The First Death (Columbia River, #4)(68)

“She did. That’s the only reason you could come up with why Ken would camp there?”

“I really can’t think of another. It’s a shit location. It made no sense.”

“You knew him well.”

“I did. He was my closest friend.”

“How far back do you two go?”

“Let’s see . . . it’s got to be close to twenty years.”

“I was told he was an only child and his parents passed long ago,” said Evan. “Obviously you know his cousin Eric. Did you ever meet more of his extended family?”

“Ken didn’t really have family. His parents died when he was ten or so, and he bounced around in foster care until he was eighteen. If he had other relatives, none of them offered to take him in.”

“I don’t think anyone else mentioned Ken grew up in foster care,” Evan said.

“Not surprised. He didn’t like to talk about it. I don’t think it was a good experience. His foster parents were real assholes, from what I understand. He had to figure out how to do everything on his own. I know he hated working for other people. Tried his hand at a few things. Restaurants. Lumber mill. Construction. Tried an apprenticeship program for electricians. Complained about people looking over his shoulder all the time in every job. Got into dogs and SAR to be his own boss as soon as he could.”

Evan’s brain had stopped listening at the word electricians.

Jerry Chiavo had been an electrician.

Evan asked a few more random questions, thanked Rees, ended the call, and sat thinking for a moment.

Could Ken and Jerry have worked together?

He got up from his desk and walked over to where Noelle was working. She was on the phone but covered the receiver.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“Do you still have the old Jerry Chiavo files handy?”

She pointed at a storage box on a shelf by her desk.

“Thanks.” Evan grabbed the box and took it back to his desk.

Evan dug through the box until he found the list of dozens of Jerry’s work associates. He’d been an electrician and worked a long time for a big regional electrical company. According to the interviews Evan had skimmed through days before, everyone who’d encountered him had thought he was the best.

Evan ran a finger down the list of company associates, who were listed by last name.

“Steward, Steward, Steward,” he muttered, making himself read every name.

There was no Ken Steward.

“Fuck.”

I jumped to conclusions.

He scanned the names again and paused on Kenneth Riley and Kenneth Lynch.

Maybe a last name was changed. Hell. He could have changed his whole name.

The thought of researching every male name on the list for a name change made his head hurt.

He called Rees Womack again.

“Detective?”

“Yes, it’s me again. Do you know if Ken changed his last name at some point?”

“Yeah. He did. I remember he told me that. Wanted to permanently separate himself from his family.”

“Do you know what the name was before?”

There was a long pause before Rees spoke. “No. He told me a long time ago. Like before his first marriage.”

“Could it have been Riley or Lynch?”

“Lynch!” said Rees confidently. “Now I remember thinking it was the same name as the movie director David Lynch.”

Got him. He worked at the same company as Chiavo.

“Thanks, Rees.”

“Anytime.”

Evan hung up the phone and focused on the list in his hand, his mind going full speed. He flipped through the work associates’ interviews, searching for Ken’s, wanting to know what he’d said about Jerry Chiavo.

There was no interview for Ken Lynch. Sam Durette had marked him as “Unable to locate.” Several of the company’s employees hadn’t been found for interviews.

Evan quickly did some county records research and determined Ken had changed his last name to Steward after leaving electrical work behind. His previous electrical employer had supplied the list of associate names, listing Ken by his old name.

No wonder Sam didn’t interview him.

Evan would bet money that Ken had known Jerry Chiavo.

His brain started to spin as he thought about Ken finding Rowan and then five years later a man he’d worked with admitting he’d killed her brother after kidnapping the two of them.

Why didn’t Ken make a statement?

“What the fuck?” It made no sense to Evan.

Ken had played both sides. Supporting Rowan and staying quiet about the man who’d done terrible crimes.

Unless . . .

Evan grabbed his files for the three recently murdered women, focusing on the estimated time of death of Jillian Francis, the river woman. Even Sam Durette had wondered if Jerry Chiavo had an accomplice for the old killings who could have committed the recent similar murders.

Could it have been Ken?

Ken Steward had been alive during all three women’s deaths.

Had he learned to kill from Jerry Chiavo?

Evan leaned back in his chair, stunned. Was Ken Steward the killer he’d been searching for? The man everyone said was so wonderful? And now he was dead?

Evan didn’t know who had killed Ken, but had he just found the answer to the recent murders of the three women?