10
Evan was on his third cup of morning office coffee. A clear sign it’d been a long night.
He’d slept four restless hours and woken very disoriented when his alarm went off and he noticed that Rowan’s side of the bed was empty. It’d taken at least five seconds before he remembered that she’d stayed overnight at her sister’s home. The realization left him feeling incomplete; something important was missing.
How quickly I adjusted to her presence.
Last night she’d texted him that Iris was engaged and sent a picture of the twins. Iris gleefully held her hand toward the camera, a diamond on her finger, while Ivy pressed a kiss into her twin’s cheek, her arms wrapped around her in a big hug. Evan had smiled at the photo. The twins weren’t like Rowan. They were loud and emotional—in a good way—and friends to everyone. The twins took after their dad in looks and personality, while Rowan had been made in her mother’s image. He’d texted back, telling her to pass on his congratulations, and then had stared at the photo for a few long moments.
A sharp and very clear image had grown in his mind. One of him and Rowan marrying. He could see it clear as day. He’d closed his phone and stood silent in the dark outside the auto body shop. They’d never had that discussion.
We haven’t been together long enough.
But he knew she was the one for him. Knew deep down in his soul. He’d known that day the previous summer when he’d gone to her house to update her on a case and seen her in the backyard, working with Thor.
I don’t know what she thinks.
She had a bad marriage in the past.
He put the thought out of his mind and returned to the shooting investigation. He and Noelle had stayed late at the auto body shop, interviewing employees and searching in the dark for the location where the shooter had hidden. At about 1:00 a.m. a deputy had found a thin broken branch on a tree in the general direction from which the detectives thought the shots had originated. The short branch had been twisted and shoved downward, leaving it hanging parallel to the tree’s trunk. The leaves and inside flesh of the branch looked fresh and healthy, not dried out. It’d been broken recently.
Evan had stood near the tree trunk and looked toward the shop. The branch would have blocked his view of where they had spoken to Charlie Graham. No footprints had been discernible under the tree, and when Evan stepped away, he noticed his shoes had also left no sign, the leaves and rocks disguising all prints. No shells were found either. Using the tree as a starting point, law enforcement had fanned out in the early-morning hours, searching for any sign that someone had recently been in the area. The trees filled five acres, and they found nothing besides faded beer cans and old garbage.
The shooter had vanished, slipping through the wide perimeter that law enforcement had created around the shop. Evan was disappointed but not too surprised. Perimeters were tough to implement and monitor when they contained large undeveloped areas with no roads. Especially in the dark. Thankfully, there weren’t homes in the immediate area. The shooter could have entered one and created a hostage situation.
Today a team of teenage explorers would search in the morning light, and a forensics team would look for the bullets. One of the bullets had gone through the wall of the shop and then disappeared in the automotive debris, while the one that had passed near Evan’s head had vanished. Evan suspected it had gone into the ground but hadn’t been able to find it last night.
Interviews with the body shop employees did not turn up leads to a possible shooter. Even Charlie Graham stated he hadn’t made any enemies since getting out of prison. He claimed he’d kept his head down and focused on work, wanting a peaceful life. Not returning to the reckless way he had lived before.
Evan wondered if it could have been an old enemy taking a shot at Graham.
Or at me.
As he sat in the conference room, he couldn’t stop thinking about that possibility while reviewing a list of people who had received prison sentences as a result of Rod McLeod’s efforts and were no longer locked up.
Was I the target?
He shook his head, trying to focus. Finding Rod’s killer was his priority at the moment.
One of his team members had already winnowed down the list of Rod’s cases, eliminating people who had moved to different states and then finding the current locations of the others through phone calls and internet searches. Evan was amused at how many were easy to find on social media, their accounts public for the world to see.
Evan had further narrowed the prospects to people who lived in Deschutes County and ended up with a list of eleven local names. Nine men and two women. He hated the feeling that he’d just filtered out the person he sought, but it made sense to start geographically close to the crime. If they could eliminate these eleven, then he’d expand. None of the eleven cases had been in Rod’s file cabinet. Evan didn’t know if that meant Rod hadn’t copied them or if one—or more—had been removed.
He still hadn’t figured out the files’ common denominator.
Time is slipping away.
Across the table, Noelle had a giant to-go cup of coffee next to her computer. She’d taken a detour on her way to work and picked up her coffee and a dozen croissants from the French bakery on the other side of town. Evan had no doubts that her coffee tasted much better than his cup of office brew. He’d eaten one croissant; it was like eating buttery air. Delicious but not filling. His stomach grumbled.
I’ll get something of substance later.
“I’ve got a lead on a vehicle in the right time frame for Sophia,” said Noelle. “A doorbell camera picked up a minivan that drove by around three p.m. and then again in the opposite direction just after midnight.”
