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“I looked it up online,” Logan said. “Your site is dedicated to finding lost people.”
“Like I said, Gina got under my skin. I want to carry on the work.”
“Did you interview any of the girls who were with Gina the night she vanished?”
“I talked to Jennifer Ralston about six months after it all went down. She was just back from college. She said her first semester of college had been a nightmare and as long as she lived she’d never forget Gina. She was too upset to talk to me.”
“What about Erika Crowley?” Logan asked.
“As a matter of fact, I reconnected with her over the winter. I ran into her in a coffee shop. She still looks the same, so I introduced myself. She was open to talking, and we started meeting on a weekly basis. I think talking was like therapy to her.”
“What did she say?” Adler asked.
“She started off admitting she’d been afraid to leave her house the last few years, but she was trying to get better. We just chatted that first time. The next visit, she was annoyed with her husband. She said he was having an affair with a woman in his office. She was trying to figure out what a divorce would cost her.”
“What about Kaitlin?” Adler asked.
“We spoke on the phone and set up a meeting for Saturday. She’s interested in some kind of collaboration down the road. We both want the same thing, so it makes sense.” He shook his head. “I feel for all these women. They were young girls who were having fun, got a little drunk, and then Kaitlin and Gina happened onto trouble.”
“You must have theories about who did this,” Logan said.
“It’s pretty obvious. It was Hayward.” He shifted and leaned forward a fraction. “A lot of what he did before Gina vanished was kept off the record by his parents, but I’m not afraid to bend a few rules, and I found out a few things.”
“Such as?”
“When he was fifteen and a camp counselor at a coed camp, he had sex with a fourteen-year-old girl. She told the camp director, and his parents were contacted. They paid off the girl and her family, so it went away. A year later it was almost the same scenario at an out-of-state computer camp. After that there were no more complaints, but I think he just got more careful. Say what you want, but he is smart as hell. But no amount of smarts changed the fact he was a time bomb ready to go off.”
“You’ve heard about Jennifer Ralston and Erika Crowley?” Logan asked.
“I still can’t get over that they’re dead. And it’s not lost on me that they were with Gina that last night.”
Logan adjusted his grip on his cane and shifted his prosthetic leg. “Any theories?”
“Derek Blackstone. He looked after Hayward like he was his kid brother. It’s why he defended him in the robbery case four years ago and why he stepped up to defend him in that recent stabbing. I caught up to Blackstone fourteen years ago when the spotlight turned on Hayward. He said he, Crowley, and Hayward had sworn an oath of loyalty and they’d never turn their backs on each other.” Marcus shrugged. “Say what you want about them, but they stuck to their word on that promise, and nothing you say or do will change it.”
“The surveillance footage at the Crowleys’ shows Kaitlin pulling up at 2:05 p.m.” Quinn was sitting in the front passenger seat, flipping the pages of her small notebook. “She hesitates at the base of the stairs and checks her phone before she moves toward the front door and opens it. She steps inside, out of camera range.”
“Any sign of her attacker?” Adler said as they drove west on I-64. Using Erika Crowley’s calendar notations, Adler had located Diane Wallace, an employee of Margie’s Maids, who regularly cleaned the couple’s home. They were headed toward her house in a working-class neighborhood off Derbyshire Road.
“There’s a figure that passes in front of the window about a half hour before Kaitlin arrives,” Quinn said. “The figure appears to be male.”
“Someone was waiting for her just like Jennifer’s killer.”
“It appears so. I checked all the available security cameras nearby. One catches the intruder coming from the woods behind the Crowleys’ house.”
“What do those woods back up to?” Adler asked.
“A cul-de-sac in a middle-class neighborhood. No one on the cul-de-sac has cameras, but I had an officer knock on a few doors. Several people reported seeing a black or dark-blue American-made pickup truck parked in the cul-de-sac early that afternoon. One woman thought maybe it had to do with an electrical contractor. No one recalls the license plate.”
“Several of Jennifer’s neighbors said there was a dark truck with a plumbing sign on the side,” Adler said.
“Magnetic signs are easy enough to change,” Quinn added.
“A tradesman doesn’t set off alarm bells right away. And we know Kaitlin didn’t stab herself,” Adler said more to himself.
“Assuming she wasn’t working with someone.”
“Kaitlin with a partner? All I’ve learned about her suggests she’s a loner.”
Quinn shrugged. “Okay, maybe you’re right on that one.”
“Don’t sound so disappointed, Quinn.”
“I don’t like citizens like Kaitlin playing detective. They end up getting in our way or injured. She’s managed to do both in short order.”
It was dusk when he parked in front of Diane Wallace’s small brick house. The lawn was large, a throwback to the dairy farm that had occupied the land for a half century. In the last few years, the area around these small homes had filled in with increasingly larger homes on smaller lots.
There were several bikes in the front yard. In the driveway, an old Toyota truck sporting a magnetic sign that read MARGIE’S MAIDS was parked.
The detectives crossed the concrete sidewalk and climbed the front steps to a green door.
Adler rang the bell. “I called ahead and told Mrs. Wallace we were coming.”
“Right.”
Footsteps clattered inside the house seconds before the door opened to a pale woman with red hair streaked with gray. She wore a large oversize T-shirt that bloused over full breasts and faded jeans. She appeared to be in her midforties.
“Mrs. Wallace?” Adler said, holding up his badge as Quinn did the same. He introduced them.
She studied the badges and frowned before pushing the door open. “I’m not sure what I can tell you.”
They stepped inside to a small living room. A worn beige couch, flanked by two burgundy recliners, faced a sixty
-five-inch television now playing a muted cooking show.
After taking a seat, Adler asked, “Mrs. Wallace, can you tell us about the most recent day you cleaned the Crowleys’ house?”
“When I got there, Mrs. Crowley wasn’t home. But the last few months she’s been at yoga on Saturdays, so I didn’t expect her until about nine.”
“What time did you leave the house?”
“About nine thirty. It takes me almost two hours to clean it. I’m in the house six days a week.”
“Six days?” Quinn said.
“The Crowleys don’t like anything out of place.”
“Were you worried when Mrs. Crowley didn’t come home?” Adler asked.
“I thought it was unusual. She doesn’t leave the house much.”
“Why is that?” Quinn asked.
Mrs. Wallace rubbed her hands over her jeans. “I think she’s afraid to leave her house alone. She never discussed her fears with me, but I could see she was afraid. It was a big step for her when she started the yoga classes late last year.” She hesitated and then said, “She’d been seeing a doctor. I think he was helping.”
“So, Mrs. Crowley didn’t come home,” Adler said, doubling back. “What did you do?”
“I waited an extra fifteen minutes. She likes to review the work I’ve done. But finally I had to leave. I had another job.”
“You locked up the house.”
“I did,” Mrs. Wallace said. “I am sure of that.”
“Who has keys to the house?”
“The Crowleys, of course. Me. I think there’s a neighbor who does.”
“We checked. None of them had a key.”
She shifted, looking uncomfortable. “I know I locked that door.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything. It’s just that there were no signs of forced entry.” Adler smiled. “Did Mrs. Crowley have any friends?”
“None. For the longest time she kept to herself. She told everyone she was an artist, but she never painted. Her art studio was as pristine as the day she set it up. The canvases were all blank.”
“There’s a woman in town named Kaitlin Roe who’s interviewing people related to a cold case. Do you know if she ever met with Mrs. Crowley?”
