The Nobody Girls (Kendra Dillon Cold Case Thriller Book 3) Read online

  In 1981, Susan Hodges was discovered outside of Cincinnati. Not much is known about Hodges. She is younger than the other victims, leading Agent Branson to note that she might be a runaway.

  In 1981, at a construction site in Tennessee, Jane Doe Two is found. The situation would be mirrored decades later, at the High Timbers site. Jane Doe is not identified. Her physical description matches no known missing person. Two states away from the other body discovered in 1981, her case isn’t forwarded to the FBI until a year after her body was discovered.

  In November of 1982, a road crew near Forsyth, Georgia, was called to remove what was called in as a dead deer near the highway exit. Krissy Jackson is identified as a sex worker. No one claims her body. Or reports her missing, according to notes made by Agent Branson. At this point, he speculates that they could have seven victims but does not claim this definitively. She is the last body to be discovered until High Timbers. Not one article published rings an alarm bell about what appears to be happening along I-75 at truck stops, gas stations, and diners.

  Fast forward to today when authorities positively identify the bones discovered at the High Timbers Mall construction site. Kendra was there. Every detail was burned into her brain. All signs point to the fact that this was the last victim, murdered some time in the fall of 1982.

  December of 1982, Ned Wayne Ewald is convicted of aggravated homicide and sexual assault.

  Kendra and Shoop looked at the list. They’d only connected with two of the victims. The hopes of identifying the Jane Does were slim, but Margo, Susan, and Krissy were still open. If they kept digging, maybe they’d find relatives, or friends, like that had with Sincere and Linda.

  “And all of it stops the moment he’s put behind bars,” remarked Shoop.

  “Agent Price said the FBI, despite the lack of physical evidence or witnesses, believe very strongly that Ewald’s the guy. We have to go with that.”

  “So how do you get him to cough it up, confess?”

  “I don’t know that I can. Maybe though, after all this time, he’s found Jesus. No one has done a thing about this story in over twenty years. A lot can change.”

  “True. Well, good luck. Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

  “No, I mean, I can’t have you with me in the room when I interview him, so basically, it’s another four-hour drive for no reason. Just find the Hawkins family for me. That would be a really great piece of this puzzle.”

  “Got it.”

  Chapter 19

  Kendra made the drive the next morning. Visiting a prisoner in the facility was a rigorous process. Much less interviewing a prisoner for a podcast.

  Kendra drove most of the way with no music and only her thoughts about the case to keep her company. There was no space right now in her brain for music or even Kyle Carver. Who’d been completely out of her life, the moment he’d walked out of her life.

  Heck, she had another two hours before she got to Lucasville, so she gave it a whirl. Maybe he’d talk to her? She did miss him. They’d talked about cases, laughed about their lives, and really seemed to fit.

  Somewhat on impulse, she said, “Siri, dial Kyle.”

  He picked up after one ring. “Are you okay?” was his first line.

  “I’m fine, kind of an odd way to answer the phone.”

  “You’re kind of an odd person.”

  “I know. How have you been?”

  “Okay, surprisingly quiet here the last few weeks. Doing a lot of requests for search warrants, not too exciting to report. You?”

  “I’ve been haunting truck stops and gas stations, looking for anything I can on this Nobody Girls story. On the way to Lucasville now actually, to interview the guy they think did it.”

  “By yourself?”

  “The interview, yeah. Of course, it’s a max facility, only one visitor per person.”

  “No, I mean this truck stop business. You’re just driving around to dangerous places by yourself?”

  There was an edge to Kyle’s voice. Kendra hadn’t meant to cause trouble. She’d meant to see if they could talk.

  “I’m fine. It’s fine. I just called because I missed talking to you.”

  Kyle didn’t respond for a second. “I’ve got to go. Kendra, be careful. You should have backup when you’re out there. It’s basic.”

  “Talk to you later, Kyle,” Kendra ended the call.

