by Gregg Olsen
“I know, but you just got home.” Olivia stood behind Michael and looped her arms around him.
He bent down and kissed her quickly. “Gotta make a living.” He ran the shaving gel over his face. “I’ll be gone only as long as it takes to get the job done.”
He meant that. Every word of it.
He’d booked a flight to Seattle, then on to Spokane, Washington, where he’d rent a car for the drive to Cascade University. The girls, the stupid, evil, girls had made it easy, blogging about their lives, hopes, and dreams. He’d kill them one by one. First on his list was Tiffany Jacobs. Next, he’d go after Lily Ann Denton, down in San Diego. The last would be the chapter president. Her name was Jenna Kenyon.
He’d kill her last.
Chapter Sixty-three
Seattle
Irvin Watkins, a retired Seattle cop, was watching the TV—actually reveling in the majesty of his TV, was more like it. Just sixty-three, with a thatch of snow-white hair and lively blue eyes, Irv sat in the dark and drank some beer and took it all in. Life was so good.
He’d just upgraded to high-definition TV and felt like everything he’d been seeing on the screen now dazzled. Sporting events were now so crystal clear that he could almost smell the sloshed beer on the bleachers. The local newscasters looked like they’d aged twenty years as every wrinkle and pore seemed to be diamond-cut.
As he was watching the Seattle news, a blond newscaster who’d been on the air for decades updated viewers on the Mandy Crawford case across the state in Cherrystone. It caught his interest for two reasons. One, he knew of Emily Kenyon mostly by reputation from her days in Seattle. But he also knew that she’d been dating his old partner, Chris Collier.
“The husband of the missing woman—Mitchell Crawford—has been unable to make bail and awaits trial in a cell at the Cherrystone jail.”
“Wait a second,” he said aloud, though no one was there to hear him. He lived alone. Had been alone since his wife died in August. Irvin set down his tumbler of pinot noir. He didn’t need his glasses as he studied the man’s face on the TV. The HD made sure of it. The guy on the screen was eerily familiar.
He reached for his old worn-out phone book, old school all the way, and dialed. The call didn’t go through and the operator’s recorded voice indicated that he should check the listing and dial again.
He did, to the same results. It seemed. Chris’s number was dead.
“He must have gone to a cell phone,” he said, again, to himself. The whole world had. He dialed a buddy at the downtown precinct where he’d worked before retiring. Within two minutes he had Chris Collier’s cell number. He dialed again, this time getting voice mail.
“Hey Chris, Irv Watkins here. I think I’ve got something you might find of interest. Call me. Or better yet, come by and see me.”
It was stone cold that night and despite the man lying next to her, Donna Rayburn couldn’t get warm. She cuddled up next to her lover, but his cool body offered no comfort at all. She got up, grabbed a robe, and went in search of an extra blanket. She used a flashlight to guide her way down an unfamiliar hallway to a linen closet. The contents of the closet were as ordered as the linen section of Saks. Nothing was out of place. All colors were coordinated. On the edge of each towel on the shelf just below her eye level she noticed they were monogrammed with the initials of her host. She waved her light up another row, looking for a blanket. Those, too, were monogrammed. Donna gave her head a shake and pulled one from the top, exposing a blanket with another set of initials—ML. Who was ML? A wife, she’d never heard of? She thought it was creepy that he didn’t get rid of those towels. The guy wasn’t cheap. He had to have kept them because he wanted, rather than needed them. She took a blanket and went back to bed. She made herself a mental note to ask about the unfamiliar monogram in the morning.
Donna didn’t know that her question would be the last she’d ever ask.
Chapter Sixty-four
Cherrystone
The Cherrystone jail was in the basement of the county-city building next to the sheriff’s office. Jeffery Kirkpatrick had been the jailer for at least twenty years, though he professed not to have “a real fix” on the exact number of years. He figured whenever anyone wanted to know how long he was there it was either to push him to retirement or celebrate an employee anniversary. He didn’t want either. He was reading a Newsweek article on eco-vacations and thinking that a sunny day in Costa Rica might be in order.
