That had been the last sighting of the young women. When they didn’t show up for work on Tuesday, Amy’s mother, who was already concerned because she hadn’t heard from her daughter, contacted 911. The police found the tent still at the campground, but there was no sign the girls had ever slept in it. Amy’s car was gone.
From the articles in thePost Star, all of them by a reporter named Luke Orsini, it sounded as if initially there’d been a serious effort to determine Page and Amy’s whereabouts, but that ebbed after suggestions surfaced that the girls had talkedabout taking off, maybe for Canada. It was even insinuated that they’d gotten involved with drugs. The articles seemed to stop fairly abruptly, though there was a follow-up story in the paper five years later, also by Orsini, entitled “Still No Clues as to Whereabouts of Missing Girls.”
I jotted notes as I read, including the name of one of Amy’s friends, Kayla Underwood, who was quoted as saying that Amy would never have simply taken off. She was someone I needed to talk to. And when I had time tomorrow, I was going to hoof it over to the campsite and take a look. And check out Muller’s while I was at it.
If the remains in the two extra bags were indeed those of the campers, the police would be looking for someone who had been in the region ten years ago. And at first glance, at least, that seemed to rule out Cody Blaine.
I returned to the desk, picked up my composition book, and thumbed through the timeline I’d jotted down for Shannon. She and Cody had moved to the area from the Caribbean just over eight years ago, shortly after they married and a few months before their son was born.
Next, I brought up Cody’s bio on the Baker Beverage website in order to confirm that info. He’d apparently joined the company as a salesperson soon after his arrival here, was promoted to sales director and VP, and finally assumed his current position as president. His LinkedIn profile didn’t tell me much more, other than the fact that his job at the Anguilla resort—as a food and beverage manager—had kicked off nine years ago. Prior to that he’d been in Afghanistan for two tours of duty.
Okay, that would have to be checked out. Though it was unlikely that Cody was a serial killer who’d also knocked off his wife—he hadn’t even met Shannon ten years ago and therefore probably wasn’t even familiar with the area back then—I needed to be absolutely certain he was out of the country that fateful July.
As I considered where to find the info—probably by calling army headquarters first thing Monday—my phone buzzed and I saw that Beau was trying to FaceTime me.
“Hey, you,” I said as I beheld his face on-screen. It felt really good to finally be connecting with him.
“Hey, you, too,” he said. His hair looked a little matted, like it might have been raining in Bogotá. “Great to be staring into those blue eyes of yours, even from this far away.”
“Howisit?”
“Totally fascinating. And the art scene is thriving.”
“I was a little worried when I didn’t hear from you yesterday.”
“Sorry about that. Besides the fact that we’re trying to cram in so much, my cell service has been less than ideal. I finally had a chance to read your posts today. Sounds pretty intriguing up there.”
“Well, it’s a lot more intriguingnow.”
I took him quickly through the high points of what had happened since my last post—from the mystery call yesterday evening to my minutes-old theory that the other remains might belong to Amy and Page.
“That’s shocking,” he said. “This could be huge.”
“For sure.”
“Well, that’s good for you then. This is the kind of story you’ve been hoping for, right?”
His reaction relieved me, meaning he seemed to be taking my current situation—phone buddy to a killer and finder of dead bodies—in stride. We’d had several long, hard conversations this past summer regarding his growing anxiety about my work and the danger he believed it entailed.
In all fairness to Beau, Ihadlanded in more than a couple precarious situations over the years, not only while covering crime stories but also while helping out a few friends in serious dilemmas. But I loved what I did, and I’d bristled at the notion that maybe I should be stepping back or choosing milder crime stories to cover. I was hardly going to start focusing on people who lied on their résumés or refused to recycle.
I did my best to help Beau see my point of view. And I’d seen things from his perspective, too. The tension had finally dissipated.
“Yeah, it’s a good story,” I admitted. “Though of course I feel horrible about these women.”
“Why do you think the killer called you?” he asked.
“I assume he’d seen me around, asking questions, and managed to get his hand on my phone number.”
“No, I mean, why would he want the bodies found?”
“I was pondering that with Alice—the reporter I was with. Some of these killers like to show off, even crave being caught. Maybe he realized he’d hidden Shannon’s body too well and wanted to be sure it was discovered.”
But even as I sent that last idea up the flagpole, I could see there was a sizable hole in it. If the killer hadn’t cared thatthe first two bodies had remained undetected for years, why the need to showboat about Shannon’s?
“I can see your wheels spinning even from two thousand miles away,” Beau said.
“One thing suddenly isn’t making sense, but I’ll mull it over some more.... Beau, just so you know, I’m going to be super cautious. As long as the motel has other guests around, I feel safe here, but if that changes I’m going to switch.”
