“Jail.”
“How old is your daughter?”
“Huh? Oh, she’s four.”
“Fun age. Can you tell me anything about Wade that might help me figure out what happened to him?”
“What’s there to figure out? Someone shot him three times, right?”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that.”
And with the obvious signs of meth addiction sitting right in front of her, Al was almost certain it had just gotten a lot more complicated.
“Troy, when Wade would watch your daughter, where would that take place at?”
“Wade’s place. I’d drop her off on my way to work. I pass Wade and Angela’s every day on my way to the quarry. It’s five miles up the road.”
“So you have access to Wade’s?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“How did you and your brother get along?”
“Ok. We weren’t close. He’s my half-brother, you know. He was sixteen when I was born.”
“Just what times did you drive by Wade’s each day?”
“Work four days a week. Seven to five shift. Most nights I work overtime. At least until six.”
And Wade had been killed around six-fifteen.
Well within the window for his brother to have been the culprit.
If that was the case, they needed to find a way to prove it.
Troy had convictions on his record, for petty theft and misdemeanor alcohol charges, from about three years ago.
It was entirely possible Troy had driven by, seen the house dark, and assumed Angela and Wade were both gone. Maybe he’d broken in, wanted to help himself to some cash.
Maybe his brother had caught him.
First thing she was going to do was have Nugent find out whether Troy Linsey had access to any weapons. Or to the materials needed to plant a pipe bomb beneath Jon Mundy’s passenger seat.
Cody had gotten her preliminary reports fifteen minutes before they’d brought Troy in.
Al read the handwritten note from Cody again quickly.
Common explosive elements found in the quarries around here. Under the passenger seat—and not well-done. Ineffective, thank goodness. Or your melon and Paige’s could have been seriously cracked. No surprise at the location—driver’s door had been locked. Mundy’s keys were still in the lock. Simple ignition device—wire tied to the door handle was pulled when Mundy opened the door. Caused a mercury switch to activate. Mercury-switch type often used in vending machines as a tilt alarm. More details to come as I find them.
Al suspected that if it had been under the driver’s seat, Jon Mundy would have been killed outright. As it was, he’d been semiprotected by the partially opened door.
But if Wade’s murder had been opportunistic and without planning, would Troy have been able to switch modus operandi and premeditate a car bomb?
She wasn’t so sure. But he hadn’t revealed anything incriminating yet.
They would have to let him go. As far as what they had to go on, he was just the grieving brother of the victim. At this point.
Another dead end.
Chapter 40
Sebastian had called her back to Kentucky two hours before she was supposed to start her shift in St. Louis. Cody’s intentions had been to process most of the evidence she’d gathered herself—or at least supervise the appropriate departments as they processed. Seb wanted her there to interpret all the results as they came in. He seemed to think that would be the only way to tie anything in this case together.
Just for preliminaries. There would be time to do more extensive testing later. Seb just needed working theories with ammunition to get the players to talk.
If any of the current players had anything to do with the murder at all. That was a huge if at this point.
It had taken some juggling to get Lucy to the Brockmans’ earlier than anticipated, but by noon, she was back in Kentucky.
Cody finished her reports for Sebastian, then asked him if he had anything else she could do to help him while she waited for more forensics evidence reports to come in.
Something was niggling the back of her brain, and Cody needed to figure out what it was. She suspected the case could very well hinge on it.
“I need someone to reconstruct everything.” Sebastian looked straight at her. “I have a laptop with Carrie’s program on it here.”
Of course, he did. No doubt his genius of a wife—and she meant that literally—had sent him out the door prepared. Cody smirked at her ex. “Don’t worry, keep yours. Carrie added the updated version to my laptop last week so I could play with it and give her my suggestions.”
She wasn’t nearly as good with computers as Carrie—Cody was almost ninety-nine percent certain no one in PAVAD was as good as Carrie—but she held her own. Enough to be able to use the prototypes for her friend and give practical and usable interface suggestions, especially from a forensic scientist’s perspective.
Science geeks stuck together—whether their playground of choice was automotive or computer or biological. The quest for knowledge was something they all understood.
“She’s always one step ahead of me, even when she’s not around.” He smiled, and the love he felt for his wife was right there for her to see.
Cody felt a small twinge. Not of jealousy of who Carrie had—but what her friend had. There was a difference. Cody had loved Sebastian since she’d been a child—she still loved him—it just hadn’t been the right way.
They were better off as friends than lovers.
But it was hard being alone sometimes.
“That’s because, you, for all of your profiling mumbo jumbo, are easy to figure out. Trust me: I know.” She pulled her laptop from her bag and took the free desk next to his.
He handed her every report they’d generated so far, as well as witness statements. She laid them out neatly in time-stamped and dated order. It would take her several hours to enter everything in to the program, but she understood how important the simulation was—and not just in a courtroom.
The team needed to see how and why something might have worked the way it did. They had to isolate variables. She’d handle the scientific end of things—the rest of the team could handle the people angle.
