Chapter 12

TWELVE

TUESDAY

Gray storm clouds rolled across the mountains to join the mist-covered pine trees, and it was as if the forest was living under a cloak of fog. The continuous rain was getting monotonous, and Jenna and Kane spent two hours driving from one place to another to inspect the flooding. The updates were coming in regularly from the Montana Department of Transportation, and Jenna expected the governor to declare a state of emergency as the flooding became widespread. After flooding a year or so previously, the drainage throughout the town and much of the surrounding county had been updated, but nothing could stop the constant flow of water. Swollen rivers were breaking their banks at a rapid rate. The melt was always a problem, but no one had expected it to rain for a month.

As Jenna sat in the Beast her phone buzzed. She checked the caller ID as it lit up the screen in the truck. It was Johnny Raven. Raven had agreed to join their team as a consultant. He had a trained K-9 that would take on dangerous work that wasn’t suitable for Duke. Raven served in the Medical Corps and after an injury spent his rehabilitation learning how to become a K-9 trainer. So he offered double value to the team. He was an extra doctor, a pilot, and, at six-five and two hundred fifty pounds, a good person to have for extra backup should the need arise. When not needed, Raven trained rescue dogs for self-protection and in general was a dog guy, finding forever homes for strays he’d used for his dogsled and offering medical services to the off-the-grid folks in the mountains.

Jenna glanced at Kane and gave him a surprised expression. Raven rarely called the office. “Good morning. How are you, Dr. Raven?”

“Oh, come now, Sheriff. No one calls me Dr. Raven.” He chuckled. “I’m Raven. The folks around here like that just fine. Are we on speaker? I can hear the Beast’s engine.”

“Morning, Raven.” Kane smiled at Jenna. “What’s happening in the mountains? We have no idea. You’ve been blanketed in mist and rain for so long we’ve forgotten the mountain is there.”

“Conditions are not good, I’m afraid, but I do have some good news.” Raven blew out a long breath. “I’ve spent a long time clearing an old trail that leads from my cabin to the fire road. It means I can now drive my truck into town and get to you at short notice. That’s the good news.”

Jenna nodded. “That’s great and much safer for you. What’s the bad news?”

“You’ll recall the avalanches we had over winter. Well, it seems they’ve done more damage than we first anticipated. Trees have been ripped out by the roots. Fine if you need a good supply of firewood or need to build something but real bad with this rain.” Raven cleared his throat. “I’m no expert but I figure you need to get someone to check out the avalanche areas. They look too darn unstable to me and we’re still getting rumbles through the mountain. It’s only a matter of time before we’ll get mudslides.” He sucked in a breath and let it out in a huff. “You know there’s people living all over up here. Many don’t want to be found but we need to at least warn them if there’s a chance of mudslides.”

Frowning, Jenna stared at the screen. “Yeah, I’ll call it in and see if they can get a team up there to check it out. I’m not sure what they can do to stop it.” She pushed hair behind one ear, thinking. “Last time we had a bad slide, the forestry planted a ton of new trees and undergrowth, but that’s impossible in this weather.”

“If there’s a chance of mudslides, I can contact people over the CB radio, and messages get passed along. You could get warnings out over the media.” Raven paused for a beat. “There are many old cabins people could move into out of the danger areas. They just need to know the threat is there.”

Trying to consider whom she needed to contact, Jenna nodded. “Okay, I’ll get things moving and keep you in the loop. Thanks for letting me know.”

“I appreciate it.” Raven disconnected.

Jenna made the necessary calls and nodded slowly as she repeated the same request. Disconnecting, she turned to Kane. “Everyone I called is going to coordinate a team to check the state of the mountain in the avalanche areas. It’s a matter of organizing the right people. I guess we wait and see.”

“I’m sure they can see that this is a matter of urgency.” Kane pulled into a parking space out back of the office. “I’ll be interested to see what Rowley and Rio have come up with this morning. We need more details on the college friends of Josie Campbell. The person she mentioned, Marissa something, is someone we can hunt down today.”

