Page 43 of Guess Again
Beaver Dam, Wisconsin Monday, July 28, 2025
THE PRESCOTT FAMILY MADE THEIR FORTUNE IN LUMBER.
THE FAMILY had been clearing forests and shipping timber across the country since just after the Civil War.
Although Prescott Lumber still held a significant spot in the family’s portfolio, it was no longer the largest entity.
That distinction went to Prescott Park, the horseracing facility just north of Milwaukee.
The Thoroughbred racetrack was home to some of the country’s largest horseracing events and had even managed to snag the coveted Breeder’s Cup in the early 2000s. Jacques Prescott, the current patriarch of the family, also owned the largest breeding farm in Wisconsin, and over the years had entered three of his horses into the Kentucky Derby.
Three generations of financial success brought with it a large real estate portfolio.
Jacques Prescott and his family lived on ten thousand acres of land near Beaver Dam that included a fifteen-thousand-square-foot main home, several guest cottages, and stables that housed thirty-two horses.
Blake Cordis, one time teacher and head volleyball coach for the Cherryview High School girls’ volleyball team, was now the head groundskeeper and the man in charge of just about everything that happened on the Prescott property.
Ethan and Maddie pulled up to the large cast-iron gate where a security guard sat in an air-conditioned booth.
Ethan rolled down his window.
“Can I help you, sir?”
the security guard asked.
“Yes.”
Ethan showed the man his DCI badge.
“Ethan Hall with the Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigation.
This is Maddie Jacobson, a detective from Milwaukee.”
Maddie offered her badge.
“We’re looking for Blake Cordis.”
The security guard studied the badges before he slowly nodded.
“He’s probably out by the stables.
I’ll have to call him on the radio.”
“Please do that, thanks,”
Ethan said.
Ten minutes later the cast-iron gates glided open as a green John Deere Work Series Gator UTA sped down a gravel path, stirring up a cloud of dust into the summer heat behind it.
Ethan saw that Blake Cordis, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, was solidly built with thick forearms and bulging biceps.
The guard exited the booth and had a word with Mr.
Cordis before Blake walked over to Ethan’s Wrangler.
“Blake Cordis.
Something I can help you with?”
Ethan and Maddie raised their badges again.
“Ethan Hall, Wisconsin DCI.
Is there someplace we can talk?”
Blake took a step back and surveyed Ethan’s Jeep.
“You off duty, Officer?”
“Special Agent.
And this is Detective Jacobson.”
“What’s this about?”
Ethan glanced at the security guard and then back to Blake.
“I think you’re going to want to have this conversation in private.”
Blake slowly nodded.
“Follow me.
We can talk in the stables.
My office is air-conditioned.
We can get out of this heat.”
Blake hopped back into the Gator and pulled a U-turn.
Ethan followed.
They drove along the gravel path for half a mile until the horse stables came into view over the crest of a rolling hill.
So expansive was the Prescott property that Ethan saw nothing but open fields and white picket fencing in the distance.
As they approached the stables, Blake slowed to a stop, and Ethan parked next to the Gator. He and Maddie climbed from the Wrangler.
“Blake Cordis,”
Blake said, extending his hand as he walked back toward Ethan.
Ethan shook it.
“Ethan Hall.
This is Maddie Jacobson.”
Maddie shook his hand, and they all headed into the stables.
Horses stood in individual stalls fanning their tails against the heat.
The animals paid little attention to the three as they walked past.
At the far end of the building Blake opened the door to a glass-walled office.
Ethan and Maddie followed him inside.
“This heat is oppressive,”
Blake said.
Each of their faces was covered in perspiration from the short walk.
“Coffee or water?”
Blake asked.
“No thanks,”
Ethan said.
Maddie shook her head.
“Take a seat.”
Blake pointed to the couch.
He sat on an end chair and reached for the pack of Saratoga cigarettes on the coffee table.
“Mind if I smoke?”
“It’s your office,”
Maddie said.
Blake pulled the long, thin cigarette from the pack and held it up.
“Saratoga 120s.
Terrible habit I started in high school and haven’t been able to break.
They don’t even make these anymore,”
he said as he lit the cigarette and took a deep drag.
“I have to order them off the Internet, and they cost a fortune.”
“You’re not a Marlboro man?”
Maddie asked.
Blake lifted the hand that held the cigarette.
“These are the only ones that taste decent to me.
Probably just be easier to quit, but that ship has sailed.
What can I help you with?”
“You know someone named Nicholas Brann?”
Maddie asked.
Blake exhaled a stream of smoke from the corner of his mouth.
“No.
Who is he?”
“A gentleman who lives down in Milwaukee.
