Page 16 of Look Deeper
They workedat the kitchen table until two in the morning with the rest of the house going quiet around them. Garrett woke up and was the first to disappear, with Declan following a short while later. Wade came through around one with Bruno, registered what they were doing with a single glance, and went back upstairs without comment. That was Wade. The guy was a shadow. He saw everything and volunteered nothing, which often proved useful.
The property records for Sulley’s Campground were public and thorough. The campground had been in the Sullivan family for a long time. The original deed was in the name of Eamon Sullivan, transferred to Thomas Sullivan in 1987. Ownership was currently unresolved pending estate administration following Tom's death. No registered operator. No current business license.
“Eamon Sullivan to Thomas Sullivan,” Patrick said. “Sounds like a father to son situation.”
Riley pulled up the obit. It consisted of two short paragraphs, and was the kind of write-up that got written when nobody at the paper knew the deceased well enough to do better. “Thomas Sullivan, longtime operator of Sulley’s campground on Route 9 East. No survivors listed. Preceded in death by his parents.”
“That's it?” Patrick said.
“That's it.” Riley set her pen down. “There are at least a dozen Sullivan families in this county. It's one of the most common Irish surnames in Pine Ridge after Callaghan and O’Connell. Half the original settlers were Sullivans. Hell, Route 92 is called the Sullivan Trail.”
Patrick looked at the property deed, confirming what they’d already found. “Any mention of a will?”
“No, which explains why the campground and surrounding property are in legal suspension. It’ll probably remain that way for a while unless a relative comes forward.”
“It’s a dead end for now,” he said. He pulled the county incident reports, which included a couple of suspicious activity reports over the last eighteen months, and shared those with Riley.
“Any details or follow up on those?”
“No. Probably just kids being kids. No reports of arrests or damage or anything,” Patrick said, then shifted focus to the victim. White male, forty to fifty, no identification. He ran the public missing persons databases at the state and regional levels, cross-referenced by age and the relevant window. Nothing matched. Riley checked the news aggregators for reports of missing men in adjacent counties and also came up with nothing.
“Nobody's filed anything on a man matching that description,” Patrick said.
“Or maybe whoeverwouldfile doesn't want him found.” Riley looked at her legal pad. “Did the report mention anything about identification efforts, like fingerprints or dental records?”
Patrick thought about that for a minute. “No. They just referred to him as ‘an unidentified man’.”
“Which doesn't mean they're not running it, but?—”
“But those things take time,” Patrick finished.
Riley wrote something and underlined it twice.
“Medical event,” Patrick said. “No specifics. No tox screen mentioned, no estimated time of death, no cause beyond ‘it’s probably this’.” He looked at the ceiling. “That's a ruling you make when you want to close something quickly.”
“Or when you don't have the resources to look harder.”
“Both things can be true.”
Riley exhaled and nodded slowly. Outside, the wind moved through the trees along the back of the property, and the old house settled around them with familiar creaks and moans.
“We should take it to the Thread,” Patrick said, referring to the online crime forum he and Riley belonged to.
Riley looked up. “We don't have enough.”
“We’ve done more with less. Tell me this whole thing doesn’t seem off to you.”
She was quiet for a moment, mentally reviewing what they’d uncovered, then shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Exactly.” Patrick tapped on his keyboard.
“Evidence and questions only,” Riley said.
“Evidence and questions only,” he agreed.
He logged into the Thread forum and started a new case file. Ten members, private, invite-only. No ego. No speculation. No need to be proven right. Just questions and evidence, presented from different angles by people who had the skills to analyze.
Patrick had been DeepTrace on the forum for four years. Riley, known as Archivist, had come in six months after him, an invitation he'd extended himself once he'd been sure the group was worth her time. Her ability to trace connections through people and records was unmatched, instinctively knowing which branches to shake. Thanks to her, they had a family history going back at least six generations.
