Ozarks Missing Person, page 10
“We’re simply trying to determine who all may have been attending the party at the Powers house Friday night,” she replied evenly.
“Yesterday you were in here asking questions about Mallory because you couldn’t find her.” He directed this at Matthew. “Now you tell me you’re not looking for her anymore, but you still wanna come in here asking questions?”
The day drinker let out a derisive snort. “Some people need to mind their own damn business,” he grumbled to no one in particular.
“It is my business,” Matthew snapped. “She was my sister.”
An uneasy silence filled the barroom as his use of the past tense in regard to Mallory settled over them like a shroud.
“Was?” Steve repeated blankly. He looked truly stricken, all the tough words he’d had for Mallory forgotten as the color drained from his florid face. “Mal’s not... She’s okay, isn’t she? I mean, you’re not looking for her anymore... You found her?”
Grace exhaled in a soft whoosh as Matthew dropped his gaze to the sticky floor. She spoke directly to Steve, low and confidential. “I’m afraid Ms. Murray’s body was found this morning.”
“Found?”
“A fisherman found her body,” she said, keeping the details as sparse as she could while still conveying the gravity of the situation.
“A fisherman? Who? Where?”
“Table Rock,” Matthew answered, dropping the words like wet sandbags between them with a thud.
Steve was quick on the uptake. His narrowing gaze flew to Matthew, then back to the phone in her hand. “And you’re here askin’ about all those lawyers because...” He snapped his jaw shut. “Holy Moses—”
He scraped a hand over his face, pulling on his jowls as he spun away from them. She could see his reflection in the mirror behind the bottles lining the back bar. He looked horrified.
And scared.
She saw his mouth move, but his voice was barely more than a whisper. “You think the Powers kid was involved.”
“We have no evidence of foul play,” Grace stated, enunciating each word with great care.
“No,” Steve said as he turned back to her. “But you think he is.”
“Since he was hosting the party, we are certainly interested in speaking with Mr. Powers. I would be interested in speaking to anybody who came in contact with Mallory after she left here last Friday evening. As I said, we have nothing concrete. We believe Ms. Murray perished between Friday evening, when she left here at about...” She trailed off, raising her eyebrows in a prompt.
Steve shrugged. “Around six thirty or seven, maybe? The dinner crowd had cleared out for the most part, but the lake people and the evening drinkers were starting to come in.”
Grace nodded. “Right. Between seven o’clock Friday evening and five o’clock this morning, something happened to Mallory Murray. It’s my job to piece together what those events may have been.”
Steve shook his head. “I can’t tell you anything more.”
“And we appreciate your input,” Grace said smoothly. “We wouldn’t be bothering you again, except it occurred to us you might be able to help us identify who some of the other people in Mr. Powers’s party might have been.”
“I can’t swear to any of it,” Steve hastened to add. “Well...maybe the girl, but I didn’t pay much attention to the group of them. I see a lot of people in a day. People from all walks of life. Unless you’re a local, I don’t pay much mind. No point in getting too into it with people who are breezing through, right?”
“Absolutely. No point in getting too involved.”
Steve shifted his attention to Matthew, who’d switched off his phone and dropped it into his pocket. “I’m awful sorry about Mallory,” the bartender said. “I was kind of a jerk about her yesterday, but I did like the girl. She was one of the best I’d ever had working here. God’s honest truth.”
“I appreciate you saying so,” Matthew replied, offering Steve his hand to shake. “And trust me, I am well aware how frustrating Mallory could be. I don’t blame you for getting teed off at her. She gets under my skin pretty regularly.” He paused. “Got. She got under my skin pretty regularly,” he repeated, his expression grim as he switched tenses.
Steve wrung the bar towel again. “I am sorry.”
Grace pulled another of her business cards from her pocket and slid it across the bar as she had on her first visit. “If you think of anything else. Anything at all. Even if you think it isn’t important, please feel free to call me. All my numbers are on the card.”
Steve picked up her card and slid it into the back pocket of his jeans rather than tossing it under the bar. “I will. I promise.”
Matthew nodded. “Appreciate your help.”
They turned to go. As they reached the door, Steve called out to them again. “Will you keep me posted? About any arrangements?”
Matthew looked back at the other man, clearly startled by the request. “Arrangements?”
Steve gave them helpless shrug. “I’d send flowers or something.”
Matthew bowed his head, but when he lifted it he said, “I appreciate the thought. Not sure what I’m going to do, but save the flower money. If you want do something, make a donation to a worthy cause. Anything you think Mallory would like,” he suggested. “After all, you probably knew her better than I did.”
Steve nodded and gave a mirthless chuckle. “I knew her well enough to tell you there wasn’t a cause she thought was more worthy than her own.”
Matthew smiled at the comment, touching the end of his nose to indicate the accuracy of the other man’s statement. “You hit the nail on the head there. Throw a party here for her one night. She’d have liked a party.”
“Will do,” Steve assured him. “I’ll call if I think of anything else.”
“Appreciate you.” Grace raised a hand in farewell.
They stepped out of the dimly lit bar into the bright summer morning.