  That did not go the way she’d intended. At all. Kyle did not understand her and had developed a protective streak that made getting along impossible. She shouldn’t have reached out. She felt foolish now.

  Kendra had a story to do and an interview to focus on. She felt like she owed the victims her full attention when talking to Ned Wayne Ewald. She may be a total screw-up in the romance department, but she knew this job. And she’d do it her way.

  She finished the last stretch of the drive channeling her mother. Stephanie Dillon didn’t let people get in her way. Kendra wouldn’t either.

  As she got closer to the prison, signs warned drivers not to pick up hitchhikers. Yeah, no kidding, one of them might be a homicidal maniac.

  Kendra had waited a long time for this to come through. And she really didn’t expect it to happen. But Ewald had said yes. They’d filled out the proper paperwork and had read the rules for media visits.

  Normally, a visitor wouldn’t be allowed to bring in an electronic device, even so much as an Apple Watch was prohibited. But Kendra had worked with Agent Price, and Price worked with the institution to get Kendra access and the ability to record the conversation. It wasn’t usual, and Kendra knew Price had done a lot to make this happen.

  Lucasville was nestled in the hills. It was scenic, really, until you noticed the barbed wire and guard tower. Prisons were depicted all the time on television or in the movies. But the reality was different. They don’t tell you what it smells like. It didn’t smell bad, that Kendra could say, but somehow the air felt as trapped as the people incarcerated.

  There was also a coldness born of steel and cement. And there was the complete dependence on someone else for everything. Kendra knew that she depended on the prison employees while she was there. She wasn’t a prisoner. She could come and go, but not until they opened the doors or closed them. That dependency produced a dread that hovered over you, even if you knew you weren’t going to be there for long.

  And you didn’t see rows of inmates like in the movies. You saw one or two who worked there, but that was it. Everything else was further inside, a place Kendra was curious about on the one hand but also glad she didn’t have access to. Everything was contained and orderly, Kendra noticed. There was a studied quiet as though you knew this building was explosive. No one wanted to move fast or talk loudly lest they ignite something.

  Kendra had to take all that in and then ignore it.

  The sights and sounds or feel of this place weren’t the center of the story she was telling. Ned Wayne Ewald was. Ewald was seventy-nine years old now. He suffered from hyper-tension, according to the information she’d been provided. He’d been here longer than she’d been alive.

  The mug shot she’d gotten from Agent Price’s files, taken shortly after he was arrested for murder, depicted a 29-year-old man. He was young then. He had thick dark hair, parted on the side, and neatly combed. She thought it looked slightly greasy.

  A description of him also mentioned that he normally wore a ball cap, so the few security cameras available at the time obscured his face.

  He was 5’10,” but on the outside, he’d worn cowboy boots to look six feet. One witness called his look “Urban Cowboy.” But it was a look you’d still see today. A lot of young men raised in the upper Midwest donned the trappings of what they thought Nashville might be.

  He was muscular, not in a gym rat way, but in a real-life way.

  That was all before the decades in prison had wizened away his youth.

  The man who walked into the interview space now was forty years past that wiry
tire iron strength.

  Ned Wayne Ewald looked Kendra in the eye and then up and down. She tried not to flinch or show fear. She didn’t know the right way to approach their interview. She would have to play it by ear. She’d have to get a sense of him as she asked her questions.

  She started out with honesty.

  “I’m grateful that you agreed to do this. I didn’t have a lot of hope.”

  He pursed his lips and bit the inside of his cheek. He said nothing.

  Kendra moved on.

  “What was your conviction for?”

  “They claimed I murdered a federal employee in the commission of a robbery. Claimed I hit him over a dozen times with a bat, on his stupid skull.”

  Kendra didn’t blink, but she swallowed hard.

  “Did you?”

  “Might of.”

  One of his eyes was droopier than the other. She focused on the one that didn’t droop. But the drooping eye made him look skeptical of her, which he probably was.

  She dove into the deep end.

