Page 45 of Guess Again
Madison, Wisconsin Tuesday, July 29, 2025
THE MEETING TOOK PLACE THE FOLLOWING DAY AT THE EDGEWATER Hotel in Madison.
It was their second meeting at the hotel.
Ethan and Pete arrived first and were run through a security check before entering the suite.
So much had happened since Saturday afternoon when Ethan and Pete had toured The Crest with Lindsay Larkin.
And now, the clock was ticking. Pete stood at the window and looked down at Lake Mendota.
“They’re here,”
Pete said.
Ethan joined him at the window to look down at the circular drive on the side of the hotel.
Three black SUVs drove in and parked.
Ethan watched as members of the Wisconsin Dignitary Protection Unit poured out of the first and third vehicles and cleared the path to the front entrance.
Finally, Governor Jones climbed from the middle SUV and walked into the hotel.
A few minutes later, Pete opened the door to the suite and the governor entered, while a member of the security detail waited in the hallway.
“Governor,”
Pete said, shaking hands.
“Sir,”
Ethan said, taking his hand.
“What have you learned?”
Mark Jones asked, urgency in his voice.
Even ten years after his daughter went missing, the man sounded desperate for answers.
“I’m not sure I’ve actually learned anything, but I definitely have some updates,”
Ethan said, pointing at the conference table where they all sat.
“I’m going to jump right in,”
Ethan said, “because we’re under a time crunch due to developing circumstances.”
Mark Jones nodded.
“As I’m sure you know, my father was a detective with the Milwaukee Police Department,”
Ethan started.
“I’m familiar with your history, yes.”
“My father was killed in the line of duty in 1993.
Francis Bernard is the name of the man who shot my father.”
The governor nodded.
“Bernard is currently at the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility in Boscobel.”
“Correct.
He’s been there thirty-two years, and was up for parole just recently, which was denied.
I went to see him afterward.
He and I have had a bit of a fiery relationship.”
“Understandable.”
Mark Jones pursed his lips.
“But with all due respect, Ethan, what’s Francis Bernard got to do with my daughter’s case?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.
I went to see Francis after the parole hearing.
He knew that I had been assigned to reopen Callie’s case.”
“How the hell would someone who is basically in a legal version of solitary confinement know that we reopened my daughter’s case?”
“Good question,”
Ethan said.
“I suspect the information, which made it into the local papers, was leaked to him by a prison guard.
That’s my best bet.”
“Okay.
But why is this important?”
“Francis told me that he had information about your daughter’s case.”
Governor Jones placed his elbows on the conference table and slowly clasped his fingers together, squinting his eyes at the same time.
“What kind of information?”
“He led me to an abandoned warehouse in Menomonee Valley.
There, taped high on one of the walls, was an envelope that contained an old ’90s-style flip phone.
Pete and I did some forensics on the phone and discovered it was the prepaid phone that appeared in the list of calls made from Callie’s phone.”
The governor stood and began pacing the room.
“Please explain to me how a man who would be on death row in any state other than Wisconsin knows the location of the prepaid cell phone my daughter had been calling in the weeks before she disappeared.
A phone everyone believes belonged to her abductor, but no one could find during the original investigation.”
“I’m working on that, sir.
Francis was already in prison in 2015 when Callie went missing, so we know that he was not directly involved with her disappearance.
The information about the phone has to have come from the outside.”
“How? Who?”
“A few options there,”
Ethan said.
“First are the guards.
They are Francis’s only real source of information, and it’s possible one of them knows something about your daughter’s case.
One or more of the guards could be feeding Francis information.
Following that lead would require the establishment of a task force to look into each guard, their extended family, and acquaintances, to see if we can find a link back to your daughter.
The second possibility we considered was that an old cellmate of Francis’s provided him with information about your daughter, but to the best of our knowledge Francis has not had a cellmate in the last ten years since Callie went missing. And his interaction with other prisoners has been extremely limited. Francis has been in solitary confinement and with only short breaks from his living conditions.”
“So you have no idea?”
the governor asked.
“We have an idea,”
Pete said.
“Actually, we think we’ve figured it out.”
Pete nodded at Ethan.
“We think the information Francis has is coming from someone who has visited him recently.
Pete did some legwork through the DCI and obtained a visitor’s log of everyone who has visited Francis Bernard in the last several years.
The list is short.
It includes me and a woman named Eugenia Morgan.
Pete is taking the lead and putting her under surveillance.”
“Who is she?”
“We don’t know much yet, other than that she lives up in Nekoosa.
We’re working to figure out who she is and what her connection to Francis Bernard is.”
“Where’s the phone now?”
Mark asked.
“I’ve got the forensics team at DCI looking at it,”
Pete said.
“As soon as anything comes back, I’ll let you know.”
Ethan refrained from mentioning that he had Christian Malone working on recovering the deleted text messages from Callie’s phone.
Christian, he knew, had come to Cherryview to get away from stress and drama.
Mentioning him to the governor was ill-advised.
“I want to see the son of a bitch,”
Mark said.
“I want to see Francis Bernard.”
“That’s not a good idea,”
Ethan said.
“The bastard is dangling information about my daughter in front of us like a carrot.
I want to speak with him.”
“Hear Ethan out, Mark.”
The governor stared at Pete a moment and then looked at Ethan and nodded.
“Francis has managed to put himself into a powerful position,”
Ethan said.
“In addition to the cell phone, Francis led me to a photo of a woman named Portia Vail.
She went missing from Milwaukee about a month ago.
Francis knows that if his demands are tied to another girl who has recently gone missing, then we’ll have to act quickly.”
“Act quickly to do what?”
Mark asked.
“Comply with his demand for a transfer to Columbia Correctional Institute, where security is lighter and where he will not be kept in solitary confinement.”
The governor continued to pace.
“Francis also promises,”
Ethan said, pausing at what he needed to say.
“To provide the location of your daughter’s body in exchange for the transfer.
And supposedly, with your daughter’s remains are clues about who killed her.”
The governor ran his hands through his hair.
Ethan knew that even a decade later, Mark Jones had hoped his daughter might be found alive.
“Sorry to be so blunt about this, sir.
But Francis knows you have the power to make the transfer happen, and he’s giving you one week to get it done.
He wants to be transferred next Monday.”
“Or what?”
“Or Portia Vail dies.”