“On her street?”
“No. On the cross street of that new development’s road on the other side of the gully.”
Evan pulled up a map. “That’s a busy street.”
“Not at midnight. That time of night gave me fewer vehicles to check. I like that this driver could have gone to the site early, parked, and then chosen a time in the dark to break in. He probably watched the house for quite a while.”
“True. License plate?”
“Yes. Nice and sharp. I pulled up the registration. It belongs to a couple who live in the Awbrey Butte part of town—I suspect they’re married since the last names are the same.”
“A couple seems odd for a possibility,” said Evan. “And a minivan is typically the wife’s vehicle. I’m not feeling a woman for Rod’s murder, even though I’ve got two women on my list. Physically they’d need help getting him into that junkyard trunk. He wasn’t small.”
Noelle nodded. “Maybe the husband is doing something the wife is completely unaware of ... maybe he uses her vehicle sometimes. Or they are in it together.”
Evan checked his list. “I’ve got two people to check out in the same part of town. Want to hit them all together? Since it’s Sunday morning, I bet we’ll have good luck.”
“It’s early.”
“Even better to catch people at home.”
Noelle stood. “Let’s go.”
Twenty minutes later, they parked down the street from a newer gray house with a silver minivan in the driveway. “Looks like someone’s home,” said Evan. “What’re their names again?”
“Brandon and Courtney Strudwick. He’s twenty-eight, and she’s twenty-five. No priors.”
“Young.”
“Yes.” Noelle’s voice lacked conviction.
It doesn’t feel right to her either.
They went up the steps to the porch after confirming the minivan’s license plate matched Noelle’s record. Each moved to one side of the front door, and Noelle rang the bell. After a long moment she rang it again. “Maybe no one is—wait, someone’s coming,” she said.
Evan sensed that someone used the peephole, and then the door opened. A young woman in pajama pants with a crease running down her cheek stared at them through the screen door.
We woke her up.
“Can I help you?” She clearly wasn’t happy but kept her tone polite.
Evan and Noelle showed their IDs and introduced themselves. The woman’s eyes widened at the sight of the badges, and she straightened. “Is Brandon okay? What happened?”
“We aren’t here about Brandon,” said Noelle. “Are you Courtney Strudwick?”
“Yes.” Her expression relaxed a fraction. “Why?”
“We have some questions about your minivan.”
Her gaze went to the vehicle and her brows came together. “Did someone hit it?”
“No. Can you confirm that it was driven on Northwest Stevens Street the day before yesterday around three p.m.?”
“Of course. I was on my way to work. Was there an accident on that street? I don’t recall one.”
“Where do you work?” asked Noelle.
“St. Charles. In the ICU.”
A justification of Evan’s earlier doubts swept over him. “You must get off work around midnight.”
“That’s right.”
Which explains the return trip and why we just woke her.
“Was anyone else riding with you? Did you make a stop on the way to work?” asked Noelle.
Her tone told Evan she had mentally crossed the Strudwicks off her suspect list. Now she was just winding up any possible loose ends.
“No and no,” said Courtney. She frowned. “What’s this about?”
“There was an accident nearby,” Noelle lied. “Your plate was picked up on a camera. We’d hoped you’d seen something.”
“Not that I remember,” said Courtney.
Noelle held out a business card, and Courtney unlocked the screen door to take it. “Call us if you think of anything,” Noelle told the woman with a perfect white smile.
She and Evan headed back to their car. “Waste of my time,” Noelle muttered. “I should have sent the deputy that I have checking out other leads.”
“When my gut instructs me to take a look, I go,” said Evan.
“Same,” said Noelle. “My gut was fifty-fifty on this lead. From now on I’ll only go in person when it’s stronger.”
“On to the next.”
The next was an old pink house a dozen streets away from the Strudwick home. Evan was looking to interview Archie Crook, who had served eleven years in prison—thanks to Rod McLeod—and been out for six. He’d stayed out of trouble since then and had only picked up a warning for loitering downtown.
“I’d change my last name,” said Noelle as they approached the pink house. “He must get harassed with a name like that. I imagine in prison he really caught a lot of shit about it.”
When they knocked on the door, an older woman with a suspicious gaze directed them to walk around her home to a small guesthouse on her property. She said Archie had lived there since he got out of prison.
Evan had been a deputy when Archie Crook was sentenced. He didn’t recall hearing of the case, and he’d never crossed paths with the man—that he was aware of. Archie’s driver’s license showed he was six feet three, 2 pounds, and forty-two years old. In Evan’s opinion, the size made him big enough to lift Rod’s body or to wrestle Sophia into submission. The case file mentioned a lot of animosity toward Rod and the officers during his arrest.
