MrBallen

Since her body had been in the water for so long, all the forensics had been washed away.

But just then there was a knock on the door and an officer poked his head in and told Vallelongo that he had something that he might want to come see.

And so Vallelongo got up and he walked over and the officer said that they had just brought this guy in for writing bad checks.

And it turns out his former employer was Dorothy Thompson.

Vallelongo was immediately interested and asked for more information.

And the officer told him that this man's name was Elkin Childress, and he had been the live-in caretaker for Dorothy for two months last fall.

And Elkin had told the officers who had arrested him that the reason he'd wanted to work there at the pet cemetery for Dorothy was to find the treasure.

Apparently, along with all the other rumors about Dorothy, there was another rumor that hundreds of thousands of dollars were, you know, buried somewhere on Dorothy's property.

And Elkin had become obsessed with finding it, but he said he never did.

When Vallelongo heard this, he felt his pulse pick up.

He'd never heard this treasure rumor, but it wasn't any crazier than any of the other rumors he had heard about Dorothy.

And if Elkin was that serious about finding, you know, said treasure...

Maybe he'd gone to Dorothy and tried to force her to tell him where it was.

But before he could say or do anything, the officer told Vallelongo not to get too excited because Elkin had an alibi for the night Dorothy went missing and it checked out.

However, the officer said that Elkin had mentioned something else that could help with the investigation.

According to Elkin, there was somebody in Dorothy's life who befriended her for the sole purpose of trying to inherit everything she owned.

And that person was Patricia Newman.

And as soon as the officer said that, Vallelongo's gears in his head began to turn and he thought, why didn't I see this before?

After all, it was Patricia who called the authorities.

She's also the one who aggressively pushed this investigation in the early days, which, you know, Vallelongo had assumed was just because she was worried about her friend.