“Maybe it is . . . looking for a body,” McLaren said. “Maybe you were trying to impress her?”
“He’s not going to answer that,” William said.
“I wasn’t trying to impress her,” Ben said. “I didn’t want her there, but I’m happy she came. She saw the area first. Once she pointed it out, I knew we had something.”
Ortiz said, “When was the last time you searched for Katie Doogan?”
“I have to think.” A pause. “I went twice in the summer.”
“And?” McLaren asked.
“And I didn’t find anything, obviously. As soon as I did spot something, I called the police.” He looked at Ortiz. “You specifically, because it’s your case.”
“I appreciate that, Ben. Where do you look for Katie? I mean, the Sandias are vast.”
“I have a log, Detective. Places I’ve tried before. I try not to duplicate my searches.”
“You have a log?”
Ben closed his eyes. It was a mistake to mention that. “Yes.”
“I’d like to see it.”
Ben turned to his father. William said, “Do you have any objections? If you do, say no.”
“I don’t like people looking at my stuff.” Silence. Then Ben said, “It’s in my backpack.”
“Can I look inside your backpack?”
Ben kicked it over to him under the table. Ortiz bent down and sorted through the teen’s belongings. Ben kept his material organized: walking sticks, compasses, pens, pencils, a camera, an analog waterproof watch, a notebook, a poncho, a change of socks, and a cooler bag of food and water. There was a Swiss Army knife that the police didn’t find when they initially searched his backpack. But it didn’t set off any alarms in Ortiz. If the boy hiked a lot, it was something he’d use all the time. He took out the notebook and scanned the contents.
Lots of diagrams and coordinates, each one of them with a date and time. There were some notes, and the printing was meticulous: no cross-outs or smears.
“Can I keep this?”
“No,” Ben said. “But I’ll make you a copy.”
“Can I have a copy made while we’re talking to you?”
“No one touches my stuff except me. I’ll make you a copy later. Please put it back.”
Ortiz paused. “You’re pretty possessive.” When Ben didn’t answer, the detective put it back and said, “Make me a copy. I did notice that the dates go back to over a year ago.”
“When Bryan and I first started looking on our own.”
“What about your sister?”
William stiffened. “What about her?”
“Hold on,” Ortiz said. “Just let me get the question out. You must have searched for her many times before you found her.”
“Is there a question here?” William asked.
“I kept my sister’s searches in another notebook,” Ben said.
“Where’s that one?”
“Burned it once we found her.”
“Once you found her.”
“Once the police verified that it was her.”
“That must have been a shock . . . finding her remains exposed like that.”
Ben sent a quick glance to his father. “Do we really have to talk about this?”
His father said, “Answer the question, Ben.”
“It was horrible. By the way, there were about fifty people looking for Ellen, so I wasn’t alone.”
“But you were alone when you found the remains.”
“I was looking by myself. Increases the odds, the more places you look.”
“You seem to have a good track record for finding bodies.”
Ben sat up. “Did you find a body in the depression, Detective?”
Ortiz pulled back. “I don’t know what’s in there, and that’s the truth. It’s going to take time. All I’m saying is you’re good at finding things.”
“Not if you calculate it like a batting average. I just take a hell of a lot more at-bats than the police. My actual stats wouldn’t even qualify me for the minors.”
Ortiz was stoic. “Okay. So why were you looking in that particular spot, Ben? It wasn’t random.”
“No, I never do things randomly. I hadn’t tried that area.”
“That doesn’t answer the question,” Ortiz said. “Why did you choose that spot?”
A long pause. “I have some theories.”
“I’d like to hear them,” McLaren told him.
“It’ll take a while. I don’t want to keep my father here longer than necessary.”
“I’m sure your father won’t care.”
Ben said, “I want Detective Shanks to be present.”
“Why?” Ortiz asked. “You don’t like my charm?”
For the first time Ben smiled. “This is the deal. I’ve got a mountain of data just sitting in my room. I’m sure you have a mountain as well. It might be good to compare and contrast. If I’m going to open a vein, I’d like to do it properly. I’ll come back if you want. Or you can come up to River Remez and we can go over it in Shanks’s office.”
“A mountain of data on what?” McLaren asked.
“You don’t have to answer that,” William told him.
“Can I answer it?” When his dad was quiet, Ben said, “My sister was murdered and her killer hasn’t been caught. I know you have a backlog of current cases. I also know that the Demon is taking up a lot of your time. And we know that the Demon didn’t kill my sister. So, until Ellen’s killer is either fried or behind bars for life, I’m going to do whatever it takes to find him.”
“Which is what, Ben?” Ortiz said.
“Well, since I have no idea who it is, I do what I can, which isn’t much. I collect data.”
“Which brings us back to the original question. What kind of data do you collect?”
He looked at his father. William said, “Do you do anything illegal? If you do, don’t answer it.”
“Nothing illegal. I’d just prefer to do this another time.”
William said, “I know what you’ve been doing.”
“That may be. But I’d really prefer not to talk in front of you.”
His father stood up. “I’ll go grab a cup of coffee.”
When he left, Ben said, “I look at unsolved murder victims like my sister—young, female, in their teens, with dark hair, that were sexually assaulted. Innocent girls—not runaways or hookers or girls doing high-risk behavior. No one deserves to be killed, of course, but I think my sister’s killer was looking for a different profile than someone like the Demon.
“Even so, I look at everything. When. Where. How. If the victims were the same age, if they were murdered in the same way, if the time of abduction was the same, where they were murdered, how they were violated. Fact upon fact upon fact. I enter all the data into the computer and see what it spits back. If something’s related geographically, like Katie and Ellen, I make a note of it. If the age is related, like Katie and Ellen, I make a note of it. If appearance is related, I make a note of it. If they were kidnapped in daytime or on certain days, like Katie and Ellen, I make a note of it.”
“And you insist that Katie Doogan and your sister are related cases even though there’s no body.”
Ben leaned forward. “I was looking for Katie near water because Ellen was found near water. When Katie’s remains are found, it’s going to be near water. That depression is about a hundred yards from the riverbank.”