Chapter 34 #2
“We don’t have to prove who killed him,” I said. “We just have to show that someone else could have and that Sharon never bothered to follow through.”
She was pretty, Jenna Rodney. Her main profile showed her in full makeup, pouting for the camera. Those public photos she had posted showed her holding a German Shepherd puppy. There was another with her, flashing a peace sign and standing on the Mackinac Bridge.
Emma came back. “Got a hold of my friend. I asked her how she knew Jenna. She can’t remember. My friend has about four thousand contacts. But she gave me her passcodes so I can log in under her profile and take a peek.”
“That’s a very trusting friend,” I said.
Emma handed me her phone. She’d already pulled up Jenna’s private profile. I scrolled through and took notes. Over the last couple of years, Jenna had been in and out of relationships. She’d gotten engaged. Ended it. Started at the community college.
I found two boyfriends over the last two years. The first one was her fiancé briefly. The second, they’d just celebrated their one-year-dating anniversary. A.C. Dover. I was able to link to his profile.
I recognized him. He had been in court the day Jenna testified.
He had shielded her from local news media as she made her way to the elevator.
To me, he seemed like a walking red flag.
His profile had him posing in front of a gym mirror in a tank top with the armholes cut out. Eric looked over my shoulder.
“Oh, that guy’s on the juice,” he said.
I wasn’t an expert, but it was my impression too. A.C. had muscles on top of muscles and liked to show it. His profile was also private, but every public photo was a different cliché. Poses in front of bathroom mirrors in various states of shirtlessness.
“Cass,” Jeanie said. “This is an interesting theory. But you know we can’t use any of it in court. Jenna’s clean.”
“Then it’s me,” Eric said. “Put me on the stand and I’ll get the hidden key box in front of the jury. Then you do your magic in closing, Cass.”
I cast a look Jeanie’s way. We hadn’t discussed it. She’d been doing a fine job taking over the defense.
“You better believe you’re doing it,” she said, reading my mind. “If you want me to question Eric, let me do that. But you’re the anchor leg.”
“Okay,” I said. “I need you to be great tomorrow, Eric.”
He leaned in for a kiss. “You got it boss.”
We had some general strategy discussions after that. We still had Lissa Daughtry to get through. Though her testimony could be damning, it still wasn’t proof of murder.
Jeanie went home to get some sleep. Emma went with her. Eric stayed behind with me, but soon dozed off on Jeanie’s couch. I headed upstairs to my own office, my head still buzzing.
Was I onto something? Could Jenna Rodney hold the literal and figurative key? She was well respected by her clients. She got new referrals all the time from Tom’s affluent neighbors. But could she have told the wrong person something she shouldn’t have?
I put her name into the browser search bar. There wasn’t much there. Her address. Her socials. She had a web page for her cleaning business that she clearly had done professionally.
I searched for her former fiancé. Nothing out of order there. According to his socials, he was recently engaged again. Jenna was still friends with him on Facebook.
But the current boyfriend, A.C. Dover. He looked like a first-class douche.
Maybe he was the nicest guy on the planet.
Jenna herself certainly seemed sweet. She had been hysterical when the police got to her.
Sympathetic on the witness stand. I’d been careful with her.
Everything she’d said had been a verifiable fact.
I plugged A.C. Dover into my browser’s search bar. A couple of candidates popped up. There was an Alan Dover living on Brentwood Lane in Clinton. But he was in his fifties.
I found an Aaron Dover, twenty-five. 2942 Rance Road, Apartment 312. That had to be Jenna’s muscle head.
Aaron Charles Dover. A.C. The initials were right. He graduated from Delphi High six years ago. His initials.
Initials …
I grabbed my trial notebook. It consisted of my handwritten notes as the trial progressed. Things I’d jotted down during witness testimony. Reminders to myself to ask certain follow-up questions on the fly.
Jenna knew where Tom kept everything in that house.
The knife. She said she’d never seen the knife before that morning.
I closed my eyes and tried to replay her testimony. I’d asked her about the knife. I asked her to describe it. I scoured my notes, struggling to read my own chicken scratch.
Initials. When I asked her what was carved into the handle, she said initials. Not letters. Initials.
I went back to my browser search for A.C. Dover. The third entry down in my search results tagged an obituary.
I pulled it up.
“Xavier Zeller, aged 79, passed away peacefully surrounded by his loving family. A former Marine and Vietnam veteran, Grandpa Z was a gentle, quiet warrior who loved God and Country …”
I scrolled down to the end of the obituary where Aaron Charles was referenced. “Survived by his daughter, Wendy (Ned) Dover, and four grandchildren: Connor, Sierra, Aaron, and his namesake Xavier III …”
Something shifted inside of me. My heart leapt into my throat. It took me three times to read the name and truly process it.
Grandpa Z. His full name was Xavier Yancey Zeller.
His initials were X. Y. Z.