Lies Still Told, page 18
Granted, they had been at a solemn affair, but truth be told, Uncle Joe hadn’t ever let that stop him in the past. He was pissed at A.L. No doubt about it.
Ten minutes later, A.L. was at his desk. On his chair, waiting for him, was a manila folder. He sat down, opened it and saw that it was a background report on Edith Grace’s daughters. Ferguson had reached both girls and had accounted for their whereabouts at the time of Platt’s and Colby’s murders. That was all good. The only unsettling information in the file was that Skyler Grace, the youngest of the two, had dated Colby Kane prior to moving to Boulder, Colorado, a few years ago.
Could be just an odd coincidence. But it made the hairs on the back of A.L.’s neck stand up. That had to have been right after Colby had been released from prison for the conspiracy-to-commit charge. Ferguson hadn’t flagged it as concerning, so that meant he was satisfied with Skyler Grace’s explanation.
He looked across the room. Ferguson’s chair was empty, but the man’s coat was on the back of it, so he was probably in the building. A.L. went to find him.
He was washing his hands in the men’s room. A.L. checked to make sure they were alone. “Thanks for the file on the Grace girls. Interesting that Skyler Grace dated Colby Kane.”
“Yeah. Didn’t see that one coming. I told her that we were investigating the murder of Platt Waymann. At first, I think she couldn’t figure out why I’d called her. I thought maybe she wasn’t aware that Platt had been the alibi for her father in her mother’s case. But suddenly, the connection dawned on her. We were almost done with our conversation when she brought up Colby Kane. Said that, even though she was living in Boulder, she still kept track of Wisconsin news since she had a lot of college friends still here. She’d seen something online about two murders in Baywood, Wisconsin, in less than twenty-four hours. She’d clicked on the article, and that’s where she’d seen Colby’s name.”
“Who broke off the relationship? Her or Colby?”
“She said she did. She got offered a transfer to Boulder and realized that her relationship with Colby wasn’t the kind that was going to thrive in a long-distance situation. She didn’t have anything bad to say about Colby. I got the impression that she hadn’t really thought much about him in years. She got married about a year ago and has a two-month-old. I really don’t see any need for follow-up. This lead was a nonstarter.”
Ferguson was a good detective and had good instincts. But the dating thing still seemed like a hell of a coincidence. “Okay, thanks. Appreciate the help.”
A.L. walked back to his desk, considered it for another thirty seconds and then found Skyler’s contact information. He picked up his cell phone and punched in her number.
“Hello,” she answered.
“Skyler Grace?” A.L. asked.
“Yes.” She sounded guarded. Probably thought he was a telemarketer.
“This is Detective McKittridge with the Baywood, Wisconsin, Police Department. I am following up on a conversation you had with my colleague Detective Ferguson.”
“Yes.”
A little less guarded. Friendlier.
“I saw in Detective Ferguson’s notes that you dated Colby Kane.”
“That’s correct. I was sorry to hear of his death. He was… Well, it sounds odd to say, given that he’d been in prison, but he always was a decent guy when he was with me. We didn’t date that long, maybe two months. But I really thought he was getting his life back on track.”
“How did you meet him?”
“In a bar. He bought me a drink.”
Could have been just another coincidence. Or had Colby Kane picked out Skyler Grace for a reason?
“Did you and Colby Kane have common friends or acquaintances?” A.L. asked. Baywood, at roughly fifty thousand residents, wasn’t that big.
“I don’t think so. At least, not that I remember.”
“Did you and Colby ever discuss his time in prison?”
“A little. I mean, he didn’t tell me right away. But when he did, he said that he’d hated every day of it, but at the same time, it had caused him to grow up and evaluate how he wanted to spend his life.”
“Do you recall him mentioning the name Badger Crawford?” A.L. asked.
“No. Badger is sort of unique. I think I would have remembered that.”
“Did the two of you ever discuss your mom’s murder?”
