Page 76 of Fear of Flames
“Shit with all the crap, I forgot about her. What did you find?”
“Birth records indicating she would be four years older than Shelly. No death certificate. According to what I found, she went missing but not before Shelly was born. It was over two years later.”
“What?” Fletch asked. “Missing? Police reports?”
“Yeah. Denny had them sealed.”
“You need a judge for that.”
“He already had years on the force. It wouldn’t have been too hard.”
“Was she ever found?”
“That took a little more digging, and honestly, the jury’s out,” Leo replied. “The remains of a young juvenile fitting Sarah’s profile were discovered fourteen years after Sarah disappeared. The forensics team determined based on environmental factors that the remains had been buried for fifteen to seventeen years.”
“COD?”
“C1 through C2 vertebrae fracture.”
Fletch pressed his lips into a straight line. “Trauma.” He shook his head. “Where did they find her?”
“A man driving a front loader for an excavation company was preparing the site for another distribution warehouse southeast of Indianapolis. The land had been farmland for generations. The remains stopped the project for a couple weeks. That made the news—local at least.”
Fourteen years, Fletch thought. Chell told him she learned about Sarah while she was in high school. It was probably because that was when her remains were found. He shook his head. “Makes sense why Denny had such a passion for missing and exploited kids.”
“Yeah, but that’s where it gets weird. Neither Denny nor Tracy officially claimed their daughter was deceased. They refused to acknowledge the remains were Sarah’s. They paid for cremation out of respect for the deceased child.”
“You said she was identified?”
“Possibly identified—inconclusive dental records. The remains were cremated prior to DNA testing. IMPD claims it was a mix-up in evidence. The Holdcrafts chose not to pursue legal action.”
“Sounds like a cover-up,” Fletch said. “If she was abducted, why wouldn’t they want to know? Where was the investigation?”
“I couldn’t find it. The case was closed not long after the cremation.” Leo pressed his lips together and shook his head. “If I were to make an assumption, it would be with Tracy and Denny working for the agency, they didn’t want the publicity.”
“Damn, that would’ve been hard on them both. No wonder they didn’t talk about her to Chell.”
The door to Peterson’s office opened, and Peterson eyed Fletch and Leo up and down. “Get your asses in here.”
After a nod to each other, the two men followed Peterson into his office.
“We have a development in Iron Falls,” Peterson announced. Before either man could reply, he said, “After Perkins failed to show to the office this morning as usual, Deputy McBride went to Sheriff Perkins’s home.”
“No fucking way,” Fletch said.
Peterson nodded. “Dead. Coroner puts the time of death somewhere between ten p.m. and two a.m. COD is unknown. They’re doing an autopsy, but foul play has been ruled out. The old man probably had a heart attack brought on by stress. According to Deputy McBride, he’d been having problems with an old football injury.”
Fletch shook his head. “I don’t believe it.”
“I checked. From 1973 to 1975, Ralph Perkins played quarterback for Iron Falls High School, Class C.”
“Not the football injury. I don’t believe he died peacefully in his sleep,” Fletch corrected as he and Leo took the chairs in front of Peterson’s desk.
Peterson stood before them and leaned against the desk, crossing his arms over his chest. “As we know, there’re a lot of ways to facilitate a cardiac incident, ways that can be hidden from the standard toxicology screen. Then again, if he was having knee pain, the old bastard might have overdosed on painkiller.” He shrugged. “No matter how it occurred, Perkins is no longer.”
“He shot Denny,” Fletch said. “Now getting a confession is out of the question; we have to prove it.”
“I’m going to be upfront with you gentlemen,” Peterson said, relaxing his arms. “There are those higher up who would rather the publicity around this case die down.”
