“I guess so.”
“When you had the room cleaned, did they do anything with the chair?”
“They didn’t need to. Just the bloodstains over there by the bed.”
“And the fingerprint powder,” she said.
“Yeah, that, too.”
Lena knelt down to examine the seat cushion, then flipped it over and studied the other side. When she found what she was looking for, she returned to the chest and opened the second drawer. She thought she remembered seeing it yesterday, but wanted to make sure-not the underwear of a girl, but the lingerie of a woman. It hadn’t registered until now. The sheer bras and panties wouldn’t have had any meaning to her before she’d seen the nude photos of Lily on her bed.
“What kind of a girl was she, Mr. Hight?”
He didn’t respond. When Lena turned to check on him, she caught him staring. Not at the contents of the drawer-from his angle he couldn’t see what she held in her hands. Hight was staring at her. At her legs and hips and then up to her chest until he reached her face and realized that she had been watching him measure her. Being caught in the moment didn’t appear to faze him.
“What kind of a girl was Lily?” she repeated.
“Lily was everything they said she was and more. She was full of life. A dream come true.”
“Did she see boys?”
“Most girls her age see boys.”
“Was she involved with anyone?”
He paused to catch himself, but not soon enough. Lena saw through it.
“No one that I’m aware of,” he said in a quieter voice.
“I’m curious about her best girlfriend. What was her name?”
“Julia,” he said. “They were like glue.”
“Julia Hackford-that’s it. How come she didn’t testify at the trial?”
“I asked about that.”
“Who did you ask?”
“First Cobb, then Bennett and Watson.”
“And what did they say?”
Hight shook his head. “Julia didn’t know anything. There was nothing she could do to help.”
“She lives close by, doesn’t she?”
“Right around the corner in the blue house. Why?”
Lena didn’t answer the question and moved to the bedside table. The drawer was filled with pads and pens and knickknacks-things that she had seen yesterday when they were searching the house for the gun. But what she was looking for now would probably be hidden in the back-something else that she would have glossed over before seeing the nude photos in the murder book. As she fished through the contents, she spotted the small tube of K-Y jelly behind a deck of playing cards, then returned everything to its place and closed the drawer.
“What about Lily’s cell phone?” she said.
Hight paused a moment, and Lena noticed something in his eyes-a spark, a glint-something that she hadn’t seen before.
“What is it?” she asked.
He shrugged her off. “We looked for that phone everywhere. When Cobb spoke with the service provider and they agreed to help, he told us that he had everything he needed and we could stop.”
“Did he ask you to keep the account open for a while?”
“Just in case somebody used it, but no one ever did. I checked the bill every month. No one used it to make or receive a call. Cobb told us Gant took it and threw it away.”
“But that’s not what came to mind when I asked the question, is it?”
“What does any of this have to do with what happened at the club? When am I gonna get my car back?”
“What were you thinking when I asked about Lily’s cell phone?”
He gave her a long look, his face reddening. “Her account,” he said. “Not the phone, but her account. It’s still open.”
“You call the number,” Lena said quietly. “You listen to her voice.”
Hight steadied himself against the doorjamb. As Lena looked him over, she sensed that she was witnessing something important. Hight keeping his daughter’s cell-phone account open was anything but strange. She knew that most people who had lost a loved one did exactly the same thing. Most people wanted to call the number and listen to the outgoing message. They wanted to hear their loved one’s voice. And they didn’t need the phone to do it-just the account and phone number.
But Tim Hight wasn’t like most people.
She wondered why he was doing it. She wondered if he didn’t see it as some kind of punishment. Or if he wasn’t lost in some sort of psychotic denial.
Her cell phone started vibrating. When she pulled it out of her pocket and saw Vaughan’s name on the touch screen, she slid the lock open with her thumb.
“I’ve got something,” he said. “Where are you?”
She could hear the excitement in his voice. The punch.
“What happened?” she said. “What is it?”
Vaughan covered the mouthpiece. The sound became muffled and she could hear him telling someone to close the door. When he came back on, his voice was quieter.
“I figured out why Cobb called Bennett first. They’ve got a history, Lena. They go way back.”
25
Lily Hight and Jacob Gant.
The girl was sexually active, a willing partner-but there was also a certain kink to it. A kink to Lily. To Gant. To them. One that included nude snapshots and phone sex in a chair by the window every night.
And one that may have included Lily’s father watching them from the darkness … and doing what?
The thought, the depravity, sent chills up Lena’s spine. But even worse, how could Cobb have missed it? And what about Bennett and Watson?
The elevator opened and Lena started down the hall toward Vaughan’s office. Within a few short steps, she became aware of someone shouting and realized that it was Steven Bennett’s voice. Lena picked up her pace and turned the corner. Bennett was inside Vaughan’s office with the door closed, and Vaughan’s assistant wasn’t at her desk. Lena noted the steam from a hot cup of tea by her computer-she must have just left. When she caught a glimpse of the newspaper on the desk, she rolled the chair away and moved in for a closer look.
It was today’s edition of
Worse still, the article had been set above the fold on page one and ran through most of the first section of the newspaper. On page three, photographs of Lily Hight, Jacob Gant, and Johnny Bosco were encircled by cutout photos of Bennett, Watson, and Higgins, but also by the chief administrator and commanding officer of the crime lab, Howard Kendrick, a man Lena had only met in passing. Beside the graphic a large arrow pointed to pictures of both Lena and Vaughan, set above the caption:
Lena dropped the newspaper back on the desk.
If Higgins truly hoped to glue Vaughan’s face to the scandal, it wasn’t going to work. The DA and his proteges had been outed and would be circling the drain for the next fifteen weeks. But far more important to Lena, the series would boost Tim Hight’s reputation as a father who did what he needed to do in killing Gant. Unbeknownst to the journalists, their examination and criticism of the trial would damage her case against Hight
