Chapter 19 Papa
Papa
Burke sent Elly Forsander’s phone number to Smith with the Digital Team.
They would start with the number she texted while Burke sat with her.
Then they would go through her phone call and text history and chase down any phone numbers she’d called or messaged with since October that could be the number to reach Zoe, in case she used multiple burn phones.
Smith would cross-reference those numbers with calls and texts made by Oliveira and Zoe’s roommate to help isolate possible numbers and locations of use.
The Digital Team was also diving into Oliveira’s phone’s location since October.
The team still believed that Zoe was out of the immediate area.
If they were really a couple, it was a fair assumption that Oliveira would have visited her on multiple occasions since her disappearance, even if he hadn’t taken her to wherever she was the night she disappeared.
Smith would overlay the locations of Oliveira, and Roderick and Elly Forsander’s phones as well, in hopes of helping to pinpoint a location they’d all been since October.
The burner phone Roderick Forsander received the call from Oliveira on was the suspicious part of this equation.
Why was he using a burner when he had a regular cell phone in his name?
Answer, only those trying to hide something did that.
Nothing further came from the surveillance of Oliveira or the two salon owners all day.
No suspicious movements and no out-of-the-area trips.
So, they pulled the physical surveillance on them that evening.
They’d still monitor their phones through the night.
The Digital Team would periodically check the location on each of the phones they had paired that evening, too, just to be sure no one traveled out of the area.
The team ate dinner, sat at a back corner table at a microbrewery, and quietly discussed the case.
Rogers still insisted that something was off about the two salon owners, even though there was nothing suspicious about them.
Observation of Oliveira yielded no second vehicle.
Smith still had not recovered video of Zoe getting picked up outside of the dorm the night she disappeared in October.
Of course, they had no firm date, so Smith was going through several weeks of video.
October seventh was the last date Zoe’s mother spoke to her and believed she was in her dorm.
“If Smith can find that surveillance footage of her getting into his car, maybe he can track her through other cameras to see where she went,” Burke said.
“My bet is still out of the area, probably up north where those other deleted photos from Oliveira’s Facebook account were taken.
Either someone in their prepper group lives up there, or there’s some sort of cabin or compound they use.
He had over a dozen pictures from up there over the span of several months,” Wilson reminded them.
“Based on Elly Forsander’s statements, I believe Zoe is in some kind of trouble. And the reaction that Elly and her brother had when I mentioned Zoe’s parents tells me it has something to do with them beyond the fights she had with them about money,” Burke said.
“Not many people walk away from the money paid for a semester away at school,” Tessman added. “Unless there was something that made staying there unbearable. I’m not buying she became a hard-core member of the prepper or militia group that made her leave.”
“Then what do you think it could be?” Burke asked.
“It could be that someone there was giving her a hard time, or something happened to her,” Tessman said.
“Look what happened to Saxton when she was at college,” Rogers said. “One thing that really surprised me during that investigation is the number of women who are assaulted at school and who drop out and go home because of it.”
“You think she could have been assaulted? Why would she have gone off with Oliveira if that were the case? If they were a couple, he could be a suspect in that,” Tessman said.
“Elly insisted that Zoe is safe where she is. If she were assaulted, I’m going to say it was someone other than Oliveira.
He strikes me as a lot of things; a rapist isn’t one of them.
And if he was, Zoe wouldn’t have gone with him,” Burke said.
“But if she was in some sort of trouble, whatever it was, I can see him agreeing to help get her off the grid, and he had the means to do so.”
“Either Zoe needs to contact us, or one of the people we have under electronic monitoring needs to reach out to her either by phone or, preferably, they drive to where she is. I don’t see us resolving this until either of those things happen,” Wilson said.
“I agree,” Burke said. “What do you say we take a little drive north to the area those pictures from Oliveira’s deleted Facebook account were taken? Have a look around?”
Just then, all four men received a text from Smith.
I just sent a file with all the updates I have to everyone’s email. I’m leaving for the night, but Ops will monitor your targets overnight and alert you if needed. I’ll be back in at 0700.
Wilson acknowledged Smith’s text. Then, all four men opened their emails on their phones and read through the file as they ate. Eleanor Forsander, Elly, was also a student at Grand Valley State University. She lived in the same dorm as Zoe Reopelle.
Reviewing Elly’s Facebook page, Smith found pictures of her with Zoe and Gabby Struck, Zoe’s roommate.
The locations were mostly at school, but there were a few of all three girls at the house in Lansing and even a few taken the past summer north where Oliveira’s pictures had been taken, near Lake Isabella.
The photos showed a campsite with tents and cabins.
The girls swam and canoed on what looked like a river as well as in the lake.
A sign partially caught in one of the photos taken of the girls in a canoe gave Smith the best lead yet.
The name of a campground. They now had a better target area, the best they’d get with the limited number of cell towers in the area to triangulate off of if they were lucky enough to follow Oliveira or Forsander there.
“Based on Gabby Struck being in the pictures, I think we need to pay her another visit. She has to know more than she told us,” Wilson said.
“For starters, I want to get an exact location of that camp up north,” Wilson chimed in. “As we saw in Wisconsin and in Minnesota, these groups like to use camps and cabins. Zoe very well could be in one up there.”
Burke shook his head. “Not unless she’s with someone else from the group.
Oliveira wouldn’t have left her up there alone, and I don’t think Elly would deem her safe if she was in the middle of nowhere all by herself.
There are houses out there. My guess is she’s staying at one of them rather than at a cabin. ”
“Yeah, it could be that someone from the group lives up there and they use the cabins and camp for the group,” Tessman said. “For all we know, the camp could be on someone’s private property.”
“That makes sense. Okay, after dinner, Burke and Tessman go back at Gabby Struck. Her cell phone is still in the area, isn’t it?” Wilson asked.