Working on a cold case was always difficult because people had short memories and details were overlooked. It usually entailed a ton of grunt work and interviewing people who couldn’t remember what they had for breakfast the previous morning. For Norrell, it was something to get her teeth into. Her work with Wolfe would no doubt bring to light more details to assist with the case. Jenna nodded. “Yeah, I’d like to hear what she has to say.” She met his gaze. “You might believe I’m losing my mind but have you ever felt as if you’re in a mystery novel? I mean this case is throwing us tiny morsels of clues as if they’re being fed to us via an author.”

“Hmm, I guess that’s one way of looking at it.” Kane burst out laughing. “Do you figure they would let us have a peek at the end of the book? It would save time and we could go home and cuddle in front of the fire.”

Smiling, Jenna shook her head. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“I figure it’s the nature of a cold case.” Kane slipped out of the door and unclipped Duke from his harness. “Small fragments of information come to light as we move along. To be honest, I’m enjoying hunting down a murderer without someone trying to kill us. I would imagine that the killer is long gone from this area by now.” He smiled at her, his eyes dancing with mischief. “And for the record, I do love a good mystery.”

Stepping out into the cold damp air, Jenna hurried inside the office, glad to see Rio and Rowley working at their desks. “Morning, everyone. Can you bring all your information upstairs to my office, please?” She sailed past them and headed for the front counter. “Morning, Maggie. Is there anything interesting for me today?”

“I’ve already given all the information from the calls on the hotline to the deputies.” Maggie stared over her shoulder at Cade and Piper, who were sitting in front of the TV. “They’ve been here since seven and they’re having a break at the moment. I must say they’ve been a great help. The calls come in after each news bulletin and it gets a little chaotic, then nothing happens for hours. There are quite a few people who recall the kids going missing in Stanton Forest. We’ve had a couple of calls from the group of students who were in the forest that night when Abby and Cole went missing. They have information about that night but are not clear on exactly what you need. They might be people you could put on your list to interview.”

Waving at Cade and Piper, Jenna moved her attention back to Maggie. “That sounds like a plan and at least we have some leads. I was getting to the point where if I hadn’t seen the victims’ bodies, I’d have assumed they didn’t exist at all. There’s too much mystery around this murder, as if it’s been a giant cover-up. I’m wondering if the old sheriff had anything to do with it.”

“As he’s long gone, I doubt we’ll ever know for sure.” Maggie rested both hands on the counter. “The deputies have been working hard all morning as well and I’m sure they’ll have more information for you.”

Nodding, Jenna smiled at her. “I guess I should go and find out.” She indicated toward Cade and Piper. “Make sure they get something to eat. They can order takeout and put it on the account or do the same at Aunt Betty’s or the pizzeria.”

“I’ll make sure they put in an order when I do mine.” Maggie held up one hand when the phone beside her rang. “Gotta go.”

The smell of fresh coffee drifted toward Jenna as she headed upstairs to her office. Kane had gotten everything organized in her absence. Two pots of coffee, one regular and one decaffeinated, dripped from the machines. Rio was working industriously in front of the whiteboard. With his retentive memory, he made short work of listing all the information that he and Rowley had accumulated earlier. She removed her slicker, hung it on the peg beside the door, and changed her footwear. After giving Duke a pat on the head, she headed for the whiteboard and looked at Rio. “What have you got for me?”

“The information coming in over the hotline is just about identical.” Rio lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Two kids went missing. They can’t remember their names but one was the college quarterback. People were saying that they ran away together—until they found Cole’s truck. It was Abby’s father who got the search parties together and some of them mentioned the forest rangers were involved as well. They found the campsite where everyone had stayed that night but no trace of Cole or Abby.”

“The local newspaper gave us a write-up of the story, and it has pictures of the students who went missing. There was one follow-up story saying that no trace of them had been found and they believed they’d run away together.” Rowley shrugged. “So the media reports are absolutely useless, much like the records in this office from that time.”

“What else did you discover about the women involved?” Kane glanced at them over one shoulder.

