Chapter Forty
Forty
According to Klamm, there had been only one car registered to Leila Donnelly—a navy-blue Ford Taurus. And at the time the body was found, it was in her garage with a full tank. “We would have noticed a convertible Porsche,” he told me.
He walked me back around the garage. I asked for his phone number and he gave me a card. I gave him mine. I said goodbye to Klamm and Hanson. Hanson just glared at me. He must have been very sensitive about his appetite size. I didn’t bother getting his phone number.
When I got back to my car, I slipped Gleason’s card out of my wallet and called him. He picked up right away. “Detective Gleason,” he said. No first name.
“Hi, George, it’s Sunny Randall.”
“Yes, I knew that from the caller ID.”
Jokingly, I complimented him on his detecting skills. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t laugh.
I decided to cut to the chase. “I’m wondering if anyone in your investigation has mentioned a black Porsche 911 Carrera convertible.”
“No,” he said.
“Okay, well, I think there’s a possibility that the person who killed Leila may have driven that type of car.”
“Why do you think so?”
“I saw one parked outside Leila Donnelly’s house yesterday, when Melanie Joan and I spoke to her. I assumed it was her car, but apparently it’s not.”
“So, when you stopped by,” he said, “there may have been someone else in the house besides the child you said you heard.”
“I would assume there was.”
“That’s really interesting.”
“Why?”
“I’ve been trying to find friends of hers, an agent, a nanny, even.
Anybody who might have visited her house around the time of her murder.
She didn’t seem to associate with anyone.
Closest we’ve been able to find is a DoorDash driver who goes up there pretty frequently.
Not in a Porsche, though. And anyway, he was delivering in a different town that day. ”
“What about her mom?”
“The only people to visit her house that day were you and Melanie Joan Hall.”
“And the killer.”
He said nothing.
“What I’m trying to get at is, maybe her mother knows of someone else. Maybe she’s worth talking to about that.”
“She doesn’t know anything,” he said.
“You’re sure of this?”
“She doesn’t want to talk.”
“Doesn’t want to talk at all? Or doesn’t want to talk to you?”
He didn’t answer the question. “Did you get the Porsche’s license plate?”
“No,” I said. “It was parked next to the garage, on the grass. The license plate wasn’t fully visible, and anyway, like I said—”
“You assumed it belonged to the homeowner.”
“Yes.”
“Thanks for the information,” Gleason said. He didn’t sound thankful.
“George?”
“Detective Gleason.”
I ignored the correction. “Do you have an ID on the so-called jogger/witness?”
“No.”
“Maybe that was his car, then. Think about it. Maybe he wasn’t jogging. Maybe he was in the house when Melanie Joan supposedly dropped by. Maybe he had just killed Leila and was looking for someone to pin the murder on.”
Gleason didn’t say anything for what felt like a long time.
“Are you still there?” I said.
“How do you know the jogger was male?” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “It was a lazy assumption,” I said. “But that isn’t my point.”
“I know what your point is,” he said.
“How much would it hurt to check a few surveillance cameras in the town of Union? Or E-ZPass records?” I said. “How many resources would it drain to look into the possibility of a killer who drives a very distinctive car and doesn’t happen to be Melanie Joan Hall?”
He sighed. “I’ll look into it,” he said. “Thank you for calling.”
He ended the call. I wanted to throw my phone at the window. “You will not look into it,” I said. “Obviously.” I was starting to get a headache—a mixture of nerves and poor hydration and this heavily pollinated country air.
The nerves were the worst part, though. I was genuinely nervous for Melanie Joan.
I called Rita Fiore and got her voicemail. I left a message about the Porsche and told her that Charles had seen it, too. “He said it was a sweet ride,” I said. “I doubt he recalls the license plate, but who knows? I just wanted to pass along the info, and you can do with it what you will.”
I started up my car and began driving down the mountain.
I figured I’d go into Union, get a bottle of water at the one convenience store I’d noticed.
I could ask around about Leila, see if random strangers had opinions on any Porsche-driving secret enemies this hermit of a woman might have had.
Hell, maybe I could track down that DoorDash guy.
Thinking about it made my head hurt even more.
On a good day, I hated this type of meandering investigation.
Fishing with a gill net, as my dad would have said.
And this wasn’t a good day. Fishing with a gill net required time and patience, and right now I was short on both.
My phone pinged with a text. I cringed, thinking about what it might say.
I hadn’t been getting the best news lately.
I waited for another ping, but none came, and so I figured maybe it wasn’t an emergency.
Just more lousy news. I waited until I was safely down the mountain and through the woods and on the edge of town.
When I saw the convenience store I’d planned on visiting, I pulled into the parking lot and read the text.
“Well, how about that?” I said.
The text was from a number with a Connecticut area code: It’s Mimi, it read. I got your DM. Can you meet?