The Summer Job - 59. Four Boxes

Detective Murphy was as curious about the four boxes as everyone else but, to be of any evidentiary value they had to be handled as evidence. He sealed each box with tape, put an evidence tag on the boxes and had them taken to the station by a uniformed cop.

Except for the ongoing Thermite fire which was very much localized and covered in a few tons of bricks, cinder blocks and assorted rubble, the crime scene belonged to the investigators who were going through the house examining anything that might be potential evidence.

There were three computers connected to a home network that were bagged and tagged. The bulk of the drugs they were expecting were in the trunk of Jerry Quinn’s Lexus. Some had been retained for the party, but it was clear who actually owned them.

The drug paraphilia found in the house, which amounted to a pair of small water bongs, was portable. That part of the party had arrived with the guests. There was no evidence of ongoing drug use at the house like residue found in other rooms.

No guns or explosives were found, although some ammunition had cooked off in the fire. It was contained and didn’t cause a hazard, only a ruckus.

In the several busts that constituted Operation Paladin, they had all been successful. The Feds had hit Trans-Continental and the Sheriff’s Narcotics guys had easily taken the three other dealers into custody. The only casualty of the night was Chuck Farmer.

By twelve-thirty, things were pretty quiet at Phillip’s house. They had a full day and most of the boys were sleepy except for a few knots of three or four kids sitting around talking.

Phillip heard a series of pops and asked, “Mikie, was that gunfire?”

“No, gunfire sounds different”, Stevie replied. “Pat and I hunt with my Dad. That wasn’t gunfire. It sounded more like some... what do you call those big-assed firecrackers?”

Mikie offered, “M-80s?”

Randy said, “I live in the hood so, I know what guns sound like and that wasn’t it. It had some thump too. I felt it.”

The boys continued chatting and Phillip’s phone pinged at the arrival of a text from Richard:

Dad has a police scanner- they hit Farmer’s house about ten minutes ago. Mr. Dannager will beat them to the county jail. We’ll talk tomorrow when we know more.

Randy asked, “What was that?”

Not wanting to have to discuss it until tomorrow, Phillip said, “That was Richard. There is something I have to deal with after church.”

Casey came into the bedroom grinning ear to ear and said, “I got a text from my Dad! He said he was proud of me!” Casey was one of the boys who didn’t have a phone before today.

Phillip asked, “I take it you texted him with your new number?”

“Yeah, and I sent a selfie when I was dressed for church”, Casey gushed. “We’ve gone round and round over my... uh... metal look. When he got a picture of me looking good, having a job and a phone of my own, he was pretty happy with me.”

Mikie asked, “Where’s Kelly?”

Casey replied, “He’s downstairs texting his sister. She heard a bunch of kids got busted tonight and was making sure it wasn’t us.”

Stacy Scott was indeed busy. After texting Kelly to make sure those two weren’t a part of the festivities the police were busy throwing, she put on her reporter hat. A lot of news is made at one in the morning, but chasing it down in the middle of the night is tricky.

She texted her brother Brad for info and got a terse reply:

Yes, there were five busts tonight- two big, three small. We have been busy tonight. The DEA was involved with the biggest one. About forty+ people were arrested on drug and other charges. I can’t comment further.

Stacy nearly dropped her phone. There had never been this many arrests at once. It was too late for the Sunday edition, but it was time to get to work.

Detective Butler wasn’t having a great day. Tomorrow he would have to tell Rochelle that her sister’s boy Tyrone had been arrested for drugs, and molesting a bunch of teenagers including her boys. Rochelle Green was a formidable woman, and he expected her reaction to be something close to nuclear. The job had its triumphant moments, but that would not be one of them.

When he had heard that Farmer had given up four bankers boxes of evidence, he needed to see it. If it could give him a window into a bunch of open homicides, it would be some consolation for the shit duty he would be doing tomorrow.

The man working the overnight shift in evidence was Sergeant Ned Davis. Davis had been badly roughed up in a car crash chasing a felon and was driving a desk to retirement. He looked up from a pile of papers and said, “Chris. What brings you to the basement?”

“I think some stuff from the Farmer bust might give me some leads on some cold cases.”

Davis said, “You’ll be the first person who’s looked at the stuff. I’ll need you to sign in. The Chief wants all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed on this one.”

“I understand Ned. I talked to Arty Shaw. It’s one of his old cases.”

Davis stood with the assistance of a cane, and took a big ring of keys off his belt. He opened the cage door, let Butler into evidence storage. Four banker’s boxes were sitting on a cart sealed with crime scene tape. He handed Butler a sheet of paper that documented the chain of custody and had some notes on it. Butler saw that there was an index in the box labeled one and said, “Let’s start with the index.”

Davis pulled a Swiss Army knife and sliced the tape on the first box. As advertised, a red notebook conveniently labeled “index” on the spine was sitting at one end of a box full of letter sized files.

Butler leafed through the index and saw that the first box had files on the kids, the second box was logs, the third was labeled case notes and the fourth box was listed as David Wayne Allen. He let out a hiss of breath and said, “Arty Shaw was probably right about this guy.”

Davis chuckled and said, “As much as I hate to admit it, Arty usually is.” He used his Swiss Army knife and opened box four.

Butler looked inside and saw four small boxes and eight moleskin notebooks bound together with big rubber bands. He opened one of the boxes and found it had small zip lock baggies inside. He picked one up and saw it had a 2008 class ring for small-town high school along the interstate. Another baggie contained a puka shell necklace. He instantly realized he was looking at a serial killer’s trophies.

He sat down at a table, removed the rubber bands from the moleskin notebooks and started reading:

April 2007- My contact with the Sheriff’s office was nice enough to share what they had about Hunter’s disappearance which was jack and shit. What we know: Boys have been going missing about once a year in a corridor a hundred and fifty miles long since the late nineties. No bodies have been found. It crosses jurisdictions and state lines, so the pattern was very hard to spot. The kids going missing were poor. Several of them had been in trouble with the law. Without a body, they were just missing.

He skipped ahead.

June 2007- Calling it a Love’s Truck Stop is ironic. I’m not sure what they are selling more of diesel, food or sex. I wasn’t there and parked two minutes before a hooker came by my truck to offer her wares. Inside, had a hot dog and took a leak. A kid propositioned me in the john. I told him I wasn’t looking for sex, but I’d buy him some lunch and compensate him for his time if he would answer some questions. Easy money always works.

He came out to the truck, and we talked for a half hour. The kid’s name is Donny. He’s fifteen and lived nearby. Donny had heard rumors that some kids who left with tricks never came back. He didn’t have anything useful for me, but I put him down as one of my sources. I gave him forty bucks and my card in case he heard or saw something.

Butler grinned. Farmer had been playing the game like any detective. That’s what it took: shoe leather, persistence and informants. No detective could spend so much time on a case. They had so many cases that none could apply the time or focus that Farmer had put into his investigation.

Hunter Young had vanished in the spring of 2007. Farmer had run his own private investigation for six years of nights and weekends.

This was going to take a while.