“That’s what we think,” Harry said.
“So now…?”Hutch prompted.
“Now we got cause to send deputies up there to knock on some doors, and those deputies are already up there,” Harry told him.
Hutch smiled.“That’s a good break, Harry.”
“We’re not done,” Rus said from behind him.
Hutch glanced that way, but it was Cade who started talking.
“Had several requests from a police department outside Philly to do a talk for their officers,” he shared.“Been turning them down because they can’t afford my full fee.Seein’ as this place is about fifteen miles from the Amish community Lars Enstrom grew up in, I decided to accept a reduced fee.”
Fucking hell.
“Larue and I headed out, I did my thing, then she and I got in our rental car and took a drive,” Cade went on.
Larue was what he called Delphine, his partner, Misted Pines’s most famous resident, and she wasn’t famous because of bad shit, but because she authored one of the best American novels ever written.
Cade kept going, “We left the community alone.They don’t like outsiders and more than likely wouldn’t share anything.So we asked about Lars in town.Not a surprise, time has passed, and he didn’t live in town.No one knew him.”
Well, shit.
“Except one guy,” Cade said.
Hutch returned to alert.
“Guy said Enstrom was always trouble.He’d sneak out of his community, come into town, do stupid shit.Graffiti, petty vandalism of cars and property.Man said he didn’t know what Enstrom got done for during his Rumspringa.But he reckoned the only people in his community who didn’t want him gone were his parents.They got their shot to shun, they jumped all over it.”
“Right,” Hutch said.
“The other thing he knew was that Enstrom had been back.Briefly.About five, six years ago.And he came back to pick up his long-time secret, by then not-so-secret girlfriend.A woman named Taylor Martin.”
Cade’s head turned Harry’s way, so Hutch’s did too, but his attention caught on Harry’s computer screen that now had two pictures side by side on it.
Left, definitely DMV.
Right, a grainy picture Hutch took, zoomed in and cropped, of the woman who he’d seen necking with Enstrom on the compound.
Even grainy, it was impossible to miss they were the same woman.
“Now there’s this,” Harry said as he clicked out of that, and another two photos came up.
Left, security ID from a hospital of maybe a doctor or nurse.
Right, the woman he’d seen chat with and kiss Burress on the compound.
Again, same woman.
“Samantha Schrier.Midwife at a hospital in Seattle,” Harry said.“Or she was.One who fortunately had an outstanding traffic ticket.So I got on the line with them, told them what we got going here, and asked them to head out on the routine administrative task of reminding Ms.Schrier she needed to handle her ticket.”
Hutch wondered if cops spent time on such routine administrative tasks, and maybe they did.
But it wasn’t priority.
“They go visit her parents,” Harry kept on.“And those parents don’t ask questions as to why the cops are asking them about their adult daughter’s ticket.They immediately hurl ample attitude.Not aimed at our boys, aimed at their Sammy.Apparently, also about five, six years ago, she ran off with her boyfriend.A man they did not like or trust.He had a good job, but they thought he was shady.They warned her against him, repeatedly.There were fights.And they reported to the cops they had no idea where she was, they hadn’t heard from her since she left, and they weren’t surprised, considering they had a helluva fight about her going.Told the cops Sammy could hold a grudge.But it seems all the Schriers can hold grudges, because those boys told me her parents shared they didn’t give much of a shit she dropped off the face of the earth.She deserves what she gets for being stupid.”
“And the guy with the good job is Heath Burress,” Hutch said.
