Threads of Suspicion(31)

Ann considered that. “Sometimes life favors the killer and hides what happened. Yeah, we’ve both seen it.”

They walked for a bit in silence.

“How’s it working with David?” Ann asked.

Evie glanced over at her friend. “You could have clued me to the fact he’s dating Margaret May McDonald.”

Ann smiled. “It was a good surprise. The fact you didn’t already know rather baffled me.”

“I haven’t stayed up with the music scene. I’ve had a busy life and all.”

“David and Maggie will give you a crash course.”

“I expect they will. We have had one unexpected overlap. My missing college student was at a Triple M concert the night she disappeared. David was there and briefly onstage with Maggie.”

“I saw it in your notes. We’ve both seen those odd intersections in cases before.”

“The Triple M concert could be a hunting ground. Maybe more than one of her concerts was a place to cruise for a girl.”

“You think this guy did more than one murder?”

“There’s just a nagging worry in the back of my mind that this case goes really bad. After last fall’s Carin County, I’m wired to see the dark coming at me.”

“That was about as bad as it gets,” Ann agreed. “Okay. Assume the worst. Say he did do more than one murder. Maybe you can use that. The fact you’re looking for the guy will likely get his attention. You have to figure he’s keeping an eye on his past crimes, looking for activity, newspaper articles, public requests for information, that kind of thing.”

Evie considered that and nodded. “So we draw him out. Sharon gets a reporter to write about the task force, our first cases, put out an appeal for the public’s help. Maybe he decides to call the tip line himself, give some misleading information, inject himself into the case. I could use that.”

“Ego has been the downfall of a lot of killers,” Ann replied thoughtfully.

Evie liked the idea enough to stop their walk to make a note. “Anything that has me doing something is better than just hoping the case doesn’t break that way.”

“David will deal with it if that’s where this goes.”

“It’s Maggie I worry about. You know their story?”

“Bryce Bishop is a good friend. I’ve known David and Maggie for years.”

Evie wasn’t surprised Ann hadn’t said anything before. Unless her friends were in the same room with each other, Ann wouldn’t think to make the introduction. Ann kept secrets, and friends deserved their privacy. It was one of the first things Evie had learned about her. “I’m hoping the Triple M connection was simply the fact the college scene was Maggie’s fan base, and any band playing that night would have been the connection.”

“Odds do favor that, Evie.”

They went their separate ways, and Evie stopped at a music store, then a restaurant, a card shop, a flower shop, another music store, showing Jenna’s picture, searching for people who had worked and lived in the area for the last decade.

Ann handed over her notebook as they met again at a diner. “My faith in humanity is rising. Nearly everyone who was around when Jenna disappeared remembers her, the search, the speculation about what happened.” The two found a table and ordered coffee.

“I’m hearing the same,” Evie said, skimming through Ann’s interview notes while Ann read through hers. “One thing I hadn’t considered: Jenna’s disappearance raised the fear level of an entire college campus. Girls didn’t walk alone, boyfriends saw them safely inside and looked around their apartments, volunteer patrols were out with flashlights and phones to challenge any guy who was loitering. Whoever did this, if he was part of campus life, he was getting turned on by the fear. ‘Look what I did. I’m responsible for all this. Everyone is talking about what I did.’”

“Creating fear in others can be a powerful fix, like a drug addict’s high,” Ann agreed, taking her first sip of the coffee. “It’s an emotion that needs to be fed. Give it a year, the fear around campus subsides, he has to do something else to get it back.”

“I’ve got a lot of data coming in on what happened in the years after Jenna’s disappearance,” Evie said. “If he was here, he probably tried to relight that fear, to experience it again. Something should turn up about this guy acting out again.”

“How deep are your lists of names?”

“By end of the day, with the inquiries made, I’ll have a large pool to fish in. The first target will be names appearing on multiple lists—a music major with a rape allegation would certainly get my attention. I’d like to give the researchers the top few dozen names by the end of the day so they can generate deeper histories over the weekend.”