FIFTEEN

 

 

September 17th, 2016

Las Vegas, Nevada

 

THEY ALL ATE a second piece of chicken and Andor and Annie both started into their third as they talked, trying to even recognize pieces of a puzzle that they weren’t even sure fit together.

Lott didn’t much like what they had so far. But at least they had a suspect.

They did know for a fact that a man calling himself Duane Thorn had sold cars of women who had gone missing shortly after their disappearances. How he got those cars no one knew, but the theory was he killed for them.

They knew that Duane Thorn’s official address was a mailbox at the head of a dead-end dirt road. The road was used regularly and had a suspicious turnaround at the end that was out of sight of anything around it.

But other than that one license with the state, the picture on the license, and the one piece of property, Duane Thorn did not exist, did not have a history, and seemed to have come into existence about a year before Becky Penn vanished.

They had four bodies in an old grave and four cars, so they were very close to putting together who the other three bodies in the grave were with Becky Penn.

A couple other members of the Cold Poker Gang were running down the families of the missing women to see if they could get identifying information to at least identify the bodies in the grave. And Annie had promised that she and Doc and Fleet could get DNA preliminary testing done within two days if needed.

Beyond that, they had nothing else but theories and questions.

Lott was no longer sure that Paul Vaughan, Becky Penn’s boyfriend at the time of her disappearance, actually was dead. And if not, who had had his face blown away with a shotgun?

And they had no idea how that journal got into Paul Vaughan’s things, but then was overlooked for decades. Or maybe even his sister planted it. Again, nothing solid, just questions.

But they did have a stack of missing persons’ cases sitting on the kitchen counter that they had picked out because of cars sold by Duane Thorn. Every woman in those missing person’s cases had a car vanish as well.

So after they were all finished with dinner, they took all the files out into the dining room area and moved all the chairs back from the big table and out of the way. Then starting with the three files from before Becky went missing and going from there in chronological order, they put the files on the table and Annie labeled the top of each with a big sticky note as to the day the woman went missing.

Lott knew they were looking for patterns and it became very clear very quickly that there was a pattern.

A very distinct pattern.

Four women with cars sold by Duane Thorn vanished per year.

And each vanished on the same date every year. The 3rd of March, June, September, and December. And they were all twenty-two years old.

“Three months apart exactly,” Annie said softly when Julia pointed out the pattern. “And all the same age.”

“Why the exact date?” Andor asked.

Lott watched as Julia wrote that in her notebook as a question.

“And what does he do in the three months between the kidnappings?” Annie asked.

Lott didn’t want to say what he was about to say next, but he went ahead.

“The real question is what he does with the women in those three months. Does he kill them instantly or keep them alive for months for some sick reason.”

Annie pointed to the last car sold ten days before. “If he keeps the women alive for a month or so, this woman is still alive somewhere.”

Annie opened up the file and showed them all the picture of the beautiful blonde college-age girl named Mary May.

Lott stared at her picture and now knew that he wasn’t going to sleep much until they ran this bastard to the ground and stopped him.

This was no longer a disappearance case for Mary May. This might be a rescue.

At least he hoped it was.