Holden Joyce was already at the station when Sam and Lucy pulled in.
“Late start, chief?” Holden asked.
Lucy sniffed at Holden, glared at Major, and then trotted into Sam’s office.
“Slept in.” Sam ignored the pointed look from Jo. He didn’t need to let Holden Joyce know what he’d been up to with Beryl Thorne. He’d fill Jo in later. “What brings you here? You have any news?”
Holden nodded. “As a matter of fact, I do. The lab was able to match pollen spores found at the cabin with spores found in the tarp that held the skeletal remains.”
“So that’s another link. How solid is that?”
“We still need more, but this is at least one more spoke in the wheel, and also it’s evident that there was a meth lab in that cabin. But the forensics lab couldn’t say how long it’s been since the cabin had been inhabited.”
Sam poured water into the coffee machine, picked a mug from the rack, and held it out toward Holden, who shook his head. Sam glanced at Jo, but she already had a coffee, so he continued making his own. “Were they able to find any DNA to match the remains?”
“Unfortunately, they weren’t.”
“I have something that might be helpful,” Jo chimed in, and they both turned to look at her. She was seated at her desk, the yellow smiley face mug steaming in front of her, a chocolate cruller on a napkin beside it. “Bev Hatch got Amber Desrocher’s dental and medical records. We were able to match her to one set of remains.”
Sam glanced at Jo, and she gave a subtle shake of her head. Either she hadn’t heard from Bridget or hadn’t convinced her to look at photos of Thorne, but Sam wasn’t about to tell Holden Joyce about Jo’s sister.
“I assume Amber’s parents have been contacted. Did they have anything? Maybe they knew who the guy was,” Sam suggested.
Jo nodded. “They have been contacted, but they couldn’t give any information. They hadn’t been in contact with Amber for years, which is the problem with many runaways, unfortunately.”
Holden’s voice turned grim. “That is what makes them so attractive to killers.”
“We have another angle of attack. If the pollen spores directly connect the skeletal remains with the cabin, then we know the cabin was used as a meth lab. We need to get a search warrant for Thorne’s construction sites.”
Holden frowned. “I don’t get the connection.”
“Some of the materials used in making meth are also used on construction sites. Duct tape, rubber tubing, tarps. If we can find those same materials at Thorne’s construction site, there may be some forensic investigation we can do on them to narrow down dye lots or materials and match them up. Maybe we’ll get lucky and discover something that can definitively link the materials at the meth lab to Thorne.”
“And what’s your probable cause for the search warrant?” Holden asked.
Sam couldn’t tell Holden about the cat killing because he would want to know how they had gotten access to sealed records, so he simply said, “Just a hunch.”
“I don’t think you’re gonna be able to get a search warrant on a hunch. I have my doubts about Thorne, but I’m willing to look into any evidence we can get. That said, I think Thorne has friends in high places, and without probable cause you’ll have a hard time getting a warrant.” Major, who had crept to the edge of the filing cabinet while they’d been talking, let out a low growl. Sam glanced in his direction. Apparently, the cat agreed with Holden.
“I think it’s worth a try. Our acting mayor is hot to get this case closed. The election is next year, and if he can close this up quickly it’ll be a notch in his belt that’ll work in his favor.” Sam glanced at Jo. “I think we need to pay a visit and plead our case.”
Holden shrugged and made a face. “Fine by me. In the meantime, we should also focus on other leads that might come to fruition.”
Sam was skeptical at Holden’s change of tune. All of a sudden he was cooperating, and that made Sam suspicious. Then again, maybe what Jo had said was right. Maybe Holden really was just trying to rectify the way he’d acted before so that they could work together and all do their jobs. Either way, Sam would take the cooperation. “We’re doing that too. We got the correspondence sent to Joseph Menda. He thinks the killer could possibly be someone emulating him. Apparently, he gets fan mail.”
Holden Joyce grimaced. “Yeah. Sick, huh?”
“Yep. But if he’s right, maybe we can track that person through some of the mail he’s been getting.” Sam turned to Wyatt, who had been typing at his desk while half listening to the conversation. “Wyatt is looking into it.”
“I’m on it right now,” Wyatt said. “Had to go out on a call early this morning, but I should have something this afternoon.”
“Perfect,” Sam said. “In the meantime, Jo and I will go plead our case to Mayor Jamison.”
The mayor’s office was in the Town Hall, just down the street from the police station. The bright sun had burned off the morning chill, and Jo and Sam walked over. Once they were out in the street, Jo turned to Sam, “Where were you this morning?”
“I went up to the Bearded Owl Sanctuary. Marnie Wilson said Beryl Thorne goes there on Thursday mornings.”
