Page 54 of Tough as Steele

He stepped gingerly through the scattered items on the floor toward the back of the trailer. He passed a small bathroom holding an even smaller shower stall and water-stained glass door. The first bedroom on the right was empty and didn’t even have furniture. He approached the back door. It was closed and locked.

The bedroom in the rear held a queen-size bed with a drab brown bedspread and two pillows. The mattress had been torn off the bed and cut with angry slashes. A small dresser stood like a skeleton with the drawers jerked out and barely hanging on. They must have been empty as nothing had been dumped on the floor. The tiny closet held only a pair of green plastic hangers.

He got down and looked under the box spring still sitting on the bed’s metal frame. Empty. Nothing there. Nothing at all.

“Clear,” he called out and holstered his weapon as he rejoined Londyn. “One bedroom is totally empty, and the main bedroom has been tossed too. Looks like Jessica took everything with her.”

Londyn stowed her weapon. “I suppose whoever made this mess could’ve taken her things, but doubt it.”

“I’ll ask my LT to have her phone pinged,” Nate said.

“If her phone number is even for the phone she uses outside her work.”

“She might have a burner, but we still have to try.” Nate got out his phone and sent a text to his lieutenant along with a brief explanation of the situation and requested a ping.

Bishop replied immediately.On it. Don’t hold your breath that they’ll comply.

Thanks,Nate replied, hoping his supervisor could get authorization for the ping, but it was hard to make that happen these days with all the privacy demands.

Londyn put on gloves and started looking through the few items on the floor. “Whoever trashed this place had to be looking for something small enough to fit in the end table drawers, or there wouldn’t be a reason to pull them out.”

“Do you think she staged this to make it look like someone broke in?”

“Maybe to make it look like she’d been abducted too. That way, if shehastaken off, it wouldn’t look like she was involved in Mimi’s disappearance.”

“Sounds possible.” At an end table, he squatted down to read a letter dated a few days earlier. It was handwritten by Gaskin.

Dearest Jessica,

Who knew a grocery store was a good place to meet. You don’t know how much you mean to me. If I’d known I’d meet you there, I wouldn’t have hesitated to stop at one. I’m the happiest I’ve been since I turned thirty. I get off work at eight. Be sure not to tell Benjamin. He’ll make you late, and I don’t want to spend too much time on the road.

Your one true love,

Donnie G.

“Look at this.” Nate pointed at the letter. “Weird letter, but then maybe Gaskin was a weird guy.”

Londyn came to stand next to him. She studied the page then looked at him. “It is odd. Did she break up with Gaskin to date this other man Dolly mentioned?”

“Maybe her former boyfriend was this Benjamin guy, and he found the letter and was jealous. He killed Gaskin, and Gaskin’s death has nothing to do with Mimi.” Nate got out his phone and opened the picture of Gaskin’s letter to his mother. “Handwriting looks like a match to me.”

He held them both out for Londyn.

She narrowed her eyes and bent closer. “The capital letters definitely match.”

“We need to look into Benjamin,” Nate said.

Londyn got out her phone. “I’ll text Ryleigh to see if he’s connected to Gaskin or Jessica.”

“One thing that’s odd, though.” Nate came to his full height. “Why is this table still standing with the letter on top instead of trashed like everything else? Do you think our intruder wanted to make sure we saw the letter?”

“Could be. We need to get it to the forensics staff working Gaskin’s house for comparison of his letter to this one.”

Nate nodded. “Jessica’s boyfriend might’ve handled it, and it could also give us DNA and prints to ID him. Maybe that was the point of leaving it.”

“We need to get Sierra out here. She can process the place. We can also give the blood samples from Wigg’s place to her too.” Londyn dug out her phone. “Hopefully she’ll be up for helping again.”

Londyn made the call, and Nate continued through the items. The only thing of interest was a bunch of completed crossword puzzles in old newspapers. They’d found crossword puzzles in Jessica’s room at Mimi’s house too.

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