“I hope you don’t mind that I told him,” Grace said quickly. “I figured he was her employer and would have to be told eventually, and this way at least we could use the shock value to garner what information we could.”
“No.” He gave her a tired smile. “I don’t mind.”
He paused at the passenger door and looked back at the cinder-block building. “Well played, Agent Reed. What’s our next move?”
She gave it a moment of thought. “Well, I think our next move is to head back to town. I’ll need to call Kelli Simon and let her know Mallory has been found. You’ll need to wait for the coroner’s report to be complete before you can make arrangements, and I need figure out how to get in to see Trey Powers and friends.”
“Easier said than done.”
“Don’t you worry, I have my ways,” Grace answered with a confidence she didn’t feel. But she’d make things happen; she always did. Clicking the key fob to unlock the doors, she said, “Saddle up, Counselor. I think this ride’s about to get a whole lot more interesting.”
Chapter Nine
Tom Petty hadn’t lied when he said the waiting was the hardest part, but Matthew wasn’t simply sitting around waiting for his phone to ring. Not when he knew deep in his gut a privileged coward like Trey Powers was involved in his sister’s death. He didn’t care if Powers’s involvement was accidental or deliberate. At this point, intent didn’t matter. If Trey had any inkling of Mallory falling into the water, he was at least an accessory after the fact.
Sitting in his sparsely furnished living room, he scrolled through Mallory’s PicturSpam account. Again. But his sister hadn’t posted any photos last Friday night. Nor were there any of her with Trey. The closest he’d come was a selfie she’d taken with another woman about her age. Her companion was a toothy blonde. They both had eyelashes too dark and thick to be natural and held tall hurricane glasses filled with a liquid so virulently green Matthew couldn’t believe anyone would willingly ingest it.
He’d looked at the same picture at least a half dozen times in the days since Agent Reed told him Mallory had disappeared, and he hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. But now, after two trips to Stubby’s and one truncated phone call with the cocksure princeling, he finally figured out why he kept coming back to it again and again.
A watch.
In the photo, a man’s arm lay draped casually across his sister’s shoulders. A man who apparently had breathtakingly expensive taste in wristwatches.
The oversize face of the watch was visible thanks to the casual drape of his arm. He’d had a roommate in law school who was obsessed with collecting watches, so Matthew knew they were as much of a status symbol for some men as diamonds or designer handbags were for some women. Matthew recognized the hallmark of a prestigious brand below the diamond at the top of the bright blue dial.
A few quick queries helped him pin it down. Whoever was staking his claim on Mallory had been wearing a Poseidon. Another search revealed the watch hadn’t been available for sale at any jeweler in Arkansas. It was an exclusive model, and the nearest retailers with access were in Dallas, Kansas City or Baton Rouge.
There was a lot of money in the northwest corridor of Arkansas, but not many young people with the kind of money they could blow on spendy jewelry.
Most didn’t bother. The area was rife with avid hikers or sportsmen. They’d go for a model with some sort of GPS rather than throw down for a blue sunburst face and a bunch of analog dials.
Matthew glanced at his own smart watch. He’d been leery of dropping a few hundred dollars on the latest model when it became available, but looking at the price tags attached to the man bling on the website, he felt far more secure in his frugal life choices.
“Pays to be oblivious,” he muttered, tapping an icon on the display of the decidedly less prestigious watch he wore. “Call Grace Reed on mobile.”
The automated assistant put the call through.
“Can’t sleep?” Grace asked by way of greeting.
“I’m sorry,” he grimaced, noticing the hour. It was after midnight. “Were you sleeping?”
“Nah. I’m a night owl,” she assured him.
Since she sounded fully awake and alert, he took her at her word. “Hey, I came across something. Could be nothing, I’m not sure...”
“Hit me,” she prompted.
“Can you pull up Mal’s PicturSpam feed? I want you to look closer at one of the pictures.”
He heard her tapping. “Okay. Which one am I looking for?”
“Fourth or fifth picture down, there’s one of Mallory and another girl holding some nasty-looking green cocktails. See it?”
“Yup. Wouldn’t drink one on a bet, though.”
“Me, either.” Matthew smiled, enjoying the moment of synchronicity in what was an otherwise surreal day. “A guy has his arm around Mal’s shoulders. Can you zoom in on his watch?”
“His watch?” she repeated, not bothering to mask her puzzlement.
“Yeah.”
A beat passed, and then she said, “Nice watch. Silver with a blue face, lots of dials.”
“Do you see the brand symbol?”
“No,” she said, drawing the words out. “Not really. Is it some kind of upside-down T or something?”
“An anchor.”
“Oh. Yeah, okay, I see it now.” She paused. “What about it?”
He tried to formulate how he might explain. “Okay, this is going to sound weird...probably because it is weird to many mere mortals, but some guys have a thing for watches.”
“You didn’t call me at midnight to confess some weird watch fetish, did you?”
“Not at all,” he hastened to assure her. “But anyway, the guy I roomed with while I was in law school? He was one of those guys. Used to get jazzed about them. Like, he has a whole plan for which watches he would collect on his way to attaining his dream watch.”
