“I started flipping through the sheets and saw these numbers. Do you know what they are?”

“The ones I decoded from Earnest’s notes?”

“Yes. They’re case file numbers, police case files. We don’t use this filing system anymore but I still recognize them. I pulled up one of them.”

“Edith Grace Maven? I don’t understand.”

“Edie so full of Grace. Does it sound familiar?”

“From the poem. Could it be the same? What happened to her?”

Together they read the report. Edith Maven had died in a fire, in 1991. A picture of her burned body lay on a white plastic sheet. The next few photos showed scenes around her house. In Doc’s poem, Edie had been burned as well. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

Theo read the notes. Cause of death was listed as unknown. Why didn’t she try to escape the fire? A paragraph was highlighted in the autopsy report. All the bones were there except for the kneecaps. What? What happened to them? And then he read on, they had been taken from her body with a serrated blade. Someone had removed them before her body was burned, leading the investigators to suspect she had been murdered before the fire was started. Edie Grace had been murdered. The killer had never been caught. There had been a struggle in the kitchen where the fire had started. The kitchen, although mostly destroyed by fire, had been ransacked. Cutlery was strewn all over the floor.

“So what do you think? Could the same person who killed Edie also have killed Tipring?” asked Theo.

“I think it’s more likely Doc was there that night, when Edith died. He could have been the murderer or could have seen the murderer. Mind, this is all speculation, but I’m going with the former because of the nastiness of the poems.”

“You’re saying Doc murdered her and then started the fire? Let’s say that’s true—and I’m not saying I agree just yet—why would his killer wait for years and years to kill him? Did they just find out what he did? How could they have known? The police have no clue.”

“I don’t know.” She sat down on a chair. “And maybe it doesn’t matter anymore. No one seemed to care what happened to Maddock Tipring except me. And if he’s a murderer himself, maybe it doesn’t matter.”

“No, it does matter. But I’m not sure I can justify opening the Tipring case again based on this. I don’t have the team for it nor the funding. I’m in the middle of another stabbing case.”

“You may think that,” she replied, “but I think we need to look into it further.”

Chapter Fifty-One

Theo moved his chair to the side as Sophia pulled up beside him and sat down at his desk. One by one they went through the files Earnest Tipring had written down in his notes. Had Earnest cracked the tile art or had he done research into these women’s deaths another way?

Sophia leaned against Theo’s arm to read the notes on the computer screen. He was afraid to move. He didn’t want her to feel he minded the touching, but he did mind. It had been so long since a woman had been this close for so long. Her perfume wafted over him. Why did she have to be so damn attractive? She sat back suddenly.

“All nine of these cases match poems written by Tipring,” said Sophia. “If he did murder them, how was he never caught? He couldn’t have been that good, could he? Do you think his uncle had provided him with protection?”

“I sure hope not,” replied Theo.

“What if Earnest helped? What if they murdered these women together? And now both are dead. Will we ever be able to find these girls? Eight of the nine girls have never been found, if they are indeed dead. Their poor families. They have no closure. How did Doc even meet these women?”

“And how are we even going to be able to find the others?”

“Well, we know he had a fetish for knees. Perhaps we can find cases relating to kneecaps?”

Theo did a computer search for any other deaths where there were missing kneecaps. Surely this had to be a special note in the file. Only one result appeared.

Seven years before Edie Grace’s death, a girl named Anna was found strangled and left in the forest. Her kneecaps had been cut out. Could that be Doc Tipring? Could he be Anna’s killer? Theo could only picture him as an old man. How could an old man do this to anyone? Had he created artwork for Anna? Theo rifled through the papers that Sophia had brought. A five page list of names and their relative poems were stapled together. He ran his finger down the list. Ah, here was an Anna—under artwork number one.

He did another search: strangulation, cut legs, legs missing, female, death in a fire. Strangulation was a common form of death for female victims, but the combinations didn’t match. The cases were either too old or too current. If only he could narrow it down further. If only he had names. Wait, he did have names to search for.

He tried a few more names: Abigail, Janine, Bernice. They all appeared in the missing person’s database but it could be a coincidence. Even if it were true that these girls had been murdered by Doc, what could he possibly do now? It’s not like he could question Doc and find out what happened to the girls.

It didn’t even help him to find out who killed Doc. Although it did give them a motive.

“So far,” said Theo, “according to our search, only Anna, the first poem, and Edith, the last poem, have been found dead. The rest are missing. The first and the last, you know what that means?”

“No. What?”

“He probably didn’t mean for them to be found. Anna was his first. She was found. Tipring probably worried that the body would be tied back to him so everybody after her was buried. That was until Edith. Something went wrong. He had to burn the body to destroy the evidence.”

“And that’s exactly what the poem states: Edie took his left. She took his left leg. He was missing his left leg, right?”

Theo sat forward. “He was. He told everyone that he fell at work and the wound in his leg became infected. Eventually it had to be amputated. But if he was trying to hide the reason, he wouldn’t give anyone the correct answer.”

The search kept them awake all night. Theo knew Sophia was aware of the approaching dawn from her repeated clock checking and glances out the window. She must have felt as tired as he. But if the search was as fascinating for her as it was for him, she couldn’t leave.

“Imagine if we solve this,” he said. “We could bring closure to so many families.”

“After so many years . . .”

She trailed off when she caught sight of Dorland entering the incident room.

“Well good morning,” said Dorland. “What have you two been up to? I’m not interrupting, am I?”

“Morning, Inspector Dorland,” replied Sophia cheerfully, perhaps too tired to notice the interrogation.

“Dorland.” Theo wasn’t sure how much he should disclose about the previous night’s work. He still had an important case to solve.

“Boss, I may not have had as busy a night as you but you won’t believe what I found when I re-watched some of the CCTV footage,” Dorland replied. He threw a photo down on Theo’s desk. “Look who I caught a glimpse of on the CCTV footage?”

Theo lifted the photo and squinted at it. His eyes were so tired.

“Who is it?” asked Theo. “She looks familiar. Who is she?”

“The nurse from our last case. We questioned her about the Tipring murder because she used to work for him. However, she had an alibi. Well, right at the time of the Yoder’s murder, look who’s entering the car park. The nurse we interviewed for the Tipring case—Ms. Dorie Armes. Can that be a coincidence?”

“The Tipring case?” asked Sophia.

“It’s funny you brought up Tipring,” Theo said. “We just spent the night looking into the Tipring case. He may not have been the innocent man we had suspected him to be. He may have murdered two if not more girls.”