EVIDENCE AND QUESTIONS ONLY
PATRICK
The house was still lit up when Patrick pulled in at a quarter past midnight. One of the perks of working the early shift meant he wasn’t expected to close.
He was worried about Riley. Well, not worried, exactly.
His cousin was smart and knew how to take care of herself, but she also tended to be on the reckless side.
If someone she cared about was in trouble or going through something, Riley was exactly the kind of person who would show up at the door with a shovel and a plan.
Which was why he’d covered for her without hesitation, even when it meant turning his back on an opportunity to find out more about his coffee-spilling mystery woman. He wondered if he’d get another chance.
He came through the front door to find Declan on the couch with a book, Garrett asleep in the armchair with the television running at low volume, and Riley at the kitchen table with her laptop open and a mug of something at her elbow.
She looked up when he came in. Her eyes were fine. He did the quick assessment he always did to assure himself she was okay and breathed a little easier. Whatever had happened earlier was apparently resolved or at least contained.
“Long night?” she said.
“Longer than most.” He dropped his jacket on the hook and came to the table.
“Thanks for covering for me.”
He nodded. Thanks were appreciated but never necessary, not with her. “You want to tell me what happened earlier?”
“Not particularly,” she said dismissively, then turned her laptop to face him. “But I do want to show you this.”
He looked at the screen where the Ridge Courier's article about the body found at the campground was loaded and waiting. He skimmed through it, then read it again. It was short, only four paragraphs, and not a lot of information.
“There was talk at the pub tonight,” he said, when he'd finished.
“I figured there would be. Anything useful?”
“Speculation, mostly. You know how it is. People fill in the gaps with hearsay and conjecture. It made the 11 o’clock news too, but only a brief mention.”
“You’d think it would warrant more than a sound bite.”
“You’d think.”
Riley was quiet for a moment. “Were the dads there?”
Patrick nodded. “Yep.”
“How did they react?”
“Carefully.” He looked at the screen. “Your dad said something to mine before they disappeared for a while. I don't know what, but they had that look, you know? The one that makes you think there’s more to the story.”
“There usually is,” she murmured. “Especially when it happens around here. People don’t just show up dead in Pine Ridge.”
Exactly what he’d thought.
“Something's not right about this,” Patrick said.
“Several things.” Riley turned the laptop back and pulled her legal pad toward her. “It just seems so… incongruous.”
“What specifically is raising red flags for you?”
“You mean, besides the lack of ID, phone, and vehicle? Who goes anywhere without those?” She shook her head.
“Plus there’s no explanation for his presence there in the first place.
The campground hasn’t been operational for a while now.
And a preliminary ruling of a ‘medical event’ with no specifics?
That’s just lazy, even for the Pine Ridge PD. ”
“I haven’t thought about that place in years. Remember going there as kids?” Patrick said. “Swimming in the lake. Grilling burgers and hot dogs and making s’mores.”
“Good times.” A wistful smile curled her lips before it faded. “Not exactly the kind of place that lends itself to a mysterious death, is it?”
“Didn’t use to be,” Patrick agreed. “But some guys at the bar were saying the owner died last year. No one seems to know who owns it now.”
“Which means nobody's watching it.” Riley uncapped her pen. “I want to look at what's publicly available before we take it anywhere.”
He was already reaching for his laptop. “You read my mind.”
They worked at the kitchen table until two in the morning with the rest of the house going quiet around them.
Garrett woke up and was the first to disappear, with Declan following a short while later.
Wade came through around one with Bruno, registered what they were doing with a single glance, and went back upstairs without comment.
That was Wade. The guy was a shadow. He saw everything and volunteered nothing, which often proved useful.
The property records for Sulley’s Campground were public and thorough.
The campground had been in the Sullivan family for a long time.
The original deed was in the name of Eamon Sullivan, transferred to Thomas Sullivan in 1987.
Ownership was currently unresolved pending estate administration following Tom's death.
No registered operator. No current business license.
“Eamon Sullivan to Thomas Sullivan,” Patrick said. “Sounds like a father to son situation.”
