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Amanda couldn’t shake the fact that Thad Coffey had bumped into Katherine two weeks ago. Just the mere mention of her aggravated him after all this time. His home made it evident that he’d have the means to pay someone to do his dirty work, but that was where their suspicion ended. They didn’t have enough to justify continuing with this angle.
She and Trent grabbed lunch before returning to Central. Amanda also called May, who told her she was hanging in there but was understandably exhausted. At the station, they updated Malone on their visit to Thad Coffey. He had news for them too. The officers had no luck with the staff from the Sunny Motel. None had seen a white Ford van in the lot since Lowell Mooney had checked in. His Glock 19 wasn’t the one that killed Leah Bernard, which was a result they had expected at this point. He was still being charged with possession of an unregistered gun and cocaine but as of now, he was cleared of suspicion regarding Katherine’s abduction.
She and Trent went to their desks. He was going to watch Katherine’s doorbell camera footage, while she pulled backgrounds for the three other names Katherine had in her storage unit. She also called Detective Fitzgerald and asked if he considered Katherine to have a borderline obsession with the Gilbert case. He did. When Amanda inquired about Katherine’s top suspects, he only told her Katherine tried to secure several search warrants for Thad Coffey’s residence. None of her efforts in this regard met with success. Apparently, from a legal standpoint, there wasn’t enough to authorize the intrusion into his life.
Amanda had hung up finding some empathy for Thad. Once Katherine had her mind set, it was next to impossible to change. If she was convinced Thad was guilty, she wouldn’t be quick to be swayed.
“Amanda, you need to see this.” It was Trent, his head popping over the partition.
If his words weren’t enough to get her moving, his pallor certainly was. “Whatcha got?”
“Look.” Trent clicked play.
The view covered the front of her house to the street. A few cars drove by, but that wasn’t exciting. Then a man came shuffling down the sidewalk and turned toward Katherine’s house. “Is that Lowell Mooney?”
“The one and only. This wasn’t the only time he strolled by Graves’s house though. The timestamp puts this one from Sunday afternoon, but he was also there Saturday, and last Friday.”
“Guess we know what he’s been doing in town since he got here.”
“And why he didn’t want to tell us.”
“It doesn’t look good, but there’s nothing we can do about it. We need to move on.”
“I know.”
Her desk phone rang, and she hustled to answer.
“This is Officer Radcliffe,” her caller told her. “I’m assigned to the Graves investigation tipline.”
Amanda waved for Trent to come over and hit the speaker button.
Radcliffe continued speaking. “We received an anonymous call from a man who identified Jane Doe.”
Amanda snatched a pen from a holder on her desk, prepared to write down the name. “I’m ready.”
“Lynnette Johnson, twenty-nine years old.”
Amanda put pen tip to paper, but the pen was dry. She tossed it into the garbage can next to her desk and tried another one. This one worked, and she hurried to write down what the officer was telling her. She stopped when it came to the address. “Can you repeat that again?” she asked.
The officer did, and Amanda wasn’t hearing things. She and Trent had already been there once during this investigation.
FIFTY-FIVE
Amanda and Trent were seated across from Malone. “The tipline came through, boss,” she said. “Lynnette Johnson, and you’re never going to believe where her address takes us.”
“Barry Holden,” Trent snaked in, and she gave him a narrow-eyed glare for taking that from her.
“The man who had the plates that were put on the Mercedes?”
“Uh-huh,” she said.
“That can’t be a coincidence.”
“Trent and I don’t think so either.”
“Where’s this Holden guy now? Wasn’t he headed to jail?”
Trent looked at her, and she gestured for him to respond.
