Chapter Six #2
He followed Jefferson to Chuck’s front door and stood to the side while the PO knocked. It took a minute or two, but the door finally opened, revealing a belligerent Chuck Williams dressed only in a pair of boxer briefs. Chuck glanced at Jefferson before turning a fulminating glare on Ronan.
“What?” he snapped, folding his arms over his bare chest.
“Need to ask you a few questions,” Ronan said. “Do you want to at least put on some shoes? It’s cold.”
Chuck rolled his eyes. “Like you care. Whaddya want? I have to get ready for work.”
“Reece Miller,” Ronan said and watched for Chuck’s reaction.
The man frowned, appearing confused. “What?”
“Reece Miller,” Jefferson repeated. “Have you seen him?”
Chuck shook his head slowly. “Not in years. Is he out of prison? Last I heard, he was in Solano.”
“He’s out and on the run,” Ronan said. “He jumped bail in San Francisco and came here.”
Chuck’s frown deepened. “Why? His family in the area is all dead. He’s got no one here.” Then realization seemed to dawn. “You think he’s here? In my house?”
“Is he?” Ronan asked.
“No, Detective, he is not. I suppose you’re going to force your way in here to check, though.”
“Sorry, Chuck,” Jefferson said. “The faster we check the faster we leave.”
Chuck stepped back, sweeping his arm back dramatically. “Then come in.”
The house was surprisingly clean except for a single plate of eggs and bacon on the coffee table. “Where’s Bonnie?” Ronan asked.
Chuck gave him the dirtiest of looks. “She left me because I went to prison and now I can’t find a job that pays more than minimum. Because of you.”
“No, Chuck,” Jefferson said calmly. “Because you stole a freaking car. Take some accountability, dude.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Chuck muttered. “Hurry up.”
Ronan searched the house while Jefferson made idle conversation with Chuck. When he was satisfied that Reece Miller was not here currently and probably hadn’t been, he rejoined the two in the living room.
“I’m sorry, Chuck,” Ronan said. “I had to look. You were friends back in the day and I didn’t know where else he’d go.”
“What did he do?” Chuck asked, not acknowledging the apology.
“Stole some art, shot some people in San Francisco. And he may have murdered someone here.”
Chuck’s eyes widened. “Mrs. Foster? Are you shitting me?”
Small towns. Everyone knew of Dianne’s death. “It’s a possibility. We know he’s around here somewhere. Do you have any idea where he’d hide?”
Chuck shook his head. “I really don’t. Damn. Mrs. Foster was a nice lady. She helped me graduate high school when nobody else cared.” He rubbed his chest, as if it ached. “Fucking Reece.”
“We don’t know for sure that it was him,” Ronan cautioned, “but she was in communication with him while he served time.”
“Yeah, she wrote me letters, too. She was a good person.”
“Do you know anywhere else he could be?”
“Check with Samantha Jacobson. She was with him back then. Took his getting arrested after graduation real hard. Visited him in Solano and everything.”
Again with Samantha. Ronan couldn’t wrap his mind around her being involved with a thug like Reece Miller. “That’s just…wow.”
Chuck grinned and it wasn’t kind. “I know, right? I even had a go at her after Reece went away. Both times. She looks like a librarian, but she’s a real tiger in the sack, if you know what I mean.”
Ronan wanted to snarl at Chuck’s misogyny, but he stayed focused. “Both times? You mean when he went to juvie?”
“Yep. He and Samantha were an item from middle school until he went to juvie in…I think it would have been ninth grade. She was mine until he came back senior year.”
Ronan lifted his brows. “Must have made you angry.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t do anything to change her mind. I figured Reece would fuck up again and he did. He got arrested about a month after graduation. Once Sam knew he wasn’t coming back, she came crawling back to me. Then I met Bonnie and kicked Sam to the curb, just like she did to me.”
“Does she still have a thing for Reece?” Ronan asked, mindful that Chuck could be lying about Samantha because she’d spurned him all those years ago.
“Dunno. You’d have to ask her. I haven’t spoken to her in years. I do my own taxes.”
“Do you know what Reece did to get sent to juvie?” Ronan asked, wondering if he’d get the same answer that Dianne’s nephew Zach had provided.
“Beat up his neighbor and stole a car.” He glared at them. “At least I just stole a car. I didn’t beat nobody up.”
“Small mercies,” Jefferson murmured. “What kind of car did he steal?”
Chuck’s forehead wrinkled as he thought. “I think it was a Chevy? Real junker, for sure. Rusted out and needed a ton of work. Why?”
Ronan wondered the same thing. And then he understood. “Two years in juvie is a long time for stealing a junk car.”
Chuck shrugged. “If he was drinking, he’d tell people that he’d killed someone, but I never believed that. He was always a liar.”
