Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
Katie took a quick shower and changed into jeans and a long-sleeved shirt.
The weather was windy and overcast, so she wanted to be dressed appropriately to search the Collins property—namely, the structure that was still left.
They didn’t really give it a second glance on their first visit, but now she wanted to pay closer attention to where the home and barn were located.
Grabbing a jacket from her closet, Katie heard a knock at the door, followed immediately by Cisco’s barking. She hurried to the door and opened it. McGaven stood there dressed appropriately for searching the rural property.
“Hey,” she said. “I think you’re two minutes late.”
“Nope. Your clock is wrong.” He had a grin on his face.
Katie opened the door wider as McGaven entered, greeted by a very happy dog.
“Hey, buddy,” he said as Cisco ran circles around him.
Katie informed McGaven of Buck’s departure from the hospital and what the sheriff had suggested about checking out names of individuals for and against the building project. He listened as he went to the kitchen to get something to drink followed closely by Cisco.
“Don’t you ever have soda?” he asked.
“No.”
“Just buy some for guests. Like me…”
“I’ll think about it,” she said.
McGaven grabbed a bottle of iced tea. “That’s a really good point about those against the building project. But they would still have had to have been related to the Collins family.”
“I know, but I just can’t help thinking there’s something simple or ordinary we’re missing.”
“Let’s get out to the Collins property. I’m meeting up with Denise and Lizzie later. We haven’t been spending enough time together.”
“So are you any closer to taking that big plunge?” said Katie, smiling.
“Marriage?”
“Of course marriage. You’re already a family… now it’s time to make an honest woman out of Denise.”
“What about you?” said McGaven.
“What about me?”
“How are things with John?”
“Stop that.” She laughed. “We’re getting to know one another away from work and it’s been nice.”
“Nice? That’s all you can say about the coolest and probably the most badass guy at the department, including the SWAT guys.”
“Gav, is that all you can say about him?”
“Well, he’s smart and definitely the best forensic guy I’ve known.”
“And?”
“Well, he’s definitely the best guy to have your back, with all that Navy Seal training.”
Katie laughed.
They decided Katie’s Jeep would be the best vehicle to take as they could put Cisco in the back seat.
They packed everything they could think of: tools, flashlights, tarps, evidence bags and boxes with chain-of-custody labels, rope, large industrial garbage bags, tethers, extra water bottles, and zip ties.
They then added their weapons and typical searching gear along with Cisco’s vest and long leash.
“You ready for a war or something?” said McGaven.
“I just want to be prepared—for anything.”
“I see your point,” he said.
They got to the property in twenty minutes.
It looked completely different with the overgrown brush removed and the gravel driveway visible.
Katie slowed her speed, taking in the area and gauging the tree lines and where the structures must’ve stood.
It was evident many vehicles and earth removers had been in and out and all around the property.
Areas where there had been tall weeds and dead branches were now scraped clean, giving the appearance of sand.
Katie parked the Jeep close to where the house had once been. She jumped out, opened a couple of windows for Cisco, and then began to make her way to what was left of the house. McGaven was close behind her, also surveying the area.
“So what exactly are you looking for?” he said.
“Not sure. But we’ll know it when we find it.” She heard a few whines and a bark from the car. “I remember when we were here before, I thought the remains of the house seemed odd.”
“And then I had to fall into a grave,” he said.
She shook her head at his flippant tone. “After looking at the house pieces, I want to start Cisco here and then do a spiral grid search.”
“This is the point of origin?” he said.
“Exactly.”
“On it.”
“Let me start over here,” she said, indicating the left side of the house. “And you can start the other side.”
The detectives went to opposite sides of the structure.
Katie walked to where there were still some exterior walls leaning inward.
What she remembered last time was a deliberate-looking pile of broken beams and other miscellaneous pieces of wood.
It could have been made months ago or a decade ago, but she put on heavy leather work gloves and began lifting each beam one by one.
She studied the ends and scanned them to see if there was any indication of them coming from other sources.
She could hear McGaven making noise as he moved things around on the opposite side.
Restacking the beams, she searched along what was once the groundwork of the house.
It was old enough that there wasn’t a sturdy cement foundation.
The house had been built up off the ground, the remains of the flooring long since rotted away.
Katie studied what was left of the porch and sides.
Many of the pieces of wood were disintegrating and filled with bug nests.
She made sure there wasn’t anything lurking that could be dangerous, like certain venomous snakes.
She decided to mark what she thought was the perimeter of the house with some of the beams to give her a visual representation.
She imagined it was at one time a nice farmhouse on beautiful land.
Mr. and Mrs. Collins were married and then had a child.
It was a dream for most, but this dream had turned into a nightmare, with everyone ending up murdered.
Dark secrets still remained like ghosts around the property.
“Katie! Found something!” said McGaven on the other side.
