The Nobody Girls (Kendra Dillon Cold Case Thriller Book 3), Rebecca Rane [best book club books of all time txt] 📗

sat in Art’s office and made their case for spending more time on what they were calling The Nobody Girls season.

“We’ve got a lot of legwork to do yet, but I want to focus on this,” Kendra said.

“You have one dead body, no idea who she is, and then what, a list?”

“I have to interview the FBI, and then I’ll know more about the patterns, maybe, and the status of the case. But Art, The Cold Trail had always been about the victims, to me anyway, and to Shoop. We’ve solved the case in a couple of incidents, but that can’t be the only reason we tell the story. We have to let people know about these women that everyone forgot about. Even if we can’t solve the cold case.”

“I’ll give you a few days. You’ve earned that,” Art conceded.

“I need interviews. That’s what I need. Right now, we have one current mystery in High Timbers, and then, well, a few old ones that seem to fit with the circumstances.”

“Fine, you’ve got a couple day’s leeway, but if you’re stuck then, you have to move on. I’ve got underwriting, which is great, thanks to your success, but it’s not unlimited. We need to nail down a season and figure out how to promote it. This has gone bigger than just WPLE.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re national, and even though this is a WPLE production, there’s interest in all types of ways to expand on it.”

“From whom?”’

“How about I worry about that? You worry about the next season?”

“Okay, good, thanks, Art.”

The Cold Trail had been successful beyond Kendra’s wildest expectations. They’d gone from unknown cold case podcast to the show some compared to Serial. It had brought new pressure and new expectations. She would let Art think about expansion. She could only focus on the cases. The victims deserved her full attention.

Kendra and Shoop had convinced Art that they were on the right track for the next season for now. But all they really had was a hunch that this was a story they could dig into or help with in some way.

They’d bought the time they needed to research further, but now they needed to decide on the next step.

Kendra sat at her computer.

She knew who she needed Special Agent Branson, the FBI agent Newkirk mentioned.

She did a search and produced a disappointing result; Branson had died in the early 2000s after a distinguished career.

Crap. But this was the way with cold cases.

They wouldn’t have the original investigator for their stories. That had helped so much with the Ethan Peltz stories, having the lead investigator’s recollections. But Kendra wasn’t daunted. There were records, regardless of who filed the reports.

“We’re going to have to check in with the FBI for their case files,” Kendra called out to Shoop.

They had plodding work ahead. They’d be trying to draw back the curtain to a time that on paper didn’t seem too long ago, except it was. And it was all mostly on paper. There weren’t the digital files, easily emailed, like today. But Kendra and Shoop knew that; in fact, it was what they had become experts at wading through.

They spent an afternoon digging and ticking off a list of mundane checks and cross-checks that made the hands on the clock seem like they were crawling.

But then two things happened that did the opposite and made Kendra wish for more hours in the day.

She found another story that matched a possible fourth victim of the same kind of violent end that the High Timbers Jane Doe had met.

Her name was Susan Hodges.

Kendra read the account. A highway repair crew outside Cincinnati, nearly to Kentucky, had found a body, wrapped in a garbage bag, off the road. It was far enough to be disguised from drivers but close enough to be discovered by road crews.

It had all the markers of the High Timbers scene, and the timing was right.

It was 1981.

Kendra was ready to add this story to the three they had already, a fourth Nobody Girl, when Shoop leaned her head through Kendra’s office doorway.

She’d made a discovery as well; she had a name and number of a relative from one of the first three victims.

“Linda Kay Ellis had a sister, Wilma Kay, a few years younger, who lives out in Perryville. I called her.”

“Great! And?”

“She says you can visit today; she’s got nothing else to do.” Shoop presented the information like it was a Christmas present. And to Kendra, it really was.

“Great, now?” Shoop answered Kendra’s question with a nod. “You put the FOIA in and an interview request while I’m gone. I have no idea who they’ll have us talk to since the original investigator has passed.”

Kendra hated to dump the paperwork request on Shoop. She gave her an apologetic look.

Shoop waived her off. “Go, get Wilma Kay before she dies of old age. That’s what we’re fighting here.”

“Got it, yes, good work!”

Wilma Kay Appleman, formerly Ellis, was not that old. That was Kendra’s first thought. She must have been very young when Linda died.

If she was sixty, Kendra would be shocked.

Wilma was on her back deck, hosing it off and waiting for Kendra to arrive. She had on pink flip-flops, khaki capris pants, and a floral print blouse.

“Ha, hi, bird pooed all over my deck!”

They were in a nice suburban neighborhood outside of Port Lawrence. Perryville was quiet, a little snobby in Kendra’s Dad’s estimation, but an easy drive.

The home was on a road that wrapped around a golf course.

They were decades away from 1978 but worlds away from whatever had happened to Linda Kay.

“You’re Kendra, come on back. I wiped off the chairs. We’re safe. Unless the bastard comes back.”

Wilma Kay was friendly and pretty, thought Kendra. It was hard to reconcile the bright woman in front of her with the tragedy that Kendra had associated her with. Linda Kay Ellis found in a bag, dead, discarded.

“Hello, thank you for seeing me on short notice.”

“Or maybe I’ve been