“Good. For starters, I plan to ask if she wants to walk around a college campus with me.”
“She’ll be useful to all of us. Your dogs will be okay with your extended absence?”
Evie turned and saw the two German shepherds watching her guests from a perch on the stairwell landing. “Recently retired military guys on this block take care of them while I’m traveling—basically wear them out with an army version of daily PT. I’m the mom who babies them when I’m home. My dogs get the best of all worlds when I travel.” She’d given them a bath the day before, and for tonight they looked like gentlemen. “I’m clearing out perishables since I don’t know when I’ll be home next. You want oranges, bagels to take to the hotel for the morning?”
“Sure.”
“How about a piece or two of pie?”
Sharon looked over to see what John had chosen. “He’s favoring the cherry if there’s extra of it. He’ll view it as fruit and have it for breakfast.” They laughed, and Evie went to box it up.
An hour to wrap up here, Sharon thought, mentally listing immediate tasks, let Evie and David get on the road, make calls to find workspaces, and then a quick text to the governor—keep him in the loop as requested. John glanced over, shared a smile with her. He was her biggest supporter in this new endeavor. God, you really favored me with a good man, she mentioned to Him in gratitude.
Balancing work and a personal life when you were a cop took unusual wisdom, and Sharon knew Evie was in the process of sorting it all out for her own life. A young, gifted detective, destined to be Ann’s replacement on sensitive matters for the governor. One of the reasons Evie was on the task force was so Sharon could help get her ready for that role; she was going to enjoy that mentoring role. Teaming Evie with David had been the first step toward that end. David was a great guy. He’d been in a solid relationship for a while, and the dynamics of juggling the job and dating would be another point of common ground and possibly helpful discussions.
Theo was single, but older than the others here. He dated interesting women but had no plans to settle down to married life in the immediate future. A solid cop with a calm demeanor, he’d spent his career focusing on cold cases, and she was fortunate to have him. She thought he would become the natural linchpin of their group, and others would key off him when their cases were stuck. She knew she would.
Taylor, married with two sons in college, didn’t fit any particular law-enforcement pattern, had loved patrol, worked undercover, served in administration, become a detective. Everywhere he went, the departments improved—better morale, quicker response times, fewer citizen complaints, falling crime stats. Sharon had realized after meeting him a few times that he was praying for people around him—simply part of how he operated, doing it with such consistency that he left peace and justice in his wake.
Sharon smiled as she realized they all loved this work. Solving real-life puzzles mattered, and they weren’t the kind of cops to give up easily when a case hit a brick wall. They brought a wealth of experience to finding answers. It was going to be a good two years.
Two
Evie Blackwell
It was even colder in Ellis than it had been in Springfield. Evie, glad to be getting out of the wind, held glass doors open for David as he pushed a flat cart loaded with boxes into the building. “I’m curious,” she asked, “how do you prefer to begin a case?”
He wrestled against a stiff wheel that wanted to drift left. “I like talking to people. Once I’ve seen the facts I’ve got to work with, I like to get out and start asking questions, see where those answers lead. People point you different directions. The majority of the time they’re being honest and trying to be helpful. When I come across someone lying to me, I know I’m getting close to the answer.”
“You’re looking for the person who shades the truth, lies to you.”
“Pretty much. How about you, Evie?”
“I like to get inside the world of my victim, see what they were doing, where they were going, how they crossed with someone who did them harm.”
“Re-create the day of the crime.”
“The best I can.”
“A good approach.”
Evie used keys the security guard had provided to unlock the main doors for office suite 5, then flicked on lights. The space had recently been refurbished for new tenants—a design firm was moving in late next month—and it still smelled of fresh paint and new carpet. Having expected a small room at the police station, this was luxury.
David scanned the area. “You’ve got four boxes, I’ve got seventeen, so I call dibs on the conference room through there. I need the long table and even longer whiteboard.”
“A couple of desks and the rolling whiteboards will serve my case,” Evie agreed.
“An hour to sort through boxes and see what we’ve got, then bring in an early lunch, update where we are?”
“Sounds good.” Evie set an alarm on her phone. “It’s going to be fun—if I’m allowed to describe it that way.”
David grinned. “I like this job, though I’m careful how often I admit that. I’m sorry my PI is missing, but it makes for a fascinating puzzle, considering what he did for a living. I get paid to do work I love. Everyone should be so fortunate.”
“Ditto.” Evie lifted her boxes off the cart and over to a desk, and David pushed the remaining ones into the conference room.
The detectives who’d had these cases had been cordial, polite, but not enthusiastic about offering further help. They told them, “It’s all in the files,” without saying, Good luck with finding anything else. There were still two map tubes in transit from the archives for her case, but the bulk of the case materials were before her.
The lack of assistance from the locals was probably for the best, at least for now. The facts were in the reports. The theories of what happened . . . well, Evie would rather formulate her own, as would David.