But that’s not unusual.
They rounded the house and spotted a tiny pink building set back about fifty yards. As they moved toward the home, a man yanked open the door and dashed toward the back of the property. He hadn’t looked their way.
“There he goes!” shouted Noelle, and she tore after him. “Deschutes County sheriff! Stop!”
Evan was a split second behind Noelle. He turned up his speed, drew even with her, and then realized it wouldn’t be a difficult chase. Either Archie Crook had lied on his driver’s license or he’d drastically gained weight since it was issued. The heavy man struggled to run.
By the time Evan and Noelle caught up to him, Archie was in a slow, awkward jog. Noelle reached out and gave his shoulder a hard shove. “Sheriff’s department! I told you to stop!”
Archie stopped and rested his hands on his thighs, panting for air.
“Hands behind your back!” ordered Evan. The man complied, and Evan grabbed one arm and snapped on a cuff. The cuffs wouldn’t reach the other wrist.
“Here.” Noelle handed Evan her set.
He linked their cuffs and placed Noelle’s on Archie’s other wrist. Archie continued to pant heavily, his wide face a fiery red, and Evan worried he was about to deal with a heart attack. While reviewing CPR steps in his head, he did a quick search of Archie for weapons and then tugged up Archie’s sweatpants, which had slipped several inches during the run. Archie Crook needed a shower. He smelled as if he’d been sleeping in his clothes for several days, and his hair was long and stringy with some strands dangling in his eyes. The man blew at them, an unsuccessful attempt to get them out of the way.
“Why’d you run, Archie?” asked Noelle. With one finger she moved the hair out of his line of sight.
He looked her up and down, seeming confused. And then his gaze locked on her shoes. “You ran after me in heels?” he asked in a shocked tone.
Noelle shrugged. “And? They’re boots.”
She wasn’t wearing the highest heels Evan had seen on her, and the boots had a decent heel width, unlike some of her shoes. He didn’t understand how women’s fragile-looking spiked heels didn’t break.
“Looks like you didn’t ruin your shoes this time,” Evan told her, referring to a story about a time when she’d sprinted after her suspect, caught him, but ruined her expensive high-heeled pumps.
Noelle snorted. “That’s a rumor. Never happened. Don’t know who spread that one around.”
Evan was 95 percent certain she was lying.
Hysterical, loud laughter sounded behind them, and they looked toward the house. On the rickety back deck, the woman who’d answered the door watched them. “Gotcha, Archie!” She whooped and laughed again, pointing at Archie. “You shoulda seen you run! I haven’t seen your fat ass move like that in years!”
“What a bitch,” Noelle muttered as they marched Archie toward the home, each gripping an arm.
“That’s my mom,” Archie said, staring at the ground. “She doesn’t mean it.”
Evan felt a twinge of sympathy at Archie’s hangdog expression. “Did she warn you that we were here?”
“Yeah. She called and said there was a whole bunch of angry cops looking for me, and that I better get out of the house. She claimed she’d told them I was down the street to give me a chance to get away.”
“Now I really think she’s a bitch.” Fury filled Noelle’s voice. “That’s why you ran?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Not if I didn’t have reason for the police to be looking for me—even then I wouldn’t run. What’s your reason?”
“I didn’t do nothing,” Archie stated emphatically. “But they pin stuff on people, you know? Always looking for an easy mark to take the fall.”
Noelle and Evan exchanged a glance, and she rolled her eyes.
“Well, I’m sure you two aren’t like that,” Archie amended a few seconds later. “You seem honest.”
Evan bit his tongue to avoid a laugh. “Where did you plan to go?”
Archie shrugged. “Dunno. Didn’t think about it. Just reacted.”
“Can you come do that every day so he gets some exercise?” Archie’s mom shouted, and then slapped her thigh as she chortled gleefully.
“I’m not taking back my bitch remarks,” said Noelle.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Archie said earnestly. “It’s accurate.” He paused for a moment. “But don’t let her hear you say it,” he whispered.
Evan felt bad for the guy, and he stopped their walk to the house. His gut told him that Archie wasn’t their man. “Archie, where were you Friday night?”
Archie looked at the sky as he thought. “I went bowling. Got home around eleven.”
“And then what?”
His eyebrows rose. “Went to bed, of course.”
Not the best alibi.
His presence at the bowling alley could be checked, but time sleeping could not. “Who did you bowl with?”
“My buddy Jake.”
“What kind of car do you drive?”
“Don’t have one. I Ubered.”
That can be verified too.
Noelle frowned. “You don’t have a vehicle?”
“Don’t have the money right now. If I need to go somewhere, I Uber.”
