Chapter 26
I studied the text for a moment as it hit me that James had checked in with Carter but not me.
I wanted to be butt hurt over it, but they’d been working together for years. James and I had worked our first case together a little less than two months ago. Of course James would check in with him. They probably had a protocol.
I texted back:
James sent you the address for the girls’ house. Can you send it to me, along with anything you found?
About a minute later, he sent back:
Sent in an email. Maybe you’ll both let ME sleep now.
As I left the bathroom, I cast a glance at James, grateful he was still asleep. We’d left the curtains open, and even though the windows faced north, I was worried the light would disturb him, but thankfully, he was turned toward the wall.
I sat on the sofa with the laptop and saw an email from Carter titled Address. Emily and the other girls had been kept at a house in Little Rock. The house had been purchased three years ago by Harlan Properties, LLC. Harlan Properties was owned by Miles P. Harlan.
It didn’t come as a surprise that Knox didn’t directly own the house. The question was whether this Miles Harlan, if, indeed, he existed, was clueless or complicit.
His name seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I hoped it would come to me as I continued my search.
It didn’t take me long to discover Miles Harlan likely wasn’t an upright citizen. He’d had numerous civil suits brought against him claiming deception and fraud, one of which was by an insurance company. But it was his criminal case that grabbed my attention.
Five years ago, the state of Arkansas had brought business fraud charges against Harlan Properties, LLC. But the charges had been dropped ten days later.
I pulled his arrest report and discovered he’d been investigated by the LRPD Financial Crimes division. The two investigating detectives were Mark Ellison and Roger Nelson.
The same Roger Nelson who had been at the Brass Magnolia last night.
Mark Ellison sounded familiar too, but I knew he hadn’t been in the department when I’d left last fall. It only took a few keystrokes to discover Ellison had died of natural causes.
I nearly dropped my computer when I saw that he’d died five days after the charges against Miles Harlan were filed, and four days before they were dismissed. I could have attributed it to bad timing if I hadn’t already suspected his partner was possibly dirty.
I blew up the photo in his obituary and realized I’d known him.
The face in the photograph was younger and thinner than the man I remembered, but I’d met him soon after joining the homicide unit.
Keith had taken me to a bar Little Rock detectives often hung out at after hours to meet some of my fellow detectives.
Ellison had been gruff, with a reputation for being a hardass that was backed up by his chain smoking and intense personality.
A few months later, he hadn’t shown up for his shift, and everyone had known something was wrong.
Roger Nelson went to check on him and found him in his recliner, an ashtray full of cigarette butts and a half-finished bottle of beer on the table beside him.
The coroner had attributed his death to natural causes.
His obituary had asked for donations to the American Heart Association in lieu of flowers.
No one had thought his death might be suspicious. He’d lived his job, which some of the detectives had said was to blame for his three divorces. I hadn’t thought much of it either, other than telling myself I exercised and didn’t smoke, so I wouldn’t end up like him.
Had Ellison been murdered because of his case against Miles Harlan? Based on what Natalie had told me, it was entirely possible.
I did a general internet search for Miles Harlan and discovered he’d been a witness to a murder on a weekday afternoon. The victim, Daniel Kincaid, had been shot in a parking lot.
Then I realized why I’d recognized Miles’s name.
Keith and I had initially been assigned to Daniel’s murder, and I’d interviewed the sole witness—Miles Harlan.
He’d stuck in my mind because he’d made a strange statement.
It wasn’t that he’d held back—in fact, he was more than eager to tell me what he’d seen.
But I’d gotten an odd vibe, like he was trying to sell me a shitty used car.
I’d mentioned my suspicions to Keith, suggesting we bring him into the station and question him further.
But Keith had dismissed my concerns, saying he was a low-level commercial developer and that was just the way he talked.
And then the next day, the case had been reassigned to Brad and his partner at the time, and Keith and I had been given another case.
They’d justified the transfer by saying Brad had worked a previous case connected to the victim.
I’d thought it odd, but it wasn’t unheard of for cases to be reassigned. But now…
Now I had to wonder if the real reason they’d taken me and Keith off the case was because they didn’t want me digging.
I was lucky I hadn’t ended up like Mark Ellison.
