winners go the spoils.” He put down the phone and then looked at me.
“Bad news,” he said. “The governor’s trash is picked up every day, recycling and garbage both. So I’ll need to work on how to manage the pickup as well as where you’ll do the sorting. I’ll have it handled before I leave town in the morning. As for you, Mel, once you have that photo in hand, I want you to go to work on the missing persons end of this.”
Mel nodded.
“How old do you think the victim is?”
“Maybe junior high,” Mel said. “More likely a high school freshman would be my guess.”
That was my assessment, too. Ross nodded in agreement.
“I thought so, too,” he said. “As soon as Governor Longmire showed me the video, I did some preliminary checking. In the past four months, we’ve had four teenage deaths in western Washington that are in line with that demographic. A drive-by shooting in Kent, a single-vehicle rollover car wreck in Kelso, a drug overdose in Raymond, and an alcohol-related head-on accident on I-90 near North Bend. In each of those incidents, the victim was a high-school-age Caucasian female with brown hair. But those cases also had full autopsies. None of them shows any sign of strangulation.”
“Which means the body of our victim is still out there somewhere,” Mel said. “Hence the missing persons files.”
“And not just from Washington, either,” Ross said. “The girl who was shot in Kent was from Portland and was visiting her grandmother over the summer. The girl in the head-on collision was from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. These days kids have driver’s licenses and cars. The girl in the video could be from Canada for all we know. Mel, I know you’ve worked with agencies in other states in the U.S. as well as in Canada. I want you to do it again.”
“Yes, sir,” Mel said. “Will do.”
“You showed the video to Josh?” Ross asked.
“We did.”
“What kind of reaction?”
“Shock,” Mel said. “He claimed he hadn’t seen it before, and I think he was telling the truth about that, but I’m not so sure he was being truthful when he said he didn’t know her.”
Ross nodded. “Right,” he said. “So where do kids meet other kids?”
“School, the mall, the movies,” I suggested.
“Okay,” Ross said. “So here’s the deal. Todd is a hard worker. I’m assuming that by the time you finish sorting your first batch of trash, he’ll have come up with the photo. Then I want you to hit the bricks. We’ll start with secondary schools within a fifty-mile radius or so. I’ll have Katie put together a list of school principals along with their contact information. Someone out there knows who this girl is.
“Again, when you talk to the principals, your cover story is that we’re investigating a possible case of bullying. School bullying is a big deal these days, the media flavor of the month. People will be a lot more likely to help if they think that’s all it is. They’ll turn skittish if they know it’s a homicide.
“And speaking of skittish. You’re going to need to talk to the governor’s daughters. They may not be best pals with Josh, but kids always know what other kids in the family are up to. When we were kids, my older sisters all thought I was a regular pain in the butt, but they would have died first before ratting me out to our parents. And I felt the same way about them. Someone needs to interview the girls.”
I was already shaking my head in objection. “Ross, I already know that isn’t going to happen. Marsha Longmire isn’t going to let us within arm’s reach of Zoe and Giselle Longmire. Neither is Garvin McCarthy.”
“You’re right,” Ross said. “I’m sure Garvin has seen to it that you’ve been declared persona non grata as far as the governor’s mansion is concerned, but this may help.”
He slid a piece of paper across the desk. On it was a Lacey address I didn’t recognize. Lacey is a suburb just north of
“Bad news,” he said. “The governor’s trash is picked up every day, recycling and garbage both. So I’ll need to work on how to manage the pickup as well as where you’ll do the sorting. I’ll have it handled before I leave town in the morning. As for you, Mel, once you have that photo in hand, I want you to go to work on the missing persons end of this.”
Mel nodded.
“How old do you think the victim is?”
“Maybe junior high,” Mel said. “More likely a high school freshman would be my guess.”
That was my assessment, too. Ross nodded in agreement.
“I thought so, too,” he said. “As soon as Governor Longmire showed me the video, I did some preliminary checking. In the past four months, we’ve had four teenage deaths in western Washington that are in line with that demographic. A drive-by shooting in Kent, a single-vehicle rollover car wreck in Kelso, a drug overdose in Raymond, and an alcohol-related head-on accident on I-90 near North Bend. In each of those incidents, the victim was a high-school-age Caucasian female with brown hair. But those cases also had full autopsies. None of them shows any sign of strangulation.”
“Which means the body of our victim is still out there somewhere,” Mel said. “Hence the missing persons files.”
“And not just from Washington, either,” Ross said. “The girl who was shot in Kent was from Portland and was visiting her grandmother over the summer. The girl in the head-on collision was from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. These days kids have driver’s licenses and cars. The girl in the video could be from Canada for all we know. Mel, I know you’ve worked with agencies in other states in the U.S. as well as in Canada. I want you to do it again.”
“Yes, sir,” Mel said. “Will do.”
“You showed the video to Josh?” Ross asked.
“We did.”
“What kind of reaction?”
“Shock,” Mel said. “He claimed he hadn’t seen it before, and I think he was telling the truth about that, but I’m not so sure he was being truthful when he said he didn’t know her.”
Ross nodded. “Right,” he said. “So where do kids meet other kids?”
“School, the mall, the movies,” I suggested.
“Okay,” Ross said. “So here’s the deal. Todd is a hard worker. I’m assuming that by the time you finish sorting your first batch of trash, he’ll have come up with the photo. Then I want you to hit the bricks. We’ll start with secondary schools within a fifty-mile radius or so. I’ll have Katie put together a list of school principals along with their contact information. Someone out there knows who this girl is.
“Again, when you talk to the principals, your cover story is that we’re investigating a possible case of bullying. School bullying is a big deal these days, the media flavor of the month. People will be a lot more likely to help if they think that’s all it is. They’ll turn skittish if they know it’s a homicide.
“And speaking of skittish. You’re going to need to talk to the governor’s daughters. They may not be best pals with Josh, but kids always know what other kids in the family are up to. When we were kids, my older sisters all thought I was a regular pain in the butt, but they would have died first before ratting me out to our parents. And I felt the same way about them. Someone needs to interview the girls.”
I was already shaking my head in objection. “Ross, I already know that isn’t going to happen. Marsha Longmire isn’t going to let us within arm’s reach of Zoe and Giselle Longmire. Neither is Garvin McCarthy.”
“You’re right,” Ross said. “I’m sure Garvin has seen to it that you’ve been declared persona non grata as far as the governor’s mansion is concerned, but this may help.”
He slid a piece of paper across the desk. On it was a Lacey address I didn’t recognize. Lacey is a suburb just north of
Similar Books