She got busy. Fifteen minutes into it, Cody isolated the interview with the closest neighbor to the Heathers’ property—while she listened to a recording of Paige and Al’s initial interview with Angela Heathers.
That’s when she saw it—Mr. Ballentine, the neighbor, had said that he hadn’t heard the dogs bark. He’d said he always heard the two dogs bark whenever the Heathers had strange company.
Or whenever Angela came home. He’d said the dogs adored Wade’s wife and always went extra crazy when she came home, and no one else. He’d said he and Wade had joked about it many times.
And the dogs never barked when Mr. Ballentine stopped by because they knew him. The elderly man had had company himself at the time of the murder.
They hadn’t heard the dogs, either.
Just the sounds of a gun going off. No surprise, considering the area and the amount of coyotes that were everywhere. Deputy Carroll had said it himself—it wasn’t uncommon to hear the sound of shots in the rural areas of his county.
But Angela had just said on the recording that she hadn’t heard the dogs barking.
Mr. Ballentine should have heard those dogs barking.
Unless the killer was someone that the dogs had known well enough not to bark at?
“Hey, Seb?”
“Yes?” He looked up at her from the green eyes she’d always loved. Seb was such a beautiful man.
“Why didn’t the dogs bark?”
“They were already loose.”
“But I seriously doubt Wade Heathers turned his own dogs outside. And the one had blood on him. Wade was already dead by that point. So whoever pulled into Wade’s drive should have set the dogs off. Mr. Ballentine shou
ld have heard the dogs.”
“Unless the dogs didn’t bark.”
“Which means…whoever was out there was someone the dogs knew well, too.”
“And that knocks Al’s theory that it was random off the playing field. Whoever killed Wade was someone close to them.” Sebastian pulled himself to his feet—he always had defied doctor’s orders—and limped to the white board. He marked out random in bold red ink.
“Now you need to tighten your noose on his family and acquaintances. Good luck.” She did not envy him that side of the job.
Science. Science made sense. People didn’t always.
“My hunch is…we’ve already met the killer. We just need to prove it.”
Chapter 41
Paige stared at everything they had, where it was pinned on the bulletin board.
Al sat at the conference table behind her. Her partner wouldn’t admit it, but Al was still hurting from the explosion. She didn’t know how long it had been since they’d pulled Jon Mundy away from the burning car. Not exactly enough time to heal.
But neither she nor Al would ever admit to being unable to do their jobs.
And Paige had made a little boy a promise that she fully intended to keep. “It has to have something to do with Troy. The dogs would know him. He said it himself—he’d pass the Heathers’s house twice a day. Probably stopped there countless times. Especially since Angela would sometimes watch his daughter. No one else can say that. Even Delasi had said he’d never been to his sister’s house. That’s something Angela and her mother both confirmed.”
“But what’s the motive? Family dispute?” Seb asked. “I’ve seen my fair share of those—hell, Cody and one of my brothers routinely try to murder each other when in range, but neither would actually do it.”
“True. That is one brother I’ll never like.” Cody smirked at him, then turned sober. “But not everyone has my self-control. What could this guy have wanted from his brother that would be worth killing over?”
“Money. It has to be money,” Al said, spreading files out in front of her. Paige peeked at them—financial reports, no doubt gathered by their trusty Nugent. “Wade had it, Troy didn’t. Maybe he asked for a loan—something he’s done before—and Wade said no this time?”
“Possible.” But Paige didn’t know. Shooting someone once in anger was more plausible than pumping four rounds into your older brother. “Nugent, his finances?”
“He wasn’t exactly solvent, but he wasn’t robbing Peter to pay Paul, either. Unless…there was something he didn’t use his personal account for.”
“Like a recreational hobby? Meth would eat up any available cash pretty quickly.” Paige scanned the rest of the room’s occupants. Al, her brother, Cody, Nugent, Sebastian, Jacobs, Allenski…Carroll. “If we hear zebras, we shouldn’t assume horses, right? Or…the other way around.”
“Talk, Paige,” Al said.
“Love it when the wheels turn, sweetie,” Cody added.
“Wade was a good man, one who had no enemies and no high-risk behaviors. But his family—we have two or three men, all connected, who are involved or use meth. Provided Troy does—do we have enough to get a warrant to search his house?” She looked at Sebastian. That would have been his job. He was kept busy—even while on crutches—keeping track of everyone else right now. And he was picking up the slack for Carroll’s obvious ineptitude.
He shook his head. “Not yet. But keep going.”
“Troy had time to do it and would have been very close to the area it happened at the time it happened.” She looked at Cody. “And Cody’s right—those dogs should have barked. That they didn’t—and we’ve confirmed that with three witnesses—tells me that it was someone the dogs were used to seeing.”
“Troy,” Nugent said. “Once again, back to Troy.”
“We need someone to talk to his boss. See just exactly what time he left that night,” Sebastian said.
“I’ll do it,” Paige said. “I want to run by the scene again. Time everything.”
He nodded. “Talk it out for me one more time. Just Paige.”
