In Seconds

“What became apparent?”

“Pat had more than one assailant.”

Grabbing the two pictures again, Myles held them close. “That would mean two different pairs of shoes. But…every shoe impression here looks exactly the same.”

“Because they’re all from the same type of shoe. Both pairs are new. The only difference is size. Give me your ruler. I’ll show you.”

Myles searched through his top drawer. It wasn’t as messy as Jared’s, but he’d stuffed too much inside it.

Eventually he came up with a ruler and Jared measured.

“See? One is a size eleven. The other a twelve and a half.”

“You’ve verified this?”

“More than once.”

“You’re saying two men bought the same shoes at the same time.” Myles thought of the guys he’d found on the side of the road. They’d entered his mind so many times. Maybe it was worth stopping over at Reliable Auto to see if they’d picked up their vehicle. If not, maybe he could get hold of them, talk to them again…?.

Linda smiled. “They probably even bought them at the same place.”

Now they were making progress. “Where?” If they could find that out, maybe they could get the store’s surveillance tapes for the two weeks prior to the murder, see who came in to buy athletic shoes.

“According to the database, they’re Athletic Works Brand, which are sold at Walmart.”

They didn’t have a Walmart. The closest one was in Kalispell. There was no guarantee they were even bought at that location, but Myles was willing to try anything. “Have you spoken to the manager of the Walmart in Kalispell?”

“Yes. We’re going out there this afternoon.”

“Good,” he said, but his brief flash of hope had already dimmed. He tried to focus on how the shoe details fit with all the rest. “The odd thing is…this information contradicts everything we’ve established about the murder.”

Linda blinked at him from behind her thick lenses. “What do you mean?”

“If two men bought shoes to avoid leaving prints that could be traced back to them, they were planning a crime. Yet everything about the scene indicates that Pat’s murder wasn’t premeditated, from the choice of weapon to the lack of any effort to conceal the crime or dispose of the body.”

Resting his elbows on his knees, Jared clasped his hands together. “Maybe the murder wasn’t premeditated. Maybe it was meant to be a robbery.”

“You do that much planning? Get your buddy to go with you to buy shoes, then call up a Realtor and ask to see a house, just to grab a guy’s wallet?”

“Why not? It’s the perfect way to have a stranger meet you at a private location.”

“But a guy like Pat isn’t likely to carry much on him. Hitting a gas station would probably net you more.”

“They could’ve taken his car.”

“They didn’t.”

“I know. I haven’t quite figured that out,” Jared admitted.

“Maybe Pat fought them, like you were saying earlier,” Linda said. “Maybe he hurt one, and it really pissed him off.”

“If someone else was hurt, there should’ve been some evidence of it at the scene.” “Ron Howard” and his sidekick hadn’t been sporting any scratches or gouges. At least not that Myles could see. But maybe there were marks he couldn’t see. The lame guy had been covered from head to toe. His excessive tattoos had reminded Myles of prison inmates. Did they have a couple of violent ex-cons on their hands?

Jared jumped in again. “Not necessarily. Maybe the injury didn’t bleed. And they didn’t take the car because they knew it would link them to the murder.”

That made some sense. Myles rocked back. “What about the partial thumbprint on the door?”

“Turned out to be Gertie’s,” Jared told him. “After Pat died, she wasn’t thinking straight. Instead of using the phone right there on the counter, she stumbled outside and ran down the street to C.C.’s. Or so she said. I can’t imagine walking away from a phone that’s right in front of you, but…there you have her side of the story.”

Myles could imagine Gertie doing precisely what she’d said. He remembered how disoriented he’d felt when Amber Rose passed away, and he’d been expecting it, watching death’s inexorable approach, for months. “Her husband had just died in her arms, Jared.”

Jared cleared his throat and Linda shifted as if his words had reminded them both why he’d know about this particular situation, and he clenched his jaw, trying to contain his irritation. He hated dealing with the discomfort his loss created in others. That made it so hard to ever be normal, to carry on without feeling as if he was constantly being examined under a microscope. If the good citizens of Pineview perceived him as acting too distraught over Amber Rose’s death, they whispered things like, “He’s got to pick up and go on, for the sake of that little girl. You can only mourn for so long.” And if it seemed to them that he didn’t care enough, as if he was putting her death behind him as so many suggested, they began to doubt that he was being honest about his grief or that he’d ever really loved Amber Rose to begin with. Her death was bad enough. The extra attention he’d had to suffer over the past three years made it worse.

Or maybe, given that he’d made love with someone else for the first time last night, he was especially self- conscious today. Did the fact that he’d wanted Vivian so badly, that he’d thought of Amber Rose and yet that hadn’t lessened his desire, somehow take away from what he’d felt for his wife? Was he capable of moving on in an emotional sense? Had he finally reached that point after all the lonely months since he’d buried her? Or was it only hormones?

Trying to regain his focus, he thumbed through the rest of the files they’d brought until he came to the diagram of Pat’s many injuries. He’d already seen it, briefly, in the autopsy report, but this reminded him of the missing can opener. “Any more news on the murder weapon?”

“A little,” Jared replied. “The wounds Pat sustained are consistent with the electric can opener that’s missing.”

“You mean a can opener. You haven’t found the can opener.”

“No. But Gertie took me to the store to show me the brand, and I bought one. The dents in Pat’s skull match perfectly.”

“Could there be other objects that match?”

“I doubt it. I took a short video of the coroner’s demonstration—” Linda searched through her purse and withdrew a very small video camera “—if you’d like to see it for yourself.”

When she had the camera powered up and ready, she passed it across the desk to him, and he watched the coroner use the can opener like a rock against a Styrofoam head to simulate what had happened to Pat. The indentations clearly matched the protruding magnet.

Poor old guy, Myles thought. Pat didn’t deserve to die, especially like this. It was even more tragic that he’d been killed for less than fifty dollars. “Does Gertie know you’re investigating her?” he asked as he returned the camera.

“She knows I’m doing all I can to find out who killed her husband,” Jared said, “and she appreciates it.”

She’d probably appreciate it a lot less if she knew he’d been snooping around in her personal affairs, looking for a motive. Investigating her added insult to injury. Feeling protective of her, Myles was somewhat offended by Jared’s attitude. “I can’t believe there isn’t any blood at the scene belonging to someone other than Pat,” he mused. “Could we have missed something?”

“No.”

“No trace evidence under his fingernails?”

“No.”

“What about that smear on Pat’s shirt?”

“That was his,” Jared said.

Myles decided he was definitely going to Reliable Auto. He wanted to find “Ron Howard” and Peter Ferguson. They’d given him a bad feeling, and all those clothes “Howard” had been wearing seemed even more suspect now.