“I need the names of everyone you and Amanda talked to.”
Sighing, she recites several names.
I pull out my notebook and jot them down. “What time did you leave?”
“I told you. Eleven-thirty or twelve.” Her smile is hard-edged. “What are you trying to do? Trip me up?”
“The only time people trip up is when they’re lying. Are you lying about something, Connie?”
“I don’t have any reason to lie.”
“Then stop being an asshole and answer my questions.”
She rolls her eyes. “For an Amish chick you sure can cuss.”
Under different circumstances I might have laughed, but I don’t like this young woman. I’m cold and tired and desperately want something, anything that will put me on the trail of the killer. “Was Amanda still at the bar when you left?”
“I looked for her to tell her I was leaving, but couldn’t find her. I figured she was in the shitter or talking to someone outside. The pizza didn’t agree with me so I went home early.”
“Did you see her with anyone before you left?”
“Last time I saw her she was at the pool table, playing with a chick and two guys.”
“They on the list?”
“Yup.” She rattles off three names.
I circle them with fingers stiff from the cold. “Is there anything else you can tell me that might be important?”
She shakes her head. “It was just a regular, boring night, like always.” Taking a drag off the cigarette, she flicks it onto the step and crushes it beneath her shoe. “How did she die?”
Ignoring the question, I shove the notebook into my jacket pocket and give Connie Spencer a hard look. “Don’t leave town.”
“Why? I told you everything I know.” For the first time, she looks upset. I don’t like her and she knows it. She rises as I turn toward the door. “I’m not a suspect, am I?” she calls out to my back.
I slam the door without answering.
Snow greets me when I walk out of the diner. The sky is dark and low, a parallel to my mood. I know better than to let Spencer’s lack of concern annoy me, but my temper is pumping as I head toward the Explorer. I don’t think she’s involved, but I want to wipe that sneer off her face.
I work my cell phone from my pocket as I climb behind the wheel and call Lois at the station. “I need a favor,” I begin, knowing I’ll get a higher level of cooperation if I ask nicely. Lois isn’t the most obliging person working for me, but she’s got a good work ethic, strong organizational skills, and she can type like a bat out of hell.
“Glock just handed me a year’s worth of typing and these phones just won’t shut up.” Her sigh hisses through the line. “What’s up?”
“I need a central meeting room where I can meet with my officers while we’re working this case. I thought that file room next to my office might work. What do you think?”
“It’s cluttered and kinda small.” But I can tell by her tone she’s pleased to be in on the decision-making.
“Do you think you could get someone to help you clear it out and put that folding table and chairs in there?” When she hesitates, I add, “Call Pickles. Tell him he’s on active duty effective immediately. He can help you with that old file cabinet.”
Roland “Pickles” Shumaker is seventy-four years old and my only auxiliary officer. The town council tried to force me to fire him two years ago when he shot Mrs. Offenheimer’s prize bantam rooster after the thing attacked him. But Pickles has been a cop in Painters Mill for going on fifty years. Back in the eighties, he single-handedly busted one of the largest meth labs in the state. I couldn’t see ending his career over a dead chicken. So I asked him to accept auxiliary duty and, knowing the alternative, he agreed. He’s a grouchy old goat, smokes like a teenager on a binge, colors his hair a weird shade of brown, and lies incessantly about his age. But he’s a good cop. With a murder to solve and the clock ticking, I need him.
“Pickles’ll be glad to get the call, Chief. He still checks in every day. Been driving Clarice nuts since he got the axe. She don’t like him hanging around the house all day.”
“We’ll put him to good use.” I think of some of the things I need for the meeting room. “Order a dry-erase board, flip chart and corkboard, will you?”
“Anything else?”
I hear her phone ringing. “That’s it for now. I’ll be in to brief everyone in ten minutes. Hold down the fort, will you?”
“Kinda like trying to hold down a leaf in a tornado, but I’ll try.”
Next, I call Glock and ask him to run a background check on Connie Spencer. In typical Glock fashion, he’s already on it.
“She got a DUI in Westerville last year and an arrest for possession of a controlled substance, but no conviction.”
“What was the controlled substance?”
“Hydrocodone. Her mom’s. Judge let her off.”
“Keep digging, see what else you can find.” I tell him about Donny Beck and pass along the list of names Spencer gave me. “I want checks on all of them.”
“Logging in now.”
I disconnect and hit the speed dial for T.J. to see how he’s doing on the condom front. “How’s the search going?”
“I feel like a frickin’ pervert.” He sounds as if his day is shaping up like mine.
“You’re a cop with a badge working a murder case.”
Assuaged, he gets down to business. “The cash register at Super Value Grocery uses SKU numbers for inventory. Manager went through the tape. They sold two boxes of lubricated condoms on Friday. Another on Saturday.”
“Do they have the customers’ names?”
“One guy paid with cash. The other two with checks, so I have two names. I’m on my way to talk to one of them now.”
“Nice work.” I think about the guy who paid with cash. “Did any of the clerks recognize the cash guy?”
“Nope.”
“Does the store have security cameras?”
“Grocery has two cams. One above the office inside and one in the parking lot. The one inside isn’t positioned to capture customer faces, but the one in the parking lot is worth a shot.”
“Do we know when the cash guy bought the condoms?”
Paper rustles through the line. “Eight P.M. Friday.”
The timing is right; the murder happened Sunday. “Get the film. Let’s see if we can ID him.”
“You got it.”
“I’m on my way to the station. Can you swing by for a quick meeting?”
“I can be there in ten minutes.”
“See you then.” I hit End and toss the phone onto the passenger seat. The clock on my dash flicks to four P.M. The passage of time taunts me. Fourteen hours have passed since Amanda Horner’s body was found and I’m no closer to knowing who did it than I was at the start.
As I speed toward the station, I try not to think about my brother and our plans for tonight. I honestly don’t know whether to hope that we find a body buried in that old grain elevator. Or pray that we don’t.
CHAPTER 7
John Tomasetti knew he was in serious shit the instant he walked into Special Agent Supervisor Denny McNinch’s office and saw Deputy Superintendent Jason Rummel standing at the window. The last time he’d seen Rummel was when Field Agent Bryan Gant was shot and killed while executing a search warrant in Toledo six
