“It has to be more… I think there’s a bigger stake here.”
“What about Sydney, your uncle’s new girlfriend? Are you sure she’s a part of this?”
“I am.” Katie animatedly nodded. “She was murdered and her body dumped at Junior’s old place. Yes, she’s a part of it.”
“Maybe she asked the wrong questions?”
“Why dump her there, though?”
“Maybe he didn’t have time to hide the body in a better location, though I don’t think anyone goes around there anymore—a tin-trailer ghost town.”
“I just feel so bad for my uncle. He even admitted to me that there was something off about her—she asked too many questions about cases, apparently.”
“That’s rough. It’s going to take a special woman to grab his attention now,” he said.
Katie sat down and went through copies of photos taken at Roberts’ house from the underground secret room. “What first stood out to you when we were in Roberts’ secret basement?”
“It was creepy.”
“Old property maps of the area where the Collins family lived—and all the surrounding land too.” Katie looked at the board. “Do you think there was something planned there a long time ago or… there might be mineral rights?”
“Let me bring up the Collins property and see what happened fifty to a hundred years ago,” he said. “The bank owns it now, but it looks like there’s a lien on it.”
“Does that mean no one can buy it?”
“It usually means there’s some type of mortgage that needs to be paid off before the bank or investors will auction or buy it,” said McGaven. He read from his screen. “This seems strange. It looks like there was some type of activity on it in the past year.”
“Like?”
“I don’t know. It’s unclear. There’s not enough information.”
“So what else would make a property worth a lot of money?” Katie looked at the photos from the old room. “Whoever dug those holes was looking for something. I can’t quite figure out what or why.”
“Maybe something in that room would answer that question. I saw all the files had been brought here,” he said. “That’s quite a project, going through all that old stuff.”
“Gav…”
He looked at his partner. “Oh, no.”
“I know we could have a couple of people from records do it, but they wouldn’t know what we were looking for.”
“The answer is no.”
“C’mon. It would be fast if we worked together.”
McGaven sighed loudly.
“Look, we’re making some headway now with the blood and hair match—and the photo of what the man in black looks like.” Katie moved closer to her partner. “It going to be a while before we hear back about Sydney and the trailer park scene.”
“I have Officer Andrews checking in every three to four hours—and his relief will take over.”
“And if there’s anything important that comes up, you’ll know immediately. Right?”
“There’s not a lot of room in there,” he said. “Going through old stinky stuff.”
“Pizza and endless coffee on me.” Katie smiled.
“Maybe we could have the boxes transported to your house. More room and Cisco.”
