Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
“How do you want to play things with Daily? Do we go at him hot or reel him in?” Trent asked her.
“Reeling works so much better. There’s less chance of him getting his back up. But then we’re dealing with a time-sensitive situation. I’ll play it in the moment.”
“I’ve been thinking about Daily since we found Paul. We need to talk to him, but let’s say he was obsessed with Valerie and wanted an instant family, why not just take her and the girl? Why take Paul and kill him?”
Something we touched on before… “Who knows what could have been going on in his head? He could have wanted to make it clear that it was him and no one else.”
Trent nodded. “A play for control.”
She shrugged. “Just one idea.”
“All right, I get that. Daily could have even been the one who called Valerie seven times from the pay phone, for that matter. A breakup could have happened in person.”
“True enough.”
“But what’s been niggling at me is, who puts their neck out for a friend like this?”
“Sometimes people go back a long ways. Loyalty runs deep.”
Trent smiled. “You have a reply for everything.”
Her phone bleeped with a text, and she pulled it out to read the message. “It’s Malone. Guess Daily is at Central and losing his temper from being pulled in from work.”
“Too bad for him. He hooked up with a married woman. He deserves some misfortune.”
Misfortune… If he was behind this, he deserved more than that.
For the rest of the drive, Amanda replayed the crime scene in her head.
It was torturous recalling how badly violated Paul Archer’s body had been—even thinking about what its condition was before the vultures got to it.
But she forced herself to recall the vivid imagery.
Doing so would keep her sharp, vigilant, and motivated.
After all, the person who did this to Paul presumably still had his wife and teenage daughter.
Amanda’s phone rang as she was walking into Central, and she stepped to the side and answered on speaker.
“Officer Wyatt here. I’ve been canvassing the Archer neighborhood this morning and just spoke to someone who recalls seeing a black Ford Transit in the area recently. The last time they saw it was Saturday morning about eleven AM parked a few doors down from the Archers’ house.”
She gripped tighter onto the phone. “Did they see the driver, catch a plate?”
“Neither, unfortunately.”
“Well, keep going. Another neighbor could have seen more.”
“I should have clarified. This neighbor was my last house.”
“There must be ones where you didn’t find anyone home,” Trent put in.
“Surprisingly, I got an answer at every door.”
She could argue that he wouldn’t have spoken to every member of each household, but her mind was on something else. “You said recently. How long has the van been hanging around?”
“Was there a few times on Friday.”
Amanda looked at Trent and said to Wyatt, “Thanks for the call.”
“You’re welcome.” With that, Wyatt was gone.
“Were the kidnappers stalking the Archers, biding their time?” Trent asked. “Then they took advantage of the Archer house being empty on Saturday morning to search the home.”
“Could be.”
Malone came walking toward them. “There you are. Daily’s in Interview Room Two. Before you head in there, you need to know that officers also went by his house. No one’s around, and there was no sign of the Archers. It’s just the one property attached to Daily’s name.”
“We don’t think Phillip Daily worked alone though,” Amanda pointed out. “So he could be holding them on one owned by his accomplice. The black Ford Transit could belong to that person too because we know Daily doesn’t have one.”
“True enough. Well, get in there and feel this guy out. See if we can get enough to support some search warrants. One for his property, for his phone, and all his electronics.”
“We’ll see what comes of this.” She looked over her shoulder at Trent and resumed walking toward her cubicle.
There she grabbed a folder, put a printout of Daily’s background inside, and photos of the Archer family.
She’d love to shock him with pictures from the crime scene but didn’t have any to share.
Amanda and Trent stopped by the observation room to get their first in-person look at Phillip Daily.
Like his license photo told them, he was a good-looking man, but unlike the peaceful resting face that showed for the camera, Phillip was pacing the room.
Every few seconds, he fired a glare toward the one-way mirror.
“Here goes.” She wasted no more time and headed next door.
“What the hell?” Phillip stopped in place the moment she cracked the door. “You people drag me in from work, and no one’s telling me what’s going on—”
“Sit. Please.” She gestured toward the chair that faced the doorway.
“Give me one reason,” Phillip fired back.
“You’re suspected of murder and abduction. Sit.” Guess she was going with the direct method.
Phillip blanched and fumbled to get a hold on the back of the chair to pull it out. He dropped down while keeping a watchful eye on her and Trent.
She took her time sitting across from Phillip and placed a cropped photo of Valerie Archer’s driver’s license on the table in front of him.