Whenever it is that I damn well decide to retire, that is.
Jason Howard signed in the visitors’ log requesting to see inmate 43992, Mitch Crawford. He noticed on the sign-in sheet that visitation outside of his lawyer had been sparse.
“Didn’t know you were a friend of Crawford’s. You’re about the first one. His dad never knew a stranger, but this little jerk doesn’t seem to have much in the way of any loyalty reserves. That’s what I think, anyway,” Jeffery the Jailer disappeared down the corridor, leaving Jason in the processing area with its library table, Formica, and, oddly, a collection of framed Winslow Homer prints.
Jason knew what he was doing was at best, out of the ordinary. At worst, grounds for some kind of disciplinary action. He didn’t care. He’d grown weary of having Emily treat him as if he was the coffee-fetcher. She seemed to go to Chris Collier for everything.
Discussions they’d had should have been between the sheriff and me.
He could do more than look over phone records. He didn’t want Emily’s job, just the kind of respect from her that indicated she knew he wasn’t a pimply-faced kid anymore.
Jeffery the Jailer came lumbering into view. “Says he’ll see you. Trial coming up. Maybe you’re here to wish him luck?”
If Jeffery was fishing for information, Jason didn’t offer any.
“Something like that,” he said.
Even if he hadn’t been a deputy, there was no search required. The Cherrystone jail was old-school, with visitation carrels separated by one-inch-thick safety glass. Chris took a seat in an orange molded-plastic chair and looked toward the door.
At the end of the row of carrels, a woman was talking animatedly through the glass. He could only see the back of her head and it was moving back and forth like a slingshot.
“Damn you, Luis, I’m not doing this again,” she said. “I’m done with you!”
Luis Guzman was the only other man in the jail.
That must be Mrs. Guzman, he thought, recalling a name he had seen above his on the sign-up sheet. Give ’em hell, honey.
Mitch Crawford approached from the other side of the room. He no longer looked like the self-absorbed prig that most said he was. His clothes were far from designer; he wore light blue pants with a drawstring waist and a T-shirt that hung loosely over his frame. His skin looked somewhat ashen and sweat beaded along his upper, unshaven lip. He slid into the chair and picked up the phone.
“What do you want?”
“I just want to talk to you.”
“Are you stupid or something? Without my lawyer, I’m not saying a word. You people have had it in for me from the minute Mandy went missing.”
Jason did feel stupid just then. The visit could get real ugly, when he’d only come to try to get a better handle on the Tricia Wilson deposition.
“I’m here about your wife,” he said, pausing, “your ex-wife, Patty.”
“You mean Tricia? That lying bitch!” Mitch’s eyes flashed hate.
“So you say. But can you prove it?” Jason held his tongue. He wanted to end the sentence with a snarky dude. He could see in two minutes why everyone hated Mitch Crawford. “Can you?”
“No. My word against hers. The jury will probably believe her. They always take the word of a woman. They can turn it on, you know.”
“Seems she might have come in to some money,” Jason said. “You wouldn’t happen to know how she could have got her hands on fifty grand?”
“That lowlife bitch? She’d have to blow a lot of guys to ma
ke that kind of money, so, no, I don’t know where she could have come up with it. You tell me.”
“Hey, I’m fact-finding here. Let’s go over a few more things. Your computer. Anyone have access to it? Housekeeper? Other family members?”
Mitch shook his head. “No. We run a tight ship at home. I tried to keep Mandy from pissing away our money. You know, tried to keep her on a short leash.”
I’ll bet you did.
“OK, I know that you’ve said you don’t think Mandy was having an affair with anyone, but, of course, we know otherwise. So who do you think it was? Who was she cheating with?”
Mitch Crawford’s face went scarlet, his lips white.