“Does your mom take you sometimes?” Evan glanced at the house, where Mrs. Crook still watched them from the deck, a frown on her face. She seemed annoyed that he and Noelle hadn’t joined in her harassment of Archie.
“She’s always busy.”
“She won’t lend you her car?”
Archie’s face fell. “No one drives it but her.”
Evan met Noelle’s gaze as he considered. “What kind of car does she have?”
“A Corolla.”
Noelle gave a small shake of her head.
Too tiny a trunk and back seat to move a body as big as Rod’s.
Archie’s mother wasn’t much smaller than he was. She leaned heavily on the railing to support herself, giving the impression that she didn’t have much strength. Between the two of them, they couldn’t have maneuvered Rod’s body without a lot of help.
The chance that Archie was their man was evaporating.
“I’d like to take a quick look at it.” Evan would be remiss if he didn’t at least check the Corolla.
Discomfort flickered in Archie’s eyes. “ You’ll have to ask her. Not me.”
“On it,” said Noelle. She headed toward his mother and engaged her in conversation.
Evan couldn’t hear what Noelle said, but Mrs. Crook’s expression went from annoyed to curious. He knew Noelle would get access to the car. She had an enviable skill of telling people what she wanted them to do and making them think it had been their own idea.
Noelle looked back at Evan. “We’ll meet you out front.” She took the stairs to the deck and followed Mrs. Crook into the home.
“I didn’t think Mom would let her look,” said Archie in a stunned tone as he and Evan walked to the side of the home.
As they came around to the driveway, the garage door rolled up. The old silver Corolla’s back driver’s side door was open, and Noelle had her head in the car, using her flashlight to look around. Mrs. Crook stood near the door into the house, reciting a recipe for beef stew, and Noelle made polite noises in response, carrying out her search. “I’m going to pop the trunk,” Noelle said. Mrs. Crook didn’t pause. She prattled on, describing the “proper way” to brown the stew meat.
The trunk opened, and Evan stepped forward to look, confirming that it was too small. The trunk was packed with overflowing black garbage bags. Clothes and books and old dishes had spilled out and cluttered the space.
“I keep forgetting to drop off that stuff at Goodwill,” said Mrs. Crook in the middle of her monologue about potatoes.
Noelle pushed aside a few things to get a look at the carpet of the trunk. She met Evan’s gaze and shook her head.
Nothing.
Evan removed Archie’s cuffs. The man rubbed at his wrists and frowned. “What was this all about?”
“Just needed to know where you were Friday night. If you hadn’t run, we would have asked and left.”
Archie nodded, giving a cautious side-eye to his mother, who was accepting a business card from Noelle.
“I’ll email the recipe right away,” Mrs. Crook said enthusiastically, waving the card, as Noelle turned away and strode to Evan.
“Let’s go. Now,” she whispered. Evan said a rapid goodbye, and the two of them headed to his vehicle.
“What did you say to the mother inside the house?” he asked as they pulled shut the SUV’s doors. “It was like she went through a magic portal and came out a different person.”
“She had stew on the stove. I said it smelled delicious, and then suddenly I’m her best friend, and she wouldn’t stop talking after that.”
“And now she has your email. And phone number.”
Noelle moaned.
“I take it her car’s back seat was clean?”
“Clean? No. But it was clear a body hadn’t been in there. It had as many bags as the trunk, and they were covered in just as much dust.”
“Two strikes this morning,” Evan said. “I’ve got one more stop, and then we can head back.”
Noelle checked her phone. “The blood spatter specialist is finished at Sophia’s. He’ll have a report for me tomorrow.”
“Anything on the BOLO for her car?”
“No.”
Rod’s vehicle was also still missing.
“Ah, jeez. I just got an email from Mrs. Crook.”
Evan grinned.
“Crap. And she sent another one .”
“Are they recipes?”
“Yes.” Noelle sighed. “I won’t respond.” She snorted. “And there’s number three. This time she forwarded a link to what she says is a cat video. Oh, Lord. And here’s two more emails with cat video links.”
“Don’t click.”
“No shit. I’ll have to block her.” She set down her phone. “Now I feel bad.”
“Don’t. She may be lonely, but she stepped over a line with those emails.”
Noelle’s phone rang. “That better not be Mrs. Crook,” she muttered.
Evan grinned. “She wants to know why you’re not responding to her emails.”
“Detective Marshall,” she answered. After a second she caught Evan’s gaze and shook her head.
Not Mrs. Crook.
“You said it’s from Friday?” Noelle asked into the phone, her voice tight. “Can you send me the footage? How did you hear about her?” She ended the call a few seconds later. “I need to go back to the office. You’ll have to check your next suspect without me.”
“What happened?”
“That was Sophia’s bank. She withdrew ten thousand dollars in cash on Friday.”
Evan turned the vehicle around.