Her immediate irrational thought was that McGaven had got caught in another hole.
She ran over and did see her partner standing near what looked to be a hole, but not one large enough for a body.
It seemed to have been dug underneath the house.
She saw where McGaven had removed pieces of the structure and rotten portions of the flooring.
“What’s up?” she said.
“I think I might’ve found something.” He carefully bent down near the hole. “Look at this,” he said.
She bent down to take a closer look. “It looks like someone dumped all this stuff and buried it under the house.” It seemed odd to her until she saw part of a broken wooden baseball bat. “Is that…?”
“I think so.”
Katie was amazed. “We couldn’t get that lucky.”
“It’s not luck. It’s solid police work.”
“It could be proven that Bruce Collins killed his wife and daughter from blood and maybe fingerprints. But… what’s the motive besides domestic abuse? There’s got to be more to this seeing as others were also willing to kill.”
“I’ve been thinking about that too. There’s still something missing…”
Katie stood up. “John is absolutely swamped. He and Eva are working some serious overtime. We need to process this as a crime scene—by the book.”
McGaven agreed and they went back to the Jeep to gather everything they needed and pulled on gloves.
McGaven cordoned off the area as per Katie’s instruction, while she took photographs, first of the overall area, and then medium to close-up shots.
She had sent a text message to John informing him of what they were doing.
When they had gathered everything, they would bring the chain of custody with the evidence back to the forensic lab.
Once the preliminary tasks were completed, it was time to retrieve evidence and bag or contain it appropriately.
“You should bring the stuff out,” said McGaven.
“You don’t want to fall in a hole again?” she said, smiling.
“In a word… no.” He had the digital camera ready to document each piece.
Katie was excited. This was the first new piece of evidence they might be able to connect to the chain of events of what happened to the Collins family.
With her gloves on, she reached her hand to the wooden bat.
It was clear it had deteriorated over the years, but there were still signs of a dark substance—hopefully blood.
McGaven laid out a small tarp and Katie gently set down the bat piece.
Photos were taken. She could see there were possibly a couple of hairs embedded into cracks.
She tried not to think about if they had belonged to Misty.
The description from the Young brothers about the screams they had heard made her shudder.
“That looks like blood,” said McGaven.
Katie nodded. As McGaven carefully rolled the remnants of the bat and sealed the ends, Katie pulled out from the hole what appeared to be some fabric.
It had been ravaged by bugs and the soil had made it disintegrate some, leaving it full of holes.
McGaven documented it and then Katie secured it into an evidence bag.
The detectives continued their procedure of documenting and bagging the evidence. It was clear the clothing, towels, and the bat had been buried. Once done, they searched closely the entire taped-off area, but there was nothing else of interest.
Katie decided to walk the immediate zone around the house and then the empty space where the barn would have stood.
There was a faint foundation that would have been installed later than the farmhouse.
She casually walked around the remaining foundation, but there was nothing that caught her eye.
She saw where fencing had been put around the hole McGaven had fallen into and where Mr. Collins’s body had been found.
She estimated the distance to be about forty feet directly in line with the hole that had been dug under the house.
It made her wonder if the person who killed and dumped Bruce Collins might have been the same person who buried the evidence connected to Meredith and Misty Collins—and what that would mean.
Katie looked back at the remains of the house. McGaven was loading up the evidence in the Jeep. Cisco whined a few times from the car to make sure she hadn’t forgotten about him.
Looking back at the fields, which were partially cleared after the body had been found, Katie walked around the area in a spiral pattern before branching out.
Over to the left part of the property, near a grouping of trees, she saw what appeared to be areas of disturbed ground.
She walked farther and realized there was a line of trees, dense, taller than surrounding ones, where holes had been dug.
Her immediate thought was that there were more graves, but upon closer inspection they were too small.
It was as if someone was either burying something or looking for something.
But what? And why? She couldn’t tell how old these holes were.
They could have been fairly recent, which was her initial impression.
Katie jogged back to her Jeep where McGaven had been packing the car. “You need to come see this.”
The detectives hurried back to the line of dug holes, where McGaven immediately kneeled down.
“These look like someone dug them recently.”
“You don’t think…” said Katie.
“More bodies? No, they’re too small and have a more rounded shape. Maybe someone was looking for something?” he said.
“I thought the same thing.”
“But we still need to dig to see if there’s anything else here.”
Katie nodded.
Standing back up, McGaven said, “We need some reinforcement with shovels.”
While he called in two deputies to help, Katie walked most of the property looking for any other disturbed areas, but didn’t find any. She made her way back to the Jeep to give Cisco a break.
“We have Deputies Andrews and Blake on their way,” said McGaven.
As Katie gave the dog water, she looked around. They already knew something bad had happened on the property. But she had a strong feeling there were many more secrets to discover.