“We’re with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, by the way,” Shooter said. “I’m Joanne Harris. This is Gardner Camden.”
The man nodded. Looked curious more than anything. “This gun was legally purchased, ma’am,” he said.
“I’m sure it was, Mr. Gilliam,” she replied.
Shooter looked to me, and I glanced back at her. She had established rapport, and I wasn’t going to fight her for the right to tell this man the worst news of his life. We had been brusquer with Amber Isiah than notification policies recommended, but that was different. All we knew at the outset was that she’d been stealing a dead woman’s identity.
“We understand your daughter, Julie, has been missing,” Shooter said, “since March of last year?”
The man’s face blanched, and he nodded. Now it was my turn.
“The police have found the remains of a young woman,” I said. “Likely mid-twenties. Shilo PD put a picture out on the news.”
The father said nothing for a second. Then he turned away from us, out toward the water. We had closed the distance and were at the edge of the dock, but I kept my eyes on the gun to make sure he didn’t move toward it.
After two minutes, he turned back and wiped at his face. More than a year had elapsed since Julie Gilliam went missing, and no doubt her father had imagined this moment a hundred times.
He walked to the edge of the houseboat and unhooked a rope to invite us aboard. “You got this picture on you?”
I pulled out my phone and showed Gilliam the digital composite that Patsy Davitt had made. He bit at his lip, nodding. Turned and walked back onto the houseboat.
On the same deck where the gun lay were two wicker chairs, and without saying a word, he pointed for us to sit in them.
“What do you remember about the last time you saw Julie?” I asked.
“She was out here on the water,” he said, his voice hoarse. “There was a local fella who didn’t know much about his boat. She and I were fixing it up. It was springtime.”
“You two always live here?” Shooter asked. “On this boat?”
“Since her mom died when Julie was twelve,” he said. “Jules was an easy kid to raise. Good grades in school. Knew everyone on the marina. Everyone loved her.”
“The last time you saw her,” Shooter said, “was she dating anyone?”
“No,” he said. “She had a boyfriend a year before that, a friend from high school. But no one after him.”
“Your daughter was twenty-four when she went missing, sir,” I said. “Was she employed?”
“She worked on the lake some. Waitressed some. She didn’t know what she wanted to do yet. She’d say that a lot. But I think she just didn’t want to leave me here alone.”
I reflected on the professions of the women who had gone missing. A dancer. A cab driver. A nursing assistant. A motel manager. I was struggling to find a pattern and considered the statistics of college-eligible women in the US.
Two point one million high school students enroll immediately in some college, two-thirds of that number in four-year schools. But so far none of our victims had done so. And women were 12.9 percent more likely to attend postsecondary education than men.
“Julie hadn’t attended any college?” I asked.
“She was considering trade school,” Mr. Gilliam said.
“Healthcare?” I offered, wondering if there was some connection to nursing, like Mavreen Isiah.
“That was one thought. But she grew up on a boat fixing things, so Jules was thinking more plumbing or electrical.”
So no pattern with occupation.
Julie Gilliam was also younger than the other victims, whose median age was 30.3.
Nothing on this case seemed to follow a pattern.
“That picture looks like her”—Bud Gilliam motioned at my phone—“but at the same time, it doesn’t. You guys found something? Some DNA or scientific thing like on television?”