“You don’t think I’ve tried to figure that out? I’ve thought of everyone that bitch came in contact with. Maybe she was boning the mailman? Her doctor? Someone at work? I have no goddamn idea! If I did, I’ll tell you one thing, I wouldn’t be here under false murder charges. They’d have me here for the real thing. I’d kill the guy who screwed my wife and screwed my life.”
“This isn’t about pride. This is about finding out what happened the day Mandy disappeared. You know, the day your wife and unborn baby were murdered. Don’t you want to know, even if just to save yourself?”
A smile came over the inmate’s face. “Of course. I want to clear my name. I don’t want people thinking that I was some pussy who got cheated on by his no-good wife.”
“All right. Question.”
“What?”
“Who had access to your home computer? Think.”
Mitch stared through the glass panel. “I told you no one. We lived alone. We didn’t have cleaning staff. I did keep extra house keys at the dealership, if that makes a difference. I liked to take new cars home, so it was always easier to have some spares around.”
Jason brightened a little. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Who had access to your house keys?”
“No one except Darla, of course.”
“The girl you were banging?” Jason hated the term, but as Mitch Crawford thought of himself as some tough ladies’ man, he just went for it.
“Yeah, her. I’m not proud of it.”
“Did she have anything against Mandy?”
Mitch shrugged. “Just mad that she got everything she wanted. She had me, you know.”
An hour later, Emily found Jason in the front office talking with Gloria. He barely glanced at her. She could feel a chill in the air and knew it had nothing to do with the weather outside.
“I need to talk with you,” she said. “In my office, if that’s OK?”
Emily looked at Gloria, then back at Jason.
“All right. This sounds serious.”
They faced each other across her desk.
“Jason, I understand you went to the jail to see Mitch Crawford. What in the world were you thinking?”
“Were you spying on me or something?”
“God, no. Cary McConnell called. He says that his client called. This isn’t how we run a case. You know that.”
Jason’s eyes were downcast.
“You’ve been treating me like some kind of lackey around here, Sheriff.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“You do. You go to Chris for everything. He doesn’t work here. I do.”
Emily knew Jason was right and she felt so foolish for not considering his feelings, and even more so for not recognizing that his ability was far beyond coordinating witness statements and helping Gloria with the monthly case reports.
“Jason, we’re a team. You and I.”
“Treat me like a member of your team.”
“Fair enough. Did you find out anything when you saw Mitch?”
Jason told her about the house keys being under Darla’s control and Emily wondered if perhaps she’d been wrong about Darla. Maybe she had been the one threatening Samantha Phillips.
“Want me to go over there and check it out?” Jason asked.
“Yes, please.” She waited a beat. “Jason, you are my deputy. Chris offered to assist.”
“Yeah, but I heard you deputized him.”
“Only so he could help. He’s not here to replace you. OK?”
Jason looked down at the floor. “I’m glad to hear that, Sheriff, because I thought you and I worked well together. I’m not so green anymore, you know. I have more to contribute.”
“I know,” she said, now feeling a twinge of shame for keeping him outside an investigation that he had every right to be part of. “That’s why you need to see Darla. Find out about the security of the keys, all right?”
“Yes. Will do.”
Chapter Sixty-five
Steffi Johansson turned off the TV. Her heart had almost stopped beating. Spokane Afternoons had just aired a segment on the Mandy Crawford murder case. She had watched with keen interest, having been down at the Cherrystone jail looking at the lineup of potential suspects. She had wanted so much to help. There was something very unnerving about the handsome stranger who’d come into the coffee shop after supposedly traipsing around the woods in search of a Christmas tree.
The local TV show had done a nice job, showing Mandy’s mother and pictures of a little girl who would grow up only to be lost before she reached her fullest potential.
“All my daughter ever really wanted was to be a mom,” Hillary Layton had told the host. “She said she wished that someday she’d be as good of a mother as…I was to her.”
