Thursday 1645 hours
Katie was quiet on the ride back to the Pine Valley Sheriff’s Department. She kept running scenarios through her mind about the identity of the man in black and if he was same person watching the investigation and construction—and the one that attacked her. What was their motivation? Were the detectives on the right track or way off?
“Trying to figure out the cowboy in black?” said McGaven with a slight smile.
“How do you do that?”
“What?”
“Always know what I’m thinking. It’s…”
“Scary,” he said.
“More like annoying.” She smiled.
In the next fifteen minutes, the detectives were back at their desks, filtering through mountains of paperwork. Katie updated the board, adding the fact that the computer cards had been swapped out. They had nothing from the trail cams and she didn’t get a good look at the man, which was frustrating. Shehoped Buck would have some information when she spoke to him. Like the identification of the man in black. There was a sliver of hope that Buck knew more than he had told her so far.
“I ran some reports and sent emails to the most popular genealogy website starting with Bruce Collins. We should know more information soon,” he said.
“I read about a couple of homicide cases that were solved, in part, by genealogy. It was fascinating because it turned out one of the family members was the murderer.”
Katie moved her jacket and the two memory sticks fell out on the floor. She picked them up.
“What are they?” said McGaven, not averting his focus from the computer screen.
“The continuous loop from the coffee place. They sometimes live stream it to their website.”
“Like people want to see other people drinking coffee?” he said.
“I guess.”
“The internet strikes again.”
Katie inserted the first memory stick and pressed “play.” She was in luck. She could move quickly through each day until she reached the approximate time frame she was looking for, which was a relief, as otherwise she’d have had to watch people buying coffee and sitting at the small tables for days. Still, as Katie started watching she soon realized she was looking for a needle in a haystack.
“Is there any way to program this to look for only men wearing black?” she joked.
“Hey, there was no guarantee this was going to be an easy job.”
Katie fast forwarded as quickly as she dared while still being able to identify the patrons. Most people stayed about three to five minutes before leaving. A few would sit down at one of the three small bistro tables. She let out a sigh.
“You want me to watch for a while?” said McGaven.
“No. At least not for now.” Katie began to see some of the same patrons returning over the days, but no man in black.
“I think I’m getting somewhere,” McGaven said. “There’s a family line here that I think might be Bruce Collins’s.” He frowned. “Though I may have to go down several family lines to double-check. And…” He sounded pleased with himself here. “Meredith’s maiden name isYoung.”
Katie paused the video footage. “Young?” she said. “Like for Buck and David?”
“Yup. But it’s a common last name. It says here Young is the thirty-second most common last name in the US.”
Katie shrugged. “Still, it’s quite a coincidence. The Young brothers could be related. It would explain Buck’s interest in all this.”
“I’m going to follow through. And you should ask Buck when you see him.”
“He’s definitely holding back on information. He knew we would find out who he is and his service record, but I feel there’s a lot more to him. He’s been through so much and how he lives definitely makes things complicated.” Katie thought for a moment. “The land he’s living on and the cabin must belong to someone. Maybe we can find out more that way?”
McGaven nodded. “I’ll add it to the list of things to do. This is going to take a while,” he said, nodding at the computer. “Do you need me at the hospital?”
