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Intrigued, Rowley pulled on examination gloves and, collecting the scanned warrant, evidence bag and backpack, smiled at her. “You did the right thing.” He thought for a beat. “Was Wendy wearing gloves?”
“Oh, yes.” Maggie nodded and her dark curls bounced. “She knows the way of things around here.”
Rowley nodded. “Great. I’ll take them up to Jenna.” He headed for the stairs.
Seeing the images spread over Jenna’s desk he paused at the door. When there was a break in the conversation, he moved closer to speak to her. “I have the warrant, and this backpack and phone were found on the side of the highway by Wendy from Aunt Betty’s Café.”
“Okay, Rio, call Kalo and ask him if he can locate the phone and send him a copy of the warrant. He’ll be able to gather the information quicker than we can.” She collected the photographs on her desk, tapped them into a neat pile and placed them in a folder. “Okay, now we’re the lost-and-found department.” She raised her brows and looked at him. “Can’t Maggie log this into the system?”
Rowley’s face grew hot. He guessed he should have dealt with the problem himself, but he recalled his wife’s advice. She’d told him to go with his gut instinct with the twins. It had worked just fine raising them and he hadn’t been wrong yet. He straightened. “As we have a missing person, I figured these might belong to Maisy Jones. I haven’t opened the bag. I thought that would be something better left to you or Kane.”
He listened with interest as Jenna brought him up to date with the case. “Ah, so our missing woman could have an accomplice?”
“Well, we haven’t discussed the possibility.” Jenna leaned back in her chair. “What’s your take on this?”
Confident he’d worked out another scenario to the woman’s disappearance, Rowley straightened. “Well if, like you say, she murdered Hastings, it would take some planning.” He could almost see the crime in his head playing out step by step. “If she had an accomplice, she could tell everyone she was coming to Black Rock Falls, start a job and then vanish. Everyone would figure she’d gone missing never to be seen again, but really, her accomplice met her on the road and now they’re in the wind.”
“That’s a thought.” Kane poured a cup of coffee and handed it to him. “Almost the perfect crime.”
“We’ll follow her phone and see where she went.” Jenna smiled. “It’s hard for people to leave their phone behind and so many people have no idea they carry a GPS chip.” She took gloves from her desk drawer and examined the backpack. “Let’s see who this belongs to.” Jenna found an iPad and a few notebooks. She held up a library swipe card. “Billy Stevens out of Pine.”
Rowley frowned. “I know that name. I’m sure I’ve met him. He was dating one of Sandy’s cousins before she left for college. As I recall, he is working as a teaching assistant at the high school. He took a gap year to save money to finish his degree. He used to live on Pine with a bunch of doctors, but that was after Christmas.”
“The phone is likely his as well.” Kane examined the phone. “It’s locked, fingerprint protected.”
“Okay, contact the high school and see if you can hunt down Billy Stevens.” Jenna rubbed her temples. “Leave the phone in the evidence bag, just in case something has happened to this guy.” She suddenly smiled at him. “Good thinking about the accomplice. I figure we have a new detective on our team.”
Rowley grinned and picked up the backpack. “Thanks.”
He headed downstairs and dropped the backpack beside his desk. One side of the pack was wet and stained from being on the wet ground. He looked at it more closely and frowned. The damage to one end and the grass stains would make him believe the bag was tossed from a moving vehicle. He’d seen people leave property on the top of their vehicles, left up there when they opened the door and then driven away forgetting the item. The property would often sit there for miles until the driver took a bend and it slid off. It would be difficult to find it again in a vast area like Black Rock Falls, but the stretch of highway where the bag was found was straight. He found the number of the school and made the call. His neck prickled when he discovered Billy Stevens was a no-show for work and he hadn’t called in to say he was sick. The woman in the office said it was very strange because Stevens was very professional. Rowley thought for a beat. “Is he still living out on Pine? I’ll drop by and do a welfare check.”
“I’ll check.”A tapping of fingers on a keyboard and then the woman came back on the line.“Yes, he is still living there, Deputy Rowley. Thank you. If you see him, please ask him to give me a call.”
Rowley disconnected and pushed to his feet as Rio walked into his cubicle. “Hey, Billy Stevens is a no-show for work. Not calling in is out of character for him, and as he only lives on Pine, I’m going to drop by to see if he’s home.”
“I’m waiting on Kalo to send through information on Maisy Jones, so I’ll come with you.” Rio grabbed his coat. “Although, if he lost his phone, he couldn’t call the school, could he? I figure he’d still go to work. I wonder how his phone and backpack ended up halfway to Blackwater. Pine is walkable distance from the high school and in the opposite direction.”
Rowley nodded and buttoned up his coat. After pulling on thick gloves, he gathered his things and they headed for the door. As he stepped outside, a blast of arctic wind hit him full in the face in an eye-stinging blast. “It’s getting worse. The weather has gone crazy. Where has the gentle snowfall gone?” He tossed the bag and phone into the back seat of his sheriff’s department truck and then pulled out his sunglasses and pushed them over streaming eyes.
“It’s the same all over. You only have to watch the news, one-hundred-year weather events happening weekly. Europe is on fire, Australia is underwater and we had the flooding. Now it’s our turn to freeze. Living in an alpine region, I guess we should be used to cold weather.” Rio climbed into Rowley’s truck.
It was slow going traveling the ten-minute drive to Pine. The line of vehicles stuck behind a salt spreader crawled along and Rowley was glad to take the turn onto Pine. He drove to a large house about halfway down the road and turned into a driveway that led to the front of the redbrick house. He climbed out and, after scanning the yard, noticed two vehicles in the garage. “It looks as if someone is home.”
He followed Rio up the front steps and knocked on the door. They waited for a time and knocked again, before a disgruntled voice came from inside and the door flung open.
“Sorry, I was asleep.” The startled man gaped at them as if they’d grown two heads. “I worked the graveyard shift at the ER last night. Is there a problem?”
Heat seeped from the house but carried the smell of stale pizza and dirty socks. Rowley took in the tousled man wrapped in a tatty robe. “I hope not. We’re looking for Billy Stevens. His backpack was found this morning along with his phone. We’re just doing a welfare check.”
“Billy?” The young man frowned. “He should be at work. He’s an assistant teacher at the high school.”
“He’s not there.” Rio pushed his hands deep into his pockets. “Would you mind checking on him please?”
“Okay, but come inside and wait. All the heat is escaping out the door.” The man turned away and headed for the stairs. Moments later he appeared again, shaking his head. “He’s not in his room. I’ll go and check the rest of the house.” He took off with his thick woolen robe flying out behind him.
“This doesn’t look good.” Rio pulled out his phone and called Jenna. He explained the situation and waited. “She’s talking to Kane.” He listened for a time and then nodded. “Okay, will do.” He disconnected just as the young man came back along the passageway.
“He’s not in the house.” The man ran a hand through his tousled hair. “He doesn’t stay out overnight and always comes home and studies most nights. He doesn’t have a girlfriend.”
