KENHARDT - Secrets 39

ONE MONTH LATER!!!

Joe had been busy all week, There were a series of bank robberies happening throughout the downtown core of Riverton. The three masked men caught on security footage were smart and vigilant. They were in and out in under sixty seconds each time, not leaving a hair particle or a finger print behind.

On top of that, there was a stabbing in the North End of the city, A nineteen - year - old male was found dead on the corner of McDonald and Lawrence streets two nights prior, no money or identification on him. A John Doe, Once fingerprints were taken, it was discovered that the identity of the kid was Holden Scott. His family had reported him missing four months prior. But because he was nineteen and a legal adult, on top of the fact that he was into drugs and dealing, the police didn’t take his disappearance seriously. And now he was dead.

It had to be gang related, Joe thought, Either that, or he was working the black market in Riverton. This ranged from drugs, to illegal tobacco, to human trafficking.

Joe and his team had arrested a guy earlier this year who was believed to be running one of the operations. He was bringing in illegal immigrants and selling them off to the highest bidder. Perhaps Joe would start with him, Pay Reagan Groom a little visit in prison and see if he knew anything about the kid.

It couldn’t have just been a random stabbing - not after he’d been missing for four months. Either he ran away and got himself involved in that business, or they took him and threatened his life if he tried to leave. Kids these days feel hopeless, as though they don’t have a choice. They turn to the streets in hope of something new - a better life, perhaps. But the streets don’t do them any good. It swallows them whole and only spits them out again when they either can’t take it any longer, or they’re dead. In Holden Scott’s case, it cost him his life.

Despite being kept busy with the plethora of cases he was currently working, there were still remnants of the previous month lingering in Joe’s mind. Haddie, Kiera and Anya. How he felt so uneasy about concluding their deaths and closing the case. And then there was The Sad Killer - a man who was never caught, another cold case added to the collection that would probably never be solved.

Following that afternoon in the coffee shop when Joe had his sudden realization, he rushed back over to Gus Francis’s place to tell him about the initials. It was a good theory, Gus had told him, They went through everything. Files, records, phone books, data, surveys, medical records. They scoured through it all in search for their Needle in a haystack. For that one person with the initials SAD that fit their profile.

There were a few contenders that they checked out. First was a man named Samuel Archer Duncan. He was even a war - vet who fought in WW2. But as it turned out, Samuel was in Denmark visiting family for the summer when the murders took place.

Then there was Stanley Arthur Douglas. He would have been forty - three at the time, a husband and father of three. But there was no correlation to any of the victims. And he had died twenty - five years ago, so even if he was the unsub, they would never be able to prove it.

One of the other men of consideration was Stephen Alexander Davis, Officer Hal Davis’s father, Not only did Hal swear up and down that his father wasn’t the infamous Sad Killer, but it wouldn’t have logically made sense anyway. Stephen Davis was only fourteen in 1965.

Their last lead was Shane Anthony Darby - Mike Darby’s younger brother, Joe and Gus had thought it was a good lead. Perhaps the unsub was hiding under their noses all along. The brother of one of the victims - why didn’t they think of it before? But when they tracked Shane down and spoke with him, they realized why he could never be the killer. Besides the fact that he expressed his sincerest love an devotion to his later brother, Shane had been wheelchair - bound since he was sixteen. There was no possible way he could have committed any of the murders.

Joe and Gus investigated for as long as they could. Joe drove into Kenhardt as often as he was able, permitted his caseload wasn’t too busy in Riverton. Frank had told him several times to drop it and let it be, but Joe refused to give up. Not when they were so close.

But eventually, after another seven days of searching with barely anything else to go on, he needed to call it quits. Not because he necessarily wanted to, but because things were getting busy in Riverton. They needed Joe’s full attention. And with no other leads to follow, and no outstanding information that would take them any further, he couldn’t justify his time there any longer. He packed up the files, said farewell to Gus Francis, and headed back to Riverton.

It had been three weeks since then and the case was hardly on his mind anymore. Although it would be a lie to say any thoughts of The Sad Killer had been eradicated completely. He still thought about it every now and then. The what ifs and could haves. He wondered to himself if anyone out there would ever solve the case. If justice would be brought to Kenhardt. Or if The Sad Killer would remain a mystery forever, going down in the history books with none other than the likes of The Zodiac Killer and Jack the Ripper.

Other than the multiple cases that were currently on his plate, things in Joe’s life were getting back to normal. Jordan had spent the past week shopping, filling the house with new furniture. They had been talking about re-doing the place for a while, but it was never a good time. Then again, when was it ever a good time for renovations?

With Joe’s busy work schedule and Jordan’s hectic life with the magazine, neither of them could find time to settle this thing and begin organizing. But it was almost July now, and with the nice weather would come the renovations.

