The Bone Harvest

by Stacy M Jones

  Until next time. See you on the harvest fields.”

  Luke laid the letter on the table. His eyes widened and a wave of nausea took hold. Luke thought he might be sick. No one in the room uttered a word. Lily’s face was all he saw. So young and innocent. Taken. Harvested.

  After time passed, a hand on Luke’s leg grounded him back to reality. Luke locked eyes with Riley and conveyed a thank you with only a look. The silent message of gratitude passed between them. Luke coughed and cleared his throat. He swallowed, but his mouth was dry.

  “First thoughts?” he stammered, embarrassed by how shaky his voice sounded.

  “Total psycho,” Tyler offered quickly. His disgust was apparent. Luke couldn’t disagree, but he needed more than that.

  “Intelligent by the words he used,” Riley offered. “Probably well-educated or at least well-read. Handwriting has a level of precise perfection that is hard to accomplish. If he’s had twenty-three kills since 1993, he missed a few seasons. Two at least if we are assuming it was one kill per harvest season. The universities he’s mentioned are in the south so he’s somewhat familiar with the area.”

  Nodding in agreement with Riley’s assessment, Cooper added, “He acts like he wants to get caught, but I don’t believe that. He wants to play a game. If he wanted to get caught, he’d just turn himself in, but there’s no fun in that for him.”

  “I agree,” Captain Meadows said. “Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s confirm any facts in this letter. If it’s all true, we need to call in the FBI. Tyler, get on the phone to Atlanta Police and Chamblee University to see what we can confirm. Luke, start with Alabama. We’re going to need more resources on this.”

  “How can I help?” Riley offered.

  Luke turned to her. “Why don’t you go search for news reports and see if you can find anything related to these old cases. Cooper, why don’t you do a general search for missing university girls. Start in the south and then go more national. Let’s all meet around one o’clock and compare notes.”

  Each of them slowly got up from the table and gave Luke a reassuring look before they left the room. Cooper squeezed his shoulder. Riley wrapped her arms around him and whispered that he’d be okay. Luke wasn’t sure he would. His thoughts right now were spinning.

  CHAPTER 7

  I went back home to do the research. I didn’t have my laptop with me at the police station and I didn’t want to take another detective’s desk, not that anyone was offering. Cooper said he was heading back to his loft. Luke stayed at the station.

  As I pulled into my driveway, my best friend Emma was on her porch. We developed a fast and easy friendship when I had lived in Little Rock, years earlier. Time and distance had only strengthened the bond when I had moved away for a few years. Now that I was back, friendship had easily turned to family.

  “Joe saw Luke leave earlier. He said Luke looked upset. Everything okay?” Emma called out. She stepped down from her porch and crossed the distance into my yard. Her naturally dark hair had grown out from her normal chin-length bob. It was now past her shoulders, straight and pretty. A drastic contrast to my auburn tresses that were long, but never tamed. While we were about the same height, Emma was small framed and thin. We’d never share clothes, as I was positive that I’d never get her pants past my ample hips and generous backside.

  I still felt numb from hearing Luke read the letter, but when Emma wrapped her arms around me, it was like breaking ice. My façade was shattered and it was hard to hold back the tears. I quickly unlocked and opened my front door. I made my way to the kitchen with Emma in tow. After pouring glasses of tea from the fridge, we sat at a small round table.

  I detailed the events of the morning, including everything I could remember from the letters. Emma was my secret-keeper, so I was sure that the conversation wouldn’t go beyond us.

  “He sounds insane,” Emma said, as I finished.

  “Definitely, but with the upper hand at the moment.”

  “This brings back some memories I hadn’t thought about in several years.” Emma traced her finger around her glass. She paused as if thinking. “There was a girl missing from the University of Charleston when I was a sophomore. She was a junior. The police thought her boyfriend was involved. They never did find her.” Emma looked off into the distance, not really seeming to focus on anything.

  I wasn’t sure if she was lost in thought or feeling as sad as I felt. I put my hand on her arm. “Unfortunately, I’m sure there are a lot of university girls that go missing. It’s a strange time in life. Some, I’m sure, run away and others are vulnerable.”

  “I know. It’s just so sad. There’s so much violence.” Emma sighed, stifling back a few tears. She pulled a tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose.

  I took a sip of tea and eyed her suspiciously. “I know this is upsetting for all of us, but you’re not usually this emotional. What’s up?”

  Emma smoothed a hand down her hair, tucking it behind her ears. She gave me a lopsided grin. “Sophie is off to pre-school. I was planning to take a few copywriting jobs here or there again, but I confirmed at the doctor this morning, that Sophie is going to be a big sister.”

  Sophie was Emma’s four-year-old daughter. She was a miniature version of Emma, but with bouncy dark curls. She was smart and adorable. The thought of Emma having another child made me smile despite everything. I raised my eyebrows in an unspoken question.

