Chapter 23

23

August 2000

Three hours after the Blake County Sheriff's Department requested their assistance, Agent Camila Santos sped down the dusty gravel but slammed on the brakes when she crested a hill to find a tree growing in the middle of the road.

"What the hell," Santos exclaimed as her passenger, Agent John Randolph, braced his hands against the dashboard. The black sedan fishtailed and skidded to a stop.

The two Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation agents stared up at the massive tree. "Damn," Randolph said. "That's not something you see every day."

Santos inched the sedan around the scaly gray-green trunk of the eighty-foot tree. "They need a warning sign or something," she agreed.

They crossed a small creek, rounded a corner, and the house came into view. At first glance, it looked like dozens of other white farmhouses they had seen on their trip from Des Moines to rural Blake County, but the flurry of activity ahead let the agents know they were in the right spot.

Santos slowly drove past dozens of parked vehicles and small teams of searchers wading through the tall grass in the ditches that lined the road. The searchers, grim-faced, paused to watch them creep past. "Hope they didn't trounce all over the crime scene," Randolph worried.

"Double murder, two missing kids, everyone has to be in a panic," Santos said as she pulled up behind a rusty Bonneville parked on the side of the road. "I was assured that the sheriff here has everything under control."

"Why are you stopping here?" Randolph asked, not relishing the long walk up to the crime scene in this heat.

"I want to get the lay of the land," Santos said as she stepped out into the hot glare of the sun and surveyed the surroundings.

The only buildings in sight were the ones on the Doyle property: a house, a silo, a large barn shedding red curls of paint, a few other outbuildings. Surrounded on all sides by mature cornfields. Remote, isolated.

Santos, compact and strong, like a gymnast, was a twenty-year law enforcement veteran who joined the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation in 1995 after relocating to Des Moines from Kansas City. She quickly rose in the ranks and was the lead investigator on many high-profile cases that included murders or missing persons. This case had both.

Randolph was the younger of the two, wore a suit jacket and red-and-blue-striped tie. His dress shoes were polished to a high sheen that wouldn't last long on these dusty roads.

Randolph was so much taller than his counterpart that the woman had to crane her neck to look up at him. But there was something commanding about the way Agent Santos held herself, the cock of her chin, the set of her mouth. She was clearly in charge.

Crime scenes have a pulse all their own and when managed effectively hum along at an efficient, steady pace. Everyone from deputy to crime scene investigator, to detective, to forensic specialists, to the coroner knew their role.

Santos was assured that the main crime scene—the house, the outbuildings, and the Doyles' cornfield were all secure and being searched only by law enforcement. This was key. But the area outside the crime scene perimeter was important too.

Normally, volunteer searches were not activated so quickly, giving law enforcement more time to get a sense of what happened and keep the distraction of managing those with good intentions at a minimum.

Yes, the locals had organized quickly, but Santos also knew that volunteer searchers could be invaluable in situations like these, especially when the search area was vast and manpower limited. Local folks knew the terrain, knew the nooks and crannies that outsiders wouldn't be familiar with.

Cognizant of the curious eyes that followed their trek toward the house, Santos studied faces, body language. It wasn't unusual for a perpetrator to insert him or herself into the middle of a case in hopes of staying ahead of the investigation.

Men in coveralls and dusty boots stood in clusters shaking their heads. Woman in T-shirts and shorts wore sunglasses to hide their tears. No one appeared overtly suspicious, but that didn't mean he wasn't here, watching.

Santos turned her attention to the farmhouse. It was old, in need of a coat of paint. Already the day's heat pressed down on the purple and white flowers drooping limply in their hanging baskets on the front porch. An eerie lowing sound came from the direction of the barn.

Though the house gave no outward indication that something terrible had occurred here, Santos could feel a sense of dread rising from the earth, shimmering with heat.

Someone was handing out pictures of the missing teens. Agent Santos took a flyer and examined it. The picture of Ethan Doyle was a good one. He smiled brightly and his blue eyes snapped with good-natured mischief.

Santos turned her attention to the picture of Becky Allen. Pretty girl. While most girls this age appeared awkward and hadn't quite settled into their features, Becky conveyed an air of maturity, confidence.

"Hello," the woman handing out the fliers said. "Thank you for coming. If you could please sign in here, we'll..."

"We're with the state police," Santos said.

