Page 48 of The Girl from Devil's Lake
It was verging on the middle of August when it came time for him to head home. He made his leisurely way down to the Four Corners area. Just north of Shiprock, New Mexico, he picked up a hitchhiker—a boy, this time, most likely a Navajo, who was wearing a bright red bandanna. The kid turned out to be wiry and tough. For that one Stephen needed his chloroform. Once the boy was dead, Stephen removed the bandanna. For trophy purposes that worked fine, and Stephen decided to call this one Bandanna Boy.
After dumping the body in the San Juan River, Stephen drove away. He spent that night in Flagstaff. It was August, yes, but it was also a weekday, so he was able to find a decent room with little difficulty. The day after that, he was back home in Bisbee, Arizona, ready to start his second year of teaching at Bisbee High School.
Chapter 24
Bisbee, Arizona
Tuesday, December 5, 2023
When Joanna Brady showed up at work on Tuesdaymorning, things were blessedly quiet. For one thing, trenching was over and that annoying jackhammer racket was a thing of the past. Also, according to Dave Ruiz, the plumbing and electrical rough-ins had been installed and were awaiting a visit from the building inspector, who might or might not arrive today.
As far as the jail commander was concerned, things were doing okay, but Terry Gregovich was wondering how soon Joanna could manage the transfer of five more prisoners. She told him she’d look into it.
Detective Raymond had left word that he was taking the day off because he’d be doing Operation Garbage Can that night, which, with any kind of luck, would include a late-night trip to Tucson to deliver a load of possible DNA evidence to the Department of Public Safety (DPS) crime lab.
Joanna was just settling into her computer to look at the upcoming scheduling sheet when Detective Howell entered her office.
“Hey, Deb,” Joanna said. “What’s up?”
“I just now got off the phone after having a very interesting conversation with Detective Kurt Dawson of the Polk County Sheriff’s Department in Crookston, Minnesota.”
“Wait,” Joanna said. “I thought we weren’t going to make any inquiries concerning Stephen Roper until we knew more about what we’re up against.”
“We’re not making inquiries here,” Deb responded, “but I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask a few questions in his hometown. For one thing, we know that even though he was retired, Roper was still taking summers off the same way he did back when Tom Hadlock was in high school. I thought that was worth checking out, so I called the motels in Fertile—both of them. They don’t have any record of anyone by that name ever staying there, not since they switched over from paper records to computerized ones.”
“What about an Airbnb?” Joanna asked.
“No such animal.”
“I learned there’s no one by the name of Roper living in the area, so I checked his mother’s maiden name, Hawkins. Came up with zilch there, too. Then I thought, what the hell? Why not try calling the local sheriff’s office and see if anyone there can tell me something? That’s where I got lucky. Turns out, back in high school the mother of one of their detectives, Detective Kurt Dawson, used to work in the restaurant owned by Stephen Roper’s mother. The two women were evidently good friends.
“He told me a lot of the same stuff we heard from Casey in the briefing, but he added in a few more details. Remember Tom Hadlock told us Roper claimed that he went back home every summer to work on the family farm?”
Joanna nodded.
“Turns out that’s a bunch of bull. The family farm in question belonged to Stephen Roper’s grandfather, Orson Hawkins, who owned several farming properties in the area. Apparently he unloaded all of them at a healthy profit and moved into a house in Fertile with his daughter and grandson while Stephen was in high school.”
“So no family farm to worry about,” Joanna put in.
“Exactly,” Deb said. “According to Detective Dawson, as far as heknew, in the mid-seventies, after Stephen’s mother passed away, he sold off everything, quit his teaching job, and left town.”
“And never came back?” Joanna asked.
“I asked Detective Dawson that very question, so he called his mom while I was still on the line. That’s what she said, too—that she didn’t think he ever came back.”
“If he lies about one thing...” Joanna began.
“What else is he lying about?” Deb finished.
Joanna paused for a moment thinking about what she’d just heard. “So supposing Roper really is a serial child predator. With three months a year free to do whatever he damned well pleases, how much damage could he do?”
“A lot, unfortunately,” Deb replied, “because he’d have the whole country as his playground, and it’s likely he’s been doing it for decades.”
“What about closer to home?” Joanna asked. “Do we have any matching unsolved cases from around our neck of the woods?”
“Nope,” Deb said. “Not that I could find.”
“Even so,” Joanna Brady declared, “the buck stops here! One way or another, we’re going to put that son of a bitch away for good.”
