“Did your stepdad ever know you were in the truck?” Rowland asked.
“No. I was just lucky that Dad had never called me, while I was hiding in the backseat, and that no one else had either, or I would have been outed. I didn’t think of that until he returned to the truck and drove off. My dad would have been furious with me. I don’t know what would have happened if JE had seen me.”
“So what did JE look like?”
“Black hair, trimmed neat, like he had a barber who probably cost a fortune. No beard, I couldn’t tell what color his eyes were. He was wearing a button-down shirt, black dress pants, and fancy black shoes.”
“Can you describe him to a sketch artist?”
“Yes, he can,” Billy’s mother said. “Tell them everything you know about this man. You didn’t tell me about him.”
“I was afraid you would tell Dad.”
Rowland said, “We’ll be right back. I’m going to make arrangements to get a sketch artist here.” Rowland and the other investigator left the room and joined Kendra and Grayson.
Rowland got on his phone and called the sketch artist. “Okay, meet us at the station. Thanks.”
The other investigator left the room.
Then Rowland turned to Kendra and Grayson. “Did you think of anything else we needed to ask him?”
“Did Younger discover that you freed the hostages?” Kendra would have thought that if he had, the police would have picked him up at the house.
“No. I’m sure his wife told him Billy was picked up, and Younger was afraid to return to the house where the girls were being kept in case we knew about the house and were watching it,” Rowland said.
“Did Billy take a picture of JE?” Grayson asked. “You know everyone is always recording everything nowadays.”
“You would think he would have mentioned it to us then,” Rowland said.
“He didn’t reveal the information about JE at all until you mentioned him potentially losing the plea deal,” Grayson said.
“You’re right.”
“I had a case like that. The guy wouldn’t tell the police where the murder weapon was. I asked him where it was, and he told me. When I asked him why he didn’t tell the police—figuring it was because he didn’t like them—he said nobody had asked him. Only me,” Grayson said.
“Hell,” Rowland said.
“Yeah. The officers gave me a hard time over it, saying I was the guy’s new buddy.” Grayson smiled. Then he lost the smile. “I figured Billy might be like that too.”
“I’ll ask him. Anything else?” Rowland asked.
The other investigator walked into the viewing room. “We’re getting a search warrant on JE’s property. The home belongs to Barney Metcalf. He’s a real estate investor. He has loads of money, mega lawyers in his court, and supposedly has done a lot of fishy stuff.” He showed a picture of Metcalf to everyone. Blond, dressed in a suit, looking like a billion bucks.
“Great. He’ll lawyer up and probably get away with the whole thing,” Kendra warned. She hated it when people with money and power could do anything and get away with it.
“Follow the money trail,” Grayson said. “Though he really made a mistake in involving himself with Younger and not having a henchman or middleman as a go-between to take care of it.”
“Yeah, that’s just what I was thinking,” Rowland said.
“What if that isn’t JE’s house? The guy who met up with Younger that Billy saw?” Kendra asked.
Rowland let out his breath. “Like JE is a middleman who was to meet Younger there, but he didn’t belong at the house himself?”
“Yeah, like setting up the guy who owned the house because he knew he had a past filled with corruption, then you go in with a search warrant, and you learn he didn’t have anything to do with any of this,” Kendra said. “We already know Younger and Billy are conmen. The guy in charge probably is too. That would be the perfect con, don’t you think?”
“Okay, you could be right. We’ll have Billy describe JE to the sketch artist and see if we can learn what that guy looked like and if he resembles the owner of the property.”
“That sounds like a good idea.”
