Back at the precinct and in Royce’s office, we sat in the guest chairs and faced him. He asked how the white van search was going, and I said that Lawrence and Bentley had been working on it. The list had come in from the DMV only twenty minutes earlier. I suggested putting out a BOLO for white vans so Patrol could at least check out the driver if they came across one.
Royce tapped his fingers against his desk. “Okay, I’ll pass that on. So what else is up other than the van? Find something at the mall parking lot?”
“Only that it was foolish for LeAnn to park that far away from other cars. Doing that put a target on her back.”
“Hmm, sounds familiar. Isn’t that the same way Valerie ended up dead, by parking away from everyone else at night?”
“Exactly. Even though they didn’t realize it at the time, they were both complicit in their own abductions and deaths.”
Royce agreed. “Sad but true. These days, people get too comfortable in their routine or in their false sense of security. Nobody thinks anything will happen to them.”
Rue took his turn. “Until it does.”
Royce knuckled his desk. “Okay, so?”
I glanced at Rue. “So, we were wondering about that last known organ-trafficking bust in Atlanta in 2007.”
“Uh-huh. If I’m not mistaken, all of those players ended up in prison.”
“Right, but that was fifteen years ago. I’m sure they’re out and doing their own thing.”
Royce stared at us. “I imagine they’ve served their time.”
“What if they’re up to no good again?” Rue asked.
“Human organs don’t stay viable forever, Devon. One would think if somebody is going to sell organs in Atlanta, they’d do the killing there too. Makes more sense.”
My eyes locked with Royce’s. “Does it? The first people who would be blamed are the ones who committed those acts in the past, but if they were to kill and remove the organs from someone, say, five hours away, it wouldn’t necessarily shine a light on them.”
Royce rubbed his chin. “And a human heart only has about a five-hour shelf life.”
“True, but what if the organs were flown from here to Atlanta in a private plane? The flight is less than an hour. It’s completely doable.”
“And that’s a lot of speculation. Why are we discussing this anyway?”
“We’d like to track down those traffickers and find out what they’re doing now.”
Royce waved his hands. “You have no grounds whatsoever, only a theory. You can’t hound, stalk, or try to make a case against people based on theories.” He raised a brow at me. “How much time have you put into this idea of yours?”
“None yet.”
“Good. Keep it that way. I’d suggest you two go help Bentley and Lawrence and then start over with Valerie. Review the police reports, talk to her friends again, interview everyone at the bars she frequented that night, and look at every minute of store footage that followed her as she walked the route to her car. Do exactly the same with LeAnn, and then and only then, if nothing or nobody surfaces, come talk to me again. I want every detective on every shift working this case.”
He shooed us out and asked me to close the door. Rue and I walked to our office with our tails tucked between our legs.
“Wow, that didn’t go the way I expected.”
Rue let out a frustrated-sounding groan but said he understood Royce’s point. “He can’t let us go on every wild-goose chase, Mitch. We’d be leaving the others in the lurch while we’re following our unfounded theories.”
“Yeah, I guess. Let’s get those vans knocked out and then see what fate throws our way.”
We stopped in as we were passing Lawrence and Bentley’s office.
“So how many white vans are actually registered in Chatham County?” I asked.
Bentley spoke up. “Many more commercial ones than privately owned ones.”
That comment caught my attention. “Really? That sounds promising. The white blur that passed the mall camera didn’t have any writing on the side.”
Lawrence reminded me that many people used their vehicles for both personal and professional use by simply attaching a magnetic advertising panel to the side of the vehicle.
“Yeah, there is that. Anyway, how many do we have for personally registered vehicles?”
“Thirty-seven. I guess white family-size vans aren’t a hot commodity. People like something a little less boring as a personal vehicle,” Bentley said.
“Okay, let’s dig in. How are you guys doing this?”
“By the plate number. That’ll pull up the name of the registered owner, and then checking them for a police record is up to us.”
“Sure, and how many have you done?”
Bentley tore the printed sheet of paper in half and handed me the lower part. “Knock yourselves out. So far, we don’t have anyone with more than a parking ticket.”
In our office, Rue and I got busy. I tore that same piece of paper in half again and passed the lower part over to him.
“We’ve only got seven plates each. After that, we’ll have to start on the commercial list.”
“Don’t remind me. So, it sounds like tomorrow, we’ll be starting from scratch. We’ll have to reinterview everyone, and I guess the night shift guys will have to hit the bars if they want to talk to the people who worked on the Friday night Valerie was there. Between the four of us daytime detectives, we’ll speak with her friends and relatives again then watch the footage from every camera on the route back to her car.”
I grumbled. “Sounds like a waste of time to me. I mean, why chase something a second time that we’ve already done?”
“Because we’re mere detectives and haven’t reached the rank of sergeant yet.”
I flipped Rue the bird and typed in the first license plate number.