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“Anything else I can do?”
“There’s a lot you can do, but unfortunately you can’t do it in public.”
Rina smiled and hit him.
“What?”
“What what?”
“It just means I’m still interested. At my advanced age, isn’t that a compliment?”
She took his hand. “I suppose it is a compliment. When exactly is this little tryst supposed to take place?”
“Certainly not tonight. Can I hold you to it at a later date?”
“I’ll have to see if my calendar is open.”
Decker smiled. “As they say in our former city, have your people call my people.”
Chapter Two (#ulink_89191269-38b9-541e-a85f-b66711959786)
Despite having just a few hours of sleep, Decker felt refreshed. He woke up at seven, smelled the coffee, showered, shaved, and dressed, arriving in the kitchen with a spring in his step. Last night was a long one. He hadn’t expected Rina to wait up for him, but she did and that was very, very nice.
“Good morning.” Rina gave him a kiss. “You look good.”
“Considering …”
“No qualifiers. You look good. Take a compliment. Your bones didn’t make the papers yet.”
“They were still working when I left at two. Kevin and Karen took over for me.” He poured himself a cup and sat down. “I should give them a call. See what’s going on.”
“Absolutely.”
When Decker called, reception at the site was poor. He found out that the coroner’s office was still working on unearthing material, but that would soon be over and they could scour the grave for evidence. He told them that he was on his way and hung up.
“Did they find anything?” Rina asked.
“Not yet. But the coroner’s office is almost done. I should get up there and see if there is anything left in the hole.”
“I’ve already packed some food for you and Tyler. I called Tilly last night.”
Decker stood up as Rina sat down. So he sat down again. “The Hillel lady.”
“Yes. She remembered two missing women in the last eight years and they both made the news.” Rina picked up a scrap of paper on the table. “One had been from Clarion College—Delilah Occum—and the other had been from Morse McKinley—Yvette Jones.” She handed the paper to Decker.
“Okay … hold on.” He took out his phone and checked the names against a list that was e-mailed to him by Kevin yesterday. “I have Delilah Occum at the top of the heap.” He looked down. “I don’t have Yvette Jones, but the list only goes back five years.” He showed Rina the compilation of names.
“Wow, that’s a lot of people.”
“It’s from upstate and down through the greater tristate area. It does not include New York City, which is an entity to itself. When did Yvette go missing?”
“Don’t know.”
“Hold on.” He took out a laptop and plugged her name into the search bar. A moment later, the results popped up. “Seven and a half years ago.” He read the article. “She was coming back from a free lecture at Morse McKinley and never made it back to her dorm.” He pressed several buttons and closed the laptop. “I’ll check it out once I get to the office. Did Tilly know the girls personally?”
“I don’t know. We’re having lunch today at the Vegan Palace. I’ll ask her for details.”
“Thanks. And you told her to keep quiet—”
“Yes, yes.”
“It’s probably irrelevant anyway. There are lots of people digging, so the news is bound to hit soon.” He stood up. “I’m off. Have a good lunch munching on rabbit food and tofu.”
“I will, Mr. Me Want Steak Caveman.”
Decker smiled. “You’ve got my number down.”
“We can do a barbecue tonight while the weather’s still warm. Invite Tyler. He is also a steak man.”
“Is he worth a ribeye?”
“I suppose it depends on what he produces today.”
“The kid’s been okay. More than okay.” Decker slipped on his jacket—more for professionalism than for warmth. The mercury was predicted to be in the low eighties. “I was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal. Do you know what the top firms pay Harvard interns for the summer?”
“Around three grand a week.”
“For ten weeks. That’s thirty grand. You know what he made this summer?”
“Around ten grand?”
“Not even. What a fool.”
“Look at the workload, Peter. I dare say that the two of you have been spending way more time on the Xbox than at the station house.”
“Not anymore. Cold cases are a bitch. If it’s one of the college girls, that means she’s not local. I’m going to have to track down people who probably won’t remember much. Students are transitory. Professors leave for better opportunity. Evidence—if there was any to begin with—gets old and lost.”
“If anyone can do it, it’s you.”
“You’re such a cheerleader,” Decker said. “Why are you always so positive?”
“Inborn genetics, supplemented by exercise and the right diet. Try some tofu, Caveman. It’ll not only help your arteries, it just might change your disposition.”
Once the bones were gone, Decker could comb through the grave proper. There was nothing much retrieved for his effort except sweat. No ID, no purse, no wallet, no cell phone, no laptop. No books or schoolwork. No intact clothing, but there was a piece of cloth; one small, silver hoop earring; and one light gray button that might have been white at some point. He handed them over to the Scientific Investigative Division for analysis.
All morning, Decker, along with Greenbury PD, searched the surrounding area, looking for something that perhaps the killer dumped or lost on the way to the victim’s burial. There were lots of rusted beer and soda cans, cigarette butts, and snack wrappers left over from summer hikes and picnics.
After the items were bagged and tagged, Decker and McAdams drove to the station house. Once there, Decker turned on the computer and read about Delilah Occum: she had disappeared from Clarion College three years ago.
“She was a brunette so she’s definitely in the running. She was last seen wearing a black coat, a red mini dress, and heels.” Decker looked up and directed his question to McAdams. “Did the fabric look red to you?”
“I couldn’t tell a color, pard. Too dirty. The button doesn’t look like it came from a black coat.”
“Which would make sense,” Decker said. “It’s hard to bury a body in winter. The ground is frozen.” A pause. “When did Delilah disappear?”
“Lemme look it up.” McAdams clicked onto her file. “Right after Thanksgiving vacation.”
