Page 20 of What She Saw

“To bring Patty more buns and to clean out the cashbox. She had been right. That festival was a real moneymaker.”

“How did she look?”

“Fine. She was tired. Another girl who was helping Patty was getting ready to play on the stage.”

“Laurie Carr.”

“That’s right. Had a blue guitar case covered in old travel stickers.”

She became known in the press as the Blue Guitar Girl. Later, that blue guitar’s strap would play a pivotal role at trial.

“Laurie leaves, and you help Patty with the booth for a couple of hours. Then she takes a bathroom break.”

Thirty-one years had etched deep lines into his face. “Yeah. That’s right. She left. I thought she’d be right back. But I never saw her again.”

“Did you love her?” I asked.

“I did. I wanted to marry her. But she wouldn’t say yes.”

“Why not?”

His shoulders slumped under decades of disappointment. “She wanted to take you and leave Dawson.”

“Why?”

A sigh and then the distress vanished. He straightened. “She wanted a different life, I guess.”

“Taggart suspected you,” I said. “He mentioned you in his notes.”

Buddy’s mouth flattened. Annoyance and bitterness radiated from him. He coughed. “He suspected everyone at first. And then the other missing person reports rolled in. He couldn’t tie me to any of the other missing women, and he had to hunt elsewhere.”

Everyone assumed the same person had murdered all the women. But I was open-minded enough to wonder if the killer had help.

Chapter Seven

Sloane

Saturday, August 16, 2025, 9:00 a.m.

I parked in front of the Dawson Sheriff’s Department. It was a simple brick building with small windows and solid doors. It mirrored hundreds of other municipal structures across the country. I’d been in dozens of police departments over the last decade, and I’d come to wonder if the same guy had sold all the jurisdictions the exact same blueprint.

I grabbed my backpack, got out of the car, and crossed the sidewalk to the front door. Inside, I faced a glass wall that separated the working office from the public waiting area. The walls were covered with community event flyers, lost-dog announcements, wanted posters, and local ordinances. The navy-blue walls had been refreshed with a coat of paint in recent years, and the upholstered chairs had new coverings. Law enforcement administrations didn’t embrace change. Redecorating, like justice, was rarely swift.

Behind the thick pane of glass sat a stocky woman with graying brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses. She cradled a phone under her chin as she took notes on a pink message slip.

The receptionist set the phone down and looked up. I moved closer to the speaker nestled in the thick glass. “I have an appointment with Sheriff Paxton. My name is Sloane Grayson. And you are?”

“Jennifer Watts.” She leaned forward a fraction. “You’re the writer?”

News traveled fast. “Yes.”

“Right.” Jennifer studied me through the glass as she pressed an intercom button and announced my arrival.

I turned from the window, finding her curiosity annoying. Most in her world didn’t like people like me. I was the disrupter, the finder of secrets, the troublemaker.

While I waited, I surveyed a flyer detailing upcoming community events. Next Friday, there was a band playing ’70s music in the town square pavilion.

A side door opened, and a short man dressed in a uniform appeared. He’d shaved his head but sported a big mustache. For a moment I wondered if they’d sent the wrong man out to see me and then realized it was Paxton. All the images I’d seen of him were at least twenty years old, and back in the day he’d been muscular but trim. The muscle had softened to fat. In his mid-fifties now, he’d run for sheriff after Taggart died. During his campaign, he’d never mentioned the Mountain Music Festival’s missing victims. His unwillingness to dredge up the past had won him the election.