“Yeah, I noticed that, too.” Durham considered her for a moment. “Why would anyone want me to call you about this case?”
Where to begin? “Well, Lieutenant, I’m afraid the only explanation I can give you will take some time and it’s complicated. Worse, I can’t guarantee you it’s the right one.”
Durham closed the file and tucked it back into his briefcase. “You had a long drive. Did you have a chance to stop for lunch?”
Food was the last thing on her mind. “I didn’t, but I’m good.”
“Well, I’m not. There’s a hole-in-the-wall café a few blocks from here. Why don’t you fill me in over lunch and my unit will take care of things here for half an hour or so.”
Bobbie would prefer to be out there determining how many sets of remains had been discovered and what they could possibly have to do with Weller, but this was Durham’s case and his town. “Just one question. Is the person who lives here or runs the clinic somehow involved in what’s happening in the pet cemetery?”
“Unfortunately that’s what it looks like.” Durham hitched his head toward the other room. “See for yourself.”
She followed the lieutenant into the living room and then down a narrow hall. At the first door on the left he gestured for her to go in ahead of him. Bobbie stalled in the open doorway. An adult male victim was on his knees in front of the toilet, his body was nude and his head was deep in the bowl. Bobbie leaned nearer to make sure she was seeing what she thought she was. A grayish powder was splattered on the white vinyl floor. Urine had trickled from between the vic’s legs and joined the powdery substance. As she leaned closer still, her eyebrows went up. The toilet bowl had been filled with what appeared to be concrete and the vic’s head had been shoved into the mixture and held there until it hardened.
Bobbie glanced back at Durham. “Homeowner?”
Durham nodded. “Dr. Bill Sanders. He’s lived in Savannah his whole life. He built the veterinary clinic next door. His motto was to never turn away a sick animal whether the owner could pay or not. He was a highly respected member of his church. The first to volunteer whenever help was needed. We’re all in shock.”
“Does he live here alone?” Her mind instantly ran down the possibilities of how this man, Sanders, could be connected to Weller.
“The wife’s down the hall, in the other bathroom. They just got the body out of the tub. The coroner is having a look at her. We called in both coroners for this one.”
Bobbie was surprised they had two coroners. Montgomery was lucky to have one part-time coroner.
“Nancy Sanders was a retired elementary school teacher. No children. Everybody always said the animals were their kids,” Durham went on. “Neither of them ever had so much as a parking ticket. Their killer didn’t seem to be interested in anything of value in the house. Her jewelry is on the dresser. A couple hundred bucks in cash was left in his wallet. Credit cards. As best we can tell, nothing’s missing.”
Like the scene at Zacharias’s home...except with bodies and the remains.
Durham showed Bobbie the way past a small bedroom to the end of the hall where what had likely once been two bedrooms had been remodeled into a master suite. Two men, one carrying a portable jackhammer and the other armed with a large crowbar, filed out of the room. A trace sheet had been placed on the floor near the bed. The female vic, early-to mid-sixties, was stretched out there. Most of her nude body was covered in bits and pieces of gravel-like fragments. The grayish film and fragments coated her hair and face.
“They had to jackhammer the concrete from around her. She was submerged up to her eyes.”
Gruesome way to go. Had the victims, including the children, still been alive when they were encased in that concrete? Suppressing a shudder, Bobbie shifted her attention back to the lieutenant. “Have you spoken to the original detective in charge of the case?”
“He died five years ago. Both the primary detectives who investigated those missing kids back when the case was active are gone now. Last year we started a new Cold Case Unit but they hadn’t gotten around to this one yet.”
“Were the Sanderses persons of interest thirty-two years ago?”
Durham shook his head. “According to the file, they were instrumental in organizing community search parties and raising awareness of what folks should be doing to keep their children safe.”
“Obviously they were instrumental in a whole lot more.”
“Obviously.”
“The remains found in those statues are the children you showed me?”
“We haven’t started the official ID process but we have reason to believe they are, yes.”
“Why were the statues here—in a pet cemetery?” Bobbie assumed the statues had been some sort of tribute to the missing children but it seemed an odd place for a memorial. Besides, the cemetery appeared far older than the clinic.
“The way I always heard it Dr. Sanders insisted he was concerned the community would forget about the children so he created a memorial to them. Three of the five kids who went missing brought their pets to his clinic. That pet cemetery had been in his family for generations.” He glanced at the dead woman on the floor. “This is completely crazy.”
Murder was always heinous, but when it involved a child it was unspeakable. What did this decades-old case have to do with Weller? Or Nick? Or her, for that matter? There had to be a connection, otherwise Bobbie would not have been drawn into the investigation. “Lieutenant, I’m guessing you know who Dr. Randolph Weller is and that he recently escaped the federal prison in Atlanta.”
“I don’t know what that has to do with this.” He shrugged, glanced around as if to ensure no one was listening, then added, “But I damned well intend to find out. You ready for that lunch now?”
“Sure.”
Bobbie assumed he had his reasons for wanting to keep their discussion off the record. Durham claimed his briefcase, informed another detective that he needed to take a break and then he ushered Bobbie to his vehicle, a silver Chevy Tahoe.
The barking dogs had her glancing back at the kennels.
“We fed all the animals this morning,” Durham explained as he opened the passenger-side door for her. “As soon as we’ve removed the bodies and the...remains, we’ll contact the owners to pick up their pets.”
When they’d driven a couple of minutes, Bobbie recognized they weren’t heading back toward town. Instead he drove to the Bonaventure Cemetery and parked.
“I hope you meant it when you said you weren’t interested in lunch because I couldn’t eat right now if my life depended upon it.”
Bobbie considered the man. “Is there someone in your unit you don’t trust?” She glanced around. “I’m sure you didn’t bring me here to show off one of your famous tourist spots.”
He shook his head. “The detectives in my homicide unit are the best. This case has haunted Savannah for a long time. The idea that those missing children were right under our noses all these years is hard to swallow. Jesus. Bill Sanders sculpted those statues and dedicated them to the children.” He looked away. “How sick is that?”
“People show you the face they want you to see.” She had learned that lesson the hard way. “Sometimes it’s very different from who they really are.”
Durham exhaled a heavy breath. “Right now my main objective is to keep the whole thing quiet until we understand what the hell happened.”
Bobbie had a feeling that keeping this investigation quiet would not be in any way easy. She imagined most of his department was composed of locals who had known those kids or who knew their families.