“I told him my mother was dead. That was it. No details. It’s…not something that’s easy for me to talk about. Even now.”
“Of course. I’m sorry to have to ask, but this is important. When you told him your mother was dead, did he…seem interested? Did he ask about the details?”
She sighed. “It’s been years, Detective. And I’m sleep-deprived with a newborn. But I don’t think he had a lot of questions. At the time, I probably said something along the lines that I didn’t want to talk about it. That’s what I told most everybody who asked.”
Maybe Colby had been sensitive to the issue. Maybe he’d known the details. Maybe he’d heard about it in prison from Badger Crawford. Maybe he’d targeted Skyler Grace at that bar because he’d been interested in what she knew about her mother’s death, whether she blamed her father. Maybe he was reporting back to Badger, who had seemed to take an interest in the crime.
Badger Crawford wasn’t likely to tell him the truth. Colby couldn’t. And it probably was a moot point anyway, given that Skyler had a solid alibi for the murders. “Again, I’m sorry to bring up a sensitive subject,” A.L. said.
“No problem. You know my mom’s killer was never found. And I think that haunted my dad until the day he died. So I really do hope you find out who killed Platt Waymann and Colby. Their families deserve closure.”
“You and your father had a good relationship?” A.L. asked.
“We did. He was overprotective of my sister and me, but we could forgive him for that. It was hard to lose him, too.”
It was apparent that Skyler didn’t think her father had killed her mother. There would be no reason to be angry at Platt, his dad, or Uncle Joe for providing an alibi. He heard a baby start to cry in the background. “Sounds as if you’re needed,” he said.
She laughed. “I’m just like Pavlov’s dogs. She cries, and I come running.”
“Thank you for your time,” A.L. said.
“Sure. Merry Christmas.”
At twenty after eleven, A.L. started watching for Rena. She’d said she’d come, and he didn’t think she’d back out. While he waited, he read the report from the patrol units that had responded to her 911 call. It was brief. Homeowner had heard a noise, gone to the front door and reported seeing the taillights of a car described as “older-model Chevy, maybe late ’90s.”
Rena was good with cars. And she was a trained observer. That gave her witness statement more validity than most, because people were notoriously bad at details when under stress.
There were photos attached to the online file, and seeing the damage made him sick. The words Killer Cop were stark and ugly. The report ended with a summary statement that patrols had canvassed the surrounding area but had observed no vehicles matching the description.
He left that report behind and looked to see if any similar reports had been entered in the previous week. Maybe they’d get lucky, and these were serial vandals. He didn’t think so given the note they’d left behind.
It would be a long shot to catch the people responsible for this.
He heard some commotion near the door and turned to look. Rena had arrived and was getting hugs from coworkers as she made her way across the room. It was going to take her a while. The biggest conference room in the building was off their office area, and the food was set up there. That meant that staff from the entire station were now crowding into his normally quiet work area. He clicked out of the report on Rena’s vandalism. Didn’t want her to see him looking at that.
“Hey,” he said when she finally got to his desk.
“Hey,” she said. “How’s it going?”
“Everyone is festive. To say that much work has been accomplished today would be an overstatement.”
“It’s one day,” she said. She looked at her desk, which was still clear. There were a few files in the inbox she kept at the far corner, and he suspected that she was itching to look. But she didn’t. Faster might have invited her to the lunch, but he’d likely be pissed if he wandered in and found her looking like she was working while on administrative leave.
“Hank had a thing at the house this morning for Platt. I stopped by,” A.L. said. “Virginia was there.”
“Really?” Rena pursed her lips. “I guess that’s not that strange. They were married for a long time. They shared children. Speaking of which, I’m assuming no Veronica.”
“Definitely not.”
She reached into her coat pocket and slipped the thumb drive that he’d given her from the prison. “I finished this,” she said.
“And?”
“Well, we knew Badger Crawford was more popular with the women than the men.”
