Page 39 of The Devil's Advocate

‘You do make quite the first impression,’ I said.

‘It’s not me. Did you see Shipley’s eyes? They’re not just cold. They’re dead. Something inside of him is broken. We need to be careful.’

We got back in the car and headed out on the road to find a rest stop, out of town, on Union Highway, where we could take a look at the crime scene once I’d injected coffee into my veins.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

EDDIE

A stack of pancakes with syrup and bacon from a diner on the highway filled me up. I ate it so fast I hardly tasted it. The coffee on the other hand was so bitter and burned that I couldn’t drink it. Since I quit drinking alcohol every night, I had to replace it with something. Coffee worked just fine as long as I could get it into my system fast and often. I was beginning to wonder if I’d been subjected to some kind of curse where I was destined never to drink coffee again. I put the coffee aside.

Two Cokes with breakfast eased the caffeine-withdrawal headache.

Kate sat with a laptop in front of her on the table, her dishes already cleared.

‘I’m just finishing off the bail motion. Change of venue and motion to suppress the confession is done and waiting. Why don’t you three go look at the crime scene. I’ll meet you outside when I’m done.’

She had earbuds plugged into her phone, and she was transcribing the statement of Deputy Leonard. This morning’s little plan had worked well.

We paid, went outside and Bloch immediately made for Hogg’s Bar. The truck stop was really a gas station, post office and diner in a one-story strip mall. A little apart from the strip was a separate low building with a neon pig on the roof, and ‘Hogg’s Bar’ on a faded, painted sign above the door. I pushed the door, but it wasn’t open. Too damn early, even for truckers.

All the buildings faced the highway, which was about a hundred meters away. There were huge rigs and semi-trucks parked both in front of the buildings and in the gravel lot behind them. The lot was the size of a football field. I guessed the truck stop and bar were popular. Or at least they were once. The remnants of chicken-wire fence surrounded the area, with trees and wild land beyond. Most of the fence had fallen or rusted away. The body of Skylar Edwards had been found in that area, around twenty feet from the fence. Buried upside down, with her feet exposed.

Bloch went around to the front of the bar ; she wanted to trace the steps Skylar might have taken on that night. There was one lamp pole, high and halfway between the bar and the highway. There were no lights in the parking area behind the bar. No security cameras around the bar’s entrance. None on the lamp pole. We walked around back.

There was a sign just behind the bar that read ‘staff parking’.

‘Skylar usually called her father for a ride home,’ said Bloch.

‘She didn’t call her father,’ said Harry.

‘We need her—’

I was about to say phone, then stopped. I remembered the description of the items found on Skylar or buried with her. The list came back to me, instantly – a purse, some cash, two ATM cards, a library card, gum, make-up …

No phone.

‘The sheriff doesn’t have her phone. It wasn’t in her possessions when her body was found. It’s missing,’ I said.

‘Maybe she left her phone at home,’ said Harry.

I shook my head. ‘She was a young girl, and at that age her phone goes with her everywhere. Plus, there’s a statement from her boyfriend’s sister, Tori. They talked that night. Tori told her Gary was going to propose.’

‘So the cops have her phone?’

‘I don’t think so. They would’ve logged it at the scene. Even if they were going to pin this on somebody, they wouldn’t have known to get rid of her phone at that time. They would just have logged it, maybe tried to hide it later. Or wiped it accidentally. No, the cops didn’t log her phone in her possessions because it wasn’t there. The killer took it.’

The rear of the bar had one window, with a neon Miller sign. It wouldn’t give much light to this place. Four trucks were parked at the back, probably more on the night of the murder. Bloch strode to the area where Skylar’s body had been found. Stopped. Looked back at the bar.

‘How far between the rear of the building and where she was found?’ I asked.

‘Ninety-five yards,’ said Bloch. Not ninety. Not one hundred. Ninety-five.

The trucks parked up that morning looked empty, but there could have been guys inside the cabs, getting in their mandatory rest period.

At night, this area would be almost pitch black. Depending on the moon, of course.

Bloch let out a high-pitched scream.