  “We’re thrilled,” Emma reassured. “We had been trying for more than a year. I thought it wasn’t going to happen so I had given up hope. I had just settled into thinking that Sophie would be our only. I was excited about going back to work. It’s just a shift in thinking.”

  Emma laughed. “And I’m hormonal.”

  “You can still work. It’s not the 1950s.”

  “I know, but you know Joe. I told him, and the first thing he said was that now I didn’t have to go back to work. Not that I had to. His construction business is booming so we don’t need the money. It just gave me a little more to do.”

  “Go back to work or not, up to you, but you can always take a job here or there as you feel like it. How are you feeling?”

  “Great otherwise.” Emma looked at the clock above my stove. She put her glass in the sink. “I need to let you get back. Sophie gets out of pre-school early today so I need to run and get her.” Emma kissed me on the cheek as she left.

  I poured another glass of tea, grabbed an apple, and went up to my office. I settled into my desk and turned on my laptop to start my search. It only took a few minutes of putting in different search terms to find what I was looking for. I found a missing person’s podcast that had an entire episode on Jordan Baker who went missing from Chamblee University in 1993. The podcast was from a few years ago, but hopefully, it would provide some detail.

  I took a sip of tea, bit into the apple and clicked the button to listen. I found it to be more detailed than I thought it would be and spent a good deal of time taking notes. An hour later when it was over, I was convinced it was connected to Lily’s case. I stood briefly to stretch my legs, checked my phone, and then got back down to work.

  The missing person’s case in Alabama was harder to find. Finally, after a few searches, I came up with a brief news article that indicated that a young freshman had run away in their fall semester. It offered little in the way of details and it didn’t seem like there had been a police investigation. I typed in a few more search terms and found a website dedicated to the case. I suspected her parents or other family had set it up. I jotted down a few notes. Some of the details were consistent with the other missing persons’ cases we were exploring.

  CHAPTER 8

  Luke wasn’t having much luck with the Alabama case. He’d been on the phone for more than two hours. He had tried to gain some information from the University of Alabama first, before calling the local police department, but was passed from one person to the next. Finally, Luke was connected to their campus security departm
ent. He waited on hold for more than twenty minutes only to be told by a guy – that sounded too young to even be attending school there – that no one was reported missing in 1996.

  Luke wasn’t satisfied with the answer so he called another administrative office. Finally, after being bounced around by several people again, he spoke with a woman who wouldn’t give Luke her name, but said she did recall a freshman who had “taken off and left the campus leaving her parents in a panic.”

  When Luke pressed if she remembered the young lady’s name, the woman offered the name Francine Thomas. The woman said Francine never returned to school. The woman stressed that the only reason she even remembered was that the parents had caused such an uproar that it was impossible to forget.

  At least Luke had a name. Although he had no idea if this was even the case his mystery letter writer was indicating. Next, Luke made a call to the Tuscaloosa Police Department. He was quickly connected to a detective in charge but didn’t get much further with the police than he did with the university. There was no missing person’s report that the detective could find on a Francine Thomas, or anyone, missing from the school in 1996.

  Luke knew Riley was scouring the internet for the case, but with a name, he assumed he’d get further. As soon as he typed, “Francine Thomas University of Alabama” into the search engine, Luke found information right there on the first page. Francine’s parents Isaac and Margo Thomas or someone close to the family had launched a website to provide details about Francine, her disappearance, searches, and recent events, of which it didn’t look like there was much.

  From what Luke read, it seems Frannie, as she was known to family and friends, had been a freshman at the University of Alabama and had disappeared one Friday night walking back from the library. Luke searched around for the date of her disappearance. A chill ran down his spine when he saw it. Friday, October twenty-fifth. That fit.

  The last date in the news section of the website was more than five years ago. While someone was still keeping the website available, it didn’t look like much was happening with the case. Most of the information looked like it had been added in the months and early years after Frannie disappeared. Luke didn’t see a phone number on the website, but the site indicated that Frannie was from Huntsville.

  After a quick search, Luke found a phone number for an Isaac Thomas. He paused, not sure what exactly he’d say to the family. He didn’t want to give false hope, but he certainly needed information. Luke punched in the number. It rang three times and the call was answered by an older man with a deep voice.

  After asking some initial questions to make sure he was speaking with the right Isaac Thomas, Luke gently explained why he was calling. At the mention of his daughter’s disappearance, Isaac sounded hesitant to speak. Luke offered to let Isaac call him back at the police station. Luke also quickly added that his sister went missing her freshman year, too.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Isaac said directly. “We’ve had a lot of crazies calling us since Frannie went missing. Psychics and even well-meaning people. It’s just too much for us, you understand?”

  “I understand completely,” Luke said, hoping to put the man at ease. “I don’t want to take up much of your time, or open the wounds, but there are a few things I need to understand. Why is there no police report or information from the university about Frannie’s disappearance?”