"Oh," the woman faltered. "I was telling the deputy here that the other night I saw a strange truck parked on the gravel road, right over there." She turned and pointed just beyond the Doyles' cornfield.

"What's your name?" Agent Santos asked.

"Abby Morris. I live out that way," she turned and pointed toward the north.

"I'm Deputy Robbins. I wrote down her account," Levi said, patting a bulge in his shirt pocket where it held a small notebook.

"Make sure we get a copy of it," Santos said. "I'm looking for Sheriff Butler," Santos said.

Levi nodded and said, "It's a bit of a walk."

"Good thing I have my walking shoes on," Santos said. Levi gave a hesitant smile, not sure if he had offended the agent. When she didn't smile back, he let the grin fall away. "He's this way," Levi said and started walking toward the back of the house. "A deputy found it about thirty feet into the cornfield."

"Anyone touch it?" Santos asked.

"They said they didn't. Someone ran to get me and I hightailed it into the field and cleared everyone out of the area."

"Good," Santos said. The red barn loomed over the property. You could fit three of her house easily inside the sagging building. Santos was a city girl, grew up in Kansas City, and now lived in the heart of downtown Des Moines but knew that zip code was no exemption from violence and death. There was just less concrete and more soil.

As they approached the cornfield, Santos's pulse quickened. She had been in meth houses and down dark alleys, but as they stepped into the corn, the tall stalks towered over her. At the top of each, a spiky tassel poked the sky. In the space of a few steps, the field had swallowed her whole. Santos felt a wave of apprehension.

As they pushed through the corn, Santos could imagine the terror that Josie Doyle must have felt as she hid from her attacker. No matter which direction you looked—left or right—there was another identical stalk in front of you.

Santos lifted her neck and squinted upward. The sky was as vast and endless as the field seemed to be. Insects buzzed past her ears, the sweet smell of corn filled her nose.

Soon the murmur of the breeze through the stalks was replaced with a dry cough. A few steps farther and Sheriff Butler's khaki uniform came into view.

"Sheriff," Agent Santos said by way of greeting. Butler turned toward her and then stepped aside to reveal what had been discovered by the volunteers.

A camo-colored shotgun, muzzle up, leaned against a thick stalk. "Looks like someone just set it there," the deputy observed.

Agent Santos lowered herself into a crouch and examined the butt of the gun that rested atop the dry dirt. "Maybe. Any footprints?"

"Not a one. The ground is too hard-packed," Sheriff Butler said. "But there's a lot of trampled stalks. Squares up with what Josie said about being chased through the field."

Agent Santos lifted a pinch of soil from the ground and rubbed it between her fingers. "Why would he leave the weapon behind."

"Trying to ditch it?" Levi suggested. "He was trying to hide it in a hurry."

"Who is he ?" Butler asked. "A stranger? Then where are Ethan Doyle and the Allen girl? If he took the two of them with him, wouldn't he need the weapon to help control them? Same case if you think Ethan is the suspect. Wouldn't he need the gun to make Becky comply?"

Agent Santos lithely got to her feet. "We need to get organized. Figure out what we know and need to know. Get a command post. How far is the sheriff's office from here?"

Sheriff Butler shook his head. "It's about thirty miles away. Too far. The department has a remote command post, but it's being used on the far end of the county for a train derailment. I was thinking, how about the old church off Highway 11? It's only a few miles from here."

"Fine," Santos said. "We need to talk to the survivor and the parents of the missing girl."

"We got the basics from Josie Doyle," Butler said. "She mentioned a strange truck hanging around earlier in the day."

"Any names come up?" Randolph asked.

"Nothing that seemed too suspicious—just a few people that the girls came into contact with yesterday," the sheriff said. "Brock Cutter, a local kid. And the Henleys—they live about two miles from here on Oxeye Road."

"Okay," Santos said. "Agent Randolph can help get the command center set up. Sheriff, have someone go talk to the Henleys and this Cutter kid. I'll go meet with the Allens. Once Josie Doyle is given the green light by the docs, we need to interview her more thoroughly. Let's plan on meeting at the church at—" Santos looked at her watch "—4:00 p.m."

Everyone nodded.

"Bag the shotgun and enter it into evidence and go talk to Brock Cutter," Butler ordered Levi, handing him the department's evidence camera.