He reported his fiancée missing a couple weeks ago.
You know who his fiancée is?”
Maddie asked.
Blake’s eyebrows raised.
“How would I know that if I don’t know who the guy is?”
“Portia Vail,”
Ethan said, studying the man carefully when he revealed the name.
Blake Cordis paused as he was about to take another drag.
“Yeah, I know Portia.”
“We know you do,”
Maddie said.
“You met her back in April.”
“Yeah,”
Blake said with a shrug.
“We were dating.”
He took another pull from the cigarette.
“But I didn’t know she was engaged.”
“She wasn’t,”
Maddie said.
“She and Nicholas were on a break.
Until recently, when they decided to give it another go.
You know anything about that?”
Blake squinted his eyes.
“Asked and answered, detective.
I didn’t know she had a fiancé, which means I didn’t know she’d gotten back together with him.”
“When was the last time you saw Portia?”
“I, uh .
.
.
it was, I guess a month ago.
Beginning of summer, anyway. She broke things off and told me she needed some time.”
“Time for what?”
Maddie asked.
Blake shrugged.
“It was just her way of telling me that she wasn’t into me anymore.
We were pretty casual.”
“From what we know, you two were anything but casual.”
“Look, for the first few weeks after we met, everything was great.
Pretty normal stuff at the beginning, right after you meet someone and start hooking up.
But then things cooled off and we were trying to figure out if we wanted a real relationship.”
“As opposed to what?”
“Just hooking up.
But when I told her I wanted a little more than that, she sort of put on the brakes.”
“Did that upset you?”
Blake looked briefly at Ethan before returning his gaze to Maddie.
“Yeah.
I was disappointed because I was into her.”
Ethan chimed in.
“But then she told you she was getting back together with her fiancé.”
Blake calmly shook his head.
“I can keep saying it as many times as you need to hear it.
Portia never told me she had been engaged.
And she never gave me a reason for wanting to break things off.
She just stopped returning my calls.
After a week or two, I got the point.”
Ethan looked at Maddie.
This made sense from what they’d seen in Portia’s phone records.
“When was the last time you were in Milwaukee?”
Maddie asked.
“About a month ago.
Portia and I went out to dinner.
It was the last time we were together.
If you want the exact date, I’d have to check my credit card.”
“What happened that night?”
“We had steaks at Mo’s in the city, and I stayed at her place.”
There was a short pause.
“What’s going on?”
Blake asked.
“Something happen to Portia?”
“No one’s seen her since Saturday morning, June twenty-eighth,”
Maddie said.
“Didn’t show up to work all week.
Her fiancé called to report her missing on Friday, July fourth.”
Blake Cordis slowly closed his eyes.
“And you saw my number in her phone and think I had something to do with it.”
“It’s a reasonable suspicion,”
Ethan said.
“This is the first I’m hearing about Portia being missing.”
“You don’t seem particularly concerned,”
Maddie said.
“I hope she’s okay, but I didn’t know her all that well.
We dated for a few weeks and slept together a few times.
That’s the extent of it.”
“You’re just over thirty years old,”
Ethan said, “and in that short lifetime, you’ve now been, at the very least, acquaintances with two women who have gone missing.
You’ve either got a terrible track record with women, or it’s really dangerous to know you.”
“Okay,”
Blake said, exhaling a cloud of smoke and nodding his head.
“I get it.
You guys did some poking around on me.”
Ethan stood up.
“Sure did, pal.
Blake Cordis was a first-year history teacher and the head coach for Cherryview High School’s girls’ volleyball team in 2015 when another girl went missing.”
“I’m not doing this again,”
Blake said.
“The DCI has reopened the Callie Jones case and put me in charge of the investigation.”
Blake stubbed out his cigarette and also stood.
“Am I being arrested for anything?”
“Not yet,”
Ethan said.
“Then I’m going to ask you both to leave.”
“You don’t want to answer any more questions about Portia?”
Maddie asked.
“Not unless you’re arresting me, and then not without my attorney being present.”
Blake smiled.
“Are we good?”
“Don’t plan on traveling anywhere,”
Maddie said.
“Just in case we need to talk some more.”
A few minutes later, Ethan and Maddie pulled through the cast-iron gate and sped away from Prescott Estates.
“What do you think?”
Ethan asked.
“I don’t know,”
Maddie said.
“He seemed surprised to hear she was missing.”
“Agreed.
Or he’s a really good actor.”
Maddie looked at Ethan as they turned onto the lonely country road.
“One thing is for sure.
We’re not going to get any information from Blake Cordis, which means you have to ask Francis what he wants.
And you have to do it soon.”