Chapter 62
Louise
Louise stands with Cutty just outside the yellow tape, arms folded against the evening chill, as the slate-blue Jeep Wagoneer is wheeled up the flatbed ramp.
“Confirmed the vehicle is his.” Officer Nardulli steps up beside her, flapping his notebook. “Registered to Finley Michael Brice.”
The technical response unit techs open the doors on each side as if in sync.
“Bag and tag the whole interior,” Louise tells them. “Check for latent prints, trace hair, fibers—especially steering wheel, gearshift, door handles.”
“You got it, Lou.” The techs are already photographing the console and dashboard.
A shout from the front passenger seat, more like a triumphant song. “We have phones!” A moment later, the tech produces two evidence bags. Each bag holds a standard iPhone. One, with a red case, has a cracked screen protector. The other has a customized Chicago Bears case and appears intact.
“Two phones,” says Cutty. “Huh. One for Finley, the other our offender?”
“Get both boxed and over to digital, to Ruby,” Louise says. “Rush order. I want every call, every text, every GPS breadcrumb we can pull.”
“Copy that,” says the lead tech.
“Also pull the ECU,” she adds. “If the car’s onboard system’s intact, I want the ignition logs. Time stamps on when it started, when it stopped. And the nav system. Maybe he had a destination punched in. Did I mention rush job?”
“You did.”
Louise takes a breath, looks around the neighborhood. Fairly standard middle-class, blue-collar hood. People who live paycheck to paycheck, go to church on Sunday, help each other out but mind their own business.
“Why here?” she says to Cutty. “Why does Finley come here?”
“If Finley drove,” he says. “Maybe he was already dead. Someone else drove him.”
“Okay, but why come here?”
Cutty looks around, purses his lips. “Maybe it has no meaning. Maybe that’s the point—an anonymous suburb, no connection,” he says.
Louise strolls toward their car. Cutty follows. “We need something to break here.”
“Now I’m gonna mimic you,” says Cutty, “and remind you that it’s still early.
We just got Allison’s and Grayson’s phones.
We haven’t even glanced at them yet. That could be a treasure trove of information.
And we’re being told that tomorrow, we’ll have the historical cell phone tracking data on all four of our principals—Finley, Allison, Luke, and Grayson.
And probably the license plate camera data, too.
We put all that together, I’ll bet we’ll have a pretty complete story. ”
“I guess.”
“Tell you what.” Cutty pats her back. “We get that big info dump tomorrow with the cell site location data and the license plate cameras. We have their phones. So let’s just sit and review that information.
Friday and over the weekend. I’m not doing anything this weekend.
And come Monday, we might have the story. ”
Louise sighs. “You’re right. I like that plan.”