Chapter 25
“Come on, Farley,” said Jo, pointing to the iPhone on the dining table. “Tell us how you got this.”
She and Mike had brought Farley inside the double-wide, where there was enough light to properly question him, and where they could escape the inevitable swarm of biting insects that materialized every nightfall in the summer. Maggie and her friends had wormed their way into the trailer as well, but they’d retreated into the corners of the room, wisely staying silent. After they’d so helpfully delivered Farley into her custody, Jo could hardly kick them out, especially since Ben Diamond was the only person who seemed capable of keeping the dog from howling.
Jo leaned across the table, trying to get Farley to look at her, but his gaze ping-ponged everywhere else. “The phone, Farley,” she said.
“How do you know it’s not mine?”
“With a pink case? I didn’t think that was your color.”
“What’s the deal with this phone, anyway? Who cares?”
“We most definitely care. Now let’s start over. How did you get it?”
A pause. “I found it.”
“Where?”
“Bed of my pickup, underneath some trash I was hauling. I don’t know how it got there. I just noticed it today.”
“And it just magically ended up in your truck?”
“Hey.” He shoved his chair back from the table and stood up. “I don’t need that snark from you, Thibodeau.”
“Sit down.”
“You haven’t changed one bit since high school, have you? Still a bitch. No wonder there’s no ring on your finger.”
“Sit down, Mr. Wade,” said Mike, rising to his feet.
“Or what?”
“Or I get to try out my new Taser.”
The two men eyed each other. Farley sat down.
“Again,” said Jo. “How did you get this phone?”
“ Again , I found it in my truck.”
“You know who it belongs to?”
“No idea. I turned it on, but it has a passcode. I left it to charge and went out to shoot a few rounds.”
“What were you doing at Maiden Pond on Monday?”
Farley paused, obviously thrown off by the abrupt change in subject. “What?”
“Just answer the question.”
“What makes you think I was there?”
Jo pointed to the green beer bottles on his counter. “Heineken, Original. You left one at the side of the road.”
“How do you know it was me?”
Jo glanced at Ingrid Slocum, who’d handed in the bottle. Jo had no idea yet whose fingerprints were on it, but Farley didn’t have to know that. She looked him straight in the eye. “It has your fingerprints.”
He swallowed and looked away, clearly rattled. Gotcha.
“Again. What were you doing at Maiden Pond?”
“Why does it matter?”
“It matters because you’ve got stolen goods in your bedroom closet. Some of those items were reported missing from cottages on Maiden Pond, as well as Lake Cameron. At the very least, Farley, you’re going to be charged with multiple burglaries. Now tell me again—what were you doing at Maiden Pond on Monday?”
He wouldn’t meet her gaze. He knew he was in trouble. “I go there sometimes. To fish.”
“What do you fish for?”
“Trout.”
“Maiden Pond doesn’t have any trout.”
“I mean bass. I fish for bass.”
She held up the phone, encased in a plastic evidence bag. “And you caught this instead?”
“I told you, I found it in my truck. It was underneath a pile of trash I was planning to haul to the dump. Why do you keep asking about the phone?”
Jo pulled up an image of Zoe Conover on her own phone and slid it across to Farley. It was a photo taken on a happy day, the girl posed in a Speedo bathing suit with a blue ribbon around her neck. The champion swimmer, celebrating her triumph. “Do you know this girl?”
“No. Why?”
“That cell phone, the one you ‘found’ in your truck, belongs to her. Her name’s Zoe Conover, and she was staying with her family at Maiden Pond. Maybe you’ve read the news online, or you’ve seen the posters all over town. She’s been missing since Monday.”
He went very still. At last, he understood how much trouble he was in, and it had nothing to do with the cottages he’d broken into, or the stolen items in his closet.
“You know we’re going to search your trailer from top to bottom, as well as every inch of your woods. The crime lab’s going to go over this place and your pickup truck with a microscope. If they find one hair from that girl, one eyelash , it’s all over for you. So you might as well tell us where she is.”
All the air seemed to go out of him. He sank back in his chair, a sad and deflated version of Farley Wade. “I don’t know,” he said, and took in a shaky breath. “I don’t know anything about her. The evening I was there at the pond, I didn’t see any girl. And I’d never kidnap one. I swear it, Jo!” He looked her in the eye. “I swear it.”
She watched him shaking in his chair, and a memory came back to her, of Farley in the schoolyard, sprawled at her feet after she’d shoved him. He’d had no fight in him then, and he had none now. He was that boy again, caught out for his misbehavior, ready to admit defeat.
“Okay.” She rose from the chair. “We’ll continue this down at the station.”
“I didn’t hurt any girl!”
Mike tugged Farley to his feet. “Let’s go.”
“I didn’t, Jo!” Farley yelled as he was dragged out to Mike’s cruiser. “You know I didn’t!”
Jo picked up the cell phone and turned to look at the five members of the Martini Club, who had witnessed the whole thing. “Well?”
“Anyone could have planted that phone in his truck,” said Maggie, and her four friends all nodded in agreement. “I don’t think he’s your man.”
“I don’t think he is either.” Jo sighed. “It looks like I’m back to zero suspects.”
“Not entirely,” said Maggie.