“Maybe you helped her,” Tony said gently.
“I have no idea, but that’s a nice thought.” River forced herself to refocus on April’s notes. “April received a lot of responses to this story, but it seems almost all of them were from people praising Shelly. It appears that she touched a lot of lives.”
“No motive for the killing?”
“Doesn’t seem to be. No one could figure out why she was killed. No one had motive.”
“So, no tips at all?”
“Only one. A woman said she’d spotted Shelly’s car on the side of the road around seven the night her body was found. She slowed down to see if someone was having car trouble, but when she realized no one was inside, she decided it had been abandoned and drove on. She didn’t notice any other car nearby at that time.”
“Shelly was probably already dead,” Tony said.
“Yeah, most likely. The ME said she died instantly from her head wound. Somehow, April was able to obtain information from the autopsy. Wonder where she got this?”
“Maybe Shelly’s dad?”
“That would be my bet,” River said. “We could think about contacting him, but even though it’s been quite some time, I doubt he’d want to relive his daughter’s death unless we were working her case.”
“I agree,” Tony said. “So, anything else interesting in the autopsy results?”
River read further through April’s notes. “Not really. She wasn’t sexually assaulted, thank God. There were other bruises, but that would be normal for someone tumbling down a ravine full of weeds and rocks. Stomach contents . . . nothing out of the ordinary. Toxicology came back clean except for the meds she took for her condition.” She scrolled down and found another report from the police. “Her clothing was torn, dirty, bloody.” She looked up at Tony. “April was convinced that this was murder because Shelly was found so far away from her car—and because her phone was gone. She says Shelly’s father believed the same thing. If she’d tried to call him around the time she died, it means she obviously didn’t forget it or leave it somewhere. He suggested that someone called Shelly and asked for help since she was always doing things for people. But without someone coming forward, there simply wasn’t enough evidence for the police to do more than call it a suspicious death.”
“Okay. Any solid reason for Shelly being at the location where she was found?”
“No,” River said. “All they had was her father’s hunch. She was supposed to be at church that night, in Kirkwood.”
“What time did church start?”
“Again, you’re reading April’s mind. That’s next. She checked and church started at seven.”
“She obviously didn’t call anyone to tell them she’d be late, or it would have been mentioned,” Tony said.
“I’m sure you’re right, but there’s nothing here saying they heard from her. There’s a number written here for the detective assigned to the case. Maybe we can see if he has any other information.”
“Before we call, let’s check to see if this case has been solved.”
While Tony searched, River finished her doughnut. She got up, brewed another cup of black coffee, and snuck another piece of the plain doughnut to Watson, who wagged his tail so hard his bottom wiggled with happiness.
By the time she sat down, Tony was finished. “No, nothing about this case being solved. In fact, there was a story a little over a year ago in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about the case. Sadly, Shelly’s father, Brian Evans, passed away, never knowing for certain what happened to his daughter.”
“That’s awful.”
“Yeah, it is,” Tony agreed.
“I’m not seeing anything in April’s notes that makes me think she was on to something that would have threatened the killer.”
“This case doesn’t make any sense,” Tony said. “No motive. No sexual assault. What was Shelly doing on that road? How could she have made it to the ravine alone? And where was her phone?”
They looked at each other, but there simply wasn’t an answer.
“Anything else?” Tony asked.
“No . . . wait a minute. That’s odd. April drew a picture on the bottom of the page. A flower. Looks like a flowering dogwood.”
“A flowering dogwood?” Tony frowned. “I thought you said this happened in December.”
“It did. Dogwood trees and shrubs flower in April. The blooms are usually gone in May. April must have been doodling this for some reason.” She noticed his expression. “We had flowering dogwood bushes in the backyard of the house I grew up in.”
“Okay. So, is that it?”
River looked again. “Oh, here’s something else about the flowers. Seems Shelly had a sprig of silk dogwood flowers in her hand when they found her. After that, April’s notes end.”
“That seems a little odd.”
River shrugged. “Maybe, but it’s hardly sinister. I don’t see anything here that should have made April feel threatened in some way. If there was, wouldn’t she have mentioned it in her notes?”
“I’d think so, but we can’t be sure.”
River looked at the next page. “There’s only one more case here. Unless we can see something in it that makes us think it’s what led to her abduction, we may be at a standstill. For Nathan’s well-being, I hope that’s not the case. Whoever killed Kevin could target him next. I don’t want to see anything happen to him.”
“I don’t either,” Tony said. “If it did, I think I’d blame myself for it.”
“I’d blame both of us,” River said, trying to swallow past the lump in her throat.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
