“I’m so sorry, David.”
“Jenna, Tammy, Virginia. And Maggie, the connecting point. You’ve now got more than casual crossovers on your case, Evie. I’ll try not to step on your toes, but we will find this guy.”
“Partners all the way until it’s solved,” Evie promised. She didn’t want to touch the emotions coiling in him—she had no idea how to defuse them. Instead, she would put her attention where she could help, and that was on the case details. They both knew there might be other young women once they dug deeper.
“An obsessed fan?” she wondered aloud. “Or a vendor maybe? T-shirts? Food? They would travel the circuit just like the bands.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“He’s picking off college students, has to look young himself to blend in, not get remembered when cops start asking questions. So, someone close to their ages. Jenna was twenty-one, Tammy the same—” she paused, checked papers—“Virginia, twenty-three.”
“He’s in his early thirties now,” David guessed. “I need you to dig into the other similar cases on your board, tell me if there are more Triple M overlaps or more missing driver’s licenses. I’ll send the band-history page to the printer so you have concert dates and locations. We need to look for missing women around all those concerts. Virginia Fawn went missing six years ago. What’s he been doing since then?”
“I’ll do that next,” Evie agreed. “Ann is already on her way in. She can make sure we don’t miss a name. I’ll call and get us time with the Indiana detectives. Virginia’s body was found—there’s got to be something useful to work from with the physical evidence.”
“I’ll push on Tammy’s case in Wisconsin. Work with Saul’s notes, get the missing-persons file from their local PD, talk with Tammy’s parents, find out if they hired someone else after Saul. I hate to rip open their grief, then tell them we’re working a similar disappearance in Chicago, but it’s what has to be done.”
“Go see them in person? Make a road trip and link up with the local PD?”
“I’ll feel it out. If not today, Monday.”
“I’d vote for today. It’s only . . . what, a three-hour drive? Seeing the area after having viewed Jenna’s in detail, it’s going to click that these are similar cases or toss them apart as being separate.”
“Going today does make sense if we can pull it together.” He looked at the time. “Let’s make that call in two hours.”
Evie suspected as soon as they let it be known the three cases could be linked, getting others to join them in the search was going to be the easier part. The real challenge would be in coordinating things so that the various PDs didn’t step on each other.
Evie knew of one decision that could be made right away. “Don’t say anything to Maggie, David. This guy likely moved on to another hunting ground as he grew older, has probably been caught related to another crime by now. We figure it out, we make sure he’s in jail, but Maggie doesn’t hear a word of the overlaps we discovered. She had nothing to do with this, didn’t inspire it—it’s just bad luck he likes her music.”
“I agree about Maggie, and I sincerely hope you’re right about his already being in jail. It will make it easier to charge him with three murders once we crack the case.”
“Does this help in any way figure out Saul’s disappearance?” Evie asked, hoping to move him onto another track.
He considered that, shook his head. “Saul had a lot of suspended cases he could have picked up and worked on his own time, but there’s no obvious indication he had been looking at this one when he disappeared. Nothing noted in the file suggests he had a new lead.”
“Didn’t Saul’s sister mention he was considering a concert that Wednesday evening? I know you’ve got Saul’s movements now traced through Saturday night, so I’m not implying a concert is related to Saul’s disappearance too, but what concert was he talking about? Did you ever figure that out?”
“It was in Arlington Heights, a band called the Fly’rs, lead singer Evelyn. It’s a soft-rock group. There’s nothing in Saul’s notes to suggest he was going to that concert for work reasons. But maybe . . .” David got up to add another note to his whiteboard. “Maybe Saul did choose that concert for a reason.