“Yeah, she hasn’t taken off for the Christmas break yet.
By noon tomorrow, the entire campus will be a ghost town,” Tessman answered.
“I saw that a lot of them booked this afternoon while I was watching Oliveira. According to the college’s website, the semester goes through tomorrow, though the students are free to go after they complete their final exams.”
“Then tomorrow, we head up to Lake Isabella unless something else happens that changes our plans,” Wilson said.
After dinner, Burke and Tessman drove to campus. They parked in the nearly empty parking lot beside the dorm. This time when they entered, the halls were relatively quiet. They passed only a fraction of the number of students that they had when they’d first visited the dorm.
Gabby Struck frowned upon seeing them at her door when she answered it. “She hasn’t gotten back in touch with me,” she said.
“Can we come in?” Burke asked. “We found out a couple of things since we were here yesterday, and we need you to help us make sense of it.”
Gabby shrugged and then stepped back, inviting them in. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest and stared at them with expectation.
“Gabby, we’ve talked to a few other people who know Zoe, and they believe she’s in some kind of trouble.
We’re worried about her,” Burke said, watching her closely for her reaction.
She didn’t give anything away. “Frisco Oliveira denies he had a romantic relationship with her, but we have confirmed that he was the one with whom she caught a ride when she left here in October.”
Gabby got a satisfied look on her face, given that she’d been proven right.
“How big of a deal is it around here if a TA has a romantic relationship with one of his students?” Tessman asked.
“I guess he could lose his job, and most TAs are grad students, so that means they then lose their tuition for their own classes,” Gabby said. “So, I guess I’d lie too if I was him.”
“You went camping and canoeing last summer with Zoe and Elly Forsander just north of here,” Burke said. “We’ve seen a few of the pictures.” He paused and smiled, trying to put Gabby more at ease and convey that it wasn’t a big deal. “It looked like fun. Where exactly was that at?”
“Lake Isabella. We only went once.”
“Who else was there?” Burke asked.
“Why?”
“Was it with that group that Zoe had gotten in with? And you know what group I’m talking about, Gabby,” Tessman said.
Gabby’s facial expression morphed into either guilt or fear, maybe both.
“We know it was you, Zoe, Elly and I’m going to guess Elly’s brother, Rod. Was Frisco there too?” Burke asked.
“Yeah,” she admitted. “That was the first time I saw Zoe and Frisco together when we were there. He’d been a TA in a class she was in last spring and over the summer. I think they’d been seeing each other for a while.”
“Were there other people there too?” Burke pressed.
“Yeah, the camp was full of those prepper people. I’m not one of them. I get what they’re saying, and I agree with them on most of it, but I think they’re kind of extreme.”
“Where exactly is this camp?” Tessman asked. “She may be hiding out there, and we’d like to check it.”
“She could be,” Gabby said, much to their surprise.
“I didn’t even think about it before that she may have gone there.
I thought she was staying at Frisco’s place or maybe at Elly’s.
The camp is at the back of this creepy guy’s property.
There’s a house and a big building on the property and then the cabins and the campsites are by the river. ”
“What creepy guy?” Burke asked.
“His name is David. I don’t know his last name.
He’s older, like near my dad’s age, and I know he always carries a gun.
He said it was because there were bears in the area.
The weekend we were there he disappeared for hours at a time, thankfully, but when he talked to Frisco, Rod, or a few of the others, he always whispered so we didn’t hear him.
He didn’t interact with Elly, Zoe, or me too much. ”
“Did he own the property?” Tessman asked.
“Yeah, and the house was his, where he lives. We stopped at it when we first arrived to tell him we were there.”
“How many people were camping there with you?” Burke asked.
“Maybe twenty?” Gabby said.
Burke reached to Zoe’s desk and grabbed a notebook.
“I need you to write down everything you remember, people’s names and their descriptions.
We also need the best location of this house and camping area you can provide, the streets you took to get there, turns, what the house looked like, if there were any street numbers you remember.
She frowned. “I’ll do my best. It was over the summer, and I wasn’t like trying to remember anything. I knew I’d never go back there, so I didn’t pay close attention to how we got there or got back. And I only know people’s first names.”
“Who drove?”
“Elly’s brother.”
“Rod drove you all in his pickup truck?” Burke asked.
“No, her other brother, Eddy, in his SUV.”
“Six of you fit in the SUV with all your camping stuff?” Tessman asked.
“No, Frisco drove separately.”
Gabby worked on writing down the information for nearly half an hour.
“Here, this is the best I can do,” she said.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything yesterday.
And I’m only telling you now because you said other people think Zoe’s in trouble too.
I was trying to help her, like I promised I would. ”
“You’re a good friend, Gabby. If she is in trouble, this helps a lot. If we find her and determine she’s okay, we’re not going to tell her parents where she is. She’s safe with us.”
“Okay. Can I ask you a favor?”
Burke nodded.
“If I give you my phone number, can you let me know if she’s okay? My mom is picking me up tomorrow after my last exam. I’ll be gone by eleven tomorrow morning.”
Burke pulled his phone out of his pocket. Even though he had her phone paired, he opened a text message. “Give me your number and I’ll put it in a text. I promise we’ll let you know. And if you do hear back from her before we find her, please let me know.”
“I will.”
When they were back in their car, Burke called Ops.
Garcia was on and he would be overnight.
Burke gave him everything Gabby had given them.
He’d try to locate the house the camping trip had taken place at and identify Dave and pull info on Elly’s other brother, Eddy Forsander.
Then they called Wilson and filled him in.
Wilson told them to come back to the hotel.
They’d all head north in the morning after the Digital Team had a chance to work on the info they’d just given them.