“W. C. Walker?” Cassie said.
I nodded. “He had told Cassie and me that the women had a nickname in Spanish for the man in the sketch, but he couldn’t remember it.” I looked to Cassie. “He confirmed it wasel médico.”
“The doctor,” Cassie said.
“And Mavreen’s sister,” Shooter jumped in, “said our man in the sketch was doing something through back channels—like people came to him who needed things.”
“So you’re thinking what?” Cassie said, tapping her spoon againstthe edge of her soup container. “Some doctor is targeting women with offers of backroom surgery? One girl’s nose? Another girl’s lip?”
“Possibly someone who’s had legal trouble,” I said. “Dropped off the grid.”
Cassie flicked her eyebrows, skeptical. “It doesn’t take a lot to beonthe grid if you’re talking about a plastic surgeon, Gardner,” she said. “There’s the American Board of Plastic Surgery, but it’s not mandatory to be part of it or even licensed in that discipline to do surgery.Anymedical doctor can do plastic surgery.”
“Presuming we haven’t found every one of this guy’s victims,” Richie pointed out, “of the twenty-four other missing persons in Shilo, four are prostitutes.”
“And you’re assuming what?” Cassie said. “Sex workers are ripe for this sort of targeting?”
I took a spoonful of the soup and tasted salted pork mixed in with clams and pepper.
“They use their bodies to make their income,” Richie replied. “They might understand the return on investment better than most.”
Shooter turned to me, her head cocked. “What came together for you?” she asked. “The dates. When we were talking to Amber?”
I nodded and grabbed a marker, moving name by name through Richie’s list, taking each woman’s first name and populating a horizontal line across the whiteboard.
Rana in October of 2018. Araceli in May of 2019. Julie in March of 2020.
When I was done, there were dots next to four of the nine victims’ missing persons dates.
“I’m making an assumption,” I said, “that Mavreen Isiah was the girlfriend of the man in the sketch. Everyone okay with that?”
The team nodded, and Cassie leaned forward. “Oh snap,” shesaid, shaking her head. “You think Mavreen is more than his girl. You think she’s his partner. That she was helping him abduct these women?”
“Araceli in May 2019. Melanie in September 2019. Dog possibly in December or January. And Julie Gilliam in March 2020.” I looked around. “These four deaths occurred while Mavreen and El Médico were together. Amber said her sister had fallen under his spell. Like she was in a cult. It’s possible she helped him kidnap the women. Or felt forced to.”
“So we treat Mavreen as a victimanda suspect?” Richie asked.
“Maybe she wanted out, but couldn’t escape,” Cassie said. “Eventually she became a victim herself.”
“I have a question,” Shooter said. “This man? Dog? He’s not El Médico, right?”
“No,” I said. “We asked Melanie Nelson’s mom.”
Richie stood up. “Speaking of moms, I have an update. I spoke to Dog’s mother today.”
“Bitch?” Shooter said.
Cassie bit at her lip, repressing a smile.
“The precise term for a canine mother is actuallydam,” I said, “although that applies to many animals.”
“Damn, Gardner,” Shooter said, and Richie shook his head.
“Well, thisdamsaved Dog’s baby teeth,” he said. “I had Santos cut a piece of pubis bone from the skeleton we suspect is Dog. I overnighted that, along with one of the teeth, to Quantico.”
At headquarters, that bone would be ground down to powder, which would contain millions of bone cells, and in turn, the DNA of Skeleton #6, for comparison to the teeth.
It felt like we had gone through most of what we knew about the women. I checked the time on my phone. Cassie and I needed to beon the road soon to get back to the gun case, and I had promised Poulton I would not miss our flight to Miami.