“Tammy had been at a concert in Wisconsin,” he went on, “and Saul had been looking at news articles about Jenna’s disappearance after she went to a concert. Maybe he was checking out this one in Arlington Heights because someone working there had also been part of the crew at those other two—someone doing stage setup, a food vendor, possibly someone as extra security. Multiple concert venues mostly use the same union workers. Crews shift locations depending on the crowd size. That’s the most likely reason I can come up with for Saul being at the Fly’rs concert. But if that’s the case, my PI—who took extensive notes on everything—either didn’t write that lead down, or he had a notebook on him when he disappeared, with a name of interest he was pursuing.”
“Union workers at the various concert venues,” Evie mused, “that’s another useful list for us to review.” Something significant could be there, she thought. “Saul was at a concert, David. It wasn’t a Triple M concert, but it was a concert where he might have been working a lead. It would be a nice tribute if somehow Saul is the link to solving this.”
David nodded. “I’ll start making calls to get info on those who worked the different concert venues. Then I’ll find out what concerts Saul attended after he took on the Tammy Preston case—he usually charged his ticket purchases. If he was onto something, we’ll find an increase in his ticket purchases. And while that keeps me occupied, get me the bad news on how many missing young women overlap with Triple M concerts.”
“We’ve got possibly three,” Evie replied. “I’m willing to predict it’s not more than a handful in total,” she offered, knowing it would sting, but anything less than one a year would be a blessing in such a case.
“Let’s hope.” David glanced up. “Jesus, help Evie find them all. We need to know what we’re dealing with.”
“Amen,” Evie said. “Set your alarm for two hours. We’ll make a call regarding Wisconsin then.”
“Agreed.” David reached for his phone and set an alarm. “Go wide in your search, Evie. Missing one now is worse than doing work on a case we later eliminate.”
Evie was already planning the method for the search. “I’ll use the concert dates and locations and look at every case within a certain window of time regardless of age, gender, or college affiliation. I’ll first make sure your Tammy Preston shows up in the list, then let Ann verify the ones I think overlap.” At David’s nod she added, “Do you want to call Sharon? You’ve got the most insight on how we handle this with Maggie.”
David hesitated, shook his head. “Your case, your call.”
“Then for now, I’ll just say we might have an overlap out of state and we’ll know more once we see the files. We’re putting out the requests for those now.”
David smiled his appreciation.
“We solve this and move on,” Evie suggested lightly, “because I hate cases that turn personal. It takes all the fun out of the job.” She actually got a brief chuckle out of him, considered it a good sign that he would be able to temper the anger this overlap to Maggie had caused.
Evie left David to make his calls and turned her attention to matching cases against Triple M concert dates. She sent full case reports to the printer for the photos she had on the whiteboard. If they didn’t crack the case by the end of January, she would be very surprised. She just didn’t envision much sleep in her near future.
Evie made her own calls, to Ann to alert her to what she would be walking into today, to her researcher at the State Police, and then to their task-force boss, Sharon Noble.
“Do you want help, Evie? Theo can shift off his case, Taylor off his,” Sharon offered.
“I don’t know how big this is yet or if we’re actually dealing with false-positives simply because of the law of large numb
ers. Thousands attend these concerts, pickpockets work the crowds, a high percentage of concertgoers are college-age women, and every year a few of them go missing. What we’ve got now may be only smoke and mirrors. David is motivated, and I’m dug in until this is set to rest. Ann can give us some time. For now, we’re tagging other states for data because we’re being thorough, not because we want FBI and other cops thinking multistate murderer and stepping in.”
“I can keep that at bay for a while.”
“I appreciate it, Sharon. David and I both do.”
“I’m hoping it’s just smoke, Evie. Some of these cold cases are going to lead to guys who have committed multiple crimes, we know that. But if that’s our first county, it just gives us more press interest than I would like at this point. We need some light and good news to go along with dark and heavy arrests.”
“Which way is yours looking?”
“The missing wife and two daughters left an abusive situation and are likely still alive somewhere. The woman’s sister is so nervous with my questions, I’m beginning to think they could actually be living in her neighborhood. Theo suspects his missing teenage boy was killed by a high school classmate and has it narrowed down to a couple of names. Taylor knows who killed his businessman; he’s just got to find the body or come up with new evidence so the DA will file charges without one.”
