She didn’t get a chance to answer as the front door to John Armstrong’s modest home in a suburb on the west side of Seattle swung open.
“Hello?” an older man with bright silver hair asked. He had a darker skin tone, as if he’d been lying in the sun for a few weeks. Deep wrinkles lined his lips and eyes. “May I help you?”
“We’re sorry to bother you.” She cleared her throat. “My name is Callie Dixon, and this is Langley Chief of Police Jagar Bowie.”
“I know who he is,” John said. “Did something happen?”
“I’m not here on official business,” Jag added, holding his hand up.
“Then why are you here?” John asked.
“Long story short,” Callie started. “I’m writing a book about the Trinket Killer and we—”
“I’m not giving you a statement about my ex-wife and whatever she might have done,” John said.
“I don’t want a statement.” Callie flicked some of her long hair over her shoulder. “We’d like to ask you about your daughter and her college roommate,” Callie said.
“Oh.” John ran a hand over his face, pulling open the door. “Would you like to come in?”
“Thanks.” Jag pressed his hand on the small of her back, nudging her forward. “We won’t take up too much of your time. We were also hoping to get updated contact information for Carol.”
“That I can’t help you with.” John led them to the family room where he took a seat in a recliner.
Callie made herself comfortable on the sofa, placing her elbow on the armrest while Jag continued to stand, stuffing his hands in his pockets and checking out the few pictures on the mantel.
“Why not?” Callie asked.
“I haven’t spoken to my daughter since right after the murder of her roommate, and before that, we didn’t have a good relationship. Her mother and I had a horrible marriage. Our divorce was even worse. Over the years, Leslie poisoned my daughter against me, and no matter what I did, Carol just didn’t want anything to do with me.” John shook his head. “And I didn’t do much to get her back, and that’s something I struggle with every day.”
“You have no idea where she went?” Callie asked.
John shook his head. “When her mother committed suicide, I hired a private investigator to look for Carol, but he came up empty-handed. It’s like she completely vanished.” John glanced toward Jag. “You know, while I didn’t like my ex-wife much, I have a hard time believing she killed herself. You knew her. Worked with her. What do you think?”
“I’ve wondered that myself,” Jag said.
“She was accused of tampering with evidence on the Trinket Killer case. Did she do it?”
“I hate to admit it, but she did.” Jag nodded. “I wish I knew why. It doesn’t make sense that she’d do that with the Trinket Killer murders and no other case.”
“I do know that Leslie loved her job. And from what I remember, she was good at it. But as a wife, well, she was insanely jealous. I couldn’t go out of the house without her thinking I was cheating on her. She used to wake Carol up in the middle of the night when I was working the C rotation.”
“You’re a fireman, right?” Callie asked.
“Retired. But yeah. Anyway. Leslie always thought I was cheating, and she told Carol that. Carol believed her, and when I met my second wife, things just got even worse. Truthfully, I was a selfish prick back then. If I knew I was never going to see my daughter again, I might have not gotten married so fast, but I can’t change the past, can I?”
Jag held up a picture frame. “Is this your second wife and children?”
Callie stretched out her arm, wanting to take a close look at the new family.
“Yes. That’s Tina, my wife. And we had twin boys, Jack and Billy. In that picture they had just graduated high school, but they are twenty-one now. They both joined the Navy,” John said with a bright smile.
“Where’s your wife now?” Callie asked, trying to keep her hands from shaking. His wife had long, beautiful blond hair.
Styled just like the Renee’s and Stephanie’s when they’d been murdered.
“She’s visiting her mom. She’s in a nursing home. I expect her back in about an hour,” John said. “Why are you here?”
Jag sat on the edge of the sofa. “We are here in part because we’re in the middle of an investigation that could be connected to the murder of your daughter’s college roommate.”
John let out a big puff of air. “I love my daughter. I really do. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about her and wonder and worry about what she’s doing, but she had a temper. She could be wickedly vicious.”
“How so?” Jag asked.
“She had a razor-sharp tongue, for one. She had a way of cutting right through a person’s heart. She knew how to hurt people. I could take it, but my wife, not so much, and once she gave birth to the twins, I had to really think about my boys. Not that Carol came to visit often, but I stopped letting her spend the night. That didn’t go over well. She’d call here in the middle of the night, threatening to kill my wife and kids. She’d sometimes show up at two in the morning banging on the doors. It got so bad, I moved.”
“Did you ever call the police?” Callie clutched the picture. Could this Carol person be their killer? Had it all started when her father remarried? But why kill the roommate? What had she done?
Callie’s head throbbed. The pounding was deafening.
“No,” John said with a deflated tone. “But by the time Carol went to college and I moved my family, things settled down.”
“Did Carol ever hurt animals? Or get into physical fights with other people?” Jag asked.
“What are you getting at, son?” John sat up taller. “Do you think my daughter killed her roommate? Because she was cleared…oh, you think
