“ID?”
“Paige Rossberger. Twenty-six years old. Last known address: Massillon.” She recites the street address and I write it down.
“She was in the system?” I ask.
“Arrested for prostitution in 2019. Two more arrests in 2020. Prostitution, second offense, and possession of a controlled substance. She was on probation.”
“Next of kin?”
Keys click on the other end. “Unmarried. No minor children. One surviving parent, her mother, lives in Massillon.”
“Email me everything you have,” I say.
“It’s on the way.”
* * *
I find Lois at her desk at the dispatch station, headset clamped over her ears, the switchboard ringing off the hook. She must see something in my eyes because she puts her caller on hold, gets to her feet, and gives me her full attention.
“I got an ID on our victim.” I tell her the name and spell it. “I need everything you can find on her. Known associates. Social media accounts. Get me contact info for her probation officer. I’ll send the rest of the info I have in an email. NOK have not been notified, so not a word to anyone.”
“You got it.”
Glock had been sitting in one of the cubicles down the hall and joins us. “Is she local?” he asks.
“Last known address is in Massillon.” I relay what I’ve learned so far.
“Since she was a working girl, she probably hung out with some sketchy individuals,” he says.
“And spent time with people she didn’t know.”
“Need a hand with anything?” he asks.
“Give me a few minutes to call the PD up there so they can do the notification. Then I thought we might make a run up there.”
* * *
I stop at the coffee station, locate the biggest mug I can find, fill it with coffee, and carry it into my office. While my laptop grinds to life, I call the Massillon PD and ask for the detective bureau.
“Davidson,” comes a curt male voice on the other end.
I identify myself and get right to the point. “I just IDed a body that was dumped along a rural road here in Painters Mill. Her name’s Paige Rossberger and she’s from Massillon.”
I literally hear him sit up straighter. “I know the name,” he says. “She’s been on the radar for a couple years. Mother called us this morning. Filed a missing-person report.”
I tell him everything I know so far. “Any known associates? Friends? Family?”
“Let me check. Hang on.”
The sound of computer keys clicking comes over the line and then he comes back on. “Paige Rossberger lived with her mother. Aside from what you already have, that’s all I got.”
“Anything on a boyfriend?”
“Not that we know of.”
I pause, thinking. “Detective Davidson, I’ve got two homicides on my hands here in Painters Mill. I’m trying to figure out if they’re connected, and it would be tremendously helpful if I could talk to the victim’s mother.”
He sighs, telling me this isn’t the first time he’s had to relay terrible news to a loved one. “We’ve got a chaplain works with the department. Let me get with him and we’ll do the notification.”
“Thank you.”
“Look, can you send me what you have on the case? Keep me apprised?”
“Of course.”
“Chief Burkholder, June Rossberger has had a couple of brushes with the law herself over the years. Got herself straightened out now. Losing her kid like this … it’s going to be tough on her.”
“I understand,” I say. “But I don’t think there’s any way around my talking to her. I’ll do my best to keep it as brief as possible.”
“Appreciate it.”
I glance at the time on my computer screen. “I’ve got a couple of things to tie up here, Detective Davidson, and then I’ll head that way.”
* * *
According to her probation officer, Paige Rossberger had kept her nose clean since her last arrest. She passed every drug test, landed a part-time job with a local grocery store, and opened a checking account to get her finances in order.
“She swore up and down she was staying away from the crowd that got her into trouble,” he’d told me. “Despite her brushes with the law, Paige had a good head on her shoulders. We had a standing appointment every month and she didn’t miss a one. Until yesterday, anyway.”
I took him through some of the same questions I covered with Detective Davidson, but he was unable to add anything I didn’t already know.
“Did she have any problems with anyone?” I asked him. “Any threats? Or disagreements or arguments? Anything like that?”
“Paige wasn’t the kind of person to talk about stuff like that,” he told me. “I hate to say it, but even if she’d found herself in trouble, the last people she’d turn to would be us.” Another sigh, heavy with regret. “She didn’t trust the system, Chief Burkholder. Had I known she was heading for this kind of trouble, I’d have found a way to step in and help. But she didn’t say a word.”
* * *
It’s midmorning when Glock and I arrive in Massillon. June Rossberger lives in a small house a few blocks from the public library. Usually, when tragedy strikes a family, friends and extended family rally. When I pull up to the house and park curbside, I’m surprised to find a single car in the driveway.
Glock notices, too. “Locals did the notification?” he asks.
I shut down the engine. “Detective said he would.”
“Hate it that there’s no one here to be with her,” he says as we get out.
“Maybe they’ve already come and gone.” It seems like an optimistic statement as I take in the aged Corolla in the driveway. “We’ll make this quick.”
The sidewalk and driveway are a jigsaw puzzle of broken concrete with weeds jutting from the cracks. We take the steps to the small porch and I knock.
The thump of feet sounds and the door swings open. I find myself looking at a middle-age woman with thin brown hair shorn nearly to the scalp. She’s wearing sweatpants and a flannel shirt. Her face is devoid of makeup. She doesn’t look happy to see us standing on her front porch.
“Haven’t you people given me enough bad news for one day?” she says in a gruff voice.
Her face is ruddy, her eyes bloodshot, but I can’t tell if she’s been crying. I identify myself. “June Rossberger?”
“That’s me.”
“Have you spoken to Detective Davidson, ma’am?”
“He told me.” She’s got a smoker’s voice, as rough and deep as a quarry. “Left an hour ago.”
“I’m very sorry for your loss.”
Her eyes soften a little when Glock removes his cap. She seems oddly unemotional for having just lost her daughter. Of course, people deal with loss and grief in different ways. I wonder if they were close.
“I hadn’t seen her in a few days,” she tells me. “Left all her stuff—what little she had—and went off on whatever kind of binge them kids go on nowadays.”
“I’m trying to figure out what happened to her,” I say. “Can we come in and talk for a few minutes?”