Find Her Alive (Detective Josie Quinn #8) - Lisa Regan Page 0,107

Maybe it’s part of the campus.”

Josie looked again. “But there’s nothing there but land.”

Noah backed up so Mettner could get a look at the screen. She pointed to the area they were studying. Mettner said, “It could be an arboretum. Gretchen, look it up and see if Aubertine College has an arboretum.”

“On it,” Gretchen said, tapping away at the laptop before her. A moment later she said, “They do. The Agnes Hill Arboretum. It’s owned by a private foundation which was founded by a former alum back in the 1800s but it’s operated by the college. It’s fifty-five acres and it has been home to many raptors native to Pennsylvania which Aubertine students majoring in biology or zoology have access to for their research.”

Josie zoomed out once more, staring at the stones again. Noah said, “What is it?”

“Give me a minute,” she told him. The stones. What was it about the stones?

Drake and Gretchen stood and came over to study the screen. Drake said, “There’s no railroad nearby. Bobbi Ingram told you—”

It clicked into place. Josie jumped out of her seat, nearly knocking Drake and Gretchen into the wall behind them. “That’s it!” she said. “That’s where he is!”

They all stared at her. “Boss,” said Mettner.

Josie said, “The sounds that Bobbi Ingram heard were not people hammering in rail ties. They were ringing rocks.”

Gretchen said, “The ringing rocks are in Bucks County. They’re in a state park—a huge tourist attraction.”

Drake said, “What the hell are ringing rocks?”

“They’re lithophonic rocks,” Josie explained. “They resonate like bells when you strike them. In Bucks County, they call it ‘the field of boulders’, I think. You take hammers, and you can go out among the boulders, strike them and make music. Well, it sounds like bells. Or like the sound of rail ties being struck. There are some in the UK and in Australia, too.”

“But boss,” Mettner said, “isn’t Bucks County the only site in Pennsylvania?”

“No,” Josie said. “It’s not. There are some smaller sites and some of them are on privately owned property. These are ringing rocks. That’s what Bobbi heard when she was captive.”

“I don’t see any shipping containers on this land,” Drake pointed out, reaching across and zooming in on the property.

“Like Mettner said, it could be under tree cover or it might not be there now,” Josie said. “Hear me out. In the diary, Trinity said that Max’s dad worked for the college. Not that he was a professor there. No, he ‘worked’ there. Maybe he was the caretaker. It would make sense. He’d be familiar with the raptors there. He may have even had an interest in ornithology. Maybe Max took over his duties or maybe Max works with him there.”

Gretchen said, “And the reason we can’t find the truck is because it’s not registered to anyone named Max, it’s registered to either the college or the foundation.”

Noah had moved over and was now clicking away on his own laptop. “And they’ve got an animal sanctuary there with a staff veterinarian.”

“Which means they have medical supplies and a place to operate,” Gretchen said.

Mettner grimaced. “With fifty-five acres, he could probably find a spot to leave his victims out for the black vultures without drawing too much attention.”

Josie nodded. “This area to the north is adjacent to some large tracts of land. Doesn’t look like there’s anyone or anything there. It looks like maybe a tributary of the Lehigh River, maybe a waterfall here.”

Noah said, “The caretaker would have his own quarters on the land.”

Gretchen added, “Which would also technically be owned by either the university or the foundation, so searching property records for someone named Max would be useless.”

Josie said, “Let’s make some phone calls, do some recon, and firm this up.”

Drake met her eyes. “Then we’ll go get Trinity.”

Fifty-Seven

The air in the building seemed suddenly energized. Everyone was jittery. An hour later, they had the information they needed. Chief Chitwood stood in the center of the great room while they briefed him. Mettner began, “The caretaker of the arboretum from 1980 until 1996 was a man named Frances Thornberg. He lived in the private quarters with a woman named Hanna Cahill.”

“Cahill,” Chitwood said. “That sounds familiar.”

Josie said, “It was Nicci Webb’s maiden name.”

“The Bone Artist knew Nicci Webb?” Chitwood asked incredulously.

Gretchen said, “In 1975, Hanna Cahill gave birth to Nicolette Cahill in Philadelphia. There is no father listed on the birth certificate.”

Noah said, “Then in 1985, she gave birth to a son, Alexander Thornberg. She gave him Frances’s