The Pearl Drop Killer. Joshua Questin Hawk
and hurries out.
“Where do you want to start?” MacBride asks.
He looks out into the bullpen, seeing a blond male Deputy. “Hanson!” Donovan yells, moving around the desk toward the door.
Charles Hanson, early thirties, with corporal stripes, was the one with Duke when he and MacBride arrived at the crime scene. “I need everything on Sherman’s Forest, any recent deaths and missing person reports of young women and teen girls, say sixteen to thirty…within the last six months,” Donovan orders. Hanson nods and runs out.
“Well, just move right in,” MacBride says.
Both laugh, and she leaves. Donovan grabs his old white board from out in the bullpen, a long table sitting up against the wall, which had a list of Deputies’ names and shift times, their roll sheet.
He erases it and pulls it back into his office and writes “14 female bodies, 16–25 years old, black/white dresses, pearldrop necklaces” along the top of the board. I have seen these outfits with pearls before, he told himself and writes “Left hands cut off like Surgeon” on the lower right side of the board.
“Already down to business. I like that,” O’Malley says, standing in the doorway.
Donovan pauses, looking over the board, and turns back toward him. O’Malley hands him a few brown folders, “First reports from the scene. Stein will have the rest and photographs soon.”
“Good. Have you been able to let the Ranger know I wish to talk to him?” Donovan asks, taking the folders.
“I am to meet with him at the Ranger’s station at two p.m. I will have him here at eight a.m., when he gets off shift.”
“Good,” Donovan answers, skimming through the first folder.
“I meant what I said, T. It’s good to have you back.”
“I hope Dana is working out,” Donovan says, still not looking up at him and, leaning against his desk, reads one of the files.
“She’ll be fine. She’s a good Detective.”
“Good Detective?” Donovan says, looking up at him finally. “You said a woman could never be a good Detective well enough for you while you were on the job.”
“Yeah, I know, but she was a good help on many cases while she was still in academy. Guess you mellowed me.”
Donovan drops the files on the desk behind him, and O’Malley sits on the long old, worn-out green fabric couch which looks as if it could have been here back in his Father’s day.
“How long did the Forensic Anthropologists say they needed for their analysis?” Donovan asks.
“A few days, same as Alice,” O’Malley answers as he puts his feet up on the small wooden coffee table.
“Get me the photographs as soon as you can,” Donovan says, moving back behind his desk.
O’Malley stands quickly, thinking he could have sat for a time, and then walks out after remembering Donovan was always focused when on the job.
Hanson returns with two file boxes. “Here you go, Sir. One is of missing persons, teens to thirties, over the last six months. The other is of Jane Does, deceased last six months. There is not a lot here. The papers on top are of the Sherman’s Forest with maps. It has only been a park for about twenty years. Before that, the land was owned by the Sherman family.”
“Any of them left?” Donovan asks, still skimming one of O’Malley’s folders.
“Old Lady Sherman is still alive. She’s in her eighties now and lives in the old house, north of the park, with her Daughter, who would be fifty something now, and a few Nurses. There is a Granddaughter, but no one has seen her for a couple years,” Hanson says, skimming the first pages of the file.
“Any more information you get on the family and the Granddaughter, let me know,” Donovan says, looking up at him.
“Yes, Sir,” Hanson says and leaves.
MacBride returns, seeing the board and boxes. “One thing I did like about working with you, you never left a stone unturned,” she says. She is not sure if he was listening and leaves.
Stein enters, wheeling a dolly with five boxes. “Here are my preliminary reports, other than the M.E.’s and the Anthropologists’. The photos are in the front of each folder as Duke instructed. Forensics should be back in a day or two according to Mac.”
“You have copies?” Donovan asks, looking up.
“Yes, copies have been made.”
“Good. Missing persons and death notices of teens and woman up to thirty,” Donovan says, placing his hand on one of the boxes Hanson gave him. “Start comparing photos from the crime scenes. Pull any Deputies you need.” He’s still reading over reports O’Malley gave him.
Stein adds the two boxes to the others on her dolly, leaving the maps and family papers on his desk, and wheels them out into the conference room. She pokes her head out and sees two female Deputies and three other males standing by the coffee maker near the long table across the room.
“You, five, in here. Scott, coffee, two sugars.” They all shift into the conference room. Scott, the red-haired Deputy corporal first seen at the crime scene makes the coffee and joins them.
Donovan steps out of his office, sees Stein instructing the Deputies on matching photos and reports to missing and deceased victims, and joins MacBride in her office. “Stein seems quite capable.”
“Top of her class at the academy. FBI asked for her personally, but she wanted a small town to start in,” MacBride answers, still signing reports.
“Kind of how you started out,” Donovan says.
“Yes. Did you need something?” she asks, still without looking up at him.
“I have been thinking. I’d buy you dinner so we can start over.”
“No strings attached?”
“Not from me, but you know your Dad.”
“Will I need a witness?” MacBride finally looks up at him.
*****
The sun is now setting through the repaired window of the Roadhouse Grill. MacBride finds one table in the middle, set with a white tablecloth. The pool tables in the back and down a few steps are covered. The lights for the booth sections are off, and two long-stemmed white candles flicker in the dimmed light. Donovan comes from behind the bar and is now clean-shaven and wearing a nice blue suit and white dress shirt with no tie. MacBride has changed too and is now wearing a blue spaghetti-strapped sundress that hangs down past her knees and two-inch heels.
“We are busy tonight, but I think I could squeeze you in, Madam,” Donovan says, trying to be very professional, taking her hand and guiding her to the table. He still loves her.
“Sit her already, you bum! Dinner’s getting cold,” Jock calls out from the kitchen. They can tell he does not wish to be there. She laughs. He helps her with her chair and sits himself.
“So what’s the catch, Donovan?”
“You came and apologized, and I was an ass. So I thought I would try to make it up to you,” he says.
Jock drops two plates of spaghetti on the table. “Will you two stop shadow dancing, kiss and make up already.” He grunts and returns to the kitchen.
“Stay in the kitchen, old man, or leave!”
“Donovan!”
“Sorry.”
“What have you come up with so far?” she asks, trying to change the subject.
“Dana has done a good job, and her team has already found five of the missing young women and have matched them to five