Yeah. On the list of approved visitors, there had been five women and three men. One of the women had been Tawny Lane. “Anything odd?”
She made a face. “Can I show you something?” she asked with a nod toward his computer.
“Sure.”
She pulled another thumb drive from her pocket. “This is the video I made by splicing all of Badger Crawford’s visitors together. I didn’t see what I’m going to show you as I was making this. I didn’t see it the first time I watched the whole thing from beginning to end. It was only on the second view.”
Now he was really curious. He reached for the thumb drive and slipped it into a port on his computer. Then pushed his chair back so that Rena could more easily reach his keyboard. She fast-forwarded and then stopped. “Look at this woman.”
The video was of the woman walking through the metal security screening gates. She was dark-haired, about twenty pounds overweight and A.L. guessed in her late fifties. It was less than thirty seconds in length. But it was followed by two more very similar vignettes.
“Natalie Watkins,” Rena said. “Visited three times in the last year.”
Then she fast-forwarded until she came to a similar shot. This woman was blonde and in good shape, dressed in a matching sweater and skirt, like she’d come from a fancy golf course. She was in full makeup. There was one more video of her. In it, she was dressed in what appeared to be expensive-looking pants and a blazer. Hair and makeup the same. “Okay,” A.L. said.
“Justine Reynolds,” Rena said. “Two visits.”
He recognized both of the women’s names from Badger’s approved-visitor list. Where was Rena going with this?
“Here’s the first odd thing. Every time that either Natalie Watkins or Justine Reynolds visited, it was a Tuesday.”
That was hardly enough to have Rena wound tight. “Okay,” he said.
“Watch it again,” she said. “But this time, pay attention to what they do after they walk through the metal detector.” She played the video segments again. Then in slow motion.
“Shit,” A.L. said after he’d watched both.
“I know,” Rena said, her voice almost strangled. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s the same person,” A.L. said. Because what was the likelihood that two different women would each have the same nervous habit of running the edge of her left thumb back and forth around the edge of her pinkie finger? It was just a small tell, one that wouldn’t have been easy to pick up if you were focused only on faces, body shapes and gait. “I know what I’m seeing here, but it doesn’t make sense. Background checks are completed on anyone requesting to be on an approved-visitor list. Natalie Watkins and Justine Reynolds have to be two different people with legit identities.”
“Seeing is believing,” Rena said.
“We need to talk to both of these women, or this woman, as the case may be,” he said.
“I’d volunteer to do it, but…you know,” she said.
Yeah. It was one thing to have her watching some video at home. It was a whole other thing to have her interviewing people. “I’ll get Blithe and Ferguson to help. This could be big, Rena. You did a good job.”
“Thanks.” She looked at the doorway. “The boss is here. I think it’s speech time.”
A.L. didn’t care what platitudes Faster might choose to heap upon them. His head was whirling. The fact that Badger Crawford had duplicitous visitors might mean absolutely nothing. Might have zero to do with Platt’s and Colby’s murders. But from the beginning, he had not been able to shake the feeling that Platt and Badger’s relationship played a part in all of this.
But it was more than that. He wanted to go back and study the video footage again. There had been something about the two women, or woman, something that was nagging at him that he couldn’t pin down.
But that was going to have to wait. Faster had been very decent about Rena’s situation thus far. A.L. turned his chair to give the man his attention. It was a good thing that he had, because immediately after finishing his remarks, Faster made a beeline for A.L.’s desk.
“Chief,” Rena said.
“Merry Christmas, Rena,” Faster said. “Glad you could join us today.”
A.L. knew he wouldn’t say anything about the internal investigation. Not only was A.L. sitting there, but even so, it would be foolish. If he hadn’t already, Faster would be called as a witness about her overall job performance. One of the questions the investigators always asked witnesses was whether or not they had spoken to the person under investigation about having to testify. You wanted to be able to answer no.
