15

“Seventy-six solid tips,” Nettie said as she scrolled through the file that TGL had sent as an e-mail attachment. “There was a total of eleven hundred and thirty-three tips, two hundred and forty-one of those made it past the first screen, and seventy-six are solid.”

“What about the random sample of the rejected tips?” Mars said. “We agreed to a random sample of one of every fifty rejected tips.”

“Give me a minute,” Nettie said as she continued to scroll through the file. “So, one of every fifty rejects and there were…” she mumbled as she did the math in her head.

Tapping a calculator on his desk, Mars said, “If there were eleven hundred and thirty-three tips and we got seventy-six solid tips, there’s a reject pool of one thousand and fifty-seven, which…”

Mars punched the equal sign and looked over at Nettie. “Twenty-one point one four. What did they send?”

Nettie looked back at him with a smug smile. “Twenty-two. Satisfied?”

Mars leaned back on his chair, stretching his legs. He clasped his hands on top of his head and started making popping sounds with his lips. Never a good sign.

He straightened up. “Twenty-two out of one thousand and fifty-seven. That makes me nervous.”

“Not as nervous as all eleven hundred and thirty-three would make me,” Nettie said. “Twenty-two plus seventy-six is ninety-eight. Still a lot of work.”

“If we’re lucky,” Mars said, “it will be a lot of work. But how much work it ends up being depends on what’s there. If it’s not a lot of work, we’re in trouble.”

*   *   *

They worked the tip sheets as they agreed they’d do. Nettie printed out all ninety-eight of the tip sheets, because that’s how Mars wanted to work. He wanted to be able to touch and feel each tip sheet. It would be the first fresh evidence he’d handled since starting the investigation, and he wanted that evidence to be tactile, to stir all his senses. He’d never get that from a computer screen.

With the tip sheets printed, they each took thirty-eight of the solid tips and eleven of the randomly selected tips. The plan was they’d each go through their tip sheets, ordering them by which tips would receive priority investigation. Then they’d switch tip sheets and if either disagreed about priorities, they’d pull those sheets and argue priorities between them.

The tip sheet information was basic: name, address, and age of person providing information and contact information. There were boxes that were checked to indicate which of the three cases the tipster had information about and whether their information concerned suspects or victims. After that was a series of questions about the caller’s relationship to either the suspect or the victim. Callers were then asked to give a brief narrative of their information that the TGL screeners would enter on the computer tip sheet, reading it back to the caller before saving the file.

TGL had cautioned Mars and Nettie that while some tips warranted immediate follow-up and referral to the local law enforcement agency—like, “my brother used to live in Redstone Township and he told me five years ago that he’s the one who took Andrea Bergstad in 1984”—most did not.

Mars had suggested they mix the randomly selected tip sheets with the solid tips so they’d give the same level of attention to all the reports. They weren’t more than a half-dozen tip sheets into their respective stacks when they’d each hit a randomly selected tip. It stuck out like a neon light. They took to reading them out loud to each other for comic relief.

“Mr. Ernest Kleinmetz (age 62) of Knife Lake, Minnesota, reports that he delivered bread to the One-Stop in Redstone Township between 1989 and 1993 and personally knew all the staff working at the One-Stop. While he doesn’t remember any staff names, he would be able to identify them if shown pictures.”

“Mrs. Maude Getz (age 73) of Richmond, Indiana, reports that the convenience store she frequents was robbed two weeks ago. She has photocopies of the two perpetrators posted by local police and will forward the photocopies upon being assured that she is eligible to receive the $25,000 reward.”

“DeeDee Kipp (age 19), Vermillion, South Dakota, says that the photo on TGL of the Redstone Township abduction victim resembled her babysitter. She has pictures of herself with the babysitter and will send them upon request.”

“Abel Johnson (declined to specify age or place of residence) had a vision in which the name ‘Damien Will’ was repeated. Mr. Johnson said he heard the name repeated every time Chief Sampson of Redstone Township spoke during the TGL segment.”

Of the randomly selected tips, they were twenty-two for twenty-two on the useless scale. Lots of psychic visions, lots of somebody who looked like somebody without any meaningful tie to any of the three investigations, and lots of stretching thin connections to tie the tipster to the reward.

“So,” Nettie said, “feeling better about not being able to see all eleven hundred and thirty-three tip sheets?”

“Better, but not a hundred percent. You know how it is, Nettie. The smallest detail.” He shook his head. “But what I really feel bad about is the solid tips. I don’t see anything here that gets us near our mystery couple. Slim pickings all around.”

“There could be more. TGL said sometimes the most solid tips come two or three days after the show airs. Or through their Web site. People who have something serious to say take time to think it over before they call in.”

Mars got up and walked around the office, flexing his fingers, stretching, then coming back to his desk and scooping up the tip sheets.

“Okay. Your best shot. Where do we start with what we’ve got?”

“We got—what?—three tips about guys Andrea went to high school with…”

“All of whom Sig Sampson checked out backward and forward in 1984.”

“So why does someone call in nineteen years later unless there’s something to it?”

“Because some people never get past high school. For some people, something that happened to them in high school is still the most important thing in their lives. Then there’s a national television program that talks about what happened in their hometown, where they went to high school when they were teenagers, and their old grudge is reborn.”

Mars shrugged. “It won’t hurt to nudge around on those three guys. See where they are, what they’ve been doing. But…” He held up both hands and let them fall.

“What about you? Anything you think we should start on right away?”

Mars picked up the tip sheets again, fingering through them. “I don’t know. Maybe the fellow who said he was at the One-Stop earlier that night and there was a guy hanging around the store. At first I thought it was the same fellow who told Sig Sampson there was a car in the lot but he didn’t see anybody in the store other than Andrea when he went in. But I checked and the names don’t match. Guess I’ll talk to him. Try to get more details.”

He dropped the tip sheets on the floor next to his chair. “Amazing. Nineteen years later and we’re still getting calls from people about Averill Hess.”

Mars sat up straighter, rubbing his eyes. “Which reminds me. I need to talk to Averill about a question I had on the videotape.” He yawned and looked at his watch. “Geesus, Nettie, it’s almost three o’clock. C’mon, let’s get out of here. Tomorrow’s another day. Maybe something will pop out of this crap tomorrow that we’re too tired to see now.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Doesn’t what?” Mars said, too brain numb after hours with the tip sheets to follow the conversation.

“If nothing pops out of the crap, what then?”

Mars stared at nothing in particular. As they started for the door, he said, “It’s what you said. If nothing pops with what we’ve got now, we better hope it pops in the next day or two.

“If not, we’re right back where this thing started in 1984. Not a good place to be.”