Page 60 of State of Bliss

Thanks.

Next, she texted Dr. Trulo.In light of the new info on Stahl, I’m wondering if there’s any insight from your end that might help us to wrap our heads around the possibility that a serial killer was working in our midst.

Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation?

I’m on my way to Wilmington & Newark DE to brief families of two of the missing women.

Oh wow. Ok… Well, I don’t have much on him that you don’t already know. He was always an enigma around here. No one was particularly close to him (that I knew of).

Did you suspect he was unbalanced in any way?

I had suspicions that something was “off,” but without being able to fully evaluate him, that’s all it was. Suspicions. Until he confirmed them, that is.

This is helpful. Thank you for sharing. I’m really struggling with how he could’ve done the things he did right under the noses of all the good cops we work with.

I’m sure that was part of the thrill for him. That he was deceiving his fellow officers with his criminal behavior while pretending to be an upstanding member of the department. We don’t think to look for criminals under our own roof. We like to think we’re all on the same side with the same goals, but we’ve seen that isn’t the case.

It’s demoralizing.

Yes, it is, and it’s something I’ll be addressing with the entire team as we go forward. It’s important we don’t lose sight of the overall goal while dealing with the transgressions of a very few.

True.

We’ll be discussing it more in small group settings in the coming weeks. I want to give people the chance to share their feelings in a positive forum, so they don’t fester.

I appreciate you, Doc. I really do. If you’d asked me before you saved my life and my career—more than once—if I thought shrinking was for me…

Haha. Thanks for the kind words. It’s taken a long time to earn the trust of my colleagues. A skeptical group, to say the least. I’m proud of the strides we’ve taken as a department to address the mental health challenges that come with a stressful job. Still much more work to be done.

Thank you for doing that hard work. It’s badly needed.

Try to enjoy the vacation.

Will do. See you next week.

He responded with a thumbs-up.

With an hour still to go, she sifted through the notes in the Carter file along with the updates Freddie had emailed her. In his message, he’d written:

Wilmington is the largest city in Delaware, with just over 70,000 residents. The Carters live in a suburb west of Wilmington called Elsmere, which has about 7,000 residents. Solidly working-class community with median home value around $184K and median rent at $1100. Bart Carter is retired from Merrill Lynch, and Theodora Carter is retired from the Elsmere School District after working for twenty-five years as a school librarian. I’ve attached a clip I found from a local paper when she retired. I took a look at their social media… Their five adult children live close by and have at least six children among them. Lots of photos of the parents with their grandchildren and a group shot of the whole family taken at a family reunion last summer. (See enclosed.) They post photos of Brittany on her birthday each year and had an age-enhanced photo of what she might look like now done two years ago (also attached). From what I can see, they’ve never stopped looking for her or hoping for a break in her case.

That last line broke Sam’s heart. How did people live for decades without knowing what had happened to their missing child? She would go mad within days if it took that long.

Next, she studied the additional report Freddie had sent on the Hans family. Caren and her sister, Cristen, had been raised by their late grandmother in Brookside, outside of Newark, after their parents died in an accident when the girls were very young. They both graduated from Christiana High School.

There’s not much to be found about Caren after graduation, but Cristen graduated from the University of Delaware with a business degree and is married to Paul Reid, a firefighter in Newark. They have two young children, a boy and a girl, ages four and one (based on a recent Facebook post). She runs an online business from home, providing apparel to local teams, schools and other organizations. Caren and Paul reside in Brookside, about six blocks from the home where the sisters were raised. I went back several years on her social media and found no mention of her missing sister.

Sam’s phone chimed with a text from Freddie.Cadaver dogs have picked up on scents in Stahl’s basement and backyard. Excavation equipment is being brought in.

Her heart sank at that news. “Cadaver dogs have identified scents in the yard and basement at Stahl’s house,” Sam said to Vernon and Jimmy.

She had such mixed feelings about the news. On the one hand, she wanted closure for the families of the missing women. On the other, she dreaded the fallout of this case for the department, its leadership and the rest of them.

It made her sick to her stomach.

“Keep doing what you do, Sam.” Vernon’s gaze met hers in the mirror for a second before he returned his attention to the road. “You’re on the side of right. You always have been and always will be. Stay focused on what you can control.”

The words touched her deeply. That was exactly what her dad might have said under the circumstances. “Thank you, Vernon.”

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