It was the same reason A.L. wouldn’t tell her that he was scheduled to meet with the Review Board at ten a.m. on December 26.
“Where are we with the murder investigations?” Faster asked.
“We’ve successfully tied Platt Waymann and Colby Kane together,” A.L. said. “We have video confirmation that the two men met up about a week before the murder. We’ve also identified Colby’s last known address.”
“You know, I was hoping for good news before now,” Faster said.
A.L. nodded. “We’d all like that. But I think we’re gaining ground.” That’s about all he was willing to say. Had learned early on in his career not to overpromise. An expectation set was an expectation that was almost impossible to later set aside.
Faster said nothing for a long minute. Finally, he sighed. “Don’t let the calendar flip over to a new year with this hanging over us.”
“Do our best,” A.L. said.
“Get some lunch,” Faster said before walking away.
“At least he didn’t play the mayor card,” Rena said softly.
True. When he thought the troops needed prodding, Faster was prone to saying, “The mayor wants an update.” As if the problem was that his detectives didn’t understand the importance of making an arrest. “That’ll be after Christmas.” A.L. held up the thumb drive. “Can I keep this?”
“Of course. I don’t have any need for it.”
A.L. reached into his pocket. “I got this from Hank Waymann this morning.”
Rena took the key. “What’s it to?”
“I have no idea. Hank didn’t know. Said that he’d thought of me because I’d ask about a storage unit the first time we talked.”
“Oh, yeah. That was before we realized where Platt was taking all of his Costco purchases. What are you going to do with this?”
“Do you think you could call around to the storage sheds in maybe a thirty-mile radius? See if anybody rents space to either Platt or Colby,” A.L. added.
“Sure. Would have been nice if one of them had paid by check or credit card.”
“Supposedly, they both had cash, remember?” A.L. said.
“That’s right. I’ll get into it. Might not have much until after Christmas, though. Offices will be closed tomorrow. I don’t think storage facilities have emergency numbers,” she added with a smile.
“That’ll be fine,” A.L. said. “It’s a long shot, but we need to turn over every rock.” Then he told her about getting security video from the Wild End Tavern. Ferguson had connected with the bar owner, who’d said he would be happy to turn it over with a court order. Ferguson was working on that now, hoping to get it out before the holiday.
She opened her purse and pulled out a flat, wrapped package. “For you,” she said.
The first year that they’d been partners, she’d surprised him with a gift. It had been an awkward moment. Now, he knew to expect it. “Want me to open it now?” he asked.
“Sure.”
It was a book. Birds of Wisconsin. It made him smile. When she’d teased him once about his interest in birds, he’d told her that he liked knowing what was about to shit on his head. “I’ll take it everywhere,” he said. He was only half joking. He would keep it in the car, because it was usually when he was driving that he came across the unusual birds.
He reached under his own desk and pulled out the holiday gift bag. “For you.”
She smiled and pulled at the tissue paper. Then reached in and lifted out the heavy ceramic planter decorated with pink and purple flowers. Tess and he had been prowling an antique shop in Madison, and when he’d seen it, he’d known that Rena would love it in her spring garden.
“It’s perfect,” Rena said.
“No cords. No batteries,” A.L. said.
“For me, it’s not such an important rule,” Rena said. “Still not going to tell me what you got Tess?”
A.L. shook his head.
She hugged her gift to her chest. “Merry Christmas, A.L.”
“Merry Christmas, Rena.”
By two, you could have rolled a bowling ball down the middle of the police station and not hit anybody. There were, of course, officers assigned to work the holiday. But it was a skeleton crew. All the administrative types were long gone, and A.L. was the only detective still at his desk. He needed to get going. Tess was expecting him at her house by three, and he wanted to go home and shower first. He’d bought Felix a package of new cat toys. Maybe he’d let him open his gift early. Give him a little extra catnip to really enjoy the evening, since he’d be alone.
