“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 numbers. 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.”