"Yes, sir," Levi said as Sheriff Butler and the agents disappeared into the stalks.

Levi stayed behind, took several photos of the shotgun and drew a diagram of its position in his small notebook. He slipped on a pair of gloves and carefully picked up the shotgun. He opened the breach, exposing the barrel. The chamber was empty. It wasn't loaded.

Maybe Brock Cutter was a witness to what happened at the Doyle house. Levi remembered the sour smell of sweat emanating off the teenager when he pulled him over. Was it just the heat? Maybe it was fear. And he had let the kid go with barely a second thought.

A current of anger slid through Levi. Had the little fucker lied to him? Maybe he knew something that could break this case wide-open. Holding the weapon off to the side, careful not to smudge any possible fingerprints, Levi began to walk back toward the farm. He needed to find Brock Cutter.

Agent Santos needed to see the bodies. "We okay to go in?" she asked the deputy stationed at the back door of the farmhouse.

The deputy nodded and handed the agents a set of paper booties to place over their shoes. The first thing Santos noticed when she stepped from the mudroom into the kitchen was the oppressive heat. All the windows were shut tight, no fans were running, and the window air conditioners were switched off.

"It has to be a hundred and ten degrees in here," Randolph said, loosening his tie.

"We have to make a note to ask Josie Doyle if the house was shut up this tight last night," Santos said as she moved to the living room. "For how hot it's been all week, I can't imagine they wouldn't have been running the air conditioner or at least had the windows open."

"Maybe the killer was trying to alter the scene," Randolph suggested. "Made sure the windows were shut, turned off the air conditioner so that the bodies decomposed more quickly. That would make it harder for the ME to determine what time they died."

"Could be," Santos said. "Doesn't look like there was forced entry. We'll have to find out if the Doyles kept their doors locked at night." They continued through the house. It looked like a typical, neatly kept home.

"Do we know how many guns were kept in the house?" Santos asked a nearby deputy.

"According to Matthew Ellis, the grandfather, the Doyles had several guns in the house," the deputy said. "Most families around here do. Matthew thought they had three or four."

"Do you know what kind of guns they are?" Agent Randolph asked.

The deputy checked his notepad. "He said he thought they had a pump-action shotgun for deer hunting, a 20 gauge, and a BB gun. Possibly a 12 gauge too."

"Find out if the 20 gauge found in the field belonged to the Doyles," Santos told the deputy.

They slowly made their way up the stairs, careful not to touch anything. Randolph noted the smudges of blood smeared across the wall next to the staircase. "Could have been left behind by one of the victims or the perpetrator. They also could have been from Josie Doyle's injured arm when she came looking for her family."

Santos and Randolph stepped into the master bedroom. They focused their eyes on Lynne Doyle. The wound to her chest was massive. "Up close and personal," Randolph said.

Sweat dripped down Santos's face but she resisted the urge to shed her suit jacket. It was even hotter in the bedroom than downstairs. "Is the heat on?" Santos asked, moving toward a vent in the floor. Warm air blew lightly on her fingers. "You were right," she told Randolph. "The son of bitch turned on the heat."

They moved on to Josie's bedroom where William Doyle lay in the doorway. "Find anything interesting?" Santos asked a crime scene tech.

"We dusted for prints," the tech said. "Found several different sets. Lots of fibers—won't know if there's anything significant about them for a while."

That wasn't much. "Nothing else?" Randolph asked.

"I was saving the best for last," the tech said with a grin. "We found two different kinds of shells in here. Two shotgun shells from a 20 gauge and one from a 9 mm. We almost missed the shell from the 9 mm."

Santos stood over William Doyle's body and processed this information while Randolph moved on to look at Ethan Doyle's bedroom. Two guns. Did that mean there were two intruders? They would have to wait for the medical examiner's report to see exactly how many gunshots were fired into the Doyles and what kinds of guns were used.

The house wasn't ransacked. It didn't appear that any valuables had been taken in the murders, so robbery wasn't a likely motive.

"Hey," Randolph said, interrupting her thoughts. He handed her a five-by-seven gold picture frame that held a photo of Ethan Doyle standing next to his grandfather. Ethan was proudly holding up a shotgun with a camouflage finish.

Forensics would have to confirm it, but it looked very much like the shotgun found in the cornfield belonged to Ethan Doyle. But where was he now? And what happened to Becky Allen?