“And because it’s a golf course, people were there on Saturday but no one saw a body,” Regan guessed. “Could her body have been weighed down? Perhaps rising to the surface after a week?”

“That was, I believe, the assumption, except that the autopsy report revealed that Candace was killed between ten o’clock Saturday night and one o’clock Sunday morning,” Lucas said. “No signs of long-term restraint, sexual assault, or malnourishment were present—nothing to indicate that she had been held captive. A rock was used to weigh her down, but it wasn’t tied on well, and she surfaced. The autopsy was clear. Candace was strangled, but that wasn’t what killed her. She drowned.”

“Perhaps,” Regan offered, “she was strangled to unconsciousness, and the killer thought she was dead and pushed her into the lake.”

“That’s a theory. Except she didn’t drown in that lake.”

“Now you have me intrigued.” She took another sip of her Scotch. “How do you know this?”

“I interned at the morgue last summer as part of my degree program. I read the reports. The water from her lungs was highly chlorinated. I talked to the maintenance crew at Hope Centennial. They don’t chlorinate their water because they stock fish to keep the eco-balance. But just to check, I took samples of the water, and it’s nowhere close to being a match.”

It was definitely an interesting fact, but there could be other explanations. “No court would accept water samples three years apart. Too many other factors could change the outcome.”

“That may be true, but it doesn’t discount the fact that Candace drowned in heavily chlorinated water. My problem with the entire police investigation is that they fixated on Abernathy and, I believe, excluded all other possibilities. Abernathy was known to be belligerent, but not violent. Maybe he could have killed her. He was an alcoholic. He might not even know or remember what he did. But then how did he transport her to the lake? He didn’t have a car. Was he strong enough? Possibly. Evidence from the autopsy indicates that Candace was dragged postmortem. I tried to talk to the police, but they just gave me the standard media line—the case is open, inactive, pending new evidence.”

“And you’re looking for new evidence,” Regan concluded.

“Witnesses. Someone must have seen Candace during the time she was missing. She didn’t disappear into thin air, even though she wasn’t seen in the sorority, didn’t attend any classes, and didn’t have her car or phone with her. So where was she? I’m using the podcast to...well, I guess you could say to crowdsource the information. By going over the facts that we know, encouraging people to search their memories. One of my problems is that the sorority doesn’t want to be involved.”

“What about her family?”