“Anything else, Detective?” Jefferson asked.
“Not at this time. Thank you, Chuck.”
Chuck gave them a sarcastic salute and showed them the door.
“Thanks,” Ronan said to Jefferson when they were back to their vehicles.
“Any time. I liked Dianne, too. Did this Miller guy have any priors before the stolen car and the assault on his neighbor? Because he was more likely to get community service for that if it was a first offense.”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”
It might not matter what else Miller had done back then, but at this point he didn’t have much else to go on.
Except maybe Samantha Jacobson. He grimaced as he got into his SUV. He didn’t want to know that she was a tiger in the sack. Unfortunately he couldn’t just search her house like he had Chuck’s. She’d never had a criminal conviction. She didn’t even have a parking ticket.
He drove by her house, but her car wasn’t in her driveway. He got out and knocked, but no one answered.
“She’s not home.”
Ronan turned to find Samantha’s elderly neighbor poking her head out of her front door. “Is she at work already, Mrs. Cutter?”
“She’s out of town. Her mother’s sick. I’m feeding her cat.”
“Has she had any visitors?”
Mrs. Cutter shook her head. “Nope. Why? Is she in some kind of trouble, Ronan?”
“Not at all.” Ronan gave her an easy smile. “I’m trying to locate an old friend of hers. I’ll call her cell. You have a good day, ma’am.”
Well, this was a bust. Unless she wasn’t really taking care of her sick mother. He’d find out. As a client of Samantha’s, he knew that her receptionist was very chatty.
For now, his next stop would be the bounty hunters. He hoped they were still at the inn.
His cell buzzed with an incoming text as he got into his SUV. It was from Eunice Greene at the pharmacy.
The Tahoe you got in last night is parked across the street. FYI.
Looked like the bounty hunters were staking out the joint. He’d give them a little company. Elle Randolph had some explaining to do.
Fort Bragg, California
Thursday, January 22, 8:45 a.m.
“Wonderful,” Sara grumbled. “He’s back.”
They’d just settled into their stakeout at the pharmacy, having parked in the lot across the street, when a familiar black SUV pulled into the space beside them.
Elle’s heart began to beat a little faster when she saw Detective Clarke emerge from the SUV and approach them. His gait was slow and easy, in stark contrast to his face, which was rigid and stormy.
“I wonder what we’ve done now,” Elle murmured.
Sara darkened the screen of her phone, hiding her surveillance of the clinics and the other two pharmacies in town. “I think we’re about to find out.”
Elle rolled down her window, flinching at the slap of cold air. “Good morning, Detective. How might I help you?”
“You spoke to the pharmacy tech, Steve Garfield.”
She assumed he’d viewed the store’s security footage, which she figured he’d do eventually, but his accusatory tone irritated her. She also wasn’t sure where he was going with his line of questioning, so she decided to say nothing.
She simply held his gaze, watching as he grew angrier.
“Nothing to say?” he asked quietly.
“What do you want me to say, Detective?”
“I want you to tell me the truth.”
“I didn’t hear a question.”
He stilled, and she got the impression he was counting to ten. “Did you talk to Steve Garfield about Reece Miller’s credit card?”
“Yes.” Beside her, Sara sighed loudly. Elle gave her the side-eye. “I’m not going to lie to him.”
Rolling her eyes, Sara shook her head, and Elle wondered if she really should be rethinking her career choices. She’d lie to potential witnesses and to the subject of their search, but she wasn’t lying to the cops.
Not unless they were dirty, of course. Dirty cops were the worst, and she’d met more than a few. But Ronan Clarke did not seem like a dirty cop.
“Thank you for not lying to me,” Clarke said dryly. “What did he tell you?”
“That he hadn’t seen Reece Miller, but I wasn’t sure if he was telling me the truth or if he was lying to protect his customer’s confidentiality.”
All one hundred percent true.
“So you’re going to…what?” he asked. “Just wait here until she comes back?”
Oh, he’s good. Trying to trick me into divulging that I know it was his wife who used the card.
“She?”
His eyes narrowed. She wasn’t sure if he’d bought her deflection.
“I misspoke. He, of course.”
“Reece Miller is a he,” she agreed. “Though now I’m wondering who ‘she’ is.” She didn’t expect him to take that bait, but figured it couldn’t hurt.
“He’s got a wife,” he said, “but you knew that already.”
“Yes, we knew. It was one of the first things we learned when we took the job.”
He was watching her steadily, waiting for her to wince or flinch or to make some incriminating facial tic. “Have you seen her?”
“No.” She tilted her head. “Have you?”
He said nothing for a long moment, just watching her. Then he shrugged. “She used the card.”
She was surprised that he’d told her and she let that show. “That’s definitely interesting.”
He settled his folded arms against the base of her window, leaning close. “What can you tell me about her?”