He shook his head. He’d had this argument with himself before. His work hours were too long. It would be unfair to the dog.
Evan sighed and moved into the kitchen. The cupboards had a brown wood finish and old corroding pulls, and the counters were cluttered with appliances and stacks of papers. There were three different coffee makers, an espresso machine, two blenders, and three toasters. Plus a toaster oven and several other kitchen gadgets.
Evan wondered why someone would need three toasters. Every appliance was plugged in, so he assumed they all worked. Maybe Ken had a fondness for kitchen electronics.
He sifted through the closest stack of papers. Utility bills. Months and months of them. Pay stubs. Bank statements going back a full year.
Don’t most people use digital records now?
Some people didn’t care to change. A system worked, so they kept it. Ken’s system appeared to be to keep everything in mixed-up piles.
He stopped on a page. Ken had been working as an Uber driver in his spare time.
Another lead.
Evan would need to file a request for Uber to release all Ken’s records. Maybe Ken had butted heads with a rider. He assumed there would be trip records of some sort in Ken’s phone but didn’t think they’d be comprehensive. Evan wanted every detail Uber could provide.
He went through the bills. No credit card bills. After Ken had been identified, Evan had sent a request to the major credit bureaus to find out which credit cards he’d used. With his wallet missing, there was a chance the killer had used them.
If he was stupid enough.
Evan had met plenty of stupid criminals. He returned the papers to their stack and looked around the cluttered kitchen again.
Two metal dog bowls sat on a floor mat. Another sign that the home would never be the same.
Who will clean out the house? Shannon?
Ken had never had kids, but Evan had learned the first two wives had both brought kids to the marriages, so he did have stepkids.
More people to interview.
Doesn’t matter if he didn’t have his own kids. Clearly he had people who loved him.
Evan’s mother had hinted in the past that she wanted grandkids, and he’d told her she was putting the cart before the horse. At least she had his niece and nephew to dote on.
Evan moved down the hallway of the small ranch-style home. The first bedroom was used as an office. He glanced at the messy desk and tall filing cabinet and decided to come back after checking the rest of the home. In Ken’s bedroom he went through the nightstands and poked around in a bookshelf.
What am I looking for?
Primarily he was trying to get a feel for the type of person Ken Steward had been. A large photo of Ken and Shannon hung on the bedroom wall. It was from their wedding day, but they were in a different pose than in the one Shannon had shown him. He wondered if Ken had not gotten around to taking the photo down, or if he liked looking at it.
Does Shannon know?
He peeked in both bathrooms and opened the door to the single-car garage. No room for a vehicle. It was packed with all sorts of camping gear, two kayaks, and three paddleboards. Several fishing rods. Backpacks of all shapes and sizes hung on one wall. Evan opened the drawers of a small workbench, expecting to see tools, but found more camping equipment.
No weapons.
Evan was a little surprised by the absence of guns. Most of the SAR people he knew usually carried something when working in the woods. Bears, cougars, and bobcats all lived in the Pacific Northwest. Usually the animals were apprehensive of humans and stayed away, but not always.
He returned to the small home office. A monitor sat on the desk, but the computer tower was missing, taken by forensics. Maps and SAR training guides cluttered the desk. File boxes were stacked in a corner of the room. Framed newspaper articles covered the walls, and Evan stopped to scan a few. Each was about a successful rescue. He smiled. Ken had had a lot to be proud of in his life; he’d helped many people. One article’s photo was of Ken and a yellow Lab—not black Juno—and Evan realized the clipping was fifteen years old.
It must be devastating when a dog passes.
He wondered how many dogs Ken had worked with in his lifetime.
Evan moved along the wall, and the articles got older. Another photo caught his eye. Ken had a serious expression on his face and a young girl in his arms. The child was reaching down to Ken’s dog, straining to touch its nose. Evan read the caption and froze.
The little girl was Rowan.
Surprise made his heart speed up as he scanned the article. Rowan and her seven-year-old brother had disappeared, but she had been found in the forest several weeks later.