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"It is like a sign of some kind. But what does it mean? Who put it here?"
She felt consumed by frustration that they knew so little about the circumstances.
Taking out her phone, she photographed the tree and the hair carefully and from several different angles. The ground around the tree looked scuffed, but there were no clear prints in the bed of leaves, and she suddenly wondered if the hair might have been there for a while.
"We will need to get DNA analysis done," Owen said. "To see if it's . . . if it's the same."
The same as Chloe's hair. May knew that they could get the necessary DNA from her apartment and then check if this was a match. She had no idea if it would be. It could have been that two random women had decided to make a friendship pact inthese woods and had left locks of their hair to commemorate the occasion. There were all sorts of reasons and explanations for why this hair might be here, but right now, May was treating everything as suspicious.
What was most suspicious of all was that there was a second hank of hair. And that meant, potentially, a second victim.
They'd need to check back in the case history and see if there was any record of a dark-haired woman going missing—or else, being murdered.
Carefully, she took evidence bags from her pocket and bagged up the two locks of hair. DNA analysis would be quick, especially if there was an open case to match the samples with. May felt positive about that. It might get them further. And if there was any connection between the two missing women then that would also help them to make progress.
"This is a start, and it might just be the start we need," she said.
With the evidence bags in her pocket and feeling even more encouraged that they were on the right track, May searched a while longer with Owen, but in the worsening rain, it became more and more difficult. All tracks were swiftly going to be obliterated, she knew, and there were no signs of any dwellings nearby or any roads.
"You know, he couldn’t have gotten a car anywhere close by,” she said.
“Are you thinking about how he transported her?” Owen asked.
“Yes. And I guess he would have had to have physically dragged or carried Chloe back to where he wanted her," she observed, wiping rain out of her eyes. “It seems like that must have been quite a long way.”
"Yes. I haven't seen any wide trails nearby where a car could have been driven," Owen agreed. "And that tells us something about him."
May nodded grimly. Matching up the fragment of what she'd seen on camera with the fact that a woman had disappeared from this deep in the woods, it meant that without a doubt they were looking for someone who was remarkably strong. Who was able to carry a tall, though slender, model for a seriously long distance over rough terrain. And he must have done so because they were finding no signs of anything here.
"I think we need to call this off," she said. "We're not going to find anything in this rain. Let's head back to the police department and get the DNA analyzed. Then we can see if any cold cases link up to it."
***
May headed back to the car. By the time she got there, she was totally drenched, despite her waterproof jacket. Her hair was soaking wet, but at least she had the two samples, safely tucked inside her inner pocket in evidence bags. She couldn't wait to get the results.
"I'm going to go past the forensics lab, and drop them off straight away," she told Owen as they huddled together under a dripping tree branch.
Sheriff Jack appeared from another trail head. Wiping rain out of his eyes, he paced over.
“Did you find anything?” he asked.
"We found two hair samples on a tree," May said to him. “I’ve got the location pin here, and pictures, and the bags are in my jacket. I'm going to drive straight through to the lab and drop them off. Was there any news from the search?" she asked hopefully.
"They're calling the search off," he said. “At least we haven’t found a body, or any sign of murder being committed. That’s the good news. But there’s also no sign of Chloe, and by now the rain has erased any footprints or tracks.”
May sighed. That really was less good news.
“I’m not going back just yet,” Jack said. “I’m going to spend a while longer out there. I’d like to explore the place where you found those locks of hair. I want to see if there are any other samples on any other trees in the area. Wet as this weather is, we need to look for those now, because if it keeps raining, any hair that’s caught on branches might be washed away."
May felt glad that her boss was going to try and find any other all-important signs that could help them.
“We didn’t find anything, but a second look always seems to pick something up,” she said.
“True,” Jack agreed.
“I’ll go and speak to Chloe’s parents as soon as I’ve dropped off the samples. They’re going to need to know the news about her, and they might also be able to give an additional DNA sample. If we have a match on that, it’ll point to the fact that these cases are linked,” May said.
“I’ll drive with you to the lab, and then from there, we could ride together to the parents?” Owen asked.
