Chapter Sixty-seven
It was her late work day, so Gloria Bergstrom was at the desk answering the one or two calls that would come in until 9:30, when Renata Klug would come in to relieve her. She looked up when Emily came in.
“I just tried you,” she said. “Jason called. Steffi’s coming in to the office. She needs to amend her statement. Jason says she can ID the man who was at her shop that night.”
Gloria looked at the door, then back to Emily. “He should be here in five minutes. Went to get her. Says this is big.”
Emily checked her office phone and locked up a second time for the night. Just as she returned, Jason and Steffi came inside the office.
Jason looked like he was going to burst. Steffi looked as if she was about to cry.
“You have to hear this, Sherrif,” he said.
“Hi Steffi. Are you all right?”
“I’m scared,” she said.
“Don’t worry. I’ll help you. Let’s go to the conference room.”
Gloria sighed. It was clear she hated being left out.
When the three of them sat down, Steffi started to shake. She put her palms flat on the tabletop to steady herself.
“I was watching TV, you know, about Mandy.”
“On the Spokane show,” Jason added, as though the detail was helpful.
“Did it trigger a memory or something?”
“More than that.” Tears started to fall.
“Tell me. Take your time.”
“The man who came into our cafe. The one I told you about?”
“Yes? The one who was injured?”
“Yeah.” Steffi fidgeted with her hands. “Well, that man was on the TV.”
“We’ve already done the lineup,” Emily said. “We can’t go there again, just because you can ID Mitch Crawford now.”
Steffi looked over at Jason, then back at Emily. She’d stopped shaking and seemed to find firmer footing.
“It wasn’t Mr. Crawford I saw.”
“Then who was it?” Jason asked.
The young woman looked at Jason, then Emily. “It was his lawyer. Cary McConnell was the man I saw that night.”
Emily’s pulse spiked, but she hid the surge in adrenaline that came with it the best that she could. “You think the man you saw that night was Cary McConnell?”
Steffi shook her head and the gesture brought Emily a second of relief.
“No, I don’t
Jason leaned toward Emily. “Look, it makes sense,” he said, in a low voice. “McConnell wasn’t there at the lineup, right? He had an associate there. Remember?”
Emily recalled how disappointed she and Camille had been when Steffi came up empty-handed. She remembered how Cary had been too busy to come in. He was a man who liked to do battle head-on. But not that day.
“He had access to the Crawford house. He could have faked that note.”
Emily could feel herself nearly lose balance. She was grateful that she was sitting in a chair. Cary McConnell was a sleazebag lawyer. And the world’s worst boyfriend. But they were suggesting that he was a killer.
“That’s a pretty big leap,” she said. The defensive tone of her remark shocked her own sensibilities.
Jason knew and he answered right back. “I know you have some history with McConnell.”
Jason was right, of course. He could read her well. He could see the shame she felt in her own judgment. He saw how compromised she’d been over this whole thing.
She looked at him. She didn’t say the words, but she hoped her look was clear enough.
Jason got the point. He looked back at Steffi.
“Are you going to be all right?”
“Yeah. I guess so. I feel bad about Mr. Crawford.”
Emily nodded. “If he’s innocent, he’ll be let out soon enough.”
She told Steffi that Gloria would take her statement, but that she and her deputy had to leave.
“Donna’s waiting for me at Miller’s Marsh Pond. I’m going there. She texted me an hour ago.”
Jason stood and put on his coat. “Not without me, you’re not.”
Emily smiled, a forgiving smile. She wished that she’d been a better mentor. Jason Howard was a great deputy and had always deserved her respect. “Of course not. But you’ll take your own car and keep a distance away.”
“Emily, I don’t know about this,” he said.
“I do. I think she’s about to tell me what’s really going on and I want to hear it.”
“You’re making it sound personal.”
“It is. But not about me. This is for Mandy and her baby.”
“You think she’s behind the threat to Samantha Phillips? The payoffs to Tricia?”
Emily smiled. “You’re good. Those things crossed my mind about ten minutes go.”
“Right behind you,” he said.
Chapter Sixty-eight
It was early March and the snow had finally gone. Spring had begun to emerge. Cattails were sending up new green spikes and the willows along the edges of Miller’s Marsh Pond where Dan Fletcher and his kids had discovered Mandy Crawford’s body just after Christmas were popping with green buds. Emily had felt a shudder of horror at the sight of a half-frozen corpse wrapped in a sleeping bag, but the chill had faded now with the realization that she’d been wrong the entire time.
Emily parked the Crown Vic next to Donna Rayburn’s BMW.
She recalled how Steffi had said the man had a pickup the night he came in for coffee.
