married, run her husband, too. I don’t have a name, but you should be able to find it.”
“Roger that.”
After unlocking my office, I let myself inside and make a beeline for my desk. While my computer boots, I quickly unpack my dinner. Experience has taught me that in the course of any death investigation, the first order is always to identify the victim. Without that information, there’s no way to build any sort of victimology. At this point, I don’t know if I’m dealing with a homicide, an accident, or death by natural causes. But my gut is telling me there was foul play involved, and anyone who’s ever worked in law enforcement knows the majority of homicides are committed by someone the victim knew. If I can’t name the victim, finding his killer will be next to impossible.
I wolf down my burger as I skim e-mail, responding to the ones that won’t wait until morning. But I’m anxious to get to the file. I open it as I pop the lid off my coffee. Not for the first time, I’m impressed by Lois’s ability to dig through reams of useless data and get to the pertinent information.
The NamUs reports are on top. The site went live with a fully searchable system in 2009 and contains over eleven thousand unidentified decedent cases and nearly twenty thousand missing person cases. It’s a mountain of data, especially when the only information I have right now to narrow my search is location, sex, and the broad age range of eighteen to thirty-five.
My job would be infinitely more difficult if this were a large metropolitan area, where there are many more missing. But since Painters Mill is a small town and the whole of Holmes County is sparsely populated, the numbers are much smaller. Depending on how old the bones are, there may be someone living in Painters Mill who remembers something and comes forward.
In the last forty years, for the three-county area, a total of fourteen males between the ages of sixteen and thirty-five went missing and are still unaccounted for. Any one of those missing men could be my unidentified decedent, so I narrow it down to Holmes County.
Pulling a yellow highlighter from my pencil drawer, I mark the six names. Twenty-two-year-old Mark Elliott vanished after a fight with his girlfriend five years ago. Thirty-five-year-old Raymond Stetmeyer disappeared on a fishing trip twelve years ago. In 1997, thirty-one-year-old Ricky Maitland told his wife he was going out for a drink at a local bar and never came home. In 1985, twenty-year-old Leroy Nolt left for work one morning and his parents never saw him again. Seventeen-year-old Benjamin Mullet, an Amish boy, disappeared during his Rumspringa in 1978. And Thomas Blaine, twenty-five-year-old father of two from Clark, went missing after a DUI arrest back in 1977. There’s no mention of any old injuries or broken bones in any of the cases.
Two of the names, Nolt and Stetmeyer, are familiar. Not because I remember either case, but because Painters Mill is a small town and I happen to know that the families still live in the area. I’m especially interested to find out if any of these missing were treated for a broken arm at some point before they disappeared. Of course, it’s too late to contact anyone tonight, so I opt to make the calls first thing in the morning.
The police station is hushed at this hour. The phones have quieted. Jodie has turned down her radio. There’s no traffic on Main Street outside my window. It’s so quiet, I can hear the whisper of wind against the eaves. The whir of my computer’s hard drive. I find myself wishing for the pandemonium I’m usually so quick to complain about. Tonight it’s almost too quiet. The kind of quiet that sets my mind to work on things I’ve been trying to avoid all day.
Murderer!
Baby killer!
On an intellectual level, I know the death of Paula Kester’s baby was not my fault. I did what any cop would do: I removed the child from a dangerous, life-threatening situation. Yes,
“Roger that.”
After unlocking my office, I let myself inside and make a beeline for my desk. While my computer boots, I quickly unpack my dinner. Experience has taught me that in the course of any death investigation, the first order is always to identify the victim. Without that information, there’s no way to build any sort of victimology. At this point, I don’t know if I’m dealing with a homicide, an accident, or death by natural causes. But my gut is telling me there was foul play involved, and anyone who’s ever worked in law enforcement knows the majority of homicides are committed by someone the victim knew. If I can’t name the victim, finding his killer will be next to impossible.
I wolf down my burger as I skim e-mail, responding to the ones that won’t wait until morning. But I’m anxious to get to the file. I open it as I pop the lid off my coffee. Not for the first time, I’m impressed by Lois’s ability to dig through reams of useless data and get to the pertinent information.
The NamUs reports are on top. The site went live with a fully searchable system in 2009 and contains over eleven thousand unidentified decedent cases and nearly twenty thousand missing person cases. It’s a mountain of data, especially when the only information I have right now to narrow my search is location, sex, and the broad age range of eighteen to thirty-five.
My job would be infinitely more difficult if this were a large metropolitan area, where there are many more missing. But since Painters Mill is a small town and the whole of Holmes County is sparsely populated, the numbers are much smaller. Depending on how old the bones are, there may be someone living in Painters Mill who remembers something and comes forward.
In the last forty years, for the three-county area, a total of fourteen males between the ages of sixteen and thirty-five went missing and are still unaccounted for. Any one of those missing men could be my unidentified decedent, so I narrow it down to Holmes County.
Pulling a yellow highlighter from my pencil drawer, I mark the six names. Twenty-two-year-old Mark Elliott vanished after a fight with his girlfriend five years ago. Thirty-five-year-old Raymond Stetmeyer disappeared on a fishing trip twelve years ago. In 1997, thirty-one-year-old Ricky Maitland told his wife he was going out for a drink at a local bar and never came home. In 1985, twenty-year-old Leroy Nolt left for work one morning and his parents never saw him again. Seventeen-year-old Benjamin Mullet, an Amish boy, disappeared during his Rumspringa in 1978. And Thomas Blaine, twenty-five-year-old father of two from Clark, went missing after a DUI arrest back in 1977. There’s no mention of any old injuries or broken bones in any of the cases.
Two of the names, Nolt and Stetmeyer, are familiar. Not because I remember either case, but because Painters Mill is a small town and I happen to know that the families still live in the area. I’m especially interested to find out if any of these missing were treated for a broken arm at some point before they disappeared. Of course, it’s too late to contact anyone tonight, so I opt to make the calls first thing in the morning.
The police station is hushed at this hour. The phones have quieted. Jodie has turned down her radio. There’s no traffic on Main Street outside my window. It’s so quiet, I can hear the whisper of wind against the eaves. The whir of my computer’s hard drive. I find myself wishing for the pandemonium I’m usually so quick to complain about. Tonight it’s almost too quiet. The kind of quiet that sets my mind to work on things I’ve been trying to avoid all day.
Murderer!
Baby killer!
On an intellectual level, I know the death of Paula Kester’s baby was not my fault. I did what any cop would do: I removed the child from a dangerous, life-threatening situation. Yes,
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