looked again at the video with Andie in it. She looked to see if anyone was watching Andie as she said good-bye to Liam. She watched her turn and run after the puppy. Diane searched the woods. The resolution wasn’t clear enough to see deep into the woods, but she thought . . . if she could just catch a glimpse of someone. She took a breath, rubbed her eyes, and started all over again. She noticed that David was doing the same thing at another computer.
Jin came back with more stuff than Diane thought he would. Her groundskeepers were pretty good about keeping the museum woods cleaned out and free of litter, but Jin managed to find quite a bit. He went into one of the workrooms with a long table and put the bags down. Diane followed him in. Jin’s short black hair was in disarray, probably from going through the woods, but the spiky, messy style looked trendy on him. Jin was usually the happiest of her crew, always a bundle of barely contained enthusiasm. But he was subdued now. They all were.
“Hey, boss,” said Jin, “I don’t think any of this will be any good. Mostly picnic junk from museum visitors. I took pictures of the tire tracks and did the measurements of a vehicle on the dirt road. It was an SUV. I’ll look up the make and model before I start on this stuff, but . . .”
“But what?” asked Diane, though she knew what he was going to say. They usually did all this for a dead body—and they did a good job—but the detailed work normally was to catch the perps and convict them in court. That wasn’t the goal this time. This time the goal was to get Andie back.
“Nothing, boss.” Jin grinned. “We’re getting a lot of evidence here. We’ll find Andie.”
Jin went to the computer to fit the tires and wheelbase measurements to the vehicles in the database. It didn’t take him long. “It’s a 1997 Chevrolet Blazer, dark green metallic.”
“You got the color from the wheelbase?” said Diane.
Jin grinned. “There weren’t any other tracks. There was only one vehicle. You closed off the road and nobody uses it. He took it off-road to get around the barrier. I checked the trees. I knew he sideswiped at least one. I’ll have to put it in the machine to be sure, but that’s what it looks like.”
“It sounds like the same vehicle that sideswiped me on the highway. Verify the color and the make and model. That’s critical information,” said Diane.
“Will do, boss.”
“That’s good, Jin. Really good,” said Diane.
“Thanks, boss,” he said.
Diane left and told Izzy, Frank, and Liam the suspected model and color of the vehicle. Frank didn’t seem to hear. He was still focused on the screen.
“Izzy, see what kind of vehicles are registered to all the people who might remotely be involved. Don’t forget the guy who’s keeping Slick’s dogs. Mathews said the guy’s name is Hennessey.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Izzy, “I forgot about the guy keeping the dogs. That’s something I will definitely look into. Ol’ Slick may be involved after all—or maybe the guy, or one of the puppies, you know?”
“Start with Keith ... What is their last name?” said Diane.
“Parham,” said Izzy. “Maud, Earl, and Keith Parham. Keith is on work release from a drug conviction. Most of the violence in his background is barroom stuff. I called and spoke with Earl. I told him someone keyed your car and did other acts of vandalism yesterday, and you were fit to be tied. I told him I didn’t believe for a minute that they did it, but you’re kind of cranky and think it’s them, and I needed to know who they saw yesterday all day. You know, just so I could put you on another scent.”
“Very good,” said Diane. Diane remembered she was standing by one of the museum vehicles with RiverTrail written on it. It probably looked like what it was—she was using a loaner. Good for Izzy. Make the story fit what they saw. “What did you find out?”
“Not good, but good at the same time. Maud and Earl were everywhere yesterday. It’s one of their shopping days in Renfrew and they met a lot of people in stores. He gave me some names. They met with the Watson sisters and the Barres at the church to try to make up. No dice, apparently. And they went to the other church, the