“Should I get a lawyer?” Phillip’s eyes were wide, like his mouth, but it was gaping open and shut.
“That is up to you.” Amanda sat back and pointed at the photograph, drawing Phillip’s gaze to the table.
He said nothing.
“You recognize her?” Trent asked as he pulled out the chair next to Amanda and sat down.
Phillip’s eyes danced from him to Amanda and back. “So I was having an affair with a married woman, what’s the big deal? I could lose my job. Officers came to my workplace and took me away as if I were a criminal.”
“They handcuffed you?” Amanda doubted that had been the case. By asking this she was stressing for Phillip things could have been a lot worse. They would get a lot worse if he murdered Paul and kidnapped his family.
“No, they— That doesn’t matter. What’s going on here? Why are you asking about Valerie? Did something happen to her? You mentioned murder. Did someone kill her?”
I also mentioned abduction… Clearly, Phillip needed a little time to catch up. But there wasn’t any to spare. “No. That would be this man who was killed.” She laid out Paul Archer’s license photo. “You know him?”
“Nope.”
“Let me clear it up for you. That is Paul Archer, or at least it was. Valerie’s husband.”
“Was?” Phillip seemed to choke on the single-word question.
“He was murdered, stabbed several times. His body was found this morning in a farmer’s field in Haymarket.” She laid this out matter-of-factly and watched as each word and the implication set in.
“Whoa, whoa, hold up here. You think that I…? That I did that? I’ve never killed anyone in my life. And I was at work. Your officers can tell you that.”
“Paul died days ago.” His alibi for that morning meant nothing. And it did nothing to excuse an accomplice.
Phillip licked his lips, and his eyes got this wild look to them. “Whenever it was, I can tell you where I was.”
Amanda glanced at Trent. “At least he’s prepared.”
“No, come on, it’s not like that. Besides, what reason would I have to kill that guy?”
“He stood between you and Valerie building a future together.” Trent showed no tact as he put that out there.
Phillip rubbed his forehead. “No, you don’t understand. Let’s back up here.” He took a few deep breaths. “Me and Valerie were never anything serious. She just needed to blow off some steam. I assume you know about her son. He’s quite sick, and it doesn’t look good for him.”
“We do.” Short and simple to entice Phillip to continue speaking.
“Well, she was just stressed out. Can you imagine having a kid who is dying and you can’t do anything about it?”
Amanda refused to let him steer her down that path. It was far too close to her life experience. Needing to let go of Lindsey without a say. Being powerless to save her. “So you were having an affair with Valerie. Did Valerie want to end it?”
“Not that I’m aware of, but it would have been fine if she wanted to stop seeing me. It was nothing serious, just sex. I swear, that’s all. Please believe me here.”
She wasn’t in the mood for charity. Rather, she’d base her opinion of the man on facts. “She received seven calls from a pay phone between Friday and Saturday. Was that you?”
“No. I have a cell phone.”
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t use a pay phone,” she volleyed back.
“Why would I have?”
“Were you and Valerie having a fight?” she asked.
“No.”
Amanda leaned forward, drawing the folder under her crossed arms. “Well, see I’m having a hard time believing you.”
“Me too,” Trent chimed in.
Amanda continued. “You see, Valerie’s husband was killed, and she and her daughter, Brooke, are missing.”
Phillip flinched. “Missing?”
“Did you take them to create an instant family for yourself? You are in your forties, no children. Maybe you were tired of being alone,” she said, presenting their theory.
“Listen, lady, you don’t know what you’re—”
“It’s Detective,” Trent interjected.
Amanda glanced at her partner. He was quick to jump in with the correction. “Is that why you took them, Mr. Daily?”
“You have it all wrong. I didn’t do this.” As he spoke, he recovered his coloring. “Hey, your guys picked me up at work. I can’t have them.”
And we’re back around to him trying to establish an alibi… “Here’s the thing, we think more than one person was involved with the abduction. They could be holding them.”
“No, this isn’t happening.” He shook his head.
“Valerie and Brooke were taken on Saturday afternoon at Potomac Mills mall.” This would have been the ideal time to show him a photograph of the black van from the security video, but she hadn’t yet received that email from Danny, the security guard.
“Where were you Saturday afternoon, say from three until five?” That would more than cover the abduction period.
She would ask about Saturday morning when the cargo van was seen near the Archer home, but the time of the abduction mattered more.