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"Have a seat," Allen said.
As Ski sat down, Berry met his gaze only momentarily before lowering her head. To the detective he said, "Thank you for inviting me to sit in."
"He was your guy before he was ours. If in fact the individual who killed Ms. Buckland was the same man who shot the kid in Merritt last night."
Ski said, "Oren Starks certainly should be a person of interest to you."
"Person of interest, my ass," Dodge muttered. "He's a fucking woman killer and kid killer."
He had called Ski immediately after notifying 911 of the gruesome discovery in Berry's closet. Ski had been waiting for a judge to grant a search warrant for Sally Buckland's house, which was on the other side of Houston from Berry's place. Despite the flashing emergency lights on his SUV, and the speed at which he'd driven, it had taken him over half an hour to get here.
During that time, Allen and Somerville had arrived to investigate the apparent homicide of Sally Buckland. During preliminary questioning, Dodge had apprised them of Ski's investigation in Merritt. Allen hadn't invited him here strictly out of professional courtesy. The detective was after information about the suspect he and Ski had in common.
Ski knew to be concise. He recapped the shooting at the lake house on Friday night. "He was facing felony charges for that. But after last night, he's in much deeper."
"The kid," Allen said brusquely.
"Davis Coldare was fatally shot at a motel. Oren Starks has been identified by an eyewitness. He fled the scene, then abandoned his car several miles away and went on foot to a Walmart store. We've got him on security cameras." He explained the shoe purchase and the reason for it.
Allen asked, "What time was he in the store?"
Ski told him. "But from there, he vanished. It's like he was raptured off that parking lot, so he must've been picked up and driven back to Houston, possibly by Ms. Buckland."
"What makes you think that?"
"Because he used her cell phone to call Ms. Malone this afternoon, around four o'clock. The call originated near Minute Maid Park. Local officers were dispatched. But Starks knew to turn off the phone, the baseball game was just letting out, there was lots of traffic, and we don't know what he's driving. Could be Sally Buckland's car, or not. The trail's gone cold again." He paused to take a breath. "That's where we are."
Allen said, "Well, it wasn't Sally Buckland who picked him up from the Walmart and drove him back to Houston, because at three-something this morning she was long dead. Coroner's best guess,
she's been dead at least twenty-four hours, probably longer."
Ski's mind backtracked with the speed of a rewinding video recording. "I talked to her by phone yesterday afternoon."
"So did I," Dodge said.
"Then she must have been killed shortly following those conversations," Allen said. "The autopsy might help nail down the time of death more precisely, but the guy in there now is a competent man, been in the ME's office for years, sees bodies all the time. He estimated she died sometime yesterday afternoon."
Dodge cursed under his breath. "She sounded edgy, nervous, in defense of Starks. I thought she was standing up for him because they were working together. I realize now she was scared." He locked gazes with Ski. "Starks was with her when I called."
Berry hunched her shoulders and hugged her arms closer to her body.
"You're guessing," the Houston detective said.
"I think he's right," Ski said. "My conversation with her was off somehow. I couldn't put my finger on it before, but now I get it. Either Sally Buckland was being coerced or she was saying what she knew Starks wanted to hear. She was trying to save her life."
"She was shot in the left temple," the Houston detective said. "Practically at point-blank range. But not here. She was killed in another location and her body brought here."
"How'd he get the body in here without setting off the house alarm?"
"We were getting to that when you arrived," Allen said.
They all turned to Berry.
Speaking in a thready voice, she said, "Oren had a habit of being here when I got home from work or after an evening out. I'd come in and turn off the alarm. He was always ... close. Hovering. Maybe he saw the sequence of numbers. I kept meaning to change the code, but then I moved to Merritt, and it seemed pointless."
"He took a chance of being discovered by transporting the body here," Ski remarked.
"The risk was worth it to him," Berry said. "He wanted me to find Sally. That was part of my punishment."
