“Still is, I believe. You know more people in town than I do.” His brown eyes studied her, curiosity hovering.
“The files?” she reminded him.
Lucas appeared and held out a sticky note. “Here’s the case number, the box number, and which shelf you’ll find it on. I saw Jennifer Sanders was cross-referenced with another woman’s name, Gwen Vargas. Her file is in the same box if you need it.”
“Perfect. Thanks, Lucas.” She took the note.
Truman came around to the front of the desk and deftly plucked the yellow piece of paper from her fingers. “Let’s take a look.”
Truman immediately noticed that someone had cleaned up the records and evidence storage room. Lucas. He made a mental note to buy him a latte. Ina Smythe had always kept the room well organized, but someone had swept out all the dust bunnies and spiderwebs that’d formed. His department didn’t collect a lot of evidence; mostly they handed out tickets and took the role of a cool head in disputes. Truman figured he hadn’t set foot in the evidence and file room in over a month. The file box was exactly where Lucas had indicated it would be. The large room was packed with rows of ceiling-to-floor shelves stuffed full with boxes and evidence. They found the box in the second-to-last row, right at eye level. Truman grabbed the entire box. Mercy stopped him with a hand on his arm, eyeing the label on the front.
“According to this, there are six different cases assigned to this single box.”
Truman looked. “And?”
“Two of these are murder cases and that’s all the evidence and case notes?”
“Maybe the other cases are shoplifting. Skinny files. We store the bulky evidence somewhere else. There could be a reference inside the box to other storage.”
Mercy looked resigned. “Maybe.”
Truman understood. Two women had been murdered. A person would expect to find tons of evidence and notes on the case. Something that showed the police had exhausted every lead. A single box that held six cases didn’t give confidence.
He directed her down a hall to the small room he’d offered for their investigation. Neither she nor Special Agent Peterson had made use of the room yet, and Truman figured it was time. He’d already learned that Jennifer Sanders’s and Gwen Vargas’s murders had been handled solely by the Eagle’s Nest PD. Truman was slightly stunned. Why didn’t the chief ask the state or county for help?
Truman’s department resources were pretty small, leading him to assume that fifteen years ago they had been even smaller. What had made the chief confident his department could handle two murders? And the cases were still unsolved. Where was the follow-up?
That chief had passed away ten years ago. Truman wished Ben Cooley was back from Mexico. Cooley had been a cop in Eagle’s Nest for thirty years but was currently in Puerto Vallarta for his fiftieth wedding anniversary. He wouldn’t be back on the job until next week. Truman hoped he’d gotten an international calling plan for his cell phone. He might need to call the older officer.
He set the box on the table and lifted the lid. Inside, the six cases were individually sealed. He’d been right that the other four cases were represented by small files. They barely took up two inches of space. The other two cases had multiple notebooks and manila envelopes in their sealed plastic covers. He grabbed the largest one, which matched the case number on Lucas’s sticky note, unsealed it, and handed it to Mercy. “Nothing leaves this room.”
“Of course not.” She pulled out a chair and immediately started flipping through the biggest notebook. It was the Jennifer Sanders murder book. Autopsy report, evidence reports, all officer notes, photos. A copy of every piece of the paper trail from the case was in the notebook or referenced. Truman read over Mercy’s shoulder for a few moments. Long enough to learn that Jennifer had died a horrible death. A senior school photo was in the front of the book. Jennifer had had long, dark hair and an incredible smile. It was a startling contrast to the images of her dead body, with its swollen face and purple lividity on the bare limbs.
He saw Mercy pause at a candid photo of Jennifer with three other laughing girls. Mercy slipped it out of its plastic envelope, flipped it over, scanned the names written on the back, and looked at the photo again. Truman read fast enough to know that the second girl was Mercy’s sister Pearl. He leaned closer. The Pearl he knew today no longer looked like that vibrant teenager.
What is Mercy thinking?