“Ma’am?” Collins stuck her head in the doorway. “We found a couple of pictures you might want to look at.” She walked into the room. In her gloved hand she clutched some papers. “They’re photos printed on regular paper.” She dealt them out onto the surface of the desk. In the first image, Dylan held a fish from its gills against a backdrop of a lake and trees. Picture number two was of him holding another fish. In the background, Bree could see a dock, along with water and woods.
Matt leaned over the desk.
“He likes to fish.” Bree moved to the third image and tapped a green building in the background. A fourth shot showed Dylan in a boat, holding a fish. The entire backdrop was water. Bree returned to image number three. She looked up at Matt, then Collins. “Do either of you recognize this place?”
Collins shook her head.
Matt squinted at the photo. “No, but you have quite a few deputies who fish.”
Bree nodded to Collins. “Show these around to the other deputies. Maybe one of them recognizes this building.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Collins gathered the papers and walked toward the door.
“Collins?” Bree called.
The deputy glanced over her shoulder. “Ma’am?”
“Good work,” Bree said.
Collins flushed, nodded, and left the room. Bree removed the last desk drawer, turned it over, and checked the bottom and back. Then she shone her flashlight into the empty space. Nothing.
“Ma’am?” Collins returned, with Juarez in tow. “Deputy Juarez thinks he knows this building.” Collins set down the stack of photos. The one with the green building sat on top.
“It’s Grey Lake.” Juarez pointed to the image. “I grew up fishing and camping there. This looks like Dockside Fuel and Bait at the north end.” He held out his phone and tapped on its screen. “See?”
She squinted. He’d pulled up an online photo of the establishment.
Matt leaned over the desk. “That’s it!” He began to pace. “We know Dylan fishes at Grey Lake. That doesn’t mean he went there.”
“No, but it’s all we have to go on,” Bree said.
Matt’s face reflected her own doubt.
“There’s a boat in one of the pictures.” Bree sorted through them until she found the right one. “So we don’t know where he stays on the lake.”
Bree stared at the photos again. She could see a silver rail and a bit of white fiberglass behind him. A sliver of blue in the corner of the image caught her attention. “What’s this?”
Matt stared at the photo. “Fabric. A sail?”
Bree recalled the photo of the young family on their sailboat. She opened her phone and scrolled through her photo app. “Here it is.” She set her phone next to the printed picture. “The color of the sail is the same.”
Dylan was on the Crightons’ sailboat.
Energized by the discovery, Bree called Marge. “Look for a property on Grey Lake owned by Bernard Crighton.”
“You think one of the Crightons was working with Dylan?” Matt asked. “So, Todd’s kidnapping is tied to Oscar’s murder?”
“I don’t know what to think, but motive is less important than evidence. Also, we’re not working the murders anymore, so officially, we aren’t considering the two crimes as linked at this time. We are looking for Todd.” Bree and Matt shared a look. Having listened to her phone call with BCI, he likely understood she didn’t want to call the investigator.
Bree tapped on the picture. “It would be a huge coincidence if Dylan was on a sailboat that just happened to match the one the Crightons owned.”
Matt added, “Dylan and Oscar worked together for years. There’s no reason Dylan couldn’t have met Oscar’s relatives at some point.”
“Where was this taken?” Bree offered her phone to Juarez. “Do you know?”
Juarez took the phone and squinted at it. “The sails are down, and it looks like the photo was taken while the sailboat was tied up. I can see part of a dock.” He expanded the image on the phone with his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t see any other boats or slips, so maybe the house had its own dock. That’s all I can see.”
“That’s great.” Bree took back her phone. “Thank you, Juarez.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “We all want to find the chief deputy.”
Bree’s phone vibrated with a call. “It’s Marge.” Bree answered. “Did you find anything?”