  “The FBI believes you murdered at least eight women, from 1978 to 1982, while working along I-75 as a long haul truck driver.”

  “I’ve heard that story before.”

  “Did you murder eight women?”

  “That one I’m in for? Rape, ha, yeah, she’s not dead, or wasn’t back in 1982. She ain’t on your list. She lived to tell about me, didn’t she?” Agent Price had said Ewald’s history of violence against women contributed to the FBI’s belief that he was culpable in the muders.

  “That assault, and your murder charge indicate you are likely the one who killed these women,” Kendra said.

  “No. No I did not. Just as I told the FBI, the state boys, the highway patrol, and the six million dollar man, anyone who asked.”

  “But you can’t prove that you didn’t.”

  “They can’t prove that I did.”

  “But you’re in here. They proved the other charges.”

  “I’m going to tell it to you straight. I bashed that guy’s brains in. I beat the shit out of him and then kept going, even after I knew I’d proved my point. I wanted him so dead his mother would be crying in hell.”

  Kendra took it in, held his gaze, and then started again.

  “Did you kill Linda Kay Ellis? She was wearing bell-bottoms and might have been hitchhiking or hanging out at the truck stop you were known to frequent.”

  “Probably a real sweet piece of ass, eh? Not now, though. Old, old, old now, if she was alive. But no, I didn’t kill her.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “You want to be the big hero, don’t you, solve the case and save the day? You can only do that if I’m not in prison. If the bad guy is already in here, what ya got?”

  “I think we have closure for the families.”

  “Closure, that’s a fancy thing. Oprah kind of word, right? From what I heard, those bitches didn’t have families, and there ain’t nothing closed about ‘em.” Ewald laughed at his own crude joke.

  “So, why talk to me?”

  “I don’t know, bored. I like pretty little things. That’s you, for sure. Oh, also, because I have told anyone who asked, every time they asked, since they asked me the first time, that I didn’t kill those women.”

  “You’re sticking with that, even though your routes and your incarceration line up perfectly?”

  “I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy.” He laughed again at his own joke.

  And Kendra’s sense was that she was sitting in front of a cruel, crude, and—in his prime—strong, ruthless hater of women. One who admitted to killing. Just not killing the women she’d listed. Kendra could very well believe that he had murdered again and again.

  But there wasn’t conclusive proof. That, and the electronic lock of the door behind her when she left Ewald, haunted her as she walked out of prison.

  She had the interview. She’d been in front of the man who authorities say was likely responsible for killing eight women.

  But she didn’t have a confession or one more shred of proof.

  Chapter 20

  It was dark on Kendra’s way back to Port Lawrence. Ewald’s eyes, more than his words, stayed with her. He certainly looked like a man who could kill you, would want to. The authorities were sure of it, enough so that they thought the case closed.

  The problem was evidence. Evidence like DNA would be one thing, but what about a fragment of clothing or a token of his conquests? Ewald didn’t have anything in his possession upon his arrest to show that he was indeed the monster that snuffed the life out of Linda Kay or Sincere. Maybe she’d never get that. The authorities were satisfied they had the right guy. But at the very least, Shoop and Kendra would make sure they double-checked everything they could.

  There weren’t many other cars on this stretch of road. Kendra noticed one set of headlights in the distance, but otherwise, it was just her.

  Kendra mulled over the interview. If the evidence they double-checked synced with what Agent Price gave them, that was it.

  In terms of fulfilling the mission of The Cold Trail, the way forward continued to be making the victims real people. That was still possible.

  The headlights behind her got closer.

  The driver back there was in a major hurry. Fine. Though, at this hour, where could anyone possibly need to be in such a rush?

  She slowed down a little so the car behind her could get by. There were two lanes, and this wasn’t a race, for Pete’s sake.