  “It’s simple. Both denied she was taken,” Isaac said matter-of-factly. Luke could hear the frustration in his voice. “They told us Frannie must have had a boyfriend and took off with him. Frannie didn’t have a boyfriend. She was a straight-A student, focused on going to law school. She didn’t party. No drugs. No drinking. Best we can tell, she was snatched on her way home from the library. She didn’t run away.”

  “The police or school officials didn’t believe that?” Luke jotted down notes.

  “They didn’t believe a word we said. Barely even gave us the time of day. We had to do it on our own. The searches, the tip line, website, all of it ourselves. We even hired a couple of private investigators. One took our money and ran. The other gave us our money back when he couldn’t even find one lead to go on.”

  Isaac paused. “I’m sorry,” Isaac finally said softy. “You’d think I’d be past this given how many years have gone by. She was our youngest, and not knowing what happened to her has been the hardest part. Even if all we had was her body, we could have set ourselves to grieving. Just not knowing, well, it takes its toll.”

  Luke understood better than the man knew. While he’d give anything to have his sister back, they at least were able to bury her. Lily was at least found. It was something he and his parents had reflected back on when times were hard. Luke hadn’t planned on getting too far into the details of why he was calling and making the inquiry, but there was something about the man’s voice he trusted. Luke wanted to give him something.

  “We can’t say for sure, but we’ve come across some potential evidence that your daughter’s disappearance might be connected to my sister’s. We just wanted more information for comparison, but some of the details are similar.”

  “Can you tell me more?” Isaac asked.

  “Not yet, but as soon as I know more, I’ll call you back.”

  “Anything at this late stage would be nothing short of a miracle. If you call back, please just ask for me. I don’t want my wife to get her hopes up. This changed us as a family. I just can’t see her hurt anymore.”

  “I understand. Hopefully, soon I’ll have some answers for you.” Luke ended the call. When he looked up from his notes, Tyler stood in front of his desk with notes in hand.

  Luke raised his eyebrows.

  “Seems like Chamblee could be connected.”

  “Alabama, too,” Luke informed him.

  CHAPTER 9

  It was a little before one in the afternoon before I made it back to the police station. I picked up lunch for Luke who I was sure hadn’t eaten. When I arrived at the station, I climbed the wide-open staircase up to the detectives’ bullpen. Luke was seated with his head down focused on a stack of papers in front of him. I made my way over and placed the bag of food down in his line of sight.

  He looked up and caught my eye. “Have I told you, today, how much I love you?”

  “I think three times so far. I love you, too.”

  Luke stood and looked around the room. Then he planted a kiss on my lips. He wasn’t one for public displays of affection, especially at work. After we pulled apart, Luke sat down and dug into the food.

  “Make any headway?” I glanced at his notes. Luke has his own shorthand that didn’t always make sense to me.

  “Some,” he said in between bites, “but let’s wait until the others are here so we can go over it together.”

  I took the chair across from his desk. “I didn’t really get a chance to say it before, but I’m sorry you’re going through all this. If you want me to come with you when you tell your parents, I will. If you want to handle it alone, I understand that, too.”

  Luke smiled up at me. “You’re getting better at this relationship thing.”

  He was right, but it still didn’t come as naturally to me as it did for Luke. Cooper’s voice echoed behind me. He was talking to Det. Tyler and Captain Meadows as they came down the hall. Luke yelled to them that we’d join them in the conference room. He gathered up what was left of his lunch and his notes, and we headed into the conference room. We all took seats around the table with our notes in front of us.

  Once we got settled, Luke asked Tyler, “What did you find on Chamblee?”

  “Seems like it fits. Jordan Baker went missing on October 29, 1993. Basically, Halloween weekend. Except she wasn’t at a party like your sister. She was in the library.”

  “She went missing from the library, or on the way home?” Luke asked, with a confused look on his face. He got up and went to the dry erase board at the far end of the room. He jotted down case details, forming a timeline.


  “Well that’s just it,” Tyler continued. “No one knows. Jordan was in the library one minute and seemed like the next, she was gone. They found her notebooks and some textbooks on the table along with a few other personal items, but she was nowhere to be found. When they closed the library, they assumed she met up with a friend and left her stuff there.”

  “It’s a really bizarre case, Luke,” I added. “There is a missing person’s podcast that did an entire show on this case a few years ago.”

  “What did they say?” Luke asked with interest.

  I flipped through my notes. “Jordan didn’t have a roommate because her roommate had dropped out of the university. They hadn’t given her another. Jordan hadn’t made that many friends because she was studying so much, at least according to her sister who spoke on the podcast. It was one of her professors, Jill Turner, who finally got suspicious because Jordan never missed class. After she missed three, Turner went to Jordan’s dorm, but she wasn’t there. The girl next door said she hadn’t seen Jordan in a while. The professor went to the administration, got the girl’s parents’ number and called them. Once Jordan’s parents got involved, they finally did a search of the campus and found all the school and personal items that Jordan had left in the library. The library staff had set it aside but didn’t notify anyone. Although, the podcast did speculate there was a library staff person who might know more but had been unwilling to talk all these years.”