday morning at daybreak, sending up a drone. They joined the others in the fields and foothills located further east of Taylor Mountain.
Convinced the Range Rover was headed to a second dumpsite Thursday night, the teams of two scoured the I-90 corridor, looking for any man-made imperfections in the ground or any anomalies that might be a burial site.
Having flown his drone over a ten-mile radius already that morning, Reggie took a break to download his data image files to a software application that had initially been designed to locate shipwrecks on the ocean floor. After working on tweaking the app to alert on anomalies at ground level, his modifications had paid off. All the drones had now been updated with the latest version of Reggie’s software and could pick up abnormalities that most drones overlooked. Once he was sure the drone had done its job, he sent the device back up in the sky to circle a different grid.
At another location, Judy went through the same routine, downloading, and then logging her grid images into the software app. She skimmed the data, making sure it was usable, then repeated the process, sending her drone back up again.
Until Zoe got used to operating the controls by herself, Brayden flew over the same grid patch behind her, rechecking the same area of ground. He’d spent the afternoon the day before teaching her the basics. But she still had trouble keeping her drone airborne while at the same time making sure it collected usable images.
Winston had gone over the same basic instructions with Jenny. And until she got the hang of how it operated, he retraced her flight path as well, making sure they’d covered every part of their assigned area.
The teams used walkie-talkies to communicate, sending hopeful reports when they spotted anything that looked like it might require further exploration. But so far, the anomalies had yet to yield anything of value.
While Josh had the grid next to Brayden and Zoe, Skye had headed north across the interstate. She ended up a short ten minutes or so from the first dumpsite, but far enough away from any neighborhoods that it remained rural. She felt strongly that the killer would probably stick to what was familiar to him, albeit more secluded. Opting to steer clear of populated patches, she felt drawn to the area east of the Snoqualmie River. Somewhere within the scenic countryside was another dumping ground
She just had to find that hidden spot.
The day couldn’t have provided a better backdrop for spending time outdoors. Circling the landscape by air, gave her a bird’s eye view of the valley. She spotted fields of lavender, breathtaking mountain meadows among tall forests that had stood for hundreds of years.
At first, she followed the river but had exhausted that area in a matter of hours. Now, she’d moved off further to the east, leaving behind the riverbank for the woods. Surveying the tree line took longer. She had to avoid hitting the tops of trees, guiding the drone up or down, depending on how tall the trees were or how thick she found the forest.
At times, she felt like a spy plane zooming in over enemy territory. But there were other times when she brought the device down to go through the captured data, downloaded it, only to scan the images, and feel major disappointment at coming up empty.
But giving up wasn’t an option.
****
Across the interstate, no one was giving up there, either.
Given Zoe’s learning curve, she remained upbeat about how much ground she’d covered. With Brayden’s help, she’d made great strides in completing her task, downloading her images to go over later. But now and then, she couldn’t resist the temptation to scan through a few photos. Deciding she’d spotted something odd mounds of dirt, she enlisted Brayden to examine the topography closer. He agreed it looked suspicious, which led them to try and find the area in question. Using the grid coordinates, they set out through the woods, backtracking until they came to a clearing.
Brayden took out the metal rod he’d brought and began to poke down a foot or more around the loose dirt.
Zoe stood back, wincing at every jab he made, horrified at the idea of finding an actual body in the heap of loose soil. “You look like you know what you’re doing. You’ve done this before.”
“Yeah. A few times. Skye showed me how.” In the middle of prodding through the pile, his cell phone rang. Recognizing the number, he glanced back at Zoe. “It’s Dani. I need to take this.”
He paced off a few steps, slid the bar across the screen to answer. “Hello. No, no update yet. We’re still in the field. Yeah. Everybody’s here. Sure. Skye and Josh are doing what they always do. They’re part of it. Why? What? Why? There’s really no need. No. In fact, we usually want to keep the search grids out of the public domain. That way, it keeps the integrity of our sites from ge
tting contaminated moving forward, like, for example, an investigation, if there is one. Sure. Of course, I’ll keep you updated. Yeah. Okay. Talk to you later.”
Zoe had hung on every word, this side of the conversation. She’d caught Brayden’s clipped answers, his responses, and felt like he was vague on purpose. She’d watched him on the phone, eyed his body language, and was surprised to see him frown before hanging up. “What was that all about?’
Clenching his jaw, he narrowed his eyes. “Dani wanted the usual update, but then insisted on knowing our exact location, the specific area we were searching. That’s weird, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. You handled it like Skye would have, though. She doesn’t like giving out those kinds of details to the family. She thinks the media might get hold of it, show up, and broadcast a body recovery on the afternoon news live.”
“Exactly. And it ruins the chances of a rescue with outside interference.”
“Are we talking about a rescue at this point? Because you’re standing there, poking the ground for a body.”
Brayden shook his head. “I’m not hopeful. Skye might be, but it’s just not happening. There’s nothing here. It looks like the mound might’ve been used to cover up garbage from a campsite.”
“What makes you say that?”
He used the end of the metal rod to drag out a dirty diaper. “Is that proof enough for you? Probably from campers with a baby who used this spot to put up a tent for the night.”
“Ewww. That’s disgusting.”
“You’re not much for camping in the wilderness, are you?”
“I love the outdoors. Camping’s okay. I just don’t like pawing through other people’s leftover trash.”
Brayden squirted hand sanitizer into his palm, rubbed his hands together before slinging his free arm over Zoe’s shoulder. “Let’s take a break. I could use something cold to drink.”
She slid her backpack off her shoulders so she could dig out a bottle of water and handed it off. “There. Help yourself.”
Down Among The Bones Page 13