Page 101 of Solid as Steele
He looked at Mackenzie and made sure his disappointment didn’t show in his expression and kept it from his tone. “How long has it been since we’ve heard from Ryan?”
She looked at her phone. “An hour. I’m guessing he’ll check in again soon.”
“It would be good if we could get Leach into custody too. Maybe he’ll break in an interview. Or now that we know Tovar is blaming Leach, we can pit him and Tovar against each other to get one of them to talk.”
She rubbed the back of her neck. “You think Leach will crack? He seemed pretty strong when Hatch called to order him to come in.”
Owen wouldn’t be discouraged. “That doesn’t mean he’ll remain that way when under arrest.”
“You could be right,” Mackenzie said, but her tone didn’t convey belief in her statement.
“Got something here.” Kelsey’s voice carried on the wind from behind the barn.
“Let’s go.” Owen bolted for the near side of the rusty barn that hadn’t been cordoned off.
Mackenzie’s footfalls behind him confirmed that she followed, and Blake jogged from the direction of the truck to meet them. They rounded the corner to find Kelsey pounding stakes into the soil about ten feet behind the barn. She faced them, shielding her eyes from the sun.
Blake stopped in front of her and took a wide stance. “What do you have?”
“Three clandestine graves.”
“Human?” Owen asked.
She nodded. “My GPR scan confirms human remains.”
Owen shoved a hand into his hair and resisted pulling it out. “I sure didn’t expect that.”
“Me either,” Mackenzie said. “But if Tovar’s been doing this for a while, and he hasn’t taken better care of the women than the ones we rescued today, stands to reason that some of them didn’t survive.”
Blake nodded. “The very reason I had Kelsey come along. I’m actually surprised she only found three.”
Kelsey rubbed her lower back. “I’m not done scanning the area yet.”
Mackenzie shook her head and kept shaking it. “When we followed Tovar, I had no idea we’d find all this.”
“I wish I was more surprised than I am.” Kelsey’s solemn tone got to Owen. This woman had to have seen so many horrible things. How and why did she keep going in her job? “I’ll get these graves marked out and then finish scanning the property.”
“With two acres to scan,” Mackenzie said, “won’t that take a lot of time?”
“Not as long as you think.” Kelsey drew another stake out of her backpack. “It would be unusual to find remains on the outer edge of the property, so I expect that to go faster than near the house and barn.”
“Because murderers don’t like to move bodies far for burial?” Owen asked.
“Yes. Killers are often lazy and dig shallow graves close to where the victim has died. This isn’t always true, however. Serial killers often don’t fit this pattern.”
“If Tovar killed Cassie, and these women died in his care, he would technically fit the FBI’s serial killer criteria. But honestly, if these women died due to neglect, the charges could fall under manslaughter.”
“No matter how you look at it,” Blake said, “we have at least three bodies to recover. Are you the one who can authorize Kelsey to do the work or do we need to contact someone else?”
“The local sheriff is taking lead on this investigation,” Owen said. “I’ll give him a call and ask him how he wants to proceed.”
Owen stepped away. He knew his role right now. Persuade Wheeler to let Kelsey excavate until she could determine the condition of the bodies. If they were skeletonized, she would continue. If not, they would need to call in the local medical examiner.
Owen didn’t want these victims to have been buried long enough to be skeletonized, but he knew Kelsey’s capability and had no idea of the local ME’s skill in recovering buried remains and determining cause of death.
If that was the case, the best Owen could do was to request Wheeler call in the Oregon State Police medical examiners to recover the remains and do so quickly. Because at this point, they were only speculating that the victims were women who Tovar had bought for sex trafficking. The team could be wrong. Totally wrong.
He could be a true serial killer, having murdered other women like Cassie and buried them on his property.