  After serial killers and child molesters, tailgaters were her least favorite humans on the planet. This jerk didn’t get the message, and instead, the car behind her flipped on their bright headlight beams. Kendra squinted as the light hit her rearview mirror. She adjusted it so the beams didn’t blind her. The driver sharing the highway with her continued to be aggressive. Kendra’s heart rate shot up.

  The car behind her surged forward. It couldn’t be any closer. She sped up in response. If he wasn’t going to take the opportunity she’d presented to pass her, then she’d leave him in the dust. Kendra accelerated, slowly pressing her foot on the pedal.

  The car closed in again. The highway up ahead was an incline that curved at the same time. Signs cautioned drivers to approach the overpass carefully.

  Okay, so what to do? Slow down again?

  The driver behind her seemed bent on terrorizing her. Kendra wanted out of this situation. She took the rising road and curve faster than her normal comfort level. Her Jeep Wrangler was tough and handled any weather Mother Nature tossed under its four-wheel drive. But this was a high-speed curve. She gripped the wheel and navigated as the car behind her gave her no space.

  If she made it through this portion of road without crashing, she’d call the cops. This maniac was trying to kill her. The treacherous curve navigated; Kendra continued to grip her steering wheel. She felt a tap on her back bumper. Her Jeep fishtailed left and right. She kept her head and didn’t slam on the breaks or overcorrect.

  The car behind her had rammed her, which had caused the fishtail. But if she slammed on the brakes or yanked the wheel one way or another, she’d roll the Jeep. She maintained control. That was key. Don’t crash, don’t crash, thought Kendra. Her vehicle was her armor against this sicko behind her.

  She wanted to be able to identify the car and the driver, but she couldn’t risk pulling her eyes from the road in front of her.

  A new set of headlights appeared. Finally, there were other vehicles on the road. It wasn’t just Kendra and this psycho driver.

  The tailgater dropped back as cars merged on, and other travelers filled in the gaps. She continued with her death grip on the wheel.

  She lost sight of the car that had pursued her.

  Kendra took a breath. The steering on her Jeep seemed sluggish.

  She looked at the gauges on her dash.

  The left rear tire pressure had plummeted from the normal 35psi to 25, and it was sinking rapidly. Her tire was f
lat. She slowed her speed. She’d likely blown it when she’d fishtailed.

  Luckily, there was an exit up ahead. She eased out of traffic and into the exit lane. Her tire deflated with every inch she drove.

  If this keeps up, she’d be driving on the rim, Kendra realized.

  There was a decently lit travel Flying L Travel Plaza at the exit. Kendra just hoped to reach it before her tire was a pancake.

  She pulled into a parking spot with a hard pull on the steering wheel, which now felt like she was dragging it through thick mud.

  Kendra was terrified to get out of the car. The maniac behind her had shaken her to her core. Had he followed her from a distance when she got off the highway? Was he waiting out there somewhere for her? She’d been close to too many madmen to believe in coincidence. What had happened to her out on the highway felt deliberate.

  She had to get out, had to deal with the tire. And she had to get a grip on her panic. It felt like her heart wanted to gallop out of her chest.

  She looked around. She didn’t think she saw the car that had terrorized her. Things here looked safe enough. She got out of her Jeep, keys in hand, and walked around the back of her SUV. The tired was totally flat at this point.

  One great thing, among many great things, about her Wrangler was the spare tire. It was mounted on the back hatch. There was no struggle over how to find it.

  But Kendra had work to do. She had to get this tire changed in this parking lot, at night, by herself. It wasn’t the ideal situation for a single woman, and she was keenly aware of it.

  She wondered if men ever thought this way.

  She’d faced down Mad Max out there on the road and survived, but here, in a parking lot, she was exposed merely because she was a woman. Just like Linda Kay and Sincere. Single women and vulnerable girls were prey to a class of predators who stalked rest stops and truck plazas. She’d learned more about this aspect of crime since she started this story. She’d also learned that human trafficking was on the rise along I-75 since those days in 1983. She’d been studying the perils of being vulnerable out here.