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“We got one root,” Noah said.
“I’ll ask that DNA testing be expedited,” The Chief said.
Josie said a silent thank you to the heavens. If they could match Kayleigh’s hair to the hair found inside Thomas’s cabin, it would be definitive proof that she had been inside his home. It might be enough for an arrest warrant. “What else?” she asked.
“Hummel found a few different sets of prints that didn’t match anything in AFIS,” Noah said. “But we don’t have prints on file for Kayleigh so we can’t confirm whether any of them match hers.”
“What about the vehicles?” asked the Chief.
“Officer Chan worked on those back at the impound lot while the rest of the ERT handled the cabin,” Gretchen replied. “She found a few sets of unknown prints on the inside and outside of both but again, we can’t match them to Kayleigh without a set of her prints. No blood evidence. She found several short brown hairs in both vehicles but given their length and the fact that they’re significantly darker than Kayleigh Patchett’s hair, they probably belong to Thomas. Chan also found traces of DNA in the Toyota—what looks like sweat—on the driver’s headrest but it is most likely that of Henry Thomas. She found a lot of different DNA in the El Camino but that thing is from 1970 and from what we’ve been able to gather, it had multiple owners before Thomas bought it so I’m not sure how useful that will be. It’s going to take forever for them to test all the samples. Anyway, the ERT sent everything to the state police lab. They’re still working on getting the GPS reports from the Toyota.”
“But we don’t have enough to arrest or charge him,” said Noah.
“Yet,” muttered Josie.
Gretchen said, “I assume you got nothing from the interview.”
Josie recapped the interview for them. “He’s definitely lying about something. I couldn’t get anything out of him. If I had more to work with, something to rattle him, I could bring him back in and try again. It would be even better if we could get a DNA match and just arrest him.”
Noah said, “We could use that as leverage to try to get him to tell us what he did with Kayleigh.”
“With her body,” said Gretchen. “If Thomas is behind this, she’s already dead. He would have had enough time to kill her and dispose of her body before you guys arrived at his cabin.”
A solemn moment of silence filled the room. Then Josie said, “That doesn’t change anything about how we do our jobs. We find Kayleigh Patchett. Period.”
“If he killed her and dumped or even buried her body somewhere nearby,” Noah said. “Couldn’t we have Blue do a cadaver search? He’s certified for it.”
Josie took another sip of her coffee, trying not to wince at the acidity. “There were so many remains in that area, and as much as we tried to recover them all after the missing girls’ case, the FBI told me there were likely still fragments all over that mountain. It’s possible Blue would alert to a number of places and then we’d spend all our time digging.”
Gretchen said, “It would probably make more sense to just look for any area that appears to be newly turned-over dirt.”
The Chief said, “Amber, where are we with the line search? Do we have enough volunteers to start at dawn?”
Amber looked at her tablet. “I’ve been coordinating with Sergeant Lamay since last night. We’re ready.”
“I want one line search starting in the Patchetts’ backyard and another starting at Henry Thomas’s cabin, but let’s keep a lid on Thomas as a suspect for now.”
Amber nodded. “You got it.”
Gretchen said, “How sure are we that Thomas is involved in this? I know that Blue followed Kayleigh’s scent to his cabin—”
“Into his cabin,” Josie said. “Someone took her. If it wasn’t Thomas then why would the abductor walk her all the way to his cabin?”
“That was a hike,” said Noah. “Over the mountain. Miles from where she was taken. Why would anyone else but Thomas go to all that trouble?”
“Because their vehicle was there?” Gretchen said. “Blue lost her scent there. She had to have been put in a vehicle and taken elsewhere.”
The Chief pointed to a nearby wall. “I want a map of the area up here by this afternoon and I want it marked. The Patchett house. Where Savannah was found. The approximate path that Blue took to locate Kayleigh. Thomas’s cabin.”
Josie said, “If Thomas was all the way down near the Patchetts’ place on foot, he was very far from home.”
Gretchen said, “Why would he be that far down the other side of the mountain?”
“Maybe he was hunting,” Noah said. “Not for animals but for people. There wouldn’t be many of them up near him but where Kayleigh was taken is relatively close to that long residential stretch. There’s a lot more chances he’d run into someone in that section of the woods.”
“You think this could be connected to the cases that the state police are looking at?” Gretchen said.
“What cases?” said the Chief.