She felt her knees go weak as she went toward her purse and the telephone.
Oh, my God, she thought, I really did see that woman’s killer that night. I can identify him.
She looked for Emily Kenyon’s business card in her wallet. Where was it? Credit cards, receipts, and a punch card from a sandwich shop that she forgot she had. When she found it, Steffi started to dial.
The Crawford car dealership had undergone the kind of change in vibe that was usually reserved for a new model introduction that actually brought in prospects and rang up sales. The smell of hot dogs rotating on a little wheel in the front window still excited or turned the stomach, depending, of course, on how one viewed hot dogs. The abundance of helium balloons and strands of crepe paper still signaled that the dealership was a cool and fun place for the entire family. Jason Howard noticed that everyone working there seemed to be in good spirits.
Maybe having a boss arrested for murder is a real boost to morale? Jason asked himself as he came upon Darla, who was shuttling coffee and files from Stan Sawyer’s office. Sawyer was the acting manager, filling in until Mitch came back.
Jesus, she’s even whistling.
“Hi, Darla,” Jason said.
“Hi, Deputy,” she answered, a warm smile on her face. “You want some Starbucks? That’s what Stan’s offering to customers these days. Says he wants our customers to ‘wake up and smell the coffee.’ Isn’t that cute?”
“Pretty cute,” he said. “But I’m not here for coffee. I’m here for information. The sheriff sent me.”
The smile fell from Darla’s face. “I’m not going to have to testify now, am I? Not about you know what?”
“Oh, gosh, I don’t think so. Anyway, that’s not why I’m here. I’m here about some, you know, odds and ends.”
“What kind of odds and ends?”
“We’re just crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s before trial.”
“OK. How can I help?”
“Well, what we need to know about is the key situation with Mr. Crawford. He says that he had several sets of house keys at the office.”
“That’s right. He took a different car home two or three times a week. You know how when you buy a new car and there’s like sixteen miles on it? That’s from a dealer like Mitch driving it. Important to have product familiarity, you know.”
“Cool. I didn’t think of that.”
“Not many people know what happens behind the scenes in a car dealership. It’s kind of like what happens behind the scenes at McDonald’s.�
� Darla paused. “You just don’t want to know.”
Jason had worked at McDonald’s in high school. He knew what she meant and he smiled. “Yeah. So about his keys. Could anyone get them or were they kept in a secure place?”
“I kept them with all the dealership’s master keys. In the vault. So, yes, they were always secure. I log all vault entries.”
“I was hoping you did. Can you do a favor for me and look up who came and got keys on November twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth?”
“You mean, when Mandy disappeared?”
Darla was young, a little reckless considering her affair with her boss, but she was sharp. Her immediate recollection of the date surprised him.
“Yeah. Can you?”
“Sure.”
She walked across the showroom and retrieved a logbook in a metal case next to the vault.
“Only one thing jumps out at me.”
Jason drew closer. “What’s that?”
“Cary McConnell. I remember how he came over to get some keys to help out when all this started with Mandy.”
“OK. Anyone else?”
“Just me. And trust me, I really did learn from my mistakes.”
As Jason went for the door, he got a whiff of bleach coming from Crawford’s office. The smell triggered a memory. Bleach had been smelled at the Crawfords’ place when he’d first been questioned. At the time, it had been an odoriferous alarm that Mitch might have done something to his wife and used bleach to obliterate the evidence of his crime.
“What’s with the bleach?” he asked.
“It’s Friday.”
Jason looked puzzled.
“Every Friday we do a wipe-down of all surfaces in Mitch’s office. Even when he isn’t here.”
“Why bleach? Why not Fantastik or something else? This stuff smells.”
Darla looked around to make sure no one was in earshot. “OCD,” she said, lowering her voice. “Doesn’t want anyone to know. But Mitch is a little crazy when it comes to germs. I used to have to do his house, too. Finally, someone convinced him that it wasn’t my job to clean his house.”