But if this was a Sentinels’ operation, why would anyone sit on the sidelines watching a kidnapping and do nothing about it? She had a feeling Donovan Cross knew about this mission. And since he’d tried to stop her, that had given her another reason to fear that Garrett was the guy in the hands of that drug cartel.
But something else bothered her.
If Hank Lewis was on the ground in Mexico, why would he sit still and let anything bad happen to Garrett? Like Tanya said, none of this made sense.
No matter how things played out, she was in the right place to do something about it.
Alexa grabbed her stuff and headed for the lobby and her rental car. Dressed in dark jeans, hiking boots, and windbreaker, she tipped the valet and dropped the nearly empty duffel bag she carried on the passenger seat next to her.
Before she headed for the coordinates Tanya had given her for the Perez compound, she’d make contact with a local that the analyst had given her, an arms dealer who would have what she needed to fill the bag she’d brought.
She wanted to acquire a com unit to keep in touch with Tanya, a full surveillance package, body armor, grenades, two MP-5s, and a couple of handguns with ammo. If someone was tracking a cell-GPS signal inside the compound of a drug cartel, they’d soon have a shadow.
Alexa only hoped her efforts would lead her to Garrett—and that when she found him, he’d still be alive.
“You plannin’ on stayin’ the night?”
Jessie looked up to see Chief Cook standing in the doorway of the small conference room they’d allowed her to use. She’d been poring through the murder book and had photos, interview notes, and other evidence spread over the table.
She’d officially taken over part of his station house.
“Oh, wow.”
When she looked past him toward a window, she saw that the sun had gone down, and it was dark outside.
“Sorry. I didn’t realize what time it was.”
“You’ve been so quiet in here, I didn’t want to interrupt,” he said. “You have any questions before I head out for dinner?”
The chief told her he would be working a little OT, catching up on paperwork, but eventually when he left for the day, she’d have to leave the case files behind.
“I noticed a folded map with notes on it. What did you use that for?” she asked, pointing to the aged paper map that she had pinned to a corkboard near the door. The town map had been laminated with red circles and notes in black marker on it.
“That map was used by me mostly. I kept track of who we’d interviewed, the neighbors who lived closest to the crime scene. With the properties so sprawled out, I wanted to make sure we got everyone.”
“Looks like you did make contact with everyone who lived around the DeSalvo place.”
“Yep, all those red circles. Once my men told me they’d made contact, I circled the location. What are you getting at?”
The chief narrowed his eyes, and she felt a distinct chill in the room after she questioned his investigation. The map had been loaded down with small, abbreviated notes from the chief. A lot of detail, but something was missing.
Before she answered the chief, one of his deputies poked his head into the conference room. Deputy Tyrell Hinman had introduced himself before when he got her a coffee refill.
“You need me, Chief. I’m fixing to head out.”
“Ah, no. You go on, Tyrell. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Sure thing. Good night, Ms. Beckett. It was nice meetin’ you.”
“Yeah, you too.” Jessie barely looked at the deputy. She had kept her eyes on the chief. While the deputy interrupted, she saw the wheels of Cook’s brain working. The man was leaping ahead, trying to figure out where she was going with this.
“What’s wrong with my map?” he asked.
“Nothing’s wrong with the map exactly. It’s just that when I went through the evidence box, I sorted everything by type. All interview notes are here.” She put her hand on a stack of papers. “But when I matched up the interviews to the neighbor’s residence and this map, that was when I noticed one interview was missing. Can you help me locate it?”
“What? No, that can’t be.” He stepped toward the table and looked down at the map where she pointed. “Which one is missing?”
“There’s a note here. See it? The Tanner place. Sophia Tanner.” Jessie stepped toward the table and pointed to the interview-report pile. “But I can’t find an interview with her, just references that one of your guys missed her, a couple of times. Do you know if anyone actually conducted that interview? Maybe it was misfiled.”
One missing interview wasn’t exactly a home run, out of the park, but Jessie had scored a solid base hit. A murder investigation had a lot of moving parts, especially one as shocking as the DeSalvo killing would have been in a small town. The chief would have had a lot on his mind. And with the evidence spread out in the conference room, the magnitude of his job was very clear.
Jessie wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt that he might have missed something minor, but the neighbor living closest to the DeSalvo house was a key interview to miss. She hoped he’d tell her the paperwork had been misplaced and that he’d remembered it; but after seeing his reaction as he looked through the files on the table, Jessie had a bad feeling that a critical interview had never happened.
“Are you sure it’s not here?” The police chief helped her look through the paperwork, but they came up empty.
“I’ve searched through all this, too. Were there any other evidence boxes?”
After the chief shook his head, he slumped into a conference-room chair and stared at the papers stacked on the table in front of him.
“Well, I remember seeing it. It must have gotten misfiled . . . or something.”
“If you saw it, what did she say?”
“Nothing. She didn’t hear anything. And she hadn’t seen any kids.” Chief Cook shook his head. “I forgot about that map.”
“What?”
“That was good detective work . . . you comparing that map to the interviews, I mean. I should have . . .”
He never finished. He only stared across the room, avoiding her eyes.
“Is Sophia Tanner still living in town?” she asked.
“Yeah, she is.” Chief Cook looked dazed. “She used to work part-time at the police station a few years ago, after she retired from teaching. I can speak to her tomorrow . . . for all the good it’ll do now.”
Jessie knew what he was thinking. The chief claimed to have seen that interview, but he might have been covering up the truth. If that interview had never been completed, that was a pretty big hole in the investigation. And if Sophia Tanner was still in La Pointe, how much would she remember from so long ago?
Someone had screwed up, big-time.
Most people would have the urge to comfort him, but not Jessie. If he was anything like her, nothing would make him feel better. Chief Cook had owned responsibility for this case. Even if one of his men had dropped the ball, he knew it was all on him.
And she respected him for taking the responsibility.
“Who knows? Maybe something will come up,” she said in commiseration. “You mind if I tag along when you talk to her?”
“No, I mean, yeah I mind. This is an official police investigation. I can’t have civilians looking over my shoulder.”
Jessie was dumbfounded by the chief’s sudden about-face. She was getting the worst of his cold shoulder,
