Devoted in Death (In Death #41)(32)

Her eyes rounded with shock when the results began to come in. Too many missing persons who remained missing, she decided, and too many unsolved.

She focused in on the third search, and its lesser number.

“I may have a couple possibilities,” Roarke said as he came in. Then lifted his eyebrows as he saw the fierce look on her face as she worked. “And I’d say you have their scent.”

“Southeastern Missouri. That little wedge that squeezes between Arkansas and Tennessee.”

“A backwater place called Cutter’s Bend.”

That fierce look flicked up. “You hit that one.”

“It just barely edged into my search. A nineteen-year-old boy, gone missing last September on his way home from the ballfield one balmy evening. He never made it home.”

“His body was found nearly a week later, dumped in a wooded area over the Tennessee border. Decomp and animals had gotten to him by then. Broken wrist, broken fingers, gashes, punctures, no sexual abuse in evidence, but evidence of binding on what was left of his wrists and ankles. Blunt force trauma, back of the head, some burn marks in evidence.

“Ten days before our first confirmed on the day he went missing. No carved heart, but decomp, animals, that’s not likely anyway. And if you follow from this vic—”

“Noah Paston.”

“Yeah, follow from Paston to the first confirmed and you get Ava Enderson.”

Roarke stepped over, edged a hip down on her desk. “I didn’t turn her up.”

“Nobody has. She went missing right about the time two kids stumbled over Paston’s remains. Traveling alone, from Memphis to Nashville, last seen – confirmed – having dinner at a diner about seven in the evening, about ten miles off the highway. Friendly sort, according to the waitress who served her. She said she was heading to Nashville to have a little reunion with some girlfriends, but since they weren’t due till the next day, she was toying with stopping for the night, getting off fresh in the morning. How her car was acting up anyway.”

As she spoke, Eve brought the woman’s ID shot up on screen. “The waitress recommended a couple places. Enderson said she wanted quiet and rustic, something out of the way. So the waitress told her about this place, some sort of inn. Enderson looked it up on her PPC, liked the look, booked a room.”

“And, I assume, didn’t make it there.”

“You assume correctly. Her car was found about two miles shy of this… Here it is.” She highlighted it on screen. “Sundown Inn. Broken down. Hood up, her luggage still in the trunk. The in-dash comp had been removed – expertly. They haven’t found her.”

“Show me the route,” Roarke requested, then nodded as he studied it on screen. “I see, yes. Very logical navigation from the boy, to this woman, to the first confirmed.”

Yes, she had the scent, and had to push up, pace as she followed it.

“I’ve got another in Kentucky that rings for me, and one in West Virginia I know in my gut is their work. That one was doing the hiking/camping thing, which baffles me. Why would anybody do that on purpose? Huddle down by a fire outdoors, sleep in a tent? But they do. His wife sent out an alarm when he didn’t check in – as he checked in every morning – and didn’t answer his ’link. She raved at the cops until they went out to his campsite. He registered it. Not there, and they figure he’s just gone hiking as there’s no sign of foul play.”

She prowled back, stared at the screen.

“Six days before they found his body, down a ravine. Animals and decomp again, and they ruled it as accidental death. But the wife raised serious hell, went to the media, got lawyers, hired a private investigator. So they flagged his file.”

Eve gestured as she sat again, split-screening the ID shot with the route. “Jacob Fastbinder. And I believe the wife here as he was a hiking fanatic, took hiking trips at least twice a year, every year since he was about twelve. He knew the region, he was smart and prepared and he was careful. And he didn’t have his pack when they found him. Locals said it could’ve been lost or dragged off, but that’s bullshit. Didn’t have his fancy hiker-guy wrist unit, either. ME can’t confirm if some of the wounds were inflicted or suffered during the fall.”

“You’ll talk to the wife.”

“Oh yeah. She went for burial, that’s what I got from his obit. I think she might be willing to have his remains exhumed and examined by a forensic anthropologist.”

“You’ll pull in DeWinter.” Roarke nodded. “A good call.”

“I’ve got a couple more I want to look at harder.” She rubbed her tired eyes. “But I know these up the count. Can’t say if the kid in Missouri was the first – still doesn’t feel like it, but he’s theirs.”

“Now he’s yours.”

She shrugged, glanced toward the AutoChef.

“You need sleep. You can’t contact the wife of the hiker at this hour, or roust any of the police on these cases, not at this hour.”

He pulled her to her feet. “Unless Peabody hits as well, you can start your route in Missouri, and move back from there if you feel the boy wasn’t their first. Give your brain and your instincts a rest.”

She didn’t argue only because she wanted to let it settle in, stew around in her subconscious. Noah Paston – and she’d add him to her board in the morning – hadn’t been their first.