Paige pulled in a breath and closed her eyes. Tried to imagine exactly what had happened. “So Troy needed money from his brother to buy more meth. Wade had it; we’ve confirmed that. So he swings by, possibly sees Angela and TJ leave? Or sees the truck was gone and assumed he could get the money out of his sister-in-law. Maybe tell her he needs something for his daughter, or something like that? But it’s Wade inside, and Wade decides to play hardball with his no-account brother. Troy has a gun—have we confirmed he owned a weapon?—and it turns ugly. He tells his brother to give him the money or else? Wade refuses. Troy shoots him. Leaves. Drives home.” Paige ran over it in her mind as she opened her eyes and focused on her brother-in-law’s face. Unless Troy was high when it happened, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. “It’s thin, Seb. It seems like a high risk to get a few dollars. The man has a job, and he lives in his mother’s garage. His child has a room in his mom’s house, and he’s an active part of her life. His expenses are actually pretty small. He should have had available cash.”
“Talk to Troy’s boss. See how he was behaving that afternoon. See what time he clocked out. We’ll go from there. In the meantime, I’m going to see if there’s anything that can get us a warrant.”
Chapter 42
Al had never been to a stone quarry before. She took a moment to look around and absorb all the details. She never knew when a small detail would become a bigger point later. Or in an entirely different case in the future.
It was remarkably efficient, if loud. The main office was actually a metal trailer with Office painted on the front in bold yellow letters.
She was the first one up the small wood and metal steps. Paige was only a few paces behind her. The steps wobbled under their combined weight.
Together, they probably weighed just shy of what the guy working fifteen feet away did. Not reassuring.
The receptionist sat at a small pressboard desk, with outdated computer equipment and a small television surrounding her. “Can I help you ladies?”
“We’re with the FBI. We’re here with some questions about one of your employees.”
“You’ll need to speak to Hank.”
“Can you get him, please? This is a matter of some urgency.”
The woman just stared at them. Extremely unwelcoming. “I suppose he’s around somewhere.”
Paige stepped closer and flashed her badge. Her entire stance was dominant and confident and commanding. “We are here to speak with him regarding a murder investigation. I suggest cooperation. It’s in your best interests.”
Paige could get people to do what they needed, but sometimes…sometimes push came to shove. And Paige wasn’t wasting time any longer.
Her partner was on the trail of something, and Al was just along for the ride. Rather…she was just the driver. It worked that way sometimes between the two of them. Next time, it might be her on the trail and Paige there as sounding board.
Hank came in five minutes later. He was a man in his forties, built like a rock, and wearing a white hard hat. He took one look at Paige, and his cheeks flushed more than they already were. Then he looked at Al. The red intensified even more, and he wiped his hands on clay-stained work pants. He stuttered when he spoke. “How can I help you?”
“We’re here about one of your workers,” Al started off.
“Jon. I heard what happened.”
“Actually, we’re here to ask about Jon and Troy Linsey,” Paige asked. “How long has Jon worked here?”
“Just a few months. He and Troy…Troy got him the job. And the two rode together every day.”
Al’s mind started clicking things together like building blocks.
“We weren’t aware of that,” Paige said. “Hank, were you aware that Jon was using methamphetamines? He tested positive at the hospital.”
He hesitated and then looked
at the receptionist. “Barbara, why don’t you step outside?”
“Don’t see why I should. Jon’s my cousin’s boy. You got something to say about him I should hear it.”
Hank might have been a quiet man, but a pushover he was not. “Outside, now.”
She left with a huff and a lot of complaining.
When she was gone, Hank turned to them. “Sorry about that. Around here, just about everyone is related to everyone else. I have four nephews and a nephew-in-law out here on the lines. Two are in the excavators right now.”
“We understand. We’re not here to make trouble for anyone, but Wade Heathers didn’t deserve what happened to him. We need to find the answers for him—and for his wife and son.”
“I heard people saying Angela did it. But that’s not possible. I know Angela. A nice lady. And Wade—he did my taxes every year. Never a more honest guy out there.”
Al nodded. “That’s what we’ve heard.”
“All I can tell you is that Troy and Jon are good friends, along with that little Delasi guy. But if Jon was high that day, I didn’t notice. And we watch for that. Do random testing. Troy’s never failed a drug test, and I don’t think we’ve called Jon’s number for a random test yet. Not sure about Delasi. He mostly does cleanup work for us, and that’s not my department. But you don’t get second chances here. One drug result and you’re out. We have people in four counties waiting on jobs here. We don’t mess around.”
“Thank you, Hank,” Paige said. “One more thing, on the day of Wade’s murder, can you tell us when Troy clocked out? What time he left? If we can eliminate him as a suspect, we can move on.”
“Troy’s car’s been in the shop for a month or so. Jon was giving him a ride as far as I know until this week. Troy didn’t get his car back until Monday. I drove him to the mechanic’s myself to pick it up on our lunch break. Jon had taken a vacation day to take his daddy to the doctor for a six-month follow-up. Guy had cancer or something last year.”
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