Chapter 11 #2
“Fairview PD, anonymous tip line… you’re talkin’ to me, I can take your statement…
look buddy, this is the third time you’ve called—the detective does not have time to chat with every Tom, Dick, and Harry.
” He made a twirling motion at his temple as he spun back in the chair.
“I’ll make sure he gets your statement.”
Seth held out his hand. Yess rolled his eyes and passed it off, and Seth pressed the phone to his ear, facing the rest of the bullpen.
“This is Detective Winslow.”
Only the crackling of the phone filled the silence.
“Hello?”
Finally, a man’s voice, unnervingly calm: “Did you find her?’
“Find who?”
“I left the map with him, but you still haven’t found her.”
“Who did you leave what map with?”
No answer. Seth exchanged a glance with Yess, this time, sharing his annoyance.
“Sir,” he said, “I appreciate you calling in. If you have any information about—”
“The other detective,” the voice cut in. “I don’t think he was very good at his job. Are you better?”
Seth frowned. “What other detective?”
“The old man. I left the map with him. He should’ve found her. Mrs. Dyer.”
His spine crawled. Dyer. There was that name again, popping up in his investigation, but there was no Mrs. Dyer—Claire’s mother, Ron’s wife, had died twenty years ago. Unless he was talking about Clementine Dyer, Claire’s sister, but her whereabouts was no secret. This had to be a prank—but why?
“Who is Mrs. Dyer?” he asked, gaining a perplexed look from Yess, along with another officer and his desk nearby. Although this probably was nothing, Seth played along, just in case.
“She’s been gone for so long,” the voice droned on. “Can you please find her? This doesn’t work without her.”
“Well, I don’t have the map. You said you gave it to the other detective?”
“Yes. It must be somewhere. Please do your job.”
“Hold on, what’s your name? We can find her together.”
“Time’s up.”
The line went dead.
Standing in Chief Wells’s office, Seth finished the playback of the recording, which he’d downloaded to his phone from the tip line.
Chief Wells sat at her desk with a thoughtful frown.
She had photos of her family around too—smiling little girls with curly black hair, a radiant woman in her forties who must’ve been Wells’s daughter.
On the wall behind her, years of police accolades.
She’d been the chief here for over twenty years.
“The number isn’t registered to anyone, so likely a burner,” Seth explained. “We couldn’t get a trace on it. What do you make of it?”
“Hm.” Wells’s hand traveled to the cross necklace around her throat, fidgeting with it.
She caught herself and regained her poise, interlocking her fingers.
“I don’t know what you want me to say. Detective Haylock never mentioned any ‘map,’ and if this had any credibility at all, he would’ve told me. ”
“Humor me. Do you think the caller is talking about Ron Dyer’s wife?”
“Most likely, yes, but she died twenty years ago. How old were you then, five?”
“Eight. How’d she die?”
“Since we never had a body, we can’t say for sure, but we found her blood on a rock out deep east in the woods where she used to like hiking.
Some animal prints were nearby—a black bear, no doubt.
Never found the den, but you can put two and two together.
Looks like she took a tumble while hiking and Winnie the Pooh cashed in. ”
“Was the case originally treated like a homicide?”
“Homicide-slash-missing-persons. With the blood on the rock, we couldn’t be too sure someone hadn’t landed it on her. After really looking at the evidence we had, we had to give the family an answer. Accidents can happen. There were no suspects.”
“But—”
“We didn’t decide it overnight, Detective.
We really looked for her. She was one of our own—a real town belle.
People volunteered hours of their time, the type of community canvass you only ever see for a missing child.
We scoured that forest day and night. What happened to Celine Dyer is part of Fairview’s history, and whoever made that call would know that.
Probably some teenager telling ghost stories, like they’ve been telling since it happened.
They are trying to throw you off and waste your time, I promise you that. ”
Chief Wells was probably right. And if Haylock had any sort of “map” or talked to this guy before, he would have it on record. Probably.
“I don’t want you buggin’ the Dyers about this either,” Chief Wells said. “I remember Celine’s disappearance like it was yesterday. Two little girls losing their mom, a husband losing his wife. They don’t need to be reminded of it.”
“Yeah…” Seth trailed off. “Thanks, Chief.”
Hours later, cooped up in the conference room, Seth had a pile of files open in front of him, the names of suspects in the sexual assault from eight years ago. No matter how hard he’d tried to focus on other avenues, his mind kept going back to this morning.
He didn’t want to let that catatonic phone call get to him, but it’d dug roots into his brain, created neural pathways that wouldn’t shut down.
It’d bothered him from the beginning—the victims’ appearances and their striking resemblance to Claire Dyer.
He remembered the photo he’d seen of Claire’s mother in her home. A spitting image of Claire.
And of the current murder victims.
A look wouldn’t hurt. Just a peek into the archives, something to satisfy this itch. He needed a break anyway, so he scooted out of his chair.
The station had cleared out around dinnertime, with half the officers on patrol and the other half on break. Only the receptionist and Officer Yess remained, watching the tip line. Seth stopped by Yess’s desk as he was cramming a sandwich in his mouth.
“Hey, Yess—what’s the code to get into the archive room?”
“Uhh—2801 I think,” Yess said, mouth half-full of bologna. “Why, you need something about the assault? I can get you all the files.” He went to move, but Seth held up a hand.
“No, don’t worry about it, man. Enjoy your dinner.”
Yess didn’t fight back, easing his wide body back into his chair. Seth slipped past to the archive room. After punching the code into the padlock, he found himself in the smallest physical archive room he’d ever been in. He went to the shelf dedicated to closed cases.
There, among the boxes, he found it.
Dyer, Celine.
He carefully lifted the box and placed it on the floor, peeking in to find a scant number of files and photos.
The evidence was slim. Photos of the crime scene, angles of a rock out in the woods with a splotch of blood the size of a baseball dripping down the curvature.
She could’ve fallen face-first on it, bled out right there.
Or maybe she’d moved, tried to call for help, but didn’t make it much farther.
More evidence photos showed broken sticks, blood spatter on some wood, and some prominent bear tracks.
No body, no crime.
Maybe it was merciful to let the family believe Celine had died under a random circumstance. Maybe it’d helped prevent them from wondering, for all these years, if she’d died another way, a crueler way. Claire had seemed at peace with her mother’s death when they talked about it.
He peeked beneath the photo, at the file’s heading beneath. When he checked who the case had been assigned to, he had to do a double take.
Detective Robert Haylock.