Page 13 of Stone Cold Savage

“Yeah, I see it now.” He replied, then turned to his younger siblings, “Knock it off, you two. She’s right, not the time or place, and Dev… reel it in. Whatever you’re feeling right now, take it out on me. Otherwise, pipe down.”

Devyn crossed her arms across her chest and leaned back in her chair, splitting her glare between both Rip and Nash.

“It’s been determined that the deceased was a young male, possibly in his twenties or thirties. It seems he had suffered a broken or fractured arm at some point, along with a GSW –– gunshot wound –– likely to the chest, evidenced by missing bone fragments. Additionally, another gunshot wound was found in the pelvic region. However, it's challenging to ascertain when these injuries occurred due to advanced decomposition. The gunshot wound to the head, on the other hand, is likely the fatal shot, based on our examination..”

“Advanced decomposition?” Cut asked. “Does that mean…”

Rip bobbed his head, “Yes. He’s been buried there for some time, and there’s confirmation to support that.”

“Though dental records couldn’t be matched, a dental repair on an upper molar of the deceased consisted of material that hasn’t been used in decades. There needs to be further soil and debris analysis to confirm this, but as of right now, based on the dental material and other analysis, we know the body has been there around… twenty… maybe thirty years.”

“Thirty years?” Kenzie guffawed. “How do we trace that back to a missing person or cold case of any kind? I can search files, but they aren’t necessarily going to be digitized that far back. The computer age hasn’t been around that long in police work, at least not like it is now. We’ve been creating digital records for old files for some time, but that’s like hunting for a needle in a haystack. We will likely be digging through old bankers’ boxes from the jail basement, reading files one by one.”

“We’re already running through your digital files,” Coy confirmed. “One of our operators at headquarters built a program to search your system simultaneously with those within a fifty-mile radius. Once that’s complete, he’ll expand to a hundred miles if we don’t get a hit. Being surrounded by rural counties means this could be local, but sometimes local is still three counties over.”

Kenzie rolled her eyes, “I’m sure all of this is legal, right?”

“Not the way they do it.” Devyn shook her head, “Not. At. All.”

“Certain laws and rules don’t apply to us when it has to do with the greater good,” Rip said. “We have access and automatic immunity, making us not prosecutable. Charging us would mean admitting we exist and we’re a well-kept secret to the most powerful people in the world –– nobody will come for us.”

“You aren’t protected for personal matters,” Devyn argued. “This isn’t one of your government-backed cases. Hell, it isn’t even a local legal case. It’s an in-house vigilante bullshit kind of case. How do we solve this one –– whether it be an accidental death or a homicide –– when the remains are older than everyone in this room? You realize that the deceased would be anywhere from fifty to sixty years old based on those details, right?”

“If we are unable to connect the dots, nobody will be able to. Remember, we’re the people they call in when they draw a blank and exhaust every avenue. If we turn this over to the local agency, Kenzie will ultimately run this thing up the ladder until the feds finally call us in as their saving grace. So, it lands back with us regardless.” Coy informed.

Devyn stood and began to pace, thinking through the limited details, “Something about this doesn’t feel right.”

“I would hope not. It’s a dead body on our family land.” Nash said.

“No shit.” She said. “There has to be something else. Something we haven’t found yet that will give us a jumping-off point.”

“Our associate, Killion, is building a program that will take images of the remains and rebuild them based on the remaining detectable features to create an image of what the Vic may look like then and now.” Rip shared. “Once he gets that up and running, he’ll take the images his program generates and run them through another program that’s much like facial recognition but uses different measures, including unique biometrics to find potential matches in the same databases he’s looking through now.”

“That’s both interesting and disturbing to think about. I didn’t know the technology to do all of that existed.” Kenzie chuckled.

“It doesn’t.” Coy said, “He’s building as he goes with parameters he’ll need to make it work. It’s still a shot in the dark and searching for a needle in a haystack, but it’ll be much faster.”

“Killion is good. If anyone can narrow this down and find us that extra piece of anything, it’s him.” Coy shared.

“In the meantime?” Kenzie asked.

“We stay vigilant. Hold things down here. Hope and pray Killion gets us something we can work with.” Coy said, “Until then, I guess we go grab some of those banker’s boxes you mentioned and start sorting through them.”

“While you do that, I’m going to see that lawyer that signed off on Mama’s new will,” Devyn said, clearing plates from the table.

“You’re not going alone.” Rip scolded.

Coy and Dillon shared a surprised look.

Devyn turned and leaned against the kitchen counter, “So, that’s why you’re here. My babysitter since I got the last one shot.”

“You don’t need a babysitter from where I stand. Seemed to handle yourself just fine today.” Rip said. “But it isn’t safe for anyone to go anywhere alone. From what I understand, there’s a lot of bad shit happening around here.”

She nodded. “But like you said, I can handle myself.”

“Coy?” Rip said, his gaze fixed on Devyn.

“He’s, uh, right.” Coy looked between Rip and Devyn. “You aren’t going alone, sis.”

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