“So you’re all basically flying through your cases,” Evie remarked.
“Pretty much,” Sharon agreed. “But we didn’t step into quicksand, which it sounds like you and David did. Tag us, however and whenever you want help.”
“Thanks, boss.”
Evie clicked off, genuinely pleased the rest of the team was making good progress. Jenna’s case was breaking open and that was a good thing. Add the still-fragile intersect with one of Saul Morris’s clients and it wasn’t bad for the first week of the task force’s time. And it wasn’t so much them. Evie was beginning to see what David already thought—God’s hand was in motion, helping them find justice. “Thanks, Dad,” Evie whispered.
Twelve
Evie heard David’s phone alarm and laid down the report she was reading, shook her head at Ann’s inquiring look. She’d let David decide what he wanted to do, but she thought they needed a break.
He joined them, and Evie thought he looked as stressed as she felt. He’d been making calls. She didn’t ask—he’d volunteer what was useful.
“I talked to Sharon, we’re good there,” she told him, unwrapping a roll of sweet-tarts to share. “We’ve got Indiana detectives on a conference call for Virginia Fawn at three o’clock. I figure we can take it from either here or on the drive to Wisconsin. The full case file sounds a lot like Jenna—missing license, Triple M concert, no sign of struggle at her apartment. Additional facts, her body was discovered, the autopsy says smothered. I’ve got copies of the full report for both of us, and I’ve sent Indiana PD everything we have on Jenna.”
She nodded to the board. “I’ve whittled my seventeen possibly related cases down to twelve, but am still working through them. There are no other matches on Triple M concerts yet, but it’s too early for that to indicate much. To make sure we don’t miss a related disappearance, Ann and I are starting with the first concert date in the band history and working our way forward in time. It’s going to be a few hours of database work to have a solid answer on that question.”
David seemed to relax a bit and nodded his thanks when she was done. “Okay. Good.” He turned to greet Ann. “When the governor asked if you wanted to help the task force get up and running, I don’t imagine you thought you were volunteering for actual case work like this again.”
“I’m glad to help out, David,” Ann replied with a smile. “It’s amazing how seductive a good puzzle can be. You’ve got yourself a mystery, but one that’s going to get solved now that it’s got some links,” she reassured.
David nodded toward additional photos now on the board. “Jenna, Tammy, Virginia. Let’s hope it stays at that . . . or only a couple more.”
“Under five would be good news. The database work is time-consuming,” Ann added, “but the core of it is straightforward. I can keep the search flowing if you two want to head to Wisconsin. Paul’s got some good researchers who can help me out, I’m sure.”
David looked to Evie. “What do you think? I tracked down the detective who has the Tammy Preston case. He’s off today, but he’ll come in if we want to meet with him. I’ve got copies of Tammy’s file printing now. No surprise, it’s rather thin. If we want to do interviews, he’ll make introductions to the family.”
“We wait, we risk January weather issues. The drive will give us time to talk through what we do have. I vote we go.”
“Then we go. I’ll let him know we’re coming.”
Evie handed him a Post-it note from her monitor. “There’s one other data set to put into motion before we leave. I’m sure Maggie has obsessed fans—that goes with the territory, right?”
“Disturbing emails, letters,” David agreed, “people we profile as budding stalkers. Security keeps photos on those we know are the most dangerous to her.”
“If he’s a devoted fan, he’s likely written Maggie.”
David considered that. “The most disturbing mail is kept for a lot of years on the assumption the person is either already a problem or will be one in the future. We’ve been updating the threat file for the ones living in Chicago, particularly given her planned return to live here. So I can get a current list of security worries. But if he’s killing women and being careful about leaving a trail, he’s not going to be sending creepy mail—‘I want to kill for you, Maggie’ and the like. We already would have been on it. Names going at least nine years back, I know them.”
