Page 50 of Guess Again
“They’re here,” Pete said.
Ethan joined him at the window to look down at the circular drive on the side of the hotel. Three black SUVs drove in and parked. Ethan watched as members of the Wisconsin Dignitary Protection Unit poured out of the first and third vehicles and cleared the path to the front entrance. Finally, Governor Jones climbed from the middle SUV and walked into the hotel. A few minutes later, Pete opened the door to the suite and the governor entered, while a member of the security detail waited in the hallway.
“Governor,” Pete said, shaking hands.
“Sir,” Ethan said, taking his hand.
“What have you learned?” Mark Jones asked, urgency in his voice. Even ten years after his daughter went missing, the man sounded desperate for answers.
“I’m not sure I’veactuallylearned anything, but I definitely have some updates,” Ethan said, pointing at the conference table where they all sat.
“I’m going to jump right in,” Ethan said, “because we’re under a time crunch due to developing circumstances.”
Mark Jones nodded.
“As I’m sure you know, my father was a detective with the Milwaukee Police Department,” Ethan started.
“I’m familiar with your history, yes.”
“My father was killed in the line of duty in 1993. Francis Bernard is the name of the man who shot my father.”
The governor nodded. “Bernard is currently at the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility in Boscobel.”
“Correct. He’s been there thirty-two years, and was up for parole just recently, which was denied. I went to see him afterward. He and I have had a bit of a fiery relationship.”
“Understandable.” Mark Jones pursed his lips. “But with all due respect, Ethan, what’s Francis Bernard got to do with my daughter’s case?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I went to see Francis after the parole hearing. He knew that I had been assigned to reopen Callie’s case.”
“How the hell would someone who is basically in a legal version of solitary confinement know that we reopened my daughter’s case?”
“Good question,” Ethan said. “I suspect the information, which made it into the local papers, was leaked to him by a prison guard. That’s my best bet.”
“Okay. But why is this important?”
“Francis told me that he had information about your daughter’s case.”
Governor Jones placed his elbows on the conference table and slowly clasped his fingers together, squinting his eyes at the same time. “What kind of information?”
“He led me to an abandoned warehouse in Menomonee Valley. There, taped high on one of the walls, was an envelope that contained an old ’90s-style flip phone. Pete and I did some forensics on the phone and discovered it was the prepaid phone that appeared in the list of calls made from Callie’s phone.”
The governor stood and began pacing the room.
“Please explain to me how a man who would be on death row in any state other than Wisconsin knows the location of the prepaid cell phone my daughter had been calling in the weeks before she disappeared. A phone everyone believes belonged to her abductor, but no one could find during the original investigation.”
“I’m working on that, sir. Francis was already in prison in 2015 when Callie went missing, so we know that he was not directly involved with her disappearance. The information about the phone has to have come from the outside.”
“How? Who?”
“A few options there,” Ethan said. “First are the guards. They are Francis’s only real source of information, and it’s possible one of them knows something about your daughter’s case. One or more of the guards could be feeding Francis information. Following that lead would require the establishment of a task force to look into each guard, their extended family, and acquaintances, to see if we can find a link back to your daughter. The second possibility we considered was that an old cellmate of Francis’s provided him with information about your daughter, but to the best of our knowledge Francis has not had a cellmate in the last ten years since Callie went missing. And his interaction with other prisoners has been extremely limited. Francis has been in solitary confinement and with only short breaks from his living conditions.”
“So you have no idea?” the governor asked.
“We have an idea,” Pete said. “Actually, we think we’ve figured it out.” Pete nodded at Ethan.
“We think the information Francis has is coming from someone who has visited him recently. Pete did some legwork through the DCI and obtained a visitor’s log of everyone who has visited Francis Bernard in the last several years. The list is short. It includes me and a woman named Eugenia Morgan. Pete is taking the lead and putting her under surveillance.”
“Who is she?”
