Page 4 of Another Girl Lost

“Officer Poole, you the first responder?” Dawson asked.

Poole shook his head. “Officer Margo Larsen got the call to check out the property. She’s the one that slung the sledgehammer and opened the wall.”

“How did she know where to look?”

“Caller gave specific instructions.”

“Where is she?”

He nodded his head toward the door. “Near the kitchen.”

“Thanks.”

He stepped into the dim interior, disappointed it wasn’t air-conditioned. If anything, it was hotter. He moved through the living room, past stacks of wallboard and two-by-fours toward skeleton walls displaying dangling wires, galvanized steel pipes, and wooden studs. On the wide-plank pine floors, pale strips hinted at old walls recently demoed.

Around the corner, he found a tall, fit woman wearing jeans and a sleeveless black blouse. Short blond hair accentuated a round face and large green eyes. Sweat dampened her brow. “Detective Dawson?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m Officer Margo Larsen, and it looks like you met Poole.”

“I did.”

She angled her head toward three forensic technicians. “I told the team to stand down until you arrived. They’ve taken pictures and sketched the scene; the others scanned the surrounding area for anything that might need collecting. Dawson, meet Sam, Bill, and Julie.”

Dawson’s gaze shifted to Sam, the shorter man standing behind her. He had the muscular frame of a weight lifter, thick black hair, and a sour expression. “We’ve crossed paths before.”

“Been a few months,” Sam said.

Bill and Julie, both dressed in hazmat suits, nodded. He’d worked with them all. “Can you show me the body, Officer Larsen?”

“Sure.”

He followed her to the kitchen, where chunks of wallboard and dust were scattered across the floor.

As he stepped around a pile of dusty white fragments, construction grit kicked up on the shoes he’d polished that morning. Larsen handed him a flashlight, and he clicked it on and shined it up the largest hole. Wedged in between the wall joists was a body wrapped in multiple layers of plastic and bound with duct tape.

“You’ve completed photographing the scene?” Dawson asked.

“Yes,” Julie confirmed. “We were waiting for you before we removed her.”

To wrap a body that carefully and shove it into a wall suggested the killer never wanted it found. But time tended to strip away secrets. Buildings got demolished, backhoes dug into vacant fields, and lovers and family members no longer felt the pressure to hold old secrets.

“Any idea when the kitchen was last renovated?” Dawson asked.

Larsen glanced at a small notebook. “I called the real estate agent. He said the house was a flip ten years ago and a renovation was done then. It’ll take digging to get the original construction crew’s names.”

Ten years ago—2014. Hell of a year. “Who currently owns the house?”

“An elderly couple. Both have recently moved to assisted living. The couple’s son ordered the renovations. Work started last week.”

“Okay.” He clicked off the light. “Let’s pull the body out.”

The forensic techs spread a large blue tarp on the floor in front of the fireplace and then moved toward the hole as he and Larsen stepped back. Julie and Bill grabbed the wrapped legs and pulled. Plastic grated against joists and pink insulation. The shrunken and shriveled form gave way after the second tug. Larsen took hold of the torso as Bill held on to the feet. They lowered the corpse onto the tarp.

Dawson moved closer. The figure reminded him of a horror-movie prop. The arms were folded across the chest, and brittle blond hair twisted around the face.

In 2014, Dawson had been on the job five years. He’d been engaged, newly promoted, and believed he could do no wrong. He thought about the girl he’d been searching for that spring. “Any idea who this is?”

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