“The admiration ones—softer tone, ‘I love your music, I’d follow you anywhere,’” Evie suggested.
“Okay, I’m catching what you mean. She gets a lot of that kind,” David confirmed. “Those notes don’t get saved unless an obsessed tone comes through. But maybe we can source names. A thank-you letter goes out to people who write her, and those envelope addresses must be generating from a database. We can run the correspondence names against all three of these case files—Jenna, Tammy, and Virginia—and maybe a name turns out to be common in each.”
“Another solid place to start looking. He follows Maggie’s concerts, he likes Maggie’s music, he’s ninety percent likely to be in her fan database too.”
“It’s a massive list, but I’ll get you those names.”
Evie tried to get a better picture of how the guy might show up. “I think he would reach out to Maggie, share his admiration of her music. He doesn’t want to draw attention to himself, wouldn’t come across as a threat but as a devoted admirer. ‘I’ve been to all your concerts, I love the way you sing, I play your music all the time.’ Like that. But he isn’t choosing women who look like her, he isn’t going for her physical type, so this may not be an actual Maggie obsession. He’s probably not going to have a room turned into a shrine for her, her pictures all over the walls. It’s the style of music, the lyrics, the event, the concert gathering—it’s the combination of her music and fans that sparks his interest.”
“Which narrows it down to every male attending her many concerts, but I see where you’re going here,” he said. “I think you’re right that he’s not Maggie-obsessed—she’s just the forum, the draw. The crowd that shares his enjoyment of her music is his hunting ground. I’ll see if we can source names and addresses for those who ordered concert tickets from the band’s website. That data probably goes back at least a decade, since her accounting firm is fanatical about keeping income-and-expense records in pristine shape. The music world is mostly a cash business, one that gets audited frequently. Most orders are for two to ten tickets. If we look for single-ticket purchasers, for these specific dates in history, maybe we get lucky.”
Evie heard some much-needed hope in his voice. “Make some calls to her accounting firm, ma
ybe we get very lucky,” she suggested. “I’ve heard that band groupies try to be at every concert. But someone nine years ago, when the band was just getting its footing, and him being at these three specific concerts in Chicago, Wisconsin, and Indiana? That’s not going to be a long list.”
“Let’s hope he ordered tickets off the band’s website for at least a couple of them,” David said. “I’ll make the calls, then tell Wisconsin PD we’re on our way. Thanks, Evie. A good idea.”
She waved toward Ann. “Joint idea. Ann’s been educating me on the music business, what a concert is actually like.”
David smiled. “I promise to take you both to enjoy one of Maggie’s, show you the real deal from the backstage preconcert prep to switching off the lights when it’s all over. A great experience. Maybe not so great the next couple of dozen times you try to go from beginning to end.”
They all laughed, and David and Evie gathered up items for their trip north.
Milwaukee was colder than Chicago, people were friendlier, and the case that had brought them here was even more incomprehensible than Jenna’s disappearance. But Evie now had enough details from Tammy Preston’s life to reach some possible conclusions.
As they returned to David’s SUV beside the candy store where Tammy occasionally had worked, she tucked her notebook back into her pocket and put some of those thoughts into words.
“This doesn’t feel like Jenna to me. Tammy lives one street back from small retail shops—the town’s version of a downtown square—sharing a ground-floor apartment with a girlfriend. The college is nearby on a map, but it’s really not when you see the area in person. Two different worlds, Jenna’s and Tammy’s. Locals live on these blocks, mostly single-story smaller homes, the student apartment building itself another outlier. You’d want to go east to blend in with the college crowd living off campus.”
“Tammy had a different life than a college student,” David said. “But this area still might have suited our guy. No good lighting around the apartment building, mature trees, tall shrubs, just eight parking spaces squeezed in behind it. Someone waiting on Tammy to arrive home wouldn’t be noticed by people out walking their dogs. He could wait unseen, watch her arrive.”
Threads of Suspicion Page 15