Nothing To Sniff At (Animal Instincts Book 5) by Chloe Kendrick Page A
Authors: Chloe Kendrick
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report on the disappearance some months ago, a decision that my mother had strongly protested. All of her personal information would be in that file.
I had put the manila folder away so that I wouldn’t be reminded of her disappearance on a regular basis. Out of sight, out of mind, or so I wanted to believe. I still thought of her most every day, so it was mostly a vain hope. It hadn’t been entirely effective, but now I grabbed at it and ran my finger across the pages. She had indeed received a social security number.
I went back to the computer, typed it in, and was quickly rewarded with a series of websites that appeared to offer information on this particular social security number. I wondered how legit these sites were; I thought that this was probably one step shy of identity theft. I didn’t care. I was so close to the truth that I could taste it.
I picked the one that was the least shady looking, at least to my untrained eye and gave them my credit card information. In less than thirty seconds, I had a name and address for the person with this social security number. I knew that these numbers were reused by the Social Security Administration after a certain amount of time went by, but since Susan didn’t have an estate, so to speak, my mother had never gone through the process of declaring her dead. She had said that she believed that Susan was still alive somewhere, and she didn’t want society to think of her as dead.
However, I didn’t think that this would be the case here. The search brought up a late 20-something woman named Susan.
After seeing that information in print, I took the dogs for another long walk. I had printed the pages in triplicate. One for me, one for the police, and one for my mother. At some point, I would deliver the information to the police, if nothing else to close the files on the case. Susan was now an adult, who had apparently left of her own volition. There was no crime that I could see except perhaps whatever statute had been violated by running away. There was no longer any reason to keep this police case open.
What baffled me was that once I’d decided to look into the matter, I’d come up with a solution in a matter of hours. I had a hard time believing that Sergeant Siever could not have done the same. Certainly, the police had the same websites available to them. Even now, he could have easily spent the $20 to find out what had happened to that social security number. I doubted that I was that much superior to him in my investigative skills.
My mother had thrown a huge fit when she’d learned that I had a copy of the police report. Now I understood why. The report had shown me that Susan had left her possessions here and gave me the information I needed to track her down. My mother had to know what was in the report, given her reaction. I was baffled on what she’d hoped to accomplish by hiding this from the family. Secrets had a way of coming to the surface at some point.
All of these thoughts of identities made me wonder about the man in the trunk of the car. None of the new sources had identified him. I knew that most media waited until the family had been notified so that the people closest to the victim wouldn’t hear it on the news, but enough time had gone by now that his family should be aware of what had happened. Apparently no one had come forward to identify him. The next phase would be to wait for DNA results and see if he matched anyone’s DNA. It was getting to be a long shot.
I hadn’t checked the pockets of the dead man, but I was going on the assumption that he hadn’t had any identification on him. So not only had the killer wanted time to hide the crime, he or she had also wanted time before the victim’s identity could be discovered.
Living this close to Lake Erie, the police always had to take into account that the victim might be from Canada, which was just on the other side of Erie. I wondered if he could have been Canadian, but
I had put the manila folder away so that I wouldn’t be reminded of her disappearance on a regular basis. Out of sight, out of mind, or so I wanted to believe. I still thought of her most every day, so it was mostly a vain hope. It hadn’t been entirely effective, but now I grabbed at it and ran my finger across the pages. She had indeed received a social security number.
I went back to the computer, typed it in, and was quickly rewarded with a series of websites that appeared to offer information on this particular social security number. I wondered how legit these sites were; I thought that this was probably one step shy of identity theft. I didn’t care. I was so close to the truth that I could taste it.
I picked the one that was the least shady looking, at least to my untrained eye and gave them my credit card information. In less than thirty seconds, I had a name and address for the person with this social security number. I knew that these numbers were reused by the Social Security Administration after a certain amount of time went by, but since Susan didn’t have an estate, so to speak, my mother had never gone through the process of declaring her dead. She had said that she believed that Susan was still alive somewhere, and she didn’t want society to think of her as dead.
However, I didn’t think that this would be the case here. The search brought up a late 20-something woman named Susan.
After seeing that information in print, I took the dogs for another long walk. I had printed the pages in triplicate. One for me, one for the police, and one for my mother. At some point, I would deliver the information to the police, if nothing else to close the files on the case. Susan was now an adult, who had apparently left of her own volition. There was no crime that I could see except perhaps whatever statute had been violated by running away. There was no longer any reason to keep this police case open.
What baffled me was that once I’d decided to look into the matter, I’d come up with a solution in a matter of hours. I had a hard time believing that Sergeant Siever could not have done the same. Certainly, the police had the same websites available to them. Even now, he could have easily spent the $20 to find out what had happened to that social security number. I doubted that I was that much superior to him in my investigative skills.
My mother had thrown a huge fit when she’d learned that I had a copy of the police report. Now I understood why. The report had shown me that Susan had left her possessions here and gave me the information I needed to track her down. My mother had to know what was in the report, given her reaction. I was baffled on what she’d hoped to accomplish by hiding this from the family. Secrets had a way of coming to the surface at some point.
All of these thoughts of identities made me wonder about the man in the trunk of the car. None of the new sources had identified him. I knew that most media waited until the family had been notified so that the people closest to the victim wouldn’t hear it on the news, but enough time had gone by now that his family should be aware of what had happened. Apparently no one had come forward to identify him. The next phase would be to wait for DNA results and see if he matched anyone’s DNA. It was getting to be a long shot.
I hadn’t checked the pockets of the dead man, but I was going on the assumption that he hadn’t had any identification on him. So not only had the killer wanted time to hide the crime, he or she had also wanted time before the victim’s identity could be discovered.
Living this close to Lake Erie, the police always had to take into account that the victim might be from Canada, which was just on the other side of Erie. I wondered if he could have been Canadian, but
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