Page 10 of Just Right

"Could someone from the earlier meeting have followed Patti to the aquarium? That’s a definite possibility," Connor said, and Cami heard the approval in his voice. "Let's take a look at this meeting. Who was it with? What can we find out about it?"

Moving away from the argument with the officials, he walked over to stand in the shade with Cami and looked down at what she’d found.

"Okay, it seems that it was a presentation with a group of people from a local arts club," Connor said, thoughtfully reading through the available information. There was no shortage of that, Cami saw. Patti had lived her life very much in the public eye. She was used to advertising her presence and her destination everywhere she went.

"It's great for promotion, sure. But advertising your whereabouts constantly is risky at the same time," Connor muttered. "Now, at this recent meeting, she met with eight people who all look to be strangers to her. Did one of them decide to follow her, or else get ahead of her and wait?"

Cami wondered if Patti had been unlucky enough to attract the attention of a killer in this meeting.

"We need to take a closer look at those eight, with the potential to commit both the murders in mind. We're looking for anyone who might have gone on to the aquarium after the meeting. And also, we're looking for anyone who would have been able to go out on the hiking trails yesterday and murder Leanne. Either of those connection points will mean a reason to look more closely."

"I can work on that," Cami said. She was pleased that Connor was so determined to follow up on the possibility she’d suggested.

"Go ahead and start on the social media activities and see what you can find," Connor suggested. "Look for anything that might give us a lead. Meanwhile, I'll go talk with the police and try to get a timeframe in place for the reopening of this aquarium." Sounding resigned, he strode back to the fray, leaving Cami to research the meeting.

It had been with members of the Milwaukee Art and Drama Society, she saw. Eight people from the society had attended the make-up presentation Patti had given. She had scheduled additional short meetings with two of the eight, after the main meeting. So, the society had kept her busy all afternoon.

Now, who were these eight, and was there any way to track their whereabouts?

She was able to find a group photo online, taken with Patti at the meeting, that gave her all the names and identities. Patiently, working as fast as she could, Cami matched up each one with their own social media profile.

She guessed that a killer would not have publicly checked into a murder site, so she wasn't even going to waste time looking there. Rather, she needed to look for other ways. Sneaky ways.

Absorbed in her task, she tuned out the debate a few yards away, only vaguely aware that it seemed to be getting resolved and that they were finally reaching agreement. At any rate, the voices were less loud.

Even though she knew the police had already done some initial work here and found no links, Cami did a quick check to see if there was any connection at all between these victims from a social media perspective. But she could find none, beyond the fact that they had many thousands of friends, connections, and followers on different platforms, and that some of these were going to overlap. But no close friends or direct work connections were shared.

The two women were different in age. They had different jobs. The only common factor was that both of them were high profile on social media and had big public followings, with probably a few thousand in common.

From the initial eight people that Patti had met with, she'd ruled out five as having been obviously busy at the times the murders occurred. These five had all gone straight on to a play rehearsal after the meeting with Patti—as a subsequent photo caption stated.

Three remained: the society's vice president and two of the members. Coincidentally, these three were the only men in the group. The five women were cleared.

As she looked more closely, Cami's attention focused more sharply on one of the men.

He was the society's vice president: Nick Simmel. Nick attracted her attention because he lived very close to the area where Leanne had died. His address was just a couple of miles from the point where she'd been found drowned.

Nick was thirty-eight years old and single. He lived alone. But what intrigued her was that he was one of those who followed both Leanne and Patti on various platforms. In fact, he'd connected with both quite recently. That, for her, was a red flag.

Had he targeted them with the intention of going on a killing spree? Being a single man, a loner, did that make it more likely? She wasn't sure, but she decided to check out his whereabouts after the meeting yesterday.

Cami opened his social media profile and started looking around. She could see that this wasn't going to be easy. Anyone who had killed these two women was not going to be advertising their guilt on social media. They'd be hiding their tracks as best they could.

But she had to try.

She couldn't find anything on social media linking him to the aquarium, but a little more research showed her his car's make and color. It was a silver Ford SUV and digging deeper, Cami found the number plate.

She wasn't sure if this research would get her anywhere, but she did remember that there had been a camera at the entrance to the main parking lot that was used by the aquarium, the dolphin pool, the gift shop, and a small coffee shop.

Was there a possibility that his car could have been captured on that camera?

"Connor, I might have something here," she said, seeing that he'd finally finished the discussion and was striding back toward her.

"You do? What have you found?"

"Nick Simmel was one of the people at the meeting. He connected with both the victims recently. He lives close to where Leanne was killed. And I wonder if he might have followed Patti here. I have his car's number plate. If he used the main parking lot, then there might be camera records."

"Let's ask the aquarium manager. Given that they are so keen to open again, I'm sure they'll be willing to show us that footage immediately," Connor agreed.

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