long you’ve been after this killer or how many people failed to find him in the past. Right now, we have a case to solve. It’s as simple as that. We’ve got a lot of work to do, so if you’re not going to help us, then shut up and get out of my stationhouse. I’ll get in touch with your SAC. I’m sure she’ll be happy to lend any assistance she can on this.”
Josie moved aside and held her arm out, gesturing toward the door. Slowly, Drake stood, smoothing the lapels of his jacket. “You’re just like her,” he said quietly.
He picked up the file and moved past her, but he didn’t go to the door. Instead, he circled the table and walked over to the large whiteboard at the back of the room. He put the file on the table and opened it, spreading out reports. He motioned toward Gretchen’s neatly organized piles. “Do you mind?”
She slid them over to him. He plucked the dry erase marker from the whiteboard ledge and uncapped it, listing dates, names, and brief notes as he spoke.
“We didn’t know this was a serial case until the third victim, so the first two cases were handled by local departments. It wasn’t even clear they were connected until just before the third victim went missing.”
Drake tapped his marker against the board where he had written Anthony Yanetti, 2008. “This guy was a truck driver. Forty-one years old. Wife and one kid. He lived in Newtown, Pennsylvania.”
“That’s in the southeastern part of the state, right?” Mettner asked.
“Yeah,” Josie said. “A couple of hours from here.”
Drake continued, “He delivered furniture for a local store. He was out delivering. He made a stop at about eleven a.m., left that stop, and drove off to his next destination. Except he never made it. The customer called the store to complain when he didn’t show. No one could get in touch with him. A few hours later, his truck was found on a rural road outside of Newtown. Keys still in the ignition. Wallet, phone, lunch all still in the truck. It was like he pulled over, got out, and never came back. Thirty days later, some guy working in a salvage yard finds bones arranged on one of his back lots in King of Prussia, roughly thirty-five miles from where he went missing. That was treated as a homicide in that jurisdiction. He was identified using dental records.”
Drake picked up a set of photos and passed them around. This set included close-ups of each bone group, like the ones both Josie and Noah had glimpsed in the guest room when Trinity stayed with them.
Noah said, “You said earlier that the killer struck every two years. Are we talking to the day? Two years from the abduction or from the staging of the bones?”
Drake drew an arrow from the name Anthony Yanetti to the name Terri Abbott. “The victims are always abducted in March and their bones are always found in April, usually early April. It’s two years to the month.”
Josie tried to suppress the shiver working its way through her body. It was nearly April. “The exact dates don’t matter?” she said.
“They don’t seem to matter, no. He doesn’t leave the remains every April fifteenth or anything like that. Terri Abbott, a twenty-eight-year-old day care worker from Pittsburgh, was walking home from a pre-season Pirates game. Her last known contact was a phone call with her roommate during which she told the roommate she was walking across the Roberto Clemente bridge.”
Mettner said, “Did you find her on any cameras?”
Drake shook his head. “It was too crowded. Too many people. We couldn’t isolate her. Her phone and purse were found in the gutter on the other side of the bridge, so we think she did make it across.”
Josie’s throat was dry. “Then thirty days later…”
“Her bones were found in the parking lot of an abandoned steel mill outside of Pittsburgh. Some foundation had bought it up, and they were planning to put an art installation there. That’s how her bones were found.”
Gretchen frowned. “How does he ensure that the bones are found on the thirtieth day if he’s leaving them in remote places?”
“Hand-delivered notes.” Drake riffled through the pages in the file until he came up with two photos. Both showed a regular piece of white copy paper with the same block writing Josie had seen on the package Trinity had received. One simply said:
Please check the back lot