In her experience, solving a cold case came down to looking at the existing facts in a different way, asking new questions, searching intently for a thread that would yield information overlooked in the past. Not an easy thing to do when a case had been worked aggressively, but inevitably overlooked items came to light if she kept digging. If the new evidence didn’t yield an answer, her second course of action was to dig deeper into the lives of the people involved with the missing person, and then push out to find more names beyond the family and friends in the record.
The passage of time nearly always brought out undiscovered truths about people. The “good man” with a terrible secret had been found out and was now in jail, the thief who never got caught had committed one too many burglaries and finally been arrested, and the woman who drank too much now had the DUIs to prove she had a drinking problem. Life reveals truth. That was what Evie depended on when it came to a cold case like her missing student.
Time changed circumstances. Close friends were no longer speaking to each other, families split apart, alliances shifted, people would now talk to authorities about things they’d seen or wondered about when past loyalties had kept them silent. The same interviews done today could yield a treasure trove of new information. Whichever approach worked—looking at facts a new way or finding new insights about those people involved—she’d push until this case yielded an answer.
This missing Brighton College student was her choice off a single line on a summary sheet. Now came the moment of truth. Would it turn out to be an interesting choice? Evie lifted the top off the first box, eager to dig in. “Okay, Jenna Greenhill, what have the cops already found for me?”
The folders were thicker than she had expected. From the dates, it looked like detectives had come back to this case many times. She thumbed through the folders, found lab reports, witness statements, daily updates, phone call lists, credit-card statements, even police reports on five possible related cases. There was a lot of reading ahead of her, but when she was done, she would know how the detectives had approached the case, what
they had discovered. Good, the foundation is here.
Thankfully, the detectives had included flash drives with electronic archives of their reports. She’d have searchable information at her fingertips, which would speed up her investigation considerably.
She lifted the lid on the second box and found a treasure trove of Jenna’s personal items. Purse, wallet, keys, desk calendar, journals, cellphone. Evie opened the evidence bag holding the phone, slid the battery back in, and wasn’t surprised when the device didn’t light up. The battery was dead. She’d pick up a replacement as one of her first errands. Jenna’s laptop was sealed in an evidence bag, along with a technician’s note providing a neatly printed password. The last significant item was an accordion folder stuffed with bills, menus, flyers, handwritten notes with phone numbers, names, lists—likely Jenna’s desk and kitchen-counter clutter swept together and kept, since what would matter might be anything here. Good—the cops had paid attention to the small things that could be key to solving this case.
The third box was more of Jenna’s papers, stored in folders with the girl’s handwriting on the tabs—college class schedules, financial aid, class notes, medical records, bank statements, utility bills. One titled FAMILY AND FRIENDS was mostly saved birthday cards and a few personal letters. Jenna had liked her world organized. Her life was here, at least the structure of it.
Evie opened the fourth box and nearly laughed out loud. Jenna had created scrapbooks and photo albums—eight of them, neatly stacked. “Thank you, Jenna. You’re going to make my job easier.”
Four file boxes . . . enough material to build a solid foundation, but not so much Evie couldn’t properly get her arms around it. She was already having a good run of luck with this case.
Evie stepped to the conference room door. “I hit a gold mine.”
David looked up from the box he was unpacking.
“Scrapbooks and photo albums.”
“Girls do like photos and fluff.”
She laughed softly at the kind way he said it. His case boxes were now lined up against the far wall, their lids tucked behind each one. “Having any luck with your discoveries?”
“My PI is Saul Morris—he looks to be an interesting man. I have what may be the contents of his office spread across ten boxes. Two are personal items from his home. A box of police reports and witness statements. And finally, a good assortment of electronics—two laptops, four phones, three cameras, a shoebox full of backup CDs and flash drives. There’s a stack of handwritten notebooks in this one, not unlike a cop would make. I’m very optimistic.”
“I’m glad for you. I’m going to start putting together my board and timeline. Unless you would like some help?”
David considered what was around him. “I’m good for now. Thanks for the offer.”
Evie took the now-empty cart to get it out of his way, checked the supply cabinets, found colored markers for the whiteboards, magnetic clips to hang items. There were a dozen mobile whiteboards stored in the auxiliary space beside the conference room—the design firm had organized this office for doing a lot of visual work. Evie rolled one over to her desk, drew a horizontal line, marked the middle with October 17, 2007, the date Jenna Greenhill had gone missing.
Sometimes determining what was going on before a crime pointed at the solution, but most of the time with cold cases, the answer was discovered in how people acted after the disappearance—guilt stained a person, criminal conduct continued—so there were as many clues, if not more, after a crime as before it. She would work both sides of the timeline with equal intensity.
Perspective first, then details of the disappearance, Evie decided. She looked through the boxes again for facts that would define Jenna’s life.
Jenna Greenhill.
Last seen: October 17, 2007
DOB: 11-12-85, age 21 when last seen
Parents: Rachel and Luke Greenhill
Siblings: sister, Marla, 3 years older
She found a casual photo of Jenna with her mother in an early album—Mom and me, Saturday morning tea and talk of college plans. Jenna wore stylish glasses, shoulder-length auburn hair—she didn’t have a classic beauty, but she looked attractive. Her smile looked a touch self-conscious. No jeans and a casual top, but a summer dress, nice necklace, earrings, no rings. The mother looked much more relaxed than Jenna. Evie posted the photo.
