“It does,” Joe answered her, sitting on the edge of his desk, facing them. “It doesn’t have much to offer, according to Fred, but I’ll leave it to you three to sniff out something more. He was just looking for anything obvious.”

“And you want to know where it’s been all this time,” Willy suggested.

Joe agreed. “Exactly. When that young man vanished, it was as if he’d been grabbed by a flying saucer. No witnesses, no evidence, nothing left behind. I’m sure you all remember. Well, most of you do. But we took his life apart—friends, family, teachers, schoolmates, you name it. Nothing came up. He was there one minute, gone the next.”

He pointed at the phone. “And now this.”

“Was it charged when Fred checked it out?” Lester asked.

“Good question,” Joe replied. “No, it was not. And its software was way out of date. I have no idea what Fred did to get it running, but it functions.”

“You think it may be a souvenir?” Sam ventured.

Joe nodded. “Could be.”

“Les and I,” she continued, “were thinking of retracing Don’s travels using the downloaded GPS map from the car’s navigation system. Try to trace not only the places he hit but whoever he might’ve sold things to along the way.”

“He was like an old-fashioned peddler,” Willy threw in. “From what I got from Corey Browne and Darren Bader, he often stole and sold as he went, depending on the route and who he knew.”

“Good idea. That’s what I got from Trevor Buttner, too,” Joe confirmed. “Buttner even said he was never sure whenever he saw Don whether he was there to sell, steal, or shoot the shit. He described the kid as a bit of a klepto. Couldn’t resist anything small, shiny, and lying in plain view.”

“Is that Trevor’s explanation about how his porno phone ended up with Don?” Lester asked.

“It is,” Joe answered. “Supposedly, during booking at the hospital, he claimed that a watch, some drugs, and a little money went missing after Trevor hit the can to take a leak.”

“Hang on,” Willy protested. “If Don had stolen from me before, I’d never let him in again, and I’d kick his ass next time I saw him.”

Joe pushed back. “I asked him about that,” he said. “He claimed they were friends and Don had sold him a thing or two in the past, and he’d never stolen from him before. This was a first.”

Willy wasn’t buying it. “We’re being told Don had a network. How do you maintain that if you steal from your friends? I think Trevor’s covering something up.”

“Could be Trevor wasn’t his buddy,” Sam suggested, “Melissa Monfet was. If Don came by to see her and Trevor only found out about it later, wouldn’t he try to save face? He strikes me as a macho type.”

“Did Trevor say he got a lead on where Don went next, after he’d left their apartment?” Lester asked.