The fire doesn’t appear to have been that long ago. Regret twists in my gut. That would be a damned shame. But the scenario could give us a certain opportunity. I look to Walt.
“You’re right, partner. I think we should call in the locals. Get a fire marshal out here to investigate this for us.”
“We can look around while we wait. Go inside the cabin.” I shrug. “Feels like exigent circumstances to me.”
“Absolutely. There could be victims inside—or the perpetrator.”
We move back to the cabin. On the east end, the one I round, there’s the massive stone chimney. The screened porch wraps around the west end—the end Walt is covering—and comes to a stop just past the back door. Since most of the windows are concealed by the presence of the screened porch, I climb the back steps.
Walt heads back around front. He’ll go to the front door. It’s our usual routine. One goes to the back door, the other goes to the front. On the porch the flowers in the pewter pitcher standing on the table between two chairs are still alive. I check the water level in the pitcher, half full. Someone has been here recently.
I open the screen door and rap on the wood door behind it. I lean closer and peer through the glass. A small kitchen that leads into the living room. I can see the big fireplace and a couple of comfy-looking chairs flanking it. On a side table in the living room, the screen on the small television is black. I hear Walt knocking on the front door. I should move on to the next window, but instead I pull my sleeve down over my hand and turn the doorknob.
The door opens.
“Hmm.” Now that’s a surprise. This place may be isolated, but that doesn’t mean it’s exempt from trouble. Seems odd it wasn’t locked.
Going inside without exigent circumstances or a warrant is against the law, but we have that now—at least to my way of thinking. I remind myself of this fact as I cross the threshold.
I drag a pair of latex gloves from my jacket pocket and pull them on as I walk across the uncluttered kitchen. The cabin is small. Can’t be more than four rooms. It’ll take barely a minute to walk through the floor plan. Fridge is empty except for an opened block of cheese and a half-empty bottle of wine. Stove is cold. No dishes in the sink. I move to the living room. No ash in the fireplace. The temps have been fairly low at night. Anyone staying here would have needed a fire.Maybe they cleaned up before they left. I pass into a short hall. Three doors, the narrowest one is obviously a closet. I open it first. Shelves loaded with linens and other household goods. The second door is a small bathroom. A good-sized bedroom is behind the final door. Bed is made. No one hiding underneath it. No one in that dinky closet, either.
Walt is in the kitchen when I make my way back there. “Nothing?” he asks.
I shake my head. “You find anything?”
“I opened the door to the crawl space. No hidden basement.” He peels off his gloves. “Just the usual. Spiders and crickets.”
“We should take a look around beyond the tree line.” I survey the main living area one last time. “Make sure there’s not an underground storm shelter or a root cellar. Or one of those bugout hidey-holes.”
He nods. “Let’s do it.”
It takes a solid two hours to have a good look around. But it’s better than sitting around waiting for the locals to arrive. The Chester County sheriff came first, then the fire marshal. They got started while we carried on with our search of the property.
If there was an underground bunker of some sort, we couldn’t find any indication of a fresh-air access or an entrance. No newly turned earth. None of the vegetation appears to have been disturbed. If Hyatt and Reeves killed Fanning, they buried him so deep in the woods we’ll never find his body without ground penetrating radar.
Assuming his remains aren’t in the rubble from that fire.
Speaking of the fire, in the shed near the tree line, there’s a tractor and a number of attachments, like a bushhog. But the most troubling is the two five-gallon metal gas cans—both empty. Based on Walt’s sniff of each, one had held gas, the other diesel fuel. Both accelerants.
At the front of the house, I consider the pond. It’s possible they dumped him in the water. I walk out onto the small dock; the boards creak and sigh as if no one has disturbed them in a while. I scan theshimmering surface. Doesn’t look that deep, but I don’t think I want to dive in and find out. The water would be as cold as ice.
“Thinking of taking a swim?” Walt joins me at the dock.
“I’ll pass.” I turn to him. “We’re closing in on the end of our list with nothing to show for it. Maybe we’re focused on the wrong victims.”
If Fanning took a victim, getting injured in the process, he would be too scared to go back home. That’s a given. He would hide until he was found or escaped to someplace far away. The only question is: Where would he hide? He has no living family. No resources to speak of. I can’t see him lying low with a friend. Fanning is a loner. Based on his file, he always worked alone and he never ran. According to his own statements, he’d lived in and around Nashville his whole life. The experts agreed that every child he took without getting caught made him braver.
Cocky son of a bitch.
My stomach growls. I turn to my partner. “We should head back. Grab some lunch.”
“Sounds good to me,” Walt agrees.
I load into the Tahoe while he has a final conversation with the sheriff.
As Walt heads for the Tahoe, he’s checking the screen of his phone. “Just got a text from Holland,” he says as he climbs behind the wheel.
Detective Renae Holland is part of the Youth Services Division, assigned to the Missing and Runaway Juveniles Unit. This news sets me on edge.
