Two years later, Dora Feliciano disappeared. She didn’t own a vehicle, but was walking home from work in downtown Bozeman. There was still a question as to whether the Butcher was responsible for her disappearance. The Sheriff’s Department looked heavily at her live-in boyfriend, who had no alibi for the time, but no solid evidence connected him with her disappearance.
It wasn’t until Colleen Thorne, Quinn’s partner, came to Montana three years ago, after the Croft sisters disappeared, that Dora was even put on the board. Colleen’s reasoning was that the Butcher was still developing his strategy. Dora had been an easy target-walking alone late at night. Bozeman was a low-crime town; most women used to feel safe.
Quinn’s entire body shuddered remembering how close Miranda had been to dying. What she’d endured at the hands of the Butcher, her will to live, her escape.
The information on Miranda’s sheet was longer, more detailed. That was when they’d realized they had a premeditated abduction on their hands. That they had a serial killer. They went back to Penny Thompson’s case, but her father had long since gotten rid of her car and when the police tracked it down, the new owner said the carburetor had been so gummed up that he’d picked up a rebuilt carb and replaced it. The original had been junked.
In June of 1997, Susan Kramer and her roommate Jenny Williams disappeared. They immediately were considered victims of the Butcher because their abandoned car had molasses in the gas tank. Four months later, deer hunters came across Susan’s body. It wasn’t in good condition, but was identifiable through the autopsy. She’d been shot in the leg and chest.
Jenny’s body was never found.
Nineteen ninety-nine was a banner year for the Butcher, Quinn thought with disgust. Three missing women from the University, all abducted separately, three weeks apart, starting on April twenty-eighth. None of their bodies was ever recovered. And in 2001 another woman, a freshman biology major from Florida, disappeared, leaving behind her disabled car three miles from her last stop.
Karen Papadopoulis’s case was different only in that her body was discovered before her vehicle, which had been concealed off a little-used road west of Old Norris in neighboring Madison County. She’d been shot in the thigh by a high-velocity rifle, but that wasn’t what killed her.
Her throat had been slit.
Quinn turned from the board with the familiar uneasy anger that the Butcher was smart and cunning and would keep on killing until he made a mistake. But he hadn’t made a mistake yet.
“So we know the unsub has a vehicle,” Quinn said as he paced. “But he can’t drive all the way to the shack. All the women were slight, under 130 pounds. A man in shape could carry them.”
“Or drag them on a makeshift sled.”
“True, but we haven’t seen evidence of that type of tracks, have we?”
Nick shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay, so he carried the girls up there. Sometimes two.”
“Separately?”
“Most likely.”
The Butcher was patient. Methodical. A planner. He had to have laid out his route before the abductions; the shack would have been prepared with chains and a lock on the door. He was strong enough to transport a slender woman over steep terrain, probably driving a four-wheel-drive as close as he could get before hoofing it.
They’d never found evidence that he used a horse, but Quinn couldn’t rule it out. Since the Butcher was methodical, he could have painstakingly covered up horse tracks.
Quinn focused again on the map, his chin resting on his hand.
“The cabins are all fairly close, three to five miles, to some sort of road, or an unused, overgrown trail,” he said. It wasn’t a new revelation; he was simply trying to think of the investigation from another angle. “We’ve already determined that he’s strong, but in addition to muscles, he has to be accustomed to long, arduous manual labor.
“Nothing came of the property search,” Quinn continued. They’d run ownership records in the areas the other women were held in and came back with as many owners as cabins. “What about where Rebecca was found?”
“It’s private property, a thousand-acre spread owned by a Hollywood type. He comes up once, twice a year. He probably doesn’t even know the shack is on his land. His spread is on the other end.”
“Have you checked him out?”
Nick paused. “No.”
Quinn frowned. “What about his house?”
“He has a caretaker.”
“I’ll go check it out.”
Nick’s jaw tightened, and Quinn suspected Nick felt he’d neglected something. While it was an important avenue in the investigation, Quinn also worried Nick would feel threatened, especially after the negative spotlight the press was shining on the Sheriff’s Department.
“It’s a long shot,” he told Nick. Nick didn’t look placated.
“I’ll go pull the records on the property. Be back in a minute.” Nick left.
Quinn watched him close the door and frowned. Nick was letting the press get to him, and that wasn’t a good sign. Colleen had given him a rundown, and labeled the Sheriff’s Department under Nick’s command as “very competent,” but noted that the previous sheriff had been more lax in his reports and investigation, particularly with the missing girls. Quinn made a mental note to call Colleen in the morning and see if she had any further insight.
He turned back to the board. The key profile points of the Butcher were listed on the far right.
During World War II, American troops had disabled German tanks with sugar. It was a well-known tactic, displayed prominently on revenge-oriented websites. The FBI profiler Vigo considered that the Butcher might have once been in the military, but dismissed it. “He wouldn’t have volunteered, and he’s too young to have been drafted,” he’d told Quinn twelve years ago.
They had a list of all the students, professors, and staff that fit the profile at the time Miranda was abducted. There were hundreds of them.
When they learned Penny was probably the first victim, it was three years too late. They still ran the records, ending up with hundreds of white males under thirty-five who had had contact with Penny on at least a casual basis.
Nick stepped back into the room and handed Quinn a note. “Here’s the information about the spread, the caretaker, and the owner.”
“Thanks.” Quinn pocketed the slip of paper. “Where are the files from the Penny Thompson investigation?”
“In archives.”
“Including the University records?”
“Hers? Or the suspects’?”