“Josie Grady, Marissa Kendrick, Abby Jaye, and Lily Jones are all friends from college.” Rio added the names of them to the whiteboard. “We discovered numerous images of them in yearbooks, and in high school as well, so they go back a long way. As you’ve already interviewed Josie Campbell, that is her married name, I believe, do you want us to move on to Marissa Kendrick and Lily Jones?”

“I figure women are more likely to talk to each other about what happened during their college years. They would likely recall who was dating who and the like.” Rowley looked up from his tablet. “We forgot to mention that they all knew Abby and Cole. They’re in a group photograph at a prom along with a few other people who we’ve yet to track down. We have names but that’s all for now. Unfortunately, there’s nothing to prove that any of them were together on the night that Abby and Cole went missing.”

Jenna frowned. “This is what makes cold cases so frustrating, there isn’t anything shared on their social media profiles. We don’t have phones to look at and I doubt anyone would still own a computer from twelve years previously, but I guess we can check it out.”

“I have a laptop from twelve years ago.” Rowley glanced up from his tablet. “It still works okay, although it’s a little slow compared to today’s models. So don’t count that idea out. College kids would have had phones at that time.”

“Maybe, but most of them would have been useless in the mountains, apart from taking photographs and using the flashlight.” Kane poured coffee and handed the cups around. “I don’t recall college kids being able to afford satellite sleeves back then—or now. Not many college kids would own a satellite phone, even now.”

Trying hard to think outside the box, Jenna stared out the window and into the dull gray morning. “There were no phones with the two bodies. You could assume that Abby was carrying one in her hand when she was murdered. We could have found one in Cole’s back pocket, unless he left it in his truck or it washed out in the river. We’d need to interview his parents again to discover if there was any evidence left in the truck.” She glanced from one deputy to the other as she took her seat behind the desk. “If we could find one of their phones, we would have a contact list. What about social media? Have you hunted down the list of names and seen who they have as friends?”

“That was one of the first things we did after finding them in the yearbooks. We found images of ten or so men who were photographed with one or all of the women, and all the guys were on the football team. Five of them were in Alpha Pi.” Rio sat in front of the desk and reached for a cup of coffee. “The guys might have been friends in college but they’re certainly not friends on social media.”

Adding cream and sugar to her cup of decaffeinated coffee, Jenna stirred slowly as she considered the implications of what Rio had said. “Don’t you think that’s a little unusual? Most people, especially frat brothers, keep in contact with their close friends from college. It doesn’t make sense that this group of guys, who knew the three women and Cole, were close friends back then and now avoid each other like the plague.”

“Do they all still live in Black Rock Falls?” Kane sat down and sipped his coffee. “It’s easy to lose track of people when they leave town.”

Interested, Jenna leaned forward in her seat and stared at Rio. “Do you have any names?”

“Yeah. Four of the men live in Black Rock Falls, as do three of the women. You already know the women’s names.” Rio stood and went to the whiteboard. “Wyatt Twotrees, Jess Hallon, Clint Wasser, and Dustin Crawley.” He added the names to the whiteboard and turned back and took his seat. “We haven’t had time to hunt down what they do for a living or where they live. We’ll check the MVD and get that information for you as soon as possible. You already have the details of the women, and Lily is a stylist at the beauty parlor.”

Pleased by their results, Jenna nodded as she munched on a cookie from the jar on the desk. “Okay, we’ll leave you to keep hunting down those guys’ information and we’ll head out to speak to Cole’s parents again. If he did have a cell phone, it wouldn’t be something that a parent would throw away, especially if it held images of their son.”

“Maybe they’ve left his room intact.” Kane collected the cups and placed them in the sink. “Some parents never give up the hope their kids will return home someday. Maybe we’ll be able to find something there to connect the dots.”

Pushing to her feet, Jenna looked at her deputies. “Okay, we’ll leave you to it and go and speak to Cole’s mom again and then we’ll drop by and see if we can find Marissa Kendrick. Can you update my files when you discover anything new?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Rowley stood and headed out the door.

It was good having Rio as her chief deputy. He’d keep working without orders. His promotion had taken a ton of worry from her shoulders. She grabbed her slicker, shuddered, and looked at Kane. “Back out into the cold soup. Let’s hope we get a positive result.”