She added a family photo: parents and two girls with snowcapped mountains behind them—Yellowstone, 2003, according to the caption. Luke was nearly a foot taller than his wife and daughters. There were no obvious signs of stress in the family photo, such as one of the girls avoiding being too close or resisting a parent’s touch, and the smiles seemed genuine.
A helpful cop had added Post-it notes to Jenna’s albums. Evie reviewed images, chose several that seemed the most relevant, and added them to the case board.
Current boyfriend: Steve Hamilton
Former boyfriend: Spence Spinner
Best friend: Robin Landis
Study group friend: Amy Bertram
College friend: Tiffany Wallace
Her first interviews would be with family and friends. Evie reached for the phone and called her preferred researcher at the State Police, gave him the names to track down. Jenna’s college friends would have dispersed across the nation after graduation, but hopefully some were still in the area. The rest she’d re-interview by video. She would wait to contact the parents until the detective assigned to the case spoke with them and conveyed the news the task force was once more taking up the search.
“Will music bother you?”
Evie turned to look at David. It was quiet in here. “Try it. I’ll tell you if it does.”
At another desk he pulled up a playlist of songs on a website, and music filled the office suite at a comfortable volume. She didn’t know a lot about popular music, but she recognized the song currently climbing to the top of the charts. “You like her music. You had that band, Triple M, playing on our drive to pick up the case boxes.”
He dug out his wallet and slipped out a photo, showed it to her.
Evie stared. “Margaret May McDonald? She’s your girl? Are you kidding me?”
David laughed. “She prefers just Maggie. There are dozens more photos on my phone, but this is my favorite.” He slid the photo back into his wallet. “She’s scheduled to be the special guest a week from Friday at Chicago’s charity benefit sponsored by the mayor. She’ll be singing a couple of songs. If you’d like to go, I’ll introduce you.”
“I’d love that,” Evie replied, stunned at the news. “Wow. At our first break here, you owe me the story of you two, how that came to be.”
“It’s more dinner-hour fare, as it’s long, with ripples folding back on each other. But it’s a good one to tell.”
“You’re on.”
“I’m going to find the break room and start some coffee. How do you take yours?”
“Black is fine.”
David headed down the hall. Evie added more notes about Jenna to the whiteboard.
Brighton College
Biology major
Chemistry minor
Junior year by credit count
4.4 out of 5.0 GPA
Her thoughts were no longer fully focused on her case. Her working partner was a celebrity’s boyfriend. How had she missed that? It couldn’t be that tight a secret in the music world. Cops were notoriously low-key about celebrities in their midst, but when the significant other happens to be this famous and dating a cop? Evie was struck by how many comments must have drifted by her and not registered.
No wonder David had smiled at her question about a girl. Oh, yeah, he had a girl. Only one of the most famous singing sensations in the country!
Deal with it, Evie whispered to herself, forcing her attention back on task. She posted a copy of Jenna’s class schedule. She searched out names of Jenna’s professors, TAs, her academic advisor, listed them under the class schedule.
She’d
been a bit intimidated to work with David Marshal before this, knowing his official reputation, but now it was on a whole new level. He’d probably been backstage at numerous concerts, met any number of other celebrities in New York. She was going to have to brush up on her music knowledge. She knew what kind of music she liked to listen to, but could rarely remember the title of a song, let alone name the singer or the band.
Something similar happened when Rob would introduce her to someone at a party. She’d say hi and have no clue how important the person was in the greater world of finance and business. People probably thought she was rather self-assured, not intimidated to meet important people, when most of the time she simply didn’t know who they were. Ann did the same, introducing Evie to the governor-elect, to the former vice-president. Ann’s world seemed normal and yet was filled with areas that were anything but common. Ann was comfortable there, but Evie struggled to figure out how to do that. She never wanted to be personally famous. If she had a single goal in life, she just wanted to be a good detective.
The alarm on her phone interrupted her introspection. Evie found the stack of area menus the security guard had provided and scanned through them. “What sounds good to you for lunch?” she asked David as he came through the door with two mugs of coffee.
“A sandwich is fine. I’m thinking Italian would be nice for dinner tonight. A good spaghetti or lasagna.”
“I’m game.” She called in a delivery order for soup and sandwiches, considering David. He didn’t look like the boyfriend of a famous singer. He looked like a cop. She’d just think cop and hopefully forget, or at least adjust quickly to, the unexpected fact of his girlfriend’s status in the music world.
She drank the coffee he had brought her and once again shook off the distraction. She scanned over the collection of data. There’s enough to give me a basic sense of Jenna’s life, she thought. Time to look at the specifics of what had happened. She pulled out the first police report. It had been called in by Jenna’s best friend, Robin Landis, on Monday afternoon, October 20. Jenna had last been seen Friday night. A rather long gap . . .
Threads of Suspicion Page 2