“You think she might be willing to go against her husband? Did you learn anything from her?” Jo didn’t know much about marriage, never having been married herself, but she’d been in law enforcement long enough to witness the horrible things that spouses could do to one another. Still, a lot of them stuck together. She’d worked many domestic abuse cases in which the wives refused to press charges against the husbands, even though they were obviously mistreating them.
“She might,” Sam said. “I got a sense when she came here the other day that she was protective of her family name, and I also got the feeling this morning that she might be starting to wonder about things she’s seen or sensed about her husband.”
“I guess if it turns out he is a serial killer, she’d want him to be in jail instead of hanging around the kitchen.”
“No doubt. Anyway, it’s a long shot, but we’ll take what we can get.” Sam glanced sideways at her. “Anything from your sister yet?”
Jo’s hand instinctively went to the phone in her pocket. “Not yet. She may not even answer.” Jo sighed thinking of all the other times Bridget had seemed to just fade out of existence, especially when her attempts at going sober had failed.
The Town Hall was a brick building, built in the late 1800s. Inside, the lobby floors and walls were shining white marble. The moldings, sculpted in concrete, had fancy leaves at the corners. A line of flags draped from tall posts stood beside the stairway. Gilt-framed paintings of former mayors lined the walls. Jo wasn’t surprised to notice that there wasn’t one of Mayor DuPont.
They took the stairs to the second floor and walked the beige carpeted hallway to the walnut-paneled mayor’s reception area.
Dottie Chambers sat behind her desk, baby blue bifocals perched on her beak-like nose, eyes squinting at the computer screen. Dottie had been a fixture of the mayor’s office since the 1950s, and she guarded the mayor’s time like a mother bear guarding her cubs. Luckily, Sam had known Dottie since he was a little boy. She glanced up at them, her face widening into a smile when she recognized Sam.
“Sammie, you look so grown up.”
Jo smirked at the nickname, but whatever got them in to see the mayor worked for her.
“Nice to see you, Dottie,” Sam said.
Dottie popped up from behind the desk in a movement that belied her age. “I’ll just let Mr. Jamison know you’re here.” She leaned toward Sam as she came around the desk and whispered, “You’re in luck. No one is with him.”
She tapped the thick-panel mahogany door, then opened it a crack and stuck her head in. “Chief Mason is here.”
Silence ensued. Jo pictured Jamison scowling and trying to figure out how to get out of talking to them. She finally heard a resigned, “Send him in.”
Jamison sat behind a walnut desk. The windows behind him provided a bird’s-eye view of the rolling blue mountains in the distance. A stack of papers was piled in front of him, a pen in his hand. He looked disheveled, which aroused Jo’s curiosity because she’d only ever seen him looking like a magazine model. Apparently taking over as acting mayor was much more stressful than being vice mayor.
“I hope you have good news,” Jamison said.
“We may have some leads,” Sam said.
“Good. I’m getting my ass kicked on this. We need to catch this guy.”
Jo glanced at Sam. Jamison seemed almost human, friendly even.
“That’s what I want too, but we may need a warrant,” Sam said.
Jamison shrugged. “Okay. Judge Freeman is in today.”
“We were thinking we might need a little bit of a push from you to help us get it.”
Jamison put his pen down and frowned. “Now, why would you need that?”
“It’s for Thorne Construction.”
Jo wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Probably for Jamison to jump up and flail his arms in outrage as Dupont used to do when they wanted a warrant to investigate anything to do with Thorne Construction. But Jamison sat back thoughtfully, his eyes drilling into Sam’s. “You have probable cause?”
Another surprise. Jo hadn’t realized Jamison actually knew anything about the law, much less the words “probable cause.”
“We’ve linked the cabin with a meth lab, which links to the skeletal remains,” Sam said.
“And because we suspect that Thorne is a drug dealer, that kind of gives us probable cause,” Jo added.
“But you don’t actually have any solid proof that links Thorne to any of these cases, do you?” Jamison asked.
Sam wiggled his hand back and forth. “Depends on what you mean by ‘solid’.”
Jamison scrubbed his hands over his face and sighed. “Okay. I guess it’s worth a try.”
He picked up the phone and called Freeman. After a short conversation that involved Jamison reminding Freeman about some Cuban cigars, he turned to them. “Okay. Get your warrant written up. Judge Freeman will sign it.”
Sam didn’t waste any time. He was already halfway out the door shooting a thank-you over his shoulder.
As they spilled out into the street, power walking back to the police station, Jo turned to Sam. “That was weird. He seemed overly cooperative.”
“I know,” Sam said. “First Holden Joyce. Then Henley Jamison. What is the world coming to?”