“O-kay,” she drawled, clearly perplexed. “Are you trying to tell me you think your old roommate is in this picture?”
“No. He’s in Los Angeles working his way up to a junior partnership at a firm specializing in entertainment law.”
“And he wants this watch...”
“It’s a Poseidon.”
“And that’s...good?”
“Well, I’m not sure where it ranks on my friend’s sliding scale now, but this watch would come in at about one or two steps higher than his dream watch.”
“Seriously?”
She sounded incredulous, and Matthew couldn’t blame her. He felt pretty much the same.
“Yeah. Mike had his sights set on a stainless steel model, but judging by the dials and what I see on the website, I think this one might be white gold.”
He sent her the link to the brand site. “Look under the Elite collection.”
A minute later, Grace gave a low whistle. “Holy cow.”
“No doubt,” he said gravely.
“And you can get matching cuff links, if you feel like you need something extra after spending on a watch what most people would spend on a house,” she said, her voice rising with her agitation.
“Rich people,” he said in a flat, derisive voice.
* * *
GRACE LAUGHED. The sheer ridiculousness of spending tens of thousands of dollars on something that didn’t provide food, shelter or any other basic necessity demanded she laugh. Matthew laughed, too, and she instantly felt better. The man had seen his only family member zipped into a body bag hours ago, but he still could find humor in life’s absurdities. She supposed it was something cops and prosecutors had in common.
As their chuckles quieted, she sighed. “Of course, I don’t have to tell you this isn’t evidence of any connection between your sister and Trey Powers.”
“No, you don’t,” he said, resigned.
The silence hummed between them, but it felt oddly comfortable to Grace. A full minute must have passed before he spoke again.
“What do you do when you can’t sleep?”
The chuckle that escaped her was mirthless. “Work.”
“I can’t concentrate,” he confessed.
“Totally understandable. You’ve suffered a loss. You’re grieving. It’s not your job to concentrate right now—it’s mine.”
“I can’t sit around waiting for something to happen.”
While Grace understood the sentiment entirely, she needed to put him gently but firmly in his place. “I totally get you, but now your focus needs to be on Mallory. My focus will be on making sure anyone who may have been involved in her death is brought to justice.”
“I thought we played on the same side.” His reminder came out stiff and somewhat belligerent.
Grace could see how such stubbornness would serve him well as a prosecutor. “We are on the same side, but you’re not the prosecutor, you’re the brother.” She waited a beat to let her admonishment sink in. But Matthew’s response was not the escalation of agitation she anticipated.
“What if I can’t be the brother she needs?” he asked at last. “I haven’t been a good one up to this point, and it looks like I won’t have any more chances.”
“But you do,” she reminded him, her voice gentle. “Mallory still needs you. Now more than ever. It might not be in the way either of you would have chosen, but the fact of the matter is you’re all she has.”
“And you,” he said gruffly.
“Absolutely.”
A pang of guilt twisted in her gut. She remembered the day she took the call from Mallory’s roommate and how annoyed she’d been to be distracted from the case she’d deemed more worthy than the disappearance of a flighty party girl.
Grace knew all too well the chances of finding Treveon alive grew slimmer by the day, but whether her victims needed her in life or in death didn’t matter. Like Treveon, Mallory would be counting on her to unravel the story.
“Usually when I can’t sleep, I like to spend hours dwelling on the cases where I failed a victim and what I would have done differently,” she confessed.
“And it helps you sleep?” he sounded incredulous.
“No. Never. But it fuels me. I am the one these people are counting on. It’s what gives me the push I need to try harder, do better, be faster.” She stopped there and swallowed hard. “I’m sorry I didn’t get there fast enough for Mallory.”
“You got there as fast as you could,” he said gently. “You did. I have a gut feeling you’re not going to allow Mallory’s death to linger on your list of regrets.”
“You and your gut don’t know me at all, Counselor,” she said, her voice husky with emotion.
“I’ve seen enough over the past couple of days,” he reassured her. “I’m confident this will not be a case you’ll lay awake replaying in your mind.”
“I’m supposed to be comforting you,” she reminded him.
Matthew chuckled. “Oddly enough, I do feel better.”
“You start working on the things you need to do for Mallory. I’ll call or text you as soon as I have any information from the coroner.”
“And if it comes out it’s more than an accident, you’ll keep me up-to-date on any further investigation into any, uh, suspects?” he pushed.
“I don’t believe this is going to fall under your jurisdiction,” she reminded him.
“Please,” he added. “The only way I can help her now is by helping you. Let me do whatever I can do.”
Grace let silence stretch between them for a minute. “I’ll be in touch, Mr. Murray. Try to get some sleep.”
“You, too, Agent Reed. And thank you.”
* * *
GRACE DID GET some sleep, but not a lot. After she ended the call with Matthew, she’d spent precious hours thinking about the stupid wristwatch he’d been worked up over. She couldn’t imagine a world in which people paid insane money for a watch, but as Matthew pointed out, even among the wealthy there weren’t many who could. Folks she would have considered well-off weren’t in the same league as someone who could spend that kind of money on a piece of jewelry simply because they wanted it.
