30
August 2000
At 4:00 p.m. Agent Santos pulled into the parking lot of St. Mary’s Church. Many unique locales had been used for command centers over the years, but a church was something new.
Santos stepped through the main doors into the entryway and was met with the familiar scent of the churches from her childhood. The woodsy, smoky smell of frankincense and myrrh resin that had permeated the red carpet and the stone walls.
Instead of crossing into the nave, Santos took the steps that led down to the basement. In just a few hours, Randolph had managed to set up quite an impressive command post: computers, printers, phones, radios, and local maps.
Sheriff Butler and several deputies sat in folding chairs at a table that had been set up in front of a whiteboard. Agent Randolph stood, dry-erase marker in hand, jotting down notes in his neat print.
“What have we got?” Santos asked, pulling up a chair. “What happened with the possible sighting in Nebraska?”
“Dead end,” Randolph said, shaking his head. “Two teens. Kid swiped his parents’ truck to take his girlfriend to Lincoln for the day. He panicked when he saw the state trooper and took off. There have been no other sightings of the truck,” Randolph added.
“Okay. What else do we have?” Santos asked.
A deputy named Foster spoke up. “Backgrounds on Kevin and Margo Allen came up clean. Mom said she was home with her two younger kids during the murders, and the dad said he was at his house with his girlfriend. The girlfriend confirmed this.”
“No custody dispute in the divorce?” Randolph asked.
Foster shook her head.
“Both parents did seem genuinely distraught,” Santos agreed. “And they are being fully cooperative. What else?”
“We’ve run a list of local sex offenders, and two deputies are running them down,” Randolph said. “We also have several officers going door-to-door in the vicinity of the Doyle home and interviewing the residents to see if they heard or saw anything.”
“How about you, Sheriff?” Santos asked.
Sheriff Butler described his conversation with June Henley and Jackson’s curious behavior. “I think it’s worth a follow-up, but Jackson Henley is just a messy drunk. I don’t see him getting violent, and to my knowledge, he hasn’t had any kind of conflict with the Doyles.”
“That brings us back to the two missing teens,” Santos said. “What do we know about Ethan Doyle? What was his relationship like with his parents?”
“We’ve never had any domestic calls out to their home,” Butler said, “but Ethan did get questioned by the police concerning a fight he got into with some other teens.”
“And there was that call from Kurt Turner about Ethan stalking his daughter,” Foster added.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Butler said. “Dad was mad because Ethan wouldn’t stay away from his daughter. He kept showing up at the house, calling. A deputy was sent over to talk to Ethan about keeping his distance. No charges were ever filed.”
Santos shared what she found in Becky Allen’s bedroom. “It could just be a schoolgirl crush, but Becky did have some kind of feelings for Ethan. Could they have run off together?”
“Josie Doyle hasn’t said much yet,” Sheriff Butler relayed. “She’s still at the hospital getting checked out. But from what she told us at the scene—Becky Allen was just as frightened as she was. They were both running toward the cornfield when they were separated.”
The group heard footsteps and turned to see Deputy Levi Robbins walking toward them. “Sorry I’m late,” he murmured, taking a seat.
“So maybe Ethan Doyle and his parents fought,” Randolph suggested. “He killed them, shot his sister, and then either killed the Allen girl, or took her with him.”
“I’d hate for that to be true, but it sounds plausible,” the sheriff said. “What did you find out from the Cutter boy?” he asked Levi.
Levi shook his head. “We need to bring him in and conduct a formal interview.” Levi explained how he had pulled Brock over not far from the Doyle home around 1:00 a.m.
“He said he was at a movie with his cousin,” Levi said. “I tracked down the cousin, and at first, his story matched Brock’s, but when I pressed him for details, it all fell apart. He didn’t see Brock at all last night. The kid lied.”
“Could be he’s protecting his friend,” Sheriff Butler said, rubbing his eyes wearily.