James stirred on the bed, and I looked over to see him watching me, his head still on his pillow.
“How long you been up?” he asked, still groggy.
“Not long,” I said. “But long enough to find a new lead.”
He perked up. “Did the dancer come through with the video?”
“No,” I said with a frown.
“You look worried.”
“She’s irritated with me, so she may just be dragging her feet.” I shrugged. “Or maybe the video was gone.” I gave him a hopeful look. “But I found a new lead to chase.”
He scooted up so his back was propped against the pillows. “Whatcha got?”
I walked over and sat on the edge of the bed while I told him about Miles Harlan, including the fact that the case he was connected to had been reassigned to Brad Huffington—one of the guys I’d seen in the bar last night—and his partner.
“You want to talk to Harlan?” he asked.
“Definitely. We know the girls and Buddy were tied to Knox. Is Harlan’s business a front for Knox, or does Knox rent the place from Harlan?
Either way, we need to find out.” I took a breath.
“And I found another connection between Harlan and the police.” I told him about the fraud case and how one of the detectives had been found in his home by his partner, conveniently dead of natural causes.
And that the charges were dropped the next week.
He frowned. “Ten to one, Harlan’s wrapped up in this. There’s no way he’s an innocent. Even if we can’t tie him concretely to Knox, we’ll likely find something to link him to your cop buddies.”
I cringed at him calling them my buddies. The fact that I’d spent five years as Keith’s partner, and that he’d spent more nights in my bed than I could count, made me feel dirty and used.
I must have hid my internal war, because he didn’t comment on it. He just asked, “How do you want to handle visiting him?”
“I think we should drop by his office, but not to interrogate him. We should make an appointment.”
“And you think he’s gonna answer our questions about Knox because we made an appointment?” he asked skeptically.
“No, because we’re not going to use force to get what we want. We’re going to use subterfuge.”
A slow smile tugged on his mouth. “Go on.”
I gave him a mischievous grin. “What do you think about doing a little undercover work?”
He looked amused. “What do you have in mind?”
“We go as a couple looking to have him develop our commercial space.”
“It would get us in the door.” He nodded. “Sounds good, but he’s still not gonna give us the answers we’re after. Not unless we use force or intimidation.”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “We know Knox is keeping girls at one or more of his houses. We need a paper trail.”
“You want access to his files.”
I nodded. “Which he likely keeps on his computer.”
“Were you gonna steal it? We’ll break cover once he realizes it’s gone, which makes going undercover pointless.”
“No,” I said, holding his gaze. “You’re gonna distract him while I copy his files to an external hard drive.”
He studied me for a moment, then laughed. “You do realize it’s not gonna be that easy.”
“Of course it’s not going to be easy, but I’ve met this guy before.
He likes to impress. We’ll have him take us to his office, get him to sign into his computer, then you’ll find a way to get him out of the room so I can make the transfer.
If we’ve got some big project he really wants, he’ll do anything to impress you. ”
He rubbed his jaw, focusing on the wall behind me. “It might work.”
“It could definitely work.”
“One small problem,” he said. “His sensitive files likely have passwords. If they’re complicated, then they’ll be hard to crack.”
I considered it. “Not if he was sent the passwords via email.”
“You’re gonna copy his emails too?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe. I can search the files and open a few to see if they have passwords. If they do, then I’ll look for emails that could have them. Like from attorneys or accountants.”
He considered it for several seconds. “Even if we find out who he uses for an accountant, we can’t assume it’ll help us discover Knox’s.”
“I’m not delusional,” I said. “But there might be some kind of paper trail tying Harlan to Knox. Right now, all we know is that girls were kept at a house he owned.” I grimaced. “And I used past tense, because we both know they’ll probably move them as soon as they realize Buddy’s not coming back.”
He nodded.
Then I asked what I’d been wanting to know but was hesitant to ask. “Where is Buddy right now?”
He eyed me cautiously. “You mean, is he dead?”
“If he is, I suppose that would partially answer my question.”
He gave me a forced smile. “He’s currently alive. In case I need more from him.”
“You think he held back information?”
“No, I think he told me everything he knows, but when we learn something new, I might want to run it by him to verify.”
“And then you’ll…”