Riley pulled up the obit. It consisted of two short paragraphs, and was the kind of write-up that got written when nobody at the paper knew the deceased well enough to do better.
“Thomas Sullivan, longtime operator of Sulley’s campground on Route 9 East. No survivors listed. Preceded in death by his parents.”
“That's it?” Patrick said.
“That's it.” Riley set her pen down. “There are at least a dozen Sullivan families in this county. It's one of the most common Irish surnames in Pine Ridge after Callaghan and O’Connell. Half the original settlers were Sullivans. Hell, Route 92 is called the Sullivan Trail.”
Patrick looked at the property deed, confirming what they’d already found. “Any mention of a will?”
“No, which explains why the campground and surrounding property are in legal suspension. It’ll probably remain that way for a while unless a relative comes forward.”
“It’s a dead end for now,” he said. He pulled the county incident reports, which included a couple of suspicious activity reports over the last eighteen months, and shared those with Riley.
“Any details or follow up on those?”
“No. Probably just kids being kids. No reports of arrests or damage or anything,” Patrick said, then shifted focus to the victim.
White male, forty to fifty, no identification.
He ran the public missing persons databases at the state and regional levels, cross-referenced by age and the relevant window.
Nothing matched. Riley checked the news aggregators for reports of missing men in adjacent counties and also came up with nothing.
“Nobody's filed anything on a man matching that description,” Patrick said.
“Or maybe whoever would file doesn't want him found.” Riley looked at her legal pad. “Did the report mention anything about identification efforts, like fingerprints or dental records?”
Patrick thought about that for a minute. “No. They just referred to him as ‘an unidentified man’.”
“Which doesn't mean they're not running it, but—”
“But those things take time,” Patrick finished.
Riley wrote something and underlined it twice.
“Medical event,” Patrick said. “No specifics. No tox screen mentioned, no estimated time of death, no cause beyond ‘it’s probably this’.” He looked at the ceiling. “That's a ruling you make when you want to close something quickly.”
“Or when you don't have the resources to look harder.”
“Both things can be true.”
Riley exhaled and nodded slowly. Outside, the wind moved through the trees along the back of the property, and the old house settled around them with familiar creaks and moans.
“We should take it to the Thread,” Patrick said, referring to the online crime forum he and Riley belonged to.
Riley looked up. “We don't have enough.”
“We’ve done more with less. Tell me this whole thing doesn’t seem off to you.”
She was quiet for a moment, mentally reviewing what they’d uncovered, then shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Exactly.” Patrick tapped on his keyboard.
“Evidence and questions only,” Riley said.
“Evidence and questions only,” he agreed.
He logged into the Thread forum and started a new case file. Ten members, private, invite-only. No ego. No speculation. No need to be proven right. Just questions and evidence, presented from different angles by people who had the skills to analyze.
Patrick had been DeepTrace on the forum for four years.
Riley, known as Archivist, had come in six months after him, an invitation he'd extended himself once he'd been sure the group was worth her time.
Her ability to trace connections through people and records was unmatched, instinctively knowing which branches to shake.
Thanks to her, they had a family history going back at least six generations.
He kept the post clean. Location, date, confirmed facts, documented gaps. The campground's ownership situation. The minimal details reported. Preliminary medical event ruling with no specifics. He listed the questions the available information didn't answer and stopped there.
Riley posted as Archivist shortly after, including an annotated property map and a documented timeline of the campground's activity over the past eighteen months, including suspicious activity reports and the gap in operational management.
When they finished, they sat back, exhausted. Now there was nothing to do but wait.
Riley yawned and closed her laptop. “I should head back to my place.”
“You’re welcome to crash here.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. I’m out of eye bleach.”
Patrick laughed. The last time Riley had crashed in the guest room, she’d taken an unfortunate trip to the kitchen for a glass of water at the same time as Garrett and discovered that their cousin wasn’t big on wearing pajamas.
Or underwear.
After declining his offer of a ride and promising to text the moment she got back to her place, Patrick shut down his own laptop and called it a night.