“I wonder what the temperature was.” Decker clicked the keyboard. “Huh … first snowfall wasn’t until almost Christmas. I suppose theoretically you could bury a body, especially if the forest floor was covered with stuff to keep out the cold.”
McAdams said, “To me, the button looks like it came from a blouse or a shirt.”
“I agree. What about the other college student—Yvette Jones?” Decker brought up the file on his computer. “Also a brunette.”
“So she’s a contender.”
“Yep. Yvette’s roommate remembered seeing her in the morning … she was in the dining hall for lunch—cameras caught her leaving at two-fifteen. Then she went to a lecture at Murphy Hall: Investment for the Socially Conscious. She was caught on camera wearing jeans, a light-colored sweater over a light-colored blouse, and sneakers.”
“The button was light colored.”
“Yes. Yvette was five four, one twenty-six, brown hair, brown eyes. We have our files obviously, but the school didn’t turn them over to GPD until a few days later. I’m sure they also have their own files with their own information. We should find out.”
“Think they’d keep old files like that?”
“If they didn’t, they would be negligent. These are still open cases.” He leaned back in his desk chair. “Let’s see what the coroner has to say. Give him a call. He should have the bones laid out later in the afternoon.”
“He’s in Hamilton right?”
“He is. Do you want to grab lunch before we go? We’ve got time.”
“No, I’m fine. I’m still digesting breakfast.”
“It’s almost noon. What did you eat?”
“Three eggs, bacon, hash browns, orange juice, and three cups of coffee?”
“The Iris Special at Paul’s truck stop?”
“How would you know Paul’s truck stop, Old Man? There isn’t a shred of food that hasn’t been contaminated with bacon.”
“I was called out to the place last winter. Two hyped-up truckers got into it. Nothing serious, mostly tired guys letting off steam, but someone thought it was prudent to call in reinforcements. I’m sure I’d be called down a lot more often if the place had a liquor license.”
“The reason why college kids have passed it up. That and it isn’t in walking distance from the schools.”
“No, it’s definitely not a college hangout. Do you go there a lot?”
“All summer long. Paul’s makes an apple pie to rival my own.”
“Not your usual crowd, Harvard.”
“Some truth to that. The place is packed with long-distance haulers named Billy, Bud, Bubba, Cletus, Dwayne, Jessie, Jimmy, and lots and lots of Juniors. Sometimes the names are followed by Ray, Lee, or Boy as in Jonny Boy or Billy Boy. But the rednecks and I have reached a real truce. They call me Mr. Lawyer and ask me legal questions so that they can sue their employers for workman’s comp. The waitresses flirt with me and call me honey, and I leave them big tips. The place has Wi-Fi. I sit at the counter and surf the Net. Other than your house, it’s my home away from home.”
Chapter Three (#ulink_2114bfdd-e752-540b-815b-dd80af46f7f8)
Rina was early, but Tilly Goldstein was even earlier. That was a good thing. Vegan Palace was already crowded and it was good that Tilly had snagged a table. The woman had blue eyes, short curly gray hair, and glasses that hung down from a chain around her neck. Today she had on a yellow, summery dress with short sleeves exposing thin arms and baggy skin. Rina slid into the chair opposite Tilly. Immediately they were handed menus by a young woman with blue hair who was studded with piercings and inked with tattoos. She told Tilly and Rina that her name was Sarah and she’d be back with water and pita bread.
When she left, Tilly said, “She has such a pretty face. Why would she want to walk around with pins in her like a voodoo doll? And the tattoos? Do you understand tattoos?”
“Kids get them to be unique. But when I see them, I immediately think of my parents, who were Holocaust survivors with tattooed numbers. What are you going to have?”
“What are you going to have?”
“I was thinking about the tofu curry or the vegan burger deluxe.”
“Get the curry. I’ll get stir-fry. I like soba noodles.”
Ten minutes later, Sarah came over to take the order. They made small talk until the food came. Then Tilly put her napkin on her lap.
“So what’s this about finding a body at Bogat Trail?”
“They found bones. Actually, I found bones.” Rina brought her up to speed. “Of course, the immediate thought was that it might be one of the missing girls from the colleges. Since you’ve been there for a while—”
“Don’t remind me.”
Rina pulled out a small pad. “What can you tell me about them?”
“I remember Delilah better than Yvette because Delilah was more recent. It was very sad. She was coming home from a party about three years ago and never made it to her dorm at Clarion. Her disappearance caused this whole brouhaha about lax campus security especially at night. The colleges agreed to post more guards. The board also instituted this walk-home policy that if anyone—male or female—felt the need to be accompanied anywhere on the campus at any time, day or night, there would be someone available to them.”
“Is the service used?”
“All the time. It was said that Delilah had to be the sacrificial lamb before the colleges wised up that sometimes campuses can be unsafe places.”
“I agree. But it seems like they’d have to hire an awful lot of guards to keep up with the demand.”
“No, no, no. It’s like Uber. We have a huge list of students from all the colleges who are willing to walk other students to and fro for pocket change. A person calls the office and we check around to see who is available at that time. We usually have at least forty to fifty students on call.”
“And how well are the students vetted?”
Tilly looked perturbed. “Honestly, they probably aren’t vetted. But the security office does have a list of the students from the call logs. If there’s a problem, someone knows who was called out.”
“Have there been problems?”
“I haven’t heard, but if there were, I’m sure they’re not publicized.” Tilly dug into her stir-fry. “Hmmm … good.”
“Yeah, the food’s really good. I can’t get my husband interested in vegetarian food.”
“That’s just men,” Tilly said. “You know, your husband could probably talk to the colleges about the Delilah Occum disappearance.”
“I’m sure he will.” Rina smiled. “What do you remember about Yvette Jones?”
