Mason headed out to look at the bunker again. All the evidence had been collected. It’d been enough to fill a small U-Haul trailer. Mason was a bit overwhelmed by the huge amount of crap that’d been taken from a bunker that, at first glance, had seemed sparse and bare. But when it came to children, they overlooked nothing. Anything that could give them a hair or fiber had been pulled. The state lab was going to be backed up. Again.
He’d looked over everything the techs were removing, but he’d been focused on the big items. The kids’ backpacks, the cameras, the pictures. The state crime lab would let him know if a grain of dirt yielded any amazing clues.
The scene beneath the big firs was quiet. One lone trooper held the assignment to keep away the curious public. The OSP navy sedan with its distinctive gold swoop was parked in the shade but blocked the pathway to the scene. Its driver sat in the front seat. Mason saw him put down a novel as he pulled closer and then stepped out of his vehicle. Mason parked beside the sedan and pulled out his ID for the trooper. He didn’t recognize the cop, but he figured Ray would have known him instantly. The trooper waved off the ID.
“Afternoon, Detective.” He waved his wide-brimmed hat to fan his face. “I wasn’t expecting anyone today.”
Mason shook the trooper’s hand. “Robertson,” read his name badge. “I wasn’t planning to come out. I just need to look around again. How long have they got you on guard duty?”
Robertson snorted. “Tomorrow should be it. Haven’t had any Curious Georges to turn away since yesterday. You guys are done here, right?”
Mason nodded. “I think they took away everything but the bunker itself. And there were a couple of guys who wanted to do that.”
“They’re gonna have to do something with it. Fill it up with concrete or weld it shut. Don’t need any other assholes deciding to make use of it.”
“There’s been talk of the welding idea. That’s probably what they’ll do. I’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes.”
The trooper gave an informal salute and went back to his book.
Mason used his own hat as a fan. The forest was giving off a dry, dusty smell that reminded him of a woodstove burning old wood. It was going to be a bad summer for wildfires if they didn’t get some rain. In Oregon, usually you could count on rain off and on until July 5th, but this year had been hot and dry since April.
He strolled to the bunker entrance and stared at how the earth had been flattened and trampled around the hatch. So many feet over the last few days. The quiet of the forest was overwhelming. No sounds at all. Was this how it’d been for the children? During the investigation, the site had been crawling with people. Now it felt empty and lonely.
How long had the children been in there?
Mason looked up. The firs blocked his view of the sky. A few pieces of blue shone through here and there, but the dark-green ceiling felt ominous. Like it was smothering something, keeping something hidden from the rest of the world. Which was exactly what it’d done for twenty years. But it was still hiding one thing.
Where was the body of Daniel Brody? The forest hadn’t revealed that secret.
Mason stared into the dense woods. Another boy was in there somewhere; Mason imagined the trees hiding his final resting place. Why hadn’t Daniel been buried with the other children?
The cadaver dog and her handler had been through the immediate surrounding woods several times. Her amazing dog had found nothing. He’d had her walk the farm again, too. Daniel’s final resting place was staying buried for now.
When Mason had a suspect in his hands, he was going to get that answer. No matter what it took. Cecilia Brody deserved to know the fate of her son before she died.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. Ray was calling.
“Yep.”
“Got a minute?” Ray asked.
“You bet.” He hadn’t decided if he was going back down in the bunker today. His previous two descents had given him emotional nightmares that he didn’t care to repeat. He moved toward the pit and stared into the abyss where five bodies had been hidden for years.
“We’ve put together another ID on one of the bodies from the pit.”
Mason stepped back from the yellow caution tape, slightly disturbed by the coincidence of his location. “I’m fucking staring into the thing right now. That’s freaky. What did you get?”
“One of the females was reported missing fifteen years ago.”
“Fifteen?” Mason pressed the phone tighter to his ear. “She was seen that recently?”
“Yes, she was reported missing by an aunt who’d seen her the week before.”
“So our unsub brought vics here after Chris Jacobs escaped. What’s her history?”
“One solicitation arrest. Eight years before she vanished.”
“Nice. Let’s hope our guy keeps sticking to the same MO. We’ll pin him down.”
“Even better. She had a previous address in the same neighborhood as the other victim we identified.”
“They were neighbors?” Mason wanted to rub his hands together. Would the other victims come from the same fishing pond? Enough dead fish from one area and they could start narrowing in on the common denominator. History had proved serial killers were creatures of habit. They liked routines. When something worked well for them, they had a tendency to repeat, trying to match that success.
“Dawn Henderson. She was thirty when she went missing. Had a decent job as a receptionist at a car dealership, no steady relationship at the time, and no issues with past boyfriends that we could find back then. One day she was at work, and the next day she wasn’t. Basically, she vanished.”
“Basically, all these victims vanished. That’s part of this guy’s MO. He really knows how to take people without leaving a freaking clue. They vanish off the radar without a blip.”
“I haven’t gotten in contact with Henderson’s aunt yet, but there’s an interview with her in the file that the vic had been distraught in the past over the murder of her roommate several years before but had received therapy at some point and had been doing well. For a while, she’d been nearly suicidal.”
Mason’s Spidey-sense went off. “How many years before she vanished was her roommate murdered? Was that in the same neighborhood?”
Ray shuffled papers in the background. “Nine. Almost ten years. Ugly scene. And the address is close to where Dawn was living when she disappeared. The roommate was attacked in their home. Name was Sandra Edge. She was sexually abused and then strangled. Dawn Henderson wasn’t home at the time, but she found the victim after.”
“They catch him?” Hope rose in Mason’s chest.
“Yep. He’s in Salem.”
Shit. “The state pen?” Mason asked. “He’s been locked up this whole time?”
“I’m looking…yeah, he hasn’t been out at all.”
“Name?”
“Lee Fielding.”
Mason’s brain was working at full speed. There was something here…he could feel it. But the guy had been locked up the whole time? “I still want to talk to him. And would you run a search for the registered sex offenders who were living around the residence…aww crap! That’s before they had to register with the state, isn’t it?”
“The roommate’s murder occurred a few years before state law had sex offenders registering. And they only had to register for five years at first, but I’ll see what history I can find for that area.”
“Our tattooed man is plainly a sex offender. Something tells me he’s got to be in the system somewhere. And I still haven’t heard back from the gang unit about his tattoos.” Mason filed a mental note to follow up. “I’ll call and tell the state pen I need to talk to Lee Fielding. Maybe I can get in this afternoon or tomorrow morning.” Mason paused. “I’ve got a good feeling on this one, Ray.”
“Damn it! Don’t say that! You’ll jinx it, Mason!”
Mason smiled into his phone as he strode back to his car.