Jordan had taken charge and Joe was okay with that, Yes, she was bossy and controlling, but someone had to do it. She had picked out a beige colour for the living room, the kitchen would need new tiles and a marble counter top for the island, and the old cabinets would be ripped out and replaced with new ones.

She had been on a shopping spree that week. She found everything either on discount or thrifted. She brought home a new couch for the living room, a coffee table, and new curtains. For the bedroom, she found a mahogany stained dresser and two matching night stands to go on each side of the bed. The room looked great and everything was coming along smoothly. There were even some nights when Joe could go to sleep and not be haunted by the faces of the three dead girls.

It was Thursday evening. Jordan had taken the day off from work and Joe, surprisingly, had finished early. They were set up at the kitchen table, sipping red wine and going through old pictures. Jordan had bought three new photo albums and was in the process of transferring all of her photos from the past twenty - nine years into them.

Joe was assisting her, sorting through the photographs by date and organizing them into sections. Not only did Jordan have every single photo from her own childhood, but she had kept photos from her parent’s generations as well. There were tons of her siblings, her parents, and her father when he was a kid.

Joe especially enjoyed nights like these, simply staying in and spending time with Jordan, There was never that expectation for them to go out and do spectacular things. Sure, they’d go out on occasion, dress up nice, see their friends. But the majority of their time spent together was quite mundane, and that’s how Joe liked it. Jordan didn’t require fancy things or have expensive tastes - she was a simple girl, Minimalistic at best.

He watched her as she sorted through the albums, eyes cast downwards, focused. She reached for her wine glass and took a sip. She was so beautiful, he thought, without even trying. Effortlessly.

Joe was flipping through the pages, occasionally laughing at photos of Jordan as a baby, an empty bucket on her head. Another of her and her siblings, standing naked together with the chicken pox.

‘We thought they were cute,’ Jordan said, snatching the photo from Joe, ‘Clearly so did my mother,’

Joe laughed. ‘What is inherently cute about red bumps covering your entire body?’

Jordan shrugged, ‘We called them Chicken Farms. Mommy, Mommy, we all have the Chicken Farms!’

Joe laughed again, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever had the chicken pox.’

‘You’re not safe then, You could still get them you know.’

‘I have all my vaccinations,’ He winked. She rolled her eyes and flipped to another page.

Joe did the same and came across an Old black and white photo. ‘Who’s this?’ he asked, holding up the photo.

Jordan glanced over at it. ‘That’s Gran and the kids. LOOK how funny my dad looked.’ Joe examined the photo closely. ‘You look just like her here.’

‘Who, Gran?’

‘Yeah, she was beautiful.’

‘She was! Still is.’

‘Your dad kind of looks like you did when you were a kid,’ Joe remarked.

‘Are you saying I looked like a boy? Or he looked like a girl?’

‘You looked like a boy,’

Jordan punched him in the arm. ‘You know,’ she started. ‘People always thought that Tommy and I were twins, But they thought I was a boy. One time my mom had me and Tommy out, before Elmarie was born, and Tommy was in his little shirt and shorts, and I was in a little dress with a bow in my hair, Mind you, I barely had any hair, but still. A woman walking by said to my mother, ‘AWE, he’s so adorable.’ She was referring to me.’

Joe laughed. ‘I told you.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Whatever. Do I still look like a boy now?’

‘No,’ he said, staring into eyes. ‘You most certainly don’t.’

‘Then that’s all that matters.’

Joe flipped the page and found more photos of Jordan’s father and his siblings, along with their mother, Gran Suzanne. She truly was stunning back in the day. It was difficult to believe that this was the same frail old woman they had dinner with last month.

He took the photo out of the seal and flipped it over to put into the pile of photos being transferred into the new album. That’s when he saw their names written on the back.

SuzAnne, Tommy, Lily, Lynne and Dave - 1978

‘Why is her name written like that?’ Joe said to Jordan as he held up the photo for her to see. ‘With a A capitalized?’ Jordan looked at it and shrugged, ‘She always wrote her name like that.’

Joe nodded, placing the photo back in the pile. He continued going through the photos, He was in Suzanne territory now, All of the photos in this section were black and white, from the 1960’s onward. Joe was trying to look for small details, seeing if there was any sign of Kenhardt. But then he remembered what Suzanne had said previously - that she had left town when she was young and met her husband, Jack.

Something was churning in Joe’s mind that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He began flipping through the pages feverishly, scanning over each photo. He took the photos out of their seals and read the backs of every single one, seeing the same thing over and over again. His pulse quickened. He looked up and faced Jordan.

‘Jordan,’ he said, grabbing her attention.

‘What’s Gran Suzanne’s last name?’

‘Same as mine,’ she said nonchalantly as she flipped to another page. ‘HOPKINS.’

‘No,’ Joe said, staring at her intently. ‘Her maiden name.’

Jordan put the photo album down and thought for a moment, Then she turned and looked at Joe. ‘Dennikin. Her maiden name was Dennikin…’