and the lump in her throat expanded.
The photos of the children were stamped with the word MISSING. She thought of the broken statues and the bones outside. Not anymore. These children were dead. Their remains were right out that door.
Damn.
A sheen of sweat rose on her skin.
“See here.” Durham pointed to a handwritten note in the file. “Detective Mike Rhodes, the detective in charge of this case back when the kids went missing, mentioned you in his notes.”
Sure enough, there was Bobbie’s name and cell phone number at the bottom of one of the detective’s reports. Her mouth dropped open when she read the date. Thirty-two years ago. Bobbie laughed. “I’m certain you don’t need me to point out that this report is dated three months before I was born. How many people had cell phones back then?”
Durham shrugged, his expression warning he was as stumped as she was. “Honestly, whether this was a cell number or a landline didn’t occur to me.”
“May I?” She indicated the note.
“Be my guest.”
Bobbie gingerly picked up the report and studied the handwriting in the upper portions and then her name and phone number. Whoever had added her contact info had taken great care to match the handwriting.
“This is a copy.” She placed the report back on the folder. “If we had the original we could prove my information was added more recently.” Like yesterday. She examined the pile of documents in the folder. Most appeared to be originals. Why was this one a copy?
“Yeah, I noticed that, too.” Durham considered her for a moment. “Why would anyone want me to call you about this case?”
Where to begin? “Well, Lieutenant, I’m afraid the only explanation I can give you will take some time and it’s complicated. Worse, I can’t guarantee you it’s the right one.”
Durham closed the file and tucked it back into his briefcase. “You had a long drive. Did you have a chance to stop for lunch?”
Food was the last thing on her mind. “I didn’t, but I’m good.”
“Well, I’m not. There’s a hole-in-the-wall café a few blocks from here. Why don’t you fill me in over lunch and my unit will take care of things here for half an hour or so.”
Bobbie would prefer to be out there determining how many sets of remains had been discovered and what they could possibly have to do with Weller, but this was Durham’s case and his town. “Just one question. Is the person who lives here or runs the clinic somehow involved in what’s happening in the pet cemetery?”
“Unfortunately that’s what it looks like.” Durham hitched his head toward the other room. “See for yourself.”
She followed the lieutenant into the living room and then down a narrow hall. At the first door on the left he gestured for her to go in ahead of him. Bobbie stalled in the open doorway. An adult male victim was on his knees in front of the toilet, his body was nude and his head was deep in the bowl. Bobbie leaned nearer to make sure she was seeing what she thought she was. A grayish powder was splattered on the white vinyl floor. Urine had trickled from between the vic’s legs and joined the powdery substance. As she leaned closer still, her eyebrows went up. The toilet bowl had been filled with what appeared to be concrete and the vic’s head had been shoved into the mixture and held there until it hardened.
Bobbie glanced back at Durham. “Homeowner?”
Durham nodded. “Dr. Bill Sanders. He’s lived in Savannah his whole life. He built the veterinary clinic next door. His motto was to never turn away a sick animal whether the owner could pay or not. He was a highly respected member of his church. The first to volunteer whenever help was needed. We’re all in shock.”
“Does he live here alone?” Her mind instantly ran down the possibilities of how this man, Sanders, could be connected to Weller.
“The wife’s down the hall, in the other bathroom. They just got the body out of the tub. The coroner is having a look at her. We called in both coroners for this one.”
Bobbie was surprised they had two coroners. Montgomery was lucky to have one part-time coroner.
“Nancy Sanders was a retired elementary school teacher. No children. Everybody always said the animals were their kids,” Durham went on. “Neither of them ever had so much as a parking ticket. Their killer didn’t seem to be interested in anything of value in the house. Her jewelry is on the dresser. A couple hundred bucks in cash was left in his wallet. Credit cards. As best we can tell, nothing’s missing.”
Like the scene at Zacharias’s home...except with bodies and the remains.
Durham showed Bobbie the way past a small bedroom to the end of the hall where what had likely once been two bedrooms had been remodeled into a master suite. Two men, one carrying a portable jackhammer and the other armed with a large crowbar, filed out of the room. A trace sheet had been placed on the floor near the bed. The female vic, early-to mid-sixties, was stretched out there. Most of her nude body was covered in bits and pieces of gravel-like fragments. The grayish film and fragments coated her hair and face.
“They had to jackhammer the concrete from around her. She was submerged up to her eyes.”
Gruesome way to go. Had the victims, including the children, still been alive when they were encased in that concrete? Suppressing a shudder, Bobbie shifted her attention back to the lieutenant. “Have you spoken to the original detective in charge of the case?”
“He died five years ago. Both the primary detectives who investigated those missing kids back when the case was active are gone now. Last year we started a new Cold Case Unit but they hadn’t gotten around to this one yet.”
“Were the Sanderses persons of interest thirty-two years ago?”
Durham shook his head. “According to the file, they were instrumental in organizing community search parties and raising awareness of what folks should be doing to keep their children safe.”
“Obviously they were instrumental in a whole lot more.”
“Obviously.”
“The remains found in those statues are the children you showed me?”
“We haven’t started the official ID process but we have reason to believe they are, yes.”
“Why were the statues here—in a pet cemetery?” Bobbie assumed the statues had been some sort of tribute to the missing children but it seemed an odd place for a memorial. Besides, the cemetery appeared far older than the clinic.
“The way I always heard it Dr. Sanders insisted he was concerned the community would forget about the children so he created a memorial to them. Three of the five kids who went missing brought their pets to his clinic. That pet cemetery had been in his family for generations.” He glanced at the dead woman on the floor. “This is completely crazy.”
Murder was always heinous, but when it involved a child it was unspeakable. What did this decades-old case have to do with Weller? Or Nick? Or her, for that matter? There had to be a connection, otherwise Bobbie would not have been drawn into the
