“No.According to Hugo, she’s the town’s former librarian and is currently on a bus tour in the Canadian Rockies.”He shakes his head.“I’m still getting used to this small-town life where everyone knows everything about everyone.”
Rick joined the Edwards County Sheriff’s Department not that long before me.He was a detective for the Coeur d’Alene PD when I was still with State Patrol Criminal Investigations.We were both assisting Sheriff Colter in a multiple murder investigation two years ago.At the time, Rick hadn’t been happy in his job, and jumped at the opportunity when he found out the department here was looking.I followed the same path early this year.
I like working with Rick, he’s a good investigator, a decent guy, good-looking too, but I wasn’t going to go there.No workplace romances for me, not again.
Johnny Androtti, the boys’ father, also worked for the Washington State Patrol when I met him.I was young and green, and he was handsome and charming but also outranked me.My mom—who was still around at that time—cautioned me about a workplace romance, but I didn’t listen, I loved my job and I was fast falling for Johnny.She turned out to be right though; things didn’t end well and the fact we worked together complicated everything.
Trust me, if it had been anyone else, I don’t think I would’ve stayed as long as I did.The belittling and emotional abuse probably started early on in the relationship, but if I said anything, he’d tell me to toughen up if I wanted to survive in law enforcement.As a woman, especially back then, you were always called on to prove yourself equal in what was—and still is—a male dominated line of work.Hell, even after he got physical with me, I always had this fear of losing credibility at the department if I complained.
But he lost his hold on me the night Remi walked in on one of his violent outbursts.The shock and sheer horror on that boy’s face still haunts me to this day.What kind of example was I setting for my boys?
He turned out to be a coward and left the country—with the girlfriend he’d apparently had on the side—the moment he found out he’d be charged with domestic assault charges.He hasn’t been in contact since, not even with the boys.Still, some of his buddies in the department blamed me for his sudden disappearance, for supposedly alienating my sons from him.So they made my life miserable at every opportunity, the good old boys’ club, until they finally wore me down and I quit, making a clean break with the life we’d shared.
Foolishly, I kept his last name, mostly to keep things simple for the kids’ sake, but there are times I regret it now.
“If she’s on a bus tour in Canada, wouldn’t the car still be parked in her driveway?”I suggest.
Rick shrugs.“Possibly.It would depend if she drove herself to wherever she got on the bus, or a plane to get to the bus.It could be in the airport parking lot for all we know.”
Damn, he’s right.It could’ve been stolen too.Even if we had concrete evidence the car on the footage was Mrs.Dixon’s vehicle, we still wouldn’t be any closer to knowing who the driver was.The only thing we’d know for sure is that it wasn’t Mrs.Dixon.
“What about the fingerprints on the bicycle?Did we get the analysis back?”
Rick flips through the file, pulls the report, and hands it to me.
On the off-chance one of the attackers touched Remi’s bike, Hugo fingerprinted both my boys over the weekend—my prints are already on file—for the purpose of elimination.It’s a long shot we’ll get anything usable.Tons of people could’ve touched that bike at any time, but a good investigator wants to cross every T and dot every I.
The report shows, aside from prints belonging to both boys and even myself, there are several unidentified prints as well.
Again, by itself the information doesn’t really help us, unless we have something or someone to compare it to.These are all pieces that hopefully will become part of a larger picture, and are important to collect and note.
“Look, I’ve got my robbery case almost wrapped up, hopefully sometime today so, unless something new comes in, I can give you a hand with this Ryan Wells investigation,” he offers.
“Yeah, great.I haven’t done much of anything since my meeting in Spokane last week, so I should probably see if there are any updates.I’m sure I’ve got some catching up to do.”
The moment Rick moves back to his desk, that’s exactly what I do.
I have to leave a message for Zuri Warner, but Haynes picks up on the third ring.The first thing he asks is how Remi is.I’d left both him and Zuri a message on Friday to let them know I had a family emergency, and to give them Hugo Alexander’s details if they needed to speak to someone.
“He’ll be fine.I just wanted to check in for any updates and to let you know I’m back to work.”
“Zuri has her hands full with another two car thefts that happened overnight Sunday to Monday.These were from Kendall Yards.”
Kendall Yards is another affluent but more modern neighborhood just north of the Spokane River, and not too far from where I used to live.
“Same MO?”
“She’s looking into that.It’s possible Rockwood got too hot with the increased police presence, forcing them to look elsewhere,” he suggests.
“If that’s the case, we may get lucky.It’s a more urban setting, newer and busier, so there would be more traffic monitoring cameras,” I point out.
“Right.Anyway, she’s working things on her end, and I’ve talked to Pam Wells again.I plan to stop in at his school this afternoon to see if I can catch one or two of his friends, and maybe talk to some of his teachers.In the meantime, I’m digging through Ryan’s computer to see what I can find, but I’m still waiting for the telephone company to send me his records.”
We haven’t been able to find Ryan’s phone, so the only way for us to know who he was talking to would be through those phone records.
I’ve tried not to draw any parallels between Ryan’s murder and the attack on Remi, but those hours in the hospital, sitting next to my sleeping kid, were an invitation for my mind to spin all kinds of possible connections.Especially since I still don’t know why or who my son was stealing those car parts for.
I realize no one else has all the information I have—even Remi doesn’t realize I know what he did—except perhaps Clem.
