Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
Katie was quiet on the ride back to the Pine Valley Sheriff’s Department.
She kept running scenarios through her mind about the identity of the man in black and if he was same person watching the investigation and construction—and the one that attacked her.
What was their motivation? Were the detectives on the right track or way off?
“Trying to figure out the cowboy in black?” said McGaven with a slight smile.
“How do you do that?”
“What?”
“Always know what I’m thinking. It’s…”
“Scary,” he said.
“More like annoying.” She smiled.
In the next fifteen minutes, the detectives were back at their desks, filtering through mountains of paperwork.
Katie updated the board, adding the fact that the computer cards had been swapped out.
They had nothing from the trail cams and she didn’t get a good look at the man, which was frustrating.
She hoped Buck would have some information when she spoke to him.
Like the identification of the man in black.
There was a sliver of hope that Buck knew more than he had told her so far.
“I ran some reports and sent emails to the most popular genealogy website starting with Bruce Collins. We should know more information soon,” he said.
“I read about a couple of homicide cases that were solved, in part, by genealogy. It was fascinating because it turned out one of the family members was the murderer.”
Katie moved her jacket and the two memory sticks fell out on the floor. She picked them up.
“What are they?” said McGaven, not averting his focus from the computer screen.
“The continuous loop from the coffee place. They sometimes live stream it to their website.”
“Like people want to see other people drinking coffee?” he said.
“I guess.”
“The internet strikes again.”
Katie inserted the first memory stick and pressed “play.” She was in luck.
She could move quickly through each day until she reached the approximate time frame she was looking for, which was a relief, as otherwise she’d have had to watch people buying coffee and sitting at the small tables for days.
Still, as Katie started watching she soon realized she was looking for a needle in a haystack.
“Is there any way to program this to look for only men wearing black?” she joked.
“Hey, there was no guarantee this was going to be an easy job.”
Katie fast forwarded as quickly as she dared while still being able to identify the patrons. Most people stayed about three to five minutes before leaving. A few would sit down at one of the three small bistro tables. She let out a sigh.
“You want me to watch for a while?” said McGaven.
“No. At least not for now.” Katie began to see some of the same patrons returning over the days, but no man in black.
“I think I’m getting somewhere,” McGaven said. “There’s a family line here that I think might be Bruce Collins’s.” He frowned. “Though I may have to go down several family lines to double-check. And…” He sounded pleased with himself here. “Meredith’s maiden name is Young.”
Katie paused the video footage. “Young?” she said. “Like for Buck and David?”
“Yup. But it’s a common last name. It says here Young is the thirty-second most common last name in the US.”
Katie shrugged. “Still, it’s quite a coincidence. The Young brothers could be related. It would explain Buck’s interest in all this.”
“I’m going to follow through. And you should ask Buck when you see him.”
“He’s definitely holding back on information.
He knew we would find out who he is and his service record, but I feel there’s a lot more to him.
He’s been through so much and how he lives definitely makes things complicated.
” Katie thought for a moment. “The land he’s living on and the cabin must belong to someone. Maybe we can find out more that way?”
McGaven nodded. “I’ll add it to the list of things to do. This is going to take a while,” he said, nodding at the computer. “Do you need me at the hospital?”
“Buck said he only wanted to talk to me, so I don’t want you just hanging around with nothing to do.”
McGaven nodded. “You going to be okay?”
Katie chuckled. “Of course.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah. I’m more worried about Buck. Someone who goes to the length to be off the grid might have other reasons for it besides what happened to him in the Marines. Maybe he’s trying to hide from someone?”
He looked at his partner. “That’s worth looking into.”
“I’ll try to find out when I visit him,” she said. Turning her attention back to the boring coffee shop video, she finally saw a man who might fit their suspect. “Wait.”
McGaven looked at her screen and moved next to her. “Is that the man in black?”
“I’m not sure.” Katie slowed the video, moved it forward, and then rewound it.
It showed a man of average height, clearly all dressed in black.
He seemed to turn his head to avoid getting in view of the video camera, though at one point he showed his profile for a couple of seconds.
He appeared average, nothing stood out about his facial features, and it seemed he was somewhere between mid-thirties and forties.
“He seems to fit the descriptions.” McGaven took a closer look at the frozen image on the screen as Katie enlarged it. “Can’t see if he’s wearing cowboy boots.”
“Look at how he moves. He’s obviously aware of the camera.
He makes sure his face isn’t fully seen.
” She stopped the video at the best possible angle to identify the man in black.
“That could be the man the barista was talking about. We need to go back to the jewelry store and see if the woman behind the counter recognizes him.”
“I’ll leave that to you.”
“Aw, she said she liked tall men.” Katie laughed. “I’m going to send some images to John and see if he can clean up the graininess of them.”
“Good idea.”
Katie printed out two copies of the frozen image, so she could bring them with her to the hospital to get Buck’s reaction. She glanced at her watch.
McGaven noticed. “Go get some answers. I’ll keep working on the family genealogy to find other living members.”