She shook her head. Tom was still looking and slowly turned back to Robert.
“We can’t tell. I don’t think we can say for sure,” he apologized. “Those could be Darla’s clothes, and her hair looks right. With her face so puffy, and… I can’t be completely sure.”
Robert gritted his teeth. She wasn’t that disfigured. “Are you sure? Have you seen these clothes before?”
Maggie took a quick peek at the body as Robert pulled the sheet farther down the body. “I think so.”
“Can you be more positive?” Robert pushed. He’d seen pictures of the Stevens family and thought this would be an open-and-shut identification. Was he trying to make the body match the description or vice versa?
“It’s okay, Tom. Do you know who their dentist was? We can order a dental match.”
Tom let the breath he seemed to be holding escape in a rush. “The family used the same one we did. Doctor Mark Simms. His office is on Broadway.”
“Thank you. I’ll give Mark a call and have him come and take a look.”
Robert walked with them to the door. “I’m sorry about all this, but it’s just one of those things that has to be done. I wish I could have spared you.”
“Thank you,” Maggie tearfully continued. “I know you mean well, but there isn’t anything that could have prepared us. I know I would have wanted to see her anyway, just to be sure. The clothes were hers, but I know you need more than that. Let us know as soon as Doctor Simms matches the X-rays, so we can… make arrangements.”
“I think you should be prepared to identify more bodies if we find the rest of the family.”
“You do? Why?” Tom asked.
Robert briefly told Tom about the incident with the dredge yesterday in the river.
“So, you think that the rest of the family might surface too?”
“Yes. I’m going to search every bit of the river between The Dalles and Cascade Locks. I promise you. I will find what happened to your family.”
Tom looked at Maggie who returned his look with one of her own. Neither gave a response to his comment.
Robert watched the two as they walked to their car. They spoke to each other in hushed tones. Before Tom put the car into gear, he stared back at the station. Robert saw an expression on Tom’s face he wanted to explore. What did this couple know and were withholding?
When Robert got back to his office, he called the Corps of Engineer. After speaking to one of the engineers, he gave him the weight of the body, which he got from the coroner and asked the man to figure where the body possibly started began her journey, given the speed of the current on the day the barge set the anchor.
Now that he had a body, there was a bit more evidence to start linking to possible suspects. Robert pulled his tie loose but left it to hang around his neck. He tried to work, but he kept looking at the clock. How long could it take to run some mathematical computations to find his answer?
The next morning, volunteers and law enforcement teams continued the search around both Cascade Locks and Bonneville Dam. Robert stayed at the new location at Bonneville and monitored all the reports that came in. The radio blared, “This is unit five.” Robert glanced at the map and saw this unit had been assigned to the Bonneville Dam. “We found another body!”
“Where are you?” Robert shouted.
“Across the river and just behind the dam, in the slough.”
“How do I get there?” The men around him looked at one another and shrugged. A voice spoke up out of the group, “You’ll have to walk all the way across the dam on the maintenance walk.” One of the men pointed to the narrow walkway. Robert headed for it. He wasn’t afraid of heights, but he didn’t put himself in a position to be running next to the rail that overlooked the spillway.
He arrived after the rescue team. He climbed over the side and down the emergency ladder attached to the locks. He found four or five men crouched on a swing stage just above the water level. There in the debris caught against the dam wall was the body of a very young girl. Part of her hair had come out of the rubber band that had once held it in a ponytail. Her pedal pushers and jacket matched the description that Helen had given Robert of the Steven’s girls.
“Let’s get her into the body bag and out of here.” They worked together and put the body into the basket and winched it up the side of the dam. By the time Robert climbed over the rail, he could see the team sliding the gurney into the ambulance. There were no flashing lights or siren for a dead body.
Hours later, Robert once again stood by Tom and Maggie Borman in the waiting room, at the county morgue. Tom held his wife in his arms while Dr. Simms compared the dental X-rays.
Dr. Simms called Robert into the next room, leaving the Bormans to wait.
“They seem to be popping right out of the water for you,” he quipped to Robert. “This should make your job a little easier.” He kept his voice low so as not to be overheard by the Bormans.
“You think so? Now I have bodies with no motive for their death or any lead to a possible murderer.”
“You have quite a sticky wicket, I’d say,” Dr. Simms interposed, doing his best British accent. “I love reading detectives stories, but this one has me puzzled. I can only go on what I’ve read in the papers, and that isn’t much.”
“We don’t have a lot more than you’ve read. Ms. Sullivan seems to have all the same information I do.” Robert shrugged, “Now if you go and identify the second body as one of the Stevens girls, I don’t know that it will make my job any easier. If we can find all the bodies, we might be able to get something going.”
“What do you think happened to them? I’ve known them for many years, and they were such nice people.” Mark was making notes as he stared at the two films in place on the lightboard.
“When was the last time you saw any of them?” Robert sat where he could see Mark Simms but didn’t watch the process.
“The girls came in for their checkups in early November. That is, Darla and Sara came. Mrs. Stevens said Kelly had the flu, so we changed her appointment.”
“Did she come in for that checkup?”
“That’s the funny thing. She had another appointment set up. Two weeks later, Mrs. Stevens called. She said they’d have to postpone Kelly’s checkup, and she’d call later and make a new appointment.”
“Did she give you a reason?”
Mark thought for a moment, then shrugged, “She said something like, ‘Kelly still wasn’t feeling good.’ I know the flu hit the kids around here, so I didn’t think anything of it. Should I have?” he asked Robert.
“No. It just reminded me of something.” Robert took out his notepad and jotted a note.
She was still sick in November. If she were pregnant, she might still have morning sickness. Doctors don’t recommend doing any dental work on pregnant women. Mrs. Stevens would know that.
He snapped the book shut and slipped it into his pocket. He knew it because Becca told him, and Jake had mentioned the same thing about Lorene.
After matching the X-rays of the corpses to the X-rays of the Stevens girls that Dr. Simms brought with him, Mark’s expression was grim. He turned to Robert and the coroner. “It’s Sara and Darla Stevens,” he nodded.
“Then we have the two youngest girls.” Robert turned and hurried out the door without a backward glance. The cacophony from the reporters standing in the hall brought him to a halt. He turned, looking for an escape. A woman stepped into the hall and gave him a conspiratorial smile. She crooked her finger at him to follow her. “I’ll let you out the back way.” He passed an office and saw Anne Sullivan sitting across from one of the directors. Gritting his teeth, he almost growled his displeasure. Instead, he gave the woman a curt “Thanks” and hit the bar releasing the door.